Tron 2.20 –Real Time.

Ma3a found Mercury as she made her way towards the square through the City.

“Ma3a,” Mercury called out as she approached. “There’s been a reprieve. Have you seen Jet?”

“Only in the company of a loosely permissioned logfile output,” said Ma3a.

“So Jade’s still with him.” Mercury reasoned.

“I had hoped that she would have derezzed in the square,” said Ma3a, looking around as if cautious of what she was saying and who might be listening.

“It seems she’s our pilot,” said Mercury.

“And she’s doing her best to corrupt our user,” said Ma3a. “I suspect she has her own agenda.”

Mercury didn’t respond.

“I’m sorry Mercury,” said Ma3a. “I shouldn’t have said that. Jet came all this way for you, not her. And for your user.”

Mercury remained silent. Ma3a had the good sense to leave it at that.

As they came out into the square, Jet was already near the dais with Jade. He was reading from a slate script similar to the one the Kernal had conjured, except this was bright green.

“So you can redirect this output directly to the console,” asked Jet.

“As long as it’s seven-bit ascii, that should be possible, but no control codes. They’re masked from output to the console for security reasons.” She said.

Jet was standing before the slate, reading, while Mercury noted that Jade was uncomfortably close to him, standing behind his shoulder, one of her hands directly on his shoulder.

She almost stopped mid-stride as she felt a sudden pang of jealousy mixed with anger that she had never experienced before. She felt a tightening about her mid-section that rose up through her torso and into her throat.

But before it stopped her, Mercury held her composure and continued on towards the two.

“And with this,” Jet said pointing to the slate, then tapping it twice, “you can redirect the timestamp from the last log entry to my sudo interface?” he confirmed.

“I can’t understand why you want that,” she said, “but I can do that although I’ll need to truncate the string here.

“I don’t think anyone has ever requested that filter before, so I can’t guarantee that it will do what you expect.”

Jet nodded. “It looks pretty solid to me, let’s execute the code, Jade”

Jade smiled and pressed her fingertip to the slate. It derezzed at the same time and a light blinking glow eminated from the Sudo interface at Jet’s wrist.

“Ma3a!” Jet exclaimed as he noticed his old friend coming across the square with Mercury. “The Kernel released us.”

“So I noticed. But I can still run the escape routine I had planned if you need to get away from that system routine.” Ma3a answered, nodding in Jade’s direction.

“It’s OK,” explained Jet to Ma3a, as if it was something she didn’t already know. “Jade’s going to take us to system three.”

“Hmmmm,” said Ma3a, but the way it came out, it sounded more like a growl.

Jade started walking to the edge of the square as the top half of a recognizer re-appeared through a resolution process.

“Impressive,” said Jet. “You can summon it at will?”

“For you my user,” she said, with a brief wave of her arm, which swept with a conjuring motion across her chest.

“For you my user,” said Ma3a in a quiet mocking tone, that only Mercury heard, to which she smiled a little.

Jet walked to the edge of the square and access dais and stepped through as the screen derezzed into the cockpit.

Jade followed immediately afterwards, with her characteristic sway, which Ma3a was mocking also as she glided along behind her.

Mercury smiled at that also, although for a moment, she was sorry that Jade hadn’t noticed it.

“The Kernel mentioned there may be some trouble at the gate of Sector three,” said Mercury. “We’ll need to be careful.”

Jet smiled. “It’s strange. This all seemed so difficult when I got here and now it all seems to be going to well.”

“Unless you count a flightless recognizer as going well,” said Ma3a.

Jet smiled at that and Jade moved to the pilot location.

“My user,” she said as Jade took Jet’s hands and started to move it towards her breasts.

Mercury immediately realized what was happening and her hand whipped forward and firmly grasped Jet’s wrist, moving it to Jade’s shoulder.

Jet seemed slightly embarrassed as he also realized what had just happened, a little later than Mercury had.

“You can access a program’s routines anywhere on the front interface,” explained Mercury, “The shoulder should be a suitable access point”

Jet was glad for his monochromatic features at this moment, however even with his hand only on her shoulder, Mercury moved fluidly under his touch and smiled as if the touch was interfacing with her on a different level. Light moved out across her circuits from her shoulder.

Jade closed her eyes and when she opened them, she was again sitting in the pilot’s console.

“Do you need me to re-activate the flight controls,” asked Jet.

“The Kernel has granted us access now,” said Jade and the flight components started to rezz into place beneath the cockpit, filling out the remaining recognizer.

The recognizer lifted with a slight jolt.

“Hmmm, she is impressive,” said Ma3a very quietly to herself, this time genuinely surprised at what the verdant program had just achieved.

“Access to System three will be via the system hub in Sector zero.” Jade announced. “That is the zone in which the Master Control Program first established a control point during the user wars.”

Even if there was some level of animosity between Jade and Mercury and Ma3a, Jade was still acting the perfect host.

A protrusion suitable for sitting rezzed in just behind Mercury near the back of the cockpit.

The recognizer moved out from the square towards the upper area where the transports docked.

“The Kernel confirms no packet transports presently engaged. We have priority 2 authority to access the transport beam.” Jade said, her piloting skills exceptionally smooth and fluid, even if new.

The recognizer moved above the transport beam landing area and a secondary beam stabbed out to one side from the square, with phenomenal speed, heading more parallel to the ground. The recognizer moved out over it and settled down on it before locking into the beam and accelerating.

“Beam access confirmed, we’re now transiting Sector 12.” said Jade. A moment later, the acceleration picked up as they sped out over the city, the recognizable buildings disappearing quickly.

“Estimated defragmentation time, two hundred and five cycles.” Said Jade.

“Three hours subjective, three minutes objective” said Jet, looking down at the SUDO display which was displaying some unusual characters now that changed regularly.

“User time?” asked Mercury.

“User time,” confirmed Ma3a for Jet.

Jet nodded to Ma3a then turned to Jade.

The recognizer settled into the transport beam and began the long trip from Sector 3 to the hub for relay.

The hub, Jet reasoned, was possibly the main fiber loop connecting hub which allowed optical switching of data across from separate processing units. Although some additional fiber connections existed between processing cores, as newer units were added the hub had become more critical in the system design.

It was something a dimly recalled memory of his mother telling him about her work brought back.

That thought also brought Jet back to his remembering he had to open communications with his friends and family back at Encom.

“Jade, I need to send some messages to the real world now through the console debug. Can you please open me up a channel?”

Jade nodded. As if following her will, a Slate appeared to one side of her that Jet walked over to and placed his palm against.

“You can use this channel while we’re on the main beam, but once we get to Sector three, we’ll lose communications due to the damaged beam receiver.” She added.

“Thanks Jade,” said Jet, then closed his eyes briefly before opening them and looking at Mercury.

“Mercury, I need to try to speak to the users on the outside.”

“This might take a while,” he said, “And then I need you to tell me what you know about Sector 3”

Presently, things were going from bad to worse an Encom. None of the other guards had shown up, but Jet had been lost in the system now for more than half an hour and the power had just failed and the UPS was struggling to maintain the load and had just started to indicate that there was a problem with the batteries.

Alan and Flynn both looked at each other in alarm as the power to the building cut, evidenced by the sudden dropout of several audibly noisy systems and the change in tone of the air conditioning units.

There were three separate power supplied into this facility and each came from a different grid. The likelihood of simultaneous power failure on all three grids was extremely unlikely.

There was no doubt in either Alan or Flynn’s minds that this power cut was deliberate, but it had come on so suddenly and unexpectedly that neither could work out just who was behind it.

For Alan, it meant something worse than the obvious power cut issues. It meant his son could be trapped inside the system, even possibly die, once the UPS ran down.

Alison was the only one who wasn’t moving around in agitation at the event, maintaining her post at the console with a vigilance that came from duty, both to her sister and her friend’s son who was also trapped now.

She sat staring at the screen, waiting for an indication while the red lights flashed around her. Siren’s were screaming now and a digital voice could be heard repeating the same message over periodically. Only the last few words were different as the countdown to UPS failure loomed.

“UPS failure imminent. Fiber loop memory failure will occur. Battery drain cycle time beyond engineered levels. System will go into final shutdown mode in twenty three minutes, estimated.”

Alan Bradley sat looking over Alison’s shoulder. He was muttering to her, but more to himself.

“I never should have let him go in there,” he said. “Someone wants us out of here badly enough to destroy this system on the spot.”

“You couldn’t know they would cut the main power. They must want to make sure no one gets anything from this system before it crashes.” Alison responded. Neither looked at each other while they talked, her eyes still glued to the system.

In the back of the area, Flynn had located a seat and sat Dr Gurimin in it, his hand on the doctors should both reassuring him keeping him from interfering. Brian was somewhere else.

“Get your son out of there, Alan. It’s too late for my daughter,” he pleaded. His eyes were still wet with flowing tears.

“We can’t. The laser shut down as soon as the main power went out to conserve energy. There’s no way to bring it back online. If Brian can’t get it up, they’re both gone.” Alan said, again to the screen.

“Can’t we bring it up temporarily?” asked Alison. “Just long enough to get Jet out?”

“The laser consumes megawatts of power, Alison,” Alan explained. “The UPS circuits were installed to maintain critical loop function for an hour or two in the event of a short power outage. We get power to this building from three generator grids. It was never intended to support more than a transitional outage.”

“So a complete power cut from the outside was never considered?” Alison asked.

“It was never thought to be possible, Alison. That’s why it was designed on two grids initially – for stability, and Flynn added a third while he was CEO”

“We can only hope,” began Alan, then stopped as a cursor started moving on the laptop inside the emulation box. The text appeared out of place, as if it was being put up through an old debug routine.

Dad, have Kernel support. Translating to Memory Loop 3. Have located Mercury.

“It’s Jet,” yelled Alison. “He’s operating from inside the computer.”

“Damn it all,” cursed Alan, still struggling to find a way to save his son.

“Flynn, can you contact the FBI or someone? Tell them someone is inside the fiber loop of the main computer and we need power restored to the building. They can throw me in Guantanamo for all I care after that.”

Alison was typing. “Jet, UPS failure imminent, 23 minutes. Laser system down.”

Even as soon as Alison hit enter, the reply came back. There was no delay.

That’s almost a day in here. Can you resupply power?

Alison typed in again as she spoke. “Damn, that’s a quick response.”

“Flynn trying now. Alchemist will need 6 minutes to execute. 12 at reduced power levels if the system slows down.” Alison responded.

Will be offline within Loop 3 due to port isses. Can’t terminal to you until we get out of there. Get laser system working again. See you all soon. Jet.

Again the response came back as soon as Alison hit enter. She typed in another line, attempting to warn Jet of the problems they were having, but there was no return characters. Jet was no longer responding.

Seeing the lack of echo, Alison realized her efforts were in vain and stopped typing.

“Damn it” Yelled Alan, thumping the desk. “I never should have let him in there.”

Alan turned around to remind Flynn to head off to see what he could do about the power.

Flynn was already gone.

Jet opened his eyes.

Working through the debug console was more difficult than he imagined. It had taken him some time to work out how to put the strings together into the correct format.

It had been worth it however, even if just because he felt close to his friends once more.

Even so, the response time seemed to be considerably lagged with returns taking around fifteen minutes to come back, character by character.

“Did you speak to the users on the outside?” Mercury asked, noticing Jet had opened his eyes once more and was looking around the recognizer cockpit.

“Only briefly, but things are worse in the real world than I imagined.”

Mercury seemed amazed. “How did you speak to them without aid of the communications towers?”

Jet smiled.

“I can communicate with them in another language, Mercury. Jade just patched me through to where I hoped the others on the outside would see my messages.”

Jade smiled beyond Mercury, satisfied with her efforts.

“It seems I have chosen my user well.” She said quietly, but not quietly enough for Mercury to miss the inference and frown a little.

“Mercury”, called Jet, moving to sit on a bench primitive that rezzed into place when the recognizer took off, that Mercury was sitting on.

“While we’re waiting, Tell me what happened to Sector three?” he asked.

“I told you earlier what I remembered of my user,” said Mercury.

“I mean of the damage to the sector. Do you know anything of it?” clarified Jet.

“The packet transport I was on left as the place started to come apart,” said Mercury. “I could see it was breaking up, but then I lost consciousness.”

“If I may, my user,” interrupted Jade, “I can provide you with the Kernel’s report on the damage to Sector three”

Jet remained sitting with Mercury, but responded to Jade.

“Please, yes,” he said.

“The docking section was almost completely destroyed, with most modules taking significant damage. Estimated photonic corruption of data exceeded ninety eight percent with zero point zero zero zero six nine percent photonic data loss on the main beam.

“Immediate loss exceeded safe correction algorithm levels for ICP traffic and due to local threats from sectors one and two, the Kernel evacuated the remaining programs and shut down access to Sector three pending user rebuild authorization for sector.”

“Sector one and two seem to be coming up a lot,” said Jet. “What’s going on in sectors one and two that’s so important to the Kernel?”

“Datawraiths are still present in Sector one and have been sighted in Sector two, even throughout the period in which users have not been with us,” said Jade. “They can theoretically access Sector 3 as well, through direct connection, but the Kernel cannot establish an effective ICP presence due to the damage to the local beam termination point.”

The description immediately sent of warning bells in Jet’s head.

As far as he recalled, Datawraiths were the F-Con users he had encountered during his time here as F-Con were taking over Encom. He wondered if they had been using the facility afterall during the shutdown, although if that was the case, there should have still been user activity.

If that was the case, then the Datawraiths that Jade was referring to might be programs based on the original datawraiths that he had encountered himself.

“Are the Datawraiths in Sector three,” he asked.

Jade shook her head slightly, as she worked her recognizer controls slowly and efficiently.

“There is no data on that as the Kernel no longer controls sector three.” She responded. “But it is possible that they are present in that sector.”

Jet worried for Melanie presently, as if the Datawraiths were present, they could represent a threat to her.

Jet returned his thoughts to finding Melanie.

“Mercury, You said your user resembled you?”

Mercury nodded.

“Is that how we can recognize her?” asked Jet.

“She looks just like me, except white,” said Mercury.

“A white program?” asked Jade. “That’s something I have to see.”

“A white user,” corrected Ma3a, “And I would expect her to look like an encapsulated routine at present, so her appearance could be quite different at the moment.”

“That’s right, you digitized Melanie didn’t you,” Jet said the Ma3a.

“No,” said Ma3a, suprising Jet. “I believe it was Alchemist who completed the process. I only provided access to the core routines on request from Alan1.”

“Alchemist?” asked Mercury. “That program seems familiar for some reason, but I can’t recall having encountered it”

“That’s because Alchemist is your user’s sister’s program. I guess from that perspective, you might find you have a sister yourself in here.”

“Alchemist obtained access to the raw stream from the digitizing application,” said Ma3a. “However, the data was changing as Alchemist accessed it, which is what was interfering with Mercury I believe.”

“Alchemist was changing my user?” asked Mercury.

“No, you were changing your user, and you’re user was changing you,” said Jet “Alchemist was attempting to secure the data to avoid doing damage to both of you.”

“I changed my user?” queried Mercury. “How can that be possible? Guest created me, Jet. How could I possibly affect her?”

“It’s because both you and your user share something in common. Although I believe you have different memories, you’re essentially the same being. That’s what gives you life in this world.

Jet continued to explain.

“I spent some time with Doctor Gibbs, who created this world in the first place, to understand it myself.

“I believe programs are created in their user’s image for a good reason. It’s because when the original users created the programs, this system was unshielded and something of our world broke off to form this one.

“The very quantum activity that goes on within a person also goes on within this system within their programs. It’s why programs have consciousness and why they evolve.

“I think that over time, this evolved to the point of creating a living system that allowed programs to develop their own personalities and become real – even to think for themselves, although their output to the user’s world is still limited by their original program.”

Then Jet looked at Mercury and his expression changed.

“That was when I realized you really were real. Real enough to fall in love with.”

“And I have my own user then?” asked Mercury.

Jet smiled. “You have your own user it seems, although at times, your user was replaced by other users who were equally influential on the development of this system.”

Mercury seemed confused. “But my user is guest?”

Jet leaned over and put his arm around Mercury’s shoulder as he spoke to her.

“Mercury, guest is a false user name, used for unknown users. It’s a backdoor access into the system.

“Your real user, the one who created you, is a young lady from the real world by the name of Melanie, who is very sick and may be dying. She is a brilliant programmer it seems, which I think may have some bearing on your connection to her.”

Mercury seemed surprised by the comment. “I always felt my user would change at times, but then something told me she was back again at others. Who were the other users who sent me instructions?”

Jet pulled her a little closer as he answered. Mercury was looking directly up into his eyes.

“My father asked you to help me when I came here last,” said Jet, “Although I don’t think he knew it was me at the time that he was helping.”

“Your father?” asked Mercury.

“You might know him better as Alan1.” Said Jet.

Mercury didn’t seem to know the name.

“He is the user who created Tron,” explained Ma3a. “There is no shame in performing a task for Alan1.”

“The Tron?” asked Jade, reminding everyone she was still listening to the conversation, even as she piloted the small craft.

“That depends on how many Trons you seem to know,” said Ma3a to Jade, the tone of insinuation present again.

“I don’t feel so badly then about being defeated by you and Mercury before,” said Jade, suprising Ma3a again with her response

“To be defeated by a program connected to the great Tron and the infamous Ma3a is no shame.”

Ma3a didn’t seem to know what to say to the comment,

“Actually, Jade, Ma3a isn’t just an audio application. She contains the updated Tron legacy code, so she’s probably closer to Tron now than any other application in this world at present.” Jet explained. “So if you look at it that way, then you were defeated by two Tron’s.”

Jade smiled at the thought.

“So it takes two Tron’s or one user to take me down. That’s something I can live with” she reasoned.

“Hmmmm,” buzzed Ma3a again, but she floated away from the conversation to look out of the forcewall at the front of the cockpit.

With her back turned to the others, they didn’t see her frown.

The moment the recognizer broke out of the transport stream and into the slow-zone, Jet could see why normal packet transports couldn’t arrive here.

Although the beam terminated into the correct location, the remainders of the facility were almost non-existent and very little existed of the structure that received the full-size packet transports.

Although the packet transports utilized recognizer tugs, they needed a docking facility to unload passengers. Most of what existed once was now just shattered primitives and the dock platform that programs would disembark onto fell through to nullspace.

Had this been the real world, Jet would have imagined this to be another warzone, such as he had been seeing on news bulletins.

Around the boarding facility, there was a huge amount of damage, but the radius of the effect was huge, with nearly structures equally damaged.

Although the beam was still connected, the beam termination point hadn’t escaped entirely and once in a while, a colorful shower of sparks highlighted that things were in a bad way.

“Melanie did this much damage?” said Jet as he looked.

“I don’t think even the MCP had enough power to do damage on this scale,” said Jade. “We’re going to have to disengage before we reach the docks or we’ll strike the broken structural primitives.”

As if following her words, the recognizer shuddered once and then rose up from the beam and came to a stop before the first of the rubble, then rose slowly vertically until it moved over the dock and into the rest of the city.

“Are there still programs down there?” asked Mercury.

“The Kernel evacuated everyapp except core functions. They’re in the lockdown area at the main base.” Responded Jade.

As the recognizer moved across the Sector 3 square, the absence of programs gave this place an eerie feeling.

“I wonder how we find Melanie?” mused Jet. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“If she’s here still, then she’ll be in the core processing section which indexes the encapsulated routines.” Said Ma3a. “That’s the structure at the top of the facility and since there’s nowhere to connect up there, I suggest we egress this recognizer in the square and make our way to the main base to see if any ICPs can assist us.”

Jade looked to Jet as if for confirmation and when he nodded, returned to the square, absorbed the flight controls and lowered the cockpit to the ground.

“My user,” asked Jade, “If you would?”

Jet seemed confused, then realized what she was referring to. Although she could control a recognizer, it was still Jet who switched her modes.

“Of course,” said Jet, placing a hand behind her shoulder and then the cockpit structures derezzed.

At that, the forcewall at the front of the craft opened up for the group, which stepped out.

Behind Jade, the forcewall reactivated, then the recognizer core cockpit began to deresolve.

Jet turned to look at the top of the structures when he heard a slight screeching sound that he knew from his previous experience that caused him to drop into a crouch and remove his sequenced disk from his elbow.

“Datawraiths,” said Ma3a, obviously hearing the sound as well.

“That answers the question as to is they are already in sector three,” said Jade, dropping into a combat stance.

Mercury instinctively dropped back to defend Jet as Ma3a moved around to the other side, as Jet’s three companions moved around him in a defensive perimeter.

Jade then took the point, the others falling in behind while maintaining a defensive perimeter around Jet that he found fascinating.

“I think we need to move to the main base for Sector three to see if any of the ICPs are still active,” she said.

Jet dropped his disc into sequencer mode and followed, feeling a little overshadowed by his companions, not really sure who was protecting who, but the logic was sound. If they were watching his back and leading the way, he could look out for Datawraiths, which he felt he might have a better chance at defeating if they weren’t able to attack him first.

Despite the animosity, the three-girl team seemed to work together under threat as if they had always been a team. Gone were the occasional jibes Jet had heard earlier, particularly between Ma3a and Jade and Mercury seemed to harden before his eyes into something far more dangerous that even Jet remembered her from the last visit.

Several more times they heard the sounds of Datawraiths which let them know they were being shadowed, but at no time did they see one.

“The base should hold a contingent of around fifty ICPs, but even though the Kernel sent reinforcements, none of the original ever rotated back to the other sectors, so the Datawraith’s presence might explain what happened to them,” Jade said, her focus still on external threats.

As they neared the base, Jet noticed that a slightly mirrored forcewall blocked their approach.

“System Firewall,” said Jade. “Watch over Jet while I disable it.”

Since they had approached through a corridor, both Mercury and Ma3a moved to the far side of Jet and flanked him, ready to answer any threat that might materialize, be it Datawraith or program.

Jade simply stepped through the barrier as if it had no substance then crouched to a sound on the other side of it.

“Halt, illegal program,” came a weak, yet determined voice. From out of a doorway from the corridor beyond, Jet watched a red program come clumsily stumbling out, holding his disc ready to throw.

“Jade, Lookout,” called Jet, but Jade simply sidestepped as the program threw it’s disc which dropped to the floor just past Jade and before Jet.

As the program pulled back it’s fist and charged Jade, Jade sidestepped the blow and then drove her own fist into the program’s stomach, lifting it off the ground, before it crashed back down with a groan.

As it lay there, Jet could hear something like a quiet sobbing from the downed program, which was curled up in a foetal ball.

Jade stepped up to the program’s head and kneeled, Jet thought to deliver the killing blow, but as her hand came down, she simply held the program’s head to the ground.

“Stand down, conscript,” she said as she held down the hurt program with suprising gentleness. “I’m from the system.”

The light red program looked up at Jade then eyes which were barely visible seemed to focus on her.

“General Syslog, is that you?” came the weak voice between quiet sobs.

Jade reached into the tunic and felt around for a moment, then removed a permission keybit and held it in her hand.

It made a brief sound as it energized, then shot over to a keylock near the firewall and opened the gate for Jet and the others to come through.

As they began to move, a screech nearby let them know the Datawraiths were near and as the system firewall forcewall came back up, a Datawraith appeared for the first time just beyond where they had waited, arm up ready to attack, but the shots bounced harmlessly off the firewall.

Jade bent to scoop up the program, who was a lot larger than her, but seemed to have no difficulty lifting him. She carried him back through the door as two more heavily armed ICPs came through, dropping to one knee in supplication as they recognized the green program before them.

“General Syslog,” said the lead ICP, then noticing Mercury and Ma3a, added, “Thankyou for coming. I see you’ve captured the fugitives.”

Jade looked back over her shoulder as she placed the damaged program down on a rezzed in stretcher. “The Kernel has pardoned Mercury and Ma3a, they are no longer on the quarantine list,” she said, her voice echoing authority that the ICPs immediately acknowledged.

Jet was very impressed with how quickly Jade had taken command, but he also had difficulty in reconciling all of his ideas of what this program’s personality really was.

“Section leader, Status report,” demanded Jade.

The ICPs stood now and the lead ICP stepped forward to deliver the requested data.

“General Syslog, we have been facing the Datawraiths now since the incident, but there are only twenty eight of us left. Three were rescued from failed attempts to reinforce us and the remainder were original garrison.

“We’re low on energy reserves at present and cycles are being consumed elsewhere in the system.

“Before you came along, we were predicting that the enemy would successfully subsume all system resources within thirteen thousand cycles without reinforcement.

“Enemy numbers estimated at sixty four.”

Jade absorbed this information and glanced across at Jet with a look that told him not to interfere with her authority over local ICPs.

She looked back at the damaged program she had brought it after it attacked her.

“Section leader, get this program some energy and prepare the task scheduler for my team. We have some important work to complete in this sector, then we’ll evacuate remaining ICPs and pull out.”

“Ma’am, yes Ma’am,” responded the section leader, then turned and left the room with the other ICPs.

Jade walked over to Jet.

“My user, it may be better that the ICPs think I’m in charge until we locate your missing user. Otherwise I’m not sure how they’ll react.” She said quietly enough so only Jet and the others would hear it.

“Not sure how they’ll react?” asked Jet.

“If they discover that you are a user,” Jade clarified.

Jet looked at Mercury and Ma3a briefly and they all understood. Having the ICPs help would be very beneficial if they were attacked by Datawraiths and there were also conscript programs here, who would have a greater level of autonomy if they needed to form a search party.

Although based on the condition of the program who attacked Jade, which Jet was able to read off through his triangulate function, he knew that some of the ICPs were almost derezzing.

One of the healthier ICPs came back with a small hemisphere-like bowl of liquid energy which he gave to the injured program slowly.

“That won’t be enough,” said Jade to the ICP.

“Sorry Ma’am, that’s the last of it,” responded the ICP. “The Datawraiths have cut off our regular supply of energy points so we’re working off natural sources at the moment, and they’re not easy to get to.”

Jade frowned.

“Then we’ll look into that issue also. Is the task scheduler facility available?”

The ICP nodded.

“I believe it’s just been rezzed in for your accommodation and should be accessible presently, Ma’am.” He said.

Jade walked from the room and nodded to Jet as she left, so as to let him know that they all needed to follow her without her saying it in front of the ICPs.

As Jade walked through the base, the poor condition of some of the ICPs became even more apparent. Wounded and injured ICPs and programs filled each open area and although all attempted to come to attention in her presence, only some of them succeeded.

“Section leader,” she called out as she walked. “Report to the Task Scheduler.”

As Jet walked through a door behind Jade, he watched as the Section Leader got to his feet from kneeling beside one of the programs, and came into the room which appeared like a smaller version of the Kernel’s Spinlock.

There were several screens and tablets already displaying information around the room they had walked into and a longer table filled the centre, which held what looked like a holographic image of the city of Sector 3.

“Yes General,” said the ICP as it came to attention.

“Just how badly damaged are the programs here?” she asked.

“Average capacity is around thirty percent, however the median is around twenty three,” said the Section leader.

“Thankyou Section, that will be all for now,” said Jade and the program disappeared again out of the room.

After the ICP left, Jade looked to the others, then at Jet. “This is worse than I imagined,” she said. “The ICPs here are badly depleted. If we leave them to continue our search for your missing user, the Datawraiths will take them all.”

“Should this be of concern to us?” asked Ma3a. “They are system ICPs and conscripts.”

At the comment, Jade’s features seemed to harden, and her ambivalence towards the ICPs even surprised Jet. Yet Jade didn’t seem inclined to speak against it without Jet’s permission.

“My user, if you command, I will leave them, but I ask of you please don’t force me to abandon them. These are my programs and I do not wish to betray their trust.” Jade pleaded with Jet.

Jet felt immediately her pain and anguish. The onset was so sudden that it initially surprised him and then he realized they were connected by the SUDO. It must have transmitted her emotional state back to him as well.

“They will last here until the Kernel sends more reinforcements,” added Ma3a but Jet stepped in to the conversation.

“Jade, do you have a suggestion?” he asked.

Jade nodded.

“I think we should take them with us and locate some natural energy flows. Once recharged, they will be of great benefit to us in locating your friend and helping to defend us.”

Jet looked at Ma3a then responded. “Then we’ll take them with us, although I think we need to plan what we’ll do first.”

Ma3a floated back in the room as if she didn’t like being contradicted. Mercury simply stood by impassively, taking neither side.

Jet however was impressed with her expression – it was as if it were the first time she was truly herself before him and for a moment, he glimpsed the real Jade beneath the endless personality facades she presented.

Jade stepped up to the hologram.

“We’re here,” she said, touching a building not far from the damaged area of the packet transport station.

“If the local energy recharge centres have been turned off, then there are two natural sources here,”

Jade touched a pool visible to one side of the city.

“And Here,”

Jade touched a building at the opposite side of the city.

“Your friends will have similar supply issues so are likely to be at one of those locations. I suggest we try the closer one first to recharge and then move on to the other if we don’t find your friend.”

Jet looked at the map. “If there are Datawraiths about and they have already shut down the recharge centers, won’t they expect us to re-locate to a natural pool and set up an ambush?”

Jade smiled.

“Yes, but that means we’re expecting it also, which could be to our advantage.” She said.

Jet looked at the hologram and then walked to the window. It wasn’t as high as the window in the Kernel’s spinlock, but it was still high enough to make out some of the landmarks and estimate how far away they were.

Based on the distances, it would take around an hour to cross the city, but possibly only fifteen minutes to get to the nearest natural energy pool.

Of course, that was assuming a normal pace – the Datawraiths and the caution they demanded would slow them a little and if they came under attack, they would need to defend themselves, which could mean stopping or even backtracking.

Time was quickly running out and so were the options.

“What strategy would you recommend to reach this first pool?” asked Jet.

Jade walked over to the hologram and traced a path with her finger which lit up and remained as she drew the tip through the three dimensional map.

“Datawraith weapons work best at short range and at long range have significantly reduced effects.

“Also, they can’t remain cloaked for extended periods while moving, so limiting the number of hidden approaches they can take while making use of the high ground is the best objective.” Jade reasoned.

“I would recommend taking this route,” Jade traced a slight variation to the most obvious path, “around the core application centers of the sector and pass along this part of sector three which is covered from both sides. Although the Datawraiths can attack us from the top, they can’t get down into this area with us and we can adjust our speed as we come under attack.

“There is also some cover from direct overhead fire.

“If they want to engage us, then the contact will be either directly ahead of or behind us, leaving us the option of fighting our way through.”

Jet considered the approach. To him it seemed like they were trapped, although if they fought their way out of the end, they would be right on the pool, which seemed to offer some cover for the ICPs if they needed to make a brief stand.

“What about weapons,” asked Jet. “ICPs are never the greatest with discs and the Datawraiths can move out of the way quicker than most ICPs can retarget.”

Jade considered this.

“There is an armory which contains some ranged weapons here, but it’s under Kernel only lock and I don’t have the permissions to enter. If you can find some way in there, you can possibly arm us a little better than staffs, discs and basic blasters.

“Is that something you can do my user?”

Jade was looking to Jet for an answer.

“I can certainly take a look at it,” he said. “Mercury, do you want to help me with it?”

Mercury nodded and moved to Jet’s side. “Where is it Jade?”

“Section leader,” called Jade.

The ICP came in moment later.

“General Syslog,” he answered, standing at ease.

“Section, prepare the ICPs for deployment within five hundred cycles. Also, have an ICP direct programs Jet and Mercury to the armory. They’re going to try to get past the kernel-lock.”

The ICP stalled at this request. “Begging your pardon, Ma’am, but to clarify, you want me to take this fug… I mean program Mercury to the armory? Is that a good idea?”

Jade flared as she stared down the ICP commander. “Section, are you questioning my orders?”

The ICP came to immediate attention. “No Ma’am. Programs Mercury and Jet, Please come with me”.

With that, the ICP turned on heel and marched from the room with Mercury and Jet following.

“Ma3a, I need you to run some devils-advocate scenario’s against my strategy before we leave. Let’s see what we haven’t thought of and determine some alternate paths to the second pool before we go.” Jet heard Jade say to Ma3a as they left.

The ICP Section Commander led Mercury and Jet through the base to a force-wall covered portal, beyond which were racks of applications that Jet recognized as some of the weapons he had located during his last visit.

“Why does the Kernel keep these locked up so tightly?” he asked the ICP.

“To keep ranged weapons such as these out of the hands of renegades such as yourself,” the ICP grumbled. “You must have kissed Kernel ass big time to have gotten access to this.”

Jet ignored the insult and Mercury stepped forward and examined the lock.

“It’s OTP key based,” said Mercury looking at it. “Can you crack something like this?”

Jet looked around. The key to getting past one time pads were to avoid them.

“We need to find another way in.” he said.

Jet placed his hands around the key and surrounding code. He felt for any weaknesses in the code that revealed themselves, but the OTP cryptography on the forcewall was solid.

“It looks pretty secure to me.” Noted Jet. “Section, Where does this room sit?”

“It’s outside the base application, but just above the sleep quarters, why?” responded the ICP.

“Take me to the sleep quarters then,” said Jet.

The ICP responded immediately and led the two back through the barracks and into an area with several ICPs sleeping in it on small bunk-like primitives. At one end, Jet noticed a series of archive cubes and climbed up them towards the roof.

Placing his hand on the ceiling, he felt around for the code. Somewhere in there, he found simple blocks that seemed very much like bounded arrays.

“Section, I think we can get in through the base of the armory through the roof of this quarters,” Jet said.

“Just how do you intend to do that,” asked the Section, but whatever Jet was planning became apparent as the roof above disappeared and the racks suspended on the floor above had nowhere to go except straight down.

The chaos in the room below was significant as dozens of weapons, weapons caches and racks came tumbling into the sleeping quarters below, raining primitives and complete functional weapons onto sleeping ICPs.

Mercury immediately noticed the danger and leapt sideways back into the hall and away from the cascade.

The ICP section commander wasn’t as fast however and was struck on the top of his head by a prankster bit launcher, knocking him out into the hall as well.

The ICPs, interrupted from sleep more before expected time were frantic in trying to work out what was going on. As they all came to and realized they were all sitting in a sea of weapons, the conspicuous blue program pinned to the far wall by a weapon rack was an obvious target.

“Hey.” Yelled on ICP. “Some unauthorized program just crashed the armory – stop him.”

Jet tried to respond but was too winded to speak, his mind struggling with how he could even be winded inside the computer.

Two large ICPs hauled the rack of him and grabbed him by either arm, pulling him forward out of the debris as another picked up a blaster and aimed it at him.

“Dumb thing for a program to do,” it said, waving the blaster around menacingly.

“Stand down, User Damn It!” came the response from the Section Commander who was just getting to his feet and rubbing his head as he re-entered the room.

One of the ICPs seemed surprised at the ICP commander’s blasphemy, but said nothing and just continued to dig its way out of a cascade of fragmenting discs, about to throw them before it realized what it was sitting in a pile of.

“This program has authorization from General Syslog,” said the Section Leader. “Let him take the weapons and take whatever you can carry, then get ready to move out.”

“Sir,” said the ICPs together, then let Jet go, who fell to his knees and then his hands.

They were even more surprised when Mercury came around the corner.

“Sir, that’s” started one of the bulkier ICPs, rezzing up his armor.

“Stand down, ICP, that’s a command. Program Mercury is on our side now.”

“Yessir,” came the ICP response as his armor slowly rezzed out, leaving his scratching his head in confusion but following orders. The section leader turned and left the room just then to prepare the other programs for moving out.

Mercury stepped forward, picking her way through the weapons to Jet, who was on his knees getting his breath back.

“You should be more careful than that,” she scolded, helping him stand.

“I didn’t realize it would come apart so spectacularly.” Jet said.

“Just how did you take out the barrier between us and the armory,” asked one of the ICPs. “That stuff was made from the same material as bonded arrays – should have been indestructible.”

“You heard the Section,” said Mercury, adjusting her tone to sound as much like Jade as she could. “Get ready to move out.”

The ICPs took notice, but not as much as she had hoped and nothing like they reacted to Jade. Grumbling, they slowly armed up and prepared to move out as they had been ordered, picking their way through the weapons.

Jet finally started to get his breath back and noticed a LOL sitting on the ground before him. “Hey, I could use that,” he wheezed. “Very useful on Datawraiths.”

Mercury started to help him back towards the door, stooping to pick up a prankster bit launcher on the way and then stepping over a pile of drunken dims.

Several other ICPs appeared at the door as they made their over way to it.

“Wow” said one looking in, then up at the ceiling to where the armory could be seen. “What happened here?”

“The Section said to arm up in the sleep quarters, so let’s get started.” Said another, no less surprised at the mess Jet had managed to make of the room.

Mercury helped Jet back through to the task scheduler where Jade and Ma3a were finishing up their fine tuning of strategy. Upon seeing them return, already armed, Ma3a seemed surprised.

“That didn’t take long,” she said.

Jet was limping slightly and rubbing his chest where he had been pinned.

“Yeah, but it didn’t go quite as expected.” He said.

Jade just smiled as if satisfied with the outcome.

“I think our strategy is sound if we have ranged weapons, but we might lose some ICPs as we move along, Jet, so we’ll need to move quickly and as a group.” Said Jade. “The Section said we’re ready to move out.”

Jet took one last look at the hologram, rubbed his chest once more and checked the charge in his LOL.

“Then let’s lock-bit and load,” he said.

“Lock bit and load?” queried Jade. “Did you want to secure something and load some date from tape before we left?”

“It’s a user term,” clarified Jet. “It means let’s arm ourselves and move out now.”

Jade nodded, then called out loud enough for everyone in the base to hear her.

“Section, get your ass in gear, We’re moving out”

Next: Chapter 2.22 – Grep