Tron 2.26 – Out Of Band

Jet walked out onto the platform next to the transport that was already forming before them and headed directly to the Terminus exit leading back into the Sector.

Jade, Mercury and Ma3a all followed after him, keeping a respectful distance but close enough to react if trouble struck, still not sure what exactly had happened or what to do about it.

The Section leader noticed something was happening and came across, but Jade saw him coming and stepped out to intercept him before he walked out to speak to Jet.

“Is something wrong General?” The Section leader asked.

“No Section,” said Jade. “We’re just heading out with Jet for some discussions.”

“Would you like an escort?” the section leader asked.

“Not necessary, Section. Three of us are more than enough and you need to defend the transport until we return. Have the shells guardian load the shells once the process is finished.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said the Section leader and returned to the Terminus bay.

Jade caught up with the others and followed Jet. He walked a few cycles back into the sector and found an overhang that sat above the out wall of the city. He stood for a while, then dropping one hand to the ground, levered his legs over the edge and sat down, his legs dangling into space.

Ma3a and Jade gave Jet some space initially, but Mercury continued walking over towards him where he sat.

Looking out over the city wall onto the grid below, Jet hadn’t noticed the three programs following him.

He didn’t notice Mercury at all until she came up to him and asked him what was wrong. While she waited for his answer, she sat down beside him and watched him patiently.

Jet had been cut off from outside communications within Sector 3 and so had been able to ignore the obvious threat that was hanging over his head since he learned of the power failure. Now the message from outside cut through the hopes he had been building.

Even though he knew things were dire when the power was cut, he always trusted that his friends and father would somehow find a way to get him out of here before the system was eventually shut down.

His biggest concern so far had been what he would do about Mercury when the time came, and whether he could save just one program.

Now Jet’s hopes shattered as the reality of his situation was driven home by the message. Even on the outside, his father was not safe and had problems of his own. There was no one to rescue him this time. Two messages had been left in the laptop buffer for Jet to retrieve. The first was from his father, while the second was recorded for Melanie by her father.

Both were essentially goodbye’s.

Jet recalled the terse message his father had left for him as he considered his answer to Mercury.

“Jet, Things are going badly out here. Power still cut and laser can’t initialise.

“Flynn has hooked up a genset to UPS, but you have no more than an hour or two at most and there’s not enough power for the laser for even a brief de-exposure.

“The outside connections to the Internet are cut.

“It looks bad.

“If I can find a way to bring you back, I’ll do it. I promise.

“But if I can’t, I’m sorry for failing you. Not just now, but as a father when you needed me most.

“Son, I love you. I’m sorry, but I never should have let you help with this. Please forgive me.

“Dad.”

Jet had memorized the other message for Melanie. He would give it to her later.

Thinking about it, it was no surprise now that the Datawraiths had left them alone – if the system was going down then they would be pulling out quickly. A crash without de-exposure would be as fatal to them as it would be to Jet.

The first sensation that really made it through Jet’s shell was Mercury’s gentle touch on his shoulder as she asked her question again.

“Jet, what’s wrong?” she asked once more.

Jet didn’t know how to put the words together to answer her at first.

“I’m, You’re, We’re both going to die in here,” he said quietly, looking into the eyes of the love that had brought him on this incredible journey in the first place.

“We’re all going to derez one day Jet. This is a dangerous world we programs live in. Besides, Ma3a confirmed power was restored.” Mercury said quietly.

“I mean that my friends failed. The UPS only thinks that power has been restored, but in practice, it’s going to fail,” Jet explained.

Mercury was confused.

Jet saw the confusion on her face and put his arm around her, pulling her closer. It was more for himself than for her. She continued to face him.

“Mercury, the power was restored by my friends, but they could only restore a part of it and they can’t restore the laser. Your user can no longer return to the real world. She’s going to die here and there aren’t many cycles left before we’re back on the UPS and then it’s going to crash immediately because there’s no time to recharge the batteries.”

“What does this mean for us, my user?” came Jade’s quiet voice. She and Ma3a had slowly approached while he was speaking to Mercury.

Jet let go of Mercury, turned, looked, then swiveled around so he could face everyone, now dangling only one leg over the edge.

“I’m sorry everyone, but I’ve failed. This system is going to shut down in less than half a megacycle.” Jet explained.

“Then we need to find a safe place,” Ma3a reasoned. “Somewhere to back up while the reformat takes place.”

“No Ma3a, not a reformat. Gone. This world is going to cease forever in just a few user hours.” Jet explained.

Jade gasped slightly. It reminded Jet how fragile life here was. Jade had managed to last twenty user years in this place and as a complete program, she was older than even Ma3a.

Mercury looked around as they spoke. “We should get back inside the Terminus to discuss this. There’s no cover out here and the Datawraiths might still be active in this area.”

Jet smiled and almost made a laughing sound. “No, we don’t need to worry about Datawraiths anymore. They know what’s going on also and are on the run back to wherever they came from.”

Mercury thought about this and came to an obvious conclusion. “Then if they know about this and are running somewhere else, shouldn’t we be there also?”

Jet thought about the comment.

The truth and simplicity behind it seemed too obvious when he heard if from someone else, but Mercury was right.

Datawraiths might be coded differently, but they were still human base and needed to be digitized somewhere just as Jet did. In here it was easy to forget how they got into the system, but Jet knew where they came from. They were originally related to F-Con.

All this time, since Jet had first arrived in-system and shaken off his disorientation, Jet had been too pre-occupied with his own issues that he hadn’t really considered the implications of Datawraiths in the system.

They were here last time he was here, so he just naturally accepted them as a part of this world, but they weren’t any more native to this environment that he was.

Jet wondered what the connection was to current events. F-Con had been liquidated following the Encom-Fcon merger scandal, yet the Datawraiths were still in-system.

The Datawraiths needed digitizing pads and connections to get into this network. They were working on mobile servers, but Jet knew they still required physical connections to access the EN511.

There was no way the dozens of Datawraiths Jet had already seen could have come in here through the primary digitizing pad if the Laser was down before his friends got into trouble and Jet knew the tri-pad digitizer had been removed from Encom.

But since they were still here, that meant that there was a digitizing pad somewhere other than within Encom that they were using to come into this system.

Also, as Mercury had pointed out, they were most likely heading there now, moving out-system and evacuating before the crash.

There were other questions that briefly came to Jet’s mind, such as why were the Datawraiths still involved with this system when F-Con was disbanded a year ago and why were there active digitizing pads if the second-generation digitizing bay was dismantled.

The second question answered some of itself as Jet thought about it, as the newer pads must have been relocated, but it still didn’t explain why they were active.

Finally, there was also the question as to why Encom was shut down for safety concerns when it was clear that whoever shut it down moved the pads and continued digitizing people.

If only Jet could get hold of one of the Datawraiths without it derezzing like they did. Catching a Datawraith was like trying to catch a lizard by the tail. They derezzed quickly once taken down and were difficult to pin down when they were still active.

Jet reviewed what he knew about the Datawraiths to try and guess where they were going and as he did the pieces of the puzzle began to slide into place in his mind.

The system had been at war for some time, with problems in Sector one. Jade had mentioned something about Datawraiths in sector one earlier.

If the Datawraiths had established another connection into the sector, they could digitize into the system without entering through the main stream. They could use their own private control stream like a permanent back door.

Jet looked up at Jade.

“Jade, didn’t you say Datawraiths had taken sector one? When did they first appear?”

“Almost a gigacycle ago, my user.” Jade responded.

The time seemed right – that would be about a year ago in real-world terms - Just after Encom was disbanded and the equipment was removed for disposal.

Then the purple program they caught earlier came to mind.

It had claimed it was a user and the ICPs believed it was a Datawraith. For some reason, the color purple seemed to signify their difference from the other programs.

If it really was a user, then it would have to be connected to the Datawraiths in some way, because there would have been no other way into this world.

Jet thought about it for a moment, then realized he could decompress the program and have a talk to them.

“Jade, do you still have the compressed program we captured earlier?” Jet asked.

Jade seemed to pull the sphere of nowhere as she reached behind her and retrieved both it and the weapon.

“Right here, my user,” she responded as she retrieved them. Jet guessed she must have attached them to her truncate routines.

“Keep them handy for a moment – I think we might need to speak to our purple friend shortly and I think we need a change in strategy. If the Datawraiths have access to a working digitisation pad, then we need to find the beam that leads to it.”

Jade nodded.

“Alright, then, Jade, since it looks like there’s no reason to head back to Sector twelve now that the primary digitizing bay is permanently offline, we need to get Alchemist unloaded from the transport bay and get the Section Leader ready to move out again.”

“Yes, my user, I will attend to it immediately.” She responded, then turned and walked back in the direction of the Terminus.

“Mercury, Can you run a check on Alchemists’ status and assist her to prepare to move out on foot once more? And let Alchemist know we’ll need to pageswap before we leave.” Jet asked Mercury.

“I will organize it now,” said Mercury. She turned to follow Jade. Jet was expecting more of a reaction from her – she must know what the page swap meant for her.

Jet was about to return with Mercury when Ma3a came over and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“What is it, Ma3a,” asked Jet.

“There is a matter I need to discuss with you before we proceed,” she said.

Jet looked at her curiously but she held her hand on his shoulder as she waited for his response. Mercury noticed Jet had paused and stopped briefly to look back, wondering what Ma3a was doing.

Ma3a turned her head to Mercury at that point. “Mercury, might I have some protected memory for this discussion?”

Mercury raised an eyebrow slightly at the request for privacy, but respected her friend enough to grant it without question.

“I’ll go and check on my user once unloaded,” she said, then followed after Jade at a distance.

Ma3a watched them go, then sat down beside Jet. It was strange to look at, because Ma3a still floated barely above the surface even as the sat.

“What’s so important that you can’t speak in front of Mercury?” asked Jet.

“Because I want to discuss Mercury,” said Ma3a openly.

Jet was surprised by the answer. He hadn’t expected this.

“We’re right in the middle of a lot of other problems, Ma3a – can this wait?” Jet asked.

“Of course it can wait, but I have my reasons for wanting to discuss this with you now,” Ma3a said.

Jet nodded.

“Alright Ma3a, what do you want to say?”

Ma3a looked around as if to ensure Mercury could not hear her.

“You’ve started synchronization with Mercury, Jet.” Ma3a said. “I want to know what you intend to do?”

Jet looked at Ma3a surprised.

“It’s fairly obvious to the rest of us Jet. Did you think no one noticed you disappeared during the assembly of the last transport?”

Jet looked away from Ma3a at that moment, not able to look her in the eye for some reason, but also not able to stop himself from smiling at the memory.

Synchronization.

Jet wondered if that was what programs called it.

“What do you mean by intend to do?” Jet asked.

“Jet, you’re a user and Mercury is a program. She cannot leave this world, but it is not certain you will stay here.

“What is your future with her in this world?”

Ma3a’s words cut deeply into Jet’s mind. It was a question he had not allowed himself to consider. Facing the prospect that Mercury couldn’t escape the system wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

“I love her Ma3a,” Jet finally said at length.

“That’s not a term I am familiar with,” said Ma3a.

“It means that I only think about her, I only want to be with her.” Jet clarified.

“And Syslog?” Ma3a asked, referring to Jade. “She would do anything you ask of her. I’m certain she would Synchronize with you in a moment if you asked it of her, yet would not be hurt were you to leave this world.”

Jet looked back to Ma3a. Even in wireframe, he could tell she was very serious about Jet’s answers.

“I like Jade, but not in the same way I like Mercury. Perhaps if I had met Jade before Mercury I would feel different, but I don’t really think I could synchronize with any program other than Mercury.” Jet answered honestly.

Ma3a looked out.

“Then Jet, there is something you may need to know about Mercury,” she said. “Something that may make you want to change your mind about what you’re asking for from her.”

Jet was surprised. He had thought Ma3a’s only motivation for speaking to him was as Mercury’s friend. Ma3a was clearly as concerned with his.

Jet nodded once then looked directly a Ma3a. For a moment, she seemed just like his mother had seemed right at this moment, while she was talking to him about Mercury, but Jet’s attention was now on what she was telling him.

“Mercury and her user are synchronized.” Ma3a said.

Jet was puzzled by Ma3a’s comment.

“How can they be synchronized?” Jet asked.

“I don’t understand it, but when Alchemist ran the application to process Melanie, it was apparent that they were in synchronicity and now that I’ve completed running the background task on the missing data, I am sure that this is the reason for it.

“So I should warn you, that If you choose to synchronize with Mercury, then you may also find you are synchronizing with her user.”

Jet didn’t know whether to be alarmed, shocked or pleased with Ma3a’s revelation. If he understood the significance, perhaps he could decide, but the concepts she was presenting to him seemed too alien right now.

His expression must have given his thoughts and confusion away, because Ma3a shrugged. “Before you ask, no, I don’t know what the significance of that is, but as a user, I thought it might be something critical you needed to be aware of. You seem blinded to some matters by your infatuation with Mercury presently.”

With that said, Ma3a simply floated up, unfolded her legs and walked away. As she walked away, she called back to Jet.

“Also, you still need to release Alchemist,” she said, but not directly to him.

Jet sat, still surprised by what she had told him, and watched her leave. After a short pause, he then got up and walked after her.

Jet caught her after a short brisk walk, but didn’t respond to her previous words – he just walked beside her back towards the Terminus.

Ma3a’s lack of comfort after telling Jet what she had just told him was palpable as walked and remained until they reached the Terminus.

Just before they entered, Jet turned to Ma3a, walking almost sideways to talked to her as she didn’t slow down.

Ma3a kept on walking forward however her movements were stiffer than they usually were.

“Thankyou, Ma3a, I appreciate your telling me what you did.” He said, then returned to face the direction in which he was travelling.

“Does it make a difference?” Ma3a asked.

“Not to how I feel, but it might be important to know for later,” Jet said.

Ma3a loosened up a little in her stride after Jet said that and for a moment, he thought she even smiled. Then she walked off into the Terminus, changing direction as they entered.

Jet found Jade in the control room and Mercury just outside the entrance.

“Mercury, is Alchemist prepared for a paged memory swap?” he asked.

“Not presently, Jet. She said that she disabled the swap bit in preparation for transport, and will not be ready to page-swap for some cycles yet.”

“Thankyou, Mercury,” said Jet. His message for Melanie would have to wait.

Jet walked into the room and over to Jade who was finalizing the details on the packet transport.

“The transport is complete, my user, and I can begin derezzing it presently if we are not to use it, to prevent other programs from seizing it.” Jade said as Jet approached.

“No, let’s leave it for the moment – I think we might still need it.” Jet said, then he decided it was time to find out who the program they encountered earlier was.

“Jade, let’s have a talk to that program we captured on the regulator field.” Jet called out.

Jade nodded, then handed the sphere which had been sitting on a console next to her to Jet.

Ma3a showed up at the door as Jet picked up the weapon that was also sitting next to it.

“Ma3a, hold that entry position. I don’t want this program getting away while I talk to him.” Jet said.

“Acknowledged,” said Ma3a, who remained passively in the doorway, blocking the only easy point of entry or egress into the room.

Jet flipped the weapon over, found what he was looking for, then pressed a button. The sphere jumped once in his hand, and he kneeled down to roll it across the floor to the centre like a lawn bowl.

The sphere began to rotate rapidly across the floor in different directions as the code within decompressed, light shooting out at times when a particularly large section decompressed rapidly, but the decompressed material seemed to wrap around itself initially, forming a larger, deformed sphere.

Within moments, it had expanded to the point it no longer would roll and when the process completed, a program was laying on the floor in its place, huddled over and making a quiet keening noise. After a while, it stopped and the purple captive began looking around.

Jet stepped into his field of view.

“Welcome back program, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Jet said crouching so it could see him clearly.

Jade walked into the programs view behind Jet, causing the program to flinch and roll into a ball as he saw her.

“Relax,” said Jet. “Just do what we ask as we won’t hurt you.”

Jet looked behind and noticed Jade grinning. He wasn’t sure what she had done to this program, but whatever it was, it looked like she was enjoying the memory of it.

“I need to get out of here,” said the captive.

Jet decided not to mention he was a user yet.

“Perhaps. Tell us what we want to here and you’ll be safe,” said Jet.

“No, you don’t understand,” Started the program but Jet interrupted him.

“About the impending system failure? Yeah, I do,” said Jet.

“You must be a fairly highly permissioned program if you know about that,” said the captive.

“UPS signal.” said Jet. “It let me know what’s happening. We have some core system programs with this detachment.”

Jet knew the programs of this system knew less than he was inferring, but the captive probably wouldn’t be aware of that if he was a user.

“Detachment. It’s like a warzone in here isn’t it?” said the captive, uncurling a little now, pushing his limbs out and stretching them gingerly.

“I’m not familiar with that term,” Jet lied. It worked.

“That’s because programs don’t speak my language,” said the captive.

“So what are you, program?” Jet asked.

“I’m a user. I know you probably don’t believe me, but users created this world and I’m one of them.” said the captive. “My name’s Simon.”

Jet nodded. “I’m, uh, Jet.”

“What kind of program are you?” asked Simon.

“Turbine simulation,” said Jet, thinking quickly. “I came from another system originally.”

Simon nodded. Jet held out a hand and helped him to a sitting position. He kept his back away from Jade.

“A lot of programs in this system seem to have originated from others it seems. Well then what?” asked Simon.

“What?” queried Jet.

“You said you wanted to ask me some questions, then let me go,” said Simon.

Jet gave him a friendly smile. “I can’t guarantee I’ll let you go,” he said.

“Then I won’t answer questions,” said Simon.

“I can ask him if you want, my,” Started Jade, not realizing Jet didn’t want his status given away. He retorted sharply. “No Jade!”

Jade stopped abruptly and Simon’s eyes flickered briefly with fear at Jade’s voice. He seemed genuinely terrified of her.

“As I said, you have nothing to fear, but I need to ask questions,” Jet said. Simon looked between Jet and Jade realizing which interrogation he preferred.

“Alright, I’ll answer what you ask.” He said.

“What system are you from?” asked Jet.

“Nowhere you would understand,” said Simon.

“This idiot program makes no sense,” said Jade, starting to realize what Jet was doing. She had interrogated enough programs in her time to understand. She took a quick step towards Simon who flinched backwards.

Jet held out his arm casually to his side, his forearm brushing Jade’s boot. There was no pressure in the touch, but it stopped Jade in her tracks.

“Simon, please don’t give my friend here any grief.” Jet said quietly, the hint of a promise of violence tingeing in his tone. “She’s independent and runs under her own thread.”

Simon looked back at Jet as he settled back against the wall behind him – as far as he could go. “It’s a system called Sugar Grove”

“You’re right, I haven’t heard of it,” Jet lied again.

“I wouldn’t expect you had,” said Simon.

Jet had heard of it. It was a place in West Virginia – supposedly a communications interception centre for the US military.

Jet looked down at the floor then back up at Simon.

“What’s your connection to the Datawraiths?” he asked.

Simon looked really nervous at the question.

“I don’t know anything about Datawraiths. What are they? Some kind of ghost?” Simon said.

Jet didn’t need Jade’s truth evaluating logic to know Simon was lying, but he didn’t expect Jade to react so quickly either. She stepped forward, grabbed Simon by the throat and lifted him up as if he was weightless. Once she had him suspended on his toes, she let go, bringing her knee up into him at the same time as he dropped. She then stepped back behind Jet even before Simon hit the ground.

Simon rolled into a ball as he fell back to the ground. He came down hard on his hands and knees, collapsing onto his side, gasping for air as if winded.

Jet was bothered a little by his friend’s unexpected response, but maintained his composure. He needed this information and needed to keep Simon talking.

“Don’t lie to us, program, we have truth evaluation logic.” Jet said.

Simon gagged and rolled a little before lifting himself back up on his palms and knees, coughing.

“Pain is very real in this world. Please don’t give my friend here an opportunity to demonstrate this any further, because I’m sure you don’t want to face her wrath.”

Simon nodded. If he had been more alert after Jade had kneed him, he might have noticed Jet’s conversation wasn’t all that program oriented and guessed his origin.

“I’ll ask one more time, what is your connection to the Datawraiths.” Jet asked.

“They escort me,” Simon coughed out. “They look after me while I’m in the field.”

“The regulator field?” Jet asked.

“No, Here inside the computer. I’m a user, remember?” Simon said.

“Jet nodded.” That I do and while you don’t evaluate as untruthful, I’m not necessarily going to accept it. Why do the Datawraiths protect you - What do you do in here?” Jet asked.

“I was sent in here to capture programs,” said Simon.

He looked nervously from Jet to Jade. He didn’t expect his captors to take his comments well.

“Why don’t the Datawraiths do that themselves?” Jet asked.

“Not all users experience this world in the same way. Datawraiths exist in protected segmented memory so don’t perceive this world the in the same was as I do. I can do more than they can in here, but at a might higher risk, something I never fully realized until now.” said Simon.

“You can’t really kill a Datawraith, but I don’t want to be here when the system goes down.”

Jet felt empathy for Simon, realizing he perhaps was as trapped in here as he was.

“What do you do with the programs you capture?” Jade asked, anger seeping into her voice. It made Simon flinch.

“Nothing, I just take them to another system.” he said, defensively, retreating back to the wall again, and rolling himself into more of a ball. Jade didn’t come closer.

Jet looked at the compression device that Simon had been carrying before Jade disarmed and captured him. He started to understand how now how it worked, but couldn’t work out why Simon would capture programs.

“Why do you need programs?” Jet asked. “If you’re a user, as you claim, why don’t you just create your own programs?”

“It’s not that simple,” the captive user said. “There’s something about this system and the programs in it that don’t exist anywhere else. Users can build new systems, but we can’t create the programs to go in them – not like the ones that exist here anyway.”

The answer confused Jet. It didn’t make any sense to him. If they had taken the digitizing pads, they could build a system from scratch – even take some of the EN511 modules to create entirely new sectors.

Simon must have been still worried about how much time he had left. Once it was apparent Jet wasn’t about to ask another question, he glanced worriedly at Jade then looked Jet in the eye.

“Look, I know you know this system is going to be shut down. I can save you. Just give me back the archival plugin and I can save you. Otherwise, you’ll all die when the system goes down and so will I.”

Jet looked at the archival unit in his hand. He handed it over to Mercury. Simon hadn’t noticed Mercury before then and took a long look at her, realizing there was a third program near him.

Jet considered what he had learned from Simon so far and asked another question rather than answering his.

“If this system is going down, then how could you save us?” Jet asked.

“There are systems other than this one. I can take you to one before the end. I can save you – if I have a reason to,” Simon said.

“Other systems?” Jet queried. “There are only the fourty eight nodes of this world. There are no others. Other than Sector one, the Kernel controls the rest.”

Simon smiled as if he knew something Jet didn’t.

“Sector one is a gateway to a new system. Remember I said that we users can create new systems? We just can’t create new programs anymore.

“But I can take you to those new systems – just hand me the compression plugin and I can help you.”

Jet shook his head.

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, program Simon. I don’t know if you really are a user, so giving you a weapon could be a bad idea. There are no gateways to other sectors that I am aware of in Sector one and the external connections to the real world of the users goes through the core hub, which the Kernel controls.”

Simon was smiling nervously,

“That’s where you’re so wrong, my friend.” he said.

“The Sector one node still had the original digitization equipment ports from the early experiments.

“We’ve attached an out of band connection to the core and extended it in ways a program could scarcely imagine. That’s how we got here and if you want to live, give me the plugin and I will take those of you that I can there.”

Jet looked at Mercury as he thought about it. Out Of Band connection.

It all started to made sense now – F-Con must have moved their operation out of sight, and built their own backdoor into the system. As long as people were kept out of the building, they wouldn’t notice the architectural changes.

It was starting to look as if F-Con wasn’t the company Jet had assumed it was. All his previous actions had resulted in was a change of tactics for the other company – it still had the Datawraiths and had unfettered access to Sector 1.

Jet rolled the weapon in his hand, feeling the code for a moment, then allowing his enhanced functions to read the date of the code. It was recent – built only in the last few weeks.

“No. I can’t give you your weapon back,” Jet said.

Simon frowned, then slapped the floor with his hand in frustration.

“If you don’t trust me, you’re condemning us both to death, program Jet.”

Jet looked back at Simon.

“Here’s what I can offer you. We’re heading to Sector one, and we can take you with us. If what you say is true, then I’ll reconsider your request. Otherwise, we’ll turn you over to the Kernel at the first opportunity.” Jet offered.

“I’ll take it,” said Simon, his response so quick that Jet wondered if he had undernegotiated somehow.

Simon also didn’t sound like he could be trusted to Jet, but Jet needed to know more about him and had to do it without his realizing Jet was a user.

“Mercury, compress this program for transport,” started Jet, hoping for a reaction. He got it.

“No, wait, please don’t compress me.” Simon quickly pleaded. “I can’t help you if I’m in a compressed format.”

“Why is that program? You don’t seem to mind compressing other programs you encounter?” Jet said, guessing Simon was familiar with his weapon.

“If I’m in there, I can’t advise you if I need to,” Simon attempted to reason.

He wasn’t very skilled at lying, possibly because he was scared and though he was dealing with a bunch of barely literate programs. Jet had similarly thought little of many programs during his first visit. It was something he had learned wasn’t the case much later.

Jet turned to Jade as he spoke in front of Simon. He seemed afraid of her more than any other.

“Jade, if he gets up off his knees, take him back down to them.” he said, then nodded to Mercury. She followed him out of the room.

Out of hearing range from the captive, Jet spoke to Mercury.

“Mercury, can you be nice to this guy while being ready to take him down if you need to?” Jet asked.

“Are you worried about me?” she asked.

Jet grimaced. “Yes, I am.”

Mercury smiled, although Jet wasn’t sure if it was because of her answer or his.

“I can take care of myself, Jet. I’d be more worried about you.” she answered him after a moment.

Jet nodded. “I need you to keep close to him and talk to him. Find out as much as you can. Let him believe you think that he’s really a user and you’re thinking of helping him – that you don’t agree with me that he’s a danger. Act scared, but if he attempts to move away from you or do something unexpected, take him down hard.”

Mercury shifted in a way that reminded Jet of their trip here now his mind was clearing.

“I can do that,” she said, then asked, “What do you think of him - is he really a user?”

“I don’t know for certain, but, yeah, I think he is. His story makes too much sense.” Jet said.

“I didn’t understand much of what he said to you.” She noted.

“What I want to know is why they are taking programs. Saving programs from the shutdown doesn’t make sense. They could just keep the system running, or make their own.” Jet reasoned.

“Do you think he has access to a system that won’t be shut down?” Mercury asked.

“I don’t think he was lying so we definitely need to find out about that also.” Jet said. “See what you can convince him to tell you.”

Mercury nodded. They returned to the room.

Mercury walked in after Jet and Jet didn’t miss the way Simon’s eyes flicked from fearful as he watched Jade to something else as he looked at Mercury. For a moment, he regretted asking Mercury to stay close to him, but then realized it might have inadvertently been a very good move, strategically.

“Program Simon, I’ll have program Mercury escort you, but be warned, if you attempt to leave her or to escape, she won’t hesitate to compress you. Do you acknowledge?” Jet asked, as he handed the weapon to Mercury.

“Yes, yes, I Acknowledge,” answered Simon. Mercury stepped back and pointed the weapon at Simon. He started to get up, but a movement from Mercury with the barrel suggested she wanted him to sit down again.

Jet nodded to Mercury. “Keep him in the control room while I discuss our next move with the others.”

“Let’s go Jade. Ma3a, stay and guard the prisoner with Mercury.” Jet said and walked back into the Terminus.

A plan was starting to form in Jet’s mind as he walked off to speak to Jade and the Section Leader.

Next: Chapter 2.27 – Multithreaded.