Tron 2.38 – Power Hack

Jet watched forward as they approached the rebooting gateway between Sector one and Sector two. The scaffolding for this was huge, much of it, Jet guessed, was startup code, which typically only executed once to handle aspects such as initialization and protocol negotiation.

From the inside of the digital world around Jet, however, that translated to a massive structure which at the moment eclipsed the Terminus for size.

Large sections of the structure were still folding in to each other and data cubes and archival information was floating around the visible area around the interface like a mist of information.

“Five cycles to completion of reinitialisation,” Jade called out to Jet as he watched.

Jet didn’t move to acknowledge at all, then Mercury walked up behind him and lid a hand on his shoulder,

“It’s quite a sight isn’t it,” she said quietly.

“There’s so much of this world that I’ve missed, isn’t there?” Jet said. “How little time we all have in the end.”

Mercury turned to look at Jet’s face, the light of the assembling interface reflecting color off of it.

“With the lifespan of a user, that seems such a strange thing to say,” Mercury said quietly.

Jet faced her to talk, looking away briefly except when a particularly large movement drew his attention.

“It’s all relative, Merc. In this world, it seems like forever, but in my world. Time barely passed, except just enough to force me back to this world.”

Mercury looked out to the assembly work now, so as not to have to look at Jet.

“Have you ever thought of staying in my world?” she asked.

Jet looked at her quietly, waiting until she turned to face him as she waited for an answer.

“In truth? I don’t know if I can, but yes, I’ve seriously thought about staying in this world.”

Mercury smiled slightly and looked away. “Is the user’s world so bad?”

Jet found his own smile widening, and stepped closer to Mercury so he could move his arm around the back of her waist.

“No, it’s not that bad, Merc. But I feel like I belong in this world so much more.”

Mercury laid her head on Jet’s shoulder as they looked out of the viewscreen of the the recognizer. The larger pieces were either folding in or rezzing out now and some of the original structure of the interface could be seen now.

“I’d like to visit your world. Some day,” Mercury said. “To see what this world looks like from the perspective of a user.”

Jet stood there holding Mercury as she leant into him, holding the moment. He thought briefly of the terminals that he used to access this world and didn’t want to explain that this world looked rather plain from the outside.

“I don’t think it’s possible to visit the user’s world, Merc. Until Flynn came here, I didn’t think it was possible to visit this world either.”

“Then tell me what it’s like out there,” Mercury said.

Jet struggled to find the words to explain it.

“Well, it’s not all that different from this world, truth be known, except that we can’t just rez things in. They take a lot longer to build in our world, but otherwise, I don’t think you would find it all that alien to you.”

“And why did you create my world?” Mercury asked.

Now Jet really struggled to find words.

“I don’t know Merc, this world just kind of popped into existence when we started building a new technology. I don’t know why it happened – that’s something I’ve been wondering myself, but I know it’s here and I know it’s real.

“I think a user named Walter Gibbs created this world.”

“And you don’t know this user?” Mercury asked quietly.

“Actually I do know him,” Jet said. “He was sort of a friend of the family up until my mother, well,

“And he is our creator? The one?” Mercury asked.

Jet thought about it for a while then answered.

“I’m pretty certain he is. He built the foundations of this world with his own bare hands in a garage. He helped me with my questions about this world when I had no one else to turn to. “ Jet answered.

“You have had an audience with the one?” came Section’s voice, reminding Jet that he and Mercury weren’t alone. “The one who created our world?”

“I guess he’s pretty important to you all in here, then” said Jet.

“He is, but perhaps you can tell us then,” said Crypto. “Why he made this place then abandoned us to the Datawraiths. Surely he has power over all?”

Jet pressed his lips together. This conversation had gotten decidedly religious.

“I don’t think he wanted to leave this world that he created,” said Jet, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

“I think that he had to leave it to save it.”

“I don’t understand, Sir,” came Crypto’s comment.

“I don’t fully understand it either – it was all a little before my time. My mother was the only one who really understood why he left in the end and she never really told me too much about it.”

“Port reset process completing,” said Jade, from the rear pilot position. “Requesting token.”

“We have token authority?” Mercury asked Jade, surprised.

“All other communications with Sector 2 are suspended while we have the token,” said Jade. “Root-level authority.”

“Hmmm,” said Section. “If the Kernel’s given us exclusive access to the token, then this must be serious.”

“Token received,” said Jade, then the recognizer moved into the port and slowly lowered itself until it was on the beam.

“Transfer acknowledged, engaging beam,” said Jade in the background.

“I think the Kernel finally understands what is happening in this system,” said Jet to Section and Crypto.

“I’ve never ridden on a held token transport before.” Said Crypto.

“Even the Kernel has never ridden on a held-token transport,” said Jade, then followed up with “Transfer initiated.” And the recognizer lurched forward moving far more quickly than Jet could have imagined, the visible parts of Sector one quickly disappearing from view.

“Fast,” said Crypto.

The recognizer started shaking violently as it picked up speed, causing Jet come concern.

“Can we handle this transfer speed?” he asked.

“Packet loss is going to be a little rougher for this trip,” said Jade, as a piece of the recognizer was torn loose on the outside, then a new piece rezzed in.

Behind the recognizer, the piece began to fall and spin rapidly as if buffeted by an unseen current, before spinning apart into fractured primitives.

A long bar rezzed into the cabin just in front of Jet.

He didn’t need to be told to hold on.

“So what exactly am I doing with them?” came a new voice in the background.

Flynn felt groggy. Inside the hood, he has started to doze in the quiet before the voice woke him.

“They want them held is all,” said the voice of one of the soldiers that had been with Dillinger on the ride in.

“No Terrog’s” queried the voice.

“No Interrogations, no. No one sees them, except specialists and officers,” said the voice.

“They in some bad shit?”

“I wouldn’t like to be in their place.”

“Wrists?”

“Maybe, hell, I don’t know. Probably, otherwise they wouldn’t be here would they.”

“Here,”

“Do I look like I can sign that?”

A sound of a pen being dragged roughly across paper, then the leaving of footsteps.

Flynn sat still for a moment, then called out.

“Hello?” he called.

No response.

Flynn felt something tug on the back of his head, then realized the hood was being withdrawn. He recoiled slightly as the light came through, then closed his eyes hard and opened them.

He only vaguely recalled being brought in here, but he couldn’t recall feeling tired or sleepy. It was as if an indeterminable time had been erased from his memory.

“Don’t try to sit up. Do you speak English? Don’t try to sit up. You’ll fall. Just lay back.”

Flynn realized he was looking at the roof.

“What’s happening?” he managed.

“So you’re the home-grown sort of terrorist then?” came the rather bulky soldier who was reaching under him.

There was a sharp pain in Flynn’s elbow and he felt his hands being dragged under him. There was a brief snapping sound, and he vaguely felt his hands uncouple.

“Gas takes a minute or two to wear off. Just lie there and don’t give me a reason to make you regret anything.”

Flynn tried to roll off his arm that was now pinned beneath him.

He couldn’t roll.

The soldier moved out of vision and then Flynn heard the metallic sound of metal grating and clanging.

There was no mistaking what he was in – but Flynn had no idea where it was.

“Approaching Sector two,” said Jade. “Decoupling from beam.”

The recognizer lifted up into the air above the beam and slowed suddenly, Sector two becoming larger through the forcewall viewscreen as they did so. At this speed it seemed certain they would crash directly into the walls around the sector, but as big as it got, the recognizer also slowed at an incredible rate.

As they approached, the recognizer slowed to a speed Jet found more familiar and lifted up across the top of the beam entry point.

“Accessing Sector two,” said Jade, then as if satisfied, “Sector two access granted. Where would you like to go, my user?”

“The power regulator,” said Jet. “Let’s go straight there.”

Jade moved the recognizer and it started to move past landmarks that Jet recognized. After the devastated landscape of Sector one, Sector two looked almost untouched, the damage here being more from battles than other causes.

“I never thought I’d be back here,” said Section. “Just two of us left now.”

“Yeah, but I never would have thought two of us would make it out of here.”

“And root group permission,” said Mercury quietly.

“That too,” said Crypto. “But I still miss my former life at times.”

“The General’s not good enough for you?” asked Section.

Jet looked over and Jade almost appeared to be blushing.

“Yeah, of course she is, it’s just,” Crypto started to explain.

“I’m rather happy with the selection,” said Jade. “So cut the artifacts – There’s a user present.”

“Yes, Maam.” Said the two.

Jade ignored the response.

“We can’t approach the power buffers in the recognizer,” said Jade, looking at Jet. “

“So what do we do, Jade?” Jet asked.

“Lightcycles,” Mercury said. “Unless you have something faster.”

“Where are we going to get Lightcycles?” Jet asked.

“We have system support now,” said Jade. “Lightcycles will not be an issue.”

Jade landed the recognizer and began immediate deresolution, which occurred so rapidly that the base of the cockpit was the final component to float to the ground, just outside of the Sector two terminal.

The remaining cockpit deresolved around the programs and they stepped to the ground.

Jade stepped to one side, then placed her palms together, blinked once slowly, then pulled her hands apart.

At first, nothing happened, then a disk of energy appeared on the floor that coalesced into a rod that immediately shot up to chest height, directly between Jade’s hands.

Stepping to one side, Jade repeated the gestures and each time, a rod primitive appeared and rezzed into existence as if following her will.

“That’s quite an impressive skill,” said Mercury, a little under her breath. “Normally, even the Kernel can’t rez in a lightcycle interface outside of a lightcycle arena.”

“I have extended permissions operating presently. An escalated level of access,” said Jade, apparently hearing Mercury even as she spoke quietly.

Mercury raised an eyebrow, looked over to Jet, then stepped in behind one of the rods and grasped it.

The rod dropped to waist height and forward as the activation sequence rezzed in a lightcycle around Mercury, although this one wasn’t covered.

“Super-lightcycle,” said Jade, pre-empting Mercury’s question. “Kernel’s special.”

Crypto blew quietly between his lips at the demonstration of raw power in this world that impressed even Jet.

Section stepped up to the second rod, then likewise activated the interface.

As she summoned the fifth rod primitive, Jade flicked her hands in and grasped the rod, rezzing in her own lightcycle, leaving only Jet and Crypto to take their place.

Crypto walked to his own rod primitive and stood there as he waited for Jet, then as Jet walked up, spoke quietly.

“No disrespect intended, back there, Sir,” Crypto said.

“Don’t mention it,” said Jet, then as he grabbed his own handle, said “Anyway, I regard you as a peer.”

Crypto couldn’t help but smile at the comment, then reached forward and activated his own machine. Once it was completely rezzed it, they waited for a moment. Five lightcycles, Crypto’s and Section’s blue, Jade’s green, Jet’s red and Mercury’s yellow.

“Your command, my user,” said Jade.

Jet turned to Section.

“Do you know the quickest way to access the power grid buffers?” Jet asked.

Section nodded slowly.

“You’re on point, Section,” Jet said.

Section nodded once more, quickly this time, then immediately accelerated off, no lightwall behind him.

Crypto and Jade pulled in behind, then Mercury left, leaving Jet to bring up the rear.

“I guess that makes me tail end Charlie?” said Jet to know one.

“Tail end Charlie, Sir?” Section said.

“These lightcycle routines include common memory buffers for interprogram communication,” Mercury thoughtfully warned Jet.

“Ah,huh.” Said Jet. “That might be useful.”

Section moved the group past a small alley that Jet remembered from his last time here.

“Aren’t we up that way?” Jet asked.

“Yes Sir, but there are grid-bugs in the power grid buffers. If we take the outside, we might avoid them.”

“We didn’t see them last time,” said Jet.

“They don’t always notice individual or even groups of programs,” said Section, “But they will detect a lightcycle.”

“Are they nasty?” Jet asked.

Three of the faces on lightcycles ahead twisted back to look at him.

“Ahh, forget I asked.” Said Jet.

“Would you like to take the strictly shortest route?” Section asked.

“No,” said Jet, pausing. “I think I’ll take your advice on that, Section.”

The lightcycles sped through the corridors and paths of Sector two at speed, moving far faster than they had the last time they were here. Even with the speed they were going, it didn’t take long for them to arrive at the power grid buffers, which would allow access to the deeper levels of the power regulators.

It was the upper levels of the regulators where Jet had first Met Simon. Somewhere in the back of Jet’s mind was a nagging sensation concern that Simon might not be as good as his word. But Jet didn’t see any reason why Simon would default on his offer.

Section took a long ramp down into the surface, barely wide enough to accommodate a lightcycle. As he did, something started rezzing into the channel above.

“Grid bug,” called Crypto.

“Can it get to us?” Jet asked.

The bug moved up and down as if trying to enter the narrow slit, rearranging it’s legs to fit in.

“Not likely. Otherwise there would be all kinds of problems and the power would be unstable. This is the power source to the system, remember.” Crypto mentioned.

The lightcycles sped harmlessly past the spiderish program as they continued down into the channel, then Section took a sharp turn, fully ninety degrees, before making another that seemed to curve gently to the left.

“This is the core buffer for the power regulators,” said Mercury. “If you can stop the UPS from shutting down, you’ll need to do it from here.”

Jet nodded, although at the back of the procession, no one saw him.

They descended in a slow spiral and up ahead, Jet saw light coming in through the narrow corridor they were accessing.

“What’s that?” Jet asked.

“You’ll see,” said Mercury. “I think you might like this.”

“You’ve been here before?” Section asked.

“No wonder the Kernel felt threatened by you,” said Crypto, to Mercury.

“The Kernel felt threatened because Mercury defeated me once,” Jade clarified.

“You defeated the General?” asked Crypto.

“With assistance,” Mercury said.

“I think their respect for you just went up,” said Jet, enjoying the conversation between programs.

“And their wariness,” added Mercury, “But we’re all on the same team now.”

“Actually, I was always a fan, Mercury, if you don’t mind me saying. I was disappointed when you left the arena and turned against the Kernel. The system lost it’s best Lightcycle competitor that day.” Crypto said.

“But I’m a lot happier now that you’ve returned to the system side,” he added after a pause,

For a moment, there was a silent pause, then Mercury finally spoke over the common channel.

“Well, I’m glad I’m not marked for deletion anymore,” Mercury replied, seeming unsure how to take Crypto’s comment.

Jet smiled to himself. “Electronic groupies,” he muttered under the threshold of the common communication channel.

Then there was a crackle as several passable glowing plates descended into the tunnel.

“We’re here,” said Jade as she passed into the first of them.

“System access authorized,” came a voice, then the side wall seemed to open up as the Lightcycle penetrated even lower and the conversation was lost to Jet as he looked into this underground cavern of immense proportion. The path they were traveling down, he realized, was a huge spiral cut into the outside wall to allow transit in and out of this section of Sector 2.

The cavity under Section two appeared huge, on a scale Jet found hard to imagine, even in this world. Fully as large as the grid around the archive that Jet had first encountered when he came here, but entirely enclosed, the power buffers were huge by any measures.

Sitting in the middle of this hug cavern was what Jet assumed to be the power regulator and power grid buffers themselves.

To Jet, this appeared like a serious of huge gimbaled wheels that allowed a multifaceted centre to track sixteen spheres as they rotated and floated around the central cavern like planets around a huge sun, except that there was no consistent plane and everything was happening in three dimensions at the same time.

“Wow,” Jet felt himself saying.

“There must be some things even a user finds impressive then,” said Section as the Lightcycles continued their downward spiral deeper into the cavern, getting a full view of this facility as they did.

“I don’t believe there’s anything a user would be surprised to find in this world,” said Jade, as if correcting Crypto.

“Actually, there’s a lot that I don’t expect in this world,” Jet said. “This world is far more beautiful and dangerous that most user’s imagine.

“Seeing things like this takes my breath away. If all users could see this, then perhaps they wouldn’t be so quick to shut their computers off at night.”

Jet looked ahead for a moment and noticed several faces twisting in their lightcycles to look at him.

“It’s the truth guys,” he said.

“User’s just shut their computers down at night?” Crypto asked.

“Ahh, well, yeah,” said Jet, realizing he had just opened a can of horror for these programs, especially as the system was shutting down around them as he spoke. “But only into sleep mode, until the next dawn’s powerup.” He added, not wanting to get drawn into a conversation of the whimsical habits of users.

IT would be even harder to explain, he realized, that User’s had no idea of this world and few, save himself, Flynn, his father and mother and the Datawraiths knew it existed.

And possibly Walter Gibbs, he added mentally. The old man had never entered this world, but somehow he seemed to know it existed.

The lightcycles continued on to the floor of the cavity and Jade took an angle away from the path that led to a small structure at the middle of the cavern, directly beneath the floating structure.

From here, the entire structure seemed even more incredible to Jet, floating around him like a miniature solar system or perhaps an atom.

Here, the power supply really was the centre of their world.

Jade got off her bike and stored her system rod-primitive and walked to the structure. Crypto and Section followed and Mercury walked over to Jet, who was looking up at the spheres as they moved around.

“Each of these supplies power to two individual separate sectors,” said Mercury. “It’s one of the sacred places to our world. We believe that if one of the links ever fails, two sectors of programs will shut down without warning and fail, and the programs within it will cease to exist.”

Jet noticed two beams were intertwined like a rope heading to each sphere now he was closed. One red and the other blue, although they seemed to merge to form a magenta beam.

“There’s two lines to each sphere,” Jet said.

“Redundant power rails. Each counteracts the other.” Mercury said. “There was a time, long ago, that one might disappear for a while, but that hasn’t happened in a long time.

“Of course, the UPS powers both rails to the equipment. In the event of primary failure, the UPS takes over both lines, dirty and clean. Ever since the upgrade back in ninety three.” Jet said, realizing.

“What is that?” Mercury asked.

“Well, they started upgrading the system and moved from clean and dirty power rails to a system where the UPS protects both rails. Originally, the clean power only protected critical memory and components from failure, but later, they needed to add more equipment so rather than upgrade just the clean rail, they cleaned both. Good power protected to both sections, to allow the system to continue operating even if equipment was plugged into the dirty rail.”

“How does that work?” Mercury asked.

“Well, some supporting equipment didn’t need permanent power, because if it goes down, it doesn’t cause a system crash,” said Jet. “So it just ran on Dirty power, or power that can be lost.

“It used to be too expensive to protect power to the entire system. So he users used to limit stabilized power to critical infrastructure.”

“Expensive?” asked Mercury.

“Like how much CPU timeslice it requires,” translated Jet, “Only, it takes it from those who use it.”

“Like a badly written routine,” surmised Mercury. “So why did they eventually decide to use it then?”

“Hmmm, well it was like the number of cycles the equipment used was less cost than the benefit of using those cycles. In the user world, the number of cycles something uses or is worth, keeps becoming less.”

“Programs take less cycles in your world,” questioned Mercury.

“Forget it, it’s a bad analogy,” said Jet, then they walked around the far side of the structure, where an entrance was located.

Inside, a single control panel sat next to a transfer portal. Jet guessed similar portals were located around the power buffer spheres and this was the only way to get to them.

“Is this the transfer point to the buffer code?” Jet asked.

Jade nodded. “This area used to be ICP only. We were always worried that the Datawraith would discover it and destroy our system while this sector was under their control.”

“So how does it work?” Jet asked.

“From here, I can send a maintenance crew – up to two programs – to any of the sector controllers.” Jade said. “How do you first propose to address this threat you spoke of?”

Jet rubbed his chin. What he really needed to find was something that controlled the power consumed from each battery controller.

“Is there a core location?” Jet asked. “Something intrinsic to each of the sector controllers?”

Jade looked up, through the open roof of the structure they stood in and looked at the centre – a large spinning sphere of data that connected through itself to all other sector controllers. It formed the nucleus of this underground structure.

“That’s the core, there, my user, but I’m not sure that we can get to it anymore.” She said.

“Anymore?” Jet asked.

“It was only accessed in times of system power supply failure,” said Jade. “When the red stream to the sector controller was interrupted.”

Jet looked up at a stream of energy snaking it’s way directly to a sphere that orbited the central sphere.

“And that hasn’t happened for some time, right?” Jet said.

“You are correct, my user.” Said Jade.

Jet looked at the portal.

“So where does this go?” he asked.

“To the Sector controllers,” said Jade.

Jet looked at the control panel. “Which sectors has the Kernel evacuated,” he asked, realizing what he needed to do and wanting to minimize the risk.

“Sector thirty one and Thirty” said Jade.

“Can you send me there?” Jet asked, then added, “With Mercury?”

Jade nodded.

Jet checked his Sudo once more. The numbers were close now. There wasn’t a great deal of time left.

“Alright then, Merc, let’s go.” Jet said and walked to the portal, paused, looked to Jade for acknowledgement and walked in.

Stepping into the portal was a little like dropping into a hole, then suddenly appearing elsewhere. There was a brief feeling as though Jet had left his stomach behind, then a sudden jarring thud of realizing that struck just about the time Jet realized he was somewhere else.

Instinctively Jet dropped into a crouch and lifted his data disk from his elbow, retracting his right arm, readying to throw the disk.

Then there was a sound behind him and Mercury instantly rezzed into being at his side.

Jet looked around. He was standing on a huge sphere that seemed to be floating inside the cavity of the power regulator buffers. To one side, Jet could see a huge arcing bolt of energy that intertwined blue and red streams as they snaked their way to the central ball of energy that seemed to be supplying the power.

Beneath was a small hole that led into the sphere, a gap between fractal plates that looked like the only way it, and of course, the portal receiver base sitting directly on top of the sphere that allowed them access to the sphere in the first place.

Mercury made a quick walk around the top of the sphere, then realizing the hole was the only way I, dropped down. Jet, afraid she was heading into danger ahead of him, dropped into the sphere after her.

Inside, Jet found himself on top of a floating archive cube that seemed to be meandering in a long line around the inside of the sphere in a train of other archive cubes. As it moved, Jet noted that the cubes ahead of him were rotating at a particular point.

“Is this some kind of puzzle?” Jet called out.

“What’s a puzzle,” Mercury called back, jumping to another cube as the one she was standing on rotated, avoiding being dropped to the bottom of the sphere.

“This whole world, could be my answer,” said Jet, as he felt the archival cube beneath him start to rotate, and jumped to the next one himself, which had already gone through the process.

The lower section of the sphere contained some kind of control panels that Jet guessed was the control for the power to Sectors thirty and thirty one.

The path that the datacube he was now standing on seemed to take him in that direction, so Jet waited until it approached closest to the panels and then made a short jump to the top of a box primitive that sat to one side of the panels before climbing down.

He heard a clicking sound behind him and smiled. He had entered this sphere behind Mercury and had beaten her down here – perhaps the platform game gods smiled on him today. It wasn’t often he got here before his partner.

Jet moved to the panels and started looking around. There were several panels here that seemed to have different letters and symbols on them that Jet didn’t understand. Some seemed to show iconic representations that Jet could guess at, but somewhere he thought there would need to be something that balanced the two power rails. What Jet wanted to do was eliminate non-critical infrastructure from the power circuit.

The sounds behind him approached.

“Merc, any idea what we need to adjust here?” Jet asked.

“Perhaps you can ask that program,” Mercury’s voice came from above. Jet wheeled and found a rather large, much taller program standing directly behind him. It resembled a resource hog, but held a long glowing rod primitive as if holding a sword. For some reason, he looked familiar.

“Merc, you could have told me earlier,” Jet said, reaching for his disk, then stopping when the movement caused the program to react.

“State your permissions, program,” came a challenge.

“My what?” Jet said. “By permission of the Kernel.”

“State your permissions, program,” came the challenge once more, as the program edged closer to Jet.

Mercury dropped in beside Jet, causing the program to back up a step as it evaluated two possible threats at once. Mercury didn’t seem to be defensive towards it, despite the fact it appeared to me wielding a weapon.

The program blinked twice, peered at Mercury, then lowered the weapon slightly.

“Mercury? Is that you?” came it’s first response.

“Hello Checkcharge.” Said Mercury.

“You two know each other?” Jet asked. Neither acknowledge Jet’s presence.

“It’s been a long time since you've been this way, Mercury. Many cycles have past.” Said the program, still wielding his weapon.

“Is this your home directory?” Mercury asked.

Checkcharge suddenly turned towards Jet. “State your permissions, program,” came the challenge once again.

Mercury stepped forward and put her hand on Checkcharge’s wrist, pushing it down gently.

“He’s not a program, Checkcharge. He’s a user.”

Checkcharge squinted, then retracted the rod primitive which dissolved into unrezzed space.

“A user?” Checkcharge said, scrutinizing Jet. “What is a user doing here?”

“Helping us,” said Mercury.

“I have no need of help,” said Checkcharge.

“But we do,” said Jet. “Can you help us?”

“What can a user need a program such as I for?” Checkcharge said.

“This system is shutting down,” said Jet.

“Indeed, for I have been loaded and activated,” said Checkcharge. “My task here has only just started.”

“Checkcharge is a system call routine,” said Mercury. “He doesn’t answer to the Kernel, so was able to help me some time ago when the Kernel was hunting me.”

“I control the power balance through the UPS,” said Checkcharge. “My function is to ensure that threshold exceptions in the charge balance are reported on and polled.”

Jet looked across at Mercury. “You didn’t tell me you knew the UPS program.”

“I don’t,” said Mercury. “Checkcharge is a system call that assisted me when I needed a place to recompile myself.”

“We go back,” said the old program.

“To the days when the game grid was updating.” Said Mecury.

Jet wondered on this old program. Age and appearance could be deceiving in this world. Did Mercury have some history with this progam? Was he perhaps an old boyfriend? Jet fought off the thought.

“And this program before us is no program then?” Checkcharge said.

“No,” said Mercury. “This is a user, Checkcharge. He came to help me and now is helping the Kernel.”

“Bah, the Kernel’s up his own output channel. You were right to oppose him,” said Checkcharge, then stepped over to Jet. “So how does one address a user?”

Jet grabbed his hand, put it in his, and shook it vigorously. “Like this.” He said.

“Please to meet you, Checkcharge. I’m Jet.” Jet added.

As Jet grabbed the old program’s hand, he felt a glimpse of the old program’s code. Interrupt vector initialization of passed variables and low-level return of codes. He was as Mercury had said – a system call routine.

And he was tied directly into the power buffer controller.

Checkcharge looked directly at Jet as he shook his had.

“And I am pleased to meet a user,” said Checkcharge. “Though I must admit, I never expected to actually meet one.”

“Checkcharge,” Jet addressed the old program. “I’m in need of assistance. I believe that the UPS is going to shut down this system soon, once the charge threshold in any of the battery systems reaches the shutdown voltage. Are you familiar with this system?”

Checkcharge shook his head.

“Only on possibility, user. The other, which I believe is far more likely, is that the power will be restored and the UPS will enter charge mode.”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Jet.

Checkcharge got a puzzled look on his face. “I would not expect that, but if you are a user, you may have knowledge of such.”

“I do,” said Jet. “This system is going down.”

“Then this system will shutdown as soon as the threshold is crossed,” said Checkcharge.

“I need to circumvent that,” said Jet. “How would I do that?”

Checkcharge raised his hands open wide in a motion of supplication.

“If you are the user,” he said. “You should know this.”

Jet grimaced.

“Mercury, can you vouch for me?” Jet asked.

“Checkcharge, this is a serious matter. Can you help us?” Mercury pleaded.

“I’m read only,” said Checkcharge. “I cannot change this.”

Jet now realized Checkcharge’s limitation. He was BIOS. His code was part of the system bootstrap – it had possibly never been changed in the entire time he had been in this system, which could be a long time.

“Checkcharge, can you show me the switches to control the power distribution between the old clean and dirty lines?”

Checkcharge’s gaze narrowed.

“That is something I can do. There are two bit locations behind you. Each is inverted.”

Checkcharge pointed to the console behind Jet. As he indicated, Jet noticed the two bit receptacles.

Each held a bit in the Off position.

“Which is which?” Jet asked.

“That is something I cannot answer.” Checkcharge replied.

“Cannot or won’t” Jet asked.

“If it is not documented within my help menu, then I cannot offer advice,” Checkcharge said. “This is a limitation of my system.”

Jet examined the two bits. One sat within the square section of the console. The other within a slightly extended section of the console.

“Mercury, didn’t the second power system come on later in this systems’s life?” he asked.

“That was before my time,” said Mercury,

“Checkcharge, chronologically speaking, which switch was added most recently.” Jet asked.

“The switch that was added most recently is the switch that is located within the newer code,” Checkcharge clarified.

“And which code was newer?” Jet asked.

“That which was added later,” said Checkcharge.

“This is going around in circles,” said Jet, then extended his hand out over the panel.

Within, Jet could feel the code, the raw assembly language behind the BIOS commands.

Deep in the panel’s code, Jet found sixteen BIOS calls, each he thought would be attached to a program such as Checkcharge.

There were also update numbers. Not quite version numbers, but occasionally, non-opcode codes presented themselves.

The programmers had included documentation within the code itself, altering the code at the point of creation, some of the dates even preceding Jet’s birth.

But one of the switches was surrounded by newer code. It had higher version numbers and dates embedded within it and although bits of code were scattered throughout the panel, some of it was newer and seemed to be compiled rather than assembled.

And one of the bits was located completely within this area.

“Do you think Sector thirty one has been evacuated?” Jet asked Mercury briefly.

“The Kernel’s archiving the outlaying systems as a priority. If they aren’t, then the other systems won’t be archived in time.” Mercury said.

“System archival?” Checkcharge asked.

“Offsite storage,” said Jet.

“I can’t recall a time that the system has ever been archived offsite,” said checkcharge.

“Well, there’s a lot that this system is going to experience for the first time, such as shutting down,” said Jet, as he felt for the bit.

There was a small resistance as he fed his will into the trigger, then a mental click and tone as it engaged.

“I believe you’ve shut down the secondary feed into sectors thirty and thirty one,” said Checkcharge, then the sphere suddenly shifted beneath them.

“What was that?” Jet asked.

Checkcharge derezzed.

“Merc?” Jet asked.

The archival cubes started to speed up, several now flying around like ricochet's within the confined space.

“I suggest we move out of this space immediately,” said Mercury. She jumped up onto a console and leapt for an archival cube still within the pattern. They had stopped rotating now.

Jet looked around briefly, then followed her, leaping for the next cube as it passed. It was moving quickly and Jet nearly lost his footing, but swung his arms to regain his balance.

“Merc, did we shut down the wrong power feed?” Jet asked.

Mercury looked back. “Checkcharge didn’t say that we did,” she said.

The pattern tightened, then the archival cubes started towards the centre of the sphere, then upwards towards the hole.

“These cubes look like they don’t want to be here either,” Jet said as Mercury rode through the top of the sphere. Jet lost sight of her briefly as she ascended out of the control sphere, then saw her standing on the surface of the sphere as he came up.

“Jump,” said Mercury.

Jet half stumbled, half fell, but he made it outside of the cube. Rolling over on his back, he looked up and saw that the archival cubes were now headed into the ceiling far above them, driving into it with force.

“What caused that?” Jet asked.

“You activated the sequence,” said Mercury.

“Yes, but I didn’t expect that.”

Then the sphere started to plummet towards the ground.

“Jet, quickly,” called Mercury, and ran towards the portal, now activated as the sphere dropped.

Jet watched another nearby sphere hurtle past, then dodges sideways as an archival cube, not content to wait until it could exit through the existing hole, made its own way out through the skin of the sphere.

Jet dived as the ground came up in his peripheral vision, then felt himself slam into the surface of the ground, a pair of green heels at his face, and just past them, a sphere suddenly stopping its descent, several parts shaking themselves clear of it as it did, only a blue line of energy now connecting it to the central sphere of this facility.

“Jet, it appears like you’ve been successful,” came Jade’s voice, her face coming into view as Jet rolled over onto his back. “System resource usage has dropped by around four percent.”

Mercury’s face appeared beside hers.

“I believe you still wish to cut power to the remaining circuits,” Mercury said.

“I’ll realign the portal page pointer for the next sector control,” said Jade.

Jet rubbed his eyes.

“I hope that they’re not all like that,” he said, then slowly dragged himself to his feet.

Next: Chapter 2.39 – Escape Sequence