Tron 2.39 – Escape Sequence

A large old man was sitting in a chair, overlooking the an incredible scene lit by the first rays of daylight in the house that the other man took Manny to. At the sound of the door opening, he craned his neck around to see who was there, then felt for a walking stick before levering himself up on it and walking over to a group of chair around a table.

“Manny Gurimin I take it, Welcome to Canada. I hope your trip wasn’t too bad.” Said the old man with white hair.

“I think he’s had a tough time of it, Wally,” said the man who had brought him. “I don’t think any of us expected things to turn out they way they did.”

Manny felt as if his eyes had sand in them and his cheeks hurt where the cold wind had burned his tears. Stepping over to the table, he took a seat opposite the man he had been sent to find. There was some food on the table which looked like it had been recently set out. Manny guessed it was for his benefit, but his stomach still felt so tightly knotted, he couldn’t bring himself to consider eating, even when he was asked, as he was sure he would be.

“You’re with friends now, my boy.” said the old man. “I’m Walter Gibbs.”

“The man who designed the EN511. Flynn told me all about you.” Said Manny quietly, now starting to fear that he was already in another country and without family or people he knew.

“Yes.” said Walter.

“I didn’t think Flynn got on with you,” said Manny. “Why did he send me here?”

“Because Flynn actually has a better idea of what is going on that he lets on at times. He guessed your father’s friend was asking me for advice and he guessed I still knew something about what was happening to Encom. Why I left.” Walter said quietly.

“Can you help my family?” Manny asked.

“I don’t know, but I can keep you safe and I can try to help them.” Walter said.

Manny say silently for a while, then asked “Do you know what happened?”

Walter sat for an equal time before answering. “I’m afraid I do, and it’s gone far beyond my ability to influence. The US government is involved now – at least a very powerful agency under it’s control anyway – and they took action the moment your family accessed the five eleven it seems.”

Manny nodded. Maybe now he would get some answers.

“Can you tell me why I got told to come here and why the police suddenly came in?” he asked.

“Because your father and my former associates accidentally opened a can of worms. The agency I mentioned, called them Echelon – they run it now, need the five eleven.

“They’ve been trying to get it for quite some time. I don’t think Alan or Flynn knew about them, but I got an idea they were trying to take over from a relative who is involved with them.

“They want the system for a project they’re running. About a year ago, a man named Dillinger – a former associate of mine also”

Manny interrupted. “The one who stole Flynn’s programs.”

“The same,” continued Walter. “Well he tried once more to take Encom and this time, he had insiders to make sure it would work, but your friends, well, they stopped him and destroyed his new company, exposing them for the criminals they were.

“They came to the attention of a very powerful agency and when they closed in on Dillinger, he had a surprised for them. He offered them something they wanted if they would help him.”

“Did he offer them my family?” asked Manny.

“Heavens, no, I’m not sure quite what he offered them, but it was enough to have Encom shut down and it’s IP transferred to the control of the agency. I think Dillinger gave the agency a reason to shut Encom down.

“Unfortunately, for you, my boy, your family started to develop some important technology. I’ve been watching what Alan was doing closely. You’ve been the first to make real use of what I originally developed the digitization technology for. I was quite impressed to hear that you’ve virtualized surgery.

“That, I believe, is what they took as a threat. I think your father’s original research gave an indication of what could be done. Your father petitioned the government so they knew what he might do – what he could do.

“His research would have validated an undeniable civilian use for the technology and it’s development would have been picked up the world over and there would be hundreds of Encom’s build all the world over, each developing new technologies out of government control.

“I think that panicked them and when your father made his move,” The old man reached into his jacket and pulled out and held up an email from Alan Bradley. “They knew they had limited time to act. They planned on destroying the building and all that I created, but your father got there first and activated the laser.

“So although I don’t know exactly what their interest is, not that I couldn’t guess, I can guess why they acted so quickly.”

Walter handed over the printed email. Manny recognized the from address as Alan Bradley’s. It was an email explaining what they were about to do and that if anything went wrong, could he please look after Manny while they sorted it out. There was a small picture file attached of Manny. It looked like it had been taken that morning before Jet arrived.

“Of course, Echelon monitors all of this communications, so it’s not surprising they acted. Your father and Alan were wise to send this email at the last minute, so they would have less time to act. Perhaps if it were a lesser issue, they would have acted slowly enough that your surgery may have succeeded.”

Manny looked up at that mention. “Is my sister going to survive?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I really don’t.” Walter said.

The man who had found Manny lowered a small blanket onto Manny and put a pillow down beside him.

“That’s OK, I’m not tired,” said Manny.

“You’ve been up all night I believe,” said Walter. “You can’t run on empty forever. Have something to eat and a rest, and tell me what happened.”

Manny related the events of the evening as Walter Gibbs and the other man listed on. His story ended with his getting to the airport to leave. He left out the details of the relative of Alan’s who had helped him, but Walter immediately guessed and mentioned the name in any event.

Once he completed it, Walter rubbed his chin.

“I’ll make some calls and see what I can do. Meanwhile, we’ll need to find you somewhere to stay for a while and we’ll speak to the French embassy. They’ll need to know what’s going on and may be able to help your further.”

“What do you think they want with the technology?” Manny asked, his voice slurring now.

“I’m guessing it has to do with teleportation,” said Walter. “It was one of the original planned technologies, but after Lora Bradley’s accident, I didn’t think they would get it working.”

Manny nodded his head. It felt hollow and cold. It also started to look dark. The blanket was warm and the pillow soft.

Jet dropped to the control section of the current sphere and moved his hands over the console. Each console he felt was slightly different as if each new node brought online had it’s own requirements that led to the varied structure of this system.

This was old technology- handwritten code, not compiled from a high level language. This was the original basecode of the system. The bedrock, so to speak, of the sectors of this world.

“Do you know what to expect this time?” Mercury asked.

Jet looked up at her annoyed, then realized she was only asking an obvious question.

Seven spheres had been reconfigured at the moment and there were seven more after this one. The first one had caught them completely unaware, but subsequent ones had turned out no less difficult. The most recent had many of the archival modules blow themselves directly out of the side of the structure leaving Mercury and Jet almost no way to escape before it dropped to a lower level.

Jet had been fortunate that Mercury was with him that time. There was no way he would have otherwise made it to the portal.

Of course, it wasn’t definite that being inside or on the sphere when it completed it’s positional drop would be fatal, but Mercury was wary of it and Jet decided not to question that.

“Each system behaves differently, Merc. I can’t predict how the code will execute once I trigger the change.”

Mercury nodded and a now familiar program rezzed in behind her.

“I thought users could read code,” said the old man.

“I don’t have time to read the code, Checkcharge. I need to gain access to the power buffers themselves so I can adjust the response to individual batteries.”

“If the user’s intended for this system to behave differently, then why do you question it?” the old program asked.

“Because I’m a user, and being a pain in the arse is my right, dammit,” said Jet, feeling himself getting a little short on temper with the old program.

Mercury raised an eyebrow at Jet. “Is there not a better way to do this than triggering the power failure of the second power system?”

Jet stopped for a moment and reconsidered. “I don’t think there is, Merc,” he said calming down.

“The users who designed this system really didn’t expect it to have to fail like this so they didn’t make a soft failover. I’m guessing I’m triggering relays in the real world as I do this. Or SSRs or something similar.”

Jet paused a moment, feeling his thoughts churning as he cleared the frustration from his mind. “Perhaps there is a better way though.”

Mercury raised the other brow this time.

“You could take the time to think it through. You would do a lot less damage to my system if you did so,” said the old program.

“Time’s something we’re short on, pops,” said Jet. “The batteries are already on the verge of failing, and we’re trying to give ourselves as long as we can. Some of the cells are going to fail before others and I need to do what I can to stave off the ultimate failure before that happens.”

“How do you intend to shut this sphere down?” Mercury asked.

Jet pulled his hand back from the panel.

“Like that,” he said.

“Like what?” “How do you intend to shut this sphere down?” Mercury asked.

Jet pulled his hand back from the panel.

“Like that,” he said.

“Like what?” Mercury asked.

“Time to leave now,” said Jet. “I just realized I can reprogram a delay into the code. It’s recompiling presently, and should be finished within a cycle or two. Let’s leave before this sphere comes crashing down too.”

Checkcharge rezzed out at that point. “Or less than a cycle,” she said, taking the old program’s disappearance as a harbinger.

Jet leapt to a cube and started to make his way from cube to cube on his way out. In this sphere, the cubes were static, but there was sufficient density of placement to allow him to climb out the top, by leaping from cube to cube.

Making his way out of the exit hole, Jet looked back to see the cubes falling down inside the sphere and derezzing as they struck the floor, blowing out of existence like bubbles of soap falling to the ground.

“Glad I tried that,” Jet said as the sphere now began it’s plummet t join the others barely hovering above the sector floor.

Mercury looked down past him, then back to the portal before walking over to it, even as the sphere dropped. Jet ran to it, coming through and landing on his feet this time.

“How we going Jade?” Jet asked.

“Kernel reports drops in power usage across all sectors, with no loss of critical infrastructure. Some system components have gone offline, however these are not significantly impeding archival processes.” Jade said, whipping up a console and checking it.

“And the evacuation?” Jet asked.

“Archival level at eighteen percent.” Said Jade.

“And we’re nearly to five percent battery right?” Jet said.

“A threshold we should have already passed, however system load reduction has improved battery performance.”

“Then we’re doing well,” Jet said.

“You are doing well, my user. Without you, this system would be without hope. The programs already speak of your deeds.”

Jet looked over at Mercury. “Really?” he asked.

“Jet, we have seven more to go.” Mercury said. “Are you sure there is sufficient time to complete this work?”

“He’s doing what he’s doing for the system,” Jade said. Crypto and Section both made sounds of approval.

Mercury turned away, walking towards the portal, in a way that made Jet wonder what point she was trying to make.

“Time to go, Jet,” Mercury said, then stepped into the portal as soon as Jade multiplexed destinations.

“Sometimes I don’t understand that girl,” said Jet. Walking in after her.

Each sound that he heard seemed to pound inside his head as if it was amplified. With some effort, Flynn had been able to lever himself off his trapped arm and now it stung with a vicious sensation of pins and needles that seemed to be amplified also.

He could open his eyes with effort, but the light in his holding cell burned brightly whenever he did and destroyed his ability to think.

Flynn wondered where his friends were, what they were doing. He had gone along with Alan’s plan originally, because more than being something to do, it was worthwhile and there was no one better at understanding the ins and out of Encom.

However his role had become somewhat superfluous as events brought Alan his own opportunities to access the vacated building now and had Jet not shown up that night asking for help, he may not have gotten involved in this plan.

Still, he couldn’t imagine that he would have wanted to miss this even if he had known fully what they were up against, although in hindsight, he might have changed his plans slightly.

He remembered back. When was the last time he felt this way?

Disorientation, someone banging in his head with what felt like mental jackhammers. It was a long time ago. A different place too if he remembered.

The forgotten sensations of the digital world were far behind him now, but trouble seemed to follow him just as closely as it ever had.

Still, some didn’t deserve to be here. Alison was the most innocent. The look of terror on her face alone would have been enough to make Flynn convince Alan to call it off. Gurimin had wanted to save one daughter and in the process had lost his other son and daughter to the events around him.

On top of that, the daughter he tried to save was going to die anyway, trapped deep within the circuits of the building that was shortly about to be demolished.

Right now, at this point in time, Flynn wasn’t so sure there would be anything worthwhile to come from their efforts.

But even now, he couldn’t dispute that what they had attempted to do was worthwhile, regardless of the risk when they started.

The feeling of jackhammers grew more painful for a moment, then resolved itself into a steady thump-thump with even spacing. It took a while for Flynn to realize that it was the sound of footsteps outside the cell.

“No Sitters,” said the man who had spoken to Flynn earlier. It was surprising to Flynn how clear it was to hear them speak, almost as if they were sitting behind him.

“Just making sure he’s OK.” Came a female voice Flynn almost recognized. It was one he had heard before, but he couldn’t remember where. Each time he tried to remember something, the thoughts were chased away by the pain.

“He’s fine. Don’t need anything. You need to leave.” Said the guard.

There was a sound again like hammers on tile, then a sound like stressed metal.

“Don’t worry Flynn, we’ll catch up soon enough.” Came the female voice, then the sound of hammers on tiles continued until Flynn’s world went dark once more.

Jet hovered his hand over the last console. Fifteen consoles had been located in fifteen huge spheres around the UPS controls that adjusted how the power coming in was regulated.

The act of opening up the access to the controls had been bypassed to some extent by activating old code, causing a revision to a clean/dirty power arrangement. So far, Jet had managed to remove power from unnecessary peripherals throughout the system.

After this final change, the only peripheral systems still active would be in Sector one and two, the ones presently being used for the evacuation.

Since the out of band connection was critical to the escape, Jet couldn’t be sure how it was wired up. Optical switches might have been plugged into dirty power to avoid detection by UPS logs. Pulling the power to them might cause an irrecoverable failure of their only escape route.

But it had been worth the effort. Dropping the additional drain on the batteries had increase there voltage enough that they were now at six percent, the algorithm that followed the charge thinking that power was returning as the battery voltage went up under load.

However time and failing batteries, along with the system being at it’s lowest point meant that any changes now would have little effect.

Jet’s last change was to attempt to isolate failed cells from the system so that the entire UPS would not shut down to save the batteries.

It was the best that Jet could do to save this system.

It was the only thing he could do to give Mercury more time, which is what Alchemist needed to complete the error correction of Melanie with Ma3a so she could leave the system.

And if Simon betrayed him, or if they didn’t complete it, then perhaps it was the last time he would spend with her also.

“We’re holding above the five percent threshold,” said Mercury. “You can still leave now you know.”

“Don’t you care about this system, Mercury?” Jet asked.

“Not as much as I care about you,” Mercury said back.

The comment stopped Jet in his tracks, unable to throw the final switch.

“If you don’t make it out of here, then saving the programs of this system will have been worthless.” Mercury said.

“Mercury, you’re a program in this system,” Jet countered.

“And I would rather derez a thousand times than see you trapped here,” said Mercury.

“And if you derez, I have no reason to continue living,” said Jet.

“You are a user, Jet. Your kind created this world, but you have a world to go to. You haven’t told anyone what’s waiting for them at the end of the line, because you don’t know. I’ve seen you avoid the questions. You placed your trust in your enemy. What do you believe exists for us programs?” Mercury asked.

“A chance to continue,” said Jet, his hand still paused above the console.

“But if you can’t continue, then I have no reason to keep on processing. If I can’t continue, you can still live in your world – for many cycles to come.” Mercury said quietly, as her hand found Jet’s.

“You’re worried about me?” Jet suddenly realized. “After all this time, you’re worried about me handling myself?”

“You could have left with my user,” said Mercury.

Jet considered carefully what she was saying. He was ill equipped for conversations with the girls from his own world, let alone this digital star of the light cycle arena, loved by so many.

“Yes, but you could not.”

“At least I would have known you were safe,” said Mercury.

“But I couldn’t leave not knowing if you were. I left once before. I made a promise that I would protect you, even if it costs me, or this system, everything.” Jet said.

“Can a simple program be so important? You have recompiled me before. You could compile me once more.” Mercury said.

“But not your memories. Not everything that makes you you. I can’t replace that. I won’t.” Jet insisted.

“Then a time may yet come when you have to choose.” Mercury said.

“Then at that time, I’ll choose and I’ll always choose you. Do you understand that?” Jet said.

“I understand that,” said Mercury nodding. “I think you have a switch to trip.”

Jet smiled, hoping Mercury understood the true depth of his love for her then began to feed in the mental energy needed to change the bit’s logical state, which with the added delay code Jet added, would fully trigger the collapse of the former dirty power rail and hopefully open access to the power buffers.

Mercury leapt onto a data archive that was slowly moving in a space around some invisible point. The cubes in this sphere were all like that – seemingly drifting lazily, but never getting far from a point as they defined some locus around it, governed no doubt by an equation Jet didn’t have time to figure out at the moment.

Moving from cube to cube here was fairly easy however an Jet and Mercury both made it to the top with ease and climbed out of the last orbiting sphere.

“I wonder if we’ve passed the five percent threshold?” Jet asked.

“I doubt it,” said Mercury as she walked to the transfer portal. “We possibly would have noticed something.”

Jet reached her before she stepped in. She stepped aside briefly, then Jet stepped back.

“Ladies first,” he said. Mercury smiled lightly then moved through the portal. Jet followed immediately after.

“Thankyou, My user,” said Jade as Jet stepped through. “System load is reduced significantly. We can evacuate far more programs at present, with current estimates at eighty percent now the Kernel has a pipeline established.”

“Pipeline?” Jet asked. “How do you know?”

“We have system access in Sector two now, my user. I have received the logs from the buffer. The Kernel also sends thanks and recommends that we do no wait around here too long.”

Jet looked up as the final sphere lost one of it’s beams – the red one – and then dropped rapidly towards the ground level.

“We still need to remove the failsafes on the batteries. If one of the cells dies at the moment, they all go down. Not a good situation for us.”

Checkcharge chose that point to rez in at the ground level. Jade’s eyes went wide at the sight of the program and all three system applications now stepped back into a defensive stance. Mercury raised an eyebrow.

“Jet, get away from him – he’s,” Jade started.

“An interrupt driven routine, yes. He’s a bios call, but he did provide some assistance in the spheres.” Jet finished, then added. “I don’t think he’s hostile.”

Jade looked to Jet, moved around the newly rezzed in program to put herself between it and Jet, then stepped back towards Jet slightly, lowering her weapons a little.

“State your application, program,” said Jade.

“UPS Management Services,” said Checkcharge.

Jade looked to Jet. “He’s helping you?”

“Sort of,” said Jet.

“I thought you might be interested in some information I can return to you,” said Checkcharge.

Jet nodded, then waited. After a moment, Mercury stepped forward and addressed the program.

“Please return value,” said Mercury.

Jet shook his head. Checkcharge was a BIOS routine. He only returned information when polled.

“Threshold has reached five percent of charge. System halt instruction authorized.” Said Checkcharge.

“What does that mean?” Jade asked.

“Instruction to enter sleep mode was issued at ten percent threshold. Instruction to hold is issued at five. All programs in non-compliance to be issued with kill minus nine.” Checkcharge said.

“And who’s going to issue that command program,” challenged Jade. “The Kernel won’t accept your request.”

At that point, resolution fields began popping up all around the field at the base of the cavity, as new programs rezzed in.

“System halt instruction issued. Program termination applications have been released.” Checkcharge said.

Around them, new digital warriors started to rez in, the closest as near as a hundred metres and spread evenly about every twice that in what looked to be a triangular matrix.

“You issued the instruction?” Mercury asked.

Checkcharge looked at Mercury as if both disappointed and hurt.

“No, my old friend, I did not. I am merely letting you know. The BIOS himself is issuing the command.” Checkcharge said.

“The Bios? Himself?” asked Jade, fear crossing her face.

Jet was worried. Jade was system – under the direct authority of the Kernel. If something worried her, then it was very bad.

“The BIOS? The one who is but one step beneath the users? The one who controls the core of this world?” Crypto asked, quietly, almost in a trembling way.

“That is the one,” said Checkcharge. “Mercury. You need to leave now.:

The old program looked at Mercury with an imploring face. “I cannot interfere in this – you must leave.”

Mercury stepped beside Jet and spoke directly into his ear.

“Jet, you need to leave this place now, while you still can.”

Jet looked back at her. “How bad can this be?”

The nearest warrior on the field, which was rapidly lighting up with the symbology of the game grid, took a step closer to the group and flared with energy.

As it lit up, Get saw what appeared to look like a bright green color take over it, until it resembled a green ICP. It removed a disk from it’s back and threw it with incredible accuracy at Jade.

Jet seeing that Jade still hadn’t recovered stepped into the way of the throw and blocked the shot, the impact driving up into his arms and throwing him back onto Jade, the both of them collapsing to the floor.

“Damn, they hit hard,” said Jet. Crypto and Section were bringing out their own disks, as if preparing to deflect each shot, but spinning constantly as if not knowing which direction the next shot would come from.

Jet rolled forward to his feet as the new opponent caught his returning disk. Jet wound his arm back and threw his own disk hard at the green attacker and drove his disk with equal force at it. Jet’s disk hit with enough force to knock the green ICPs disk back into it’s face, causing it to backflip, derezzing as it dropped.

“Whoo!,” Jet exclaimed. “Strong, but not enough to beat a user.”

Then as Jet watched, a resolution field appeared in the same spot as the original and the menacing warrior rezzed back in.

“Unlimited respawns? That doesn’t seem fair,” said Jet.

“Jade grabbed Jet’s hand and pulled him over, the both of them tripping, Jet falling on top of Jade just as a disc moved through the place Jet had been standing.

Jet struggled to get back to his feet as Crypto and Section closed ranks with them to protect Jade, and possibly Jet as well.

“Jet, BIOS are read-only. We can’t stop them – they have direct system core access. We need to escape.”

Jet turned around to see Mercury deflect a disk with her rod primitive, presently broken into two pieces to use as batons.

Just past her, he saw the portal open up in the central sphere that had lost a lot of it’s glow now that the red energy had gone form it.

Blue lines now snaked up in almost a straight path from the spheres barely above the ground, although still huge, and the central hub which was raised as if suspended now on the blue lines of power.

“Jade, can you hold them off? We still have to cut of the cell protection circuits.” Jet said, swinging to his feet and pulling Jade up by the hand she still held.

“My user, we cannot defeat BIOS. We need to run,” Jade said, stumbling a little as Crypto was forced back into her by the force of a deflected blow.

Jet looked at the local portal. “Jade, redirect the portal to the central UPS controls now.” Jet said.

“But my user,” said Jade, ready to plead with him now.

“This is a user command, program. Initiate portal change sequence now,” Jet now yelled forcefully.

Jade was at heart a soldier, and knew how to obey an order. The Kernel held respect amongst the programs, but more importantly, he held authority and knew how to command.

This world was not a democracy. It was more like a military government and programs knew how to follow orders.

“My User,” said Jade, coming almost to attention, then she ran to the portal controls and started to reprogram them. Crypto and Section moved in to protect their new boss and Mercury covered Jet’s back, flicking her batons out to block the disks that were now coming in, in even greater numbers.

As the portal realigned, Jet grabbed Jade roughly by the waist and pulled her out of the way as a barrage of three disks moved past her at speed. Each of them struck the portal controls, tearing large pieces of digital material from it. The final moved through it. Shattering the panel even as Jet dragged Jade back.

The portal beside them flickered.

Jet reacted by moving in an arc, still holding Jade around the waist. Levering himself against his own legs, Jet spun and hurled Jade through the still open portal, grabbed Crypto by the wrist, levered him through after her, then ducking under a disk Section was now blocking, drove his shoulder into his midsection and pushed him through.

The portal flickered again, nearly collapsed now. Jet looked around for Mercury. She wasn’t at the portal. Turning around, he saw a disk coming directly at him and brought his blocking arm up.

A flash of blue baton drove past his face and the disk was deflected, then Mercury was there, in front of him. Jet reached out for her, but she stepped back, drew in her leg and kicked Jet straight in the middle of his chest, causing sparks to fly from his chest armor.

Jet felt himself being hurled back through space, then the world around him changed and he realized he had passed through the portal as well. Jet broke his fall as he came down, then as he watched, the portal evaporated before Mercury had a chance to get through.

Jet screamed out her name and scrambled to his feet, now standing in the lower section of the central sphere. He found an angled forcewindow looking down and threw himself against it to look for Mercury.

Far below, on the field at the bottom of the cavity, stood Mercury, still batting disks aside in increasing numbers.

“Mercury, I need to help Mercury,” He called.

Jade came over to the window next to Jet. “My user, we are safe here temporarily” she said.

Jet looked at her, searching her face for some sign that she knew what the problem was.

“She’s still down there, Jade, I have to save her.”

“If you want to get down there, you need to reactivate the portal,” said Jade.

“From this end” she then added.

“How? How do I do that?” Jet Yelled.

“I do not have any data on system BIOS calls,” said Jade. “Only the Kernel knows.”

“Then you can ask him, right?” Jet grabbed Jade by the shoulder.

“My user,” started Jade.

“Just do it, Jade, Now, I need to know how to get back down there.” Jet called.

“I cannot contact the Kernel from within here. The portal was inband traffic to this location as well. The BIOS routines have shut that down.”

Jet looked at her, then back at Mercury. Mercury had rezzed in her lightcycle. She looked as if she was about to make a run for the surface.

“Then who knows how to reopen the portal?” Jet yelled.

“Only the users,” said Jade quietly, looking away from Jet.

Jet pulled himself back.

“Sir, I believe she just said that you’ll need to help yourself,” said Section, who when Jet looked was being helped up by Crypto, looking almost a little winded.

Jet felt his self control slowly coming back. He glanced down and saw Mercury had now connected her own rod primitives and had moved out on her system lightcycle, beginning to swing them like a staff.

Section grunted and rubbed his chest as he came to a standing position. “Thankyou sir. I never considered entering the portal to quickly move to safety. The main centre here can sustain more than two programs accessing it at once.”

Something that Section had said set off a thought firing in Jet’s head, but his first concern at the moment was to get back to Mercury.

His actions from here it would seem were pretty straightforward though. Find the portal controls and find the battery cell controller and shut down it’s failsafes so that the batteries would continue to run until the UPS could no longer get enough power to support operations and fail completely.

A green flash was followed by a blue program rezzing in. Each of Jet’s party immediately retrieved their disks and prepared to continue their fight.

Then the figure of Checkcharge stepped forward.

“Your coprogram is in danger,” said the old program as it materialized in.

Jet put his hand over Jade’s throwing arm, forcing her disc down.

“How do I get back down to her?” Jet asked.

Checkcharge looked at Jet, then a sad look came across her face.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t reveal that.” Checkcharge said.

Jet stepped over to the old program. “What is your background with Mercury?”

Checkcharge rezzed in a cube primitive behind him as he sat down.

“She came here when she was avoiding the Kernel. A unique program to go against her own instructions for her desire to serve the use…” Checkcharge’s voice trailed off. “You I believe”

“There are so few areas that the Kernel’s influence extends. During the user wars, Mercury and Ma3a went different ways. Mercury believed that the user she had chosen would return one day.”

Jet felt the words biting into him as Checkcharge spoke. He had lost her once again, at the moment.

“So few programs communication with the system calls anymore, what with the Kernel’s API, it’s something of a lost art, but Mercury seems to have the right code. I, she’s, Mercury is like a daughter to me, and her accessing system functions gave me new life.

“Then her user came here and set me free. Not a user like you – no. You’re program, code and routine like the rest of us, but her user was like a force that moved with Mercury at times and upgraded those around her.

“There was little time to discuss when you were destroying the update code in the sector distribution balance drivers, but she was happy to find her user. I’m glad she had found you, but the lower level system routines, they will destroy her. Is there anything you can do to help her?”

Jet crouched until he looked the old man in the eye.

“What are those programs, Checkcharge?” Jet asked.

“Watchdog routines. Programmed in hardware. They can respawn every cycle and will shut down any errant instructions. When the signal comes from the UPS, they shut down all applications and programs with extreme prejudice. As the last code executes in this system, it will be them.”

Jet realized now what he was up against. Watchdogs were hardware based routines that operated outside of the normal system constraints. The EN511 watchdogs would be directly attached to the spinlock to kill any code that executed incorrectly.

In the case of the quantum system, code execution could always go unexpectedly wrong. Shielding would only go so far – programs could still go wrong. Master User Thorne was a good example of that, although enough remained to maintain execution and reset the hardware watchdog routine. By his own will alone, he must have been resetting the watchdog circuit.

Jet too could reset them forcefully with his disk, as could the programs now they were activated, but they would ultimately wear the programs down and they would perish.

Jet had not eliminated Thorne from the system. Jet had only worn him down until he was completely defenseless. Unable to continue resetting the watchdog, it too had finally taken his code down.

The Kernel would normally send the appropriate signals to the watchdogs to maintain code execution, however there was an additional control coming from the UPS. While the UPS remained, the watchdogs would continue to respawn and no amount of will would keep them from taking the system.

“I understand old code,” said Jet. “Why can you not tell me of the UPS systems?”

“Because I don’t have the poll code to do that,” said Checkcharge. “My user saw no reason to incorporate it. A security risk it would have been, so it was eliminated.”

Jet placed his hand on the old program’s shoulder.

“Checkcharge, may I borrow your permissions?” Jet asked.

“Access my hardware calls directly? Can you do that?” Checkcharge said.

“With your permission,” Jet answered.

Checkcharge smiled. “Then access as you will, for your coprogram needs you.”

Jet dived into the old program’s codebase. At first, it was intricate and detailed, like microprint across a simplistic diagram, then Jet realized that Checkcharge’s code was all hardware interface routines. Checkcharge knew how the battery system worked and how the UPS was activated.

There was even the code for activating the watchdog failsafe.

And all was housed in this central sphere.

Jet returned to the digital world and lifted his hand.

“Thankyou, old code. That’s what I need.” Jet said.

Checkcharge smiled, and rezzed out.

“I don’t like the way he does that,” said Crypto. “Programs shouldn’t be able to jump in and out of this world like that.”

“He’s kind of like an angel to this world isn’t he?” Jet said.

“Angel?” Jade questioned.

“No time to explain, Jade. Crypto – there are thirty nine locks in this facility. Each controls a bank of cells. Current charge should be five percent, or just below.

“As some approach zero, they’ll cause a cascade effect that will cause them to go offline and the UPS will go into battery protection mode.

“We need to make sure that the UPS can’t read their failures and simply runs them into the ground.”

Jet waited for a response. Section turned to Jade. “Did you understand what he was asking, Ma’am?”

Jade gave Jet a questioning look.

“Look for switches in this area – forty of them. They control the relays from the batteries. Break the switch with your disks. When all forty are broken, then we look for a portal control to reactivate the outgoing link. Do you know what that looks like?”

Jade nodded, then turned to her two charges.

“You heard the user, now move,” she said, then walked over and grabbed Jet’s wrist before he too moved off as Section and Crypto just had.

“Jade?” asked Jet at her pause.

Jade held up her hand, turned it over palm-upwards and opened it. A bit generated in the base of her palm and rose, expanding as it did, until it was next to Jet. Three more expanded, two shooting off after Crypto and Section.

“We lack common memory in this area. This bit will let you communicate.” She said.

“Thanks, Jade,” said Jet and ran off towards a ramp.

Mercury ducked behind the column and pressed her back into it. Jet had made it through the portal and was now safely in the control section of the UPS.

Mercury had dived in after him, but the portal had failed as she moved over the threshold and she had missed her transfer.

With so many of these BIOS programs running, she was unable to defend herself, so she rezzed in her lightcycle and ran. Several of the program killers got in the way, but she was able to shut them down with her staff and escape to a more complex section of the underground cavern.

This area she knew to some extent. During her exile, Mercury had hidden here for some time. Checkcharge has been difficult to communicate with for some time, keeping her from descending too far, however then her user had started to upgrade her and she had been able to call on the system routing to provide her some cycles outside of the Kernel’s control.

He had shown her many of the wilder sections of the undersector here while she had stayed.

Now she had returned unexpectedly and stood ankle-deep in an energy pool while the program killers searched for her.

A hand appeared on her shoulder but Mercury didn’t flinch, nor look to see whose hand it was. She already knew.

“Is Jet safe?” she asked.

“The user? He is safe for the moment,” said Checkcharge.

“Can you assist him?” Mercury asked.

“I believe I already have,” said Checkcharge. “You should make it to the surface. Most of the watchdogs aren’t present there – the concentrate where there are programs, which presently is here.”

“I can’t leave without Jet,” said mercury quietly. “Until he has returned, I must wait.”

“You will not leave without him?” Checkcharge asked, then derezzed before Mercury could answer.

There was a sharp sound around the corner and Mercury stepped out, expecting an attack. She wasn’t disappointed. A program killer stepped forward and threw it’s disk at her without hesitation.

Mercury blocked it with her staff and stepped forward and drove the staff into the killer’s chest, derezzing it. Several others further away noticed and starting moving in her direction.

She turned and ran, needing to put some space between here and her next hiding place.

Even if the others hadn’t seen her, the one that Mercury just reset would remain state-aware when it rerezzed.

These killing machines seemed unstoppable.

Another Finder exploded as Jet’s disk returned through it after tripping another switch, it’s damage field expanding to knock some of Jet’s armor away.

Catching the disk as it returned, Jet looked around for the bit that had hidden as soon as the finder opened fire.

“How are the others going,” Jet asked.

“No,” came the response, the but shaping itself to the answer.

“Are there more locks to reset?” Jet asked.

“Yes,” came the response.

“More than ten?” Jet asked.

“No,”

“More than five?” Jet asked again, surprised.

“No,”

“More than four?” Jet asked.

“Yes,”

“Five more bits to reset then,” said Jet.

“No,” said the bit, taking his answer to be a challenge.

“So one of the others reset a lockbit while we were talking?” Jet said, working his way back to the central ramps.

“Yes,” said the Bit.

Jet had found no Watchdogs in this area, but there had been Finders. Lots of them. The Finders had been scattered well throughout the UPS, possibly to ensure that no strange code was executing.

It didn’t get much stranger than Jet.

Except for the solid battle the finders put up, Jet had been able to work his way through the lockbits fairly quickly. The others, working independently, had also done so, reducing the load to around ten each.

Jade had located the entrance to the portal controls earlier also, but reported, through a byte she had sent out, that there was a forcewall in the way. It seemed that it would not open until all of the lockbits were tripped.

The first lockbit Jet found had been tripped just in time. With less than once percent in the cell, Jet’s fears were confirmed the moment he found it. If they hadn’t taken this course of action, the system might very well end at this point in time as the UPS cut the last of the power.

Two others had been at Three percent also, but would continue to provide power.

Of course, as the batteries dropped below a critical point, they would cease providing power and those banks of cells would disappear from the group, causing higher drain on already failing cells ready to drop off, so the final end would come along quicker and quicker as it approached.

Jet had just made the ramp when a bolt from a Finder drove into his back, knocking him forward.

Spinning with the impact, Jet threw his disk out once more, it’s spinning edge driving into the Finder and blowing it’s primitives all over the ground.

“Bit, can you lead me to Jade? We’ve reset all the lockbits in this area. These cells aren’t going to take out this world anytime soon.”

“Yes,” came the reply and the bit began to descend the ramp.

Jet chased it, running down the ramp after it, past floors he had already cleared.

Once Jet got into this section it made sense. Four sections that each housed ten lockbits. Jet wasn’t sure how many battery cabinets existed in the machine room near the laser, but he guessed there were about forty of them, or some number that factored forty if there were more than two to a cabinet.

The Bit moved towards a red shield that Jet guessed might be the portal control entrance and darted down a corridor, similar to the ones Jet had gone through but with turns in a different order. Keeping an eye out for Finders at each turn, although the Bit was a good early warning indicator, leaving at the first sign of trouble.

Another bit appearing let Jet know one of his friends were nearby.

Rounding the next corner Jet found Jade holding Crypto over her shoulder.

“You need to leave me behind Boss. I’ll just slow your cycles. You’ve seen the readings. Not much time left for this world.” Crypto was saying to her as he got closed.

“Cease that transmission, now, conscript. System doesn’t leave any program behind.” Jade shot back, although she saw Jet as she saw it and the relief on her fact told Jet she was happy to see him.

Jet moved under her shoulder and caught Crypto as she passed him over.

“Hold this program while I complete the last few switches to the lockbits,” said Jade, then she disappeared around a corner almost as quickly as she said it.

Crypto grunted and Jet felt his weight move onto his shoulders.

“Guess I’m not cut out to be system eh?” said the former conscript. “And I’m not a conscript any longer. At least if I derezz, I’m going to derezz as system. I bet the programs back in debugging never would have thought I might make system one day.”

Crypto coughed and Jet struggled to hold him.

“Easy on there, you can tell then yourself at a reunion.” Jet said.

“Go back to debugging? Is that a user concept?” Crypto asked.

“Kind of. Some users keep on learning though. Anyway what happened to you?” Jet asked.

“Finder,” coughed out Crypto. “Two of them, didn’t see the second. Guess I’m a little low on armor.”

“I know what you mean. I took a couple of shots myself.” Jet said. “How many did you take?”

“Fifteen,” said Crypto. “I kept on trying to take out the one that was engaging me, but in the end I ended up taking shots from both before I took them down.”

“Hey, now that’s some war tale to tell the child processes someday.” Jet said.

Crypto smiled, revealing a lot of leaking energy fluid around his mouth.

“You think I might make it out of here, sir?” he asked.

“If you don’t, then neither do the rest of us,” Jet said.

“I wouldn’t like that sir, to think I slowed the rest of us down.” Crypto said.

The sound of some diskplay came back, followed by some changes of light from around the corner.

“We all slow each other down, but we all help each other. Keeps us alive. Keeps us processing.” Said Jet.

“Jet, I mean Sir, if I don’t make it out of here, can you put in a good word with my user?” Crypto said as he stumbled, dragging both Jet and Crypto into a wall.

“You worried about program hell?” Jet asked.

“Hell?”

“The place where bad programs go,” said Jet. “What do you programs believe happens?”

“Well,” said Crypto, distracted. “I think that if we process well for our users, we live on as a part of them. If our users are displeased, I think we just simple cease.”

Jet smiled. “That might not be far off what happens. Look Jet, I can’t promise I can speak to your user, but I’ll tell you what. If you don’t make it out of here, you can tell your user to come speak to me and I’ll speak for you.”

Crypto smiled. “That sounds like null-comments, Sir, and I’m not finished processing yet.”

“Glad to hear it Crypto, glad to hear it.”

Jade came back from the corridor clutching her arm. “Those,” she panted.

“Those finders were difficult to reboot. Too many obstacles.” She added, then took her hand away from her arm.

Jet noted a large glow emanating from it.

“You’re hurt also,” Jet said.

“Not as good as mine,” said Crypto, then Jet realized he too was bleeding digital energy.

“This a bitching competition?” came Section’s voice. “Thought I debugged you raw recruits of that back when you got reassigned to system duties?”

“Just a scratch Sir, but I think the General might need a break.” Crypto said defensively.

Jade smiled. “I think we can access the portal now.”

Jade got her good shoulder under Crypto’s other arm and lifted him, eliciting a grunt.

The two of them levered Crypto back to the area where the closed barrier had been, roughly in the middle of the sphere. The forcewall was gone now and Jet was able to move into the room. Once all four of them were there, Section moved to the wall and hit a button. The floor dropped a touch then started to lower itself down a vertical corridor. It opened into a circular room at the bottom that appeared to be at the very bottom of the sphere and within a room at the centre of the section they had transported to when they first came up here.

To one side a small section of floor joined where the lowering floor had stopped to the wall of the room like a short path. A forcewall completed the rest of the floor like an incomplete ring.

At the end, a small transfer portal was glowing.

“That looks like the way out,” said Jet.

Jade stepped aside, Section stepping back into the space as Crypto dropped a little, catching him.

Jade walked to the portal controls, passed her hand over them, and a sound of a portal opening came through.

She was about to walk out when she looked down through the forcewall.

“Jet, we have a little problem,” she said.

Moving all of them over, Jet moved to where he could look down through the forcewall. Below, hundreds of watchdogs were milling around the newly formed portal, ready to attack. Even outside of the large massing group, there were plenty of watchdogs roaming the field.

“Are we going to have to face these all the way back to Sector one?” Jet asked.

A voice behind him made him spin, Section moving to stop Crypto from collapsing.

“They won’t regenerate now the signals from the cells has been turned off,” said Checkcharge.

Jet relaxed a little when he saw who it was. “You drop in a lot, don’t you.”

“Friends of Mercury are friends of the BIOS,” said Checkcharge. “Even your system friends.”

Then the old program pointed down through the floor.

“Mercury will need assistance.”

“Yeah, but as much as I want to rip them to shreds and get to her, we’ll need assistance if we drop in yet,” Jet said.

“Should we wait for them to disperse?” Jade asked as she moved into support Crypto. “They must have been alerted by the portal, but they may wander off if we wait.”

“The portal hasn’t been on long enough, Jade. They were there from our last battle too, and we don’t have time to wait, or else the system collapse will take care of us.” Said Jet as he looked around, but there was no sign of Mercury.

“Your friend is in the old ruins, user,” said Checkcharge. “She is safe for now. I believe she awaits your return before she can safely leave, as she does not wish to leave otherwise.”

Then Checkcharge derezzed.

Jet knelt down to the floor and placed his hand on the forcewall. “Stand back, guys,” he said, then with an effort of will, rezzed out the floor.

“A drop of that distance will derez you,” said Jade.

“Yeah, not what I’m planning,” said Jet, fishing out the remaining prankster bit.

“That won’t do much down there,” said Jade.

“Watch and learn,” said Jet as he changed the program and dropped the bit towards the waiting Watchdogs.

Mercury stepped forward and drove her staff into the watchdog. It derezzed in a different pattern and a different color resolution pattern appeared in it’s place. Mercury got ready to attack, but held back when she recognized Checkcharge.

“They are no longer respawning,” said Checkcharge.

“There are still a lot of them to take on,” Mercury said.

“Your friends are nearly here,” said Checkcharge, then he derezzed.

Mercury turned to face the field from the cavern to the side that sat within this existing cavern.

A bright light and expanding sphere of self-erasing energy was expanding within the main cavern just below the sphere that Jet was in.

It was something she recognized.

“Jet, you’re going to bring in the watchdogs,” Mercury said.

Then she stepped out of the energy pool onto solid ground and rezzed in her lightcycle.

The prankster bit was still sucking in watchdogs as Jet found his feet again. The impact had shaken the central sphere and it was still rattling. “System overrides engaged. UPS in manual mode” came a system broadcast.

“What did you do?” Jade was screaming. Section was holding Crypto by the arm, pulling him back onto the platform, half his body fallen over the edge.

“Removed the restrictions on a prankster bit,” said Jet. “Something I figured out earlier.”

“Jet, you nearly removed the lower half of this sphere. It seems you’ve activated something.”

“Yeah,” said Jet looking over the edge at the black cloud that was collapsing in a field of digital lightning. “But there are no more watchdogs directly below us now.”

Jade looked over the edge, then stepped back. “Then we need to leave now,” she said.

Jade grabbed Crypto, who was almost to his feet again, and Section and Jade dragged him into the portal.

Jet stepped in following them then immediately felt the floor move out from under him as he dropped to the bottom of a large crate he had blown in the base of the field beneath the centre sphere.

Core dumps littered the floor around them and as Jet looked back up, the portal floated what looked like three or four meters above him.

Around, Jet could see the hemispherical slice his efforts had removed from the ground level, the ground itself rough with broken primitives that had once come equally to the same level.

“That was a little more that time than I expected,” Jet said.

“I take it that was your efforts in the Datawraith tower earlier?” Jade said as she rezzed in her bike as Section held Crypto. She stepped onto it as Section helped Crypto onto the back behind Jade.

Crypto, still with it, wrapped his arms around Jade.

“Careful, conscript, because if you put those hands in an area you’re not authorized to access, you’re going to lose your I/O priviledges,” warned Section.

Jade smiled, but didn’t stop the wounded program from holding on to her. “Hang in there, Crypto. We’ll be out of here in a split-cycle.”

“The programs back home will never believe I got this close to the General,” said Crypto, managing a smile. “Can you take a cap for me?”

“Sorry, no utility,” said Section. “Hold on until we’re out of here, OK?”

Jade initiated her drive and the lightcycle surged towards the edge of the cavern and the way out.

“See you topside,” said Section, rezzing in his own cycle. He managed to get moving before Jet had finished retrieving his primitive and rezzed in his own cycle.

“Be with you as soon as I rescue Mercury,” called Jet back, then muttered to himself as he mounted his lightcycle, “Wish I knew where she was.”

Taking off after him, Jet bounced from broken section to flat as he moved up the side of the depression he had blown in this area.

Within the cratered area, as Jet moved up the wall, there were no visible watchdogs. As Jade moved over the lip however, Discs started flying overhead.

“Watch out for the remaining watchdogs,” came Jade’s warning over the intercom.

Section slipped as he came up, moving to the side as a disc passed close.

Jet was the last over the edge and onto the field, however as he came up, the Watchdogs were ready. Three disks smashed into Jet’s lightcycle at the same time, the last grazing his arm and knocking him back.

Falling, Jet watched as his lightcycle came under concentrated fire from the Watchdog’s discs and then derezzed.

“Jet,” called Section, slowing down.

“I’ve got him” came a voice Jet remembered.

Spinning, Jet saw a lightcycle bounce out of a cavern on the side of the walls of the huge cavity they were standing in.

“Mercury,” called Jet, as he pulled his disc off his elbow and prepared to defend himself.

Mercury dropped to the side of her lightcycle as she came, her rod primitive extended to staff-like proportions. Swinging it like a huge baton, she came in fast behind several watchdogs, smashing it’s deadly tip through each of them as her lightcycle gave her momentum, leaving a trail of derezzing BIOS applications in her wake.

Jet was reminded of his immediate threats as a watchdog disk made a green trail in front of his face, and started to block any that came too close.

By the time Mercury reached Jet, Jade and Section had started their climb up the spiral ramp. Not wanting to slow, Mercury came in fast, derezzed her rod and held her hand out for Jet as she approached, swinging him onto the back of the lightcycle as she sped by, removing him from the direct line of a new concentrated disk attack that would have been difficult to intercept.

“That was close,” said Jet, looking back. “Where were you?”

“Waiting in a nearby partition,” Said Mercury. “It’s time we got out of here.”

There were no watchdogs on the spiral path to the surface, but the disks were still a problem. Jet intercepted several with his own sequencer, firing disks as the incoming projectiles to head off the closer ones that looked like they might cause problems.

Fortunately, most of the disks were leaving Section and Jade alone, as neither had free hands to defend themselves.

But it did feel as though they had some space to breath now they were moving out. As they moved high enough, the disk attacks stopped and the spheres moving above the ground started to spin, their huge spheres rotating around the underground cavity, pulling the remaining watchdogs in and disintegrating them like fleas in a giant blender.

Jet could swear he felt the wind whipping against him as Mercury made the final ascent into the ceiling to move through the tunnels to the upper power regulators.

Moving out of the final ramp, Jet saw a familiar face waiting at the top. Mercury pulled over briefly even as the other three sped for the inter-sector transit terminal.

“Goodbye Mercury,” said Checkcharge.

“Come with us,” said Jet. “Escape this system before it crashes.”

“I cannot,” said Checkcharge. “I’m BIOS. My code is read-only.”

“We can shadow copy it,” suggested Jet.

Mercury put her hand over Jet’s to quiet him.

“Checkcharge can’t leave. A shadow isn’t the same person,” she said.

Checkcharge smiled.

“User, promise me something,” said the old program, looking to Jet.

“What’s that, old code,” he asked.

“Take care of Mercury. I think she may be important to you.” Said Checkcharge.

“With my life,” said Jet, honoring the old program’s wish.

Mercury seemed agitated.

“Jet, I think it’s time we left the system. You’ve done as much as you can,” Mercury said.

“Goodbye Mercury,” said Checkcharge, then began to rez out even as Mercury made her own farewell.

“Goodbye old friend,” she said as the last lines derezzed.

“Mercury,” said Jet as they sat briefly, then Mercury sped up so quickly she nearly left Jet behind.

“It’s time to go, Jet. I mean it. You’re leaving this system now.” Mercury said.

Jet decided not to argue with her.

She fully opened the throttle and pushed her lightcycle to new levels through the open corridors and circuits of Sector two.

Next: Chapter 2.40 – Packet Prioritisation.