Tron 2.41 – Information Retrieval.

As the cockpit of the alphacycle began to light up, Jet felt the chassis shift under his weight as movement as if suspended over some balancing point.

Inside, it wasn’t that different from a lightcycle, but Jet knew from the descriptions by Jade and from his own experience in the real world how badly this could go.

Last time Jet ran this routine, a stack overflow corrupted a large section of system memory and terminated programs unexpectedly.

Including a program close to Jade.

Jet eased the controls forward, but instead of moving slowly, the alphacycle shot directly from the top of the terminal towards the horizon, before beginning a slow tumble.

“Jet, don’t gain altitude. These cycles are unstable at altitude,” came Mercury’s quick warning.

The horizon shifted and Jet felt ill as the cycle pointed straight down. Jet pulled at the controls as hard as he could, but it wasn’t until he was close to the ground that they began to respond once more.

“Pointer access error,” Jet mumbled to himself. “Damn thing can’t access memory until it’s close”

The alphacycle slowed to a halt as Jet checked his controls and twisted his head to see Mercury and Jade descending down a ramp gracefully.

“Jet, perhaps you should rethink your decision. Your cycle seems to be unstable.” Mercury said.

Jet caught her tone. You mean to say I’m unstable, he thought to himself. Checking the controls once more, Jet engaged the drive and jerked forward, pulling his hand from the drive, causing a stop. The stop caused his hand to surge forward again and the process repeated twice until Jet released the controls.

“Jet, you need to let us complete this mission,” said Jade as both hers and Mercury’s sailed past.

“Not a chance,” said Jet, then grabbing the controls firmly once more, pushed a little slower and felt the cycle rocket up to speed.

Within moments, Jet was moving at lightcycle speed through the base.

“That feels more like it,” Jet said to himself as he swung the cycle from side to side, getting a feel for it.

“Are you experiencing steering difficulty,” Mercury called concerned.

“Just checking the controls and, umm, calibrating for feedback,” Jet said.

“We can’t move up to full speed until we move offbase,” Mercury said. “On base would be suicidal.”

Jet looked at the speed display. He was already moving at lightcycle speed and moving up towards super-lightcycle speed.

He pressed his memory into use attempting to determine when he last benchmarked these routines. They were considerably faster, but then he had calculated in the mass of a much large device.

This was a stripped down alphacycle.

Jet simply didn’t recall the ratio of the original render to the alpha render of the new cycles routines.

Moving in behind Mercury, Jet placed his hand down on the edge of the vehicle and felt for the code, careful not to trip into it while piloting the craft.

Instructions came flooding back to Jet and the old code triggered memories of the event several years ago.

There was a lot of Jet’s code in here and as he looked into it, he felt a strange pressure keeping him out, as if he was interfering with code he should leave alone.

“Moving out of base,” Jade called.

Jet looked up. Mercury was starting to accelerate ahead of him. Checking his SUDO, Jet saw that time was visibly moving from the blue scale now and was decrementing.

It was when Jet looked up that he realized how quickly Mercury had accelerated. She was already far ahead and looking like she might disappear along the way to the Terminus.

“Jade, we need to send Jet back. If he slows us down, we lose on all counts,” Mercury said over the open channel.

“Hey, I’m listening,” Jet called back.

“Jet, Mercury is correct. If you can’t keep up, you become a liability. I suggest that you return to the base. Mercury and I will assist the travelers at the Terminus.”

Jet felt himself getting annoyed at himself for his lack of familiarity with this new transport device.

“I’m going to be just fine. You two head on towards the Terminus and I’ll catch you both in a min- umm, a cycle OK?”

“Why is it always so hard at first when you get on an unfamiliar bike?” Jet mused to himself. He positioned his hands over the controls, relaxed himself, then gripped the alphacycle firmly.

Being careful not to jolt it, Jet eased the accelerator forward and felt the alphacycle surge smoothly beneath him this time, picking up speed. The ground began to shoot past below, but Jade and Mercury were still out in the distance.

A shudder ran through the cycle briefly as the speed indicator clicked over the thousands, causing Jet to grasp the steering tightly, but then it passed.

Jet continued pressing in on the throttle, pushing the alphacycle faster. The speed indicator moved up from five thousand to six thousand and the craft shuddered again at six thousand, almost catching Jet out once more.

“OK, so we got a bug on the BCD routine,” Jet muttered to himself. “Check that for the bugfix later.”

He was now traveling faster than the time on the super-lightcycle, covering ground over the flat wasteland of Sector one much more quickly than he dreamed possible. He had moved faster – in intersector transits, but this was the fastest he could recall moving in-sector ever.

The speed indicator ticked over. It was up to Seven thousand now, Jet waiting for the shudder. It was harder and he felt the craft skew sideways with yaw a little, but caught it this time prepared for it.

“Watch the transition speeds,” said Mercury. “They can cause loss of craft control at higher speeds.”

Looking up, Jet saw mercury disappear around a bend in the track. He continued to accelerate then held speed briefly as a series of fallen towers provided the first real obstacle.

In the tank convoy they had been just shapes to the road. At this speed, Jet found himself swinging the craft wide to keep his distance, each piece of debris flicking by in the blink of an eye.

Clearing it, Jet saw Mercury’s craft round the next obstacle. She was closer now, so Jet was catching up. That meant he was accelerating faster than them.

Two more shudders passed and approaching ten thousand on his speed indicator, Jet came around a wide curve to find Jade and Mercury not that far ahead.

“Looks like I’ve caught up,” said Jet as the ten-thousand transition shudder echoed through his cockpit.

“Good, it seems you are getting to understand the alphacycle’s handling envelope,” said Mercury. “You’re going fast enough to make the trip now. Keep it at a speed you feel comfortable dodging the obstacles at,” sad Mercury.

“So we’re not at top speed then?” Jet asked.

There was a pause in the response as Jet came in behind Mercury, overtaking her.

“They can go faster,” said Mercury.

Jet craned his head, expecting to find Mercury now languishing in his wake. Instead, she had accelerated and was sitting off his right wing.

“Yes,” came the eventual reply as Jet closed on Jade, only to find her accelerating, pre-empting his closing with her.

Her craft shuddered briefly as it cross the ten thousand barrier and Jet looked down to see he was moving at ten thousand, three hundred.

Two and a half times the speed of a super-lightcycle.

Jet moved in off her wing side as Mercury had done to him and for a moment thought he was following her, but then realized she was preempting his flight path and was actually preceding him.

It actually felt a little humiliating.

“Jade, just how fast should these cycles cruise?” Jet asked.

“Ten thousand is sufficient for our requirements,” Jade came back, but the hesitation in her words told Jet she was omitting information. Jade and Mercury were slowing down for him.

“What’s top cruise?” Jet asked directly.

“Cruise range is ten to sixteen thousand,” Mercury came back with. Jade didn’t respond.

Annoyed, Jet opened the throttle a little more and surged past Jade, lifting a little as he dived over a ramp and then under a fallen tower.

“Jet, you’re venturing off-path.” Jade said. “Bring it back in line.”

Jet returned closer to the centre of the path, ahead of the others now.

“Sooner we get there, the better,” Jet called back.

The craft shuddered at eleven thousand and then twelve thousand, each time more violently, Jet continued to accelerate through the other speed barriers until he came up just short of the sixteen thousand limit – four times to speed of a super-lightcycle.

Now it was hand’s on. The Kernel had cleared much of this path, but some debris littered the newly formatted track between the former Datawraith base and the Terminus. Jet needed to keep a look as far ahead as possible at this speed as any impact would likely result in an immediate deresolution.

Glancing back, Mercury was still there but Jade was further back now.

“Seems I’ve found your limit,” said Jet, pushing the cycle in an arc around the base of an old communications tower that lay shattered and covered with debris.

The path dipped suddenly, then came up causing Jet’s alphacycle to launch well above the path. Once it got up around ten or so metres, the craft slewed suddenly as if it lost longitudinal stablisation.

Jet felt for the controls, but nothing seemed to provide traction. After a log slide through the air, the craft came down slightly sideways and heading for what looked like a smashed tank.

“Jet, regain control of your craft,” Mercury almost screamed into the communications channel.

Jet moved his steering away from the direction he was heading, but the craft just yawed more out of line.

Unable to regain his steering at the moment, Jet found himself out of control. Instictively, from years of playing games, Jet hammered the throttle hard, feeling the vectored thrust alone push him up hard and out of the way of the debris and back onto track.

There was a thump as Jet re-aligned his craft with the direction he was heading and his steering capability came back suddenly,

“Jet, please slow down,” Mercury’s relieved voice came back.

“I thought I handled that quite well.” Jet called back, proud of his recovery, then realizing that he was slipping into a game play mentality. He had very nearly removed himself from the game entirely. He craned his head around to see Mercury once more. She was a fair distance behind him now.

“Jet,” screamed Mercury over the channel and Jet looked forward to see three small tower segment directly in front of him. He pulled hard to the left then to the right of the next one to avoid some debris and back to the left to get closer to track centre.

There was a shudder then as Jet’s cycle crossed sixteen thousand. He hadn’t realized he was still accelerating.

A huge flare of light reflected off the cockpit then and moments later, Mercury went rocketing past Jet as if she was riding a lightcycle past him as he stood still.

The blue craft shot directly in front of him and then seemed to come apart as it decelerated just as abruptly, pulling in ahead of him, skewing unexpectedly as it slowed down suddenly.

“Jet, Damn you, stay in behind me,” Mercury screamed at him over the communications channel. “I’m not going to lose you to an alphacycle accident, OK?”

“Sure thing, Merc, lead the way,” Jet called back, realizing his actions had amounted to little more than showing off as he forgot the dire circumstances of their present position.

However now, cruising at just above sixteen thousand on the dial, Mercury and Jade were no longer humoring him.

Mercury followed a path more central to the accessway the Kernel had quickly built across the sector. Her pattern for identifying objects ahead and choosing a path made it easy for Jet to follow and in doing so, gave Jet a glimpse into her own piloting and driving skills.

“How fast do these cycles go?” Jet called out over the common channel.

“Thirty two thousand,” came back Jade and Mercury said “Sixteen thousand.”

There was a pause and Mercury came back.

“Full cruise is just over sixteen thousand. They can boost beyond this, but become more and more unstable and transition shock can cause severe handling issues. It’s risky,” Mercury said back.

Jet considered how quickly she had shot past him before she decelerated. Perhaps two to three thousand faster he wondered? What was the risk.

“Don’t go above sixteen three hundred and you’re relatively safe,” came Mercury’s voice.

Jet moved in closer to her path as they moved through a gap between two shattered objects. They didn’t seem to close the first time Jet had come this way, but at this speed, the approach made it difficult.

“Why do they slide so much?” Jet asked.

“You might ask yourself that,” Mercury said back. “But do it later. We need to concentrate until we approach the Terminus.”

Jet accepted the warning and followed Jade through the pass. Aside from obstacles it was relatively clear. The first real threat came as they approached the Terminus and a green disc shot past Jet’s alphacycle at high speed.

“What was that,” called Jet over the common channel.

“Break now,” called back Mercury and she banked hard to the left, leaving Jet a view of dozens of watchdogs scattered over the large open field the Kernel had created beside the Terminus.

Several large frameworks existed here now where no doubt intrasector transports had been assembled to protect the fleeing programs as they filed out of the dying system.

There were several flashes of green and Jet realized that a number of BIOS discs had been launched in his direction. Banking to the right, away from Mercury, he pulled the cycle around hard, feeling himself pressed into the seat as the speed and arc combined to create a strong centripetal force.

“Jet, Decelerate now,” came Mercury’s voice. Looking ahead, Jet saw that he was now heading or the cliff-like edge of Sector one with only seconds between him and a grid-bug lunch, him being the lunch.

Pulling back on the throttle with as much force as he could, the cycle seemed to come apart at the seams as if each panel of the small transport had split apart to make an airbrake and halt the craft.

Thrown against the controls, Jet was pushing himself back into his seat when a number of discs cut the space ahead of him.

“They are tracking Jet,” Get going again.

Looking out the side of the craft, Jet realized he had come to a complete halt. There was a shower of sparks as a disk found it’s mark and took a small piece of armor out of the alphacycle, showering the inside of the cockpit with light briefly.

“They don’t make these things easy, do they?” Jet yelled to himself, wondering briefly as he heard himself say it If he was referring to his friends, the watchdogs or the alphacycle.

Spinning on the spot, Jet throttled up, breaking forward at a much lower speed than they had approached the Terminus area at. Moving out from the edge of the sector, Jet pushed in the direction of the terminus, flinching as a watchdog stepped out into his path before being cut in two and derezzed by the small craft.

“Watchdogs building up here,” called Jade. “Move onto the Terminus platform.”

Thin green lines passed across the space ahead of Jet as he moved towards the Terminus ramp, each line the wake of the disk that had passed before it.

A watchdog stepped out from behind some digital scaffold as Jet realigned with the ramp and prepared to throw his disk however Jet was too close to avoid him, driving the alphacycle directly through the space where he had been as the code itself dumped and derezzed on the spot.

Hitting the ramp hard, Jet drove up and onto the terminus. Sitting just beneath the main beam was a single transport, not too much larger than a recognizer.

There was a flash of green abd blue as Jade and Mercury derezzed their cycles and dropped back towards the transport, disks ready. Jet pulled his up clumsily and then followed, running to the transport before taking a look around.

Once behind some cover, Jet had time to observe the situation.

“There are no watchdogs up here,” he noted.

“Hardware interface” said Jade. “Watchdogs are BIOS. No access.”

“They have fairly simply protocols,” said Mercury. “Just enough to kill the programs they have to.,

Jet nodded, He walked up the side of the transport and located a door. Stepping up to it he banged it twice with the underside of his fist.

“Hey, programs, time to leave.” He called out.

“Have the watchdogs gone?” came an old voice that sounded familiar to Jet,

“I-no? Is that you?” Jet called back to the hull of the transport.

A seam of light appeared around the edge of the door and it simply derezzed, and old and worn program looking out from within.

“Jet?” he said cautiously.

“I-no, it is you,” said Jet, stepping forward and slapping the old program on the shoulder. “I thought you went down with the old mainframe?”

“And I had planned to, but someone dumped the core and raised us in a virtual server,” said I-no as he scratched his head.

“Virtual server huh?” asked Jet. “Didn’t now they were making stuff like that.”

“Wasn’t our users,” said I-no. “It was the Datawraiths.”

Jet stepped back a little as if execting the Datawraiths to come piling out of the old transport as the program said the words, but there were no datawraiths behind him.

“How did you get here?” Jet asked.

“Protocols reconnected to system once the power started failing. An archival transfer and we hijacked the packet transports from it, but the codes for inbound were a little old, so I don’t know if the Kernel received our messages.”

“Messages?” Jet asked.

“We sent messages,” said a voice from inside and another programs stepped forward, their head superimposed with a strange shape that appeared to Jet to resembled a vacuum tube.

“But the protocols may have been out of date, because we receive no response.” Said another program that looked almost like an old version of a movie character Jet couldn’t quite place.

“When the power was shut down to the virtual servers, the cores dumped and we escaped in one of the cores.” I-no concluded. “I didn’t want to leave, but I guess when it comes down to it, accepting transfer to cold circuits doesn’t suit me as well as I once thought it would.”

Then the old program moved to Jet’s side. “And besides, I thought I might check out that good looking codebase you came with last time,” he said quietly to Jet.

“Programs, there is no time to waste. Initiate transfer to archival storage point now,” said Jade.

“Oh,” said I-no. “We’ve been trying to.”

“You haven’t been waiting for the watchdogs to leave?” Mercury asked.

“Oh yes, but we thought this transport might protect us.” Said I-no, “But the line keeps rejecting our protocol.”

“What protocol are you using?” Jet asked.

“The standard one,” said I-no.

“Ethernet frames?” asked Jade.

“TCP?” questioned Mercury.

I-no gave a blank look. “X-modem.”

Jade gave the old operating system controller an astonished look, then turned to Jet.

“Jet, there is no time. Even if we do initiate a transfer, Xmodem would not complete within kilocycles. We must return to the base for archival.”

“Jade is correct, Jet, you need to leave at once.” Mercury confirmed.

I-no started to get a worried look on his face, but said nothing.

“Jade,” this program is a friend of mine – he helped me to retrieve the Tron legacy code – the only connection I have to my mother. I need to help him now.

“And the others,” I-no said.

“Jet, we must leave,” said Mercury.

She twisted Jet’s wrist as she did so to show him the Sudo. The marker was halfway through, and close to the red line that marked the bingo point when they needed to return.

Jet turned his head to look at the old transport. It resembled a small shuttle, a single beam access point. Through the door it appeared that there were quite a few programs inside, old operating systems from a time before the Kernel and maybe even predating the MCP.

And there was something happening that they might know about – something the in what they said about the Datawraiths that triggered a memory for Jet.

Something he needed to know about, but didn’t understand why.

I-no was a reflection of a user that Gibbs was related to who was a pioneer of early work in this system. That he was here now seemed important.

For more than just his friendship with the old program, Jet couldn’t shake the feeling he had to save these programs – all of them.

“How did X-modem get you here then?” Jet asked.

“The system has some old protocol support calls across the core for compatability,” Jade said. “That’s why it arrived so late and without warning. Only if the protocol is expected from the other end can we do anything. Otherwise the packets are dropped.” Jade explained.

Jet found a handhold and gripped it to climb on top of the old transport. Getting on top, he placed his hand on the surface of the craft. It appeared to be the correct point to start examining the code. Something had brought them across the beam to Sector one.

“Jet down,” screamed Mercury. He looked up in time to see a green disk coming straight at him. There was no where to move and no time to avoid it.

Jet was still instinctively grasping for his own disk as a blue streak came up from below and the green disk from a watchdog was deflected at the last second by Mercury’s throw.

Jet rolled to the side and dropped from the craft as a number of discs converged on the space above them.

“You can’t go up there” Mercury said, helping Jet to his feet. “The Watchdogs will shut your process down.”

Jet nodded. “Escuse me, I-no, may I come in?” he asked.

I-no moved aside.

“Jet, young program. If your friend there says you should leave, then you should listen to her. She’s system you know. You can’t go around ignoring system calls. If all programs did that, there would be quite a mess.”

Jet walked in. Inside, he saw more than twenty programs – far more than he realized were here when he was on the outside. Several were huddled together, terrified. This system itself was alien enough to them now, no doubt.

The danger they were in only made things worse.

“Program,” said I-no as Jet looked around the cramped cabin. “You should leave now program. We’ll keep on attempting to transfer X-modem. I know X-modem. It will be fine in the end.”

“No it won’t I-no. The system’s going down.”

“Then there’s nothing a program can do,” said I-no, moving to a seat on the side of the inside cabin.

“But there’s something a user can do,” Jet said, finding what he wanted. He placed his hand against the ceiling, safe from the watchdogs this time, and felt for the code.

Jet fell into it.

Inside the transport code, Jet found a series of nested protocols. X-modem over internal system calls.

The code itself was ancient – patched to the point of insanity, yet still retaining some of the original character of the original author. Well documented.

Jet found the hook. The X-modem transfer shifted the craft to a receiving port for all protocols. There another program or routine in the receiving system was required to pick up the data.

There was no such routine in Sector one.

Sector one was legacy code – that was certain. It still had the receiving hooks from the original upgrades to allow such protocols as X-modem and even Kermit to work. There was even a raw text to telnet buffer here.

But the Kernel had used a much newer protocol when he bridged the connection to the Datawraith base and there was no address resolution protocol wired into the craft.

“I think I have it,” said Jet to his digital body as he fell further in the code, then he dropped out to the digital world.

To find all the programs in the craft staring at him.

“Are you really a user?” asked one old operating system interface that seemed to have hair made of cables.

“The users have come here?” asked the one that resembled a valve.

“Of course he’s not a user, he’s a program just like us,” said I-no, then leaning into Jet, said “You didn’t tell me you were a user when I helped you last time. Are you sure you’re not just a crackpot program who thinks he’s a user since you got the Tron legacy code?”

Jet smiled.

“Tell you what, I-no, how about when we get back, we have a chat about it.”

“With that Ma3a program?” I-no asked, smiling.

“Sorry, she’s outsystem already, but you might see her again.”

I-no smiled. “Even if I don’t make it, you know how to make an old program feel better about their code that just doesn’t process error-free anymore, if you get my drift.”

Jet couldn’t help but smile.

“Just give me a minute,” Jet said, then walked outside.

“Jet, we have to leave now,” Jade said. “We have less than a decacycle before we cannot leave.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jet said to Jade. “Rez in your alphacycle.”

Jade smiled.

“I’m sorry Jet, but it’s necessary,” Mercury said as Jade rezzed in her alphacycle. Once it was complete, Jet grabbed it, feeling for it’s code as he did.

“Jet?” asked Mercury.

Mercury stepped back briefly to watch a green disc fly by. The watchdogs were attempting random shots now, with the hope of hitting something.

The disc flew by and she walked over to Jet, still waiting for an answer.

“My user, I have lost control of this craft. What is happening?” Jade asked.

“Just some quick mods,” Jet said. “The Alphacycle can’t carry more than one program, but it can create a header and it has higher protocol access. I’m just going to adjust your vehicle to provide path information to this transport.”

Jet shifted the floating alphacycle to the front of the transport and backed it into the craft, then placing one hand on both, fell back into the code and moved some routines, linking others.

As Jet opened his eyes, he looked at his handiwork as it appeared in the world around him. Digital scaffold at a small scale appeared as links formed between the two transports.

“My user, I have control again, but I’m showing something different. Speed is locked down to sixteen thousand, max drive.”

“You’re the header packet for this transport now Jade.”

Mercury came over and looked at the new code Jet had just forged.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

“Stuff rez’es into this world all the time, Mercury,” Jet said.

“Yes, but it has routine behind it. You.. you.. you just created those routines from nullspace.” Mercury said. “We believe users create our routines from Nullspace, but you’ve never done that before.”

“I’m only just starting to learn what a user is truly capable of in this world,” said Jet. “Thinking under pressure works well for me.”

“But, you’re not even an compiler and,” said Mercury starting to question what she had just seen, then realizing what was important, left this discussion for later. “We need to leave right now. We have less than a cycle to go.”

Jet smiled. “Leave now, Jade, get these programs to our evacuation point and aboard the transport before it goes down. Mercury and I will follow.”

Jet walked around to the door as Jade fired up her cycle, with a huge trailer on the back.

“I-no, you’re taking a little ride. Jade’s going to go a little faster than you’ve probably been across a network ever, so I suggest you and your passengers get yourself strapped in,” Jet called.

I-no was looking at Jet strangely.

“You really are a user.” Said I-no.

“I’m a programmer,” said Jet.

“No, you’re a user. Of the first. Of the creator of our code, A Metacompiler.” said I-no.

Jet smiled. “Probably,”

The door rezzed into place over the transport, cutting off I-no.

“Whatever that means,” said Jet.

Mercury grabbed Jet by the arm and hauled him back as the transport lifted and Jade started her trip back.

“Jet, rez in your alphacycle now.”

Jet pulled out the newly acquired primitive and rezzed back in his alphacycle.

He watched through his viewscreen as Mercury rezzed in her blue craft, then there was a blinding flash as a green disk flew into the still rezzing craft and ripped the front end out of the craft, causing it to sink back to the ground.

The cockpit itself gone, Mercury fell out of the craft and to the ground.

“Mercury,” Jet screamed, then shut down and derezzed his own craft, sprinting to her side as she rolled to her back.

“Jet, leave now,” she managed.

“Are you hurt?” Jet screamed.

“No, just leave, now, damn you.” Mercury said.

Jet looked at her shattered cycle.

“Can you fly it?” Jet asked.

Mercury looked away before she answered.

“I’ll be behind you.” She said.

Jet followed her line of vision. She was watching as the transport cleared the edge of the terminus loading ramp and several green flashes lit up on the underside, each deflected by the size of the craft. Once rezzed in, they were impervious to data corruption by such small weapons.

Then the transport was gone – the only other craft here capable of getting them both out.

Looking back at Mercury’s craft, the entire front end ripped out, Jet realized the code of it was corrupted by the impact before it fully rezzed in. A lucky shot from a watchdog.

Jet reached over and put his hand against the craft, feeling for its code. Where he expected to find a large amount of executable, there was nothing. Just nullspace.

He opened his eyes and looked down at Mercury. She had attempted to lie to him. To mislead him.

“Mercury, you can’t get this craft to function.”

Mercury looked up at him, her eyes wide with an emotion Jet couldn’t read. She wanted him to leave her here to die.

“Mercury, take my craft now,” Jet yelled at her.

“Jet, No, you can’t” Mercury screamed back, dragging herself over as she tried to get up.

Jet stood and walked a step away rezzing in his craft, then stepped back as it started to rez in, so he was outside of it as it appeared in this world.

“Jet, no, you must get out now.” Mercury said as she moved to her knees, her face wild. She was clearly still in pain from the impact of the disc to her craft.

Jet placed a hand on the front of his own craft, then walked over to Mercury’s shattered vehicle.

A tone from his Sudo sounded and Jet looked down. The pointer had reached the red line.

“No,” cried Mercury, you have to leave now.

“Not without you,” Jet said as he placed his other hand on Mercury’s cycle.

Mercury threw herself around Jet’s back and hugged him around the waist, burying the side of her face in the back of his shoulder. Jet remained standing, but kneeled to be closer to Mercury’s cycle.

Then he fell into the code.

In his mind’s eye, Jet found he could align the two codebases, identifying missing code and copying it in. If he was able to do something to save Mercury, he needed to fix her alphacycle and that meant rebuilding it.

It also meant debugging it and getting it right.

The BCD error came through. Jet paused for a moment and looked carefully. There. One byte not quite correct. A compiler error maybe? No wonder it had been so hard to fix.

Another bug shot past Jet’s mind, a signed integer on a craft that could only go in one direction. Jet fixed that also.

The memory tracking code. Built to track pixels around it on the screen. Not a bug, but limited in scope. Jet adjusted that.

So many small tweaks to make, so little time.

The code moved past Jet’s mind like a window into the past from a time when he had first written it. It felt familiar, soothing. The code almost felt like a living creature to Jet.

It was why he had become a programmer in the first place.

It took a little while, but soon the bugs were corrected, now Jet knew and understood where they were, and then the rest of the code copied clean.

When Jet opened his eyes, the last of Mercury’s alphacycle was rezzing in, but this time it looked different, as did Jet’s.

Four winglet’s had appeared on the chassis where two had been before. The nose was longer, rounded. Incomplete parts were just rezzing in now, repairing the damage the green disk had caused.

Mercury didn’t see. She was just shaking, holding on to Jet. Her arms still around his waist.

Then the resolution field ceased and Mercury’s alphacycle shifted slightly and rose from the ground, until it hovered, then both cocpit’s opened.

“Merc, time to get out of here,” Jet said.

Mercury opened her eyes and stopped shaking. She looked up at Jet, but otherwise did not move.

“We have no time left, Jet. If you’re going to derez then I want to wait here, with you, be with you now. Not separated in different alphacycles.”

“Mercury, we still have time,” Jet said, lifting his Sudo and showing Jet the line, tapping the point that reflected from its surface.

“He have less than half what we require,” Mercury said.

Jet smiled. “Plenty – I’ve made some improvements,”

Mercury looked at him, then at the alphacycles.

“You’ve changed them,” she said.

“Debugged and improved,” Jet said.

“But they aren’t fast enough,” Mercury said.

“Aren’t they? Do you feel like piloting the new, improved Betacycle?”

Mercury slowly stood.

“Can these make it? In time?” she asked.

Jet looked down at his Sudo. “It’ll be tight. I haven’t calculated for trip transit overhead, but yeah, I think we can make it.”

He looked back up and Mercury’s cockpit was starting to close, as she fired up the engine and it started to lift higher.

“Then get your ass in that seat, Jet, now.” She yelled as it closed.

Jet, now on a high from his coding, leapt forward into the craft as yet another random disk came by, this one hitting the back of Mercury’s completed craft, it being a little higher on the platform as it rose into the air.

The green disk simply skittered off, unable to penetrate the complete, operational routines.

Jet fired up his own cycle and lifted, then fed in accelerator as it rose, surging forward.

This time there were no shudders as it passed speed locations. The Betacycle moved forward as smoothly as Jade’s recognizer flights.

“Jet, something’s wrong, my speed is already up to eight thousand,” said Mercury as she cleared the end of the platform, shooting out into open space in a clean arc, dropping slowly and picking up directional control as soon as it got closer to the ground.

Jet moved to the side to avoid shots from the watchdogs as they threw their disks at the path where Mercury had been, their primitive code unable to track the fast betacycles.

Jet too moved past the ramp, shooting out into space. The craft held it’s axis well here, shooting like an arrow, directional control improving as he came down and no sliding this time.

“Time to open this right up,” Jet said coming down and banking back around to find the path out.

Mercury waited for Jet to get a little close and fall in behind her.

“Jet this feels the same as the speed we were going before.”

“What does your speedo say?” Jet asked.

“Sixteen thousand,” said Mercury.

Jet looked around as a large shattered recognizer went past with the landscape.

“Open it all the way, Merc.”

“Jet, these crash at thirty two thousand,” Mercury said.

“Let’s find out. We need to get above sixty thousand to make it back,” Jet said.

“Not possible,” said Mercury.

“Only one way to find out,” Jet said, then hit the throttle hard, feeling the betacycle surge ahead, moving past Mercury in a heartbeat.

The speedo started ticking up. Twenty eight thousand, twenty nine thousand. A quick look behind confirmed Mercury had sped up also.

“Jet, you can’t exceed thirty two thousand,” Mercury said.

Jet backed up a little at thirty two thousand. Changing a signed to an unsigned integer was a risk. Even in the outside world. The results could be unpredictable, but there was no way to just debug and rebuild now. It was time to trust his manipulation of the code.

Three towers flashed by in quick succession.

Jet opened the throttle to the limit, the small Betacycle surging forward and upwards as the tracking code cut in.

There was a quick shudder as he hit the limit and for a moment, he thought he had missed something critical, then the Betacycle jumped up to thirty three thousand.

“Then I guess something must be wrong with my speed indicator, because mine shows thirty three thousand and climbing. Watch for the shudder as you transition.”

Jet climbed up and out of the trench marked by debris and newly formatted material. Behind him, he could see Mercury doing likewise. Only the very highest points in the debris field could be seen above the level of the betacycles.

“Jet, what did you do with these?” Mercury asked. “These aren’t anything like the alphacycles.”

“How it should be, Merc.” Jet said, then glancing at the Sudo, realized they spent more time accelerating up than he expected.

“Merc, we need to straightline this. Maintain speed and move into the debris field.”

Jet moved his cycle over the edge of the formatted area and out into the debris field, littered with old shattered towers and destroyed applications from the millions of cycles of war with the Datawraiths.

There was no path to follow through the destructions, but the beam to the Datawraith system could be seen ahead and provided a reference point to maintain heading as they weaved in and out of the debris.

“I think we’re going to make it,” Mercury said.

Jet looked down at the Sudo. The pointed was almost to the end of the red now and It would be tighter than he liked. He wasn’t even sure himself that they would make it. He was starting to wonder if he had overstayed repairing the cycles when he heard a common channel communications come through – he was close to the base.

Jade was talking to the Kernel.

“Kernel, My user hasn’t returned yet, we can’t launch the carrier.”

“Jade, the ICPs report no alphacycles. There is no time left. Get those old programs onboard and as many ICPs as can make it and leave now.”

“Kernel, can’t you,” started Jade but she was interrupted.

“Syslog, you will comply, acknowledge.”

“Acknowledge,” came back Jade’s reply.

“Jade, we’re coming in,” called Jet over the common channel.

“My user, where are you?” called back Jade.

“Still out from the base,” said Jet. “Mercury and I are inbound. Not sure how long it will take.”

“Jet, we have a report of two unidentified routines consuming in excess of thirty percent of resources. Is that you?”

Jet shrugged. “Probably. We’re coming in over the debris field now.”

Jet banked to move around a large shattered circular formation, possibly an old communications tower, then came around. He could see the base up ahead.

“We have visual on the base and carrier,” said Jet.

“My user, I have confirmation. Kernel, we can’t leave Jet. Request delayed push of packet carrier.”

Somewhere in the real world, a UPS indicator dropped to zero and a UPS phase dropped out, followed by another.

Nearby another small computer, this one far too small to house programs of the sort of the others nearby ticked down to zero also.

This one didn’t take out a phase. It fired an ignitor that fed directly into a sachel of thermite on each of the beams of the Encom building structure.

Runner lines of shearcord ignited by the same detonator circuit ripped open the base of the floors and cut girders.

An explosion lifted the mainframe, causing sparks to spray from ruptured circuits.

Another indicator on the UPS flicked over to “Overload detected” as a fireball engulfed the outside of its cabinet, high pressure gas at incredible temperature buckling it’s way inwards.

Jet and Mercury crossed the threshold of the former Datawraith base as ICPs below could be seen still fighting the watchdogs to the very end, ensuring that the perimeter was maintained.

It wasn’t.

Several locations had already fallen and the watchdogs were streaming towards the out-of-band tower.

The Sudo on Jet’s wrist ticked over as the pointer crossed the end threshold of the red indicator.

“Sorry, Jade, this transport’s leaving now,” said the Kernel and the large rear panel of the huge ship started to lift as Jet and Mercury, still at incredible speed, shot across the landscape of the base.

“Kernel, no,” screamed Jade.

“We’re nearly there, just a quarter cycle longer,” yelled Jet, re-aligning his approach with the ramp.

At the top of the ramp, just out of sight to Jet, a lone red figure could be seen running back from the transport.

The ramp’s top section rezzed out.

“System cycles dropping.” Came a broadcast. “Primary processor node offline.”

The cycles started to slow.

“Dammit all, no, not now,” yelled Jet, looking back to Mercury.

She was just visible in her cockpit, glancing back at Jet. Just a small section of her face.

“Don’t give up, Jet. You’re a user. Do something.”

Jet looked ahead as another section of the ramp disappeared and the transport started to move away from the dock. A small green program was waiting at the end.

“Kernel, No,” was all Jet could hear. He assumed it was Jade.

“Dammit, Kernel, I need more time.” Jet called out.

“Secondary processor offline,” came a system call.

The red program stopped at the bottom of the ramp just as the third section derezzed.

“Jet, you better be worth this.” Came the Kernel’s voice.

“Kernel, No,” cried Jade, clearly upset. Jet assumed at the Kernel’s leaving him here.

A strange calm started to come over Jet as his last chance to leave this system moved slowly to the point where it would accelerate outsystem.

“Tertiary processors going down, low power mode not available. System deresolution immanent.” Came the final system broadcast.

Around Jet, huge deresolution fields started to establish themselves, forming randomly and moving over objects, tanks, watchdogs and even ICPs not fortunate enough to make the outgoing transport.

Jet still kept angling towards the tower then, even as the Betacycles slowed down.

Time had run out.

Jet looked back at Mercury, through the screen of her Betacycle.

Mercury realized it also. She looked back at Jet with an expression of pain and concern, although Jet was sure she wasn’t in any discomfort.

“Sorry, Merc, I failed this one.”

“In the next system,” said Mercury.

Looking past Mercury, Jet saw their final fate forming as a deresolution field rezzed into existence behind both of betacycles and started to move forward towards them.

It was huge. Larger than a recognizer, they could not outrun it nor escape it, it seemed. Even if they tried to dodge it.

The lights in the console of the betacycle started to go out. The stability wavered and the field moved in.

“In the next system,” said Jet back, then felt a kick shudder through his betacycle, and looked forward as he instinctively struggled to control it.

It began to accelerate.

“Jet?” Mercury called out.

“Merc, I’m not sure, what’s going on?,” Jet called back

The betacycle picked up speed as the deresolution field closed on it, mercury accelerating out as the field just started to derez her cycle, the real tail rezzing back in as it pulled from the field.

“User Jet, get your damn unauthorized data out of my system,” came a voice over the command channel.

At the top of the accessway to the forceramp that had disappeared that once connected this system to the last data carrier leaving before complete system shutdown, a lone red program stood, his arm pointing down and out towards Jet.

The program then moved his arm to a console next to the tip of the ramp and pulling it back once, punched it hard into the console, driving its way into the face of it.

A resolution field began to form at the top of the ramp, even as the carrier was moving away.

The betacycles were still accelerating.

Jet figured it out. Someone was trying to arc-bridge the gap between the system and the data carrier Jet needed to be on.

“Mercury, full throttle, go straight for the ramp,” Jet called out.

Mercury followed as Jet’s betacycle surged forward.

“Jet, the carrier’s out, we can’t connect,” Mercury called, even as she matched Jet’s own speed, pulling in behind him in close formation.

Sparks began to fire from the panel where the program had driven their own fist up to the wrist through it. More resolution fields appeared, taking shape in the form of a narrow ramp.

The program was surrounded by a field of lightning-like light as more and more resolution fields occurred in an world in which deresolution fields were taking everything.

Jet swerved wildly to miss a field edge-on that formed in front of his lightcycle as he pushed it harder.

The speed indicator was moving quickly now, Jet’s betacycle almost a blur on the ground, the ramp approaching rapidly.

The first panels started to appear rezzing in at the base of the ramp, where the forcewall ramp had disappeared when the carrier left.

The program, still little more than a red light at this distance, not quite recognizable as anything more than a system program buckled, his legs moving out beneath him and he swung his other hand around to his the panel once more as he collapsed to its knees.

At this range, it looked a little like Section and Jet felt a wave of worry for his friend, a program that had come through so much with him. Whoever the Kernel had sent was not going to make it outsystem.

“You have all my remaining timeslices, Jet, use them.”

Jet’s betacycle glowed suddenly and began to accelerate even harder, pushing Jet back within the compact cockpit.

“The Kernel’s sent someone to help us, Mercury, push harder,” Jet called out as his betacycle began to shake on the run up to the ramp like a digital Evil Knieval.

“Jet, you now have all remaining timeslices of system time. All interrupts are disabled.” Came the Kernel over the command channel. “Now GET OUT OF MY SYSTEM.”

“Kernel,” Jet called back over the command channel. “We’re giving it our best shot. Tell your programs to increase the ramp height.”

There was a pause, then the Kernel responded. “I’m giving it my best shot.”

Jet smiled at the humor.

“Jet, I want your word that you’ll take care of Jade for me,” the Kernel demanded.

Jet was struggling to control the betacycle now. It was moving far faster than the modifications Jet had made ever intended it to. With all the remaining cycles of the system going to Jet, the remaining ICPs left behind started to all fall to the ground.

All delays had been removed from the system. Jet was running as a tight loop now.

“Kernel, if I make it, you have my promise,” Jet called.

Beneath the betacycles, panels of digital ground started to buckle, weakened by the system failure and ripped up in the bike’s wake.

“Jet, Look,” called Mercury, as panels kept on rezzing in to the makeshift jump.

The ground around Jet now appeared like a blur as his cycle vibrated and shook, complaining as it the routines struggled to maintain the DMA speed of the engine.

Now kneeling, the program at the top of the fixed ramp lifted his head as the final link panels started to rez into place, turning what was once a long ramp into a huge jump.

The data carrier was departing now, picking up speed. As the ramp approached, Jet could see the gulf that had opened up between it and the dock of sector one.

Jet hit the base of the fixed ramp hard, blowing panels in the ground apart as the cycle compressed close to the ground, sparks showing Mercury before she blew through them with similar effect right behind Jet.

The ICP program at the control panel locked gaze with Jet then and the final panel rezzed in, then dropped out as the program collapsed, held up only by the hand inserted into the panel.

As Jet barreled up the system ramp and towards the created ramp, he got a look at the program who had saved him.

Through the blur, Jet struggled to see if it was Section who had waited for them.

Then as he passed the figure, now falling to their hands, there was no mistaking the identity. The program that had come to Jet’s rescue was much larger than Section or any of the ICPs Jet had seen in system.

It was the Kernel.

A deresolution field began to assemble around to the side of the ramp. It would destroy this one last creation of this world, but not before it had served it’s purpose.

Twice as long as the original ramp, but a fraction as wide, it formed a jump that would give Jet as much lift as it could.

Like a signal arc.

It didn’t reach the carrier, but it did provide a chance for Jet to make the distance to the last way out.

Moving past the now broken Kernel, Jet saw the program that had ruled this system rock back as he gave up the last of his own reserved cycles to boost Jet and Mercury.

The transport was starting to pick up speed now, moving faster and faster, the gap between the system and its position getting wider by the microcycle.

But Jet was moving very very fast now.

“Thankyou Kernel,” said Jet, realizing the sacrifice the Kernel had made for him, even if he did not understand the reasoning.

“Your checksum,” reminded the Kernel as Jet shot past him, rocketing up the makeshift jump, the Kernel’s light circuits dimming and fluctuating as the system heartbeat took him.

“A user’s promise is his checksum.” said Jet, then he was free of the ramp, shooting across nullspace towards the transport like bullets, the two betacycles derezzing around them as they flew through nothingness towards the carrier.

Then there were just two programs moving through space, across the gap.

“Kernel,” screamed Jade once more across the command channel, then there was silence.

Jet reached out for Mercury, who was likewise losing color as they seemed to plummet outwards towards the transport. He found her hand as her eyes closed and she went limp and pulled her to him, holding her against his chest, not sure if they would make it, let alone come down safely.

But he would be with her to the end. Jet made that promise to himself now. Nothing would keep them apart.

The ramp began to derez behind them as the two lone programs, no vehicle to protect them now, flew hard towards the carrier just as Jet’s light began to dim, his eyes getting heavy now as he Jet felt blackness take him, his only thought to hold on to Mercury.

Then a bright mesh seemed to spring out of nothingness like a spider’s web and with a final flash, everything went dark.

Back behind Jet, where the programs on the carrier could no longer see, a dim red program changed his features as a status report moved through its digital mind, manifesting as a list in a console before him.

Two more programs were added to the list of applications, programs and other code, now listed as leaving the system.

A smile moved slowly across his face, then he went limp and lay still.

Beneath him, forming at ground level as if in respect, a deresolution field began to form.

Concrete and plaster dust erupted before the shockwave of the high explosives that ripped through the building as liquid iron cut through the supports. Mainframe equipment, racks and scaffold buckled and bent like flotsam on a wave and then the illumination of their power lines being ripped apart lit up their final moments.

Electrical sparks flowed like water as circuits ruptured and capacitor-stored charge ripped its way across open and shorted space.

Then the color of the arcs were finally blotted out by the dust.

Within moments, the remains of the Encom building lay ragged and exposed within the footprint of the original building at ground level, fitting neatly into the basement of what had once been one of the most advanced installations ever built.

Rain started to fall against the bare concrete, cleaning the dust from the air and exposing the final few lights of the dying five eleven.

A demolition worker held his palm to the sky and watched as drops fell into the dust on it.

“I thought you said it wasn’t going to rain tonight.” He said.

Next Chapter: 2.42 Virtual Server.

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