Tron 2.43 – Blue Screen.

A slight shudder ran through the data carrier beneath Jet and brought him to partial wakefulness. He lifted his head to look around.

Mercury’s head was resting in the nook of his shoulder and her hand was draped across his chest, trapping him beneath her a little.

He looked around through the panel ahead, but everything seemed as it was before.

Jet was almost starting to wonder if it was a dream and then another shudder came and he knew it was real this time.

There were no alarms going off so Jet wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Merc, did you feel that?” he said to his sleeping lover. Programs didn’t seem to need much, if any, sleep, but Mercury had seemed to pick up the habit from Jet, although she didn’t seem to dream.

The trip so far had been long. Quite long. It had felt like more than a week so far to Jet, and they still hadn’t approached their destination, although Jade mentioned that given time domain reflectometer readings, she suspected they would reach the Datawraith system sometime in the next kilocycle.

For Jet, his dreams had all become one, so much that he had even been able to keep his mind off worrying about what they would find when they arrived.

Mercury spent all of her time with Jet and there wasn’t much to do except enjoy it. He had spent a little time coding, teaching himself some new tricks – he had managed to find a small supply of liquid capacitance and used it to build a small spa and pool that programs, and he and Mercury at times, enjoyed on the main deck.

Jet had also spent more time sharing code with Mercury, sometimes twice in what felt like a day to him.

Mercury had opened to Jet completely during the time, which made sense now Jet understood why she had acted the way she had in the past.

It was as though Jet understood her every routine and subcall now, but even then each time he found new nuances within her code that he had missed before, so as much as her code became familiar, it seemed to increase in depth and tone.

In many ways, Mercury’s code was perfect. A self-modifying algorithm that executed within the virtual server at an almost native level, allowing her routines to flow together like fine chocolate.

Melanie must have been an exceptional programmer before she became ill.

Jet sometimes wondered why his father hadn’t told him about the Gurimins. He assumed it was because what his father was doing was unauthorized at the time and not know shielded Jet from the repercussions that could eventuate if he had been caught.

That simple world seemed so far behind Jet now.

Another shudder went through the bed shaped primitive and Mercury’s eyes snapped open. In a second fluid single movement, she rolled up and to her feet, then standing, she walked to the front viewing screen and looked ahead, peering out of the window shaped forcewall at angles as if trying to determine where something was.

“What was it Merc?” Jet asked.

“Communications error,” Mercury said.

“Is that bad?” Jet asked.

“It’s not good,” Mercury said. “But there’s nothing we can do. It’s not like we can retransmit data.”

Jet got up and walked to the screen. It looked the same as it usually did.

“Let’s go find Jade,” Mercury said, in such a way that worried him.

They walked out onto the main deck. Jet’s pool sat to one side, a programs sitting in it as the ripples moved through the liquid. The program recognized Jet as he came out.

“User, is something wrong?”

Jet hadn’t quite been able to reduce his celebrity status amongst the programs, but he had been able to get them to address him less formally. He was about to say I don’t know but decided against it. Programs tended to take what he said rather seriously and often out of context. He didn’t want to start a panic.

“All alerts will come through Kernel Jade, program. Go back to enjoying yourself.” Jet called back.

The program smiled, a little more at ease with the words.

Jet and Mercury walked on. While the digital world didn’t have days, it did have cycles and right at the moment, most programs were taking some rest. Jet had come to realize this was just idle system time rather than true sleep. Unlike people, programs snapped out of sleep mode instantly when called upon.

Most went into sleep mode just standing there, slouched over with head bowed, so Mercury was unusual or rather had become unusual in that she lay down with Jet to join him, whether she was tired or not.

Still, it was pending the next interrupt and so most of the programs had retired to their own partitions.

Kind of like early morning in the real world.

A code optimizer scuttled past Jet’s feet as he walked, moving faster than most should. Jet guessed it’s hurry was related to the shudder he had felt.

They didn’t enter the backup bus corridors. Over the past week, Jet had managed to convince the programs that users weren’t as out of place as they believed and that it was alright for a user to walk amongst them.

Although he hadn’t convinced any, he had befriended some and the others at least let him move around freely now.

The central main deck reminded Jet of a huge multilevel shopping mall. There were ramps and accesses and places where programs could go to have their code checked, routines debugged or code optimized.

Jet spent some time here and worked out it represented supplementary system files that existed for both users and developers inside the EN-511 environment.

Still, the extent to which this society mimicked that which created it was astounding. Even the progress bar he visited during his first time had shown him that.

Programs seemed hard-wired to want to enjoy like just like anyone Jet knew in the real world.

They moved through the mostly empty mall quickly to a series of lifts that would take Jet and Mercury to the bridge.

When they arrived though, all the bridges were up and unaccessible.

“Bit, can you please request bridge access?” Jet asked and the bit Jade had left with him shot away with a bright glowing light, punctuated by “Yes, Yes, Yes.”

A short wait later, a bridge started to descend. A face popped over the edge and Crypto could be seen waving.

“Jet, you felt that huh?”

“The Shudder,” Jet clarified to make sure they were on the same channel.

“Yeah, it was fairly noticeable at the system level. We lost a large section of data.”

“How large,” Jet asked, now more concerned.

“A large section of the rear bay. We’re going to be short on transports when we arrive, If we can use them anyway.”

“What was the cause?”

“Jade thought you might be able to help her. We only get the checksum, error. Looks like something gone missing in the pipeline.”

Jet thought about it.

The actual time between Encom and wherever the out of band connection went must be limited, so the apparent time spend in here must be related to cross-compiling the algorithms for the remote-server based data carrier transport they were all on presently.

“Might be some data didn’t get through, an archive decompression issue or perhaps even just an error in the final receive buffer.”

“We aren’t in the receive buffer yet,” Crypto said.

“Correction, we don’t perceive we’re in the receive buffer, but in effect, we must have gone through it already. I’m guessing some of us is in the receive buffer and some isn’t.”

“That sounds kind of philosophical, Sir,” Crypto said, the lift finally touching down. Jet and Mercury stepped into the transit area.

“I guess it’s science in my world. It’s philosophy here because you can’t perceive it in the same way.”

“Well, Kernel Jade would like your opinion on it, Sir.” Crypto said.

The elevator started to rise.

“How’s it going with missus Crypto then?” Jet asked.

“Well, sir, thankyou. The Kernel, I mean, Jade, at the time, got her onto the final transport before the operating systems came online and she was caught up in the repartitioning, but now the Kernel’s set us up in our own partition, and it’s incredible.”

“Incredible,” asked Jet.

“Well, Sir, I guess as a user you might not understand,” then Crypto’s eyes went wide as he realized he had just possibly insulted Jet.

“Try me, Crypto,” Jet said.

“Well, sir, before I was conscripted, my consort scanned email, and there wasn’t much email moving and so we couldn’t afford the extra timeslices you know and we kind of shared a partition with thirty seven other programs. Not all that private if you see my point, Sir.

“And now, we have our own partition. Just the two of us. If we get to keep it later, when we reach the Datawraith’s I mean, Sir, then I think we might even cross-code and think of spawning some new processes.”

“Ahh, so you think I don’t know what it’s like to be poor then,” Jet reasoned.

“Poor?” Crypto asked.

“Low on spare cycles.”

“I didn’t mean to Sir, it just came out wrong.” Crypto said, by way of apology.

“Nothing wrong with what you said, Crypto. I wasn’t all that well off in the real world, but if you have a partition to keep your data, even if you share it, it’s better than no partition at all, right?”

“Sir, Yes, Sir. That’s exactly it.” Crypto smiled.

“So how is she enjoying being attached to a system program then?” Jet asked.

“Like a bit to a byte, unfortunately. She’s already consumed all the spare cycles this week.” Crypto looked down at his feet.

“It can be like that. Happens to the best of us,” Jet said, then realized Mercury was glaring at him.

“Except me,” Jet said, “I got lucky” and smiled at Mercury.

The lifting platform stopped and became a part of the bridge floor. Jade was visible in the room where she and Jet had spoken when Jet had first come here.

Crypto led them past several small groups of ICPs around screens and into the room. Jade was there with Section, now Syslog, and a few other ICPs that Jet had come to realize had formed the new core command group under her leadership.

“Jet, I need advice.”

“What’s the situation,” Jet asked.

“We’ve received a communications package,” Jade, waving her hand over the table, causing several unusual characters to rez-in that Jet couldn’t quite read yet.

“We’re closer to porting in that I realized. Within a Centocycle. We’ve received instruction to stand down and disable all security protocols and allow scanning.”

Jet thought about it for a moment. “It makes sense, I guess.”

“Sense?”

“We’re the interlopers here. We’ve come from our own system and now we’re new in theirs. They want to make sure no viruses or corruption has come through with us. Anything an algorithmic engine could execute.

“I guess they know we’re coming.”

“They anticipated it?” Jade asked.

“Perhaps, or perhaps Simon said something. Or perhaps it’s just that they’ve noticed a lot of programs are suddenly coming streaming through the connection.

“Whatever the reason, they could just close off communications and let us drop. That’s certainly something they could do. I assume they see the traffic we’re carrying as valuable so don’t want to do that.”

“We don’t carry traffic,” Jade said. “We have little of value. We don’t even have cycles to bring since we left Sector one.”

“Yes, I know,” Jet explained, “But we have programs. The Datawraiths want programs.”

“What do they want with us?” Syslog asked.

“I don’t think their system has natural applications as the five eleven did. I think they’ve created their own quantum-level operation algorithmic translation engine, but they didn’t have a seeded world as yours became.

“They didn’t feed it oranges, so it became sterile.”

Blank looks reflected back at Jet from every side of the briefing table.

“They don’t have programs, so they take yours to feed the development in their world. Programs, Applications, even raw primitives. All needed to build their system.” Jet put briefly.

“And they want to take us?” Jade asked.

“They possibly don’t have any idea that we’re coming in on a virtual server. I don’t think they’d like that. They possibly just see us as one large application at present containing a lot of threads. These are Datawraith, people, here making decisions. There’s no telling what ideas they are coming up with.”

The programs and ICPs looked from one another.

“What was the shudder?” Jet asked.

Jade looked over at Jet.

“We attempted to block the first message. The next came in directly and removed a large piece of data from this transport.”

“They don’t need to do damage to let us know that they want us to follow instructions. They just did that for effect. They would know by now that programs under algorithmic translation attempt to avoid damage.”

“Are they going to derez us?” Jade asked quietly.

“Or worse,” Crypto added in even more quietly.

“I don’t know, but I don’t suspect so. We need to make our way in-system appearing to do what they ask. They’re going to scan us and try and determine what we are, but in any event, they’ll probably integrate and isolate us.”

“And from there?” Jade asked.

“We re-evaluate our position.” Jet suggested.

Jade looked to her generals.

“Well I don’t have any idea how to deal with Datawraiths unless it involves derezzing them,” suggested Syslog.

“We may still get a chance to do that, but for the moment, it’s likely to result in the Datawraiths derezzing us. Their going to know we’re coming – it’s not like we have a choice in the matter, and they may actually value us as prisoners.” Jet said.

“Why do the Datawraiths value us?” asked Syslog.

“Because we have something they don’t. They took as much of it as they could, then they left, and I’m starting to get an idea why it’s valuable.” Jet explained.

“Can you elaborate?” Jade asked.

“No Jade, I can’t. I’m still working this out.” Jet said.

“Then we will wait and re-evaluate our position as we encounter them,” Jade agreed. “Jet, please excuse me – I need to attend to finalizing partitions before we arrive, just in case we require some hostile data.”

Jet nodded and Jade walked off, most of the ICPs following and those that didn’t returning to their present tasks.

There wasn’t much time left before Jet would be even deeper into this mess, but at least he had escaped the failing Encom system with Mercury.

Jet found a spare bridge console that wasn’t being used and made himself a chair with it and sat and waited. At first the glimpses of the Datawraith system were vague but it didn’t take long for it to become more detailed.

Looking out of the bridge viewscreen, Jet watched as the Datawraith system started to take on recognizable shape as it appeared bigger by the minute.

Huge towers that initially appeared to be large now stood out along the skyline, giving the first impressions as to what the scale of this new world might be.

Multiple beams of incoming data streams could now be made out, spearing up into the sky like beams of light, which essentially they were – in Jet’s world, while the main beam itself they were on seemed to disappear into the lower sections of this new world.

As they got closer, the scale of this new world became apparent and ICPs began to cease their final works on this transport and watch what was visible outside.

“It appears to be a little larger than Sector one,” said Jade echoing everything that the others were thinking.

“Something’s up ahead,” said Jet, calling out to Jade and pointing.

As the details up ahead seemed to rez into place, a structure could be made out that was originally obscured by the structures behind it back on the Datawraith system.

Directly over the beam ahead, just before it moved into the Datawraith sector, was a large scaffold that made this huge ship look tiny. Seemingly hovering in open space, it appeared to be located and locked to this beam.

“Scanning function,” said Syslog, looking ahead, guessing what they were looking at. “I believe that’s where they intend to scan us.”

“Can we avoid it?” asked Jade, looking at Jet.

“I once avoided a scan by hiding in a recognizer Jade, but this looks a whole lot different. I don’t think they intend to run the scan internally – I think they intend to scan the entire ship from end to end.

“If I try to block it directly through scan shielding, they might just punch through it like they did with the early message. If they hadn’t have done that, I wouldn’t have thought it to be possible.” Jade said

“Yeah, well they use a different technology to Encom – their military. Imagine the MCP, only a thousand times worse. That’s what their like.”

Jade shuddered at the mention. “Do you think that? Really think that?”

“Relax Jade, that’s how they are in my world. In this world, they are more likely to be like a very strict Kernel, but yeah, if we don’t get derezzed on entry, then expect things to be very locked down and a lack of general priveledges.”

Jade seemed worried still.

“But how will we progress without permissions?” she asked.

“That never stopped me before,” Jet mentioned, then added. “Or Mercury for that reason.”

“Two programs running loose in a system is plausible. Several thousand isn’t going to go unnoticed and these are Datawraiths here. They are more than our equal.”

“Not anymore,” said Jet. “If they’re our equal, we need to be better than them.”

Jade seemed puzzled, but Jet wasn’t about to explain.

“We’re about to be scanned. I’d suggest a system broadcast to all programs to submit. When we arrive, it will make it easier.” Jet said, watching as they approached the scaffold. “I don’t think any programs have anything to fear from this process.”

“What about you?” Jade asked.

“I’m going to scan differently. I’m not sure what their response will be.”Jet said.

“The point of scan is a possible termination path for errant programs,” said Crypto.

Jet looked down at him.”Thanks Crypto, I hadn’t known that, but I don’t think I wanted to either.”

“Sorry, Sir,” said Crypto.

“It’s OK, I’m sure I’ll be OK.”

A voice came over the broadcast channel to all programs.

“Programs, you are now entering Echelon. Please present all and any permissions and functions and prepare for scan.” It said, then following, random blue resolution grids started appearing above certain programs.

Mercury stepped up to Jet and wrapped her hands around his arm. It was clear she was nervous about this process, but Jet wasn’t sure why.

“It’s OK, Merc, Just relax.”

The scanning began and Jet watched intently as one of the ICPs on the bridge was scanned, the resolution grid spinning slowly and dropping down, appearing like a gridded disc wider than his body and moving down through him from head to toe.

At the end of the process, the disc turned green and rezzed out, the ICP still there.

Another blue grid appeared over an ICP not far from Section and began it’s process. As it came down, the ICP flinched and started rezzing in it’s armor, obviously disturbed by the process and fearful.

The disc itself suddenly seemed to encounter resistance, halted midway, then after rotating a half turn on the spot, turned bright red, blinked once, then contracted rapidly around him cutting the ICP at the waist and derezzing him into two pieces as he gave out a quietly strangled electronic scream.

“Programs,” Jade rebroadcast systemwide. “Do not resist the scan process. Relocating resources mid-scan will result in deresolution.

“Remember, we are the interlopers here.”

A scan ring appeared just over Mercury’s head and started to descend. Jet held up his hand to her, hoping she would understand to relax. No sooner had she done that than a similar ring appeared over Jet’s head.

The ring started to descend and made it to around Jet’s chest height when it stopped.

Jet found himself sucking in his breath as it did, and Mercury’s eyes widened, but her ring was still located around her knees. Other rings in the room stopped scanning also, as if interrupted by the scan that was incomplete on Jet.

“Jet, don’t resist,” Mercury said to him in a quiet, low voice.

“I’m not resisting,” said Jet, worrying about why the scan had ceased.

Jet felt his muscles bunch around his body, pulling tight. He fought the urge to run, sure an attempt like that would trigger the secondary effect of scanning.

There was a cry and another ICP was ripped into raw data by his own scan ring just to the side.

“Jet,” Hissed Mercury, then the ring started to move once more.

“Quantum entanglement detected. Datastream rerouting,” came a broadcast, although Jet wasn’t sure if they were all supposed to hear it.

He wondered if these broadcasts were for the sake of the datawraith and they simply hadn’t had time to secure them.

The ring scanning Jet moved past his feet and Mercury stepped up to him and put her arms around his waist, pushing herself to him with a force that he hadn’t expected.

“I thought you were going to derez,” Mercuy said, then slowly released the pressure and stood back up.

“Not today,” said Jet, then turned as he caught something going on outside on the main beam.

A secondary beam had sprung out from the Datawraith territory beyond and merged with the beam ahead, intercepting it. The beam segment beyond fell out temporarily and the ship began to move towards the second beam, changing direction.

“Optical switch complete,” said the broadcast, then continued.

“Scanning complete.

“Four hundred and three programs identified,

“Forty Three contain unexpected code, terminated.

“Nine relocating resources to avoid scanning. Terminated.

“Three hundred and forty eight confirmed quantum entanglement type B.”

“Three instances of external quantum entanglement type A. Possible user detected.

“One instance of localized quantum data confirmed at 75%. User detection confirmed.”

“Further scanning halted.”

“Incoming packets rerouted to holding facility.

“End of page.”

Jet looked around.

“I think they know you’re onboard.and are sending us somewhere else,” said Jade.

“This world’s version of guantanamo bay, I suspect,” said Jet.

“Guantana” Mercury started sounding out the words.

“Forget it, user term,” said Jet. “But they seem to expect that something is happening here, and if they suspect some of their users may be onboard, maybe they’ll go easy on us.”

“Jet, you know these users. What’s the likelihood that they’ll derez us on expansion?” Jade asked.

Jet lied. There was little value in telling the truth. They would reach their final dfestination regardless of any other factors.

“I’d say we’re safe for the moment. Evaluate this as it goes. No point in assuming anything.” Jet said.

Jet walked to a position to watch where the transport was headed.

They were moving into an area near the lower sections of the Datawraith territory now. The Eschelon facility.

Eschelon looked much like a simplified version of the digital world that Jet had been visiting inside the Encom facility.

Except for the scale, which was on a new level altogether.

Towers seemed to rise thousands of feet into the air from the lower sections and transport beams came from all directions.

The world below looked like a sphere covered with landmass, but unlike Encom, the curve of the horizon was only just coming into view and suggested that this place was far more massive than even Jet had guessed.

As they came down, other transports could be seen moving around on beams, shunting as they did from one beam to another at times.

Below, now easily made out as they came out of the beam and the walls of energy disappeared, the features of the landscape were far more geometric than the Encom 511. Jet wondered how many programs might actually be here and started to question his logic as to why the programs from the Encom system were needed here.

Clearly they had their own programs in huge numbers from all the activity going on in this world.

The transport was heading in vertically then a shunt beam appeared ahead and came into the new beam at an angle.

“Optical switch 2, locating beam, reterminating,” came the broadcast voice.

There was a shudder went through the transport and it started to twist, following the new, more horizontal beam.

Ahead, the transport seemed to be heading for a particular structure attached to a huge tower extended far from the ground below.

From this distance, it could be clearly seen and appeared like a small city perched on a disk atop the tower far from the ground.

“This is a big system,” said Crypto, standing near Jet.

“Very big.” Jet agreed. “Some large data structures there too.”

“So what’s going to happen when we get there” Crypto asked.

Jet realized it was the only question on every program’s mind.

“I think we need to get there and find out,” Jet said.

“LOL’s?” Cyrpto asked.

“Derezzed? Sure, if we still have the code since scanning.” Jet said.

“Some of the ICPs lost theirs,” said Crypto.

“Thought they might,” said Jet.

“But some of us were scanned after you,” said the program, smiling. “Although I’m kind of nervous.”

“You? Why?” Jet asked.

“My other process.” Said Crypto.

Jet shook his head then got it. Crypto wasn’t alone like the other ICPs. He was a conscript. He had a life- a family – outside of his career.”

“You worried that your escalated privileges aren’t going into exile with you?” Jet asked.

“No, we started with nothing, so that’s not an issue.” Crypto shook his head. “What if something happens to her?”

“You wanting to stay with her?’ Jet asked, looking past his shoulder at Mercury.

Crypto looked away from Jet and at the viewscreen.

“Yeah,” was all he said.

Jet understood Crypto’s concerns. He walked over to Jade.

“Jade, might I suggest a strategic decisions?” he said quietly into her ear.

“My user, of course,” Jade responded, equally quietly.

“Let the conscripts return to their families.” Jet said.

Jade turned, surprised.

“You mean to relieve them of their assigned tasklist?” she queried.

“No, I just mean give them leave. Break up the command group and set the programs to leave independently in case they partition us.” Jet said.

Jade nodded slowly. She understood what Jet was getting at, in more than one way.

The other programs that were co-opted to system duties may be stopped as ICPs could be once they disembarked. Sending them out independently was a good idea.

“Programs,” Jade broadcast. “All conscripts to return to non-system duties until interrupted. Prepare to disembark upon clear landing confirmed by system ICPs.”

Crypto looked over at Jet, then at Jade, then realized what was happening.

“Sir, thankyou.” Crypto said, then without wasting time left the bridge and his immediate duty to find his other half. Several other conscripts also moved off to the elevators.

“Do you think they’ll stop system?” Jade asked.

“I’m actually starting to think they might, but it’s not given. ICPs sure, but more complex applications that thread differently? I doubt it. Unless they stop us all. That’s a possibility.”

The city on the disk grew closer and Jet could see the beam terminating into a small terminal on the near side, a docking structure rezzing in even as they approached.

“Seems they’re expecting us,” Jet said.

“Sir,” said Syslog, moving over.

Jet started to say section, then caught himself. “Syslog?” he asked.

“Was that wise? To dismiss system applications at a time like this?”

Jade turned on her second in charge.

“Lock down that bit, program, don’t question my user.”

“Ma’am,” Syslog responded.

“Actually, good question,” Jet intervened. “Yes, I’m wondering if we should also intersperse the ICPs amongst the programs. They might look just like other applications.”

“How could anyone make that mistake?” Jade asked.

“Depends on their heuristics algorithms. I’ve noticed ICPs act differently from other programs when they are in a group.

“Dispersing them might break the algorythm’s a little.”

The transport finally entered the structure where it’s journey would terminate.

“Looks like we’re here,” said Jet.

Inside the building, the large structures of other buildings weren’t visible. Scaffold started to extend from the walls and ceiling, huge pieces that connected into the packet transport at various locations and brought it to a stiop.

Then there was no more sensation of movement.

“Initiating server transit,” said the broadcast, then the server started moving closer to a ramp. Standing on either side, rows of Datawraiths.

In here, they all looked like Peter, their faces visible, not just purple masks.

Even at this distance, Jet could see they were well armed. Each of them carried significant armor levels, far more than most programs or even system ICPs. While not individually a match for a kernel level veteran application such as Jade, or perhaps even Syslog, they were more than armed enough to take on the entire carrier as a group and might well be able to derez every program here.

“Migrating to virtual environment” came the broadcast.

“Merc, I think it’s time we left the carrier,” Jet said.

Mercury nodded by way of agreement and said nothing, her eyes fixed on what was outside.

“Do you think there’s a way to get past them?” she asked at length.

“Maybe, but a different system and I get the feeling the virtualized environment is intended to keep us well locked away.

“I’m sure we could hack it, but now doesn’t seem the time.”

Jet leaned over to Jade and spoke quietly to her.

“They are going to decompress this archive any minute now. When they do, you might want to have your ICPs already dispersed with the other programs.”

Jade looked back at Jet in concern and nodded, then broadcast.

“ICPs, commence fragmentation algorithm. Defragment upon interrupt.”

Jade’s voice sounded weaker in here. Her own levels of power and authority were likely being affected as they moved into this new environment.

Jet walked over to the lifts and waited for Mercury, then activated the transfer.

They had dropped around five meters when Jade’s head appeared above the lift.

“Jet, take this,” she said, then a bit came tumbling down the shaft to stop next the Mercury and Jet. “So you can find me later.”

The bit came to a stop in it’s perpetual tumbling for a moment to give an unrequested “yes” then resumed it’s perpetual tumble in space.

Mercury stepped closer to Jet and grabbed his arm by the elbow.

“It’s OK, Merc, We’re safe at the moment.”

It didn’t seem to affect her grip.

“Attention programs of the Encom system. Virtualisation complete. Please access the exit stream near the load port.” Came a broadcast from the Datawraith system.

Jet waited to see if a broadcast to follow came from Jade. If she had, it didn’t make it. They were well within the Datawraith network now – part of echelon.

Other programs were walking through the main transit bus now, towards the exit. Some seemed to regcognize Jet now. But all were quite subdued, realizing that everything they had known and come to accept was past them.

Jet walked slowly, not looking around much, although the Datawraith probably didn’t have much visibility inside this carrier, when a hand on his shoulder startled him.

He spun a little and saw Crypto beside him. He was holding the hand of another program who appeared to have the more traditional program attire.

“Jet, there are hundreds of Datawraiths out there. What do we do?”

“Walk slowly and with the group. See where they take us. Look for opportunities to move away from the stream.”

Crypto nodded, then remerged with the crowd.

The group moved towards the exit shuffling slowly. As they moved onto the final exit ramp, Jet felt a pressure hit his chest, as if it was difficult to breath and it felt like he was wading through water.

He looked at Mercury and she seemed to be moving slower also.

“Merc, I feel strange,” Jet said.

“System transition latency,” Mercury said. “We don’t normally experience it, but this system is pressed for resources and struggling to give us each a timeslice. I don’t think it’s built to house this many programs at the same time.”

Jet felt as if he was walking through water now as he entered a forcewall tunnel that formed the ramp that led off this carrier. Other programs bustled and pushed him around as they walked down the crowded ramp, pushing him along, but the resistance, though perhaps not quite as strong as water, could still be felt. It resisted fast movement but seemed to flow when he walked slowly.

Jet continued down towards the new system, taking his time and trying to get used to this new feeling.

At the base of the ramp, on either side, Datawraiths could be clearly seen, but as they went past, Jet could see not all were users. Several came up under his scan as programs, although he had to stop with his triangulate functions when a Datawraith took interest in his stare and started to watch him.

He spoke quietly so only Mercury could hear.

“They aren’t all users, Merc, just the better armored ones. The rest are all applications. Possibly slaved to the original human user.”

Mercury nodded. “Do you see any way out of this?”

Jet shook his head and responded back “No.”

The crowd moved on and through the channel that seemed to penetrate the floor and continued down. Into the disc below the small city itself.

“Keep moving programs, we have a lot of reprocessing to do,” said a Datawraith to the side. The voice sounded familiar.

Jet looked up at the wrong time and the Datawraith looked back.

Simon.

Jet looked away but it was too late. Peter, the Datawraith Jet had helped to get out of the Encom system recognized him.

Jet tried to merge with the crowd, looking ahead to where they were lining up and being separated into separate streams, each moving into different openings from a long corridor. The programs were being sorted.

Despite his best efforts to retain his distance, the programs around Jet moved away from the Datawraith, and he quickly caught up with Jet, grabbing him by the arm Mercury wasn’t holding.

“Don’t slow this down, program, there’s many to process.” Simon said loudly, then quietly, “Jet, I see you made it out of the Encom system.”

Jet didn’t respond at first. The situation was reversed now. Simon had been Jet’s prisoner in the previous system. Now Jet was at Simon’s mercy.

“Through this sorting gate, program.” Simon pushed Jet towards a closed portal.

“Simon,” Jet started, but Simon squeezed his arm harder, causing him some pain. He followed that with a slight hissing sound letting Jet know to be quiet.

The portal snapped open as Jet approached – a far more mechanical device than mostly existed within the Encom system.

Simon pushed Jet though, Mercury following, then the portal closed behind them.

“Jet, this is not good,” said Simon, looking at Jet, then Mercury and back to Jet.

“You didn’t want me to make it out?” Jet asked, confused. Simon looked different here. Could he be a different person?

“I left you access didn’t I?” Simon said.

“So what’s the problem?” Jet asked.

“Melanie Gurimin,” said Simon.

“Is she alright?” Jet asked, wondering what had happened.

“I think you need to come with me,” said Simon, then opened another mechanical looking wall at the back of the featureless room they were in and walked through.

Jet didn’t follow. He just looked at Mercury, not sure what to so.

Simon walked back into the room a moment later.

“As in, I think you need to follow me,” Simon said, then realizing the problem a moment later added, “We’re not in your system anymore, Jet, so either you trust me that I kept my word, or I just hand you over to the Feds now.”

Simon had changed. He was out of danger now, but Jet wasn’t. The tables were turned.

Jet nodded, then walked after him.

“Can you tell me what’s happening?” Jet asked.

Simon didn’t respond. Instead, he just walked through a maze of corridors then stopped by a large wall, looked around then banged three times on it, causing an echoing thump that ended with a beep.

On the third bang, a section of wall derezzed as if it hadn’t been there and Simon walked through, then keeping an eye out, banged the remaining wall and then walked further into the dark room. The wall behind him rerezzed as if it had never been missing.

Jet followed Simon into the darkness, only the light of his being showing Jet where he was.

“There’s all kinds of trouble going on here,” Simon said, then walked up a short ramp that made a right angle direction change.

Jet took it as his queue to speak.

“So why didn’t you turn me over to the feds?” Jet asked.

“I actually thought about it, Jet, I really did. I don’t have to think to hard to guess there would be a nice little bonus in it for me, but I have my reasons for helping you.”

Jet hurried along as the ramp made another right angle turn.

“So what is in it for you then?”

They entered an open area and a program appeared out of nowhere throwing itself at Simon, knocking him staggering back.

Jet instinctively removed his disc and pulled his arm back, when Mercury grabbed his wrist.

“Oh my user,” Mercury said.

Simon caught his balance and stood firmly again, regaining his footing.

“Something about the white program still obscured by Simon shook Jet’s understanding of the situation.”

“I was worried about you,” said the program in Mercury’s voice, then a face, Mercury’s face but not her face, appeared around the side of Simon, and saw Mercury.

“You, you’re,” started Melanie in confusion, then a look of concern crossed her face.

“Oh my user,” repeated Mercury.

Jet lowered his disc.

Two more blue programs walked out from the darkness, one floating above the ground, despite having legs.

“Hello Jet,” said Ma3a.

Melanie dropped back to the ground and looked over at Jet, then launched herself at him similarly, throwing her arms around his neck and knocking him backwards.

As Jet stumbled backwards he saw the look of almost terror on Mercury’s face, then realized what it was.

Quantum feedback.

Jet grabbed Melanie by the arms and pushed her back from him, looking from her to Mercury.

“Ow, that hurts,” said Melanie. “Be gentle, I can still feel pain in here.”

“Mercury, are you OK?” Jet asked.

Mercury looked at her hands, puzzled. “I seem to be all correct,” she said slowly.

Simon realized the issue.

“Jet, at the moment, you’re still virtualized. Not here.

“None of the Encom programs are here yet. The wide diversity of algorithmic code types from the different Encom systems is difficult to process on new technology, so we’re all virtualized in here.

“Presently, you’re in a different fiber loop from us, so although there is some crosstalk, quantum interference is limited. At the moment, we’re relatively safe.” Simon explained.

Alchemist stepped forward and confirmed it.

“User::Simon is correct. Quantum interference is presently at low levels.” She said.

Mercury stepped forward and looked at Melanie.

“You’re my user,” she said quietly, looking at her. “Not just guest, but my real user.”

Melanie, now noticing Mercury was similarly surprised.

“You look like me,” Melanie said, moving around her.

“Our last encounter wasn’t like this,” said Mercury and reached out towards Melanie. As she did so, the circuits on her hand and wrist began to glow and pulse.

Simon reached out and grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand back.

“Of course, relative is a relative term. I wouldn’t go interacting with yourself too much. I don’t think this situation has ever presented itself before, so I’m still not sure just how much quantum activity you can push across the barrier.

“It’s entirely possible to overdo it I suppose and you might even destroy the physical system we’re in.”

Mercury pulled her hand back and the pulsing stopped, with Melanie doing likewise.

Melanie turned to Simon. “Can we talk OK?”

“Sure, but no touchy girly stuff.” Said Simon.

Melanie frowned at that then stepped closer to Mercury, but still maintained a distance.

“Hi, Mercury isn’t it? I’m Melanie. Simon’s been explaining how this works to me,” Melanie introduced herself.

Simon looked at Jet and flicked his head to indicate Jet should follow. Jet hesitated briefly, then realized Ma3a and Alchemist were with Mercury. She was safe. Jet followed.

Simon walked a short distance away and sat down on a ledge overlooking the small disc-bound city they were in.

“So what happened?” Jet asked, realized something had changed.

“Melanie,” said Simon.

“You are her?” Jet asked, surprised.

“No, just friends at the moment, but,”

Simon paused long enough that Jet realized Simon wasn’t going to say what he felt, so continued otherwise.

“Well, she’s kind of special to me.”

“When did that happen?” Jet asked.

“It was a long trip back Jet. Longer than it’s ever been. This system wasn’t designed to receive native algorithmic translation code. At least not on the scale it’s been receiving it. It’s struggling to keep processing it and that affects the rate at which we execute and why Alchemist hasn’t finished processing Melanie. She’ll die if she transports outsystem at the moment – there’s not enough corrected data to send her outsystem alive.”

Below them the programs of this system could be seen moving around. To the side, the packet carrier transport that brought Jet here was still unloading. Talking about Melanie seemed to bother Simon.

“Anyway, it’s even slower to process now. Fcon needs that code, so the Fcon execs don’t want to purge any of it. The system’s just taking it all. We’re all on limited timeslice now.”

Jet looked at Simon.

“What happened on the transport?” Jet asked.

“It was a long trip. I guess I got to know Melanie. Those two programs were in my way a lot at first. Damn pain that Ma3a, but Melanie wanted to talk to another user, so we became friends. I kind of feel bad about the whole thing now, them trying to kill you and her and all. You really are just here to help her aren’t you?”

“Yeah, although I have some personal reasons for being here,” Jet said quietly.

“Mercury, yeah I guessed. How do you fall for a program anyway?” Simon asked, then realized he may have stepped over the line. “Sorry, its just,”

“No offense taken,” Jet let him off the hook. “You don’t choose who you fall for. It just happens.”

“Know what you mean,” Simon said.

Simon paused for a moment, then avoiding looking at Jet as he spoke.

“The shits going to hit the fan.”

“Tell me about it.” Jet said.

“Not just this. Not just you and me. I mean Melanie and Mercury.”

“Quantum interference wise.”

Jet gave Simon a questioning look.

“I thought you said they’re shielded,” Jet accused.

Simon turned to look at Jet.

“They are, but it’s only during processing. Once you’re translated to native code, it all goes pear shaped. You’ll all be in the same loop with us and then it’s going to screw us all.”

“Translated?” Jet asked.

“The system is still translating us. I’ve put us on a lower priority channel at the moment, bringing you out here. We’re just in the background stream here, sitting in our own little virtualized area, but once you’re fully translated, it’s going to drop us all into the core and then it’s going to reject all of our code at the same time.

“I’m talking digital Armageddon here. There’s only one transfer down to the multiloop systems and we all make the transition together. And when it happens, we’re all going to go down hard.

“Jet there’s something I have to say, so I’m just going to say it. You need to remember to keep your perspective here.”

Simon waited for Jet to acknowledge his warning and turned so he was looking straight into Jet’s face now.

“Say it,” Jet pushed.

“Mercury or Melanie. They can’t both survive here.”

Jet didn’t respond at first, not quite understanding what he was hearing.

“So I need to get them apart then?” Jet said.

“No, I mean we’re going to have to make sure that can’t happen.”

“Of course we are. It’s not the first time they’ve caused a feedback loop. They took out one of the Encom five eleven sectors from a brief exposure when Melanie transported in.”

Simon hadn’t known of that, from his expression.

“That’s how her codebase became damaged and corrupted?” Simon asked.

Jet nodded.

“So you understand then what I’m saying. Good. That makes it easier.” Simon said.

“So do you have any idea what we can do about it?” Jet asked glancing out again at the city as Simon did, then surprised when Simon’s head snapped around.

“Jet, I’m not sure you do understand. They can’t both return to the Echelon system. One of them has to derez before that occurs.”

Jet just stared at Simon in horror as the realization started to sink in about exactly what Simon was talking about.

Next Chapter: 2.43 Feedback Loop

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