1
"You can't be serious, you're telling me the laser in Encom's lab hit you and did what?" Alan inquires of Flynn.
"It took me inside Encom's computer system; it's like another universe in there! And I saw Tron, the program and he looked like you and there was another program that looked like Lora and . . . and"
"Stop right there." Alan interrupts. It's hard enough to try to comprehend Kevin Flynn's so called "computer adventure", Alan thinks but the blaring arcade sounds and music inside of Flynn's Arcade is enough to stop anyone's train of thought. "He must have conked out in his chair or something . . . maybe it's a joke?"Alan thinks.
"I know what you're thinking." Flynn smirks. "Your thinking 'Ha Ha very funny Flynn your crazy let's put you in the loony bin' but you really have to trust me." Flynn begs. "I know it sounds crazy. Heck, I thought I was going crazy at first, but this could revolutionize our industry altogether. We could . . ." Flynn stops. "Well we could zap people inside to fix problems or . . . or play games! Full bodied interactive games in real time, Alan! Think about it" Flynn shouts.
"Flynn isn't there anything you could show or tell me that doesn't sound like an insane person made it up?" Alan inquires. "You're the president now; please think before you invest the whole company's time and money into something that sounds intangible." Alan advises. Flynn smiles eagerly as if some odd thought came through his head.
"Alan come with me, we're going to ENCOM right now." Alan sincerely commands.
"What? Right . . . now?" Alan asks.
"Yes now! Come on!" Flynn yells flailing his arms out at Alan. "You want proof, well I'll show you proof."
Alan shakes his head and follows Flynn outside.
Alan quickly pulls his van into the employee parking. Flynn quickly hops out and opens the door with his keys. Flynn and Alan steadily pace through the hallways of ENCOM. After a while, Flynn comes to the lab room and climbs up several ladders and sets of stairs until he reaches the computer where Flynn's adventure had all but began.
"See when you were upstairs in the cubicle, Lora left me here and I got started. Then Master Control Program tried to stop me but I tried to keep him off me. Next thing I know I'm sucked into a laser and into the computer." Flynn recalls to Alan.
"Flynn, the only thing the laser could zap properly was fruit, Flynn, Fruit! How could it zap an entire human being without killing you or screwing you up?" Alan, frustrated, comments. "And whatever we zapped through it never came back. How would you?"
Flynn pauses in front of the laser. "I don't know Alan! What do I look like? Mr. Spock?" "Alan, if I knew I would replicate it and go back in." Flynn sighs.
"Well, what now?" Alan wonders.
Flynn looking around sees a janitor cleaning something outside the labs doors. Flynn leans over the railing of the machinery in the lab and waves his arms at the janitor. "Hey you!" Flynn shouts at the janitor. "What's your name?" Flynn asks. The Janitor looks up at Flynn, ashamed almost, and replies "Rob sir, Rob Jameson."
Flynn smiles at Rob. "Could you do me a favor for a split second, Rob?"
Rob looks at Flynn, puzzled as to what the president of the company he his employed at could possibly want with him.
"Sure." Rob replies. Slowly Rob climbs up the machinery. Flynn quickly turns on the computer and begins typing in commands:
ENCOM: Lab computer is ON
COM: IGNITE: DIGITIZING LASER
COM: ACCESS I/O: WITH: DIGITIZING TARGET
Quickly Flynn steps away from the computer and watches Rob climb up the last ladder rung. Rob stares at Flynn, expecting to be fired.
"What are you doing?" Alan asks.
"You'll find out." Flynn smirks. Flynn pulls, pushes, and finally places Rob in a certain spot in front of the laser and goes to the computer. Flynn begins to type:
COM: FIRE: DIGITIZING LASER
Suddenly a bolt of Bright blue laser hits Rob. "FLYNN, NO!" Alan screams. The laser starts to build a graph around Rob. The graph, becomes three dimensional, and forms around Rob. Instantly afterward, the laser, brighter and bluer than before, zaps Rob in a zigzag direction. Suddenly, Rob is gone.
"Are you insane?" Alan yells at Flynn. "You killed him! You killed an employee!" Alan cries.
"No! Look at the screen." Flynn defends, pointing at the screen. Alan looks at the screen. It reads:
Transfer: . . . success
ACCESSING: I/O: DIGITIZED TARGET
: Hello? Where am I? What happened? Hello?
Alan looks in amazement. "It . . . Worked?"
Flynn smiles and nods at Alan. "Told you I was right, Alan. Who's crazy now?"
Alan looks back at the screen. "Can we talk to him through the I/O?"
Flynn nods and starts to type:
: Greetings program! You O.K. in there?
: Boss is that you? What did you do to me?
: We digitized you. Sorry I didn't say earlier. You're doing this company a huge favor by participating in this.
: Um . . . thank you? Look how do I get out of here?
FlYNN. USER: Okay, first tell us what it looks like in there and what you look like and we will zip you right out.
: It looks like the floor is gray and kind of glowing and there are little panels on the wall. They glow different colors. And I look I'm in a gray jumpsuit or something and my arms are covered in . . . armor that has little glow-y parts. I think I'm wearing a helmet.
: Good, Were going to get you out now hang on . . .
COM: DE-DIGITIZING
COM: ERROR INPUT COM.
COM: TRANSFER: DIGTITIZATION TARGET
Almost immediately after Flynn types in the command in the computer, a blue streak of light zips out of the laser. A graph in the shape of a man appears and forms into Rob. Rob almost loses balance as Flynn tries to prop him up.
"How ya feeling buddy?" Flynn asks.
Rob stares blankly back at Flynn. "I don't know . . ." Rob mutters.
Alan looks concerned at Rob. "Well you were right, I guess. What now, Flynn?"
Flynn looks at Rob. "How'd you like a promotion?"
Rob's eyes roll back in his head. He faints.
2
"Flynn's going to make that poor janitor a beta tester for what, the digitizing laser?" Lora asks Alan.
"Well that's what he keeps telling me." Alan sighs. "I just hope nothing goes wrong."
"Really." Lora agrees. "Can't I talk to him about this?"
"Probably not, He's locked himself up in the lab with Rob. Still running those damned tests of his." Alan worriedly states as he grabs his coffee from the counter. "I can barely eat." He pauses. "We should try to talk to him and get him to stop."
"Maybe I can help." Lora smugly replies.
Alan just sips his coffee not caring what she has in mind. "Knock yourself out; it won't work whatever you're planning."
"Just watch." She says, grinning. Lora slowly walks down the hall in the direction of the Lab, her smugness emitting even in her walk.
"Wonder if she still has feelings for Flynn." Alan ponders.
Flynn runs around the laser area like mad. Rob just stares at him sitting in front of the laser like a deer caught in the headlights. "Ready, Rob?" Flynn rhetorically asks.
"I don't know, Mr. Flynn. What did you say I'm doing this time?" Rob nervously shudders.
"Same thing, this time I'm just gonna remove some presets I located from the last operating system."
"Is that safe?"
"It'll be fine." Flynn says as he bolts to the computer and inputs the laser's commands.
Suddenly Lora walks into the lab and climbs up the ladders and stairs to Flynn. "You alright Flynn?"
Flynn looks up from pressing the enter key and stares at Lora. Rob staring at both of them. "Wait!" he screams as he becomes digitized. The laser's beam different than before, seems to erratically make a green beam over Rob. Suddenly Rob is gone and something on the computer screen comes up. "What?" Flynn asks "What happened?" Lora shrieks.
Flynn reads the screen.
WARNING! DIGITIZATION ERROR HAS OCCURRED! CHECKING FOR ERRORS...
NONE CHECKING PRESETS...
PRESETS HAVE BEEN CHANGED CAUSING DIGITIZATION ERROR.
DIGITIZATION TARGET CONTAINS ERRORS LINES 264946, 15638364, 3456484, 6602740, AND 78538956.
TARGET MUST BE DELETED OR SYSTEM WILL BECOME CORRUPTED.
"NO!" Flynn yells. "No no … Get Alan! Hurry!" he screams at Lora. Lora runs out of the lab she finds Alan finishing his coffee! "Alan come quick! Something happened in the lab!" Alan runs into the lab and climbs to the laser area he looks at the screen in horror.
:AAAAAAAaaAAAAaAHHHHhH! H3LLP M333! Help! MY 3Y35! I AM 8URNING. MY SKIN ITS CRCKING! Y0U S0N 0F A 8*124! I'M GR333N N0W! WHY? WHHHHYY?
SYSTEM HS DISCOV3R3D 3RROR.
DEL3T3 DIGITZITI0N TRG3T?
Flynn turns to Alan and looks at him mouth agape. "What do I do?" Alan looks at the screen nervously rubbing his hands through his hair. He adjusts his glasses and looks at the screen. Flynn flings his arms up in the air cursing and kicking all over.
"Flynn please!" Alan cries out. "He's gonna die if we don't do something!"
"Dammit! I killed him! You were right the whole time! Why the hell did I do this! Dammit, Dammit, DAMMIT!" Flynn slowly calms down and walks over to Alan and asks the obvious question. "What are we gonna do?"
"I'm gonna attempt to fix the line errors, and I can guarantee it won't be easy." Alan says without looking at Flynn. "I really don't understand how this works. It's as if the computer is interpreting genetic code."
"What if you can't fix it?" Flynn, almost angrily, begs.
"I'll have to . . . delete him." Alan quickly inputs some commands into the computer
ACC3SSING 3:R3PAIR:DIGITIZTI0N TARG3T
Meanwhile . . .
Inside the realm of the computer, an energy, deadly, and possessing a terrible destructive power, lurks near a rez-in station. The glowing green circuitry and cracks of green light shine all along the body of what was once Rob Jameson. Several programs, mostly converted guards left from the MCP's reign, flee in fear of corruption. Suddenly Dumont walks forward, his circuitry embroidering his long robes, he signals someone to come closer.
"Over here!" Dumont commands, his elderly visage showing a determination that cancels out his fear. Suddenly a figure steps forward. His circuitry that covers his armor and body, glowing a bright blue, is revealed to the open. The figure is none other than Tron, legendary program and defeater of the tyrannical MCP. The serious expression on his face amazingly remains as he stares down the corrupted Rob.
"Have we been given a command?" Tron asks Dumont.
"None for you, but Rep has been called in."
"Rep? What's he gonna do? He's a repair bot, couldn't fix this mess if he tried."
"Well that's the user's orders. I say we stand back and wait for him, or the users to give up so we can de-rez that abomination."
They stop their conversation to hear a zipping noise emanating from around a corner. They see a lone program in some sort of one wheeled cycle. He zips up to Tron and Dumont's position and steps off his odd little vehicle, reminiscent of a light cycle. Instantly, the vehicle changes into a wireframe and disappears entirely. His blue circuitry glows strongly and full of emotion.
"Wow, this must be serious if the legendary Tron is here! This is an honor." The program cheers. "The names Rep, short for Repair, of lines of course."
"You came just in time, have fun." Tron sarcastically comments as he points to the corrupted horror. Instantly the expression on Rep's face changes.
"Okay I can do this." Rep reassures himself. He walks over to Rob as slowly as he can. As he proceeds he pulls out a glowing translucent keyboard from a section of his forearm circuitry. He gently types in some figures and on the side of Rob a screen appears. Rob gently peers at it. Rep retypes some numbers into the results the screen displays.
"What are you doing to me?" Rob barks at Rep, his voice horrible low and disfigured.
"I'm trying to repair you, just don't hurt me and I can help." Rep calmly replies.
Alan sees the same figures Rep does on the computer screen. Only to see what cannot be accomplished.
LIN35 264946, 15638364, 3456484, 6602740, AND 78538956 C0NTIN ERR0RS.
R3PAIRB0T.3XE:COM:C0NFIGUR3:LINE:264946:DISPLYING FULL LIN3
"Dear God, it won't stop! We can't repair this!" Alan screams. "Our repair bot can't fix something this complicated; I don't even see any errors!" Flynn realizes that what must be done is unfortunately the worse option.
"Flynn, I hate to say this, but we're . . . we're gonna have to delete Rob."
"No . . . No . . . NO, DAMMIT!" Flynn screams kicking and flying his arms. "Why? Try to fix it do something! Don't let him die like this!"
"Flynn, we have to, he's just a computer program now."
"NO! You don't understand! When a program is deleted they die. Your gonna kill him!" Flynn almost cries as he remembers watching Ram fade into nothing in the recognizer, rehearing his dying words "Help Tron ...".
"Maybe I can build some sort of quarantine until I can repair him." Alan quickly spouts.
"Well do something!" Lora finally screams.
Alan turns back to the computer and frantically types in a command for Repair bot.
:COM:IS0LATE:DIGIT1ZATION TRG3T
Rep slowly, receiving his command, prepares himself to try and isolate Rob. Rep starts to type in commands onto his keypad, gently easing himself in Rob's direction when suddenly Rob spins around at him and grabs Rep's face in his horribly fragmented hand. His hand, glowing a hideous green, sends infected energy into Rep. Rep screams but to no avail. Slowly Rob loosens his grasp and Rep falls to the floor, his circuitry dark and lightless. Tron, standing nearby sees that something is wrong and he pulls Rep out of the rez-in station barely avoiding Rob's line of sight. Tron looks into Rep's dead eyes.
"Rep! REP!" Tron screams shaking Rep's lifeless body. "No, what in user's name happened to you?"
Rep's eyes suddenly flash; they swell into a bright green. His circuitry glows the same hideous green and cracks of this corrupted energy form all over his body. Rep leaps to his feet. He pulls up his arm to his eyes and watches it slowly dissolve and fragment right before him. He smiles, lowers his arm and glares at Tron.
"Rep?"
Rep screams at Tron. The scream, a mash of, horrible ear splitting, human and electronic noise emits from his throat. "Away from me conscript!" I serve only my user!"
Tron stumbles backwards and looks at Rep in horror. "Who?" he asks.
Rep stares him down. "The master user: Jameson."
Rob hears this and spins around. "Excellent. Delete him my conscript" He commands to Rep.
Tron runs out of the rez-in station towards Dumont. Dumont's face expresses nothing but pure horror.
"Tron, get rid of those things NOW!" Dumont screams, his whole body shaking.
"I can't! Rob was a user, remember? I can't delete a user."
"You have the ability, just do it!"
"It's not a matter of ability; the other users want him back. That's why Rep was here!
They wanted to fix him! I can't."
WRNING: INF3CTED PR0GRAMS WILL CUSE DAMAG3 TO LL DATA AND PR0GRAMS 0N CURR3NT 5Y5TEM!
DEL3TE INFECTED US3RS Y/N?
"Flynn, I have to, there's no other way. We're gonna have to identify the problem later and do whatever we can to make sure this never happens again." Alan humbly sighs, almost crying.
Flynn stares sternly at the computer screen. Lora looks at him wondering what he's going to do. Flynn just looks down at the floor.
"Do it."
Alan begins to type
3:CTION:D3LTE 3, 3R
Tron pulls out his disc that is attached to his back; he holds it, ready to throw it. "I'm sorry." he says.
Tron flings the disc at Rep. The disc burns bright white as it zips through Rep. Rep screams a horrid scream as his body glows bright orange, falls to the floor, emits a strange electronic noise, and it turns into several glowing panels that float upwards. Rep has been de-rezzed, or in the human world, deleted. The disc, still flying, zips around Rob. Rob flings his arms trying to stop the disc. Eventually the disc zips through him and his huge, deformed body slams against the ground as he is de-rezzed. Tron's disc quickly flies back into his open hand. He catches it. He looks up to the sky.
HAS BEEN DELETED, HAS BEEN DELETED.
. has returned to normal function.
"What now?" Alan solemnly asks Flynn.
"I don't know" Flynn whispers. "I just don't know." He repeats, as he leans against a table.
Lora walks over to Flynn, obviously trying to comfort him. She hugs him. Flynn doesn't react at all, keeping his head lowered, staring at the floor.
"It's not your fault Kevin, you didn't know." Lora warmly says.
Flynn jumps off the table. "I did know! That's the problem. Should have left everything on there alone! I should never have risked anyone's life or any change in the system at all! I have to preserve everything on that server. Can't let it be changed again." Flynn nervously shouts, almost to himself, running his hands through his hair, like a maniac. Alan gets out of the chair, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Well Flynn, We've officially done it. We killed an employee with this stupid hunk of money-down-the-toilet." Alan angrily mumbles. "The laser was only meant to transfer objects, why the hell did we think it could do the same with a person?"
"If it was only meant to do that, the MCP wouldn't have fired it at me. He knew I was going to live and that's how he knew I could be imprisoned inside. I removed the presets but, how they hell would the MCP know he could do that? Somebody taught him that, or it … taught itself."
"Flynn, are you trying to imply the MCP had . . . Artificial intelligence?"
"Dillinger was a lot smarter than we thought he was." Lora realizes.
"There's no way he could have written something that complicated all on his own!" Flynn yells "you saw how lazy he was. Big pushover probably hacked someone else's script and just added programming to it so it lifted other program's subroutines."
"It makes sense, but how it learned to transfer a human is beyond me." Alan summarizes.
Flynn starts to walk down the stairs of the platform. Lora stops him, knowing he still holds feelings of guilt. "Flynn, it's not your fault."
"Yes it is." Flynn moans.
"No Flynn it's not, you had no idea the MCP was operating the laser like that or that it knew how to transfer a person." Alan reassures "I should try to write a program that can act as a security check for transporting people in and out of the computer, it could hold the code that the MCP used to transfer Flynn and anyone who is transported must be authorized and recognized and then they will be guarded by that program, and if anything goes wrong, the program will remove the user from the system."
"Brilliant!" Flynn says, throwing his arms up in the air. "Wish I had thought of it before we started this mess. What are you going to call the program?"
"Probably just some line-code name so no one knows what it really does . . . like Ma1a or something." Alan replies
" . . . and the code?"
Alan ponders this for a moment. "I'll call it the 'Tron legacy code' of course."
3
"Hey, J.D.! what's new? How are things?" Calvin nervously bellows into the phone.
Calvin begins to shuffle through some of his equipment on his desk. He nervously handles a camera and some recently printed pictures and places them in a suitcase. His black hair almost matching his suit as he puts on his jacket and walks out of his house.
"What do you want Cal?" The voice on the other end, annoyed, replies.
"Remember that little spy job you gave me for that dinky computer firm, um F-com or C-fom or something, some junk about a laser?"
"You mean F-con? Yes, what about it?" The voice grumbles back.
"I just got the photos of the lab printed for you. You still want them?"
"Images weren't the entire deal Cal, I asked for everything you could find out with no traceable evidence. When are you going to mention that part?"
Cal nervously shuffles will buckling his seatbelt. "I was getting to it. Where can we meet up?"
The voice on the other end thinks for a moment. "Now, at Maroni's."
"You got it Mr. Thorne!" Cal agrees.
Maroni's, one of the oldest Italian places around, and one of J.D. Thorne's favorite contacting sites. J.D. knew that no one who worked in the highly competitive electronics market would eat here; instead the crowd consisted of retired older gentlemen, their wives, and their partying heiress. J.D.'s bald head and his tall stature did make him stick out, even when he was seated. Calvin shifts around in his seat, Thorne was intimidating and a person working in Calvin's field always knew it's best to be weary and alert of any possibility, especially treachery. Calvin flipped threw some papers and handed Thorne a stack of pictures. Thorne looks at the pictures. The pictures show very fuzzy and lightly faded images of Rob standing in front of ENCOM's digitization laser. The first picture motionless, the second with the laser active and firing and the third with no Rob in sight at all.
"See, every once in a while that Kevin Flynn guy would type some stuff into that computer over there," as he points "and the next thing you know that guy in front of the laser was just gone." Cal recalls.
Thorne looks up at Calvin and glares a skeptical expression. Calvin instantly loses his cool.
"W-What?" Cal shudders.
Thorne just smirks at Calvin. "You expect me to believe this tripe? I know you want to keep your job, act like your finding the cutting edge, but barroom pallor tricks aren't what I had in mind." Thorne angrily comments as he tosses the photos at Cal.
"I'm not kidding you here. This isn't any trick! I swear on my mother's grave I saw a whole man disappear into that device and god help me, I'll go there and show you myself if you don't believe me!" Cal almost screams.
Thorne pulls himself back into his chair as he sips some of his wine. "If what you say is true to me then this is what you can do for me, send the photos to F-con's research department and tell them everything you heard and anything you saw there. Tell them I want this technology available and I want it now." Thorne, almost scornfully commands.
"What if they wanna test it?"
"Find someone, stupid and, if they can't even do that right, I'll do it myself."
4