/Backdoor/ pt 2
Susan looked out of the window. It's been 6 weeks since she got to know about her disease and she spend every single day in hospital with chemotherapy, radiotherapy and things like that, which she knew wouldn't save but only tantalise her. She'd drastically lost weight and her coughing attacks came more and more frequently. The sun wasn't shining for days. Just gray sky all day.
The first days, there have been many people who bothered to pay her a visit, colleagues and other good acquaintances, but the more time passed the less people came by. It felt like they already forgot her. Like they had made their peace with the situation before Susan could do so herself.
However, she was never alone. Susan was visited by Alan and Kevin daily. Sometimes also Lora and Jordan with Sam swung by, but her two best friends were the only ones she really needed.
For all that... She was depressed. Nothing could raise her spirits. Nothing but...
The Grid. She dreamed of it every night, of wandering programs, however they looked like, dreamed of a vivid world... And every time she woke up and was terribly disappointed about this boring room she was lying in and the yet more boring gray sky outside.
This night she had had the most intensive dream which gave her an idea.
An absolutely insane one but internalised every single gleam of hope she could get.
She asked the nurse to call Flynn and telling him that she urgently had to speak with him. Now she waited, staring out one the window, and hoped that her plan wasn't too insane.
It took half an hour until someone knocked on the door.
"Come in!", she said loudly and had to cough instantly.
"Hey!", Flynn said as he entered.
Susan tried a little smile. "Hi."
He sat down on a chair next to her, moved his butt to one side and another and laughed: "Man, they really only got uncomfortable chairs here, right?" Then he stayed in his position, held up a finger to symbolise that he just tested if this position was the best, sighed and began to move again. Susan laughed weakly. Flynn was a funny person. When he finally gave up to look for comfort, he said: "Aaaanyways... The nurse said you had to speak to me. I turned chicken when I saw that the call was from the hospital, girl..."
"Don't worry, I don't feel worse than usual." Susan took a deep breath. "Okay. Well... um... I wanted to talk to you about something we'd already talked about..." She paused and looked into his eyes. "About the Grid."
Flynn hadn't count with something like that. "The... Grid?" Thoughtfully he put his hand on his chin. "Okay..."
"You know, since you told me about it, I always dream of it, of the lightcycles of the TRON game and so on."
"And...", he asked hesitantly. "What do you want to know about it?"
"Kevin... I want you to look into my eyes and tell me that it's the truth, that there really is a world inside of the computer."
He straightened himself and looked at her seriously. "It's true. I never lied to you."
She nodded slowly. "Okay... I believe you."
"Really?", he asked surprised.
"You'd never lie to me. I mean you're crazy but not as crazy as to come up with something like that."
Flynn leaned back and smiled. "Thank you."
She smiled back. But now it had to become serious, she'd reached the most important part of her plan, the most important question. "Kev, that's not all I wanted to know yet. I wanted to ask if... If you are... entering the system, aren't you becoming a file in the computer too? I mean, when you're inside, could someone see you as some kind of code on the screen?"
"Well, I could never try. Nobody but you knows about it yet... But I'm quite sure that it works like that. That's how Lasercontrol works."
"And could someone do with it everything one can do with the other codes too then? Like, delete, move..." She swallowed. "Copy?"
He furrowed his brow. "Uum..." Suddenly the truth dawned upon him. He stood up quickly. "No... You don't want to..."
"Yes, Kev, please!"
"No, I won't do that!"
"Kev, c'mon!"
"No!" He quickly, almost panicly, paced up and down.
Susan sighed. "Kev...", she said slightly annoyed.
"No."
"Kevin!"
"No!"
"FLYNN!", she shouted and atoned for it with another cough attack.
Flynn stood by her side at once and asked: "Are you okay?"
She took a handkerchief and coughed into it heftily. When she slowly stopped coughing, she looked at the handkerchief, which was full of blood. "NO, NOTHING'S OKAY!", she screamed, held the handkerchief demonstratively up and threw it away. "Damn, I'm desperate, Kevin! I'm a 27 year old woman who'll die soon! And I actually didn't live yet! Shit, I staved it all off! So if there's just the tiniest chance to survive, I'LL GRAB IT!" Susan sank back into her her pillow. Tears rolled down her cheek. "I just want to live... Kevin, I need you. Why don't you want to help me?"
"I... I know, Susan, I know... But I... I can't..."
"Why not?", she whimpered.
"You don't know this world. If I really let you enter it, copy your file and restore it, so that you're perfectly healthy again, you couldn't come back! You'd be a program, one witn the memories of a user indeed, but still just a program! You wouldn't be you..."
"What makes us what we are? What does it mean to live? To consist of flesh and blood? No, it's our decisions, our actions, our memories..."
"You'd be imprisoned!"
"The only thing I'd miss were my friends. I'd still have you then and wait, until you tell Alan and Sam about it. Then I'll see everyone again."
"I'm not always there. You'd be alone in a world you don't know, in which everything is different. That'd be a hell of a way to live."
"But it is a way..."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It's been 2 days since she'd talked to Flynn about it. He'd considered it finally but said no.
"It'd be too dangerous...", he had said.
Too dangerous? What's the worst that could happen? Could she die? She had to smirk at the thought of that. In a few weeks she'd be dead anyway.
The last 2 days Susan had come to a decision: She will survive. She already had a plan: She'd go to the arcade herself, look for Flynn's secret office, hack into his computer and try to copy herself. Flynn had said that he could create programs from the inside, so why should an ordinary copy be a problem?
It would be difficult though. She had become weaker and could barely walk on her own. But she'd prepare herself as good as possible: She had eaten more than usual, what she almost threw up again but she had forced her body to keep it. She had always had a good body-awareness and a will of iron. Furthermore, she had observed the nurses, when a shift began and when the corridor was empty. She also had asked Alan to bring her some of her pretty clothes under the pretext that she wanted to see herself being beautiful in the mirror before she died. He had brought her a nice black dress with white dots on it. Perfect! She actually like trousers more but a Jean would be far to heavy for her now anyway. The last of her preparations was something she wasn't proud of. She had stolen Alan's key ring because she knew that Flynn had given him a spare key for the arcade. She felt sorry for that but it was necessary.
It was 0:13. Susan calmly lay in her bed and stared to the ceiling. Mentally, she prepared herself for everything. She knew that a nurse would come in a minute to see if she slept. She tried not to let her body get tired. She tensed up every single muscle several times. There she heard how the door handle was pushed down. She closer her eyes quickly and listened. The nurse poised for a moment and closed the door after that. Susan grinned. Her fingertips prickled. Se was excited, what gave her extra power.
She stood up slowly and waited until the dizziness was bearable. Then she quietly get out of her bed and felt her way in the darkness to the chair right in front of her. When she reached it, she waited until her eyes got used to the darkness and walked to the window where she raised the blind to let the lamplight from outside into the room. Now she could see way better. Susan put on the dress Alan had brought her and went to the door. She turned around one more time.
On the bed stand were some folded slips of paper. She'd written farewell letters to Alan and some others, including Sam. She had written on it that he shouldn't read it until he was a teenager. Otherwise he wouldn't understand.
Just as she was about to push the door handle down, she realized that there was a mirror on her left side. He hesitated for a moment but finally walked over to it.
She didn't like what she saw. Her rips were visible on her cleavage, the dress didn't even fit. She had dark shaddows under her eyes and hollow cheeks. Her legs were also extremely thin. 'I look like a stork.', Susan thought and nearly had to laugh about herself. She'd never had problems with her weight, never needed a diet to stay slim. That was the first time in her life that she found herself ugly.
She looked away quickly and tried to concentrate on her plan.
She walked over to the door again, took a deep breath and pushed the door handle down.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Huh?", Flynn breathed tiredly into the phone.
"Hi. I'm sorry that I call you that late..."
Flynn stood up and walked out of the bedroom to not wake Jordan. "It's ok, Alan. I'm kinda used to it. What's up?"
"Well, I just wanted to go to the company again 'cause I forgot something important there. But I can't find my keys! I wanted to ask if you could check your place."
"Sure, man. Hold the line." Flynn went down to the living room and began to search for Alan's keys. A few minutes passed without him having success in finding them. While he continued to search he asked: "Where have you seen them the last time?"
"I think that was when I went to visit Susan in hospital."
"Hm, maybe you just..." He stood still abruptly. He caught his breath.
"Flynn?"
"Tell me... do you also have the spare key for the arcade on your key ring?"
"Um... Yes, why?"
Flynn hung up and sprinted off.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Susan got out of the taxi.
"That's 26$ in all, Miss."
She looked into her purse, where she only found 2 hundred dollar notes. 'Whatever, I don't have use for it anyway...'
She took one of those and handed it to the taxi driver. "Keep the change."
"That's a hundred dollar note, Miss!"
"I know and I said: Keep the change."
He looked entirely confused. "Tha-Thanks, Miss!"
"All right..."
She turned to go but the driver asked: "What's your name, Miss? So that I can pray for you in church."
She smiled lightly. "Susan Gifford."
"Thanks again, Miss Gifford!", the nice old man said and drove off.
She was glad to make others happy. Although she didn't believe in god, she liked the idea of someone praying for her. To late, unfortunately.
Susan turned around and sighted Flynn's Arcade for a second.
Her plan had worked so far. Nobody had been in the corridor, only once, whereupon she had hidden in a restroom, after what could steal herself away easily. Fortunately there had been some taxis in front of the hospital and she literally let herself fall into it. Between gasping and trying to suppress the nausea, she had croaked out the words: "Flynn's Arcade".
She walked up to the arcade with faltering steps, took Alan's keys out and unlocked the padlock at the entrance. She had to hold onto the bars for a second, taking a deep breath, before she finally had the strength to push the door open.
Inside it was pitch-black. The light of the street lamps only lighted the entrance area. Since Susan had almost lived here the past years, except of the last weeks of course, she knew where the current switch was, felt it in the darkness and pushed it up. Immediately, the light and the arcade games went on and the speakers began to blast out the music she loved. Susan smiled and closed her eyes for a moment. Eventually she was here again.
"...broken in two, two, two...", she sang along and began to look for an access to Flynn's underground office.
She looked for it everywhere... without success. After half an hour she almost wanted to give up. Her strength vanished progressively and show couldn't find this damn office. Time was running out.
She leaned against a wall and took a deep breath. She already felt quite exhausted. Soon she wouldn't be able to stand anymore. Then everything, her plan, her hopes, would have been for nothing.
Desperately and soaked with sweat she glanced around. There something stroke her eye. On the end of the corridor was a single arcade cabinet above which big letters were enthroned: TRON. Susan smiled and walked up to it.
'TRON... Are you real?'
Suddenly her head spun. She barely could reach the arcade cabinet and leaned against it's side. She breathed heavily with her eyes closed. She forced herself to calm down, but didn't quite manage to. She sobbed. A little tear rolled down her cheek. She clenched her right fist and hit the machine behind her, causing it to give in and be pushed back a little.
"Oops..."
Susan turned around and wanted to return it to its previous position. But as she put her hand on it, she saw some metal shining through the gap behind the machine on her right.
She took a closer look, puzzled. "No, right?" A big grin started to occupy her face.
She pushed the machine aside completely and cleared the way towards a door.
"Impossible..."
New energy flowed through her body, but she knew it wasn't going to last too long. She had to hurry and no time to lose.
She opened the door and stepped into a dark corridor. By instinct, she walked straight and felt the first step under her foot. Further away she saw light. Slowly, she proceeded to the end of the flight of stairs.
On her left was a big door with a lock. "Damnit!"
Susan didn't have a key for that. But she's gotten too far to give up now. She hurried up to the arcade again, into Flynn's actual office and got a pipe wrench from the storeroom. When she arrived at the door again, Susan braced herself and fortunately broke the lock with the first hit.
She pushed the door open.
It was an untidy room. On the right hand side was a big desk and on the left some electronic devices.
Susan dropped the pipe wrench and entered the room. She immediately sat down on the chair in front of the desk, breathing heavily.
No! She couldn't afford to take a breather, not now. Susan sighed and wanted to stand up, supporting herself against the table surface. She winced when it suddenly flared up and a computer monitor became visible under all the slips of paper that covered the desk.
Yes! She has found Flynn's computer. She buckled down to work at once.
It was quite easy to log in since she knew Flynn inside out and could think of his password quickly. But what now? Susan thought for a moment. How was the thing called that had dragged Flynn into the computer? Laser... Something with... She winced in excitement when she remembered the name.
\: find_Laserconrtol
\: LLLSDLasercontrol
'Well then, shit or bust...'
\: bin/LLLLSDLasercontrol -ok
Aperture Clear?
Yes No
Susan held her breath. Everything was silent around her. She closed her eyes. "Bye, world..."
Yes - Enter
Suddenly, everything was illuminated brightly for a second, just to return to pitch blackness again.
Susan was lying on the floor and gasped for air. Around her, everything was spinning. She was feeling incredibly nauseous, but she suppressed it. Her limbs felt so weak she could barely move. But when she could finally think straight, she thought to herself: 'I'm on the Grid.'
She opened her eyes. Everything around her was dark. Only a small window directly in front of her let some light shine in. It was still Flynn's underground office, but something was different.
Struggling, she sat up. She immediately felt more miserable, but she ignored that. She had to get this done. So she pulled herself back on the chair using the last of her strength. She took several attempts, but eventually succeeded. When she touched the tabletop, however, nothing happened.
"No...", she gasped. "No, no, where's the screen, what...?"
Then it hit her. 'I am BEHIND the screen. And I'm a user. I do whatever I want here...'
It was like a dream. If you were aware of the fact that it was your own dream, you could control it. Now she would control this world.
Susan briefly contemplated and looked around. She took a deep breath and simply tried something.
She got up and sat down on the floor. With her eyes closed, she concentrated. Suddenly, a pane appeared in front of her, and she saw her own reflection. She touched it with her right hand. The pane lit up where her fingertips rested. Suddenly, in the top left corner, text appeared:
New Program or copy?
"Copy...", Susan rasped. Intense pain flashed through her body and she started coughing. Suddenly, however, she noticed how blue rectangles were starting to occupy her feet and entire body. A female voice announced: "Scan initiated."
Susan kept coughing into her hand and noticed it getting wet from all the blood.
By now her entire body was cluttered with glowing rectangles.
"Scan finished. Starting Upload."
Susan looked up for a moment and noticed the glowing blue rectangles appearing in front of her again. But this time they formed a frame, which slowly took the form of a human lying on the ground.
It was a wonderful thing to watch.
Pieces of skin spanned the glowing body made of rectangles, and slowly a new creature took shape. But it was not entirely new. The woman lying there, on the floor, looked exactly like Susan.
A tear rolled down her own cheek, and then her power faded. She lied down on the floor, still coughing lightly, next to her second self and breathed heavily.
"Upload completed."
Susan smiled gently before feeling a stinging pain and everything went bright again. And And within a matter of seconds, she found herself in Flynn's office in the real world, in Flynn's arms.
"Susan! Are you alright? Susan, talk to me!"
She looked at him through half-open eyelids. "I made it...", she rasped.
"What? I..."
"Kev..." She put her hand on his cheek and whispered: "I love you like a brother. I'm sorry..." Then she shut her eyes completely, and her fast breathing slowed down. "Promise you'll save me..."
"Yeah, I've already called an ambulance! They'll be here in a minute, just don't give up now!"
"No, I mean inside. Promise..."
"I promise! I promise! I'll promise you anything! Just stay with me!"
Susan smiled and breathed out, but not in anymore.