Coding Birds

by TwinEnigma

Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, Tron, Tron: Legacy or related characters, et cetera. I do this for fun and not profit.

Warnings: AU in certain respects; Assume Pre-Nu52


Chapter 4: Bits

It takes about a dozen more shuriken before Tim's able to determine the rough area that the digitizer ray covers. He ends up having to inch along the door side wall, pressing himself as flat against it as humanly possible until he gets behind the ray to the workstation. There are tons of schematics and technical drawings of the equipment, dusty parts and tools, and they're surprisingly unhelpful: he's intelligent, yes, but he doesn't have near the background in theoretical physics to even begin to understand the work Flynn had been up to on this. This stuff is on a whole separate wavelength.

The basic principles, however, are rather clear. The ray gun, as he'd termed it, translates matter into computer code and back again. It being on is absolutely critical if he intends to retrieve anything or anyone it has translated into code, and the terminal is the only means of controlling it. There is absolutely no remote, nothing.

If he's lucky, Tim can make his way along the wall to the computer terminal, manually patch in, and attempt to reroute control through his computer. The thing is that the technology in here is practically freaking ancient. He'd have to jury rig a compatible connection before he could even attempt to patch in and then he has no idea what kind of security Flynn's got on that beast.

Tim grimaces, turning to the worktable.

He's just wasting time worrying about it.

Tim grabs anything he thinks will be useful, stuffs it in his belt, and begins the slow crawl back along the wall towards the computer terminal. Every step he takes is measured and he dares not move too far off the wall, even once he finally gets to the terminal. Letting himself slide down the wall until he disappears behind the edge of the bulky terminal, he finally lets himself really breathe and immediately gets to work.

The panel comes off and he's staring into the beating heart of a machine that's both ancient and unlike anything he's ever seen before. There's a complexity to the innards of this thing that is boggling for a device that probably didn't even have a fraction of the processing power of his cell phone. Hell, the GUI he'd gotten a glance at earlier was little better than a DOS command prompt window.

Frowning, Tim grounds himself and sets about creating a way to bridge the gap between his machine and the ancient beast, using only ancient SCSIs and the tools in his belt. It's like pulling teeth, honestly, and this is just the hardware connection: once he's got a hardline in, he's still got to get into the software and figure out how to get everyone back in one piece. That is, provided that he can get past whatever security permissions Flynn had set up on this thing and find them on the drive.

Tim gives the computer a nasty smile. "I'm going to have to introduce you to my little buddy."

He feels more than a little mad, sitting here, talking to the computer like this, but it's been a long night and he's working against the clock with absolutely the wrong tools for a job that's supposed to be all finesse. Instead, he feels like he's going at this like a buffoonish caricature of a surgeon with a hacksaw. Coding's always been more his thing anyway. Is it any wonder he's actually looking forward to the hard part?

In theory, the procedure is fairly simple: he links in with his computer, finds the backdoor into Flynn's system and turns his computer into a temporary remote terminal from which he can safely control the digitizing ray. In reality, it's a bit harder than that.

Fortunately, he's brought something that'll speed the process along: his own little bit of coded magic. It's a little program he'd written up after he'd started as Robin and it's his personal key to pulling data out of some of the hardest systems in Gotham. It's simple and, given the simple architecture he's seen in this system so far, it's probably not going to take that long to find what he's looking for once he gets in. Everything else it throws at him, he can handle.

"Do your worst, Kevin Flynn," he growls, slipping the last SCSI into place.

The firewall recognizes his machine almost instantly.

"Ha!" Tim shouts, practically pouncing on the keyboard. Now this was more like it!

He slips easily and seamlessly into the familiar dance of keystrokes and commands, plowing through the old monster's defenses like they are tissue paper. It's throwing all kinds of crap at him, but he's persistent and his program is running like a dream. Then, he's in and he can't help but marvel at the processes going on in this beast. It's been running like this for years and he's got no idea what it's been doing, but the fact that it's kept right on plodding along is astonishing.

Half the code for the digitizer is so complex that Tim won't even dare touch it for fear of the harm he could do. The other half, the specific command controls, are beautifully simplistic and elegant in design and he can't help but be grateful he hadn't been caught up in that beam, not with the way this had been coded. It had been made effectively impossible to activate the digitizer from inside the machine without a specific key coded to...

"You goddamn genius, Kevin Flynn," Tim breathes and means every word. He narrows his eyes at the keyboard. "Now, where are my friends?"

He plunges deeper into the code with his search program, looking for anything that jumps out at him as familiar, and when it happens, he almost dismisses it as another firewall.

This is Nightwing. I heard you're looking for me?

"Yes, yes, yes!" Tim practically shouts, unable to contain his delight. "Thank you!"

Get us out of here!

His fingers fly over the keyboard, accessing the digitizer command tree, and pulls up the three files his search program had located. He triggers them one by one, praying that he'd understood the safety protocols correctly and that they wouldn't appear on top of each other or worse.

The digitizer whirs, powering up, and for a moment the room is filled with blinding light as the power surges. Then the light dies and Tim is left blinking and half blinded at the three figures standing in the center of the room.

Damian is easy to recognize – he's easily the shortest – but it's the man nearest the console that Tim's gaze is drawn to. Tim remembers that face. It's been years, but he remembers.

"You must be Tim," Dick says, smiling. "It's good to finally meet you."


AN:

Tim's smart, hell yes, but that machine, man...