1.2

It was different reporting to Alan's office every morning, but it was fun. He had to keep a tab on his appointments and essentially manage his manager. He also felt a great need to check in on the mail room, it was his home for quite a while at Encom and he wanted to look after it as much as he was allowed.
Not that he was restricted working with Alan. It was wonderful, Nitro moved his stash of stationary to his own desk by the door and he had enough time to study up on any computing areas he was lacking. Alan was even able to help and suggest books and specific systems when they had five minutes together.
After a while he was rewarded his own Encom laptop, ready and able to log on to the company intranet and with limited remote access to Alan's own computer in case they had to go mobile for any meetings. It was odd in a sense being able to go to the meetings with board members, but still having to sit outside when things were underway.
He didn't mind, there was always a letter to draft or E-mail to respond to. It was fun being kept mildly busy, but then with all jobs there happened to be annoying moments too. He hated when people came to take out their frustration on Alan and well... he took it on himself to try and divert their frustration by asking them to explain it all to him first. Sometimes it was a case of telling people just to restart their server block and do a full systems check... other times at least people were calmer before talking to Alan and able to explain well their frustration.
Unless it was Sam Flynn. Nitro wasn't privy to their information it seemed and he ended up going on coffee runs with Quorra and taking a fair amount of time. He soon learned she wasn't just some bike riding bimbo and she was nice to talk to about even mundane things. He did try pumping her for information but she always managed to distract him.
So... upon his return with coffee and cookies he was somewhat releaved to see the men laughing and sitting on the small sofa across from Nitro's desk. But then at the same time he wasn't so happy. His burning questions were starting to annoy him to no end.
"Coffee guys" Quorra announced and broke the bond on the sofa, she smiled sweetly and handed a cup to Sam while holding her own.
"Everything seems ok now then?" Nitro made a point of saying as he sorted out Alan's coffee into a mug and put the small biscuits on the saucer.
"Yes, Nitro" was the controlled response from Alan, meaning 'Heel boy, heel'
"Alright then" Nitro smiled and got back to his desk, glowering as discreet as he could while pretending to work away.

~~~~

"Go on then..." Alan put everything to one side and looked at Nitro at the end of the working day. "what is it?"
"..." Straight to the point as always Alan... "Why on earth is Sam Flynn always so angry when he comes here?" they must see each other out of hours or something for the meetings to end so amiably.
"... Because there's trouble with the system"
"We have programmers for that... and i keep checking on things as best as I can" Nitro hinted to the stack of books on his desk.
"not the system... THE system" Alan probed
"... anything to do with the files i can never access?"
"... Never?" Alan smiled and winked before picking up his briefcase
Nitro glared back a little before sighing and grabbing his own things "So... the thing on the Intranet i have no access to. I have to hack it before you'll say anything?"
"That's the way it works. Sam doesn't want me to say anything... but if you already know..." Alan opened the door and with a smile hinted enough was enough for the day.
"Well... Challenge accepted" Nitro grinned

~~~~

Around a week or two later... well... Nitro slammed his head against his desk, repeatedly. Even after studying up on the codes he was weak on was failing him, not that it was much of a deterrence as he needed to know what the hell was going on.
Dillinger Jr had started causing minor problems using remote access or spies to hack into the intranet and cause problems here and there... and some problems had began when that stupid box arrived. How on earth could an arcade game cause so much damage. He was suspicious but had no reason to think it was anything other.
Alan shook his head gently and stood up "time for some coffee i think..." he smiled and grabbed his coat.
"Ah yes... programmer fuel..." Nitro sat up and plucked a sticky note from off his forehead "straight black, Gevalia if they have it" He smiled sweetly and batted his eyelashes for dramatic effect. It wasn't often Alan was the one fetching the coffee, it was a nice change when he did, Nitro saw it as such a treat and it was a nice way to beat routine.
Also on this occasion he noticed that Alan had failed to log out of his computer. Well... all of the important files were normally encrypted, his cipher was on his keys and went with him always. But maybe a quick snoop would help him indirectly.

#rRrrrrR rRRrRRrr rRRrrrrR rRRrRRRr rrRrrrrr rrRRRRRR#

Nitro nearly jumped out of his skin and searched for a dialogue window, it didn't take him a long time to convert since it was the same message as before 'Alan?'. Nitro frowned at the screen and noticed there was an application almost flashing.
The application was for the most part a blank dialogue window. The cursor blinked and well... what harm could it do? 'Yes?' He decided it was easier with a short response, and one that didn't give much away. Just in case it would cause trouble for his manager.
Lucky in many senses since whoever was asking answered in the same binary and asked for help. At first it wasn't clear at all what was needed, it was tricky putting the spaces between the right letters but he managed as best he could. It boiled down greatly to permissions and troubles coming somehow from outside the Intranet.
Someone must have started hijacking the limited Internet connection to cause damage within the system. Whoever he was talking to knew how it was being done and just needed a few helpful shoves in the right directions, Nitro was all too happy to oblige...
That was when he remembered he was still on Alan's computer. He cursed and told who he was talking to as quickly as he could type who he really was. The news didn't seem to phase who he was talking to and he finally earned a name and some access protocols. For the Grid.
Nitro swiftly closed everything he had opened down and went back to his own desk, thankfully in time for the coffee and glee! A muffin.
Alan sat at Nitro's desk and made sure there were enough saucers and whatnot for them to have a good old civilized break. It was fun, almost like a little distracting tea party... and it stopped Nitro just whorfing down everything and pouncing back on his laptop. Though he was itching to find more about this TRON he had encountered...
"Say Alan... does the name Tron ring a bell?" Nitro ditched his tact and just mentioned it, Alan would know he used his computer but at least he knew that he didn't completely snoop..
"... Tron … Monitors all contacts between our systems and other systems. It finds anything going on that's not scheduled, it shuts it down" Alan smiled and quoted his age old description of a program that Flynn seemed to regard as a valued friend.
Nitro thought a moment "so... a firewall?"
"Somewhat." Alan didn't mention that the original code was most likely lost beneath Kevin Flynn's influence and reprogramming. He kept some hope that what he created was still his. He also didn't voice his suspicions since... Nitro was good, but by his own admission not good enough to break Alan's own codes in such a short space of time.
"Well..." Nitro stood with a jolt, that coffee doing the trick "time's a wastin" he chuckled and cleaned up before ushering his boss to his own desk. "You have a board meeting in half an hour by the way" He made sure the right paperwork was placed on Alan's desk for review and he opened the door just before Sam waltzed in.
"Yes, something's going wrong as usual... No he doesn't have time he has to get ready for a board meeting... unless you want to take your position instead of relying on a proxy" Nitro managed to get all of that out before Alan coughed at him to shut the heck up... and after a sigh he did "how about you be helpful for a change... Alan lost his CEO position before, it can happen again" He warned and looked pointedly at them both.
Alan stood "Enough Nitro, If you can learn how to reprogram and hack... I can surely learn how to head a company. I didn't have the knowledge before... I do now" hint as sure as a sledgehammer to the skull. He was telling him off and at the same time encouraging him to look into things more.
Nitro merely nodded with a smile and grabbed his laptop and the packs for the meeting that had been delivered in the morning. Sam could only watch him walk past and tried to figure out what just happened.
He needed to talk with Alan again, things on the Grid were getting worse... and no matter how much he seemed to fix the problem something else seemed to start going wrong. He needed the help of an old school programmer since any new solution he could think of was failing.
Nitro cared not for his problems since he saw them as just Sam being Sam... but part of him did niggle. Enough so that while he was on his exile bench he was able to use the instructions the program left him to not only open a conversation window... but something called the Grid seemed to be setting up.
Turned out that the Grid was what everyone was up in arms about... Tron filled him in slowly at first... before the binary converted into the common alphabet and it was much easier. Seemed a little tweaking here and there was awesome.
It took a while for the awesome to wear off, and when it did... well... Nitro could barely understand the code that made up the Grid. He explained as much to Tron and the program simply replied it knew the solutions but had no power to do so... well... that would take some doing...
It didn't even dawn on him the meeting was over as he was typing away. Alan watched a while before lifting the laptop and walking a few steps with it. Nitro glanced up and smiled "great, keep holding it that high" he chuckled and almost laughed harder when Alan simply turned and remained holding the laptop.

He knew what it was like to have moments where you'd need a crowbar to remove him from his keyboard back in the day. Sometimes his wife struggled to tear him away even now, especially when he was working on things to help his son with assignments.

In little time they managed to move to the office and without any major injuries Nitro was settled half on his chair and starting to squint with the effort.

"Need I ask?" the ex programmer asked with a smile.
"Grid, Tron, Flynns secret... MCP reject..." Nitro shrugged and his fingers started cramping up "that should do it... i think..." he turned on the fan and held his hands in front of it.
"..." Alan sighed deeply "you already know of Tron.."
"It's... He's telling me a lot. The Grid is unlike anything I've seen... modern and old programming mashed into a big complicated pile of computer goo..."
"Goo?"
"Yes.. some of it... it just.. doesn't make sense. Most of it's beyond me... Some... some is old school enough for me to manage" Nitro chuckled and shook his hands, he had feeling back in them which was good.

~~~~

At first Nitro had taken the whole secret of the Grid thing quite well, the more he looked into it the more he was overwhelmed. Most afternoons he gave up trying to understand it all and ended up talking to Tron when he was available to communicate. Seemed there was some difficulty opening communications sometimes...
"Well, how do I fix it?" Nitro spoke into his headset as he looked over some Encom paperwork Alan had to sign.
"The I/O towers are too far apart..." matter of fact as always... Nitro didn't even bother to ask what in the heck the program actually meant. "It's tricky either way"
"Like that helps you overgrown bucket of binary" Nitro moaned as he started tidying the office up as it was the end of the day.
"Now that's mean... Flynn was much nicer"
Nitro could only laugh, that phrase coming out of all of that growling was hilarious, Tron could speak to him in text just fine but vocally it was always that binary. "Least I'm not as bad as this Sark you mentioned"
"...true..."
Nitro thought a moment, there was hesitation there, he was almost sure of it. "Wish there was a way I could help sort out the problems..." Sam was seemingly patching things up here and there, and Tron was one of the ones involved stopping the attacks. Nitro was trying to help Tron and trying to help patch things up. Alan was of little help to him and now he was beginning to understand why Sam was so pissy all of the time.
"There is."
"Oh sure, wave a magic wand that makes me know the Grid inside out... smoothing out all of the problems with the Encom merge?"
"Almost. Think more a... Digital Laser."
Nitro walked into his desk and cursed... "sorry... what!"
It was almost a saving grace that Tron was seemingly incapable of laughter as he explained that there was a near fictitious laser hidden within Encom that could transfer Users into digital space. He also explained that with some help inside the Grid he could gain access to the Laser and use it to bring Nitro into the system.
After some thought it made sense... and so. Nitro found himself practically breaking and entering his way into the laser room. It was poised behind a console that was humming away and plugged in to so many wires that disappeared through the flooring, from the relative sizes... this was that stupid arcade box.
He prodded the main part of the console and it almost came to life, a prompt window was waiting for him and asking for his name. He smiled and shook his head, Tron had told him exactly what to type.
Yes... The Aperture was clear...