Chapter 2

Sam sighed in irritation. He had searched "pregnancy", "baby", and even, "mysterious illness" and had found nothing. Finally, though he really hadn't wanted to do it, he clicked on the search box and typed, "sex". As the phone searched, Sam muttered to himself, "I really hope I'm not about to find out more than I wanted to know about you, old man."

After a moment, the search results came up. One match. Sam looked at the file location. It was in his father's private journals, rather than his research. That wasn't a good sign. Sam nervously reached out a finger, and tapped on the result before he could change his mind. The first thing he looked at was the title of the entry. It read: Program Sexuality—Theories. Sam gave a small sigh of relief. He still felt some trepidation, but he felt that it was probably safe to read on. Looking at the date, Sam saw that his father had written this entry about a year after his first trip onto the grid (though, how much time passed on the grid, Sam wasn't sure). He scrolled down to the entry itself, and began to read.

An interesting development today. Tron has been pestering me for months for an upgrade. I told him that I would get to it as soon as I had the time, but he wouldn't let it go. He just kept bringing it up over and over again. Now, I certainly wasn't against getting Tron an upgrade. But I didn't really see why it was so urgent. Tron's a pretty advanced program already, so an upgrade would only make a barely noticeable difference in his performance. The only difference it would really make was that it would alter his program's appearance enough so that Tron would appear in a new outfit on the grid. As far as I was concerned, a snazzy new look for Tron was pretty low on my priority list.

But, like I said, he's been bringing it up every chance he got, almost since the first time I came back after we defeated the MCP. Finally, today, I'd had enough. He had asked how the new upgrade was going about five times before lunch, and I snapped. I demanded right there on the sidewalk that he tell me why it was so dad-gum important that I stop all my research and program repair to make him a useless upgrade. He didn't want to tell me, but I regret to say that I played the user card, telling him that I was the boss and he had to tell me. Finally, he told me that he wanted the new upgrade because his current outfit was programmed to change color under certain stimuli, making it extremely obvious when he was sexually aroused. Poor guy. I can imagine how awful that must be for someone as reserved and straight-laced as Tron. (I regret how childishly I behaved now; I'll apologize tomorrow when I give him the new upgrade.)

This whole thing brought up some interesting questions, though. I had always assumed that, even though they have the appearance of gender, that programs don't actually have sexuality. I guess I was wrong. I had just assumed that they didn't, because I had never seen any of them express any kind of romantic feeling toward one another (which makes sense, now that I think about it, if their clothes change color to let the whole world know that they're turned on). It's got me wondering—can programs reproduce? I mean, in the same way we users do. I guess that sex would be just like any other exchange of data. And I suppose it's conceivable that that data could combine in a unique way. But I've never heard of a new program spontaneously coming to life without a user. No, I think on the grid us users are the only ones who can bring life to a program. Off the grid though…

I wonder what would happen if a female program with data from a male program was able to leave the grid. Would his data and hers suddenly combine, even if she had obtained the data long before? I wonder how quickly the pregnancy would come to term. Probably a good deal faster than usual, particularly if it was obtained long before.

It's an interesting question. It's interesting to theorize about, anyway. I don't think I'll be doing much practical research into the subject. Even if the technology existed to bring programs to the outside world with me (which is another thing I should start researching into), at this point there is really only one program I would trust enough to take with me, and I really don't think Tron is going to be giving birth any time soon. Pity this theory will never be tested.

Sam sighed, closing his dad's journal, and putting his phone in his pocket. "Well, dad, looks like you get to have someone test your theories after all."

Well, here it is, chapter 2. I know it's extremely short: later chapters will be longer. Please review!