Tron

from beneath him. He attempted to get a handle on things in Flynnish fashion: “Look, just so I can tell my friends what this dream was about—okay?—where am I?”

Ram regarded him strangely; he’d never seen a program quite like this stranger, never heard one speak this way. Perhaps he’s glitched, decided Ram, who replied, “You’re a… guest, of the Master Control Program.”

Without a paddle, Flynn’s mind said in no jocular manner. His sense of the absurd had long since given up the effort to convince him that it was time to wake up. But mention of the MCP summoned memories of himself at the console in the basement of ENCOM. He reached the inescapable conclusion that his situation was neither dream nor hallucination.

“They’re going to make you play videogames,” Ram finished. I’m putting you on the Game Grid, the MCP had promised Flynn, he remembered now.

He was relieved by Ram’s words, though. “Well, great! That’s no sweat. I play videogames better than anybody.” He speculated on what the local record for Space Paranoids might be. Ram looked at him skeptically, but Flynn barely noticed. This whole loony setup might have its appeal. If the locals—whoever and whatever they were—set store by the ability to play videogames, Flynn figured, he might have himself a political career.

Further conversation was prevented by a heavy pounding noise, as the door to Flynn’s cell opened. He looked up, to the origin of the pounding. A guard stood on the sheet of transparent material that was the ceiling of his cell; the ferrule of a staff struck against it once more. The guard moved on, pausing over Ram’s cell, and Tron’s, to pound on them.

Flynn, seeing no point in resisting, made his way into the corridor. Guards pulled other captives from their confinement up and down the row. He was shoved off in the desired direction but stopped suddenly, whirling on the cowled guard. “There’s been a mistake! I gotta see the guy in charge!” If they thought they had to keep him in a cage just to get him to play videogames, he’d straighten that out fast. Bring on Battle Zone!

The hulking guard, and another, marched Flynn on his way once more. “You will,” promised the one whom Flynn had addressed. Flynn liked the tone of it not in the least.

He was marched in a column of prisoners like himself, all wearing the half-tunic, onto a broad, terrace-like area. He saw that he was in a complex reaching down and down, reminding him of an enormous strip-mining operation. Flynn gazed down into a circular pit, far below. The diameter of the place, he calculated, was a mile or more. On this scale, he reminded himself, whatever that might mean. It was sub-divided into areas modified for different uses, the floor of each graphed in squares of varying sizes. The arenas’ walls were sheer, but above them rose level after level of expansive balconies, terraces, stages, and vantage points. Tiny figures moved about on many of them, allowing Flynn to gauge its size. He could think of no other structure so huge; it was as if the Grand Canyon had been executed in strange contours composed of geometric shapes and strips and patches of light. His astonishment almost made him stumble; he shuffled to avoid a collision with the program behind him.

The file of prisoners marched past another group of programs, armored and gleaming in red, who wore disks affixed to their backs. None of them wore tunics, leading Flynn to believe that the garment was some sort of badge for neophytes. The red looked mean and contemptuous; as Flynn and the rest passed by, they called out insults and provocations. Flynn gave them a hard look and hoped he’d get to shoulder up to a Tail Gunner against one of them with the others looking on. Under the circumstances, it was all he could. He trudged behind the others out into an open area, and stopped to the guard’s command.

He’d seen no one who appeared to rank above the guards, and knew by now that talking to them was useless. But here, perhaps, he’d have a chance to get to someone with real pull and explain things. A guard stood on a rostrum overlooking the line of captives.

He exhorted them with an uplifted staff. “Look operative, you guys! Command Program Sark will explain the training procedures.”

Flynn peered around expectantly, waiting for the opportunity to buttonhole somebody and get a few words in.

A shadow fell over the complex. For the first time, Flynn looked up. Again, his mouth hung open.

The sky of this strangest of all worlds was a fantastic vision, filled with brightness, and remarkable shapes and forms in unfathomable patterns, which reminded him somehow of clouds but resembled them little. He paid them scant attention though, when he saw what had blocked out the light. The craft was colossal, larger than the largest nuclear supercarrier, menacing in a cold, impervious way. Smaller shapes—though they would be large from close-up, Flynn saw—entered and left the vessel endlessly, swooping on missions or patrols.

Squinting for a better look, he gave a start of surprise. Recognizers! But not the tiny computer simulations he himself had conceived; those monsters were the size of the Arc de Triomphe! Flynn considered, with a certain tightness in his throat, what mention of ‘games’ might truly imply.

Sark glared down disdainfully from on high, at the specks who were his new conscripts, and spoke, his words amplified so that the entire Game Grid heard him. “Greetings.” Sarcasm dripped from the word. “The Master Control Program had chosen you to serve your System on the Game Grid.”

The phrase now filled Flynn with apprehension as he considered the arena below. The chilling voice boomed from the sky again. “Those of you who continue to profess a belief in the Users will receive the standard substandard training. This will result in your eventual elimination.”

The voice was without compassion—indeed, its owner plainly enjoyed the opportunity to toy with helpless victims. What have I gotten myself into? Flynn exclaimed to himself. Here were programs, their intelligence structuring a palpable World, and a power faction attempting to cut off all relationships with the Users, the better to rule. They’d hit on a pretty effective method, was Flynn’s opinion. He mentally kicked himself for strolling into ENCOM so casually and putting himself right where the MCP could tackle him on its own ground.

That diabolical voice spoke on. “Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the Warrior Elite of the MCP.”

Two of the Reds standing behind the group laughed and nudged one another. The hard looks they gave the conscripts were clear enough; they had no preferences, and looked forward to combat or alliance with equal enthusiasm. They seemed bigger, more powerful than the prisoners, and Flynn assumed that to be by the MCP’s design. And Flynn knew, too, that he would never be one of them; the option offered the others did not apply to him. The MCP was out for revenge.

The programs around him were muttering to one another about Sark’s last remark. How could they yield their belief in the Users, they asked each other. How could they proclaim that they, and the System, were without any purpose or meaning but the MCP’s? And that only left one alternative, in Sark’s cold equation.

Flynn, gazing up at the enormous aircraft, forgot, for a moment, to be afraid. Even here, he thought, the old, old evil: surrender your beliefs or surrender your life.

Sark leaned forward on the bridge of his Carrier, to study the insects below. It was a comfort to him that the captive User was indistinguishable from the others. He thrust aside doubts, and thoughts of colossal, shining beings who’d shaped and directed the System in times past. The User was, after all, no great issue.

He finished, “You will each receive an identity disk. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disk. If you lose your disk or fail to follow commands, you will be subject to immediate de-resolution. That is all.”

Now all the conscripts were directed to look down into the arena. Flynn saw that, far below, a game— a duel, he corrected himself—was about to begin. Arrayed against a lone conscript were four of the Red Warrior Elite. Sparkling, spinning circles of light flashed and flew between them, and Flynn, recalling Sark’s mention of disks, watched in fascination.

Not that it’s likely to do you much good, he thought regarding the unfortunate program who fought alone, but I’m for you. Believe what you want to believe! Get ’em!