Program. Sark’s mission, the Master Control Program’s prime objective, was to wipe out all loyalty to the Users.
That fierce visage might cow any Warrior, cruelty spoke from every line. Programs in every Domain in the System had seen Sark’s wins, and knew the figure in the elaborate, vaned casque-helmet. They’d watched him eradicate the enemies of Master Control, and knew that to enter the arena with him was to die.
One of the User-Believer’s rings was already gone, demolished during an earlier exchange. But now he hurled the sparkling ball once more. Up it shot, a tight node of ruinous energy, to bounce off the mirror overhead and streak toward the waiting Sark at bullet speed. The Command Program, cloaked in his red aura, moved then; with apparent ease, Sark caught the pellet with his cesta. A sneer twisted his countenance, as if to ask if his enemy could give him no more interesting contest.
Sark readied, cast. The pellet rebounded from the mirror. The Blue saw that he must leap across an empty space where his vanished ring had been in order to, make the catch—either that, or see another of his rings dissolved. He took a running start.
But the User-Believer had miscalculated; Sark had foreseen what he would do in reaction, and played on it. The Blue barely made the leap across the gap. As he teetered on the edge of his ring, the game-pellet struck him squarely. The luckless User-Believer exploded in a brief turbulence of de-rezzing.
Sark’s laughter was full and chill. Only one feeling surpassed this elation he felt when he’d obliterated an enemy. Victory he must have, and often; conquering his foes was proof that he was the Command Program, Sark. His circuitry flashed brighter with the emotion coursing through him, gleaming red.
Overhead, tall, shining readout letters materialized in the air:
WINNER: RED-SARK!!He looked up at the confirmation of his win, reveling in it. He bellowed sinister laughter.
Striding through the Training Complex afterward, Sark looked neither left nor right. Tough, dangerous Warriors of his Red Elite sat or lounged, or leaned against the walls, some having completed their matches, others waiting to go forth onto the Grid and fight on behalf of Sark and the Master Control Program. Seasoned veterans, sure of their prowess, they trained and fought hard. Yet, as Sark went past, they stirred and shifted uneasily, showing wordless deference to the Warrior who could have crushed the strongest among them.
One of the Reds ventured a bit of ingratiation: “Sark, my man! You are
Sark chose to laugh. The other Reds took that as permission to join in. And Sark walked on, exulting.
There was, for Sark, a sensation beyond the elation of the Game Grid. He knew it here, at the podium aboard his enormous Carrier aircraft. At this podium he communed with the Master Control Program and drew from it the power that sustained and augmented him. But here, there was no surging joy of battle; before the Master Control Program, even mighty Sark knew a twinge of fear.
He approached the podium, stepped into it, and seized its hand grips. It was waist-high, intricate in its instrumentation and design, encircling him. The Command Program fit his booted legs into the power outlets, and into him flowed the heady, revitalizing energy. His circuitry blazed with it.
The Master Control Program spoke to him, its sonorous voice filling the compartment, seeming to come from everywhere, reinforcing Sark’s belief in the MCP’s omniscience and omnipotence. Himself a being who thrived on power, the Red recognized his master. He sought and valued the favor of the MCP, but was intimidated by it as well.
“You’re getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic.”
The bulkheads vibrated with the words. The power outlets glowed with the energy and Sark drank it in, eyes glazed like an addict’s.
“Thank you, Master Control.” His deity was well pleased. Sark’s chest swelled with pride.
“We might be capturing some military programs soon,” Master Control went on. “Does that interest you?”
Sark’s concentration was divided between the ecstasy of the power influx and the question. “Sure. I’d love to go up against some of those programs.” He closed his eyes and contemplated eagerly the sort of competition he could expect from the newest programs expropriated by the Master Control Program out of DARPA, the DIA, and other governmental agencies. “It would be a nice break from these accounting programs and the other cream puffs you keep sending me. Which branch of the service?”
“The Strategic Air Command,” came the answer. The Red detected a note of pride in that.
“Nice,” admitted Sark, even more impressed. Some of those programs would see things Master Control’s way and abandon their senseless loyalty to the Users. But the others…
Sark’s savage thoughts rested fondly on what he would do to the others.
Sark’s Carrier floated, titanic and gleaming, over the Game Grid’s Training Complex. It was, on the System’s scale, more than 2,000 feet in length. It had a flat top deck, reminiscent of the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. The vessel was triangular in cross section, though its armor, outer-hull convexities, and other design features masked that to some extent. From its side projected its bridge, a superstructure with a variety of rotating sensor antennae fixed, freestanding, around it.
Far below, in the complex itself, in a long, dimly lit corridor deep beneath the Grid, a frightened, confused program was being escorted to confinement by two burly guards. He was short and pudgy, a commercial program with a vulnerable look to him. Still, he’d been compelled to don the armor and half-tunic of a Warrior conscript. The Memory Guards’ faces barely showed under their cowls; their uniforms exaggerated the width of their shoulders. They were armed with energy-staffs; the unfortunate prisoner had already had a taste of what the staffs could do, and offered no resistance. But still he plead his case.
“Look, this is all a mistake! I’m just a compound-interest program! I work at a savings and loan; I can’t play in these videogames!”
The guard’s reply was amused, ironic; he’d often heard this sort of objection. How easily some of these characters started to come apart when Master Control plucked them out of their safe little situation! “Sure you can, pal,” the guard drawled. “You’re a natural athlete if I ever saw one.” He pushed the program along. “Come on.”
The prisoner, Crom, tried again. “Are you kidding?
The guard’s smirk sounded in his voice. “Great, another religious nut!”
Crom stopped his protests. Their attitude was beyond comprehension—a refusal to even concede the existence of the Users.
They halted by a cell door. The guard shoved poor Crom into the cell despite his objections, disdainfully. Then its force field sealed the doorway, leaving the program forlorn and scared, completely disoriented, his world turned end for end. His blue circuitry was muted with fear.
The cell was small, a low, cramped space shaped by close, confining walls. The walls projected into the cell space, heightening the feeling of confinement. Crom, hurled against a wall by the force of the guard’s shove, found that he scarcely had space to turn around. Exploring the severe little room, he saw that there was no way to lay
On both sides of the cell were windowlike openings that allowed Crom a view of the cells to his right and left. He forgot his misery for a moment when he found himself looking into the face of another captive. The other wore Warrior’s attire too, but without the novice’s half-tunic. He had a lean, lively face, intense and yet amiable. Crom went closer to the window.
The program smiled sadly. “I’d say “welcome,” but not here. Not like this.”
For some reason that returned to Crom a measure of his self-control. “I don’t even know what’s going on here!” he declared.
His fellow prisoner studied Crom, drawing nearer. “You believe in the Users?”
The question renewed Crom’s misgivings and confusion. The concept of the Users struck him as so basic, so
