from the floor. “Yori! Hey—”
She hugged him again. She was nearly a head shorter than he, her figure at once slender and full. The high cheekbones and wide eyes were the image of Lora’s. “Oh, Tron, I knew you’d escape! They’ve never
He looked around, remembering the guards. “We have to make plans. Where can we go?”
She saw the Complex around her with new eyes now that he’d restored to her her true personality, finding it difficult to remember the endless, mindless work there or the unthinking phantom who had been Yori for so long.
“This way,” she said, taking Tron’s hand. “Quickly!”
She led him by back corridors, toward an unguarded exit. Trying to keep to a conservative pace, they passed programs who moved with shuffling steps or stood stuporously, all but devoid of life. Some few showed signs of vitality, but not many. Tron listened in as they passed three programs huddled in conversation.
“Two-eight-two, unit four,” one factory program droned as they passed. “X-sector to interface,” a second replied, the third contributing, “With micronet zero-zero-zero.”
Tron had paused. Now he asked Yori, “What are they saying?”
“Those are instructions for shutting down functions,” she explained in a subdued tone. “If much more of this goes on, this System is going to collapse.”
Tron regarded the muddled programs with pity and frustration. The Users had been so free with their power, he remembered; their only aim had been to solve problems, to achieve and create. The System had been filled with activity and accomplishment then. But the MCP wouldn’t have permitted its subjects full power even if it had been able to do so and still feed itself to satiation. Master Control and Sark ruled, in part, by privation, keeping their subjects weak.
“I know, Yori,” he answered her. “But things are going to change. I’ve got to get to Alan-One; he was going to tell me how to—”
He’d been opening the exit door they’d found. Yori’s eyes widened as she saw something over his shoulder. She yanked him, skidding for balance, back inside; Tron had enough sense not to protest. They watched with the door open a crack as a Recognizer drifted up the street. Its mien was the perfect representation of the MCP’s tyranny—never resting, never betraying emotion, always on the lookout, prepared to punish or destroy.
The Reco prowled past their hiding place as Yori suppressed an involuntary shiver. Tron held her more tightly. But the Reco didn’t notice them, and continued its patrol. Yori led him off once more, keeping to the shadows. She might know a place of temporary refuge, he thought, but it was clear that there were no places of safety left.
In the City, some habitations were remnants of earlier times, not yet restructured or razed or consolidated. The MCP had been unwilling to divert resources for any such extraneous project, and so these places retained a scant minimum of livability. Leading Tron down a hallway in her building, Yori told him, “Dumont is in this City, too.”
That was one thing in his favor, at least. Dumont the Guardian had always been friendly to him, and had a particular regard for Yori. One of Tron’s main problems had been how to deal with the Guardian of the Input/Output Tower in order to gain access to Alan-One.
“Good.” He smiled, squeezing her hand. “I can use his Tower to reach my User.”
“I don’t know,” was her only reply, filling him with concern. Even Dumont, he knew, would have to pay lip service to Sark and the MCP. But if the Guardian were in fact in the MCP’s service now rather than that of his sacred trust, it might spell ruin for Tron.
They came to a door that opened to the pressure of her palm on its scan-lock. The door disappeared, since the room beyond it would be occupied; personal privacy wasn’t on the MCP’s agenda. He followed her in.
It was an apartment of spacious rooms with a broad sweep of window that showed them the City from a height of many stories, but it was uncomfortably stark. There were two-dimensional remainders of furniture and decorations on the walls and floor, rigid, artless murals.
He frowned. “What’s this place? It’s terrible.”
She took it all in with a wave. “My quarters. Not like home, is it?”
“But we can talk here,” she was saying. “Besides…”
Yori extended a palm toward a portion of the wall surface near the door frame. Into it she directed a precise measure of the power he had given her. The door rezzed up, returning to them a privacy Tron hadn’t known since his capture. He realized now what an ache its absence had been.
And the flat images that had been part of the walls and floor were now shifting and changing, growing a third dimension, expanding like orchids opening in time-lapse photography. They took on color and texture, solidity and depth. The harsh illumination became softer, gentler, more subtle and pleasing to the eye.
Tron watched, bemused, but enjoying it all enormously. The floor and walls and ceiling altered; lounging surfaces and reclining areas burst forth, inviting relaxation, promising comfort. The entire apartment seemed alive. Decorative shapes and constructions, diverting and artistic, pleasant to behold, blossomed. Great care and thought had been given the decor, every last detail proclaimed Yori’s hand.
Now Tron understood why she went through her work phases as did all the others, insensible.
Yori was watching him, taking pleasure in what she saw on his face. “That’s—quite a trick,” he chuckled. Then concern wiped his smile away. “But isn’t someone likely to notice?”
She held his gaze. “I don’t care.”
They stood together for a time, then Yori broke their frieze, pointing to a hassocklike seating extrusion, urging him toward it. Tron sank down on it with the unconscious limberness with which he did all things. Yori seated herself on the floor before him.
“I can always count on you, can’t I?” he said, not a question at all. Her absence had been the most painful deprivation inflicted upon him by captivity.
She leaned to him, laying a consoling hand on his knee, sorrowing for their long separation, celebrating him with her eyes. She confirmed what he’d said, made him understand all her feelings with a single word, “Always!”
With the entire System at his heels and no one else on whom he might rely, Tron felt at that moment the recipient of immeasurable good fortune. “How much time do we have in this room?”
Her lips curved, her look secret and yet open, plain-spoken and at the same time oblique. Rising, sinuously graceful, she answered him, “Enough.” She went to touch another surface in one of the walls.
An aurora appeared around her, gentle and triumphant. Yori transformed, brightened, as if shedding camouflage. Her helmet-cap was gone; her golden hair swirled and floated behind her. Tron watched, enchanted. She spent gladly of the power he’d given her. The worker’s aspect fell away as Yori stood clothed in a cloud of splendor.
A diaphanous mantle fluttered around her, and the angular precision of her circuitry was replaced by lovely, delicate traceries, jewel-like beads of radiance. She was like a magnificent, emergent butterfly, arms extended, the mantle rippling and billowing. She was completely herself again at last, the central thing in his existence, infinitely desirable. “Come here,” she beckoned.
He stood and moved to her. The armor of combat sloughed away, and his helmet; they had no place here, and his circuitry took on a flowing look. His Warrior’s forelock and queue were revealed, stirred by the forces around them.
Tron stood before her. “I love you.”
They extended their hands until they nearly touched, palm to upraised palm. A blissful ray sprang between them, widening to envelop them, until they were like bright filaments. Celestials, they shared energy, were one. They sank down among the reclining-contours; the room shone with glory.
“I love you, Tron.”
