transplendent citadel of the MCP rose before them. Sark was content; all things in the System were as they should be, as Master Control decreed them. Sark intended to see that they stayed that way.
Forever.
Back at the docking module, Sark’s lieutenant stood a relaxed guard. There was nothing to fear here—unless one were on the wrong side of the MCP’s temper—but leaving a sentry with the craft was standard procedure. The lieutenant looked forward to a period of leisure and entertainment when they returned to the Game Grid; there would be plenty of competitors for the Command Program to match himself against, plenty of prisoners to use up in the grand combats of the arena. That would be fine, something to enjoy.
The lieutenant heard the smallest of noises, the passage of something keen-edged and fearsomely fast dividing the air. He barely had time to turn before a disk smashed him with its fiery discharge, flinging him backward off his feet. His body de-rezzed at once as the disk whirled back through the air to its master.
Tron stepped out of the pod’s shadow, hurdling what was left of the de-rezzing officer, and started off after the line of prisoners. He had only caught hold of the projection on the Carrier’s hull, the one that had saved his life after the collision, by chance and desperate flailing, to watch wreckage from the Sailer fall past him. Hatred had given him the endurance to pull himself along the hull.
When the Carrier had settled in toward the Central Processing Unit, Tron, knowing Sark’s preferences, had anticipated his next move. The ponderous Carrier wouldn’t set down; Sark would descend in his shuttle and return to the Game Grid by transport beam. And so Tron had raced time, clambering across the ship’s hull, limbs straining with the effort, to reach the docking pod before it launched from the Carrier for good. Only an unswerving commitment to carrying out Alan-One’s plan and destroying the MCP had kept Tron from jumping Sark as soon as the pod had grounded. But that would have forewarned the MCP of Tron’s presence, and so revenge on Sark would have to come in its own time.
Tron picked up his pace, reducing the prisoner file’s lead, moving cautiously but quickly.
The prisoners marched despondently down the grade of bare mesa surface and began up the slight incline leading to the entrance of the citadel, heads hung in surrender. The sad procession was lit, as if with heat lightning, by the incessant beams entering and leaving the place as the MCP kept constant, jealous watch over all activities and events in its realm.
Sark, watching it all with pleasure, brought a heavy, gauntleted hand down on Dumont’s shoulder as the old Guardian went by. “Come on, Dumont,” he said. “Soon it’ll be be over.” Not meaning Dumont alone, of course; soon the MCP’s control over the System—over all Systems—would end freedom, end the useful functioning of programs, end anything but what the Master Control Program chose to permit.
The decrepit programs, their feet dragging, came in before the MCP. Up it towered above them, a hundred feet high and more, a cylinder, its surface reflective, burnished and hard, covered with patterns of circuitry and light. And stretched across that surface, a convex grotesquerie, was the face of the MCP. It gazed down at them with eyes that seemed blind, but saw all. Its visage was an eerie combination of the slack, swollen features of an idiot with those of a shrewd, malicious demon spirit. It was a bloated apparition that knew it was such, willed itself to be so, and used that appearance. Just then, the face was colored in luminous pastels.
The MCP’s circular base was supported by an inverted cone of light. That cone rested, in turn, upon another, upright cone, which radiated from the citadel’s floor, sharing its vertex. Master Control stared down, relishing the old Guardians’ defeated look. At the guards’ rough promptings, the old programs ranged out along the curved wall of the MCP’s lair, eyes downcast, waiting, acquiescent.
The MCP’s thick, loose lips moved. “WELCOME!” The word was heavy with irony, rolling through the place at enormous volume, echoing and distorted, hurting their ears.
Sark crossed to Dumont who, by defying him, had earned the first place among the scheduled executions. He took the unprotesting Guardian in a grip that brooked no resistance and forced him back, throwing him against the concave wall behind him. Dumont was immediately spread against the wall and pinned to it by the MCP’s power, held firm in an anguished pose, face contorted by suffering. One by one the other programs were whisked backward by the MCP’s invisible grasp, sharing Dumont’s agony.
A slow, careful de-rezzing began, the Master Control Program searching within the Guardians for those components it wished to retain, prolonging their suffering. Its spectral, overwhelming voice shook the citadel.
“Programs! You are participating in the creation of the single most powerful program in the history of the System—of
A Guardian faded from existence, then another. Those remaining were beginning to grow indistinct as they were devoured by the ever-ravenous MCP. Dumont wished that he could hurl some last defiance, but he hadn’t the strength.
“An entity with a will!” the MCP boasted. “With ambition!
16
NO ONE ELSE was left aboard the Carrier. Flynn didn’t think they’d been put down elsewhere; they’d been callously abandoned by Sark, to de-rezz.
Yori knew the location of the bridge from her work in the Factory Domain. They ran for their lives down the passageways and ladderwells of the de-rezzing vessel.
They emerged into the soaring emptiness of the bridge, stopping where Sark had once stood to survey the Domains and command the ship. They spared only a quick look at the enigmatic mesa of the CPU. “Check out the controls,” Flynn bade Yori, knowing that there was no time for him to experiment.
She moved at once to the main console, studying it and drawing on her memories of the Factory Complex. “We’re getting closer,” Flynn warned as the ship drifted toward the MCP’s citadel. He could see portions of the great hull de-rezzing, leaving only a ghostly outline. The process was proceeding quickly; he tried urgently to come up with their next move. Even with his power, he doubted that he could stabilize the structure of such an enormous object, much less reverse the de-rezzing. But perhaps, he thought, the Carrier would last long enough to allow them a crack at the MCP.
Right now, that was all Flynn wanted.
Dumont was disappearing slowly, his body a blizzard of de-rezzing, the fight having all but left him.
“You thought you could resist me, Dumont,” Master Control gloated in its loathsome voice. “But I won. I outclassed you!”
Dumont became fainter yet. Sark watched it with much enthusiasm, but heard a catch in the MCP’s voice, as if the next taunt had been held back. “Wait! Sark!” it snapped. Sark jumped, coming to full alert. “I feel a presence,” Master Control said slowly, evaluating the data that had attracted its attention. “A Warrior?” it queried itself.
Sark was saved anxious questions; the single word rang out behind him, sharp and resonant, edged with anger. “
He spun to see Tron waiting, his blue circuitry brilliant with hatred and the thirst for vengeance.
The User Champion stood poised for battle, disk in hand. The disk gave off a peculiar, pure light, like nothing Sark had seen before, one which touched off disturbing uncertainties in him. Wearing a look of unmixed hatred, Tron stood outside the entrance to the citadel, inviting combat. Sark thrust aside doubts, moving toward him, reaching for his own disk.
“I don’t know how you survived, slave,” Sark shouted, lip curled, emerging from the citadel. “Prepare to terminate!”
He cast his disk with a powerful sweep of his arm, an expert throw. The weapon flickered across the gap between them in an instant, but Tron contrived to drop to one knee just in time, and lean aside, and it passed by overhead. The disk circled, rising, but instead of homing to the Command Program’s hand it dove at Tron once more. This time Tron met it with upraised disk; the two weapons clashed with an outpouring of light of unbearable intensity.
