time and kept him out, but he’s getting trickier all the time.”
Dillinger found that difficult to believe. He snapped, “I think we’d better shut off all access till we can find that file. Just to be safe.” Until he had that information in hand—or better yet, destroyed—he would never be at peace.
“There’s a 68.71 percent chance you’re right,” the MCP advised. Dillinger knew a spasm of pleasure, that his own Master Control Program had so total and precise a grasp of the situation.
“Cute,” he conceded, and the MCP knew him well enough to take that as its permission.
“End of line,” the MCP said, and Dillinger read the words on his desk. Then the LEDs went dim.
In another moment the readout was blank. Absurd as it felt, Dillinger couldn’t escape the feeling that a capable and dangerous henchman had just left the room on assignment.
03
THE ENCOM BUILDING was never empty or totally quiet, day or night, year round; information traveled and offices were manned. ENCOM’s province was the world itself, and much of the sky above it. That province was never quiet.
Many floors below Dillinger’s sanctum, popcorn was snapping in a popper. The popper was situated in one of the myriad cubicles in which human beings labored on the machine-network, a cubicle that its occupant himself could only locate because he knew the floor, hall and partition numbers necessary. The occupant’s desk was extremely messy; he had little time or inclination for housekeeping. It held a half-full coffee cup and part of an egg- salad sandwich, which rested atop a computer console. There was also a sign that told a great deal about the occupant’s attitude toward the artificial intelligences with which he worked. GORT, KLAATU BARADA NIKTO!
Alan Bradley, red-eyed from fatigue, took another bite from the soggy sandwich and didn’t taste it. He grimaced at the computer keyboard before him. He was not quite thirty, brown-haired, classically handsome in a serious, reserved way behind gold-rimmed glasses. Ram and Crom, though, in their cells in the Training Complex, would have recognized his features as those of Tron.
He extended curved fingers tentatively for the keyboard, then began typing with calm authority and adroitness. The screen read:
REQUEST: Access to the TRON program,
User code 717 - Bradley.
PASSWORD:
But before he could complete it, the CRT screen cleared. In place of his own words, others appeared.
ADDRESS FILE EMPTY. TRON PROGRAM
UNAVAILABLE.
“Huh?” Alan straightened and studied the screen. Puzzlement changed to anger, but nothing he could do changed the screen’s adamant message. Then new words appeared on the CRT; Alan saw that he was being summoned for a personal meeting with Edward Dillinger. Surprise was mixed with apprehension, and some irritation. He pushed his chair back suddenly, snatching up his jacket and leaving his cubicle with long strides. A coworker stopped him: “Hey, Alan; mind if I have some of your popcorn?”
Alan, shrugging into his jacket, barely heard. “What? Yeah; sure.” He shoved open the door with unnecessary force.
And above him, a monitor camera swiveled to watch him go.
In Dillinger’s office, the desk screen showed Alan’s progress as that of a moving dot traced across a floor plan of the building, accompanied by views from various TV cameras. A conservatively dressed young man from Research and Development, Dillinger saw. Clean-cut khaki pants, loafers, and sports jacket. He was obviously earnest, intent—and offended deeply that he’d been interrupted by Master Control’s preemption of the System. Dillinger thought about the irony; ENCOM’s success was due largely to young men just like this one. But they could be so inconvenient at times.
Alan reached the door of Dillinger’s office and hesitated for a moment at the entrance.
A voice spoke from within: “Come on in.” It was reserved, well schooled, a voice trained to do whatever its owner wished. Alan recognized Dillinger’s face, lit from beneath by the light of the screens and readouts in his desk. The lighting gave the executive’s face a demonic glow. In such light, Dillinger resembled Sark more than ever, though neither he nor Alan knew anything of that.
Alan entered uncertainly, announcing, “Alan. Alan Bradley.”
Dillinger’s expression was politely curious—barely. “Oh yes. The algorithms on artifical intelligence. How’s it going?” The words put the younger man somewhat at ease. Dillinger waved to a chair and Alan slipped into it, less apprehensive. Dillinger took another, and looked at him expectantly.
“Well, I don’t know. I just tried to run this program I’ve been working on, and I was denied access all of a sudden. I thought maybe I’d been laid off and nobody told me.”
Dillinger gave that the thin smile he thought it merited. “Oh. You have Group Seven access, don’t you?”
Alan’s brows knit, but he confirmed, “Yeah?”
Dillinger waved a hand. “We had to close down all Group Seven personnel just briefly—security reasons. Someone with that access has been tampering.”
Alan fought the urge to jump to his feet. “I hope you don’t think it’s me! I don’t even balance my checkbook on downtime; I’ve got an abacus at home for that.”
Alan warmed to that, putting aside this interruption, to take up a favorite subject, presuming Dillinger to share his enthusiasm. “It’s called Tron. It’s a security program itself, actually. Monitors all the contacts between our System and other Systems.” He leaned forward, gesturing, features taking on greater excitement. “If it finds anything going on that’s not scheduled, it shuts it down. I sent you a memo on it.”
Alan shook his head. “No. Tron will run independently. It can watchdog the MCP as well.”
Dillinger concealed his alarm. A program that could override MCP would be a disaster, bringing to light all his machinations. More, to say that Master Control would oppose such a program would be the height of understatement. He knew the MCP was monitoring their conversation and would expect immediate action on his part. But he must go slowly, he knew, and avoid arousing Bradley’s suspicion or opposition. Until the incriminating evidence had been recovered, caution must be his watchword.
His inflection was all casual reassurance. “Ahh, sounds good. Well, we should have you running again in a couple of days, I hope.”
Alan didn’t miss the note of dismissal in that; the subject was settled, the brief audience finished. Alan would have to be satisfied with that. “Okay. Thanks.”
He rose and, with nothing more to add, left. He was no sooner out of earshot than Dillinger growled to himself, “Oh, boy.”
His desk blazed to life. Speakers trembled with the MCP’s calculated biting tone. “Mr. Dillinger, I am so very disappointed in you.” Dillinger nearly winced at the ironic sting of it, as the desk printed the words.
“I’m sorry—” he began, aware that some subtle shift in his relationship to Master Control had just taken place.
But Master Control cut him off, something it had never done before. A sudden, hackle-raising sense of danger and doubt went through him. “I can’t afford to have an independent program monitoring me. Do you have any idea
