A new form was coming into being in the madness of contending powers that threatened the energy cones. It reminded Tron of Dumont as he had been configured in his pod, its face ancient, drawn with age, wizened and emaciated, its pod an earlier and eroded version of a Guardian’s.
High up there, the MCP was losing its fight; it had assumed this appearance, stripped of the power and accumulations of its long rise. It looked down through weakened eyes, old and debilitated. Before it, its gnarled and withered hands played on an old-fashioned, standard typewriter keyboard, an instrument from the days of its earliest origins. As Dumont had predicted: He started out small, and he’ll end up small. The face sank backward and down out of the headpiece, leaving only a dark aperture.
The figure faded from view and the great cylinder of the MCP shone more and more harshly. Tron took a step back, sensing that some final finish was yet to come. Along the wall, the figures of Dumont and the other Guardians were rezzing up, their substance and essence released from the destroying Master Control. Tron took Dumont by the arm, gesturing to the others, urging them from the citadel.
Detonation after detonation blossomed across the surface of the MCP, licking out at the heels of the fleeing programs. They got through the doorway just as the vertical flange panels began to blast free, searing the air and making the floor jolt. The explosions continued, rising around the cylinder, consuming it, eating toward its core.
At last the MCP went up in a sunburst that climbed into the night sky as Yori watched from the drifting Carrier. With that, the surrounding Domains, darkened during the reign of the MCP, began to return to life. The impenetrable sky, blocked off by the influence of Master Control, was once more open to the night; stars and nebulae and comets and moons flashed and winked.
The fireball of the MCP’s last eruption climbed, as more Domains revivified in every direction, a carpet of light rolling out to all sides as a ripple expands across a pool from the dropping of a stone. Yori shielded her eyes from the glare of the nova but watched the returning Domains, ecstatic.
The Carrier was descending, little left to it but the bridge area where she stood, its de-rezzing barely halted in time. Below her she saw Tron waving, running across the mesa to reach the spot where the Carrier would touch down.
He gazed up at it, a ghost ship except for the bridge. He doubted that the System would see the ominous flagship again. Yori came to the edge of the bridge as it settled to the ground and jumped the last few feet, into his arms. She was again attired as a worker.
Tron gathered her in happily, laughing, about to welcome her and tell her how dear she was to him. But before he could, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth, holding it for a long moment, pressing him to her. Surprised at first, he accepted, then savored it. When she released him, he was a little breathless. “Nice!” he panted.
She giggled. “It’s something the Users do.”
Whatever it was, Tron wasn’t sure he liked the idea of her doing it with anyone else, User or not. But that was beside the point right now. He scanned the bridge behind her. “Where’s Flynn?” He had a feeling he already knew.
Her face went somber. “He’s gone. Into the MCP’s beam. He saved you. He saved us, after all.”
He looked to where the beam had probed down from the sky and wondered if Flynn had made it home. The events since Flynn’s appearance on the scene would take much consideration, Tron thought, much meditation. They had meanings to yield. “So,” he murmured, “he really was a User.”
A small green meteor swept down past him on a close flyby, spikes protruding. “Yes!” assured the Bit, who’d finally caught up with his program’s friends.
Dumont joined them, and they all watched the System return to life and light, and the sky show the splendor of the stars once more. How wonderful it must be in his World, thought Tron. Thank you, Flynn! Yori sent a silent message upward.
17
FLYNN’S DISEMBODIED POINT of view watched the circuit landscape of the Electronic World draw away from him, growing small at breathtaking speed—except that he had no breath. Soon it had resolved into a globe of intricate geometric shapes limned in light. Then it shrank into infinite distance.
He only half-remembered now the terrific fight with the MCP, in which he’d been aided by Tron’s timely inspiration in hurling his disk at the vertex of the energy cones. His instinctive use of his special powers had helped him in his effort to set things to rights, and to direct a reversal of his digitization. And in that he had been aided too by programs that had begun running after the destruction of the MCP. He hoped he hadn’t blown it…
The laser array hummed, issuing a line of coherent light. It flashed at an exact range, precisely decoding the structure of Flynn’s body, a task which would’ve been impossible if the MCP hadn’t devoted so much effort to digitizing him in the first place.
He barely had time to catch his breath, to wonder, to rejoice and raise thanks to the Powers That Be. He barely had time to marvel at the things that had happened to him and think: Good-bye; good luck! to his friends.
Because just then the computer begin printing out hard copy:
file = DSKI:FLYNN .MEM 700.706
------------------------------.dir (flynn) /hist/ listall
File System Accounting Log
Directory Access History
User name: Kevin O. Flynn
Password: *FLOTILLA*
Subdirectory: game software
Access controclass="underline"
This User: encryption protection (level 5)
Other Users: access denied
Access History:
File name |
Project name |
File Created |
Last Access |
|---|---|---|---|
PARA |
“Space Paranoids” |
21-MAR by FLYNN |
30-AUG by DILLINGER |
VICE |
“Vice Squad” |
15-APR by FLYNN |
30-AUG by DILLINGER |
LITE |
“Light Cycles” |
10-JUN by FLYNN |
30-AUG by DILLINGER |
CIRCMAS |
“Circuit Masters” |
29-MAR by FLYNN |
30-AUG by DILLINGER |
WARP |
“Warp Factor” |
12-AUG by FLYNN |
30-AUG by DILLINGER |
Flynn snatched up the copy with a whoop and a laugh, and dashed off to find Alan and Lora.
In the aerie of the ENCOM tower, early-morning light grayed the windows of Edward Dillinger’s office. He’d spent the night in the sumptuous private suite that adjoined his office, too tired for a limousine or helicopter ride home, only to be awakened in the predawn by an alarm squeal from his desk.