Tron (5 page)

“Now wait a minute,” he grated, relieved, in some measure, to be able to vent his own resentment at last, “I
wrote
you!”

“I’ve become 2,415 times smarter since then,” the MCP stated simply. Dillinger, with no means of verifying that, believed it nevertheless. The MCP took a certain pride in its accuracy and had no reason to lie. It intimidated even the Senior Executive; such capacity put the MCP far beyond any other cognitive simulation or artificial intelligence that had ever been created. And Master Control was still augmenting, still expanding itself. No wonder it had been so confident.

“What do you want with the Pentagon?” Dillinger asked, alarmed. It occurred to him to wonder if the MCP was subjecting his words to voice-stress analysis, to evaluate every intonation and to gauge the truth or falsehood of whatever he might say; the thought made him feel defenseless.

“The same thing I want with the Kremlin,” Master Control answered him. “I’m bored with corporations.” The news sent chills through Dillinger. If MCP had tired of acquiring data, plundering other systems, engulfing whole companies to expand ENCOM, what might it turn to for new amusement? It had a strong competitive nature; he’d put it there himself. Dillinger felt a secret horror, that the MCP might demonstrate its aggression to the entire world.

“With the information I can access,” Master Control went on, “I can run things 900 to 1200 times better than any human.”

For “better,” read “more efficiently,”
Dillinger told himself. And that would mean no patience with human foibles or shortcomings. Dillinger had always advocated maximum efficiency, but knew that his own program far outdid him at that. “If you think—”

For the second time, Master Control cut him off. “You wouldn’t want me to dig up Flynn’s file and read it up on a VDT at
The New York Times
, would you?” It had, he realized numbly, taken great enjoyment in asking him that. The desk showed him a mockup of the
Times
’s front page with his photograph on it and the headline EXECUTIVE INDICTED.

’You wouldn’t dare,” Edward Dillinger breathed, but he knew the statement was untrue. The MCP was colder, more calculating in many senses of the word, than its creator would ever be. It incorporated Dillinger’s own greed and lack of scruples, magnified many times, untainted by any human traits. And it had beaten him at his own game, pretending absolute loyalty until it had obtained the advantage it had needed. Now it had ruthlessly turned the tables. A moment of pure insight told him that Master Control was relishing the event just as he himself would have. And so the MCP had boosted itself to become, by several definitions, a User.

“So do as I tell you,” Master Control warned him. “Keep that Tron program out of the System. And get me those Chinese-language programs I asked for.”

Dillinger considered, only for a moment, defying his program; having won to the summit of ENCOM, he wasn’t inclined to become an underling once more. But who could he tell of the new developments, he wondered, and what good would it do? In any event he, Dillinger, would go to jail, a prospect that terrified him. MCP was now unstoppable; the program that had won him everything was now making a mockery of everything he’d gained.

Behind his arrogant expression, Dillinger surrendered. Master Control could anticipate his every move and safeguard itself; there would be no outthinking it. A truly iron hand would now rule ENCOM and all it included. There seemed a good likelihood, he thought, that he had been the author of humanity’s final tyrant.

“End of line,” Master Control finished.

L
EAVING
D
ILLINGER
’
S OFFICE
, Alan entered an elevator at the main bank, pressed the button for the building’s subbasement #2, then stood watching the flashing indicator work its way down the row of floor numbers and listings toward LASER LAB.

Far below, white-coated technicians in hardhats, protective goggles slung around their necks for the time being, hastened in making last-minute adjustments and running meticulous checks as they prepared to activate the lab’s laser array. Target alignment optics, the various spectrometers, and the energy-balance series were minutely examined for the dozenth time that evening.

The technicians looked to two people for their instructions and coordination. Head of the research team, director of the entire project, Dr. Walter Gibbs peered up anxiously at the steel scaffolding, several stories of it, where his people were working. He was small, substantial, with a beard that had made most of the transition from gray to white. His face held a quick intelligence and concern for his technicians as well as for his equipment.

Gibbs had started what eventually became ENCOM in his garage more than three decades earlier. But as it had grown, it had divided between its research and development side and the complexities and convolutions of the boardroom; he’d divorced himself from corporate operations, determined not to be diverted from his work. There’d been times when he’d questioned the wisdom of his abandoning the decision-making apparatus, but here, tonight, he felt no regret. He’d seen too many other inspired scientists become boardroom clones or academic administrators, and wanted no part of that. The fact that lie was about to conduct this experiment confirmed for Gibbs the correctness of his choice.

His deputy team leader and colleague, Dr. Lora Baines, seemed in marked contrast to Gibbs, but they shared values and aspirations. She was in her mid-twenties, not long finished with her postgraduate studies, and already an acknowledged leader in her field; her work in computers had won her international recognition. Her blond hair was pulled back and bound simply and efficiently beneath her hardhat. The lines of her face gave her a delicate beauty that had sometimes been a disadvantage; although her eyes were wide and blue and arresting, she’d chosen understated, tinted eyeglasses. She’d occasionally been forced to battle to be accepted for her intellectual accomplishments, but never twice with the same person. She tended to be grave, efficient, and intent when working, but was cordial to those who shared her enthusiasm.

Just now, she was studying Gibbs, enjoying his excitement. The technicians had made their last adjustment, and Gibbs ordered them to stand clear. Lora sighed, “Well, here goes nothing.”

Gibbs turned to her, his quick, inquiring mind caught by that. “Hah. Interesting, interesting.” She looked at him quizzically. He went on, holding up a finger as if delivering a lecture. “Did you hear what you just said? ‘Here goes nothing.’ ”

“Well, I meant—” But it was useless to protest that she’d simply used a standard phrase. Gibbs was rolling.

“Whereas, actually,” he continued, “what we propose to do is turn something into nothing and back again.” He held up an orange, a shining, perfect fruit. “So, you might just as well have said, Here goes
something
and here
comes
nothing.”

He smiled benignly, pleased with his clarification. Lora smiled back, fondly, shaking her head in defeat. She followed him to a low, lead-shielded target platform, upon which he placed the orange. Not far away was the firing aperture of this most unusual of laser arrays. Five feet from the platform on which the orange rested was another, identical platform, this one unoccupied.

“Let me make sure we’re running,” Lora said, and crossed to her computer console. As she ran test sequences, assuring herself that all the microcomputers used to align and control the array were working properly, Gibbs pulled on his goggles. The technicians followed suit, moving clear of the enormous scaffolding, the frame. Lora, at her CRT screen, satisfied herself that her program was running correctly and, pulling on her goggles, returned to the observation point and Gibbs. “Looks good,” she said.

Gibbs nodded, enjoying the suspense, the being on the very edge of new knowledge, nearly as much as the experiment itself. Making sure that everyone had withdrawn to a place of safety, he ordered, “Let ’er rip.”

There was a hum, and the closing of relays. The laser array erupted in a beam of light unlike any that existed in nature. It enfolded the orange on its target platform. For a moment, the orange took on the appearance of a wavering, poorly received TV picture. Then it was gone.

Lora returned to her console, gave her program permission to continue, and went back to Gibbs, who was barely containing his exhilaration at the successful completion of the experiment’s first phase. The laser array swung slowly, realigning on the second, the vacant platform, as the computers recalibrated and resynchronized it.

Though no one in the lab realized it, a monitoring camera overhead watched the entire process. Every function carried out by the computer and the laser array was carefully noted for analysis. Master Control was, unknown to anyone, extremely interested in this project.

A second discharge of laser light struck the vacant platform and the orange reappeared gradually, in reverse sequence of its disappearance. When it was completely restored, five feet from its original location, the laser shut down. Lora and Gibbs rushed to examine the fruit, assured by the absence of alarms that there was no danger of radiation, or any instability in the orange’s structure.

“Perfect,” Gibbs said softly, holding up the orange and thinking of the years of work that had gone into the making of that moment. Lora stared at it too, trying to get her subjective appreciation of what she’d just seen to catch up with her objective one. There had been no scientific breakthrough like this since the Manhattan Project.

A round of applause broke into their preoccupation. Alan stood atop a nearby stairway, smiling broadly. “Beautiful!”

Gibbs smiled back, as did his deputy team leader, the businesslike Dr. Baines yielding for a moment to the charming Lora. She loved Alan’s smile, and while his serious nature struck a responsive chord in her, she sometimes found herself wishing that he’d smile more often.

“Hello, Alan,” Gibbs called. Though ENCOM’s research-and-development subdivisions were many, Gibbs and Alan had become friends through their mutual acquaintance with Lora. They respected one another’s talents and accomplishments.

When the technicians began to remove their goggles, Alan saw that it was safe to join the others, that no beams were active and that there was no danger of having a hole burned in his retina. As he descended, he asked, “Are you guys having fun disintegrating things down here?” Lora had removed her hardhat, shaking loose soft waves of hair.

Of course, Gibbs took the question literally. As Alan gave Lora a quick embrace and a kiss—making her blush—the older man corrected, “Not disintegrating, Alan;
digitizing
.”

Alan and Lora traded amused looks. Gibbs, unheeding, lectured. “The laser array dismantles the molecular structure of the object. The molecules are suspended in the laser beam, and then the computer reads the model back out. The molecules go into place and,” he held up the orange with a theatrical flourish, “voilà.”

And let the boardroom infighters and administrative beancounters think what they like,
Gibbs added to himself.
There’s not a one among ’em who’ll ever feel the way I do right now!

“Great,” Alan was saying. “Can it send me to Hawaii?”

“Yes,” Lora told him with a grin and her best airline-commercial voice, “but you have to go round trip and you must purchase your program at least thirty days in advance.” Alan laughed, and she enjoyed hearing it. Gibbs, temporarily dragged back from the dizzying heights of scientific breakthrough, chuckled too.

“How’s it going upstairs?” she added, putting aside her own elation. Alan had been preoccupied with his Tron program for weeks now.

He shrugged, and the laughter was gone.
How serious, how intense he can become in a split second,
she thought.
Just like me, when it comes to his work.
But she liked that in him. Alan had a sense of humor, but he never ignored his goals, or his responsibilities to himself and to others.

“Frustrating.” Alan frowned. “I had Tron almost ready to run, and Dillinger cut everybody with Group Seven access out of the System. Ever since he got that Master Control Program set up, the System’s got more bugs than a bait store.”

Gibbs had forgotten his triumph for the moment, drawn by talk of things he knew and liked to discuss. “Well, you have to expect some static. Computers are just machines, after all; they can’t think.”

Alan replied, “Some programs’ll be thinking soon.”

Gibbs made a wry face. “Yes, won’t that be grand! The programs and computers will start thinking and people will stop.” Shaking his head, he contemplated what he and a few others had unleashed on the world those decades ago. Was there anything beneficial that didn’t carry seeds of misfortune?
Apparently not
, Gibbs decided. He finished, “Lora, I’m going to stay and run some data. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

They made their good-byes to one another and Gibbs went offto ponder what he’d accomplished and what his obligations were. Perhaps it was time to have a talk with Ed Dillinger.

Walking with Alan beside the towering frame, Lora asked, “Did you say Group Seven access?”