Tron (6 page)

His answer was distracted as he worried at the problem. “Yeah. Pain in the neck; you know, I was all set—”

“Did Dillinger say why?”

His faced worked in irritation. “Something about tampering.”

“Tampering?” she echoed. The phrase meant much more to her than it did to Alan. Into her mind came the image of Flynn—Flynn the master crasher, system-bucker, and hot-head. She knew it was time to bring up a subject they usually avoided.

She stopped Alan. “Flynn’s been thinking about breaking into the System ever since Dillinger canned him. And
he
had Group Seven access.”

Anger had taken away all the pleasure that usually showed on his face when he was with her. “Flynn had access to you, too. I’m not interested in talking about him.” He didn’t like himself when he was like that, but he cared so much for Lora that it was hard not to feel jealousy.
I’m not as flamboyant as Flynn,
he realized,
not as breezy, but I know that she loves me. Still . . .

“Oh, I wish you’d forget about that,” Lora was telling him. “It was all so long ago.” She was emphatic about it, to herself as well as to Alan—perhaps too much so. “I’ve totally gotten over it.”

Alan relented, faulting himself for being so defensive about Flynn. Jealousy over the time she’d spent with him could only mar his and Lora’s feelings for one another. “Okay, okay; c’mon, let’s get out of here.”

They made their way to where her black van was parked in the ENCOM lot. When they were underway, Lora drew a deep breath and said, “I want to go to Flynn’s place.”

Alan turned, saw streetlights and headlights play across the lovely face as she stared directly ahead. “You call that ‘getting over it’?” He knew an abrupt fear, that he might be in danger of losing her. He cast it out at once, unable even to consider it.

“I mean, I want
both
of us to go.” She angled the van down an on-ramp and merged with the traffic deftly.

“What for?” Try as he might, he couldn’t keep a skeptical note out of his tone.

“To warn him.”

She was checking the road signs overhead, and Alan saw that she’d already put the van on course for Flynn’s place. He sat back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest. “Of what?”

“That Dillinger’s on to him.” She guided the van onto a cloverleaf.

“I don’t know what you ever saw in him anyway,” Alan asserted, but it wasn’t true. He’d paid close attention to what she’d said and what her expression had hinted at, ever since they’d met. He knew that one side of Lora resisted the constraints of employment at ENCOM, while another, stronger, drew her to her work. And Flynn had appealed to that first side. Devil-may-care Flynn had embodied the tempting idea that rules were what you made of them, and impulses were there to be followed if you so pleased. And, though he wouldn’t have phrased it that way to himself, Alan was too much his own man to try to emulate Flynn, even for her.

“I never saw that much in him,” she parried, finishing silently,
not the things I see in you, the things I need!

“Oh?”

Exasperated, she burst out, “I loved him for his brains!” But she couldn’t keep a straight face, and dissolved in laughter.

“Hah!” Alan barked at her, a parody of disbelief, half breaking up as well. The tension was suddenly gone; all her affection showed when she glanced back to him again. Lora didn’t doubt that it was Alan she loved; he had the sort of strength and constancy she needed and understood.

It was just difficult not to envy someone like Flynn, who lived for fun—and not to want to share in that fun, sometimes. She and Flynn had been drawn to one another, for a time, by what Flynn had laughingly called their
algorhythms
.

She drove to an older section of town, where brown and gray stone buildings crowded close together. Lora braked the van and parked across the street from an island of noise and light in the middle of the district. It was the largest and most popular game arcade in the city, its doors flung wide open. Over the entrance, a glorious boast in red neon, a sign proclaimed in beacon letters, FLYNN’S, lighting the entire block. This was, in fact, Flynn’s old neighborhood, and whatever other reverses he may have suffered, his place was now its landmark. HOME OF SPACE PARANOIDS, declared a second sign.

Within, figures played before the disorderly ranks of videogames or drifted from one to the next, or waited to use some particular favorite. Lora locked up the van and she and Alan entered. Alan saw that the walls of the place were decorated with supergraphic-size murals of computer chips, micro-processors, and circuitry. There were also neon signs advertising
Code Wars
,
Nerve Net
,
Gonzo
, and others. Flynn’s was chockablock with games of all sorts and those who loved to play them.

Within the microcosms of the games, all was competition, with no reconciliation possible. Tanks prowled across three-dimensional landscapes, relentlessly eager for firefights. Untiring image-athletes contended, their rivalry absolute. Spacecraft did battle and aliens invaded, with only the briefest of occasional cease-fires and absolutely no chance of truce or treaty. Asteroids tumbled, and threatened starships, malevolently
aware
. The creators of these games had been lavishly inventive, to evoke excitement and demand concentration and coordination from players.

The air was filled with the noises of the diverse machines. Their scoring tones sounded, and the challenges and taunts some of them threw at their human competitors. The beeps and deep tones of victory and defeat came endlessly. Death knells and dirges sounded as players lost a last spaceship or tank; explosions, warp-drives, six-guns, missiles, energy beams, all to the constant tapping of firing buttons. There was the rapid working of controls of all types: steering wheels, levergrips, joysticks, foot pedals, and periscopes.

Even at that hour the place was crowded. Most of the clientele was young, adolescents and young adults of both sexes. Their attire showed every taste from high preppy to gang colors. Older men and women were present as well, mingling amiably with the younger players, many of whom exhibited fearsome skill with the games.

Other, smaller arcades, of course, were scattered through the city, and games could be found in convenience stores or taverns or soda fountains. But if you wanted your choice of the newest and best machines, if you wanted to be among the best players in town, you went to Flynn’s.

And if you wanted to play
against
the best, you played Flynn himself.

Alan and Lora moved past little knots of two, three, and four people who, oblivious to them and to everything else but the machines, strove heroically at
Intruder
or
Zero Hour
. Two girls had rolled up an impressive score at Tailgunner. Alan took it all in, listening to the cheering as a kid who could barely reach the controls demonstrated expertise at
Galaxy Wars
. He peered over the shoulder of a young man turning in an excellent performance as an electronic gunfighter.

And on and on, past
Asteroids Delux
,
The End
and all the rest, Lora and Alan moved through the swirl of happy, strangely determined players amid the glare of the lights and the variegated game screens. Flynn’s seemed some technological fantasy palace. They came to a girl sporting a junior high school cheerleader’s jacket, who watched as her companions tried their luck at
Battle Zone
. One was working the lateral grips, blowing away tanks and saucers and buzz-bomb missiles.

Lora tapped the cheerleader’s arm, shouting to be heard, “Hey, where’s Flynn tonight?’.

The girls looked Lora up and down, and Dr. Lora Baines suddenly felt out of place and conspicuous. Then the cheerleader pointed toward the rear of the arcade.

They found Flynn before a
Space Paranoids
game with the ENCOM logo prominent on its side and the well-known Recognizer stencil, of the flying, robotlike killer craft that hunted across its screen. Flynn stood straddle-legged, leaning over the machine, playing with a great deal of body English. He used the controls with the same quick facility he’d shown at the CRT keyboard. He was unshaven, his hair tousled, dressed in T-shirt, jeans, and jogging shoes.

Delight was obvious in Flynn’s face; his place was much more than a business to him. Seeing him, Alan recalled hearing that Flynn’s was noted for fairness to its customers. On one occasion, the story went, a kid had chalked up an incredible score on one of the games, winning extension after extension of playing time. Closing time came, and any other place would undoubtedly have made the kid leave—maybe giving him back his original quarter, maybe not. But it was said that Flynn had let him stay on after closing and sat a vigil with the kid’s friends for the additional hour and a half required to finish the game.

Alan gave Lora a dubious glance, then they both walked over to Flynn. He’d racked up an astounding score, and was surrounded by boisterous youngsters who plainly felt that they were present on an historical occasion, and urged him on.

“I’ll show you how it’s done,” Flynn said, all concentration. A Recognizer was barreling down the canyon maze at him. “You back off him—” The Reco, approaching at an angle, had most of its speed neutralized. “Wait till he’s ranged and—” Flynn brought the cross hairs back around suddenly, firing. His shot hit the Reco dead center and it fragmented. “—pop ’im!”

The onlookers cheered. Alan saw the
Space Paranoids
machine’s nine-digit scorecard change, the numbers increasing as Flynn warred with the Recognizers and evaded their fire. Flynn’s fans went wild as the numbers crept to 999,999,999. Tension mounted. Flynn made a final shot with a yelp and a curt slap of his hand; a Recognizer disappeared.

The scoreboard blanked and the word RECORD!!! appeared, blinking, as a tone-siren wailed and the crowd threatened to go mad, cheering, whooping, the bolder ones among them pounding Flynn on the arms and back. Lora, watching and reminding herself that this was Flynn’s, wondered if she hadn’t just seen him set a
world’s
record.

Flynn, hands up, was laughing and trying to quiet his admirers. “ ’S all in the wrist, friends!” They hooted at his assumed modesty. Someone else stepped up to the
Space Paranoids
game while others drifted off to try some other. Flynn turned from the dissipating crowd and saw Alan and Lora.

He laughed again, raising his voice to be heard. “Hey! Good to see you guys!” And he meant it, they saw. Alan found, as he had before, that it was difficult to dislike Flynn in person. Lora was thinking that he hadn’t changed much.

“Nothing classes up the place like a clean-cut young couple,” Flynn finished. Seeing Lora again tugged at him with a force that surprised him though he’d long since come to peace, he’d thought, with losing her. She’d had real affection for him then, and he for her, but it seemed very long ago—or had, until now.

“We have to talk,” Lora hollered over the din. Flynn smiled. Just her style: no windup, no fooling around.

“Good luck!” He grinned. “You can’t even think in here!” But he saw that she was serious, as was Alan. Flynn had a feeling that he know what it would be about, and led them off with a beckoning gesture. “Come on.”

Alan and Lora preceded Flynn upstairs while Flynn paused to make sure everything was going smoothly and to lock the downstairs door. “So how’re things going in the world of
serious
science?” he called up after them.

Alan looked around at Flynn’s morning-after of a room, sizing up his life. The room opened onto the high-ceilinged arcade on two sides, over waist-high partitions; an L-shaped pillow sectional occupied the corner between them. Blinds had been lowered, muffling the din from below. There was a computer terminal, a scattering of videogames in various states of repair, a bed that hadn’t been made in a while.

Alan arched his back, stiff from the ride to the arcade and hours at his terminal. He gazed down through the blinds at the arcade. “The best programmer ENCOM ever saw,” Alan half-sneered, “and he ends up playing space cowboy in some sleazy back room.”

Lora had found a seat on the pillow couch. Flynn’s footfalls clapped on the staircase. “Alan, let me handle this.”

He relented as Flynn entered the room, abruptly aware that he had no real wish to insult Flynn, even if he could—which he doubted.
It’s just that Flynn’s got such a gift,
he fumed. Alan hated waste, particularly the waste of a good brain.

Flynn plopped down in the corner of the couch, stretching, clasping hands behind his neck. He’d heard Lora’s remark. “Go right ahead,” he leered.

She ignored the leer, determined not to be goaded. She asked, “Have you been sneaking into the ENCOM system?”

Flynn blew his cheeks out. “Whew! You never were much for small talk!” There was admiration in his statement. But she saw that she’d scored with the question. A little too quickly, a little too glibly, he swung to Alan and asked, “She still leave her clothes all over the floor?”

The change of subject caught Alan off guard. Lora, blushing, cried out, “Flynn!” Flynn, sniggering, recalled,
algorhythms!

Alan managed, “Uh, no. I mean, not that often.”

“Alan!” Lora exploded. Flynn chuckled; Alan, scowling, wondered why he’d bothered to come.

Lora, pointing to the arcade, told Alan, “You can see why all his friends are fourteen-year-olds.”

Flynn picked up a handheld videogame, pointedly ignoring the barb. From the little plastic case came the sounds of miniature struggle. He grinned ruefully. “Touché, honey! Yeah; I’ve been doing a little hacking up here.” He looked up defensively. “Which I’ve got every reason, as you well know—”

“Did you break in?” Alan interjected.

Flynn made a face. “Tried to.” He indicated the terminal with a tilt of his head. “Can’t
quite
make the connection with that sucker, though.” He sighed. “If I had a direct terminal . . .” He let the sentence trail off, the broadest of hints.

Alan met his gaze squarely. Flynn was surprised to find himself thinking that different circumstances might have made Bradley and himself friends. The man had no use for lies or evasion, non sequiturs or dishonesty. Alan sat down to Flynn’s right and asked, “Flynn, are you embezzling?”