Tron

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.”

No, Dillinger thought, it couldn’t be you. You’re one of the honest ones, one of the square-shooters who play by the rules and expect the same of others. You sleep better that way, no doubt. That’s why you’ll never have a chance in this game. “No, no, I’m sure,” he hastened, “but you understand. It should only be a couple of days. What’s the project you’re working on?”

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.”

Which was promptly filed and ignored along with the rest of the tidal wave of communications that arrives at my office every day, reflected Dillinger. He was carefully casual about his next question. “Hmm. Part of the Master Control Program?”

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 how many outside programs I’ve broken into? How many programs I’ve appropriated?”

Dillinger suddenly felt weak, weary. “It’s my fault,” he told himself as well as the MCP. “I programmed you to want so much.” As I do, he finished silently, staring out at the city.

“And I was planning to hit the Pentagon next week,” the MCP announced. That jolted Dillinger out of his preoccupation.

“The Pentagon?” All that information was formidably protected, he knew; an ambitious undertaking, a hazardous one, even for Master Control. That was far different from simple industrial espionage; the MCP had calmly contemplated involving Dillinger and ENCOM in the penetration of classified systems, in what would amount to espionage.

“It shouldn’t be any harder than any other big company,” Master Control said coolly. “But now… this is what I get for using humans.”

Using. That fanned the resentment that had been smoldering in Dillinger. He’d watched his own program wax and grow until it was no longer under his control, allowing that to happen because it had increased his own wealth and power, knowing, without admitting it to himself, that Master Control had been playing on that. So now it was confident enough in its accumulated power to abandon its servility; finally, it had shown contempt for him.

“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.