was.
A voice reverberated above them, drawing their glances: “FINISH THE GAME!” Sark commanded.
There, like an evil vision in a dream, the Command Program’s face filled the mirror. Flynn’s breath caught as he saw the projection. Despite the grotesque flarings and design of the casque, and the interplay of energies and colors, that face was Edward Dillinger’s.
Flynn gritted his teeth, staring upward. This answered a lot of questions, but raised even more. But the image of Dillinger/Sark decided him, once and for all, on which side he stood in the System’s struggle.
As Crom waited to perish, Flynn balled his fist, filled lungs, compressed lips, and shouted his reply to the loathsome face above: “ No! ”
Elsewhere, the refusal had its effect. Over the sounds of the bus station, one of the kids, stabbing at lifeless firing buttons and pulling uselessly at a control grip, complained, “What’s wrong with it?”
The videogame remained as before, still alight, but all play had halted. Nothing he could do elicited any further action. The other player, a classmate, answered, “I don’t know; on the blink, or somethin’. Damn!”
Angered by the interruption, they hit the controls and banged the machine with the heels of their hands.
Flynn, head lowered, ignored the command that beat at his ears from the Carrier “KILL HIM!”
Kill . . . Flynn held up the cesta, contemplating it gravely. Perhaps, he thought, convictions were the only things that passed undistorted through the weird translation to the Electronic World. It might be a conceit, but he was ready to believe that wrong and right were constants.
Flynn turned the power-cesta over, letting the game-ball drop harmlessly toward the Grid. He drew a deep breath, then smirked up at Sark’s enraged face. “You’ll regret this,” the image promised. Crom looked stunned.
Flynn laughed aloud. Now what’re you gonna do, El Supremo? Gonna kill me, the winner? You could run real short of converts that way!
A moment later, his vast satisfaction left him. By some unseen command, Crom’s last ring began to de-rezz. Crom still hung from it, feet churning, helpless. Hope had come back into his face with Flynn’s refusal, but now his features twisted in utter defeat, his doom having found him after all.
Flynn, unable to help, could only look on. With a last cry as the ring lost all substance, Crom plummeted, tumbling toward the Grid floor, watched by both Flynn and Sark.
Sark’s finger poised by a button on the Carrier’s bridge, one that would send the User to an identical fate. Despite the MCP’s order that Flynn was to meet his end in combat, Sark thought it would be safer to be rid of him immediately. The User was too unpredictable, too independent, unconstrained by any of the fundamental presumptions under which programs thought and acted.
Sark’s hand wavered over the control as he strained to commit an act in direct disobedience of the will of the MCP. The finger shook as the Command Program fought an almost physical battle to follow his own will. But it was, in the end, no use; teeth locked, he resigned himself once more to the knowledge that he was the MCP’s to command, with no possibility of defiance.
And as Sark snatched his hand away, the voice of Master Control was abruptly all around him. “He is to die in the games!”
Flynn was glaring up at the mirror with impotent rage. The face was gone from it now and Flynn, expecting some further contest of wills or a renewal of combat, was surprised to see his bridge reappear. Two guards double-timed across it to take him away once more. Still, he had the feeling that things were about to get worse.
O N THE WAY out of the jai alai area, Flynn was bumped by a pair of husky Elite Warriors, a deliberate jostling. The guards pretended not to notice. One of the Reds whirled on him, snarling, “Outta my way, rookie!”
Flynn thought of the four Reds who’d ganged up on Tron, and of the pitiless
A voice reverberated above them, drawing their glances: “FINISH THE GAME!” Sark commanded.
There, like an evil vision in a dream, the Command Program’s face filled the mirror. Flynn’s breath caught as he saw the projection. Despite the grotesque flarings and design of the casque, and the interplay of energies and colors, that face was Edward Dillinger’s.
Flynn gritted his teeth, staring upward. This answered a lot of questions, but raised even more. But the image of Dillinger/Sark decided him, once and for all, on which side he stood in the System’s struggle.
As Crom waited to perish, Flynn balled his fist, filled lungs, compressed lips, and shouted his reply to the loathsome face above: “ No! ”
Elsewhere, the refusal had its effect. Over the sounds of the bus station, one of the kids, stabbing at lifeless firing buttons and pulling uselessly at a control grip, complained, “What’s wrong with it?”
The videogame remained as before, still alight, but all play had halted. Nothing he could do elicited any further action. The other player, a classmate, answered, “I don’t know; on the blink, or somethin’. Damn!”
Angered by the interruption, they hit the controls and banged the machine with the heels of their hands.
Flynn, head lowered, ignored the command that beat at his ears from the Carrier “KILL HIM!”
Kill . . . Flynn held up the cesta, contemplating it gravely. Perhaps, he thought, convictions were the only things that passed undistorted through the weird translation to the Electronic World. It might be a conceit, but he was ready to believe that wrong and right were constants.
Flynn turned the power-cesta over, letting the game-ball drop harmlessly toward the Grid. He drew a deep breath, then smirked up at Sark’s enraged face. “You’ll regret this,” the image promised. Crom looked stunned.
Flynn laughed aloud. Now what’re you gonna do, El Supremo? Gonna kill me, the winner? You could run real short of converts that way!
A moment later, his vast satisfaction left him. By some unseen command, Crom’s last ring began to de-rezz. Crom still hung from it, feet churning, helpless. Hope had come back into his face with Flynn’s refusal, but now his features twisted in utter defeat, his doom having found him after all.
Flynn, unable to help, could only look on. With a last cry as the ring lost all substance, Crom plummeted, tumbling toward the Grid floor, watched by both Flynn and Sark.
Sark’s finger poised by a button on the Carrier’s bridge, one that would send the User to an identical fate. Despite the MCP’s order that Flynn was to meet his end in combat, Sark thought it would be safer to be rid of him immediately. The User was too unpredictable, too independent, unconstrained by any of the fundamental presumptions under which programs thought and acted.
Sark’s hand wavered over the control as he strained to commit an act in direct disobedience of the will of the MCP. The finger shook as the Command Program fought an almost physical battle to follow his own will. But it was, in the end, no use; teeth locked, he resigned himself once more to the knowledge that he was the MCP’s to command, with no possibility of defiance.
And as Sark snatched his hand away, the voice of Master Control was abruptly all around him. “He is to die in the games!”
Flynn was glaring up at the mirror with impotent rage. The face was gone from it now and Flynn, expecting some further contest of wills or a renewal of combat, was surprised to see his bridge reappear. Two guards double-timed across it to take him away once more. Still, he had the feeling that things were about to get worse.
O N THE WAY out of the jai alai area, Flynn was bumped by a pair of husky Elite Warriors, a deliberate jostling. The guards pretended not to notice. One of the Reds whirled on him, snarling, “Outta my way, rookie!”
Flynn thought of the four Reds who’d ganged up on Tron, and of the pitiless
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