TRON: ASCENSION

CHAPTER 19 - COMPROMISED

EARTH – WEEK 2 DAY 4

GIBBS RESIDENCY

It's a pretty sad state of affairs for Dr. Gibbs, especially bearing the insults and abuses from the younger generation. Never was he, whether in his workspace or his neighborhood, been this much humiliated and thrown around like a rag doll, house arrested and made to work round the clock just that some random person, who turned out to be Dillinger's successor, could play the boss game with him. The same boss game by Sr. made him quit his passion three decades ago for creating digitized objects and 3d models, and now the same game is played with him by Jr. Even Walter couldn't bring himself up to laugh at the irony being played on his life. Nevertheless, he has no other choice whatsoever than to do whatever the kid says. Thinking so, he worked on improving MCP 2.0, adding new layers and modifications until another Connection emerges from the Grid.

Bringing his wait to an end, his Connections Tab rang again with another connection from the Grid, although the recipient from the other side is unknown yet. This time the connection lasted a little bit longer, buying time for Walter to hack into the advanced mainframe of the Grid. After a toe-to-toe fight with the Gateway tool in the first layer, Walter's cyber worms managed to creep into the Grid. Within a few seconds, his monitor displayed the coordinates of the recipient, but it was like Greek and Latin even to the seasoned hacker and co-founder of ENCOM. Not willing to risk all his effort solely into the bizzare, random worded coordinates, he then relayed command to his worms, which then toured the whole Grid from the exact coordinate location. Their instructions were to map the whole Grid, covering everything from the minor detailing to the major landmarks. These worms continued their exploration even after the Connection ended, which is when Gibbs called Ed through the guards. Briefing about the coordinates he'd obtained, he also reminded Ed that he could grab only one User's coordinates as they were in cyberspace and that the Grid's mainframe resembled that of the earlier MCP programming. Hacking is not his forte in the professional sense and he advised Dillinger to search for any RedHat hacker for this job. After a few seconds of silence, Ed continued:

- When will the map be ready?

- Blueprint? May take a day or so.

- Can we enter inside this.... what's the name again? Grid?

- I can't guarantee, son. But we used to have old digitizers back then, but that's only for 3d objects.

- Digitizer?

- It's a laser printing machine for digitizing 3d shaped objects into digital copies and vice versa.

- Kinda like teleportation inside the computer.

- Almost yes. But that won't be of any use for humans, son.

- We'll see that. Now, you'll open the portal for me, will ya?

- It's impossible at this stage, boy. Even if I tampered with the process, it's still very dangerous.

- You want to enjoy your retirement, Doc? Be on that portal thing right away.

- (gulping) Okay, boy. Just promise me you have my back if things go wrong, please?

- Done, you have it. When will the portal be ready?

- Have patience, boy. May take a few days or weeks altogether. If you can get me the old digitizers inside ENCOM, it'll be easier for me.

- You'll get them by tomorrow. I don't have weeks to wait. Give the phone to my boys.

THE GRID–SECOND TRONCYCLE

MARA'S CABIN

Post the debacle inside her cabin caused by Zed, Mara became upset and took some rest inside her room. The ruckus she got rolled in left her with mixed feelings and an unstable mind. She took a nap immediately and her eyes couldn't care about whatever happened during her absence inside the room. A nap of 8mTC after the decimal point comforted her mind and woke her up to the home she belongs to and the work waiting for her. Delving deeper into her work in front of her supercomputer, she couldn't believe what the computer had in store for her. The virtual machine has been logged in and tampered with already. Her personal computer, the only one existing in the garage and also the only thing untouched ever in the garage, has been spoiled by a bad touch, one that is not hers.