Zeroes and Ones
Title: Zeroes and Ones
AKA
010010010110111001100011011001010111000001110100011010010110111101101110
Author: Classlicity
Fandom: Inception
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Eames, Ensemble
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4600
Summary: A Tron AU prompted by innueneko’s wonderful fanart, which can be found here and here. Dom is a search engine on a mission. Arthur is annoyed. Eames is annoying. The moral of the story is that you really, really, shouldn’t try to hack Saito’s database.
Author’s Note: I don’t usually do A/Ns but this story really really needs one. So to start, I apologize profusely for this story. It’s 4600 words, and at least 2300 are terrible computer puns. As always, sobota suffered gracefully through the beta for me, and I really do owe her some strawberry poptarts. And likely, some vodka and jailbait!arthur porn for her troubles.
“We’re going to need a Trojan,” DOM says, staring out over the blue peaks and black valleys of the network. “What about that EMS program you know?”
“No, Dom,” Arthur replies with a violent shake of his head. “Besides, COBOL’s got him locked up on one of the few servers that Saito doesn’t own.”
He can practically see the data crunching in Dom’s head, and it makes Arthur frown.
“Dom, you told me specifically to avoid COBOL’s networks.”
“I did? Well, is this EMS Trojan as good as you say or do I need to reset my parameters?”
“Eames is the best.” Arthur’s power-lines pulse bright orange, as if to punctuate the statement.
“Then how fast can you get us there?”
---------
The orange disc whips around the corner so quickly that one of the two guards doesn’t even have a chance to process before he’s deleting. The second guard has a death grip on his spear, watching the corner carefully, but he dutifully never leaves his post in front of the cell. The guard’s red power lines flicker with worry.
Eames hears a quiet thump above him, but refrains from looking up. He doesn’t want to make any sudden or suspicious movements. Correction, he doesn’t want to make any more suspicious movements, as that’s what got him quarantined in the first place.
Arthur is a blur of orange and grey, catapulting himself over the ledge of the cell, and landing feet first on the guard’s back. The guard twitches on the ground. Arthur wastes no time, picking up the spear and driving it through the fallen program. He deletes quickly, leaving nothing behind but the spear in Arthur’s hand.
“My white knight,” Eames drawls, clapping slowly. Arthur scowls at him, tapping the controls with the spear and disabling the force field.
“I have a job for you, if you’re up to it.”
Stretching, Eames crowds his way past the other program. With a shake, he lets his power-lines cycle through the different energies he’s absorbed, orange, red, yellow, finally settling into the blue of ordinary programs.
Arthur watches, expressionless as usual, arms crossed delicately over his chest. It’s always been like this between them - each one constantly trying to impress the other and neither willing to admit it.
“Seeing as you did come all the way to this backwater server, I suppose I should hear you out.”
“Follow me. There’s someone I want you to meet,” Arthur says, backing up until his heel hits the wall opposite of Eames’s cell.
He heaves the spear at the space over the cell door, and it sticks. With a few quick strides, Arthur’s jumping and grabbing onto the spear, contorting his body and using his momentum to pull himself up so he’s balancing on the thin shaft on just the balls of his feet. One more quick leap and his fingers catch the top of the cellblock, and he can pull himself on to the roof once again. It’s all so gracefully done that Eames can’t help but stare until the slim program is out of sight.
“Show off,” Eames mutters under his breath, backing up for his own run.
---------
They meet up with Dom in a back alley near the server’s sole I/O tower.
“DOM, this is Eames. Eames, Dom.”
Dom holds out his hand for the Trojan to shake, but Eames just regards it warily. “And what do you do, DOM?”
“I’m looking for a file that my user lost. Dom’s just the acronym for Data Optimized Miner.”
Eames’s mouth twitches into an amused smile. “What a crap name.”
Dom ignores the taunt. “I need to talk to Mal. Can you get me into that I/O tower?”
“Can it wait until we’re on an unsecured network?” Arthur asks.
Dom simply squints at him.
“No, it never can,” Arthur sighs, resigned. “Meet us back here in eight microsecs. We need to do some reconnaissance.”
Arthur pivots crisply, heading back down the alley the way he came. When he doesn’t hear anyone following, he calls over his shoulder, “Eames, you coming?”
“You’re assuming I’ve agreed to this job.”
Raising an eyebrow, Arthur just waits.
“I want details on the way,” Eames winks at him, striding to catch up.
---------
“So, Dom has an active user?” Eames whispers the question as they watch the guards at the entrance to the tower from the roof of a nearby cache. COBOL’s servers were sparsely populated, but the programs that lived there were ones often used by military contractors. Security on the I/O tower was extremely tight.
“Yep.” Using a special visor attached to his helmet, Arthur zooms in on the door. Two by the door, one on perimeter patrol, and two stationed with blasters in turrets.
Eames flips onto his back, bored. “And what does this user want?”
“Like he said. She lost a file. He wants to give it back to her.”
“And what will I get out of all this?”
Tapping twice on his visor to make it recede, Arthur narrows his eyes at the Trojan who’s conspicuously cycling his power lines through the rainbow again. “The chance to cause chaos, destruction. You viruses like that, right?”
Looking right at Arthur, Eames settles on orange. “Mmm. I suppose we do.”
Ignoring him, Arthur gestures at the tower. “If I had a blaster rifle, between the two of us, the guards wouldn’t be a problem. The real issue is the keypad. It has roughly over twenty million permutations.”
“Roughly?” Eames raises an eyebrow. “That’s unlike you, Arthur.”
“Twenty million, three hundred twenty seven thousand six hundred and sixty eight, if you must have the specifics. Anyway, I could crack it, but it would take time, and the less time we spend in COBOL territory, the better. They’re already going to be on top of us the minute Dom contacts Mal.”
“Twenty million permutations, you say. Good thing I’ve had a key stroke logger on that tower since I first got on this server.” Eames grins widely, and Arthur can’t help but answer with a tight-lipped smile.
“That was surprisingly,” Arthur pauses, searching for the word, “…competent.”
“Your blatant flattery, Arthur, is practically shameful.”
Eames’s sarcasm is shrugged off. “That still leaves the problem of obtaining a blaster rifle.”
Eames looks thoughtful, then, clapping Arthur on the shoulder, he says, “Leave munitions to me. Go get Dom.”
---------
“Eames!” Arthur shouts over the rumbling of treads and the pop-pop-pop of blasters set on automatic. “I asked for a blaster rifle!”
Eames’s head pops out of the tank with a familiar smirk on his lips. “Don’t be afraid to code a little bigger, darling.”
The tank takes care of the turrets while Arthur dispatches two of the ground guards and Dom takes out the third. A few quick key strokes and Eames is ushering Dom inside, leaving Arthur with the tank and only microseconds to prep an exit strategy.
---------
The tank gets them off the server, but they abandon it quickly because it’s so conspicuous. With a sigh, Eames sets a block on the gas and they watch it as it lumbers over a cliff, smashing into pieces below.
“I’m going to miss that tank,” he mourns.
Arthur nods in sympathy. Dom shifts his weight, and Arthur’s attention snaps to him. “Which ill-advised destination are we off to next?”
“We’re going to need to recharge,” Dom says simply. “This next bit will be draining.”
Arthur warns, “Dom.”
“Saito. Saito has it secured somewhere on his database.”
“Dom, you are not seriously considering hacking Saito’s database. Don’t you remember what happened to Phisher?”
“Mal needs that file. My job is to get it for her.”
If Eames thought he had seen the worst of Arthur’s disapproving faces, he’s proven brilliantly wrong by the glare that Arthur levels at Dom. The program should’ve deleted from sheer animosity, but instead, Dom merely squints into the distance, trying to make out the nearest bandwidth highway.
Eames coughs, trying to break the tension. “More power, yeah? I might know a program.”
--------
Eames’s friend lives off the grid. Really, really off the grid. It makes Arthur nervous to be this far from the internet, but Eames just keeps walking, whistling a midi that Arthur swears he’s heard before, but just can’t place. Knowing Arthur as well as he does, Dom has wisely decided to keep to himself, walking well behind the other two programs.
Finally, Arthur’s patience doesn’t snap so much as disintegrate. He jogs a bit to fall into stride next to the Trojan, biting out, “Can’t you just be quiet for two picoseconds?”
“Ever so sorry, Arthur, you know us viruses.” Eames doesn’t even look at him. “It’s that whole chaos-loving thing.”
“For the love of a user,” Arthur moans as the whistling starts again. “Can’t you at least switch songs once in awhile?”
The tune stops as Eames considers. The Space Paranoids theme fills the air, and Arthur grits his teeth and falls back to trudge along with Dom.
--------
Yusuf is unexpected, as Arthur has never met anyone with green power-lines before. He doesn’t quite know what to make of the program’s dry wit and obvious pleasure at having visitors. His cache is small, and when he invites them inside, Arthur has to raise an eyebrow at the clutter. There are glowing vials everywhere and the entire back wall is a giant control panel.
Suddenly a siren sounds and there’s an ominous red glow from the control panel. The ground rumbles underneath them.
“User recycle it!” Yusuf swears, rushing to one of his many bookshelves, and sorting through the mess there until he finds the vial he wants, the power inside pulsing a silvery blue.
The floor trembles again, violently, and Yusuf is back at the controls in a few purposeful strides. Punching desperately at a few buttons, a small bracket extends from the wall. Yusuf uncorks the vial, sniffing it one last time before sliding it into the bracket, hands flying over the keys of the control panel. The panel accepts the extra power with a pulse, calming the angry red and silencing the alarms.
“Applications these days just don’t understand how they tax the system with all their graphical interfaces and automatic updates,” he grouses, shoulders slumped over the keys.
“If Eames had told us we were going to meet a Kernel, I would’ve brought a gift,” Dom says.
Yusuf shoots him a half smile. “I’m not one for protocol. Most programs, or for that matter, most users, forget I’m here. It’s nice to just have company for awhile.” His eyes flick from Dom, to Eames, and then to Arthur, assessing them in a glance. “But I am guessing you have other requests than merely enjoying my presence, am I right?”
“We’re going to hack Saito’s database,” Dom explains. He holds up his hand, where the blue power-lines glow dimly. “And we’re going to need more power to do it.”
Yusuf whistles, low and drawn out. “I’ll say. It may take me a few nanoseconds to sort out what you’ll need.”
-----------
Arthur finds Eames outside, staring blankly at the flickering river of power. He can see the Trojan’s shoulders tense with his presence.
“I’ve never seen a power source like this one before,” Arthur says, for once uncomfortable with their silence.
“Yusuf is closer to it than any other program. A kernel has to be.” He crouches by the river, dipping a finger in and shivering. “Have you ever tried it straight from the source?”
Moving silently, Arthur sits cross-legged next to Eames, letting a hand drop into the stream. The tingle sparks up his arm, and Eames chuckles as Arthur’s orange power-lines flash with the unexpected pleasure of it. Cupping his hand, Arthur brings some of the power to his lips and drinks it down greedily. He wobbles as he fights to maintain his posture with all the energy coursing through his body, and in the end, he relents, laying back and stretching out so that his feet hang over the bank and into the water below.
Eames quickly follows suit, letting his chuckles turn into full blown laughs as the power becomes a rainbow under his skin. It’s amazing, and Arthur knows he’s staring, but it feels too good to care.
With a smirk, Eames asks, “Good?”
“Shut up, Eames.” The command lacks edge, because Arthur’s smiling so widely his dimples show. “Forget about hacking any databases, I’m going to hang up my disc and stay here forever.”
“You two would try to delete each other after a day. You’d be creating directories and subdirectories, and Yusuf would try to put it back the way it was.” Eames shoots Arthur a pointed look. “If you want to talk about programs who live for mayhem, well, that would be Yusuf.”
Arthur’s grin falters. “I get it. You don’t live for destruction, unlike every other virus I’ve met. So, please, enlighten me. Every program has a purpose, what is yours?”
“Ah, philosophy. Well, at the basest of levels, let’s say that I do enjoy causing trouble…”
Arthur interrupts him with an incredulous snort.
Ignoring him, Eames continues, “But it’s more than that. I can slip into another program’s code, live like the other side for a nanosecond. And then plunder all their secrets for profit. It’s very fulfilling work.”
“And this is what your user wants?”
“I suppose. He hasn’t called me in awhile, so I am content to find my own jobs.” Eames scoots closer to Arthur, so that their shoulders are barely touching. “Aren’t you curious as to why I ended up in quarantine on COBOL’s server?”
“No.” Arthur kicks his feet in the river, enjoying the tickle of power splashing on his legs.
“I had heard an interesting rumor. I had heard that awhile back, some user created a security protocol based on the coding of the legendary Tron; a Tron 2.0, if you will. Bigger, and faster, and meaner. I also heard that he was a most beautiful program to behold, but before that program was given any commands, his user abandoned the project, leaving him drifting.”
Silent and still, Arthur doesn’t respond, but Eames can see him fairly thrumming with power, all trace of a smile wiped from his face.
“They have all sorts of military intel on COBOL’s databases, but they nabbed me before I could find any proof that this program exists.”
Never looking away from Arthur’s face, Eames continues, “But enough about me. What is your purpose?”
“Go recycle yourself,” Arthur spits, hauling himself to his feet. He stalks angrily back to the cache, hoping that Dom and Yusuf have figured out a solution.
----------
The ride across the internet is uneventful. They don’t talk much, considering Arthur has stopped speaking to both his companions. Eames tries to goad Dom into a conversation, but Dom’s focus is single-minded this close to his goal. Entering Saito’s network, even his secured network, is easy with Eames at the helm of a quarantine transport.
Even though he won’t admit it, Arthur likes watching Eames work. It’s more than just the color of his energy that changes; it’s his posture, the way he speaks, everything that makes him so distinctly Eames is gone in the blink of an eye. It’s impressive, but he’ll be deleted before he’d tell Eames so.
The transport jerks to a stop, and they disembark in front of a multi-story tower with power sparking all over it. There are empty stories, too, and right in front of them, a large mechanical claw hooks onto the ground floor. With an ear splitting screech, it pulls the entire floor loose from the walls of the tower, lifting it effortlessly hundreds of feet into the air to plug it into a hole that Arthur judges to be the seventh floor.
“Let me guess,” Eames deadpans, “This is Saito’s database.”
“C++ for observation,” Dom replies. “Mal thinks the file should be on the third level.”
The claw clatters on the girders of the tower on its way down, and they all look up in horror as it latches on to what used to be the third story. Arthur lets the hope bubble up in his chest as it descends, clutching the chunk of building, only to have it crushed when instead of plugging the story into the empty ground floor, they hear the dreadful whirr-thunk of doors sliding open beneath the building, and their ultimate destination being locked in somewhere below them.
Eames runs a hand over his helmet, exasperated. “And what are we supposed to do now?”
Considering this for a moment, Dom grins at them like a program about to crash. “Well, we’ll just have to go deeper.”
Arthur passes out the vials of energy that Yusuf gave them, drinking his as quickly as possible and trying not to think about how good it feels. Despite his best efforts, his gaze is drawn to Eames as he swallows his portion. Eames catches him staring and smirks, shifting quickly from his red guard uniform to the blue of a more sedate program.
“We won’t have much time once we get in there. I’ll go first, deal with any security,” Arthur says, grabbing his disc from the holster on his back, and striding confidently towards the tower.
-----------
They run into a rather major obstacle on the first level underground, although there’s no security. Instead, all they run into are normal programs going about doing normal business. Arthur’s almost disappointed, because he’d been spoiling for a fight all day, and even as angry as Eames made him, he wasn’t going to delete him without proper justification.
Both Dom and Eames make their way through the halls unnoticed, but orange Arthur is turning heads and it makes him uncomfortable.
Finally, when they’ve gone through all the hallways and doors and searched every entrance and exit as inconspicuously as possible, Dom makes them stop for a breather.
“There’s no way down, no exits at all,” Eames says slumping against a door frame.
Nodding, Arthur spins his disc neatly on a finger. “It’s a paradox. A building you can enter but never leave.”
“It’s frustratingly brilliant,” Dom adds.
“Thank you,” a petite program next to him chirps. She flashes them a wide smile. “If you want to get to the next level down, you need to code a temporary entrance. Like this.”
She presses her palms flat against the wall, her power pulsing in time with the tower. An archway appears, and she steps through it, clearly waiting for them to follow. Disc still in hand, Arthur steps through cautiously, but he sees nothing but an ordinary stairwell with a bright yellow ‘(2)’ blinking on the wall. Dom follows, running a hand over the arch as he passes through.
“Impressive. What did you say your name was?” he asks.
“I didn’t. It’s Ariadne,” she answers as they troop down the stairs. “I’m the design program for levels minus one through five.”
“I met another design program once,” Eames muses. “Went by CAD.”
Ariadne snorts. “Yeah, I know him. He’s kind of a jerk.”
She stops just in front of the door that was also marked (2) so abruptly that she nearly causes the other programs to run into each other. Turning, she looks Dom straight in the eye.
“It has occurred to me that I never asked you why you wanted to go down here in the first place.”
Brushing past her, Dom replies, “No, you didn’t.”
It’s dark on level minus two. The power-lines along the walls are faint, and they can’t hear anything but the sound of their own footsteps and a quiet scratching. From what Arthur can make out, it looks like an exact replica of level minus one - cubicles, labyrinthine hallways, lack of exits - except that it’s completely abandoned.
“You know it’s suicide to try and break into Saito’s database, right?” she whispers, but Dom ignores her.
“Trust me, we already tried that tactic, love,” Eames answers, voice low, and eyes alert.
The scratching comes closer, and Ariadne’s eyes widen, the blue of her power fading with fear.
“Ariadne, where is the stairwell to minus three?” Dom asks, quiet. A slick, squishing noise comes from the cubicles nearby and he has to snap to get her attention.
She points in the direction of the noises. “Past there. It’s, ah, guarded.”
Disc in hand, Arthur is doing his very best not to delete all of them and be done with the constant frustration that is his life. A hand brushes across his wrist, and he can feel Eames’s concerned gaze.
“Ariadne,” Arthur nearly growls, “can we assume that it is not guarded by standard measures?”
Another squelch emanates from the cubicles, and she shakes her head furiously. “Saito put a worm on level minus two.”
“User love us,” Eames swears under his breath.
There’s a break in the scratching, and Arthur grips his disc tighter. They’re all staring into the darkness, suits shining brightly with anticipation.
Arthur whispers, “Do we have a plan for worms, Dom? Because no one told me about any worms.”
There’s a long silent pause, energy thrumming in the air around them.
“I’ll take Ariadne and we’ll make our way around the perimeter,” Dom answers, hushed. “She can get me to level three. You and Eames can check on the status of the worm, and keep it out of our way.”
Nodding to the left, Arthur takes a defensive stance as the two blue programs sneak off to a hallway on the left, Ariadne carefully leading the way. He feels Eames slide up next to him, his own disc at the ready. What he doesn’t expect is the soft kiss that Eames presses to the corner of his mouth.
Eames chuckles quietly, watching Arthur’s face fade from shocked back to its usual blank slate.
“I could delete you in a picosecond,” Arthur says without even turning to his companion.
A flare of orange shivers up Eames’s spine. “And then just think of how dull your life would be.”
Arthur attempts to raise an eyebrow at him, but his attention snaps to the roar of something predatory followed by Ariadne’s scream. Dom yelling “Duck!” spurs them to action. They sprint through the rows of cubicles, feet squishing in the trail of slime the worm left behind.
Rounding a corner, they get their first glimpse of the worm. It’s easily three times as long as Arthur is tall, thick enough that he can’t make his way past it in the hallway, sickly yellow power lines glowing in the dark, and hundreds of tiny legs to propel it along. The worm’s head is raised, swaying like a cobra about to strike, two beady eyes and a giant maw with rows and rows of pointed teeth focused on the two programs in front of it.
Yellow liquid drips from its mouth, and Arthur can see it burning pock marks into the floor. Roaring again, the worm spits acid straight at Dom, who dives to the ground, pulling Ariadne with him.
Arthur whips his disc at the worm. It flies true, hitting the worm solidly on the neck, but the disc sticks in the monster’s gooey flesh. Squealing in pain, the worm swivels its head, fixing its yellow eyes on Arthur.
“Run!” Eames yells as Ariadne and Dom scramble to their feet.
Acid sprays at Eames, taking chunks out of the cubicle, narrowly missing as he flings himself to the side. His power-lines blink from blue to yellow, mimicking the worm’s coloring. Waving his arms, Eames tries to keep the beast’s attention on him while Arthur sneaks back through the cubicles.
“Look, we’re two of a kind, yeah?” Eames says as the worm rears back. “In the end we’re all just binary. Worms, Trojans, Antiviruses. Just zeroes and ones.”
The worm actually lowers its head as Eames continues to babble at it until Arthur slips in a puddle of goo, crashing against a desk. The sudden noise startles the worm which draws up to its full height, roaring and snapping. Eames heaves his disc at the beast, falling backwards to avoid another stream of acid. The disc lands a glancing blow right above the worm’s eye, causing more yellow ooze to gush forth.
The floor is too slippery, and Eames scrambles desperately for traction to push himself upright, but he can’t find it, so he rolls as close as he can to the body of the beast, hoping it has enough intelligence to not spit acid at itself. Irate, the worm thrashes, and in the tight hall Eames has no room to maneuver, quickly getting pinned between a wall and the thick coil of the worm’s body. He has one arm free, and he uses it to dig his disc into the monster’s side over and over, hacking away at it until it’s gushing slime and wailing. The worm twists and snaps at him, coming close enough that Eames can smell its acrid breath.
The worm rears back again, adjusting its angle of attack, and suddenly Arthur is there, climbing it like a cliff, using the tiny legs for hand holds. Bucking violently, the worm tries to shake him off, but Arthur clings stubbornly, reaching for the disc lodged in its neck. He pulls it free with a terrible sucking sound, and with a brilliant flash of orange flings it as hard as he can at the floor. The disc ricochets, bouncing straight up, ripping through the worm’s throat and out the back of its head.
Arthur rides the worm down as it dies, slow and twitching. He walks along its back until he’s looking down at Eames, who was doing his best to wiggle his way out from underneath the dead virus.
“A hand would be much appreciated, darling.”
Sniffing, Arthur looks him over critically. “You’re filthy,” he objects, but helps him out anyway.
There’s a ‘ding’ and then a pair of newly formed elevator doors slide open. Ariadne’s hopeful face peers into the darkness, smiling broadly when she sees the two programs wiping goo off themselves. And if Arthur grabs Eames’s hand again, it’s because he wants to get into that elevator faster, not because he’s glad that they’re all getting out uncorrupted.
“So,” Eames starts, slumped against the grate of Ariadne’s swiftly coded elevator, fingers still twined in Arthur’s, “did you get it?”
“Yeah,” Dom replies. He opens his hand, staring reverently at a small, grey object spinning in his palm. “It’s a patch. For the network exploit that Saito’s been using.”
-------
They leave Dom at a public I/O tower, but he barely notices them fading into the crowds with how eager he is to get to Mal. The idle programs waiting their turns do double takes as Arthur, orange and glowing fiercely, strides past. Eames is blue again, and matching him step for step.
Once they’re in the street, Arthur relaxes his guard, but only just.
Eames watches him out of the corner of his eye, upbeat voice betrayed by the downturn of his lips. “When he gets back you’ll be off again, then? Trolling the internet for whatever Dom’s user needs?”
“Every program needs a purpose,” Arthur answers, stopping so unexpectedly that Eames runs into him, energy bleeding orange where they touch. “Dom will always be searching for something. You will always be looking for trouble.”
“Trouble always looks for me,” Eames huffs, pulling away. Arthur grabs his arm, keeping him close and smiling more fondly than Eames thought he could.
“Stop lying. You chase the thrill.”
“Thrills chase me!”
“Along with numerous other programs, most of whom want to delete you.”
Eames opens his mouth to rebut him, but Arthur puts a finger to his lips. “Your purpose is to get into trouble, Eames. And I think my purpose is to get us out of it.”
When Arthur kisses Eames, their energy bathes the street in rainbows.
AKA
010010010110111001100011011001010111000001110100011010010110111101101110
Author: Classlicity
Fandom: Inception
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Eames, Ensemble
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4600
Summary: A Tron AU prompted by innueneko’s wonderful fanart, which can be found here and here. Dom is a search engine on a mission. Arthur is annoyed. Eames is annoying. The moral of the story is that you really, really, shouldn’t try to hack Saito’s database.
Author’s Note: I don’t usually do A/Ns but this story really really needs one. So to start, I apologize profusely for this story. It’s 4600 words, and at least 2300 are terrible computer puns. As always, sobota suffered gracefully through the beta for me, and I really do owe her some strawberry poptarts. And likely, some vodka and jailbait!arthur porn for her troubles.
“We’re going to need a Trojan,” DOM says, staring out over the blue peaks and black valleys of the network. “What about that EMS program you know?”
“No, Dom,” Arthur replies with a violent shake of his head. “Besides, COBOL’s got him locked up on one of the few servers that Saito doesn’t own.”
He can practically see the data crunching in Dom’s head, and it makes Arthur frown.
“Dom, you told me specifically to avoid COBOL’s networks.”
“I did? Well, is this EMS Trojan as good as you say or do I need to reset my parameters?”
“Eames is the best.” Arthur’s power-lines pulse bright orange, as if to punctuate the statement.
“Then how fast can you get us there?”
---------
The orange disc whips around the corner so quickly that one of the two guards doesn’t even have a chance to process before he’s deleting. The second guard has a death grip on his spear, watching the corner carefully, but he dutifully never leaves his post in front of the cell. The guard’s red power lines flicker with worry.
Eames hears a quiet thump above him, but refrains from looking up. He doesn’t want to make any sudden or suspicious movements. Correction, he doesn’t want to make any more suspicious movements, as that’s what got him quarantined in the first place.
Arthur is a blur of orange and grey, catapulting himself over the ledge of the cell, and landing feet first on the guard’s back. The guard twitches on the ground. Arthur wastes no time, picking up the spear and driving it through the fallen program. He deletes quickly, leaving nothing behind but the spear in Arthur’s hand.
“My white knight,” Eames drawls, clapping slowly. Arthur scowls at him, tapping the controls with the spear and disabling the force field.
“I have a job for you, if you’re up to it.”
Stretching, Eames crowds his way past the other program. With a shake, he lets his power-lines cycle through the different energies he’s absorbed, orange, red, yellow, finally settling into the blue of ordinary programs.
Arthur watches, expressionless as usual, arms crossed delicately over his chest. It’s always been like this between them - each one constantly trying to impress the other and neither willing to admit it.
“Seeing as you did come all the way to this backwater server, I suppose I should hear you out.”
“Follow me. There’s someone I want you to meet,” Arthur says, backing up until his heel hits the wall opposite of Eames’s cell.
He heaves the spear at the space over the cell door, and it sticks. With a few quick strides, Arthur’s jumping and grabbing onto the spear, contorting his body and using his momentum to pull himself up so he’s balancing on the thin shaft on just the balls of his feet. One more quick leap and his fingers catch the top of the cellblock, and he can pull himself on to the roof once again. It’s all so gracefully done that Eames can’t help but stare until the slim program is out of sight.
“Show off,” Eames mutters under his breath, backing up for his own run.
---------
They meet up with Dom in a back alley near the server’s sole I/O tower.
“DOM, this is Eames. Eames, Dom.”
Dom holds out his hand for the Trojan to shake, but Eames just regards it warily. “And what do you do, DOM?”
“I’m looking for a file that my user lost. Dom’s just the acronym for Data Optimized Miner.”
Eames’s mouth twitches into an amused smile. “What a crap name.”
Dom ignores the taunt. “I need to talk to Mal. Can you get me into that I/O tower?”
“Can it wait until we’re on an unsecured network?” Arthur asks.
Dom simply squints at him.
“No, it never can,” Arthur sighs, resigned. “Meet us back here in eight microsecs. We need to do some reconnaissance.”
Arthur pivots crisply, heading back down the alley the way he came. When he doesn’t hear anyone following, he calls over his shoulder, “Eames, you coming?”
“You’re assuming I’ve agreed to this job.”
Raising an eyebrow, Arthur just waits.
“I want details on the way,” Eames winks at him, striding to catch up.
---------
“So, Dom has an active user?” Eames whispers the question as they watch the guards at the entrance to the tower from the roof of a nearby cache. COBOL’s servers were sparsely populated, but the programs that lived there were ones often used by military contractors. Security on the I/O tower was extremely tight.
“Yep.” Using a special visor attached to his helmet, Arthur zooms in on the door. Two by the door, one on perimeter patrol, and two stationed with blasters in turrets.
Eames flips onto his back, bored. “And what does this user want?”
“Like he said. She lost a file. He wants to give it back to her.”
“And what will I get out of all this?”
Tapping twice on his visor to make it recede, Arthur narrows his eyes at the Trojan who’s conspicuously cycling his power lines through the rainbow again. “The chance to cause chaos, destruction. You viruses like that, right?”
Looking right at Arthur, Eames settles on orange. “Mmm. I suppose we do.”
Ignoring him, Arthur gestures at the tower. “If I had a blaster rifle, between the two of us, the guards wouldn’t be a problem. The real issue is the keypad. It has roughly over twenty million permutations.”
“Roughly?” Eames raises an eyebrow. “That’s unlike you, Arthur.”
“Twenty million, three hundred twenty seven thousand six hundred and sixty eight, if you must have the specifics. Anyway, I could crack it, but it would take time, and the less time we spend in COBOL territory, the better. They’re already going to be on top of us the minute Dom contacts Mal.”
“Twenty million permutations, you say. Good thing I’ve had a key stroke logger on that tower since I first got on this server.” Eames grins widely, and Arthur can’t help but answer with a tight-lipped smile.
“That was surprisingly,” Arthur pauses, searching for the word, “…competent.”
“Your blatant flattery, Arthur, is practically shameful.”
Eames’s sarcasm is shrugged off. “That still leaves the problem of obtaining a blaster rifle.”
Eames looks thoughtful, then, clapping Arthur on the shoulder, he says, “Leave munitions to me. Go get Dom.”
---------
“Eames!” Arthur shouts over the rumbling of treads and the pop-pop-pop of blasters set on automatic. “I asked for a blaster rifle!”
Eames’s head pops out of the tank with a familiar smirk on his lips. “Don’t be afraid to code a little bigger, darling.”
The tank takes care of the turrets while Arthur dispatches two of the ground guards and Dom takes out the third. A few quick key strokes and Eames is ushering Dom inside, leaving Arthur with the tank and only microseconds to prep an exit strategy.
---------
The tank gets them off the server, but they abandon it quickly because it’s so conspicuous. With a sigh, Eames sets a block on the gas and they watch it as it lumbers over a cliff, smashing into pieces below.
“I’m going to miss that tank,” he mourns.
Arthur nods in sympathy. Dom shifts his weight, and Arthur’s attention snaps to him. “Which ill-advised destination are we off to next?”
“We’re going to need to recharge,” Dom says simply. “This next bit will be draining.”
Arthur warns, “Dom.”
“Saito. Saito has it secured somewhere on his database.”
“Dom, you are not seriously considering hacking Saito’s database. Don’t you remember what happened to Phisher?”
“Mal needs that file. My job is to get it for her.”
If Eames thought he had seen the worst of Arthur’s disapproving faces, he’s proven brilliantly wrong by the glare that Arthur levels at Dom. The program should’ve deleted from sheer animosity, but instead, Dom merely squints into the distance, trying to make out the nearest bandwidth highway.
Eames coughs, trying to break the tension. “More power, yeah? I might know a program.”
--------
Eames’s friend lives off the grid. Really, really off the grid. It makes Arthur nervous to be this far from the internet, but Eames just keeps walking, whistling a midi that Arthur swears he’s heard before, but just can’t place. Knowing Arthur as well as he does, Dom has wisely decided to keep to himself, walking well behind the other two programs.
Finally, Arthur’s patience doesn’t snap so much as disintegrate. He jogs a bit to fall into stride next to the Trojan, biting out, “Can’t you just be quiet for two picoseconds?”
“Ever so sorry, Arthur, you know us viruses.” Eames doesn’t even look at him. “It’s that whole chaos-loving thing.”
“For the love of a user,” Arthur moans as the whistling starts again. “Can’t you at least switch songs once in awhile?”
The tune stops as Eames considers. The Space Paranoids theme fills the air, and Arthur grits his teeth and falls back to trudge along with Dom.
--------
Yusuf is unexpected, as Arthur has never met anyone with green power-lines before. He doesn’t quite know what to make of the program’s dry wit and obvious pleasure at having visitors. His cache is small, and when he invites them inside, Arthur has to raise an eyebrow at the clutter. There are glowing vials everywhere and the entire back wall is a giant control panel.
Suddenly a siren sounds and there’s an ominous red glow from the control panel. The ground rumbles underneath them.
“User recycle it!” Yusuf swears, rushing to one of his many bookshelves, and sorting through the mess there until he finds the vial he wants, the power inside pulsing a silvery blue.
The floor trembles again, violently, and Yusuf is back at the controls in a few purposeful strides. Punching desperately at a few buttons, a small bracket extends from the wall. Yusuf uncorks the vial, sniffing it one last time before sliding it into the bracket, hands flying over the keys of the control panel. The panel accepts the extra power with a pulse, calming the angry red and silencing the alarms.
“Applications these days just don’t understand how they tax the system with all their graphical interfaces and automatic updates,” he grouses, shoulders slumped over the keys.
“If Eames had told us we were going to meet a Kernel, I would’ve brought a gift,” Dom says.
Yusuf shoots him a half smile. “I’m not one for protocol. Most programs, or for that matter, most users, forget I’m here. It’s nice to just have company for awhile.” His eyes flick from Dom, to Eames, and then to Arthur, assessing them in a glance. “But I am guessing you have other requests than merely enjoying my presence, am I right?”
“We’re going to hack Saito’s database,” Dom explains. He holds up his hand, where the blue power-lines glow dimly. “And we’re going to need more power to do it.”
Yusuf whistles, low and drawn out. “I’ll say. It may take me a few nanoseconds to sort out what you’ll need.”
-----------
Arthur finds Eames outside, staring blankly at the flickering river of power. He can see the Trojan’s shoulders tense with his presence.
“I’ve never seen a power source like this one before,” Arthur says, for once uncomfortable with their silence.
“Yusuf is closer to it than any other program. A kernel has to be.” He crouches by the river, dipping a finger in and shivering. “Have you ever tried it straight from the source?”
Moving silently, Arthur sits cross-legged next to Eames, letting a hand drop into the stream. The tingle sparks up his arm, and Eames chuckles as Arthur’s orange power-lines flash with the unexpected pleasure of it. Cupping his hand, Arthur brings some of the power to his lips and drinks it down greedily. He wobbles as he fights to maintain his posture with all the energy coursing through his body, and in the end, he relents, laying back and stretching out so that his feet hang over the bank and into the water below.
Eames quickly follows suit, letting his chuckles turn into full blown laughs as the power becomes a rainbow under his skin. It’s amazing, and Arthur knows he’s staring, but it feels too good to care.
With a smirk, Eames asks, “Good?”
“Shut up, Eames.” The command lacks edge, because Arthur’s smiling so widely his dimples show. “Forget about hacking any databases, I’m going to hang up my disc and stay here forever.”
“You two would try to delete each other after a day. You’d be creating directories and subdirectories, and Yusuf would try to put it back the way it was.” Eames shoots Arthur a pointed look. “If you want to talk about programs who live for mayhem, well, that would be Yusuf.”
Arthur’s grin falters. “I get it. You don’t live for destruction, unlike every other virus I’ve met. So, please, enlighten me. Every program has a purpose, what is yours?”
“Ah, philosophy. Well, at the basest of levels, let’s say that I do enjoy causing trouble…”
Arthur interrupts him with an incredulous snort.
Ignoring him, Eames continues, “But it’s more than that. I can slip into another program’s code, live like the other side for a nanosecond. And then plunder all their secrets for profit. It’s very fulfilling work.”
“And this is what your user wants?”
“I suppose. He hasn’t called me in awhile, so I am content to find my own jobs.” Eames scoots closer to Arthur, so that their shoulders are barely touching. “Aren’t you curious as to why I ended up in quarantine on COBOL’s server?”
“No.” Arthur kicks his feet in the river, enjoying the tickle of power splashing on his legs.
“I had heard an interesting rumor. I had heard that awhile back, some user created a security protocol based on the coding of the legendary Tron; a Tron 2.0, if you will. Bigger, and faster, and meaner. I also heard that he was a most beautiful program to behold, but before that program was given any commands, his user abandoned the project, leaving him drifting.”
Silent and still, Arthur doesn’t respond, but Eames can see him fairly thrumming with power, all trace of a smile wiped from his face.
“They have all sorts of military intel on COBOL’s databases, but they nabbed me before I could find any proof that this program exists.”
Never looking away from Arthur’s face, Eames continues, “But enough about me. What is your purpose?”
“Go recycle yourself,” Arthur spits, hauling himself to his feet. He stalks angrily back to the cache, hoping that Dom and Yusuf have figured out a solution.
----------
The ride across the internet is uneventful. They don’t talk much, considering Arthur has stopped speaking to both his companions. Eames tries to goad Dom into a conversation, but Dom’s focus is single-minded this close to his goal. Entering Saito’s network, even his secured network, is easy with Eames at the helm of a quarantine transport.
Even though he won’t admit it, Arthur likes watching Eames work. It’s more than just the color of his energy that changes; it’s his posture, the way he speaks, everything that makes him so distinctly Eames is gone in the blink of an eye. It’s impressive, but he’ll be deleted before he’d tell Eames so.
The transport jerks to a stop, and they disembark in front of a multi-story tower with power sparking all over it. There are empty stories, too, and right in front of them, a large mechanical claw hooks onto the ground floor. With an ear splitting screech, it pulls the entire floor loose from the walls of the tower, lifting it effortlessly hundreds of feet into the air to plug it into a hole that Arthur judges to be the seventh floor.
“Let me guess,” Eames deadpans, “This is Saito’s database.”
“C++ for observation,” Dom replies. “Mal thinks the file should be on the third level.”
The claw clatters on the girders of the tower on its way down, and they all look up in horror as it latches on to what used to be the third story. Arthur lets the hope bubble up in his chest as it descends, clutching the chunk of building, only to have it crushed when instead of plugging the story into the empty ground floor, they hear the dreadful whirr-thunk of doors sliding open beneath the building, and their ultimate destination being locked in somewhere below them.
Eames runs a hand over his helmet, exasperated. “And what are we supposed to do now?”
Considering this for a moment, Dom grins at them like a program about to crash. “Well, we’ll just have to go deeper.”
Arthur passes out the vials of energy that Yusuf gave them, drinking his as quickly as possible and trying not to think about how good it feels. Despite his best efforts, his gaze is drawn to Eames as he swallows his portion. Eames catches him staring and smirks, shifting quickly from his red guard uniform to the blue of a more sedate program.
“We won’t have much time once we get in there. I’ll go first, deal with any security,” Arthur says, grabbing his disc from the holster on his back, and striding confidently towards the tower.
-----------
They run into a rather major obstacle on the first level underground, although there’s no security. Instead, all they run into are normal programs going about doing normal business. Arthur’s almost disappointed, because he’d been spoiling for a fight all day, and even as angry as Eames made him, he wasn’t going to delete him without proper justification.
Both Dom and Eames make their way through the halls unnoticed, but orange Arthur is turning heads and it makes him uncomfortable.
Finally, when they’ve gone through all the hallways and doors and searched every entrance and exit as inconspicuously as possible, Dom makes them stop for a breather.
“There’s no way down, no exits at all,” Eames says slumping against a door frame.
Nodding, Arthur spins his disc neatly on a finger. “It’s a paradox. A building you can enter but never leave.”
“It’s frustratingly brilliant,” Dom adds.
“Thank you,” a petite program next to him chirps. She flashes them a wide smile. “If you want to get to the next level down, you need to code a temporary entrance. Like this.”
She presses her palms flat against the wall, her power pulsing in time with the tower. An archway appears, and she steps through it, clearly waiting for them to follow. Disc still in hand, Arthur steps through cautiously, but he sees nothing but an ordinary stairwell with a bright yellow ‘(2)’ blinking on the wall. Dom follows, running a hand over the arch as he passes through.
“Impressive. What did you say your name was?” he asks.
“I didn’t. It’s Ariadne,” she answers as they troop down the stairs. “I’m the design program for levels minus one through five.”
“I met another design program once,” Eames muses. “Went by CAD.”
Ariadne snorts. “Yeah, I know him. He’s kind of a jerk.”
She stops just in front of the door that was also marked (2) so abruptly that she nearly causes the other programs to run into each other. Turning, she looks Dom straight in the eye.
“It has occurred to me that I never asked you why you wanted to go down here in the first place.”
Brushing past her, Dom replies, “No, you didn’t.”
It’s dark on level minus two. The power-lines along the walls are faint, and they can’t hear anything but the sound of their own footsteps and a quiet scratching. From what Arthur can make out, it looks like an exact replica of level minus one - cubicles, labyrinthine hallways, lack of exits - except that it’s completely abandoned.
“You know it’s suicide to try and break into Saito’s database, right?” she whispers, but Dom ignores her.
“Trust me, we already tried that tactic, love,” Eames answers, voice low, and eyes alert.
The scratching comes closer, and Ariadne’s eyes widen, the blue of her power fading with fear.
“Ariadne, where is the stairwell to minus three?” Dom asks, quiet. A slick, squishing noise comes from the cubicles nearby and he has to snap to get her attention.
She points in the direction of the noises. “Past there. It’s, ah, guarded.”
Disc in hand, Arthur is doing his very best not to delete all of them and be done with the constant frustration that is his life. A hand brushes across his wrist, and he can feel Eames’s concerned gaze.
“Ariadne,” Arthur nearly growls, “can we assume that it is not guarded by standard measures?”
Another squelch emanates from the cubicles, and she shakes her head furiously. “Saito put a worm on level minus two.”
“User love us,” Eames swears under his breath.
There’s a break in the scratching, and Arthur grips his disc tighter. They’re all staring into the darkness, suits shining brightly with anticipation.
Arthur whispers, “Do we have a plan for worms, Dom? Because no one told me about any worms.”
There’s a long silent pause, energy thrumming in the air around them.
“I’ll take Ariadne and we’ll make our way around the perimeter,” Dom answers, hushed. “She can get me to level three. You and Eames can check on the status of the worm, and keep it out of our way.”
Nodding to the left, Arthur takes a defensive stance as the two blue programs sneak off to a hallway on the left, Ariadne carefully leading the way. He feels Eames slide up next to him, his own disc at the ready. What he doesn’t expect is the soft kiss that Eames presses to the corner of his mouth.
Eames chuckles quietly, watching Arthur’s face fade from shocked back to its usual blank slate.
“I could delete you in a picosecond,” Arthur says without even turning to his companion.
A flare of orange shivers up Eames’s spine. “And then just think of how dull your life would be.”
Arthur attempts to raise an eyebrow at him, but his attention snaps to the roar of something predatory followed by Ariadne’s scream. Dom yelling “Duck!” spurs them to action. They sprint through the rows of cubicles, feet squishing in the trail of slime the worm left behind.
Rounding a corner, they get their first glimpse of the worm. It’s easily three times as long as Arthur is tall, thick enough that he can’t make his way past it in the hallway, sickly yellow power lines glowing in the dark, and hundreds of tiny legs to propel it along. The worm’s head is raised, swaying like a cobra about to strike, two beady eyes and a giant maw with rows and rows of pointed teeth focused on the two programs in front of it.
Yellow liquid drips from its mouth, and Arthur can see it burning pock marks into the floor. Roaring again, the worm spits acid straight at Dom, who dives to the ground, pulling Ariadne with him.
Arthur whips his disc at the worm. It flies true, hitting the worm solidly on the neck, but the disc sticks in the monster’s gooey flesh. Squealing in pain, the worm swivels its head, fixing its yellow eyes on Arthur.
“Run!” Eames yells as Ariadne and Dom scramble to their feet.
Acid sprays at Eames, taking chunks out of the cubicle, narrowly missing as he flings himself to the side. His power-lines blink from blue to yellow, mimicking the worm’s coloring. Waving his arms, Eames tries to keep the beast’s attention on him while Arthur sneaks back through the cubicles.
“Look, we’re two of a kind, yeah?” Eames says as the worm rears back. “In the end we’re all just binary. Worms, Trojans, Antiviruses. Just zeroes and ones.”
The worm actually lowers its head as Eames continues to babble at it until Arthur slips in a puddle of goo, crashing against a desk. The sudden noise startles the worm which draws up to its full height, roaring and snapping. Eames heaves his disc at the beast, falling backwards to avoid another stream of acid. The disc lands a glancing blow right above the worm’s eye, causing more yellow ooze to gush forth.
The floor is too slippery, and Eames scrambles desperately for traction to push himself upright, but he can’t find it, so he rolls as close as he can to the body of the beast, hoping it has enough intelligence to not spit acid at itself. Irate, the worm thrashes, and in the tight hall Eames has no room to maneuver, quickly getting pinned between a wall and the thick coil of the worm’s body. He has one arm free, and he uses it to dig his disc into the monster’s side over and over, hacking away at it until it’s gushing slime and wailing. The worm twists and snaps at him, coming close enough that Eames can smell its acrid breath.
The worm rears back again, adjusting its angle of attack, and suddenly Arthur is there, climbing it like a cliff, using the tiny legs for hand holds. Bucking violently, the worm tries to shake him off, but Arthur clings stubbornly, reaching for the disc lodged in its neck. He pulls it free with a terrible sucking sound, and with a brilliant flash of orange flings it as hard as he can at the floor. The disc ricochets, bouncing straight up, ripping through the worm’s throat and out the back of its head.
Arthur rides the worm down as it dies, slow and twitching. He walks along its back until he’s looking down at Eames, who was doing his best to wiggle his way out from underneath the dead virus.
“A hand would be much appreciated, darling.”
Sniffing, Arthur looks him over critically. “You’re filthy,” he objects, but helps him out anyway.
There’s a ‘ding’ and then a pair of newly formed elevator doors slide open. Ariadne’s hopeful face peers into the darkness, smiling broadly when she sees the two programs wiping goo off themselves. And if Arthur grabs Eames’s hand again, it’s because he wants to get into that elevator faster, not because he’s glad that they’re all getting out uncorrupted.
“So,” Eames starts, slumped against the grate of Ariadne’s swiftly coded elevator, fingers still twined in Arthur’s, “did you get it?”
“Yeah,” Dom replies. He opens his hand, staring reverently at a small, grey object spinning in his palm. “It’s a patch. For the network exploit that Saito’s been using.”
-------
They leave Dom at a public I/O tower, but he barely notices them fading into the crowds with how eager he is to get to Mal. The idle programs waiting their turns do double takes as Arthur, orange and glowing fiercely, strides past. Eames is blue again, and matching him step for step.
Once they’re in the street, Arthur relaxes his guard, but only just.
Eames watches him out of the corner of his eye, upbeat voice betrayed by the downturn of his lips. “When he gets back you’ll be off again, then? Trolling the internet for whatever Dom’s user needs?”
“Every program needs a purpose,” Arthur answers, stopping so unexpectedly that Eames runs into him, energy bleeding orange where they touch. “Dom will always be searching for something. You will always be looking for trouble.”
“Trouble always looks for me,” Eames huffs, pulling away. Arthur grabs his arm, keeping him close and smiling more fondly than Eames thought he could.
“Stop lying. You chase the thrill.”
“Thrills chase me!”
“Along with numerous other programs, most of whom want to delete you.”
Eames opens his mouth to rebut him, but Arthur puts a finger to his lips. “Your purpose is to get into trouble, Eames. And I think my purpose is to get us out of it.”
When Arthur kisses Eames, their energy bathes the street in rainbows.