Flynn led the group to a small conference room and motioned for everyone to sit down. He passed out a cup with a glowing liquid in it.
"Where to begin?" Flynn mused. "As to the anti-virus and defrag subroutines used on you, I was the one who created those and it dealt with things that aren't normally considered computer viruses and designed specifically to work on Users or humans. There was this one girl who suffered from narcolepsy and she is pretty much cures of it. It might have been something along those lines that the three of you were infected with. Now what do you want to know?"
"How about ENCOM and why you are here?" Shinji asked. "The glowing lines on us are another question."
Flynn nodded. "It started back when ENCOM had something called the MCP or Master Control Program. I was originally digitized, since the MCP knew that since I had a higher password, I would become a major threat. He or it tried to have me killed in this world via games I created. I helped Alan and Lora's programs, Tron and Yori, defeat the MCP and was made president of the company. After it got out what Dillinger had done in moving up the ranks, the stock of ENCOM started dropping and I used my money to buy up ENCOM stock and keep it from going bankrupt. I became the sole owner of ENCOM. I wanted the digitizing laser to be kept safe from those who would misuse it or not use it when necessary. Little did I know..."
"What did this Dillinger do?' Rei asked.
"He took other people's ideas and passed them off as his own to get promoted," Flynn replied. "I was the one who created a lot of video games. I was doing it in my spare time to start my own company and the MCP stole them and gave them to Dillinger. I found out later that the MCP had done this to others and I quickly hired those people. They became some of my most loyal employees. Although Alan is the one I bounce ideas off of. He's no yes-man. The downside is that he will call my ideas crazy."
"You need something to keep you grounded," Alan said. "This digitizing of all ENCOM employees has to be the wildest idea you ever had."
"Maybe, but there was not much choice and you know it," Flynn replied in a somber tone.
"I don't understand," Shinji said.
"Seele. They are a group of old men who have been manipulating society to achieve their ends. About eighteen years ago, I became aware of Seele and their plans. I found out that they stopped any and all sort of space exploration, since it would have humans away from Earth and their little experiment. About fourteen years ago, they started in on their final plan."
"Fourteen years ago?" Asuka repeated in shock. "That was the time of Second Impact."
"Yes. I let all my employees know that a disaster was in the offing and finally revealed a way to weather the upcoming storm by moving to the digital world until after Third Impact is over and done with," Flynn said.
"Third Impact? Don't you mean Second Impact? We're fighting to prevent Third Impact," Asuka demanded.
Flynn sadly shook his head. "No. Third Impact. You are not fighting to prevent Third Impact, but to initiate Third Impact the way Seele wants it to go. It is through their actions that Second Impact happened. They had captured the First Angel and used what they called the Lance of Longinus to initiate Second Impact. I don't know where that thing came from, but the real Lance of Longinus was just an ordinary spear and is kept in a museum. They must have found that giant pig-sticker in Antarctica."
Flynn shook his head and continued. "At any rate, since I knew of the digital world, I came up with an idea and bounced it off Alan and let him know of Seele. He thought I was insane with my idea, but with Seele planning on offing all of humanity for their little experiment, we really didn't have a lot of options."
"Tell me about it," Alan grumbled. "We had to work round the clock on that idea."
"We managed to pull it off though," Flynn said with a smirk. "We moved here and hid several dedicated servers around the world to prevent us from being killed by having the computers shut off."
"You said that Seele intends to off humanity..." Rei began.
Flynn gave a long-suffering sigh. "They want to merge all of humanity into one being as the Eighteenth Angel. They don't care that no one but them wants to do this and have moved to block humans from getting away from them. The reason they didn't block this stunt of mine was that they didn't know about it. I kept it secret from everyone for a couple of years until the time of Alan and Lora's marriage and I got drunk and spilled the beans to Alan about the digital world."
"At first I thought it was just the alcohol talking, but when I confronted Flynn later about what he said, his face paled and he flinched and tried to pass it off as nothing," Alan informed the group. "I knew that something was up and I dragged Lora and Gibbs into forcing Flynn to tell us the truth."
"Yes, you did. I was stunned about what Flynn had told us about the computer system and how the digitizing laser was used on him," Lora said. "Flynn turned out to be the first human test subject. We weren't even up to using lab rats yet. The MCP decided to use it on Flynn."
Flynn waved it off. "The MCP was unethical in every sense of the word. It wasn't your fault and it proved to be a good thing in the end. The MCP tried to take over from humanity and wound up giving us a way to escape the genocide of the human race."
Flynn looked at the children and smirked. "You might as well drink. You're going to need it."
The three pilots looked at each other and then the drink. Rei was the first to drink the liquid. The lines on her body started glowing brighter as she drank. Seeing as their was no harm to Rei, Asuka and Shinji also followed suit and their lines also glowed a bit brighter.
"What is that? I have never tasted anything like it," Asuka said.
"Good isn't it? It is the standard fare of programs and beings living in this world. There is no solid food or other types of drinks. Just that," Lora said.
"What about eating properly to prevent malnutrition?" Rei asked.
"You are currently energy held in a pattern," Lora said.
Flynn let out a chuckle and shook his head in amusement. "Human bodies produce many types of waste byproducts. The bodies you currently have only produce one type of waste byproduct. That byproduct is energy or in this case light."
"I do not understand," Rei said, shaking her head.
"The boots and gauntlets are the only clothes you three are wearing. That is your skin, even though it looks like you are in a Lycra outfit."
"What?!" Asuka demanded, and the lines on her body glowed brighter.
Flynn glanced at Asuka in amusement. "It's true. That's your body. You aren't wearing any clothes. The lines produce light, just like a human body produces body heat. It is far more efficient than the human body, so there is no need for the other waste byproducts."
Lora gave Flynn a sour look. "Flynn has a white cloth wrapped around him and his torso, along with Alan's, is covered in armor. All of us are wearing helmets, but he is right. Flynn, what was the point in telling them that?"
"If they are here, they need to know the truth about themselves," Flynn said airily.
"You could have come up with a better way to tell them," Lora ranted.
Flynn gave a shrug. "Maybe. But, it gets things out of the way. Besides, they traveled here not knowing about it, so they have put it into their mind that they are wearing Lycra outfits. I'm informing them of the facts, not that it will make much difference. I now need to talk about the colors they have."
"Colors?" Rei asked. "What about our colors?"
"Blue is common and most programs and humans will be that color. Yellow is interesting. It is usually only for administrative programs or independent programs. There are a few yellow Users here, mostly the personnel managers. If you three were programs, I would say Shinji was your controller. He would tell you where to go and what to do."
"And red?" Asuka asked.
"You are the first User that has shown up red. ICP and security programs show up red," Flynn replied with a shrug.
"ICP?" Asuka asked, feeling a bit better after Flynn's revelation.
"Intrusion Counter-Measure Program. Red is for combat programs for the most part," Flynn said. "As a User, you can do things most programs can not do. Those discs that you all have are the main weapons here. They act like the stereotypical boomerang and are used to kill or derez others. One shot will usually kill a program. Users are more resistant, but they can still be killed. If you notice, Jet is white. That is not common at all and there are only a very few who have that color. There are no programs that color. I can change my color at a thought, but I choose to remain blue."
Lora rubbed her temples and shook her head. "Yeah. He once showed up glowing pink. It threw a lot of programs into disarray and irritated the people of the city."
"We were being attacked and I had to throw the invading force off a bit," Flynn informed the children. "It worked. Now back to Seele. Since you three are their main pawns and vanished using the digitizing laser, they will investigate and maybe find out about us."
"I'm sorry," Shinji said.
"Don't worry about it. We've been preparing for fourteen years now in case Seele did find out about us. We have a lot of plans in place and we think we can hold them off until Third Impact happens," Flynn replied.
"You are just going to let everyone else die?" Asuka asked in disbelief.
"We can't save everyone. If we had tried Seele would have found out and destroyed this method to keep all of humanity on Earth. We chose to live here and stay away from Third Impact. Our choice, but Seele won't accept it," Flynn said with a heavy sigh. "We really should get you three back into the real world, but I can't see condemning children that I know to fight and die. Yes, I'm sure there are other children out there, but again it is necessary to harden the heart. Seele doesn't care."
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Disruptor
(Posted Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:29)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.