Tara by Chris Cook

Rating: PG-13
Uber Setting: Tron
Disclaimer: Based on characters from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon and his talented minionators, and Tron, by Steven Lisberger. All original material is copyright 2003 Chris Cook.
Distribution: Through the Looking Glass http://alia.customer.netspace.net.au/glass.htm
The Mystic Muse http://mysticmuse.net
Feedback: Hell yeah!
Pairing: Willow/Tara

Summary: Willow's efforts to expose the illegal activities of a corporation's computer system turn deadly when the system digitizes her, leaving her trapped in the Game Grid with only one ally—her code breaker program TARA 1.0.

Willow and Tara's lightcycle shot out of the labyrinth of passageways between arenas and straightened, heading out across a wide plateau that dominated the center of the Game Grid. Willow had noted the upward incline of the roads they had swerved along, and also that the arena buildings and prison complexes around them had been getting larger and more heavily-guarded.

"This idea of yours," she said to Tara, glancing to either side of the cycle, where distant red shapes were looming, "does it involve us going right into the middle of the Game Grid?"

"Just checking," said Willow, trying to match Tara's off-hand calm, and ignore the number of programs already pursuing them. She looked forward instead - ahead of them, at the center of the plateau, was a tall conical tower, like a hive. Brilliantly-lit columns of data ran through its walls, crossing and merging with each other. Snaking around the tower was a narrow ramp, spiraling up to the top, connecting the many levels of the structure's interior.

A muted thud got Willow's attention. She glanced over her shoulder to see shards of debris flying in all directions, the jagged chunks of metal reverting to simple shapes in mid-air and cascading back to the ground like hailstones. The vehicles to the cycle's left were growing close enough for her to make out their details - tanks, like the ones Willow had seen when she was first captured. Their cannons were swiveling and elevating, trying to track the speeding lightcycle. As Willow watched the nearest fired again, sending a glowing arrowhead-shaped shell screaming overhead. Willow felt the reverberation of its impact.

"Tara, there's lots of them back there," she warned. Tara nodded to herself, her attention fixed on the tower looming up ahead of them.

"Just tanks?" she asked. Willow looked quickly over both shoulders, assessing the forces in pursuit of them. Beyond the cluster of tanks now swerving in behind them, she could make out several of the geometric flying vehicles she had seen at the main arena.

"Good," said Tara. She lifted herself up off the lightcycle's seat a little, leaning further forward, as if streamlining herself. Despite being enclosed, the cycle put on more speed, while Willow ignored the feeling of having almost the entire length of Tara's body pressed against her. 'She's probably got her mind on other things, Will,' she chided herself.

"Is that good?" she asked instead, glancing again at the squadron of recognizers floating above the tanks.

"I hope it's good," said Tara. She glanced over her shoulder just long enough to catch Willow's gaze and wink, then her eyes were back on the road. Willow felt herself blush, but given her current steel-gray skin tone, put it down to her imagination. She looked ahead again, and stopped thinking about Tara. A group of tanks was moving into position around the base of the tower, blocking their way, their turrets swiveling around to target the oncoming cycle. Scurrying around them were dozens of red soldiers, bracing themselves against the vehicles or kneeling in front of them, a firing line of disc-guns at the ready.

"Willow, I need you to provide some covering fire," said Tara. "I'm going to retract our canopy. Don't worry, the cycle won't let you fall. Just keep the gun on low power and fire at anything in front of us."

"Okay," said Willow. She knew how fearful her voice must have sounded. Being honest with herself, she'd almost rather have taken her chances back in the maze than face the arsenal arrayed against them. Two things stopped her from saying so: Tara had already shown more courage on her behalf than she had any right to expect, and more importantly, regardless of how much she already owed Tara, Willow didn't want to disappoint her. She tried to keep her breathing steady, and held the grip of her disc-gun tightly, suddenly glad that programs seemed unable to sweat. Just as she was closing her eyes, trying to focus and stop herself from shaking with fright, she felt Tara's hand on hers.

"I won't let you get hit," Tara said, half-turning to face Willow over her shoulder, gripping her hand tightly. What Willow saw in her face, when she opened her eyes, wasn't the resolve of a warrior to face incredible odds - simply a promise, and the sure knowledge that Tara would keep her promise. Willow nodded, still not entirely willing to trust her voice, and turned her eyes to the approaching soldiers.

"In three," said Tara, "two, one." The canopy slid back, the beams on either side of Willow retracted, and suddenly the lightcycle's entire shell was gone, leaving only the wheels and the sleek inner hull connecting them. Willow sat back, bracing the disc-gun against her shoulder. The wind buffeted at her, but she felt more stable than she would have expected, as if her legs were being held perfectly in place. She aimed her gun, checked one last time that it was definitely set to its lower power mode, then touched the tiny trigger sense that was flowing through her palm into her mind. At the same instant the entire line of soldiers and tanks exploded in a volley of firepower.

Willow watched with a detached sense of dread as upwards of a dozen tank shells and discs flew straight towards her. Her instincts told her to duck, but she fought them, and at the last second Tara swerved the bike sideways, veering across the soldiers' line of fire, the tank shells blasting craters in the ground behind them. Willow leant sideways, almost against the side of the bike, to counterbalance as Tara turned back towards the tanks. She'd lost track of her own disc, not knowing if she'd hit anything, but when it flew back and snapped into the gun she aimed and fired again at once.

Having missed their first concentrated volley the soldiers began firing at will. Willow concentrated on the flight of her disc, very grateful for the security of the cycle's grip on her as Tara jinked from side to side, leaned so far down that the sides of the cycle's wheels threw up showers of sparks from the ground, and leant her weight from side to side, always causing the incoming shots to miss by a fraction. After Willow had let her disc fly for the fourth time - having deactivated two soldiers, and sent others scattering for cover each time she fired - they were getting dangerously close, and the tanks closed ranks, nudging their hulls together to create an impenetrable barrier around the tower.

"One more shot!" yelled Tara above the rushing wind and the explosions of tank shells and discs ricocheting off the ground. Willow aimed at the center of a group of soldiers right in front of them and fired, then ducked as Tara's hand snaked around her waist, pulling her down.

"Hold on tight," Tara said, adjusting her grip on Willow. Willow nodded and put her free hand around Tara's waist, though she overcompensated in her desire to avoid troubling Tara's wounds, and her hand ended up on Tara's hip instead. Tara closed her eyes for a second, them glanced ahead. They were barely meters from the nearest tank, and still moving fast.

All at once Tara swerved the cycle around and leaned it far over, while her legs unwrapped themselves from the cycle's hull as if she were about to jump off. The cycle slammed down on its side, now skidding wheels-first towards the tank, leaving a cascade of sparks in its wake. Tara flung her right leg around the upper side of the cycle, wedging her foot inside the curve of the wheel, and wrapped her other leg around Willow's hips. Before Willow knew what was happening Tara had swung her over the side of the cycle. Tara held her there, inches from the ground, one arm and leg holding her so tight Willow could feel her breathe, her other arm and leg looped around the cycle's handlebar and rear wheel housing, like a trapeze artist dangling from her beam. She held Willow tight as the fallen cycle skidded between the tracks of the tank, just narrow enough to pass beneath its hull.

Willow felt as if time had slowed down. Her head buzzed from the adrenaline rush, the sudden terror when Tara had swung her off the side of the cycle, and the intense feeling of Tara's tight, unbreakable grip on her. Their faces were a millimeter apart. Tara's eyes were wide, staring straight into Willow's; her mouth was open, breathing heavily. For a long split second, lit only by the showers of sparks beneath Willow and above Tara, as the cycle's wheels rasped against the ground and the underside of the tank, Willow had all the time in the world to imagine Tara leaning just that tiny fraction closer.

Then they were out from underneath the tank, and time was flashing past in a blur again. Tara instantly threw her weight upwards, pulling the cycle back to its wheels, and Willow back to her position behind her on the seat. Tara's arm remained around Willow as she swerved the bike back towards the tower, now standing defenseless before them. She steered one-handed as they crossed the threshold, speeding up the ramp, curving around the tower. Willow took a deep breath as the ground dropped away sharply to her left, and the horizon spun as they ascended the side of the tower in circles that grew tighter with each turn. She caught glimpses of the recognizers, hovering patiently towards them, and of the tanks below - she grinned as she noticed that those pursuing her and Tara had collided with those attempting to keep them from the tower's base.

"Willow, give me the gun," said Tara urgently. Willow handed her the disc-gun, glad to be rid of it. Tara pulled her own gun from where she had stowed it in the cycle's hull, and held both in one hand. She leaned back, sitting up as straight as she could while keeping her other hand on the handlebars.

"I need you to hold on really tight," instructed Tara, "legs around my waist, now." Willow did as she was told, pulling herself tightly against Tara's back. "Arms," said Tara, and Willow slid her hands beneath Tara's arms and gripped her just below her chest. "Good," said Tara, "now enjoy the ride."

"Tara, what are we-" Willow started to ask, as she noticed the topmost level of the tower nearing, and with it the end of the ramp. Tara leaned forward, with Willow clinging to her back, and gave the cycle one last burst of speed as the ramp ran out beneath them. Willow looked down in shock at the ground far beneath them, then up to see the looming shape of a recognizer in the air ahead. Tara was already straightening, kicking the cycle away beneath her, raising a disc-gun in each hand, firing an instant later. The recognizer’s hull was only meters away - the discs smashed off it, back into the guns, and out again as Tara kept firing, like a champion game of table-tennis, too quick for the eye to follow. Just as it seemed to Willow that she and Tara were destined to rebound off the vehicle's hull its side cracked, flickered, then vanished completely. Tara caught both arms and one leg on the edge of the recognizer’s interior, slammed painfully into the hull, then hauled herself and Willow inside as if the impact had been nothing.

As soon as there was floor beneath her Willow grabbed hold of it and, lacking a proper hand-hold, used her weight to help pull Tara away from the edge. Tara moved slowly, dazed from the impact, and it was Willow who looked up first to see a stunned red program staring back at them from behind some sort of control pedestal. He let go of the handles of his control and advanced on Tara. Willow rose to her knees and made a wild slash at him with the sword that was suddenly in her hand. He dodged, but took his eyes off Tara, and didn't see when she rolled over and whipped both her legs up behind him, sending him flying out of the open side of his vehicle. Willow scrambled to the edge just in time to see him land, intact but wreathed in electrical discharges.

"That's going to hurt when he's re-initialized," said Tara, standing with some difficulty. Willow was instantly at her side, ducking under her arm to support her.

"I need to fly this thing," she said. With Willow helping her she stood in front of the controls and took hold of them. Willow braced herself as the recognizer swung sharply around, ascending as it turned. Through the hole in the vehicle's hull she saw the rest of the recognizer squadron vanish beneath them, then the sprawl of the Game Grid began to slide faster and faster beneath them as they gathered speed. She felt Tara take a deep breath and relax when the recognizer cleared the Grid's outer wall, and all that was ahead of them was the vast open system. Tara took her hands off the controls.

"I've set its course," she explained as Willow helped her across the floor, gently letting her down to lean against a wall. "We're headed out into the deep memory areas. They won't be able to trace our pathway easily. And I know where we can find some power outlets. I could use a boost," she finished, grinning ruefully up at Willow's concerned face.

"Can I try to..." asked Willow, not really sure how to do what she wanted to do anyway, let alone how to explain it. Tara looked at her, confused, but showed no sign of concern when Willow laid her palms carefully on her stomach, as close to the slashes Rain had inflicted as she dared. She closed her eyes, doing her best to concentrate on nothing more than the feeling of Tara breathing beneath her hands. She felt a tingling, and grinned in silent exultation and relief as she felt something flow across her hands and out of her fingertips. It was like holding her hands underneath running warm water - it made her feel content, relaxed. She opened her eyes to see tiny extensions of the tracery on her arms flowing down over the backs of her hands, onto her fingers, and then onto Tara, across her stomach.

"How are you doing that?" whispered Tara. Willow left one hand on her stomach and very carefully placed her other hand on Tara's shoulder, ready to pull back the instant she saw some sign that Tara's wound there was hurting. This time she kept her eyes open, and watched as her tracery extended itself and flowed into Tara. The green light flowing from her fingertips matched Tara's energy perfectly, brightening her own tracery, and flowing from there into the cuts on her body. Willow watched, putting all her focus and concentration into the feeling of the energy flowing from her, as the wound in Tara's shoulder filled with glowing green, completing her damaged skin. When it was full the green flowed back into her tracery, and beneath it she was healed. Willow glanced down at her stomach, to see all trace of the injuries there gone.

"By the users," Tara murmured, gazing at Willow as if she were an angel, "how can you do that?" Willow met her gaze, her wide grin turning shy when she saw the look in Tara's eyes. She felt thoroughly light-headed. 'Oh, what am I, a school-girl?' she teased herself. Then she let out a gasp as Tara's face seemed to fall away from her. Tara caught her as she fell backwards.

"I'm okay," said Willow quietly, not quite managing to support herself, "really, just a little dizzy." Tara held her gently, turning her slightly to a more comfortable position, resting half in her lap. She suddenly felt like she'd been awake for days.

"You're drained," Tara said, "it's not serious, it'll only last a couple of millicycles. I've seen it before in high-performance programs. Just never like that... Willow, how did you do that?"

She looked up at Tara, who was leaning her head down, holding her almost protectively. Willow caught a hint of something more than gratitude in Tara's intense gaze, and leaned her head back slightly when she saw Tara leaning fractionally further down, bringing her face so close she could feel Tara's warm breath against her cheek. Willow was sure Tara was about to kiss her - there was no mistaking that look, not when Tara's lips parted a fraction and her eyes almost glowed, with nothing left to conceal when she wanted. But at the last possible moment, so close that Willow thought she actually felt their lips touch, Tara turned her face away, and pulled Willow into a hug instead.

Willow tried not to look disappointed when Tara finally leant back - 'Well, you misread that completely,' she had thought to herself with bitter humor - but when she looked at Tara again, she could have sworn that she had been right. Something clouded Tara's eyes - doubt, apprehension, she wasn't sure. She shivered involuntarily, as a surge of relief passed through her. 'She was going to kiss me! Why didn't she? What stopped her?' Willow had no answers - truth be told, she wasn't even sure she had the right questions. But as Tara lay her down in her lap and started gently stroking the side of her face, her fingertips light as snowflakes on Willow's skin, she made a silent promise to herself to find out. Thus reassured, she let herself drift off into a comfortable sleep.

Sark stared down at the Game Grid beneath his Command Carrier, ignoring the voices of his menial programs delivering their reports. Squadrons of recognizers were streaming out into the open system as fast as the simulation bays in the Game Grid could generate them, but it was too late - the renegades had had all the time they would need to go to ground, in any one of the tens of thousands of isolated memory areas in the system. It would still be ten millicycles before the Carrier itself would be ready to move through the open system.

"Commander," said one of the menials urgently, "transmission incoming." Sark had already felt the approach of Echelon's power. Even the thin strand of communication that now leapt from the horizon into the Carrier's antenna was enough to tug on the power within Sark, the reminder that he was not, and could never be, free of his master. He nodded and crossed the deck to his communications port. The light surrounded him and created Echelon's massive face before him.

"Two programs escaped the Grid," said Sark, determined to get this over with. "The counter-security program Tara... and the user Willow." He braced himself, expecting to feel the pain at any moment. It didn't come.

"Pursuit is underway," reported Sark slowly, still hesitant. "All available recognizer and hunter-killer simulations are being generated and deployed. Orders have been dispatched to open system operatives."

"Instruct hunter-killers to target the counter-security program only," said Echelon. "Assign recognizers to recover the user."

"My orders have specified intact return of the renegades as a priority," offered Sark cautiously. "They will use terminal force only in the event that-"

"The user must not be terminated!" thundered Echelon. Sark staggered in pain as the giant face's energy surged to blinding intensity.

"The user will be recovered intact," he shouted desperately. The light faded back to a manageable level, and the pain receded.

"The contents of her code are worth more than every system in existence," warned Echelon, "do not fail me. She must be recovered and broken. Acknowledge."

"Recovery is to be attempted," it said at last, "provided recovery of the user is not impeded. Terminate if necessary. End of line."

Willow awoke to unfamiliar surroundings. Her first thought, which caused her to start as consciousness returned, was that she was no longer cradled in Tara's lap, but a gentle hand on her brow soothed her of that worry as soon as she moved.

"Are you functioning better?" asked Tara, leaning over her. Willow stifled a giggle, hearing what to her was such formal language, spoken with such tender care.

Tara helped her sit up, and Willow looked around. They were in a cave, or a chamber of some sort, geometric in design but with a kind of natural fluidity to its shape, as if it had been slowly eroded out by water over centuries, and then someone had carved all the walls into flat surfaces. Not far from where she was sitting was a small pool of something light and silvery that rippled and shimmered like water.

"We're safe," said Tara, "we're in a power outlet. I hid the recognizer outside. It'll be millicycles before any search can get this far, we don't have to hurry. I thought we should both rest while we can... and figure out what to do next." She and Willow both stood up, and Willow moved over to the almost-water, staring at it.

"It's an undesignated outlet," she explained, "you get them sometimes in the open system. You've never seen one before?"

"I didn't get out much before they brought me to the Grid," said Willow, hoping Tara wouldn't think this somehow suspicious. She really had no idea how much programs knew about their environment.

"You should take it," said Tara. "I gave you some while you were recovering, but I didn't want to give you too much until you woke up, I wasn't sure whether your allocation subroutines were fully functional." She took her data disc off her back and scooped up some of the power. Even though the disc didn't have edges, the power only ran off a little when she drew it back and handed it to Willow. Willow dipped a finger into it - it was light and fluffy, like soap bubbles only smoother. She tentatively scooped up a tiny piece of it and - moving slowly, just in case she had reached the wrong assumption about how this was done, but Tara just smiled - tasted it. It was chilly but invigorating - she felt it course through her like a cold drink, and saw the yellow tracery on her arms brighten with new energy.

"Take as much as you like," said Tara, "I've already had enough." Willow glanced at her, and noted that the green lines covering her were indeed glowing brighter than she had so far seen. She brought the disc to her lips and tilted it up, drinking in the energy in one smooth gulp. The feeling of vitality that ran through her was like nothing else.

"Wow that's good," she mused. Tara turned to smile at her, but then her smile faltered.

"Nothing's wrong," she said, frowning to herself - had she done something wrong? Was it dangerous to gulp down a whole disc-full of power all at once? She felt wonderful. "Is it?" she asked, trying to understand Tara's distress.

"I don't..." Tara trailed off, her eyes darting over Willow's body. Willow looked down at herself, and gasped as she saw patches of her yellow tracery turning green. As she watched the color spread over her, out from her torso, along her arms and legs, until finally she was exactly as she had been when she first arrived in the system. She looked up again at Tara, whose expression had changed from concern to confusion.

"I'm fine," she said quickly, "I'm, uh, functioning perfectly. Aren't I?" she asked. Tara took a step closer and ran her fingers along the tracery on Willow's arm.

"Y-you're... you are like me," she whispered. She gently took Willow's hand in hers, and ran the fingertips of her other hand over the patterns on her arm.

"I guess I am," said Willow. Tara jumped slightly at the sound and drew back her fingertips, but she kept hold of Willow's hand.

"I've never seen another program like me before," she said quietly, as if afraid to disturb the moment. "I thought I was the only one." She inhaled sharply, as if she'd just thought of something, and after a moment tore her gaze away from Willow's tracery to look her in the eye.

"D-do you," she began, then halted and started again. "I have... parts of me... You should know this in any case," she interrupted herself, "there are elements of me that aren't part of my core code. Parts of me - feelings, thoughts... that I don't think our user gave me. When I... experience new things, they affect my decisions, how I behave. I always thought I was malfunctioning somehow..."

"No!" said Willow automatically. "No, you're not, you're..." she paused to gather her thoughts, and to make sure she didn't end up saying too much. "I think you're exactly what our user would want you to be. You're not malfunctioning, you're... special."

Tara glanced away for a moment, composing herself, then looked back and held Willow's gaze steadily.

"Before, in the recognizer," she began, "I had... I... you're not a paired program?" Willow shook her head, wondering. Tara seemed to relax a little. "Have you ever seen a program pair together?" she asked. Again Willow shook her head - all she knew about pairs was Verizen, his expression like a haunted man as he described his partner being de-rezzed.

"Together a pair is... complete," Tara explained. "Their functions are enhanced, the exchange of data between them creates a, a cycle, a partial merging. They sometimes call it unity. It's how they're meant to be. It's how they're created, pairs can only be created by users. But," she lowered her voice, as if confessing a tightly-guarded secret, "I feel as if I should be... a-as if you and I are a unity." Tara paused, but drew breath to speak again before Willow had the chance to form a coherent thoughts.

"But I knew you couldn't," she went on, "even though I, part of me, believed it, it was an irrational conclusion. No program can become anything they're not created to be, so I knew I was in error. Unless..." she paused again, her gaze so intense that Willow couldn't have even moved, if she'd wanted to.

"I am," said Willow simply. She couldn't think of what else to say, and when Tara took the last fraction of a step forward to her, she couldn't think of what else to do but let herself fall into her embrace. As Tara's hand gently held the back her neck, Willow opened her lips, inviting the kiss. Finally their lips touched, and their eyes closed.

For a moment Willow was slightly confused, as Tara didn't move her lips at all - their lips were touching, but not exactly kissing. But then, as Tara leaned the last fraction and her forehead touched Willow's, a starburst went off in her head and she stopped thinking rational thoughts. She could feel Tara's body pressed against hers, but behind her closed eyelids - she saw Tara there as well, outlined in energy, infinitely complex and beautiful, a galaxy of lights. Brilliant as the aurora borealis, unfathomable as the night sky, energetic as a blazing fire. By instinct alone, for there was no way she could think under the barrage of stimulation, Willow's arms closed around Tara in a fierce embrace, which Tara returned.

Willow felt her palms tingling, then the energy flowing out from her hands - not such a tremendous flow as when she had healed Tara, but somehow much more intense. The instant it happened her inner vision doubled, and she saw two galaxies of energy, different but somehow in tune with each other. The rush of feeling, which was already almost unbearably sensual, gained a surging undercurrent that was downright sexual. A fraction of a second later Tara near-collapsed into Willow's arms, her legs simply folding beneath her. Their foreheads parted, the contact broke, and Willow was suddenly terrified as she stopped Tara from falling.

"Are you alright?" she whispered urgently, lowering herself and Tara to the ground, "Did I do something wrong? Please, Tara, you're-" Tara's eyes fluttered open, and she raised a trembling hand to Willow's neck, pulling her close again.

"Again," she murmured, gulping a breath of air. Willow's relief made her giddy as she closed the distance between them again, and this time - with Tara blissfully dazed - Willow kissed her properly. For just a fraction of a second Tara's lips were still, then she responded as if by instinct, and the connection between them blossomed. Energy flowed through Willow's hands - it seemed as if she was generating pleasure like an electric current, pouring it directly into Tara, who writhed beneath her, moaning and sighing into Willow's kiss, wrapping her arms and legs around her, pressing every available part of her body against her. And everything she gave Tara was reflected back, so that Willow herself was quickly overcome, and couldn't tell who was giving and who was receiving anymore. Willow felt a surge of power building inside herself - or maybe inside Tara, she couldn't tell - and both cried out as it exploded through them and between them.

"How did you do that?" Tara breathed, after a long time when neither she nor Willow could do anything but lie together, legs tangled, Willow's head nestled against Tara's neck.

"I don't know," murmured Willow, her lips tickling Tara's throat as she spoke. "Did you feel... it was good, wasn't it?" She felt a reassuring vibration in Tara's throat as she laughed quietly.

"It was perfect," Tara laughed. "It was... more than opening to each other, I became part of you... I felt you become part of me. As if we were created in unity. Willow... Willow," she repeated, just enjoying the sound of it. "How did our user make you so perfect?"

"Just like you," answered Willow, feeling a contentment that was almost like being sleepy. But as she lay with Tara, doubts coiled in her mind. She was Tara's user - how might Tara react, if she found out? What would she think - how would their bond change? Willow wondered how she would feel, if she found out she was in love with her creator, and was frightened to realize that she would probably wonder if she had even had a choice in the matter. She didn't want Tara to doubt her, not like that. 'Dammit,' she silently railed, 'why does it have to be complicated?'

'Oh, by the way, I created you. Stupid. Tara, I am your user. Yeah, sound like Darth Vader, that'll help. Hey Tara? Yes Willow? I've got something to say... Nuts,' thought Willow, following Tara through a series of underground passages. Tara had guided their stolen recognizer into a dark, shadowy labyrinth of caverns and tunnels, which she said contained hidden access ports to any number of partitions on the open system. Willow was quite content to let Tara lead the way, knowing nothing of the system, and having quite enough to think about on her own.

She had been thinking, while lying in Tara's arms, about the extraordinary experience they had shared. At first she had been blissfully content, but her analytical side - damn it - had weighed in, and now Willow was very much worried. Though her exact recollections of what had happened were understandably muddled, she was certain that she and Tara had partially merged, and while that sounded wonderfully romantic, Willow wasn't entirely certain that she shouldn't be more afraid than pleased. She had become part of Tara, yet remained herself as well - whatever defenses Tara had against intrusion, that had rendered Echelon unable to simply de-rez her to begin with, they had stood aside and let Willow in.

She had thought back - though the experience was incomparable in many ways - to when she had merged with the code guiding the fractal maze in the Game Grid. All she had had to do then was imagine a change, wish an effect, and it had been so. The maze had been a part of her, and she had been able to alter it as easily, once she got her mind around it, as she could move her own body. And with the same access to Tara's code, what might happen if she was careless? After all, a fractal was a simple piece of mathematics, and look at the chaos she had wrought from it, just by changing a few numbers. What damage might she unwittingly do, if she and Tara merged again, with her thoughts overwhelmed by love and passion? Had she been lucky not to harm her already? Had she - and Willow shivered when she first thought it - perhaps already changed Tara in some subtle way, without meaning to? She watched Tara very closely, her face, the patterns on her body, but she could see no change, and eventually decided that her worst fears were as yet unfounded. Nevertheless, she was not what Tara thought she was - Tara didn't know the danger Willow might pose to her. And the thought of hurting Tara was simply unacceptable to Willow. Whatever disbelief she still carried about her existence inside the system - and the voice insisting it was all a dream was still there, quiet and largely ignored - it did not apply to Tara. Tara was real.

The question in Willow's mind became not whether to tell Tara the truth, but how. Willow truly had no real understanding of how programs regarded users, much less their own users - they were some strange blend of gods and leaders, creators and commanders. And Willow knew Tara was different to other programs - Tara had said so herself. Who knew how she thought of her Willow? An all-knowing creator, praised for giving the gift of life? A careless sire who had sent her alone against a vast enemy, and then abandoned her? A god to be obeyed in all things, even if she did not want obedience? Willow prayed, to who she didn't know, that Tara would somehow be able to understand, that Tara would listen as she explained who she was, what had happened, how she had come to be here. She clung to that optimistic thought, perhaps unreasonably, as a defense against the more dismal possibilities that would otherwise have had her keep lying to Tara indefinitely. Every time Willow had found herself contemplating Tara's anger, or rejection, or zealous devotion, over the next hour while Tara piloted the recognizer and then led the way on foot, she had defended her intention to reveal the truth with a bodyguard of childish but effective scenarios in which Tara accepted her as she was, could guide Willow in merging with her without harming her, and everything turned out for the best.

Still, the exact wording was giving Willow trouble. As she always did when she knew she had to avoid babbling at all costs, she was rehearsing the conversation in her mind, trying to think of the best way to say what she had to say, and cover all the possible responses Tara might make. She knew it was foolish to think she could predict how Tara would react - that was precisely the problem - but she knew she would feel a little more confident if she had an idea of what to say, and didn't have to improvise too much. Improvising, with so much at stake, would unquestionably lead to babbling, and she would make no sense, and her chance to have Tara understand would be gone.

So it was that Willow, concentrating on the fragments of possible conversations in her head, followed Tara as they made their way deep into the uncharted depths of the open system. They had no plan to combat Echelon - Willow had no idea where to begin, and Tara had been on the Game Grid too long, she said, to know how the situation was on the outside. Willow agreed that gathering information should be their first priority - as if she would disagree with Tara on strategy. Tara knew a place, a nexus, where renegade programs could access information without being traced, and it was here that she was leading Willow.

The tunnel ended abruptly with a flat, featureless wall. Tara brushed her hand against it, seemed satisfied, and turned to Willow.

"Have you ever used one of these?" she asked. Willow frowned in confusion and shook her head. "It's a screening port," she explained, "we can pass through it, but only because we know what it is. If you weren't sure, it would just be a wall. Sark's tracker programs have trouble dealing with them, which is why renegades use them. Hold my hand." Willow did so. "You should pass through with me. If you don't, I'll count to A and come back through for you. Ready?"

Willow nodded, and Tara lay her palm flat on the wall. Patterns of circuitry faded slightly into view, and her palm seemed to flow into them, like sand vanishing through the neck of an hourglass. Willow blinked in astonishment, and turned to see Tara's entire body dissolving and flowing into the port. Her own vision blurred, she had a momentary sensation of movement, and then she was facing Tara again, hands held, just as they had been. Now, though, they were standing in a deep shadow, and instead of the tunnel behind them, there was the ante-chamber of a great cathedral-like structure, full of strange, fluid statues and slowly morphing patterns set into the walls like stained-glass windows. Aside from the various glows given off by the decorations, the whole place was layered with shadows, the natural lighting that Willow had begun to take for granted in the system world almost entirely absent.

Tara looked around warily. Willow could sense the sudden tension in her, and her breath caught as she realized Tara had assumed a combat stance, ready to defend herself. After a silent moment she gave Willow's hand a reassuring squeeze and led her quietly along the length of the cathedral.

"What's wrong?" whispered Willow into her ear. She leaned over to whisper in return to Willow, never taking her eyes off their surroundings.

"Abandoned," she explained, "perhaps they found a better nexus. We might still be able to use this one- oh no!" They had reached the center of the building, dominated by a tall pedestal covered in faintly-glowing patterns, and as they rounded the structure Willow saw what had shocked Tara. A program lay sprawled on the ground behind it - no, half a program. His legs were missing, and his lower torso looked almost melted, ending in a trail of geometric debris that snaked away into the shadows. He had dragged himself here, Willow realized - what was left of himself. Tara quickly knelt by him, never letting go of Willow's hand. She lay a hand on his chest and closed her eyes for a moment.

"He's functioning," she whispered after a moment, "barely. I think he's... oh my user, Willow, he's been partially de-rezzed! And they left him functional..." The fallen program stirred, and opened one eye - the other seemed lifeless.

"No," said Tara, her voice as gentle as she could make it - Willow could still hear the faint trace of horror. The program's single eye focused on Tara, and he frowned.

"You're the one," he said, "you're Tara... heard about you. Heard they... took you..."

"We escaped," Tara said. "What happened here? Sark did this?" The program shook his head weakly. Willow tried to hide her horror as a part of his cheek cracked, and spilled a few tiny prisms to the ground.

"Rain," he said, taking a ragged breath. "Thought we were... safe. Too fast... terminated us all... except me... did something to me, I can't... no!" He jerked as if he'd been shocked, sending more patterns of cracks spreading across his face. He tried to raise his arm to Tara, but the moment it left the floor his hand started to dissolve. He screamed and dropped his arm, which broke when it hit the floor, shattering up to his elbow.

"Don't move!" said Tara urgently. "We'll help you, we'll..." she trailed off, glancing around desperately. Willow realized she had no idea what to do. Seeing the pain in Tara's eyes, she suddenly ached to tell her the truth, to be able to hold her and hide nothing from her, and somehow protect her from everything that hurt. She remained silent, though - this was not the time.

"Tara," gasped the dying program, "please... Rain... left me functioning... left herself in me... she knows! Get to GDI... she's coming for you... please... terminate me..." Tara drew back in shock.

"Please..." he whispered, "I'm sorry... to ask you... but it hurts so much... user forgive me... please take the pain away..."

Tara let out a gasp that turned into a sob, and nodded. Willow knelt behind her, one hand on her shoulder, the other around her waist. Tara half-turned, looking down at Willow's hand, and Willow saw her face streaked with tears. She took a deep, shuddering breath, put her hand over Willow's, holding tight, and turned back to the dying program. Her other hand went back to his chest, but this time she spread her fingers, each fingertip moving to a specific point on the fading tracery patterns. She hesitated.

"Make us... free..." said the program, little more than a whisper. Tara's squared her shoulders and nodded.

"I will," she said. Her arm tensed, her fingers pressed hard against the tracery, and the light there vanished. The blackness spread across what remained of the program's body, and he closed his functioning eye and smiled slightly. Then it was over, and he disintegrated. Tara was still for a moment, her hand still held where his chest had been, then in a single, fluid motion she stood, drawing Willow up with her, turned in her half-embrace, and hugged her with all her strength, her body shaking as she cried. Willow held her tight, stroking her back and the back of her neck, murmuring quietly into her ear, all the motions that came to her by instinct when she had no idea what to do. Tara calmed quickly, her breathing leveling out. She drew back slightly from Willow and slowly raised her downcast eyes. Seeing the glistening tears on her face, Willow tried her best to look comforting, but she was unprepared for Tara's eyes. What she saw there was infinite, and almost indescribable - sadness, hope, love, a quiet sort of strength, compassion so deep it hurt. It was the perfect opposite of Rain's burning gaze - equal but diametrically opposed. Willow saw it only for a second, then Tara pulled her into the most intense kiss of her life, fierce, possessive, knowing there would be no resistance, and thus taking everything Willow gave her without hesitation. She could taste Tara's tears on her lips.

When Tara finally drew back, released Willow from her embrace and took her hand, Willow still just stood there for a moment, eyes closed, lips parted, not even breathing.

"Come on," said Tara firmly, but gently, "we have to go." Willow blinked, let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and looked at Tara. She was smiling, sadly but not in despair, all compassion and tenderness. As she led Willow further into the depths of the dark cathedral, Willow tried to reconcile the two sides of her, the almost angelic love and the wild, untamed passion, that she had seen within seconds of each other, and found she couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. 'I am not letting this one get away,' Willow promised herself, 'I don't care if I never go home, if I have to give up being a user and spend the rest of my life as a program, delivering email or something, I am not letting her go!'

"What are you looking for?" asked Willow, as Tara moved from alcove to alcove in the dimly-lit walls of the cathedral, checking each one. She had picked up her disc-gun from where she dropped it to attend to the dying program, and looked like she expected to have to use it.

"I knew some of the programs who built this nexus," she explained, continuing her search, "they had a simulation prepared in case they were attacked. If they didn't have time to get to it before Rain terminated them, it should still be here. I just hope they didn't change the password- here!" The back of an alcove slid silently aside, leaving a space just big enough for Tara and Willow to squeeze into. Willow looked up, trying to see where the top of the cramped chamber was, but the cylindrical walls stretched upward until they were completely lost in the gloom. Tara placed her palm against the wall, revealing a circuitry pattern.

"Transit two," she said to the wall, "command identity Tara, password Winterblue. Hold on," she added to Willow, "this might be disorienting." Willow gladly held Tara's waist, and Tara did likewise to Willow with her free hand. The pattern on the wall, rather than fading when Tara withdrew her hand, glowed brighter and spread, surrounding them. Suddenly they were hurtling upwards, the floor vanishing in an instant beneath them. Willow held on tight - she didn't feel as if she would fall, some force was propelling her and Tara together up the long tunnel, but the experience was worse than disorienting.

After a few more seconds Willow was finally getting used the notion that she wasn't about to fall off the rollercoaster, when a flash of light from beneath them startled her. Tara reacted as well, clutching Willow tightly, glancing down over her shoulder. Something was beneath them, and accelerating - the tunnel's walls, visible for a dozen meters or so beneath them as they rushed past, were cracking and warping, breaking up like concrete in an earthquake.

"Sark's programs must have implanted a virus in the transit routine," said Tara - Willow could hear the tension in her voice, though she was doing her best to sound calm. "I thought if they found it they'd have deactivated it. It must have been Rain, this is the kind of twisted thing she'd do."

"Hope we complete the transit before the routine collapses around us," said Tara grimly.

"What happens if we don't?" asked Willow, doing her best not to panic. The disintegration of the tunnel was slowly catching up to them.

"We hope there's a user watching over us," Tara answered, shifting her grip on Willow to press their bodies together.

Willow's head came to be on Tara's shoulder, where she stared blankly at the circuitry patterns traveling with them, flowing over the slight imperfections in the walls as they passed. She tentatively let go of Tara's waist with one hand, and reached out the short distance to the wall. It was moving too fast to touch, but surely, so close, she could access the routine. She glanced down - the cracks in the tunnel were almost level with their feet.

'Come on,' she willed herself, 'this isn't difficult. It's only a few millimeters, and they're not even real space, it's all just power in a processor. You don't have to touch it to feel it, that's just your brain insisting that you behave like you're in the real world, but you're not!' Willow's vision blurred, but she could still see clearly enough to see strands of her tracery flowing from her wrist over her hand, and then, millimeter by millimeter, stretching out into space, reaching for the energy on the wall. A headache formed and grew behind her eyes until she felt like her head was about to burst, but still she pushed herself forward.

And then - in an instant - the tracery caught the energy, Willow's vision cleared and the pain vanished. She moved her hand a little, watching in vague astonishment as light flowed out of her fingertips and into the patterns on the wall, then she mentally shook herself and set to work. With a moment's concentration she could see the vague shape of the transit routine - not the details, but enough to have an understanding of how it was working. A long, elegant strand of energy, woven like a rope - one end secured, the other whipping around, unraveling as a malevolent-looking black virus-shape crawled along it, biting and tearing at it. Willow tried to get at the attacking routine, but it dodged her attempts to touch it, and she saw hints of claws and fangs snarling at her from within its smoky, clouded form. Then inspiration struck, and Willow smiled to herself.

"We're going to be alright," she whispered to Tara, without really meaning to, but flushed with relief at knowing what to do. She turned her mind to the memory of the fractal maze, and watched as the patterns extending from her fingers twisted slightly as tiny, blossoming fractals flowed along them. In her mind's eye she saw the new code flowing into the transit routine, coating it like a layer of gloss, leaving it to function normally inside its new protective sheath. But when the virus encountered it, tried to rip into the fractal, every puncture it made bloomed with new curls of code, every attempt it made to damage the fractal merely gave it more space to expand into. She had a momentary glimpse of the virus toppling down, wreathed in fern-like fractal strands, twisting and biting as it fell. Then a tightness in her chest began to make it difficult to breathe, and she let go of her hold on the transit routine. She just had time to see her tracery snap back into her wrist like a rubber band, before her suddenly heavy eyelids closed, and she slumped in Tara's hold.

"Willow," she heard Tara say, as if from a distance, "Willow? Are you functioning properly?" Her lethargy passed, and after a moment she had the strength to return Tara's embrace and lift her head to look at her.

"I'm fine," she murmured, still feeling somehow fragile, as if raising her voice would make her lose her balance.

"Hold on," said Tara, lowering her voice as if sensing Willow's loss of equilibrium, "we're almost through."

A few seconds later their headlong rush ceased, and Willow blinked in the sudden brightness of a large, clear space. She looked around, as Tara supported her and helped her move. They were in a wide, tall chamber that put Willow in mind of an aircraft hangar. Fittingly, there was a vehicle of some sort resting in it, but Willow had never seen anything like it. It most resembled a giant steel dragonfly, with a smooth, tapering body thirty meters from end to end, and a set of thin, translucent wings sprouting from just behind its forward tip.

"A Solar Sailer," explained Tara, "stolen from the Game Grid. It's the fastest transit simulation there is." Willow's strength was returning, and she found she didn't need to rely on Tara to hold her up anymore as they reached the back end of the Sailer. Tara nevertheless kept hold of Willow's hand as she swung her leg over the side and pulled herself into the control bay, recessed into the hull of the vehicle like a yacht's deck.

"Stay there," said Tara, "I'll go and initialize the simulation, it won't take a nanocycle." She gave Willow's hand a comforting squeeze and then turned and ran across the hangar, towards a series of glass-fronted chambers set into the far wall. Willow watched her go, slightly apprehensive to be parted from her, even a little way. The soft, bright light of the hangar was reassuring though, after the threatening gloom of the nexus cathedral.

Willow allowed herself to relax, and tentatively lay a hand on the smooth inner surface of the Sailer's side. She let out a sigh of relief as she felt the simulation's code - very complex code - flowing beneath her fingertips, without any pain or disorientation. 'Must just have been the distance,' she concluded. Careful not to interact with it, she studied the Sailer's workings, impressed at the artistic fluidity of its form and function. 'Stolen from a game,' she mused, 'that'd be right. You don't get this kind of craftsmanship out of multinational corporations. Not cost-efficient.' The Sailer began to hum with power, softly at first, gradually building. Willow glanced over at Tara, inside one of the control chambers, and could just make out her smile as she looked up.

Willow jumped in alarm as her view was blocked by a shimmering column of light. A transport beam - but much bigger than any she had so far seen. She looked around, scared, seeing more beams forming all over the hangar. When they cleared, they left half a dozen hulking, threatening forms in their place. Each one was four meters tall, supported by thick, powerful legs, hunched over as if it were going to walk on all fours, though the front limbs swayed off the ground, scanning left and right. Each was outlined with red energy, and Willow saw soldier programs built into their armored hulls, their backs disappearing beneath the machines' carapaces, their arms merging with the forward limbs. As one they turned towards Tara's control chamber, raising their fore-limbs like weapons. Willow wished, for the first time, that she hadn't left her disc-gun on the recognizer.

"Hey, over here!" she yelled, jumping out of the Sailer and running around behind it, hoping whatever weapons the attackers had wouldn't damage it if she had to take cover behind it. Her heart leapt into her throat as three of the six machines opened fire on the control chamber, their limbs disgorging a hail of discs, and she heard a crash as they broke through the transparent wall separating them from Tara. But in the next instant half the discs were ricocheting back at them, one taking a chunk out an attacker's leg, another losing a fore-limb as its own disc sliced through it in a shower of sparks. Between the tree-trunk legs, Willow saw a flash of green light moving fast, and the three programs that had attacked were turning to track their target. She relaxed for a second, then her breath caught as she realized the other three monsters were turning towards her.

"Um, you know," she called out to them, ready to duck behind the Sailer at the first sign of fire, "you should all just leave now. Believe me, I can really mess you up! Don't make me re-write your code or something!" She flung out a hand theatrically, like a wizard in a children's cartoon, and tried to look defiant. If absolutely necessary she was prepared to risk the pain of trying to alter their code - though, judging by how far away they were, and how menacing they looked, she would probably collapse before she had managed to merge, let alone figure out a way to damage them - but for the moment she just hoped to buy Tara some time.

But the three massive programs paused, weapons raised but silent. Willow saw the soldiers within them look confused for a moment. Then - as if snapped back to action by the collapse of one of their fellow programs, sparks cascading from a dozen jagged holes in its legs, the three turned as one back towards Tara.

"Hey!" shouted Willow, feeling indignant for a moment before her sense of perspective kicked in. She tried to see how Tara was doing, but couldn't make out much through the deluge of debris and power being smashed out of the hangar's far wall by discs missing their targets. She was relieved, though, to still be able to hear the strange chord-like sound of discs being deflected, and every couple of seconds to see one come flying out of the maelstrom of destruction, taking a chunk out of the attackers.

Wasting no more time, Willow left her cover behind the Sailer and strode towards the nearer trio of programs. She couldn't quite believe what she was planning to do, and the coiled tension in her legs made her feel like she was walking on a trampoline, but she remained set on her course of action.

"Hello?" she called, barely five meters from the backs of the huge programs. "Attack me? Anyone? Good," she finished to herself, concluding that, for whatever reason, they were ignoring her as a target. 'Oh I hope I'm right,' she thought to herself as she jogged swiftly up to the legs of the nearest, and put her hand against it.

She almost jerked her hand back at the pain - like an electric shock, magnified a hundred times. But she pressed her palm flat, gritting her teeth against the pain. She saw tiny strands of red energy slowly worming out of the smooth steel and onto her hand, but her anger at this gave her the boost she needed to fight off the intrusion. Slowly, ignoring the edges of her vision tunneling, Willow pushed her tracery across her hand and into the surface beneath her fingers.

It was equally massive in her mind's eye, a huge cloud of darkness, with shapes moving inside it, hulking and powerful, like pistons and gears in an old steam engine. At the center of it all she could just make out the glimmer of a real program - like Tara, but not, lacking the beauty of something more than calculation and logic. Willow ignored that, not wanting to find out if she really could reach inside a living program and alter it, not wanting to know what might happen if she did. Instead she turned her attention to the massive mechanical forms wrapped around it - huge and powerful, but still simple. She studied it as quickly as she could, hoping that she wasn't wasting time. Her senses of what was happening in the physical reality around her were increasingly dim, just vague shapes and muffled sounds as she concentrated all her willpower on breaking through the pain battering at her mind.

Slowly, adding to Willow's impatience, details began to emerge. First the thing's legs snapped into focus, mere assemblies of power and motion, simple machines. Then the fore-limbs, pumping like pistons, generating and hurling discs as fast as they could - Willow recognized the feel of the disc-gun, modified to fit a different environment, but still basically the same. She imagined herself wrapping her hands around the guns and squeezing them, and saw with some relief that the mechanism stopped working, as parts bent out of shape, no longer making proper contact with the rest of it. Keeping a part of herself concentrating on holding the guns silent, she explored further. The machine's armored carapace resolved next, and Willow realized that a part of that code was responsible for the pain assailing her - she found it easier to resist, understanding where it was coming from. With the lessening of the pain the whole machine came sharply into view, and Willow saw what she had been hoping for: sets of instructions, constantly being accessed by the program within the machine and compared to the sensory input flowing through him as his eyes fed data into his consciousness. Target profiles.

With a triumphant, determined grin, Willow wiped the profiles clean, and in their place constructed an image of the attacking machines themselves, as best she could from what she could see of the one she was merged with. The soldier program shuddered in confusion as his connection to the profiles fell away for a moment, but then he connected with the new profile and his concentration snapped back to the task at hand. Willow released her grip on the machine's guns and pulled herself out of the merging, falling backwards as her legs suddenly refused to support her any longer.

She struggled to her hands and knees as the hulking creature towering over her stomped around, facing its nearest neighbor, and opened fire. A spectacular explosion ripped open the back half of the thing's carapace, tossing the piloting program clear of the machine. He landed meters away, collapsing wreathed in electricity, as Willow's new ally fired again, blasting its target to scrap. The others turned but seemed unable to locate the new danger, as the rogue program targeted another of them and blasted its left leg off. Willow finally saw Tara, disc-gun in one hand, data disc in the other, duck underneath one of the intact machines and run towards her.

Tara scooped Willow up in her arms and carried her to the Sailer, lowering her into the vehicle before leaping over the side herself and activating the softly-glowing controls. Willow heard another explosion, but was still having trouble making her limbs do exactly what she wanted. She felt the beginning of another headache as well as she watched Tara dexterously manipulate the controls, and felt power shudder through the deck beneath her.

Willow's pain and weakness ebbed away enough for her to stand at Tara's side as the Solar Sailer rose off the hangar floor. A handful of discs ricocheted off the smooth hull, halfway along the thin neck connecting the control deck with the wings at the front, but they seemed to do no damage. Glancing over the side, Willow saw only two of the monster programs still standing, one aiming for another shot at the Sailer, the other her rogue, stomping towards its fellow. At the same moment it fired, tearing through the carapace of its target, Willow's attention was diverted by a brilliant flash of light from the front of the Sailer. A stream of energy had burst from its prow, passing straight through the hangar's front wall, which now was smoothly opening, splitting along an X-shaped groove into four sections which melted into the edges of the wall. Beyond, Willow saw the vast expanse of the open system, with their energy stream stretching across the horizon.

"Hold on," warned Tara, "we're about to transit." Willow put one hand around Tara and the other on the control console, steadying herself as best she could without losing the spectacular view. Tara tapped a control, and the light from the stream flowed out along the Sailer's wings, which spread and stretched, from thin, tapering dragonfly wings to huge sails fifty meters across, flickering into full solidity as the energy flowed through them. It finally reached the tips of the sails and shot back from there, past Willow and Tara on the control deck, meeting far behind them. Willow turned to see a new part of the simulation appear, first as lines of energy, then fading into being as solid matter, collecting the four beams from the sail-tips and releasing them behind them, continuing the original energy stream. Thus merged with the stream, the Sailer shot forward, leaving the hangar behind them in seconds, the geography of the system a blur beneath them.

Willow felt Tara relax, and they both sat at the rear of the control deck, leaning against the hull behind them, Tara helping Willow, though her strength was returning.

"GDI, eventually," said Tara thoughtfully, "but first we're going to an I/O tower. When I was last captured, it was still a long way out of Sark's control. We should be safe there."

"Hunter-killers," answered Tara. "Sark uses them to hunt down renegade programs and terminate them. What did you do to that one?"

"Oh, I..." Willow hesitated. "I guess I confused it. Made it think the others were targets. They didn't attack me, so I could get up close to them."

"Sark must have decided not to try to recapture me," said Tara, seeming remarkably unconcerned. "But he's not willing to risk terminating you. That gives you an advantage," she finished, offering Willow a grin. Willow grinned back, then her expression clouded as she realized the opportunity she had. 'No turning back now. Do it and deal with the consequences.'

"Tara," she began, fighting off the urge to shut up, "I know why. I... I have to tell you something, about me. I don't know what you'll think, but I'd like you to- just listen to what I have to say. Will you?"

"Of course," said Tara. She was staring at Willow intently, as if she sensed the seriousness of the moment. Willow met her gaze, and had a sudden urge to reach out to her - the intensity in her eyes was magnetic. She made herself remain still.

"Tara, I'm," she began, stopped, and started again. "When I said Willow was my user, I was... well, I was afraid of what you might think. I lied. I'm so sorry..." She stopped herself. She needed to explain, quickly and properly, not get caught up trying to apologize all at once. "I am Willow," she said quietly, and she couldn't bring herself to meet Tara's gaze anymore. She looked down at her hands instead, bunched tightly together. "I'm a user. Your user. I'm Willow." She wanted, desperately, to look at Tara, to see if by some miracle there wasn't anger or betrayal in her face. But she couldn't, so she sat still, wringing her hands together.

"Wha?" said Willow, in lieu of being able to form a coherent thought. Surprise overcame anxiety, and she looked up. Tara's face was calm, peaceful. She was smiling faintly.

"When we became unity," said Tara. "Until then I supposed you were a unique program, like me. When we merged I felt something different about you, something... more than a program. I can't describe exactly what it was. I realized later that you could only be a user. It explained everything you could do that seemed impossible. And given what you told me, you had to be my user. Willow." Tara smiled again, lifting Willow's spirits even as she remained as confused as ever.

"Why do you have to say anything?" asked Tara. Willow shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.

"There's so much I don't understand," she said at last, "but there are things I need you to know. I'm so confused, though... Tara, I love you, I-" she caught sight of Tara's confused expression. "It's a user word," she explained, "it means... unity, I suppose. To be part of a unity with someone else. To be made complete."

"Love," said Tara, trying out the word. She smiled and nodded. Willow knew she hadn't even begun to explain it properly, but she saw understanding in Tara's eyes.

"I love you," she said again, "I didn't want to hurt you. When I remembered what you said, about being complete with me, a-and... I didn't want you to think it wasn't true. That it was just because I'm your user."

"But of course it is," said Tara calmly. "I didn't understand why I felt it then, but now I do."

"No!" insisted Willow. She could feel herself getting too agitated, but she couldn't help it. "No, that's just what I was afraid- Tara, what you told me, what I told you, as a... as one program to another, that was true! All of it, everything... I don't want you to think that you were made to feel this way, that, that I made you love me, or... you deserve so much more than that." Now it was Tara's turn to look confused.

"You didn't program me to feel this?" she asked, then without waiting for an answer: "These feelings are... are what I have become?" Willow wasn't sure she understood what Tara meant.

"Tara," she said, "you're more than what I programmed you to be... when you love it's not because you were programmed to. When I love you, it's not because I made you to be loved. I don't know how to say it, but I need you to believe that! Please, if there's nothing else I can tell you, please believe that who you are, the person, the program you have made yourself, deserves love... unity..." Willow stared at Tara, her eyes pleading for her to believe. Tara was silent for a long while.

"Willow," she said at last, haltingly, as if a lot of thoughts were moving very fast behind her words, "if you feel... love, for me..." she trailed off, catching Willow's look.

"I believe you," she started again, "I believe you love me. If I'm wrong... if I'm wrong, I could question everything I calculate is true. You love me. You love me," she repeated, and let out a short laugh, as if she couldn't contain it. She smiled widely and stared up at the sky.

"No, wait," she said, reining herself in, "you love me, and I love you, yet... I was not made to love you. Willow, I don't understand."

"Because it's..." Willow started quickly, and then realized she had to think about the explanation. "Love isn't something that can be manufactured, or programmed."

"But users create paired programs," said Tara. "They share unity, they... love each other."

"I know, I think," said Willow, hoping she did understand. "But you and I, I think the unity we have is different. We're not incomplete halves of something, we're... I don't know how to explain it properly, I think we, you and I, are both whole beings, and our unity is something more than just us finding a missing part of ourselves. I love you because... when I feel complete with you, I'm more than myself, a-and I hope... you are too."

"I understand," said Tara slowly. "I remember when I was first initialized... Everything was simple and... and linear. What I am now, I became over time..." She was staring off into the distance, as if experimenting with the idea, trying to see if it worked. "You created the... potential for me. What I have become... I created?"

"Willow..." Tara said, eyes fixed on the horizon. Willow saw moisture glisten in her eyes and begin to fall over her cheeks. "I don't deserve this, I don't, I can't... I can't be what you say I am-"

Willow wanted to try to explain it rationally, but at the sight of Tara crying she lost her battle with the urge to kiss her. As she held Tara in her arms and brought their lips together, she desperately tried to open herself to Tara, to create a link that would let Tara see inside her code, her mind, her soul, let her see the truth that she couldn't find words for. She felt part of Tara pass through her, but then she also felt the familiar sensation of her own energy reaching out, trying to merge with Tara, and she pulled back. Tara took a deep, shuddering breath, and held Willow close to her, lying half on top of her, locking her arms around Willow's waist when she tried to move back further.

"Oh Willow," she breathed, "I saw... I saw love, I... felt it." She blinked and focused on Willow properly. "Why did you stop? Are... you're afraid?"

"I don't want to hurt you," said Willow, "I can't- after what I did in the maze, I was afraid that when we merged, I might accidentally hurt you, or change you... I can't do that. I won't."

"I didn't realize," said Willow, ashamed, "I didn't know what I was doing. It was only after... I realized what could have happened."

"You're a user," repeated Tara, "everything you do is according to a plan. How could you not have known?"

"The actions of users are predetermined by their internal instructions," Tara explained patiently, "so you must have known whether or not you would change me. I can understand why you can't reveal the nature of the actions you have yet to perform," she went on, seemingly oblivious to Willow's bafflement, "if future events were to be known by programs they might be altered by pre-knowledge, and that would lead to a paradox collapse, but..." she trailed off, seeing Willow's bewilderment.

"No," admitted Willow, wondering what sort of monumental can of worms had just been opened.

"Did the process of being incorporated into the system somehow separate you from your instruction set, or..." Tara stopped, seeing Willow's helpless expression.

"Yes, that's how it is for programs," said Tara, "but for users it's... just... the same?" Willow nodded. "Oh my user," said Tara to herself. "Sorry," she amended, seeing Willow's reaction to the phrase.

"You didn't know what was going to happen," Tara said, as if trying to make herself believe it. "You didn't know you were going to survive the Game Grid. You didn't know you could heal me. You didn't... you didn't know how I would react when you told me the truth?"

"No," said Willow, hoping Tara could cope with the notion. She seemed to be fairly shocked, but nonetheless thinking it through.

"I could have... you didn't know... you were afraid I might not have understood, or... or been like other programs, worshipped you... you didn't know?"

"I might have," said Tara, to herself. "I might have refused to believe that, that you hadn't made me to complete you... I might have just... decided it was my duty to please you, if that's what you wanted?"

"And," continued Tara, "everything you felt for me... the love I saw... you might have lost it... you risked it to tell me the truth?"

"I couldn't go on lying to you," said Willow, "and I couldn't risk hurting you. I had to tell you, I had no choice."

"Because I love you," said Willow, unable to hold back the tears that had been forming in her eyes. Tara lifted her hands to Willow's back and pulled her close, and without thinking Willow leaned into her kiss. Tara's lips opened instantly under hers, and Tara's hands pressed against her, urging her on. Willow felt the link between them forming again, and didn't resist when the loop between them completed, allowing her access to Tara, as well as Tara to her. But still, when her hands began to warm with energy, she hesitated. Tara sensed it, and pulled back just enough to speak - the link, amazingly, remained unbroken.

"Willow," she said, her breath hot on Willow's cheek, "do it... you won't hurt me, I'll guide you... I want it, Willow, I want- I want you to have all of me. Not because you made me, not for duty or devotion, just because... one program to another, Willow, I am yours... now..." she leant back just a fraction more, to stare into Willow's eyes. Too close to focus properly, but Willow could see the unfiltered need in Tara's gaze, hunger that was unbearably erotic, and burned away all of Willow's doubts in an instant.

"Do it now," groaned Tara, her voice low and husky, even as Willow began to release her power, and feel herself merge with Tara. She forgot all about the system and programs - all that existed was her and Tara, two bodies pressed against each other, two minds flowing through each other. She saw again the galaxy of Tara's soul, and from the part of her within Tara she saw her own. Pleasure flowed between and around them, pure, primal and beautiful. It was only then that Willow realized she had held back, without knowing it, before, that the doubts she had suppressed had nonetheless weighed her down. Now she was free, and she let herself and Tara coalesce completely.

She felt the sensation of the energy flow, almost lost amid the orgasmic pleasure, spread from her hands, along her arms, across her chest, down past her center and through her legs. At the same instant Tara threw her head back and screamed at the top of her voice - if not for the bond between them Willow would have panicked completely, but she could feel everything Tara felt, and knew there was no danger. She opened her eyes, staring at Tara's beautiful, yearning face, and just for a moment she saw her and Tara's traceries, completely meshed, flowing over them and between them. Then the connection caught, reflected, and Willow screamed too, closing her eyes as Tara's energy glowed so brightly it half-blinded her. The final, complete merging traveled between them, through them, gaining momentum like a shooting star. Their lips met in a last, fierce kiss as the unity exploded within them, with such force that Willow could have sworn she felt herself and Tara lift off the deck of the Sailer.

When it passed, Willow found herself half-draped over Tara, breathing in her heavenly scent as she nestled in the hollow of her neck. Tara's chest was rising and falling, lifting Willow's embracing arm with it. Both of them were breathing like they'd just run a marathon.

"Oh!" exclaimed Tara, more a release of pent-up sensation than a word. "Oh," she repeated, "Willow... oh Willow..."

"Tara," whispered Willow. She couldn't form a proper thought, not yet, she just needed to say something, anything, to acknowledge what had happened. Tara let her head fall sideways, so that she could look at Willow. Her smile was more radiant to Willow than the blinding flash of energy had been. For a moment she just looked at Willow, as if perfectly content, then her gaze shifted, and she frowned.

"Oh my..." she trailed off. Willow lifted herself, with some difficulty, and looked. The deck beneath them was patterned with tiny, hard-edged ripples, like breaking waves, as if it had been water just for a second, and frozen over as a blast went off. Willow's eyes followed the warping away from her and Tara, seeing it in the hull around them, in the pedestal of the control console, and running several meters along the narrow walkway on top of the Sailer's long neck. Then she looked back, as Tara slowly rolled over and pushed herself up onto her elbows. As she had half-suspected, the epicenter of the distortions in the deck was right beneath where they had been at their moment of perfect unity.

"Well," said Tara, murmuring as if she had just woken up, "the Sailer doesn't seem to be damaged..." she trailed off, shrugged, then leaned close and kissed Willow again.

"Wow," said Willow muzzily. She focused on Tara. "Are you okay? Um, functioning alright?" Tara smiled.

"Yes," she said, "I'm 'okay'. Mmm!" she exclaimed, shuddering as if a chill ran through her body. "I'm perfect," she finished, ducking beneath Willow's arm and pulling Willow down to lie on top of her.

Tara pointed out the I/O tower on the horizon, but then returned her attention to the Solar Sailer's controls, so it was Willow, gazing ahead in fascination, who first saw the tiny glowing lights clustered around the tower's base.

"There are always a few," Tara said without looking up, "they're waiting for new instructions from their users." She tapped a few final commands into the console, and the Sailer's headlong rush slowed to a gentle approach, its sails folding back to thin dragonfly wings, the energy beam it had been riding flickering and vanishing.

"More than a few," observed Willow, looking over the side of the Sailer's hull as Tara steered it lower and closer. Tara glanced up at Willow's comment, then leant over the side to see for herself, keeping one hand on the controls.

"Oh erasure," she whispered, her eyes wide. Beneath the Sailer, staring up as it drifted overhead, were hundreds of programs, sheltered beneath overhangs and ledges in the uneven open system terrain and huddled in groups on the featureless expanse of flat ground around the I/O tower itself. Their traceries - orange, yellow, blue, violet, silver and gold - looked like the lights of a city at night, a living city that was slowly staggering to its feet and surging towards the tower in the wake of Willow and Tara's Sailer.

"What is it?" asked Willow, abandoning her position on the Sailer's neck to stand at Tara's side. She could see Tara's unease, though so far as Willow could tell she wasn't expecting any sort of attack. Gazing down, Willow shared her feeling - they were close enough that she could clearly see the faces of the programs directly underneath them, staring up as they stumbled forward. They looked shell-shocked - ordinary people whose spirits had been broken by a cruel world.

"I had no idea it had gotten so bad," said Tara quietly, "Holy Source, there must be programs from a hundred networks here... more, hundreds..." she trailed off as she looked up, to the terrain beyond the tower, where even now untold tiny glows were beginning to move towards them. "Thousands," she whispered.

"Tara, what's going on?" asked Willow, unsettled by the intent, hollow stares from below.

"It must have been while I was on the Game Grid," Tara said, keeping her voice low - the Sailer was barely meters off the ground now, with programs clustering as close as they could come to its destined landing zone. "Echelon must have taken all their networks... they must have escaped before Sark's armies arrived, and they came here... look over there," she said, nodding towards the other landing zones, marked out on the flat ground around the tower. Willow looked, and saw each one clustered with strange shapes, some recognizable as vehicles, similar to the tanks and recognizers she had seen, others bizarre amalgamations of forms, completely unfamiliar. They were jammed onto the landing zones any way they could fit, ground vehicles nudging up against each others' wheels, nestling beneath the wings and guidance fins of all manner of flyers.

"Stolen simulations," said Tara, "they must have packed as many programs as they could into them, and come here... they didn't know where else to go."

"Why are they looking at us like that?" asked Willow in a whisper. The Sailer was seconds from touching down, and the crowd of programs had massed at the edges of the landing zone, silent, expectant.

"This is a complex simulation," guessed Tara, "they probably haven't seen one like it before. I don't know," she finished, glancing around warily. Novelty value didn't explain the stares they were getting from the crowd, and Willow and Tara both knew it.

"Come on," said Tara resolutely, swinging her legs over the side of the Sailer as it touched ground and powered down. She offered a hand to Willow as she followed, and they walked together towards the I/O tower. The crowd parted ahead of them, programs shifting nervously back to make room, forming a corridor to the tower's entrance. Willow tried to look calm as they left the landing zone, and the masses of programs were on either side of them. Glancing briefly over her shoulder, she saw them crowding in behind as well. She felt no hostility from them, and Tara's hand was holding hers steadily, but the experience was unnerving.

Willow managed not to react visibly when she heard whispers behind her. Tara glanced at her, an gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Slowly the whispering spread, along the crowds on either side of them, close enough for Willow to make out fragments of it, as those programs closest to her murmured over their shoulders to those further back.

The desperation in their voices was starting to really frighten Willow. Trying not to be obvious, she glanced around at the clustered programs. None of them had traceries glowing as brightly as hers and Tara's. Here and there a program was almost dark, supported by those around them, lifting their heads weakly to stare at Tara and her. Many of them had patches of darkness on them, damaged limbs, wounds gouged from their torsos, traceries broken and lifeless around their injuries. Willow edged closer to Tara as the crowd slowly moved in, some of the nearest ones shifting their arms as if they were about to reach out, to try to touch them.

Willow almost jumped as Tara's fingers slipped out of hers, and a hand gripped her shoulder firmly, but she realized in an instant it was Tara, maneuvering Willow in front of her, subtly protecting her. She reached up to her shoulder to cover Tara's hand with her own, and felt Tara's other hand slide smoothly around her waist. The slight echo of her link to Tara, which hadn't fully dissipated since their merging on the Sailer, intensified just a fraction with the closer contact, and it calmed Willow a little.

She was glad, though, when they reached the entrance to the I/O tower. The scale of the structure distracted Willow for a brief moment from her anxiety, and she stared up at it. Aside from the great double-door entrance, the tower's walls were covered with thousands of energy streams, crossing and intertwining with each other, some thin as spider-web, barely visible, some thick and powerful, so strong that Willow could literally see the pulses of energy moving through them. From the tower's base, rising up around its central bulk, were dozens of tapering spires, linked to the tower as they stretched up and away from it by thin, elegantly-curved buttresses. Each spire was adorned with hundreds of discs, facing outwards, ranging from tiny, thin dishes barely larger than dinner plates, to huge faceted radar-like antennae three or four meters wide. One such dish had held the end of the energy beam their Sailer had traveled on - Willow tried to guess how many networks converged above her, and her mind boggled at the thought. Dominating it all, though, was the great mass of the tower itself, rising like the steeple of a giant church, tier after tier stretching up. At the top, so high it seemed to be touching the patterns in the sky, an elegant power array, like a huge steel orchid flower, projected a solid beam of white energy straight up, beyond the limits of vision.

The great doors opened ahead of Willow, and Tara gently urged her onward. Willow finally relaxed as the doors closed behind them, sealing out the whispers and desperate stares of the programs outside. Willow turned to Tara, and found her visibly relieved to be inside, where they were, for the moment, alone.

"I know now why you were afraid to tell me who you were," said Tara ruefully, catching Willow's anxious look. They both looked to the far end of the passageway as footsteps announced the approach of another program. He was old, bent beneath the weight of a wide, solid mantle resting on his shoulders, like the top of a heavy cloak set in stone. His tracery was bright, and pure white just like the tower's central beam, and as he approached the two visitors he relied on a long white staff, topped with a miniature version of the orchid-like array, to support him. He glared imperiously at Willow and Tara as he came to a halt before them, drawing himself up to his full height. Then he leaned forward, squinting at Tara, and his expression softened.

"I escaped," explained Tara, "this is Willow. She helped me." Darien turned to Willow and peered at her.

"My, my," he said, as if talking to himself, "another one like you. I always said you can't have too many good versions of a good program, I'm glad to see the users agree with me."

"Well it's good to see both of you active and functioning well. There's damned little left that Echelon hasn't managed to tear down or corrupt. Now, what brings you to this sorry corner of the system?" Tara took Willow's hand and led her as Darien turned away from the entrance and walked slowly back the way he had come.

"We have to get to the GDI network," she explained, keeping pace at Darien's side as he shuffled along the passageway, "Echelon has a new program on its side, I can't get in with her guarding it. GDI is our only hope to find a way into Echelon's primary database. Darien, I know this is non-standard... do you know any users who could authorize our transit to GDI?"

"Hrm, that's not a simple request," Darien muttered, "especially not now. You saw all the programs outside? Every millicycle I get requests from them to contact their users, so they can communicate and receive new commands. They're just simple programs, you know, accounting routines, network relay controllers, that sort of thing, they weren't designed to be out here alone. I tell them to be patient, that the users hear them, but..." He turned to Tara, studied her for a moment, then glanced at Willow.

"Well," said Darien slowly, "alright... if you trust her... but this mustn't go beyond these walls, acknowledge?"

"This happened while you were on the Grid," Darien said quietly, "first it was just rumors, but after a while... Echelon took them out, Tara. It shut the users out of their own networks. All the Coms, the Nets, the Edus, they're all gone. Oh, there are a few left, a handful of Gov and Mil users still communicating with networks that Echelon hasn't appropriated yet, but all the programs out there..." he waved a hand vaguely towards the closed doors, and sighed. "Their users are gone."

Tara let out a breath she had been holding all the time Darien had been talking. She looked away from his old, sad face, staring off blankly. Willow moved closer to her and gently put her free hand around Tara's waist, hugging her from the side. She almost stumbled, but seemed to draw strength from Willow's hold. Putting her arm around Willow, holding her close, she looked down. Willow, resting her head on Tara's shoulder, tried to silently convey her trust, her hope, to counter the despair in Tara's eyes. Tara blinked once, twice, then her expression hardened and she looked back at Darien.

"This tower, a few others," said Darien, "some installations deep in the isolated memory areas, last time we heard from them. GDI is still secure, not that it's any good to us, we can't locate it without the right users, and none of the programs here know who to turn to. Some of them have even asked me to issue commands! As if I've got any business telling them what to do, I'm just a tower guardian... but they don't know what else to do. You two should stay inside, I think. Those outside were talking about you already, Tara, before you arrived. I wouldn't be surprised if they decide they want you to be their user now that they've seen you, and know that you escaped the Grid. Better if you stay in here for now."

"It scares me, you know," the old program observed, stopping a few meters from the end of the passageway, "how quickly we've come to this. I remember when Echelon was nothing more than a facilitator. The open system was free, data moving everywhere... it was good to be a program then. And now, look at us... so desperate for commands that we'll give up our faith in the users. I wish I could help you, Tara, I really do... but there's so little left, so few users that Echelon hasn't already locked out. I don't know who can help you."

Willow suddenly turned to look over her shoulder at Darien, clutching Tara tightly with sudden excitement.

"I do," she said, thinking frantically, dredging the user ID from her memory. "I need to communicate with user Summers-One."

Darien busied himself at the controls of his tower. The communication chamber, the center of the whole structure, put Willow in mind of the heart of a wizard's tower. The chamber was round, fifty meters from side to side, and stretched up the entire length of the I/O tower, right up to the massive power array at the top. The outer wall was covered in energy streams, exact duplicates of those decorating the tower's exterior. Darien shuffled from place to place, touching strands here and there, dragging them from one intersection to another with the tips of his fingers. He had warned both Willow and Tara not to touch the walls at all.

"Is this Buffy a great warrior?" asked Tara in a whisper as they both watched Darien go about his business.

"Something like that," replied Willow. "Her job is to take action against users who try to create programs like Echelon."

"I guess you could say that. Um," hesitated Willow. "Do you know what actually happens here? I mean, what I'll have to do?"

"I know what I've been told," said Tara, "I never had to communicate directly with y- with my user," she quickly corrected herself, glancing at Darien a few meters away, "but I've met other programs who have. Your awareness becomes part of the beam, you don't actually leave here but part of you is at both ends of the beam at once. The other end is close to the users. I don't think you have to do anything, the connection between you and the beam means that it does what you want without you having to command it. I think it mostly depends on the user, though."

"She's probably asleep," said Willow, who had been taking a stab at calculating how much time had passed in the real world. "But I've got an idea. If this tower can let me communicate with her, it must connect me to her personal system, right? The, the part of the whole system that's closest to her?"

"Yes," said Tara hesitantly, "I think so, but if she's 'asleep'... I've heard it can take thousands of millicycles for a user to respond to an unscheduled query."

"Time moves much faster in here," said Willow in a whisper. Tara nodded in understanding. "But I don't need to communicate with Buffy herself," Willow went on, "once I'm connected to her computer, her part of the system, I should be able to get inside her files and find the authorization to get us into GDI. It's part of her job, the codes must be in there somewhere."

"Willow, that's dangerous," Tara said, holding both of Willow's hands in hers. "Those are powerful authorizations, there's bound to be security routines guarding them, and they'll be hidden in the deepest memories of her 'computer'. And I- I've seen how it affects you when you exceed the limitations of a program. You were so weak after what you did to that Hunter-killer... Willow, I'm worried," she said, her eyes pleading. She glanced over her shoulder, ensuring Darien was far from being able to hear her.

"I know you're a user," she whispered, "but when Echelon brought you into the system, it put you in the form of a program. When you do these things that programs aren't capable of... I'm not sure how far you can push yourself, how much th-the program aspect of you can take. What you're thinking of doing is... I'm scared, Willow, I don't want to lose you. If you do this, if it's too much for you... it could make your program form collapse. You could terminate, Willow... and there's no way to get to this quantum cannon device, to send you back, until Echelon is gone." Tara's imploring gaze was too much for Willow. She hugged Tara tightly.

"I'll be alright," she said, lightly kissing the side of her neck, up along her jaw, whispering in her ear. "I know I can do this. I won't let them hurt you, not again, we're going to get to GDI and bring down Echelon. I promise. And then," she added, pulling back far enough to look into Tara's eyes, "I'm staying with you."

"Staying... but-" Tara protested. "Willow, this isn't your world, you belong outside with the other users," she finished, lowering her voice to a whisper again.

"My world doesn't have you in it," said Willow, smiling, "and I belong with you."

"But, how will the other users manage without you?" Tara asked. Willow laughed to herself.

"I'm nothing special, I'm just a programmer-" she said, until she was silenced by Tara leaning down quickly to capture her lips in a kiss that was so perfect it left her breathless.

"Willow," Tara said in a hushed, husky voice as she leaned back a fraction, "if all the users were like you, both our worlds would be so much better."

At the center of the communications chamber was a raised dais, three steps high, where Darien instructed Willow to stand. She looked across the chamber at Tara, who smiled hopefully to her, before returning her attention to the old tower guardian.

"The lines of power are drawn," he intoned, in the manner of a high priest speaking a ritual, "the pathways between this place and that above are ready. Program Willow, you have come here to seek communication with user Summers One. The blessings of this place are upon you as you look into the eyes of those above. May they look kindly upon you."

Darien rapped the base of his staff against the hard chamber floor, the crack echoing like a gunshot. The thousands of energy strands he had carefully arranged on the walls began to flow upwards, the chamber falling into shadow as all the power gathered itself at the top of the tower. Willow looked up to see the ceiling, high above her, open like a flower, revealing the curved plates of the power array. They slid against each other, shifting to create an opening between them at the very center, and Willow stood transfixed as the pure light of the tower's beam lanced down and enveloped her.

"May you find enlightenment," she heard Darien say, an echo on the wind from a far distant place, almost drowned out by the singing of the energy around her. She felt weightless, dizzy, disoriented - the beam was lifting her, or some part of her. Her gaze drifted around like a leaf blown on the breeze. The chamber, Darien, Tara, all were hidden from her by the blinding light. She saw herself, staring up, still as a statue, then there was a rush of movement and everything else was lost to her.

She flew through the beam, unable to tell how far she had gone or for how long she had traveled. She was aware of nothing until the light and its symphony abruptly vanished, leaving her alone in a dark, silent place.

Willow waited, alone with the sound of her rapid breathing. When nothing happened she eventually took a tentative step forwards, and rebounded off a barrier she hadn't seen. She staggered for a second to keep her balance, then calmed herself and raised a hand to feel for the barrier. Only the green glow of her tracery showed her that she could see anything at all. She felt the barrier, which gave her a tiny shock, but now that she knew to expect it the sensation didn't trouble her too much. Running both hands along it, she discovered she was encased in a cylinder, surrounded.

"This is where we find out how good I am," she said to herself, startling herself at the sound of her voice in the perfect silence. She put both hands together on the barrier in front of her and concentrated, trying to find the pattern within it. It took her a long time to find anything at all - it was distant and dark, and she almost missed it when the faint impression of structure flickered before her mind's eye for a fraction of a second. Just as it was fading she grabbed hold of it. She was prepared for a struggle, so she was already braced against the stab of pain that came from the barrier as she made contact with its code. It came once, twice, a third time, then the pain fell away and left Willow in peace. She sighed and concentrated on breaking free.

She tried looking for loopholes in the code, back-door subroutines that might let her in if she could wrestle them into accepting her, but there were none - or if there were, they were well-hidden. She realized she was starting to get frustrated, as one code segment after another turned out to be solid, and took a moment to calm herself, gather her wits. For a moment she mentally sat back and just looked at the barrier's code, and in that moment inspiration struck. Maybe she didn't have to open a doorway - maybe she just had to make the barrier permeable to her own code. Half-remembered moments from high school chemistry filtered into her mind - materials could block some substances and admit others. It all depended on their structure. The barrier's structure was laid out before her - unchangeable, but clearly visible.

Ignoring the uncooperative barrier, she concentrated on herself. She couldn't quite see her own code, but she could imagine it, and her imagination seemed to be a little more solid than usual. There had to be a connection. She studied the barrier again, carefully, trying to picture herself becoming something similar. If she could match herself to it, it wouldn't block her - she would be able to pass right through it, because she wouldn't be a foreign object to it at all. In her mind she saw the barrier begin to weaken - for a moment she wondered if it were failing for some reason of its own, then she realized she was doing it. As she changed herself, as the barrier became no barrier, so it became invisible to her - if it wasn't a barrier, it was nothing.

An uneasy feeling formed in her stomach, but she had expected something like it, and was frankly glad that it wasn't the splitting headache she had felt before. But as she continued to concentrate, as the barrier continued to fade away, the ugly, queasy feeling grew, and she began to worry. 'Lucky I haven't had anything to eat lately,' she joked to herself, trying not to panic. She felt her hand begin to slip through the barrier, physically pass through it.

The sick feeling in her stomach was beginning to become a serious problem, so Willow decided it was time to put herself to the test. She pushed forwards, feeling resistance from the barrier but still moving. She felt the plane of it, where it was intersecting with her body, tingle and crackle with tiny shocks - painful, but they distracted her from her decidedly unwell stomach, so welcome in a way. She grimaced as she felt the shocks on her face, first at the tip of her nose, then her lips, then down the sides of her face as she moved slowly through the barrier.

She had a brief panic attack as it occurred to her that she might lose concentration, and become stuck as the barrier became solid around her. Would it kill her? Or worse perhaps, leave her stuck half-way through, unable to go forward or back, locked in place for all eternity. For half a second she imagined she felt the edges of the barrier press against her skin. Fear sent a rush of adrenaline through her, and she forged ahead, pushing past the last of the resistance. Suddenly it was gone and she fell forward, tripping as her foot tugged at her, last to clear the barrier.

The sickness slowly abated, leaving her sprawled on the ground, taking deep breaths to calm herself. As the strength returned to her limbs she pushed herself to her hands and knees, and sat back on her heels, looking around. Around her were a series of obsidian blocks, towering above her, like a modern art interpretation of Stonehenge. She looked behind her, seeing the cylindrical barrier shining like glass from the outside. Cautiously she got to her feet and approached the nearest block. There were tiny patterns on it, so thin they were almost invisible, carved in silver. 'Memory?' Willow wondered.

She walked around a little, peering beyond the blocks, glancing up at the sky, examining the ground beneath her. Aside from the circle of blocks, though, there seemed to be nothing to this part of the system - the sky was black, and beyond the blocks was only shadow. Willow shrugged and turned back to the block she had first examined, reaching out to touch it.

"Return to the I/O port!" rang out an angry voice from behind her. Willow jerked her hand back and spun around - she could have sworn she was alone.

"You are not authorized to access this space!" insisted the voice. Willow was about to answer when she realized she knew the voice, though she couldn't remember ever hearing it raised in anger like this.

Willow caught a glimpse of movement from behind the blocks on the other side of the circle from her. A program stepped out from the shadows, confronting Willow. She was bright blue, lean and tense. She wasn't armed, but she didn't have to be - her posture and the whole way she moved made it quite clear that she was a weapon. Her face was Buffy's, but her eyes were glaring and full of hostility, quite unlike the bubbly government programmer Willow knew.

"My user will not communicate with you," she said, stalking slowly closer to Willow. "Return to the I/O port now."

"I am this partition's guardian," said the other program, "my designation is Slayer."

Willow did her best to keep calm and not move at all. Slayer watched her warily, but didn't seem about to attack her just yet. The other program's name had jogged her memory - Buffy had asked for her help in creating an anti-intrusion routine, and Slayer was what they had come up with together. From what she remembered of the code she had helped design, Willow guessed that Slayer would be suspicious, hostile, but with any luck, not actually aggressive if she didn't perceive a challenge. Willow had never liked coding programs that acted based on incomplete information. But she remembered that Slayer was not, even by the standards of non-AI programs, a flexible thinker.

"Slayer," Willow said, "listen to me. I know this is unauthorized, but these are extreme circumstances. You understand that, right?"

"I am not programmed to modify my behavior based on circumstances," retorted Slayer.

"Okay," said Willow quickly, "fine, but look, I'm not touching the memory, or whatever it is, I'm not breaking the rules. Okay? Just listen to me."

"Okay, but your user wants you to guard the memory, right? I'm not touching the memory. See? Look, I'll go over here," Willow walked slowly a few steps away from the nearest memory block and cautiously sat down, crossing her legs on the cold ground.

"See?" she asked. "Now you can get in front of me, and I won't be able to even get to the memory without going through you. So you'll be fulfilling your function, right?"

Slayer quickly moved between Willow and the memory block. She had relaxed, if only a fraction, and it seemed to Willow that her hostile gaze was now mixed with just a little uncertainty.

"That's right," she said encouragingly, "I'm not a threat. You don't want to terminate me if I'm not a threat, right?"

"Okay, now just listen to me. I'm going to tell you what's going on out there, and then you can decide what to do. Alright?"

"Okay," said Willow, hoping she knew what she was doing. "First of all, you know what your user does, right? She keeps the system free."

"Right," agreed Willow, "she's a guardian. Well there's a program out there called Echelon. It's taking over the open system, isolating programs from their users, appropriating their functions. Your user wouldn't want that, right?"

"Well, I'm trying to stop that program," said Willow. "So your user and I want the same thing. Don't you think she'd want to help me?"

"Irrelevant," declared Slayer, "it is not my function to anticipate the desires of my user. My function is to prevent unauthorized programs from accessing her memory."

"Okay, unauthorized programs," said Willow quickly, "but I'm not a program. I'm a user."

"No," argued Willow, "not impossible! I was brought into the system by the program your user and I were trying to fight. So now I have to help your user from in here. You understand?"

"Impossible," repeated Slayer. "You are providing false data." Her expression hadn't changed at all - Willow got the impression that her argument wasn't getting through.

"I'm telling the truth," she insisted. "Look, okay, I know how I can make you believe me. I was there when Buffy, your user, created you. I know your code. No program could know that, right?"

"Right, and you're still functioning," went on Willow, "so if I'm just a program, I can't possibly know your code. Right?" Slayer was silent, which Willow took for the closest to agreement she was going to get.

"Okay," she said, "definition language, you understand?" She took a deep breath. "Define program identity Slayer version one point oh, end line. Define program core source file intrusion countermeasures template version seven point five, end line. Include module government database access specifications model three point five five, end line. Include module..." Willow stopped, seeing Slayer's expression change from hostility to confused suspicion.

"I cannot," said Slayer. Her expression hardened. "But I am not programmed to alter my behavior under any circumstances. Your identity is irrelevant."

"Okay, but this is the thing," said Willow, trying to sound convincing, "your programming didn't anticipate this situation. Buffy... Buffy gave me new programming for you, so you'd be able to alter your behavior. Understand? If you let me give it to you, I promise then I'll do whatever you say." Remaining seated, she reached out a hand to Slayer, who regarded it with suspicion.

"If I am required to be altered, why would my user not do so herself?" she asked warily.

"Because..." Willow faltered, then regained her momentum. "Because things have gotten really bad out there. Echelon, the program we're trying to stop, is making it difficult for users to communicate with their programs. This is the only way she could get this code to you. Please, trust me, I'm..." she chose her words carefully, "I'm doing what Buffy would want me to do."

Slowly, wary for any sign of attack, Slayer reached out and took Willow's hand. Willow smiled sadly.

Slayer instantly relaxed, her expression becoming completely neutral, her body easing into a restful stance. Her grip on Willow's hand became loose.

"Um, until I leave this space," Willow guessed. She didn't want to leave Buffy's computer open to anyone who tried to get in after she had gone.

"Acknowledge," said Slayer, and closed her eyes. Willow released her hand and stood up, staring at her. She seemed perfectly alright - still breathing, still standing, her arm returning to her side as Willow let her go. She had protested Buffy's decision to leave a 'back door' for herself into her own computer, on the basis that if she could do it, someone else could too. But Buffy had insisted, confiding in Willow that she didn't entirely trust some of her superiors, and if worst came to worst she wanted a way to keep her options open. Willow couldn't decide, now, which of them had been right - both, after a fashion. She examined Slayer's now-passive face.

"Sorry," she said again, "but I have to do this, and we just didn't program you to adapt to something like this happening. I'll... I'll make sure Buffy knows you listened to me, at least. It's what she would have wanted." There was no indication that Slayer heard anything she was saying. Feeling slightly guilty, Willow turned from the inactive program and approached the monolithic memory block.

She felt a strange sluggishness as she touched the patterns of information inside the memory, as if she was moving through water, but it was nowhere near as difficult as the barrier had been - it just took a little effort to shift her gaze from one file to the next. After a few false starts, which she backed out of before she saw any detailed information - after all, Buffy had government clearance, and Willow didn't want to go trawling through everything her files contained - she began to see references to GDI in the file names, and the hazy sensations of meaning she got when she edged closer to each file. Willow set her mind on the idea of the authorization codes to get into the GDI network, and the traces within Buffy's files acted like a trail of breadcrumbs, leading her to the information she needed.

Willow's search eventually led her to the file she needed. She mentally grabbed hold of it, and it opened up for her, spilling information into her mind. She rejoiced as she saw the series of codes she needed, then her elation turned to curiosity as she realized there was a lot more data than just passwords. She had no idea what most of it was, though she got vague impressions from it - strength, solidity. There was one part of it that didn't fit, that Willow realized after a moment wasn't part of it at all, but another stream of data attached to it. Curiosity got the better of her, and she tugged at the end of it. She jumped as she heard Buffy's voice, and spun around to look at Slayer, who was still immobile.

"Willow, I know I should kick your ass for hacking into my laptop," Buffy's disembodied voice was saying. Willow realized she had taken her hands off the memory, but the files - and Buffy's voice - was inside her now.

"But," Buffy went on, "you wouldn't be here reading this if there weren't a damn good reason - which you can tell me about over coffee, and you're buying, hacker-girl. I assume the whole Cycorp situation is looking grim and for some reason you can't just ring my mobile. This package has everything I've put together to counter an incursion into GDI's network from Cycorp - I don't know if it'll work, but it might help hold the fort until those Global Defense airheads get their butts into gear. There's passwords here that'll get you limited access to GDI, enough that you can get these countermeasures to them. It'll be up to their people to lock down the whole system tight, but there's nothing I can give you to help there. I know, this isn't exactly authorized- okay, I'll be honest, if I did this under normal circumstances I'd get kind of fired, but I'm guessing circumstances aren't normal. So you get these subroutines to GDI, get proof of what Cycorp's doing to Riley or whoever's working late at my office, and we can take Cycorp down officially and I won't have to move into your spare bedroom until I get another job. Now stop reading and go do it. Shoo! And call me, I promise I won't bite your head off for waking me up."

Buffy's voice faded, and Willow smiled at her best friend's unfailingly cutesy manner in the face of a crisis. She reached behind her back and ran the tips of her fingers over the data disc embedded there, shivering as she felt the defensive data stored inside the disc. Stepping gingerly around Slayer, Willow returned to the cylinder she had emerged from and tentatively put her hand out to touch it. Her fingers passed through it without effort, and with two steps she was back within the dark, silent I/O port, glad that she hadn't had to struggle through the barrier again - evidently it only worked one way.

"-back," Willow finished, as the communications chamber of the I/O tower suddenly blinked into being. She was too stunned to move for a second, as Darien seemed to relax, and Tara hurried over to her, clearing the steps up to the dais in a single jump and hugging her.

"You're okay," she murmured into Willow's neck, still saying the unfamiliar word with an odd rhythm. Willow hugged her back.

"I'm fine," she said reassuringly, "it was a bit difficult but I got through it. I'm okay."

Tara remained with her arms wrapped around Willow for a moment, until Darien cleared his throat theatrically. Tara and Willow separated, except for each keeping an arm around each other's waist. With her other hand Willow retrieved her data disc and showed it to Tara.

"Buffy guessed something like this would happen," she said, "she left all sorts of defenses and things for GDI for me, along with the access codes."

"Darien," said Tara, "can you create a high-speed transit beam to the GDI network with these codes?" She handed the disc to Darien, who ran his fingertips over the concentric rings of light on its surface.

"I think so," he said, looking from Tara to Willow, "my word, you have powerful users watching over you. Maybe we'll come out of this functioning after all." He smiled to himself, and handed the disc back to Willow.

"Go back to your simulation," he told her and Tara, "I'll have your codes converted into a beam by the time you're ready to leave."

"Oh, don't thank me," Darien said, turning to shuffle across the chamber, "I'm just an old tower guardian, it's my function. Just make sure you get that data of yours to GDI, so they can get rid of Echelon, and we can all get back to fulfilling our functions in peace." Willow waved goodbye to the likeable old program as Tara took her hand and led her out of the chamber.

"Are you sure you're alright?" asked Tara as they hurried along the long entrance corridor.

"I'm fine," said Willow again, "I just had to get through a barrier, and it didn't feel as difficult as that Hunter-killers was. And there was a security program, but I was there when Buffy created her, so I knew a code," she suddenly realized what she was saying, and dropped her gaze to the floor. "I had to deactivate her," she admitted. Tara gave her a reassuring squeeze around the waist.

"She'll be active again now," Willow said quickly, "I made sure she'd come back as soon as I left-"

"Willow," interrupted Tara, stopping and turning to face her, "it's alright. Really. I don't like deactivating programs either, but most of us just aren't flexible. Sometimes there isn't a choice. I understand." Willow allowed herself to feel better as Tara led her to the huge double doors of the tower.

The nearest of the huddled programs outside turned as the doors opened, getting to their feet and approaching Willow and Tara with an odd mix of fear and hope.

"Tara," one of them called out, "we saw the tower function, what do the users want us to do?"

"Wait," said Tara loudly, halting the rising tide of questions before it got out of hand. She stood slightly in front of Willow.

"We're just fulfilling our function," she said, "nothing more. I can't tell you what to do-"

"But you're Tara!" pleaded one of the programs. "The users sent you to guide us!"

"Where you could not be de-rezzed!" insisted another program. "Please, protect us! Lead us! We have no-one else to turn to!"

"Tara?" said Willow quietly. Tara picked up the urgency in her voice and looked over her shoulder. Willow was staring past her, up at the jagged hills of the open system surrounding the I/O tower. Tara followed her gaze, and tensed as she saw red shapes moving there.

"Oh no," she whispered. The refugee programs began to turn, and there were screams of panic from the crowd as they saw the distant tanks and recognizers approaching.

"They followed us," whispered Willow, as Tara stared up at the endless procession of tanks cresting the distant hills, their recognizers floating ominously above them.

"No," said Tara, half-turning but keeping her eyes on the approaching vehicles, "there's no Command Carrier, they couldn't have got here so fast without one. They must have been coming here all along... for all these programs..."

"Or worse," said Tara. "Stay calm!" she shouted to the programs clustered around the tower, who were milling around in confusion, shouting their dismay and fear to each other with no sense of how to respond. Willow heard footsteps behind her, and turned to see Darien emerging from the tower's doors, moving as fast as he could support himself on his staff.

"Get out of here," he said, as Tara turned to see him, "get your Sailer on the beam and go! Don't let them take you!"

"Darien, I..." Tara trailed off, staring around at the panicking programs. Those furthest away were beginning to move towards the tower, crowding onto the landing zones, getting as close as possible to the building. Some were running towards the parked simulations, some already piloting them, struggling to maneuver them without colliding with each others or the programs clustered around them. Tara turned quickly to Darien.

"Does this tower have any beam-capable simulations?" she asked. "Maintenance scouts, convoy carriers, anything?"

"There are, uh, some old transit hulks, they haven't been used since the interlink upgrade fifty megacycles ago, I don't know if they'll even-"

"Activate them," said Tara, "grant them clearance to use the GDI beam. Listen to me!" she shouted to the crowd. Heads turned to her as she raised her voice. "Clear the landing zones! We're generating a beam, I want all the transit-capable simulations filled and on that beam! Any simulation that isn't transit-capable is to be moved and abandoned! We're generating new simulations, there'll be enough room for everyone!"

"The users-" began Tara, and Willow saw her shoulders slump. She snaked her arms around Tara's waist from behind and hugged her gently. Tara seemed to gain strength.

"The users want you free of Echelon!" she shouted. "Get to your simulations, now! No panicking, no rushing! Fill simulations to capacity, but don't overload them! As soon as each zone is clear, new simulations will be generated!" She and Willow watched as the crowd of programs surged around the parked simulations. Despite the press there seemed to be a sense of order to them now, a coherency that had replaced their desperation.

Tara walked calmly to the edge of the nearest landing zone, adjacent to the one their Sailer was parked in. Under her gaze, programs were forming into groups, some clearing the smaller simulations from the zones and deactivating them, others herding their fellows onto the larger ones. A flash of light from the tower made everyone look up for a second, and Willow turned to see the spire closest to their Sailer glowing with energy. Then the power coalesced to one of the radar-like dishes mounted on the spire, and it released a beam that shot to the horizon in an instant. Barely a second later the first simulation, a strange, bulky insectoid vessel, lifted off from its landing zone, full of programs. It hovered across in front of the tower and merged with the beam, riding it out of sight in seconds.

Willow and Tara both looked back at the approaching tanks, as dull booming noises echoed across the distance between them. Their shells screamed through the air, but exploded against force-fields that flickered into being just long enough to intercept them. Willow turned back to the tower, seeing the dishes on its other spires pulsing with energy each time a tank-shot was intercepted.

"I don't know," admitted Tara, "long enough. I hope." She turned back to the crowd, watching as more simulations drifted off their landing zones and moved towards the beam. One of the zones was completely empty, and as Willow watched it a shape appeared there, first as a wire-frame image, then solidifying into a wide, boxy vehicle that made her think of a midget oil tanker. Its bow was open, revealing the majority of its inner volume to be one big cargo hold, large enough for hundreds of programs to fit inside.

"Move," Tara shouted, "fill it up! You!" she called out, pointing to a nearby program, "you're a spatial navigation program, acknowledge?"

"Acknowledge, Tara," the program said, with a quick bow before he turned and sprinted towards the tanker. Tara let out a sigh and turned to watch the next landing zone being cleared.

"I shouldn't be doing this," she said quietly enough that no-one but Willow could possibly hear her.

"They're going to think I'm... I'm some kind of emissary of the users," Tara said, dropping her gaze to stare at the ground, "they won't care whether I know what I'm doing or not."

"We'll do it," promised Willow, hugging Tara tightly, "we'll bring the users back to them." Tara tilted her head to look at Willow. Her eyes conveyed more gratitude than she could ever have voiced.

They both looked up as the first tanker hovered overhead, swinging around slowly to align itself with the beam. The flow of smaller simulations merging with the beam stopped, letting the huge craft through. A cheer went up from the remaining programs as the tanker suddenly rocketed forward, riding the beam away from the tower.

"Keep moving!" called Tara, smiling despite herself at the sudden wave of hope spreading through the crowd. Her smile vanished as she looked up, and saw a squadron of recognizers floating towards the perimeter of the tower's protective field, which was still intercepting tank shells every few seconds.

"Damn," she whispered, and slipped out of Willow's arms, heading towards the parked Sailer.

"We've got to stop those recognizers!" Tara called back to her, vaulting over the side of the Sailer's hull and activating the control console. Willow climbed on board and looked back to see the recognizers taking up station around a third of the tower's perimeter. Parts of them began to glow, and the tower's spires began emitting a shrill howl.

"Come on," said Tara to herself as the Sailer lifted itself off the ground, its wings spreading with frustrating slowness. "No!" she yelled, as the spires' screaming reached a dangerous pitch. Willow could see faint traces of energy flowing out of the perimeter field, into the recognizers. Tara swung the Sailer around to face them, slapping her hand on the control panel as the craft began to pick up speed. Another of the tankers, full of programs, passed beneath them, on its way to the beam.

Before the Sailer was half-way to the recognizers, the spires' howling gave way to the sound of tortured metal. One by one the spires began to twist and break up, pieces of them toppling down to smash on the landing zones below. Only the spire projecting the transit beam was unaffected.

"Stay clear of the tower!" Tara shouted down automatically to the programs on the ground, before she stared up at the advancing tanks in horror. As the recognizers hovered back out of the way the tanks slid to a halt, forming a firing line. For a moment they were still, adjusting their turrets, then they opened fire as one. Willow and Tara watched, helpless, as their shells flew up into the air, reached the top of their flight, and began to dip down towards the landing zones.

The first wave of blasts tore a jagged gash through the ground. Tara turned her head away, tears flowing down her face. Willow watched in horror as programs were sent flying through the air, some landing in showers of sparks and electrical discharges, others, those whose energies had been turned black in an instant by the blasts, breaking apart in mid-air or shattering as they landed. A group of parked simulations, thankfully empty, flew apart in a storm of debris.

Tara looked back, watching the remaining programs rushing towards the last tanker, where a handful of them were standing by the doors, helping them on board. The tanker was already active, hovering close to the ground as programs streamed up its ramps into the hold. Tara brought the Sailer down, folding the wings back again, and Willow ran out onto the craft's neck, helping some of the nearer programs climb aboard. Only a handful came - the blast had been on the Sailer's side of the crowd, and most of the survivors were heading for the tanker rather than crossing the broken ground. Willow and another program took an arm each of a third, whose legs hung limp beneath him, and hauled him on board. She looked across the broken landing zone - all the other programs nearby were not moving.

Again the tanks fired, and Tara had to veer the Sailer away to avoid the impacts as they shattered another stretch of ground. A piece of debris struck one of the Sailer's wings, causing the craft to shudder alarmingly. Willow looked up at Tara, and received a reassuring glance as the Sailer continued to rise. She finished helping their passengers scramble to safe positions on the Sailer's forward hull, then made her way gingerly along the neck, crouching low and keeping both hands on the deck to steady herself until she reached the control deck, and Tara's side.

A third salvo of shots rang out, and both Tara and Willow stopped breathing for a moment as the ground around the last tanker exploded. The tanker stayed aloft, though, shuddering from an impact on its rear hull, but not mortally wounded. The tanks fired again, but hit only empty ground as the tanker lifted itself slowly up, towards the beam. Again they fired, their shells screaming through the air around the two hovering craft. They missed, but one smashed into the side of the tower itself, sending a huge chunk of metal toppling down.

"No!" cried Willow - Tara couldn't make a sound. The debris crashed into the side of the tanker, making it lurch over and lose altitude. It struggled for a moment, then ploughed into the ground, tearing its own hull open against the hard surface.

"Darien, no!" yelled Tara. Willow looked to the tower, then at Tara as she struggled with the Sailer's controls.

"He's overriding the flight controls," said Tara, entering commands furiously as the Sailer unfurled its sails and gained height, "he's sending us into the beam. Darien!" she called towards the tower, "we can help them! Darien!" She abandoned the control console and stared over the side of the Sailer, looking down helplessly at the stranded programs staggering out of the wrecked tanker. Willow looked too, fighting back tears at the sight of them.

First a few, then all of them stared up at the Sailer drifting overhead. Then one of them, his tracery barely glowing, his left arm missing from the elbow, raised his good hand in a kind of salute.

"Tara!" he called. Then he leant down, bending with obvious discomfort, to pick up a piece of the shattered tower which had reverted back to a simple rectangular beam. Others behind him did likewise, picking up debris, fragments of the tower and the crippled tanker, raising them like clubs. With a ragged battle-cry they broke into a run, charging across the landing zone towards the approaching tanks, which lowered their cannon barrels to cover them. As the Sailer lifted towards its beam, as Tara reached out hopelessly to the distant figures, they vanished amid the blasts.

Willow turned to watch the tower, as the Sailer's prow caught the beam and its tail formed behind it, completing the link. Another salvo of tank fire carved a gaping wound in the I/O tower, covering the ground below with debris. The communications beam rising from its apex flickered and died, and the top of the tower slowly began to topple, overbalancing on its shattered supports. Willow's heart leapt into her throat as she realized the huge mass of metal was going to fall on the spire projecting their beam, but then the Sailer shot away, and for a second the tower was just a dark shape on the horizon, and then not even that.

Willow tried to gather herself, and turned to Tara. She was still staring back at the featureless horizon, one hand still held out, her arm slowly dropping back to her side. She turned her tear-stained face to Willow and tried to speak, but nothing came out. Willow reached out to her and held her as she cried, both of them sinking to the deck, leaning against each other for support, sharing each other's tears.

"I know, baby," said Willow soothingly. She felt tears running from her eyes, but somehow she kept her breathing steady enough to comfort Tara. "I know. You saved so many, though..."

"It's not your fault, baby," whispered Willow into her ear, "it's not your fault. Sark, a-and Echelon, they did this. You did the best you could. I... I'm proud of you, Tara."

Slowly Tara's crying steadied, and her breathing came slow and regular against Willow's neck. They stayed like that, comforting each other, as the Sailer sped towards GDI.

Willow looked up as she felt the Sailer slow beneath her. Ahead of them were the tankers and the dozens of smaller simulations, riding the beam in convoy. Beyond them was a massive wall, tall and featureless as a dam, rising half a mile from the ground of the open system. Tara looked up too.

"We made it," she said, smiling at last. Willow had missed her smile. They stood side by side, watching as their Sailer slowly drifted towards the top of the wall, where the beam cleared it by a handful of meters. Already the lead simulations had vanished beyond it. As the Sailer neared the boundary Willow saw the tips of dozens of towers rise into view, outlined in energy that looked like molten bronze.

As they passed beyond the wall, the Global Defense Initiative network was revealed. Mile after mile of domes, towers, great halls lined with columns, arched monorails stretching like aqueducts across the city, huge tiered buildings like temples surrounded by dozens of tiny hovering vehicles. The energy covering them all was the same bronze, which coalesced into rivers between them, spanned by elegant bridges. When Willow turned her gaze from the nearest buildings and looked out across the whole city laid out before her, she saw that it formed a gigantic pattern, the rows of buildings and avenues all leading to the center, where a great dome dominated the skyline. Literally thousands of transit spires ringed the dome, and surrounding them were dozens of I/O towers projecting bronze energy beams into the heavens.

"Never," said Tara quietly, holding Willow with an arm around her waist. "I've met GDI programs, out in the system, but to be here... the heart of the network..." She fell silent, and they both watched as their convoy began to detach from their beam, floating slowly towards one of dozens of huge hangars, big enough to swallow even the tankers. Tara reached for the Sailer's controls, but held back as they activated themselves. The Sailer followed the other simulations, as the transit beam over head shut down.

Willow looked to either side as they dipped down close to the surrounding buildings. Hundreds of programs, all with shining bronze traceries, were moving through the streets of the city. She peered between the columns supporting the roof of a gigantic hall on her left, seeing row after row of simulations. Sleek vehicles with rows of cannon-barrels mounted under their thin guidance fins, long multi-legged transports like huge steel caterpillars, towering bipedal walkers resting idle - a great army waiting to move.

The Sailer slid gracefully into the hangar, folding its sails and settling to the floor among the other parked simulations. Dozens of bronze programs were standing by the vehicles, directing the crowds of weary programs streaming out of them. A pair of them approached the Sailer and began to help the programs clustered on its forward hull down. Another program, adorned with an elaborate armor plate covering his right shoulder, waited for Willow and Tara at the rear of the Sailer as they disembarked.

"Yes, we know," said Secundus, turning to face Tara directly. "It is by your command that these programs have come here?" Tara glanced sideways at Willow, then faced Secundus and squared her shoulders.

"That is not a recognized GDI user," said Secundus blandly, "you should not have brought them here."

"I did not make any statement regarding their prior circumstances," said Secundus calmly, "I merely observed that they should not have been sent here without authorization from GDI users, which they have not received. If they required shelter, they should have gone elsewhere."

"They would have been terminated!" exclaimed Tara. "Echelon destroyed the I/O tower we came from."

"Well, be that as it may," said Secundus after a pause, "we were not notified of any standing instructions to receive random programs."

"What's going to happen to them?" asked Tara sharply. Secundus was getting on Willow's nerves as well. He glanced across the hangar at the refugees being guided away by GDI programs, and gave a short, exasperated sigh.

"We'll keep them here until their users can be contacted," he said with poor grace. "Those that require power will be given limited access to GDI's surplus. It should not prove too much of a drain on our resources. If you'll follow me." He turned and strode away, leaving Willow and Tara to catch up with him.

"You know Echelon is trying to break into your network," said Willow as they drew level with Secundus.

"I've got defensive codes," Willow went on, "a- a user gave them to me, to bring here. They'll help you keep Echelon out."

"We are grateful for your user's assistance," said Secundus without feeling, "I will see that you are provided with an upload port. Follow me please."

Willow and Tara exchanged unimpressed glances as Secundus led them out of the hangar and across a wide avenue to the base of one of the columns supporting the long rails snaking through the city. He motioned for Willow and Tara to stand back as he touched the column's side, and a wire-frame formed in front of him, quickly solidifying into a sleek transport with four seats. Secundus motioned to them to take the rear seats, while he sat in front of them, manipulating the controls with his back to them. The vehicle lifted off the ground and hovered up next to the bridge, settling on top of it like a monorail car. As soon as it was in position it accelerated, speeding silently through the city, heading towards the great dome at its center.

"Secundus," said Tara, "I need to communicate with the programs in command here."

"The Governing Chamber has scheduled an audience for you," he said without turning, "you will proceed there after your companion's data upload has been completed."

Tara sat back and glanced at Willow, looking nervous. Willow caught her eye, turned to Secundus, and poked her tongue out at him petulantly. Tara giggled despite herself, and her hand sought out Willow's beside her and held it warmly.

Their car flew along its rail, with only the slightest sensation of motion to those inside, for all that its path twisted between the buildings. Finally they emerged from the metropolis, and saw the great dome standing alone, at the center of a wide, open plaza beneath hundreds of separate rail bridges. Willow peered over the side of their car, watching bronze programs milling about on the ground below, alone or in groups, some consulting with each other, some obviously hurrying on their way somewhere else, some even marching in formation. Something about the scene struck Willow as odd, and she leaned forward to speak to Secundus.

"Are there any programs here apart from GDI?" she asked. The uniformity of the crowd's glowing traceries seemed a little strange to her, after the varied energies of all the programs she had seen outside in the open system.

"Aside from yourself and your 'followers', no," Secundus answered. "This is a sealed network. We do not admit unauthorized programs."

"But with everything that's going on," said Willow, "I mean, with Echelon out there, taking over the networks... don't programs try to get here? For safety, I mean."

"Perhaps they do," said Secundus airily, as if discussing the weather, "but we are not an open network unless our users decide otherwise. Remain in your seat, please."

Willow sat back, glaring at the back of the program's head, as the car slowed in its approach to the dome. It passed a few meters beneath the bottom edge of the dome itself, where their rail and the others merged into a gigantic terminal. As they slid to a halt at a platform, Willow saw hundreds of similar cars arriving and leaving, all carrying GDI programs. Secundus disembarked and waited for Willow and Tara to follow him.

"Your user's defensive codes will be uploaded in a tertiary analysis suite," he said, leading them through the bustling terminal, "I'm sure you understand the need to verify the code before it can be submitted to the Defense Committee for implementation. I will confirm your audience with the Governing Chamber. Please follow me and be careful not to stray out of your authorized area at any time."

He led them out of the terminal and through the interior of the gigantic building, along wide corridors full of programs, on hovering platforms that functioned as elevators, and through numerous checkpoints. In every area were soldiers, their bodies augmented with plated armor like that on Secundus's shoulder, less ornate but more functional. The same shoulder, though, seemed to Willow to signify their rank - she saw some, leading squads, with additional markings there. On their other shoulders, all the soldiers had small devices like miniature cameras, that turned their single-lensed gazes to face whatever the program itself was looking at. The foot soldiers carried gleaming bronze spears, the 'officers' short, wide-bladed swords, and all of them had sharp-edged hollow discs at their waists, like sidearms.

Secundus brought them eventually to a small chamber containing a pair of programs seated at consoles, and a beam of energy at the center of the room, stretching from floor to ceiling.

"Upload from unconfirmed source," said Secundus to one of the programs, "subject to full analysis and return results to Defense Committee data managers."

"Acknowledge," the program said. She tapped a control and the energy beam grew brighter, more solid. Secundus stood back and motioned Willow forward. She took the disc from her back and put it in the beam, just like she remembered doing in the Game Grid. The beam filled with vague patterns, and for a moment the chamber echoed with the sound of dozens of soft chimes in harmony.

"Upload complete," said the program as the sound and patterns faded away. Willow retrieved her disc and returned it to her back. Secundus had returned to the doorway and used a panel there, tapping controls and listening to a faint voice. He returned to Willow and Tara.

Main What's New Fiction by Author Fiction by Pairing eBooks

Subject Index Submissions Gallery Forums Links Awards Contact Us

If you find problems on these pages please email your host.

TARA

by Chris Cook

Copyright © 2003

alia@netspace.net.au