As an element, argon is far from a reactive substance. It is a noble gas, and it is content to maintain its count of electrons. This means that it forms very few compounds, and it is stable on its own.
Perhaps Kevin Flynn did not know this when naming the cities of his Grid, or he never considered it to be an important factor, but in its gaseous state, argon does not burn.
This is an auspicious microcycle, then, because now, because here, Argon is burning.
Or, rather, it burned.
There is little left of the city, aside from smoking ruins and piles of rubble. A few stray Recognizers loom just above the site, while others have landed, bellies open, to send patrols of sentries out as damage assessment. Having apparently run out of combustible material, the fire that had ravaged the place but a scant millicycle prior has been reduced to a dull heat under the wreckage, a few tongues of blue-green flame still wicking persistently up into the air before they die out completely. The refuse, with its smoldering embers and molten underside, casts an ethereal light on the Outlands almost the same color as the circuits of the User-believers.
If you were to apply a charge to argon, excite its electrons, then under the right conditions, it would glow blue.
But the science doesn't matter. The fact remains that Argon, the city named for the element, is burning. Has already burned. And to the pair of figures standing and watching like the low-hanging Recognizers, that is precisely what matters.
[Are you picking up anything?]
[Nothing.] It is a statement comprised mostly of honesty. He doesn't have to see what's happening in the once-city below to know. If there is life down there, the sentries are working quickly to snuff it out like the flames. Bystanders, innocents, programs who were never involved in the fight are being carted off in the Recognizers to face either the Games or Rectification. It's familiar in a way that makes his code ache, and he knows, he remembers what it's like to have everything torn from you by warriors in red. [A lot of nothing.]
There is a beat, a pulse, a moment where she asks for no further clarification and he provides none. But he knows that she is waiting for it all the same.
[I'm going down] he pings. It's a statement that doesn't request for permission. [I'll let you know if I find anything.]
The addition, the "if I can find anyone" sits unspoken between them. He knows why they're here to scour the waste. The sentries have likely been tasked with the same purpose, and it's a race to determine who will fulfill it first.
It's a race to find the Renegade.
[I'm coming with you.] And he knew she would insist, because this is her fight, her fledgling revolution at stake here, not his. He is a part of it, yes, but she stands as the focal point of their joint cause. [The Light Runners are well hidden, and it'll be easier for two of us to search.]
She is right. She is always right, and he can't deny it, now or ever. But he can try to tell her no, because she is the focal point of their joint cause, and what is a rebellion without its leader? She has proven herself strong and unbreakable time and time again, but if Argon is dying, if Argon is burning, there is no reason to believe that past results mean anything anymore.
[Yori, I don't think-]
[I'm going.]
She's walking already, picking her way down the chipped obsidian cliff to approach the outskirts of the destruction. His only choice is to follow.
They move in silence, fearing discovery and having nothing pertinent to say or ping, regardless. When the ground turns ashen under their feet, he feels their subvocal communication link thrum into activity again.
[We'll split up. Ping me if it's an emergency.]
[Be careful.]
[You too, Ram.]
And she disappears behind a broken bit of building.
Left on his own, he considers his options before deciding on a course that will allow him to skirt the main areas of the metropolis (hopefully) without being seen. It's a largely uneventful undertaking, punctuated only by distant screams and the resounding din of a city on fire. There are a few moments when he has to duck into a recess to avoid notice, but otherwise, he proceeds unhindered.
His progress is halted by a shock of white in the otherwise dark, dismal landscape. There's a program, lying prone on the ground, a disc-cut wound running along his abdomen that Ram can spot even from a distance. Still, the program's identity is immediately clear to him, but he hesitates before continuing forward.
Another program kneels above him, dark suit highlighted with streaks of orange-red.
He draws his disc. Once, he had felt guilty to hold it, to brandish it as a weapon. It reminded him of what he'd been forced to do, of the time he'd spent fighting for his life on the Game Grid.
But Argon is burning, now, and that gnawing guilt has all but evaporated with the smoke.
"Let him go."
The Occupation program pauses, her hands hovering above the Renegade's ruined chest just as the Recognizers hover over the ruined city. She cants her head enough to look at him, and he imagines a sharp glare behind her concealing helmet.
"I'm a medic," she states, and her voice hitches in a way that can't be blamed on the helmet's vocalizer alone. "I have to help him."
"You're with the Occupation," Ram says, grip tightening on his disc as he takes a step forward. The cutting edge hasn't been activated, not yet, but a twitch of his wrist is all it would take. Argon is burning and he has killed programs before and he could do it again, if it would stop her from harming him. "I don't think he needs your kind of help."
Suddenly, her helmet recedes from her face and folds back into her armor. What he is met with is not a harsh look of reproach, but a desperate pleading that makes it feel as though as though a pit has been opened beneath his feet.
"I'm a medic," she repeats firmly, despite the emotions her expression betrays.
His disc feels heavy in his hand.
He returns it to its dock between his shoulder blades.
"Alright." Yori might kill him for this, if they all make it out of here in one piece. This is a tremendous risk, trusting one of them. She could be lying, using this as an opportunity to finish off as much of the opposition as she can. And all Ram can say in his defense is that he saw her eyes and had to believe her.
If he doesn't make it out of this in one piece, Yori might put him back together and then kill him.
"Alright," again, because he's trying to work this through in his processors. "Alright, we can… I can help you get him out of here. There are two Light Runners, parked right over – see that rise? Right there. I can help carry him."
She doesn't question why there might be two vehicles, something that he's grateful for. She also doesn't question why he's here or why he's interested in getting public enemy number one out of the city, but he figures she doesn't care so long as it keeps her and the wounded program alive for a while longer. Ram circles around the Renegade and slips his arms under his shoulders, pulling him off the ground as gingerly as he can. The medic puts her helmet back in place, stands, and takes her patient by the feet.
[I've got him.]
The connection is laced with static, hindered by the distance, but the message gets through.
[Take him to the Light Runners. I've found a few others. Anyone else?]
"Was there anyone else?" he asks the medic as they start maneuvering down what might've once been a street.
"He was headed for the garage," she replies, a measure of composure having returned to her voice. "His friends… they might have been in there."
[Check the garage, might be a few survivors.]
[Understood.]
By the time they reach the Runners, it feels as if the unconscious program's weight has doubled. There are a few others milling around the area, now, and Ram worries that there isn't enough transport until he spies batons clipped to their legs. Everyone looks up at their approach, the atmosphere holding them in a state of constant tension. Two programs in particular look alarmed, a girl with short aqua hair and the guy that had been leaning on her for support, and they rush forward the moment the Renegade is set on the ground.
"Beck, oh, Beck," the girl laments as her friend's grip tightens on her arm.
"What happened to him?" her companion asks.
Ram allows his helmet to collapse away, the threat of the smoke melting his processors having passed. He shakes his head. But the Occupation medic, still behind her own shell of tinted material, speaks.
"Rinzler. They fought, and he…"
"Wait - Commander Paige?"
"Finally switched to the good side, huh?"
Ram stops listening. Everything had come to a crashing halt when the medic had spoken that designation. That name. Intel had filtered in almost a full cycle ago. CLU had a new pet, a prized Enforcer to patrol the Grid in the name of the Luminary. Deadly and cunning, a lethal force with unstoppable twin discs. To anyone else, he was a product of a Rectification gone horribly right. But to Ram and to Yori, who knew that CLU had been in Argon shortly before the deadly program made his debut, who knew that Rinzler appeared at the same time the Renegade started working alone, he was something else entirely.
His circuits run cold.
Yori returns shortly thereafter, a few additional survivors in tow. Fortunately, the Renegade – Beck, appears to be the one who's most hurt. Unfortunately, his injuries are extensive. Paige continues quietly looking him over, patching what she can on his disc while Yori organizes everyone. She's good at that, at getting people together and making plans. Ram hangs back, helping to keep Beck's torso elevated off the ground while Yori passes around the coordinates to their base. The straggling survivors of Argon take to the Outlands in twos and threes at a time, until only a handful of them are left.
"Mara, you and Zed should get going," Yori says to the duo, who have been raptly watching Paige work. "We can take him in one of the Runners."
"C'mon, you heard her," Zed says as he gently tugs on his friend's hand. "We'll see him when we're all at the base."
Mara nods, looking blank, and then there are four. Yori is the first to speak.
"Ram or I can take him, and you-"
"I'll take him," Paige asserts, and Ram only now realizes that her helmet is gone. "I know what to watch for, if there's an emergency. I just need directions."
He defers to Yori's judgment. At first, he thinks she might reject the proposal, but then she nods. He can't find it in himself to be surprised. Argon is burning, and he thinks nothing will be surprising again. After they help settle Beck in the passenger's seat, the pair of ENCOM programs watch the Runner head into the darkness.
"Think we can trust her?" Ram asks as they head to their own vehicle.
"You clearly do," Yori counters, a small smile brightening her weary eyes. Ram ducks his head. "If she was willing to go with you, then I think she'll be alright."
Just as he's about to climb into the Light Runner, he notices that Yori is poised at the edge of the cliff, watching the last remnants of the city go to pieces.
"Do we know how he was hurt?"
Ram has never been a particularly good liar. It's a product of who he is, of what he used to be. You can't lie about facts and figures; they simply are what they are. It might be unfair, it might be cruel, but people deserve to know their chances. That base philosophy is what he's made of. He's been compelled to alter the truth before, but never so much as he has in this exact moment.
But people deserve to know their chances, and Yori deserves, more than anyone, to know the truth.
"Paige, she said that Rinzler was sent to…Yori, I'm… I'm so sorry."
She is a statue facing the ruins, unmoving even as he comes to stand beside her and place a hand on the curve of her disc. It is at his touch that she breaks, her shoulders crumbling like Argon's proudest structures as she turns to collapse into Ram's arms.
"He's gone," she whispers against him, breath coming in quick gasps as she fights back her own sobs. "He's gone, Tron is gone…"
"Not yet," Ram murmurs as he smooths a hand over her hair. "He let him live, Yori, he… He's still in there."
"What are the chances?" she asks, turning her face up to meet his gaze. "You know… you know better than anyone. What are his chances?"
It's an inaccurate calculation to make. There's no precedence for this, no constant to compare it to. He doesn't know what variables to account for, but even his best guesses are giving him abysmal numbers in return.
His silence is her answer.
He feels her shiver in his arms and wishes he were a better liar.
"I'm so sorry."
"You don't… don't have to... You can hurt. I'm sorry for you, too. For all of us."
His only reply is a tightening of his embrace around her.
They stand like that for a long while, until Yori pulls away with a resolute nod. Argon can burn all it cares to; there are some things in this world that will never fall apart. There are elements that can survive on their own. When they're once again in motion, speeding towards their hideout, one of Yori's hands slips from the controls to find and link with one of Ram's.
There are elements that are stronger when they are together.
Argon is burning.
The uprising goes on.