A/N: Welcome, welcome to The Gemini Effect! This is probably my first serious fic, meaning that it's not a one-shot, I have most of it all planned out already, and it's gonna be EPIC.
I'm tackling all the holes I saw in Legacy (where the ISOs came from, what happens to Tron, etc.) while adding in some much-needed slash. It'll be Sam/Ed, Jr. I know what you're thinking: "hey, waitasec, did you just pick out the first two cute guys you saw in Legacy and pair 'em up, even though their characters never actually interacted?" Well, YES, that's it exactly! But it's also because Ed, Jr.'s reaction to Sam's prank was extremely interesting. He didn't freak out like the chairman; he acted almost as calmly as Alan had, which sort of suggested to me that he knew it was Sam's work as well. I was sure he'd be a bigger part in the movie after that scene, but he wasn't. However, his absence leaves plenty of room for my own interpretations of him. There's also a disturbing lack of this pairing on this site, and I plan to correct that.
But just because this'll have slash involving Sam does NOT mean there will be Quorra-bashing. She is a big, positive force in this story, and Olivia Wilde is fantastic. I haven't seen any hate towards Quorra as of yet, but this is just to clear up any assumptions about this story that may already have been made. It's happened in many a fandom, but I won't condone it.
It's also going to be EPIC, meaning slow-building relationships, not insta-lust. So you gotta have patience, please! Also, everyone must know that I HAVE ONLY SEEN THE FIRST TWO MOVIES. I haven't played the 2.0 game with Alan's son or read the comics, so I probably won't include anything from those sources. A lot of my descriptions consist of stuff I made up and hastily-skimmed-over Wiki articles, so sorry to all the super-hardcore fans out there!
Lastly, OCs. These little guys can come in handy. For example, Angel Baby1's gorgeous Star Trek masterpiece that is Atlas has several, and they were all brilliant additions; Faery Goddyss's South Park fic The Reformation of Kyle Broflovski is also a great example of lovely OCs. There will be some OCs here, too, but they will be programs, as I'm trying to construct the city and atmosphere of the Grid, and I need more characters to do that. Most of the OCs will be male, if that makes anyone feel any better about the probability of a Mary-Sue/self-insert.
Aaaaand I'm pretty sure that's gonna be the longest A/N you read until the end of the story. Sorry, just had to get all that junk out of the way before beginning. SO NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! :D Enjoy!
Prologue: Transcendental Momentum
Samuel Flynn is not God.
On his and Quorra's fourth trip back to the Grid, they were still at a loss. Part of the Grid's main city, along with the many programs who resided within, perished with Clu's last breath. Three out of eight of the city's tallest tower blocks were still standing, 68% of the programs were still functioning, and the lack of carnage was actually stunning (so much so that Sam still felt a blind hope during these visits, a feeling usually reserved for preteen Sam, regarding his father). The glossy black highways were chipped and crumbling; the game arena resembled the deserted Roman Colosseum of Earth; only the purest power source, a faux ocean, remained an untouched sanctuary to drained and damaged programs throughout the Grid, which was now a long-lost land populated by long-lost spirits. Sam almost wished there was carnage, if only to count and honor the bodies of a species so human.
The thing that made deresolution so very different from destruction was the feeling that significant portions of the world were being deleted rather than wrecked. The only way to tell there had previously been eight tower blocks in the city was to ask around and request programs to relive a time they would rather have erased from their memory banks. The main challenge for the only User and the last ISO of the Grid remained: where to rebuild from here?
Couple that with having to take back a company in the real world. Sam tried to calmly explain to a seething chairman and a gaping CFO (along with many workers) that he was back, and that yes, he may have sort of possibly been the one who stole ENCOM OS 12 and released it like a bird to the grabby hands of everyone on the internet. It didn't go as well as he'd hoped, but with Alan at his side, interrupting ever so often with nicer, more technical translations of Sam's speech, he stood firm. His desk on the second-highest floor of ENCOM (just below the newest floor, which was still in the works) was heavy with forms to sign and schedules to check off, and oddly enough, it felt a bit good. Most of his time in the company, however, was not spent at his desk; it was spent trying to convince a lot of old businessmen and women that a significant portion of the salaries they believed they all earned was going towards a new movement Sam called "Technological Freedom, by ENCOM." That didn't go so well, either.
So some days, Sam went into the Grid just because. And most of the time, there would be a program called Maddox there, waiting for another race.
Thirteen days after Clu's reintegration and ten days into this strange relationship where both parties let their light cycles do the talking instead of their actual mouths, Maddox was waiting in the center of the arena, silently typing something into his cycle's system gauge, one leg keeping up himself and the massive machine as he worked. He looked up for only an instant as Sam approached. The User could see the code being typed reflecting off of Maddox's sleek helmet.
Sam opened his mouth to greet him, but Maddox immediately interrupted with a digitized "Get your cycle started," not doing anything else to appear as if he'd registered Sam's existence.
The User's mouth twitched into an agitated expression. "I don't get a 'hello'?"
Maddox still didn't look up, but Sam could imagine a small smirk behind the obscuring helmet. "Hello. Now get your cycle started. I have some code I want to show you." He finished his typing and the cycle blipped in response, covering up the system gauge with another layer of black gloss.
Sam squinted and frowned at that. "I'm not as good at writing code as I am-"
"-hacking it?"
"...in so many words, yeah." The program stood and walked his cycle towards Sam; his head tipped to the side and he leaned forward.
"Do you require assistance in starting your cycle?" he asked calmly.
"I'll get right on it. Geez."
He leaned back. "Good. Once it's started, drive back over here and let me input the code." His hand raised, palm up, and what looked like a hundred lines of code appeared and hovered above his fingers, glowing. Each line seemed to float independently, slowly and softly bumping into the lines above and below it.
Sam blinked, grip on his cycle baton tightening. The User still wasn't used to things as insubstantial as DNA being treated like they were made of actual matter. He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, Maddox was aligning the sides of the code with his other hand, as if they were sheets of paper and he was tapping them on a desk to make them look neater. He mumbled something like, "Sorry, I just wrote it, so everything's still a bit uneven."
"What's that gonna do?"
"That's precisely what I want to show you."
Sam peered at the code, not finding anything having to do with erasing parts of the light cycle (he still didn't know if he fully trusted Maddox; it was their eighth time meeting and the guy still hadn't taken off his helmet), but instead spotting words like 'redirect' and 'reform.' The glowing words were a bit hard to decipher, but from what he could tell, this was either an upgrade or a new design. A grin stretched his cheeks. "Well, all right then." He then stepped back, began running in the direction from whence he came, and leapt forward; the cycle baton in his hands spewed lines of light, which eventually came together to form the shiny black finish of his light cycle. He landed effortlessly, then steered the cycle left, and it smoothly turned back towards the other rider.
Maddox approached him briskly when he stopped, placing his free hand onto the surface of Sam's cycle. Thin lines zigzagged in right angles over the shell, and it opened like a paper crane, revealing its rider. He leaned over and let his fingers unconsciously dance over the system gauge's protective casing, unlocking a device Sam hadn't even known existed until just a minute ago. Sam leaned back, hands twining behind his head, and observed as Maddox ran two fingers over the side of the gauge's screen. The code held in his other hand disappeared letter-by-letter, appearing in tiny white letters on the screen and scrolling downward at the same pace as the program's fingers. After the code ran its course, Maddox went over to his own cycle and signaled to Sam towards the starting point.
It had been decided earlier that Sam's color would remain blue, as he was a User, and Maddox would set his glow to the opposing color yellow. But since they were racing alone as opposed to generating walls for the other cyclist's team to smash into, their helmets' sound systems were hooked up and they could talk, although they usually only said things like "You should turn, you're approaching a wall," and "Meet you for drinks at the finish line" (the finish line being the center of the top floor, the starting point being the edge of the bottom floor).
"So what exactly is this code set up to do?" Sam asked, adjusting his helmet so that he wouldn't miss any of Maddox's instructions. He knew that outside the Grid, he was in control, but when he was amongst the programs, he was a pupil. He learned from game bots how to fight with disks, and he had to learn from light cyclists in order to take advantage of everything these bikes had to offer.
Beeps with distinct tones, like those that sounded according to different buttons on a phone, could be heard on the other end. "Do you see the lights to the left, representing the forms of the light cycle? One is a short line, the other is a bicycle. There should be a third now."
Sam looked left, then forward, then did a double-take. "Is that a horse?" A small, moving light glimmered back at him in the shape of a horse galloping sideways.
"Yes. I was talking with an encyclopedia program the other day, and we got to the subject of human transportation. The main living transportation of Users is the horse, is it not?"
"Well, yeah, but that doesn't make it common practice."
"You don't know how to ride a horse?"
"No duh."
A small laugh. "Good, neither do I. We shall learn today, then. Complete the first floor, then activate the horse while in motion. It should work."
"Should?"
"Will."
Sam nodded slowly, though Maddox couldn't see. "'kay. Watch out for the-"
"-right side of the arena, I know." Said side of the arena had been derezzed in the reintegration, and Maddox had almost fallen off his cycle (and the edge of the building) during their first race. "Let's go."
"Pushy."
The race began slowly, tentatively, as neither knew what would result from the addition of the new code. Both kept a steady pace onto the ramp of thin, digital plexiglas that led to the second floor before changing directions; if they had turned on the wall generation, they would have made the letter 'Y.' Maddox activated the horse first, out of sheer impulse and excitement, and as the cycle began to morph into a chrome, robotic horse, the controls in his hands suddenly became a complex system of reins. He stared, astonished, and while his horse was galloping at a smooth, constant pace, he realized he had no idea how to steer. His conversation with the encyclo-program told him the bare minimum: that he had to pull the reins to stop and kick the sides of the horse to steer. He needed to stop now, to think, so he pulled. Hard.
Sam was doing fairly well on his horse. It wasn't an organic being, so it rode almost like a cycle but just with a different body. He gathered his knowledge of what he had seen from television and gently pulled, slowing the horse down. Nudging the sides with differing amounts of pressure steered the horse, and flinging the reins down several times simply sped it up again. He almost laughed at his previous worry and said, "Wow. Just damn. How long did it take you to design this?"
When no response came, he halted the horse and looked around just in time to see Maddox's pull, just in time to see that hard pull apparently meant mighty leap to the horse, just in time to see the horse crash through the ceiling and gracelessly climb onto the third floor. Flecks of the clear ceiling flew in all directions.
Maddox was breathing hard on the other end, making panicked noises. "Stop, stop, STOP!"
"Maddox!" Sam yelled, restarting the horse and speeding up the ramp to the next floor. "Listen, you need to tug at-"
"That's what I did!"
"Gently! Slow to a stop, don't just try to-"
"-don't know how to steer this damn thing!"
And with that, Maddox let go of the reins and attempted to circle his arms around the horse's neck, but the yellow horse carelessly flung its rider off, galloping along unstopped. Maddox's body flew towards the other rider; Sam steered hard to the right to avoid collision. Both Sam and the rogue horse were now speeding along in the same direction, towards the side of the arena with no wall. Sam was so close.
With one steady, outstretched hand he reached out, grabbing ahold of the yellow horse's reins. He began to pull both sets of reins as gently as he could, trembling, the empty edge fast approaching them. He squinted at the other horse, eyes searching for a sign that he was slowing, and he spotted the three glowing lights between its ears. One short line, one bicycle, one horse. By this time, the yellow horse had lost more speed than Sam's and was gradually moving behind the other. Once the rogue horse's head was by Sam's side he aimed his finger at one of the lights, hitting the short line, and pulled the reins of his own horse.
The blue horse stopped, just shy of deresolution, and Sam nearly fell off, catching Maddox's yellow baton in his hand. They were only a few feet from the edge.
Shaking with relief, Sam took off his helmet and looked down at his possible fate, at the black city and the small crowd of programs beginning to gather below. He gulped in a few breaths and wiped off some sweat before sliding his helmet back down. "Shit... shit... Dox, you okay? Maddox?" Static hissed back at him.
His heart stopped for a moment. No. Shit. NO. He couldn't have derezzed, they were just racing. 32% of the Grid's programs were already gone. Did he just contribute to another death? The amount of loss the Grid had suffered as of yet hit him in the gut once more.
A voice shouted from behind, and his heart jump-started. The voice wasn't digitized, so it could have belonged to any program or User or anyone, but it was deep, and undoubtedly Maddox's.
"SAM!" he yelled in a voice so familiar that the rider froze. "Get away from the edge, it can't support that much weight!"
Sam looked down again, and as he did so, his horse clopped a hoof down onto the surface, which wobbled slightly. The User paled, cautiously climbing off and pressing the short line between the ears of his own horse. The horse folded into nothingness, shrinking until nearly nothing remained. He caught the blue baton that was his horse in his free hand and began to walk backwards from the edge, making sure that each footstep was as silent and soft as he could make it. When he was at a safe distance away, he turned the other way and sprinted towards the fallen program.
What he noticed first was the small black dot crumbling away a few yards from Maddox: his helmet. It fell off, so Maddox wasn't dead, it was just his helmet that was derezzing. Oh, thank God.
The second thing he noticed was a blue halo reflecting off of the top of Maddox's now-revealed hair as the program began to get up, his head still looking downward. When Sam finally reached the program, he slowed, bending down to catch his breath and looking up in a shameless attempt to see the program's face. Maddox made it easy for him and looked up.
The third thing Sam noticed was the infuriated face of Ed Dillinger, Jr. staring back at him, with no glasses and a clean face, but nonetheless, his. His head looked almost blue as the colors of the Grid reflected off him.
And then there was screaming.
"Are you crazy? If something like that EVER happens again, if I ever LET YOU get back on a light cycle, just let the cycle FALL. There are PLENTY." As Maddox ranted, Sam was slowly stepping towards him, mouth hanging open, not registering any words being said because he was shocked. Because oh my God. "Were you that attached to the stupid horse? It was code, Sam! Just data! Something I can just copy and pa-"
Sam gripped the program's shoulders. "Oh my God," he mumbled.
Maddox shook off Sam's hands and kept on. "Are you even liste-"
"Oh my God."
Sam then doubled over in laughter, eyes alight. He dropped both batons on the ground and let himself fall to the floor with them, clutching his stomach. The blue baton landed on Maddox's foot, which he kicked into the air, caught in his hand, and brought down on Sam's skull. Sam clutched his head, still giggling. "You got me, Junior," he gasped out. "'Horses are the main living transportation of Users, yes? Quite, quite.' Aha, oh my GOD."
Maddox tried to whack him again, but Sam caught his wrist and pulled himself upright, landing his hands on the other's shoulders once more.
"How'd you get in here without me noticing? Is there, like, a device at ENCOM like the one back at Flynn's? Oh my God you look shinier, I didn't know that was possible."
Not-Junior's thumb scrolled over the baton in his hand, lengthening it to several feet, and swept at Sam's legs, sending the other back to the ground. "You know, there are still many programs out there who find User's absolutely detestable. I could be one of them, and you could be derezzed." The last part was all but laced with pure menace.
Sam's laughter died out at the threat, and he stayed down. "...you're not Junior, are you?" he asked himself. "Junior knows how to take a joke..."
Anger-clouded blue eyes met clearing green. "I'm Maddox. I've lived here for more cycles than I can count. There are no programs here called 'Junior.'"
Sam nodded, slowly standing and offering hollow, meant-only-to-appease apologies, all the while thinking nothing but Shit. It's Junior's program. He has got to see this...
A/N: Please review and tell me what you think! :D This is my first fic in a long time, so I'd like a nice critique. Was I too descriptive in some areas, and not enough in others? Did it get dry at the end? Did I rape anyone with semicolons? Please, do tell, and I'll respond at the bottom of the next chapter. This chapter was a bit short and not much happened because it's just the prologue, by the way.
Yes, the horse idea was stolen from Daft Punk's "Derezzed" music video (although they weren't jousting here). Go watch it for the full effect! :)