Five Things Clu Never Did:
0001: shout at Jalen.
The room was nearly empty now, to Clu's unspoken relief.
The meeting had gone badly. They all did now, Flynn's special Isos arguing with steadily increasing volume and rhetoric-insisting Clu give them duties and responsibilities for which they had never been designed, were not qualified, no matter how intelligent they thought they were.
Flynn had commanded that Clu protect the Isos, even while there was still so much work yet to be done to perfect the Grid. If they would just settle down and let him protect them, things would be fine.
This millicycle's match had been a particularly vicious set of accusations about what Flynn would or would not want, as though these randomized glitch-magnets could possibly know better than Clu himself what his own User wanted.
"Administrator?"
It was the brown-haired one with the quiet voice. Probably still trying to press Ophelia's argument-Radia's. Couldn't even decide what her own name was and she wanted to work in Communications. Only a few dozen problems Clu could see with that. At first pass.
But Flynn was fond of them, and so Clu strained for patience. "Is there something we haven't already discussed, Jalen?" Discussed in agonizing, repetitive, inefficient detail, at that.
The Iso held himself very straight, all nervous blinking hope. "I wondered when Flynn might return. If we could only speak to him about this-"
Clu kept his expression smooth with great difficulty. Of course they'd want to take yet more of Flynn's time and attention. "He keeps his own schedule." And he was late. Again. "When he does arrive, there are more urgent matters." Such as the fact that every new batch of Isos with their unpredictable whims unbalanced the Grid's energy distribution in small but measurable ways which Clu couldn't fix.
He'd be lucky if Flynn glanced at even a quarter of the urgent things queued up before dashing off to exclaim over the new-formed Isos.
Jalen nodded once, slowly, but puzzlement quirked his eyebrows. "But I thought you could handle anything on the Grid that Flynn would need to do."
Glitching endless impertinent Iso questions. Clu-
(turned and strode swiftly away, clinging to cold dignity. None of this Iso's business what permissions Flynn had withheld-)
-forgot dignity and slammed his hand down hard on the conference table. It was locked to the room's floor and completely unable to tip, but the edge cracked under the weight of his frustration. The Iso jumped back, eyes wide.
"No, I can't do everything," Clu snarled. "If Flynn doesn't-" He clenched his teeth, forced himself to break off.
Flynn had programmed him to be a leader, efficient, perfect. Anger was inefficient.
The young Iso stood his ground, an unfamiliar and unwelcome look of sympathy creeping into his eyes. "I never realized how worried you are," he said.
Clu lifted a hand dismissively, eager to end the conversation. "I'll make things work as long as necessary. Flynn will address the problems when he can." When he finally grew weary of studying the useless Isos.
Their current representative frowned, an anxious look. "If something as important as our appearance can happen outside the User's control and design even here, in the world he created, then surely his own world with so many other Users is even less predictable." Jalen grimaced. "I've heard Yori and Radia saying how thin Flynn's stretched himself. If he were one of ours we'd sit on him till he accepted help, but who can do that for the Creator?"
The metaphor gave Clu pause for a moment. The concept caught hold more firmly. "Insist...that Flynn pay more attention?"
"Or at least that he ask another User to fill some of his duties," Jalen agreed. A determined look flickered steadily brighter in his face. "If the Creator is in difficulty, and we have any chance to help, isn't it our responsibility?"
Insist. To the Creator.
Clu felt his lips twitch in a slow, wondering smile.
Anything that could regain Flynn's attention and put the system closer to perfection was worth trying. Flynn had stopped listening to Clu cycles ago, but this was a wholly new thing.
Iso impertinence might, perhaps, have its uses.
0010: kidnap Flynn.
(This time Flynn wouldn't leave the Grid, wouldn't leave Clu. This time they would make the system perfect, together, no matter what Flynn wanted. But Tron's defiant cry shattered perfection-why couldn't he see?-and Flynn was gone, as he was always gone, always out of Clu's reach...)
The one thing no one argued over was that the best place to catch Flynn would be near his default entry-point, under the sign of the Creator's name.
Flynn was very late, a full cycle, and every other detail of how to approach him had been suggested, rejected, discussed, reluctantly compromised over and finally accepted, with roles changing every round. No one took the prospect of challenging the Creator lightly. And yet the whole process had reminded Clu of better days on the Grid, planning ahead with Tron and Shaddox instead of fighting a constant spiral of damage-control.
By the time Clu spurred his lightcycle the last block and retracted it midair in a maneuver more suited to the track than a city street, he was almost late himself. Three programs waited beside the door already, two Iso-marked faces and Tron's bright blue pattern. Jalen raised a hand to wave, the furrows in his forehead lightening at Clu's arrival.
Clu snapped his vehicle rod to its place on his belt, nodded once at them all. Radia tilted her head in acknowledgement, with a faint smile.
She'd been less trouble all cycle, enjoying her new observation slot in the Communications hub. A good thought of Jalen's, that; kept her busy and out of Clu's way, and in another fifty cycles maybe she'd have learned the skills to run backup in an emergency. And if she didn't stick it out that long, as Clu doubted she would, no harm done to the system.
Already, Clu could feel the shift in the Grid's deep code, priorities and currents reaching for the User who had shaped them. He straightened instinctively.
Flynn wouldn't abandon the system again, not if Clu had anything to say about it.
"Remember our reasons," he said, quiet and calm. "It'll be all right."
Challenging their own User. It wasn't done, not here and not in Encom either to hear Tron tell it, not by programs more benign than viruses or the MCP. Tron's face beside Clu was blank, but his stance shifted, giving away apprehension and deep unease.
Even so, the security program was here, lending support by his presence, and Clu appreciated that all the more for its difficulty.
The notice of Portal activation had come right in the middle of Clu's cyclic inspection of the outer sectors of Tron City. Yori and the other Portal programs could only delay Flynn's arrival a little while once the command was accepted, but everyone had hoped the scant microcycles would be warning enough to gather. The distances and priorities meant Yori herself could not come; the Portal needed careful attention.
Clu had never given much thought to Tron's blonde companion. She was good at her job, and the Portal hadn't once in Clu's existence required administrative oversight. He preferred not to socialize with her. The reminiscences of Encom and implicit criticisms of his own work grew tiresome fast, and she always seemed to think Clu had as much time to waste as she did; not every program went cycles between calls to fill their primary purpose.
When approached, however, Yori had seized on the first faint glimmer of this plan with a fierce joy Clu certainly hadn't expected. For the Portal group, Flynn's lack of qualified oversight while digitized was evidently a frustration of even longer standing than Clu's own worries. Yori's heartfelt arguments had certainly had an effect on Tron, and Clu could only be grateful of that.
Flynn stepped out of the arcade with a brisk stride, and pulled up at once, blinking in puzzlement. Excitement shifted visibly to a worried, assessing gaze that flickered over them all.
"What's wrong, guys?" Flynn asked, offering a particular smile to Radia. Always looking first to the Isos, now. Something for which Clu had no name twisted, uneasy under his code.
But both Isos turned to Clu, eyes nervously wide and practiced words escaping them, while Tron frowned, helpless. That was all right. What was the Admin's job, if not to speak for his programs?
He lifted his chin and stepped forward. "Flynn."
A sharp nanocycle's fear gripped his core. If the Creator, always unpredictable, had shifted priorities so far that Clu's own purpose was irrelevant to him, then all their careful arguments might fail.
The thought hurt. Clu acknowledged the pain silently, squeezed one armored hand into a fist, and demanded of Flynn, "Are we still going to create the perfect system?"
The User's expression went as blank as a newly formatted sector. "Yeah?" he said after a moment's pause. "Clu, of course we are." Flynn offered a broad grin that was no reassurance at all. "I know I'm late, I'm sorry, I can't even begin to explain any of this-I came as soon as I could." His gaze shifted back to the Isos as though magnetically polarized. "Ophelia, sweetheart! I can't wait to meet your new brothers and sisters. How many this time?"
Radia managed not to return the Creator's smile, which Clu knew from experience took significant effort for a young program. She clasped her hands together instead and leveled the faintly condescending gaze Clu had found so irritating when directed at him. "They will all be glad to see you, Flynn, after you address our system's other concerns." She turned her head, gently redirecting Flynn's attention to Clu.
Handing Flynn a list of the Grid's urgent troubles had not worked in many cycles. Clu scowled at him instead. "The Grid as it stands can't grow without direction, can't even fix basic instabilities without User input. Consistent User input. Which only works if we can depend on you to deal with it, Flynn."
"I will! I'm going to!" Flynn spread both hands in too-quick surrender, assurance that never seemed to solve anything but his guilt. "I'll get to everything before there's any damage done."
Clu shook his head, with a dark glare. "Maybe you don't think that gridbugs in the Outlands and minor glitches in Tron City are enough damage to worry about, but the system is already strained, Flynn, and if you expect us to keep adapting to the constant introduction of new Isos it's going to get worse. I had Stats run a model for you, if you ever have time for it."
No matter how fond Flynn was of his miracle, the system hadn't been designed for them, and making it anywhere near perfect with the new unpredictable inhabitants was going to take cycles of work no one had anticipated. The Grid needed its User.
"I'll fix everything as soon as I can," Flynn promised earnestly. "I've got all millicycle. Several, if you need me that long."
"That's a start, but it's not good enough," Clu said, blunt words harsh in his mouth. "When you leave for a cycle and we don't know what's happening, don't know when or if you're coming back and have no way to speak to you even if there was an emergency-we need you here, Flynn!" If he stopped, Flynn would forget again and nothing would change. Clu forced the ultimatum out: "Unless you bring in a backup User to let us contact you, next time you might be explaining things from the Grid when they come to find you."
Flynn released an uncertain chuckle, turning to Tron as for reassurance. "You can't be serious."
The threat was a bluff. Mostly a bluff. Clu knew no Grid program, including himself, would hold their ground if Flynn chose to press the point. The insistence had shock value and the support of the Portal programs, having been, in fact, Yori's suggestion.
But even knowing that, Clu wouldn't have taken Tron's exasperated stare lightly. "Flynn," the security program growled. "Clu's right. You have all of us to help you in here and it's barely enough-it isn't enough. If we mean anything to you at all, let someone help you out there, where we can't."
Flynn sputtered momentary incoherence, a kind of User-static. Clu smiled gratefully at his friend and pressed onward. "We can't have this conversation out in the open. Observation platform, Flynn."
The User didn't protest, though he shook his head in bafflement. Probably marshaling his own arguments.
Clu shut his eyes for a moment, as he faced away from Flynn, and wondered if the Grid was due another of the events Flynn called miracles.
This was too important to let Flynn slide out with empty reassurances. The system needed him. Clu needed him.
The whole Grid was with Clu. Cause enough, perhaps, for hope.
0011: solve the Iso problem.
(A surviving Iso, marring his system. "You are a rare bird, aren't you," Clu murmured, forcibly muting the flicker of rage. So Flynn was still, after all these cycles, attending to the safety of the last of these glitches. Of course. And never to the system, the programs he himself had created.)
"Confirm that list of Isos!" Clu called across the control deck. The messenger program working comm bent obediently to recheck, for the fourth time, and managed not to roll her eyes even a little bit. Clu appreciated that.
The programs who should have been tucked neatly in the ship's hold began screaming again, at painful volume levels even through layers of shielding and insulation. Clu heard a familiar voice, considerably amplified, and scowled. "Would someone please tell Zuse that in another ten microcycles he should not be on this ship unless he actually intends to leave the system?"
Jarvis snorted a badly hidden laugh, added, "Yes, sir!" and darted out the door.
Already too late to ask someone else. Clu rubbed his temples and sighed. Jarvis had strange notions about the glamour of entertainment, and putting him near either Zuse or Eckert was always a bad idea. Zuse and Eckert had equally strange notions about an Admin's duty to be entertaining.
A heavy rhythmic beat rumbled through the deck and Clu's armor. When Zuse threw an impromptu party no one could claim he had any lack of enthusiasm.
Had this been any other project, Clu would have kicked Zuse out himself if necessary, and cut the End of Line's refined-energy allowance for good measure. For this one, he only attempted to tune out the distraction and turned back to the ship's code schematics.
The entertainer was worried, and trying to do what he could in the time they had. Zuse's designed function had little practical use, but Clu felt an unwilling sympathy for the effort.
He gritted his teeth against the vibration and watched the transport's energy intake tick upward. No matter what the imported Encom programs said, this was not at all a standard process; no Iso had ever been in any system but the Grid. If even Flynn didn't understand what had formed them, how could anyone be certain they could survive elsewhere? Predictions and charts were not proof. Short, unexpected, unwise time spent on a drive linked to the Grid itself was not proof.
His system was strained near to breaking with the sheer numbers of Isos, despite all that Tron and Security could do to keep glitches in check, despite all the patches that he and Radia and Jalen had managed alone, despite Flynn's earlier work and the User Roy's cautious maintenance. It had been many cycles since they'd last seen Flynn, some duty to his companion-User Jordan and to a new User keeping their Creator away; Clu didn't pretend to understand the concept of a "baby".
This solution had a chance of becoming a permanent relief to the steady increase. Between Jalen's idea, Roy's labor outside, Radia's leadership, and the support of the Grid generally, it might even work.
Clu had no better plan. But the risk still felt very nearly unacceptable, however small the odds of total catastrophic failure. Losing so many of the oldest Isos, the well-trained ones who knew how not to make things worse and could teach the newborn likewise...sparking trouble between all the Basics unhappy at the energy restrictions and the youngest, least sensible, most volatile Isos...
Failing Flynn's directive to protect the Isos, to continue perfecting the system.
Losing Radia and Jalen. That alone would half cripple the Grid, no matter how well Radia had taught her backup on the Communications hub or how many architects Jalen had trained.
Zuse's User-cursed music was making his eyes hurt. Clu snapped aloud, "What update to that list?"
"Radia says the list we have is complete and accurate," the dark-haired program reported, tone too brisk for Clu's comfort.
A familiar presence strode through the shielded door to the control deck, with faint laughter in his voice. "Radia also said I'd better get up here before you made her check ten more times. You have the final list, Clu."
"It isn't complete," Clu said, irritation too audible to his own ears. "Can't be. You're not on it."
"Ah." Hesitation, slipping to firm resolve, a pattern Clu had come to know very well. "That's because I won't be going."
Clu turned sharply to look at Jalen. The bright gray sweep of the Iso's cloak contrasted oddly with the deck's darker walls, and was nothing like the armor all the passengers were meant to wear in transit.
"You've been talking about nothing but your new city since you made your unauthorized test run on Lora's spare hard drive," he pointed out. "It's all your design work they'll be building."
If everything went well. Users, everything had to go well.
Clu blinked and dragged his attention back to the immediate puzzle. "Are you really going to let them do that without you?"
Jalen cleared his throat, eyes shifting in discomfort. "Well. They know what they're doing, I've drilled them in it enough, and Radia can handle things. I can always visit when things are more settled." The smile he offered Clu held traces of regret, but a brighter peace. "Are you saying you don't need me here?"
"The Grid can function without your constant attention," Clu said, acerbic, and blinked away sudden relieved joy and the thought If imperfectly.
The Iso only grinned. "No doubt the Grid can, but admit it, you'd go crazy dealing with the kids."
"Oh, good, I needed a volunteer for the next four shifts by the Sea," Clu teased, equally dry. "Come on. If you're not going, we both need to get off this transport. Assuming it meets your exacting standards."
A brief, thoughtful hum. "Don't worry. I'm sure we'll have time to improve the aesthetics on the return trip."
Clu chuckled aloud as they left the deck, and almost didn't mind that Jarvis and Zuse promptly ambushed him with a broadcast imager.
0100: watch Tron kill a User.
("Finish the game!"-direct command, and Rinzler couldn't defy it-couldn't defy him...but-no, no, not again not now-Tron could.)
"Finish it!" Clu shouted over the rising screech of the trapped viral. Momentarily trapped. Clu clung grimly, hands clenched into Grid base code as he woke more of the Grid's reserve power, but the quarantine fields were failing almost as fast as he built them in spite of long practices with Flynn. Dark red pixelation creeping through, creeping out, streaks like perverse lightning.
His hands stung, his whole code ached with the proximity of the virus, even through the careful distance of User-style programming. The Grid itself ached under him, echoing its mute pain to its primary Administrator.
Tron was still shaking off the impact of that last blow, and the pixel-dust from the wall he'd crashed through. The security program had never been short on determination, though; stun-sticks, antivirals, and sedatives all rotted to red dust, Tron rolled to his feet with his own disk in hand.
Clu desperately hoped the dark helmet and modified armor would be enough to protect Tron at such close range, redoubled his own effort to hold the enemy. One more toss like the last and he'd be explaining himself to Yori.
The disk's edge flared brilliant clean white, Alan's upgrades never more needed than now. Tron leaped, swung hard, didn't hesitate to drive his full weight down into danger's grasp.
A piercing squeal broke off as sharply as the damaged quarantine walls. The code abruptly stopped resisting Clu, snapped into a passive wound that he could seal away. It felt as though the whole Grid sighed in relief.
But Tron hadn't moved, his armor spattered vivid red.
Clu untangled himself from the Grid and hurried forward. If that monstrosity had harmed his friend...
Before he could speak, Tron's helmet slid apart. Tron slowly lifted a horrified gaze to his own disk, dripping with the same deep red as his hands, his armor. Not voxels. Blood.
"I..." It was a choked half-whisper. "Clu, I killed a..."
They'd done everything possible to avoid this end, but the hacker had willingly let his own virus consume him in some kind of misguided effort at revenge, and Clu could not feel particularly guilty about his death.
Clu did regret, deeply, that it had been necessary. And delivered by Tron, of all programs.
"You protected the Grid," he redefined gently. "As Alan and Flynn would want you to." He reached down and gripped Tron's shoulder, not minding the red smears that transferred to his own armor. They'd both need a good decontamination anyway. "Come on. The Users need to know it's safe now."
Tron hesitated another moment, turning his stained hand over. Then he nodded once and accepted Clu's aid to stand.
0101: create the perfect system.
("You promised that we would change the world together!" he cried, bitter fury. No end to Flynn's betrayals, arbitrary choices, incomprehensible claims, lies. "I created the perfect system-" And it still wasn't perfect, couldn't be, would never be. Because Flynn's looking at him, but Clu knows all the User can see is his real son.)
With the Portal's blinding glow at their back, all the lights of Tron City were only a distant glitter. Brighter every visit, Clu thought, with pride. Here were the new lightcycle courses, and there was the Archive's latest expansion. The long, low shapes of the Iso mentor residences, tracing the shore of the Sea to be certain no new birth wandered away lost. The tall "hotels" meant for User comfort, Jalen's design, only half yet built but already adding new grace to the skyline.
Earth-born, not User, Clu corrected himself. Old habits weren't easy to change, but the public relations specialists at Encom were right; the word had too much context in both worlds. Time for something new. Something descriptive of the way things should be, not the blind past.
"Hard to imagine this'll be the last time I see it like this," Flynn said beside him, nostalgia already creeping into his voice.
The formatted surface where the new, safer, higher capacity, significantly upgraded Portal tower and associated complex would stand was an empty, sparkling plain not far outside Tron City's present limits. "We'll be leaving most of this structure intact," Clu reminded Flynn. "Even when the upgrades are complete, there's no reason you couldn't fly out here once in a while."
Eckert, having recently learned the phrase tourist attraction, had already applied for ownership permissions. Apparently the entertainment program translated the User concept into great place to throw a party. Clu wasn't sure he liked that idea, but whether the Grid's original Portal Tower became the newest club or stayed a quiet retreat, Flynn would always be welcome there.
"If I ever manage to make time," Flynn agreed wryly. "Still, everything's going to change now."
Clu acknowledged that with a slow nod, not quite looking at Flynn. "Does it bother you? How much chaos this will add to the Grid?"
Even the guarded connection to Encom had caused unexpected and near-catastrophic trouble. Bringing so many Earth-born visitors in, regardless of how carefully limited their system privileges were, would be a new challenge at the very least.
His gaze lingered on the sectors of Tron City that had taken damage during his absence despite Jalen's best efforts. "We've made a lot of progress since the beginning, but I know you didn't want people to see the system until it was finished. There are still so many things that could be better."
"Finished," Flynn echoed, and shook his head with a soft, rueful chuckle. "This is life, Clu, not just a personal project. I'm pretty sure I didn't realize that in the beginning, but I've had enough thumps on the head by now to get the picture. Life isn't finished until you die. And-well, not then either."
Trying not to grimace too visibly, Clu looked down. He wished Flynn wouldn't talk about death that way. Clu's visit to the...visit Earthside, extended by unfortunate circumstances, had taught him a little too well how the Earth-born worried about death, risked death, wrote about death, sang about death, caused and chased and ran from death. Accidents, malice, heart failure, cancer, too many diseases to name or remember. No disks or backup copies of memory, only even more vulnerable children.
Flynn had always been the author and foundation of the entire Grid, and it had shaken Clu deeply to see how small a piece of the User world that was. To understand how little Flynn controlled or could hope to change, how short a time the Users knew themselves to live. Clu had worried about Flynn for hundreds of cycles, and Flynn had not yet reached a half-century even counting time he'd spent on the Grid. Jalen was older than Flynn. Gibson was older than Flynn.
"Still. It's going to add problems." Cultural clashes, assumptions, misunderstandings and arguments, never mind the tendency of some Earth-born to claim ownership and superiority where they had no right. Inviting guests was the best feasible option for introducing the separate worlds, but not without its own significant downsides. Outside, he'd seen the necessity; back on the Grid, the anticipated trouble was already an itch in his code. Clu shrugged uneasily. "The Grid may never be as perfect as you hoped."
A warm, familiar grip landed around his shoulders without warning, as Flynn leaned in and squeezed gently. "Listen. This system is more perfect than I ever could have imagined when I created you, Clu."
Surprised, Clu quirked an involuntary, pleased smile. The praise drowned the itch with an embarrassed but deep-set joy.
"I didn't have a blueprint for how to reach perfection then and I don't have one now," the Grid's Creator went on, waving his free hand expansively outward. "I only know that there's so much potential for good in all of this, for the Grid and for the world, and that I can't even begin to make it more than just a dream without help. Especially yours."
Flynn hesitated, though his arm didn't come loose. "I'm sorry I never told you that often enough. What you've built for me is amazing, Clu. I've always been so proud."
An odd thickness in Clu's throat made words seem a bad idea. He raised a hand to grip Flynn's wrist on his shoulder, instead, returning the warm pressure for a moment before letting go.
Flynn coughed, a low rumble. "Some things Lora and Jordan said, they made me think, you know? And that wording on the legal proceedings. I've been CEO of Encom, I've invented some great video games...but in the long run, I'd rather people remembered me as a good father. To you and Sam, especially."
That comparison made Clu duck his head in faint discomfort. Meeting a tiny User had clarified many things about Flynn's affection for the Isos. How the Earth-born managed to survive when it took them some nine hundred cycles to reach the state of a newly compiled program, Clu might never understand. But it was obvious the heavy input of adult attention was very much necessary. Fatherhood, for Flynn.
He would have liked to deny that he needed any such sustained input, except that for years he'd been arguing Flynn should spend more time on the Grid. Not that Clu had done it for his own sake. Still, he could see the parallels.
After Lora had pointedly introduced Clu to Sam as "your big brother who's a program," it wasn't practical to object, anyway. (Tiny Users were very stubborn, had sticky fingers, and clung beyond all reason to people they decided they liked.)
"So I thought," Flynn went on, "maybe, as long as we're all getting used to new roles, you might think about calling me Dad."
"I might," Clu allowed, turning to smile faintly. Lora's programs had already adopted the new familial terms for their own User, or code-mother more formally.
Clu wasn't a child by any measure, but having Flynn's attention, Flynn's approval, filled an ache he'd denied feeling for a long time.
Chuckling aloud, Flynn turned far enough to clap both hands firmly on Clu's shoulders. "What we've already done, it's only the beginning," he declared. "We're changing the world, Clu, all of us." His grin widened, brilliant as the Portal light. "And it's going to be incredible."
The look in Flynn's eyes wasn't quite the same manic delight as had first met Clu at his creation; this was older, more tempered by trials. But it was the same boundless hope and enthusiasm for dizzying, impossible dreams. Earth was so vast, and the effort needed to make any lasting change for the better...
Worth chasing for the progress itself, even if perfection eluded them. Clu suspected it was going to be an exciting life, changing the world.
Somehow, he didn't mind.