Chapter 1: Entrance

"No! I can't believe you just did that!"

Tara's brother, Sam, was almost weeping as she dominated him in the video game. They pushed and shoved, eyes glued to the bright television screen. Tara laughed, belittling him.

"I told you I would kick your butt! Pffft. And you said I sucked. Ha-ha!"

The screen read: "GAME-OVER". Sam cried out in unbelievable rage.

"You totally cheated!"

Tara laughed. "I don't think so, little bro. You owe me five bucks. Hand it over."

She stuck out her hand, palm up. "Come on. You know you said it."

Sam sneered. "Yeah, but I didn't say when."

Tara growled. "I will bust you in the head with this Wii remote if you don't hand over the cash."

Tara raised the game control over her head menacingly. Sam sighed and rolled his eyes as he dug his hand in his pocket. He fished out a crumpled five dollar bill and tossed it to Tara with crushed spirits. Tara quickly retrieved the money and giggled in triumph. Her brother walked off and she called after him, "Wanna play again?"

She heard her brother's stomps as he climbed up the stairs and said, "NO!"

She smiled as the door to his room slammed shut. Tara glanced at her prize and dug it into her pocket. She giggled one last time before continuing with the game by herself.

Tron looked at Calchas. "We need her. She's important. If the programs take over this world, they'll find a way to dominate her world. Her father has done it before and has been able to close the portal. She's the last Iso, even though she's half User. We need her Calchas."

Calchas looked a little dubious. "Yes, but she seems incapable of learning all the techniques in time. What if she doesn't have all that she needs to survive without us assisting her all the way? You know we can't draw suspicions to ourselves, Tron."

Tron sighed in impatience. "Look, we'll draw her in tomorrow at the old arcade she always goes to after her learning sessions. If she doesn't seem to be able to comply with our standards then we'll look for someone else. Simple as that. But, still, I believe we have found her."

Calchas stared Tron down. Tron sighed. "As long as we keep her away from Zeus, she should be fine."

Calchas rolled his eyes. "Oh yes. Like that won't be a problem anyway."

Tron said, "We'll have someone assist her on the way."

Tara walked home, as always, alone.

She thought about her stupid math teacher. She gave homework over the weekend. The weekend! What was wrong with this teacher? She sighed. Well, it's not like I was going to do anything better than video games. Then she berated herself. She just defied every code that had been made for gaming. A true gamer did not label video games as worthless. In contrast, they put them as a priority.

Surprisingly, when she got home, her mom and dad were there. Of course, they were arguing, though.

"Look, Quorra, it's gone! All of the money we have has been paid to the bills! We can't afford something like this!"

That was her father.

"Sam, I know we are in a very tight...situation, but, we have to pay for it or else..."

Her mother lowered her voice.

Tara rolled her eyes. Typical.

Right now, she could say anything she wanted. And, in fact, she did.

"Hey Mom and Dad."

No greeting back.

"Oh, I had a great time at school today, thanks for asking."

She walked right passed them saying, "Can I have a cookie before dinner?"

No one replied. "Thanks Mom for your caring consent."

Tara walked out of the kitchen, grabbed her father's wallet and took out ten bucks, replacing the five she had won from her brother with it, saying, "Hey Dad, can I borrow ten bucks? I'll pay you back the other five later."

Her dad said nothing.

"Thanks."

She took a bite of her cookie and said as she opened the front door, "I'll be going now. Bye!"

She shut the door and started walking to the old arcade on Grand Avenue. Of course, it was a pretty short walk, but, them not knowing she was going to be there suited her fine. Let them worry about her for a few hours. They deserve it. For all that they've done to her? They deserve two days of absence.

She shrugged and turned the corner, thinking to herself: Well, that's an option, but maybe not a good one.

She licked her fingers of the melted chocolate from the cookie and looked up at the sign. It read: "FLYNN'S." Her dad had said that the arcade was her grandfather's. He had unfortunately died from a heart attack, as he had told her five years ago. But, she sensed some untruthfulness there because her mother had started to cry in front of her.

Her mother had said that she never knew her dad's father.

Tara walked into the broken glass door. It was vandalized last week by some really weird gang of drunken teenagers. She thought: Huh. I should vandalize their faces for doing this.

Tara's shoes crunched over the broken glass and she looked around her as she pulled her other foot in. There was something unusual about it. Well, it was naturally creepy and dark, but, there was something...off. Something different. Then she realized it. There was a light coming from the back. Tara ducked behind an old arcade machine as her heart raced. Was it a thief? A mugger? A murderer?

She slowly crept up toward the light, which cast a weird-shaped shadow onto the wall. She picked up a lone metal crowbar from the ground and raised it above her head just as she turned the corner. She brought it down with impacting speed.

It hit the floor.

She looked confused, as tile spurted everywhere.

The light was coming from the game. Tara looked around her. And no one was here. She let herself relax and walked toward the bright screen. As she looked at it, it wasn't coming from the game. It was coming from behind it. She shoved the boxy game aside and stared at the little light there. There was a whole other room hidden by the game. She pushed away hanging plaster and stared into the little light. There was a red pulsating button that seemed to call to her.

In curiosity, she pressed it.

Tara saw nothing but darkness. Until she blinked.

Then everything was lit up like an electronic gaming device. She looked around. There were lights everywhere. And as her mind got clearer, there was a city off in the distance. Well, it looked like a city. There were strange shapes for buildings, but, none of the less, they were buildings. So she headed in that direction. As she walked, she realized that the floor beneath her was black. She bent to touch it.

It felt like...

It felt like a...

As she was about to figure out the material, a floating object was coming towards her. It was shaped like a square without the bottom line on it, and the edges seemed to be lit up with an orange light. As it got closer, she realized there were people on it.

Glowing people.

They were dressed in a black-as-night garb lined with yellow lights. There were presumable guards on the platform about forty feet up that held something like spears—glowing spears—with glowing orange lights. There were also people wearing clothes that were not glowing. Tara sighed with relief. Yes, she thought, regular people. But, they were wearing rags.

And they looked nervous and scared.

The object stopped in front of her and a man with a yellow suit with a cape stood on a single platform that descended down to her—kind of like an elevator. The man pointed to her and the guards walked over.

The people in rags were yelling at her. "Run away!"

She seemed scared and actually started to, when the guards grabbed hold of her and said, "Oh no you don't."

They laughed as she squirmed. But, then, she stopped. They had her. The only thing to do was to act dumb and let them size her up as a weakling. She had to masquerade her true identity. Tara was a tomboy so her guy shorts and jacket were her allies in her secretive plan. She had her hood up, which hid her hair well.

The man said, "Put him with the others. He seems well built. Actually, put him in one of the first ones to go."

Tara suddenly felt scared. First ones to go?

Whatever that meant, Tara was pretty sure she wasn't going to like it.

Tara tried to be quiet in the line. If she was inquisitive directly to the guards, they might just kill her. However, she had tried, many, many times to ask one of the other rag-people, but they ignored her every time she made eye contact. So she just gave up and started paying close attention to where they were going.

Actually, they were headed toward the city. And just as she thought she could taste freedom, they made a sharp turn into a tunnel. The speed picked up then and the lights from the tunnel blurred past them as they whizzed by.

The object abruptly stopped and the man with the cape started choosing men by pointing at them. Those chosen screamed and were dragged away. Tara watched one man try to fight and get away, when he was knocked out and dragged into the darkness.

She gulped and prayed that she was not picked.

And when she opened her eyes, the man's finger was in her face.

She was chosen.

The guards started to grab her when she hit their hands and followed proudly behind them. The men in the rags were shocked to see such pride and honor in a young "boy" and they felt disgraced and ashamed.

At least, if I go out, I go out with dignity, she thought.

They turned their heads every few seconds to make sure she was behind them, thinking she would escape. But Tara was not one to cowardly run away. If she had to, she would run away with style. And now was not the time, she felt, to run away. In fact, Tara was quite curious as to what was going on.

She knew it was bad, but, how bad could it really be?

If they wanted her dead, they would've done so on the floating object.

Kidnap and torture?

No. If they wanted that, then would have found transportation less conspicuous.

So, see, she was, indeed, curious.

They left her in the middle of this dimly lighted room. Tara looked around for a minute, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkened confinement. Then a sound as if a release of air pressure was going on around her and she heard a few clicks in unison.

Like, high heel clicks.

Out of four cupboards came four women, marching in unison, from every corner. They wore white suits with white lights. Their hair was colored in the same way, and they seemed to be robots. But, human in some strange way.

One of them held up her index finger and a bright light positioned itself on the tip. She started to slide it down her shirt when Tara hit her hand out of the way. She seemed surprised.

Tara said, disguising her girl voice, "I'd rather you just give me the clothes you put on and I'll undress myself."

She tilted her head as in shock and confusion of Tara's straightforwardness. The White Lady nodded keenly and stood back. Something crawled up Tara's leg and when she looked down, something, a black something, seemed to go up her body and form around every curve and straight. It was a suit. With awesome white lights.

I bet I look ridiculous with the suit and all my other clothes on top, Tara thought. She took of her shirt and shorts and underwear, watching them get sucked into this hole, but kept her jacket on. This was her favorite jacket. She wasn't about to let it go.

The White Ladies roughly lifted her jacket. Tara quickly put her jacket over her head, keen to try to hide her hair and chest. A robotic speaker was saying something as one of the White Ladies was doing something from behind her.

It said: "Attention Program: you will receive an Identity Disk. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disc. If you lose your disc, or fail to follow commands, you will be subject to immediate derezzelution."

The White Lady on her left corner said in a robotic voice, "Marrying complete. Disc activated and synchronized. Proceed to Games."

Tara looked astonished and confused. "Games?"

Then they all marched backwards to their cupboards. The White Lady who spoke was the last one to leave.

Tara asked her, "What am I supposed to do?"

She answered, "Survive."

Then she went into her cupboard.

Next thing Tara knew, she was in the bright lights where a huge audience was waiting, screaming and shouting and cheering. She had realized that there was a type of helmet thing that retracted and came whenever there was the word "fight". She was fiddling with it now, trying to get more air in there.

She didn't know where she was, but she was pretty sure this was the "Games" that Lady was referring to. At the thought, Tara shivered. That last time she heard "Games" it was about gladiators sticking sharp pointy objects into people's heads.

Not a good thought.

Tara wished she was at home now. Playing a game, not playing for life. Well, playing for fake lives, not her real one.

She brought in a position perpendicular to this man with a weird helmet on and a cape. She had officially dubbed him "Weird Cape Guy". She liked that. WCG. She smiled. The man, WCG, glared at her, and she frowned instantly.

WCG turned to the crowds and spoke through his helmet. "Welcome to the Tron Games!" The crowd cheered.

The what? Tara thought.

He continued, "As you've all been waiting for, we have our only beloved: The Rinzler!"

The crowd screamed in encouragement and excitement.

Tara got sick to her stomach.

From a float above, stairs formulated themselves to the bottom of the grid. A foot stepped out and the crowd went berserk. As the man stepped down, Tara could see he had a darkly tinted helmet that went along with his black suit and orange-lighted traces. As he walked on the grid, he was put on a screen above and showed glimpse of the wild crowd cheering for him.

Tara immediately saw him as the enemy and quickly took in every stride and pride with boiling anger. Is this what she was here for? To fight this guy for entertainment? And what was he supposed be, anyway? Freaking Mardi-Gras Batman without a cape?

She was kidnapped, almost stripped nude, and had been uninformed the entire time. This was not going to be a good day for this guy.

WCG came with a box over to her seeming opponent and he picked a black stick about one foot long with a circle integrated in the middle. It looked weird. When WCG came over to her, there was one left. She picked it up hesitantly and felt around with it, picking a fighting stance.

She asked in her guy voice, "What am I supposed to do with this?"

He looked at her in annoyance and said, "I'll give you a hint: not that."

The crowd laughed, and Tara stood erect and gave the man one of her "Oh-No-You-Di-in't" looks. WCG just turned away from her. She stared at her opponent. He seemed to stare at her back. As WCG gave a speech to the crowd, she never took her eyes off him.

He was going down.

Unexpectedly, her new nemesis turned around and walked in the other direction. Then Tara heard a noise behind her so she turned around. Five men in white light suits like her stood in a line, facing her. Then out of no where, six orange-lighted motorcycles drove between them. By now, Tara kind of understood what was going on, but still not sure what was the point. Maybe some type of race.

The men in her so-called "team" started to run away from her, jumped and pulled the stick in half. And, right in front of her eyes, Tara saw a motorcycle formulate under each of the guys. She smiled.

Thank you, dirt bike camp, Tara thought.

She copied her teammates. Run. Jump. Pull...

She did a wheelie as she tried to catch up to her teammates. They all gave her looks and they separated from each other. Tara was confused and couldn't keep her attention focused on all of them. She kept it on one.

Her teammate was somehow below her, she guessed on another level. He was met with opposition by an enemy light cycle. The enemy bumped into her teammate, spooking him. Then he zoomed up and did a sharp ninety degree angle turn. Her teammate screamed before smashing into the light trail of his opponent.

He turned into shards of glass, his light cycle following him.

Tara gasped. This was to the death.

This was gladiator style.

Tara felt angry. How could they treat people like this?!

They wanted a fight? Oh, they'll get one!

Tara didn't know how many of her teammates were left, but she knew she would be one of them. She went below to the vacant lower levels and tried to sight the next victim. She spotted him.

He was looking for his next victim.

She smirked maliciously and revved up off the ramp, flying over him, before doing a sharp turn.

The orange guy was now orange mush.

Tara smiled. Then frowned.

Guilt wormed its way into her.

She just took a life.

Just a game, Tara. Keep it together. It's just a game, she thought reassuringly to herself.

She then spotted another death of another teammate. But then, another teammate came up behind the enemy and killed him off quick. She sighed in relief. Good. Someone who knew what he was doing. A survivor. Like her.

She drove over to him and said through her helmet, "We have to stick together."

He looked hesitant, but nodded. They spotted a lone enemy, looking for his teammate. Tara's new friend nodded and they came up with a quick, precise plan.

Tara went backwards and began to circle around towards the enemy. Her teammate went beside the orange guy and bumped him roughly. The enemy sneered when, suddenly, his opponent just banked left and went away.

That was random.

Tara zoomed by, causing him to smash right into her light trail. A brief scream emanated from him and Tara tried to ignore it. She went beside her teammate and they exchanged glances, smiling at each other.

Then, in a blink of an eye, No-Cape-Batman came by and slashed at her teammate's cycle. He wobbled before crashing into the boundary wall, spraying shards of his body into the audience.

They cheered.

Sick monkeys, Tara thought as she looked disgustingly at the crowd.

Then she faced her opponent. She suspected that they were the last two. Those five men that were alive just a minute ago? All dead.

Shows how valuable a minute can be.

Tara glanced at something in his hand. It was...It was a disc. Those discs that she had seen on her teammates backs! Did she have one?

Attention Program: You will receive an Identity Disc. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted...

Before she could think, Rinzler came and slashed at her bike. She flew off and rolled until she ceased on her back. Tara knew she was going to have some bruises, but ignored them as she watched her opponent start to turn around. She stood up and carried on her thoughts about the discs.

Tara reached at her back. There it was. It came off at her touch and she put it in front of her. It seemed, to her, that it was...inactive. She tried to hit it with her hand. Her opponent zoomed by her, trying to spook her out. She hit it harder, squeezing with anxiety. It sparked to life, making a glow of light around the ring as if it were a blade.

Tara looked up to find her opponent turning around, disc in hand, and coming at her, ready for his kill.

She got in a stance.

He would get no kill.

And just as she was ready to deflect and hit, a car raced onto the grid and jumped out in front of her opponent. He braked and then he hit the light trail, making him fly over a hundred yards away. Tara frowned. He wasn't dead.

The door to the car lifted up. The stranger inside said, "Get in."

Tara hesitated, taking a glance at her former opponent who was now getting up, and then quickly got in the car. The door lifted down and the stranger started to drive on out of the arena and into the darker parts of the Grid.

Behind them were yellow pursuers on light cycles, eager to obey their malicious boss and capture the boy at the Games. Tara looked back in anxiety. They were gaining on them.

The stranger said, giving a calm gesture, "Relax, Program; I'll outrun them."

Tara shouted, "Both hands on the wheel!"

The stranger laughed and obeyed.

The stranger made a sharp turn and cut off one yellow guard. There was a jump up ahead and it was a pretty large distance to cover. They went straight toward it.

Tara got scared. "No! No! No! We won't make it!"

They jumped it without a problem. The stranger said, "Made it."

Tara scowled at him (knowing that this humor was pretty much a guy's) without much sound. The guards didn't pursue them any farther and stared at them as they sped onward.

Tara made a sigh of relief.

She was finally free.

Free of death. Free of White Ladies.

And, most importantly, free of weird people.

She turned to the stranger. Well, not quite.

She asked, "So, who are you?"

He retracted his helmet to reveal chestnut hair and hazel-green eyes. He gave a swift look before going back to the road.

"My name's Zinc. And, you should probably get rid of that...clothing you wear. It could cause suspicion."

Tara didn't move.

Zinc seemed persuasive. "C'mon! You're with me now. You can relax. Take off the...whatever that is...and your helmet and we'll all be fine, Program."

He clapped his hand on her shoulder.

I am NOT a PROGRAM! Tara thought.

But Tara obeyed, out of respect for him saving her life.

She slowly took off her jacket and, with a wince, retracted her helmet.

Zinc did a double take. "You're a girl?"

Tara rolled her eyes. "No, I'm a monkey. Yes I'm a girl!"

Zinc asked, "What's a monkey?"

Tara raised her eyebrow. "Haven't you got a zoo here?"

Zinc looked more confused. "What's a zoo?"

Tara shook her head. "You have some serious issues, dude."

Zinc became frustrated. "My name is not Dude. I already told you: it's Zinc!"

Tara sighed. "Just shut up and drive."

He raised an eyebrow. "Okay Miss Snooty-Pants."

Tara rolled her eyes again. It got quiet for a moment and it was a little uncomfortable. And she could tell Zinc was itching to know about her for some odd reason.

He asked, "So what's your name? I told you mine. Return the favor."

Tara looked warily at him. "Zorah."

Zinc laughed. "No, you're not Zorah. I know a Zorah, and you are definitely not him."

Tara laughed. "That's a guy's name? Ha! Ah, I feel sorry for that guy."

Zinc looked determined. "So what is your name? You still haven't answered me."

Tara looked at him once again.

He did save her life.

She sighed. "My name's Tara. Tara Flynn."