Disclaimer; Tron is property of Disney. This work is a fanpiece and derives no profit or affiliation with- oh you get the idea.
This is what I do when I am a fan of a franchise but am unable to roleplay it with anyone; I pretend I know how to write stories. This story in particular has no direction or planned result. I can't promise fluid or even acceptable storytelling.
He couldn't remember how he'd managed to get into this situation again. Or, at least, he couldn't remember how he'd managed to get into another similar situation, so soon after getting himself out of the first one. Despite his dare-devil attitude and valiant f-you's to authority and the world he'd grown up in—not the planet or the universe, but the reality of being who he was and what everyone else thought and expected from him—he actually had a pretty good self-preservation instinct.
The bottom line was that he wasn't stupid. A rebellious, bitter young man—perhaps. But he wasn't stupid. And he was getting better on the rebellion thing too; Alan was still politely in shock about the whole matter and his sudden change of heart, but he could tell from the look in the older man's eyes whenever they crossed paths these past few days that Bradley was grateful for his turn around. Grateful that he was finally living up to his hopes and expectations, taking control of the company bit by bit.
He couldn't say he was taking ENCOM to fabulous new places, though. In truth, Sam didn't really know what he wanted to do with his father's—with his company. He told himself he was finally growing up. He told himself he was taking responsibility for something that no one else could rightfully claim. He told himself he was stepping forward and that he was going to somehow make things okay.
He told himself he was finally accepting the fact that his dad wasn't going to rise from the grave, and no matter how much time he spent waiting, the world wouldn't wait with him. Growing up indeed. Yeah, he was doing that, though he wasn't sure what direction he was taking it in yet. He hadn't even done anything noteworthy since taking control—though he had some ideas, even if he was still hovering on the fence about whether or not to jump all-in and go ahead with them. ("This company used to be more then just a fortune. It used to be a staple of life.")
The ENCOM of today was ruled by heads with dollar signs in their eyes. Sam couldn't claim to be a particularly generous person, not some charity saint that bled his heart out for all the unfortunate people of the world—he had been unfortunate too for a long time, and it had left its effect on him as a permanent part of his makeup—but he knew what the company had once been for his father, what it could still be for Alan, and what it could be for others if he bothered to try. He had money. ENCOM had money. It would take something monumentally catastrophic for ENCOM to not have money.
("There's a difference between being the best, and being the market's favorite choice.")
Being the company that sold top-quality products wasn't the same as being the company that provided top-quality products. Sam couldn't quite say when he'd acquired this epiphany, but he could attest to its strength and persistence. And Alan had seemed receptive to the idea.
The rest of the board had not. Apparently cementing ENCOM products as every student's first choice by providing them at affordable prices was a great indicator of his incompetence. Not to mention their greed.
("Give it time, Sam.") Bradley had coaxed him when he'd shown dangerous signs of frustration. Sam was smart and resourceful but he wasn't used to dealing with other people, much less interacting with ENCOM's board in a more-then-antagonistic-fashion. For all his intelligence, the young man still found himself often grinding to a halt. He'd grown up withdrawn and angry, had matured into a frustrated, brilliant, but also foolish young man who had done more then his fair share of acting like an introvert and going out of his way to avoid things he didn't want to deal with. He had his bravery and he had his stubbornness—but he didn't have much patience.
To avoid the drama that involved the son of Flynn's foreseeable threats of quitting, Alan had advised him to find something to fill his spare time. Quorra had been the perfect distraction for a long time, and still often was—it wasn't easy getting her accustomed to the world outside the Grid, to her new body and all the ways it functioned differently then her old one had. It had been an adventure, a wonderful, brilliant experience that had left its impact on him as well. Hell, it still did; even if she wasn't falling over her own feet anymore as she worked out how a human body was supposed to coordinate itself, there was a renewed vive for life in his blood. She was infectious, and he hoped it never stopped.
She still loved the sun, still found herself besotted with each and every new textile feeling under her hands, and still made hilarious faces when she encountered flavors that apparently hadn't existed on the Grid. (Apparently sweet, sour, and tart were not tastes she'd ever sampled before. Her reactions had been worth every second, though. He still laughed at her for it regularly.)
She was his odd not-quite-sister who he found himself hopelessly bonded with; this affection and love that had sprung up on him and forged a connection between their two very different lives. He had his dad to thank, he was sure. Even if he had a thousand other things with which to blame Kevin Flynn, somehow, getting this not-quite-sister out of that mix wasn't one of them.
She was everything his father said she was, really. Naive, wise, miraculous in so many ways. He might not have his father with him, but… at least he had his not-quite-sister. Whatever that was supposed to be.
So maybe it was that infectious zeal for life and adventure that had given him the optimism and courage to face the warped nightmare that had once been his childhood dream-world. To face the place that had took his father from him not just once, but twice.
He faced the Grid.
Or, more accurately, he faced what was left of the Grid, and what little of it he could access through the safe, non-life threatening medium of his laptop's computer screen.
The secret beneath his father's Arcade was no more; the laser was still there—he didn't know how to move it and was actually afraid to even try—but he'd moved everything of the Grid that he could and brought it with him, wanting to both eliminate it and somehow take it with him at the same time. Putting all the surviving data on a portable storage that hung around his neck might have been too personal, but there it hung.
It had accompanied him too, spending the past few months wrapped around his neck and resting on his counters and tables as he moved house and relocated to a two bedroom apartment farther in town. He did it for Quorra, of course; his waterfront flat wasn't fit for more then one tenant, and they both needed more privacy then that place could have afforded them. Especially Quorra.
So the three of them had moved, him, the ISO, and the remnants of the world his father had built, loved, and ultimately been betrayed by. …of course Sam wasn't oblivious; he knew that deep down, even if he'd denied it at the time, that he'd always harbored the intentions to take a closer look at what was on that storage. He'd been planning on it from the moment he moved the thing on there.
Two days ago, he'd finally realized that it was time, and had gotten out his laptop, sat it on his coffee table from his old place, and begun. Quorra was included. She couldn't not be included; he doubted he'd be able to keep it a secret from her even if he did decide not to tell her what he'd planned to do that day. To her credit, she'd taken it well; had seemed relieved, actually, and also filled with a kind of mingling trepidation and anticipation. There were many reasons for that; the Grid had been her birthplace and her home for far longer then his world had, even if they had both decided that she was never going to go back there. Neither of them felt they owed the Grid anything, but they were both too involved with it to simply let it go.
Simply put, they couldn't put it behind them, so in the stick went, and that evening, with the plates of their untouched dinner resting on the table beside them, Sam took that first step into seeing what was left of darker part of his father's legacy.
It wasn't much. He was caught between relief and a kind of numb, disbelieving horror as he realized just how much wasn't there. He'd never gotten to see what the Grid's data looked like before it had been scrambled to all hell after their escape and C.L.U's defeat, but Sam was certain that there should have been more then this. And even if there hadn't been, it still shouldn't have been the broken jumble that he discovered.
"What does it mean, Sam?" Quorra, distressed but trying not to show it—not sure whether she wanted to be distressed or not, whether she was okay with feeling that kind of thing towards the Grid—looked at him questioningly and apprehensive.
"Hell if I know." Had been his eloquent and wise response, as he'd proceeded to hurriedly examining as much of the data as he could. No matter how much he looked, however, he couldn't find anything that he—what? That he'd been hoping for? He didn't even know what he was hoping for when he'd started this. All he'd wanted to do was know.
Quorra, at the very least, was always fascinated with being able to witness first-hand how Users interacted with a system, outside that system. She'd been somewhat disappointed at first—Sam suspected she'd been envisioning something more then the computer and keyboard that he'd ultimately introduced her to—but her fascination had returned, along with a heavy dosage of sober clarity and intimidation, when she realized that she, too, now technically had the ability of being a User.
Sam didn't know what she thought of that, really. At any rate, being a former digital life form didn't give her innate knowledge of how to operate every and all pieces of technology. In fact, she seemed largely daunted and overwhelmed by the implications of what using a computer would imply.
He showed her things, though, and Grid-examinations turned into teaching lessons. Though maybe they weren't very good lessons, considering the fact that what Sam was showing her was essentially broken code and scattered data. The more they looked, the more they saw, the more Sam felt an unexpected—and unwelcome—sense of weight settling in his stomach.
It didn't look like the Grid was there anymore. Fragments, large chunks, sections that might have been complete were it not for a break here or a segment there—but none of those seemed capable of being the world that he had stumbled into, nor the home that Quorra had come from. There just wasn't enough of it that seemed complete.
Sam never expected to grieve for the Grid. It had been precious to him as a child, when he'd hung on his father's stories and lovingly admired Tron as his hero and prized the action figures his dad had brought home, but then his father had disappeared, and the things he'd loved had long ago stopped being bright and precious even before he'd learned it was real and horrible and it had taken his dad.
He hadn't even really grieved for his father yet. It didn't feel right to grieve for the place that had swallowed him up and killed him.
He told himself it was just some weird disappointment, then assured himself that this means it's over.
Then he showed Quorra how to fix it.
'Fixing it' was a generous way of describing what he did, of course. In reality, Sam was chewing an already bare bone, succumbing to the inability to let himself find closure and using the excuse of impressing Quorra to explain his need to tinker with the corpse data.
He'd been doing this for a few days now, and despite the fact that he was now actively CEO of ENCOM, Sam was pretty sure he'd spent more time on his laptop with this personal project (obsession) then he had actually doing anything in regards to leading the company. Alan didn't know about the Grid—Sam didn't know how to tell him, had barely known how to explain Quorra's sudden appearance out of the blue. ("She's a friend I met over the internet. Known her for years now… never gave her much thought, though, until she said she wanted to move here and—I dunno. Seemed like the right time to make a change. She's good, Alan, don't worry. She's actually a lot like you; she keeps my head on track.")
He said she was from the United Kingdom and refused to elaborate. He said she wasn't his girlfriend and they weren't having sex and he was the farthest thing from comfortable at the thought of her in a relationship with anyone, and he didn't know how to explain it. Alan was suspicious, because Alan was too smart not to know Sam was feeding him utter bullshit. Luckily, Alan was giving him time; Quorra had proven herself trustworthy and they'd both made it clear that they didn't consider themselves a romantic item, and so Sam was given his space until he could scrape his shit together and come up with a better backstory.
("I think we should tell him, Sam. I think he'd understand.")
She was probably right, but Sam just wasn't ready for that. He wasn't even ready to face the husk of the Arcade where all of this had started. He was nowhere near ready for including others in this crazy reality that his life had become. Even if it was Alan, even if he was the one person in the world that deserved to be included, if only so he could finally, finally know what happened to his friend. But Kevin was dead, and Alan could wait.
He immersed himself in the remnants of the Grid in order to not think about just how long Alan Bradley had already been waiting.
The first time it happened, he'd spent all of two seconds thinking it was some kind of mistake or error he'd triggered, before realization hit him with the giddy rush of mingling panic and excitement. Adrenaline rushed through him, and he jerked, pushing himself up against the leather cushion of his office chair so that he could stare back at his laptop from at least some degree of distance.
It wasn't really anything that he'd seen before- just a simple, white box; vaguely rectangular in its proportions, void of menu bar or anything else that would have defined it as some kind of normal process that he'd accidentally triggered in his tinkering with the Grid's left over data.
Inside the box, against a white background and emblazed in stark, black-bold text, was a single word that rocked him to the core and prompted several psychological traumas to trigger all at once, much to his discomfort and simultaneous excitement. Sam stared at it for a long while, unable to formulate an appropriate method of response.
/Identify/
He spent so long staring at it, in fact, that whatever it was that had caused the text to appear in the first place apparently grew impatient and repeated the prompt.
/Identify/
All at once, Sam flinched away; his fingers curling into clenched fists against his suddenly hot palms, and jerked his arms back so that he was sitting ramrod straight. Holy shit. Holy shit no way, not now, no nonono—
He told himself internally, while pretending he hadn't just had over a dozen of his questions both mercifully and cruelly answered before his very eyes.
The giddiness and adrenaline were beginning to mix in his stomach in that particular way that caused the unfortunate host to develop fast-encroaching nausea, and shakily—slowly, as if the laptop itself would somehow gain the ability to bite or strike him with an identity disk—began to peck his fingers against the keys. Each point of contact was uncharacteristically similar to a flinch.
The unknown on the other end had just sent out another prompt for attention when he finally managed to type back his short reply.
/Identify/
Hello?
There was a short moment—a very short moment, in fact so short that Sam couldn't ever attribute it to any kind of hesitation, and would in fact have to admit that whoever this was, they seemed downright eager to talk to him—a response came.
/Identify yourself/
It had come pretty much instantaneously after he'd pressed enter, and yet something told him that it wasn't the work of some automated machine spitting out responses in reaction to his reply. He swallowed, licked his lips, and—wondering if he was going to regret this—typed another answer.
My name is Sam Flynn.
He thought that might bring a pause; a moment of silence and shock like which had occurred the last time he'd announced his name to such a prompt—but whoever it was remained just as punctual, and clearly in the know.
/User/
Yeah, no kidding. Sam thought for a moment, then decided—what the hell, he was on the other side of a computer screen and whatever it was that was talking to him was in another world that inhabited the broken data stored on the stick inserted into his laptop. He might as well. He didn't think he'd be able not to.
Yeah, that's right. Who are you?
The response, as usual, came immediately, and as jarring and creepy as that might have been, at least he didn't have to wait.
/Program/
Well wasn't that helpful?
What kind of program?
/Function obsolete/
What?
What did that mean? He didn't know much about the Grid's programs, and Quorra hadn't imparted any great knowledge onto him, but something about that response didn't seem right.
What does that mean?
/Previous function now obsolete/
This guy—if it was a guy, because who knew, really?—was definitely not putting any special effort into making himself understandable.
I don't know what that means. What function is obsolete?
/Mine/
Oh…
Oh yeah. That… makes sense. He thinks? Sam doubted he'd still have a function either if his world fell apart around him, too.
Still…
What was your previous function?
He wasn't sure what it was that caused it, but a sudden ominous weight settled on him the second his finger pushed down on the enter key. And with the unknown program's continued punctuality in answering him, he immediately had that sense of weight validated a second later, as the bold lines of text appeared on his screen.
/Maintain order/
/Rectify failures in the system/
/Finish the game/
Sam blinked, licked his lower lip again, and squinted oddly at the screen.
…what the fuck was 'finish the game' supposed to mean?
He ended up talking to the faceless, voiceless, and consistently nameless program for the rest of the afternoon, and by some merciful stroke of luck not a single soul came to intrude on him during this interval. It was already late by the time the unexpected… conversation? Exchange? Encounter? He didn't know what to call it, but whatever it was, it had started already close to leaving-time, and the only interruptions he had were via the phone at his desk.
This was perfectly fine with him, because he probably wouldn't have dealt very eloquently with an intruder at that time; panic and flustered attempts to hide his laptop's screen would have doubtlessly resulted, and he didn't want to have to deal with that kind of situation. His reputation was already rocky enough, as was his standing with most of the people who had a reason to come talk to him.
It was fine. He was already talking with someone, actually, though the conversation was both frustrating and endlessly stimulating in ways he couldn't justify or even want to acknowledge.
The Program, whoever they were or used to be, since they refused to give him a name and only repeated back those three lines of function every time he prompted, had both very little to say and yet at the same time was undeniably eager to say it. Every single response was immediate and there the moment he sent his own, and Sam still wasn't sure how the other was being so quick about it; a human couldn't type that fast let alone think that fast. He didn't think a program could think that fast either, not to parse User speak and formulate a response instantaneously after receiving the message, but then he remembered that time passed differently in the Grid, and what might seem instant for Sam might actually be anywhere from minutes to hours for the program talking to him.
Once he had this realization down, Sam quickly began to put more consideration towards the responses he was receiving. They were short, avoidant, yet insistent on interrogating him on who he was, what he was doing, and why he was working on the Grid-code.
This had forced him to acknowledge something that he'd been avoiding for a while now, and uneasily admitted to the unwelcome, disquieting truth.
I'm trying to see if I can fix it.
/Why/
The program was suspicious, and Sam found himself lightly offended.
I thought that a Program would be happier hearing that someone's trying to repair the world they live in?
/Why/
Because otherwise you'll just be hovering in a mass of scrambled data and not in any actual working world?
/Why/
Because wanting to live in an actual place instead of random jumbles of nonsense has to be preferable to the alternative?
/No/
/Why/
Sam was quickly learning that The Program did not possess a very extensive vocabulary. Actually, he—or she, or whatever it was—probably had a bigger one that he was seeing, but for whatever reason was choosing not to use it. Or couldn't. Actually, he should probably consider that to be the accurate cause; the program was inhabiting a fractured world that hadn't even been hooked up to a power source for the last few weeks. Months. It was surprising a program was actually functioning at all, even if the program itself informed him it wasn't.
/Invalid/
/Program is not functioning/
Then how come you're talking to me if you're not functioning?
/I/O/
I don't know what that is. How are you talking to me at all?
/I/O/
He didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but decided to change the subject instead of dwelling on it. He doubted he'd understand a lot of what the program said, and he doubted the program would be capable of explaining itself if he asked.
How are things in there?
/Invalid/
He came to realize, after a few stops and starts, that invalidmeant the program didn't understand his question and he needed to rephrase himself. Time for a retry, then.
What is it like in the Grid right now?
Even though the pause was only a second's worth, and by human standards not a pause at all, Sam knew that time passed differently on the side the program was on, and figured that the slight delay meant that his question had forced it to do some thinking.
Or maybe it had hesitated. He didn't know.
/Degraded/
/Dead/
…yeah, I figured. How are you still awake?
He figured 'awake' would go over better then 'functioning', since apparently the program thought it wasn't doing that at the moment. Sam was pleased when, immediately, he found himself to be correct.
/Was offline/
So did that mean that while he'd been carrying the Grid around his neck, this program hadn't been 'awake'? Sam thought that made sense; it had been three months since he'd moved the data onto the storage, and given how long that would have been for Grid-time, he doubted any program could have remained 'alive'—or 'awake'—long enough that it could talk to him now.
You must have come back online when I plugged the storage into my laptop. That's the only way you could have gotten power over the past few months.
/Define; Storage, laptop/
Uh.
/Invalid/
/Define; Storage, laptop/
I know! I didn't mean 'uh' as an answer. It's a noise Users make, okay?
/Invalid/
/Define; Storage, laptop/
I will, just hold on a bit! Things aren't as fast on my end as they are on yours. Give me a chance to continue before you get impatient.
Sam paused, huffed out in exasperation, then blinked when he realized the bold text hadn't appeared with a retort or a demand for him to define what his laptop or storage was. Stupidly, he felt confusion spring forth into his gut.
Hello?
/User/
The nervousness was overridden by the slightly nauseous sensation of relief.
Hey. You went quiet there just now.
/Time to respond/
...oooohhh…right. He'd just asked for it… why hadn't he—oh whatever.
Sorry. Do you still want to know what my laptop and the storage are, or are we past that now?
/Please define/
OK then. I put the Grid's data on the storage stick. It's where you are right now. It's like a portable hard drive except it's meant to be inserted into a computer, not function as one. My laptop is the computer I'm using to fix the code. I've got the storage hooked into it and that's why you've got power and probably why you are awake again right now.
/Acknowledged/
So how are you doing, while we're on the subject?
/Function obsolete/
/System dead/
/Power insufficient/
/Damage sustained/
/Corrupted/
Sam realized rather suddenly that there was a special kind of feeling for moments like this. It felt like putting your foot in your mouth, only several times worse and a thousand times more shameful.
Sorry. Guess it's obvious things aren't going well for you right now.
/Correct/
Heh. He wasn't sure whether that was supposed to be sarcastic or not. It was impossible to tell with someone who had no voice, no infliction in their text, and used such short dialogue while communicating.
Have my repairs had any kind of effect in there yet?
/Structure repair/
Sam grinned, though immediately forced himself not to when he remembered he wasn't supposed to like the Grid.
Do you think it's helping?
Should it matter? It shouldn't matter. Sam tried to tell himself that it shouldn't, even though he found himself grinning again at the answer he received.
/Superficial/
What kind of superficial improvement have I been making, then?
/Buildings/
That's something, at least. So, are you alone in the Grid right now?
/Negative/
/Multiple programs/
He didn't know why that made him smile. It just did. He wouldn't dignify it with an acknowledgement beyond the fact that he did it. He was reasonably sure that the vast majority of the programs on the Grid hadn't been User friendly, and in fact probably would have been hostile towards him if he'd encountered them. Heck, maybe he had encountered some of the programs that were apparently also still in there.
Oh well.
How are the other programs doing? You guys have energy now, and I'm repairing the buildings. What else do you need?
There was another second's pause that he knew meant the program was thinking, and then…something changed in the way the program spoke. …or, typed. Or texted. Or responded. However it was it was answering him.
/Population is small enough to survive off current resources/
/System requires extensive repairs/
/No functions being executed/
/System is in failure/
That had to be the single longest response he'd received from the program yet. Not only that, but it seemed like it was more… coherent then the previous ones had been. Something about that jumped out at Sam, and he found himself feeling oddly like a therapist that was working with a client towards a breakthrough. Which was ridiculous because he wasn't. At all.
What do I need to do to fix the system?
/Repair/
No kidding. What do I need to repair?
/The system/
No. Invalid. What do I need to do first, in order to begin repairing the system. What is your most immediate need?
/The system/
Sam threw his hands up in exasperation and groaned dramatically, head tossed back for the audience that couldn't see him. "And here I thought we were getting somewhere."
Eventually, he managed to break the key and phrase his question right—though the answer itself was still confusing.
If I am going to repair the system, what part of the system should I repair first?
/Defense/
It was understandable yet too ambiguous; defense against what?
What do you need to be defended against?
/Gridbugs/
/Me/
Sam frowned, head tilting, and ignored the distant sound of footsteps coming down his hallway that meant it was going-home time. He had to wrap this up or risk explaining the sudden desire to work overtime to a bunch of people who wouldn't believe him.
What are Gridbugs, and what do you mean 'you'?
/Gridbugs/
/Defend against corruption/
The Gridbugs defend against corruption?
/FALSE/
/Gridbugs spawn from faults in the system/
OK, got it, I think. And did you just shout at me?
/False/
Then why did you suddenly go all Caps-lock back there?
/Invalid/
No, not invalid. You shouted.
/Invalid/
You shouted man.
/False/
/Refocus/
/System defense/
Sam raised a brow, amused despite himself and the fact that he shouldn't be arguing with half broken programs at that moment. Actually, he probably shouldn't be talking to them at all, but oh well.
Okay. You need me to do something about Gridbugs. How do I defend against Gridbugs?
Were Gridbugs even real? The name sounded…wait…bugs...in a Grid…
"Oh I get it…huh."
/Reinforce city/
/No defense team/
/Can't combat/
/Corrupted/
So you're saying I should give the buildings some kind of protection against these Gridbugs?
/Affirmative/
/Clean folders/
/Rectify corrupted data quickly/
I should put the buildings in clean folders and then focus on repairing as quickly as possible?
/With caution/
What were you saying about a defense team?
/System lacking defense team against Gridbugs/
/Cannot combat/
/Corrupted/
OK so… you're lacking a defense team because it's corrupted and therefore can't counter the Gridbugs?
/Incorrect/
/Lacking team/
/Cannot combat/
/Corrupted/
Sam sighed. This looked like it was turning into another one of those deadends where some failure to communicate caused all breakdown in understanding. He'd run into more of them then he'd like since he'd started talking with this program. It was like the thing's processor took an enormous dump each time it managed to string together something mildly intelligent.
Who is lacking a team and who is corrupted?
/Me/
Sam frowned.
So you're the one who can't combat because you're corrupted?
/Affirmative/
And how are you corrupted?
Somehow, Sam found that he was already braced for the answer, even before the immediate response came back to him when he hit the enter key.
/Corrupted/
/Infected/
/Virus/
/I fell into the sea/
…holy shit.
"Holy shit."
Quorra had told him about this. About the ISOs and the Sea of Simulation and what that bastard C.L.U had done to stop more of her people from immerging from it. He knew the sea had a virus in it. He hadn't, for some reason, thought that the virus was harmful to the rest of the Grid; C.L.U had put it there himself, so it must have been a controlled thing.
Had the current state of the Grid changed that? Was the virus now spreading? No, the program had said it had fallen into the sea, not that the virus had spread beyond it, so…
How did you fall into the sea?
…hello?
Program?
Sam stared at the screen, bewildered at the sudden cease in response. Grid-time shouldn't have allowed for that big of a pause; the seconds were considerably longer there. Had he…triggered the program with his question?
"Uh,"
He supposed it was possible; the program hadn't described very comfortable living conditions when he'd asked about the state of the Grid, and he'd not seen much evidence towards a particularly robust mind. If anything, the program seemed, understandably, damaged. Perhaps he'd finally asked too much?
Or maybe something had happened that had caused the program to no longer be able to respond? He didn't know, he didn't even know how to program had been able to talk to him in the first place, because as far as he could tell that was not normal—
/C.L.U/
Woah.
Wait.
C.L.U? C.L.U put you in the sea?
Another long pause, and Sam had the strangest, unexplainable feeling that he was listening to a comedian and was the only one in the room that didn't get the joke. That he should have pieced something together by now. That there was something just at the cusp of his mind that was trying to get his attention, but he couldn't pinpoint where it was no matter how hard he listened to what it was trying to remind him.
It wasn't just because C.L.U was being mentioned. It was something…else…
/No/
/Fell/
/I fell into the sea/
Sam tried again, and hoped that he wasn't about to hit another communication dead-end.
Why did you fall into the sea, program?
…
...
/Flynn/
/Go/
/I…/
Sam was already typing a response, face creased into a hard frown as he edged closer to the keyboard, when the dialogue box he'd been communicating through abruptly closed itself of its own accord.
Or, more likely, the accord of the person who had put it there in the first place.
Bewildered yet again and now more then a little uneasy, Sam sat back in the support of his chair and stared slack jawed at the screen in front of him, brain not quite sure what to do with the information that didn't make sense.
"...what the hell?"