Irony. I'm not certain if I completely understand the term. Flynn had tried to explain it to me once, but it had proven difficult for me to grasp. However, I suspect that the term 'ironic' could be applied to my current situation.
I had been walking along with my User, my friend, Kevin Flynn, the Creator of the Grid. Sometimes, in my rare quiet moments, I would pause and think on the wonder of my current function, a giddy sort of awe dancing through my code like a stray, mischievous bit. All programs exist to serve the Users, of course, but to have such a close, personal relationship with one, to have one call me 'friend' and to be able to honestly use the term in return… how many programs were so fortunate?
I fight for the Users. It is written deeply into my code, embedded in my very core. And I did so gladly, keeping the Grid and my fellow programs safe. For the Users. For Alan-1, who'd written me. For Flynn, my friend. And for all the other Users, who I'd had no direct contact with. I fought for them, and in fulfilling my function, I too was fulfilled.
Yes, all in all, despite the gridbugs and other difficulties, life on the Grid was good. Until recently, anyway. In retrospect, I should have seen the signs earlier, the subtle warnings that something was amiss. Even after I'd realized that Clu's drive to create the 'perfect system' was getting out of hand, I thought I could handle it myself. It was, after all, my function.
I'd finally taken action after I'd seen several other programs attempting to derez one who'd lost a game to them. On Clu's orders, they'd told me. This was not what Flynn had wanted. When I'd confronted him about it, he was calm, polite, reasonable. Too much so. He had no intention of putting things back the way Flynn had ordained. That much had been clear. Still, he could not change me; I'd continued to steadfastly refuse to derez my opponents. I'd thought that perhaps I could 'lead by example' as Flynn had said, and that other programs would follow my lead.
I was wrong. Oh, I'd had my supporters, of course, but no one wanted to go against Clu, not really. He was cast in the Creator's image. To many of them, he was like a second Flynn; they seemed to forget that he was a program; a very special program, yes, but a program still, and not a User. Even I was guilty of it, to a certain degree; perhaps that is why I couldn't see how far he had fallen, until it was too late.
Until I'd stood with Flynn, on the shore of the poisoned Sea of Simulation. Until I'd seen the look of broken sorrow on the faces of the ISOs… and on Flynn's face. Something deep in my core had twisted painfully; failure. I had failed. It wasn't the first time, of course, but never before had so many innocents paid the price for my failure. Never before had I failed my User, my friend, in such a profound way.
He didn't blame me, of course. Flynn, that is. Even though I'd offered to take some of the blame, upon our return to the Grid proper. No, it was his responsibility, he'd said, and he would find a way to fix it, just as he'd promised the ISO Ophelia. Humbly, I'd offered to help him; even if he'd said that he didn't blame me, I still felt the need to atone for my mistakes. He'd smiled in that oddly vulnerable way that he had, that way that somehow made his User nature more obvious and that Clu could never quite match, and said that he'd be glad to have my help.
Which brings us back to the present. Not long after that, I was walking with Flynn, telling him what I had discovered about Clu, and discussing what could be done about it, when suddenly, Clu himself came walking up to us. Something had changed about him, though; something was… off.
"Am I still to create the perfect system?", he asked Flynn.
"Yeah…", Flynn replied simply, as though Clu were asking something that should be very obvious.
It wasn't until then that I realized what had changed about Clu. It was something I hadn't seen since the cycles of the MCP's tyranny so long ago, and that I'd hoped to never see again. That malevolent orange-red glow that Flynn had once compared unfavorably to burning coals, whatever those were.
Several of Clu's guards stepped out from concealed positions, weapons ready. An ambush! "Flynn, go!", I ordered him, drawing my disc in his defense. For a split nano he looked at me, clearly torn, then fled. Amid the flurry of flying discs and derezed guards that followed, I caught a glimpse of his escape.
'Keep running, Flynn,' I mentally urged him. 'Don't worry about me.' My survival mattered little, compared to his. I fight for the Users; I was more than willing to die for them too, especially *this* User.
But that moment of distraction was all Clu needed. He pinned me to the ground, disc poised for a derezzing stroke. I looked at his face; a face so like that of my User and dear friend. Yet his eyes… his eyes were sharp, hard, unforgiving, so unlike those of Flynn. They remind me a bit of Sark's. And behind them… behind them just a flicker of madness, of desperation, of hatred and growing rage.
Hence the irony, I think. I'm about to be drezzed by one who is so like and yet so unlike the one I tried to protect. "We'd have made a great team, Tron," he says quietly, obviously meant only for me to hear. I can't tell if the regret in his voice is real or false.
"No," I reply in the same quiet tone, but defiant, not regretful, and my defiance is very real. I proudly speak what will surely be my last words. "I fight for the Users. Not for you."
His response is not what I expect. A smirk spreads across his face. "We'll see." I don't even have a nano to think about what he meant. His disc comes down, and I know no more.