Flynn remembered very little after he made that jump. What little he could recall felt like being run through a cement mixer full of spare change and compelled to grab all the pennies. Merged with the AI, he could see through all the electronic world, and fought to stay conscious, pushing back hard against Master Control's attempts to engulf him. It wasn't a matter of living through it, it was just a matter of buying time. The elaborate push and pull must have done the job, however, because he sensed the disc hitting its mark. There was a sudden flash of all blue and a horrible synthetic scream filled what passed for ears before the universe seemed to spit him out.

The next thing he remembered was coming to and lurching forward across the terminal. Terminal? His brain started filling in the pieces; the laser lab, Lora's terminal. His clothing wasn't the circuit-lined armor and half-tunic, but the jacket, jeans, and running shoes. A quick glance at the clock and the calendar underneath; same day, but two hours after he broke in.

Two hours? How could it only have been two hours?

The hum and screech of the nearby dot matrix printer snapped him out of it. A printout of several pages of metadata – files, passwords, records. And there it was, a complete list of files and data that Ed Dillinger and Master Control appropriated and moved to their private archives. Top of the list? Space Paranoids.

With a loud whoop, he grabbed the printout from the lab's dot-matrix printer and started racing for the stairwell back to the lobby…

And ran smack into a lobby full of police, ranging from the Encom rent-a-cop security staff in their white shirts to fully-armored SWAT troopers. Alarmed, Flynn pushed himself against the backside of the closest square pillar, holding his breath and trying to figure out what options he had for an escape route. Without being fully aware of it, he groped for a disc on his back that was no longer present.

Three figures were being led down the stairs by the SWAT team, and Flynn's heart sank when he recognized them; Old Man Gibbs in the front, Alan and Lora bringing up the rear. They looked like they'd been mugged; Gibbs's glasses were a spider-web of cracks on one side and his shirt was ripped open from the neck to mid-chest. He sported two black eyes and a nasty welt on his forehead. Lora's blonde hair was stained with several streaks of blood, nails broken, knuckles and face bruised. Alan was missing his glasses (and the resemblance to Tron was downright uncanny), a large bruise on his jaw, but more bruises on his hands and arms, meaning he must have gotten a few good shots in on the other guy.

Okay, first priority was to kick the ass of whoever hurt Lora. Second was to congratulate Alan on being a lot more terrifying than he looked. Of course, he would need to get out of here to do either one, so maybe rethink the order here…

Gibbs shouted his direction. "Come out from behind there, Mister Flynn. You aren't very good at hiding."

Crap. He didn't even try to put up a fight as the two white shirt security guards closed in and steered him to where the three were standing. He tried looking Alan and Lora in the eye, failed, then looked down at the paper.

"You got what you came for, hotshot?" Alan was the one to break the silence.

All the exuberance of victory gone. Flynn nodded and held up the paper. Gibbs scowled, snatched it out of his hand, read it, and then handed it back.

"I should have known. Of all the stunts he's pulled, of course he would start with something like that."

"Yeah. Some good it does us all now." Flynn slumped, readying himself for what was next. Cuffs, the Miranda warnings, court dates, probably a very long stay in an eight by ten…

"He's been banned from Encom property, Doctor Gibbs," the shorter guard said. "We can just hand him over to the police – "

"By whose authority, Edward Dillinger's?" Gibbs snapped. "Absolutely not."

"But we have the proof he was hacking our – "

"Yes, on my orders," Gibbs said. "Because Dillinger and his pet AI project damn near got us all killed tonight. No, I wanted Flynn to try and get into our system – discreetly – to try and figure out what was going on, since we've been having trouble for months. Mister Bradley and my assistant Doctor Baines decided to assist in the matter. I had to do it all off the books so that my so-called Executive Vice President didn't know about it, but this is still my company and my property, and he has every right to be here. Now, let him and his friends go."

The security guards looked stunned but did as they were told and went over to keep speaking to the police. Gibbs adjusted what was left of his shirt and leaned over, whispering. "I hope you don't mind a bit of a white lie under the circumstances."

"Uh…no. What…what happened to you guys?"

"Dillinger had a team of armed goons hidden among the office security," Lora explained. She looked over her shoulder where the SWAT team was taking down about three or four men and two women in body armor and empty holsters. "Looks like they shot the security chief dead before cornering Gibbs and tying him up in the server room. Roy Kleinburg was also working late when they charged in. They roughed him up, but because of him, we were able to get away and find an unsecured terminal."

"Between that and the Master Control Program integrating itself with the building's elevator, fire suppression, and other emergency systems…" Alan added. "Tried to suffocate us in the server room, send us plunging to our deaths in the elevator. Nothing short of a miracle any of us survived, much less got to a terminal. I take it the Tron upgrade worked?"

Flynn wanted to say, Yeah, buddy. It really worked. Like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch crossed with Hiroshima. And wait until I tell you about that paladin you coded up. Great guy, scary good in a fight, total dork—definitely takes after you. He settled for a nod.

One of the medics approached and gestured to Gibbs to come over to where the ambulances and medical team was standing by. Gibbs sighed. "The medics are going to have to check me out, and the police will want statements. I'll expect the three of you in my office first thing tomorrow morning. Come together if possible. This is hardly the place to discuss the mess I'm going to have to clean up after tonight. Sorry."

Flynn shrugged and thought of the best lie he could. "Didn't see much. I was locked down there in the lab at Lora's terminal, running interference. Uh…none of the goons came down that far."

"Lucky you," Lora drawled. "Alan and I already got checked out, so…"

The elevator opened and a team of EMTs poured out, escorting a stretcher. The patient on it was battered, blood in the mop of sandy curls on top his head. One shoulder was bandaged, and arm and leg were splinted. Despite the mass of cuts, bruising, and swelling on his face, the features were scarily familiar…Ram.

Flynn froze, unable to stop staring. Everything he had tried not to think about hit him like a wrecking ball. Watching Ram die, feeling the code go into cascade failure right in front of him with no idea how to stop it or repair it, the regret as what he learned later may have saved Ram, but he just didn't know what was happening at the time. And it also hit Flynn all at once how many narrow escapes he had from dying in that parallel world, with no one knowing what happened.

Alan's hands rested on Flynn's shoulders. "Take it easy, Flynn. The medics assured us that Roy is going to be all right once they get him to the hospital."

So Ram's User was the one who saved everyone else, but took the worst hit. Somehow, that made more sense than it should.

Lora was confused. "Flynn, do you know him? Roy was hired a few weeks after you got canned."

Flynn shook his head, trying to center himself. "Just…get me home, guys."