"You are Clu."
"I am Clu."
"You will create the perfect system."
"I will create the perfect system."
Flynn chuckled. Clu was the best program he'd ever written. Nothing could corrupt it. Nothing at all.
"Together we're gonna change the world, man."
Clu stared at the Creator in awe. He knew inherently that Users usually contacted their programs from outside the system, but to actually meet them... that was incredible. But when Flynn took him to the Grid and gave him his first directives, his thoughts went from Flynn to the system. It was the system that truly mattered. The imperfection was staggering and that was what he said to the Creator. Flynn smiled.
"Clu, you can't achieve perfection without a lot of work."
Clu nodded. Flynn's words corresponded with logic. He got to work.

"Man, are you seeing this?"
Flynn looked away from the vitally important problems in the Grid and turned to something in the Outlands. Clu looked at the Creator with disdain. Ever since the creation of User Sam Flynn, the Creator had become more and more careless and disinterested with his work and that greatly troubled Clu.
"Clu, get me a Recognizer, now."
What could be so more important than the Grid?

Clu and Tron waited in the Grid as Flynn dealt with the mysterious programs that had appeared in the Outlands. How the programs survived there was beyond Clu's logic, but he felt certain that Flynn would find out and use it to benefit them.
"Tron, why does Flynn spend so much time away from the Grid?"
Tron looked worriedly at his friend. Ever since the creation of User Sam Flynn, Clu had been increasingly focused on the lack of concentration on the Grid on Flynn's part to the point of paranoia. He responded: "He has important things to do in the User world, Clu. The Grid is not his whole existence."
Clu looked at Tron, pleading silently to be understood.
"The Grid can't be perfect when the Creator isn't focused on it."
Tron replied: "Flynn knows what he's doing. He is a User. If you were a program controlling the User world and you had creations in here, would you just abandon them to perfect their world?"
Clu looked down. Tron had a point. In more than one way. If only I was a program controlling the User world...

Clu looked at the nonsensical programs with disgust. He couldn't comprehend why the Creator was so interested in the ISOs. He'd never looked at the Grid the way he looked at them. Several cycles ago, he'd been mad that Flynn was so disinterested in the Grid. But now, he wasn't mad. He was fuming with anger. He'd thought that the lack of interest was caused by Sam but now he seemed to have more than enough time to deal with the ISOs. Why couldn't Tron understand? The Creator was holding the Grid back! He'd promised that they would change the world, together! As far as Clu was concerned, he'd broken that promise. Suddenly, something happened. Clu looked at his arm and saw with immense surprise and astonishment that his white circuits were flickering. In a few moments, they were completely yellow, designating a rogue program, not really part of any system.
"No kidding."
Clu had always been on his own. And he always will be. Smiling at the confused ISOs from whom he had simply planned to ask a few questions about their purpose, he drew his identity disc and derezzed the whole bunch. They were errors, a corruption, a virus and the Creator was corrupted and infected by them and Tron was infected and corrupted by the Creator. Clu could restore order without them. Clu would restore order without them.