Star Trek: War on the Grid

1. An Unfinished Game

"The Grid – a digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see. And then, one day, I got in…"

Tron leaned into his lightcycle as the game grid came online. He could still remember a day when the lightcycles were created with much simpler programming, and had a closed cockpit. These cycles, however, were open, allowing for disc combat in addition to the classic light ribbon combat.

Looking intently across the grid, he attempted to examine the other programs that he was to go against. Since the User Flynn had recreated the Grid and brought him here, the only programs that he fought on the grid were usually criminals and corrupted programs without their original identity discs. He had a challenge… there were three programs that he had to combat alone. One of them seemed to have been a corrupted program that had had any dangerous codes removed by the antivirus programs prior to his transfer to the games. The other two seemed to be typical programs, but one seemed uncomfortable… seemed unique in this environment, as if he weren't working according to his programming. Tron had seen this kind of behavior before, but he couldn't concentrate on it.

The crowd cheered as the other programs rezzed their lightcycles and began riding toward him. He began moving forward, charging toward them in his own lightcycle at high speed, his blue light ribbon trailing behind him. In his hands, the handles of the cycle vibrated as the forward wheel guided the bike with increasing speed toward his opponents.

Two of the programs seemed to move off on their own, their coding telling them that they must work alone in order to avoid deresolution. The third, however, took an erratic course, moving away from the other two programs almost immediately and moving around the outer perimeter of the game grid. Choosing to take that one on as a challenge, Tron focused in on the two normal programs, quickly derezzing them before moving on to the other opponent, which had finally discovered the lower levels of the grid and was traveling below the security program.

Tron reached over his shoulder and detached his identity disc, savoring the familiar vibration as it began to heat up and spin in his hand. The other program seemed to be more of a hand-to-hand fighter, so he quickly caught up to it and took a swing at the back wheel of the bike.

Instantly, the program lost control of his vehicle, and he jumped off of it before it swerved and scattered its pixilated remains across the ground.

"Greetings, program," Tron intoned as he got off his own cycle and split his disc in two.

"Program? I think you're mistaken." The opponent wielded his own disc as he backed away from Tron.

"Mistaken?" The security program was taken aback. How could this program not know what he was? He hadn't activated its disc, and wielded the object awkwardly, as if he had never been on the game grid before.

"Where the hell am I?"

"By the Users…" Tron said, astonished. The crowd had fallen silent, watching as the two faced each other. "You can't be a User?"

"What is a User?" The program asked. "My name is William Riker, of the starship Enterprise."

Tron retracted his helmet and deactivated his discs, replacing them on his back. "My name is Tron. I can't believe it… only Flynn has been on the Grid before… is he here?"

"I'm unfamiliar with Flynn. Where the hell are we?"

Tron led Riker off of the game grid, trying to hide his shock. "We're somewhere you shouldn't be."