Title: TRON: INVASION
Author: sandbat/number_5ev3n
Rating: T for now, may or may not progress to M eventually.
Synopsis: TRON/Blade Runner Fanfic. It's 2021, the Tyrell Corporation attempts a hostile takeover of Encom, and the Grid is caught in the crossfire.
Disclaimer: Neither Disney nor Ridley Scott are half as scary as the Tyrell Corporation; nevertheless, neither TRON nor Blade Runner belong to me.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As with most of my fics, this was inspired by a dream I had; in this case, one that occurred the night after my second viewing of TRON: Legacy. It's technically a crossover with Blade Runner; some of the characters in the dream were characters from my Blade Runner fic, which is still WIP (a little of it can be seen over on my LJ.) The two storylines got all caught up together to the point where I really couldn't extricate them.
...
The Grid was free once again after Clu's downfall. And for a while, everything was good.
The programs that populated the Grid knew little of the changes that were sweeping the real world, even as Sam Flynn enacted his own changes upon the Grid. Given new space to grow within the confines of the new system Sam imported it to, it did so exponentially. New cityscapes sprang up to occupy this vast new territory, connected together by winding highways and deep channels of luminous data.
Sam and Quorra shared administration of the new Grid, Grid 3.0. And once Tron was recovered, he gladly took up his protective duties. The games were reinstated, restored to the conditions under which they'd functioned before Clu had corrupted them. Existence within the Grid began to settle into a peaceful rhythm as the cycles passed.
If things weren't exactly perfect, they were close enough that the programs were content enough with their lot. As time went on, some of the programs soon caught on to the fact that one of Sam and Quorra's many goals within the new grid was to somehow recreate the conditions under which the Isomorphic Algorithms had originally sprung into being. This didn't bother them. Everyone seemed happy to follow their programmed directives and let the two Administrators get on with the task of Administrating.
If Sam and Quorra were being threatened and challenged in the real world - if things in the world of the Users were, in fact, taking a sharp turn for the worse - the Programs knew nothing of it. The Grid was their world, and their only concern - until the day their Administrators didn't return; the day that over six hundred cycles of peace within the Grid was finally shattered.
The Grid's citizens were used to long absences. Faced with the horror that Clu had been before his deresolution, Sam was not willing to program a copy of himself to act as Administrator while he was away. During the early cycles of Grid 3.0's inception, it had become common for Sam and Quorra to Admin in "shifts," switching out as needed. After everything stabilized and the programs settled into their directives, Sam and Quorra found themselves able to let things unfold, and the cycles between their visits lengthened.
As a result, no one was prepared for the attack when it happened.
The first sign that anyone had that something was wrong was that the lines of communication between cities were cut. Each city was designed to be a self-sufficient realm unto itself, though Sam encouraged cooperation and accord between the different city-states.
Aleph City was just such an enclave, with graceful spires gleaming with emerald green circuitry patterns which towered into the Grid sky. The color had originally been chosen as a tribute to the long-lost Bostrum Colony; and though Aleph City's inhabitants were all "basic" programs, they manifested the independence and ingenuity which had also been a hallmark of the Bostrumites.
Kelso, chief Monitor for Aleph City, stepped up security once Tron City and the other city-states stopped responding. It was a noble effort, and many lives were probably saved because of it.
In the end, it was not enough. Trapped within his own predicament, struggling to protect Quorra and all she represented for the future of humanity, Sam was nevertheless alert to the new danger threatening the digital world which was his father's legacy. A final, desperate gambit was hatched to save the Grid.
In time, those who survived would call the conflict the Tyrell Invasion, as the Grid - and Encom itself - came under the threat of full-scale annexation by the Tyrell Corporation.
….
It was approximately 599.12342 cycles into Arachne's assignment as City Monitor when everything went to hell.
It began as an odd shaking, as though an entire fleet of tanks were charging through the city. In fact, Arachne wondered if that was what it was; a large vehicle or vehicles moving outside, lumbering with enough force to disturb the surface of the decorative energy pools within the building where she was stationed. She stared in consternation at the rippling fluid, wondering what could possibly warrant the mobilization of such a force. Had the reason for the other cities' sudden silence been discovered? None of the riders who had been sent to find out what was going on had returned...
Arachne was thrown to the ground as a huge fissure suddenly ripped through the floor, swallowing everything - furniture, instruments, and her fellow programs - in its wake. Arachne could see the code dissolving as the floor itself derezzed.
"Everybody remain calm!" she shouted. It was what she'd been programmed to shout in an emergency situation, to remind programs that everything was under control. Except that it wasn't. Nobody within the Grid had ever experienced anything quite like an earthquake before.
The building collapsed between the space of the first and last word of that one sentence. Arachne was saved only by the fact that the debris around her fell in such a way that she wasn't crushed; but she was trapped.
In a blind panic, Arachne fell back on her original programming. She'd been an armory siren before Sam Flynn had repurposed her for Monitor duty; sirens hadn't been needed as much during the reconstruction. Monitors had been. Between bouts, it was common for sirens to go into standby mode until their services were required.
That was exactly what she did, until she came to to find Baud - a communications program who worked with the Monitors, and Niels - a disc warrior from the local games, were pulling her out of the wreckage.
"Arachne!" Baud shouted. "Are you all right? Can you hear me?"
Dazed, the first thing Arachne noticed was that Niels's armor was damaged. It would need to be replaced. She blinked, shaking her head as her secondary programming re-asserted itself.
"Is everyone all right? How long was I out?" Arachne asked, pushing the two men out of the way and pulling herself up onto her feet. She was a Monitor. She had to restore order.
"The whole city is falling apart," Niels said. "Kelso has organized us into search and rescue teams. We've been able to save some, like you, but many haven't been so lucky."
"What happened?" Arachne demanded, as she took in the massive scale of the damage all around her.
"We don't know," Baud answered shakily. "It started very suddenly, and then it just stopped. Kelso has been trying to reach Sam and Quorra on the outside, other cities, anyone. Nobody has any answers."
Arachne felt horrible for him; he looked sickened and scared. But then, it was impossible not to feel the same way as she surveyed the destruction that lay all around her.
….
Arachne joined Baud and Niels in the task of recovering lost and damaged programs from the toppled ruins. Recognizers were being employed in the search, and Arachne soon found herself in command of one as the rescue efforts stretched into the next millicycle. Some few programs went along with them in the search, frantically trying to determine the fates of lost friends as they picked through the rubble even as they told themselves it would be okay; Sam and Quorra would be back, they would explain what had gone wrong, and everything would be made right again. Others simply stood and stared at the wreckage, at the derezzed fragments of their loved ones, or simply off into space; helpless tears pouring down their cheeks as they tried to make sense of what had happened to them and their beloved city.
One of these stood atop a pile of debris; a small woman whom Aracnhe would have figured for a diagnostics or communications program, from the looks of her. She seemed just as lost and horrified as they all were at that point. What caught Arachne's attention to her initially was her circuitry pattern; unlike the green of most of the city's inhabitants, hers gleamed white as it shone through the fabric of her garments. She startled, and tried to run away as Arachne landed the Recognizer nearby.
"Hello? Are you all right, program?" Arachne asked, intercepting the woman and taking her by the shoulder. The girl flinched, shuddering.
"It's okay, program," Arachne assured her. "You're safe now. What is your name and function? Which city are you from?" She knew that there had been programs from other cities who'd been stranded in Aleph when the communication lines went dead. City affiliation aside; as far as Arachne was concerned, they were all in this together.
"Hel. Maintainance," the girl answered. "Is this really happening? Is this real? Are you really here? Am I really seeing this?"
"It's going to be all right, Hel," Arachne told the traumatized program, with conviction that she wished she truly felt. "We will disseminate more information about what caused this event as soon as it's made available to us."
"Is that a Recognizer?" Hel asked, her eyes wide with shock.
"It's all right. You're not in trouble. Shelters are being erected in the areas that have already been cleared. Energy is being distributed there. Please come with me."
"I...I can help," the girl insisted. "Just let me know what you want me to do."
"If you're judged fit enough, you'll be sorted into one of the teams which are being assembled for search and rescue purposes. Please come with me now, program."
"Right. Okay." Hel said, as Arachne steered her towards the Recognizer.
It wasn't until they were on the platform that Arachne realized that Hel had no disc.