Title: Fall
Author: Suadela
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Disney owns it. I play with it.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Fritz for being my beta. She caught so many mistakes and this story would have been horrible without her.
A.N.: I may continue this if my muses will let me. Reviews help. ^_^
Prologue
Thunder rolled in the distance. Tron looked towards the approaching storm. The whole thing seemed symbolic, he thought. A storm was coming and even the creator was helpless to stop it. Especially if he refused to believe it was even coming.
Despite how much Tron had tried to warn Kevin Flynn of what CLU was becoming, what he was doing, the user remained convinced that everything was fine. It was frustrating. Tron left everything behind on the Encom system to come and help Flynn protect his private system. Flynn trusted him to do his job and Tron made sure every resident from the grid was protected from harm.
But he could do nothing to protect it from its biggest threat. Tron didn't trust CLU. His ability to manipulate code was almost user-like and Tron felt he was too powerful. Though he couldn't create programs, he could create buildings and roads and almost anything else the system required for the programs to function properly. That kind of user-like power was dangerous for a program to have. The MCP had a similar power.
Tron knew it agitated CLU that the grid bugs tore apart everything he created. He knew that Clu, very much like Flynn, wanted to create and to have his hard work torn down in front of him must have been difficult.
Tron used to be a simple program. His life had been very direct and his function was straightforward: Find any task not schedule and shut it down. He had been given the tools to fulfill his function and was happy to do so. He knew taking down the MCP pleased his creator greatly.
Then Flynn came back to the system and told him about a new system he was building and even though the user obviously looked to Tron as a friend, Tron couldn't help but see the other as a user: A being that created programs seemingly on a whim. After spending a few cycles with the man, Tron had learned much about users. They weren't perfect. They weren't all knowing. And even though they were extremely powerful, in some ways, more powerful than Tron could even dream, they weren't all powerful. He watched as Flynn fumbled his way around the new grid and knew the user was testing to see what he could and couldn't do. Flynn couldn't do everything. One large example was that he wasn't able to keep the portal open for more than a milicycle, so his time on the Grid was short. His times away from the Grid seemed to grow each time he left.
Tron was no longer a simple program. He saw the complexity of the life Flynn lived. He was of two worlds; this one, where he had the responsibility of creating, and those of the user world. Tron didn't know exactly what responsibilities the user had in his own world. With how long he was gone and how tired he seemed to be the last few times he had come, Tron imagined the responsibilities to be great; especially Sam. Tron knew Flynn's devotion to the child.
He also knew the frustration CLU had to deal with. The administrative program was trying to follow a complex function and he did not have the proper tools or the proper understanding of what his creator actually wanted. Tron blamed Flynn for most of this. He had a half formed idea of what he wanted and gave a program the task of seeing it done. And he made his creation just as stubborn as he was.
CLU's frustration was completely understandable. Flynn was gone for cycles at a time, leaving the maintenance of the Grid in CLU's hands and the protection of it in Tron's. Added to all this, he didn't tell either program how to deal with the grid bugs caused by the ISOs. Tron doubted Flynn even understood the growing complexity of the problem since he was rarely on the grid. He tried to update Flynn on what was going on with the system but the user brushed off most of his worries, having complete faith that CLU would do what was right.
Tron didn't have that faith. He had seen first hand what CLU had done to the system while Flynn was away. He knew the program thought himself to be just like the creator.
He knew it was only a matter of time before the frustrated program did something drastic. Yes, a storm was coming.
"Would you stop worrying about it, Tron?" Flynn laughed good naturedly at him. He turned his attention from the approaching thunderstorm to the user. "Man, everything's fine. Everything's under control." Flynn shook his head in good humor. He obviously thought he knew more about the situation than Tron did. He hoped Flynn was right. Maybe he did know more than Tron gave him credit for.
"Flynn!" Tron and Flynn both stopped walking and turned to CLU. Something seemed off about him. Tron's concern grew as he took in the yellow armor. "Am I still to create the perfect system?"