Authors Note: You learn something new every day. Apparently those space paranoid ships are called recognizers. Also guess what I discovered today, there was a video game called Tron 2.0, It's about Alan's son Jet going into the grid. Let's mix this story up! Also even thought the hit counter is out, I've had this chapter done for a while hoping it would come back up 0_0
"End of Line" MCP said. The transmission ended.
"It can't attack us directly, so it tries to go for the morale" Tron said looking out into the Grid city. Recognizers were in the distant searching for any form of resistance.
"They're looking for us aren't they" Sam said. Tron looked at Sam's dejected face.
"Hey I have something that might cheer you up" Tron said. He started back down the cliff side. Quorra followed and Sam reluctantly went along. Tron led them to another room where a few programs were working on something. A large object lay sprawled out on the floor.
It was much more pixilated and simple but at the right angle it looked like a Recognizer.
"Do you like it, I've been working on it for about….27 hours" Tron said. He looked down for a moment. "Sorry, I'm not much a calculating program. I always get cycles and hours mixed up" He added
Sam smirked unable to help himself. Like programmer, like program. Alan wasn't so good at conversions either, that's why international trading was never left to him. Imagine the damage Alan could do with the Yen to dollar conversions.
"You've been working on it for about 3 milicycles, that's about 25 hours" Quorra corrected. Sam shuddered at the strangeness of time, twenty five hours here, was only a few minutes on the outside. Everything felt so relative. Sam might be able to fix this problem in an hour's time, and get back home.
"Yes, 25 hours, it's nearly resolute, now all it needs is a user to bind it together." Tron said excitedly. Tron continued to type in code into various parts of the recognizer's body.
"How is Alan involved in all this, why did he take the drive" Sam asked finally. That question had been bugging him the most. Quorra looked uncomfortable for a moment.
"When you told Alan about your father dying in the grid, what did you expect?" Quorra retorted. "Alan took it and tried to decipher it, the grid isn't static. Information is constantly moving through it. Alan was even able to bring Tron back, so he tried to bring back your father"
"Why would he do such a thing" Sam said rhetorically. The answer was quite obvious. Alan was a devoted friend. The only thing he ever did that could ever even be close to betrayal was when we married Lora.
"Alan_1, brought be back from deresolution, but unfortunately something came back with me" Tron said ominously. Quorra gave him a sheepish look. Tron suddenly chuckled
"Just Alan, right I keep forgetting, it's just that Alan_1 is in my data disk" Tron said lightly. He chuckled again "It so strange, breaking the rules"
Quorra looked back at Sam. He was clearly not amused with the Alan_1 pseudo-joke. Tron continued to work on the recognizer but it still looked very eighties, straight from the space paranoid's arcade. Sam turned to Quorra.
"What's the plan?" Sam asked. Quorra fidgeted around for a moment.
"We do the same thing that took down the MCP the first time. We get to the core and delete him with Tron's disk" Quorra said. Sam sighed. That was going to be a whole lot of work, especially since now there were six gaming worlds surrounding the city.
"So why am I here? Why isn't Alan here cleaning up his own mess?" Sam said bitterly. In truth, despite all the trouble it caused, it meant a lot that Alan would try to bring back his dad. Quorra looked even more uncomfortable than before. She didn't know what to say.
"I tried to stop them…" She began. Sam's heart dropped through his stomach. The MCP had captured Alan. This mission had just become priority one.
"It's done" Tron said interrupting there serious talk. Sam turned to see the recognizer. It looked like a mesh between an old relic and the new version. Tron pointed at the Control panel which was standing disembodied from the recognizer. Sam grabbed hold of it. Nothing happened. A look of confusion came over Tron's face.
"I don't compute. Everything is in order, it should be working" Tron said to himself. He thought for a moment and came up with an answer. He abruptly left and returned with a water bottle. The liquid inside the bottle was a strange cyan blue.
"Here try some of this" Tron said brightly. Sam put the glowing water to his mouth. He was skeptical though. Water wasn't going to make that half trash Recognizer run. It tasted like blueberry Smirnoff. Well this put all whole new spin on drinking and driving. The blue liquid surged through his system.
"Its energy, it will make your functions more efficient" Tron explained. So in this world, energy like alcohol made you more efficient rather than less. Well not everything was so bad about the grid after all. Sam put down the bottle and tried to use the Recognizer again.
This time it lighted up faintly. Sam didn't understand what was going on. Why couldn't he make this thing work
"I don't get it, Flynn was able to get a shattered Recognizer back together and make it fly" Tron said absentmindedly. Sam felt pain as thought he was physically punched, right in the gut and then in the face. Tron didn't mean to pour salt on Sam's wounds but his recognizer wasn't working and that was not all that was making him touchy. Tron saw the look on Sam's face and immediately felt sorry.
"I apologize to you, Sam. That was erroneous of me" Tron said. "I've been functioning poorly because of Alan_2"
"Alan_2?" Sam said raising his eyebrows. As if my magic a man appeared from the door. Sam turned to the sound of the footsteps.
"That's not my name" He said very angrily showing signs of offense. Sam looked at the strange man. His body was completely covered in blue circuitry but his face was familiar. Sam couldn't quite place it, maybe if said character wore some glasses. Then just like superman his identity was revealed. It was Jethro Bradley, Alan's son.
"Jet?" Sam said almost surprised. Of course Jet should be here to save his father but then again Jet and Alan didn't really see eye to eye. Sam wondered why his body was composed so strangely, but didn't ask. Jet saw Sam's expression and answered as though he did anyway.
"Damaged during transport, guess I won't be docking the neon suits anytime soon" Jet laughed
Tron went back to work on his recognizer, his expression was let than happy. Jet was clearly the source of his irritation. Tron muttered to himself ignoring Jet's presence in the room.
"Here's the plan, we already fly a couple recognizers straight for the center" Jet said filling Sam in.
"Tron's disk is the main priority, also we should try are best not to get separated, but if we do, the plan is still to make an opening to the center" Jet continued. Tron made a sound almost like a scoff, almost like he was indignant about his disk being the main priority rather than just him as a whole. Jet really got on his nerves, and Tron found himself wondering if Jet and Alan were really related.
"No matter what, we must destroy the MCP" Quorra said seriously. Tron continued tweaking his recognizer again.
"I could probably make one of these in less than an hour" Jet whispered, "But he won't let me near it"
Jet was a game programmer, making a space paranoid recognizer was child's play.
"How long have you been here?" Sam asked, there was really no time to waste. If Jet could make a recognizer, he should have, Alan was in danger after all.
"I got here an hour ago, just got debriefed by some of the more primitive programs" Jet said lightly, "Though I would have much rather been debriefed by you" He said turning to Quorra. She raised her eyebrow.
Tron was still fiddling in the background, and suddenly the recognizer light up, fully functional, and completely like any new version one. Only there was one difference. Tron was the one making it fly.
"Ha-ha" He laughed while flying in the air. "I get it now, this recognizer functions only allow me to use it"
"How convenient for you" Jet said darkly. He swore that program was differing functions. Tron's selfishness reminded Jet of his father.
Tron didn't hear Jets profane muttering over the sound of his hovering recognizer. Jet stomped off to make his own much better recognizer.