The Devil's Dues

Fandom(s): Tron: Legacy
Characters: Sam Flynn, Tron/Rinzler
Rating: T
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

Summary:
It wasn't so much that hope died, but that Sam realized it had only been wishful thinking all along.

For Winzler, and the prompt (misinterpreted):

The world ends. Nuclear wasteland, Mad Max style, etc. One day Sam comes out of the computer and everything is gone. The power will run out soon/the arcade is in danger/etc so Sam hurriedly brings a recovering Tron(zler) out to save him.

Tron is OK at first but slowly reverts to Rinzler under the stress of survival — and Sam eventually begins to lose it as well. In the end we're left with 2 bugfuck crazy survivalist murdermachines roaming the wasteland together.

Notes:
Moar details this time! And because I seem physically incapable of writing anything that doesn't have some hint of plot in it, there's a whisper of it here but a more proper start of it will be in the next part. But don't worry about happy endings - this is just the rise before the fall, I promise. =)

I'm half-considering putting The Sea on hold until I get this one done. I'm finding it a little hard to keep all the details of the two worlds I've built up in my head straight and this one's beginning to take on more shapes than I had planned, though maybe I'll push out one more chapter of The Sea before focusing completely on this.

Winzler, there may or may not be a nod to your pancake comment if you squint hard enough cuz it tickled me to death and I couldn't get it out of my head. Now I want pancakes. =(

Part 4

They reached the Golden Gate Bridge as the fog was rolling over the hills like giant breakers, tinted gold and cotton candy hues by the setting sun. Tron stared with more fascination than he had showed for anything in weeks, and Sam was now glad he had made the detour from the interstate to approach San Francisco from the north, even if the car he had lifted had run out of gas halfway through the Napa Valley.

He had lost track of the date a week or two ago, but judged it to be straddling the divide somewhere between October and November. In spite of the sea chill, it was still warmer than what he could have hoped for in the northern climes at this time of the year. As much as he loved the Pacific Northwest, he was ill equipped to learn winter survival techniques on the fly with no guides, no Google, and incomplete gear.

"I thought clouds were composed of water droplets that are lighter than air?"

Not to mention a dependent. Though, some days, he had to wonder who was more dependent on whom as he surreptitiously stretched stiff muscles. Tron looked only slightly stooped beneath his burden after a day's worth of walking, and even then, it might have been as much from distraction as fatigue. "They are. But these are heavier, so they sink." Tron looked pensively toward the ocean just behind them, and Sam amended, "But not heavy enough to sink all the way. Uh, not that they weigh differently. They're just bigger. The droplets, I mean." He thought for a moment, then mimed squinting through the space between thumb and index finger in illustration.

Tron watched his actions dubiously before proposing, "So, there is a gradient?"

"Yeah, something like that," Sam agreed readily, clapping the program on the shoulder as he shuffled past, hopping a bit to warm up again as they started the trek across the bridge.

Portland had been a pleasant stop - gun-wielding neighbors aside - with all the major structures still upright and most of the damage coming only from past riots or scavenging. It was easy to see why people had liked to settle there as a lifestyle choice before the world ended, even if he personally preferred more night-life. But while Portland had been more habitable than Seattle - flatter than ever now, after a few bombs - it had its downsides too.

After all, there were no municipal services left to do a proper clean-up of the remaining bodies, even if the local flora and fauna had made a valiant effort.

Sam had pushed on after spending only a week there; even if it was rare for snow to fall in the city, the draw of Silicon Valley's vast electronic resources was too tantalizing to be ignored. He didn't expect much - if anything - to be running, but perhaps with some ingenuity, he could get some basic services going. There might have been several priorities he should have put ahead of computing power, but as long as he was still able to scrounge up the necessary food and shelter, he didn't see any harm in making sure they were co-located with technology powerhouses in case they ever got around to doing more than merely surviving.

Which, from the smell of things as they began the trek through the marina toward Fisherman's Wharf, someone had already managed to do.

"Oh my god, it's real food," Sam groaned, taking a deeper breath as he convinced his tired feet to pick up the pace. He was almost used to the quiet from Tron now; just the scuff of the program's steps following his was enough reassurance that he did not bother to turn for a visual confirmation.

The light breeze smelled like fish, but that was hardly a surprise considering the wharfs' location. What was surprising was the thick, salty scent of stock and other stewing materials which accompanied it, setting his stomach to rumbling even though they had just filled up on jerky and canned beans and the last of their apple supply an hour ago. They followed the trail all the way to the park lawns behind the old maritime museum when Sam rounded a corner - and ran right into something at hip height that bounced off to land in a ragged bundle at his feet.

" ... a compressed user?"

"A ... what?" Sam glanced distractedly at an equally bewildered Tron before he quickly crouched down. "Hey - hey there, fella, you okay?"

The boy, six or seven perhaps, stared up at them with wide green eyes and a gape big enough that Sam could see a missing lower incisor. Just as Sam was reaching toward him to help him back to his feet, though, the child scrambled up on his own, wiping messy brown hair away from his forehead as he skittered out of reach.

"Whoa there, buddy, we're not gonna hurt you - "

"No?"

"No," Sam echoed firmly, with the widest grin he could remember, both hands held up in a gesture of good will. "Sorry 'bout that, didn't see you coming. I'm Sam, and this is Tron. You got any folks around - "

Before Sam could even finish expressing his hope that there was some sort of organized adult effort - the child looked thin, but otherwise, taken care of - the boy had abruptly leaped back in to tug at his collar with surprising strength, nearly pulling him face-first into the concrete when his pack over-balanced him. "Help! Help us - !"

"Hey, wait, hold on - !" Sam flailed, catching himself on a hand and wincing at the shrill cries next to his ear. "We'd be happy to, what's the - "

"They're gonna steal our food! They'll beat up Mama and Gong Gong and steal our food - "

Before Sam could do more than extricate the small fists from his shirt and rebalance himself against the weight on his back, there was a decisive thump beside him and he looked over to see Tron's pack now sitting beside him on the ground.

"Where?" was all the program asked, his face suffused with a focus and awareness that Sam had not even noticed was missing until now.

The boy seemed struck momentarily by a similar awe before he abruptly whirled in a flap of a too-big jacket and started racing back the way he had come.

The boy and whomever he had been living with had been taking shelter in one of the hotels across from the wharfs, and the delectable smells of stew had been rising from a makeshift cooking assembly in the establishment's tiny courtyard. What also came from the small cul-de-sac, though, were the sounds of a struggle; a woman's fearful, stridently defiant cries and a man's gruff outrage, all nearly overcome by ribald catcalls and malicious laughter.

Tron leaped ahead as soon as their destination became obvious, outpacing their small guide in a single leap that made it seem as if the boy was standing still. Sam put on an extra burst of speed, but whatever Olympian physique the laser had translated Tron's stats as had the program out of sight and engaging the raiders before Sam could round the corner and catch his first glimpse of the full scene.

It looked to be a relatively small gang; five men, three barely more than teenaged roughs. What appeared to be the ringleader was crouched over a wildly struggling Chinese woman, and even as Sam ran toward them, she managed to rake one free hand over his face, and he reared back with a snarl - then tangled a hand in her hair and gave her head a firm crack against the ground.

"Xiao Yen!" an old man cried as she went limp, and he pushed ineffectually at his keeper - a sharp-faced man who shouted out a warning and kept a bruising grip on his charge, even as he watched Sam leap at the ringleader with a roar and knock them both to the ground.

The ringleader was older, with the scarred knuckles of a brawler, and probably massed a good ten to twenty pounds more than Sam did. But Sam had been on lean rations and the equivalent of a forced march for weeks now, and he was no stranger to trouble. He was also not above using surprise to his advantage as he got one good punch into the man's gut and then another across the jaw before he was kicked off.

"Pick on someone your own size," he spat.

"Still don't see any here, shrimp," the man growled breathlessly before charging in, head down like a bull.

Sam wasn't quite fast enough to dodge completely, but he managed to avoid the brunt of the man's weight as they were brought to the ground again. After that, it was a confused flurry of pseudo-wrestling moves as they each tried to gain the upper position, before there was a sudden crack and the man went unexpectedly limp, nearly crushing the breath from Sam as dead-weight flopped across his middle. He blinked up past a stinking mass of oily hair to see the worried features of the old man - inexplicably free, now - who gave him a curt nod before disappearing from view. Groaning, Sam shoved the thug's weight off to check on the progress of Tron, who had initially been hemmed in by the youngest members of the gang.

Even without Rinzler's killer instincts, one youth was already lying unconscious at Tron's feet and he was eyeing the remaining two calmly as they circled him. Though they were smart enough to realize that their best chances were to attack him in concert, inexperience caused one to hesitate just long enough that when they finally moved, the program had time to block one's punch, shift, and lash out with a foot, catching the other in the face with a straight side kick.

As the latter stumbled back, blood leaking between the fingers he had clamped to his nose, Tron swayed fluidly around a second punch and wrapped an arm around the extended limb with almost languid ease. Twisting in a maneuver too quick for Sam to follow, his second opponent's feet abruptly left the ground as the youth pinwheeled through the air, then landed with a solid-sounding smack upon his back, the breath and wits knocked out of him.

Tron's last opponent wisely fled.

There was a wild crowing and the program tensed, half-whirling with an arm raised, before freezing as a familiar bundle abruptly latched itself to his side. He stared uncomfortably at the boy before awkwardly reaching around in an attempt to pat one small shoulder, in the same manner as he might have acknowledged a comrade-in-arms. "You're welcome ... ?" he said with no small amount of uncertainty amidst the boy's excited babblings over his recent performance.

Sam snorted in amusement, half-turning with the intent to check on the woman and old man, before he abruptly realized that there was a murmur of conversation beneath the child's high-pitched exuberance, coming from the hotel itself.

Two teen-aged girls and a frail-looking man lurked in the shadow of a pair of french doors, the former pair whispering excitedly to each other. The hum of voices was building, and Sam's eyes lifted, to find three heavy-set Hispanic women clustered at a window directly overhead, staring down with unapologetic fascination in their dark eyes. He stepped back, raking his gaze over the orderly rows of windows all across the hotel's three inner facades, and every dozen or so, he was certain he caught a glimpse of a face ... the twitch of a curtain ... a silhouette, hastily moving aside at his regard. And he felt his stomach begin to clench with a painful hope.

It was not just two or three individual transients squatting on the land. There were people living here.

When Sam and Tron had left the arcade, it was dawn. Dust still hung suspended like a mist, the air eerily still in that peculiar way after mayhem has passed; morning light filtering through in bandings which Sam associated more with black and white photographs of ancient cathedrals than the broken crenellations of Seattle's Old City.

There had been a far off echo of an emergency vehicle wailing into the distance, like the lonely call of a dying species. They would hear sirens intermittently for two more days, before they fell forever silent.

Sam didn't know at first whether he was grateful for or resentful of Tron's presence. What few stragglers and survivors they had encountered were either too deep in shock for comfort - the one woman they had found in that state had wandered off while they were asleep, never to be seen again - or too skittish to even approach, and the security program's sane and steady companionship was a relief by comparison. Yet, at the same time, with Sam's entire world uppended head over tail, everything felt raw and uncertain, and the incessant stream of questions - half of which he had no idea how to answer - and the need to explain even the most basic of concepts sometimes wore on him.

But, even figuring for the shock of entering into the user world in such a precipitous fashion, there was an alien strain which occasionally pulled Tron's features into taut lines, that sometimes curved his shoulders and movements into a restless, Rinzler-like prowl even though Rinzler was safely locked away. It wasn't until the third day, when a cat knocked over some rubbish and he had whirled with a hand reflexively going to his back before he paused, looking stricken, that it occurred to Sam to wonder if programs could suffer PTSD.

"Was it like this?" he asked before his brain could catch up.

"Yes." Tron apparently needed no introduction to the topic, for which Sam was grateful. They had not had time to properly address the Rinzler divide before - quite honestly, he had dragged his feet on the subject after installing the voice keys two weeks ago - and he still didn't know just how direct a hand the alter ego had had in The Purge. "No. I ... don't know. Not in detail. But there are ... feelings? Sensations? Here." He had pressed a hand to his chest, heel digging into the bottom edge of his sternum, as if trying to physically crush the heart beneath into submission. "And there is much more left behind, in your world. Clu ... he had been very fastidious. About cleaning up, afterward."

Sam fell sick the next day. Thankfully, by then, Tron knew enough about basic user survival to keep them both just on this side of living until he recovered. It was then, as Sam was still squinting through gummy lashes and scrabbling for his first lucid thought in days, while a program knelt beside him with head bowed in desperate relief and breathing a prayer of thanks to gods which didn't exist, that he realized Tron was well and truly his responsibility.

He wondered if it was some sort of cosmic balance that gave into his charge someone with his godfather's face.

When they had first emerged, his phone had indicated there were new voicemail messages and several missed calls from Alan. Since cellular services were down, all he could do at the time was stare periodically at the bubbly status icon until the device's battery ran out.

Four days later, he left the dead mobile on his father's computer desk in the arcade basement, just before they began their journey south. He never did untangle whether it was grief or a sort of sick relief which followed the realization that he would never hear his godfather's last words to him.