Alan didn't know how long he slept, and he couldn't bring himself to care. Hours passed in a haze, blurring together into the few minutes of consciousness he allowed himself. Every time he woke up enough to remember where he was, he hid his face beneath a pillow and focused only on taking the next breath, jaw clenched so hard it ached, until he could finally retreat back to the solace of sleep. When he was asleep, he didn't have to think about Flynn, or the Grid, or Lora or Roy or Sam. He didn't have to think about how he would never see them again. He didn't have to think about anything at all. Sometimes, through the haze, he thought he could hear soft voices saying his name. He ignored them, not knowing if they were real or part of a dream. It didn't matter either way. Eventually, the voices faded, letting him slip back into unconsciousness.

Now, though, it seemed he had slept himself out. He was wide awake, sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on his knees. He stared blankly up at the window set into the wall, trying to keep himself from thinking of anything in particular. The glass had gone opaque, and he wondered if that meant it was night, though he wasn't sure if you could have a night without a sun. The lights had been dimmed when he awoke, too, though they'd brightened when he sat up. He felt strangely empty, and realized that he hadn't eaten anything since before the meeting at ENCOM. That was hours ago, inside or out. He considered going to find food, if food even existed here, but decided against it. Leaving the room would probably mean having to see Flynn.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. That was the last thing he wanted to do. The mere thought of the man made his hands clench into fists, an attempt to hold back the bitterness that burned dully beneath his ribs, but there was no extinguishing it now. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the twinge of pain in his leg, and started pacing the short length of the room. If he moved around enough, maybe he could wear himself out and go back to sleep.

The glowing floor was warm beneath his feet as he passed in front of the door once, twice, three times, and kept going. He'd thought, after the argument, that sleeping might help to stifle his emotions, provide some distance from the situation, but it had only served to delay a real reaction. Now that he was up and moving, all the feelings were back in full force.

His leg throbbed, and he stopped in front of the darkened window, breathing hard through his nose. His reflection stared back dimly, and he realized, with grim satisfaction, that he looked more angry than tired. That was fine. He wanted nothing more than to just be good and mad at Flynn for a while. He'd spent plenty of time being angry over the last twenty years, and somewhere along the line, he'd gotten used to it, almost comfortable with it. Anger was, in some ways, easy. He could handle it.

What he didn't know how to handle was betrayal. It was almost too dramatic a word, but there wasn't anything else he could call it. Alan had a lot of experience with duplicity—Dillinger, the Board, the media—but those had been suspected, practically a given. He and Flynn hadn't always seen eye to eye, but despite that, Alan had come to believe that Flynn was someone he could trust. They made a good team, and they'd become closer than Alan had ever expected. For all their disagreements, Flynn was his friend, and he thought he understood how Flynn worked.

But he hadn't. The Flynn he thought he knew would never have lied about something like this. Not for so long. Not to him and Lora. There'd been too much trust between them for that, or so Alan had thought. Enough trust, at least, for Flynn to choose Alan as his partner, to ask him to help run the company.

Alan had done that and more. He'd kept track of everything, handled the press, placated the board, made sure everything was running smoothly while Flynn put his brilliant mind to bigger and brighter tasks. Alan was the best man for the job, after all, and it had been worth it to be able to do good work, to be a part of a company so incredible, to see someone like Flynn shine because Alan had been the one to help him do so.

His head was aching again. He sighed and sat back down, heavy-limbed. The worst of it was that Flynn had known all of that. He had known, because Alan had proved it again and again, that no matter how much Alan might have complained, no matter how often they argued, the work would still get done. Flynn was his friend, and Alan would help him. That was just who Alan was. Flynn knew it, and he'd taken advantage of it, so he could shirk nearly every responsibility and disappear off to his secret digital world.

And now Alan was trapped there with him.

Flynn must have gotten trapped too, a calmer, quieter part of him reasoned, in a tone that reminded him of Lora. He never got the chance to explain what happened to him.

That didn't matter. This was clearly where Flynn wanted to be, after missing all those meetings and appointments and phone calls to carry on his work here while Alan kept the company running.

You read his notes. You knew there were things he didn't tell you about, things he never told anyone. You know he wasn't himself, at the end.

Alan grimaced. He hated admitting it, but that much, at least, was true. After Flynn's disappearance, Alan had collected every scrap of information he could get his hands on, hoping it might help in the search. He'd had access to Flynn's office for a while during his short time as CEO, and he'd even been able to smuggle an old server out of the office before the Board had the chance to go plundering through Flynn's notes for ideas. It had taken ages to crack the server's defenses, but once they had…

He didn't like to think about it. The notes had started off relatively sensible, if ambitious. The earliest ones consisted of drafts of Flynn's published books, along with sketches and designs for the latest iterations of Recognizers and light cycles. While some of the entries were characteristically Flynnish—Alan remembered pages and pages about the exhilaration of riding a motorcycle, and how a programmer might translate that exhilaration into code—there was nothing in them to suggest Flynn had much to hide.

As the dates grew closer to his disappearance, though, the notes took on a new tone. Drafts of unfinished books and newer reports regarding his secret project, what Alan now knew to be the Grid, spoke of a growing fixation, almost an obsession, with the idea of perfection. Alan had felt increasingly bewildered as he pored through the entries. Alan knew Flynn wasn't always as relaxed as he seemed, but the increasingly palpable frustration the man expressed for the chaotic nature of reality was unnerving. That frustration only grew as the dates went on, and to Alan's dismay, the notes dated just a few weeks before his disappearance were practically unhinged. Those final notes had only one focus: Flynn's deceased wife, Jordan.

Jordan Canas. Alan didn't like to think about her, either. When he'd first met Jordan, he'd wondered how a woman as reliable and pragmatic as her could have any kind of interest in someone like Flynn, but the more time he spent with the both of them, the more natural their dynamic became. Jordan had a way of listening like she wanted nothing more than to hear you talk, and she could direct any of Flynn's haphazard thoughts and rambles into a viable idea with a few thoughtful suggestions. She had a sense of humor, too; the amount of times she'd willingly gone along with one of Flynn's more ridiculous ideas just for the sake of making someone laugh, Alan couldn't count.

Flynn had told Alan once that he'd fallen for Jordan because of her enthusiasm for her work, and Alan thought he understood why: even to someone with no experience in architecture, her designs were incredible, capable of expressing immense movement in a stationary structure. She clearly loved her job, and constantly created new designs. After Sam was born, she'd moved a drafting table into a corner of his room so she could continue to work while he slept. Despite his flightiness, Flynn had that same infectious enthusiasm. They complimented each other, and during their two years of marriage they'd seemed practically unstoppable.

Alan could still remember the night she died. The relentless rain, the frantic phone call, his shaking hands gripping the steering wheel as he drove to the hospital-only to be met at the entrance by Flynn's father, who said simply that there was nothing to be done. The next few days were a blur as Alan tried to keep the company and media at bay while Flynn's family made hurried arrangements. The funeral was small, subdued; Alan remembered only a sense of numb disbelief as he sat in the second row with Lora and Roy. Flynn, sitting in the front row next to his parents, spent the entire service in silence, clutching Sam in his lap as he stared at the closed casket.

The following week, Flynn announced that he was stepping back temporarily from his position as CEO to spend time with his family. The Board was sympathetic at first, but as Flynn's absence stretched, their impatience grew. It was only in 1987, when Sam began school, that Flynn returned to the company in full capacity. Alan thought, hoped, that Flynn's return meant that he was finally moving on from Jordan's death, at least a little; but according to Flynn's notes, her memory had been weighing upon him more heavily than ever before.

Alan gritted his teeth. That didn't matter. Flynn had lied to him, to Lora, to everyone. He'd never said a damn word about any of it, and he'd left them all to pick up the pieces when he never came home.

That's not fair. He still cared about the company, and his family. He went to that board meeting the day before he disappeared—he was still making an effort. And he never would have left Sam without a reason. You know that. Something must have happened.

"I don't care," he said aloud. The words were swallowed by the silence, and after a moment it was like he had never spoken at all. He sighed, and closed his eyes. The quietness of the room was no comfort; it only made it easier for his thoughts to overwhelm him. They jostled for his attention, but one flashed to the forefront, stark and incisive.

He wished he had never gone to the Arcade.

As soon as the thought formed, he put his face in his hands, feeling sick. That wasn't true. Not really. No matter how angry he was that Flynn had hidden so much from him, he couldn't regret knowing, without a doubt, that he was alive. Even now that fact carried with it some faint relief—Flynn was alive, somewhere beyond this room. Alan had spent two decades just wanting to see him again, and at least, despite everything else, he had gotten that.

"Alan?"

He looked up sharply, startled. The door to his room was open, and a face was visible through the gap—Quorra, peering in cautiously. Their eyes met, and she pushed the door open a little wider, balancing something in the crook of her arm. He straightened up, self-conscious, and hoped he didn't look as run down as he felt.

"You're awake! That's good," she said. "We were getting worried." She stepped into the room, letting the door swing shut behind her, and now Alan could see that she was carrying two books. She followed his gaze and smiled. "I thought you might be a little bored." She lifted them up so he could see the covers. "There are a few in here already, but between you and me, these are much better."

"Oh," Alan said. Reading was the last thing on his mind at the moment, but he added, feeling like he should at least try to be polite, "That's…that's nice of you. Thank you."

Quorra smiled. "You're welcome," she said, and she set the books down neatly on the table beside the door. He thought she would leave then, but she continued talking, apparently unaware of Alan's mood. "I hope you slept well. I know Users need a lot of rest when they're hurt." She gestured at the window, saying, "We dimmed the lights and the window so you would sleep better. I didn't know if it would help, but you seemed to be asleep every time I checked on you, so I guess it did."

That explained the lights, at least. And maybe the voices too. She continued smiling at him politely, waiting for him to talk. Part of him wanted to snap at her to leave him alone, but he kept it at bay. Quorra hadn't done anything to deserve his irritation. All she'd done so far was help him. He tried, rather unsuccessfully, to smile, and lied, "It did. I feel a bit better now."

"That's good to hear. I wanted to wake you, but Flynn thought it would be best to let you rest, after…well, after everything."

The muscle in Alan's jaw twitched again. He really did not want to talk about Flynn, not right now. He cast around for something else to say. "I never thanked you for saving me in that arena. If you hadn't been there I would be dead now. So thank you for that, too, Quorra."

"Of course," she said. "As soon as I heard there was a User in the arena, I knew I had to go help. But I don't think Clu wanted to kill you."

Her tone was so casual that it took Alan a moment to register what she had said. "Really?" he asked. "I thought it was a pretty good try."

Quorra shook her head. "I don't mean he didn't want to hurt you, but actually killing you wouldn't have helped him very much."

Alan frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Quorra said, "Clu probably just wanted to make an example of you. If other programs saw him almost destroying a User, then it shows that Users aren't really as powerful as we think they are. There's still a lot of programs who believe in Users on the Grid. Injuring you and taking you prisoner is a lot more effective than just executing you."

"So I'm more useful as a punching bag than a corpse, is what you're saying?" Alan asked dryly.

Quorra laughed. The sound was diametrically opposed to Alan's mood, but to his surprise, it made him feel a little better. It was a relief to hear something so lighthearted after hours of brooding. After a moment, he nodded at the space on the bed next to him. Quorra smiled and crossed to the bed.

"You're basically right," she said, taking a seat beside him. "He could make a big show of having a User for a prisoner. And if he had you as a hostage, it would be easy to lure Flynn into the City."

"Clu knows he's here?"

"Not here, exactly. The Safehouse is well-hidden. We've been here for dozens of cycles and he hasn't found us yet," she said, with a hint of pride. "But he knows Flynn is alive, somewhere on the Grid. If he let everyone know he had you, another User, Flynn would hear about it eventually, and it might be enough to coax him out of hiding."

"I take it Clu is the reason he's in hiding in the first place," Alan said. It was the best guess he had, and while he wasn't in the mood to give Flynn any sympathy, Alan couldn't really blame him. His own experiences with Clu's particular brand of hospitality were enough to send anyone running.

"Yes," Quorra said. "Flynn and Clu initially ran the Grid together, but they…disagreed on what was best for it. I think Flynn would do a better job telling you about it himself."

"I'm not so sure," Alan said shortly. "But I'll take your word for it. Can I ask you something else?"

She nodded eagerly. "I'll tell you whatever I can."

Alan privately wondered how much of what she could say would be mediated by Flynn's influence, but any new information was better than nothing. He couldn't stand being so in the dark about everything. "Well, first of all, what does it matter to Clu if Flynn's in hiding or not? He seems to be doing just fine by himself."

"Oh, he is. Clu has the entire Grid under his control, for the most part. It's not really Flynn he's after. He just wants Flynn's disc."

"His disc?" Alan looked at his own disc, resting on the nightstand where he had flung it while trying to get comfortable enough to sleep again. "But Clu has his own. I should know," he said, brushing a hand over his calf. He could still feel the bandages beneath his clothes. "I got to see it up close."

"That's true, but Flynn's disc is special. Clu is the System Administrator, but Flynn is the System Creator, so his disc has powers even Clu's doesn't."

"Like?"

Quorra hesitated. "Like activating the codestream portal. I don't mean powering it," she said quickly at the look on Alan's face, "just enabling a User to exit the system when it's activated. No program's disc can do that, not even Clu's. And Clu wants out."

"Out? You mean outside?" Alan asked. Quorra nodded, and Alan felt, if anything, more confused. "Is that even possible?"

"With Flynn's disc, it might be. No program has ever done it before, but none of them have tried. Yet."

"But why would he want to? Seems like he's got everything he could need here."

"Clu has been in power since he took control of the Grid. He thought he could run the System better than Flynn ever could. That was over a thousand cycles ago, though, so now, he's getting…"

"Bored?" Alan asked with a nod at the books still sitting on the table beside the door.

"Exactly." She smiled, but it faded quickly. "Clu's function is to create the perfect system. With Flynn in hiding, he was able to guide the Grid's growth without any interference. He believes that if he could leave the system, he could rid the User world of imperfection, too." She looked away, gaze drifting to the still-dimmed window. "Flynn thinks so, anyway."

Alan's irritation flared. Flynn thought so, did he? Of course he did. So many thoughts in that head of his, but none he could be bothered to share with Alan. He hadn't even stuck around to explain himself after the fight. He'd just left.

"Flynn thinks a lot of things," Alan said, not quite keeping the bitterness out of his voice. "What do you think?"

Quorra's voice was suddenly low, almost hard. "I think it sounds like something Clu would do."

The change in tone was enough to derail Alan's frustration. Quorra glanced at him for a moment before looking away. Alan hesitated, wondering if he had somehow said the wrong thing, and once again felt the oppressive weight of everything he didn't know. "Quorra?"

When she answered, her voice was still low, but it had lost the hard edge. "You said that Flynn once told you about…a miracle?"

Whatever Alan had expected her to say, it wasn't that. "Yes, he did," he said, remembering their final conversation that night at his house. "A long time ago. I thought it was this place, but apparently I was wrong."

"No, I don't think it was the Grid." Quorra looked away from the window and stared at him intently for a long moment, so long that Alan shifted under her gaze. Then something in her expression changed, almost imperceptibly. "Did he ever tell you about the ISOs?"

"ISOs?" The term had been scrawled a few times in some of Flynn's old notes, though there had been no real indication as to what he'd meant by the acronym. It had stuck with Alan enough for him to use it as part of his own screen-name, but now it was just another thing Flynn had neglected to tell him about. "No, he didn't. Why?"

"When Flynn first created the Grid, he populated it with dozens of programs. He didn't create them all himself, but every program on the Grid has an original User, someone who wrote them, like how you wrote Tron. Flynn assumed that was the only way a program could exist, and for a while, that was true…until it wasn't."

Alan frowned, perplexed. "You lost me."

"After Flynn had been working on the Grid for a while, he discovered a new type of program, one that didn't have a User creator. They were born spontaneously, out of the Grid itself. No User had written them, not even Flynn. They just…were."

"That's…impossible," Alan said, though he found himself wondering how he could call anything 'impossible' anymore. "Even the most sophisticated computer can't just spontaneously start forming new programs without any User input."

"That's what Flynn believed, too, but the ISOs were real, and Flynn was amazed by them. Since they weren't written by a User, ISOs had no directive. Any Basic program, even one as powerful as Clu, has a directive. A program can act outside that directive if they really want to, but they're still written to fulfill a function, and many of them put their whole being into doing what their User intended them to do. ISOs were free of that influence, free of any influence. They could do whatever they wanted to."

Alan nodded, trying to keep up. What Quorra was saying was incredible, but Alan was starting to believe it-now, at least, some of Flynn's outlandish, more secretive notes were beginning to make sense. "You're talking about artificial intelligence, but even those kinds of programs have to be written, they don't just happen out of nowhere. Their code would have to be enormously complex to even begin sustaining that level of sophistication."

"It was. Flynn said a single ISO's programming was more complex than any code he had ever seen. It took him a long time to start understanding it, but apparently, it was comparable to User DNA."

"DNA?"

She nodded. "He had been theorizing it might have applications in the User world. He called it the next step in human evolution."

"A digital frontier to reshape the human condition," Alan quoted softly. It hadn't just been a tagline. If what Quorra was saying was true, Flynn's claim to Alan the last time they had spoken about being able to change the world—science, medicine, hell, even religion-hadn't just been a product of his own over-excitement. If Flynn could have somehow utilized an ISO's root code for human applications…

Quorra was nodding again, about to respond. Alan made himself pay attention—this was important. "He was very excited about it," she said. "He told me once that he thought he might be able to use an ISO's root code to cure User disease, or even prevent death."

She continued, but none of it registered in Alan's head. He nodded along with her words absently, trying to untangle his own thoughts. Even prevent death. A greasy weight settled in his stomach. He'd spent twenty years puzzling everything together—Flynn's notes, his increasingly erratic and even obsessive behavior, their final conversation before his disappearance. Alan had tried so hard to force it into something he could understand, but he'd been missing too much of the puzzle. Now, at last, the final pieces were clicking into place, and the inevitable conclusion was taking a slow, horrible shape. He could think of only one reason for Flynn to be so affected by the ISO's incredible potential.

"Alan?"

Alan blinked, startled, and realized his hands were balled into fists in his lap. "I'm sorry," he said automatically. "I'm…a little overwhelmed."

Quorra nodded. "You should rest. We can talk more later." She hesitated, and added, "Flynn wanted to tell you all of this himself. We were just waiting for you to wake up again. Maybe I said too much."

"No, no," Alan said. "You didn't. I appreciate you telling me, Quorra. Really. It's just…" He shook his head, not wanting to think about his conclusion anymore. It made him feel sick. He swallowed, and said, "I do have one more question, if you'll answer it."

"Of course," she said. "What is it?"

"You keep talking about the ISOs in the past tense. What happened to them?"

Quorra's eyes widened slightly, and once again, there was an almost imperceptible change in her expression. She didn't answer immediately; when she did, her words were measured and slow.

"Clu didn't see the ISOs as a miracle the way Flynn did. He thought they were a drain on the system. An imperfection. That's what they fought about—Clu attacked him, and Flynn barely escaped." Her expression was steely. "Afterwards, Clu purged the ISOs from the Grid. They were destroyed."

"All of them? But that's…that's genocide." Alan swallowed again, his mouth dry. "That's why he wants to leave, isn't it? So he can do the same thing outside."

"Yes," Quorra said. "We don't know if he could but…the possibility scares Flynn too much to even consider letting him try. That's why Flynn's stayed in hiding all this time."

Alan nodded slowly, but didn't answer. His head was starting to hurt again. He swallowed, trying to put his brain back in order, but there were too many things to think about now, too many things he didn't want to consider. He was distantly aware of Quorra watching him, and he straightened up a little, trying to at least look composed. From the look on her face, it hadn't worked.

"You should know," she said earnestly, "some programs hate what Clu's done as much as we do. After he took over, there were uprisings in dozens of different sectors." She paused, and said, more subdued, "Clu put a stop to most of them. But we still get word sometimes about revolting programs in certain sections of the Grid. There are even rumors that some of them have taken up residence in the City. Flynn hopes Clu might be brought down from the inside, given enough time."

That struck Alan as almost foolishly hopeful, though the part of his brain that sounded like Lora murmured that he would know a thing or two about that. He guessed that was true, though he couldn't help but say, trying to sound reasonable rather than rude, "Twenty years seems like a lot of time to me."

"That's true. But they haven't stopped fighting yet. They still have hope that things will get better."

"Do you?"

Quorra didn't answer the question; instead, she gave him a small smile, and rose from her seat beside him. "I'm sure you're still tired," she said. "You should get some more rest. But you can visit the rest of the Safehouse, when you're ready."

"I will," Alan said, and he was surprised to find that he meant it. He watched her cross to the door, and spoke up just as she went to open it. "Quorra?"

She turned back, hand still on the knob. "Yes?"

"Thank you. For talking to me."

"You're welcome," she said, and smiled again. She went out and shut the door behind her. It closed with a soft click, and Alan was alone again, with no company but his own unsettled thoughts.


A couple hours later, Alan stood at the door of his room, trying to convince himself to open it. He'd made a few fruitless attempts to fall back asleep, but there was just too much to think about, and too much he still didn't know. He'd put off the inevitable, hoping Flynn might come to check on him, but Alan had never enjoyed playing the waiting game. Besides, the last two decades had taught him that sitting alone and dwelling on what he didn't know was not a healthy past-time, so at last, he forced himself to make up his mind. It was time to go find Flynn himself.

His hand rested on the crystal doorknob as he listened for any sound coming beyond it, voices or otherwise, but all he could hear was silence. Tentatively, he twisted the knob and tugged the door open. It swung inward to reveal a corridor, the walls made up of the same strange black stone that lined his room. The corridor was dim, only partially brightened by the light emanating from his doorway. A few yards away, there was a gap leading to what looked like another hallway in the right-hand wall. He listened again, but could discern no sound from beyond the hallway. He wondered where Quorra was, and just how big this Safehouse was supposed to be.

Pulling the door open further, he slipped into the corridor and made his way down it, trailing a hand on the wall. It had a similar warmth to the glowing tiles in the floor, and the stone was oddly smooth beneath his fingertips despite the craggy layers. When he reached the gap, he leaned over to peer around the corner—he didn't want to run head-first into Flynn-but the room beyond was apparently empty, dimly lit and silent. The floors and walls were lined with the same white tiles as his room, and, to his bewilderment, a dining room table was set up at the end of the hall. The table was, like the rest of the small piece of the room he could see from the corridor, pure white, and it looked very expensive, but the utter ordinariness of its presence was oddly comforting.

He edged out of the hallway into the room beyond. It was big, much larger than his own room, and had more furniture, all white—a couch, another table and chairs, and a large bed resting in an alcove opposite the hallway. There was a bookshelf set into the wall to Alan's left, with two gaps noticeable among the spines. Opposite the wall was a large, glassless window, stretching from floor to ceiling, that opened out onto a stone terrace. A vast expanse of dark rock and night sky stretched beyond it, illuminated only by a collection of lights glowing in the distance. Alan didn't spare the view much attention, because standing at the edge of the terrace, facing the darkness, was Flynn.

At the sight of him, a jumble of emotions twisted inside Alan. He couldn't tell if he wanted to yell at Flynn some more, or take him by the shoulders and shake him, or, absurdly, disregard all of the anger and hug him. Alan closed his eyes for a moment, trying to even himself out. Unfocused anger wasn't going to help, no matter how easy it was to give into, and letting himself be overwhelmed by the still-lingering relief wouldn't be productive either. He was half-tempted to just go back to his room and stew a little more, let Flynn come to him, but he'd waited long enough. It was time to talk.

Opening his eyes, he stepped around the dining room table and crossed the room noiselessly. He was halfway to the terrace when the lights emanating from the walls and floor brightened without warning. The room filled with a soft white light as he looked around in surprise. On the terrace, Flynn turned, and froze as he caught sight of Alan.

The two stared at each other. Flynn looked for a moment like he was about to speak, but the moment passed, and he said nothing, just continued to stare with an expression Alan couldn't quite read. After a few more seconds, it was clear he wasn't going to say anything at all. Alan resisted the urge to roll his eyes—of course Flynn wasn't going to say a damn word—and crossed the rest of the room to the edge of the terrace. Pinpricks of light hung motionless across the gap; he paused a moment uncertainly before stepping through them, the slightest resistance tugging at his hair and the hems of his clothing.

The stone beneath his feet was warmer here; gentle heat seemed to be radiating from a small pool set into the floor a little to his left. He stopped beside Flynn but couldn't bring himself to look at him immediately; instead he looked out at the view from the terrace's edge. From there, it was apparent that the lights in the distance were the lights of a city—the city he'd found himself in, he assumed. He hadn't expected it to be so close by. Tinier lights drifted in and out of the city towards the mountainous horizon, almost invisible against the lightning flashing in the low-hanging clouds.

Flynn was still watching him. Alan wondered if he would try to continue their last conversation, but all Flynn said was, "I don't know if you should be walking around, man."

"I've been sleeping for…" Alan trailed off, uncertain. He had no idea how long he'd been in that room. The realization unsettled him. "…A while," he finished. "It's about time I got up."

Flynn nodded, and looked away. Alan had expected him to argue, or at least respond, but he only resumed gazing at the glow of the distant city without another word.

Alan crossed his arms a little tighter. He'd spent the last couple hours going over everything in his head, but now that he was here, he wasn't sure where to begin. It would've been easier if this was the old Flynn—he always had something to say, good or bad—but the man beside him was totally silent, his only movement the slight rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed. Alan glanced at him, and realized he couldn't tell what Flynn was thinking at all. The frustration that had been thrumming inside him the last few hours quieted, and left behind only a sudden, hollowing sense of loneliness.

"Where's Quorra?" he asked, to fill the silence.

Flynn nodded, indicating the distant city. "Out there. She left a little while ago."

Alan had barely expected him to answer. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Probably. There are more guards out now than we've seen in a while."

"And you just let her go?"

To Alan's surprise, Flynn laughed. "Let her? If Quorra wants to leave, she leaves. I stopped trying to keep her here a long time ago. She can take care of herself, trust me."

"I hope you're right." He glanced at Flynn again, who continued to gaze at the distant city, apparently choosing not to continue the conversation. Alan tried again. "She spoke with me, before she left."

"Did she?"

Something about his tone told Alan that wasn't news to Flynn, and he wondered how much Quorra had said about their conversation. "She brought me some books. She thought I might be bored."

"I noticed we were missing a few volumes," Flynn said, with a hint of amusement. "Interesting choices."

"She told me a few things you didn't, too," Alan said, knowing how petty it sounded but saying it anyway. "Like Clu wanting to use me as Flynn bait, for one." He glanced at Flynn, whose expression was solemn again. "That's true?"

"Most likely. He knows I would've come looking, if I heard about another User entering the system. Especially one I knew."

"That's fair enough, I guess." The plan seemed sensible, even if Alan didn't appreciate his part in it. "But there's something I don't understand."

"Which is?"

"You're in hiding, and Clu wants to get to you somehow so he can turn on the portal, take your disc and go…outside, I guess. Fine, I'll buy it. But it's too convenient—to use me, he would've had to know I was coming." Alan had been thinking this over ever since Quorra left, and had the horrible feeling he knew the answer to his next question. None of it made sense otherwise. He finally looked Flynn full in the face, and said, "You didn't send that page, did you?"

Flynn shook his head. "No, it wasn't me. If I could have sent a message to you, I would've done it a long time ago. I don't know how he did it, but Clu has access to the entire system. He would've been looking for any opportunity to lure another User here, get a new piece on the board. Your pager just happened to be the key." He glanced at Alan; there was something close to pity in his eyes, and Alan hated it. "I'm surprised that thing still worked after so long."

"I made sure it did." Alan didn't feel like talking about how stupid or sentimental that was, not when Flynn was looking at him like that, so he asked another question, another he thought he knew the answer to. He had to be certain. "If he's been waiting for an opportunity, why now? What changed?"

"I'm not sure. It's hard to keep track of everything when I'm not in the city." Flynn looked back out at the view contemplatively. "There was a power surge recently. We could feel it even out here. It's possible Clu was able to take advantage of that, somehow."

"A power surge?" That confirmed Alan's idea, but it gave him no satisfaction. "I…think I might know what caused it."

"You do?"

"I think…I think it was me."

"You?" Flynn turned to face him, eyes narrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Well…I guess it's not entirely me. But I'm part of it." He shifted on his feet, once again uncertain of where to start. "We've spent a lot of time, over the years, looking for you. Me and Lora and Roy, I mean. None of the stories about your disappearance made any sense, so we decided we'd take matters into our own hands. A little while ago, Roy came up with a plan to try and use the electrical energy from your old workspaces and send you a message."

"A message?"

Alan nodded. "You used to travel so much, and you had offices all over the place. We figured we could use the power generated by those terminals to create a signal and patch it through to wherever you were. Roy's the one who planned it all out, I only really understood the basics of it, but we got the project up and running pretty quickly. It ended up working, for a little while, but the signal we created was too strong to maintain. It shorted out before we could do much of anything. We thought that was the end of it."

"Until you got the page."

"Right." That was still less than twenty-four hours ago, strange time difference be damned. It felt like months. "I guess it worked better than we thought." Alan wished he could tell Roy how well his plan had really worked, but quickly pushed the thought away—he didn't want to think about Roy, not when he wouldn't be able to see him again. "Anyway," he continued quickly, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, "I think that might have been the cause. What we did."

Flynn was staring at him again, but his gaze was no longer pitying or confused. He looked almost touched, his eyes soft. "You guys did all that to try and find me?"

That was not the reaction Alan had expected. "Well…yes. We did a lot of things, trying to find you."

"But, I mean," Flynn said, "it's been ages, man. I could've been dead for years. Hell, I thought that's what you would've assumed. But you guys were still looking for me? Even now?"

Now it was Alan's turn to stare. He didn't know how to answer—he could barely believe Flynn had asked such a question. Of course he had kept looking, of course they all had. They never could have lived with themselves otherwise.

"We never stopped," he said.

A slow, incredulous smile spread over Flynn's face. "Wow." He shook his head, laughing under his breath. "I didn't think anyone would still be looking for me. Maybe Sam, but even then, it's been so long."

Alan frowned. "I don't know why you're so surprised. Did you think we'd just accept you were gone and move on like nothing happened?"

"Well, no, but…Alan, you even kept my pager." He laughed again, and Alan thought for a moment Flynn was teasing him, but his expression said otherwise—he looked almost in awe. "You can't tell me there aren't better ways to send a message nowadays."

"Of course there are, but you told me to keep it. So I did." The frustration was starting to build again—why was this so hard for Flynn to understand? "You asked me to keep the pager, so I kept it. You asked me to help you with the company, so I did. You asked me to just trust you about your project, so I trusted you. I did everything you asked me to do." Alan looked away, gritting his teeth. He wanted to do this right, to keep himself from blowing up, but every thought just kept looping around back to anger.

Beside him, Flynn sighed. "I know you're upset-"

Alan snorted. "Oh, really? How'd you guess?"

"Well, you yelling at me might've given it away."

"Do you blame me?"

"Not really." Flynn let out a long, low breath. "Look, I want to try and explain. If you'll let me."

Alan looked back at him. Flynn looked somber again, but their eyes met, and he shrugged.

"You can say no. I won't stop you," he said. "But if you're willing…"

Alan held his gaze over the rim of his glasses. "Are you going to tell me everything?"

"Everything I can."

"That's not a yes, Flynn."

"I wasn't—" Flynn broke off, then nodded. "Okay. Fair point. Yes, Alan, I'll tell you everything."

Alan wasn't sure he believed that, but he figured it was as good as he was going to get. He nodded, giving in.

Flynn seemed to brighten a little. "Let's sit," he said, gesturing to the wall to his left, past the pool. A bench was carved into the stone, wide enough for two. "You should be taking it easy."

Alan wanted to argue, mostly just for the sake of arguing, but instead he begrudgingly followed Flynn to the bench. The light of the main room glimmered on the surface of the pool as they stepped around it, casting flickers of light over the wall. Flynn sat down, Alan following suit. He winced a little, the cut on his calf stinging as the skin of his leg stretched.

"You okay?"

"Fine." He crossed his arms again. "Explain."

"Where should I start?"

That was a good question. Alan mulled for a moment, and decided the beginning was the best option. "Why didn't you tell us about what really happened that night at ENCOM?"

Flynn nodded to himself, as if he had guessed Alan would ask that. "First of all, I didn't think you'd believe me."

"You had—"

"Proof, I know. But I didn't—not immediately. I didn't know exactly how the laser worked, or how to replicate what happened, and we were dealing with me getting my job back and all the lead-up to Dillinger finally getting fired. Barging into the laser lab and asking them to send me back was out of the question. It took me about a year to get everything set up at the arcade, and in the meantime…" He sighed, and said, "I knew Lora and Walter were still working with the laser themselves, and letting them know what happened to me—even if I asked them to keep quiet, there's no way they wouldn't have wanted to run trials. But human trials…they would've been wrapped up in red tape for years. I thought it would be better if I just let them keep going with their work. I could tell Lora about what happened when I knew more myself."

"That's a pretty flimsy excuse."

"It's not an excuse, it's just an explanation. That was my thought process," Flynn responded. His mouth twitched at the look Alan gave him. "I said I'd tell you everything. I didn't say you'd be happy with what I told you."

Alan shook his head. "You built your own laser, Flynn. That means you deliberately took the blueprints and all of the information Walter and Lora and the rest of their team put together and—what, just copied it over? Without letting them know at all? You thought that was just a fine idea?"

"I don't really have a good answer for you, Alan. There was the red tape, and I didn't want Lora or Walter or the rest of the company to get tangled up in it and have their work taken away. And I…I'm not gonna lie, part of me wanted this place to myself. The rest of my life was so chaotic—I had Sam, and the company, and my parents, and…a lot of stuff. But here, everything made sense here. I could make it make sense. I didn't have to deal with what a board of execs or a bunch of shareholders wanted from me. I could just work the way I wanted to." He smiled wrlyly. "Selfish. But that's how I felt."

Alan thought he knew what Flynn meant by 'a lot of stuff,' but didn't press immediately. "At least you admit it." He took his glasses off and passed a hand over his face. "You realize you did to Lora exactly what Ed Dillinger did to you?"

"What? That's not true."

"You stole her work without telling her—"

"I wasn't going to just tell the world about it and take credit for it, man! I was just using it for myself, I wasn't pretending I'd made it. If I'd ever thought it should go public I would've gone to her and Walter, told them everything, and let them decide what to do. It would've been entirely up to them."

"How noble of you," Alan said derisively. Flynn sighed again, a momentary admission of displeasure, and Alan felt a mean little jolt of satisfaction. "So you didn't want to tell any of us about it at first. Fine. But even after the board started getting frustrated with you? Even after Sam started getting bigger, even after—" He broke off. It was incredibly tempting to bring up Jordan, to ask about what he'd guessed, but he couldn't quite bring himself to. Not yet. He wanted to see if Flynn would do it himself. "Even after I asked you a dozen times what was going on, you never once thought it would be a good idea to tell us what you'd done?"

"Of course I did. I just wanted to wait—things weren't ready. I wanted it to be perfect."

"What had to be so perfect? What were you trying to do?"

"Where do I even start?" Flynn waved his hand at the city shining in the distance. "Me and Clu and Tron—we built that. A whole city, out of nothing, and that was just the beginning. There are dozens of settlements stretching to the edge of the system, filled with hundreds of programs I moved from the old ENCOM system, ones that were slated for deletion or abandoned in beta. I thought I knew everything there was to know about computers, but after actually working alongside programs, I realized I'd barely scratched the surface. Tron was the one who showed me that in the old system, and I borrowed him from you to help me protect this new one." He looked sideways at Alan, and added, "I did ask permission for that, if you remember."

"You said you needed it for your project. You didn't tell me you'd actually be working with it—him, face to face. You didn't tell me you'd be running around with my copy." The idea of someone wearing his face, existing without his knowledge, unsettled Alan to no end.

"He wasn't your copy, he just looked like you. I mean, you two were similar, but not the same." Flynn smiled faintly. "You were both reliable, though, and that's exactly what I needed. He and Clu ran things when I couldn't—I had too much going on, Sam and the company and everything else. It was impossible to be here all the time, so I needed help from the inside. That's why I made Clu in the first place. A program designed to create a perfect world. He ran the Grid, Tron protected it, and I designed it. A digital utopia."

"But that's not all you were doing." Alan's fingers tightened around his glasses. "Quorra told me about your miracle, too."

"The ISOs." There was a hint of caution in Flynn's voice as he asked, "How much did she tell you?"

"That they were created by the Grid itself. And they were incredibly complex. Almost comparable to humans," Alan said. He couldn't quite voice his last guess, not yet.

"She wasn't wrong. They were just…spectacular. I thought I had seen extraordinary programs before, but the ISOs, they were on another level entirely. Everything I'd hoped to find in the system—control, order, perfection…none of it meant a thing. I'd been living in a hall of mirrors. The ISOs shattered it." There was a quality to his voice Alan recognized, the same strange reverence Flynn had shown when when he'd visited Alan all those years ago. "Do you remember what I was trying to tell you about, that last night I saw you?"

Of course he did. Alan had thought about that night so often it was burned into his memory. "Science, medicine, religion. You said were going to change all of it."

"All that and more. The possibilities of their root code—that's what I'd found, Alan. It took me years, but I was finally starting to understand it. The ISOs were capable of things I'd never even considered a possibility."

"They certainly sound impressive," Alan said bitterly. He got to his feet restlessly; his frustration was starting to mount again. He couldn't help but feel that Flynn was going to avoid any mention of Jordan, any real explanation of his interest in the ISOs. "Was that what you cracked? Their code?"

"Yeah. Just barely. I still had so much I needed to check out, but just the glimpses I'd gotten were enough to throw everything I'd ever thought about life itself out the window," he said. Alan tensed, waiting for him to continue, to tell him exactly what he'd found, but Flynn only smiled at him. "They were going to be my gift to the world. I wanted to tell you about it, that night, but it was too complicated—

"Only because you'd have to explain how you lied about everything else." It came out louder than Alan meant it to, but giving into the wash of anger for even a moment was so spitefully satisfying that it was difficult to stop. "If you'd bothered to tell us about any of this in the first place you could've just shown me that night!"

"Alan—"

"I'm not done," he said sharply. "If I'd known about what you were doing none of us would've needed to spend twenty damn years praying you weren't dead, Flynn. And Sam would've had at least one parent."

Flynn's face darkened. For a moment Alan thought he would yell back, or get up and walk off, but Flynn took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, and the moment passed. "I didn't do that on purpose, Alan, and you know it," he said, his tone deliberately even. "If you let me finish, I'll tell you—"

"I already know. Clu hated the ISOs, and he attacked you so he'd be able to get rid of them. Quorra told me all of it. But that doesn't change the fact that you thought playing God was more important than letting any of us know what was really going on."

"That's not true either. But if you want to keep yelling at me, I'm not going to stop you."

Alan said, through gritted teeth, "I'm not yelling yet, but you can bet your ass I want to." The frame of his glasses cut into the palm of his fist, he was holding them so tight. "I'm trying to understand you, but you refuse to even tell me the whole truth."

"I have told you—"

"No, you haven't! You keep saying you wanted to change the world. Well, just tell me one thing, Flynn—were you talking about the whole world, or just yours?"

Flynn stopped short. "What?"

"Quorra told me what you'd been theorizing. About the ISOs, their root code—curing disease. Preventing death." He leveled a stony look at Flynn, but received no response. Flynn still looked taken aback. "So much for telling me everything," Alan muttered. Louder, he said, "I read your notes. I know you still missed Jordan."

Flynn's hands balled into fists in his lap. He stared at Alan with wide eyes, mouth slightly parted. His voice was so quiet when he finally spoke that Alan had to strain to hear it. "Jordan." The corner of his mouth lifted, but the soft laugh that escaped him was joyless. "I haven't said her name in years."

Alan tried not to let Flynn's apparent shock distract him from getting his answers. "What were you going to do?"

"I don't know."

Alan huffed in disbelief, but Flynn shook his head.

"It's true. I didn't have anything concrete, not yet. Just theories, ideas…dreams." He looked away, and the lights from the distant city glinted in his eyes. "I thought I could do anything I wanted here, make any dream a reality. But then Jordan died. I wanted to change the world, but I couldn't even change that. So when I started to see just how much potential the ISOs really had—she was all I could think about. I'd just started putting together the preliminary notes on their root code, but…"

"But?"

He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "But I was so focused on my own ideas that I didn't notice what was happening anywhere else. Not until it was too late. By the time I realized how bad the conflict between the ISOs and the Basic programs was, it had gone too far for me to be able to fix anything. Clu ran me off, and no matter what I did, he was there to stop me. He knew everything I would do before I even thought of it myself. It was impressive, really. And when he was done, he killed them. All of them."

Flynn's gaze drifted downward, and he stared at his hands, still balled in his lap. "I know it was my fault. I know I messed up. I should've seen it coming, I should've known what he would do, but I just—" His breath hitched. He looked up at Alan, and he was smiling again, but his eyes were over-bright. "I just wanted to see her again."

Despite himself, despite everything else he was feeling, Alan's resolve slowly drained out of him as he watched Flynn hide his face in his hands, and go silent. Alan stared at him, arms hanging limply by his sides, glasses still clutched numbly in his hand. The water lapped gently at the edge of the pool, the only sound in the stillness.

He sat back down on the bench. Flynn didn't move. Alan continued to stare, helplessly; he wanted to take Flynn's shoulder, to do something, anything to alleviate the hurt he knew would be tearing Flynn up from the inside out, because he'd spent the last two decades of his life being torn up by it, too.

"I know the feeling," he said quietly. It was all he could think of to say.

Flynn made a faint noise. Alan hoped it was a laugh. He turned his glasses over in his hands, waiting, until Flynn lifted his head and straightened up. When Alan met his eyes, they seemed to be back to normal.

"Yeah, I think you do," Flynn said. He was quiet for so long that Alan thought it was all he was going to say, but he eventually spoke again. "I know I should have told you. I wish I could change it, Alan. I'd give anything to go back and fix it, fix everything I messed up. I mean it."

The two shared a long look. Alan said nothing, and Flynn eventually turned away, his shoulders hunched. In the light reflecting from the pool at their feet, he seemed older than ever. Alan turned away too, towards the radiant city, and exhaled slowly. He felt, all at once, incredibly tired, all the anger that had kept him going the last couple hours wasted away into a bone-deep exhaustion. At last he said, voice low, "You're lucky I missed you so much."

He felt Flynn shift beside him, and heard another faint noise. This one was definitely a laugh, if a shaky one. "I missed you too."

Alan only nodded; he didn't trust himself to say anything else. He continued looking out at the glimmering city. Flynn didn't say anything more, either, and for once Alan was grateful that the new Flynn was so good at staying silent. He closed his eyes, his breath slowing. At the edge of his awareness, he could feel the telltale throb of a headache coming on, though whether from stress or his apparent concussion he couldn't be sure. He rubbed his free hand over his face, sighing.

"You okay?" Flynn asked.

"Frankly? No." He opened his eyes and looked back at Flynn. "But I'm getting tired, so I just have one more question for now."

Flynn nodded gamely, though his hands twitched in his lap. "Go for it."

Alan considered the dozens of questions still rolling around in his head—about the Grid, the laser, the ISOs, Jordan—but the exhaustion's haze was starting to settle over everything, even his curiosity. He just wanted to rest, and he thought Flynn might have felt the same way. He wondered if Flynn had slept much, or even at all, while Alan barricaded himself in his room. The deep shadows under his eyes said that he probably hadn't. A break would do both of them good. Alan decided to ease up on the tough questions—for now, at least. He unfolded his glasses, slid them back onto his face, and looked at Flynn seriously. "Got any food around here?"

"Food?" Flynn looked surprised, but relieved. "Look at me, Alan. You think I've been starving?"

"It's just a question. I didn't think programs would need to eat."

"Programs don't. Well, not like we do. But everything needs energy to run." He pushed himself up and held out a hand. "I'll show you. We can talk more while we wait for Quorra to get back. I promise I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Alan hesitated. He knew that wasn't a promise he could trust—he should be questioning Flynn more, demanding answers instead of waiting for them—but he couldn't help but want to believe in it anyway. He took Flynn's hand, and let himself be pulled to his feet again. "You'd better."


Chapter soundtrack:
"42" - Coldplay
"Believe" - Mumford and Sons
"Flaws" - Bastille
"All Dead, All Dead" - Queen