6/18/2013 New Note!: I recently commissioned some artwork by the extremely talented LePeru (or LP, or Nizah) on LiveJournal/AO3, the first of which spans the end of last chapter, and the beginning of this one. I mirror my stories on AO3 so I won't lose them (without the notes, so if people get tired of reading my dumb Notes, but don't think my story is a complete waste of time, you can read it there 'commercial free'), so I'll be linking to the art on that one directly (possibly embedding it if I ever figure that sort of thing out; yes, I'm surprisingly dumb with computers for a Tron fan). Last I knew, though, there were issues involved with writing out page URLs on this site, so hopefully this works (if not, please tell me, and I'll try to fix it). archiveofourown works / 844518

Notes: I'm back, and with another chapter for this story, without one for SMB. At least now I'm pretty sure I've figured out why I haven't been able to get a chapter out for that story. Unlike this one, I don't have as distinct an idea of what the immediate next scene in that story should be, and it's giving me pause. Now that I've identified the problem, hopefully I'll be able to fix it.

I feel I should apologize for how long this chapter took to come out. My work has gotten crazy over the last two weeks, so I haven't had nearly as much time to work on things like this as I used to, and what little time I've had left has been halved by my sister kicking me off the computer desk to chat with her new boyfriend. Eh. On the positive side of things, though, I've become more skilled at taking naps in weird positions on various bits of furniture around my house, and this is still my most frequently updated story (It's almost my only updated story).

*I was planning on getting this out earlier in the day today before I had to go somewhere, but, even though I got up two hours early to try and wrap this up, and write my replies to everyone's reviews, I still failed (I'm writing this after I wrote them, even though it's up above them, and man did I get a case of typographical diarrhea today, sorry Cyberbutterfly...).*

I got a fair few reviews this time around, so...

Cyberbutterfly – In regards to your review for Chapter 2: I'm glad you caught the 'under the weather' thing (It's one of my favorite lines of this story so far) and the Goldilocks and the Three Bears (you were right on what it was) was a demonstration of his totally scrambled memories at the time, though I am considering writing a drabble or one-shot about how he comes to learn about the story (very nearly wrote it instead of this chapter, in fact), just because I think that little snippet would be funny. I've got a few other ideas of random snippets from Tron's 1,500 cycle memory, but I want to wait on at least one of them, until this story's past a certain point which is coming up... pretty soon, actually. I'm rather fond of Alan as a character myself, so I liked the idea of him being in the story, even if I wasn't comfortable writing out his 'Intro to the Grid' moment. He and Quorra are gone for the near future, though if I can manage to stick with this story, they will be back (and can I just say how much I enjoy the 'Tron meets Alan' scenes in other stories?). I'll agree that my Grid's a bit weird, but I wanted to explore a different sort of possible outcome from Reintegration, and so this result is what I logically came up with. As to your other thoughts on what's going on in the Grid... I think I'll just let you keep guessing for now.

Daikun the Time Sage – Thank you. I'm glad you've been enjoying the story so far, hopefully that won't change with this new chapter. I'm a bit iffy when it comes to assessing my own writing style, because I never really feel I know what it is, exactly, though I'm pretty sure it fluctuates in this story. As long as it isn't detracting too much from the story I'm trying to tell, though, I'm going to try and not worry about it too much. Who knows, maybe writing this will help it settle into something identifiable?

brohne – I'm still unsure of my characterization, but thank you. It may not be what you're expecting, their first meeting, but I hope you enjoy it regardless.

HubrisP – Thank you. I can't guarantee I'll be using any ideas or characters you offer (they might not fit in to the direction this story is headed), but I'd be more than happy to hear them. So far, I've only managed to come up with a basic outline for an OC (excluding that brief cameo by, ahem, Vomit Man) but they aren't due into the story for quite a while yet, so I haven't put too much effort into 'fleshing them out' yet.

Cyberbutterfly – Technically, your review for Chapter 3 was the second one I got after posting, but I figured I'd separate my two responses some so I could address them more individually, and also because I figured I'd break up what would otherwise have probably turned into a giant wall of text. So, in regards to your review of Chapter 3: I don't necessarily agree with your praise of me, but it's still a welcome thing to hear, and I thank you, again, for it. It's been an interesting sort of struggle to keep the story progressing in the direction I want it to/it needs to to continue while trying to keep Sam's – and now Tron's – reactions to everything natural-feeling to me; so far I've been lucky, and the little tangents have managed to turn back to the plot pretty much on their own. I'm glad that the plot feels like it's moving to you; my own opinions on that are a bit skewed, as I already know where it's going, after all. I don't want to give away too much, but yes, there is something quite wrong with the Grid. Description vs. leaving something up to the reader's imagination is actually probably my biggest difficulty when writing a story (it's actually probably the reason I never considered being a writer, even though I love stories – my only attempt at original work was utterly and completely flayed apart); it took me much, much longer than it probably should have to work through those scenes. I had to ask myself 'do I really need to put that in?' for nearly every line, and a good few that didn't make it. As for the lightjets, well, I was trawling the TRON wiki, brushing up on my facts (I almost always seem to have a link up to the page on the 'Cycle' measure of time to try and help me convert things right), when I read on the lightjet entry that they were difficult to fly, and rectifying programs into specialists like pilots was less practical than Black Guards, so they were relatively rare (hence them not appearing earlier in the movie, like chasing Quorra and Sam in the lightrunner). I figured if even the Black Guard generally couldn't handle flying them, then Sam – with no User-world equivalent experience, like he'd had for the lightcycles – really had no logical reason to have the ability to pilot, and even if he had some User instinct that told him how it worked, the ability to multitask the movements of four independently adjustable wings would be a pain, such as for turning. And... you get a little of both Tron and Rinzler in this.

There's still no beta, and I'm still welcoming writing advice and potential story titles.

Antivirus

Chapter 4

Tron stilled, his left arm already cocked back to aim a strike at his unexpected new seat.

He'd been cataloging his various sensory inputs, testing their viability now that he'd had time to afford some self-repair. The process was hardly complete, however; many of his inner, secondary processes were in shambles, jagged and disjointed. As they were not vital to his core functions, and therefore seen as superfluous by – him – they had been passed over during his maintenance periods, and eventually began to malfunction and degrade. He'd quarantined most of them and turned off sensory input from them several hectocycles ago, but a particularly corroded process had wrenched loose recently from his coding-disruptive conflicts with high-clearance programs and Users. His latest maneuver had had it grating over other, functioning processes, and he registered the wet-but-not slide of derezzed voxels in his throat as a taste sensation that evoked a negative heaving reminiscent of his most recent time online previous to this one.

'At least the input for pain regarding that process is still turned off.'

'Water,' 'Non-threat,' 'Origin – Sea of Simulation,' and 'Cold', among other things, registered in little tracks down his body. For a fraction of a picocycle, he tracked the course of a rivulet of water down his raised arm with just his visu- eyes, before he once again regarded the program beneath him thoughtfully.

'Incorrect. Target identified. Attaching memory file time code minus... estimated 1.143 millicycles – time span offline unknown.'

'Blood, User, -'

"Sam Flynn." Tron barely recognized the sound that left his audio output, accompanied by a violent cough, the previously small trickle of voxels leaving his mouth spewed out almost like a cloud, before sliding like water to puddle in the current lowest point of his helmet, more derezzing to take up the vacated space in his throat. He observed the rapid shift of the young User's features, cross-referencing the angles of his expressions against memories of Flynn, Sam himself, and some of the more expressive ISOs and programs he'd known. His results weren't promising, but insufficient comparison data from the subject in question left the information incomplete and unreliable.

He let his arm drop to hang limp at his side.

Sam tensed, and tried to shift up; automatically, Rinzler tightened his almost-stranglehold on the User's neck. Almost immediately, Tron backed up on the pressure, tilting his helmeted head to one side. There was wariness in the angles of the User's new expression.

'He doesn't trust me, and rightfully so.'

'Target – the User, Sam Flynn – is captured and partially immobilized. Users prone to action without consideration of effects.'

'Insufficient data for such an assessment. I have been in contact with just three Users, and met only two. I thought the – augmented – code source of such conclusions had been removed? … Or, mostly removed...'

'… Still, violence is possible. Caution advised. Memory search keywords 'make it up as I go'. Users show... capability, to be infinitely unpredictable.'

He bowed his head low, shoulders slumping. His upper body followed the motion already begun, until his forearms were once again partially submerged, fingers barely trailing along the surface of the muddy sand underwater, and his upper body was completely doubled over, helmeted head hung low enough, close enough to the User's own partially helmeted face that he distantly registered 'Wind' 'Non-threat' 'Origin – User Sam Flynn' 'Respiration' and 'Moist', as well as several pressure and velocity calculations that were dismissed almost as soon as they'd been completed.

'...I need to show him I am not a threat.'

'Repairs incomplete. Current positioning advantageous. Sam Flynn is armed, and indicating optimum efficiency. Without a weapon, in current state, likelihood of unit's – our – my? yes, my - deresolution during conflict... higher than ideal.'

'A show of trust is needed, and I do not possess an... 'olive branch'. Reminder generated, seek clarification on 'olive branch' at next opportunity, and possible substitutes.'

Tron set both hands down on the muddy shore, one hand on either side of the User's face, and braced himself.

1010100101001010011111001110

Sam wasn't sure what to think about the whole situation. At first, Rinzler – or Tron, he couldn't really say, though he had stopped when Sam called him Tron – had looked poised to try and punch through his face into the sand underneath it, but then he'd stopped. The program held so still that Sam's relief in not having his face turned into a bloody pulp fizzled out into uncertainty, and he became aware on an entirely new level of several facts: his head was very firmly trapped by a program that was probably all too capable of killing him – though hopefully not willing to, the program's legs from the calf down were stuck under his back awkwardly, but helping to hold his head up above the water's surface – his armor didn't have a full face mask, and the one mouthful of almost-vibrating, vaguely bitter water he'd gotten with their initial impact had been plenty – and between these points of contact he'd have a hard time getting free if...

'I really hope he didn't just freeze up like the others...'

And then Tron spoke. Two words; Sam's name, deceptively simple.

It sounded anything but simple when he said it, though.

Sam remembered quite clearly what Rinzler had sounded like, as if that whole Ordeal had happened just yesterday, rather than a month ago; the soft purring, with it's even softer, broken hitch, and the one time it had left, on the floor of the Arena, one word spoken with such clear, intense, deliberateness. A thousand year's worth of meaning somehow jammed into two little syllables. That same intensity and deliberateness were present again this time, but clarity certainly wasn't. The words were heavily distorted and garbled, like listening to a badly tuned musical instrument playing a familiar tune underwater.

The cough afterward had sounded painful, harsh and wet, and it left Sam feeling rather conflicted. This program could be his greatest ally, or opposition. He had tried to kill him, but also saved him. He sounded broken, but still moved and behaved very capably. He had fought for the Users, then was repurposed – brainwashed – into the ideal weapon against them. He was a hero, and then was turned into a monster. He victimized so many, but was also, perhaps, one of the biggest victims.

'Never thought some of those late night talks with Quorra would have this sort of... practical application.'

Unaware that his shifting thoughts were being telegraphed on his face as much as they were, Sam was caught entirely by surprise when hopefully-Tron's fist abruptly dropped, and immediately tried to sit up.

'Finally, we're getting somewhere.'

They weren't getting there quite as quickly as he thought they were, though.

For a brief moment, Sam's world focused down to pain, something inside him – very important, even if it's name currently wasn't – on the verge of breaking into countless little pieces, and the sudden realization that he just couldn't breathe. Before his mind could catch up to these things, before the appropriate feeling of gut-wrenching panic could fill him, the pressure that he could now understand had just been trying to suffocate him or snap his neck, was almost entirely gone, reduced to a featherlight touch on his already protesting nerve endings. Sam grit his teeth, but kept his gaze fixed warily on the program.

'Okay, note to self: no sudden movements when trapped by crazy strong programs. Man, that hurt; I think he may have dislocated my head...'

He gave a mental sigh.

'And here I'd thought we were starting to make some progress, particularly in the 'not sitting in the ocean, and maybe actually talking' department.'

All the fight seemed to drain out of maybe-Rinzler without warning. He seemed to just deflate and curl in on himself, hands trailing limp in the water; his head, still obscured by the glossy darkness of his helmet, so close to Sam's own that his breaths fogged the surface of it slightly. The program's posture was a strange mix of defeat and supplication, and gave Sam the overall impression of a man waiting to be struck down by his king or god.

Several uneasy moments passed as Sam remembered the social, and religious associations programs had with Users. Tron, he recalled from his father's stories, was particularly loyal to the Users during the reign of the MCP.

Suddenly extremely uncomfortable, Sam struggled to find words to say to diffuse this situation without further injury to either of them, when Tron started moving again.

The hands that had been aimlessly drifting in the water planted themselves firmly on either side of Sam's head, and that helmet seemed to drift even closer. Tron's body went tense, and then to the User's surprise, he pulled his legs apart, slowly and carefully tugging free of the weight of Sam's back on his calves, and angled into another pseudo-handstand, with his legs held out straight to either side, parallel to the ground. He held the move for a moment, black helmet so close to Sam's face he could hardly look away, though attempting to focus left him feeling a little cross-eyed. Tron seemed to see some signal in his expression, as the next moment he twisted his legs in the air, creating momentum to turn the handstand into a half-cartwheel with effortless grace, enough to make a fair few gymnasts green with envy.

The move left Tron standing a few feet away, with his back to Sam.

His very weaponless back.

'I guess it's my turn, then...'

Sam slowly picked himself up out of the water, and eyed the program's slightly slumped posture.

He pulled his Disc off his back.

1010100101001010011111001110

Tron registered the sound of a Light Disc activating.

His whole platform stilled, even as his processes kicked into overdrive, fluctuating between turning his pain sensory inputs all-off or all-on. He was still debating between a quick and easy deresolution, and paying at least slightly for the atrocities he'd committed, when suddenly, he registered a wet-but-not thud, and a slight whisper of wind.

With his pain sensory inputs currently off, he waited for full deresolution to finally seize him.

He waited more.

Eventually, he turned his head enough to peek behind him, then he turned fully around.

Lying between the two of them, half-buried in the sand, was the User's Light Disc.

'...What?'

'The User Sam Flynn has significantly reduced his tactical advantage.'

'...What?'

He looked from the User, to the weapon, and back again.

'I thought he was going to derezz us – me.'

He tilted his head to one side.

The User offered him a weak smile.

He tilted his head to the other side.

The smile became a marginal amount stronger.

"You look like a bird when you do that."

He didn't really know how to respond to that, but did refrain from tilting his head back the other way again.

Sam's smile faltered, then left to be replaced by a sort of nervous grimace. His helmet folded away into nothingness as he brought a hand up to run through his hair, taking slow, shaky breaths. Something about the gesture left Tron uneasy, some sub-process of his primary imperative shuffling up his priority list. It didn't make it to the top, but it did get rather high up before it stalled. He almost investigated it, but the current tense situation took precedence.

'User Sam Flynn has again reduced in tactical advantage.'

'Memory search keywords 'show of goodwill' perhaps?'

'Likely. Calculating percentage chance.'

'Maybe I should do the same?'

'Combat effectiveness would reduce, though inclination for combat from User Sam Flynn would also, likely, reduce. Calculating percentages. Done.'

'… Not bad.'

He lifted his hands to his own helmet... then hesitated. He moved his hands in front of his face, and just stared at them. Sam was watching him, almost rocking onto the balls of his feet in a mix of confused, wary curiosity.

'How do I?...'

'Memory search, last successful initiation and dismissal of basic sensory interface protection, cross-reference search word 'helmet'. … No record within the last 100 cycles. No record within last 500 cycles. No record within last 1000 cycles. Search criteria part one found. Forced initiation... during partitioning and repurposing.'

'Clu. Part two?'

'Searching.'

Reviewing the memory associated with the first part of his internal search, Tron cringed, hands held over where his basic audi – ears – were inside. His fingers uselessly clawed at the angles of shiny black, seeking a seam he knew wasn't there.

"... Hey, are you okay?" 'Okay' was so vague, could be taken several different ways, Tron was even less sure of how to respond, but Sam's words had been a question... and perhaps conversation would also lower the User's 'inclination for combat'.

'Done.'

'Standby?'

'… Done.'

"Damaged," was his reply. Under ideal circumstances he would have said more, at least a fully formatted sentence, but between the damage to his audio output, and choking each word out around a steady outflow of voxels, what he managed to say was almost incomprehensible.

Two syllables was his limit, for now.

'Access memory.'

Distantly, he registered Sam's voice, muttering out a "You can say that again" while he reviewed the second memory, thankfully shorter and more ambivalent in content. He slid his hands down the sides of the helmet, hooked his thumbs on two particular points under his jaw, and arranged his fingers over the remaining hidden circuits. This particular arrangement of fingers was a forced removal of his helmet, to counteract the forced initialization of it a little over a kilocycle ago.

He pantomimed lifting the helmet off, and as soon as his fingers were no longer in contact with the helmet's surface, it neatly folded away into nothingness, a small cloud of voxels – no longer collecting in the bottom of his helmet – drifting to the ground. He watched the downward journey of the voxels long after they'd settled, suddenly unwilling to meet the User's eyes.

The sound of an uncertain step forward snapped his attention up reflexively.

Sam was staring, eyes wide and mouth gaping open.

1010100101001010011111001110

Sam's eyes and brain were having a bit of trouble communicating.

Everything had been going all right at first. They were both tense, and he knew that he'd confused Tron, so he'd made an, admittedly, odd attempt at getting them talking. The responding silence had made him more nervous than it should have, so he decided to take a moment to collect himself. He'd dismissed his helmet – he'd never really been that fond of it, really, even if it was necessary at times – and almost missed the program reaching up to do the same. Something was wrong though, when the motion eventually turned into something between the program covering his ears, and trying to claw them out of his head, with the helmet as a barrier between either action, even though they were both silent at the moment. So, he'd asked an obvious question, and got an unsurprising answer in return. 'Damaged' indeed. Tron just held that pose for several long moments, until eventually, he started moving again, as if he'd never stopped.

Sam had watched in interest as the program's fingers arranged themselves in an odd sort of way over the helmet, and he pretended to pull it off. Instead of following his hands, though, the helmet folded away, and presented Sam's eyes with the sight that his brain was having trouble with.

Sam had known Alan when he was younger, and he'd seen some pictures of him from before he was born, so it was easy to see Alan in the face currently turned toward the ground. An indistinct memory told him this shouldn't be surprising, but he was still pretty floored at the moment. He took a step forward without realizing, and was suddenly pinned in place by eyes that, while still that familiar gray-blue, were almost as unreadable as a stranger's.

'He kind of is, I guess...'

Now that his attention had been brought to it, he could actually see several differences between this program and the second father figure in his life. Most of them were in his expression and how he carried himself; after all, he'd led a very different sort of life than a businessman-programmer. There were a few physical differences, though; Sam had never considered Alan as a person that spent a lot of time outdoors, until now, faced with hair that was a significantly darker brown – having never been subject to any sun-bleaching – and skin that was so pale it was almost translucent. The program was also probably more fit than his User doppelganger, even when their ages were closer together; not that Alan hadn't been in shape, but that didn't really compare to a body honed into a living weapon.

'Hey, wait-'

"You were shorter than me, before." His tone twisted the blurted thought suddenly into a question.

It was weirdly reassuring to actually be able to see the look of confusion on the program's face this time when his head tilted to one side.

'Yep, still looks like a bird when he does that, helmet or no.'

Eventually Tron gave a small, vague shrug in response.

The normality of the User body language was a bit surreal.

They were both still a moment, until Sam decided to get the ball rolling in a more goal-oriented direction.

"Do you know what happened here? On the Grid, I mean." He tacked on the second bit just in case the program decided to take him literally.

"I'm not-," but whatever he wasn't was cut off, as something dark like graphite gurgled out of his mouth like water, but fell to the ground like fine sand.

It took another violent, wet-sounding cough from Tron before it occurred to him that they were voxels derezzing from the program internally.

'He'd said 'damaged', not 'derezzing'...!'

It was a slow process, at least. Sam couldn't quite decide if that really was good news or not.

"Um, is there a way I can help – repair you?"

The program shook his head.

"Why not?" He felt a bit bad for asking, since talking seemed to make it worse, but he had to know.

The program's gaze flicked down momentarily.

Sam followed his gaze... to his own Light Disc.

"Missing." Two syllables, and another cough.

'Crap.'

Needles and haystacks came to mind.