Warnings: minor violence and Sark being an ass. This is the last 'happy' chapter, folks; enjoy it while you can.

Ooo-oOo-ooO

The first time Ram rode a lightcycle was the most exhilarating and utterly terrifying 15 nanocycles of his existence. Frankly, he was amazed he even lasted that long before his bike took a wrong turn and he went flying in a shower of broken bike code across the practice grid.

Well, what did they expect from an actuarial program, honestly?

Until the Games, Ram had never even seen a lightcycle up close. There wasn't a lot of need for active game grids in the LuxStar Insurance sectors, after all. Fortunately, it didn't take Ram too long to learn how to apply his insurance functions towards calculating the projected actions and reactions of his opponents.

The one-on-one matches suddenly became almost painfully short.

And Ram gained notice from Sark.

"Personally, I would keep you running single opponents into the ground until your processors shorted out," the command program sneered. Ram tried not to glower from where he was kneeling, and surreptitiously dabbed the corner of his mouth with his wrist, checking for energy bleeds. There weren't any; surprising, given the strength of Sark's backhand. His circuits still stung.

Sark was still pontificating. "The MCP, however, has determined that we cannot have any single program surviving to gain more experience than the rest. You're all meant to die playing. From now on you will report to the team grids."

"Gee golly, I'm flattered by your confidence in me," Ram remarked sarcastically. He'd really been hanging around Tron too long if even Sark was inspiring sarcasm, rather than nervous fear.

Sark only smiled. "Don't delude yourself, program. I look forward to wiping that smirk off your face – permanently."

Team play, Ram soon discovered, was both easier and vastly more difficult.

Easier, because instead of having to keep track of the locations of his opponents on his own, he had teammates to spot trouble, if they weren't in trouble themselves. If he was in a bind, he could run and evade, coordinating with another player to take out his pursuer.

It was difficult as well, because those same team members he was partnered with were an extra variable to input into his strategy calculations. He would chase after an enemy, only to have to swerve out of the way of a jet wall from one of his own teammates. And most of those teammates were utterly green. Sure, they had experience, like him, in besting one-on-one opponents, but absolutely none where team play was concerned.

To be fair, neither did he, but the point still stood. Team matches were often sabotaged by missteps until Ram was suddenly the only one left, speeding off in pursuit or escape from multiple enemies.

This time, however, was different. He had a partner he'd worked with, and strategized with, and practiced disk-wars moves with so much that even on the lightcycle grid, each had an intimate understanding of how the other functioned in-game.

His partner was Tron.

~Maze is ready!~ Ram sent over the com in binary, risking a glance over his shoulder at the complex pattern his jet wall had laid out as he zigzagged around the track. An /affirmative pinged back, and Tron's orange lightcycle shot ahead of the blue bike he'd been pursuing, boxing him in and forcing the rider into Ram's maze.

It was a matter of picocycles before the splash of blue pixels heralded the end of the match, and Ram did a victory lap on his lightcycle before pulling in beside Tron and deactivating it. The security program was studying him. Ram ignored the calculating stare.

The first time they had partnered up, Tron had stared at him like that after the match. When Ram had asked why, the answer had surprised him.

"Your lightcycle circuits were red, not orange," Tron had said, frowning at him. Ram had blinked.

"Really?" He'd never noticed before. Tron's stare had turned shrewd. Ram had recognised it as the look he often gave new conscripts in the compound – scanning them, determining their threat levels. He'd held up his hands. "Hey, this is me, remember? I had no idea. No one else ever mentioned it, and it's hard to examine your own circuit colour when you're dodging jet walls."

Tron had looked dubious, and took to studying him after every match in the few nanocycles they had to rest before the guards arrived to escort them away.

This time, he only stared for a few moments before speaking up. "I think I've figured it out."

Ram had to pause for a moment before he figured out what Tron was talking about. "What, the lightcycle colour thing?"

Tron nodded.

"All right! Lay it on me."

It was not the first time Ram had made Tron tilt his head like a puzzled bit, and fought to keep from grinning at it. It was just too fun to befuddle him, and to rile Sark, with some of the User-idioms he'd picked up in insurance.

Tron was learning how to decipher them quickly; he didn't even ask for clarification this time.

"It's your core code." At Ram's puzzled look, he elaborated, "If you were completely actuarial, your bike would be orange, like mine. I imagine if you were completely a hacker, it would be a different colour entirely, since if you were completely a hacker I doubt you would've been written in this system. But you're both, and neither, and you were written in this system. The duality of the incomplete recompile scrambles the lightcycle's data streams, so it defaults to the system's controlling OS colours. And since the MCP's primary colour is red…"

"Then my lightcycle rezzes red, not orange." Ram thought for a moment, then choked and stifled a snicker with his hand, grinning. "It's gotta be serendipity."

Tron looked confused again. "I don't follow."

Ram had to fight to keep from laughing as he explained, "I'm a hacker, with a legitimate function, and a glitch in my code that lets me blend in to whatever system I enter just by rezzing up a lightcycle."

Tron's face as the security program calculated the possibilities this entailed was the picture of offended horror, and Ram lost his battle with humour, cackling madly.