For the first time in all of his existence, Clu felt content. He was creating the perfect system he'd always planned, he actually had a friend who understood him more than Tron or Flynn ever had and productivity had already raised 13%. All was well with the Grid for now.
He saw Bit floating around and smiled.
"Bit, productivity has been raised 5% since your restoration. You are having a good effect on the Grid."
Bit responded, in his usual tone: "NO."
"What do you mean, no? Look at the Grid! It's improving."
"NO."
"I don't understand."
"NO."
Clu frowned.
"Something's wrong?"
"YES."
"Something with the Grid?"
"NO."
Clu frown deepened. He had a bad feeling about this.
"A program?"
"YES."
"Is it Rinzler?"
Clu hoped really hard that Bit hadn't discovered Rinzler's former identity as Tron.
"NO."
"Is it Zuse?"
"NO."
Clu looked at Bit with an unreadable expression.
"Me?"
"YES."
He couldn't help but chuckle. He was the ultimate program, how could anything be ever wrong with him. So that's what he said to Bit.
"NO."
"Bit, I am fine."
"NO."
Clu's patience reached its limit. He grabbed Bit from mid-air and squeezed the old, obsolete data.
"Bit, you're here to serve me. To create the perfect system. Do not betray me."
Bit did not really know what to respond to that. Its first thought after finding out the truth was to find a way to derezz Clu, but it knew that alone, it could never accomplish this. After all, it was just a piece of old, worthless data. So Bit decided to talk to Clu, convince him to undo what he'd done. It already knew this was going nowhere. It'd have better luck trying to tell the old MCP that it was a chess program, not a control program.
"Bit, I restored you. I am your program, you will service me!"
"NO."
Clu squeezed tighter. Bit felt himself dying, his data derezzing.
"BIT... please."
"NO." I wonder if this is how my Clu felt?
Clu crushed Bit. A last, weak "No." came out of it and then it was energy and then it was nothing. In a rage, Clu grabbed the table, ripped it out of the floor and broke it into pieces. He screamed and ripped and threw and broke. And if Clu would've been a little more perceptive at this point, he would've noticed the flicker of his circuits, a brief white flash.
Gleaming in yellow energy, Clu stared at the faraway mountains, the Outlands. Somewhere there was the Creator, in hiding, useless and powerless. But Clu knew better than to underestimate the damnable User. Even whilst hiding, he'd dealt that unexpected strike of Bit at Clu. He felt himself a fool for ever trusting anything Flynn had given him. The old Clu program was an inferior, derezzed piece of junk. From now on, Clu would focus on nothing else, he would care for nothing less. He will create the perfect system. That, and only that was his purpose.
Clu returned to the laboratory and picked up one of the ISOs discs. He and numerous other programs had gone over the endless information in the disks for cycles, yet they found no explanation to their survival in the Outlands. Yet there had to be a way, for the ISOs had come from there. Whatever secrets the disk held, they were the answer to destroying any remaining ISOs, not to mention Flynn himself. Clu examined another portion of information. Nothing. In frustration, he tossed the disk back to the table and his circuits flared. Why? WHY had this happened? Why had the Creator been so obsessed with those deformations, those abominations instead of the Grid? Why did he not care for his own creations, instead focusing on the ISOs. Clu had long ago accepted his obsession with Sam, having heard Tron's confusing explanations of Sam somehow being partly made of Flynn's own data. He sighed and then fell into thought. There had to be a way. And then it dawned on Clu: the administrative computer in Flynn's arcade. If he could access it, he could control the Grid and simply delete the Creator and any ISOs. But only Users could access the outside computer and he needed Flynn's disc for that. If only I was a program controlling the User world...