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:
Wow, this chapter was long! In hindsight, it really should've been two chapters, but whatever, I love 2 for the price of 1 sales! \o/

WE'RE IN THE HOME STRETCH, PEEPS! WOOOOO! I actually already have quite a few sections of the next two chapters written out, and then the tenth chapter will be an epilogue. The only thing that's going to slow me down is that I'm also working on an original project for a friend's Christmas present, so I may be preoccupied for the next month or so.

Thanks for hanging in there! As ever, thanks to the incomparable Winzler for all her cheerleading.

Part 7

Justin didn't make it. He held on for a day or so, but by the next afternoon, Danny emerged with a long face and a small, quiet shake of his head. The funeral was short and simple and Sam had politely attended, but the hardest part had come later, when he had to field all of Tron's questions as to why there had been a ceremony now, but not for any of the times before.

Danny had been right. In their small community, it was easy to forget things like how, just one week ago, he had left five bodies next to the road that he hadn't mourned or thought of since. Having never been much of a person of faith, he didn't feel like he had necessarily shirked any rites, but the hotel community's payment of basic respects was a stark reminder that he had not even managed that much during their brief, solitary sojourn; had not, in fact, even noticed its lack until now.

Sleep had been long in coming that night.

The radio station occupied a tiny spit of land across the bay in Emeryville that looked like it spent just as much time underwater as above depending on the tides. Independently owned and operated, the station had broadcasted such paranoid and extremist messages as alien abductions, government conspiracies, and the coming apocalypse.

"But then the end of the world actually did happen, and now the owner's got nothing left to do but play oldies and maintain the equipment," Danny had shrugged. "I don't know if he was required to install the generators as part of an emergency broadcast system or if that was his own thing, but right now, he's the only one with working electricity that we know of."

When asked where the supply of gas came from, a sour look had crossed Danny's face. "Nelson's boys or other groups, I hear. He makes deals for supplies - and protection. We keep our distance - don't want nothing to do with those folk."

Sam didn't either, but the draw of the generators was a strong one, and so only two days after they had arrived in San Francisco, Sam asked to borrow the truck and was soon knocking on the station's door.

The building looked like it was barely more than a prefab shed. A two story affair that was more tall than it was wide, the corrugated metal top rattled with every breeze. The generators were squat silhouettes rumbling away in its shadow while the slender wand of the mast antenna extended far overhead, its guy-wires occasionally singing. Sam could smell the fumes of spent gasoline in the air; something which made his gut pinch with nebulous memories of garages and smoggy city vapors, even as his nose wrinkled.

"What are you going to build with this?"

"What?" Sam tilted his head, wondering if the clatter he had heard was another shake from the roof or had come from inside. "What do you mean?"

"With the energy. What are you going to use it to build?"

Sam cast the program a sharp look, feeling inexplicably put on the spot by what should have been an innocent question. "It's not like the Grid, Tron. You can't just use pure energy to build here."

The earnest, curious gaze shadowed. "Then what - "

"You were just here yesterday! Y'can't have gone through that batch already - "

The muffled holler from inside made them both jump just before the door was tugged open with a grating squeal, abruptly leaving Sam eye-to-hoary-beard when he turned to face the entrance. "Uh, hey," he offered as he backslid and looked up.

There were few people these days who were quite as plump as they had been, but the man who appeared in the doorway still had a broad-shouldered frame that a bear wouldn't have been shy to claim. Obviously getting by just fine where provisions were concerned, the station owner seemed to be just sliding down the wrong side of middle age, wearing a worn SF State zip hoodie over a stained blue t-shirt and jeans so baggy, they might have slid down if not propped by an ample gut. Sam doubted that the beard - a curly mat blanketing half the man's chest - had seen any worse days since the apocalypse.

Gimlet eyes squinted down at him, the folds around them so loose that they hid the whites, making their dark stare strangely unnerving. "Who're you?" he demanded bluntly.

Sam tried to marshal his thoughts. It was clear that this wasn't a man who wanted for much, and the extra resources he thought he might be able to bargain with from his share of the community's efforts were probably worth less than he had hoped. "Hi, uh, I'm Sam Flynn, and this is Tron. We heard your radio station, and wanted to ask - "

"Like the game?"

Sam blinked. The man didn't, his gaze now fixed upon Tron, who only straightened beneath the blatant stare as if preparing to meet a challenge. "I - uh, I beg your pardon?"

"The game! Tron! The lightcycle races - what, you some sort of fanboy?" the man leaned in with a curl of his lip, until he and the program had barely enough room in which to focus on each other.

"I've been in the races, yes," Tron answered unhesitantly.

"Yes - well, no, it's complicated, look can we just talk with you about -" Sam tried to override before stuttering to a halt, slack-jawed, when the man abruptly leaned back and declared fiercely, "Greetings, Program!"

Sam gaped in dumb astonishment. Tron positively lit up. "Greetings!" he declared just as fiercely, before their hands met with an audible slap, the program just a split-second slower with the freshly learned user custom.

Miles Dillon, as it turned out, had been a lifelong gamer. With even the mere possibility of having working servers again and even a former "Encom in-house game tester" to pit his skills against, he had been almost embarrassingly eager to offer his station's resources.

If Sam had not needed to complete his share of the community work that day, he might very well have borrowed some flashlights and their carefully hoarded batteries and gone searching for spare servers into the dead of night. As it was, he slept only fitfully through the evening after chores were done and was up well before the sun rose, pacing impatiently until the first weak light of dawn began to pick out silhouettes from shadows. The truck was with Alec, who insisted that the vehicle was needed for the day's scavenging, but had offered directions to the nearest cluster of corporate offices that were still standing. Sam had wasted no time in collecting Tron after that.

There were still plenty of vehicles to choose from lining the city streets, and with less stringent requirements this time, Sam made a much more leisurely pick. After wistfully eyeing some of the sportier selections - including one noteworthy bike - he settled on a hatchback that assured plenty of space for some server slices, and maybe even a minimal rack to install them in.

Mind still awhirl with the possibilities now that he had access to steady electricity, Sam was curled deep beneath the car's dash when a tap upon his shoulder had him starting and nearly grazing his head on the driving shaft. "Just gimme a min, I'm almost done - "

"Sam, something's wrong."

Sam immediately stilled, trying to gauge the program's level of concern from the angle of his feet beneath the door's edge. Tron had originally been playing with the remaining crumbles of the driver's side window Sam had broken, fascinated by the safety glass' crisp, crackled fractures. He was standing with his back to the car now, though, weight poised ever so slightly forward, over the balls of his feet ... and Sam slowly extricated himself, eyes immediately searching the street, hands loose and ready.

It was a narrow, two-lane affair between buildings tall enough to cast a perpetual shadow, saved from being called an alley only by dint of even narrower openings branching from it at irregular intervals. It did not take long to ascertain the source of Tron's concern - within the closest mouths of these channels, human-shaped silhouettes were lurking.

"How many, you think?" Sam murmured even as he turned slowly to make his own estimate.

"More than six." Tron tilted his head, listening. "Perhaps as many as ten."

It would probably take him another minute to jump the car; with the increasingly computerized models that the auto industry had been rolling out, he had more often depended on hacking than manual starts of vehicles when he had cared to dabble in such pursuits at all. If there was trouble, Tron might be able to hold them off that long.

He wasn't keen on testing that assessment. "Hello!" Sam called out, deciding on a direct approach, and was not surprised when there was no response. Verbally, anyway. A scuff of shoes, a clinking clatter that might have been chains, and then people were stepping out into the street. Four ... seven ... nine men, dressed in the same hodgepodge affair that all survivors these days wore, but somehow rougher all the same. There was certainly no mistaking the motley collection of knives, steel bars, broken bottles and other improvised weapons that they already had in hand, expressions set in a myriad of variations between grim chill and mocking leers.

"Look, we don't want any trouble," Sam began, making a last ditch effort as he slipped out from behind the door and swung it gently to, now shoulder-to-shoulder with Tron.

"But we do," a mustached man retorted, resting his weapon of choice - a crowbar - against his shoulder.

Sam looked pointedly at the array of men surrounding them in a loose circle. "Yeah? Looks kind of crowded, though. I don't think there'll be enough to go around."

The man grinned, baring incongruously even but yellowed teeth. "Don't worry, we're good at sharing, aren't we, boys?"

"Look, we don't have anything on us worth shaking down," Sam made one last attempt, shifting to feel the brush of Tron's shoulder against his and taking heart from the tense, ready flex of the muscle beneath. "If you want a car or two, though, I'm sure we can make a deal."

"We're not looking t'make another deal. We're here t'settle one," the man sneered, all hints of joviality gone as he motioned with his chin and the ring began to tighten. "You took out some of our men. We're here t'take payment for that."

Sam's stomach plummeted and he reluctantly shifted his feet farther apart, hands curling into fists. "They are here for retribution," Tron murmured, more statement than question; the program settling into a variation of his trademark ready-stance though he was currently empty-handed.

"Hey, at least we don't haveta worry about innocent bystanders this time," Sam breathed, busily assessing the movements of the men he's facing. "Think we can take them on our own?"

The joke had been unthinking and innocent, and at first, Tron's hissed, "Yes!" startled him with its vehemence. Then he flushed at the memory of the argument they had never settled in the warehouse, but before he could protest that he had not been thinking of Tron's alter ego at all, the program snapped a low, "Keep your back to the vehicle," and there was abruptly cool air behind him. Tron was taking the fight to their ambushers, drawing the majority of them away. Sam cursed as he was forced to obey when the remaining three, emboldened, rushed him instead, glass crunching beneath his shoes as he squared both shoulders against the car's side.

Sam had encountered his share of scuffles, mostly in clubs or just outside of them, and wasn't afraid to wade into the thickest part of things if he felt bored or riled enough. But they had been free-for-all, fisticuff brawls, where every man fought for himself and the only time Sam had to worry about overwhelming force was when two people accidentally picked the same target.

Gangs were something else with their loose bands bonded by (sometimes vicious) peer pressure, and he was too much of a loner to have ever felt comfortable taking any sort of attention from them, whether of the antagonistic or recruitment variety. He was painfully reminded of that now as he ducked the swing of a bar from the right, more glass raining down on him as it slammed into the side of the car, and threw himself forward, head down as he ploughed into the man directly in front of him to take them both down in a tackle. Rolling away rather than be pinned by a one-on-one fight, he saw only the fleeting shadow of movement to his right before kicking out reflexively. It wasn't a direct hit, but the grunt and lack of a follow-up told him he had managed enough damage to win himself some breathing room; one which he was quick to capitalize upon by putting the half-mangled car at his back once more.

He wasn't as smooth or quick as Tron, not by a longshot, but there had been no better sparring partners he could have found other than Quorra and Tron. At the very least, he couldn't help thinking sourly, he had learned the important lesson of dodging, and after weeks' worth of practice - first evading blackguards, then two of the fastest virtual warriors that the Grid could offer - he had yet to collect anything more serious at the moment than a glancing blow on an arm that had temporarily numbed his fingers.

"What the hell is - "

" - didn't say we were facing off with the godamn Karate Kid!"

The man with the steel bar wavered, glancing over his shoulder, distracted by the distant complaints. Sam knew exactly what to expect from the knot of fighting surrounding Tron however, and felt his lips peel back in a savage grin as he lunged - shouldering the weapon aside to shove a knee into the man's gut, then followed up with a punch that made his knuckles throb and knocked the man out cold. He didn't quite manage to dodge a retaliatory fist from one of the others, head ringing, but the bar was more important, and as soon as he wrested it from the unconscious body he was swinging it wide to make the remaining two attackers jump back, swaying as he pushed himself to his feet. "Now it's starting to get fun, right?" he spat, cheek already feeling hot and stiff.

One seemed braver than the other, holding his ground while his partner started to slide back, but Sam could tell that he was wavering too. Bullies draw strength from numbers and overwhelming advantage; as soon as their victim starts to put up enough of a fight, their interest wanes. So he wasted no time in trying to convince them he was more than they wanted to chew on right now; with a snarl, he leapt forward, crowbar swinging.

"Forget it, I'm not getting enough out of this to risk breaking something!" the one hanging back growled, backpedaling.

"Shut up! You wanna deal with a skinny white punk or you wanna deal with the boss when he finds out you turned tail?" the other argued, but he was already grudgingly following and Sam froze with his stolen weapon held high, barely daring to blink in case some whim changed their minds.

"There ain't no clinics around to fix you anymore! You seen Maurice's foot lately? Forget it, man, Tay brought his piece ... I think two bullets make a better lesson to the others than - "

Sam's breath hitched and his eyes swerved toward the other skirmish, and thank god his own opponents were already fleeing because they could have taken him down right then and there with his distraction, crowbar or not.

Three unconscious bodies already littered the ground on the opposite side of the street, and Tron was holding his own against three more; looking as if he was merely waiting for the opportune moment to put another one of them down while he kept his ground. But when one disengaged, seemingly leaving his buddies to fend for themselves, it wasn't to follow the other two who now lurked nervously on the edges of the scene - Sam felt cold fingers drag down his spine as the man reached beneath his jacket and drew an ominous, dark shape.

"Tron, look out!" Sam shouted, and while the program's gaze flicked his way at the warning, the others had him hemmed in and busy, and Sam could only think to draw his arm back and fling the crowbar just as the gunman aimed -

The man flinched, shoulder jerking upwards as he ducked, and the shot went wide as its echoes funneled down the street. Sam was only able to savor his relief for a single breath though, before the muzzle abruptly swung toward him and there was another, sharp crack -

He couldn't quite remember how he ended up on the ground, staring up at the cloud-hazed sky and gasping like a landed fish, but instinct was already trying to scrape him upright while his right arm fell alternately numb, then burning.

"Sam!"

God, he had never heard a snarl like that before, pure fury and panic and it pushed Sam to fight just that little bit harder to reorient himself, rolling over in time to see -

Someone was still hanging off of Tron's back, one arm locked around his neck from behind, but the program was lunging at the gunman as if he was carrying no weight at all. The gun fired again just as he reached for him, and Sam flinched but hadn't managed to croak out more than a reflexive, "Tron - !" before the clean sound of bone snapping and the shooter's howl rang clearly through the street. Glass shattered as Tron threw his hanger-on into a car's side, and reached with the same movement to tangle fingers in the gunman's hair, swinging his head into the windshield with a savage grace that made the gorge rise in Sam's throat.

Tron was using lethal force - Tron was fighting with intent to kill, and it should not be happening now, not before Sam had called forth the actual killer, and more than shock or pain, the realization of what might be happening - what must be happening - made his breath come short and the world swim before his eyes.

"No ... no, Tron ... "

Tron lashed out with the blade of his hand, and a man fell back with a horrible gurgle, clutching his ruined throat.

"Tron, stop it - !"

Light flashed off a knife, and Tron leaned out of its reach with sinuous grace before darting back in like a snake. In the space of a blink, the blade had exchanged hands as another body fell, and this time, when it whipped out, it was the remaining ambusher who was scrambling backwards.

"Tron, it's not - it's supposed to be Rinzler! Release Rinzler, damnit, release Rinzler!"

Sam didn't know if it would help, didn't know what he was even thinking anymore, except that it seemed unacceptable - a perversion - for Tron to stain his hands like Rinzler's were. So logic demanded that Rinzler step forward to claim his rightful place, and Sam watched numbly to see if there was any difference, any change at all to indicate there was a transition from one personality to another as the program dispatched his last opponent with economical precision.

Tron - Rinzler - looked up while crouched over the body, head tilted to follow the pell-mell sound of panicked footsteps running rapidly away. When he tensed to follow, Sam croaked belatedly, "No! No ... let them go." A full-body shudder rattled his teeth and he winced, glancing once at the spreading stain on his shoulder and quickly looking away again with a swallow. "Never mind that, we better ... we better get back. I need to see Danny, and ... and we made it, Tron."

The program gave a slow blink, but otherwise, didn't move.

Sam felt nausea climb up his throat. "Tron ... c'mon, Tron! I said we made it!"

"I know you did."

The relief at those deadpan words was dizzying. Or maybe it was shock, which had already chilled his fingertips. "Well jesus christ, maybe you could've said so, then," he groused as he started to haul himself back to his feet with the help of the car, already braced for the sharp-edged retort ... that didn't come.

"I thought I just did." Tron was close enough now to offer a supporting hand, and Sam stared - tried to find anything acerbic in the smooth expression, any hint of the bitter dissatisfaction which had characterized their exchange in the warehouse, now that he had taken matters into his own hands again.

He found nothing. Almost no emotion at all. Only a mild, almost dreamy ambivalence; the program's eyes clearly focused elsewhere even as he put a hand beneath Sam's good elbow.

Sam didn't say anything more on the way back, afraid of what the responses would be. Tron didn't say anything more either.

"You're lucky, it went right through the muscle," Danny declared as he squinted through his spectacles at the entry and exit wounds. "The bleeding's already slowed considerably. Here, pop two of these while I get my suture kit," he dropped two of their carefully hoarded supply of painkillers into Sam's palm as he got up.

"He will be all right?" Xiao Yen asked from where she had been anxiously hovering near the door. She had been the first to spot them when they had limped back, and had dropped her gardening tools on the spot to find Danny.

"Even better, he'll have a nice scar to brag about to the ladies," Danny snorted as he settled himself back on his stool, metal creaking as he adjusted his weight and sorted out a sterile needle packet. "Do I need to give you a local before I start?"

Sam rolled his eyes, dry swallowing the pills and trying not to gag at the residual bitterness at the back of his throat. "Yeah, just what I need, even more charm." He grimaced at the doc's matter-of-fact question - just like the pills, who knew when they would be able to replenish such supplies, if ever - and declared with bombastic bravado, "I've gotten in enough scrapes before to handle a few stitches without help."

"Is that how you scared them away?" Xiao Yen teased, sounding a little more confident now that it was clear Sam was not seriously hurt. "By talking."

"Sure. All I had to do was make myself big and terrifying and yell a lot. They're all cowards. They ran away."

"The extra-large gauge needle it is," Danny drawled as Sam mimed a horrified wince and the woman smothered a laugh. "Xiao Yen, why don't you go collect the kids; everything's fine now."

Eric had been tagging along when the Xiao yen had returned with Danny, and while they had initially tried to shoo the child off when he stopped, wide-eyed and staring at Sam's condition, Sam had jumped at the chance to assign him to Tron instead with the hope that Eric's typical barrage of questions would thaw the program from his weird fugue state. "Hey, Xiao Yen? Mind making sure Tron has another bowl of that bean-veggie-mushroom something gravy over rice thing you made yesterday? I think he really liked it."

The woman dimpled and nodded graciously. "How he eats, I think he likes everything ... like he has never eat anything before. Yes, of course, Sam. You are a good friend," she said warmly before closing the door gently behind her.

Her words somehow left him feeling like even more of a heel than before.

"So, what really happened out there?"

Danny timed his question with the first jab of the needle, and Sam jumped with a yelp, throwing a glower the doctor's way when there was a muttered admonishment to hold still. His retort was half-hearted though, and soon enough under the old man's prodding, he gave up the details that he had edited out of the version he had told in Xiao Yen's presence. Danny made a few more pointed inquiries, and by the time they were done with the interrogation, Sam's shoulder was also neatly cleaned and gauzed up.

Danny peered over his glasses at Sam, expression sober, then rose to clean up the used supplies. "I think you should drop this electricity thing."

Sam gaped in the middle of searching for something more appropriate than his blood-soaked shirt to put on. "What? Why? We could improve so many things around here with even a small - !"

"We're getting by just fine so far without it!" Danny pointed out gruffly with a short wave of his hand. "And it's already stirring up trouble with Nelson's gang - "

"Well, maybe we shouldn't just settle for 'getting by'," Sam asserted, hissing in frustration when a reflexive bunching of his shoulders pulled at the wound. "And whatever beef they've got is with Tron and me - "

"It's not 'just' Tron and you," Danny warned, turning to pin Sam with a frown. "You two stay here, with us, and that's how they're going to see it eventually."

Sam released a loud breath, pacing away with a scowl because he wasn't fool or bastard enough to deny that possibility. "But think about the food we could preserve with basic refrigeration ... or even your medical equipment! You're, like, practically using middle ages medicine here ... "

"I haven't quite fallen back upon leeches, thank you very much," the doctor grunted bitterly. "Look, I'd be the last person to deny the benefits of working electricity, but I'm not willing to pay all prices for it. That was your first warning," he pointed a gnarled finger at Sam's shoulder. "You might not get a second."

Sam thought he could understand, now, a little of what his father had gone through in making Encom; of the pressures he had to face down in order to bring his visions into reality. Who knew where Alec had learned of his plans for the radio station through the community grapevine, but the man had taken a similarly dim view of his efforts, and not been shy in making his opinions public. Sam knew, though, with the same certainty as he expected the sun to rise every morning, that there would be no hope for reclaiming anything from the industrial age onwards unless they could get a steady supply of electricity again.

He was not going to complain if the path to buying Miles' heart and cooperation was to set up a game server.

"Think we can get a test run soon?" the man asked over his shoulder from where he sat, half-reclined, in a cracked leather executive chair before his aging broadcasting systems; the same question he had asked at the end of every one of the past eight days Sam had visited. Sam had learned to step carefully around certain subjects in the station owner's presence, but otherwise, the fellow had proved a jovial enough character, filled with stories and theories that alternately made Sam's head spin and then doubled him over with laughter.

He had liberated two server slices running the Encom OS after breaking into a corporate network closet without further incident. After that, Sam had spent every free moment he had crouched before a screen, attempting to patch and modify them enough to load the Grid 2.0 proprietary data format. Other than his share of the hotel chores, Sam spent most of his time in the East Bay now - even meals, he sometimes either shared with Miles, or had dropped off by Tron.

The program never referenced the fight in which Sam had been shot. Sometimes, his gaze would go blank and disturbed when he caught Sam rubbing at the ache in his healing shoulder, but otherwise, acted as if the event had never happened. Sam would be even more freaked by it if he wasn't so god-awful grateful that Tron was staying fully occupied at the hotel. Other than zipping back and forth across the Bay on a bike Sam had hotwired for him or giving Eric the occasional joyride, the program had been firmly tucked under the wing of various members in the community while Sam was distracted. In their occasional interactions over the past week, Tron had seemed locked into a permanent state of bemusement ... but, most reassuringly, he had acted like Tron, and not some blank-faced automaton.

"Maaaaaaaaybe," Sam gave his standard response, but something in his tone must have given him away because there was a squeal of over-taxed springs and then the lumbering steps of Miles approaching him from behind.

"You got something," the man declared, expectation clear in his voice as he squatted down beside Sam's seat on the dusty floor.

Sam took a deep breath and rubbed abruptly sweaty palms upon his jeans when the screen cleared from his latest udpate. The cursor blinked cheerfully next to a standard command prompt. "Maybe," he continued to hedge, but he didn't bother concealing his excitement as he tugged a USB drive out from beneath his collar, ducking out of its lanyard and plugging it in.

The small blue and black square, hardly bigger than the first joint of his thumb, contained the state data for the Grid just before the UPS had given out; a snapshot that had been triggered as soon as the main power source had been cut. The drive was not big enough to contain all the programs and environmental parameters needed to run the Grid independently, but hopefully Sam's modifications to the Encom servers would do that part - he just needed to initialize them with the right values, which was where the USB drive came in.

The rubberized grips were worn from handling, glossy and smooth. Sam had rolled it over and over between his fingers in the first weeks after seattle, until it seemed like every ridge and imperfection had been transferred directly to his skin. Now, he consciously clenched his fingers against the urge to run them over its surface once again as the server clicked and whirred, explaining while he waited for the data to load, "I'm going to load a program to test the compatibility. If everything's set up right, she'll be able to help me work from the inside and debug problems with anything we install later on."

"She?" A hirsute brow arched as Miles leaned in with a smirk. "You're an RPer, aren't you? I bet you even gave her a name."

Caught flat-footed, Sam turned to blink at the man, nearly cross-eyed at the sudden proximity. "Hey, personal space man, 'specially since I don't know when the last time you had a shower was," he snorted, leaning back dramatically as he shoved at the radio operator's shoulder. "Yeah, of course the program's got a name, what else am I gonna call it, 'hey you, the prompt'?"

Miles cackled, rocking back obediently with the shove. "Yeah? So, what'd you name 'her'?" he waggled his brows in emphasis with the pronoun.

Sam rolled his eyes, but didn't bother with a verbal response when he saw the return of the prompt on the screen. Breath held, he dove for the keys.

run GridSandbox3
load Quorra
send ACK

Loading ...

Miles squinted at the screen while Sam chewed on his lip, hands clenched tight upon his knees as he waited for the server to run through its cycles. "Quorra, huh?" the man mumbled. "What's that supposed t'be? Some sorta acronym?"

"It's just a name," Sam brushed off, barely conscious of his own response as he silently counted out the seconds beneath his breath. Thirteen ... fourteen ... fifteen ... surely it should have finished by now, the servers were top of the line ...

ACK received
Greetings USER SamFlynn

The drive west into San Francisco was a blur of shadows, the silvery trail of a half-moon reflected in the bay's dark waters far beneath, and a single incongruous spurt of headlights flashing through the deck railings below him; another vehicle passing by on the bridge's east-bound level. His hands still felt tight and cramped from the fifteen minutes of furious typing he had indulged in to bring Quorra up to speed, ignoring all of Miles' inquiries until the man had given up with a disgruntled mutter and left him to his own devices. As soon as Quorra's curiosity had been temporarily sated, though, Sam had started the loading process for the rest of the Grid to keep her company while he jumped on his bike. Now, he screeched to a halt before the hotel, which glowed with more candle-light than usual for this hour of the night, but which reassured him that people were still up and unlikely to be too peeved with him as he ran up to the entrance, calling out, "Tron! Hey, Tron! Where are you?"

One of the Mexican women - Maria, he thought her name was - poked her head out into the foyer, eyes owlishly wide, before she was suddenly waddling rapidly away, a mad patter of Spanish rolling off her tongue. Before Sam could more than blink after her, however, Xiao Yen was summoned like magic by the disturbance, and she sent Maria off in another direction with a gentle nudge and some broken Spanish before she was bustling up to him, brow furrowed anxiously. "Sam! What is the matter? Is there more trouble?"

"What? No no no, it's not trouble, it's the best news - " Sam assured as he squeezed her arms, craning his head over hers to search for any others who might have emerged from the rooms. "Do you know where Tron is? He'll want to hear this - "

"Tron? He is with Danny and Alec - " Xiao Yen half-turned, pointing in the direction of the makeshift clinic, and Sam was already stepping around her when she clutched at his hand. "Wait! There is something big - "

"Can it wait just ten seconds? I promise, it'll only take me, like, five words to get out and then I swear I'll - "

"Sam!"

People were suddenly coming out of the woodworks, it seemed, and Sam began to feel the first trickles of apprehension as he noticed just how many residents were still up. But it had been Tron finally who was calling his name, and he bulled his way forward with a grin, determined to at least get his news out. "Tron! God, you won't believe this, but I ran the test, and you know what? It worked! It's loaded and running and - "

Tron abruptly grasped Sam's arm, his security face on. "Sam, we're going to be under attack. They're going to attack the radio station, and they're going to attack the hotel."

" - Quorra even ... what?" Sam felt his grin melt from his face as he stared, before he was suddenly clutching just as tightly at the program's shoulders. "Wait, what?"

Tron winced, but from the uncomfortable, sideways flick of his gaze, it was not from the pinch of Sam's grip. "The gangs. They know about the servers. And they're going to make an example of the hotel. They could show up any nano - any minute now ... "

"How do they know about the servers? Why would they - they've made deals with Miles, why would they - " Sam stuttered, before memory was abruptly knocking for attention. Driving across the upper deck of the bridge ... a flash of yellow-tinted headlights from the deck below, passing in the opposite direction ... "Oh jesus," he breathed. "We don't have time. That must've been them - they're already headed for the station!"

Tron grimaced. "That's ... unfortunate. We'll have to leave it to Miles - we need to figure out how to lay down defenses here. I've already mapped the perimeter and exits, and the weakest points are - "

"No, we can't just leave it to Miles! Tron, I left the USB drive to load, the Grid's running right now, Quorra's running!" Sam hissed.

Tron hesitated, conflict plain upon his face, but then shook himself and Sam could almost see the priorities clicking into place, the program's legendary will cementing them like a fortress curtain for the coming siege. "Quorra can take care of herself. These people need us - "

"It doesn't work like that in the user world, Tron! The damage that could occur if anything's interrupted, data corruption, we could lose them all - !"

"Sam, you have to choose! The people here need you to lead them, Alec's not going to be able to - "

"From what you're saying, I don't have a choice!" Sam snarled, shoving himself away.

Tron jerked as if he had been struck, lips peeling back in a snarl that Sam had never seen directed toward him until now. "I was talking about the choice between the past and the present, but yes, maybe now you know how it feels."

Time pressed on him like a physical pressure, and his desperation felt like something tangible; a chasm waiting to yawn open just behind his heels for the next, unwary step.

They were so close. They had Miles, they had electricity, they had the damned Grid running and he had just talked to Quorra like it had been any other chat they had frequently traded while Sam had been bored by Encom meetings and paperwork ...

Tron's gaze suddenly flattened, the lines around his mouth smoothing away. It was a few pounding heartbeats before Sam even realized he had spoken aloud ... and what betraying words had slipped from his mouth. "Rinzler," he breathed, tentative, almost afraid as he realized just where his subconscious had led him.

The dark-haired head dipped.

Sam closed his eyes. Licked dry lips. Husked, "Go to the radio station. As fast as you can. Defend Miles, save the Grid ... save the Grid, and save Quorra."

If he was to be damned for a penny, then he may as well be damned for a pound.


Sam had been on only two camping trips in his life, back when his father had been on a return-to-nature riff. What little he could remember involved well-outfitted trucks, rented motor homes, and one sagging tent that had been left in a morass of mud as they took shelter in a motel from a flash thunderstorm. He had been inducted into the ranks of the Boy Scouts for all of six months before Alan had withdrawn him when it became obvious there would be ever-escalating embarrassments - certainly not enough time for him to have earned his woodcraft badges. And while he had, at least, put his kitchen to the occasional use, he was just as guilty as the next bachelor of resorting most often to pre-processed foods and delivery; his utensils drawer had been filled with take-out menus and pizza coupons and maybe three forks, if he had done the dishes the night before.

So when they were left with a small half-pack's worth of mostly junk food - the only things he was sure would not spoil - between them about a week and a half south of Portland, Sam was frustrated, but not overly surprised by how they had ended up in such straits. "Who knew Home Economics would've prepared someone for an apocalypse?" he grimaced as he squinted at the cloudy mixture within a jar of marinated artichoke hearts before tossing it over his shoulder.

The shadow of Tron's figure shifted, but when the expected question about unfamiliar terms didn't come, Sam glanced up to see only a mildly inquiring look directed toward him. Feeling just piqued enough by their situation to wait out the program instead of volunteering the information without being explicitly asked, he arched an eyebrow. Only a second or two slid by before Tron shrugged and turned an impassive look upon their surroundings.

Now feeling like a jerk as well as a moron, Sam stuffed the few cans and potato chips that were left back into the bag with more force than necessary and hefted it over his shoulder. "We should start rationing things," he said gruffly as he turned his face toward the south and began walking again.

The lush wetland and riparian vistas of the Northwest had given way to the sere yellow grasses of a drier climate. The plain green freeway board declaring cheerfully in a freehand script, "Welcome to California" was a day behind them when the paved road began to wind upwards, into velvety foothills that could probably have been rightly called a low mountain range if they had hosted a few craggy peaks instead of gently rounded tops.

Sam had cause to be thankful that the season was moving into a chilly Autumn rather than a baking Summer heat; while he had known enough to bring as much water as they could carry beyond food itself, he had not realized just how few opportunities they would have to refill the farther south they went. He was partially reassured when, half a day into the hills, they could see the clear gleam of a large body of water to the west, nestled between folds of land and too close to be the undrinkable ocean. That evening, there was a road sign declaring that they were near a man-made reservoir.

By the next day, he was even entertaining vague thoughts of checking for fish. While he had not thought to scavenge hooks and line when they had been raiding recreational sports stores in Seattle, between the swiss army knife and host of other small tools that he had picked up, he was fairly confident he could cobble together something to net them something fresh. While he had subsisted solely on potato chips and soda for days before when holed up on some particularly intense project (and one memorable week of gaming), Sam was discovering that doing so while on a cross-country trek was a far different story than while remaining mostly inanimate before a stationary terminal. A bone-deep ache and weariness seemed to have taken up a permanent residence that no amount of sleep would cure, and he was pretty certain that he had dropped a few pounds by now that new muscle mass had not made up for.

Stomach grumbling at the mere thought of a toasted, flaky filet with skin crisped just-so replacing the peanut butter cracker sandwich in his back pocket, Sam had already stepped off the road before he was brought up short by Tron's, "Where are you going?"

There was a beat at the unexpected interruption before he gathered enough wits to half-turn and answer, "Toward the reservoir."

"Why?"

It took him a moment to realize that the unpleasant clench in his middle was not due to hunger or indigestion. "Why?" he echoed with slow caution. "'Cause there might be fish."

But rather than ask after the nature of fish or what it had to do with them, Tron simply looked pensive; an eyebrow-twitch shy of a full-out frown as he looked back to the road, gauging the upward curve of it with poorly concealed anxiety. "Perhaps we should keep going. It is only another hour or two until dark."

Sam stared. Tron had never before questioned their direction, never shown much interest in their destination beyond what preparations needed to be made ahead of time. He had seemed perfectly content with following Sam's lead - at least, until now - and he had certainly never shown anything close to worry over the mere fall of night. In fact, he had initially been awed and skittish by turns when faced with the full glory of the sun and its illuminating power. "We've been camping out in the wilderness for over a month now, I don't think it makes much difference if we're sleeping in the grass or by the road. What's wrong?"

Tron glanced toward him, drew a breath - and then released it without another word. One last, almost-furtive look was paid the road before the program shook his head and stepped off, onto the crumbly earth. Sam thought about pressuring for an answer since it was obvious that there was something bothering him; but figuring also that if it was so obvious, Tron would eventually speak up, he eventually turned around and continued picking his way toward the distant glitter of the reservoir.

An hour or so later, Tron didn't so much speak up as perform the equivalent of tripping and faceplanting.

But since this was Tron, he didn't exactly fall on his face, and managed to just catch himself on one knee and his hands before he made that critical error. The sound had caused Sam to turn sharply enough that he thought he had caught the program in a rare, split-second of clumsiness, and he even squeezed out a single laugh before stopping uncertainly.

Tron wasn't getting back up.

"Hey. Did you twist an ankle or something?" he asked, walking back, and didn't quite realize how how far ahead he had gotten until it took a good dozen strides to reach the program. "Uhm, your leg or foot, I mean," he added belatedly as he crouched down, "does anything hurt?"

"No ... nothing hurts," Tron answered only when Sam moved to touch his shoulder, pushing himself more upright, but not off the ground. Face still averted, he grimaced and admitted with something close to shame or embarrassment, "I'm just ... I just need a short down cycle."

Tron had been out of the system for well over a month now, and it had been a while since he had lapsed into system terms since learning the proper user language for things. "You're tired?" Sam prompted uneasily, flopping down for a seat also. "Sure, no problem, take your time. Need to catch my breath too ... "

Tron's shoulders hitched a little higher and his head hunched a little lower, but in spite of Sam's transparency, the program didn't call him on it. Instead, he rolled his weight back as well for a more comfortable seat upon the ground; head turned away as he ostensibly eyed the darkening horizon.

Sam, in turn, stared hard at Tron and made no effort to hide that fact.

Tron had always made a slender figure, all lithe lines rather than bulk, and it was difficult to tell - especially in the falling dusk - whether he had changed at all since his first introduction to the user world. At first, Sam worried whether he would be able to make out any differences in just the relatively short time they had been resolved in the real world ... then began to realize that maybe he should be worried there weren't any obvious differences since he had first laid eyes on a breathing, flesh-and-blood rendition of the virtual warrior.

"Are you getting enough sleep?"

A bemused twitch, and Tron answered phlegmatically, "I do not believe it is disturbed."

It had been a surprise to learn that Tron would never need to worry about a five o'clock shadow. Sam had counted it a small blessing at the time that shaving was one thing he would not need to teach the program, but now he began to wonder - and worry - what else might be different. "Do you feel sick? Like there is any sort of - of internal malfunction or something?"

He could see Tron's eyes flicking toward him, though the head remained resolutely in profile. "No."

He hoped to god it wasn't some weird cancer or disorder or something. He would ask if the program was getting enough exercise, but it was rather ridiculous to consider after the hundreds of miles they had covered on foot. In fact, looking at him more closely now, Sam had to wonder if the program needed to exercise at all - granted, his memory may be imperfect, but Tron really did look as if he was still in the exact same shape as he had been, in or freshly out of the system. "So ... do you - " he began slowly, trying to tease out other possibilities for the fatigue, because there really was no reason that someone who could regularly wipe his butt all over the arena floor should be feeling more tired than he was -

And then his stomach gave a sudden and impolite reminder that it was well into dinner time. Reflex was already slapping a hand over that peanut butter cracker sandwich before he paused at a sudden and disturbing insight. "Tron ... how hungry are you?"

This time, the program's brow knit in blatant confusion. "Is there a value for hunger that I am able to access?"

Sam grimaced, waved a hand vaguely, and finally just pulled out the slightly-smushed snack and held it out dangling by a corner of its cellophane wrapper. "This. How many of these do you think you can eat?"

Finally, Tron turned to face him fully, expression a mask of skepticism. "I ... do not think I can give an accurate assessment - "

"Try. C'mon, man - one? Five? Ten ... fifteen .. twenty ... " He began to trail off as Tron's mouth thinned with the progressively higher numbers, face tight with something he could only interpret as a wholly unconscious need. As soon as he was able to get past the half-hysterical thought of how strange it was to see anyone older than three salivating visibly after a Keebler snack like that, he finally finished with a quiet, "That hungry, huh?" and tossed the crackers into the program's lap.

"Sam - " Tron predictably protested, flinching as if a snake had landed in his hands instead. "This is your share - "

"Forget it," Sam waved it away, pushing himself to his feet. "Enjoy. I'll grab my share later. I just need a walk to warm up."

In a way, Tron had become a sort of demigod in the real world, just as users were on the Grid. He was given a perfect form by the laser because that was how he had been coded, and the code would, supposedly, have maintained him in that form forever - had already, pretty much, for the subjective equivalent of over a thousand years. So, what exactly did it take to maintain that perfect form in the real world, all the time?

Sam had worked out enough to know what sort of appetite and fuel it took to maintain a certain amount of muscle mass. He had also picked up enough biology in the weight room to know that the body cannibalized muscle just as happily as fat for fuel if resources were slim, which was why one did not diet during a body-building regimen. And so he had to consider, for someone like Tron - who had little fat to begin with and a physique that could have been the envy of professional athletes and armed forces - where did he get the resources to maintain that perfect form if it never grew flabby, never became thinner, never changed?

Sam abandoned the reservoir as soon as he returned from his stroll to collect Tron. That night, under the cool light of a quarter moon and a small splash of the Milky Way - unbelievably bright and vivid now, with no competing lights and eyes fully adjusted to darkness - he rummaged through their bags as Tron slept, redistributing the share of food supplies that they had left. Instead of the even divide that had existed before, he now apportioned roughly three-quarters of the combined calories into Tron's pack, and found himself worrying over the surfeit of refined carbs and general lack of protein.

The next day, Sam started the march along the road, and his mind gnawed uselessly at whether it was a good or bad sign that Tron did not question him about his sudden change of heart. He was preoccupied enough that he had to rein his strides in by fits and starts so that the program could keep up, and he was fooling no one if Tron's fettered, unhappy air was anything to go by. But the program did not question or complain, and because Sam was hardly going to be the first to grumble under the circumstances, he kept his mouth shut.

By the second day, even Sam was beginning to stumble a bit. His feet felt inordinately heavy even as his head seemed to swim, too light to remain steady. He was belatedly recognizing their danger now - that there may not be a gas station, convenience store, or even a stocked rest stop until they were out of the hills; a topography which usually made it difficult for such infrastructure to be maintained. With no accurate way of assessing their progress, it was a gamble whether it was faster to simply forge ahead or turn around and head back the way they had come.

At high noon, that choice weighed on Sam so heavily that he fumbled to a halt, squinting at a wavering mirage between the two farthest peaks, trying to remember how far they would have to backtrack to find anything useful. Behind him, there was a rustle of cloth and then a soft thump, and he turned to find Tron slumped upon the ground, arms folded loosely over a bent knee, head resting upon them. "Tron, let's - " he began to ask, voice hoarse with weariness, but then stopped as the program raised his head ... and waited.

Sam had seen enough famine posters to know just how haunting a near-dessicated body could look. Tron's face was still full-cheeked, if pale, and he looked nothing like those hollow, skin-wrapped skeletons with their beseeching, forty-point bolded font pleading for donations. But there was a helpless exhaustion which dulled his gaze that Sam thought, quite frankly, was just as terrifying ... as if something unseen was eating away at him from the inside, an invisible malaise that sapped greedily at all his strength until he was a ghost haunting his own body. It was disquieting to see what should have been someone at the peak of their physical prowess so weakened, he would rather wait for Sam's word on whether he needed to move or not than to stand at the ready as he had always done before.

Tron was starving to death before his very eyes.

"C'mon," Sam said roughly as the decision was made for him. Tron wouldn't survive the five-plus days they needed at their current pace to get back to anything helpful up north, and so he could only hope that something would show up in time if they continued to push south.

The next day, Tron tripped so often that Sam acted as prop more often than not. Calculations on whether it would extend their chances if Sam ate more - so that he could either scout ahead or drag the program along - or if it would simply kill Tron faster kept him awake half the night.

The day after that, he thought Tron had made it a moot point when the program couldn't seem to manage anything more upright than a hunched-over seat when Sam called for a start, and in a fit of desperation-fueled gallows humor, he quipped, "Too bad there's no way for me to just trim down your processess and force a safem- "

Tron's head jerked up with more speed and animation than he had shown in half a week. Sam's mouth had gone suddenly dry, still hanging half-open as he stared right back, wondering if it could really be that easy - or merely a last mistake in a long string of them.

Backing up, he wet his lips carefully - girded with the knowledge that, for once, recklesness was not only the best choice but the only choice - and called Rinzler into the user world.