Author's Note: See? I don't do it again ^^ OK guys, this time it won't be as depressing (and maybe boring, I don't know any opinions from others, since nobody reviews... SQUEEE impatience, you hoe!) as the last chap. Pluuuuuus a certain character of Legacy has his appearance here... Maybe you're clever enough to discern of the title who I mean ;) So here it is, enjoy and REVIEW :D
- END OF LINE -
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/EOLC/
Susan was woken by a loud noise. It was CLU's voice which resounded through speakers in the corridors: "Attention! Every security program from floor 5 to floor 6. Unidentifiable program, I repeat, unidentifiable program in floor 6!"
Sluggishly she stood up and peeked out of her front door to the corridor. Nothing. Absolutely nobody was there. She shrugged, went inside again and slumped into her bed like a wet sack in order to continue her sleeping cycle. Though, something kept her awake. Some thought, that she had for a second earlier...
Her lids snapped open.
'Every security program from floor 5...', he had said.
There really was nobody, which meant that there was nobody at the elevator either...
She stood up at one go and ran out to the corridor. When she reached the elevator she looked around once more and reflected on her plan one more time.
Should she really do that? Flynn had said that it was dangerous out there. But that didn't matter. If something happened to her, it would only free her. She just hoped that something interesting lurked out there.
Susan stepped into the elevator and pressed the 'Level 0'-button.
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The elevator door opened with a hiss. Susan caught her breath.
In front of her gaped a crossroad with three arms. The pavement consisted of black hexagons, along the streets were high buildings, really high buildings. Susan couldn't claim to ever have seen such high buildings. And how they gleamed! On the black walls were several strips and forms that glowed in white and light blue.
Just as Susan wanted to take the first step out of the elevator, CLU's angry voice let her beaming smile fall: "Attention, sentries of TRON City! Program 'Susan Gifford' is at large! Take her to the central office promptly! I repeat, Susan Gifford to the central office promptly!"
There she realized something orange in the street to her right. She didn't dare to breathe. The sentry had some kind of transparent board in his hands, which he now glanced up from, approaching her at a brisk pace.
Her eyes widened as she recognised the picture of herself on the board. There her feet acted on their own. She ran away.
"Halt, program!", he shouted in a deep electronic voice, but Susan barely heard him.
Her legs moved incredibly fast. For a long time she hadn't had the chance to run and now she ran as if she'd never done anything else her entire life.
She turned into a narrow alley to her left and ran straight ahead, then to the right, then left again. She glanced over her shoulder and noticed that the sentry was gone. For the last time she turned into an alley to her left and stood still.
Panting she leaned against the wall. It felt like adrenaline was flowing through her veins, but she knew that she had none of the two. Still out of breath, she peeked around the corner. The sentry was standing in the middle of the street, looking around in confusion. He turned around his own axis once more, stamped his foot and spoke into a device on his arm: "I lost her. She should be in sector 4 though." Then he hurried into the opposite direction.
Susan closed her eyes.
She felt like a prisoner on the run. This wasn't what she had expected of this world. She wanted to have fun, but instead she was hunted by CLU's sentries, not even knowing where she was going to. On top of that, she didn't notice anything spectacular while running away. The empty streets and the buildings looked really cool indeed but she was still not as impressed as she had expected to be. Was this place eventually a disappointment after all?
Sighing she opened her eyes again... and furrowed her brow. The alley she was standing in was illuminated by something in a street at the end of the alley. Curiously, she walked up to the street and looked up. A huge hologram of a billboard, glaring in light blue, hovered in the middle of the street, spunning around, so that everyone could read it's font:
END OF LINE CLUB
Get rezzed
Susan stared at the hologram.
Amazing. She'd only seen something like that in movies, she couldn't believe that it was existing. But there was something else too. Something about this advertisment fascinated her.
'Get rezzed' Yes, that's it! She would never have thought that there could be a club on the Grid. A club in a computer! So she wasn't the only program which was urgently in need of entertainment. Outside, she, or better said her User Susan, had never been to a club. She liked to be surrounded by people indeed, but she wasn't really the dancing type. She rather went to a bar where she could also eat something. But the heck with it! She finally had the chance to change her state of depression. Would she like it? She didn't know. The only thing he's knew was that this club attracted her more than anything else on her time on the Grid.
Susan looked around and found a little group of laughing programs walking down the street.
"Hey!"
They turned to her.
"Hi...", she said approaching them. Then she remembered something. "Um... Greetings, Programs!"
They darted some confusing looks at one another. Ok, they don't really say that here.
Susan sighed. "Do you guys know the way to the End Of Line Club?"
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At this sight, Susan's jaw dropped.
The club was chock full and everyone enjoyed themselves by dancing close together and drinking delightfully. The music nearly drowned out every noise. This kind of music had never come across her. Everything sounded so electronic and the beat was so hard, that her whole body vibrated.
Slowly Susan went in, still open-mouthed. The floor glowed whitely, just as many things here. She looked down at herself, recognising that her circuitry colour beamed a bit brighter than usual. This place was gorgeous!
The programs looked really happy. Everyone had a nice time, which Susan wanted too. Just as she wanted to join the dancing people, a thought struck her mind and she stopped dead in her tracks. What was she about to do? She couldn't dance! Nervously she looked around and spotted a large bar at the back side of the club. Perfect! There she would begin. A bit of drinking, a bit of observing and maybe, after a few drinks, she would muster the courage to go to the dance floor.
She wormed her way through the masses and sat down on a stool of the bar. She glanced over to the dance floor and observed the all too human programs.
"What's it to be?", someone pulled her out of her thoughts. Susan looked up at a man with a brown beard and a nice smile.
"Um..." There she realized that she didn't know the answer to that question. In her quarters she had always drunken water, nothing else. At least she called it water, since it actually was, like all foodstuff here, pure energy in different forms.
"Uuum... Whiskey Cola?"
The bartender gave her a questioning look. Susan bit her lip and asked sheepishly: "Which drinks are there?"
The program smiled at her. "New on the Grid?"
"You might say that..."
"Alrighty." He tipped at the counter and suddenly pictures of all kinds of drinks appeared.
Susan was flabbergasted. 'How many things function as touchscreens here, fascinating...', she thought. But now she faced another problem: She had nothing to pay for the drinks!
"Um... I'll take..." What should she say now? That she didn't want to order now? That'd be rude. She wasted this poor program's time, but she couldn't think of an answer.
"The agony of choice, hm?", a soft voice came behind her. She didn't have to turn around since the program leaned next to her at the bar a moment later.
Susan raised her eyebrows in astonishment. Next to her stood a man totally in white. His suit was white, his cicuitry colour, his skin and even his hair. He was only about one inch taller than her and had a very slim figure, which his tight suit showed off to its advantage. Around his eyes was dark blue makeup, what emphasized their colour. They were silver, brighter than any eyes Susan had ever seen before.
She'd never met a man like this.
He smiled at her. "So you don't know which delicious drink to take, my dear?"
Susan, still irritated by his appearance, nodded slightly.
He turned to the bartender. "Mix her my favourite cocktail, Shaddix, and while you're at it, one for me too, please. Thank you..." The program eyed her up. "You don't look like the others." He pointed at her attire.
Susan looked down at herself. "Oh, well..." Why did this program confuse her so much? No, she wouldn't appear like a wallflower now. Self-confidence. She had never been lacking in this, so why now?
She cleared her throat. "I... like to be different."
"I know the feeling..." He grinned.
The bartender poured them the freshly made drinks whose liquid glowed green. Susan marvelled at the masterpiece before drinking and was surprised by the sensational taste. The one opposite her took a sip too.
"So", he said while putting the glas down again. "What is a program that's so different doing in a modest club like the End Of Line?"
Susan laughed briefly. "Modest?"
"How would you describe this ambience? Ostentatious?"
"Hm..." She looked around. "Rather breathtaking."
"Exaggerated?"
"Stylish."
"Electrifying."
"Energetic."
"Different.", he said with a grin.
Susan smirked and looked into his eyes. "Yeah, different..."
Shyly she looked away after a short pause. Normally she could keep eye contact until her interlocutor gave up, she sometimes even stared at strangers just to laugh about the embarrassment in their face when they have to look away, but she couldn't bear such piercing eyes.
"You didn't answer my question.", he stated slightly smiling.
"I'm here for the same reason as the others: to enjoy myself."
"To dance?"
She nearly choked on the drink. The program laughed. This man was was making her nervous. "No... Um, I... I absolutely don't equate dancing with enjoying oneself."
"Why not?"
"I can't dance."
"You can't or you dont want to?"
"I... don't know. Maybe both."
"Due to the lack of good dancing partners?"
"I guess a good partner doesn't ask for a dance, he lets others ask him."
He smirked. "So what if he discovered an extraordinary woman, alone and totally... different than the others, it would be okay if he approached her, or would that make him a bad partner?"
"Depends on what he says..." She grinned as well.
"If he invited her to a drink, she definitely wouldn't say no..."
"Surely not." Susan demonstratively nipped on her glass.
"And if he conducted a light, charming conversation with her, politely asking questions..."
"Namely?"
"Oh, ordinary stuff. For instance... What are you doing here? Why don't you want to dance?..."
"But she knew that he secretly was panting for one certain question..."
"...however, he would be aware of that and wouldn't ask this one question intentionally, in order to not create the impression of impatience. That would of course unsettle her a bit..."
"...but she'd let herself in for the game..."
"... because the game amuses her..."
"...electrifies her..."
"And he would lurk..."
"... waiting for the right moment..."
"... and then out of the blue ask her the question, that both had in mind the entire time: What is your name? And she would answer...?" His grin was tempting, his stare thrilling.
Susan's heart pounded fiercely. "... Susan."
He drank the whole glass with one gulp, put it down on the counter and softly took her hand in his own. "It was a great pleasure to meet you, my dear Susan." He gave her a soft kiss on the hand, took his glass cane, which had leaned against the bar the entire time without Susan noticing, and left. One last time he turned around and smiled at her. Then he winded through the dancing crowd. And suddenly he was gone.
With her mouth open she stared after him. She'd like to follow him but she was too shocked to move.
Who the hell was that?
This extraordinary guy had appeared from nowhere, had completely thrown her out of balance and vanished, just as she wanted to ask for his name.
After she had recovered from the shock, Susan stood up and mixed with the dancing programs. This program had encouraged her. She was so energized after this conversation that she had to let everything out. So she danced to a fare-thee-well, not even caring about her strange dancing style, to a music she never heard before but loved immediately. A few programs looked at her outfit in confusion but most of them didn't seem to care about it, as if she was one of them.
Suddenly Susan felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Susan!", she heard a familiar voice say behind her in a serious tone.
She quickly turned around and faced Tron and two other security programs.
"Tron! What are you doing here?"
"I just wanted to ask you the same question."
Susan's mood plummeted. "I enjoy myself. What does it look like?", she answered briskly, turned away from him and wanted to dance again, but Tron grabbed her arm.
"Now please come with me."
She wrested herself free. "No! I'll stay!"
Tron sighed. "Susan, I have no time for games..."
"And I have no time for you now, so please excuse me." Demonstratively she began to dance again. There Tron's patience snapped. He grabbed her by the arm again, tighter than before, and dragged her along to the exit.
"Hey, stop it!", Susan shouted.
Most programs turned to them.
"You asked for it, Susan, I'm sorry..."
She tried to get free, but Tron was too strong. "Fu... Help!... Stop it!"
Suddenly Tron was stopped by a glass cane which was held to his chest. The music stopped instantly.
"Let her go.", the program Susan had met earlier said calmly. Every other program in the club goggled at them in curiosity.
"Zuse, you have no idea what this is about..."
"And I don't have to know, I presume, but you don't seem to realize that each program in my club is subject to personal protection. You know, I'm always glad to welcome you here, my dear Tron, but this time, I'm afraid, I must ask you to leave. Without her." He smiled.
Tron planted himself in front of him. He was much taller, appearently stronger, nevertheless this program took a stand for her. And he didn't look intimidated at all. No, he boldly grinned at him.
When Tron wanted to counter, the entrance doors flung open and a program rushed in.
"The portal is open!", it declared happily.
Susan gasped. "Kevin..."
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Author's Note: Soooo here was my favourite Disney Princess ever! I hope it is OK for you that he will appear more often now... Well, it has to be cause... I'll do it anyway ;) Don't forget to REVIEW :D
