Flynn's home had been close to what Rinzler had imagined it would look like. It was comfortable with a few trinkets here and there. From what he could tell from his position at the lift, the view of the city was spectacular. The balcony was as close as Flynn would have ever been able to get to Tron City after Clu seized control. Until now.

Abruptly Clu had them leave and head back to the city, sensing Flynn's presence on the Grid as well as seeing the lights aimed towards the End of the Line club, a sign from Zuse that Sam or Flynn were there.

Many cycles ago, Zuse would have helped any ISO in need and had believed strongly in the Users. Many Programs had trusted him. But after Clu took control, things changed and the Program's loyalty shifted from the ISOs and Users to Clu to ensure his own survival. Now Zuse was nothing more than a snitch, expecting that his loyalty would eventually grant him control of the city. It was all a lie Clu used to keep the eccentric Program in line.

Upon returning to the city, Rinzler and two other Recognizers followed Clu's Command Ship to the top of the End of the Line tower, expecting to find Sam and possibly Flynn. Rinzler just hoped that Juno wasn't with them. He suspected that she'd already escaped his apartment with the baton he'd given her and had gone to find her friend, but hopefully she hadn't found either Flynn yet.

The Command Ship hooked with the door to the club where the elevator should have been and Rinzler and the Black Guards linked their Recognizers to Clu's ship before stepping off and entering. Along with Clu, Rinzler, Jarvis, and a group of Black Guards would be accompanying them into the club to apprehend Flynn.

Jarvis fell into step on Clu's other side, and Rinzler was glad that his helmet was in place to hide his disgust. The bald Program disgusted him to no end.

While he followed Clu's orders because of his programming, Jarvis hung onto every word for sheer approval. If Clu wanted it, Jarvis would get it for him. Whenever he had the chance he would try to gain Clu's approval but would typically only succeed in annoying him. It didn't make much sense to bring to sniveling coward with them into End of the Line. He'd be of no use whatsoever. But Rinzler wouldn't – couldn't – speak against Clu's decision.

Flanking Clu's right with Jarvis to his left and four Black Guards behind them, they proceeded into the club. At the bar stood Gem and Zuse, Flynn's disk dangling from his finger. Rinzler noticed that Zuse seemed to be hiding something, ensuring that whatever was behind him was out of sight.

Missing from the scene was Sam and Flynn.

Taking notice, Clu said, walking towards the two, "The boy and Flynn are gone."

There was no indication that Flynn had been there, but Rinzler assumed that Clu had known that Flynn would follow after Sam.

Carefree with a smile on his face, Zuse replied, "I presume, you're Excellency, that they perished in the elevator. But I do have one small gift for you!" he exclaimed, stepping to the side.

Rinzler stood in shock, unable to do anything but stare at the petite blond haired woman sitting on a stool with her arms crossed over her chest, looking at Clu in defiance.

"Now, how did you get out?" Clu questioned, approaching Juno and twirling a long lock of her blond hair around his finger, irritating her and infuriating Rinzler. He glanced back and Rinzler with a frown.

Smacking his hand away in disgust, Juno snapped, "If you were smart you wouldn't have left me alone in a place with an elevator."

"I can assure you that I won't make that mistake twice, honey." Turning his attention to Zuse, a small glare appearing, he asked, "And you presume that they perished in the elevator?" Huffing, he looked back at Rinzler. "Find them."

With a curt nod, he turned and started back toward the ships, reluctant to leave Juno behind.

"Wait a minute," Clu called, bringing Rinzler to a halt. "You forgot something."

Facing his leader, he saw Clu dragging Juno to him by the arm. With a rough push, he shoved the User into Rinzler.

Putting his arms up, he eased the impact of her crash into his chest. Keeping close to him, she looked up at him before looking back to Clu.

No smirk was on Clu's face. No hint of amusement. Just a cold stare and a frown. "Take her with you. When you find Flynn and Sam, kill her in front of them. That should give them pause."

Chest tightening painfully, Rinzler nodded again, grasping Juno's arm and leading her through Clu's Command Ship and to his Recognizer in silence. Fighting his anger if only to keep from holding her arm too tightly, he escorted her onto the Recognizer, releasing her to take the controls. He couldn't remember being so angry. What was she thinking? If the others got away then why didn't she? Now he would have no choice but to find Flynn and Sam and kill her when he did. Nothing he did would stop him from carrying out the order.

Fiddling with her fingers, Juno looked up at her from her spot in the corner. "Tron…"

"Don't," he snapped, piloting the ship down to the ground level.

For once Juno didn't say anything and sighed, watching him pilot. He'd left her unrestrained, giving her free reign to walk around. As angry as he was, he knew he could trust her not to be stupid enough to lunge for the controls or jump off. Then again, she did have the baton he gave her. Still, she didn't appear to be in any hurry to use it.

Gritting his teeth, he asked, "Where did they go, Juno."

"I don't know," she replied softly.

"You don't know, or are you just lying to protect them?"

She looked at the ground. "I really don't know. I told them I'd meet up with them, but I don't see how I can when I don't know where they are."

Shaking his head, he just sighed. He wanted to ask why she'd stayed behind, but was in too foul a mood to listen to her reason.

Taking the ship down, he lowered the deck they stood on to the ground. Stepping off, he checked out the elevator. Sure enough, Sam and Flynn were gone. Sighing, he knelt on the ground, placing his hand on the emblem under his feet. The orange glow from the circuits on his hand intensified as he accessed the Grid's system. Appearing on the floor were Flynn's footprints, leading to the Solar Sailor.

They were going to the portal.

This probably wasn't one of her better ideas.

Staying at her place in the corner, happy that Tron hadn't restrained her feet, she looked up when he returned to the Recognizer. With his helmet on she couldn't tell if he was looking at her or not and she didn't like it, unable to tell how angry he was with her for getting caught.

Raising the ship into the air, staring straight ahead, he said blankly, "They took the Solar Sailor to the portal."

Though she hadn't expected him to find out where they'd be going so quickly, she wasn't really surprised. Tron was smart and had a great understand for the Grid and how it worked.

She sighed. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they're heading that way. Looks I'll be meeting them with some company."

Retracting his helmet, he looked her way. "Why you didn't escape with them?"

Unsure if she should tell him her reason or not she instead said, "I stayed back to help the other Programs distract the remaining Guards while they got an injured Program out. At least this time wasn't similar to the time in the arena. I didn't get hurt as bad."

Shaking his head, he asked, "Can't you be selfish at least once?"

"I can be plenty selfish, just not when it comes to friends or family."

"I'm not sure if that's a flaw or not."

"I like to think of it as a bit of both," she commented. Giving him a small, teasing smile, she added, "You know that's one of the reasons you like me."

He didn't smile.

Casting her eyes to the ground, she bit her tongue. The truth of the matter was that her reason for staying had been selfish. She didn't stay to buy Sam and Kevin time to escape with Quorra, not really. She'd stayed for Tron.

He needed to know why she'd stayed, or at least that she might be able to help him, but there was a chance that if she told him the truth something in his new programming might attempt to keep her from getting a hold of his disc, maybe to the point where he'd unwilling kill her. But she hated the pained look on his face.

"Tron," she began slowly. "What would you do if I said I might be able to fix your programming and get rid of Rinzler?"

For a few seconds he just stared at her, brow furrowed in question. "I would ask you how."

Coming over to stand next to him at the controls, she explained, "I asked Zuse about reprogramming Programs and while he said couldn't do it, he knew how it might be possible to do so. Everything you are is in your disc, as I'm sure you know. He gave me a small summary, but I've got it figured out. All I'd have to do is search for the specifics of Clu's programming on your disc – Rinzler – and, for lack of a better word, delete it. Sam is the computer genius, but I'm still good. I'm sure I could do it if you'll let me."

A conflicting look crossed over his features, a mixture of hope and uncertainty. Looking away from her briefly, he tapped on a few of the touch sensitive controls and the Recognizer began flying on auto pilot.

Walking to her, he placed his hands at her shoulders, rubbing them down to her elbows, and he sighed. "That's common knowledge, Juno."

Common knowledge? "If that's the case then I don't understand why other Program's can't change their programming."

"We can't do it because something in our code prevents it. While we can access the data in our discs, we can't alter the root programming or our functions. Attempting to do so sends a sharp electrical shock through our system and we go into a forced state of in-activeness until our system can reboot."

"Oh," she murmured, understanding a little more.

"And," he continued. "Clu has also programmed a fail-safe of sorts."

"A fail-safe?"

Nodding, he explained, "My programming can be accessed by him or a User but it has been made exceedingly complicated. One wrong move and I'll react with hostility."

She swallowed. "In other words, you'll kill me ahead of schedule."

"Yes."

"So, my options are waiting until you find Sam and Kevin and then you'll definitely kill me, or I can attempt to fix your programming and have you maybe kill me." Tilting her head from side to side, she shrugged. "Maybe sounds a lot better than definitely."

That still didn't sit well with him. "It's too risky for you, Juno."

"I've got nothing to lose, Tron. If I fail, I die. If I do nothing, I die. I'm not seeing a third option here."

Gripping her arms a little tighter but not painfully, he ran his eyes over her cuts and bruises before meeting her eyes. "I'm not sure about this. The chance of you actually succeeding…"

"Do you want to get rid of Clu's programming or not, Tron?" she demanded softly. "Because as much as I want to help you, you're not sounding too positive about getting rid of Rinzler."

"It's not that I don't want that," he sighed. "I'm not sure why I'm being so stubborn. It might be that the programming is making me reluctant to just accept you tampering with my disc."

Not about to accept defeat and concede to not trying, she raised her hand to his cheek. "Do you trust me?"

Reaching up to hold her small hand in his larger one, he replied quietly, "Yes."

Bringing her other hand up between them, she held it open. "Then give me your disc."

Tron did nothing at first and she felt his jaw tense against her palm as he tried to make a decision, arguing with himself and with Rinzler. Uncomfortable seconds passed before he let go of her hand, reached behind him, and removed his discs from his back. Separating the two discs, he hesitated momentarily before placing his in her waiting hand.

With a small smile, she stood on her toes and kissed the corner of his lips. Without a word, she strolled over to the corner and sat on the ground, tucking her legs under her.

On her command, an orange holographic image of Tron appeared. With a small tap, it changed into some extremely complex sequence of data that gave Juno pause. Patience wasn't exactly one of her strong points, but for this she would have to be very patient. Biting her lip, carefully avoiding the split, she went to work. She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing or how to get to his core programming, so she just searched through each possible rout, hoping she would get lucky and find what she was looking for. Something flashed red at one point and she quickly stopped what she was doing, taking another rout to the core of Tron's programming. Any other time she needed Sam he would be by her side in an instant. Now… now she was on her own.

Catching Tron pacing back and forth out of the corner of her eye, she asked, keeping her eyes locked on what she was doing, "Could you, please, stop doing that? You're making me nervous. As it is I feel like I'm working on an active bomb."

Grumbling an apology, he leaned back against the controls of the Recognizer.

Sparing a quick glance in his direction, she said, "If this works you'll owe me a thank you as well as Sam."

"Why Sam?"

"He was the one who taught me what I know about computers, programming, hacking, and other random tech stuff. I'm not very good when it comes to hacking, though. Sam's usually around to clean up the mess of my attempts since I tend to screw up. Unfortunately, what I'm doing with your disk is a lot like hacking."

He grimaced. "That's not very reassuring."

"Wasn't meant to be." Sighing, she gritted her teeth when the programming Clu installed once again evaded her. "Get back here," she grumbled under her breath. This was much harder than she thought it would be, and though she wouldn't say it out loud, she was beginning to doubt that she could even do it. Computers in the real world were one thing. This wasn't even in the same ballpark, and the stakes were much more serious if she failed.

A few minutes into it, she wanted to pull out her hair. Once she succeeded and got back home – she tried to remain positive – she'd have to take up yoga or something to learn how to be more calm and patient. She had to wonder if it took Clu this long to repurpose Tron or if it had only taken him seconds. Somehow she couldn't picture him being as patient as she was being.

And then she found it.

The whole thing looked similar to a human's DNA structure. There was the light blue structure that was undoubtedly Tron's original programming, but there was a glowing orange structure that looked almost thread-like and was twined tightly around it, corrupting Tron's programing.

Rinzler.

"Well, I found what I was looking for. Now comes the million dollar question," she muttered, taking a moment to just look at the structure and mess in front of her on the disc. "How do I fix it?"

Moving away from the controls, Tron knelt in front of her, watching what she was doing intently. His staring didn't really help her confidence any but she ignored him and got to work. If she could just find a flaw in the orange sequence she might be able to work from that.

After a few minutes, she finally found that flaw.

Past the middle part of the structure was a small break in the orange that allowed for the light blue to have minor control instead, explaining why Tron still held some aspect of his original programming. If it wasn't for that gap, he might not have retained any semblance of himself.

Holding her breath, she made a pinching gesture at one end of the gap in the orange threadlike sequence and cautiously pulled a little bit. The orange thread followed her fingers, loosening in some areas but tightening in others. "Shit," she hissed. Needing both hands, she set the disk down on the floor and delicately began untangling the mess of light blue and orange. After what felt like an eternity, the orange slowly began to give way to the blue. "Here goes nothing…" With one final pull, the orange sequence of Clu's renegade programming was removed, floating in the air like a orange wisp of mist before disappearing completely from view.

Almost hesitant to ask, Tron looked to Juno. "Did you do it?"

Shrugging, incredibly anxious, she offered the disc back to him. "Only one way to find out."

Grasping his identity disc firmly in his hands, he gave her a long look before returning it to his back, opting to keep the other disc on the floor.

Nothing happened.

Not knowing if that was a good thing or bad, Juno made to get up and check the disc at his back. She was sure that removing what she had removed would work, but maybe she'd missed something. But then his circuitry started flickering from orange to light blue, and then back to orange and so on. Wearing a look of acute discomfort, Tron put his hand to his head, screwing his eyes shut, and dropped to his other knee. If he hadn't have already kneeling, she feared he would have fallen clean over.

Fearing that she'd screwed something up as his circuitry flickered back and forth madly, Juno placed her hands on his broad shoulders. "Tron, what's going on?" Either he wasn't hearing her or he was choosing not to answer, when his circuits finally stopped flickering altogether and went dark. "Tron!"

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