Discovery

"Too Long"

By BlackMarketTrombones

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They did the best they could.

The early cycles were rough. Whispers, panic, power-bids—the system endured them all, and sometimes they wondered if things would ever be all right again. But there were programs that stepped up to fill the power void left by the fall of Clu's regime.

In addition to resuming his old duties as Chief Defender and working to restore the Grid to order through the new administration, Tron headed up the searches for repurposed programs. There were few enough: some had been left behind to maintain the Grid, but Clu intended to take most with him to the world outside. Not many survived that incredible explosion and even fewer of those could outlast the grid bugs to be rescued from the Sea, but Tron searched with a relentlessness born of self-recrimination.

Vector turned out to be the only program still functioning with anywhere near the programming necessary to run the Grid. Her cycles commanding insurgents gave her the leadership experience necessary to design and implement initiatives—and her combat experience was invaluable in surviving the many assassination attempts. But she couldn't do everything.

"I can interpret data to define the optimum course of action," she said to them. "I can determine what programs need based on information presented to me. And that's important. But it's not everything we need. We need to know what programs want, what they fear, how best to make this transition without agitating everyone more than they already are. I can't do that. And even skilled data-gatherers can only pick up facts, not feelings."

As usual, Sync caught on first. "We're not programmed for that."

"We're all functioning outside our skill-sets right now," Vector said dryly. "You're MIDIs, and music is all about finding and helping us understand what we feel. Don't try to tell me you've never performed for a crowd and known exactly what they want to hear. I used to talk to Codec all the time; I do know a bit about you audio programs." She smiled, but it was sad. "And you clearly don't want power, so you can probably be trusted with it. I'll be blunt: There is no one still running who is more qualified for this than you."

They looked at each other. It was really no debate.

They did the best they could. Sync was the ears of the new administration, listening to find out public sentiment, and Syntax was its voice, figuring out how best to present new initiatives; and they both worked with Vector and Tron to make sure new proposals coincided with the public's interests and were implemented smoothly.

And sometimes, things just happened.

"That's User intervention," Tron said one millicycle when vast stretches of corrupted data suddenly started repairing themselves. "That's right, you wouldn't know," he mused at their confusion. "Flynn always came in to do his work here. But he's the only User I've ever even heard of that could. I was originally designed for a different system, and Users spoke to us through input/output towers. If there was some sort of design flaw in the system's basic structure, they usually told us to take care of it, but sometimes they would just fix it themselves."

"That's...incredible," Vector murmured, watching in awe as code twisted without any apparent impetus.

"Why didn't any Users do something like this before?" Sync asked. "Back when Clu was running things."

"No other Users ever knew about us," Tron shrugged. "Flynn wanted to wait until the Grid was perfect before presenting it to his world. That's one of the reasons Clu hated the Isos; Flynn's new plan would have him submit an imperfect world, and that went against his function."

"So how does a User know about us now?"

Tron visibly brightened. "Someone must have made it out."

"Someone— From when Clu fell?" Syntax asked, incredulous. "That was almost a full cycle ago!"

"Time passes differently on the outside. Flynn explained it to me once. One cycle there is fifty here. It should have been about...two centicycles out there."

There was a shocked silence. "So we won't be able to count on much help from the outside," Vector said grimly.

"Probably not anytime soon," Tron agreed.

Whatever User was working on the Grid found time a few times a cycle, but they worked on their own for the most part. And gradually, things got better.

Then, twenty-five cycles after Clu fell, Gigga—still acting as an aide—burst in on a planning session between the four of them.

"The portal's open!" she cried, aglow with excitement.

Tron's eyes widened, and he was gone before the others had even registered what she said.

"Are you sure?" Vector whispered, voice hoarse with shock.

"Pretty sure," Sync said, having crossed the room to peer out the window. Vector and Syntax joined him and saw that brilliant light gleaming above the Sea of Simulation.

For a moment, they were all silent. "What now?" Syntax wondered.

"We wait for Tron," Vector said firmly. "He's the only one who knows where to find someone coming in from the other side. I...never even thought to ask."

They didn't have to wait long.

Tron walked in looking as excited as any of them had ever seen him, and behind him tramped a figure the two of them recognized from that millicycle when everything changed.

He smiled, and the whole room seemed to light up. "My name is Sam Flynn," he said blithely. As if they didn't all know about the most important thing on the Grid. "I'm glad to finally meet you. I've gotta say, what you all have done here is amazing."

And they knew everything would turn out alright.

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A/N: I listened to the song all while I was writing, but since it's so long (some might even say too long!—hahaseewhatididthere?), it didn't even make it to the top 25 tracks on my iTunes.

Well, that's that. Thank so much to all of you reading this! I know I don't respond to reviews all the time (it's because I'm scared of you—I seem to be very good at accidentally offending people through the internet), but each one is treasured and re-read over and over and over again (like a loser—a loser with no friends). Don't tell the others, but you people are my favorites. (Especially YOU.) :D

I really love these characters and didn't get to work in nearly as much as I wanted, but I don't really think there's a sequel in this. I might write a collection of shorts at some point.

Until next time,

BlackMarketTrombones