The Grid
It had happened so fast.
He'd been simply standing there next to the interface desk, watching as Roy activated the new firewall and began the routine virus scans. The next thing he knew, Roy was frantically slamming his fingers against the touchscreen keyboard trying to stop the sequence of code which had suddenly invaded the display screen. Roy said something about 'aperture sequence' and then Alan was walking towards them, alarmed and shouting at both of them...
"NO! Get away from the desk! It's too late, you can't stop it, get away from the desk!"
...and naturally Tron had reacted from his first instinct, grabbing Roy from the chair and pulling him to stand, launching him towards Alan and pushing both of them protectively towards the stairwell. He took one step to follow, and then was frozen in place in a flash of white.
Now he was lying face down on the floor, blinking to consciousness.
The first thing he noticed was the distinct absence of dust, and the surface beneath his cheek was a pristine glossy black, not old gray speckled tile and concrete. He raised his head, slowly taking in the surroundings, and then climbed to stand, uneasiness creeping through his circuits. And then the realization set in - he had circuits again. They were brighter now than before, almost a bluish-white, but they were circuits. The same ones which had always adorned his suit.
The next instinct was to reach to his back, and sure enough somehow the disks were there too. The same two disks he'd had on his back when they'd all joined Kevin at the portal. The uneasiness washing over him turned to a sickly dread. He was back on the Grid. In the arcade simulation. Neither Alan nor Roy were in the room, and he knew without a doubt that Flynn and Clu were not upstairs...they were back in the User world arcade, with Alan and Roy.
He was all alone, in the very same treacherous system which they'd all been trying desperately to repair.
He paced around the room, processing this, calculating just what to do next. A glance over at the empty interface desk filled him with even more despair. Without Flynn there, the interface was scarcely more than a decoy, a cold, still and useless artifact taking up space in the room. It would take the touch of a User to bring it to life. He walked to the interface, staring at it for several nanocycles and wishing he could will it into service just by staring at it.
If only he were a User.
No,...more than a User...if he were only a thing which Users called "God".
If only he could turn back time, or at least what the User world called 'time', back to the moments before the laser had sealed his fate.
If he had only known then what was about to happen, he wouldn't have dallied or tempted fate.
He would have grabbed them all and instantly jumped out of the way, joining Roy and Alan in the area of safety beyond the laser's reach.
But it was pointless to reflect upon what had happened.
What was done was done, and now he stood facing the gathering fact that he was trapped there with no discernible means of escape.
His only recourse was to exit the room, venture upstairs, and then walk out that front door into an unknown system, a desolate place which now offered more threat of deresolution than ever before.
Just then he heaved a sigh, knowing the action was simply an emulation of reality and not reality itself. No air moved through his lungs, because he didn't have lungs anymore. Once more, he only had circuits, and that was all. With a sad and almost hapless gesture, his gloved hands came to rest against the interface desk, fingertips absently brushing along its surface as he stared at the walls. And then he looked down, brows hitching upward and eyes flying open in surprise, staring at the small trails of light which followed the paths of his fingers and extended along the reflective onyx surface.
Reflexively, he drew back his hand.
The lines of light remained, slowly edging the shape of a rectangle where the touchscreen keypad should be.
What this meant, he wasn't sure. This had never happened before.
Cautiously he reached again, this time tentatively laying the full palm of his hand in the middle of the rectangle. And beneath his touch, the keypad touchscreen rezzed itself into existence. His glance trailed upward again, to see the display screen appearing in front of him as the entire interface desk came to illumined life. He stepped back, completely shocked and confused, suddenly unsteady on his feet and wishing in earnest that there were a chair he could sit down on.
And then suddenly there was the chair from across the room, rezzing to reposition itself just behind him.
Slowly he lowered himself into the chair, still staring incredulously at the interface desk, and it took several nanocycles for him to fully realize what this meant.
He'd transcended the Grid to the User world, taking on the same human form that Kevin and Alan had.
Now digitized from there to here, there was only one explanation for this.
He was now a User.
And of course - that's why his circuit colors had changed. He had become a User. The revelation filled him with both fear and joy all at once.
What to do now? He had no idea. There were few limits to what Users could do, he knew that much, and it seemed to have something to do with the User's touch combined with conscious thought, intent. Surely this meant he could somehow escape the Grid. But how? Were all Users able to leave the Grid with their disks once they'd rezzed in? Or was it only Kevin Flynn's disk which would allow one to leave?
He needed answers. He stared at the interface...could he perhaps contact the User world, as Kevin had? If so, how, and what to type on the keys? How to send a message? That was something Kevin knew how to do, whereas he could scarcely type more than his name and designation number.
For several nanocycles he sat there, still stunned, and trying to think of something. Then he sifted through what memories of the Grid he still had, recalling when he'd last been here with Clu and Kevin...they'd communicated with Sam Flynn from here, and Sam had sent a message through Alan's pager to let them know it was him. There was a number which had meaning to Flynn, Alan and Sam. What was it?
His processors quickly returned the answer.
He leaned forward, calculating with all of his might, pouring his willpower into his wish to reach the User world. And then he typed.
_07734 KEVIN FLYNN
_07734
_DESIGNATION JA307020
_TRON HERE
_07734
For several nanocycles he waited, hoping for a reply. But only a blinking cursor answered his hopes.
So he tried again, keeping his request to one line of text.
_07734 KEVIN FLYNN
More waiting. And still nothing happened, aside from the blinking cursor. But then the screen wiped to blank, followed by new words appearing in red letters.
% - ILLEGAL COMMAND OR FILENAME - %
% - SYSTEM OVERRIDE; ERROR LOGGED - %
And then the screen returned to blank again.
Tron's eyes widened. Something had overridden his input. Which in his reasoning meant something in the system was more powerful than even a User now. Or at least equally powerful. And whatever it was had not only taken offense at the mention of Flynn's name, but had considered it an error and taken note of it.
He knew what that something was. Master Control Program. The former User that Flynn and Alan referred to as Dillinger. Which meant he'd be wise to either hide somewhere in the arcade, or vacate the premises altogether and get to the portal as quickly as he could.
He chose the latter.
Casting a glance down at the T-shaped lights and circuitry along the front of his illumined grid-suit, his calculations surged with a growing panic...he'd be the most identifiable program on the Grid. Now moreso than ever, since his circuit colors were that of a User. And if Kevin Flynn was now for some reason seen as some kind of outlaw then surely Tron, the program formerly known and feared as Rinzler, would be as well, whether he was a User now or not.
But just then a morsel of his meager memory drifted back to when Clu, Flynn and himself had last been here...there were small flat objects they had used to obscure their disk and circuit-lights - "hard-drive magnets", Flynn had called them. He spun around, eyes searching the small, empty room just as the familiar tall cabinet rezzed itself into existence against the far wall. Sure enough, there on the shelf where Flynn had left them were the small flat magnets. Tron grabbed them and then continued up the stairs.
Within a few more nanocycles he was bounding towards the front door.
But just as he was almost within reach of the door handle, suddenly he caught a glimpse of something just outside the window.
He dropped to the floor, quickly obscuring himself from sight and crawling over to the wall, then crouched there, staring up at the faint red glow which reflected against the simulated glass pane.
Very slowly he leaned forward towards the door, just enough to see what was casting the glow. Flinching slightly when he saw the familiar red circuitry, he stared at the arc of a disk at the program's back and the red lines along the skirted armored light-suit ...a sentry. One of the black guard. Standing there with its back to the entrance, only a few paces away from the entrance.
Pressing closer to the glass and keening his glance around as best he could, Tron could see no other sentries in the immediate vicinity, which of course didn't mean they weren't there...it simply meant that if they were, they were beyond his line of sight.
He shrank back against the wall, pressing himself against the shadows there, and sat crouched in stillness, calculating. There was no way to determine what he'd be walking into if he opened that door. The thought of that sent a ripple of brightening apprehension through his circuitry. His gaze followed the bluish-white glow from his suit to the floor, where the sentry's crimson circuitry was reflected from just outside the door. Then it occurred to him - if he could see the glow from the sentry's light-suit, then the sentry could see the glow from his.
The magnets! – that was key. He needed to go ahead and attach them immediately. Reaching to the disks on his back he dislodged them, and then nervous, gloved hands fumbled with the magnets until he got them into the proper position on the disk just as Flynn had once done.
Returning the disks to the hub he waited, feeling the flicker before it happened, and then the lights of his suit extinguished. Relieved, he settled back against the wall, and sat in silent calculation, poring over his options, which were only two...he could either emerge from the front door and face whatever peril may lay in wait for him - which wasn't a very pleasant option - or he could remain there in darkness and motionless and eventually be discovered, which was an equally unpleasant option.
Or,... perhaps with his newly-granted User powers he could somehow rezz an alternate door?
The monitor thought for a moment, then slowly crept along the wall to the back of the room, disappearing through the doorway to the stairwell. He would try to make a door. Surely it couldn't be all that difficult, and, if his reckonings were correct, a door placed in this spot would lead him to the back lot of the arcade simulation. From there he could find a vantage point from which to assess the immediate vicinity.
Pressing his palm to the wall, he focused his thoughts and waited. But the only thing which happened was that a small glow spread around his hand on the surface of the wall, and then dissipated when he disengaged his hand.
He tried it again, and the same thing happened. Then relocating to try different spots on the wall, the same thing happened each time.
Finally he sighed, somewhat disheartened. No, this just wasn't going to work. He may have User powers now, but he wasn't a programmer. He couldn't create things. Only Flynn, Clu or Alan could do that. Without programming knowledge, the best he might be able to do would be to alter the structures within the existing system, which was why he'd been able to rezz the chair from across the room earlier...because the chair had existed to begin with, whereas a door in this wall, did not.
He sighed again. This left a singular option, with which he wasn't at all thrilled.
Slowly returning to the main room of the arcade simulation, he stood in the shadows, summoning his courage and leaning close to the wall. While nervously tapping his palms against the onyx bricks, his thoughts idly volunteered that this was where the Tron machine had been when Kevin had activated the room before. Then to his dismay, as if manifesting from his thoughts, the glow spread from his palms along the wall and the Tron machine rezzed right next to him, along with all of the other game machines in the room, filling the place with the ambient glow of new light.
Tron grimaced, cursing in a whispered voice. "...oh Users no!...no, no-no-no,...stop that!...go away!.."
But the arsenal of games remained, and now there were no shadows in which he could stand in relative obscurity. His circuits teemed with dread and conflict. There was little doubt that once he went outside, with one glance the sentry would derezz him. And so it was either derezz or be destroyed. Self-preservation, self-defense.
Why that thought filled him with revulsion now, he wasn't sure. He had once been Rinzler. For many, many cycles conscienceless deresolution was a constant, a given, a thing which he'd done mindlessly as part of his programming.
And then, the realization - aha! Rinzler!
Rinzler would not be seen as an interloper, would he? At least, not by a sentry. Surely not.
And while his Rinzler coding was gone - a wretched specter of the past which he would never revisit again - with his new User skills the matter of changing the colors of his circuitry back to Rinzler's was most likely a simple matter.
It was worth a try.
And then if the guard saw what appeared to be Rinzler and then still attempted to derezz him, he would do what he had to do to save his own life.
It was better than staying put and doing nothing, which would essentially be suicidal.
But he had to act now, because if that sentry turned around, he knew he would be fully visible in the newly illuminated room full of simulated game machines. Whisking the disks from his back he removed the magnets from them, then stood trying to recall and visualize what Clu had once done to alter their appearances when they'd entered the game arena. It took only a couple of movements to raise the glowing three-dimensional schematic of his own likeness, and nervously he reached a finger towards the helix formation there.
Then he hesitated...one wrong move with the coding and he could likely do something very stupid to himself.
But shouldn't it be a simple matter? He could visualize what his Rinzler suit had looked like...the same as this one, but with it's fiery orange-red lines instead of the bluish-white... and so, surely from there it was just one simple change which would be needed.
Yet he had no idea which of the myriad of loops, lines and tiny nodes represented the code for that simple change.
Hesitating only a nanocycle more, he touched the edge of the helix, but then just gave up. It was too much of a risk, because while visualizing Rinzler's circuitry was one thing, altering code to create it was another. He simply didn't know what he was doing, and he didn't want to bring damage to himself by trying to find out. So he closed the disk function menu, and replaced both disks to his back.
Then to his surprise, instantly the red-orange glow spread across his circuits. He smiled, surprised. Well, that was easy after all.
...some things are simply a matter of thought...
It was eerie and unsettling to once again look down and see the angry red-orange glow trailing along his suit, but he was still Tron, and he knew that. And right now, Tron needed to act fast. There was no more room for hesitation. He fought for the Users, protected them,...and this time, the User he would have to protect was himself.
And so with swift quiet steps he crept along the wall again, keeping his gaze glued to the sentry. Reaching for his disks, he gathered them into one hand, and then opened the door with the other, stepping outside and walking forward to stand just past the column where two arched alcoves were conjoined.
The sentry registered the movement almost immediately, turning and raising the light staff. Then the black helmet tilted slightly, and the guard lowered the staff somewhat as he took in the sight of the very familiar red-trimmed program which stood before him. Clearly he was conflicted as to directive, at least, for the immediate moment.
Tron stood riveted in place, both hands gripping the disks now.
His steeled gaze bore into the opaque face plate of the ominous black helmet, and in his hazel eyes was the implied question.
...are you going to let me go?...or are you going to attack me?...
The guard hesitated only another nanocycle, and then raised the staff, once more, this time keeping it poised to attack. Tron's grip steadied on the disks, answering wordlessly with only a raise of the eyebrow as his frown deepened with gathering intensity to match his set jaw.
...that's what I thought!...
When the sentry took the first lunge toward him, the next few nanocycles became a blur of red-orange circuitry in motion...Tron turned and darted for the column, literally running up the side of it and defying gravity for a few steps, until he pushed off of it and arched his body tumbling through the air, finally landing behind the sentry in a crouch, arms spread wide and a disk in either hand.
The surprised guard was turning to attack again, but it was too late...Tron was already whirling into a parkour turn, leg swinging around to knock the light staff away with his foot, then he swept both arms together, bringing his disks right through the center of the sentry program's armor.
There was a shower of glowing red pixels, and then only shimmering bits of data were left to dissipate slowly along the ground.
The light staff followed suit a nanocycle later, fizzling into nothingness where it had fallen.
Tron wasn't about to wait around for more guards to follow, and if this hostile system no longer wanted it's former Grid warrior and erstwhile hero, then so be it.
His place was with Kevin Flynn and Alan One anyway, protecting them in the User world.
He yanked the baton from its place at his thigh, clicking it open as he ran, and the light-cycle rezzed around him.
In a blaze of crimson-amber light he took off, and he wasn't planning on stopping until he reached the Sea of Simulation. Then he would rezz a light-jet, and make it to the portal.
