Clu had wandered upstairs to the arcade simulation. Tron was still slowly pacing the floor by the back wall of the lab simulation, his head held down in quiet thought. Kevin stood up from the chair at the console desk, about to speak to Tron, until movement on the interface display caught his eye. Words were typing themselves, and so he sat back down, reading as they appeared.
_DAD I NEED TO LEAVE THE LAB FOR A FEW
_WANNA GO TAKE CARE OF SOMETHING REAL QUICK
_IT'LL MAYBE TAKE 30 MINS, TOPS
_IS OK?
Kevin typed back.
_SURE KIDDO
_THINK WE CAN SPARE 30 MINS NO PROB
_BUT WHAT'S UP?
The reply appeared rather quickly.
_NOTHING BAD
_JUST WANNA GO GRAB SOME THINGS
_STUFF TO SECURE THIS PLACE A LITTLE BETTER
_SECURITY CAM, JUST A SIMPLE ONE
_SO I CAN SEE WHAT'S OUTSIDE
_
Kevin's eyebrows raised. He knew his son was tech-savvy, but that sounded like quite an undertaking.
_YOU GONNA INSTALL IT?
_WHERE ARE YOU GONNA GET ONE IN A HALF HOUR?
_
Sam's reply reminded him of just how long he'd been out of the loop in the real world.
_EASY, DAD, NO BIGGIE
_JUST A SMALL BATTERY OP CAM
_PROLLY GOT ONE AT THE SPY SHOP NOT FAR FROM HERE
_SIZE OF A BALLPOINT PEN OR SO
_I CAN HIDE IT IN THE TREES, SEND THE SIGNAL TO MY CELL PHONE
_
Kevin sighed. That sounded complex. He certainly had been away for quite a while,...if cameras could do all that now, and were that small to boot.
And, they had actual spy shops now? Things sure had changed since the days when spy shops were mail-order scams in the back pages of a Mad Magazine.
It made him a bit sad, uneasy, to think he was this much out-of-touch with technology, and with his world.
Plus, he felt out-of-touch with his son's entire life, too...a perfect example of that being, he had no idea who the friend was that Sam had mentioned.
But more than that, he worried and wondered - was this hidden camera stuff even legal to do?
Sure, he'd once upon a time pulled a few risky pranks himself, back in his younger days, but nothing like that. He didn't want Sam getting into any trouble, especially not because of him. He couldn't help the fatherly instinct which made him want to worry - he was in fact a father, even if he'd spent the better portion of his son's life trapped on the Grid. But should he even mention his concerns? Was he just being overly protective?
He sat there thinking for a few seconds, then finally sighed and typed back something simple.
_SOUNDS INTRIGUING
_HEY WHO'S THIS PROLLY PERSON?
_
He was baffled at the reply he got.
_ROFL, DAD!
_
Rofl? Who the hell had a name like Prolly Rofl?
The name just oozed scuzzy, like a porn name or something.
And why did his son think he was supposed to know who that was? He was about to type back and ask just that, when Sam's reply continued.
_SORRY, THAT WAS JUST FUNNY :)
_FORGOT YOU DON'T KNOW WEB SHORTHAND
_PROLLY IS SHORT FOR PROBABLY
_AND ROFL MEANS
_I'M ROLLING ON FLOOR LAUGHING
_
Kevin's eyes went wide, and he gave a chuckle, feeling rather foolish for having worried and definitely more than a little estranged from what had now become real-world modern culture. He sat back in the chair and laughed again, then shook his head, unable to keep from talking to himself as he looked at the screen.
"Whaaat?...okay the ROFL thing I get, but,...what- these kids today can't type a full word?...that's just-...man that's silly!"
Tron walked over to stand nearby, looking at Kevin and quirking his head with a curious expression. "Everything alright, Kevin?"
"Hm?..." Kevin looked up at him, a bit startled, then realized he'd spoken aloud. He gave a smirk, then chuckled, "Oh. Yeah. I'm,... just,...well, ...realizing I'm as old as Methuselah, for one thing...but yeah, everything's fine..."
Tron nodded succinctly, not even glancing at the screen. Instead he gave a soft smile, turned and walked quietly back across the lab. Kevin looked after him for a second or two, chuckling to himself...that was Tron - always the polite gentleman. The security program hadn't wanted to intrude on his privacy.
Kevin looked back at the screen, then suddenly got an idea. He smirked, then sat forward in the chair, typing again.
_ALRIGHT KIDDO
_GO DO YOUR THING
_BUT HURRY BACK
_DON'T GIVE YOUR OLD MAN GH
_GH MEANS "GRAY HAIR"
_LIKE IT?
_MADE IT UP JUST NOW
_
He smirked, and chuckled. A second later the reply came back.
_CUTE, DAD
_U DON'T NEED ANY MORE GRAY HAIR
_WHICH MEANS I'LL HURRY
_:)
Kevin chuckled again and shook his head, seeing the "u" used in place of "you".
There was a lot Sam was going to have to catch him up on about the world.
However, there were a couple of things he was going to have to catch Sam up on, too,...like the fact that he might feel as old as Methuselah but he now looked the same age as Clu - maybe 35-ish,...more like an older brother to Sam than a father.
And then there was the, 'Oh, and, meet Clu, my new twin brother' thing. That was gonna be a bit weird to explain to the world.
But no weirder than any of the rest of it.
He sighed, snapping out of the prognostications, then typed again.
_HEY KIDDO, TELL YA WHAT
_I'LL CLEAR THE SCREEN FROM THIS END
_PAGE ME WHEN U GET BACK
_WE CAN OPEN THE DIALOGUE LINK AGAIN
_
He chuckled at himself, using the "u" as Sam had. Then came the reply.
_WILL DO
_TTYS – TALK TO YOU SOON
He smiled, typing back a simple " :) " as his reply, then entered a string of code. Line after line of numbers began to scroll down the screen. Then there was only a blank screen with a simple blinking cursor...Sam would be seeing the same thing on his end.
Then Kevin stood, stretching his arms and walking over to sit down on the floor with his back against the wall. Tron looked over at him, watching as the creator folded his long legs into the lotus position.
"Gonna' knock on the sky and listen to the sound..." Kevin grinned, closing his eyes. Then he opened up one eye to look at Tron, adding, "...not gonna' snore this time."
Jarvis' footsteps echoed in the corridor as he slowly made his way towards the elevator. The sound of the echo was as hollow and null as he felt inside.
This was an interesting turn of events he'd engineered for himself.
On a rebellious whim against his superior, he'd just allowed a prisoner to go free.
And it wasn't just any prisoner, it was the champion of the games - Rinzler.
Or, rather,...it was the one who'd been chosen to replace the old Rinzler...Alan Bradley, the first ever re-purposed User, who presented a myriad of hope for the new regime which sought to someday re-purpose every User in the User world. Even he himself at one point had relished the serendipity which had brought the User right into their hands as an unsuspecting test subject.
And ironically, the User was once Rinzler's User - that is, the old Rinzler, once known as Tron.
And the old Rinzler - or, Tron that is - had escaped with Clu and Flynn...how very fortunate for him, actually, considering the new elite never planned on his ever being a champion again, or ever even fighting again for that matter. Instead they'd intended only to torture him by making him watch the games perpetually until he grew despondent, and then they would've had his own former User - the new Rinzler – challenge him and publicly derezz him, in a battle not even the old Rinzler could win. Or Tron, that is.
Jarvis sighed. Old Rinzler, new Rinzler, Tron, re-purposing...whatever. Oh User, what did it even matter what any program was called anymore?
How very convoluted it all was, anyway.
He'd be glad to be finally done with it - which he was fairly certain he would be whenever his new master learned of Rinzler's disappearance...he would be done with it, because the new regime would see him as a traitor and be done with him...as in, de-resolution.
And while de-resolution wasn't something he relished the thought of, it seemed preferable or even merciful in fact, when compared to spending an infinity of cycles in degrading subservience to a ruling class which cared not a whit for him yet sought to control his every move and thought.
And so, while what he'd just done was inherently self-destructive and probably indirectly suicidal too, it had at least been his way of taking a stand, of hopefully bringing the unacceptable to some sort of halt, even if it meant his inevitable demise.
He sighed again, boarding the elevator. During the ascension to the mezzanine level, he took a deep breath, preparing to face his superior and announce Rinzler's disappearance. But when the elevator doors opened, however, there was his master standing right in front of him, the silent helmeted gaze fixed on him.
This wasn't good.
Jarvis' thoughts lurched, and uneasiness settled in to his circuits. The aide genuflected into a slight bow, capitulating to the fate which he himself had deliberately engineered as he prepared to meet whatever wrath he was sure awaited him.
But no wrath was forthcoming.
Instead, the ominous figure wearing Clu's robe simply gave a mock bow of his own, moving aside and allowing Jarvis to step from the elevator, and then boarding it himself.
At this point the confused aide had no notion as to what to think or expect, but he certainly wasn't going to discuss the issue of Rinzler. In fact he was going to pretend all was fine and go about 'business as usual',...because that appeared to be exactly what the elite was now doing, even as their heinous influence wreaked havoc on the Grid. He wasn't sure if that was some strategic feigned ignorance, or if it was just sheer cold-blooded apathy on the part of the tyranny, but, he mused to himself, whichever it was, two could play that game. And so he commenced to do just that.
"Your Excellency..." Jarvis spoke in the usual requisite subservient tone to his master, "...shall I prepare to announce the main attraction soon?"
The onyx helmet tilted to the side just a fraction, and the slightly-muffled voice answered with a snarky, patronizing tone. "Isn't that your job?"
Jarvis cast his eyes downward and gave a nod, as his superior continued speaking.
"I'll be...away...for... a while. But I'll be keeping tabs on things here. In my absence, you'll want to see to it that the games proceed exactly as they should."
And with that the elevator doors whisked closed.
Jarvis sighed yet again, then turned and walked to the console panel desk.
Indeed, it would be business as usual.
He seated himself at the circular desk to prepare the announcement for the games. While surveying the console, his eye wandered inconspicuously across the surveillance displays from the arena's exterior plaza. Casting a casual glance around the empty room, he then touched the screen until a view of the arena's exterior perimeter appeared, then he nonchalantly scrolled through the different views until he found the one in line with the detention and holding-bay service entrance. The receptors should show a clear view of the streets for several blocks beyond the arena itself.
The aide hummed to himself quietly, appearing for all practical purposes to be doing his job...and this was after all part of his job, to peruse the area periodically.
There. He spotted him.
Dimly, at a distance, but that was him. The User, who wore Rinzler's markings, except now with circuits which glowed blue.
He was standing in the shadowed recessed beneath the MP3 production tower across the street.
Jarvis reached to a small interface on the console, and sent a signal to the helmet. The display showed no response. A tracer then confirmed that the signal was not being received by the helmet.
The aide sighed, mentally chastising himself for the oversight...of course the helmet's signal wasn't working - how else had the User had the presence of mind to eliminate the sentries and escape his cell to begin with. Which suddenly reminded him ...let's just eradicate that little piece of history right now, shall we?...
He scanned through the recent recordings of the holding cells, finding Rinzler's, then he played back the past few microcycles...the lights dimmed, then the User removed his helmet, then sentries entered the User's cell, and then the User single-handedly derezzed both of the sentries, doing so without the aid of either the strength-enhancing alchemy they usually dosed him with before battles or the helmet's hypnotic subliminal signal which removed his will and drove him on command. Jarvis mused at this.
...impressive...
He then watched as the User then decrypted and recoded his own disk, and re-rezzed his suit to change colors.
...also impressive...
This just served to show how the regime did tend to underestimate User powers and ingenuity - that was how Kevin Flynn had escaped the arena as well.
Jarvis typed a series of codes, creating a glitch in the recording time-span, effectively deleting the entire sequence after the lights had dimmed and then disabling the surveillance feeds to the entire holding bay. Given the unprecedented recent power-fluctuations, it would appear as a natural malfunction to anyone who happened to consult the playback.
Then the crafty aide smiled casually to himself.
He'd just done his second rebellious deed, and he knew it was the right thing to do.
Now to move on to more business as usual...announcing the games, and running the arena in his master's absence.
The elevator whisked down to the Grid level, and then the robed, helmeted figure emerged onto the interior plaza level, strolling leisurely along until finally exiting the arena.
He walked to the very edge of the platform where a multitude of stairs led nearly two stories down from the exterior plaza to the street, and there he stood relishing the quiet, surveying the expanse of city as far as he could see.
Gone were the previous crowds who'd blanketed the plaza waiting to get in when he'd first arrived...now they were all in the arena, and they would not be leaving anytime soon. The sentries would see to that.
He looked down at the streets. Deserted, just like this plaza, which was as it should be. All was going well.
However, it was raining, which he found less than ideal, and so he simply bent down, placing a gloved palm on the ground.
Instantly the rain ceased.
This ability pleased him, as it always did.
Oh to feel this way in the real world, to be this powerful there too.
If he had his way, that just might be the case, eventually.
He smiled from within the helmet, retrieving the disk from his back and pressing the buttons to enter a series of code, then he looked at the disk, his smile turning to a devious smirk.
...thanks Flynn...
Replacing the disk to his back, he stood amidst a brief shimmer as pixels rearranged and the yellow-trimmed robe derezzed, leaving just the armored light-suit.
Then he backed up a few steps, and with a running start he clicked the baton, leaping right off the side of the plaza's elevated edge and into the air. The small light-jet rezzed around him just in time for him to bank it quickly upward to avoid the ground, and he chuckled to himself as the adrenalin from the stunt subsided. From there he swept the jet up into the clouded skies, setting a course for the portal.
Los Angeles
The basement lab was quiet and empty now, in the wake of Sam and Quorra's departure. The computer still hummed, but only a blank screen and a blinking cursor graced its display monitor. All around the dusty shelves looked as they always had...covered in dust and frozen in time, relics from some erstwhile part of Kevin Flynn's life.
Suddenly a bright flare washed the entire room in white as a figure suddenly appeared, standing in front of the console desk.
He opened his eyes, staring in front of him at the desk and monitor, as a maelstrom of confused thought took hold.
...what am I doing back here at this place?...
He felt light-headed as usual, legs weak, his thin body suddenly seeming much heavier than it normally did. This was the hardest part, and he still was never prepared for the huge energy drain which seemed to happen upon returning from the Grid. Exhaling a sigh he steadied himself with his hands against the desk, bending at the knees slowly.
...well, might as well sit and rest for a minute...
He dropped back wearily, expecting to fall into the seat of the desk chair, and fell right onto his rump on the floor instead. Dark brown hair swept down in a disheveled mop of bangs across his eyes, and the glasses fell to the floor, jarred loose by the impact of his fall.
...OW!...what the-?
...damn it!... where's the chair?...
He felt around for his glasses and put them on, swept the hair out of his eyes and then sat there a moment, getting his bearings, looking around the room. He'd rezzed out of the Grid and somehow ended up back in the lab at Flynn's, which wasn't supposed to have happened.
...I was supposed to end up in my office...
...wonder if the-
That thought was stopped when he glanced across at the box underneath the desk, leaning his head forward and squinting his eyes.
Sure enough, a tiny red light flashed on the front of the router.
He slowly crawled under the desk and reached to inspect the router more closely. The cable was unplugged from the computer.
...how'd that happen?...
And then his eyes narrowed, a perturbed growl escaping his throat at the thought. Sam Flynn.
...how else!...
He reconnected the cable, reset the router, and crawled back out from under the table, slowly getting to his feet and brushing the dust from his trousers.
Then he stood up straight, fumbling around in his pockets for his keys.
...time to get back to the office...
...'course,...I'll have to take a cab I guess...
...what day is it, even?...still Friday?...
He fished out his cell phone from the pocket, and turned it on, waiting until it booted and then pressing the screen menus to access the calendar.
...Saturday...
...hm...
...well, good...
This would give him a chance to spend some time in the office undisturbed...he could grab some dinner, draft a memo saying he was taking a few days' more leave-of-absence, and then zap himself right back into the grid.
He smiled to himself...having a duplicate of the digitizing laser constructed in his office at ENCOM was the smartest thing he'd ever done. It took a huge chunk of family money, sure, and a total redesign of the coat-closet plus some sophisticated new locks on the doors to keep the project a secret, but, it was all well worth it. It meant he didn't have to mess with this old place much, and though apparently now Sam Flynn had decided to nose around here, he'd take care of that issue soon enough.
He slowly ascended the stairs, then crawled through the opening, pushing against the back of the Tron machine until it released and swung forward on its mechanism. Then stepping into the arcade, he pushed the game machine back into its normal position and headed towards the entrance.
Opening the front door, he looked around at the desolate, run-down street, and then stepped outside, shutting the door behind him and jamming his key in the lock.
Something was instantly wrong. The key didn't turn at all. He fussed with it, jiggling it and trying his best to get it to turn, but it wasn't budging.
...stupid old lock...
Then he suddenly noticed it wasn't an old lock, but a new one.
...damn it!...who-...son of a-...
He sighed.
...no,...son of Flynn...
His eyes narrowed, and he stood there wanting so very badly to just kick the door.
He ran a hand through his hair, looked at his watch, looked around again.
He couldn't very well leave the door unlocked.
But then again, he sure as hell didn't have much of a choice.
Just then he heard the distant sound of something which made his skin crawl and sent spiky jolts of adrenalin through him...a motorcycle engine. And it was getting closer.
He panicked. No choice now – he was leaving the door unlocked.
He whirled around, and, seeing no options for places to hide, he took off running down the side-street next to Flynn's, cursing under his breath at having to do this much strenuous activity so soon after getting rezzed back from the Grid. He saw the outlet of an alley just up ahead, and he sprinted, ducking into the alley and crouching behind a huge air-conditioning unit next to the building, warm air from the unit's exhaust fan blowing his bangs right back into his face. Then he sat there quietly catching his breath.