Tron Legacy : Rectifier - Real World Invasion

Chapter Four

Clu's ship is heading for the seat of government of the United States to issue his terms for surrender to the President. But will the struggling US military manage to fight back? Melanie finds out the truth about Clu.

AU, of course.

I do not own Tron or Tron Legacy.

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Clu was becoming more impressed with the female User. She had started out frightened and a bit annoying as well. Now she seemed more confident. Due to the device beneath her ear, or her own confidence, he didn't know. Maybe he would take credit for that too. The only thing she had asked for, demanded of him really, was quarters of her own.

"I am a human, Clu. I need a place to rest, sleep. I need food and water. I need...a comfort room. Oh, hell, a bathroom. Give me this, and I will continue to assist you."

Clu knew the User would still help him in any case, but she didn't know that. The implanted device made her pliable to his will. "Very well. I will order sentries to rezz this up for you. A room of your own. Does that make you happy?" Clu felt magnanimous, and the the User was proving to be useful. He wasn't a monster, after all, and could be generous when the moment called for it. She was serving him well, so he acquiesced to her demand.

Melanie gave him a curt nod, and returned to her station. Rezz?, she wondered. Oh well, not important. Without Clu's knowledge, Melanie was routing functions from the other stations to her own. She felt it would help her do her job better, and maybe, just maybe, she could use one of those functions to get a message out. For now, she would stay silent and just follow orders.

Turning to the alien commander, Melanie suggested, "Perhaps if you try to negotiate with the country's leaders. They'll want to avoid war at all costs. You've pretty much made it near impossible for them to fight you."

"Where are these leaders located?" Clu demanded.

"Most are in Washington DC," Melanie replied. She knew procedure, so assumed few would be there. If the invasion protocols were in place, Congress would be in hiding once it was deduced the direction the ship was heading.

"Show me this Washington DC. Where is it?" Clu stood behind her, while her fingers moved across her panel.

Melanie brought up a map on her console. "Here we are now, just leaving California air space." Her finger slid all the way across the digital map of the United States. "And here is Washington DC. We'll have to cross just about the entire country to reach it." She changed the scene. "Please, Clu, let me show you pictures of my world before you decide to destroy it." She hit several keys and soon pulled up photographs of the ocean, mountains, and deserts.

Cities from around the world flashed by as the ACP watched with fascination. This world was very different from the Grid. Bright, colourful, with buildings like nothing he had ever seen. "You're right, it has its beauty. So we will keep all that, and only remove its imperfections."

"Imperfections, as in..." Melanie knew the answer, she was sure.

"We will remove your kind from it," Clu said, a satisfied smile on his face.

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General Carson, head of Strategic Command, was monitoring the situation from the "war room" that lay hundreds of feet below the Offutt Air Force base in the city of Omaha. Military personnel monitored the invading vessel. Alerts were sent when the tracking system indicated it was on the move.

"The president and Joint Chiefs have to be notified the ship is heading East. Most likely moving towards Washington. The city should be evacuated, and Congress taken to a safe location...hell, they know the drill. We've been planning this for decades, just in case." Being prepared, and actually watching what was happening live, were two different things. How do you adequately prepare for an alien invasion? "How much time do we have?"

One sergeant checked his telemetry and reported, "The thing doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry, sir. Moving at around 125-150 miles per hour. It's also moved to a higher altitude, about five miles now."

General Carson nodded, and then gave his people the order, "Make sure every military base between Nevada and DC are ready with ground to air missiles. We won't have computer targeting, so we'll have to do it the old fashioned way. Line of sight." Everyone began making the calls. Computers would have made this easier, but no one was able to figure out what had knocked everything offline or how to fix it. The older, experienced officers would remember how things were done decades past, but the newer recruits would have to learn from scratch. Carson imagined, until this enemy was dispatched, it was going to be interesting to see how man adapted without technology, and maybe freedom as well.

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Clu kept watch on the User while she worked. Her room had been completed, and she seemed content, for now. Nourishment had been created for her, and as long as he gave her rest increments, she no longer complained. Since little was happening, Clu took a moment to study the User. He peered at her silently, his head tilted as he took in her expression. Her concentration on her panel and work amused him. His repurposed programs had no expressions. They only obeyed orders.

He decided to spend some time, for his own amusement, talking with the female User. Flynn and his son had been the only other Users he had ever dealt with. Adjusting the couch by the viewing window to hold two, he spoke to his captive. "Sit here, User."

Curious at the sudden attention, Melanie complied and sat next to the alien commander. "You keep calling me User, and I have no idea what that means."

"Very well, I'll answer your questions, any that I see fit to answer." Clu appeared all ease and affability.

"Alright, where are you from? This solar system, another galaxy, where?" Melanie asked.

Clu leaned back and smiled at the female. As someone who knew programming, he wondered if she would understand his next words. "I'm a codified likeness utility. Not an alien."

Melanie recognized...something. Then she put two and two together. Too easy, she thought. "Codified likeness utility. Clu."

"That's right," Clu replied.

With all her experience, Melanie searched her memory for something. There was a magazine article she had read several years ago. She looked back up at Clu, who was merely waiting.

"So if you're not an alien, and this is not a space ship, what are you? What is this vehicle?"

"We're from the Grid. Me, my...crew and my ship." He liked playing this game with her. Let her give it her best guess. He really didn't think she would have trouble, with her background, but the game still amused him.

Melanie thought hard. There was something different about Clu. Now that she knew he wasn't an alien from another planet, where did he come from? What was it nagging at the back of her mind? The Grid, he had said. That same magazine article. Clu's face. Something was there in her thoughts, trying to get out. "Do your people have a name?"

"It's a name common to you, Melanie Scott. As familiar to you as your own."

Clu gave her that same smile that was indecipherable to her, yet seemed to hold some sort of inside joke to him.

"I remember where I know you from now. It was all in an article in a computer magazine I read. I still have it in the drawer of my coffee table. Kevin Flynn was the former CEO of ENCOM, one of the biggest computer software outfits out there. Then one day, he simply disappeared. No one knew where he went. He even left his son behind, which is what made it all so mysterious. Was he kidnapped, killed? No one knew. Are you Kevin Flynn? But that's not possible. You don't look any older than the photo in the article."

Clu's expression grew dark for a brief moment, then the smile reappeared as he shook his head in response to her question. "I'm not Kevin Flynn."

Melanie remembered something else. She had purchased a used copy of Kevin Flynn's book, The Digital Frontier. She found it very confusing. Still, Flynn's writings piqued her interest, something about a digital world, but she thought he was referring to advanced gaming. But he had said, if she remembered it correctly, in there is a new world, and something about a new future or a new destiny. In where and a new future for whom? She looked up at Clu. "Are you some sort of Flynn construct?"

Clu said nothing, but his blank stare told her she was on the right track. This was his game, and she didn't like the idea of losing. "You said it was a word as familiar to me as my own. I'm a software engineer with some programming background." She looked around. The orderliness and the machines almost looking like...could it be that simple? "Are you all...programs? Advanced programs written by Kevin Flynn...not to destroy the world! He couldn't do that." Had he disappeared, built all this, and sent it out to conquer Earth, for his own ambitions? It was too James Bond. "Are you programs, Clu?"

"Right again. Two for two. You play the game well, User."

"Ok, since I guessed your tawdry little secret, please stop calling me User. The name is Melanie. I'm sure you know that, since I can guess you forget nothing you hear. or see. So where is Kevin Flynn?"

Before Clu could answer, the deck suddenly tilted at a sickening angle. Melanie fell off the couch and rolled from the forward side of the bridge to the far wall. She looked back and saw Clu had managed to hang on to the couch. The other programs lost their footing and rolled over the hard floor. With a groan, Clu's human captive tried to climb up the sloping floor to get to her station. The ship began to freefall, with Melanie heaved upward as the vessel sank quickly toward the ground. She hit the deck hard when it suddenly stopped, its angle still at a tilt, but at least it was no longer moving. Groaning, she tried to lift herself up off the deck, when a pair of strong arms lifted her up and onto her seat. It was Clu.

"Are you alright?" he asked, with no real concern in the tone of his voice.

"Yes, I'm ok." She ran her hand over her panels until she found what she wanted. Hitting the correct buttons, the ship slowly righted itself. Checking her readouts, she found the information she needed. She rose and walked to the viewing window. "We were hit by four missiles." She pointed out the window. "From somewhere down there." Apparently, fighter jets were not being used, maybe still unable to fly without their computer systems. Melanie framed her eyes against the sun light as she gazed at the ground. "There," she said. "That military base beneath us. They must be firing missiles at us while we pass over. Seems they're relying on methods that don't require computer guidance systems. Thank God the targeting was off because of that, or we'd have huge holes in the bulkhead. We'd better get this baby moving so that we'll be out of range." She increased the speed to 400 mph, and sat back, exhaling. She wondered what the top speed of this ship was.

Clu watched the User's hands moving over her panel, doing things he was not aware she could do. "What are you up to?" he asked with suspicion in his voice.

Since Melanie had nothing to hide, she admitted to Clu, "I found a way to transfer some functions from their panels to mine, so I could monitor things better. You don't mind, do you? No one could ever accuse me of inefficiency. If I hadn't..."

Clu should have been angry, but the User had proved to be invaluable in the attack. "I heartily approve of efficiency. Continue." Giving orders to Rinzler to check for and repair any damage, Clu calculated his next move. Melanie stepped up with her own ideas.

"I think the last attack was a test, to see how you'd react. Since you fought back, they're going to give it all they've got to bring this ship down." She brought up the map of the US again. This time, there were lots of blinking lights. She felt Clu move behind her. "Here are all the larger military bases between Nevada and DC. All we need to do is navigate away from them. Our course should run..." She pointed at the map, her forefinger running a trail from left to right. "...between these lights. We should be alright, for awhile. The closer we get to DC though, the more defenses they'll have."

"You've been of service to me, Melanie. I chose well when I chose you." Clu stood taller in his self-approval.

"If you recall, you didn't have many choices. Luck of the draw, I'd say." Her hand absently moved to the side of her neck, and she noticed a small bruise forming on her arm from hitting the deck so hard. She stood and walked to the viewing deck over the bay, amazed to see none of the machines had even shifted during the attack.

Clu knew her next question "They're locked down. Fortunately?" Both watched as programs were repairing some wall damage.

Melanie was fascinated as she saw what looked like lit cubes building one atop the other, until one hole was filled and the wall was black again. "Then it's true, what you said. This is some sort of digitized machine? And you..." She turned to face him. "...you're a program. I had heard Kevin Flynn was brilliant, while others said he was a con man. I guess I know which designation was fact."

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A major went over to his commanding officer with his report. "General Carson, the attack failed. And now the ship has increased speed. It's course has become very erratic, as if its avoiding populated areas. It will be over Washington sooner than we had calculated. The president said he's prepared to meet with the aliens, if that's what it takes. He's hoping an open attack is not in their plans."

"It's probably avoiding our bases. They know what we were up to now, so that won't work again. Keep me posted, Major."

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While the military tried to come up with new ideas, Clu sent out a dozen recognizers to form a ring around the Rectifier, flying alongside the giant ship in perfect formation. Better that he know what was coming at them, before they hit. He was careless, but he learned from his mistakes, and mentally thanked Flynn for that.

A/N : Clu as an actual soldier and in combat? Well, we'll see.