Tron: Sacrifice Script
Episode Three: Decisions
TRON WALKED TO the Observation deck to meet Mara and Zed. They sent him a message during his interrogation with Paige, saying they may have found something.
So Tron took Paige back to the brig, where he gave her back her disc and she allowed him to cage her like a dangerous virus.
"Beck doesn't have much time left."
She nodded.
Paige was silent ever since she saw Beck in the plasma tank, or perhaps it was because she never considered the Renegade was really him.
"I need to know if you will help him." Tron saw her look at his eyes with a strange look on her face. "I'm not asking you to do this for me. Beck is my friend, Paige. I know him as the Renegade. You knew him as Beck. Do this for him."
"Why?"
"This is no time to play the victim act here, Paige." Tron grew stern. "He liked you enough to overlook your devotion to the Occupation, but he wanted you on our side."
"What if I refuse to help you?"
"Then you condemn Beck to a slow deresolution.
"If you're wondering what I'd do to you if you refuse, think about what CLU would do, what General Tesler would do if they found out you were here," Tron crossed his arms dominantly, "then think of the opposite."
"Tesler is in the same spot as me," Paige sat in the farthest corner of her cell. "In prison, awaiting CLU's rule of punishment."
"They both lied and manipulated you, Paige." Tron turned to depart. "You're lucky I am not like them."
"You said you found something?" Tron asked.
Mara smiled and Zed crossed his arms as matter-a-factly.
"One of the sensors in Argon was activated with a greeting code Tron had set up."
"You're sure?" Tron looked at the tablet Zed handed to him.
A pulsing white dot marked the coordinates of the sensor. Tron watched it pulse, for a moment, thinking. What if this were a trap set for him by CLU? How would CLU know the codes only Flynn and Tron, himself, designed in case of a dangerous situation where they were separated? Unless...CLU already found Flynn and broke him...
Tron handed the tablet back to Zed.
"Inform me if the signal persists." Tron said and Zed nodded. "We'll want to be certain it won't be a trap."
"Any luck with Paige?" Mara asked crossing her arms. "Will she help Tron?"
"It looks promising." Tron observed another tablet with the coordinates of all the conduits he'd placed in Argon. "Maybe I'll let you have some time with her."
"Really?" Mara uncrossed her arms, looking slightly excited.
"I will need to observe and train you," Tron looked at her through his mask. "I need to show you something."
He put the tablet down on the table surface for them all to see.
Tron highlighted all five of the communication devices. He pointed at the one in Argon Square.
"This is closest to CLU's new throne. If this beacon is activated, we will not comply. Flynn wouldn't travel that far into Argon to signal me. Tron placed this conduit here as more of a failsafe for traps and false distress calls. It is also less hidden than the others" Tron moved across the tablet to the pulsing beacon closest to the edge of the Outlands, and farthest away from CLU. "Since this one was already activated, we'll watch it more closely. Soon it will deactivate itself after a sometime, because Tron put short time stamps on them."
In that moment, the pulsing light desisted.
"Whoever is on the other end of that signal," Tron started, "will know the time stamp is set for ten microcycles."
They watched the tablet with anticipation for a moment, then several moments, and Tron sighed and walked away from the conference table.
"It's back!" Mara gasped.
"Set the computer to monitor the times it is activated. We may find a pattern." Tron drew away from Mara and Zed more and stood to watch the city. "If it is repeatedly activated with that same code I will go to the conduit's location and met Flynn."
"You can't go alone." Mara said.
"It still could be a trap." Zed joined Mara.
"We'll talk about that when we get there." Tron looked at Mara and Zed. "Right now, let's go to the holodeck. I want to see how well you two preform under pressure."
Mara smiled, while Zed's shoulders slumped a little.
"What do you mean you cannot find them?"
CLU stood up from his throne in outrage. Dyson returned from his search of the Garage with nothing, but a baton to one, lone cycle he'd found.
"Commander-," Dyson started.
"Go back and search until you can bring me back something that shows Argon I am, truly, their only, most powerful, protecting leader!" CLU threw his disc at a guard, derezzing the program instantly.
"Get someone to clean up this mess!" CLU settled himself down in his throne, suddenly very slow, and put his face in his hand.
Dyson bowed his head and slowly turned.
"Don't disappoint me again, Dyson."
"I will not return until I bring you the evidence you desire."
CLU looked up at Dyson's retreating back.
"And I will not receive you if you break that oath, or if you bring anything but Tron."
Dyson hesitated in his steps, breaking their rhythm on the metallic floor.
CLU smiled for the first in the longest time. At least he could still drive fear into his closest minions. He was relieved their fear kept them from joining Tron and his slip-shot, novice, side-kick Renegade.
'Amazing,' he thought, 'how a rebel force of only two programs can dare to stand against me.'
'Amazing,' said a degrading voice in his digital mind, 'how you cannot liberate said two-manned force.'
The smile was wiped from his face, his mood greatly affected. He was put out from that moment on, and nothing would lift it until Tron was in the palm of his hand.
"Zed!" Mara stood over him, offering her hand. "Pull it together! The Renegade is watching."
"I was never good at the disc games we played," Zed complained, taking her hand. "Why would I excel at this?"
"Well, just try." Mara pulled him off the holofloor, as Tron walked across the floor.
"I think we need to take a different approach." Tron looked at him, and Zed shrugged in response. "Not a single program with the Occupation will offer their hand when you're knocked off your feet. You will sooner receive the strike of a disc."
Zed looked down embarrassed, as Tron positioned himself a few steps away from them.
"Try to knock me down. Both of you, at the same time."
Mara shrugged at Zed and took a running leap at Tron, her disc in hand, and Zed watched as Tron simply took one step aside. Mara landed hard on the floor, jarring her disc hand, and sending her disc rolling. She followed it as her disc made a ripping trail across the floor.
"Zed. It's your turn."
Zed looked at Tron. He started at a run at Tron, aware that soon he would move aside as he did with Mara. But he stood there, letting Zed charge until Tron put out his arm.
It was too late to change course.
Zed ran full force into Tron's outstretched arm, catching him under his chin. Zed's head flew back and his feet were swept out from underneath him, and he too, crashed to the floor.
A pair of arms and a disc wrapped around Tron's head and neck, as Mara jumped up on his back attempting to knock him down by force. Tron grabbed her disc arm and pulled it straight down in front of him. Mara gasped from the sudden spasm of pain, and Tron use her momentum to throw her over top of him.
Zed pulled his disc and threw it at Tron.
Tron reached behind, retrieved his disc, and deflected Zed's throw in a split nanocycle. Zed jumped up to receive his disc as Mara twisted Tron's wrist.
A glitching shock ran up his arm, and reflex released Mara's arm. She clocked Tron's head with the broad side of her disc, and Tron backed a pace away, quickly recovering. He jumped up and flipped over Mara and kicked her legs out from under her.
Zed moved around so Tron was now in between Mara and himself. He caught her eye and she understood what he had in mind. She distracted Tron from Zed's movement behind him, throwing her disc at his face. Tron deflected it easily, sending it behind him to disarm Zed, who was raising his arm for the throw. Both Mara and Zed raced to pick up their discs, as Tron threw his in a wide arc. Mara saw it coming as a blur of white light hurtling around her and Zed. She dived to the floor and snatched up her disc, as Zed first saw Tron's disc and followed Mara's lead.
Zed and Mara threw their discs at Tron, and he took a running jump toward them. He pushed up into a twirl as the discs passed him. His momentum carried him forward, and he landed on the floor, still rolling. He used his momentum to push himself on his feet, and standing upright, caught his disc returning to him. He threw it over his shoulder without a glance at the incoming discs, intending their landing as his back, and they were thrown off course; all three skidding to a stop on the holofloor.
Mara and Zed, still on the floor, panted with exertion. They noticed how Tron wasn't even the least bit tired as he strode toward them.
"You did very well for beginners." Tron reported, as he retrieved his disc from the rippling holofloor. "I need to inspect Tron's systems."
Mara and Zed were silent as Tron traveled away to the exit lift to the clinic, leaving them exhausted in the holodeck.
"He did that on purpose" Zed said.
"He did try to have us fight each other. He tried to make an even advantage for both of us." Mara said. "How do you think he feels? Tron is in that tank. The Renegade doesn't have anyone to spar with, but us."
"Sure," Zed scoffed. "Let him beat us into the ground. Let him show him how inferior we are in a tourney, compared to him."
"If it means we will learn, then yes, Zed!" Mara got to her feet. "He's going to teach us to defend ourselves."
Zed watched Mara pick up her disc.
"He's going to assess us all. There was no way to avoid, or prolong this evaluation." Mara extended her hand to Zed.
He took it, pondering what Tron had said before, how none of the soldiers would offer to help him up if he fell.
"Come on," Mara pulled him to the console, and ran her fingers over the screen. "We'll train each other."
"How?" Zed shrugged.
"Look at all these hologames. Tron must have set up all of them to train the Renegade." Mara selected the first holoplay. "So let's use them, too."
"I liked the disc games better."
Mara smiled slightly, "We've just graduated."
The holodecks walls pixelated into the scene, and holograms of Occupation soldiers appeared on duty. They saw them, and began to form a circle around them.
"Couldn't we have settled on a disc games first?"
Mara reached for her disc. "This is a game. It's just more dangerously real."
Paige sat in her corner of the cell. She didn't even look up when Tron arrived to interrogate her, once again, she assumed.
He walked right through the barrier imprisoning her, and sat beside her. He didn't ask to confiscate her disc. He didn't force her hands into those infernal cuffs. He just sat there, beside her like a friend would. Like Beck would have.
"Approximately," Paige spoke from behind her knees, which she pulled up to her chest, "how long does he have."
"A few MicroCycles ago, when I checked six cycles." Tron leaned back against the metal wall. "But it's always a changing factor. His disc is malfunctioned, being halfway through deresolution, it is always difficult to set a solid estimate."
Paige nodded, silent as the site of Able's Garage.
"Paige."
She looked at Tron then.
"I cannot save him alone. Please help me."
'He showed you mercy.' Paige's voice said to her. 'He will understand you. Tesler never did.'
'Tesler rescued me from the ISOs.' Paige thought with weakened pride.
'For all you know,' the voice responded softly, 'he may not have. The ISOs knocked you unconscious. You don't know what really happened. Perhaps, the ISOs rescued you...'
Paige stood up and slowly walked to the edge of the cell barrier.
'CLU won't accept you as a soldier again. He as good as promised you deresolution, if you returned.'
Paige turned to Tron, and looked him in the eye.
"Take me to him."
With Paige set in the clinic, and the main computer monitoring her every move, Tron allowed her to work in as much privacy as he could authorize. He went up to the holodeck, hoping to practice with a holo-Beck, only to find it still occupied with Mara and Zed.
He smiled and checked to see what program was running, realizing they were the hologames he invented for Beck's use.
He slipped in without their noticing, and watched off on the side.
They were struggling, and the Occupation's soldiers were becoming more and more overwhelming. The odds were against them, but Tron stayed where he was, curious to see what would happen next.
Mara had managed to cut down and derezz a soldier and commandeered his fallen staff. It matched its circuitry with hers and she began to be more confident in her actions. She was swinging the staff around her, derezzing several soldiers and putting several others on their guard. She grimaced as she threw her disc through a soldier's chest, and thrust the staff into another's head.
Tron nodded impressed and moved his attention to Zed.
He was surrounded, but he still had his cool. Zed was derezzing a path toward Mara, when he realized she was in trouble.
"Mara!"
She looked behind her to see a tank, and Mara put up her arms over her face as it fired at her.
As the program ended, and the holodeck returning to its normal state, Tron was revealed to Mara and Zed.
"I see I should have put you through these exercises instead."
Mara laid on the holofloor, more exhausted than before, and breathed, "But we failed."
"You simply need to revise your strategy." Tron pulled Mara to her feet. "Do not divide and conquer. Stay together, back to back. No program can derezz you from the behind if you stay close and watch each other's back."
"How long were you standing there?" Zed said.
"Long enough." Tron said with a hidden smile. "We should go back to the Observation Deck. We should examine the computer's records."
Mara was the first in the lift and they cleared the holodeck to the top deck.
They went to the conference room and Tron pulled the computer's records. The computer showed the results of the beacon been activated almost fifty times during the past cycle.
"Someone is actually trying to contact us."
Mara and Zed looked at his screen.
"What do we do?" Mara asked.
"I am going to have to go to the beacon, and meet whoever is there."
Mara and Zed were silent, but Tron saw the warning in their looks.
"I know what you're going to say, but it is a risk I'm willing to take." Tron turned to look away. "Tron is too injured to do this himself. If it is Flynn, I will bring him here. If it isn't, that's a risk and I will have to deal with that. If it happens to be a trap, I will head to this beacon here-" he walked briskly to the table and pointed out the beacon on the edge of the Sea of Simulation. "If I that beacon is activated, it will only be if there is trouble. It will pulse red, and do not come looking for me. By now all of Argon is most likely staring at your identity descriptions on wanted screens."
"So what if you do activate that beacon?" Zed said. "What are we to do?"
"Wait here until I come back."
"And if you're too late for Tron?" Mara asked softly.
Tron was silent. He looked back at Argon. The Grid-scrapers piercing the dark space around them.
"Tron has about six cycles left." Tron stated. "If I don't come back at four cycles, you both have authorization, and with Paige's agreement, to do whatever it takes to keep him alive."
Tron saw Mara's skepticism in her face, "She's agreed to help.
"If I don't come back," Tron looked at them through his mask, "and Tron dies, then you will be the Renegades. You must carry on Tron's name and beliefs. Spread it everywhere; from here in Argon, to Tron city. This will be your responsibility now."
