Tron: Sacrifice

Episode Fifteen: Unfocused

"YOU HAVE TO TELL TRON."

"I can't."

"You won't, you mean."

"Ada."

Beck sighed, and rubbed his eyes.

"Tron is serious on this. And I have to fight! If he finds out about this, I'm through!"

Ada paused, considering Beck for a moment.

"I understand, Beck." She said, taking his hand to comfort him. "The revolution does need you, but you must see Tron should know about this."

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"Beck, listen." Ada knelt down to look at his eyes. "Look at me."

Beck fought the urge to look at her, but his eyes swung to hers like a magnet.

"We don't even know what is going on here. What if we'll need help at some point? If you inform Tron now he could help us. He knows you have my disc, and he must know something is up."

"You're not gonna lecture me like Paige did, are you?"

"You had three more dizzy spells at the club, Beck. Something big is happening here! We cannot ignore it."

Beck sighed, "And what am I gonna tell him?"

He got up and walked a few paces away.

"Oh, hey Tron! By the way, I forgot to mention I have an ISO in my head that seems to be taking over my programing." He said sarcastically.

"What did you say?" Ada stood up.

"Hey, Tron-"

"No. About the programing."

"I said you're…taking over my programing."

Beck and Ada just stared at each other for a moment then they broke out in argument, speaking over each other.

"You have to tell Tron!"

"If I tell him we'll become an experiment. Do you really want that to happen?" Beck threw his hands into the air. "They'll be waiting on us, watching for you to override me!"

"Paige already saw me!"

"How can you know for certain?"

"She was looking at your eyes! She must have seen something of me inside them."

"What? You?"

"Perhaps." Ada crossed her arms. "Tell Tron."

"Ada. I-" Beck stopped.

"What is taking you so long?"

"Good things to those who wait."

Dyson scoffed, "If I wait any longer-"

"What? You'll die in the games? Don't think that I don't know why you are so anxious about all this. I think regardless if I retrieve your merchandise, you'll die in the games. Ruby is a worthy opponent. I like her."

"It seems you'll favor anyone who can fight like Tron."

"You said it. Not me."

"I really don't think you understand. If I die you are gone."

"Actually, no. I am not so easily gotten rid of."

"How infectious of you." Dyson said sarcastically.

"Clu's given me an assignment. Even after you are derezzed by Ruby, Tron, or even Clu, I will still be here. You're, shall we say, leverage has been countered."

"Well… I see now. You're Clu's new pet?"

The program laughed.

"You still don't comprehend the situation at hand. You are being retired when I have completed Clu's assignment to exceed his expectations."

"Retired as in derezzed, you mean?"

"Perhaps. Clu is allowed to change his mind when it comes to your…ah, failures and disappointments."

Dyson seethed.

"Get what you promised me." He said simply, and turned on his heal and jumped off the edge of the building without hesitating.

"Well done." Clu stepped out of the darkness.

"Anger and pride are easily sparked. It was not a challenge."

"So it appears. You are correct." Clu joined him to overlook the blue hazes that hung over Argon. "It is getting him to, as you say, 'mess up.' When he gives us the opportunity, you shall do as I told you."

"Derezz him. Yes, sire."

"When you found that file he's been working on, I admit, I was surprised. I am not so easily surprised."

"He's obsessed."

"Yes, he is."

"He will try to find her."

"Yes, he will. And when he does, derezz them both."

"May I make a suggestion?"

Clu smiled tighly, but nodded.

"The program is Mara. After the crash of you mobile Repurposing Unit, Mara would have come in close contact with Tron and the Renegade. If Dyson finds her, perhaps we can use her presences here to our advantage."

"Ruby is already being used for such a purpose. Why crowd my brigs?"Clu said.

"Then you haven't noticed the brigs are full."

"Empty them then." Clu said. "Tell me what you are thinking."

"Dyson is not meaningful to your goal. However, Ruby, Miranda, and the addition of Mara to your collection would make more of a reason for Tron rescue them. But there is a glitch." The program said, cocking his head. "We don't even know if Tron has seen the Games between Dyson and Ruby."

"How do you know he hasn't?"

"Tron, aided by Mara stole one of your deep-driving subs. I'm betting he's out at sea."

Clu smiled.

"Try the radar. Find them."

Paige stood by as Beck woke from regeneration sleep. He sat up and shook his head.

"Rough night?"

"Guess you could say that." Beck hopped out of the tube and walked only a few paces when he heard an electric whirling.

Paige jumped, "Did you heard that?"

"What?" He lied.

"Hmm," she said. "Perhaps it was the pod powering down. But it's never done that before."

"Rough night?" Beck asked her.

"Something like that."

True enough, she'd been monitoring Beck's central systems all the while in regeneration sleep on Tron's orders. She had gathered the data and was going to show Tron privately.

Paige began to work at the pod console, "Tron wants you to meet him in the holodeck."

"Thanks." Beck turned on his heel and stepped on the lift.

He closed his eyes.

"Ada!"

"I know, Beck."

She was standing behind him.

"What was that?"

"I can't be sure." She looked at him with worry in her eyes. "Something big is happening here, Beck. Be prepared for anything. You better go. You're at the holodeck."

Beck opened his eyes and sure enough, the lift had halted. The door slid open and Tron was already running a simulation. He was armed with a staff and surrounded by Occupation soldiers.

Beck looked at his feet and spotted a staff a yard away. He took off, grabbed it, and activating it, he ran toward the soldiers and jammed the staff down in the rubble. He was airborne and spinning, until his feet found the ground beside Tron. He brought the staff at ready stance.

"Glad you could make it." Tron said, not looking at him. "But your entrance was sloppy."

"Sloppy?"

The soldiers attacked. Tron and Beck stood back-to-back.

"I sending out a team to gather intel." Tron told Beck, taking out five soldiers with one swipe of his staff. "You go out with Mara and Zed."

Beck threw out his arm, derezzing three soldiers, and he spun the staff catching another on the head.

"Seriously?"

"It is sooner than I want, but you've been out in the field before and you can show Mara and Zed more." Tron threw his disc. "You need the time out there, too, and Paige has cleared you for activity."

"What sort of intel are we gathering?"

"I want you to hack the Occupation server, and pick up all you can on Ruby, and anyone else that was on my team." Tron smacked down a soldier easily with the palm of his hand.

"Glad you're not going to rush in and do something embarrassing."

"The server," Tron continued as if he hadn't heard, "you're hacking is inside Clu's throne ship. You'll need to be more careful. Mara and Zed will provide cover while you gather the information. I already briefed them, and they'll be back here fairly soon to run a practice simulation."

"'Back here.'" Beck said, throwing a soldier over his back, letting Tron whack the staff on his head.

"They went in Argon to time guards, mark time-shifts; take down notes for the simulation."

Tron and Beck looked around the holodeck. The holographic soldiers lying on the ground. Tron pulled up the controls in midair with his fingertips and ended the simulation. He began setting a new scene, and beck dropped when the floor suddenly lowered down into a street between buildings. Argon lights winked at him.

"Setting for maximum difficulty?" Beck called out, his voice echoed as the sound waves carried through the empty streets.

Ten orange lights blinked in the distance, and Beck smiled.

"Of course." He said to himself, taking a battle stance. "What else would he set it to?"

Dyson moved quietly through the streets. Argon was quiet. Then again, quiet is what it's been for a long while now. He should be used to it, but the silence was so eerie and deep that the smallest of sounds sounded like the start of a war.

'Who did that program think he was? Retirement!' he thought angrily.

He went blindly through the streets, marching and making as much noise as he pleased. He continued his rampage, not caring if he ran into some unsuspecting program minding his own business. He marched onto the throne ship, violently showed his clearance card to the monitor, and stepped into the lift. He traveled up, the vertical lights flashing as the lift sped upward, and he fumed with the hum of the machinery to comfort him. The lift came to a halt and he stepped off.

There was a flash of movement that caught his eye and he saw her.

"Mara?" Dyson said.

The program whirled around and showed her disc.

Then Dyson heard something behind him and he turned his head, seeing another masked program armed with his disc which was pointed at his back. Dyson raised his arms, feinting defeat with a slight smile, but before he could act the program behind him leapt at him. Dyson fell face first to the floor with a loud thud, and Mara took Dyson's disc as the male program removed his other weapons. Mara covered for him, holding Dyson's disc with pride.

"What should we do with him?" The male program asked.

"Cuff him to the railing." She responded, throwing Dyson's disc at the floor several feet out of reach.

"You are Mara?"

"Get what we came for and let's get out of here."

"You have time, Mara." Dyson said. "Plenty enough to talk, I think."

"Ignore him." Mara told her companion.

"Why did you help me after the blast?" Dyson asked. "Why not leave me for dead?"

They ignored him, increasing the pace of their work.

"Weapons information? Surveillance?" Dyson asked them. "I am authorized."

"You're also in the Games." The male program responded as he just cracked their security. "Excuse me if I don't take your word for it."

"Hush up!" Mara said, and slapped his arm. "Ignore him! We have a job to do."

Dyson remained silent, watching them as they uploaded on their discs the information they needed.

"You're going to have to take me with you." Dyson said. "Otherwise, they'll find me here, the system broken into. They'll change the codes and orders."

Mara turned on him, crossing her arms.

"I know what Tron wants." Dyson said. "Ruby and Miranda. I can help."

Mara picked up his disc and Dyson smiled slyly, but suddenly Mara kicked up her foot, striking his chin and his head whipped back into the bar of the railing.

"He didn't see that coming."

"Shh! Zed!" Mara accessed Dyson's disc. "Are we all done here?"

"Yeah," Zed said, "but what are we going to do with him?"

"I don't know." Mara thought hard. "I think we should take him up on his offer. He helps us find what's left of Tron's team, and we take him with us."

"Light taser should help if he thinks about waking up. But what about Tron? Wouldn't he be angry with us?"

"You're right." Mara said. "But we're bringing Dyson."

"Why?"

She scrolled through his disc.

"Something's not right here, and Tron would want to see it." She showed Zed the disc. "Come on. Let's scram."

"He sends you out on a surveillance op, and you come back with Dyson?" Beck watched as Tron interrogated the slippery soldier. "You guys don't mess around."

"Interesting how two rookies as you two could have apprehended Dyson." Paige said, trying hard to keep the jealousy out of her voice. "How'd you manage it?"

"I think he wanted us to." Mara said truthfully. "From what I've heard, Dyson is an apt soldier. We wouldn't have brought him here, but something on his disc wasn't right. He's been meeting someone. They were making a deal about Tron."

"Do you know more?" Beck asked.

"No, but it looked like this masked program is supposed to capture Tron, and deliver him to Clu to save Dyson's job."

"Sounds like his style." Paige said, disgusted. "When he'd visit us on checks-up operations, he'd been arrogant like that."

"I'm just worried that Clu wants him here." Beck said.

Then the pain hit.

Beck doubled over, and crumpled as the pain migrated to his head. Someone tried to steady him, but he shoved them away.

"Ada!"

"I'm not doing this, Beck!"

He faded in and out of the room and into the black space of his mind. Ada was gone.

"Ada!" Beck blinked, seeing the room and frightened faces of his friends.

"Stay away!" He yelled at them. He saw Mara jump up and run into the interrogation room as another wave of pain blocked his vision. There was a humming whirl as some mechanism powered up and the world was black and unfocused.

Kassandra paced, nervously. She'd received a message that it was tonight to complete the deal, and he would never bother them again.

She watched the slot carefully, and then, a pale blue light appeared coming from inside the disc slot. The edges of slot were outlined in the darkness of the lab. She approached and set her fingertips to the slot to open it.

The light from the disc light up her face and she reached inside the slot, pulling out the disc. She carried it to the other side of the lab, and the doors slid open, allowing her to access the transporter room. She powered up the console and set the coordinates for the destination.

"I'm sorry." She told the disc softly, and set the disc inside the space.

There was a bright light, and the disc vaporized into the space inside the pod. Kassandra sighed as she knew what was happening. The Identity Disc would be dematerialized into a wireless code. The code was now being sent to the designated receiver, where it'd rematerialize unharmed, and perfectly functional.

"What are you doing?"

Kassandra spun on her heel, startled.

"Quorra!"

"What did you send?"

"Please, listen to me! It was his price!"

"Whose price? What was the price?" Quorra advanced on the scientist. "What did you think you were doing?"

"The programs we recued, one found us again. He required a price for his silence. I gave it to him."

"What was the price, Kassandra!"

"The Renegade's Identity Disc!" Kassandra cried.

"You said it was lost in the procedure. What have you done?"

"Please, Quorra," Kassandra said. "He said that he would deliver us to Clu if I didn't cooperate."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It was my burden to bear." She said tears falling down her cheeks. "It was my idea to experiment with the discs, and I brought this down on us. It was my responsibility."

"Where did you send the disc?"

"To him. In Argon."

"Tron must be notified." Quorra turned, ready to act, but the door slid shut on her.

"I can't let you do that." Kassandra said, activating a light taser behind her back. "I'm sorry."

She threw it.