Chapter 9

Sorry I took so long! I know it's been a while. I had promised myself I would get a chapter done before I graduate...but that was three weeks ago...what can you do, haha.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

"No sign of them, sir." One of the agents reports. Fury doesn't answer immediately, searching the weak screens in front of him as they struggle to not flicker.

"Tracking's down." Bruce calls, hair a bed-headed mess. He had been asleep at the time of the attack, and still struggles to calm his racing heart.

"How long will it take to fix?" Fury demands to know. Banner shrugs.

"I won't know the full extent until I get up there to fix it myself. Could take hours."

Fury bites back a sigh, and turns to the approaching footsteps. "You were able to locate the files?"

Agent Hill nods. "Yes sir. I sent them with Mr. Flynn and a squad of our most competent guards to escort him home. Who knows if Rinzler would target him next?"

"When will they be back?"

"Mr. Flynn expects them to be back first thing tomorrow."

He figured as much.

"Sir, we have also located that Thor has returned to earth. Should we notify him of the programs?"

"Yes. Make it an all-points bulletin. We need to track down these programs before they cause any problems."

"Yes sir." Agent Hill nods and makes her swift exit. Fury doesn't move from his spot, expression stuck in a thoughtful frown. He had already sent Stark to repair his armor, while Rogers and Romanov had begun the search into the night. Banner was beginning repairs on their trackers but by the time they are working to full capacity again, the programs could be long out of New York. If they catch on that quickly. Who knows when or how Rinzler got on board?

Thor is an Asgardian. Perhaps he knows something about this...Grid that Flynn was keeping shut about. Perhaps he could help bring them back.

Someone is shaking him, making him start awake. He almost falls out of the chair, looking up to see Tron's stern face.

"Get up, and hurry. This place will be busy soon."

"What..?" But he obeys, slipping out of the chair to look around. The sun was beginning to rise, shedding a faint light closer to the entrance of what now is seeming to be a department store of some sort. Tron has disappeared, but when he begins to wonder, the older program returns, dumping the clothes on the low sitting table in front of Beck.

"Try these." Is all he says, as he heads back to inspect the clothes draped over one of the other chairs. Beck looks down to them with a frown, before picking up the black shirt. He examines it, before slipping it on over his head. The tag pokes into his armpit, so he tugs it off. When he stretches out his arms, he's dismayed to find the sleeves don't cover all of his circuitry.

"Uh Tron…?"

"There's a jacket there too." The older program replies without so much as turning his head, examining the pants he had picked out for himself.

"Right." He looks back down to his pile, and slips out the jacket before slipping it on. He examines his arms, his circuits now obstructed from view by the sleeves. Now that was better. Not only that, it was...comfortable.

And now...pants.

As he picks up a pair, he notices Tron has already dressed and is now disappearing back into the racks. He tries not to pay much attention to it, but can't help but wonder if he was to be alone again. Now that Tron had gotten what he wanted, surely this was only a final kindness before they went their separate ways.

He frowns as he looks down to his pants, slipping them on. They're slightly big, he notices as he lifts them up slightly by a loop. Surely there was some way to fix this…

A belt. That's what he had used last time. But where to find them….

Still holding up his pants, he wanders into the racks, slipping past fabrics of different colors. They have to be around here somewhere….

"Here." He stops and blinks rapidly when Tron shoves something on his face. He drops his pants and they sag as he reaches up to the new object on his face. "This should help disguise you.'

"What do you mean?" He asks, taking them off to examine them. Glasses? He's seen many Users wearing them. "Do all Users use these as disguises?"

"No, just you and Superman."

"Huh?"

Tron waves it off, as if he'll explain later. "Just put them back on."

Beck nods and puts them back on. Tron slips off again but this time, Beck chases after. "What are you doing?"

"We need supplies, and this may be the best chance we have to get anything." He picks up a large bag and begins to search for things he may find useful, before dumping them in the bag.

"Do you need any help?"

"If you want. Belts are back on the other side of the counter, by the way, so you can look there."

"How did you know….?"

"You were holding up the loop when you walked over. It was obvious." He parts the seas of clothing as he continues to search. "Now go."

Beck nods, and heads back to their waking place. To his left was the counter, helping to seperate the two parts of the building, and he goes to the other side. He can see and easily make a beeline to the rack of belts, snatching one off and slipping it through the loops as he wanders on. Now what would they need…?

"Uh, Tron?"

For a moment, it's quiet and he wonders if he was loud enough. Within moments, though, he hears the older man, and it makes him jump when it's closer than expects. "What is it?"

"What exactly do we need all the supplies for?"

Tron sighs, and his footsteps grow closer until he is right next to Beck. "Do you know where we are?"

"No." Beck admits, then dares to ask: "Do you?"

Tron decides not to answer the question as he searches and gathers watches, a phone found in a cabinet among the objects Beck finds no real pattern or comparison with. "We're not in the same city you were caught in."

Beck stops following, blinking and brow furrowing in confusion at that. "We're not?"

"No. I managed to sneak on and follow for a ways. According to a sign I saw, we were in Center City, which was in some...district of some sort called California-"

"Okay first of all, you could understand the signs?"

Tron decides to humor him, and nods. "I learned at night by listening in, and watching this small room of Users most every night…"

"I never could understand it."

Tron sighs. They'll have to figure that out later. "Point being is that I saw those things before I hid away, I could see that we left that location some time ago, and if we have any wish to figure out how we ended up in this User world as it's called, then we need to get back."

"Well, where are we now?"

Tron's back is to Beck, but he still see his shoulders stiffen as he sighs. "I don't know." He admits with some hesitation. "But we'll find out soon enough…"

He breaks off, whole form going stiff as he cocks his head.

"...Tron?" Beck goes quiet too when Tron's hand latches around his wrist with a slight hush. Beck obeys, and for a moment all is silent….

Then Beck can hear the noise, and he turns to see the knob on a side door jiggle with effort.

"Come on!" Tron hisses and shoulders the bag, before tugging Beck along. He pushes the younger program in front of him as they hurry to the entrance they had used before.

Beck stumbles when Tron shoves him. "Keep going!" He says. "I'll meet you around the corner."

Now Beck may have only truly remembered Tron since his jailbreak, but something in him forces him not to argue and keep running. As he rounds the corner onto the sidewalk, he almost jumps in fright when the building they had come from begins to blare like a siren, and he hurries to cover his ears as people- Users- stop and gawk or pull out their phones. Someone grabs his arm, thus tearing his hands from his ears, and he looks up as Tron pulls him down a ways, until the siren is no more than a distant noise blending into the city routine.

"You alright?" Tron asks as he slows to a stop, and turns to the younger program. Beck nods after a moment of panting. Tron simply nods in return and looks around as Beck catches his breath.

"Did you do that?"

"What?" Tron looks to him with a frown before he understands. "I had managed to bypass the security while we were in there, but allowed it to resume its duty whenever we needed to escape."

"How? How do you do or know any of this?" Beck breathes out, and there is the smallest of smirks fighting onto Tron's previously neutral face as slips off the bag.

"I'll teach you how, since I've had time to figure it out. For now, it's your turn to carry the bag."

Quorra sits propped up and curled into all the pillows in the hotel room as she steals light from the lamp to read. The tank top is comfortable sleepwear, and when it's just her, Sam, and her books, there's no need to hide the still visible mark and circuits, which had lately taken back to its habit of glowing more often now. She has faintly wondered off and on if it has any connection with Rinzler's appearance in the User World. Often with a slight chill down her spine, she hopes not.

But tonight, despite taking off to New York with Sam as he goes to this...SHIELD to verify if they have caught Rinzler, she buries herself in an old favorite: In Search of the Castaways, by Jules Verne. She, of course, has read this one before. In fact, her newest current, one about the supposed theory of the beginning of the Universe that the Users inhabit, sits on the nightstand, her page corner folded to remind her of her spot. Sometimes, though, she has found it is easier to distract herself with a story that she knows cannot be true.

The knob's click jerks her out of that world, however. She freezes, and instantly sets down the book the grab the jacket abandoned on the floor and crouch down in hiding as she slips it on, and hurriedly searches for some form of defense, and instead grabs the book that had been placed in the drawer before her arrival. It seemed heavy enough to where if that door were to open, and (Users or God or whatever force is out there let it not be) Rinzler were to sneak in some with those same dangerously red circuits…

The door opens and Quorra shoots up with a grunt, prepared to chunk the book-

"Hey hey hey!" Sam holds his hand up in front of him, to stop her. "Don't throw the Bible. It's just me."

She does stop at that, taking heavy gasps for air, before letting the Bible thump onto the bed. "You scared me! I thought you were…"

Sam doesn't force her to finish her sentence. "I know." He says, setting down his bag. "I didn't expect to be back so late."

She nods, and returns the book back to its drawer before sitting down on the edge of the bed. "So, was it Rinzler?"

Sam remains standing, running a hand through his hair as he closes the door and locks it. "No, it wasn't. The program we caught wasn't Rinzler...but we now know faintly where he is."

"So this other program knew where Rinzler was? Did you recognize them, by the way?"

Sam shakes his head in response to both questions as he turns back to her. "It's more like Rinzler found us. He managed to shut down all electricity, including security and footage, swoop in and steal the program we had found, and disappeared. When we questioned the people who witnessed it, all their descriptions matched Rinzler."

"He stole the other program?" Sam nods to that. "But why?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out." He comes back to his bag, and digs out the folder. "And they think you can help. Maybe you'll recognize them, and we can figure out why Rinzler bothered to steal them away, as well as how dangerous Rinzler can be depending on what he does to the other program."

He hands over the folder, and she takes it quietly, leaning back once again to steal the lamp's light as she opens the file. Most of the pictures are grainy, as if zoomed in too much, but they surprisingly retain their color so she can make out the blue circuitry within the first photo.

"Well the blue circuits is a good sign for us. Means he probably never was apart of the Occupation."

"That's what I was thinking." Sam agrees, but flips to the next photo, "But I don't recognize the face."

Quorra frowns as she takes this photo from Sam, and inspects it close. Something about it was familiar, as if they were a passing dream…

And then it hits her. It was many cycles ago, still on the Grid as she hid away with the elder Flynn. There had been an uprising of some sort from what she picked up when she snuck into the nearest city, before that outer city was destroyed by Clu's forces, practically collapsing in on itself as the city paid for its disobedience. And one cycle, when she had been slipping through the crowd gawking up, she happened to glance to the screen to see that face, eyes wide in horror before….before…

"He should be dead." She whispers finally. When Sam doesn't answer, she meets his wide eyes. "From what I understand, this program was apart of the revolution, like a leader or something. He had been caught, and I thought that he had been executed in front of everyone so long ago, but how…?"

"Maybe he survived." Sam answers finally. "It's quite possible, especially if they didn't show his...anyway, that could be why Rinzler took him. Maybe he thought it was unfinished business…"

Quorra's eyes widen. "Then we have to go now." She begins to stand, "Before Rinzler…"

"There's nothing we can do now." Sam assures, grounding hands on her shoulders. "In the morning, we're supposed to meet back up with SHIELD. Their tracking systems will be back up, and we can find out where they went, and bring them back again until we figure out how to get them back to the Grid. But there's nothing we can do about it tonight."

Quorra sighs. "Are you sure? There's got to be something…"

Sam shakes his head. "The best we can do now is rest. I'm sorry to have worried you, but it's best we both sleep now."

And perhaps Sam found it easy, but Quorra could not sleep. She couldn't even return to her beloved story, restless even as the sun rose over the city, hoping that if this Renegade were alive, his body or cubes were not strewn across an alleyway because of a vengeful soldier.