Beck waits in the shadows across the street from Flynn's arcade. Just being here is surreal.
He's heard stories about this place (everyone has); hundreds of cycles ago, Tron and Clu would meet the Creator here. Programs would gather from all around to catch just a glimpse of Flynn. This used to be one of the most important places on the Grid, but now it's dark and abandoned. The street is empty. Beck isn't sure if it's because of the location or the fact that it's the middle of the down cycle.
Something about the building feels ominous, and it might be that it's unlike any other structure on the Grid (what a strange texture the walls seem to have), but it's probably the fact that it's literally a gateway to another world- which is why he's here.
It's lucky that the main rebel base is hidden nearby (although luck has nothing to do with it- Yori knew it would be useful to have a hidden place close to the entrance to the Grid); he has just enough time after receiving Yori's signal to get here and hide before a beam of white light shoots into the sky.
Beck tries not to look as awestruck as he feels.
After all this time, there's another User on the Grid. The Uprising is finally going to have help in fighting Clu- powerful help.
He's going to meet Tron's User. They might be able to save Tron.
If Beck doesn't manage to screw this up.
At any nano the User will exit the arcade, and Beck will take him back to the rebel base. Yori will meet them there, and together they'll come up with a plan to face Rinzler and Clu.
He should have a head-start over Clu's forces; Yori notified him that the portal would open first. And the city seems quiet tonight. Maybe (for once in his runtime) he'll get lucky.
The User bursts out of the arcade and into the street, taking in his surroundings with a panicked sort of wonder.
"This isn't happening."
Beck prepares to run- then freezes when the User is immediately caught in the search-light of a recognizer.
"Oh, man, this is happening."
He bites back the urge to swear, loudly. (Where the glitch did that thing come from?)
It's okay. He can still fix this. The recognizer probably only holds two or three soldiers- he's fought off way more than that before.
But not when the rest of the street has collapsed and he can't even reach the person he's supposed to protect.
"Wait! Wait! I'm not a program!"
Something in Beck's core screams at him that he can't let the occupation just take a User like this, but he doesn't have much of a choice.
He steps back into the shadows as the recognizer flies off, and takes a deep breath before opening his comm link with Yori.
"We have a problem…"
Beck helps Yori up on the roof of the arena, and the ground beneath them shakes with cheers of Rinzler, Rinzler, Rinzler.
He cringes, bracing himself for the worst, and that's pretty much what he sees.
Below them, Rinzler (Tron?) is about to murder his own User, while Clu and a stadium full of cheering programs watch.
Yori takes in the scene, her expression unreadable.
"I'm so sorry," Beck says, and there are so many things to be sorry for that it's more of a blanket apology, despite the costly mistake he's just made.
The look Yori gives him is softer than a glare, but just as serious.
"It's not your fault." And it isn't. How can Beck be blamed for someone else walking directly into the path of a recognizer? (Honestly, she could see Flynn doing that, but she'd expected more from Tron's user.)
"What do we do now?"
Beck feels antsy as he watches Rinzler fight. There are a lot of things Tron will probably never forgive himself for if they ever manage to bring him back, but killing his own User would definitely be at the top of that list. They have to do something to stop this.
He looks to Yori for guidance, but he can tell she's no longer with him. Her face is hidden, now; her helmet reflects the glow of the portal, far across the sea. Beck feels a pang of guilt.
This must be awful for her. She's breaking her directives just to be here; being away from her work station while the portal is open must be nearly unbearable. And seeing Rinzler is bad enough for him- he can't imagine what it's like for her. She'd been hopeful that this User could somehow restore Tron- maybe help them save the Grid. If Rinzler kills him, their last chance to do those things may be gone forever.
Well. Beck made the mistake; he'll just have to fix it.
"If I go down there and distract- Rinzler. Can you get the User to safety?"
That gets Yori's attention- and this time she does glare at him. He can't see it, but he can feel it.
"We are not doing that."
"Do we have a choice?"
"Yes." She resists the urge to press her hands to her temples over her helmet. "This might actually be better than our original plan. We knew that Tron's user would need to get close to him to help him, and now Clu brought him right to him."
"Right." For whatever reason, Beck's voice sounds faint. "Did Flynn's proximity to Clu ever fix anything?"
Yori sighs.
"It was different with Clu. Between the way Flynn created him and the fact that he's the System Administrator, the kind of reprogramming Clu needs would have wiped out Flynn, and maybe the entire Grid. Tron's user was more careful." Suddenly Yori's voice matches Becks; far away and panicked. "Not that it matters."
"What do you mean?"
"That isn't Alan-One," she says, and after so many cycles of nothing going right, she's surprised her voice can still hold that much disappointment.
"What?"
"That isn't Tron's user!"
Older programs like she and Tron look exactly like their Users. And when she catches a glimpse of this User's face, he looks nothing like Tron. (Yori scans through the list of other users Flynn mentioned who may have gotten her message, and the first one that comes to mind is Sam- Flynn's son. This just keeps getting worse.)
"But they're still a User," Beck almost asks, as if he didn't watch them enter the Grid himself.
"Yes."
"Then shouldn't we help them?"
"Wait."
Yori grips his wrist with more strength than he knew she possessed. [Stay.]
"Wait for what?!" Beck's voice comes out as shrill, frantic, as the gravity in the arena is reversed and the User is slammed into the ceiling. Rinzler lands in front of him. "Yori, he's going to kill him!"
The User manages to block some of Rinzler's hits, but nanos later the enforcer strikes him- repeatedly. Something in Beck's code feels like it's going to snap.
"I fight for the Users!" He blurts, and both of them flinch. (Where in Flynn's name had that come from?) "I'm going down there!"
He tries to break free of Yori's grasp, but she won't let him go.
[Stop!]
There has to be an alternative to letting Rinzler murder Flynn's son and letting Beck go down there and get derezzed. She won't accept either of those choices.
The User falls back to the ground, and the crowd cheers. Rinzler lands on him, pins him to the ground. It's almost over.
"Derez! Derez! Derez!"
"Yori!"
And then she realizes something, at the same moment as Rinzler.
[Listen/ Calm.]
"Users aren't like programs, Beck. They don't derez. They bleed."
"What?"
Yori expects that Clu will see. When Sam doesn't derez, Clu will realize that he isn't a program, and he'll order Rinzler to stop fighting.
What she doesn't expect is for Rinzler to freeze the moment he sees blood. Because Rinzler is nothing like Tron- Rinzler is a mindless killing machine.
Isn't he?
"He can't hurt the users." Yori drops Beck's arm, though not before she transmits some of her shock. "Some part of his core programming is still intact."
The crowd boos as Rinzler docs his discs and hoists Sam to his feet. (He stopped fighting on his own.) Beck's panic fades a little. He still tries not to sound hopeful.
"What does that mean?"
"... Maybe Tron can still be saved. And maybe we don't need his user's help to save him."
Yori almost sounds like she's smiling, but then Clu's voice booms around them and she pulls Beck to the ground.
"Identify yourself, program."
For a terrifying nano Beck thinks Clu is speaking to him or Yori, but then he hears the User speak.
"I'm not a program!"
"Identify," Clu repeats, more threatening.
"My name is Sam Flynn."
At that the arena goes silent. Something in Yori's core freezes as Rinzler turns to face Sam, slowly.
Does he recognize that name?
"Another Flynn?" Beck whispers.
"I was afraid of that," Yori says. Next to her, Beck squirms as Rinzler leads Sam away. "Don't worry. Clu doesn't want to hurt him. Yet."
Somehow that doesn't make him feel much better.
Beck makes an exasperated noise, then flops back onto the roof. Yori gives a little snort before copying him.
No matter what happens on the Grid, the sky stays the same. The darkness she looks up at now is the same that she stood under with Flynn and Tron, so many hundreds of cycles ago.
Flynn used to talk about Sam constantly. She and Tron were going to love Flynn's son; he couldn't wait to meet them. Eventually Flynn was going to bring Sam to the Grid, but not until he was older. Not until things were safe. Perfect. Flynn's greatest priority was protecting Sam.
Yori sits up.
"We couldn't get to Sam before Clu, but maybe we can still get to Flynn first."
Beck sits up slowly, and Yori can almost see his eyes widen behind his helmet.
"You know where Flynn is?"
"No," (something in Yori's tone makes Beck think Flynn should be grateful for that) "But that doesn't mean I can't try to get a message to him."
Yori opens a comm channel that she'd nearly forgotten about. This is probably yet another plan that's doomed to fail, but they don't have much of a choice.
"Flynn," Yori bows her head, and it almost looks like she's praying. "If you're listening, we need your help. There's another User on the Grid, and it's Sam. It's your son. Clu has him trapped in the games, but if you hurry you can save him. And with two of you— we might be able to change the fate of the Grid. Please, Flynn. If you won't fight for your own programs— fight for the Users. You could always stand to be a little more like Tron."
Beck touches her arm, transmitting [comfort/ pride].
"This is Yori, signing off."
Now the only thing they can do is wait.
Over the cycles, many of Flynn's possessions from the User-world have been abandoned to Quorra. She's fascinated by anything relating to the Analog world, and he's less materialistic than he used to be, so it works out for both of them.
She's read every book, and they've played countless games of chess, but he's warned her that the radio is useless.
Like every other object, he explained its intended function before he gave it to her.
"User's can't receive pings the way that programs can. I set up a frequency that I and a few other programs had access to so I could communicate with them when we were separated on the Grid."
Quorra's circuits brightened with curiosity as she turned the strange device over in her hands.
"Which programs?"
Flynn gave a soft smile, the kind he only wore when discussing the Old Days.
"Tron. Yori."
"Clu?"
Quorra's gaze was gentle but probing as she met Flynn's eyes. He nodded, pursing his lips.
"It's been silent for at least a hundred cycles. Tron is gone. Yori probably is, too. And Clu… I guess he can't be bothered." He chuckled. The smile he wore now was a little weaker. "I wouldn't recommend using it, to be on the safe side, but you're welcome to hang on to it for me. You never know. You might hear something interesting."
And (though it takes about 800 cycles) Quorra does hear something interesting.
She's lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, bored out of her mind, when the little radio on her bedside table comes to life with a burst of static and a message. From Yori.
Yori is still alive. And there's another User on the Grid- Flynn's son.
It's all Quorra can do not to run to Flynn's side, but she refrains; she doubts that that will help her case. (Flynn is trying to teach her the value of patience. She still has a hard time with that one.)
Quorra has been begging him to rejoin the fight for the Grid for cycles with no luck. Maybe now, if he knows that his friends need him- User and program- it'll finally be enough.
She finds him meditating in the main room of the house, and crouches next to him.
"Flynn?"
He doesn't open his eyes. Something in her core catches when she looks out at the city and sees the light of the portal in the distance.
They're on a time limit.
Yori's message sounded urgent, and Flynn doesn't seem very receptive right now. Quorra doesn't have time for a philosophical debate- not when his son's life hangs in the balance.
"I'm going into town."
Flynn hums, gives her a soft smile, but still doesn't open his eyes.
"Try not to cause too much trouble."
Quorra smiles.
He'll thank her later.