Author's Note: Hello readers! This is the revised version of Chapter 1. I will be posting updated versions of the rest of the chapters regularly throughout the month. This chapter has also been posted on AO3, at /works/43932570/chapters/110463330
The part of Rinzler that remained Tron awakened when Flynn called his name.
"Tron, what have you become?"
Only at the last moment, when Clu was about to destroy the light-jet carrying Flynn, Flynn's son, and the last ISO, was Tron able to claw his way back to consciousness. Memories that had been suppressed by Clu's protocols surfaced in a furious explosion that disoriented Rinzler long enough for Tron to regain control over his own body. It was a moment of exhilaration and despair.
When Tron rammed his own light-jet into Clu's, he expected to be derezzed upon impact. His own survival did not matter. Flynn must live.
But he escaped from the explosion unscathed. Some of Rinzler's protocols reactivated, forcing an unwilling Tron to grab his spare light-jet baton from his right leg, but before he had a chance to activate it, Clu was on top of him, fighting for a grip on the baton. Weakened and disoriented by the conflict within himself –as Rinzler strove to release the baton to his master and as Tron fought to keep ahold of it– in the end he could not prevent Clu from snatching it out of his grip.
As Clu activated the light-jet and sped off in pursuit of his maker, Tron plummeted towards the Sea of Simulation. As he sunk down beneath the surface, Rinzler's programming screamed at him, telling him to move, to save himself. But from the depths of his core, his original identity –the program that had fought for the Users– stubbornly ran a counter-command, rendering Rinzler's efforts inert.
If it was his fate to de-rez here, Tron would not resist.
Tron knew that it wouldn't be long before his functions fully shut down. On the Grid, programs had a constant source of energy that they drew from the Grid itself, but Rinzler had already used up quite a lot of his stored energy powering his vehicle during the light-jet chase. His vision began to flicker and dim as he continued to drift deeper. A wry thought crossed his mind, that it was ironic he would meet his end here, of all places.
In the Sea where Flynn's miracle had first emerged.
In the Sea that Clu had poisoned to prevent the birth of more ISOs.
As his circuitry began to flicker out and his body grew numb from the loss of energy, Tron let his mind drift to distant, nostalgic memories of how he first met Flynn.
…
"Alan!"
Tron glared at the unfamiliar program standing before him, in both irritation and suspicion. "Where did you hear that name?" he demanded sharply.
"Well that's your name, isn't it?" the other asked, his tone belligerent.
Tron clenched his fists at the disrespectful attitude of this nobody, and snarled, "The name of my User!"
An expression that Tron couldn't properly designate crossed the stranger's face, just before the program was pushed forward by the guards to take his place on a game-transfer pad.
"How didyouknow?" Tron asked coldly. His User's name was a secret that, until now, he'd believed only he knew.
"I'm a program from a User that knows Alan."
"He was disoriented during transport, Tron," Ram, the program standing on Tron's right, offered helpfully.
"Yeah, but I'm remembering all kinds of stuff," the stranger said. "Like my User wants me to take out the MCP."
Tron inwardly flinched at the reckless declaration, and fought to keep his expression calm. "My User wants that too," he gritted out through his teeth.
"I know."
Tron, who had remained perfectly still up to that point, turned his head to look at the new program in startled puzzlement.
Who is this program?
…
Inside his dark helmet, Tron smiled sadly. Flynn had always stood out starkly from other programs with his –as the User had later described it– 'easy-go-lucky personality'. Flynn had been everything Tron wasn't–cocky, belligerent, and immature–and it had driven the security program crazy. Tron, who had always been spurred to action by his directives and core programming, had had very little toleration for Flynn's erratic abnormalities.
But during that fateful light-cycle game so, so long ago, Flynn's unexpected skills and tactical thinking had given them a chance to escape the Game Grid, leading them through the maze of the system and proving himself a worthy and resourceful warrior in the process. Tron had slowly gained respect for Flynn's underlying qualities and even started to consider him a friend, though his abnormalities still often bothered or confused him.
Then later, after seemingly coming back from the dead, Flynn had revealed the truth about himself, who and what he really was, to Tron and Yori.
…
As the Solar Sailer drifted swiftly over the barren landscape of the outlands towards its final destination at the I/O Tower, where the Master Control Program awaited, Flynn approached Tron and Yori with a determined look on his face.
"It's time I level with you. I'm what you guys call a User."
Tron thought that he must have misheard what Flynn had said.
"You're a User?" Yori asked, with hardly veiled amusement and disbelief.
"I took wrong turn somewhere," Flynn replied easily.
Tron was processing all that he had witnessed so far of Flynn's actions and behaviors. Flynn, who was unlike any program he had ever encountered, who could not be categorized into any role or function he could think of. If Flynn truly was who he said he was, then… He asked hopefully, "Well if youarea User, then everything you've done has been according to a plan, right?"
Flynn laughed and replied, "You wish!"
Tron's puzzled and dubious expression must have informed Flynn that an explanation was required.
"Well, you know what it's like," Flynn continued. "You just keep doin' what it seems like you're supposed to be doin', no matter how crazy it seems."
"That's the way it is for programs, yes," Tron admitted.
"I hate to disappoint you, pal, but most of the time that's the way it is for Users, too."
That statement turned Tron's world upside-down. It didn't show on the surface beyond a mild frown, but on the inside his thoughts were moving at the speed of light. Programs, himself included, had always assumed Users were perfect and didn't make mistakes; after all, Users had created programs in the first place, so they were practically gods. Then along comes Flynn, the most unusual person Tron had ever met, and he claims he's a User.
A User? Flynn?
All of Tron's preconceptions of Users crumbled in an instant. If Flynn truly was what he said he was, and if what he said about Users was true, then that meant that Users weren't gods, but just…people. And, to his own surprise, Tron found himself willing and almost eager to accept that. Having met Flynn and spent time around him made it a lot easier.
A smile crept across his face and he shook his head with bemusement. "Stranger and stranger…"
…
A soft shudder pulsed through the Sea, but Tron didn't feel it. His body's automatic survival functions had shut down his consciousness in order to keep him alive for as long as possible, while his energy steadily fell to bare minimum levels.
Just as the ripples quieted and the Sea was calm again, an enormous explosion rocked the entire Grid. White energy erupted from the Portal in a circular shockwave that shattered everything in its path, including Clu's command ship The Rectifier. The Sea trembled violently and heaved up a tsunami wave of data up from the farthest depths, sending trillions of data bits crashing on to the Outland shores. Huge chunks of debris from the wreck of The Rectifier flew across the sky in every direction. In the aftershock of the wave, Tron's body was carried up gently on the swells, and deposited in a limp heap on a small rocky outcropping.
His body hungrily sucked up energy from the surface of the Grid, just moments before he would have shut down permanently. So instead of derezzing, Tron's body started to reboot, running a core diagnostic on all his functions and reactivating them one by one.
Query: DESIGNATION?
Response: Designation Rinzler 01010010_01011010_01010010, Clu's enforcer–––error: core designation Tron 01010100_01010010_01001110, security program.
Query: WHO IS YOUR USER?
Response: I was created by Clu.
Query: #ERROR#, INCORRECT RESPONSE DETECTED…ACCESSING CORE MEMORY… WHO IS YOUR USER?
Response: Alan-1.
Query: WHAT IS YOUR DESIGNATED PURPOSE?
Response: I fight for Clu––––#ERROR#–––I fight for the Users.