ESSENTIAL AUTHOR'S NOTE, DO NOT BYPASS, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT 200 DOLLARS:

At the request of a reader, I'm going to post a few sequences I found stashed on my hard drive. They are not pleasant happy sequences. They're largely expository, actually. But they exist, and so I'm going to put them out into the world for you guys that want to hang out in [my version of] Rinzler's head a little more. Thanks so much, all of you, for your interest. I hope you get a kick out of these little fragments, such as they are.

PROBABLY NECESSARY CONTEXT FOR THIS PARTICULAR FRAGMENT:

This scene was meant to come next-ish. The gist of it is basically:

Rinz recovers helmet

Tron comes back in, clearly alarmed, and orders it off

Rinz says: "why, want to see your reflection?" which makes Tron furious/uncomoftable and users he's talking

There then follows a sequence of escalation over the helmet and the accusation of sameness in which an exchange along the lines of "you're not me"/"not anymore" prompts Tron to bully him into a position in which he can jab at his disc, and in a moment of "we're a little more connected than either of us wants to admit", manages to disable Rinzler's helmet.

Th tampering, given the state Rinz is in—still recovering—brings him to his knees. We'll go from there.


Rinzler


"GET UP."

But I can't.

I can't and he knows I can't because he's been me. He knows what glitching sounds like.

I'd forgotten what this sounds like . . .

It's what happens when you want to scream but you can't. And wouldn't, even if you could.

And I can't even get my helmet back to muffle the sound. He just watches me, gritting my teeth while it rolls out of me as if I could bite it back, as if I could make myself work again if I could just make it stop.

Shut up shut up shut UP—

I'm choking on it, choking on the noise and the freezing in my circuits and the error message in my head, flashing over and over and over, red, red red . . . . And I can't hide from it, can't hide from him. There is nothing between me and his staring and he knows, he can see it my eyes like I can see it in his. He knows what he is doing to me because it is the exact same thing that Clu did to us.

No no no no no—

I can't get away from him.

I can never get away from him . . .

Can't ever get away . . . . .

The sound of glithcing systems, a roar and a hum, echoes in the room and I want to kill him. I want to drag him down and beat him to pixels and nothing and take his baton and run, to fly away, but I can't. I can't even get my helmet on—

COME ON—

. . . error . . .

Systems override JA-RZ-0001-25: "helmet" systems override failed—

Rebooting system—

The sound grinds to a halt, and all at once, the helmet snaps into place.

My expression collapses when it does. A straight face is so hard to hold . . . It is such a relief to relax. To grimace and wince and snarl at him from beneath this shield where he can't see me, can't read me, where I am a nightmare and not a victim.

I terrify you . . .

I really do.

He recoils, reaching reflexively for his disc, as I scramble to my feet. But he doesn't do what I expect. He was never this violent before he was me . . .

He lunges for me, pins me by my neck to the wall with his arm, closing his other hand over my helmet and pushing, pushing back on it till I can hear cracks forming in its surface but I'm still so weak and he's a hulk of a program and I can't shake him, can't get out, can't lift my leg enough to kick him.

There is a sound a splintering code, and I close my eyes. I know what's coming, and I can't stand it. I'm thrashing and kicking and it's doing nothing and he's going to break my only shield, and I can't stand it.

There is a splintering, and then the whole helmet warps around my head. There is this moment of almost comedic horror where it makes this noise like it's deflating, being squished instead of shattered, and then it breaks. It crumbles to shards and pixels and his hand slams through it into my face.

Then my head hits the wall.