She turned her head to see CLU lounging in the doorway, watching the two figures on the bed. He was smirking as he said, "Yep…plenty comfortable from here."

"Then again," he continued, "Rinzler should be, at least. This is his room, after all. I must admit, this was not what I had in mind when I ordered him to take care of you."

Rinzler easily moved himself from where he was; getting off of the bed and going to stand at attention near the wall of the room. CLU walked closer towards her as she moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

CLU leaned forward to get a better look at her face.

"At least he cleaned you up. It's a shame that such a pretty face was marred." He reached out a hand as though to touch her face. She moved back out of reach of his hand.

Shaking his head as though, while he had expected her to move away, he was still disappointed; CLU sighed and let his hand fall away.

"You know, you would never have been put through everything that you went through had I known that you were here. The Games were not meant for Users like yourself. You would have been treated as my guest. My honored guest, which, by the way, you are. I hope that I can change your opinion of me before we are through."

"You keep calling me a user. What on earth are you talking about, I'm a user? You don't know me well enough to say that about me. What is this place, anyway? Where exactly am I?"

CLU turned away from her and started to pace slowly around the room. He turned his head to get another look at her, and spoke. "You really do not know? Do you remember how you got here?"

"I don't even know where here is!" she said in exasperation. "Look, I was in the arcade in some sort of basement. I tripped, fell, and must have hid my head. When I got up, everything was weird. Nothing's been the way it should be. Half of the world seems to have disappeared; the other half is changed; and people insist on calling me a 'program', and a 'user', whatever that is supposed to mean."

I know I'm not dreaming; because if I was, this would have been back to normal when I woke up. Waking up in a bed with a guy who tried to kill me; a cut on my face, and what feels like a boatload of bruises is not normal. At least, it's not normal for me. I don't know what he's used to…" She jerked a thumb in Rinzler's direction as she said the last.

"If it makes you feel any better, Rinzler is not used to waking up with someone, either." CLU looked hard at her as she sat there.

"Of all the things that could have happened, you are the most unexpected that I would have thought possible." He began pacing again as he continued to speak.

"First, you are on, or in, the Grid. Someone like you once described it as a 'digital world'. I was created to help make this world—this system—perfect. Now, I am the only one left to guide the system to perfection. I am getting closer to achieving that goal. When digital perfection has been reached, I will help you world, the world outside of the Grid system."

"My world," she interrupted, "what do you mean my world?"

"Second," CLU said, continuing as though she had not interrupted him, "programs are what WE are. You are what we programs call a User. A User created the Grid and the programs that live in it. Then, we were abandoned."

You somehow got into the Grid. You are now in a digital world; not the world that you came from. I don't know how you were able to arrive here; however, I do know that you cannot leave. THIS is your world, too, now."

"What do you mean, I can't leave?" she asked, becoming thoroughly alarmed by what CLU had just told her. "This is some sort of joke, right? I'm flesh and blood. I've even bled in this place to prove it."

I don't belong here. There has to be some way for me to get back home. You just said that the Users that created this place left you. I just need to get out of here the same way that they did."

CLU shook his head at her words. "I said that we were abandoned. I never said that the creator went back to his world. The portal only goes one way without a master key. That was lost to us along with the creator. The portal cannot be opened from this side even with the key; and it has already closed. No; like it or not, THIS is your world now."

CLU came closer and knelt down in front of her so that he could look her in the eyes. Numbly, she sat there as he reached out and took her hand in his.

"It doesn't have to be bad. You are a User. You can help me to achieve perfection here in the Grid. This can be a perfect world. And with your help, we can even put an end to the need for the Games. If we can completely reprogram them, defective programs will no longer be an issue. The Games would not be needed to deal with them."

"What do you mean…reprogram them?" she asked CLU, confused. "I'm not a programmer. I wouldn't know the first thing to do to reprogram something. Someone. Whatever."

"But, you are a User…" CLU said looking confused himself, now.

She shook her head. "I'm what is called and end-user. Someone else does the programming; I just learn how to use the program afterwards." She stopped and paused for a moment before amending what she had said. "Sometimes. Some programs, anyway. The only programming that I've ever done was in college on a Fortran77. And I don't think you want to know how to calculate where a ball is going to land, do you?"

CLU looked at the User for a moment. Finally, a determined look on his face, he said, "You are a User. The Grid has already responded to you. It has even changed your digital coding for you, slightly. Or did you not realize that?"

She stared up at him, startled, and blurted out, "What?"

"You removed your helmet…not retracted it like normal. And did you not realize that music is coming from you?"

She drew back slightly, shocked by what she had been told. 'Music?' It was only then that she realized she had heard music whenever she thought about it. In fact, there had been music playing softly, almost inaudibly, just a minute ago.

CLU continued speaking. "I have never heard of Users doing that before. It is logical that it must have happened when you came to the Grid."

Her MP3 player, she realized. If what CLU had said was real… It had been in her pocket; but disappeared when she was in the arcade's basement.

"If you can have the Grid respond to you in that regard; then you must be able to access it, perhaps instinctively. You can help with what I need most."

"What would you need me to do?" she asked.

"You can erase a program's primary function. Once that has been done, I would have the ability to recompile a new primary function for them. Currently, I can only partition off such areas of a program and reprogram them with new instructions. The current process can be prone to glitches. Programs sometimes revert back to their old primary directives, goals, and functions if they are not routinely checked and their subroutines updated. I do not have the time to do so with every program. Without wiping their core programming, they sometimes rebel. If they don't follow my orders, how can I create the perfect system?"

I need your help."

She slowly drew her hand out of CLU's. "I need some time to think it over," she said, slowly.

He gave her a small smile. "Of course," he said. "Rinzler will stay here in case you require anything. I will return later to hear your answer." With that said, CLU stood and left. The door slid shut behind him.

Rinzler felt the change in the door's coding that let him know it was locked. CLU was apparently taking no chances on this User trying to leave. At least now he understood what CLU wanted with this User. If she decided to help him, CLU could erase all of a program's memories and their primary function directives. CLU's status as system administrator already let him change a program's coding; and partition off their memories and primary function goals. Rinzler was a walking example of such changes himself. With the User's help, however, CLU could completely rewrite a program's code to do only what CLU wanted. He could make them into the perfect slaves. They would not even realize that something had been changed. They would not be able to remember or conceive of desiring anything other than following CLU's every wish. It would work for any program on the Grid…even him.

The thought of losing even more of the program he had once been filled him with dread. If she were to cease to function, he and all of the other programs would be safer.

He could not end her run-time. Rinzler might not be able to follow them; however, his original primary directives sometimes still crossed the partition in his code as memories. He had fought for the Users once. He would not pervert his User's programming in such a fashion if there was any way for him to avoid doing so. He was certain that if he ever ended a User's run-time, he would lose his last grasp on the program that he once was.

"My User," he thought almost desperately, "I wish you could tell me what to do." He had not heard from his User in so long… Was he even capable of hearing his User, now? So many code changes, patches, upgrades…he wasn't the same program that he had been originally.

Rinzler glanced over at the User still sitting on the edge of the bed. She had not moved, apparently lost in thought. He walked over to the other side of the room and looked out the window that made up almost the entire wall to stand, watching programs moving around below. He had lost track of how long he had stood there, watching; when he heard a voice behind him.

What happens to a program that has had their primary directive goals and functions erased?"

Startled, he turned his helmeted head slightly to regard the User as she stood a few feet behind him. He has not even heard her move; which only pointed out how potentially dangerous it could have been to become so caught up in his own thoughts. A subroutine filed the information away, even as he turned his head to look back out of the window again.

"I asked, 'What happens to a program that has had their primary directive goals and functions erased'?"

Why was the User asking him this?

"I know you can talk. I heard you speak back in the arena. And last night. So, are you going to answer me anytime soon?"

"Why?" he asked, the ever-present distortion in his vocal processes causing him to growl out the question.

"Why, what? Why should you talk to me; or why am I asking you?"

"Why me?" he growled out, feeling confused. Why did she care?

She sat on the floor and drew her knees up against her chest. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she looked at him steadily.

"For a number of reasons. One: who else can I ask, other than CLU? Two: I don't trust CLU for some reason. I don't know why, but I don't. Three: If I'm going to decide if I should help CLU do this; I need to at least know what it does to the program whose code I erase. I haven't seen that many programs; but they've all acted like the people in my world. I wouldn't decide to do something that would affect the people in my world without learning as much as I could first; why do that here?"

So, what happens to them? Do they stay the same? I don't want to do something that's going to hurt people. Programs. Whatever."

Rinzler stood motionless for a moment. Flynn had never asked how the programs felt about something first. He had just made changes that he said were for the best. Once again, this User had surprised him.

He realized that she was still staring at him, apparently waiting for him to reply. "It changes them," he said finally.

She cocked her head to the side. "How so?" she asked.

"It takes all of their memories, all of their thoughts away. They start out with only the thoughts that you—or whoever the programmer is—give them. All that they were before is gone. They have no goals or functions other that what you give to them. And they would never realize that there was any other way to be or think."

She sat there quietly for a moment. She didn't look at him, her gaze directed at the floor as she posed her next question. "And with the partitioning and reprogramming that CLU does now? What happens to them?"

Rinzler looked away, glad that she couldn't see his face thru the helmet. His helmet gave him at form of privacy that even CLU could not take away. No one could know if he was looking at them or not; or how much attention he gave them. Now, it kept her from watching him flinch at her question.

"Sometimes the partitioning…leaks. Memories of their past and previous goals, directives, and functions come through. The program cannot act on them; they can only follow their new program coding. But they do not lose all of themselves. Sometimes, they can remember that it was different. That THEY were different."

"How do you know this?" she asked him. He didn't answer. A nanocycle later, he heard her speak, her voice so soft he almost couldn't understand what she said.

"Is that what happened to you?"

Rinzler spun around to face her again, the distorted growl louder than it had been in a very long time. She was still looking at the floor.

"I guessed," she said softly. "Did he reprogram you? Or was it someone else?"

He stood there staring at the User as she huddled on the floor. The ticking rumble of his growl filled the room. Her head lifted and it felt like she was looking straight into his eyes, even through the helmet. There was no way for her to see through his helmet, was there? He hated the thought of losing anything else. Even if it was only the privacy of the expressions behind his visor.

The User got up from where she had been sitting on the floor and walked over to the window he stood near. She looked down at the programs going about their business below without speaking.

Time passed as they watched the programs in the system. The lights from the programs showed brightly against the darkness of the Grid.

"I can't do this to them."

He glanced at the User who stood looking at the programs below.

"I can't take who they are away from them. I fought so hard to keep myself from disappearing once. I can't turn around and do that to them." She turned and looked up at him as though trying to see his face. The look on her face confused him. She looked…sad? Angry? Rinzler couldn't tell. He felt a sense of relief to hear that she wasn't going to help CLU erase programs' coding. They would all be safe form that threat, now.

"CLU's not going to take this well, is he?" she asked him.

No, CLU was not going to take hearing 'no' for an answer well at all. There was no way of knowing how he would react to her reply.

Sighing, the User turned to look out the window again.

"It's worth it," he heard her mumble under her breath. "It's worth keeping them all safe."

They both stood watching the Grid out of the window, waiting for the door opening to signal CLU's return.

After what felt like years had passed, she heard the sound of the door opening, notifying her of CLU's return. She stiffened where she stood near the window. Rinzler turned and went back to where he had been standing earlier; apparently waiting at attention for CLU to give orders. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face the administrator program.

He was giving her the same cheerful, friendly smile that he had when she met him. Thinking about how that smile might change soon made her more nervous than calming her; while she thought that 'calm' was likely what CLU wanted her to feel. Calm, relaxed, and unguarded.

"Have you thought about what I talked to you about? Helping me perfect this system?" he asked, still smiling gently at her.

"I gave it a lot of thought while you were gone…" she replied, walking over to where CLU waited, standing in the middle of the room.

"And…what did you decide? We can make this system, this world perfect together."

She looked up at his face. "If I erase their original programming, it changes them doesn't it? They won't be the same as they were before, will they?"

CLU's smile started to fade around the edges a little as she watched.

"Not quite the same, they would be happier. We wouldn't have as many defective programs. We wouldn't have to take drastic measures to deal with them like we do now."

"Drastic measures?" she said quietly. "You kill them. You put them in your 'games' and make them fight to the death…deresolution, whatever you call it. They fight until they are destroyed. How many defective programs survive the games?"

"I don't understand what this has to do wi—"

"How many?" she demanded, interrupting him.

"None, so far. If they weren't defective…" he began.

"None," she said, interrupting him again. "And how many of these programs would choose to be wiped of their base coding?"

"I do not know why you are asking about this. Are you going to help me in this, or not?" CLU demanded, his voice starting to leak anger around the edges. He had stopped smiling now, and was looking at her with hard eyes.

She walked a little closer, until she could easily have reached out and touched CLU if she wanted. "You can read binary, right?" she asked him.

He gave her slightly bewildered look. "Of course, every program can read binary."

"Every program can read binary," she repeated. She looked into CLU's face. "I will help you, if you can answer some questions for me."

Rinzler looked at the User in alarm from behind his helmet's visor. She had said that she wouldn't help CLU erase programs' coding. Had the User lied? If she helped CLU, Rinzler's base coding would be erased. Oh, CLU would have her erase a few 'difficult' programs first; however, as soon as CLU knew she could do so safely, his coding would be erased.

CLU looked at the User confidently. "Ask me anything you like. Once you have your answers, we can begin to make the Grid system perfect."

The User gave CLU a small, tight smile. "Good. Tell me…what ever happened to the chainsaw juggler?" An odd melody began playing, almost inaudible at first, but slowly and steadily growing louder by the picocycle. She continued with her questions. "I heard he died, but nobody cried. Instead they all chopped off their arms. Well, that makes sense; he was loved by his fans…but tell me, how did he die? They found him alone, all covered in blood with his arms by his side."

If possible, CLU looked even more bewildered and confused at these questions that he had looked before.

"There is no logic to these questions," CLU said, sounding confused. "There is no program or User designated 'Chainsaw Juggler' here, dead or alive. And no one would cut off their arms because someone else died. That makes no sense. Without further information, no one could know how someone died. There is no way to answer these questions logically."

"No," she said thoughtfully, her gaze dropping to the floor. "No logical answers…" The small smile was still on her face as she idly fingered the disc attached to the ring around her neck. Abruptly her hand left the disc as she looked back up into CLU's eyes. "My answer is on the disc hanging from my neck," she told him.

CLU's face was confused as his eyes went to the small disc. It was evident when he realized what she meant, for his face grew cold and stiff.

"I should have known," he said. "Why did I even think that you might have helped? I was a fool to expect anything helpful from you. I should just derezz you; remove you from the system like a coding flaw or a parity error. You Users are all the same; with your requests and demands," CLU was muttering now, sounding almost as though he was talking to someone else. "You are never willing to work on fixing the problems, though, are you? I'll fix that, though. I'll make you help me."

"What you want isn't going to fix anythi—" her voice was cut off with a sharp cry as the back of CLU's hand crashed against her face, knocking her to the floor.

"You don't know," he said, breathing hard as he looked down on her pulling herself up into a sitting position; blood trickling oozing in from the cut on her face and from the corner of her mouth. "You Users…you always have plans for what will and will not work; and you don't KNOW what it truly—"

"I know one thing, CLU," she said as she glared up at him. "I know that you haven't realized how much you have screwed up just now…." She began to chuckle as she watched the administrator fuming.

"What now, CLU?" she asked, laughing. "How are you going to make a User work for you on the Grid, now? The one thing that I was useful to you for…and nothing you do will be able to change the way I feel. Losing your temper just now has cost you any chance that you might have had. I'll either be afraid of you, or angry and hating you. You would have better luck trying to reprogram me! And there's no way for you to reprogram a User!"

She was laughing so hard at this point that she was rocking back and forth, clutching her sides as she knelt on the floor. Her breath came in gasps as she laughed.

CLU just stood there looking at her as she laughed. "I would not worry about which way to feel about me. I believe that you will do both before I am done," he told her calmly. With that said he turned and left the room. The door slid shut behind him, closing away from his view the sight of the User on the floor who continued to laugh as he did so.

Rinzler stared at the User who now had tears running down her face as she continued to laugh. She began singing a strange song along with the music that continued to play. Were Users supposed to do things like this? Flynn never had. Was it possible that she had some sort of glitch, or had thrown an exception?

She was laughing quieter now. The strange song stopped playing. He watched as the User took a few deep breaths.

"Did you see the look on his face?" she asked him. "He'll never try to ask me to help him in that way again."

Rinzler cocked his head slightly to the side and regarded her. Was it possible that she had planned this? Did the User purposefully antagonize CLU to this point to make sure her would not try to win her cooperation at another time?

He watched as she wiped the tears off of her face with the back of one hand. Red smeared across her face as her hand moved over it. The cut on her face had re-opened when CLU struck her.

Going over to the same cabinet as he had the night before; Rinzler opened it and removed two more vials of energy. He went to where the User still knelt on the floor, and offered her his hand. She looked at him for a moment, considering his hand, before placing her hand in his. He pulled her up so that she could stand, and motioned for her to sit on the bed.

She sat on the bed where he had indicated and looked up at him as he stood there. Now he could see her more clearly than he had earlier. Her hair—which she had not fastened up again—hung in long, dark auburn waves down her back. The tips of it tried to curl under as they brushed against the bed when she moved. High cheekbones helped to frame those eyes of hers. Brown and green at the same time, the hues shifted, spreading out in radiating spikes of color from the pupil even as he watched. They shone from her earlier tears as she looked up at him. The cut on her face had re-opened; the dried crust that had sealed it now split and oozing small drops of blood. Streaks of blood had been wiped across her cheek below the cut from her wiping her eyes. Opening one of the vials, he used a small amount of energy on his fingertips to clean the cut and wash the blood from her face. He then gave her the vial and motioned for her to drink it.

"Is this what you gave me yesterday?" she asked him.

Yesterday? It must be some sort of User concept. He was not certain what it meant, but he had given her energy the millicycle before, so he nodded in reply.

"Thank you, then," she told him. "And thank you for taking care of me."

Rinzler waited until the User had started to drink the energy that he had given her; then he turned until his back was to her and he faced the wall. It was an uncomfortable feeling—knowing she was at his unwatched back—and he could feel his proximity scans flaring to make certain she was not approaching him. He retracted his helmet just enough to allow him to drink, and then quickly gulped down the energy. After closing his helmet; he turned to face her once more. He saw her looking at him curiously.

"You were reprogrammed, weren't you?" she asked. "You tried to kill me at one point; but now you're being nice to me. CLU told you to take care of me yesterday. He never said to be nice. So, the only thing that I can think is that you were reprogrammed. Does your current programming allow you to do what you want, or are you disobeying his orders?"

'Oh, my User,' he thought wearily. 'Why does she have to ask me this?' The last thing that he wanted to do now was keep thinking about his code being erased or his reprogramming.

"I don't think I said what I meant clearly. What I meant was…can you disobey CLU?" she said.

Not wanting to dwell on the thought of reprogramming any longer, Rinzler pretended that he had not heard her question. The damaged sound of his growl began to rumble irritatedly through the air. The User continued to look at him; waiting for him to answer her question. After a while she sighed.

"Fine. It's your personal business. You don't have to tell me."

She rose from the bed and went to sit by the window. She leaned back against the window's frame and looked out over the Grid. Soft flashes of light blinked over her face as far-off lightning brightened the clouds of the system's sky. On the street far below, small dots of light—the circuits of programs—moved about. Soon, soft strains of music drifted through the small room Rinzler looked at the User as she sat by the window, her eyes focused on the darkened sky. How was she able to make this music? What was it? The beat of it was slow and stately, but it flowed around him, sad and hopeful at the same time.

It made him think of a night when he had been at the edge of the Sea of Simulation. The ISO purge had begun; and ISOs where being destroyed whenever found. But the Sea that had brought them forth still rolled in…wave after wave. The possibility that sometime in the future, more ISOs could come into being seemed to wash in with each wave. What was this music? There was nothing like it that he had ever heard before.

He stepped forward to get the User's attention. His irritated growling had stopped earlier; surprised and then calmed by the User's music. She looked at him questioningly as he tilted his head to mime listening closely, and then waved his hand at the air as though asking what was in the air.

She looked at him in confusion. Understanding seemed to dawn on her; because her face brightened slightly. "You want to know what the music is?" she asked him.

Rinzler nodded his head.

"It's Albinonio's Adagio in G Minor. I usually play it to calm and center myself. It makes me feel like hidden possibilities are all around me; yet it's also sad. Maybe it's only sad because I can't see the possibilities, yet. I don't know why or how I played it. I just…it played…it feels right somehow, for this moment."

Rinzler considered what she had said for a moment before nodding his head in agreement. It did feel right for the moment. He stood, looking out the window at the darkened system. They stayed there, watching the Grid from the window; until he noticed the silence in the room. Looking over at where the User was sitting, he realized that she had entered a sleep cycle and was now slumped against the window frame. Picking her up, he carried her over to the bed and laid her down upon it. He stared at her sleeping form for a moment; and then lay down on the other side of the bed and prepared to enter his own sleep cycle.

A/N-Song list for this chapter: 'Chainsaw Juggler', by the Four Postmen. (Because the first time I heard it playing in the next room while I was watching Tron: Legacy, I cracked up thinking about how insane CLU would be driven by the logic used in the song.)

'Albinonio's Adagio in G minor' (it really is my favorite, so I shared it with Feral)