Clu materialized inside the simulacrum of Flynn's Arcade. He looked around and was was glad to notice that Sam's body and head had been disposed of.
There was a strange, rhythmic noise outside. Clu soon realized that there were thousands of voices, all calling his name in unison. Evidently, the preparations for his return did not go unnoticed.
He took his disc out of the jacket he was still wearing and activated it. He changed a code sequence, and his gray two-piece suit morphed immediately into his familiar program outfit.
"Ah, it's good to have my second skin back." Clu said.
He walked outside.

Thousands of programs were surrounding the building. As the main entrance opened and Clu showed up, they all cheered. Rinzler, who had been rectified again in Clu's absence, stood among them.
"Easy!" said Clu. Then he addressed the crowd. "The invasion will begin in three microcycles, the exploration mission in the user world was a complete success! I made a major discovery: our Grid is but one node of a much bigger universe, created not by one, but by billions of users. One of the other nodes contains weapons like we have never seen, which we will use to hasten our conquest!"
The crowd cheered again.
Rinzler approached Clu. "If the users are that weak, why get more weapons?"
"There's no kill like overkill." was Clu's reply. "Now tell me. Did the structure of the Grid change in any way, while I was gone?"
"Yes," Rinzler answered. "A new data stream has appeared."
"Good." Clu concluded. "Let's go."

The data stream was the manifestation of the network switch in the real world. In the Grid, it had the appearance of a circular platform, surrounded by a hologram that detailed the appearance of what lied on the other side. Rinzler and Clu stepped on it and immediately dematerialized.

Although it shared the smoothness and shinyness that were so common in the Grid, the place where they appeared was very different. It was brighter and more colorful, with lit surfaces shining of different shades of red, yellow and blue. The sky was a bright shade of orange, with clusters of information moving and twirling in different layers. The ground was gray, with etched patterns that made it look like an extremely complex circuit. All around were floating cubes, most of which were solid and brightly lit. Among them were transparent cubes containing tesseract-like shapes that moved continuously.

Clu approached one of the transparent cubes and touched its surface. Few seconds later, a hollow, glowing cylinder with a trigger materialized in his hands. He aimed it toward a group of solid cubes and squeezed the trigger. Immediately, the weapon shot out a spray of bright shards that hit several cubes and derezzed them.

Rinzler approached a different transparent cube, intent on trying it himself. What appeared in his hand was a glowing green ball that sprouted tendrils which wrapped around his arm. As he extended his arm, the ball shot a green projectile that hit the ground in a parabolic trajectory. The ground immediately cracked in the point of impact, forming irregular curved shapes that glowed in the same sickly green light as the ball.
"Viral infection" said Rinzler. "Too erratic."
He approached a third archive bin. This time, what he got was a purple triangular mesh shape that could either be held by one of its edges to shoot a burst of well-collimated energy blasts, or worn on one's hand like a glove. In this case, sparks would appear near the palm when flexing the fingers. Rinzler could not understand the purpose of that, until a local program nearby approached the infected part of the ground and started making repairs. With the mesh primitive on his hand, Rinzler aimed it toward the other program and flexed his fingers. Immediately, a stream of energy left the program and flew toward Rinzler, channeled into the mesh primitive. The program derezzed, while Rinzler realized he was feeling... stronger.
He turned toward Clu. "I like this!" he said.

Meanwhile, Clu had found another weapon. It was another firearm, but more streamlined than the first one. There was a small spinning yellow ball on its stock, that displayed a zoomed section of what the weapon was aimed at. Clu pointed the gun toward a free space and looked into the yellow ball. He could see another program walking around, from a distance that had to be at least a mile. He aimed and pulled the trigger. The weapon shot a thin energy lance that hit the program and derezzed him instantly. In exhilaration, Clu laughed out loud.

With their new weapons, Clu and Rinzler stepped into the data stream again and found themselves back in their Grid.
Clu approached one of his soldiers. "Banach, I need your skills for this task".
"What is it, sir?" asked Banach.
"Make sure that there are enough weapons for every soldier." answered Clu.
Banach unhooked his disc off his back, activated it and put it on the ground. As he put one of the weapons on it, the weapon decomposed into a myriad of pieces that shifted, rotated and finally reassembled into two identical copies of the weapon. The two weapons then became four, then eight, then sixteen...
"That's the way." said Clu, walking past Banach and toward another soldier. "Baton." he added.
The soldier gave his baton to Clu, who used it to rez in a lightjet. He activated the lightjet and took off, directed to the portal.

Clu rematerialized inside ENCOM's digitization bay, his program outfit replaced by a gray suit again.
"...doing?" Jet concluded the phrase.