Title: Future GridTech Ch. 2
Characters/Pairing: Edward Dillinger, Sam Flynn, Alan Bradley, and Quorra. Friendship.
Summary: The day after Tron Legacy events, how Sam took over Encom.
Disclaimer: I don't own, I only get paid for working retail during the holiday. Made by a fan for fans.
Note: Make sure you have read ALL of chapter 1 first, I have updated it since first posted.
Quorra had experienced confusion before. Unlike programs on the grid the ISO's could 'think' for themselves because of their DNA like programming. Because they could think they could feel; she knew what devotion and heartbreak were, even though she wasn't programmed to know those feelings. When she had come to the User's world with Sam she experienced all of the things she had read about in Flynn's books. She had not realized she would be so overwhelmed by them.
At the moment confusion and anger were coursing through her veins. She didn't know why she felt like clenching her hands into fists and slamming them into something. How could this enemy of Flynn know about her? How could he know about ISOs? Who was he? How dangerous was he to Sam Flynn?
"You have a way into the grid?" Sam was asking Edward Dillinger. This man who looked to be about Sam's age felt different to her then Sam or Alan. She stared at him as if she could get answers by just looking.
She then noticed Alan holding a pad, something to connect to what Alan and Sam called the internet. Sam had described it as a system of many interlocking grids, all connected on vast highways of light. Quorra was afraid of the vastness that he described but she also was drawn into the idea of going back to the grid and what she had known for many cycles as her home.
She stared at the pad just liked she had done to Dillinger only a few seconds before and she saw movement. She could see the programs moving inside the pad going about their business following their user's orders. It was all so real and yet she was just an observer from the outside. Then she noticed something was wrong, the programs seemed to be moving slower then they were suppose to, something was dragging them down. She looked closer; delved deeper into the pad's grid and noticed shadows on top of many of the programs backs. They were almost invisible unless you knew where to look. She was curious and suspicious of these shadow programs so she decided to follow one back along its coding to its maker.
She didn't realize that as she was staring at the pad in the middle of the Encom office that she had ceased all other functions of her body. She didn't realize that she needed any of them, but in the real world, a real body needs to breathe.
"My father spoke of grids, systems, and laser designs to get him in and out." Dillinger explained. "But he never actually showed me."
"Does he have a lab where he works?" Sam asked he seemed eager to get to this grid that Mackey had spoken of. Dillinger noticed Sam's reaction to Mackey's statement about the young women being an ISO, he didn't know what it meant; however he was curious and wanted to help.
"My father fell sick many years ago, he has lung cancer." Dillinger explained. "He used to work at a lab not far from here, but it was locked after he fell ill."
"We need to go there now..." Sam stated, he turned to see Quorra fall to the ground, her lips were blue with loss of oxygen.
"Quorra!" Sam yelled worried. He bent down near her unmoving body. He pressed his fingers to her neck and felt nothing.
"Sam she was not meant to be..."
"No we have to get her inside the grid, now." Sam stated determined. He picked up the limp body of the unconscious girl.
"How will getting her digitized help?" Dillinger asked.
"She is from the grid." Sam explained as he opened the door and quickly went towards the elevators. "Call your driver tell him to meet us at the back entrance."
Dillinger was about to ask how she could be from the grid but he followed Sam's request first. When he had hung up the phone Alan and Sam were in a heated debate.
"She is not meant to be here Sam. This proves it you have to let her go." Alan stated.
"No. Dad believed it was possible so did Clu. We have to try its like her systems shut down but I can tell she is still alive. I have to believe she is still here." Sam was saying.
Alan seemed to want to argue some more but stopped himself. Like his determination and belief that Kevin Flynn was still alive over the last 20 years; Sam believed he could help Quorra.
"Okay could someone explain to me what is going on." Ed asked confused.
"You remember the stories my dad would tell of Tron?" Sam asked, he sounded serious.
"Yes, bedtime stories of heroes on the Grid fighting Master Control." Ed stated.
"They weren't stories." Sam stated. "My father was stuck in the grid for the last twenty years because his own program believed that our world wasn't perfect. Those built from our world, who have DNA like ourselves were not meant to survive. Quorra is the last of her kind an ISO-morphic being a combination of DNA and digital information."
"How?"
"My father had his theories but he was unable to test them. I really don't know, he believed the ISOs were the key to all the problems we have here." Sam explained. "He died allowing Quorra and I to escape."
"Escape?"
"The program that had trapped my father was trying to get out. He had plans to overwhelm our world, he would have been unstoppable. They are not truly human so they are not able to be killed. My father believed the ISOs would bring peace, Clu only wanted destruction."
They had reached the ground floor. "Alan I want you to stay here." Sam stated he pulled the necklace off his neck and handed it over to Alan. "I will page you if I need you."
"Sam I don't think you should do this alone." Alan protested.
"I'm not alone I've got Ed to help me out. Don't worry Alan whats the worse that can happen?" Sam smiled trying not to show his uneasiness. He knew something was not right something was going on in the Grid and he needed to figure out what it was. Alan nodded and placed the necklace over his head.
Edward had watched this scene in confusion. Something was significant about that necklace but he didn't know what it was. Alan knew, he seemed to understand why Sam wanted him to have it. "Whats on the drive?" Edward asked as they walked towards the awaiting limo.
"Tron." Sam stated as if the word would mean something to him.
BREAK
Quorra felt cold, very cold. She didn't know where she was but she knew it was wrong, she was in trouble. She tried to open her eyes, but she couldn't see anything. All was black, emptiness, and cold. She tried to move but it was as if her body was numb. She couldn't feel her toes, her fingers, or her nose. She didn't smell, she didn't breathe, she just existed, and she was cold.
"It doesn't feel good, does it?" An ambient voice said from everywhere and right in front of her.
She tried to respond, to speak her mind, to make a point; but she did not have a voice or a mouth to speak with.
"You have no body to move with, no mind to use, no voice to speak. You are just data moving through an empty blackness of space; free of the user, the maker and those who wish to hurt the worlds outside of this." The voice had a strange accent different from Sam, Kevin, Alan or Edward.
Quorra tried to struggle she was being held against her will, she was not just data she was an ISO, she had the ability to breath in the real world, to feel in the system. She was not like any other program on the Grid.
"You are unique, you will help me live, you will help me survive." The voice stated, Quorra could feel herself being manipulated as if hands were moving her body to where the voice wanted her to be. She tried to resist but she had no strength of will, she couldn't hold back as she was edited. Something was wrong though she still was there after many twists of the coding after many turns of her mind, she still could think for herself. She was still an ISO, unique and with free will.
"I might not be able to get to your sequencing without your body but that does not matter. I will find a solution, I will be back on the grid soon. No one not even Tron will be able to stop me when I get to the root of your code, I will be master of the grid again." The voice and the feeling of his presence left after those words. Quorra waited in the cold dark and hoped that Sam would find her soon, she feared another enemy of the grid was forming. Her instinct told her that he was not new to the grid at all, she felt something eerily familiar about the program that had just tried to manipulated her.
The darkness did not bother her with feelings of fear, regret, or impatience. She could think and that is what she did, finally the connection came to her. The program had felt familiar because she had met it before, the program felt like Dillinger.