And the ground caved in
between where we were standing...
Flynn is hiding, and Clu hates him for it.
There was never a time before now when Clu couldn't feel Flynn within him. He'd never needed the light of the open Portal to tell him that Flynn was on the Grid; he'd simply known. They shared a face, a voice. They'd finished each other's sentences, sometimes. He'd shared Flynn's dreams, seen hazy images of the world of the Users through Flynn's eyes, and he knows Flynn dreamed of him, oftheir world, when he was gone. They'd shared a vision.
That Flynn is hiding physically from him is bad enough. But he's hiding himself, his soul, too, leaving nothing but a distant spark to indicate he's even still alive, and the cold absence where his Creator's presence had once lived makes Clu burn with rage.
The Games are on this millicycle, and Clu participates, to the mingled shock and uneasy delight of the crowd, taking on a team of six captive Programs in the Final Round. Disc Wars is not ordinarily his sport—he's always preferred the thrill of the lightcycle derbies—but tonight he tears through his opponents with vicious, savage gusto. Two of them bear the bright green circuitry of Bostrumite ISOs, dragged out from their underground knotholes, and Clu pays them special attention, eschewing disc to tear one of them limb from limb barehanded and driving his fist through the chest of the other.
Can you feel this? Clu thinks, as the second of the ISOs crumbles into nothing around his fingers. Can you see? I know you can. Come for me, stop me, answerme!
Flynn never does.
(A Symbiosis sidestory)