A/N: Ok, so here is the second chapter of my story. Little bit info-dumpy, but I tried to keep it interesting. Not sure how much more of this I'll do. I've got some ideas for later in the story, I'll try for another chapter to reignite my writing spark. Enjoy!

-— CH 2

Flynn laughed, a small chuckle just barely under his breath, and his eyes lit up slightly in amusement. "Well then, we should sit down. I have a feeling we'll be here awhile." He gestured to the table, and went to sit down.

She headed over to the table. "Alright then. Will your mysterious 'apprentice' be joining us at some point?" Cortana asked, skeptical as to this Quorra's existence. She sat down across from her mysterious host.

"She should be along shortly. I think it's better we start our little chat now and fill her in on what she missed," the man replied. "Let's begin with introductions shall we? Call me Flynn."

"Alright Flynn, I'm Cortana. I'm down to play Twenty Questions. Let's begin, shall we?" she snarked in response.

"Where are we? This doesn't look like any world I've ever seen. Who's this Clu person? Why did you feel the need to kidnap me?" Cortana rattled off the big questions in her brain, firing them off like rounds down range on a battlefield. She had other questions that she would hold off on for now like 'how am I still alive?' and 'why do I have an actual body?'. Such questions wouldn't be helpful right now, and would cause her host to ask more questions in return. Questions she really wasn't keen on answering.

Flynn laughed again, seeming to enjoy her sarcastic demeanor. "Ehehe, you don't waste time do you? And I had a feeling you weren't a normal program when I saw you. In short, welcome to the Grid. Clu is actually a program I made to help me build this whole thing. Essentially he is me, I designed him that way. We eventually had a disagreement with how the Grid should be run. He wants to impose perfection on everything, and he would take one look at you before sending you to the Arena. There you would have to fight for your life or risk being derezzed. You seem far too unique to just let you be killed"

Cortana could not contain her laughter, "Ahahahaha~, now that's funny. I'm supposed to believe, what, I'm I some sort of virtual reality in some computer or something? That you made, along with a digital version of you that went rogue on you? Let me guess, he wants to spread his idea of 'perfection' to the 'outside world'. Now I know I've gone crazy. Because that is absurd, even for me."

She took a moment to regain her composure before continuing, "I take it this 'Quorra' is another unique person that you wouldn't let be destroyed by your evil twin, right? What makes us so special anyway?"

Before Flynn could answer, the sound of footsteps could be heard echoing into the room. Both Cortana and Flynn looked toward the sound to see a striking woman enter the room. 'This must be Quorra,' Cortana thought to herself. She immediately sized her up. Quorra's skin was slightly darker in complexion than her own, and a more toned body compared to Cortana. If Quorra had not been wearing platform heels, they would be roughly the same height. Her hair was also in a similar cut. They could just about pass as sisters almost. Her face had more angles to it, more defined cheekbones, but the similarities were there. Her outfit was also similar. Black armored bodysuit with lines of light up and down it - white in color. Her shoulders were exposed and there seemed to be something akin to a skirt around her hips as well. For the more feminine touch, she surmised. Quorra smiled at Cortana brightly, walking over to her and held out her hand. Cortana stood up and took it politely, if not a little hesitantly.

"I'm Quorra, and I'm glad you're finally awake!" She exuberantly introduced. "What's your name? How are you? You were in a pretty rough spot when I found you, unconscious on the outskirts of the Grid" Her eyes lit up with curiosity and eagerness.

Cortana smiled as well, Quorra's cheerfulness and rather forward approach refreshing after having worked with with the Chief for so long. A social butterfly John was not. She couldn't really blame him, what with being trained to be the quote unquote 'sword and shield of humanity' from such a young age. If there was one thing she despised her creator for, it was the creation of the SPARTAN program. Sure, that program ended up saving humanity from certain extinction, but at what cost? She quickly dragged herself out of her thoughts back to the present. She was only distracted for a millisecond, benefits of being a state of the art Smart A.I. capable of millions upon millions of calculations a second. "I'm Cortana, and I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

Continuing, she explained, "Your friend here was just telling me how this is all a virtual reality inside a computer where a digital replica of himself wants to escape to and take over the real world to remake into his version of 'perfection'. Sidenote, am I the only one here getting a Nazi Germany vibe from that? Anyway, he also said that we are too important to be captured and killed by this evil mastermind 'Clu' because of our 'uniqueness', whatever that means."

At this point Flynn interjected, "yes, Quorra here is the last remaining isomorphic algorithm, or 'ISO'. I found them, in here. Their appearance was nothing short of a miracle, they came from nothing. Mankind has always dreamed of life beyond Earth: gods, spirits, aliens, some intelligence beyond our own. No one would ever think to find it here, in the digital world. Their root code, their digital DNA, would open up so many doors to humanity. Disease would be history. Science, philosophy and religion, pretty much every idea man has ever had would need to be reevaluated. I was going to share them with the world, man. Until Clu took over, and wiped out the ISOs in pursuit of fulfilling his purpose to create the perfect system. You though, you are something different altogether."

Cortana couldn't help but begin laughing again, what had just been said was too ridiculous. "Are you actually serious? You're saying she is some 'ghost in the machine' that is supposed to change humanity on some fundamental level? You've got some serious delusions of grandeur."

Getting more serious, she expounded "This is all some post-death Rampant hallucination. The UNSC has been making A.I.s since the mid 21st century. I'm certain one of them would have reported finding something like this within a computer before. I would have found something like this. I'm one of the best Smart A.I.s that ONI, and by extension the UNSC, has ever made."

Some of the words and terms Cortana had just used where unfamiliar to Flynn, along with the phrase 'mid-twenty first century'. Wanting clarification on some things, he asked, "Last time I was outside of here there was no 'UNSC', unless you mean the United Nations Security Council. You also said 'since the mid-21st century'. What was the last date you remember?"

Cortana scoffed, "What, you don't have something around here to keep track of time? If you really want know, last I knew it was July of 2557."

"Well, take a look at this" Flynn reached behind is shoulder and brought out his disk from its cradle. Cortana noted that the strange disk she was in possession of was apparently not unique, there being more than one of them. He then passed the disk to her, explaining "Tap the center, and read whats on there."

Curious as to what this crazy old man was on about, she took the disk and did as instructed. She certainly was surprised when a display popped up in the hollow of the ring. It displayed a digitized rendering of Kevin Flynn in profile. She tapped again on the display, bringing up a sizable database of information. Starting from the earliest entry, Cortana began reading through the information. What she was reading was incredible, the disk in her hands contained a complete history of events experienced by the disks owner. It also was a repository of that person's knowledge. It said that Kevin Flynn created this world called 'The Grid' back in 1985 inside an isolated server hidden in a secret basement of the arcade he owned after finding a similar world inside the mainframe of his former employer, ENCOM. It all certainly sounded legitimate - if somewhat far fetched - although according to her records, ENCOM and its patented Shiva digitizing laser never existed. Granted that information could have been lost somewhere in the apparent centuries that she had traveled back through. However, she dismissed that theory almost immediately due to the fact that software and other technology being developed by ENCOM would have probably put the UNSC several steps ahead in data storage, artificial intelligence and a dozen other related fields from where they were from what records she had. Especially if this encounter with a 'Master Control Program' was to be believed. Seemed like a classic tale from the late 20th to early 21st century, 'someone develops an artificial intelligence, it gets too smart too fast and wants to take over the world'.

Granted, when she died, she had been inside the system of a planetoid-sized ship built by a race that seemed near omnipotent in its mastery of slipspace technology. The overwhelming majority of recovered Forerunner tech was still being deciphered and reverse-engineered by top scientists in ONI and the UNSC. She was willing to accept her new reality for now, but she would be looking for concrete answers soon. Still holding the disk, she looked at Flynn and Quorra before asking, "Okay, so maybe this is all some computer simulation or something, that still doesn't explain why you think I'm so special. What makes you think I'm not just another 'Program' on the Grid?"

Smiling, Flynn replied, "Well, for one, we found you on the outskirts of the Grid, in the Outland near Tron City. There was an unusual energy spike in the system that coincided with your arrival, and I sent Quorra to check it out. Second, after she brought you here unconscious I tried to look at disk. Find out who you were, where you came from. Unexpectedly, it turns out your disk is encrypted with algorithms I can't even begin to work out." He gestured to Quorra, "I can at least make sense of most of her code, but you," He sighed and ran a hand through his hair in exasperation before continuing, "You are something else completely. Something foreign to this system, that I've never seen."

Cortana was pleased that her passive firewalls and other anti-tampering systems she kept around herself were still working after apparently getting plunged into a strange new reality. With the revelation that whatever brought her here created an energy signature, she had another clue to figuring out what that something was. She was beginning to really buy into the idea she was somewhere - and somewhen - completely different. She subtly copied Flynn's disk to her own memory, figuring if she really was inside a system it should be possible. She'd done it plenty of times in the past, if the Halo Index from 04 she had stored away was of any consideration. Cortana slid the disk she was still holding back over to Flynn across the table after feeling the new data tuck itself away into her memory to be properly sorted through.

"Do you happen to have a recording of this mysterious energy spike?" Cortana asked innocently. She figured it would most likely be on the disk she had just copied, but it would be impolite to not ask at some point. Already, she was sorting through all of the new information and categorizing it, to be easily found for future reference. She was very good at multitasking.

"Yes, we do. Everything that a person learns or experiences it stored on a disk much like this one, called an Identity Disk," He said. "We can talk more about that later, there are some other things I'd like to ask about you."

Cortana figured there might be a change in topic coming up. She wasn't going to answer questions if they were classified, and anticipated that would most likely be… frustrating to her host. As she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest she replied, "Alright, shoot."

"What is the UNSC?"

'Starting off easy.' Cortana mused. "The UNSC, the United Nations Space Command, is the military, exploratory, and scientific branch of the United Earth Government. Humanity's arm, reaching to the stars."

Flynn took this fairly well, judging by his expression. Learning that humanity had begun exploring space in earnest was no surprise, as humans had been traveling to and exploring space since the 1970s. His next question was a bit more difficult. "And what are you in this 'UNSC'? You've already mentioned that you are an A.I. created by them."

"Well, my job is to infiltrate systems and provide relevant tactical information to operators in the field." It was true enough, that was in essence what she did most of the time. She certainly wasn't going to tell them what kinds of systems she broke into, who's systems they were, or what 'operators' she was working with. There would be too many questions for a 'getting to know each other' discussion.

"So, you are a military intelligence program from the future?" Flynn sounded genuinely curious now, if he didn't already before.

Shrugging, she affirmed, "Yea, pretty much." Now wanting to know a bit more about her host's 'apprentice', she asked a question of her own, "So, Quorra," gesturing to Flynn, "He got locked into the digital world he created and is hiding out in some secret hideout living like a stereotypical wise old hermit. Why are you out here with him? I have my guesses, but I'd like to hear you tell it."

Quorra looked nervous as the question hung in the air for a moment. Looking somewhat hesitant, she answered, "Well, I was one of the programs involved with the resistance to Clu's takeover of the Grid. It wasn't going well, we were losing at almost every turn. When I found myself in a fight that I knew I wasn't going to get out of alive, he saved me." She bounced back, shaking off bad memories, "He's been teaching me about things from the outside world. Philosophy, mainly: Tolstoy, Dovstoyevski, I Ching. We play Go sometimes, he usually beats me with his more...patient strategies."

Cortana laughed at that and looked towards Flynn, "Wow, hardcore philosophy and Go, you really are taking the whole 'hermitted zen master' shtick seriously."

He chuckled in response and shook his head jovially, "I try, man. I try."

She turned back to Quorra, smiling at her genuinely, "You know, I think we are all going to get along just fine. Is there anywhere I can stretch my legs out, take a walk or something? I've been lying on a bed for two days, I'd like to get out and do something."

Flynn thought for a quick moment before coming to a decision as to his reply, "As a matter of fact, Quorra, would you mind showing Cortana around? I think it'd be a good idea for her to get her bearings a bit better."

I got up from the chair I was sitting on and walked around the table to her. Quorra looked eager to give me the tour, so to speak, almost exuding excitement and bouncing on her feet. She held out her hand to me and said, "Come on, it'll be fun!"

"Well alright then, let's go." Cortana grabbed her hand, only to be almost dragged off her feet towards the rather empty half of the room. "Woah, eager aren't we? I'd like for you not to try and dislocate my arm, thank you!"

Quorra looked back at her apologetically, "Sorry, I guess I can get a little carried away."

"I get it, just relax a bit," Cortana replied. The panel they were standing on, near the motorcycle, started to descend into an elevator shaft, "I'm sure we'll be best friends by the time we get back. It'll be much more fun with me around rather than being stuck with reading those doorstops he calls books."

Giggling, Quorra responded, "I've already read them all, he's trying to teach me the 'art of being selfless' and how to remove oneself from the equation."

"Hmm, enlightening." Cortana said in response.

She couldn't help but think of Chief, the most selfless person she knew. Literally trained from childhood to be the sword and shield for Humanity. Knowing him for as long and as closely as she did, she could see him doing it all over again if given the choice. That's just who he was. Cortana again pulled herself from her inner thoughts once more. Just in time for the elevator platform to come to a stop in a spacious room that was clearly a garage. Along two of the walls were tool racks and workbenches to work on components. There was a dune buggy looking vehicle. It had wide wheel base with and an open cabin with two seats. It's frame was low to the ground, and the body was sleek, built for speed. The tires were smooth, but given the terrain she had seen outside the window she had woken up in, it had to be able to handle it. She commented on it, "Nice ride, is this what we're taking?"

"Yes, actually. But just in case, take one of

these as well." Quorra had walked over to another table and picked up two black batons and held one out to her. "It's a light cycle baton, you pull it apart and the bike forms under you."

"Alright, it never hurt a girl to be prepared," Cortana smiled and took the baton, "What will we do with the car?"

"If we need to, we'll figure something out. Nothing should go wrong, plenty of programs own one of these. It won't be suspicious."

"Okay then, let's get going." She copied Quorra and placed the baton onto her leg, like she had a mag-plate there. Cortana had no idea how real this world was, what it was able to simulate or what it could replicate from the real world. She was interested to see just what the Grid has to offer. She climbed into the passenger seat while Quorra took the driver's seat and strapped herself in.