Rematerializing into the real world from cyberspace was definitely an odd feeling.
After Flynn had geared him up, Batman somehow found himself in an arena battling the young man. The kid really wasn't that bad. In the process he picked up even more info about the Grid. It truly was an odd place.
Sometime later Flynn noted that it was time to return before the portal was to close. Apparently getting stuck on the Grid would be very bad.
Batman now found himself back at Encom, in the same room he had been in so many hours ago. In reality it really wasn't so long ago. He could still hear the guards in the distance. Some of the info he had gathered from Flynn included the time differences.
And then there was a beam of light.
And Sam Flynn now stood beside him.
"I'll create a distraction, think you can get out of here without being detected?" Flynn asked while looking through his special Encom PDA. "We haven't been gone long, so they're still on the watch. Looks like no other troubles…"
Batman nodded, it seemed Gorilla Grodd wasn't going to be here tonight. "I'll be going then."
"Alright. Don't come back here anytime soon." Flynn opened the door, peeked both ways, and signaled that the coast was clear. After receiving a nod of affirmation from Batman, Flynn took his own leave.
Moments later, Batman made his way back into the air vents. Taking a few turns, he easily dropped from another vent into a hallway.
No guards were in sight, but guards watching the cameras were likely to spot him if he didn't move quickly.
Sneaking through the hallways of Encom, Batman also took the time to admire the building itself. It was very high tech, sleek, and modern; the signature blue-white glow only added to the building's splendor.
At this point, Batman ducked into a corner office and made for the small balcony outside. Once he made it into the open night air, he closed the glass door and looked to the sky.
Observing the ledges, he also took note of the position. He was currently at the corner of the building where the signature strip of blue light trailed down. Had the night been young, he would have been easily spotted as a speck of black racing to the top.
Instead of the Grapple Gun, from his utility belt Batman withdrew the remote to the Batjet. Taking a breath, he leapt from the railing and plunged towards the streets below, but instead of the pavement he landed in the cockpit of his jet.
-failsafe-
The Grid.
A digital frontier.
A place created to further the advancement of the world.
A place wrought with destruction after the rule and destruction of Clu2.
A dark metropolis by the name of TRON City was in ruin, and a sea of data was churning endlessly around it: the Sea of Simulation.
On the shores of this sea, a program lay. The circuits and lights of his suit flickered on and off as he struggled to his feet. He carefully pulled himself free of the ISO-infecting waters, though they did nothing to harm his own systems.
Only when he was a fair distance away from the dark waters did he wretch the dark helmet from his head. He looked upon the city with disbelief and horror, seeing for the first time in a long time with his own eyes. Turning around, he spotted the I/O tower beginning to power down.
He was too late.
He had been too far down beneath the water to make it to the Users in time, especially in his current state.
He struggled to his feet. There was only one thing to do at this point, and that was to try and make it to Flynn's Arcade in one piece.
-failsafe-
Sam was annoyed.
Quorra frowned as she followed Sam into the Encom building. He had told her about the break in and it worried her.
But Sam? Sam wasn't worried about it. He was annoyed.
After getting Quorra into what they called 'Here', 'Outside', and 'The User-world,' it had taken A LOT of work to get Quorra into society.
Well, in actuality Quorra got used to being Outside in an alarming amount of time. It was probably due to her time with his father. No, what took a lot of work was forging her paperwork, other important documents and past history.
As far as anyone knew, Quorra 'Flynn' was Sam's VERY distant cousin who Sam had recently been reconnected with.
Quorra, jokingly, once said that she and Sam really were technically related. After all, she was created on the Grid, which was created by his father. Though Sam deflected, saying that Quorra's existence happened 'naturally' through a set of random factors.
Quorra said that his father technically brought about those factors that led to her existence.
In the end Sam gave up on trying to win this argument.
But all of that wasn't why Sam was annoyed. No, Sam was annoyed because now he had a member of the Justice League find out about the Grid.
Now one thing Quorra couldn't really wrap her head around was the Justice League- or anything related to heroes and villains. It had taken weeks of news coverage for her to comprehend that people in costumes ran around saving the day. A story for another day.
But now that someone in the League knew about the Grid, there was no telling what would happen. Especially since the person that found out was Batman.
"What am I going to do Quorra?" Sam asked as they entered the elevator. First stop of the day: his office, as always. "I mean, I've only been back to the Grid two times since I brought you back, and it's still a complete mess in there. I've barely figured out how to rewrite segments of code while I'm in there. And now Batman knows. Oh god… I fought Batman…"
Quorra merely watched with faint amusement as Sam realized that he had battled Batman in the arena. Without a doubt, had Batman known the rules of the Grid Sam would probably not be here.
"I told him everything… then told him not to come back. Damn, he probably thinks that I'm trying to do some illegal stuff like that asshole Lex Luthor."
Before Quorra could comment on this, the elevator doors opened and they were met with an entire floor of Encom employees, doing their daily work at their computer terminals.
Sam merely sighed and made his way to his office on the other side of the room.
Upon taking several steps though, a type of controlled chaos broke loose.
It all started with one computer monitor. It flickered from a page of text, likely a Word document, to a blank page of light blue.
Then, all of the other monitors flickered to the same page.
"Shit!" Sam exclaimed. "Everyone! Figure this out!" No one needed to be told twice. Immediately every programmer on the floor tried to break through the blank wall of blue screen.
Sam, deciding to be a hands-on CEO, pulled an employee from a terminal and set to work trying to figure out what was wrong.
"It's an image file or something!" Sam knew the voice; it was Dillinger Jr., coming out of his office to announce his findings. "Whatever it is its layered on top of the desktop and not letting anything from underneath out!"
"I can't find out what's up with this file!" another programmer yelled.
Then Sam found it.
"It's not the file!" He slammed his hands on the desk. "It's the image!" Striking one key, every monitor as far as he could see flickered to a new image. "It's like a GIF…. Or a flash game…" he trailed off. "You just need to know where to click…"
On each and every screen were four squares in a slightly darker shade of blue.
"Sam…" Quorra breathed as she reached for his shoulder and leaned into his ear. "It's-"
"I know this…." Sam cut her off and stood straight.
It disappeared as quickly as it came. Immediately all the monitors flickered back to their original states. The whole incident had happened in a span of one minute and 32.7 seconds…
But everyone saw the four squares that came together to form a T.
"Tron."