Hi, back with another chapter. Please don't hate me for what I'm about to do.
Also, I barely know a thing about programming.
And I'm also sorry its so short.
-failsafe-
The rest of the day went surprisingly quickly. After the hacking incident, Sam had everyone do all the general procedures in the event something like this were to occur.
They scanned all the computers and servers for viruses, checked the software and hardware, looked for any faults in the systems, and of course, filed stacks of paperwork.
In the end, they found that nothing was stolen from the company, but no one managed to trace the source of the hack.
The scare and its ensuing issues took up the majority of the day and left both Sam and Quorra on edge.
By the end of the day, they both punched the clock and said their goodbyes to the employees. Instead of leaving the office, though, Sam made his way to his private terminal.
"Sam, are you sure about this?" Quorra watched Sam warily as he began to enter the codes into the terminal.
"Yeah, I'm sure. You saw that image Quorra. He's alive. He's sending a message to us."
"But it could be a trap and you know it!"
"Of course I know."
"Sam… you're not going to back down from this, are you?"
"No Quorra. I'm not. I have to do this. That message could mean something important. The fact that it got OUT of the Grid and onto all the stations here is something big in itself." Sam paused. "If it's not him, then what if it is something more dangerous? It got out, Quorra. If something as simple as a picture can get out, than who knows what else will."
Quorra frowned and stepped away from the charging laser.
"Don't let me get stuck in there." Sam flashed her a small smile before being zapped back onto the Grid once again.
-failsafe-
As always, the beam landed him in the decaying city. Sam frowned as he took in his surroundings.
The Encom laser terminal he had been using always teleported him here. It was still amazing that Sam had even found it. The terminal had been in a storage unit in the Encom basement. It was decidedly much older than the one in arcade, so Sam had to do quite a few repairs. Despite its age, though, it was still closer to home and more easily accessible- and it connected to a better power source than the one back at the arcade.
The only thing wrong with it was that the laser kept dropping him by a dark alley.
And it annoyed Sam to hell.
-failsafe-
Sam had been walking for about five minutes now. The city was mostly silent; all of its inhabitants were likely in recharge.
Sam didn't quite know for sure- his perception of time was always messed up when he was on the Grid.
He didn't see the program when it tackled him to the ground.
The program's hand was at his neck, and an ID disc was suspended above and ready to attack.
"Identify." The digitally warped voice commanded.
Sam looked up into the face of the dark, somehow unlit program. On its face was some type of dark visor, blocking Sam's view into its eyes.
"User ID: 002 Sam Flynn." He ground out the words carefully; the grip on his neck was firm.
After a moment of silence, Sam saw flashes of data run across the visor of his attacker.
"Confirmed." The voice responded.
Immediately Sam's neck was released and the program got off of him.
The program even offered a hand to assist Sam, which he reluctantly took.
Getting to his feet, Sam eyed the program carefully.
At this point, it replaced the disc onto its back and Sam watched in awe as the circuits lit up.
Ribbons of light trailed up and down slender limbs and curves. The visor on his attackers face lit up and turned from it's dark tint to crystal clear. Long, dark hair was tied into a ponytail and lit with sparse strands of light.
"Please come with me." Her voice was no longer warbled and digitized but smooth and even, with a slight hint of what Sam would describe as autotune.
Sam stood stalk still as she turned away from him and removed a baton from her leg.
When she took off on her light cycle Sam finally came back to his mind and sped after her on his own bike.
-failsafe-
It didn't take long to reach their destination.
Sam was actually a little surprised at where they had ended up.
Flynn's Arcade.
Dispersing the bikes, Sam followed the program into the building. They passed the rows of games and treaded up a flight of stairs, and into the office.
The female program merely stood to the side of the door and motioned for Sam to enter.
"He's here." She said, closing the door and casually leaning against it.
Sam looked around the room to find whom she was addressing. His eyes scanned the desk first, and then drifted towards the couch on the right wall.
"Tron."
He was lying on the couch, decidedly looking worse for wear.
His helmet was gone, lying on the ground a few feet away. The now blue-white circuits of his flickered on and off occasionally, and there were significant amounts of damaged code all over him. On his right check was a small gash of pixilation, and his left side (above his hip and under his pecks) was almost completely gone- pixilated and see-through.
"Thank you. You may continue with your patrol now." Tron's voice was coarse and heavily digitized.
The female program nodded and exited the room.
"Tron." Sam said again.
Tron looked straight into Sam's eyes and smiled. "It is good to finally meet you properly Sam."
Sam was speechless for a while. He just stood there and stared at the damaged form of his childhood hero.
"What's… going on?" Sam finally spoke. He hadn't known what to say so he settled for the easiest one he could think of.
Tron looked thoughtful for a moment.
"I take it the message we sent got through?"
Sam raised an eyebrow. "So that was you! How… how did you hack into Encom like that?" by now Sam had made his way to the desk and took a seat in the office chair.
"Oh… that. The message was an emergency beacon designed by your father."
"Dad? But how?"
Tron sighed and carefully moved into a sitting position. Sam inwardly winced when he saw two dead pixels fall from his cheek.
"Many cycles ago, when your father worked between Encom and the Grid, he designed a special emergency beacon for me. In the event that something of great importance was to happen on the Grid, and your father was away, I was to activate it. Your father installed it on Alan-One's login account and rigged it so that the beacon could be activated remotely- even if the Grid isn't connected to Encom."
Sam sat wide-eyed at the revelation. The company had been hacked from the inside. "…it figures that Dad would do something like that." He finally said. "But how did all this happen? How are you still alive? Who was that program that brought me here? Why did you send that beacon?"
All of Sam's questions were rapid fire and Tron sat confusedly, trying to figure out which one to answer first.
"Sam, please slow down and give me a chance to explain myself." Sam immediately stopped and brought his full attention to the program before him
Tron let out a heavy sigh before beginning to explain.
"Well, after your last visit to the Grid, I had finally managed to drag myself out of the Sea of Simulation. It is not exactly the easiest thing to do, injury or no. But by the time I finally got out, you had already made it to the I/O tower and left." Sam frowned at this. The last time he was on the Grid was just last night. The night Batman had gotten himself zapped into the digital world. Who knows how long that could have been here on the Grid?
"At that point I knew I had to get back here, to the arcade, and get you to come back as soon as possible. The city… has become a much more dangerous place since everything has happened."
"So… what do you need me for?" Sam asked carefully.
Tron looked down.
"Look around. The Grid is falling apart." And Sam understood.
"That's what this is about?" Sam stood. "Tron, I'm doing my best to repair all of the damage. I don't know what I'm doing, but it is going to take time. I'm working from the outside too." Tron looked up at this, surprise evident in his eyes.
"I apologize, I didn't know. I've… been in quite the predicament as of late. Its hard to remember things after the… incident."
Sam immediately strode over to Tron's side and sat by him on the couch.
"Don't worry about it. It really is a surprise to see you, you know. When Quorra told me that you were Rinzler, I thought you derezzed." Tron tensed at this. Rinzler wasn't exactly his finest cycle of time.
"It is fine Sam. But now I must continue."
"By all means."
Tron nodded.
"After I activated the beacon, I had to try to get the city back into some semblance of order. As you can see, in my current state I am unable to do so." Tron paused and absently flicked as a loose pixel on his side. It broke away like glass.
"I had to prematurely activate your father's last creation."
Sam shuddered to a halt.
"What?"
Tron sighed and looked into Sam's eyes again.
"That female program that brought you here, she is your father's last gift to the Grid."
…..
"...what?"
"Sam… before Clu took over, before the Grid was in all this trouble, your father created her. She was built to be my subordinate."
"So… she's your partner?"
"You could say that. The program that you met is the test version. Your father was still in the process of working out all the glitches and bugs in her programming. I'm actually rather surprised that she is functioning so well, given her state."
Sam bit his lip.
"Where was she when Clu betrayed you? If my Dad created her and she's on your side, how come she didn't do anything to help you?"
Tron seemed to think about his question for a minute before replying.
"In all honesty, Flynn kept her a secret for the longest time. He hadn't told anyone what he was up to- not me or Clu. In fact, Flynn had only just told me about his pet project before everything went crazy. He had showed me where she was being kept, and told me about all of her functions and how she was going to take most of the Grid work off my hands until he could find a replacement for me. We had only just left the arcade when Clu betrayed us."
Sam nodded and then spoke, "Dad kept her here?"
"Yes, in fact, he kept her in that closet over there." Tron pointed to the closet that sat just left of the entryway into the office.
"Ok. That's just weird." Sam said in reply. Leave it to his father to hide 'presents' in the closet. "So what's her name?"
Tron stopped and remained very still.
"She doesn't exactly have one."
Sam raised another eyebrow. "She has to have a name."
Tron's eyebrows furrowed. "Of course she does. But Flynn never told me what it was, and I never got the chance to find out. Her activation file just says 'Beta', which isn't far off because she really is just a beta-test program. As such… I've taken to calling her that."
Sam's eyebrow rose higher. "What, Beta?"
"Yes."
"Well…. I guess that works. Trust my dad to make something harder to understand."
"Agreed. When 'introducing' me to her, all he said was 'She's just a beta right now, but once I get her up and running everything will be a lot easier for you, my friend.'"
Sam thought back to what Tron had said earlier.
"So she's a security program like you?"
"Exactly. She's designed to aid me in protecting the Grid. She's out on patrol right now. Ever since I activated her, she has stopped many bugs and viruses from getting into the city. Despite her own glitches and bugs, she's quite the power house."
Sam nodded, remembering her earlier attack on him.
The User and program sat in silence for a while. Tron simply sat, and Sam stared at Tron's damages.
"Tron," he started. "Give me your disc."
Tron snapped his attention to the young User beside him and stared in disbelief.
"Don't give me that look. Just let me take a look at you and see if I can repair that damage."
At this Tron looked down as his lap and snapped the disc off his back. Wordlessly, he handed it off to Sam.
Immediately, the User set to work.
Seconds later, his eyes widened at the mass of ridiculously complex code making up the security program next to him.
"…Alan sure did one hell of a job when he wrote up your code." Sam sighed and began to shift through the data, looking for the damaged sections.
"You actually have your father to thank for that. After I was transferred to this new Grid system, Flynn upgraded me significantly." Came Tron's reply.
"Well damn."
-failsafe-
It was about 10 minutes later that Sam looked up from the lines of broken code being projected from Tron's disc. His eyes stung and his head hurt.
"Damn my dad did a good job." Sam actually took a moment to face palm.
Tron looked over at the User worriedly.
"Is there a problem?" He asked.
Sam let out a sort of strangled noise. "It looks like my dad really went to town with your codex. It is so complex; I don't think I can do much to repair it right now. I'd need to study the rest of your code and understand that before I can even attempt to fix what's been damaged." Sam set the disc down on his lap.
"I can't fix you like my dad fixed Quorra. She was an ISO, so her codex worked differently. If your code was easier for me to understand, than I could just write up a patch to fix it." Sam rubbed his eyes. "I just need a day or two to look over your codes and study them. After I get a general idea of what I need to recreate, I'll have you up and running in no time."
Sam picked up the disc once again and twirled it around his finger.
"…The terminal at the desk has information on both Beta and me. Feel free to look through it."
Sam perked up at this news and dashed over to the computer. Immediately he pulled up a screen and located Tron's file.
"This… will help immensely." Sam said in awe.
This folder contained his father's notes concerning Tron, as well as back ups and old copies of the program. There were even notes on how to improve Tron's functions that could be implemented in his next upgrade.
Searching through the many files, Sam finally found his dad's notes on Tron complex coding.
"Oh thank god I can understand these!"
-failsafe-
tbc…
Again, I'm very sorry about what I did but hey, it fits into my vision of the story as well as moves things along.
Updates will have no set schedule. I started college and will be busy, but I'll try to write chapters in my down time.
Please know that unless I say otherwise, I wont stop this story. My minimum quota as of now is at LEAST one chapter a month…
As always, Fave, Alert, Review 3