Tron: Adagio
By: Shadow Chaser
Author's Notes:
This story covers the entire comic, Tron: Betrayal, and flashbacks from Tron: Legacy itself. The scenarios of the game Evolution are not mentioned in here as I did not play the game. All characters are not mine, they belong to Disney.
Story:
Armory
"We've got a problem Tron, Delta Sector, Number 105!"
Shaddox's abrupt call to him made Tron screech to a halt on his lightcycle and head back to Sector 105 where the new Iso towers were being built. He had been on a patrol of the outer sectors near the Sea of Simulation, watching for gridbugs when his friend's frantic call had come in. At least once every so often, he went to the Sea just to see what it would produce or show him. Flynn loved the area, using it to create all of his wonderful advancements, specialized programs, or even just to watch its unpredictability. That had been the only unique thing in The Grid, the Sea could not be controlled by anyone or at least Flynn had claimed. Tron thought Flynn probably had some control over it, but chose not to reveal it to anyone.
Now, the Isos were another unique and seemingly uncontrollable element in The Grid. One where he was content to watch for now, but always passively aware that they could be unpredictable.
He arrived at Sector 105 in record milicycles hopping off of his lightcycle while throwing his disc as hard as possible towards a group of gridbugs looking to ambush Shaddox and his men from above. They shattered into pieces with an electronic hissing sound as Tron retrieved his disc and looked around, assessing the situation in less than a nanocycle.
He projected his senses out in a wide sphere, focusing his search parameters on the unique signatures the gridbugs had. The first time he had encountered them he had tried to scan their code, but like the Isos they were seemingly shielded from him. However, they did leave a very unique data pattern that made it easier for him to spot and neutralize them while he and the Guards were on patrol. The information came back to him almost immediately and he pointed to two of Shaddox's men.
"Seventy-second floor cut the power now," he ordered them, briefly grabbing their batons and overriding the protocols in them. He released it just as quickly and the two programs nodded once before taking the batons and held them towards the top of the oval-shaped building. The batons reacted by firing grappling hooks that latched to the top and the two programs shot upwards away from the rest of them.
"Shaddox, take the rest of the crew and cordon off this area. Put a quarantine alert out and make sure all of the programs get to the safety," he stared grimly at his friend.
"Tron-"
"Clu and the Guards have been alerted once the call went out," he calmly replied. He could see the data scrolling through his processors alerting him to each checkpoint that Clu and the Guards went through to get to Sector 105, "they will arrive soon."
He could see Shaddox wanted to protest some more, but in the end complied with his orders and started to shout orders out to his own men. Tron left them, grabbing one of his two batons and headed into the Iso building under attack by the gridbugs. He could have accessed the mainframe underneath the Iso building and shut the power down himself, after all, he had the same administrator access like Clu did, but found that like the Isos themselves, was shielded.
He would have to discuss that with Flynn the next time he was back in The Grid. Flynn had ultimate control over the whole Grid so perhaps he could do something regarding the Isos' shielding.
Pushing the process aside, he instead, touched one of the milky-white support columns in the building. Ophelia's redesign of the building gave it an aesthetically pleasing and practical intention. A spiral staircase made the building hollow in the middle, with lattice beams crisscrossing the middle to support the structure and distribute the energy needed to the living quarters inside. Elevators hugged four long columns that were placed diagonally across from each other, enabling the programs to travel at their leisure.
Calling up the directory for door access, he locked all of the doors to the residential area with a single command query before adding a short and succinct note to the programs within to remain calm until the situation was dealt with. The glow that surrounded his hand while it was on the milky-white column faded away as he quickly scanned the problem floors.
Sir, awaiting order to shut power.
Tron filed the query from one of the workers on the seventy-second floor aside for a nanocycle as he found the source of the gridbugs attack within the complex. Shut it down now. All programs on The Grid had the ability to wirelessly communicate with each other, but it was forbidden by Flynn to do so unless emergency protocols had been established. With this gridbug attack, Tron had overridden the protocols around the area, enabling wireless communication.
The light that had surrounded the building suddenly plunged into darkness, leaving only the glow of suit's color and-
Tron immediately fired the grappling hook, sending himself flying high into the air and landed on one of the energy struts, flashing an occasional blue as currents ran through underneath the conductors, covered by protective stripping. Activating his disc, he immediately tossed it at the glowing mass that was the source of the gridbug attack above him.
The disc hit the mass, but was repelled back to him and Tron caught it, eyes narrowed slightly. He did not expect it to be easy, but at least he had gotten its attention. The roiling mass of angry sparks screamed at him before launching itself down at him. Jumping easily out of the way, he leapt onto another of the lattices flicking his baton to slash at the mass as it attacked him.
Batting it aside, he tossed his disc after it and grinned as it sheared off a section of it, making it derezz and disappear. The angry mass cried out in an electronic whimper before it landed on one of the lattices above him, hissing and spitting sparks at him. It screamed at him again and lashed out with an extended and seemingly taloned arm. Tron held his elongated baton out like a staff as the arm wrapped itself around it and pulled.
However, instead of fighting it, he let the mass pull him in before kicking it in its center. He grimaced as he felt a spike of pain in his foot before releasing the baton and landed on a strut across from it. He watched as his baton was examined briefly then thrown away, the roiling mass snickering to itself. He glanced down at his boot and noticed that the edges of his sole had been derezzed. Not a good sign if he could not attack it directly.
He needed to get rid of it quick. He could already see and feel the structure's instability with such an unknown quantity in it. Making his decision he put his disc back onto its holster and stood up, flexing his hands towards the mass. It gave an electronic roar of defiance before Tron acted.
He leapt out into the open air, diving towards the ground and twisted his body to watch the roiling mass follow him, multiple talons extended towards him. Dodging the spears by the barest of movement, he quickly grabbed his remaining baton and activated it, shooting the grappling hook towards the mass and felt it connect with its center. The mass screamed its fury, but Tron twisted again and grabbed his disc from his back.
The deadly blue blade activated around his fingers and he slammed it into the lowest level lattice, breaking the shielding around the conductors. The surge of raw and unabated energy traveled across his disc and into his very being, nearly making him scream from its overwhelming power, but instead, he shunted it towards his processes. Using the added strength he received, he tightened and shortened the grappling line and threw the roiling mass down towards the ground.
However, he was not done yet as he pulled his disc out and fell along with the mass. Positioning himself above the mass, he shunted the rest of the extra power he had absorbed from the conductor into his disc. Just as the mass slammed into the floor of the building, he landed right on top of it, spearing his disc all the way through its center. He felt the ripples of derezzing pain surge through his hands and arms, but pushed forward just as the mass writhed beneath him, its dying screams becoming even higher pitched.
Tron felt it happen before it did and reacted by leaping high into the air and landing a few feet away just as the roiling mass that was the head of this gridbug attack exploded in a messy shower of derezzed blocks of glassy inactive data. He stumbled back as a ripple of instability struck the tower. The explosion must have destabilized the tower to the point where it was going to collapse.
As exhausted as he was, Tron pressed his hand to the ground, ignoring that the outer layer of his suit was derezzed and that he was hurting all over. He needed to deactivate the lock he had on the doors and hope that the programs in the building could escape in time. Just as he was about to unlock the doors he felt another presence within the security protocols and looked up to see both Shaddox and Ophelia by the entrance, their hands on the ground.
A white glow enveloped the two of them and a few nanocycles later the shaking stopped. He saw bits of building codes rippling through them and belatedly realized that Ophelia had unshielded herself in order to stabilize the building. Shaddox must have helped her bypass the security protocols he had installed after Ophelia had wanted to improve Sector 105's buildings.
Breathing a sigh of relief as the glow around Ophelia and Shaddox died and the power flickered back in, he secured his disc and baton and moved to the other side of the floor to pick up his discarded one.
"Tron?" he picked it up and turned to face Ophelia who looked worried.
"Everything is secure," he pushed away his exhaustion and ran a scan across the whole Sector, taking everything in, "I don't believe that is the last of the gridbugs, but with the death of this particular…leader…they will process twice before attacking The Grid again."
"Not that," she approached him as Shaddox headed out of the building. Tron knew he would have to talk to his friend later about not following his directives and orders. He would also have to thank him for getting Ophelia around the security protocols to stabilize the building. "Thank you."
"Oh," Tron did not know what to make of the worry frown on her face as she stood there. Instead of the black suit she wore when he had first met her, she now wore a white version, a sign of her leadership over the other Isos to whom she called brothers and sisters. "It's not a problem, just my responsibility to ensure the safety of all-"
He stopped as he stared down at his hands where the outer layer, derezzed by the gridbug mass he had been fighting was being rebuilt as she hovered her hand over his. He opened his mouth and closed it as he could not believe that she had the power to actually repair his code-
"Not repair," she furrowed her brow, staring down at her lightly glowing hands, "just adding to it."
"Can you…" he trailed off before clearing his throat again, "can you do this to all programs?"
"Unknown," she replied stepping back and staring at up at him, her expression unsure, "this is the first time I have tried it on a program other than my brothers and sisters. I do not believe so, though."
"Why not?"
"Maybe it is because of your administrator access? The way you were built? I do not know," she looked pensive, but suddenly brightened, "is it all right? I could undo what I-"
"No," Tron smiled, patting her gently on the hand, "it is fine." He looked at one of his hands, flexing it back and forth. It felt as good as new if not better. A quick check into his own code showed that Ophelia had not overwritten any of his protocols, but neither did she actually repair the damage. In fact, it seemed more like an update patch of sorts that was added to the top of his code, an added armor. How very interesting.
Tron, everything secure in there?
Tron frowned at the wireless interruption by Clu. It took the program long enough to arrive. Then again, his battle had been short, but at the time, it felt long.
"Wh-what did I do?"
"You didn't hear that?" he asked, staring at Ophelia.
"Hear what?"
Tron was surprised. The Isos did not have access to the wireless interfacing that all other programs did? It must be part of their shielding. "Wireless systems, nothing to worry about. Thank you, Ophelia. You should see to the others in here."
She returned the smile with one of her own, reminding Tron of the first time they had met before headed towards the spiral stairs, intent on reassuring every single Iso that lived in the building. "Goodbye."
Tron watched her for a couple of nanocycles before turning around and heading out of the building where Clu and a contingent of Guards were waiting on their lightcycles. He knelt on the ground and deactivated the emergency protocols around the Sector before heading over Clu who was looking up and down the building with a flat expression on his face.
"Gridbugs?" Clu asked.
"And probably the leader of the attack; it was neutralized and quarantined," he replied, "the remaining datashards are on the bottom floor should you wish to examine them."
"Thank you Tron," Clu nodded once before gesturing to two of the Guards to enter the building to collect the data. "Do you think the Isos caused the attack in the first place?"
"No, but they have been expanding so the gridbugs may have been attracted to the new and raw data that has been in the output," Tron replied, "I will shore up extra shielding for the Sectors the Isos are building in."
"So their expansion must be the reason why the gridbugs are attacking in such ferocity."
"That has not been determined yet," Tron didn't like where Clu was going with that process.
"You are right of course. I will have to investigate it further," Clu replied before looking at him, "excellent work Tron. Flynn would be pleased."
Tron ignored the patronizing tone the program took with him and instead activated his lightcycle, "I will be at the End of Line should you need my services." If Clu caught the sarcasm he meant with that statement, he put the process under a strict layer of shielding that Tron could not detect. It was easy for Clu to find and summon Tron so he did not even need to tell him where he was going.
"Of course," the senior program waved him away and Tron sped off, intent on recharging his energy and processes.
Author's Notes:
Addendum to the cycle-time-thing from previous chapter's author's notes; I know it's completely wrong from what we were told in Legacy, but it's also noted in the comics that a cycle could be equivalent to days in the grid (when Clu confronts Flynn about his constant leaving, "How many cycles have you been gone? Hundreds?"
So added that little tidbit and the fact that I think Flynn was underestimating the "thousand" cycles he's been stuck in The Grid since 1989 it's kind of hard to figure out time equivalents in The Grid versus the real world. The only concrete thing I was sure of was that time passes quickly and differently in The Grid versus the real world. Adding the fact that there seems to be no day-night cycle and the portal's light perhaps being the programs' equivalent of sunlight (paraphrased from Quorra in Legacy) – the only thing I wished was that someone freaking got a watch there?
So hopefully this clarifies some confusion as to what I made the equivalents of hours, minutes, seconds, days, in the previous chapter. It's not accurate and I don't claim to have graduated college with a math degree, but I'm trying to simplify one aspect of The Grid while enhancing the techno-speak of the rest of the story.