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:

End of Line

"You okay Tron?" Shaddox polished a glass as he stood behind the bar at the End of Line club. He had been covering for his kindred program Shaddix who wanted to enjoy a day at the Arena.

Tron swallowed another mouthful of the liquid energy in his glass before answering his friend, "I'm fine."

"That's at least five glasses you've had now," his friend pointed out, indicating the neat row of glass that he had put aside each time he was done.

"So? It's been a long cycle," Tron did not want to talk about it. He had spent the whole cycle stopping a massive gridbug attack that occurred in Sigma Sector in all of the Numbered areas. The Arena of all places had nearly been breached by a gridbug invasion.

They had appeared with little to no warning and even Clu had been shocked by the sheer amount that had appeared. A mass of spitting energy associated with the gridbug leaders had also appeared, and Tron had immediately engaged it, deflecting its attention from commanding the other gridbugs which made the Guards' jobs easier to help the programs escape to the safety of other Sectors and away from the perimeter of the Arena. All of the others within the Arena had been ordered to stay inside for their own safety as they dealt with the problem.

What had been surprising was that the original patch that Ophelia had given to him had held up against the mass really well. He had immediately exploited its code and applied it to the rest of his body, giving him an extra edge as he went toe to toe with the gridbug mass. The mass had reacted with some surprise at his willingness to engage it in close quarter combat, but had fought back furiously. It had taken almost every trick Tron could think of without harm others and utilizing the structures in the Sector to defeat the thing.

In the aftermath, he had reexamined his armor's code and saw that he had also taken some of the diskette's own unique codes, given to him by Flynn and recorded by his User Alan-One, and had applied it along with Ophelia's patch. That unique blend had probably saved him when the mass overloaded and exploded, trying to take him out at the same time.

But in the end, it was the losses that had sobered him and made him realize that even with his best efforts the gridbug problem was growing larger and larger. Several programs that had not heeded Clu's warning to stay inside or stay in the protected Sectors next to Sigma had perished during the attack. He wanted to examine the area that they were in, but it would have to wait as Shaddox had sent his men out to immediately rebuild the area. Sigma was a heavily trafficked area so repairs could not wait. The evidence would not be gone, only covered up. He would have to dig through a few layers of The Grid's code, but it would still be there by the time he got around to examining it.

Right now though, right now he just wanted to recharge his energy levels and not process anything.

"Another one, please," he pushed the emptied glass towards the row.

"Tron-"

"Shaddox, I don't want to talk about it," he cut his friend off.

He heard his friend sigh before putting another glass of the unrefined energy bytes in front of him. "You're over energizing. I know you don't need this many bytes in your system."

Tron stared at the still full glass before absently picking it up with a hand and swirling its contents. Shaddox was right; he was already over energized, even with a full cycle's work cut out for him. "I guess, call it a revelation."

"Are your command lines scrambled?" was the dubious and slightly sarcastic reply.

"I was able to scan the gridbug code today," Tron finally admitted, looking up at his friend who had a shocked expression on his face.

"Does Clu know?"

"No," Tron replied before staring pointedly at his friend.

"I did not hear anything," his friend gave him a sideways grin and Tron nodded once. "So…?"

"The Sea of Simulation is creating them," he sighed; having been able to trace the origin point when the gridbug mass had tried to trap him in its self-destruction. He knew very well what the implications were if Clu were to find out. There was still no connection between the Isos and the gridbugs, but both of them had come from the Sea of Simulation. It was not that he refused to believe that the Isos and gridbugs were related, it was because he did not have all of the facts in front of him to make his judgment.

But Clu would not see it that way. He would take the proof that the gridbugs came from the Sea and use it against the Isos. He would use it to oppress them and make sweeping changes to The Grid as a result.

"Tron…"

"Flynn needs to be the first to know about this, not Clu," Tron stared hard at the glass he swirling around slowly. "He would know what to do since he created the Sea."

"I agree, but it will not be easy to keep this information from him," Shaddox replied.

"You're right," Tron agreed, setting the glass down before suddenly grabbing Shaddox's hand, making him drop the glass he was polishing. It shattered with a resounding crash, but Tron was already moving.

"Shaddox!" he shouted as the other patrons turned to see what the commotion was about. He ignored them and continued on his task, his protocols fully activated and enhanced by the many glasses of bytes he had just consumed.

Ripping through the flimsy layers of codes, he purged the concealment code from the bartender, as the real Shaddox raced from where he had been sitting at a table behind Tron and helped him hold down the program impersonating him.

The program screamed his voice gargled and static as Tron dug deeper, ripping away layers and layers of code, getting deep into the heart of the program's memory files and found what he was looking for. Destroying the recently recorded file on the Isos and of the conversation he just had, he replaced the file with a doctored one of his own. At the same time he erased any knowledge that the program had of using a shoddily constructed concealment codes before pulling back out and let the program's hand go.

Shaddox released the program at the same time and together they watched him slump back into the rows of glass before righting himself, shaking his head. Tron held up a hand towards the crowd and released a general command line towards the other programs in the club, making them all turn back to what they were doing as he watched the spy program get his bearings.

The music started back up and as much as the other programs wanted to see what was happening, they could not ignore the command line he had sent, using his override privileges. They would talk, he knew that, but he did not want them to hear this part of the conversation. As far as they were concerned, he was doing his job as the security program on The Grid.

"What-"

"Guard TK-421, you are far from your command post," Tron narrowed his eyes, "and you have not been released from your duties. Why are you here at the End of Line club?"

"Uh," the program grimaced slightly rubbing his forehead, "I…uh…I'm sorry sir, I will return as soon as possible."

"Do so," Tron gestured grandly towards the exit, "consider this a warning."

"Yes sir," the program hastily jumped across the bar before hurrying out of the club.

Tron and Shaddox watched him go before he picked up the sixth glass of unrefined bytes and dumped it in the sink behind the bar to be recycled.

"You were right," Shaddox picked up one of the emptied glasses and sniffed it before making a face and putting the glass back down. "I hate it when you're right."

"The next time Clu scans him for information, he'll give him the false recording," Tron shook his head, "it looks like he's trying to get every single scrap of information he can to use against the Isos."

"What you told him, all of it true?"

"You heard?"

"No," his friend shook his head, "just speculated. Your audio filter was really powerful. I could not even hear a single word you or what my…doppelganger said until you called for me."

"I rarely over energize, but it does help my protocols whenever they are needed. I just wish I didn't have to do it right now," Tron sighed shaking his head. Between the Sigma Sector battle and Shaddox coming to him with rumors that Clu was sending the Guards out as spies, maybe it was good that he had taken five drinks of bytes. His processes and runtimes were feeling much better and a bit more stabilized now that he had bled some of the excess energy off in his successful hacking attempt on the Guard.

He knew he could have done the same thing without the aid of excess bytes, but he needed to be extremely quick in planting the false conversation before the program could recover. That process took a little more energy than he had at the time, which was why he had consumed the excess bytes.

"So what are you going to do?"

"My job," Tron replied. He got rid of one spy, but he knew that there were plenty more. Spies were not conducive to the safety and peace of The Grid. All they added was chaos and made his responsibilities that much harder to execute. But things were changing and he had to adjust; this latest incident proved just that.

Author's Notes:

I realized that I've been generalizing Tron's abilities as a security program and the comic also generalized it, just showing him either fighting in the arena or saving programs from the gridbugs. So I decided to actually show some of Tron's capabilities as a security program, not just as a guardian. Musical cue in this track is supposed background music, nothing special. Timeframe is at least a year's worth of cycles if not more since he and Ophelia parted ways.