Zuse watched Tron pace, the program seeming confused and lost. He wasn't another iso like Zuse, but something else altogether. He was the first program ever to step foot on the Grid, and his only function was to protect it. But he'd been gone for nearly three rebooting cycles, and he was obviously confused as to where he was. When Tron had fallen into the sea, Sam had been on the track of getting rid of Clu, and the Grid had returned to peace. Zuse, to Tron's knowledge, had been dead.
"Hey uh…we going to stay here or go back up-" Zuse began, but Tron cut him off with a low, dangerous growl. Zuse sighed. "When the hell is Sam going to update you so you can speak…" he grumbled. Tron's programming, while strong, was old. He couldn't speak, the subroutine had probably suffered more damage than normal due to his age.
Tron growled again, pacing back and forth over a pile of his derezzed brethren.
"Listen." Zuse snapped. "I'm not going to sit down here dealing with your existential crisis! I was sent here by Sam to find the other isos, he needs their help. There's another user going rogue on the Grid."
Tron cocked his head and looked at Zuse through the visor of his helmet. Come to think of it, Zuse had never seen the program without the full face helm, and it made it impossible to determine if the program was angry or not. By his frantic pacing and the way the program's arms were crossed, Tron was more confused than anything. "Sam. You remember him? Flynn? Son of the elder Flynn…the Programmer?" Zuse said.
Tron drew closer and knelt in front of Zuse, putting his face (or rather, visor) very close to Zuse's. The iso leaned back in the pile of derezzed pieces. "Uh…we're not going to go through the choking episode again are we?" Zuse said nervously, pulling a small smile. Tron snorted loudly and gestured with a gloved hand.
"You….want me to…" Zuse trailed off. Tron snarled sharply and smashed the pile of glass next to Zuse into powder.
"Users! Give me a damn break here, you can't talk…you've got to find some way to tell me." Zuse said defensively, putting his palms up. Tron growled, looking around the area until he spied the glass dust. He gathered a pile in front of them and began to draw with a finger.
'Where am I?'
Tron looked up at Zuse.
"You're under the Sea of Simulation. In the place where the computer breaks down code to reuse it." Zuse explained. Tron snorted in surprise and wiped out the question, writing frantically.
'How was I brought back?'
"I guess…my blood." Zuse held out the hand he'd cut himself on, letting Tron see the small cut the poisoned spike had made. "I cut myself, and a drop of my blood fell on the ground, the next thing I knew you were trying to strangle me."
'You are an iso.'
"I hadn't noticed, captain obvious. But…" Zuse clenched his hand and looked at the cut again. "…if our blood has that much power, to resurrect code…" he started when Tron grabbed his knee and pointed at the writing. He'd written something new.
'The Programmer created the Grid. Your kind came from the Grid but not from him. You are an anomaly.' Tron wrote.
"Ghosts in the system." Zuse mumbled. "Your Programmer was going on about it when he found us in the Outlands…I was a trader then. Hawking booze to nomads instead of owning the End of Line club." He stood up, dusting bits of code from his coat. He could not let Dillinger find out that his blood had the power to bring dead programming back. "I need to find the other isos." He told Tron.
Tron wiped out his words with a clean sweep of his hand and gestured around them.
'The water.' He wrote.
Zuse stared, then glanced at the area around them. Small drops traveled to the ceiling, where the roiling sea hissed and bubbled powerfully. He suddenly felt sick. Those lines of code, that liquid, was all that was left of his people. If he stared long enough at the water, he could start seeing code, complicated, twisted lines that resembled DNA but were so much more. "I'm going to be sick…" he scrambled up and away from the water. "The Sea of Simulation…is made up of dead isos?" he demanded of Tron.
The defender of the Grid nodded. 'We need to get out. Before next cycle.' Tron wrote.
"Why?" Zuse asked. "What happens when the next cycle comes?"
'We deresolution.' Tron wrote, then rose to his feet. He grabbed Zuse's wrist before the iso could protest. Tron's hand was strong and large, it closed around the entirety of Zuse's slender, milky wrist. Zuse smirked over at the program.
"Pretty strong aren't you?" he said, and received a purr in response that sounded almost….
…approving?
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"I never wanted to be back here." Quorra said quietly, looking over at Sam. Sam sighed and looked over at her, then began to walk down the bridge from the Portal. To his surprise, his light cycle was still laying gently against a pylon that held up the bridge. Quorra followed him, watching him take ahold of the cycle and swinging a leg over it. He started and almost fell over when the bike made a noise and the image of a program Sam didn't recognize shimmered into view.
'The User will meet you at the home of the Programmer, out beyond the Grid.' The hologram said. 'He welcomes you and your…iso.' The hologram disappeared and the bike lay silent.
"Christ…" Sam swore.
Quorra stared. "He's in…he's in your father's house! He can't do that!" she protested, wounded. Sam narrowed his eyes and started the bike, zooming out into the Outlands. Now he was angry. It was one thing for this other User to fuck with him, sending large cats after him and turning off the Portal at will…it was quite another to just take over his Father's house.
He gritted his teeth and urged the light cycle faster across the brown rocks of the Outlands. "He's going to fucking pay for that, Quorra, I swear to you." He snarled. He felt her rest her cheek against his back, her short bobbed hair flying in the digital wind.
She bit her lip, she was thinking. "Don't. He's trying to make you angry, it makes you reckless." She pointed out to him, raising her voice above the wind. "We have to go in there calm, or not at all."
Sam nodded curtly. She was right, as usual, but that didn't change his feelings on the matter. This other User was an invader, trampling upon his father's memory. In his house, where his father used to knock on the sky…he tightened his hands on the handlebars. Quorra was telling him not to be angry, but all he wanted to do was strangle whatever fat nerd had managed to break into the Grid.
He slammed on the brakes when he saw the elegant white house arise from the rocks, neatly spinning the bike into a parking position. He leaned the bike against a rock furiously. Quorra recognized his mood, and tried to put her hand on his shoulder. Sam shook it off, his teeth clenched as he marched up the pathway to his father's old home. Quorra sighed and followed. She could not get him calm, but she could be there for him.
She entered the house that she had been hiding in for cycles after Clu had destroyed her people. She loved Sam's father, she always had considered them brother and sister, but the house now had a chill to it. The calm, zen atmosphere had dissipated. The white wasn't soft and warm. It was cold, clinical. The color of frost, of hatred. She shivered unconsciously and followed Sam into the living room. Frozen laughter greeted them.
"Welcome to my humble abode, Sam Flynn." Dillinger smiled and leaned back in the chair. The panther rose to its feet, growling at Sam and Quorra. "And you brought the iso. Excellent."
"She's not an object." Sam snapped out the words so quickly, almost before Dillinger had finished closing his mouth. "And I should have had you kicked off the board before you finished unpacking your suitcase, Dillinger."
Dillinger laughed. "I invited you here to inform you, Sam Flynn, that this little pet project of your father's is no longer yours to facilitate." He smiled thinly. "The Portal has closed behind you and the iso, and my men are dismantling the Portal as we speak. You lost, Sam. So I'm giving you a chance to surrender gracefully before I leave you here in this digital wasteland to see all your father's work come under my reign."
"Never." Sam spat, his fists balled so tight Quorra could see his neck muscles bulging. "I'll see you in hell before that happens."
"I could program you there if you liked. See, while you were messing around with Zuse's club and moping over the death of your father, I was learning. I talked to Zuse, I talked with the programs. You've spent a lot of time here but you've not bothered to change anything. I have." He snapped his fingers and the panther squealed and fell to the floor. "I'll have to ask you to leave my house, Sam. I'll tell Allen I'm sorry for his loss. Those motorcycles of yours can be so dangerous on the highway."
Quorra and Sam watched in horror as the panther rose, twice the size it was, its head bulging and rearranging itself. The smooth metal strip that served for its teeth twisted and serrated, becoming thick fangs and incisors that would shear through flesh like a sword through lard. Its eyes had become large, paws thicker and tipped with claws, haunches twice as muscular. "And leave the iso." Dillinger added dismissively, getting up and going to the window.
"Fuck you." Sam snarled, though he barely had time to dodge the fanged mouth leaping for him. The cat skidded into his father's dining table and shattered it, sending deresolutioned pixels scattering across the floor. Sam scrambled for the exit, for his bike where he knew he could outrun the cat. Quorra grabbed a decorative candelabra and belted the cat across the face. "Run!" she shouted at Sam.
Sam shook his head and looked around the room for a weapon. "Sam, go!" Quorra shouted. The cat shook its head and leapt for him again, but Quorra was quicker. She jumped on its back and wrapped her arm around its neck. The weight sent the cat head first to the floor, struggling to get out of the iso's grasp as Quorra wrapped her thighs around its hips and pinned its legs back. For a fleeting moment, Sam remembered a book on wrestling somewhere in his house.
"SAM!" Quorra screamed. "I can't hold it! Go!"
Sam didn't have to look long to know she was right. The cat was snapping wildly to get some part of her anatomy between its teeth, coming dangerously close to her side and shoulder every time.
With the cat in between her and Sam, he had no choice.
He slammed open the door, put his leg over his bike, and ran.
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Allen could only stare as he got out of his car and shut the door, his face frozen as the sign reading 'Flynn's Arcade' crashed down to the pavement. Work crews were inside, tearing the place apart. Throwing arcade machines older than Sam was crudely out onto the pavement. Allen ran to one of them like it was a wounded companion, staring at the shattered screen and the bent controls. What was happening? Was this Sam's doing? He rushed inside, dodging a workman throwing old drywall out onto the street.
"What are you doing? This building is owned by Sam Flynn, and he'd never ask for its destruction! Stop!" Allen shouted helplessly at the workers over the noise of a rotary saw. His heart caught in his throat when he saw where the Tron machine had been. The game itself lay on its side, the screen flickering, and men were carefully bringing up pieces of the portal console through the gaping mouth of the once-secret door.
"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Allen felt like he was watching some rabid dog tear open a newborn kitten. The place was hardly recognizeable. Allen walked, as if in a dream, upstairs to the old office where a man stood surveying the destruction of his best friend's love child. The foreman looked surprised to see him, and Allen was equally shocked to see that the company logo was on his jacket.
"What the hell is going on here?" Allen snarled, feeling anger replace the horror.
"Got a letter in this morning says that the company's bought the building." The foreman grunted. "Everything's gotta go."
"Who signed this order?" Allen demanded. The foreman sighed and turned to a desk, pushing aside several papers until he found the one he was looking for. He handed it to Allen, who clutched the paper and nearly ripped it in two when he saw the signature on the bottom.
Sam Flynn, CEO, ENCOM Industries.
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