Zuse rubbed his wrist when Tron finally released him. He'd been watching the program tug him down passageways so twisted even he couldn't keep track of all of them. He was tired, and Tron seemed to sense his exhaustion. "Nice of you to stop." Zuse mumbled, sitting down on a pile of pixels and running his fingers through his hair. Tron examined him, standing stock still as a statue. "Listen, I need some rest. How long until the next cycle?" the iso asked his growling companion.
Tron knelt and arranged pieces of pixels into numbers.
"Ten hours by standard clock. And how long until we get to the exit?" Zuse asked, waiting patiently for Tron to reassemble the numbers. "Two hours. That's enough for a good long cat nap, thank you very much. We isos DO need to sleep and reboot, same as the Grid does." He kicked around a pile of the derezzed pieces irritably, attempting to make something he could sleep on. It didn't even compare to his lovely, soft, satiny bed…he sighed wistfully. "You know, I programmed a bed. Giant one, with big fluffy pillows and sheets so soft they begged you on their knees to fuck on them." Zuse said sadly. "I couldn't do a thing with this pile of code in four hours, let alone ten."
He knew time had little bearing in the Grid, but one could revert to the standard clock and measure that way…if you had enough time to count the seconds, add them up to minutes then hours. One needed to measure a second to define a second, and programs could do it effortlessly. Isos could relegate themselves or program a subroutine for the task, and Users seemed incapable of such patience. Zuse took off his thick white and gray coat, laying it down on top of the sharp little pixels. "Guess it will have to do." He settled down on top of his makeshift bed and curled up, closing his eyes.
He heard footsteps and saw Tron approaching the bed, the helm tilted downward to examine what Zuse was doing. Zuse smirked. "You know, you could take off that helm and give me another sort of relaxation. I'd be terribly ashamed if the first thing I resurrected turned out to be a hideous bore." He invited playfully.
Tron leaned down and Zuse instinctively rolled on his back, the soft purrs coming from Tron enough to make the hairs on his neck rise. He parted his legs and felt his breathing pick up. Tron was stronger than any weak little program he'd had between his legs, he could smell raw strength and power coming off of his coding in droves. It made his loins burn and his hips rise slightly. He wanted to wrap his legs around the strong hips he'd been eyeing. "Come here. I'm kinky, but the helm's not doing it for me." He whispered, and lifted his long-fingered white hands to Tron's head. He brushed the glassy surface, sliding his hands down beneath the rim.
The defensive program whipped his head so quickly out of range that Zuse couldn't help feeling a bit insulted. Tron stared at him a moment, then stalked off to keep watch at the tunnel entrance, leaving Zuse aroused and confused on his makeshift bed. Glaring, the iso turned on his side and closed his eyes. "Prude." He grunted at Tron.
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Quorra glared daggers at Dillinger from her cage. He'd programmed her into a cage with bars that felt white-hot to her touch, and hadn't given her much room to do anything other than sit with her knees up. The panther, now back to its original form, stared at her silently. Dillinger did the same from his chair, smiling wordlessly as he stroked his fingers over the back of the chair. "Now I have the last two isos in existence…right under my roof." Dillinger purred. "Tell me about your people. I really haven't gotten much out of Zuse, he's more useful doing my tasks than feeding me information. He tends to tell me what I want to hear."
Quorra looked at him nervously. She could have damned herself for a fool. When she was busy with the cat, she'd almost completely forgotten about the User, and he'd gotten the better of her. She swallowed and found she couldn't meet his eyes. "Why do you want to know about us?" she asked coldly. Kevin Flynn, when he had rescued her from Clu, had asked a similar question…but his questions had been asked over dinner after she'd recovered, and not staring at her like she was some zoo animal in a cage.
"As the new master of the Grid, isn't that for me to determine?" Edward asked, leaning forward on his knees to look her in the eyes. "Call it curiosity for now." He smiled thinly.
The iso frowned. "We came from the Grid. I don't know how we got there…it seems like we'd always been there. We were an advanced civilization once, we established the city out here in the wilderness, and it was there we met the Programmer. He…understood us. I knew Zuse then, he was just a trader in a run-down store. I was just a girl. When Clu went mad and destroyed half of the Grid, and our people with it, Kevin took me from my home as my parents died. Zuse we found in the ruins." Quorra said.
Dillinger nodded. "So the Programmer was some saint to you and Zuse, hm? The one who saved you from the rogue program?" he chuckled. "He never learned your powers. You are a unique anomaly, and I plan to figure out every little niche of what you can do. You're the only thing purely borne of the Grid, with no human influence, yet you have your own unique biology. Since I can't get rid of Zuse, he is useful with his connections, I only have you to experiment with."
Quorra bristled. "I'm not some experiment!" she snarled.
"Of course not." Dillinger said dismissively. "But with your blood, I might be able to program something to give me permanent control of the Grid forever. No one else has what I have. Two isos, a male and female. A pair of the most valuable technological wonders the world has ever seen…the digital become flesh, able to step outside the Grid. Forget the computers, I could make billions off of your parts alone."
The slow, nasty grin that spread across his face was something that made Quorra's stomach twist.
·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·
Sam rested his forehead against a sandy colored rock. He felt rain pelting his back and legs, flowing down his face and blurring his vision. It was raining in the Grid, and he didn't have the energy to stop it. How could he have been so foolish? Here he was, lost out in the wastes, with Quorra captured by Dillinger. The man was probably out for his head! The only chance he would get to go back to his own world was to follow Allen's advice and find Tron. But how, the defender of the Grid had been derezzed when he fell into the Sea of Simulation.
But he had to try.
For Quorra, he had to get her back. Would going back to Zuse help? The man seemed to be the only creature who knew what was going on in the Grid at all times. Zuse was tapped in, he knew all the programs from the subroutines to the major processing units to the half-resolutioned viruses that were regularly hunted down by protection programs. But would Zuse speak to him or only hit on him and give him half-answers? Would it help if he knew Quorra was captured? Sam ran a hand down his face, wiping water from his eyes and sitting up on the bike.
Then there was Dillinger to consider. He had locked Sam in the Grid, but the man had to get out sometime if he wanted to continue his evil plotting in the real world. At least he knew Dillinger's aims now. He wanted the Grid, he wanted the isos, he wanted the company. He had two of them, and would soon have a third. But Allen wouldn't stand by and let this happen, not his CFO?
Sam swore loudly, and looked out across the Outlands. He stopped dead and ducked down behind a rocky outcropping when his eyes fell upon something he'd never seen in the Grid before. Three of Dillinger's panthers, their eyes alight and sweeping the landscape, illuminating the digital darkness as they prowled. "Shit." Sam muttered. Not only was he stuck here, but he was hunted as well. Dillinger wasn't so content to just let him run, it seemed.
He slowly got back on the bike, praying it wouldn't make too much noise grinding in the dirt. He sped off as quickly as he possibly could, hearing a surprised roar behind him but not daring to look back. Zuse would know what to do. Dillinger said he had learned from him. It was time he did the same.