What Is Best
The rogues sat in a circle, muttering quietly.
"He got my arm." One grunted, gripping his shoulder.
"Like you get to complain." Another growled, hoarse, "He got me around the neck."
"Quiet!" A third piped up, his back to them, "Don't you bit-brains know how to do anything other than complain?"
"Right, we're the complainers." The second stood, "You were the one complaining about Tron. That's all you talked about: Tron did this, Tron did that, Tron's always in the way_"
"Well it's true!" The third snapped back.
"In case you didn't notice, we almost died back there_"
"Quiet!"
This voice didn't come from any of the rogues, and they turned, pulling out their discs as two masked figures came out of the shadows. One took of his mask to show his face, half of it derezzed from injury. The other program didn't take off his mask, but the rogues knew who it was.
"CLU." The third rogue spoke, and the rogues out away their discs to go to attention. "Sir, we..."
Dyson gave the rogue a pointed look, and they went silent.
No one said anything for a moment as CLU approached the third rogue, the leader of the trio. He put a hand on their shoulder, then spoke.
"I practically....gift wrapped those programs for you, and you still couldn't manage to kill them!"
The rogue felt CLU's hand tighten on his shoulder and began to sputter.
"Sir sir, we would have killed them, we had them right in front of us..."
"Then why didn't you?" CLU ground out.
"Tron intervened, sir. It was him."
CLU thought about this for a long moment, then let go of the rogue's shoulder. The rogue relaxed, but then straightened as CLU continued.
"And that stopped you?"
"What did you want us to do?" The rogue with the arm injury piped up. He received a dirty look from the first rogue, but continued anyways, "Kill Tron."
CLU turned back, "Precisely."
Everyone watched CLU with wide eyes.
Then, Dyson spoke.
"Derezz him, sir?"
"Yes. If we want to rid the Grid of its imperfections, we need to do it immediately. Tron is standing in the way. He is blind to just how dangerous the ISOs are. The only way to get him out of the way is to derezz him. And while we're at it, the boy will have to go, too. As a monitor-in-training, he'll be a threat. Do you want to make the Grid perfect again?" CLU turned on Dyson with his last words.
Dyson hesitated, then shook his head, "Yes sir."
"Good."
He turned back to the rogues, "We start next cycle. I assure you if this is done right, you all will be handsomely rewarded."
The lead rogue straightened, "What is the plan, sir? When do we start?"
CLU took off his mask, and smiled, a sick, sick smile.
"Now."