Notes:
Firstly, my apologies for the long lag time, but as I had mentioned in my notes, this will be an inconsistent effort due to the unfortunate realities of my life.
Secondly, thank you to everyone for the encouragement and reviews, even at this late date! I will try to respond to everyone!
Thirdly, I have new appreciation for asphalt and the steamrollers that flatten it into shape. It's amazing just what hijinks Real Life is capable of producing. Too bad it's not as easily mollified with catnip and doggy treats.
Fourthly, I have discovered it is disgustingly difficult to figure out Bruce's eye color. One site says hazel, another says gray, a third says blue, and then one even fudged the whole matter by saying "grayish-blue". I am going to settle on blue since that is what the Tron wiki says, and thanks to the person who pointed out that I had his eye color wrong (there is absolutely no good photo of Bruce on the net that one can deduce his eye color from - it all looked brown to me). I will change the previous parts to reflect this, but it is hot and I'm too lazy right now.
Talk talk talk, yak yak yak - while I love writing character development, I also love writing action. There won't be a lot of the latter for a little while, so to tide me over, I roughly sketched out a scene I'm planning on getting to in a chapter or two. If you'd like a sneak peek, scroll past the white space at the end.
Chapter 5: Kiss and Tell
Alan turned off the engine, and immediately, Marvin's high-pitched yaps bled through the car's insulation as he ran excitedly between the newly arrived vehicles. Alan cast a quick glance at the rearview mirror - catching Kevin's disgustingly bushy-eyed, inquisitive gaze framed within - before he took a deep breath and tugged his door open. "Come on," he instructed wearily, girding himself for the long hours ahead. He held no illusions that anything would be settled to his satisfaction soon enough for sleep to be an option this evening.
"Marv, Marv ... move, boy, not now," he admonished lightly, trying to nudge the excited dog gently aside as he got the door for Quorra. There seemed to be more activity inside the car than was really warranted before he remembered the seatbelt issue - and how in the world had Kevin managed to dig up English-speaking people that didn't know how to operate seatbelts? - before finally things were sorted and those who were mobile were outside the car.
Quorra was immediately and obviously fascinated by Marvin. There was none of the cooing or ear-fondling that most women descended into when confronted with the dog, but her eyes followed him with laser precision and her hands twitched occasionally as if he was a football she wanted to tackle. "What is it?" she asked, turning nearly a full circle in her attempt to keep track of the canine.
"A french bulldog," Alan answered at the same time that Kevin responded mildly with, "A dog."
Alan pinned his old friend with a look and a raised brow, which Kevin returned with a shrug and a serene smile. As Alan vacillated between reflexive irritation at that familiar, smug, know-it-all look and the block of nostalgic emotion which had abruptly wedged itself in his throat, Quorra clapped her hands together once and declared with an air of epiphany, "Oh! I thought they were much bigger? Do they really make effective guardians for users?"
Right. Of course. They didn't know about seatbelts, why should they know anything about dogs?
"Marv, buddy, no love for your master and provider of steaks, warm beds, and all things good?" Sam griped fondly, and sighed theatrically when Marvin proved exactly that - dodging nimbly around Quorra's outstretched hand with a disapproving growl when the woman finally leaned down to try and touch him, immediately racing straight past the aforementioned master for another, more cooperative target.
"All right, let's get everyone inside," Alan sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses when the dog started yapping intermittently again between fits of half-hearted growls from around the car's nose. "Break out some of that black sludge you call coffee, Sam, I can't pull all-nighters like I used to ... "
And then there was an abrupt flurry of machine-fire barking while Marvin was backing up with ears laid flat, and Alan was suddenly and intensely aware that the rapidly deepening growl was not coming from the dog ...
It was coming from Tron.
Alan's gaze had been turning toward Kevin, and so he saw the exact moment his friend stilled - eyes gone tight and flat with hints of something he had not seen since Jordan had died. He was only peripherally aware of Quorra lowering to a near-crouch, her hand angling over her shoulder, and Sam was not even on his radar until the younger Flynn blurted, "Oh crap!" and by the time Alan had turned around, the young man was diving for the pile of sports equipment propped against the inside corner of the roll-up door.
"What ... Sam, what are you doing?" Alan felt goosebumps marching up the back of his neck at everyone's reactions. After all, Tron was just standing there, staring down at the still frantically barking Marvin with an almost inquisitive tilt to his head. "Is that some sort of synthesizer built into his suit? Why are you - Sam!" he yelped upon seeing his godson hefting an aluminum bat, and rushed forward to intercept.
"No, you don't understand Alan! Get out of the way, Rinzler could go - "
"Tron."
The single syllable cut through the strange, stuttering purl like wind through a fall of leaves, scattering them into a few last distant clicks as Tron tilted his head back toward Kevin. Except he was doing that eerie not-looking thing again, gaze focused just right of Kevin's shoulder, and Alan didn't know whether to be more creeped out by the obvious psychological issues of someone wearing his face, or by the way his returned friend had sounded: commanding. Pleading.
Anguished.
In short, nothing like the man he remembered. The Kevin he had known had been brash, confident - over-confident - with only good intentions saving him from outright arrogance. He had relied on his charisma to influence people, not this calm assurance which drew Tron with a visible sway before the man bowed his head; silent once more.
And Kevin had never looked so repentant.
"Jesus," Sam breathed out, half-lowering the bat as he scraped a hand through his hair, though Alan noticed as he shook himself from his reveries that the other hand was still clutching white-knuckled at the makeshift weapon's grip. "He can still do that in the real world? I thought it was his helmet making that noise."
Alan could feel already tired nerves frazzling just a little bit more. Couldn't they go through a single half hour without some incomprehensible emergency or mystery suddenly popping up? "What are you talking about? That helmet was little more than a solid plastic goldfish bowl. He just about choked in it before someone had the thought to crack it open."
Sam made a remarkable rendition of the aforementioned goldfish as the tip of the bat sank completely toward the ground. "Wait, wait - you're saying he was suffocating? As in ... Clu saved his sorry as-?"
"Let's take this off the street, shall we?" Kevin interrupted diplomatically, though his attention was obviously divided, gaze still locked upon Alan's doppelganger.
"Right, because we still have someone tied up in the back of my car, and we don't want the street sweepers stumbling across him or the rest of this circus?" Alan sighed as he shooed a baffled-looking Quorra - good, someone else was finally looking as confused as he felt - toward the entrance so that he could help haul the unconscious Clu out of the backseat.
"But, Sam, you knew that Rinzler has always made that sound ... why are you puzzled that he continues to do so - "
Right. He really should have known better than to think that he could ever be in the same camp as Quorra.
Kevin had forgotten how different the real world was.
When he had stepped on and off the Grid as frequently and casually as taking the commuter bus, the subtleties had been lost to him, his subconscious filtering them out like background traffic noise. But now, experiencing the shift for the first time after centuries of subjective time, he couldn't help noticing every single detail - just how much information, how much texture, was packed into every surface, every unit of space.
The hollow bounce of sound from the far corners of the studio, partially absorbed and reflected by the furniture in between. The nubby texture of the sofa, the distribution of speckling on the concrete floor. The absorption and reflection of white light in its full spectrum, rich with color and shadows as it traveled around the room. Even the faint, musty smell of warehouse beneath the fresh, salty spice of ocean, and the familiar tang of heated metal from the parked motorcycle. And where the Grid was all sharply delineated contours, mathematically defined rays and precise algorithms, this was sloppy and fuzzy and real in a way that had him touching everything in passing, inhaling each breath until his ribs strained, eyes dry from staring.
It was a relief not to be the one in charge. For a little while, he allowed himself to wallow selfishly in the flood of new-old stimuli, in the knowledge that the struggle was over, that he had survived and returned home. Home. Lost in the wonder of that thought and what he was experiencing, it took him a moment to realize that they were being shepharded into a seat ... most likely, to keep out from underfoot as Alan and Sam found a place to keep Clu.
Kevin could only imagine what they looked like; two programs and a user, lined up neatly upon the sofa, like the beginnings of a bar joke. Even the thought itself was rather alien - it had been a long time since he had worried about how he appeared to anyone but Quorra or the odd program who had dropped by. Tron sat in eerie stillness, shoulders half-slouched with coiled energy and back rigidly spaced from the cushions, hands resting upon his knees. Quorra looked around with unabashed excitement, shifting every so often - just to feel the springs creak, he half-suspected, from the regularity of the movements.
Alan unconsciously squared himself before them after he dropped his share of Clu's weight, rubbing at his shoulders, and for all the years which now lay upon the man, Kevin could still read the deep uncertainty under his friend's collected facade of the seasoned executive. Alan was no longer the nervy, socially-awkward programmer, but he still had the same honest, open character which telegraphed earnestness and integrity - and just about anything else which happened to be brewing beneath that mop of silvered hair. Alan had not thrown a successfully "surprise" birthday or anniversary party for Lora in all the time Kevin had known him.
God, how he had missed having that by his side, on Grid or off.
"Sam," Alan abruptly called, distracted, when the rip of duct tape being unfurled cut through the silence. The younger Flynn answered with an absent hum as he began to busily and messily tape Clu's slumped form to a chair. "Sam, hold off for a moment, let me see your hand," he said with a peculiarly worn exasperation.
"Nothing's wrong with my hand," Sam retorted with the rote, heatless reflex of an oft-repeated disclaimer. As if to punctuate the point, he unrolled another two feet of duct tape with particular vehemence while one end was attached to Clu's shoulder, nearly pulling the entire affair over and causing the chair's legs to screech across the floor. Quorra flinched and even Tron's gaze snapped up briefly at the sound.
"What's wrong with your hand?" Kevin asked, a twinge tugging uncomfortably just below his ribcage as he half-rose from his seat.
"I saw you favoring it, Sam. I still have my glasses on, you know," Alan responded dryly, and Kevin felt the twinge knot itself into an uncomfortable lump in his middle when he recognized the familiarity with which Alan approached Sam's prickly denials, the instinctive rhythm of their give-and-take as his friend alternately coaxed and bullied his son into the kitchen area, examining the young man's palm in the better lighting.
Alan reached up without a thought or glance into a cupboard to fish out a first aid kit. Kevin's inquiry had gone unnoticed.
"Jesus, Sam, how did you manage - "
"It was the disc. How was I supposed to know it would - "
"What disc - ?"
Kevin had to swallow as the volume of their conversation dropped into half-heard snatches. The uncomfortable feeling of being a voyeur was only completed when Sam called Quorra over, and the ISO immediately bounced off the couch with her typical enthusiasm, unhooking Clu's purloined disc to show Alan as the older man accepted it gingerly; careful of its outter edge.
This is what he had missed. Talking with his son, bandaging his hurts, being with him. He should be relieved that Alan had taken his role of godfather so seriously. Instead, he felt almost sick with jealousy and regret.
But regret was something he had had an uncomfortable amount of experience in dealing with. Meditation had taught him to face it, even if he was still not so good at moving past it ... but, for once, he had more options than he had ever dreamed of ever having again.
"Tron."
The program's head tilted toward him though that solemn gaze still would not meet his, and with a heavy heart, Kevin realized that if his friend had still been wearing his helmet, it would look exactly like what Rinzler had done whenever called for. Head turned, bowed, acknowledging ... but beneath that mirrored surface, who knew what he had really been looking at, if anything at all?
"Tron, look at me," he pleaded quietly.
Tron shifted, even that minute gesture eloquent in its puzzlement. But he knew that face too well and saw the tension in the carefully blank mien, the uneasy flicker of eyes that twitched just a centimeter closer to Kevin's face before retreating to the side again.
"Look at me!"
Frustration and concern sharpened his voice, made it snap in a way which he was immediately ashamed of. But Tron's gaze was suddenly and unblinkingly riveted upon him - even if it was visibly tight and unhappy - so Kevin took his victories where he could and settled himself with a deep breath before coaxing, "What's wrong? Why wouldn't you look at me?" The program's mouth tightened and his throat worked, but as the silence stretched, Kevin prodded, "Just say something, Tron, say anything. I don't care. I just want to help you - "
"No."
Kevin blinked, and even Tron looked slightly astonished by his own rebellion. "Ha!" Kevin barked. "That's my friend. Stubborn to the last." But the edges of the grin he tried to hold felt strained when that gaze went skittering to the side once more.
Uneasiness and curiosity warred within him. Even in that short syllable, he could almost feel the subliminal scratch of that electronic snarl. Unlike himself and Clu, there would be no difficulty in telling Tron and Alan apart by voice. Just how many "liberties" had the laser taken in attempting to form programs into humans, and just how successful had it been in modifying the templates into something biologically viable?
"How are you feeling, buddy?" he asked as he reached up toward that shallow cut over the brow, long since scabbed over. "Does anything hurt, feel like it's ... not working right? Any malfunctions? Warnings? Errors?"
Tron's brow knit, more emotion than he had shown all evening other than that initial outburst when they had tried to pry the helmet off, and while he did not do anything as blatant as move away, his hand rose to his temple first, interrupting Kevin's gesture before it could reach him. Brushing over the dried streaks of blood they had not managed to wipe off at the arcade, he frowned even more deeply at the rusty-red flakes which clung to his gloved fingertips.
Kevin watched the program's expression intently. "Blood," he informed quietly, though he knew he was not answering the right question.
The rasp came unbidden this time, rough with disbelief. "Users bleed."
"I guess you just received an upgrade in privileges, then," Kevin returned solemnly.
"Privileges," Tron echoed, expression twisting, and Kevin could not help the flash of fear that locked his muscles and hitched his breath when the gloved hand clenched on itself. But the violence hinted at never materialized; the program's gaze darting with clear intelligence this time to left and right, taking in their surroundings with a single, cutting look. "I have no privileges - "
"Kevin - "
He had been so intent on Tron's reactions, trying to puzzle out the program's current state, he nearly jumped out of his own skin at the voice behind him. "Alan!" he greeted with a reflexive grin, automatically tugging the edges of his jacket straight. And wasn't that a hoot, that the laser gave back his original clothes? Good thing, since this jacket had been one of his favorites ... though the jeans were suspiciously tight around the waistline now. "How's Sam doing?"
Predictably, at the interruption, Tron had retreated into his shell again - perhaps even more wilted than before, head now turned blatantly away from the Encom board member.
Alan glanced between them with open suspicion, but finally rolled his shoulders with a sigh and conceded, "It was a pretty long cut, but shallow. I don't think it will need stitches, so we just patched it up. That ... 'disc' is something else."
Kevin could not help the gamine smile which slipped automatically across his face at his friend's pointed look - the reflex was difficult to suppress even after all the time that had gone by; there were few who had challenged him as brazenly as Alan Bradley had. Did. "Yeah, it's something, ain't it?"
Alan groaned and rubbed a hand over his face, an irreverant prayer for patience emerging half-muffled. "Enough with the games already, Kevin, it's about time you gave me the truth; I deserve that much!" he growled, and Kevin couldn't help deflating a bit.
"Yeah, you're right. You deserve at least that much," he sighed, glancing toward the softly silhouetted forms of Sam and Quorra in the kitchen, their heads bowed together as they conversed, and clapped a hand to Tron's shoulder before he pushed himself up. "Come on, show me the place."
Alan hesitated, perhaps doubting the sudden turn-around, but at least he took him at face value and nodded, leading the way. "So," he prompted, as soon as they were outside easy earshot from the others, not even bothering to play along with the sightseeing ploy. There was not much else that wasn't visible from any one corner of the studio due to its open-floor plan.
Kevin pondered where to start, tried to rewind his memories back to a logical entry point, and finally spread his hands helplessly. "So. Where should I start? How much did Sam tell you?"
The executive grimaced, and as he often did when thinking or frustrated, started pacing - three long strides to the left, then three to the right. "Just enough to make me think either he's crazy or I'm crazy for the conclusions I'm coming to! What happened to you in 1989?"
So Kevin took a deep breath, and began.
Only a few minutes in, Alan called for a pause so that he could scrounge up two folding chairs. Halfway through, there was another pause when he smelled the heady scent of coffee, and Kevin almost couldn't continue after his first blissful taste - no matter how bitter - in far too many cycles. He had never been able to get the coffee rush just right on the Grid. The narration stretched out three times as long as it should have been as Alan peppered him mercilessly with questions.
At the end, with his second cup already empty by his feet, interlaced hands over his mouth with his elbows propped upon his knees, Alan could only husk, "That is all so - it's so unbelievable, it might be true."
"Is true," Kevin corrected, already feeling jittery from the caffeine, and not caring a whit as he sipped at at the dregs of his own refilling. He was probably going to get a stomach ache from this, but by god, he was going to savor every drop.
"Well, I certainly couldn't have come up with anything wilder - but then, you had always been the game developer genius."
Kevin could feel his mouth curling, and his grin only widened upon noticing the rueful amusement Alan was trying unsuccessfully to suppress. "Man, you just gotta let yourself go! I've seen what Tron can do - what you programmed Tron to be able to do. There's no hiding from me now - I'm on to you."
And, just like that, the burgeoning comraderie vanishes like a blown candle. "Speaking of Tron - what are we going to do with him? All of them, for that matter," Alan asked with enough grimness to pull Kevin to the edge of his seat.
"What do you mean?" he asked warily.
"What do I mean?" came the disbelieving echo. "One's psychotic - "
" - misunderstood and neglected - "
" - one's brain-damaged - "
"Not brain damaged, he's just been brain washed - " Kevin interrupted, feeling his own hackles rising.
" - and the third's about to set herself up with Sam!"
"Hey! What're you implying there - Quorra's a fine young woman," Kevin squinted irritably at his friend as Alan threw his hands up in the air.
"They're not even human!"
"Alan!"
They stared at each other like two mastiffs at a stand-off, and after a first then a second mental exercise cleared his head, Kevin couldn't help thinking that they were probably sporting the same mulish expression too. It wasn't enough to bring a smile to his face, but it was enough for him to soften his voice as he reminded, "Tron bled. He nearly suffocated. He panicked when we tried to take the helmet off. Clu reacted pretty convincingly to being kicked between the legs from all reports, and Quorra wanted revenge for her people, but retained enough sense to listen to me before she did something unfixable. She is bright, she is curious, and she loves Jules Verne. How much more human do they need to be, man?"
Alan's jaw tightened, but Kevin could tell he had driven his point home even before the executive took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "Christ, Flynn, how do you always manage to make an unholy mess of even the simplest things?"
Kevin unselfconsciously smoothed a hand over a wrinkle in his shirt. "When you've got the touch - "
"Please, spare me your touches," Alan snorted.
"So, over your panic attack now?"
Alan's nose wrinkled, but he had the grace to admit, if grudgingly, "I'm over my panic attack."
"I bet Lora would've handled it better."
"Now that's taking it too far!" the executive growled, but this time, his lips were stretching in a full grin, which Kevin answered before they both winced at the logical follow-up thought. "Kevin, what were you doing with Lora's old prototype in a hidden basement?"
"Hey, you know what I've been up to with it - I just spent an hour explaining it to you," Kevin tried to deflect.
"That's government property - " Alan began with narrowed eyes, just before Kevin noticed movement behind him and cut him off with a hasty motion.
"Hey, Sam, Quorra," he greeted, a little over-loudly, and Alan was giving him the stink-eye but thankfully fell silent on the topic for now. "What's up?"
It was only then that he noticed that Quorra had her gloves off. And was running her hands up and down Sam's sleeve. Over his ear. Up through his hair - okay, so he could understand Alan's choked off sound. He himself was caught somewhat uncomfortably between the thoughts that the woman - ISO - he had practically mentored like a daughter was unwittingly feeling up his biological son, and there was no reason he should be feeling protective of either of them, since he of all people should recognize what she was really doing. "Quorra, maybe you should ... explore something else."
"I did; the metal was very smooth and cool, and the cabinet door rough, and I've touched my own hair and skin on the Grid but it all feels different here ... oh. Am I infringing on user-only protocols?" Quorra withdrew with a blink.
"Hey, I didn't mind," Sam protested, casting his real and surrogate fathers both an exasperated look before motioning toward the nearest door with his chin. "It's almost dawn, and I was thinking of taking Quorra out to see it. But I wanted your help on figuring out their clothes - you know, maybe experiment on one of the guys first."
"What do you mean their - " Alan began before he blinked, then turned to Kevin incredulously. "You weren't kidding about the zippers and buttons thing?"
Kevin shrugged and levered himself out of his seat. "What's the biggest pair of scissors you've got, Sam?" he asked cheerfully.
Sneak peek into the future ...
Clu tore out into the street, and Sam automatically lunged off the sidewalk after him.
It was pure reflex which turned his gaze to the left, toward oncoming traffic - after all, it was not as if it would do him any good at this late stage, with all of his momentum committed the moment his foot pushed off the curb. Thus, even as a rapidly approaching blue Prius started braying in alarm and the stray thought that he should have known better than a program flitted through his head, he caught the exact moment when a hand lunged between his vision and the braking car ...
... and abruptly found his world uppended, breath lost, vision vague from the glancing bounce of his head off concrete when he was forcibly yanked back and went sprawling upon the sidewalk. He blinked -
- and saw Tron arching in an impossible, perfect curve away from the ground -
- blink -
- legs tucking themselves up just outside of the bumper's reach as hands slapped upon the polished hood, elbows flexing -
- blink -
- and vaulted, twisting through the air, the car's periwinkle top sliding untouched beneath him, a lithe tumble of dark limbs -
- blink -
- before landing in a perfect three-point crouch behind the Prius, one arm flung wide as the program watched, unblinking, the bumper of a second car screech to a halt just a handspan from his nose, breath misting across the chrome as he straightened with unhurried aplomb.