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“It’s how I imagine the sunrise to be,” she says, and it sounds like a confession. Sam’s apartment has two bedrooms: one of them is his, which he shares with Tron, and the other he entrusted to Quorra.(Though he entrusted it without so much as a thought as to what was trusting about the action. It took him an unhealthy amount of rumination to remember that Quorra is a whirlwind of a being- there's no way of knowing whether she knocked something over by accident or on purpose- and Sam's house is worth more to him than himself.)There’s something reassuring, ultimately, in seeing the care that Quorra’s put into arranging her bedroom. Sam stands in front of her doorway like it’s a picture frame and inspects Quorra’s interior design like it’s a museum exhibit.Her room is a small living space, but programs, so far as Sam’s noticed, tend to prefer minimalistic architecture and decoration. Quorra definitely hasn’t tried to fit much in the room. The walls are occupied by shelves and an impressive collection of classic literature crowned with something Jules Verne, which planks haphazardly on top of the other books. Most of this, he thinks, was pulled out of Alan’s collection. Lora contributed, too- the twin bed and mattress belonged to Jet while he still lived with his mom, and now they’re Quorra’s. The plain, grey bedspread and excessive quantity of cushions, as well as the gauzy curtains, were Lora’s as well, but those were unearthed from a decades-old moving box in Alan’s storage unit. The modern rug (he catches the edge of it beneath his toes) is all subdued colors and geometric patterns, salvaged from a secondhand store downtown. Really, the only thing that was legitimately difficult to squish into the room was the behemoth of a salt-and-pepper bean bag in the corner.There’s still an indentation of her nestled into the bean bag, comforting in that Quorra isn’t present, but she was in the house and she will be back. Banging open the front door in a squall of vivacity, she'll more than make up for every second of her absence in terms of sheer volume and her unnatural ability to exist everywhere at once.Quorra’s bucket- a purple, plastic thing Sam picked up at a Walmart a couple weeks back- is conspicuously missing from its typical position: carelessly half-shunted under the bed, one trailing corner of the comforter pooled inside it. At present, then, Quorra is most likely exploring the riverbank just outside, picking up a veritable salad of trash, rocks, and salamanders. There’s something about her methods of discovery, and how she’ll cradle even the slimiest fragment of a Coke can in her hands and redefine her entire world around its existence…Something, but Sam can’t put his finger on it.Quorra just has a knack for gathering up mismatched things and making them fit together.It’s a poor substitute for the form of slender shoulders, eternally twisting and shifting and (‘Sam, look at that!’) squirming like a fucking snake under his hands… It’s a poor substitute for Quorra, but Sam pats the doorframe fondly and turns to walk away. It happens in a span of thirty minutes:‘Is this the Grid?' becomes ‘This is the Grid.'Sam whispers the revelation to the hallways, to broad expanses of sleek and empty air imprisoned, stale and lifeless, between two walls, one floor, and one ceiling. He whispers it- soothes the words into existence with a murmur and sets them free with a flick of his tongue against teeth. He hopes they carry far. He hopes the words will cling to these walls that are blank and broken as deadened screens.Maybe someday, when another program or human or whoever it may be stumbles through this hallway on their way to "the Arena," they’ll read the last warning and legacy of Sam Flynn, or taste its ghost in the air, and know that they aren’t so alone.(Right now, he feels so impossibly alone, and it hurts.)His dad told him many things about the Grid. One thing he never mentioned, though, is how black, how dark, how hopeless it is in when you die hidden from the world, in a place where no one will ever find you.
The morning sun is faint.
At least- it isn’t pure agony to look at it for a few seconds.
It stretches out to crest the skyscrapers, to dip toes into the brindled surface of the river.
“Quorra! No!”Her eyes, vaguely almond-shaped, and ridiculously electric blue, flare wide for a moment before she ducks her head sheepishly, lowering her hand.Kevin rolls his eyes dramatically with an impatient huff; Sam gets the sense that this is far from the first time Quorra has been reprimanded for...For...“Hey, dad? What was that gesture?” Sam asks.Like half of a fist, with two of Quorra's fingers stuck up like a salute and her thumb jammed in between the two.“It’s- obscene. Vaguely resembles a certain part of, uh..." Sam tracks his dad’s gaze around the room, trying to meet Kevin’s eyes and failing miserably. “Um. Program biology. It’s very bold of her-” Kevin shoots a glare at Quorra, half-serious and half-teasing at the same time. “To use it. And not very polite.”Already over her embarrassment, Quorra shoots Sam a conspiratorial grin: lips twitching, eyebrows cocked, and everything. It winds around itself: milk-white and fluttering, snapping like a ribbon in the wind, throbbing like the shape of words spoken under breath.The air around it swells with a sigh, and the candle flame nictates into nonbeing.“It’s gone.”“You blew it out, Q.”Curls of smoke drip into the air like white-ash blossoms. They corkscrew up and around each other, bloated, unhurried. She tries to catch a strand around her finger-“Make it go again, Sam.”He reaches for another match.
Blue skies are too empty, saturated through and through with color until it’s all too heavy. Smothering.
Sam is inside, hidden under sheets that are tacky with a layer of old sweat. His body is broken and his mind skitters in overdrive…
If he tries hard enough, he can imagine how it smells outside. It’s that hot-glue stench of full sunlight crackling, seeping dry into sidewalks and cement blocks. It’s that smell of nostalgia, and it haunts him.
“The Miracle,” his dad prompts. “You remember.”Yeah, Sam remembers.He remembers overhearing the conversations between his Grandma and Mack, hiding by the banister just above the living room. Grandma had been afraid that Sam's dad had joined some sort of ‘religious cult.’ At the time, Sam hadn’t even known the definition of ‘cult.’ But he had assumed it was something awful and had been about three seconds from tearing downstairs and laying into his grandparents for being rude to his dad.Libel and slander and all that.Kevin Flynn, in the eyes of an devoted seven-year-old, was worth every ounce of fighting spirit Sam had in his body. It was as if Kevin Flynn had painted the sky, had hung the friggin’ sun itself up on the ceiling of the world.“ISOs- isomorphic algorithms- a whole new life form..."Sam's dad is still talking, completely oblivious to the frustrated tension coalescing in Sam’s jaw and in his clenching fists. He has to physically try and swallow his anger before he can breathe normally.“And you created them?” “No, no.”So what, the ISOs were like a sentient computer or something? Sam thinks it, but he doesn’t dare ask, doesn’t want to offend while his dad is still on a roll. Kevin’s eyes are shining, and Sam gets the sense that, for all that Kevin is looking straight at him, his dad isn’t really seeing him anymore.“They manifested. Like a flame.”And they ignited Kevin Flynn’s entire world.
Gold is a nice color, like a crown. Except for when it comes to grass- sheaves of starved and shriveled, golden grass blistering under the sun.
When it comes to grass, the color gold is not the crown itself, but rather the judgment of it. A death sentence.
Maybe it’s sad, that gold represents both beauty and suffering, but never just one or the other. It makes sense, though- kings, after all, are gold, and kings are not known for their mercies.
Clu is all hard blacks and hard golds, and around him, Sam sees only hard reds and oranges. There's a claustrophobic air to Clu's prison; Sam looks down to his hands and notices they're tinted and ruddy beneath the odd blood-light of the Grid. It's as if every vein and artery in Sam's body split at the seams, pumping him full of blood like a great, bruised bag of loose skin...Like a walking, talking hemorrhage. When Sam finally finds her- colored in hard blacks, but also soft, glaring whites like a summer morning- it feels like he's stepping into daylight for the first time. Quorra’s got a napkin in her hand, crinkling and un-crinkling it in turns. All Sam knows is that she wrote a poem on it (probably a poem; it looked like it had stanzas) during lunch and hasn’t let go since.“Tell me about love.”She’s riding shotgun in Alan’s car, and Sam is driving, determined not to crash or otherwise screw up. Unfortunately, the job of satisfying Quorra’s curiosity isn’t exactly compatible with the practice of safe driving- Sam is familiar with the unhealthy end of the emotional spectrum, but anything more positive than apathy tends to catch him clear off guard.It’s a ‘rug pulled from under your feet, stomach imploding with a swoop of adrenaline’ type of thing.He drums his fingers against the steering wheel, noting that the leather is suddenly clammier than it was about a minute or so ago. “Love? What’s got you thinking about love, hm?”First crush? First crush on a fictional character? Hell, he thought he knew everything about Quorra, from her day-to-day habits to the places she wanders off to when nobody’s keeping a close enough eye on her, and he’s pretty sure that nothing she’s involved in should be sparking deep thoughts about love. What did he miss?Is this what being a parent feels like? Sam hates it. “I’m not sure," Quorra mumurs. Sam sweeps his gaze over the road and back to Quorra in an instant, fast enough to catch her turning away from him, smearing a dirty fingertip down the window in a stereotypical awkward-but-totally-innocent gesture. “Just… curious.”“Bull.”“Alan says you’re not supposed to use those kinds of words around me,” Quorra scolds.“Alan says a lot of things, and if I listened to them all- Have you been eavesdropping on me and Alan?”The way Quorra dips her chin at him is demure, but there’s radiant intelligence gleaming in her wide, vulpine eyes, and she strings a devious smile across her lips. Honestly, it looks like she’s priming herself to eat a person whole, and Sam is halfway inclined to evacuate the car while he’s still alive and in possession of all four limbs.“So you have been eavesdropping." He shakes his head. "Good to know. But since when do you care what Alan has to say, anyway?”Quorra’s posture right now is ramrod-perky beyond belief, but she has one hell of a messy shrug- her entire body bobs with the action, floppy and without a care in the world. “He’s nice. Why wouldn't I listen?"The ISO really has no concept for conservation of movement; Quorra wears her behaviors and emotions on her sleeve like a neon-pink-and-fluorescent-orange streaked armband. Considering her penchant for easy sentimentality, Sam had figured she’d be able to figure out love for herself, too.“So, what’s it like?" Quorra needles, staring at Sam. (Sam stares at the road, in turn.) "Love? And- and kissing, or dating… Sam, how do you use a dating website?”“You don’t need a dating website, Quorra. Trust me.”“Then explain it to me. Please?”He liberates a pent-up breath through a slow sputter of an exhale. “Love." He can't believe he's going through with this without so much as practicing. "Right. It’s hard to describe this kind of stuff, you know? There aren’t really words for it, you just have to feel it. For yourself."“If I don’t know what it is, how am I supposed to recognize it when I do feel it?” Quorra gesticulates wildly, missing the side of Sam’s head by a bare inch. “It wouldn’t be logical. At least try, Sam.”“Fine, fine.” He tightens his grip on the wheel until it hurts, bracing himself. Yeah, he’s one hundred percent prepared to monumentally screw up his first attempt at parental guidance. “Okay, first off, I want you to remember something. It’s the- ah, the most important thing to know, alright?”“Alright.”“The world thinks of love in a certain way. And that way is wrong. If someone- anyone- comes up to you and tries to tell you what love is, you plug your ears and don’t listen to them for one second. Love is, above all else, what you want it to be. It’s how you want to understand the people around you, and it’s how you want them to understand you in return.”“Sam, wait.””Waiting.””Um- why does the world think of love in the wrong way?”This is a question he’s asked himself a thousand times, and he doesn’t haven the slightest idea. “I’m not sure, Q.” He’ll get back to her when he figures it all out, but in the meantime... “Maybe... I think it’s maybe because everyone interprets love in a different way. And I think it’s also because love is very important to people. So when something is very important to you, and you have strong opinions about it, you sometimes forget that other people aren’t going to think of it in the same way you do, and that they can have different opinions. You forget that those different opinions are just as important as yours.”“I understand.”He snorts. “You understand? In this crazy world? That makes you smarter than... say... ninety-nine percent of people, right off the bat.” Unimaginably wise and profoundly naïve, or something along those lines.Quorra seems quietly pleased at his estimate of her abilities, smug as a cat. Sam is just surprised that the statement, in hindsight, wasn’t even half as sarcastic as he had intended.”What else, Sam?”“Oh geez. Well, at its simplest, then, love is mostly… affection. It’s a connection that you feel with another person; a connection strong enough that you feel like some part of that person- their looks, their personality, maybe, I dunno- is almost like a… a part of you. Does that make sense?””Yep.””Good. Usually, that means that you want them to have a part of you, too, and a connection of their own.” Sam Flynn has loved a minimum of people in his life, but he draws off of what he can, and tries to simplify it. Mostly, right now, he’s going off of how he feels for Tron. “That’s because love feels really good and… warm, and you want the person you love to feel the same way. When you love a person, you should definitely care about them. That’s critical. That’s what makes love different and special.”“And then you kiss?”Funny- he remembers trying to explain kissing to Tron. “Sure. If that’s what both you and the other person want, Quorra.” It could be worse- at least she isn’t asking about sex.“Maybe.” The napkin is unfolded again, sitting mangled and withered in her palm. She raises it to her mouth, almost tentative, and presses a kiss into it- oily, red lipstick smears on cheap, brown paper. In a second, Quorra rolls the window down and releases the napkin into the wind. There’s something subtly aggressive in her eyes and the set of her mouth, and Sam doesn’t dare comment on the illegality of littering on a public road. They say you learn something new every day, and lately, Quorra has become an eternal fountain of revelations and realizations: For one, Quorra is a shameless pointer. She has opinions, and she has them loudly. Secondly, she doesn’t discriminate between insult and compliment- it’s all just truth and honest observation, in her eyes. And finally- she always, despite constant lecturing and pleading from Sam, goes ahead and points out everything and everyone that she ever talks about. Quorra’s a warrior, so he assumes she has good posture, but he can’t really tell- she’s always contorting herself, changing this and that and shifting her stance and moving her shoulders like she’s choreographing some complex, hyperrealistic dance between herself and her shadow. She’s absolutely erratic and often careless. It reminds Sam, every so often, of himself.Quorra’s a warrior, but she’s shy about it. Ever since the incident at the End of Line Club, in the Grid, he’s never seen her fight. She prefers to do her training alone in the garage, just her and Sam’s old punching bag, and possibly her memories of Kevin. Beyond the platonic mentor and mentee vibe that he sensed between his dad and the ISO, Sam isn’t entirely sure as to what their relationship was, or to what extent.Her hands are folded delicately into her lap, and she clasps them just so in front of her waist. Give it ten, maybe twenty seconds, and she’ll be folded criss-cross onto the stool, pulling strands of fuzz out of her hoodie pocket, but every movement of her hands will be accurate and deliberate and dainty. It’s just what Quorra does.She cackles. It’s freaky.He gave her shoes with heels once. She has to have been deliberately clacking them on the floor to annoy him; Sam has never heard a louder pair of shoes in his life. It’s an uncomfortable habit to witness: she’ll clasp her arm right between shoulder and elbow, sometimes stroking the skin absentmindedly to calm herself. It’s the part of her skin where an insignia of light marks her as an ISO, brighter when she’s on the Grid than in the user world.When she’s nervous or afraid, her first thought is to hide the thing. It makes Sam feel like he should go back in time and kill Clu again himself, just on principle. “Sam, wake up.”"Wha’s goin’ on?”A pause, then..."... Aw, man, ‘s that Quorra screaming? Need t’ go check on her...” "Mm." Tron grabs at his shoulders for a second before the program remembers. "Glitched user world has no disks...”Sam shoves himself out of bed all at once so he won’t be tempted to just fall back in and go back to sleep. Crud, the floor is freezing.He fumbles the doorknob once before getting a decent grip on it, twisting it open. The hallway light was left on, and it spills sudden yellow luminescence into the bedroom like a slap in the face. Sam blinks rapidly, feeling almost refreshed, but at like... the opposite end of the spectrum or something. Bad refreshed. And completely incoherent at that.Tron groans from somewhere just behind him, breaking into an impressive stream of hissed program curses that Sam had never thought the monitor capable of. Nudging Sam aside, Tron steps into the horrible light with an unfair amount of coordination- seriously, the guy was totally knocked out just two minutes ago. Sam gathers together his will to live and follows Tron to Quorra’s room.She’s sitting up in bed, shoulders hunched clear up to her ears, sheets skewed off to one side, hair an unmitigated disaster. She’s pale, sweating, and starting to cry.”Aw, Quorra...” He sits on the edge of her bed, reaching out to catch one snot-wiped, trembling hand. Tron, in Sam’s peripheral, scans the room for threats. He won’t find anything, though. “Nightmare?” Her entire body seizes with a particularly violent tremor- Sam just interprets that as an affirmative; pulls Quorra close until she latches on to the front of his t-shirt.It’s weird. Quorra isn’t usually one for affectionate physical contact. Not that she isn’t tactile, of course... it’s more that Quorra’s prerogative is to learn and to explore and to do it all quickly and thoroughly. Hugging and hand holding and anything other than quick taps to the shoulder or the occasional shove, in her opinion, take up too much time.Regardless, she’s gone and completely ensconced herself in his chest, holding stiff and still."Wow... hey, shh. Breathe, okay? Breathe. You’ve got this, Q, you’re alright. I know they’re crap, but nightmares can’t hurt you. They can’t touch you. You’ve just got to wait until you wake up, and then it all goes away.”"It felt real.”"Yeah, I know. It sucks.” He hovers one hand over her hair for a second, uncertain, before giving in and dropping his fingers into soft, black strands. Her hair is longer than Tron’s, and pretty tangled, so stroking through it is more difficult than he’s used to. “Do you wanna talk about it?”She shakes her head once, ever so slightly, and he doesn’t pry.“Okay, Quorra. That’s okay. Shh... shh. Can you tell me what you need?”She hiccups against his chest with the built-up force of stifled sobs. He can’t even tell she’s trying to talk at first; sounds like the beginnings of words flutter, high-pitched, in her throat- or maybe she's just whimpering. “S- Sam. Sam...”He should’ve known it wasn’t whimpering. She’s a quiet crier- all three of them are."I’m here.”"Can you... Can you sing a song?”Yeah, well, he wasn't exactly expecting that, to be honest. “A song? You want me to sing to you?”"Flynn used to.” "Are you sure? My singing voice isn’t awesome.”This time, it’s Tron that makes a noise, nothing more than a small, impatient grunt, accompanied by a glare. The security program has invented a whole new level of pissiness over the past week- he’s pissed because he’s not getting enough sleep, for one. He’s also pissed because he has to sleep in the first place. Transferral to the user world changes some things in programs; makes it so they require real sleep. Tron, who was created to run on almost no recharge at all, detests it.”But, yeah, I’ll sing to you. Is there anything specific that, uh... that he used to sing?””No,” she whispers.”Huh.” Sliding further up into the bed, Sam settles himself against Quorra’s pillows and hugs the ISO close to him. Tron arranges himself against the doorframe, legs and arms crossed, swollen eyes drooping closed. He seems uncharacteristically ruffled.Sam clears his throat thoroughly, knowing that nothing he does will be enough to prevent the inevitable voice crack...Screw it.“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey... you’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away...”
It’s one, big, crooked mortal tragedy.
They all need the stupid sun, don’t they? It burns them, melted the wax right off of Icarus' wings, but they’d all die without it.
Sam thinks he’s probably delirious.
“It’s how I imagine the sunrise to be,” she says.“Oh, trust me…” It isn’t. The sunrise isn’t the portal, some blue-white beacon of hope, some symbol of the users. “There’s no comparison.”“What’s it like?”“The sun?”“Yeah.”He wonders what his dad has told her. He wonders if she knows it’ll be golden-orange and crimson like anger, like neon circuits screaming against the black backdrop of the Grid. He wonders how Quorra can feel so much love for a sunrise that looks like nothing more than another part of the people who destroyed her home, her family, her world.“Wow. I’ve never had to describe it…” It’s just one of those things you have to experience. “Warm. Radiant.”He looks over at her: Kevin’s other kid. The person that his dad kinda abandoned him for, and kinda didn’t. The person who probably kept his dad sane, clashing sheer dynamic energy against that classic Flynn despair and melancholy. Sam can't bring himself to do it- he’s not going to be the one to ruin her sunrise.He’s not going to be the one to ruin her.“...Beautiful.”Later, she'll burrow her face into his neck, the tip of her nose cold against his skin, and he'll wish he had a helmet for her. The wind on the highway, without something to protect your face, sucks. She’ll still be laughing, though, ecstatic about her clear-white and pink-tinged sunrise.And the sunrise, somehow, will look exactly like her laughter sounds. Beautiful.All at once and all of a sudden, he'll see it- she is a miracle.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Back before everything fell apart, his dad never once ran out of words to say. He would just talk for the sake of being heard; he would talk for the sake of talking.Maybe, Sam thinks, that method of communication constitutes its own kind of wisdom.Certainly nothing like Alan’s wisdom- Alan is made up of false passivity, glaring silences, deceptively careful words that need only strike once to devastate. A selective talker, Alan speaks and makes his words count. Kevin Flynn would speak to up his word-count. Quantity over quality. Bluster until it all amalgamates into something comprehensible.From a certain standpoint, the whole ‘pro-quantity’ strategy could be considered fairly manipulative. After all, Kevin Flynn always got to talk about anything and everything he wanted, and it was the job of his audience to suss out his main ideas if they wanted to understand him.Pretty early on, Sam notes the Grid hasn’t managed to beat the habit out of Kevin. Not at all.The difference between the way Kevin talked before the Grid and the way he tries to talk now, Sam supposes, is the Zen Thing. And the Zen Thing means that his dad acts like he has some sort of esoteric wisdom, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize Kevin’s skill still exists in talking accidental and hasty circles around everyone and everything. Masterful silences interspersed with philosophical commentary really don’t suit him.The pretense rings hollow with fear.Sam figures his dad is trying to sound mature; trying to reassure Sam and Quorra. Maybe Kevin also needs to reassure himself, because Sam’s sudden appearance in the Grid threw the older man far off his rhythm, and Kevin seems…Empty?Gutted.He’s trying his best to provide calm and comfort, but this hermit is not at all the dad Sam needs.So when Kevin finally slips up, cracking Sam over the head with a “biodigital jazz, man,” Sam deflates under the relief of normality. The 80s slang is awkward, awful, but it’s undeniable proof that Sam’s dad is still alive and kicking inside this older Kevin Flynn. After that, Sam finally begins to really listen to him, attempts at philosophy and all: “Life has a way of moving you past wants and hopes.”“‘A digital frontier to reshape the human condition.’”“You’re messin’ with my Zen thing, man…”“Some things are worth the risk.” Some things, Sam muses. He hears the advice, and he hears what Kevin- Kevin the father, not the CEO, not the firebrand programmer, not the recluse- tries to convey between the lines. Sam internalizes it, thinks of Quorra and of how she cares for him enough to have defended him from attack at cost of her own body.But most of all, Sam thinks of Tron.“Some things are worth the risk,” Kevin admits, reassures, apologizes. They aren’t exactly Kevin’s dying words, but out of everything that Kevin rambles on about, they burn deepest into Sam’s heart.(The trick with Kevin Flynn, after all, was never to remember the first words or the last, but to pick out the lesson buried somewhere in the middle.) Quorra adores the sun.She’ll wriggle into the sunlit patches on her carpet, wake up at unholy hours of the morning to watch the sky catch fire, all but stare at that blinding mass of flames...Tron prefers a more jaded approach to life. For all that the older program runs on the same intensity as Quorra, Tron tempers himself under layers of cool composure and the memories of scars. He’ll explore, in compliance with his function as a monitor, but he doesn’t take comfort in it. He finds safety in a sense of familiarity.As it is, user-world daytime (all blue skies and blazing) bears no resemblance to either the Grid or the ENCOM system. The night sky, on the other hand, goes as black as the Grid and soaks up city lights in just the same way. Sam should’ve expected Tron to favor it.The stars, above all else, catch and hold Tron’s attention.One glimpse of that uneven splatter of shining white across black, and Tron caved. Just like that. Sam saw the pure wonder in his eyes and resolved to hook the program up with a dozen or so books on the topic of celestial bodies.(Tron brushes a hand over the page with the same reverence the program affords to watching the night sky. “Sam, what does this say?” “Ad astra per aspera. It’s Latin.”) ‘Tron’ isn’t just a name, not anymore.It’s an idea.Black-suited, dark-visored, hidden, Tron exists in every bit of light that illuminates the Grid. He exists in the life and the safety of every program on the system.Walking down the street, people take to looking up at the tops of buildings, which Tron- admittedly- does tend to stand on. Programs turn their heads toward the sky and imagine that their guardian is everywhere at once, watching from the midnight heights overhead.Passing a tower emblazoned with Tron’s insignia, Sam nearly runs into a group of programs gazing up adoringly, blocking the entire walkway in the process. He quivers with silent laughter at the sight and elbows the disgruntled (disguised) system monitor standing beside him. “Ad astra per aspera. It’s Latin.”“What does it mean?”“Mm- something along the lines of ‘to the stars through difficulty.’”“To the stars,” Tron repeats. The dry rasp of his fingertip on paper, tracing right under the sentence, burrows under Sam’s skin and leaves him shivering. Skin against paper- it’s an awful sound when one hyper-focuses on it. “Does the phrase have an opposite?”Sam’s hand shoots out, clamping down on the program’s wrist to stop the tracing. If Tron radiates soft, steady, comforting heat under Sam’s palm, and if Sam doesn’t let go even after Tron stops moving, it really isn’t anyone’s business. “What do you mean, Tron?”“An opposite, a related-” Tron cuts himself short and shakes his head. “Is there a phrase for when the stars go through difficulty in return? When they come to you?”Not likely.Sam doesn’t speak fluent Latin, though, so he can’t be sure.He chuckles weakly. “Man, you know the stars aren’t really… supposed to move toward Earth or anything, right?”“The phrase is symbolic, Sam.” If Tron were Quorra, he would leave the remonstrance there and move on. Silly users. Don’t know a thing about their own astrophysics… but Tron is Tron, so the monitor fixes Sam with a baleful gaze and continues, “But I think you already knew that.”“Sam Flynn, don’t be deliberately obtuse?” teases Sam.Tron’s glare- disapproving, yes, but also impossibly gentle- provides a more than sufficient response to that. “Combatant three versus Rinzler.”Just like that, Sam knows he won't get out of this alive.An eidolon defends the opposite end of the stage. Loose-limbed, head bowed, coiled inside a black shell, its silhouette melts into the luster and the shadow of the Arena.
“Rinzler!”
The crowd screams: rabid, desperate.
“Rinzler!”
Rinzler (not a numbered combatant, but a name, a champion ) pays its audience no mind. It steps…
“Rinzler!”
Forward. It growls, and its death rattle ricochets off the walls.Exhausted, Sam pants and tries to ease his heaving lungs while he still has the privilege of breathing; exhales a shaky “You’ve gotta be kidding me” as if his opponent classifies as nothing more than an inconvenience. As if Rinzler isn’t perfectly terrifying, perfectly lethal.Perfectly beautiful. An epitome of the ethereal allure that defines the entire Grid, that draws Sam in even as the place tears him to shreds, and… Stop. Shut up. Sam is about to die; he has no time for this train of thought.Focus.
Survive.
His opponent is a carapace of sheer armor, hard and indomitable...The armor seems as black- as deep and saturated and minimally lit- as some 2 a.m. sky. Rinzler slinks toward Sam and slips out of the darkness with subtle grace and deliberate footfalls (as if testing Sam, or goading him). The lighting scheme of the Grid, comprised of pale blue and ruddy orange, catches on the sharp contours of its armor, flushing Rinzler with the luster of a cosmos.Having wrestled with life on the streets, having inserted himself in alleyway fights and gang activity and all kinds of criminal danger, Sam appreciates the brutal elegance of a survivor. More self-indulgently, Sam realizes, he appreciates the simple artistry of the program’s appearance.Rinzler sways back into a low crouch, separating its disk into two, and the audience explodes with a roaring cheer. Sam could find the Big Dipper without a hitch, but Orion’s Belt had always eluded him. But he'd had it all planned out: he and his dad would take blankets onto the roof, Kevin would teach Sam to identify Orion, and they would stargaze. Kevin would ramble on about galaxies, and Sam would listen. Never mind that the roof was slanted. He and his dad would have figured out a way to make it work.“Alright, kiddo, I’ll think about it. Maybe over the weekend, huh?”After that, Kevin Flynn became busy. Occupied. Physically absent for long periods of time, and mentally absent when he returned… then Kevin disappeared, and the floor of Sam’s life caved in under his feet. “It was a coup. Tron- he fought for me.”‘Fought,’ in past tense. The statement is inaccurate.Tron never stopped fighting for Kevin Flynn. He never stopped paying the price for Kevin’s inactions, and yet Kevin doesn’t even care enough to know that Tron is still alive… Poorly disguised indignation bubbles up Sam’s throat, and he snaps back. “So why didn’t you fight?”“He did,” Quorra tries to defend, more bitterness hidden in the clench of her jaw than even she seems to pick up on.Kevin affords her a small glance of approval. “Clu fed on my resistance.”Oh, sure.Clu, in the end, feeds on a lot of things. Sam witnessed the destruction firsthand; Kevin, apparently, isn’t aware of any of it. Clu knows how to make do with what he’s given, whether that’s Kevin’s interference or Kevin’s noble avoidance. Hiding away did a sum total of nothing to protect the Grid from devastation. Hiding only ever protected Kevin himself. What Creator has the right to surrender while his people suffer?“The more I fought, the more powerful he became. It was impressive, really.”No, there’s nothing impressive about Clu’s perversion.The death and despair in this white-bleached hideout are suffocating.
“Tell me something about the ENCOM system.”
“‘All that is visible must grow beyond itself and extend into the realm of the invisible.’”
“...What does that mean?”
“It’s the beginning of a prayer from the System. I never had the opportunity to learn the rest of it.”
“Okay, but what does it mean?”
“Its meaning would likely be lost in translation from my mind to yours. Think about it for yourself, Sam Flynn."
“Right. Hey, on the topic of 'extending into the invisible-' is anything up there, at the top of the Grid, or does the black just... go on forever?"
“The sky is compiled of code.”
“That’s a ton of code. Maybe you guys need a sun.”
“Users forbid we ever need a sun.” Sam has memories he regrets. He has ideas he knows he would regret if they ever came to fruition.In this case, Tron doesn’t give him the opportunity to either wallow in his past or screw up his future, which- considering Sam has a propensity for both spur-of-the-moment recklessness and genuine suicidal behavior- is very intelligent on the program’s part. Sam’s toes reach down into nothing; tingle with the rush of blood flooding from his upper body to swinging feet. His hands cup the sharp ninety degrees of the roof’s edge, halfway clinging to safety, halfway pushing himself into the chasm of city lights below…Sam would regret jumping off this building, but he can’t lie to himself: the exhilaration of a fall is tempting.His head remains the only part of him still tethered to reality- and keeping control of his own head has always been crucial to protecting Sam from himself.Tron’s hand curls over Sam’s shoulder with that firm, ‘don’t-even-try-it’ grip, almost bruising and almost a caress. The thumb stroking distractedly over the back of Sam’s neck certainly detracts from the ferocity of Tron’s hold. Fond, Sam tips his head sideways to rest against the bend of Tron’s arm. Hard, armored plating mashes against the side of his forehead, but Tron’s warmth and Tron’s simple presence make the discomfort worthwhile.“Do you like it?”“It’s gorgeous, Tron.” It refers to Tron City. Which Tron stubbornly calls ‘the City;’ and whose idea was it anyway to name an entire metropolis after the Grid’s most self-effacing program? “And way bigger than I expected. ‘S a lot of programs…”Perched on top of a tower, looking over the massive sprawl of shorter buildings, Sam gets a sense of what it is to be Tron, of what it is to have such overwhelming protectiveness over a people. From this more celestial perspective, the programs of the Grid seem small and blameless, so convoluted and alive and deserving of peace.Just behind him, Tron exudes a sense of merciless, vigilant satisfaction that electrifies Sam’s nerves, just about lighting them on fire. Sam considers sending back an unspoken request for Tron to calm the hell down. Instead, he settles for humor. “So, Tron. You come here often?”“Shut off,” the program groans, nudging a kick into Sam’s thigh.Gravity leans Sam forward a centimeter, and Tron immediately recalibrates Sam’s position with a minuscule adjustment that should be imperceptible to users. But the circuit on Sam’s index finger drags against the building (sparking inwardly in recognition of the building’s code), and he remembers that he can’t classify himself as a normal user. Not while he’s in the Grid. Not while Clu’s modifications mark him with the appearance and the senses of a program.He’s still uncomfortable with his circuits- they’re a part of Sam’s body that he has no familiarity with in the slightest, and the circuits tend to catch him off-guard more often than not. But, in the end, he doesn’t think he’ll ever regret having them. At the very least, the circuits allow him to connect to Tron on a level unattainable by most users.“Do you ever regret things?” he blurts.“Yes.”Of course. Sam doesn’t know what he expected.“Like what?” Users, he just goes ahead and says whatever first thing comes to mind, doesn’t he? No tact needed.Tron’s respondent emotion, which Sam picks up through his circuits although he can’t see the program’s face, feels like a subtle bite of the lower lip, the mindless drumming of fingers on a table, an eyebrow twitching upward... “I regret things like Yori.”He doesn’t even touch the topic of Clu.Sam knows it. Tron knows it. Sam gives him an easy out, regardless. “Yeah, you never talk about Yori.”Yori, Sam recalls, was Lora Baines’ program from the ENCOM system. Sam’s dad always referred to Yori in context of her relationship with Tron, so Sam can’t quite manage to suppress an irrational surge of jealousy. (Tron is Sam’s… what? Friend? Partner? Point is, he’s wary of Yori’s claim on the system monitor.) “What happened to her?”“I… am unsure. Rinzler…” Tron chokes on the words. Sam moves a hand up to cover Tron’s death grip on his shoulder, even scoots back from the edge and turns to face the program.“Tron. Sit.”Tron complies, almost too quickly. “I- Rinzler- when I was Rinzler, I lost…” The way Tron deliberates over his next words, like they’re stuck in his throat, means less that the program doesn’t know what to say and more that there’s still too much of Rinzler in him to speak easily in the first place. Tron, Rinzler… at this point, Sam assumes the two have combined into one and the same, although Tron hasn’t yet decided whether or not to differentiate between his two identities when discussing his past. “I lost much of my awareness of the Grid after I was… recoded. I lost awareness of her.”“So you don’t know what happened to her.” Tron’s eyes gleam overbright, reflecting a broad circuit that runs across the length of the roof. “And she hasn’t… I dunno, hasn’t shown up yet or anything?”“No. Yori had a tendency to put herself in precarious situations. She would cause full riots protesting offenses far less grievous than Clu’s genocide.” A ghost of affection plays over a corner of Tron’s lips before drowning beneath an ugly grimace. “Realistically, she must’ve gotten herself derezzed.”Sam picks up Tron’s other hand; turns both appendages over to expose the delicate circuits on the program’s palms. “Give her some credit, maybe? She made it through ENCOM.”“I’ll give her credit if I see her,” Tron growls. “Not before.”Cynic.But there’s something, some detail of the conversation, that’s bothering Tron. It lurks in the words that Tron doesn’t say and in the hope that he refuses to allow...“You think you derezzed her,” Sam realizes. “But you don’t remember?”Tron shakes his head briefly, shamefaced.“Tron, you had no say and no choice in what Clu did to you. If she’s dead,” and it sounds harsh, but Tron prefers the truth to be given to him straight, “It’s Clu’s fault. Hey- look at me. I’m serious.”Tron’s eyes perform a slow dance around Sam’s torso until Sam sighs, “I’m up here, Tron,” and the blue eyes snap upward almost viciously.“It’s Clu’s fault. And my dad’s fault, too; Dad was… fuck, he was an idiot. I don’t blame you, and Yori wouldn’t, either.” Maybe his possessive lizard brain thinks of her as a threat, but Sam can respect anyone who cares for (or once cared for, in the case of death) Tron.He rubs his thumbs against Tron’s palms, watching the program’s fingers flex with a reluctantly contented, conflicted shiver. “She loved you, right? She’d probably be furious at Clu if she knew what he did to you.”“She loved me,” Tron echoes. The phrase sounds more like a newfound revelation than simple acknowledgment.Sam shifts the subject. “Out of curiosity- your relationship with her was romantic, right?”Tron cocks his head confusedly. “Romantic?” “How would programs describe it?” The dialect of the Grid is intriguing- it’s English, yes, but altered. Users have half a million different words to differentiate between types of relationships; programs, on the other hand, have a scant handful of terms. You’re either in a dedicated partnership, or you aren’t. A relationship either matters on an intense and permanent basis, or it doesn’t. And detailed descriptions of what your relationship entails are considered no one’s business. “Were the two of you… interfacing?”“No. She wanted to. I didn’t. What I regret is that I allowed our partnership to dissolve after that.” He bobs his head in a slight shrug. “Or maybe I don’t regret it. Maybe we would have created an… unsatisfactory pair. But Yori was a good friend, and she respected what existed between us.”“Hang on- you didn’t want to interface with her?”“It wasn’t unusual, in my System, for a program to have no instinct to interface.”Sam’s heart skips a beat. His world flash-freezes. He almost can’t believe it; thinks he should have noticed it before now...As he thaws, his words tumble out haphazard. “You, too? Dude, I…” Sam’s thoughts scramble themselves into a knot. Tripping over several attempts to keep speaking, he finally forces something out of his mouth- “I’m the same.” He squeezes Tron’s hands. “Sex- I mean, interface- never really appealed to me. I never enjoyed it and never really wanted to try and enjoy it, and if I keep talking I’m going to start rambling, so…”Tron bucks with smothered laughter.“It’s not really typical for users to not want sex, though. I’m considered weird in the user world.” He doesn’t know what possesses him to say it, except that Tron’s hands clasp Sam’s with perfect pressure, and camaraderie flickers in his eyes, and Sam is so afraid to lose this. “Weird people have to stick together, right?”“Weird,” Tron murmurs, pauses to send a quick scan through Sam’s circuits, though Sam doesn’t know what the program wants to detect. Something, however, must suffice, because Tron nods decisively. “We can be weird together, Sam Flynn. I wouldn’t… regret it.”The silence that blankets them afterward is effortlessly warm and uncomplicated.And the silence breaks. “Tron, did you ever-” Sam restarts the question, trying to smother his morbid curiosity and miserably failing at it. “On the topic of regret, did you ever regret saving my dad? Or- are you ever angry that he ran away? Left you and the Grid behind?”“I’m not angry.”“You gave his life for him so that he could escape and save the Grid. And he just wasted that sacrifice.”“I’m not angry.” Tron looks past Sam and into the city, an air of melancholy casual and comfortable in his bearing. “I think I feel… distant.”“I’m here. With you.”“You are,” Tron agrees, and offers Sam a haggard grin. Luminescence, woven across skin, forms intricate lineations and delicately rounded terminals. Blue radiance, as pale and hot as a whisper, casts aquatic ribbons of light on the walls, the bedsheets.The light forms intricate lineations and delicately rounded terminals, winds around full curves of muscle and onto the broad expanse of a chest. Nothing is held back or subdued or hidden under dark armor.“You are… beautiful.”Lazy, Tron cracks open his eyes and hums with sluggish curiosity. His body pulses warm in time with the sound.“Other programs on the Grid don’t look like this under their clothing. They don’t have as many circuits as you do.”“All the ENCOM programs had ‘as many circuits,’” Tron rumbles.The circuits paint over every inch of his skin, wreathe around each other and divaricate. They amble down Tron's neck and shoulders, chest and back, like a living microchip. Sam runs fingers over the circuits, studying labyrinthine paths of light and learning to navigate them. Constellations dance over Tron’s body.Any other description is inadequate. Rinzler shows Sam a side of himself that the program doesn’t dare show anyone else.To be fair, Rinzler undeniably doesn’t want to show Sam. However, Rinzler doesn’t have much of a choice, with the both of them imprisoned in the same cell. What stands out is that, even though Rinzler doesn’t prefer to reveal his weakness (and Sam doesn’t have to ask to know that vulnerability rubs Rinzler the wrong way), the program doesn’t exactly fight the inevitable, either. He doesn’t try to put on a pretense of strength after being deposited in their cell; he cagily accepts Sam’s presence and falls apart.Rinzler shows Sam a side of himself with a soft underbelly, scarred with trauma and crippled by a raging internal conflict. Rinzler shows Sam a remnant of Tron. Even if, at times, it takes a bit of digging to find that remnant.“Rinzler?”This time around, Clu doesn’t bother to lug Rinzler back to prison. Rinzler drags himself back under his own power, scattering voxels and staggering on hands and knees (or not even on knees, at moments, as the program slowly collapses).Neon circuits flicker; spasm to blinding white-harsh before fading to dull red. Brutal lacerations cleave through the sparse circuitry on Rinzler’s chest; where gashes bisect circuits, scorching torrents of electricity spark out from the program’s skin before guttering down to charred, heat-splintered wounds. Listless, Rinzler suddenly seizes, tense and writhing. “Rinzler.” What does it take for a program to die? To… derez? “Oh, fuck.” He bounces on his heels, panicked, before shuffling forward.The voxels, brittle as hot glass and smoldering through the softer soles of Sam’s boots, splinter underfoot. He disregards the faint pain of the cubes burning out against his toes; skids on them and falls to his knees at Rinzler’s side. He doesn’t know if he can risk getting any closer- Rinzler squirms through cresting pain, and Sam decides- screw it- he doesn’t expect to live through the Grid anyway.He’s still got one good, uninjured hand, and he places it on Rinzler’s abdomen without a second doubt, forgets that there are sparks erupting from the malfunctioning program. Overheated energy halfway to deresolution bursts over Sam’s hands and puckers blisters into his knuckles.Sam chokes back a startled scream, shifting his grip up to Rinzler’s shoulder.Rinzler ripples with a vicious growl and tries to throw Sam off.“Don’t move. Just don’t,” Sam hisses. He doesn’t know how to treat an injured program, and users above the damage seems even worse now that he’s up close...Rinzler’s arm, the one curled beneath him and hidden under his body, is half gone . From one torn and ragged elbow down, the limb already disintegrated to nothing. He contorts around the wreckage of his torso, and if Rinzler were a user, Sam knows he would be dead. His spine and shoulders twist too sharply in a strange direction; Sam’s hand shakily slides down a dry section of Rinzler’s chest and finds a massive indent where a human’s ribs would be. Rinzler reeks of fire and filthy iron.The program keens lowly through his helmet, but the sound shreds into a harsh, muted rattle. Sam’s heart skips a wild beat.“Crud. Crud.” Rinzler’s stench coagulates in Sam’s saliva; he wrenches to the side and gags until spit drips from the corners of his mouth, splattering the floor. “‘M… I’m here, okay? I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna… I dunno how, but…”He shivers, and cold, tacky sweat gathers around the collar and beneath the sleeves of his armor. Trying to stifle useless, frantic breathing, Sam raises one trembling hand to his mouth, presses burned fingers against his lips and mumbles through them.“Clu wouldn’t let you die, right? Breathe...” Except programs aren’t supposed to breathe, not like users. “Wait, I mean- just relax, okay?”Rinzler jerks abruptly, slamming his head into the ground. “ U-us-e-Err.” “Hey, easy…”Rinzler flinches again, his one remaining hand clenching around nothing, though Sam suspects the program would be reaching for a disk if he could.“I I-iI-I fii-iIght for-r Clu.” “Are you going to kill me, then?” Why does he say it? Rinzler is injured, in agony on the floor and Sam can’t believe for a second that any of this is really Rinzler’s fault. That Rinzler fights for Clu is not his fault. Frustration sears through Sam’s veins regardless, starting from his burned hand and gashed shoulder, spreading like wildfire and feeding on the fuel of his depression and terror and hatred for Clu. “Are you finally going to go through with it? Huh?”The program can’t reply. Purring weakly, Rinzler rides out another wave of pain before going limp on the ground.Sam doesn’t know what to do. He’s not a program. He can’t even help himself, much less Rinzler… “I’m sorry.” If he had the strength left to cry, he would be crying right now, but his eyes feel almost achingly parched. “I’m not mad at you.” Somehow, he doesn’t think that helps, but the devil-may-care side of his brain takes control and he becomes aware of his actions halfway through crawling over the incapacitated program. Sam settles himself against Rinzler’s back, out of reach of the program’s hand and the leaking cuts on his chest and stomach.This idea isn’t even remotely safe.But Rinzler can’t gather the strength to prevent Sam from going through with it.He braces himself against the crooked curve of Rinzler’s spine, inserting his burned hand between Rinzler’s helmet and the hard floor. His legs tangle rigidly, nervously, with Rinzler’s, and- friggin’ users - this position is the equivalent of cradling a ticking time bomb. Or a feral animal, or some other volatile, furious thing liable to use any available leverage to kill Sam.“Shh… you’re f…” He swallows; bites his lip until his jaw quits trembling. The scalded skin on his hand chafes against the ground, and Sam allows himself a quiet moan of pain. “You’re fine. I’ve got you, alright? Don’t fight me.”
Don’t kill me. I can’t help you if you kill me.
A staticky whine grates in the depths of Rinzler’s chest.Sam suspects the program has his jaw locked, teeth shut tight to stifle cries. “You don’t have to hide anything. For the last time, I couldn’t hurt you if I tri-” Rinzler bangs his head into the floor again, smashing Sam’s hand. Sam cusses under his breath- the impact hurt- but forces himself to keep talking. Reassuring. “You gotta come apart sometime, man. You’re in pain. You don’t have to hold on to…” Pride. Dignity. Fear. “You don’t have to hold on.”Rinzler’s body loosens in Sam’s arms, immobile except for the tremors that run through him periodically… “Rinzler, you know who I am.”“User-r.” The word, this time, doesn’t sound half as malevolent.“That’s right. Just a user. I can’t hurt you.” His lips brush, discreet, over the polished back of the helmet, and he presses closer to Rinzler’s body. It’s like he’s trying to hold together something that’s shattering into a million- into infinite- shards of broken light. “Tron, what have you become?” moans Kevin. Tron, Sam thinks, and feels unseen eyes watching him, what has Clu done to you? And Rinzler, out of Sam’s reach, circles a slow spiral around the jet. “For what reason would users want to reach the stars?”“This is a serious question, right? You’re not just- aw, man, you’re quizzing me again, aren’t you?” Tron has a bad habit of doing that. The security program, Sam believes, already knows the answer; Tron just wants Sam to confirm it. To specify, he doesn’t just want Sam to confirm it with Tron, he wants Sam to confirm it with himself.“Through difficulty to the stars,” Tron repeats, his eyes flickering to the living room window. The sky outside still burns red, but the sunset will darken soon, and- sure enough- there will be stars. A limited view of them, what with light pollution and all that, but stars nonetheless… “What is the value of going to the stars if the action requires so much difficulty? One does not benefit a system by taking on unnecessary risk.”True, except the stars are friggin’ stunning. Resplendent and unfathomable and…“I think,” Sam volunteers, “that some things are worth the risk.”Mentally running over his response, he can’t resist adding on to it, fondly teasing. “But you don’t get to preach about unnecessary risk. ”Tron makes a reluctant, amused sound in the back of his throat.“You reckless security program.”