#or alternatively give us a good season 2 of Uprising | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

saratogaroadwrites · 10 months

Text

Tron: Liberation (15/15)

Tron: Liberation | saratogaroad rating: T total wordcount: 106,965 characters: Tron, Beck, Mara, Zed, Paige, Pavel, Tesler, Clu 2, Dyson, Yori, Quorra, Original Siren Character relationships: Tron & Beck, Beck & Mara & Zed, Tron/Yori other tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Continuation, For Want of A Nail warnings: none

The Game has changed. The Revolution has begun. With Tron healed and once more in the fight for the Grid, the war has begun. But Clu will not give up so easily, and this is a war that will be fought in the streets. But it is a war that Beck and Tron intend to win, so long as they can do one thing first:

Survive.

[AU: Fanmade Season 2]

“Almost ready?” Beck asked, startling Zed from where he was fiddling with something on his bike. Zed smiled at him, looking over the crowd of former Argon mechanics. Though more than one bore a long-term patch from the Uprising’s events, they had all pulled through. Even Link, timid as he was, had managed to make it through with his limbs and disk intact. He’d even gained confidence, Beck realized, watching him hold his own against Hopper’s now good-natured ribbing. Whatever the crew had gone through in Ferrum had been good for them. At his side, Zed nodded.

“Almost. Just waiting on Mara and we’ll head out.”

“You could stay here,” Beck said, crossing his arms over his chest, “There’ll be plenty of need for mechanics around here for a while.”

“Nah,” Zed waved a hand in the air, “Tron gave Mara Area-Admin access to Argon.” He smiled ruefully at Beck’s wide-eyed look. "We're gonna rebuild the city, and this time?” He raised a hand, one finger pointed to the airspace above them, “This time, it’ll have a Sailor port."

Beck blinked. Zed beamed at him. For a few nanos there was silent, and then neither seemed to be able to help it: they both laughed. A micro later, Zed tilted his head as their mirth subsided, “You could come with us, though. Go back to your root and everything; there’s always a place for you with us, you know.”

“I know, but…”

Beck looked over his shoulder at where Yori was speaking with Mara, Tron standing a pace behind his partner. He seemed taller now, somehow, standing even straighter than when he’d been healed. So much had changed in the last seven triples since Clu’s deresolution, but not everything. Despite his changed circuits, despite the broad command pattern splayed across his back and the nearly pure white color of each and every circuit, Tron was still Tron. Still steady, brave, and more reckless than he’d let on. Beck himself, however, had changed. He and everyone who’d known him before the Occupation had first come to Argon knew it. Somehow he still felt more at home here, tracking down lingering sentries and blackguard, then he ever had fixing bikes. Going back to the wreckage of Argon, even to rebuild it…he just couldn’t.

And so he shook his head, looking back at his old friend.

“I’m sure about this.” He said firmly. "I'm still needed here. But hey--" he reached out, patting Zed on the arm, "I'll come visit. Once you get that port going, we’ll be back and forth all the time.”

For a handful of nanos, Zed was silent. Then his eyes went soft.

“Yeah, you better,” He said, reaching over to pull Beck into a quick hug. They held on only for another handful of nanos, then pulled away from one another as Mara’s footsteps clicked behind them.

“Oh, don’t break up the moment on my account,” She said amusedly as they both turned to face her, her hands on her hips and new pattern of actual Command designation bright across her frame. It couldn’t match her smile as she continued, “Grid knows you two are going to missing each other the nano we leave.”

The two of them shared a look. Zed stepped back with both hands up in a defensive, don’t look at me, gesture. Mara outright laughed at that, causing Beck to turn back around and give her a knowing look. She grinned, before her face went soft and she stepped into his reach. He didn’t hesitate and pulled her into an embrace, holding her close for just a few nanos. Her arms came up, one hand cupping the back of his neck.

“Take care of yourself,” He whispered to her. She nodded and pulled back, smiling as she held onto both of his elbows while he kept his hands on her shoulders. The transmission of [friend/trust/care] was a loop from one to the other, and her eyes gleamed with amusement.

“I’ll be fine. It’s Zed and the others you should be worried about.”

“Hey…” Zed protested without any real heat. They both turned to him, still holding on to one another. He stared at them for a long nano, then shook his head. “This isn’t goodbye, you two. Not for good, anyway.” He smiled warmly and stepped over, arms outstretched. “Come on. One more for the road?”

Beck and Mara both laughed, but extended their arms towards him. He stepped in to the huddle, pulling them both close until they were shoulder to shoulder in a tight circle, foreheads brushing and hands clinging to anything they could reach. From the beginning, as far back as Beck could remember, they and Bodhi had been with him. Bodhi was long gone now, having left only the three of them, and now he had to let them go too. It hurt, an ache that caught in his core and made it skip, but he knew it was the right thing to do.

So he let them go, the first to break the huddle and pull away. Zed kept an arm around Mara’s shoulders, and both of them smiled sadly at Beck as he leaned back.

This wouldn’t be the last time he saw them, he knew, but it still felt like it.

“Almost forgot.” He reached back, pulling a white baton from his secondary holster. Zed and Mara’s eyes both went wide as he held it up for them to see. “Tron wanted you two to have this.”

Mara reached out with trembling fingers, almost as if she was afraid just touching the baton would cause it to shatter. She jolted when Beck dropped it into her palms, before she closed her fingers around it and held it close to her chest.

“Able’s 786…” Her voice broke. Zed reached out to steady her with a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up. “Beck…”

He shook his head. “Keep it. He’d have wanted you to have it. Besides,” He smiled, “It goes with your new look.”

She huffed out a shaky laugh, but nodded before reaching for his hand. With one final squeeze of his fingers and a soft [friend] she pulled back.

“Take care of yourself,” She said as she and Zed stepped back in one motion. Zed raised a hand to his head, giving Beck a two fingered salute and a warm grin, before the two of them turned away and strode into the crowd of mechanics. Beck raised a hand to wave goodbye as Ray and Bartik looked over at him, and he grinned as Mara cracked open the 786 to rez it onto the road, startling several of the Mechanics. The white code gleamed in the light of the capitol, the rev of its engine echoing through the streets.

If Beck had to say one thing about Old System code, it was that it knew how to work. Mara took off like a shot, Zed a nano behind her, and with a cacophony of thuds the others pursued. With a frown and a hard swallow, Beck dropped his hand back to his side. He stood there, watching as his old crew left him behind. That he had chosen this, that he knew it was the right thing for all of them, didn’t make his core ache any less. He startled suddenly, turning as Paige silently stepped up beside him, their shoulders brushing. Together they watched the convoy of bikes head out south across the Outlands, led by the bright speck of white that Mara was quickly becoming. Paige reached for his hand and he clasped his fingers around hers, never taking his eyes off of the bikes. They stood there in a soft yet easy silence, watching until the last of the bikes had disappeared into the darkness. Then she turned to look up at him, smiling just a little.

“Come on, Tron,” She poked his arm with her other hand as she began to turn her back to the Outlands, “We’ve got work to do.”

With a laugh, he let her pull him away, back into the city proper.

—-

A shadow walked through the capitol. The hum beneath Tron’s feet didn’t quite know how to classify it, or maybe he didn’t understand how to read that new note that buzzed through his heels. It caught in his core like a bad read; he rolled his shoulders, leaning in closer to Yori’s clear note as she read off a tablet to give him the latest news. Xenon and Thallium had both overthrown their hold-out Generals in the seven triples since Clu’s deresolution, the Basics herding up the soldiers and sentries into a warehouse on the outskirts of either city for quarantine.

He’d have to figure out a way to undo their repurposing somehow. Most of Clu’s forces had been security programs like his old team, and none had deserved their fates. Any of them still functional he would need to fix…somehow. He just wasn’t sure how yet. There was a lot to process in his new position, and no one to ask how to process any of it. Especially the constant hum and odd notes that kept ringing through his frame from time to time.

The discordant sound grew louder. He looked up, looking around for the cause. Beck stood on Yori’s other side, a steady tone even with the tense line to his shoulders as he listened to Yori explain that Radon and Ferrum had both completely destroyed their Occupation remnants, the streets glowing red with cubes and shattered disks. Beck had almost glowed with pride as he realized that meant his former coworkers had torn through their host city without a single injury or casualty, though Tron could see the sad edge to his smile anyway.

Though the uprising had come to a relatively peaceful end, it hadn’t been without its costs.

And maybe one of those costs was Tron’s stability. The discordant note grew even louder, causing him to grimace and rub at his ears as if that would help. Yori paused in her reading, looking at him with concern written across her face, an odd addition to the soft sound that he’d come to attach to her, and on her other side Beck looked at him with a frown. He opened his mouth to reassure them, then stopped as a shadow moved from the alleyway behind Beck, approaching the young program’s back. Tron couldn’t move fast enough, not with Yori between them, but something must have shown on his face because Beck tensed up and turned his head sharply. Tron could see the moment he realized someone had been sneaking up on him, his tense figure loosening into a combat stance.

“Hey!”

He reached out, grabbing onto the darkness that wasn’t a shadow, but a cloak with all circuits turned off. In that same nano Tron pulled Yori back behind him; she shouted in alarm, her tablet clattering to the ground as she reached for her disk instead, drawing the attention of a dozen programs around them. Each drew their disks, watching as Beck grabbed the cloaked program with both hands and shoved them into the wall of the Admin Tower just behind the little group. There was a grunt as they impacted, Beck’s arm across the back of their neck.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” He asked in a surprisingly calm voice. For their part, the program coughed and tried to turn their head, the hood of their long coat just glimmering with a bright white interior circuit. Tron frowned. Bright white? While most programs still bore pale blue, white itself was only for those firmly on the side of the Users. Even his circuits still had the faintest hint of blue. But this…his eyes narrowed as the wall glimmered, fractal lines beginning to spread from where each of the program’s hands rested. His core lurched sharply to a halt.

“Flynn,” He breathed. Though he was unable to get enough volume for Beck to hear him past the growing murmur of the crowd, Yori turned suddenly wide eyes on him. Over Beck’s shoulder, Tron could just see a pale blue eye. Shocked, he couldn’t move as Yori stepped forward and placed a hand on Beck’s shoulder.

“Let him go,” She said, then glanced at the Creator, held there beneath the last program rezzed onto the Grid, “It’s alright.”

Beck frowned at her. He looked back at Tron, then at Yori once more. He inclined his head in wordless question; when she nodded, he frowned but stepped back, letting Flynn catch his footing and his breath with a cough. He didn’t, however, apologize. Nor did he move from between Yori and Flynn as Flynn turned around and lowered his hood. Instead, Beck stiffened and reached back to place himself firmly between Yori and the apparent reappearance of Clu.

Tron really was proud of him. Flynn, for his part, just seemed amused.

“Hey, Tron,” He coughed again, “Long time no see?”

“Very long,” Yori said, gently pressing Beck’s arm down. Beck turned to give her a wide-eyed look, but she shook her head and stepped up beside him. Beck turned to give that same look to Tron, but Tron only frowned. He couldn’t blame Beck for his confusion, or his wariness. Though Flynn had gained lines on his face and his hair had lost a good deal of its color, there was no way to miss the similarities between his face and Clu’s. Even so, Flynn’s smile was infinitely warmer as Yori continued, “We should take this inside.” She glanced at Tron, then over his shoulder at the milling crowd. Flynn shifted his weight, hands disappearing under his arms.

“Yeah…” Flynn sighed, “That’s probably a good idea.” He turned to the doorway into the Tower, only to stop dead in his tracks as the door wouldn’t open. The Admin Tower had once opened for all. In Clu’s cycle, he’d locked it to himself, his Honor Guard, and several of his highest advisors that were all now awaiting a way to shake off their repurposing.

Tron had locked it for the time being, allowing only himself, Yori, Beck, and Quorra non-escorted entry. He had to step forward to key open the door to let Flynn in and felt that wizened gaze on his back as Beck and Yori brought up the rear. The door closed behind the pair of them, keeping the crowd out. Tron stopped in the center of the former lobby, then turned to them.

“You two go and calm them down,” Tron gestured over Yori’s shoulder, the programs milling about just outside the door. Beck and Yori exchanged a look, unsure. Warmth uncoiling around his core, Tron offered them a tiny smile. “I’ll be fine.”

Neither seemed convinced. Again, Yori rested a hand on Beck’s arm for a nano before she turned away. The young program sighed.

“Alright. Ping us if you need help.”

Flynn almost seemed to laugh from where he’d stepped to the side, examining the lobby with the bearing of a program who’d been away from home far too long and no longer recognized it. Beck gave his back a frown before padding out after Yori; the doors opened more easily from this side, sliding open to let in the murmur of the crowd before sliding shut and taking the noise with it. Tron tapped his foot to the ground, darkening the glass before he turned to Flynn. Flynn had already turned back around, his eyes taking in Tron’s new circuits and the white glow of the tower around them. Then he smiled faintly.

“System Admin, huh?” Flynn whistled lowly, “That’s…impressive.”

“Someone had to step up,” Tron said coolly. Flynn flinched, lowering himself to sit on the arm of a couch. Tron looked at him, actually getting a chance to take in the face of an old friend. He could still remember what Flynn’s face had looked like five hundred some cycles ago, and now…

The cycles had gotten to Flynn, too. His face was more wrinkled, his hair a lighter color than before, and his eyes were tired. He rubbed at them with the pads of his ungloved fingers, shoulders slumped. Tron slowly lowered himself to lean against a couch opposite his old friend, but didn’t turn his back on Flynn. A micro, then two, ticked by before Flynn looked up.

“…Tron,” He said in a low, soft voice, “I’m sorry. You tried to warn me, but I…”

“Didn’t listen?” Tron sighed through his nose. Five hundred cycles ago, he had tried to warn Flynn against Clu’s quickly growing power and dreams of destruction. Five hundred cycles ago, Flynn hadn’t listened. Torn between two worlds, Flynn hadn’t been able to cope or maybe even understand the cost his actions. For five hundred cycles, the consequences hadn’t been his to bear.

Or maybe, Tron thought to himself as he watched Flynn flinch hard and pull back a few millimeters, he’d had his own trials to face since the last time they’d spoken. Tron shook his head. This wasn’t a discussion he’d ever wanted to have. Not yet, at least; it still felt far too fresh to process. There was only one thing he wanted to do right now.

“I won’t say it’s fine. But…” He paused for a couple of nanos, turning his words over his in his processor, before he nodded. “I can accept your apology on one condition.”

“What’s that?” Flynn asked in a hopeful voice.

“That we get you home.” Tron stood up straight. Flynn blinked like a startled beta, then drew back. His skin paled as Tron continued, “Five hundred cycles is nearly ten of your world’s years, isn’t it?

“Over that…” Flynn whispered. Then he buried his head in the palm of one hand, fingers clutching at his scalp. “Sam…oh, Sammy…”

Tron’s core lurched hard. He gave Flynn a micro to try and compose himself, then began to step towards him.

“He’d be eighteen years old now,” Flynn said before Tron could speak up, “He wouldn’t look any older then your beta back there.”

“Beck.” Tron corrected in a more gentle tone than he thought himself capable of at that nano. Flynn looked up, eyes rimmed with red. His smile shook, bottom lip trembling.

“You found him,” Flynn breathed. Tron tilted his head.

“He found me,” Tron chose then and there not to mention Cyrus. Flynn wasn’t stable enough to handle that on top of everything else he was dealing with. “It’s because of him that we’re here. If it wasn’t for Beck, then…” He took in a deep, steadying breath. “I wouldn’t be here. Clu would still be in command. The Grid might be gone.” They owed him more than Tron would ever be able to say. Flynn seemed to realize this, and his eyes grew distant for a nano before he nodded. He swallowed hard, then slow took in a steadying breath of his own.

“And I guess I’d still be in the Outlands,” He said. He shook his head as if to shake off a thought. “But now we’re here, and we can work with that.” He took another breath. “I just need to get the Portal open again.”

“How?” Tron frowned, “You said it couldn’t be opened from here.”

“There…” Flynn grimaced, “Might be a way to get it open again, if I can get access to the terminal in the Access Station.” He smiled ruefully as he looked up. “Is it still intact?”

“Mostly,” Tron’s frown deepened. “The external facade took a hit during the Uprising but the inside looked alright—” He paused for a nano then looked Flynn dead in the eye. “You told me you couldn’t open it from this side.”

“And I can’t.” Flynn stood up, dusting his pants off. “But somebody from the outside can, and I know one guy who’ll answer the call.”

He couldn’t mean--Tron’s core lurched. Flynn turned a wry smile on him.

“How would you like to finally meet Alan-One, Tron?”

He meant it.

—

At the edge of the Capitol, far past where any program had any real need or right to go, was a long bridge over the Sea. Pillars of raw code floated above the churning blackness of the still viral waters below, the distant thunder reverberating off every one of them. The bridge itself led to a platform shaped much like the disks of the Old System, meant to harness the power of the Portal and serve as the User’s exit point from the Grid.

No program had been out this way in a very long time, said the stillness beneath Tron’s feet. For the past half milli he’d stood guard, watching Flynn continue to tap at a terminal that Tron had called up for him, listening to the crash of the Sea and the roar of the approaching storm, he could understand why. There was a certain weight to this place, one that he couldn’t bear the idea of carrying for long.

It wasn’t meant for programs. This space was for the Users, and the Users alone. He couldn’t wait to get out of this space and leave it behind.

“So that’s where the Portal opens up?” Beck asked suddenly. Tron startled out of his thoughts, just now realizing the strong tone beneath his feet had come up again. Yori’s chime-like note followed, but Tron turned on Beck. Beck just smiled softly and shrugged as if to ask him, “What?”

"I thought I told you to wait with the others."

Beck huffed out a laugh, turning back to watch Flynn.

"Since when have I listened to what you tell me?" He snarked. On Tron's other side, Yori giggled. She waved a hand in the air when he turned on her.

"Nothing, nothing, it's just--" She smiled up at him. "He's just like you were at that stage.”

Tron grimaced. Yori laughed harder at him, not bothering to hide her amusement, and even Beck seemed far too amused for his own good. With a huff, Tron turned his attention back to Flynn. The User had stopped tapping away at the terminal, and now had his eyes on the airspace above his head.

“Moment of truth,” Flynn said. Nearly a triple before, he’d managed to establish contact with his own world through a small binary string of code he’d once programmed to contact him within the Grid. Now all laughter stopped as up above them, the Portal slowly began to open. First, a byte of light appeared high above their heads. Tron watched with his core in his throat as the light expanded line by line, first in width, then in height. It touched the base of the platform with a solid-sounding thump and whump of air blowing at Flynn’s coat and Yori’s hair, casting everything around them into stark contrast. The high chime like note of untapped power, almost like static, rang through the Grid and buzzed up Tron’s spine. He shifted his weight to compensate, felt more than saw that Yori and Beck remained at his sides, and took a breath.

From within the Portal, a figure began to emerge. They wore a coat much like Flynn did, with User-white circuits stark against the black of the Grid’s render, and light gleamed off of spectacles on their face. A second note started up beneath Tron’s feet, the same discordant tone that Flynn carried, but somehow clearer, softer, less raw.

Alan-One, sang Tron’s core. He forced it down, watching as Flynn moved.

“Alan!” He shouted, and before Alan-One had even had a chance to properly step out of the Portal Flynn was on him, dragging his old friend into a breath stealing embrace. Alan-One nearly toppled but caught himself at the last nano, causing Yori to cant her head to the side. Beck shifted his weight as they all watched the pair of Users reunite after five hundred cycles. Before too long, the pair of them broke away from one another, and Alan-One cast his gaze around.

“My God…” He breathed, almost too soft to pick up, “This is what you were talking about?” Alan-One extended a hand, spreading it wide to encompass the Grid. “This is your Miracle?”

Flynn sagged, Alan-One’s hand still on his arm. Quorra, Tron knew, had refused to join them. Refused to so much as talk to Flynn in the triple since he’d reappeared in the Capitol and begun the process of leaving. He’d called the Isos his miracle, but the Basics weren’t them. Tron squared his shoulders as Flynn continued, “…Kind of. This is…” He shook his head. “It’s complicated, Alan. It’ll take days to explain.” He looked back over his shoulder at the three programs. His eyes softened slightly. Alan-One followed his gaze and went rigid.

“Flynn…is that supposed to be—”

Flynn stepped back. He spread his arms as he turned, as if to encompass everything all around them. Tron’s core lurched as one of Flynn’s hands pointed at him.

“Alan,” Flynn shrugged, shoulders up by his ears, “This is Tron, Yori, and Beck.”

It was like looking in a mirror of sorts. Tron could recognize his own face in Alan-One, the same nose, eyes, cheekbones. Alan-One’s hair was lighter, much like Flynn’s, and Tron wondered if that was an effect of User’s runtimes growing longer. Alan-One looked right at him, awe and understanding spreading across his face. Tron forced himself to stand his ground, to not drop to a knee and beg his User’s forgiveness for failing his directive, even if the game had been rigged from the start.

Alan-One looked from Tron to Beck, then to Yori, before his eyes went wide and he looked at Flynn instead. His jaw hung wordlessly open, eyes blown wide. Flynn shrugged himself higher, somehow looking like he wanted to pull his head into his body. Alan-One looked back to Tron then, staring for another handful of nanos before he took in a deep breath the exact same way Tron did and turned on Flynn.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” He hissed and grabbed Flynn by the arm. “Once I get you home to Sam.”

“Sam…” Flynn breathed. He looked up at the Portal for a long few nanos, then shook his head. He stepped back from Alan-One as Yori made a choked off noise in the back of her throat. Tron was too stunned to do even that: all that talk of opening the Portal, actually being able to open it and bring Alan-One here, and now he wasn’t going to leave?! Alan-One stared in equal shock as Flynn shook his head again.

“No, there’s things I need to do here. Things that I need to—”

“Your mother is in the hospital—Sam is seventeen and he needs his father!” Alan-One bellowed. Moving with a quickness Tron didn’t think possible from a User he grabbed Flynn by the collar of his coat with both hands and lifted him up, struck by a sudden rage. Beck stiffened at Tron’s side; Tron took an aborted step forward as the Grid buzzed beneath his heels, humming like a struck wire at the threat of violence between Users. “You can’t expect me to go back and tell him you’re fine but abandoned him by choice!”

Flynn opened his mouth, skin pale and feet nearly off the ground--

“Go home, Flynn,” Tron forced himself to say through a tight intake, startling them both back to the present nano. “Go back to your world. We can handle things here. Fix things ourselves.”

“Like we’ve been doing from the start?” Beck snarked quietly, voice trembling only a little as Alan-One set Flynn back down, the pair of Users staring at the two of them. Tron’s lips quirked upwards just a touch, but then his smile dropped as Flynn’s expression changed. His eyes were wide, wild with something Tron couldn’t quite name, something he didn’t quite want to name. He held his ground as Flynn shrugged away from Alan-One to step closer and spread his hands, reaching towards the three of them.

"I can fix everything!" Flynn spread his hands wide, "Make it all like it was before!"

Tron frowned. Behind Flynn, Alan-One watched with the oddest look on his face.

“How?” Tron asked.

“A system restore,” Flynn said, taking a step forward with his hands extended towards Tron, “It probably won’t bring the Isos back, but everyone else—they’ll all be here again! Everyone you all lost, like nothing ever happened!” He laughed a little. It sounded like Clu. Tron forced the thought down as Flynn continued, “Heck, it’d be exactly like that! Just like rolling back the clock!”

Tron looked to Yori for a nano, unsure. She frowned back at him, opening her mouth to say something.

"We won't remember anything that happened." Beck said suddenly. Everyone looked at him, but his eyes were on Flynn and Flynn alone. "If you turn back the system clock, you'll erase our memory, too."

Tron looked back to Flynn. The User grimaced, shrugging slowly.

"Not on purpose?"

"Flynn..." Alan-One groaned into the palm of his hand. Beside Tron, Beck shook his head and stepped back out of reach.

"No." He said firmly, "You don't get to do that." He frowned. "Creator or not, you weren’t here when we needed you. You don’t get to swoop in now that it’s over and just erase everything we’ve gone through.” He looked at Tron, then put a hand to his chest where both had nearly had the mark carved right off of them. “That makes you no better than Clu.”

Flynn flinched hard. He stepped back, away from Beck’s hard stare as if it were some physical thing, and looked to Yori instead. If he hoped to find any support or softness there, he’d be sorely disappointed. Tron watched with no small measure of pride uncurling in his core as she slashed a hand through the air before Flynn could even speak.

“Don’t try and say you’re not,” She turned that slash into a single finger pointed at him, “Clu was formed from you, Flynn. Your ideas, your thoughts, your core. You may have given him a bad directive, but you were still his User.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “That connection goes both ways, you know.”

Flynn’s grimace only got deeper. He looked like he’d downed a whole canister of bad energy. Yori sighed.

“Besides, it’s out of your hands now.” She tilted her head. “You’d need Admin level access to enact that kind of a change, and you don’t have it anymore.” She looked up at Tron with a faint smile. “She’s already chosen a new System Administrator for herself.” Her smile disappeared as she turned back to Flynn, gaping at the pair of them like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing or hearing, and leveled him with a look so hard it would have broken Outland stone. "I think you should go home, Flynn. You have a life out there."

"Damn right he does." Alan-One took Flynn by the arm, pulling him back to the Portal despite his protests. Then Alan-One stopped for a moment and looked back at them. He locked eyes with Tron.

“I’ll take care of things from the outside,” He said, “If there’s anything you need, then…just leave a message. It could be a while.”

They would be on their own, said the look in Alan-One’s eyes. How that would be any different from the past five hundred cycles, he just didn’t know. Still, Tron nodded in acceptance of this fact. Then he looked to Flynn one more time. Flynn looked back at him with beseeching eyes, wordlessly begging for a chance to stay, a chance to set things right the way he should have, the way he thought he could.

To Flynn, he shook his head. Flynn’s shoulders slumped: he understood precisely what that gesture meant and stopped struggling in Alan-One’s grasp. Tron watched, with Yori and Beck on either side of him, as Alan-One stepped into the glow of the Portal with Flynn at his side. The three programs watched as the two Users raised their disks into the light and vanished into voxels, carried away out of the Grid and back to their world. What would happen to them now, Tron couldn’t say. A large part of him really didn’t care.

The rest hoped Flynn would find some measure of peace the same way that Tron had. He looked at Beck from the corner of his eye, taking in the frown curved across the young program’s face. Flynn had to face his own offshoot now, his own beta. How Sam would react to Flynn’s return after the last five hundred cycles, Tron did not want to know.

Still, he hoped it would go well. It would be nice if something did.

The light ahead of them flickered, drawing Tron’s attention back to the Portal. With the Users now on the other side, one of them must have begun to sever the connection between User World and Grid. It shrunk in on itself first, losing all width until it was only a handful of pixels wide, and then began to dim and collapse in on itself in a spot high above their heads. Tron reached for Yori’s hand, and she clasped her fingers around his as the once steady beam of light became only a single, luminous byte in the airspace above them. They all watched, wordlessly, as the byte hung there for a few nanos.

Then, without any fanfare, it winked out as if it had never existed at all. All that remained was the crash of the sea beneath them, the wind all around, and the soft, peaceful hum of the Grid beneath Tron’s feet.

For perhaps the last time, Users had left the Grid.

For perhaps the rest of their runtime, the programs were alone.

——

Nearly six hundred cycles after he had been exiled, Tron looked over the city that shared his name and breathed in the peace. Flynn was gone, spirited away to the User World for Alan-One to handle. Clu was gone, unable to harm anyone anymore. Though there were still soldiers left to repurpose, the surviving programs were safe now. There was even talk that a handful of Isos had survived, and with Quorra’s help were settling a small colony deep within the Outlands.

It wasn’t a total victory, marred by setbacks as it was, but against all the odds they had made it. The Grid hummed beneath his feet, not quite strong and healthy, but more vibrant than She’d been in too long. It was comforting.

It made things easier. Peering down at the disk mod in his hand, he contemplated. Was there even a need for this anymore? Programs had proven that they could defend themselves. They didn’t need any watchful guardians looking over them from above.

Or maybe they did. Clu’s words echoed in Tron’s processor, a warning and a threat in one. Were they just words? Or had he truly meant what he’d said? Without being able to ask him it was hard to tell, and yet…as much as he should have, Tron simply wasn’t ready to cross that bridge yet. Not after everything that had happened. Maybe he never would be. Maybe he’d leave handling any more threats to Alan-One.

Maybe. For now, he was content with things as they were. He looked from the mod to the window, Beck’s reflection drawing closer as the young program walked over from the lift, footsteps quiet in the early milli silence.

“Thought I’d find you up here.” Beck said quietly, coming up to stand beside Tron. “You’re really fond of heights, aren’t you?”

With a soft smile, Tron nodded.

“Something like that. Here—” He passed the disk mod to Beck. “I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

“Plug it in. You’ll see.”

Beck frowned, but his eyes were light. “You know, the last time you gave me something like this, we ended up overthrowing an Occupation. What’s next? The User World?”

“Beck.”

Beck almost laughed, but instead of plugging the mod directly in, he activated it first. Tron smiled ruefully; at least he’d learned that much. He watched as the mod display flickered to life, a new suit render all ready to go.

“This is…”

“It’s yours. If you want it.” He looked away, glancing back over the city and trying not to watch Beck’s reflection in the glass. He didn’t want to see him say no. “We…never talked about what you would do. When this was all over.”

“Tron…” Beck whispered, looking at his mentor. The young program was silent for a moment, then took a deep breath as he inclined his head. “Well, if you thought you were going to get rid of me, we really should have had Alan-One scrub your code.”

Tron looked over. Beck was smiling at him.

“You’re staying.”

“I’m staying.” He said, clicking the mod onto his disk and returning it to his port. The new pattern washed over him, thicker armor with subtle flecks of aqua at every joint, and a bright white tetromino flaring to life just below his right shoulder joint. Not a perfect match, but an inheritance all the same. It settled with a final flare, and Beck tilted his head.

“So,” he asked, “What now?”

“Now? Now we start your training back up.” At Beck’s groan, Tron tried not to laugh. He turned away from the window, clapping Beck on the shoulder and giving his protege a fondly warm smile. “You’ve got a long way to go before I’m done with you.” Beck smiled back, inclining his head.

“Alright, fine. Just tell me one thing.” He paused for a nano, then grinned. “Do I get time off this time?”

Tron laughed.

“What do you think?”

#tron #tron: uprising #tron fic #!fic #fic: tron liberation

3 notes · View notes

sherrydramsey · 5 years

Photo

My Top 5 Sci-fi Series Worlds http://bit.ly/2PRb0z7

Coming up May 15th-19th I’ll be participating in OWSCyCon, an online genre convention (all genres!), for readers, authors, and others in the publishing industry. I’ll be hanging around the science fiction, fantasy, and urban fantasy sections, and I have a lot going on that weekend, including a Facebook takeover event, a world-building showcase blog hop, a big giveaway, some Cover Wars brackets, and a Character Battle! Whew, it’s going to be busy and fun.

In the leadup to the convention, some of the Sci-Fi participants are posting “My Top 5” blog posts, and this is mine: My Top 5 Sci-Fi Series Worlds. I love world-building and talking about world-building, so this seemed like a natural fit for me. However, I’ve read books set in many great fictional worlds, so this took some thought! In the end I’m not sure these are truly my “top 5” or if they’re more like “5 of my top favourites plus one,” but I tried. ;) Read on to see what I decided…

Honourable Mention: Gateway (The Heechee Saga)

Books: Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Heechee Rendezvous, Annals of the Heechee, The Gateway Trip, The Boy Who Would Live Forever Author: Frederik Pohl Why it’s great: fabulous worldbuilding and intriguing aliens

It’s a long, long time since I read Frederik Pohl’s classic series, but the books, the world, and the characters have stayed with me in a way that many don’t. If I recall correctly, I first read Gateway during the university science fiction English course that had a big influence on my life. I think perhaps it made such an impression because it was one of my first introductions to a really believable alien encounter scenario. In Gateway, humans can take chances on piloting mysterious artifact spaceships without knowing where they will take them, and I realize there are echoes of this idea in both the wormhole-spelunking explorers and the types of aliens I try to write in my own Nearspace series–echoes that persisted in my brain for long years after I read the books. If you love a beautifully-realized future with intriguing characters and aliens and a relentless plot, you should give Gateway a try. It’s a classic, but it holds up pretty well.

#5 Mindspace (Mindspace Investigations Series)

Books: Clean, Payoff, Sharp, Marked, Vacant, Fluid, Temper Author: Alex Hughes Why it’s great: believable future worldbuilding and a perfect main character to guide you through the world

The “world” of the Mindspace Investigations series is our world, but in a future where telepathy is real, Tech Wars have torn the world apart, and telepath/drug addict Adam finds himself pulled and pushed in many directions as he tries to get his life back. I love this series in large part because this world is so well-imagined–I mean, what would humans do if some of us had telepathic powers? How would we react? And how would we function in a world where technology had been forced to fall back from its current prevalent position? It’s all very believably drawn and imagined, and there are so many storytelling possibilities inherent in the world itself! Of course, I’m also a sucker for books that mash up genres like science fiction and mystery, so it’s not surprising I’m sold on this series. If you like that kind of mashup set in a realistic sci-fi near-future, these books are for you.

#4 Rimway (Alex Benedict Series)

Books: A Talent for War, Polaris, Seeker, The Devil’s Eye, Echo, Firebird, Coming Home Author: Jack McDevitt Why it’s great: far-flung future worlds paired with intriguing deep space mysteries

While Mindspace takes place in our near future, the world of Rimway is far, far off–thousands of years in the future, in fact. Humanity has expanded across many planets and the far reaches of space, artificial intelligence is actually intelligent, and–finally–flying cars! ;) However, against the backdrop of this highly detailed and beautifully imagined future world, humans are still very much the same, which adds so much to the overall verisimilitude of the books. Despite our progress, there are still explorations to be made and mysteries to be solved, so these books offer just what I love in great science fiction.

#3 The Galactic Empire (Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse Series)

Books: Terminal Alliance, Terminal Uprising Author: Jim C. Hines Why it’s great: the twist of a future where humans are not on top, and the wonderfully imagined alien races

And now for something completely different…janitors in space! In the Galactic Empire of Jim C. Hines’ post-apocalyptic series, humans have been relegated to cleaning the toilets and tidying up after all the other sentient races who’ve fared better than we have through the march of history. I’ve been a fan of Jim’s for a long time and even had the pleasure of belonging to an online writer’s group with him long, long ago. However, it’s the exquisite combination of humour and world-building that really make this “world” a standout for me. I know, I know, there are only two books in the series yet! But that doesn’t stop it from being a definite recommendation from me if you love the lighter side of science fiction.

#2 Alternate History Earth (Oxford Time Travel Series)

Books: Fire Watch, Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout, All Clear Author: Connie Willis Why it’s great: the unusual occurrence of time travel that actually works!

It’s a little difficult to actually name the “world” where these books take place, since it’s our world in an alternate timeline where time travel is actually possible. However, I have to include it on this list because in the Oxford Time Travel series, Connie Willis actually makes time travel work. This is no small feat and although it’s been attempted a zillion times, writers are rarely able to pull it off without issues. You may not agree with me that this constitutes a “world” but to me it does; and in addition, Willis deftly navigates multiple times and historical events to bring them to life for the reader, while still tying them all together with the timeline and experiences of the main characters from the “present.” I think this series is a magnificent example of world-building, and if you’re skeptical that time travel can really be done well, I suggest you give it a try. You can read almost any of them as a standalone book, although you should read Blackout before reading All Clear, since they’re really one book that was published in two volumes. To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of the few books I re-read on a regular basis.

#1 The Expanse (The Expanse Series)

Books: Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, Abaddon’s Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon’s Ashes, Persepolis Rising, Tiamat’s Wrath Author: James S.A. Corey Why it’s great: the pure breadth of imagination in the world and civilization building

For sheer scale and imagination, I have to give the number one spot on this list to The Expanse. As I wrote in my original review of this first book on Goodreads, I fell in love with it because it had “grand-scale space opera, fascinating characters, tons of complexity and some great sense-of-wonder stuff.” The first book in the series is one of my favourites ever, in part because the world of the Expanse — the Belt, the Outer Planets, all of it — and the inhabitants of the world, are so brilliantly imagined. It all just works, drawing you in and not letting you go. The transition to a television series also seems to have captured this particular world-building magic, although I’ve only seen the first season. All in all, The Expanse has to be #1 on this list.

So, what do you think? Have you experienced any of these worlds? Do you want to fight me over my choices? (Just kidding, I don’t fight on the internets) However, I’m happy to hear your thoughts on the science fiction worlds you love!

OWS CyCon officially runs May 17-19 with the CyCon website and Facebook events acting as the hub for all of our events. Sign up for our newsletter or RSVP to the event to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the bookish goodness we have to offer. Plus, you can read more about our participating Sci Fi authors and their Top 5 favorites in Sci-Fi before CyCon starts. Visit the blog hop page any time leading up to CyCon for the latest posts and your chance to enter our MEGA giveaway (open May 10).

#IFTTT #Sherry D. Ramsey

0 notes