Fic: The Sea Like the Stars [6/?]
Fandom(s): Tron: Legacy
Characters: Kevin Flynn, Sam Flynn, Tron/Rinzler, Clu, Quorra, Alan Bradley
Rating: T
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Summary: In one story, a program named Rinzler remembered he was once named Tron for the microseconds necessary to ram his lightjet into Clu's. In one story, he fell, and Clu went on to harry the users and the Iso upon the I/O port's very threshold. In one story, he drifted into the deeps of the Sea of Simulation, limp and flickering, as Kevin Flynn drew Clu into himself and Sam and Quorra escaped into the user's world. This is not that story.
Notes:
Wow, it's been a while! A BIIIIIIIIIIIIIG HUG to all the supporters of The Sea ... I was amazed by the continued calls for it in spite of its hiatus, and as a result, I made it a goal to put out another chapter before I polished off the epilogue to The Devil's Dues. :) I admit, I'm a little nervous because getting into the headspace of The Sea again has been a little strange - this was my first Tron fic and so my views of the characters have changed dramatically over the months that I've been fully immersed in the fandom - but hopefully things won't seem too out of place.
Hope you enjoy!
(And thank you to Expositionfairy for the chapter title idea!)
Previous chapters:
[ Chapter 1: Another End, Another Beginning ]
[ Chapter 2: Forever Young ]
[ Chapter 3: The Old and the New ]
[ Chapter 4: Back in Kansas ]
[ Chapter 5: Kiss and Tell ]
Look at me!
It had been a long time since he had looked at anyone.
They had all been patterned from the same templates after a while - fear, hatred, desperation, shock; carefully schooled neutrality, the occasional morbid curiosity. All else had been permutations or combinations thereof, varying only in intensity, and so he had stopped looking; stopped meeting the staring eyes, stopped picking out the harsh, tense lines of mouths and jaws. Beneath the mask and armor of the helmet, the tilt of his head had become a reasonable compromise between a show of attention and the itching discomfort of viewing those same expressions over and over again. It had sufficed for over a thousand cycles, for thousands of faces, and become a habit so deeply ingrained that the decision tree never factored into surface processing anymore ...
Except for three. There were still three faces that made him avert his eyes in a carefully planned and executed routine.
The first was one he had obeyed because of what he had become. The face of a user, the face of a friend, the face of a liar. The smile, in particular, had been a special kind of torture ... and Clu had smiled wide and frequently after the Grid had become his.
The second was one he had obeyed because of what he had been. Kevin Flynn had changed - a disguise? - and it was just different enough to be bearable, perhaps. Different enough to tell the user from the sysadmin, with his inscrutible user ways and manifestations. But when Kevin Flynn's voice had gone flat and hard - too similar - he had obeyed without thought; a sub-surface commandment as ingrained as dodging the flicker of an incoming disc.
The third was one whom he would have obeyed because of what he was. Alan-one, Alan Bradley, changed, like Kevin Flynn. Was this a common filter the users applied to themselves, the white hair and distorted features? But still recognizable in the snatched, sideways glances that he allowed himself; that voice which he had last heard echoing down through a pillar of light, so many cycles ago.
Which, even now, spoke as a touch tilted his chin back, baring his throat.
"So, what's with the outfits?"
"Dunno," Sam muttered as he tried to carefully slide the flat of the kitchen shears' blade between skin and suit without catching anything. "Soon as I landed, they had me out of my street stuff and in one of these things. Good thing the laser seems to default to your last recorded clothing state, or I'd be dealing with one of these right now - christ, they sure fit 'em snug down there. You think Hollywood would pay good money for that laser?"
Alan snorted. "Of course. It even comes with its own special effects and extras cast - could have cut Avatar's budget by half at least. Too bad you could be fined and jailed for peddling the greatest logistics revolution in history. As a high-tech wardrobe designer, no less."
"Designer and clothier," Sam corrected triumphantly as he finally got the right leverage to make the initial cut through the collar.
The suit in the real world was like a weird mix of rubber and kevlar, a wet suit with reinforcement. Tough enough that his hand was cramping by the time he worked his way past Tron's chest, and he had a sudden, inane image of himself trying to shell the program like a lobster. His grip slipped as a snort burst out of him, and he was forced to mutter an apology when Tron flinched at the poke of the scissors' tip.
Leaning back and shaking out his hand as he took a break, Sam eyed the narrow slit he had managed to produce halfway down the suit's torso as he asked, "So, you said that was Lora's laser?" A quick glance up revealed that Tron had his gaze angled discreetly past Sam's left shoulder, expressionless and unmoving but for the occasional blink.
Alan gave him a sour look, which Sam ignored with the ease of long practice. "You were never this sharp-eared or focused when you were in school or listening to me lecture you," the man grumbled before sighing with a shrug. "You knew that Lora worked in Encom's labs before you were born. That's where we'd met. That was the prototype of her first project there: a laser that can digitize real world objects - and people, apparently - and store them in electronic format."
"So how come it ended up in Dad's basement?"
His godfather scraped a hand through his hair with a frustrated sound. "Heck if I know. That thing was supposed to have been returned ... "
"Returned? To who?" Sam prodded verbally when there was an extended pause.
"To whom," Alan automatically corrected before grimacing. "To the military."
Sam stopped and stared. "The military? That's their laser? And, what, they think their multi-I-don't-know-how-many-significant-digits-dollar molecular digitizer is still sitting in some warehouse somewhere?"
"Welcome to the government," Alan couldn't help gibing. "They're misplacing things all the time, like 25-foot German periscopes. Though I suspect they received more help than usual this time in the 'liberation' of the prototype."
Sam alternated between intrigued and dubious. "So, dad's cached government property in his basement."
Alan rolled his eyes. "Don't get too excited, it's more of a semantics issue than anything else. We ostensibly developed it using their R&D funds, but we had to dip into investor pockets before the funds arrived, and the laser was just a mark two prototype - the commercial-ready version was never completed before the contract was annulled. Well, if we had ever gotten to the contract part. In classic government fashion, everything was done with the cart before the horse - we demonstrated the mark one, then we got the money that had been earmarked for it, and the footnotes of the contract for it all in the first place were still being revised when your father blew the whistle on Dillinger. Everything imploded after that, and we never got to the point of the hand-off."
"Huh? Why? What does Dillinger pawning a few games off as his own have anything to do with the government?"
Alan shrugged. "It was a scandal, government funds invested in a company led by a fraud. Taxpayers wanted credibility. Encom nearly went under, not because of bad press - even though that would have been bad enough, thank you - but due to all the government contracts that were suddenly pulled. It was ... quite the lively period in the company's history," he admitted with a pained grimace, before memory softened tone and expression. "But that's when your father got his chance to shine. Fresh from his victory over Dillinger, his name finally acknowledged - it was like he was on top of the world already, and was just waiting for everyone else to catch on. I still sometimes think that the company pulled through solely on his belief that nothing could stop him ... it was like he dared the world to crush Encom, and the world backed down from the dare.
"That's what won him the title of CEO, not just the games," he concluded quietly, slipping off his glasses and holding them up to squint at the already pristine lenses in the low light. "If it was just games development, he would've been project management. Maybe VP. But his radical new ideas on how Encom should relate to its market segments and end users gave the company an alternative route of survival - more than just survival, they made Encom the greatest innovative success in its industry. That's what made him a leader, rather than just another a programmer."
And that's what had earned him the loyalties, faith, and belief of people such as Alan Bradley and Roy Kleinberg.
Suddenly, it hit Sam that he really didn't know much about the company. His company. Oh, he knew enough about its public history and surface issues - the strategic maneuvers over the last decade to expand Encom's monopolistic hold on its chosen markets, the aggresively corporate attitude that has gripped its upper echelons - nothing that anyone who regularly scanned business headlines or the occasional board meeting minutes wouldn't have gleaned. But he didn't really know anything about the cogs within the machine; how they meshed, whose hands turned the crank. In fact, he had purposely distanced himself up till now, hating all that it stood for and what it had become.
He had never even wondered, until now, what exactly about his father had been so extraordinary as to have catapulted him into the position of CEO of a company that would eventually become a household name across the world.
Looking at the scissors still dangling from his fingers and feeling precariously perched upon the edge of some personal epiphany, Sam took a deep breath before reaching out to begin the laborious process of freeing Tron's shoulders and arms from the form-fitting gridsuit.
Alan had to help Sam peel his double out of the suit, with no little help - or, rather, hindrance - from Tron himself. The man, already unapproachable at the best of times, had tightened up like wet leather left in the sun as soon as they laid hands on him directly, and acted as if he had never figured out how sleeves worked before in his life.
"C'mon, Tron, a little cooperation here," Sam growled as he tugged on the end of the attached glove. "Stop curling your fingers, we can't get this off if you've got your hand locked up - "
All Sam received for his troubles was a blank look of irritation, confusion, and more than a little skepticism.
"He's worse than you were when we tried getting you into your first suit," Alan grunted as he finally managed to peel the strange fabric down the man's shoulders, distracting Tron long enough that Sam could pry most of the hand out of the glove.
Christ, had Alan ever looked this fit? If he hadn't already been happily married for several decades and well past the hope or need to compete, he might have felt insecure and jealous right now -
All right, he was still feeling a little insecure and jealous right now. But only for lost opportunities. Really.
"And I still think that it's cruel and unusual to strap anyone less than thirty into one of those things," Sam asserted as he admonished Tron to hold still, making a last strategic snip with the scissors before one arm pulled free completely, liberated from its shell.
"You didn't object to the tux we got you on prom night," Alan couldn't resist, grinning even before the predictable groan came, but all amusement faded as the muscles in Tron's revealed back bunched and pulled, and something caught his eye in the uncertain lighting. "Hey ... what's this?" he frowned, lifting his glasses as he leaned close to squint directly at the skin over the man's right shoulderblade.
There were ... patterns drawn on it, the lines too regular and symmetrical to be a birthmark. He had heard that tattoo removal often left shadowy remnants behind, but these were silvery-pale instead of dark, nearly invisible unless one peered sideways. Honestly, they were like old scars but unridged, and when he tentatively pressed a finger along one of the slender lines, the skin felt indistinguishable from the rest.
Tron froze at the first touch, then gave a convulsive shudder at the drag of the fingertip.
"Uh, Bradley ... "
Alan straightened, dropping his glasses back on his nose as he blinked at Kevin.
His old friend had returned from raiding Sam's closet and drawers with a pile of clothes stacked haphazardly in his arms. Quorra was now draped in one of Sam's hoodies and a pair of sweatpants cinched tight around her hips, her own black suit still visible above the collar and below the cut-off legs. The woman looked oddly astonished, mouth slack as her wide eyes darted between Alan and Tron. Kevin himself looked as cagey as he ever did when he realized he had misstepped and was one strong word away from being forced to 'fess up.
"What," Alan said with leaden suspicion, automatically bracing himself.
"You, uh, might wanna keep your hands to yourself."
And, as ever, whatever revelation had come from his friend's mouth was so far into left field that Alan was left scrabbling for a frame of reference. "What? Wait ... are you implying that I'm - !"
"Naw, man, relax! I'm just telling you, etiquette's a little different on the Grid - "
Alan boggled. "Etiquette ... ?"
"Well, no, not exactly, but they've got these ... these circuit lines, you know?" Kevin dumped the clothes on the nearest couch before he made a vague, encompassing gesture. "C'mon, here ... Quorra, show 'em your hands and arms."
Still a little wide-eyed but now looking more bemused than flabbergasted, the woman stepped forward as she pushed the shirt's sleeves up and held her arms out awkwardly, as if she hadn't quite figured out yet how one was supposed to deal with the extra cloth when one wanted it out of the way.
While Kevin had refrained from dealing with the main portion of the suit itself, he had at least peeled off the arm-length gloves. Tentatively taking the tips of her fingers to tilt her hands back and forth beneath the light, Alan frowned as he picked out the same subtle patterns of discoloration, albeit in much cleaner and simpler lines; mainly just one thick stripe with the occasional hair-fine branching. "What are these?"
"Far as I can tell? Kinda like sensory clusters. They tend to be a little more sensitive there, depending on the context."
"Context? What the hell do you mean by conte - " Alan began irascibly before he abruptly dropped Quorra's hands as if burned and gaped at his friend. Sometime friend. Occasional ally. Definitely full-time irritant. "You've got to be kidding me. As in, like, erogenous zones?"
"Uhm, okay, can we change the subject or something, guys?" Sam interjected nervously.
Flynn, the troll, managed to pull a smug and superior grin out of somewhere. "What? Dude, I've no idea where your brain's going, I'm just saying that - "
"He is covered in those things - !" Alan accused with a jab of his finger toward Tron, who had regarded the entire exchange thus far with that same impassive mien, unconcerned by either his half-stripped state or the subject matter being discussed. Alan had to resist the odd impulse to either drop his coat over his younger self's shoulders or cover his ears.
"All right, man, chill," Flynn finally laughed, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. "Far as I know? Yeah, they can have some fun with those - " never mind that Alan's head was busy tripping over itself trying to figure out how or why programs have that sort of 'fun' in the first place, " - but otherwise, it's like having a few more nerve endings packed into your fingertips than in your elbow. On the Grid, they can get some extra data through those that they don't through non-circuited areas. That's all."
That's all. Programs possessing full sentience and human intelligence - that's all. Lora's laser project being able to digitize humans and bring them back without noticeable side effects - that's all. Programs being given mostly-human bodies with a few added bonuses - that's all. Alan slid his fingers beneath his glasses to rub at sandpapery eyes, wondering if all of this would make any more sense with a full night's sleep.
He had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't.
"Hey, I recognize these," Sam murmured as he tugged a bit more of the suit away. "They're like the patterns on the original Tron figures."
"They are," Kevin confirmed as Alan sighed and resignedly moved to help continue stripping the material away. "Scanned them directly from Tron himself."
"Really?" Sam's brow crinkled up skeptically as they pulled, pushed, cajoled, and finally managed to tug Tron's other arm out of its sheath, finally leaving his torso bared to scrutiny. "These lines are different ... here and here ... " he made broad gestures toward the air over certain points on the man's abdomen.
Alan's brows rose amusedly at how easily the differences had been picked out, and Sam caught his look.
"Hey, you know how much Tron meant to me as a kid," his godson muttered with a defensive hunch of his shoulders.
For a moment, Alan thought he saw Tron's gaze flicker toward Sam and a crease mar his brow before all was still again.
"This can't be right." Kevin frowned as he sank into a crouch beside Sam, one hand cupped meditatively over his mouth and beard. "None of my edits manifested like that. These must have been made after - "
He cut off abruptly, but even before Alan could ask after what? the man was turning on a heel to regard the, thus far, only completely silent figure in the room.
Alan swallowed against the sudden dry sensation in his mouth as he followed Kevin's gaze toward the unconscious Clu. To be able to reach right into the essence of a person and ... and reprogram them ...
He caught Quorra shifting out of the corners of his eyes. She had wrapped her arms around herself, face closed and hard, and suddenly, she didn't look all that young and innocent after all.
"Kevin, why did you steal the laser?" Alan sighed, trying - and failing - to suppress a shiver. He was suddenly, acutely reminded that Clu had not been the only one to make modifications. Kevin had made edits too ... had been playing a god, albeit a benevolent one.
"I didn't steal it - " Kevin grunted as he pushed himself back to his feet.
"Are you seriously trying to parse semantics with me right now, Flynn?" Alan growled. "It was developed using government R&D funds - "
"Oh, come on, man, you knew as well as I did that they weren't interested in operating it themselves!" Kevin waved the point away as if it had as little weight as a gnat. "The military's all about contracting out services. At most, this was little more than a lease - "
"Fine, then why didn't we keep developing it? The patents were all in our name, we couldn't sell the technology to non-US allies, but nothing prevented us from developing it for commercial applications - for god's sake, Kevin, we essentially had a working teleporter! We could have revolutionized world transportation!"
"Come on, I told you about the Grid!" Kevin retorted, a bit of sharpness finally entering his voice as he swept an arm out to encompass Quorra, Clu, and Tron. "Look at them! You think I was gonna let it all become just a hub-and-spoke freight service - ?"
"Hey - hey!" Sam interrupted, waving his arms to regain their attention when Alan and Kevin's gazes locked dangerously. "Speaking of them, just what's the deal with the sentient programs and evolving ISOs, anyway? I mean, I can figure out that the laser needs a god-awful big database of digital and real-world equivalents to work, but that's a far cry from the level of AI sophistication you've got here ... "
Kevin grudgingly settled his weight back on his heels and sighed. "Yeah, well, the laser was just part of it. Did you ever wonder why the military had a contract signed with Encom, a company that had made the larger part of its profits in the commercial sector from games? Why the databases and internal networks between the laser and The Grid and the MCP were all on the same network?"
Sam hardly needed any pause at all before he breathed, "War games."
Alan blinked and then blinked again. "Tron," he stated with dawning realization, and just barely caught the flicker of the program's namesake twitching at the edges of his vision. "I had a concrete target for Tron when the MCP had been installed, but Tron was commissioned even before we knew the MCP even existed. A custom security program when there had been perfectly adequate off-the-shelf firewalls available at the local store, if all they wanted was to keep the company networks secure from intrusion."
Kevin nodded, looking oddly troubled and pleased at the same time. "You got it. Of course, we weren't writing stuff yet for their specific scenarios, this was all still R&D, so there were all sorts of low-key office and maintenance applications running around too; the AI versions of 'Hello world!' as we worked out how to overcome the technological hurdles. I didn't find out all this 'till after I was bumped up the food chain, but as soon as I did? I knew we had something special, that we'd succeeded beyond our wildest dreams, something that we couldn't let the military get their hands on. They'd have just locked it into a black box, hidden it away and kept it for themselves ... this needed to be shared - "
"Funny, I thought you were describing yourself there for a moment." Alan surprised himself with the unexpected edge of bitterness to his words, but he couldn't bring himself to be too sorry, even at Kevin's regretful look. After all, he had been forced into his friend's role both professionally and personally for the last two decades; after, from all accounts, the man had run off chasing his visions without a thought for whether there were cliff edges nearby. When Kevin drew breath to respond, Alan took one look at his expression and growled, "So help me, Flynn, if the next words out of your mouth are, 'That's not fair' ... !"
The man blinked, looking startled. And more than just the gray hairs and the beard and the wrinkles, Alan finally felt the change in his old friend as Kevin glanced back toward the comatose Clu and answered with a weary sigh, "Honestly? What I was going to say was that I hadn't wanted to show you until everything was perfect."
The studio was nearly as quiet as the Grid once everyone was gone.
Sam had taken Quorra out on the Ducati, its familiar rumble still an oddly, surprisingly comforting sound. Alan had braced himself with a last cup of coffee before finally rolling out into the pre-dawn streets for the office, still dressed in the same suit and tie had had worn all of yesterday.
Tron stood before one of the windows set in the rolled-down siding of the shipping container, staring out over the water toward the distant lights of downtown and Encom Tower. Kevin fancied he could see a hint of wonder sharpening the normally blank gaze as morning began to shade the sky a pale, translucent blue, and it was enough to forestall him from further questions at the moment. They had time, now, after all.
But even as the words skittered across Kevin's mind, a subresonant purl crept through the room and Tron was turning, shoulders curled, focused, intent. Marv barked once, making Kevin jump, and settled into its own growl as he turned to follow the line of Tron's sight ... to meet a slitted gaze set in an all too familiar face.
Kevin swallowed, stomach turning over.
"Flynn," Clu hissed.