Now when I look at the clouds across the moon...
WHO: Flynn and legacyguardian
WHEN: Very shortly after this thread (yes, backdated)
WHAT: Reunion
WHERE: The Grid copy of Flynn's Arcade
WARNINGS: There shouldn't be any. Other than some ouch veering towards angst.
( ... here in the night... )
WHEN: Very shortly after this thread (yes, backdated)
WHAT: Reunion
WHERE: The Grid copy of Flynn's Arcade
WARNINGS: There shouldn't be any. Other than some ouch veering towards angst.
( ... here in the night... )
Not till he turned around slow and careful in case it really was a dream and this brought him to wake up, or turned it into a nightmare. Everything about this was surreal enough that it could have been. Discovering Flynn's hidden laboratory (why hadn't he found it all those years ago? Why hadn't he looked harder?) Discovering all the work Flynn had put into this world (why hadn't he asked or pressed harder?) and what it looked like on the inside. Coping with the implications of Flynn's research and what he'd discovered, never mind what Flynn had been talking about at the end, because this couldn't have been that mystery he'd cracked, not when he'd built all this up over time ( ... )
Reply
Not that much in face. Plenty of silver in his hair - it looked more silvery-white than anything else. More stylish glasses, he'd probably tease him about them some day. A very slight hunch to his frame, more growing-delicate of bones under the clothing than anything else.
The same tremble in the dry voice that Flynn had felt in his own. "Alan." It was barely more than a breath out, by now, all he could muster, but then he was close enough, he was hugging his friend, for the first time after so, so very long, and louder wasn't really necessary, right?
Reply
"Kevin..." He wanted to ask so, so many things. Or say some other things. And nothing came out, because where did he even begin? Where had he been was kind of obvious, why hadn't he come back? Something must have happened, so, what happened? Had he seen Sam? Was this why Sam was all of a sudden so driven? What about that page? It didn't matter, none of it mattered. His fingers curled in Flynn's shirt and held tight. Alan hadn't realized how much he'd missed him, had only thought he knew how much he'd missed him, how much it hurt that he didn't expect to see him again until... he was here.
Reply
"I..." Of course, his next sentence started with I. Naturally. "I talked with... Tron." Flicker of a twitch at the corners of his mouth. What with the nickname and all, it had been so, so very long ago, and his breath was shaking as he took it in. "Oh, man, it's been way too long!"
Reply
"That it has, old friend." And his voice was thick with emotion, and he didn't goddamn care, his friend was back. Not back, but here. He was here. With his friend. Again. Finally.
Yes, those were tears pricking his eyes, right before he squeezed them shut and held tighter, what of it?
"Too damn long."
Reply
And he didn't know what to say next, all of a sudden. Everything seemed just about equally important - and equally negligible compared to the fact that Alan was here, here, where he could touch him, that he was well, that things were just a little bit more right where he had taught himself so convincingly that nothing was wrong in the first place.
"How... how have you been?" That one worked, didn't it?
Reply
No, more than twenty years. Tron had given a brief rundown on the time differential but all he remembered was that it was roughly a one to fifty ratio.
One to fifty??
Alan did some mental calculations, quickly, half-distracted from the question. Twenty times fifty, Jesus Christ. "I've... We're good. We've been good. You..." He had to gulp down a breath to even think past that, pick up selective facts and examine them and push everything else to the back of his mind because if he didn't all the new information would overwhelm him. "Christ, you're here. You were in here all this time."
Reply
He...
Well. First of all, he shifted so he held Alan around the shoulders with one arm and led him towards the... nearest place to sit he could see was the low end of the stairs towards the 'loft,' and he sat them down there, not letting go of his friend even for a moment. Fainting here was highly unlikely, but still, this was better, right?
"I was here. There's... there was a limitation that's no longer in effect. The way out was only open for limited time and it can only be opened from the outside. I was kept from getting to it on time. And... it's a closed system. The one way to get a message, a pulse out..." He swallowed. "Was out of my reach, too." He stilled for a moment, then looked down. "I'm sorry, man."
Reply
"You're sorry?" he gasped, somewhere between laughing and choking. "Just wait till Lora gets ahold of you." Because he had no doubt that Lora would want to come down here. She would want to see this for herself.
"Why didn't you tell us about this?" he asked after another minute to try and come up with something that wasn't going to spin his head around further. "All this... we could have helped you. Why didn't you tell us?"
Reply
Wryly, "because I'm an idiot." And that wasn't a question. It was a weighted evaluation of his actual actions. He sighed, and looked down again, and tried to rehash the arguments he'd proved wrong to himself so very many times and ways over the cycles. "In... the beginning, it was too unshaped, and who past puberty would even consider believing that folks could get inside a computer, man? And after that..." He raked his free hand back through his hair. "The unthinkable happened. There... were programs which ... spontaneously manifested. I didn't write them, nobody did. Born out of the system. Programs with... with free will. And digital make-up which nobody could create on purpose. They were supposed to be my gift to the world. Like... like flowers. Making everything better."
Reply
Alan shook his head. "I can't say we would have believed you straight off, but... who, when we were born, our parents, would they have believed folks could go walk on the moon? Would you have believed it when you were a kid? Do you remember that..." And it was a more serious question than it might have been before he figured out the time differential. "When the broadcast went out? I felt like I was in a Jules Verne book. We were on the moon. The moon. Which was always... so far away it might as well not have been real. Just a myth."
And now it was his turn to sling his arm around his friend and hug him tight. "That's what you did, you brought the myth down to us. Set us on the moon. Yeah, we might not have believed you at first, but it's a little hard to say it doesn't exist when we're sitting in it."
The programs, the other part of it. He didn't know where to begin with that.
Reply
"It was supposed to be perfect, you see. The perfect system. For programs and users. Perfection as it really can't exist... I thought then, out in our world. Order. Control. And then... the isomorphic algorithms. New... new species, man. Evolution. In here. Profoundly naive. Infinitely wise." His voice too tight, he trailed off for a few moments, then managed to take a deeper breath. "Some of the original programs got along with them. Some of the basics... didn't ( ... )
Reply
Reply
"No... not all," he finally managed to croak, then held his breath and tried to continue more steadily. "Poor Quorra. Last of her kind, and has been for all this time. Stuck out in the wilderness with only me for company." Him and his madness, to be precise.
Flynn leaned his forehead against the side of Alan's head, working to put himself back together at least a little bit. "I messed it all up, Alan. Let down every single person, ever. No brilliance can make up for that."
Reply
"You're here. That's... that's good enough for me, you know. I'm easy." Half-joking, half-real. Quiet. Thick with emotion, but still quiet and steady. "I didn't think I'd get that much, so I'll stick with just this."
Reply
Joy at his presence was still something to get used to. Especially from somebody who could see the whole picture, the way Alan did. How... how do I deserve people like him still being this close and running away with horrified screams?
Eventually, he managed to make his throat sort of work again, choked up and thick. "Easy? I'd say amazing and exceptional, instead." He took a breath to start telling the rest - because there was more, there was always more, wasn't there? But he couldn't continue, a slow, choked sob shaking his shoulders, surprising him with the weight of relief against a fear he had lost hope of getting respite from.
Reply
Leave a comment