To Feel [Fanfic]
To Feel
Pairings: Tron/Flynn, Tron/Sam
Warnings: It's not hardcore slash or anything.
Summary: Tron is a program unique to the grid, he is the first of his kind and the first with the ability of free thought.
AN: I found Tron's plight to be really heart wrenching, especially since he is essentially the first and most unique of all programs (as Clu is technically a clone and therefore not really unique). When I stepped out of the cinema, I couldn't help but wonder how complete the reprogramming of Tron would be and whether his old life and the devotion he had for Flynn would be eliminated. So I explored that in this fic, also what happens to him and Flynn after the movie :D
~x~
He feels and yet he doesn’t.
When he’s standing by the cliff edge, gazing over creation, he feels the wind. He feels the way that it presses against his body, the way that it displaces his hair and makes him blink quickly. When he’s flying through the air, his body neatly confined, he can hear its wailing as he fights against it. He realizes that the higher he flies, the greater it screams.
He asked the creator once, whether the wind is the same in his world. He simply smiled sadly and shook his head, talking quietly of how it could be cool and refreshing or harsh and biting, depending on the season. They don’t have seasons in the Grid. He doesn’t ask further on the issue, aware that while he can feel the wind, he really can’t.
He’s a program. He knows that he is. He knows what his mission is, what his prime directive entails. He knows that in the creator’s eyes, he is a tool to be used and he gladly welcomes that perspective. And yet, as he grows and creates and assists his creator, he can feel something begin to form within him. Something, which attaches itself to every code and data stream of his core being.
He has free thought.
He knows that the ability comes from hours of programming. When the creator asks him for his disk, he knows that soon, he will be born anew. That yet another piece of his outdated coding will be replaced by updated and complex equations and lines. So he lies beside him, watching as the Users face creases. As his human body shifts in a movement that no program would need to make. He notices that he scratches at his facial hair if it grows too long, or that he runs his hand through his mane if he’s frustrated. His prime directive screams at him when his owner is frustrated for he must protect him from such discomforts. And yet the beauty, the freedom of his will allows him to quench that scream.
Clu, born before he was in a world that was barren and simple, changes as well. At first, he is complacent, submissive. When his own body is formed, he meets a version of Clu that is quiet and wishes only to please the creator. He follows in his footsteps, willing to stand behind the clone for the sake of his superiority. When he begins to form an attachment to the creator, Clu starts to change. He notices the way that the creator spends hours on his mind, on his abilities. Although Clu is a clone, Tron thinks that he has more to offer. He is a purely original creation of the Grid, a being that in both looks and abilities, is completely unique.
When he’s begun the process of living for himself, he begins to address the creator by his name. The first time he whispers the word, “Flynn,” he’s sitting beside the man, watching over their new utopia. Flynn turns to him, almost disbelieving and without his helmet, he feels naked and embarrassed. But he knows that Flynn made everything about him, that his feelings are nonsensical and illogical. That they aren’t even real.
“Did you say something, Tron?” Asks Flynn and there’s a grin on his face.
“Yes. I did… Flynn.”
When the man laughs, a sound that he has only heard a few times in his existence, it almost sends him into an automatic reboot. The surge in his artificial emotions is such that his programming bends and flexes itself. He feels that he must be undergoing that process which Flynn sometimes mentions. Evolution. He feels as if he is evolving each microsecond and with every strange emotion, he is pushing his body.
When he notices something from the corner of his eyes, he looks behind him, into the labyrinth of their residence. An expression of anger, so different and strange on Clu’s face, has torn across him. He knows that the clone heard the creator’s laugh, that he is suddenly realizing the shift in power between Flynn’s two lackeys.
His programming overrides his system when competition is fierce. He must protect the User. Protect him from the scheming and deception of Clu. The fragility and simplicity of the human mind is displayed in Flynn, only through his ability to trust them both. To believe that they both were on equal ground.
When Flynn mentions that he has a son, Tron’s world nearly stops.
Before he shuts down for the night, he often thinks of the offspring of the creator. He thinks of what he has learned from Flynn, of how humans act and behave, of how he came into being. He thinks of the defenceless User and how he won’t have a program to protect him. That he doesn’t even have his mother, a being which for humans is so essential. He thinks of Sam and what life would be like without a prime directive, whether there would still be a purpose and meaning. Flynn doesn’t talk about him often but he knows that every day he thinks of the boy.
Their world grows larger, and with it, Clu withdraws. There are other programs now, inferior beings with separate identities and status’s. They exist meaningless for most of their lives, unsure of what it is that they are fighting for. When the city grows and the Grid breathes more life, they find their own meanings, their own values. He finds a strange satisfaction in his position as the first true individual program. He begins to see Clu as an inferior being, as a simple clone.
They used to wander through the Grid together for hours. Touching, but never truly feeling the buildings that they mastered. Smelling but never truly registering what it is that Flynn speaks of. His body receives sensory signals but the sensations that Flynn explains never seem to occur to him. Clu used to have a silent understanding with the creator but with his withdrawal comes questions. What is this world? What is perfection? Is the creator an image of perfection? The questions disturb Tron and his mind registers warning bells that his mission may be under threat. He doesn’t explain these deductions but he can see the caution in Flynn’s eyes.
When they come, imperfect and beautiful in their own way, he is told that it is a miracle. He sees how Flynn touches them, almost disbelieving, how he smiles so brilliantly that Tron almost imagines the sun to exist. The creatures are scared and confused. They have seen the light of their creations, unable to draw away from the enigma, which grew on the horizon.
Their coming brings a heightened sense of alarm and his mission is activated at strange moments. Odd sounds cause his disk to be withdrawn; mere casual movements cause him to fall into an aggressive stance, his body shielding his purpose for life.
When his paranoia is at its highest level, when the threat of an attack is most alarming; Clu attacks. He is stressed at that point, having been unable to turn his body and mind off for more then a few minutes at a time. He fights them as best as he can, merely glad that Flynn didn’t pretend to be a hero; that he runs for shelter and safety.
Clu’s eyes stare into his when he lands the blow that causes his mind to go into sleep mode.
The worst part of his reconfiguration is that he is still his old self. He still has his memories of Flynn, sitting beside him patiently as he browses through his genetic pattern. He still remembers the way he nursed him into life, a shivering and basic program. And yet, he can’t stop his body from attacking, from doing deeds, which would have disgusted his creator. It is almost as if he is watching from behind a glass window, disgusted at the genocide he participates in. When he shuts down, he finds flaws in Clu’s programming. He has dreams, flashes of memory only which shows him of a crack, almost a virus in his code.
Worst is when he thinks of Sam, the creator’s son. He thinks of how his father will never return to him, how Flynn will never be free of this world. He thinks of how one day, Clu will enter Sam’s life and reign his punishment on him. He knows that Clu would only ever use him, the program who once had free will, to strike the human down. To show Sam that imperfection is not tolerated. That even he, Tron, a being created by his own father, had to be reconfigured from his taint of imperfection.
And then, Sam comes to him.
He is nothing like he imagined him to be. Tall, grown, aggressive yet emotional. He knows when he enters the Games that his opponent is different. While his first guess is a malfunctioning program, he can’t explain the way he ascends the levels. He can’t explain the erratic, strange movements of the ‘program,’ which reminds him so much of the only other User he has met.
When he draws blood, he knows who it is. His whole body screams at him because once, his whole life had been to protect the Users. He only wants to care for the User, to spend his days growing with the human, imagining what it is to truly feel without boundaries and restraints. Before he can act though, his main directive, that of assisting Clu, of following his orders is activated. His body responds while he mind screams. The User’s eyes are wide, filled with fear and life. He wants to touch the skin of his face, to know whether all User’s had the same fragility.
When he escorts Sam, he tries to loosen his hold, to override his programming and allow a small measure of comfort. From Sam’s eyes, which widen and soften variably, he registers a sort of surprise. He wants to tell him with all of his might and mind who he is, that he once loved his father like nothing else. That by being a creation of Flynn, he is a brother to Sam, a guardian and a worshipper. He wishes to communicate through Sam that he needs to be rescued, that he is a prisoner within his own mind.
And yet, he follows only Clu.
He follows him to the end of their world, to the gates of the universe itself. Until that moment, the moment when he has given all that he has, he finds himself again. He thinks of Sam, and of Flynn. Of his God and demi-god. He thinks of what it would be like to really feel the wind, which barrels into his body.
He falls into the creator’s world. A world, which he helped, build and shape and create.
When he floats in the sea, his lights showing his allegiance, he feels his original prime directive override Clu’s programming.
~xx~
“Tron?”
His helmet is off. His mind is clouded by weariness and exhaustion. He feels as if his whole existence has been rebooted.
“Tron?”
He opens his eyes. Above him, a figure, which is at first blurred, slowly comes into focus. It is familiar, soft and warm. There are the eyes, which he knows so well, the smile which is so easily slipped onto his face.
“That’s it. Thought for a second there that you weren’t going to wake up. Man, I nearly had a heart attack.”
He’s sitting up in a second, the thought of harm coming to Flynn overriding his mind. Flynn is laughing, that sound which is so clear, almost like crystal.
“Flynn?” He asks unsurely, unused to saying his name.
A hand is on his shoulder, gently squeezing, “Yeah, I’m here.”
He gazes at him, unsure of what to do. Flynn breaks his gaze, allowing him to look around. They are in a place, which reminds him of his birth. It is a grid, desolate and endless. It is humming with a feeling of life and of unknown ability.
“Where are we?” He asks, trailing his gaze over the User, making sure that he is unhurt.
“On the Grid.”
“… Where is Clu, where is everything?”
“Clu’s inside me again,” he says, his voice soft and emotion filled, “I absorbed him as I should have done a long time ago. I guess I should have listened to my own advice all along. I should have taken myself out of the equation.” Tron is silent as Flynn continues, “But as to where we are, we’re on a Grid. Not the one you were created on, another one. One that I think all destroyed program’s go to. User’s as well.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve always wondered what happened to the characters after Game Over….” He smiles and Tron notices something exciting and familiar in that look, “I guess they just start a new game.”
He stands and looks out over the endless sea of the Grid. “This is a new world? A new Grid?”
Flynn laughs, “A new world, Tron. A world that we can both create. Properly this time.”
Despite the sluggishness of his mind and internal systems, Tron feels something, which he theorizes, must be real happiness.
~x~
I hope you enjoyed my fic and please comment and tell me how it is! :o)