Tron slash part 3!
Time for more of...
SCIENCE FICTION/DOUBLE FEATURE
Alan and Lora in this chapter! They are the best nerds ever. Also, the fluff returns!
CHAPTER 3-BACK TO REALITY
And just like that, bam, Kevin Flynn was back in Encom’s laser lab. He threw out his hands, catching himself on the edge of the desk as he fell forward in his chair. He looked around in a daze, feeling like he’d just woken up from the world’s strangest dream. Maybe he had. But it wasn’t a dream, was it? It couldn’t be. There’s no way he could have dreamed Tron, or Yori… or Ram, for that matter. No way.
The buzzing of the printer next to the computer caught his attention. He plucked the sheet of paper from the printer once it was done.
“Uh huh, uh huh,” he muttered as he skimmed over it. Then he grinned. “Priority One!” he exclaimed, laughing breathlessly. He leaped up from the chair with a whoop and dashed for the laser bay door, cackling madly all the way to the elevator. “Dillinger, you slimy bastard, I got you now!”
He fidgeted like a little kid on five cups of coffee all the way up to Alan’s cubicle. He kept looking down at the paper clutched in his fist, like it might disappear if he ignored it for too long.
Was it a dream, though? The clock on the wall next to the elevator had told him that he’d only been gone for less than ten minutes. He must have fallen asleep at the computer. But how’d he manage to dig up a Priority One document? The MCP had caught him before he’d gotten that far into the system. And there was one more problem with the sleep idea-Flynn never remembered his dreams. And when he did, all he got were bits and pieces.
But he remembered everything that had happened on the Grid. He remembered the colors, the sounds, the glow of the circuitry. He remembered the intensity of Tron’s stare and the loveliness of Yori’s smile. He remembered the hate in Sark’s voice and the cold contempt in the MCP’s. And he remembered the rush of the energy transfer, and the weird, electrical warmth of Ram’s mouth. He hadn’t really noticed that at the time, as he’d been pretty busy. But he noticed it now, looking back on it.
Alan and Lora jumped like scared rabbits when he burst into the cubicle, beaming from ear to ear.
“Damn it, Flynn, don’t do that!” Alan scolded him. “We heard footsteps running this way and thought it was security coming to arrest us.”
Flynn just laughed and leaned against the cubicle doorway. “Alan, Lora, you will not believe where I’ve been.”
“You mean the laser lab? I think I can believe that, since I put you there myself,” Lora said dryly.
“Hold on,” Alan interrupted. “This isn’t… something just happened. Master Control is gone.”
“What? Are you sure?” Lora asked, frowning.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure,” Alan said. He stared in disbelief at the screen. “What just happened? I have my access back, Tron is online again… Flynn, how on earth did you do it that fast?”
Flynn chuckled and set a hand on Alan’s shoulder. “Let me tell you a little story about Tron…”
////
Half an hour later, Alan and Lora were thoroughly convinced that their colleague had gone insane. Alan pinched the bridge of his nose, bumping his glasses upward.
“So what you’re telling us,” he said slowly, “Is that The Master Control Program used Lora’s laser to… zap you inside the Encom mainframe. You were forced to fight humanoid computer programs in Roman-style gladiator games, and then you, Tron, and an actuarial program-“
“Ram,” Flynn interjected helpfully.
“Right. You, Tron, and Ram fought the Master Control Program in a battle to the death. You jumped inside the MCP to distract it so Tron could kill it with a flying disc, and you then rode the blast from its destruction all the way back to our world.”
“Yeah-huh, that about sums it up,” Flynn agreed. He didn’t look the least bit disturbed by any of this, which hardly seemed fair.
“Flynn, that’s absurd!” Lora exclaimed, exasperated. “People can’t be zapped into computers!”
“Why not? You and Gibbs have been zapping oranges into computers for weeks,” Flynn pointed out.
“Oranges, Kevin! The laser is nowhere near ready for human testing yet.”
“Well, it looks like it’s ready now.” Flynn smiled that maddening smile of his. He relented, though, at the looks on their faces. “Okay, I know it sounds nuts. But I bet there’s some kind of proof in the system-there has to be some trace of the MCP activating the laser.” He glanced at the windows across the room. “It’s late. Why don’t we all go home, and tomorrow after closing, you both come down to the laser lab with me. Okay?”
“Flynn, we are not indulging this scheme of yours-“ Alan started.
“Please. Lora, Alan, please just come down there tomorrow. Do this one thing for me, okay?” Flynn insisted. The smile was gone. He was deadly serious about this. Alan exchanged a look with Lora, both surprised by their colleague’s sudden change of attitude.
“Okay, Kevin,” Lora said. “We’ll be there.”
///////
It almost felt weird, coming back to the arcade. Flynn hadn’t been sure he’d ever see it again. He walked in through the front door, instead of going in through the back like he normally did after hours. He had an urge to walk the arcade floor. It was dark and silent, the last of his employees having gone home hours ago. The room felt bigger than usual, the silence stronger.
He paused by the Space Paranoids cabinet, taking a minute to stare at the Recognizers decorating its panels. The Light Cycles machine caught his eye next. He wandered from one cabinet to the next before finally hauling himself up the stairs to his tiny little apartment-office. It was just as messy as he’d left it. He went to the bathroom, splashed some warm water on his face, and then collapsed face-first onto the bed, not even bothering to get undressed.
Flynn’s dreams were of glowing discs and lightcycles and heroic programs that night. When he woke up, he forgot them all.
/////
Encom was in chaos the next day. Dillinger was gone-nobody knew where he was, and at this point, that was probably for the best. His scam had been exposed, and there were lots of Encom employees who had a bone to pick with Dillinger about the MCP.
They called Flynn at around noon, begging him to come back and take back his job there. He agreed, but only because he needed to be there anyway. He would’ve liked to make them sweat a little before agreeing, but he wanted access to that laser even more.
Even with all of their employees going full-tilt, the pile of things that needed doing never seemed to lessen. Damn near everyone was working overtime. It was 9:30 at night before the building started to empty out and Flynn could steal away to the now-deserted laser lab.
It was another ten minutes before Alan and Lora showed up, but to Flynn, it felt like hours. Flynn waved away their half-hearted attempts at small talk about the state of the company and put Lora to work at the computer terminal.
“Well, Flynn, you were right about one thing,” she said at last. “Master Control did activate the laser last night, about five minutes after you logged in with your forged Level 6. And… hmm. Something got digitized, all right.” Flynn smirked and spread his hands.
“So, Lora, think you could give me a zap with that thing?” he asked. She gaped at him.
“Right now? I don’t think that’s a good idea. We have no idea what kind of side effects this device might have on-“
“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for that. I’m already exposed to whatever side effects there may be. And I need to get back in there and make sure everything’s okay. You think things are bad out here, imagine how much of a mess it’ll be on the Grid! I gotta check on Tron, make sure he’s got things under control.”
“Now hold on, Flynn, Tron is still my program,” Alan interjected. “I can just as easily see what’s happening to it from here.”
“’It’,” Flynn echoed disdainfully. “Hey, Alan, you oughta come with me. You could meet Tron.”
“What? No, I can’t-“
“C’mon, man, what’s stopping you? I bet you’d be a real help down there, getting everything fixed up. Just give it a shot. Don’t try to tell me you’ve never wondered what it’d be like in there.” Alan sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.
“All right, I’ll go,” he said finally.
“Great!” Flynn cheered. “Lora, if you’d be so kind as to fire this baby up?”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said with a groan. But she went to the laser control terminal anyway. Flynn sat down in her spot at the computer terminal and punched in a location query for Tron. He sat back in the chair and slapped his hands together, rubbing them vigorously.
“Okay, here we go!” he crowed. He stood up and grabbed Alan’s jacket sleeve, hauling him over to stand in front of the laser.
“You boys ready over there?” Lora called.
“Ready when you are!” Flynn called back. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. A low hum emanated through the laser bay as the device started up. It got louder and louder as a blue light glowed in the mouth of the laser’s barrel, and-
“My God,” Alan gasped. Flynn opened his eyes and started in surprise. Unlike before, it wasn’t dark grays and reds surrounding him. This time, a staggering array of vivid colors met his eyes. Blue, green, purple, yellow, in every shade and all around him.
“Huh!” he muttered. He glanced over at Alan and grinned. The other man was staring around in open-mouthed shock. “Not bad, huh?” he said. He could tell Alan was truly and deeply impressed, because he didn’t even react to Flynn’s smug comment. The guy’s shock doubled when he looked down and caught sight of his form-fitting Grid suit. “C’mon, quit catching flies, Bradley. Let’s go find your program.”
Locating Tron didn’t take too long. They found him talking to a group of data recovery programs, handing out instructions. Yori was beside him, analyzing a data pad.
“Wait here for a minute, okay?” Flynn said to Alan. Then he shouted, "Tron! Yori!" The programs turned, and smiled widely when they saw their lost friend. Flynn waved them over and Tron jogged to his side, Yori close behind him. He gave the security program a brisk hug, clapping him soundly on the back. He turned to Yori and embraced her too, giving her a friendly kiss on the cheek. "Hey, how've you two been? How're things on the ol' Game Grid, huh?"
“Normal system functions are almost completely restored,” Tron said proudly. “It’s good to see you, Flynn! What happened to you?”
“When the MCP got destroyed, it knocked me out of the system-sent me back to my world,” he said.
“Oh, good! We were worried that you’d been derezzed. Especially since you’ve been gone all this time,” Yori said.
“What? I was only back in my world for about eighteen hours,” Flynn said. He frowned. “How, uh… how long has it been here?”
“You’ve been gone for one hundred and twelve thousand microcycles,” Yori said solemnly. Flynn whistled.
“Aw, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it’d be that long. I gotta get this time discrepancy figured out,” he said.
“Oh, I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” Tron said lightly. “Ram was very upset after you disappeared. And even now, he’s still going through his duties as though someone’s slowed down his power cycles.”
Flynn smiled. “So Ram’s still here, huh? I thought he’d have gone back to his home system by now.”
“He tried, but he couldn’t access it. It looks like Master Control erased him from that system after bringing him here. He decided to stay here and help repair the damage left by the MCP. I have administrative functions, so I was able to help him rewrite some of the necessary routines in his coding.”
“Great, man. Hey, I got a surprise for you, buddy.” Flynn slung an arm around Tron’s shoulder and led him over to where Alan stood, lurking against a wall. “Tron, meet Alan-One.” Amusingly, the two of them wore identical expressions of amazement. Yori peered at the User with a mixture of astonishment and open curiosity.
“My User,” Tron breathed, awestruck. He dropped into a crouch at Alan’s feet and swept the disc from its plug on his back. He lifted it up with both hands, holding it out to Alan like some kind of sacred offering.
“Uh, it’s okay, you don’t have to… do that,” Alan said awkwardly. Tron stood, but he kept his eyes averted. Flynn chuckled and patted them both on the shoulder.
“I’ll let you two get caught up. I’m gonna go say hi to Ram,” he said cheerily.
“Flynn!” Alan protested. But Flynn was already walking away.
//////////////////////////
Ram looked up from his data pad at the sound of footsteps behind him.
“Greetings, program!” The data pad nearly fell out of Ram’s hands at the sound of the voice that spoke. It sounded just like…
“Flynn,” he gasped. Ram turned around and there he was, leaning against the doorway and grinning like he’d never been gone. Joy raced through Ram’s core processors and made his circuits flare brightly. “You came back!” he exclaimed. He dropped the data pad and dashed forward to fling his arms around his friend, gripping him tightly. He felt all those microcycles of worry and uncertainty vanishing from his subroutines, overwritten by this new happiness.
“Whoa, hey,” Flynn laughed. “Of course I came back, buddy.” The User hugged him back. Ram reluctantly let go of him after a moment and took a step back, looking him over.
“Looks like the MCP didn’t damage you at all; that’s good. We had no idea what’d happened to you. Tron calculated that maybe you were derezzed, but Yori and I both believed you’d gone back to the User world. I mean we really had no way of knowing, but I just knew you couldn’t have been derezzed,” Ram said, words spilling out in a rush. “Heh, sorry, I’m overprocessing,” he said, his facial circuits flaring a little.
Flynn smiled brightly, making his circuits flare even more. “Hey man, it’s okay. Look, I’m real sorry about being gone so long. I came back as soon as I could. It’s a madhouse up there, with the MCP and his User gone all of a sudden,” Flynn said.
“So why’d you come back now?” Ram prompted, trying not to hope that he’d been part of the reason.
“Well, I had to! I needed to make sure that you and Tron and Yori were okay,” Flynn insisted.
“You were worried about us?” Ram asked wonderingly.
“Sure, man. You guys are my friends,” he said, smiling again. The words brought a fresh surge of warmth to Ram’s circuits. Flynn checked a circuit on his bracer, and then clapped a hand on Ram’s shoulder. “I gotta get going now. Yori’s User is going to pull me out of the system soon. Plus, I kinda left Alan in his own with Tron back there.”
Ram’s eyes widened. “Alan-One is here?” he sputtered. “Can I meet him?”
“Next time, pal.” Flynn patted his shoulder once more and then turned to go. Next time. Ram liked the sound of that.
“Hey, Flynn?” he said quickly. The User looked back at him. “It’s really good to see you again.”
“You too, Ram,” Flynn said with a grin. And with that, he departed.
Ram smiled and retrieved his data pad. ‘You guys are my friends’, he said. ‘Friend’ is good. For now, anyway. Ram’s smile turned into a smirk.
/////////////////////
My beta did some calculations for me and figured out that 18 hours in our world would be roughly equal to 112,000 microcycles on the Grid. Which would be equivalent to one month. Maybe. Look, the timeline in this movie is kind of confusing, okay? :P
SCIENCE FICTION/DOUBLE FEATURE
Alan and Lora in this chapter! They are the best nerds ever. Also, the fluff returns!
CHAPTER 3-BACK TO REALITY
And just like that, bam, Kevin Flynn was back in Encom’s laser lab. He threw out his hands, catching himself on the edge of the desk as he fell forward in his chair. He looked around in a daze, feeling like he’d just woken up from the world’s strangest dream. Maybe he had. But it wasn’t a dream, was it? It couldn’t be. There’s no way he could have dreamed Tron, or Yori… or Ram, for that matter. No way.
The buzzing of the printer next to the computer caught his attention. He plucked the sheet of paper from the printer once it was done.
“Uh huh, uh huh,” he muttered as he skimmed over it. Then he grinned. “Priority One!” he exclaimed, laughing breathlessly. He leaped up from the chair with a whoop and dashed for the laser bay door, cackling madly all the way to the elevator. “Dillinger, you slimy bastard, I got you now!”
He fidgeted like a little kid on five cups of coffee all the way up to Alan’s cubicle. He kept looking down at the paper clutched in his fist, like it might disappear if he ignored it for too long.
Was it a dream, though? The clock on the wall next to the elevator had told him that he’d only been gone for less than ten minutes. He must have fallen asleep at the computer. But how’d he manage to dig up a Priority One document? The MCP had caught him before he’d gotten that far into the system. And there was one more problem with the sleep idea-Flynn never remembered his dreams. And when he did, all he got were bits and pieces.
But he remembered everything that had happened on the Grid. He remembered the colors, the sounds, the glow of the circuitry. He remembered the intensity of Tron’s stare and the loveliness of Yori’s smile. He remembered the hate in Sark’s voice and the cold contempt in the MCP’s. And he remembered the rush of the energy transfer, and the weird, electrical warmth of Ram’s mouth. He hadn’t really noticed that at the time, as he’d been pretty busy. But he noticed it now, looking back on it.
Alan and Lora jumped like scared rabbits when he burst into the cubicle, beaming from ear to ear.
“Damn it, Flynn, don’t do that!” Alan scolded him. “We heard footsteps running this way and thought it was security coming to arrest us.”
Flynn just laughed and leaned against the cubicle doorway. “Alan, Lora, you will not believe where I’ve been.”
“You mean the laser lab? I think I can believe that, since I put you there myself,” Lora said dryly.
“Hold on,” Alan interrupted. “This isn’t… something just happened. Master Control is gone.”
“What? Are you sure?” Lora asked, frowning.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure,” Alan said. He stared in disbelief at the screen. “What just happened? I have my access back, Tron is online again… Flynn, how on earth did you do it that fast?”
Flynn chuckled and set a hand on Alan’s shoulder. “Let me tell you a little story about Tron…”
////
Half an hour later, Alan and Lora were thoroughly convinced that their colleague had gone insane. Alan pinched the bridge of his nose, bumping his glasses upward.
“So what you’re telling us,” he said slowly, “Is that The Master Control Program used Lora’s laser to… zap you inside the Encom mainframe. You were forced to fight humanoid computer programs in Roman-style gladiator games, and then you, Tron, and an actuarial program-“
“Ram,” Flynn interjected helpfully.
“Right. You, Tron, and Ram fought the Master Control Program in a battle to the death. You jumped inside the MCP to distract it so Tron could kill it with a flying disc, and you then rode the blast from its destruction all the way back to our world.”
“Yeah-huh, that about sums it up,” Flynn agreed. He didn’t look the least bit disturbed by any of this, which hardly seemed fair.
“Flynn, that’s absurd!” Lora exclaimed, exasperated. “People can’t be zapped into computers!”
“Why not? You and Gibbs have been zapping oranges into computers for weeks,” Flynn pointed out.
“Oranges, Kevin! The laser is nowhere near ready for human testing yet.”
“Well, it looks like it’s ready now.” Flynn smiled that maddening smile of his. He relented, though, at the looks on their faces. “Okay, I know it sounds nuts. But I bet there’s some kind of proof in the system-there has to be some trace of the MCP activating the laser.” He glanced at the windows across the room. “It’s late. Why don’t we all go home, and tomorrow after closing, you both come down to the laser lab with me. Okay?”
“Flynn, we are not indulging this scheme of yours-“ Alan started.
“Please. Lora, Alan, please just come down there tomorrow. Do this one thing for me, okay?” Flynn insisted. The smile was gone. He was deadly serious about this. Alan exchanged a look with Lora, both surprised by their colleague’s sudden change of attitude.
“Okay, Kevin,” Lora said. “We’ll be there.”
///////
It almost felt weird, coming back to the arcade. Flynn hadn’t been sure he’d ever see it again. He walked in through the front door, instead of going in through the back like he normally did after hours. He had an urge to walk the arcade floor. It was dark and silent, the last of his employees having gone home hours ago. The room felt bigger than usual, the silence stronger.
He paused by the Space Paranoids cabinet, taking a minute to stare at the Recognizers decorating its panels. The Light Cycles machine caught his eye next. He wandered from one cabinet to the next before finally hauling himself up the stairs to his tiny little apartment-office. It was just as messy as he’d left it. He went to the bathroom, splashed some warm water on his face, and then collapsed face-first onto the bed, not even bothering to get undressed.
Flynn’s dreams were of glowing discs and lightcycles and heroic programs that night. When he woke up, he forgot them all.
/////
Encom was in chaos the next day. Dillinger was gone-nobody knew where he was, and at this point, that was probably for the best. His scam had been exposed, and there were lots of Encom employees who had a bone to pick with Dillinger about the MCP.
They called Flynn at around noon, begging him to come back and take back his job there. He agreed, but only because he needed to be there anyway. He would’ve liked to make them sweat a little before agreeing, but he wanted access to that laser even more.
Even with all of their employees going full-tilt, the pile of things that needed doing never seemed to lessen. Damn near everyone was working overtime. It was 9:30 at night before the building started to empty out and Flynn could steal away to the now-deserted laser lab.
It was another ten minutes before Alan and Lora showed up, but to Flynn, it felt like hours. Flynn waved away their half-hearted attempts at small talk about the state of the company and put Lora to work at the computer terminal.
“Well, Flynn, you were right about one thing,” she said at last. “Master Control did activate the laser last night, about five minutes after you logged in with your forged Level 6. And… hmm. Something got digitized, all right.” Flynn smirked and spread his hands.
“So, Lora, think you could give me a zap with that thing?” he asked. She gaped at him.
“Right now? I don’t think that’s a good idea. We have no idea what kind of side effects this device might have on-“
“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for that. I’m already exposed to whatever side effects there may be. And I need to get back in there and make sure everything’s okay. You think things are bad out here, imagine how much of a mess it’ll be on the Grid! I gotta check on Tron, make sure he’s got things under control.”
“Now hold on, Flynn, Tron is still my program,” Alan interjected. “I can just as easily see what’s happening to it from here.”
“’It’,” Flynn echoed disdainfully. “Hey, Alan, you oughta come with me. You could meet Tron.”
“What? No, I can’t-“
“C’mon, man, what’s stopping you? I bet you’d be a real help down there, getting everything fixed up. Just give it a shot. Don’t try to tell me you’ve never wondered what it’d be like in there.” Alan sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.
“All right, I’ll go,” he said finally.
“Great!” Flynn cheered. “Lora, if you’d be so kind as to fire this baby up?”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said with a groan. But she went to the laser control terminal anyway. Flynn sat down in her spot at the computer terminal and punched in a location query for Tron. He sat back in the chair and slapped his hands together, rubbing them vigorously.
“Okay, here we go!” he crowed. He stood up and grabbed Alan’s jacket sleeve, hauling him over to stand in front of the laser.
“You boys ready over there?” Lora called.
“Ready when you are!” Flynn called back. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. A low hum emanated through the laser bay as the device started up. It got louder and louder as a blue light glowed in the mouth of the laser’s barrel, and-
“My God,” Alan gasped. Flynn opened his eyes and started in surprise. Unlike before, it wasn’t dark grays and reds surrounding him. This time, a staggering array of vivid colors met his eyes. Blue, green, purple, yellow, in every shade and all around him.
“Huh!” he muttered. He glanced over at Alan and grinned. The other man was staring around in open-mouthed shock. “Not bad, huh?” he said. He could tell Alan was truly and deeply impressed, because he didn’t even react to Flynn’s smug comment. The guy’s shock doubled when he looked down and caught sight of his form-fitting Grid suit. “C’mon, quit catching flies, Bradley. Let’s go find your program.”
Locating Tron didn’t take too long. They found him talking to a group of data recovery programs, handing out instructions. Yori was beside him, analyzing a data pad.
“Wait here for a minute, okay?” Flynn said to Alan. Then he shouted, "Tron! Yori!" The programs turned, and smiled widely when they saw their lost friend. Flynn waved them over and Tron jogged to his side, Yori close behind him. He gave the security program a brisk hug, clapping him soundly on the back. He turned to Yori and embraced her too, giving her a friendly kiss on the cheek. "Hey, how've you two been? How're things on the ol' Game Grid, huh?"
“Normal system functions are almost completely restored,” Tron said proudly. “It’s good to see you, Flynn! What happened to you?”
“When the MCP got destroyed, it knocked me out of the system-sent me back to my world,” he said.
“Oh, good! We were worried that you’d been derezzed. Especially since you’ve been gone all this time,” Yori said.
“What? I was only back in my world for about eighteen hours,” Flynn said. He frowned. “How, uh… how long has it been here?”
“You’ve been gone for one hundred and twelve thousand microcycles,” Yori said solemnly. Flynn whistled.
“Aw, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it’d be that long. I gotta get this time discrepancy figured out,” he said.
“Oh, I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” Tron said lightly. “Ram was very upset after you disappeared. And even now, he’s still going through his duties as though someone’s slowed down his power cycles.”
Flynn smiled. “So Ram’s still here, huh? I thought he’d have gone back to his home system by now.”
“He tried, but he couldn’t access it. It looks like Master Control erased him from that system after bringing him here. He decided to stay here and help repair the damage left by the MCP. I have administrative functions, so I was able to help him rewrite some of the necessary routines in his coding.”
“Great, man. Hey, I got a surprise for you, buddy.” Flynn slung an arm around Tron’s shoulder and led him over to where Alan stood, lurking against a wall. “Tron, meet Alan-One.” Amusingly, the two of them wore identical expressions of amazement. Yori peered at the User with a mixture of astonishment and open curiosity.
“My User,” Tron breathed, awestruck. He dropped into a crouch at Alan’s feet and swept the disc from its plug on his back. He lifted it up with both hands, holding it out to Alan like some kind of sacred offering.
“Uh, it’s okay, you don’t have to… do that,” Alan said awkwardly. Tron stood, but he kept his eyes averted. Flynn chuckled and patted them both on the shoulder.
“I’ll let you two get caught up. I’m gonna go say hi to Ram,” he said cheerily.
“Flynn!” Alan protested. But Flynn was already walking away.
//////////////////////////
Ram looked up from his data pad at the sound of footsteps behind him.
“Greetings, program!” The data pad nearly fell out of Ram’s hands at the sound of the voice that spoke. It sounded just like…
“Flynn,” he gasped. Ram turned around and there he was, leaning against the doorway and grinning like he’d never been gone. Joy raced through Ram’s core processors and made his circuits flare brightly. “You came back!” he exclaimed. He dropped the data pad and dashed forward to fling his arms around his friend, gripping him tightly. He felt all those microcycles of worry and uncertainty vanishing from his subroutines, overwritten by this new happiness.
“Whoa, hey,” Flynn laughed. “Of course I came back, buddy.” The User hugged him back. Ram reluctantly let go of him after a moment and took a step back, looking him over.
“Looks like the MCP didn’t damage you at all; that’s good. We had no idea what’d happened to you. Tron calculated that maybe you were derezzed, but Yori and I both believed you’d gone back to the User world. I mean we really had no way of knowing, but I just knew you couldn’t have been derezzed,” Ram said, words spilling out in a rush. “Heh, sorry, I’m overprocessing,” he said, his facial circuits flaring a little.
Flynn smiled brightly, making his circuits flare even more. “Hey man, it’s okay. Look, I’m real sorry about being gone so long. I came back as soon as I could. It’s a madhouse up there, with the MCP and his User gone all of a sudden,” Flynn said.
“So why’d you come back now?” Ram prompted, trying not to hope that he’d been part of the reason.
“Well, I had to! I needed to make sure that you and Tron and Yori were okay,” Flynn insisted.
“You were worried about us?” Ram asked wonderingly.
“Sure, man. You guys are my friends,” he said, smiling again. The words brought a fresh surge of warmth to Ram’s circuits. Flynn checked a circuit on his bracer, and then clapped a hand on Ram’s shoulder. “I gotta get going now. Yori’s User is going to pull me out of the system soon. Plus, I kinda left Alan in his own with Tron back there.”
Ram’s eyes widened. “Alan-One is here?” he sputtered. “Can I meet him?”
“Next time, pal.” Flynn patted his shoulder once more and then turned to go. Next time. Ram liked the sound of that.
“Hey, Flynn?” he said quickly. The User looked back at him. “It’s really good to see you again.”
“You too, Ram,” Flynn said with a grin. And with that, he departed.
Ram smiled and retrieved his data pad. ‘You guys are my friends’, he said. ‘Friend’ is good. For now, anyway. Ram’s smile turned into a smirk.
/////////////////////
My beta did some calculations for me and figured out that 18 hours in our world would be roughly equal to 112,000 microcycles on the Grid. Which would be equivalent to one month. Maybe. Look, the timeline in this movie is kind of confusing, okay? :P