Reflections
Of all the things Yori could be doing this microcycle, looking at the memory logs she'd gotten from Jazz's disk was just barely above "still running from Blackguards" in her preference hierarchy.
There's guilt, because she has no real right to invade Jazz's privacy this way, and there's dread, because the memory of being violently interrogated by Blackguards is traumatic no matter how many removes one is from the actual event. And then there is the need to know how many of her allies were still in danger.
Yori closes her eyes and loads the logs to her own memory, suppressing the echoes of fear/shame/pain! for the sake of her sanity and focusing on the words, the images, in rapid scan.
Oh, Jazz. Not fair to blame the bartender for being less skilled at lying than the Blackguards were at detecting lies, but...
Even with the helmet, she recognizes that the Blackguard interrogator is Symantec. It isn't a surprise; she's known for cycles that Tron's old comrade Sym is working...inventively...for Clu, supporting the administrator's goals from early in the coup. Pain still snatches at her breath at the proof of what he will do toward Clu's ends, pain and old betrayal.
She'd made a hobby out of getting Sym to laugh, in times long gone, though the security program had always seemed a little uneasy around her. Sym had often been one of the first programs she asked to back her up when Tron was overworking himself, because Tron trusted Sym to look after the Grid.
We trusted you, she snarls, at the memory-image. How can you want this?
But Rinzler enters the memory, and suddenly nothing else quite matters.
That pattern.
She knows it better than she knows her own armor, and it should never be that color--Yori realizes that she's half-raised her hand and her eyes are wet.
How dare Clu do this! It's a bad copy, has to be some kind of sick joke, the sort of thing she ought to expect from that glitch by now. But...
The voice.
Tron's voice, strangely clipped and rusty, but she can't mistake it.
Shock holds her paralyzed for long moments, the image on a loop. Disbelief and fury and a tiny, glimmering hope war fiercely for her attention.
Not possible--how dare Clu--
Could it be Tron, alive?
Alive, and Rinzler. Clu's hunter, Clu's champion. How can that ever make sense? She doesn't even know how to begin.
Clu had been a friend, and Clu has committed crimes Yori could never have imagined him capable of--things worse than even the MCP had ever managed. Symantec had been a friend, and Yori was sickened by all the things Ril had long ago reported of him.
She had to face the possibility that Tron, too, might have...somehow glitched.
No. Yori rejects the thought as quickly as it comes, though her analytic programming insists that she bolster the rejection with more than just her heart's evidence.
No. If Tron were himself and loyal to Clu, simply announcing the fact would rip apart the morale of the resistance, who see their city's namesake as a fallen hero. If Tron said that the Isos were truly a threat, it would give even the most sympathetic Basic cycles of doubt. Tron is their prime example of complete commitment to the Creator, to the Users.
Clu knows that, has no doubt seen the rebel propaganda video still circulating wherein Tron holds off a whole squad of the Black Guard for Flynn's benefit. Clu has never made any such announcement.
Rinzler is unquestionably loyal to Clu.
Either Rinzler is not Tron at all, or Tron is no longer recognizable as himself. She had not thought Clu capable of such extensive reprogramming, but the administrator was taught by Flynn, after all.
Yori tests the logic twice more and finds it sound, though she wishes for a more definite conclusion.
If there's any chance at all that Tron is alive...
There are plans to make and contingencies to prepare for, but Yori buries her face in her arms, and spends long microcycles silently pleading with the Users and all powers above as she has not done since first meeting Flynn.