Announcement to the Grid
I have decided that I will be taking over management of the Games. I will be returning them to their original purpose from our Creator. They will be a place for Programs to practice their skills with no fear of deresolution, and a place for entertainment for all Programs who wish to observe
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It was time to make the Games program-friendly again (even if it took cracking a few heads -- hopefully in a nonlethal manner -- to do it).
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The target was coming up fast. When Tron's lightcycle braked slightly, Ram took the opportunity to keep his speed constant, shooting ahead. The upcoming spirals were shifting already, but the pattern made sense to him; he could see where the next set of twists would rise, and adjusted his course accordingly, choosing an upslope that would allow him to leap a whole loop's distance and stabilize once he'd reached the next one.
Too late, he noticed a slanting block of residual light trail rising into the space he was about to occupy: his own trail, the ends snapped off, a blockade cutting across the section of track that had shifted to put it in his way.
His bike hit the trail with a shriek of pixilization and was shunted off its plane. Even then, as close as they'd been to where down was at the moment, his stunned processes able ( ... )
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The tank's bolt hit the ground just behind him, sending Flynn and Ram's cycles flying through the air, chunks of Grid material raining down around them. Tron couldn't see where they'd landed, couldn't tell if they were derezzed, and there was only silence when he called out for them..."NO!" The cry ripped from his throat without thought, and he skidded his cycle to a halt on the flat stretch, seeing nothing but Ram's prone form on the ground in front of him. He derezzed his cycle to the baton and ran, stumbling over nothing, trying to focus on the fact that Ram was still there, he hadn't dissolved into nothing, ( ... )
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The freeze was mercifully brief, consciousness returning in flickers as his circuits tested themselves and went back online. The power in them would circulate sluggishly for a while, disrupted by a low ache of feedback until he'd rested and stabilized. He groaned as Tron bent over him, trying to figure out what had happened.
..oh, right. They'd had a race. He'd made a miscalculation. There'd been a wall.... That probably had something to do with why he was down here on the floor. And why he felt like it was going to take millicycles to recompile.
"Oh, User," he croaked weakly, instinctively reaching up to find Tron's hand. "I guess... I don't win?"
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"It's okay," he rasped. "I'm all right. It was just... ah...." Disorientation plucked at him as he moved, and he hid his face against Tron's arm, waiting for it to pass. How had this happened? The last thing he'd wanted to do was leave Tron with another bad memory.
His circuitry was getting steadier nanocycle by nanocycle, and he held onto Tron's hand as though it were a lifeline -- perhaps for both of them. "There's no damage. 'm just a little shaken up." He looked up at Tron, willing him to see that it was the truth.
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At first, he thought it was his own frame that was shaking. When he realized it was Tron's, he felt his gut twist and turned to clutch at his shoulder. Tron had been right behind him; had he also--? But he seemed unhurt, and Ram let out a shallow breath of relief.
"I'm sure," he said earnestly, returning the pressure from Tron's hand. "It's all right, Tron. It's okay."
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"Okay. You're okay." Tron said more firmly, then pressed his face briefly to Ram's shoulder, as though reassuring himself that Ram was truly going to be fine, and wasn't going to dissolve into pixels in his arms. "Let's... let's get you out of here. Do you feel like you can stand?"
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He wrapped an arm around Tron's back, fingers tight against the base of his disk port, both to hold himself up and to pull the security program close. Still here, getting stronger every nanocycle, and meaning to stay that way.
"Almost. Just have to finish the recompile." He got his legs under him, still hanging onto Tron but almost ready to move without stumbling, if not without numerous lingering darts of temporary low processing to remind him of the near miss. "Hey," he added, with a valiant attempt at a smile, "you realize this is a historic occasion, right?"
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"Historic occasion?" he asked, his voice still tight, apparently not functioning properly yet. "How so?"
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He waited until they'd gotten to the edge of the Arena, and were able to turn and survey the whole space. The loops had already melted back into the floor, incorporating any stray data left over from the crash. It looked as though nothing had ever happened. And it was thanks to Tron's new safety measures that nothing really had.
"Lightcycle race, and the loser wasn't derezzed," he said, looking steadily -- trustingly -- at his friend. "I'm looking forward to being the first of many."
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"Next time..." His first instinct was to say No, never, I'll never let you take that risk again, but he knew he couldn't impose that on Ram. "Next time I'll have better safeties in place," he said dryly. "But in any case... those loops can't be taken too fast. You can't attack them head-on, because the course changes. It's tempting to take the lead there, but many programs have lost for being too aggressive on the spirals." He was relaxing, just a bit, talking about his love of the games.
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