-
Tron had led the group on their trek through the jungle with Lia next to his side as navigator. He tried not to let his emotions show. How many new emotions was he going to have now that he was a User? He still felt love for Yori, anger at Sark, seething rage was reserved for Luduserus. He felt concern for his friends and the Users who were still locked up and fear, fear of the unknown.
There was also the question of what was going to happen to him after they had destroyed Luduserus. Where was he going to go? Would he still live in ENCOM’s system, return to Flynn’s Grid to help repair it? Would he go and live in the real world now and if so where would he live? With Sam Flynn? Would he move in with Alan-One? That was another question. What would he address Alan as? He couldn’t really call him his User now that he was also human. Should he call him father?
“Are you all right?” Lia asked when she looked up from her map.
Tron shrugged. “I have many questions.”
“I bet,” Lia said as the passed by a single tree. The foliage was thinning out as they continued on and would be able to use the car again soon. “This whole transformation has left me speechless. I didn’t know that could happen to us.”
“It happened to a program called an ISO,” Tron said. “Free willed programs that emerged from the Sea of Simulation.”
“You have free will now.”
He nodded. “I don’t want to be seen differently. I was just a security program, one of many that worked freely. I only listened to the Users and not a highly developed program.”
“You are special,” Yori said from behind him. “You were always special to me, even before. Alan and Flynn felt that way.”
“I’m not sure if I want the others to know about this.” He stared at his hands. He knew how Flynn and Gabriel felt and kept their true identities a secret.
“We won’t tell anyone,” Yori said as she placed her hand on his arm.
“What about the angels?” Lia asked. “Or the other Users?”
“They will know,” Tron said and glanced back at the two brothers who were in the middle of some argument. “Dean wants to speak with the angels and hopefully we will get some answers. Quorra has been through what I’m going through. She can also answer some questions.”
“Did you hear that?” Dean shouted.
“No,” Sam said. “Are you sure you are not jumping to conclusions?”
“No,” Dean said as he shook his head. “I’m certain I heard some motorcycles behind us.”
“I don’t see any.”
“Cause they are not close.” The older of the two pointed at his ears. “These don’t miss much.”
“Do you feel we are being followed?” Tron asked. He believed in his friend and knew they would have to depend on Dean’s heightened hearing now that he lost his ability to track like he used to.
“Positive,” Dean said. “We need to run and get into the car.”
They took off into a run. There were not may trees or shrubbery to worry about bumping into or tripping over. Tron could even see the usual buildings beyond the edge of the plants.
A disk flew through the air and missed hitting Sam in the back of the head by a minor fraction. He had ducked and turned around while activating his rifle.
“Get the car,” Dean ordered as he removed his disk from his back.
“Still a lot of trees,” Sam said.
“Dean is right,” Tron said as he turned around and saw several soldiers on bikes as they rode up to them. “I’m certain your brother can drive through this.” He threw his disk as he heard the sound of the light car being rezzed in. One disk was able to slice under the wheels of a bike, causing the rider to fly through the air until he crashed into one of the small trees. The other disk struck one of the soldiers, instantly derezzing them.
“Tron,” Yori called out to him as she got into the car.
Tron jumped in after her and stuck his head out of the side window. His disk in hand and ready to throw. He watched as more soldiers were coming closer.
“You might want to sit down,” Dean said as he started the vehicle.
“They are getting closer,” Tron said.
“And we are about to get far away from them.”
Tron felt someone pull him back inside and he turned to face Yori who was giving him that look with her head slightly tilted and a small smile on her face.
The engine of the car revved and the light car shot forward, narrowly missing some of the foliage as it drove on. Dean weaved around the diminishing plants until they were once again regulated to the side walks and they were on a normal road.
“Lia, tell me where to go,” Dean said as he continued to drive.
-
Patience was not one of Sam Flynn’s stronger suits. He hated waiting for answers, especially important questions. He hated waiting for Quorra to finish chit chatting with some of the gals from work so they could go to the arcade and work on repairing the Grid. He hated waiting for those boring meetings to end at work. He couldn’t stand waiting for those he cared about to arrive safely. That was the worst kind of waiting.
Quorra sat down next to him and grabbed his hand while giving him a reassuring look.
“I spoke with Slash,” she said. “He received contact with them just recently. They are on their way.”
“Good,” Sam said as he let out a deep breath.
Lia had been speaking with them before. She had explained the glitch jungle setting, the fact they had to switch to lightcycles and that they had to reenergize before they could continue. There were some periods of times in between communication and Lia did not explain the delays.
“Don’t tell them,” Gabriel said as he walked alongside the other angel. Now that was something to get used to, especially since they can come into the digital world. “It would worry them.”
“I feel they should know,” Castiel said and turned as another program walked up to them. Castiel tilted his head to the side and stared at the program with unblinking eyes until the other program walked away. That was one thing that angel did that unnerved Sam. He never blinked and that was freaky.
“What should we know?” Quorra asked.
“There were a few times when I felt the others were in great danger,” Castiel said “I nearly teleported to them, but they were able to fight back.”
“That’s good that they were able to fight back,” Sam said. “Why didn’t they tell us?”
“They didn’t want us to worry,” Quorra said.
“You see,” Gabriel said as he held up his hands. “Unnecessary worry.” He turned to Castiel. “And how the heck are you going to find them? One they have the sigils and unless you are unaffected by your own handwriting these days you can’t locate those two and two you have no idea where anything is in this system.”
“I would focus on the others,” Castiel answered. “I have written different sigils on Tron’s frame while he slept that would allow me to find him no matter what.”
“You wrote on him while he slept?” Sam asked. As if that angel couldn’t get any freakier.
“On his ribs,” Castiel explained. “I can carve Enochain sigils on their rib without cutting through the skin.”
“Oh,” Quorra gasped and pointed to her chest. “Could you write my name on one of mine?”
“I don’t think now is a good-“ Sam had started.
“They are here,” Slash shouted. “Open the entrance.”
The floor panel lowered into the underground hideout and the Impala like care drove into the building. As soon as everyone stepped out the vehicle collapsed into a single baton that was picked up by Sam Winchester.
“We were so worried,” Quorra said as she approached them. “Sam here was. He was even pacing.”
“She has a tendency to exaggerate,” Sam chuckled.
“We are sorry if we caused anyone alarm,” Yori said. “We didn’t want to go into further explanation until we returned.”
“You guys had Cas worried,” Gabriel said as he pointed to the other angel. “I also kept your bag safe, Winchester.”
“Thanks for that,” Winchester said, coolly. The programs eyed the chinchilla with curiosity and uncertainty while both brothers glared at him.
Dean marched right up, grabbed Gabriel by his chest fur and shoved up against the wall.
“Hey,” Sam said as he ran up to the older brother. “What’s going on?”
“Gabe here didn’t tell me an important detail about Tron.”
“Rinzler,” Sam guessed. He was afraid the program’s other personality might show up. That was what caused the delay. “I thought the other angel already explained him.”
“He did,” Dean answered, not removing his eyes from Gabriel. “Why haven’t you told us?”
“So you figured out why he’s different?” Gabriel asked.
“Yeah, thanks for nothing.”
“Look, I didn’t know what’s different about him, just that something is off.” He blinked. “So what is different?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Dean said as his voice grew lower.
“Maybe he doesn’t know?” Sam asked.
“What’s going on?” Quorra asked.
“Not here,” Dean said as he dropped the disguised angel. “He doesn’t want everyone to know.”
“There is a corner that is private,” Quorra said.
The nine of them gathered together in the corner with Sam, Quorra and the angels listening to the others about their time in the jungle, how they got separated and battled against various game sprite beasts and tanks.
“I was nearly derezzed from the rocks,” Yori said as she glanced at Tron. “Tron brought me back. He transferred his energy to me.”
“Like my dad,” Sam said as he remembered the story. “But I thought only Users could do that.”
“He is a human,” Castiel said as he stared deep into Tron’s eyes. “Those are the eyes of a human.”
“Wait,” Sam said as he pointed at Tron then at the angels. “What?”
“Like me,” Quorra gasped.
“But we had my father’s disk and you were an ISO, a non written program with free will.”
“Tron is part of team free will now,” Dean said.
“Do you know how this happened?” Yori asked.
Sam shrugged. “For Quorra it was because of the laser and my father’s disk, although it did take a few days for her to fully transform.”
“Tron’s been in our world for about four days,” Dean said. “But we didn’t have a special disk.”
“Those were enough,” Tron said as he examined his hands.
“Cas,” Sam Winchester addressed the angel. “Can you explain this?”
“I’m not sure about the exact details,” Cas said as he stared at Tron. “A combination of various elements. The laser in the basement is one. There is also the air he breathed, the sun on his skin, the food and beverages he drank.”
“We bought him his meals,” Dean said. “We contributed to this?”
“Why are we acting like this is a bad thing?” Quorra asked. “I love being human. It’s a dream come true to be in their world, my world now.”
“We know you appreciate it Q,” Sam said as he placed his hand on hers. “But Tron might feel differently.”
“But everyone is acting like the worst thing ever,” Quorra said, her voice on the edge of a pout. “Do humans hate their own, I mean our own race this much.”
“We don’t hate them,” Lia said. “We appreciate and love our Users.”
“Sorry if we are making it sound that way,” Winchester said.
“I also love the Users,” Tron said. “I would gladly give my life for them. Becoming one would be an honor, is an honor. I’m just afraid I won’t be able to run my functions properly now.”
“Part of free will means you get to do want you want to do,” Dean told him. “If that means doing security checks within then run those checks all you want.”
“The others are probably wondering what we are doing,” Gabriel said and looked back over his shoulder at the other programs. “They want to spring into action.”
“Then we should,” Tron said as he took in a deep breath. “We have done enough relaxing. Now is the time for action.”
-
They had all divided into several teams and each team would go to one of the cell block lines to free the Users that were held there. Tron lead his group that contained him, Quorra, Dean, Jolt and two other programs. Unlike he others he did not have to need directions to locate it. He knew from memory.
“I have a question,” Dean said as they continued on. “Why did we have to go to another system for shelter? Why not just stay in the underground?”
“Because everything in that system is free,” Jolt explained.
“And Darla needed someplace to make her feel safe,” Tron added. The poor girl needed a place for her to feel comfortable after her ordeal. She was a completely opposite person from Nyrii and Tron wondered what she was like before she was taken. The one thing he did know for sure was that he was going to make sure what happened to Darla was not going to happen to any other User.
“How many guards do you think there will be?” Quorra asked.
“I remember about three or four standing over us,” Dean answered. “There were at least two in the pathway.”
“There are probably more,” Tron added. “We are close.”
“Just a few more meters,” a female program confirmed as she walked ahead. “Right here.” She tapped her first at the roof above.
Tron, along with Dean and another program grabbed onto the panel and pushed it out of the way. Tron didn’t wait to hear the panel clatter when it struck the floor and climbed through the opening.
And was nearly fried with the staff of one of the guards.
Tron rolled across the floor and used his disk to slice off the glowing end.
The guard reached behind for his own disk.
Tron threw his second disk and derezzed the guard before he even had chance to pull it off.
Two more guards were running at him and another was from behind. Tron didn’t have to look up to know those that were standing on the cells were also going to aim for him.
Two glowing disks whirled through the air. One took out one of the guards on top of the cells while another sliced off the leg from the knee down of one that was racing towards them. The disks whirled back to their owners and Dean and Quorra had caught them.
Tron heard more sounds of derezzment behind him and a quick glance over his shoulder was enough for him to see Jolt and another program catching their disks on return.
Tron threw his again along with Quorra’s and heard gun shot being fired. His weapon struck the chest of one of the other guards while Flynn’s delivered mercy to the guard that Tron had maimed.
He turned around to see if there were any more and looked up to see one of the guards that was on top of the cells run off into the other direction.
“Somebody is taking the smart way out,” Dean said.
“More like he is going to alert his superiors,” Jolt said.
“How are we going to get them out?” the female program asked as he pointed into the entrance of the nearest cells and female elf, male vampire, and male dwarf just stared at them. The other cells also contained Users.
“Do you have the code, Jolt?” Quorra
“I do,” he typed away at a key pad near the entrance. “May take a bit of time.”
“Wait,” Dean said as he placed a hand on one of the walls. “Wouldn’t it go faster if we take out the force fields?”
“It would be faster,” Quorra added and put her hand on another wall.
Tron stared at his own hands and inhaled deeply as he also touched the walls. The soft hum from the force fields slowly faded away.
“I think those guys are busting us out,” the vampire said and held out his hand to test his theory. “They did.”
“This way,” Jolt said as he motioned for the opening in the floor. “We are going to get you to someplace safe.”
Tron stared at the cells as they slowly emptied and the ten Users followed the others to the entrance. Twice he had been locked up in here and twice he was not able to break out even though he had the power the second time.
“Still needs getting used to?” Quorra asked him.
“Very,” he answered.
“I’ll be here to help. Sam will want to help and you made new friends who also want to make this comfortable for you and I bet Alan will feel the same.”
“I appreciate your kind words, even after what I done to you.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly. “The only person to blame is and was Clu.”
“Thank you.” He did feel better after apologizing and hearing her accept.
“Lets go and save the rest of our fellow humans,” she said with a smile before she ran to the hole.
Tron felt himself smile as he followed her.