Tron: Deliverance

COLLECTION IN PROGRESS

"Now don't start calling me User Allen-One it took me forever to get Quorra to stop calling me that" he said half jokingly.

Gems eyes suddenly focused on Quorra.

"You knew he was Allen-One" Gem's comment was directed to the ISO in the front seat and there was the barest edge of annoyance in it.

"And I also knew you probably thought he was Tron. And I did not deign to inform you of your misunderstanding. Yes" Quorra said primly.

Gem let out a slow and slightly shaky breath.

"What else was I supposed to assume?" They look exactly the same".

"We do?" Allen asked skeptically.

"Yes, if we view his disc you will see" Gem said, her tone drastically more respectful when addressing Allen.

The older man looked at the two discs in his hand.

"uh, can you hold onto one? I don't have space in my lap to rest it" Allen said sheepishly.

Gem took the additional disc back as Allen fired up the hard light interface on his. It glowed white and a face that looked like a younger version of himself flickered into view. He blinked, surprised, but also the feeling of puzzle pieces clicking into place resonated in his chest. This actually explained a few things.

Instinctively, Allen opened up the lines of code and was suddenly awash in nostalgia and recognition.

Tron.

Without a doubt. This was his program from all the way back in the early days of Encom. The one Flynn had borrowed. And the one who had been protecting Flynn's grid all this time. Allen blinked, and realized he had tears in his eyes.

"It's Tron" he said. His voice suddenly rough with emotion.

"That's great!" Jett said elated "I got Tron's feet in my lap right now!"

"Now's not the time to get all excited Jet. We still don't know if he's dangerous" Sam said tightly.

Jet blinked at his friend in the front seat.

"Isn't Tron on our side though? I mean I had action figures of him on my desk growing up" Jet said. Those action figures had borne a striking resemblance to a young Allen Bradley. To be fair, Flynn had insisted on using Allen as the model when marketing the toys. Allen shook his head at the memory. Flynn, a man with secrets piled on secrets.

"The reason I'm not sure if he's dangerous is because; except for the fact that his light lines are white now" Sam gestured into the back seat with his thumb. "That guy looks exactly like Rinzler"

Allen was hardly listening to this conversation. His wonderment and elation had hardened into confusion. Then suspicion.

"What? What is this?" Allen asked, bewildered. As he had skimmed deeper in Trons code he steadily found more and more orange threads of code he did not recognize. It was jagged and destructive, attached onto the pristine original lines like a parasitic vine. The deeper he went the more he found until the code broke off and was entirely orange. A jagged scar appeared across the face of the hard light figure.

"Lora what do you make of this?" Allen asked his wife.

"Not sure, it looks like your work on the surface. But the further you go the more fragmented and damaged it gets. Something is very wrong with your program Allen"

"Let me see that other disc" Allen said shortly. Gem meekly passed him the second disc and held the first close to her chest, her eyes on Alan's movements.