Tron: Deliverance

ACCESSING ARCHIVE DATA: MOD ATTACK

"You were following Camry over here. From his apartment to where we hang. Which makes me think yous knows exactly who we are. Which means someone sent you"

Flanged laughter came from the programs around them. They knew what was coming next. Zed very much wished he didn't.

Fast as lightning the leader grabbed Zed by the throat. Cutting off most of his intakes and making warnings flash through his system. He slapped his hands around the oversized fist, trying to shake loose. He grabbed the forearm, the heat from the energy exhaust making the surface of the arm burning hot.

That heat pulsed and Zed went airborne. For a nano he was floating.

Crash.

His back made contact with something solid and the dimness of the dockhouse flickered to black for a second. Critical error messages layered on top of the pain signals. Sound cluttered his audio as random objects went flying and crashed to the floor around him. He blinked all the messages away. He had noticed the pain. His system didn't need to remind him.

The leader laughed and advanced on him again. Zed tried to feel around for anything. A weapon. Something. Then he felt a familiar hard surface against his hand. A wrench.

He must have hit a work bench of some kind because various tools littered the floor. He palmed the wrench and struggled to his feet.

"Now I know for sure those mods are melting your processors. Ugly and stupid" He spat.

Some of the laughs got louder, others silenced with anger. He had an idea. A stupid idea. A not good, very bad idea. But it was all he had. He needed the arm mod to grab him again. He would only have one shot.

The leader stalked towards him, his modded eye glowing with anger. "Ugly AND stupid huh. Well I aint the program that's about to get derezzed. So either you tell me who sent you, or I start pulling off pieces"

"See you're stupid cause you could have just checked my disc to get your answers. Instead you're trying to rattle my head to learn what you want. Not exactly a smart strategy"

This was risky. If they killed him that was pretty bad. But he definitely did not want thugs like this learning about the Uprising, the garage, and Mara. This was a big gamble. He grit his teeth and kept piling on the sarcasm.

"And you're ugly because that arm and eye combo make you look like a virus-infected Grid bug"

That did it. The program grabbed him by the throat again and lifted him. The mechanic's feet kicking uselessly in the air.

He slapped the wrench on the arm. There! A command node. He kept talking past the hold on his throat while he toggled the settings on the arm.

"Yeah, go ahead and bash my head in. That wont make you any less of a glitch" The modded program looked livid. But then a sickening smile creeped across his face. He reached for his thigh with his regular arm.

"A glitch huh? Well, that's pretty funny. You wanna know how we was able to modify ourselves so much? How about I show you" He pulled a sharp looking tool from his belt that glowed a dark orange. Quick as a wink he stabbed Zed in the gut with it. The impact hurt sure. But after a moment raw pain washed through Zed's whole frame.

He hardly felt it when the leader dropped him.

So many pain messages cluttered his mind he could hardly stand it. A creeping, burning feeling curled in his torso. A raw scream tore from his throat. He hissed through his teeth and tried to focus.

ERROR

ERROR

MALWARE DETECTED

There, the arm mod was starting to glow overload bright. Just another few nanos.