Tron: Deliverance

FILE LOST

"You listen to me very closely. You work for me. And as long as you work for me you do as youre told when youre told to do it. Now, you and your friends are gonna go help Tia's gang repel those Grid bugs. No buts, no arguments, no comments required. Am I clear?"

Griss stepped back, rubbing his scored arm "Crystal", he said sullenly. His friends averted their gazes from their irate boss.

The Engineer rounded on Snobol "And you! Do not injure programs that I JUST fixed because you want to show off how tough you are. We depend on each other. In a city like this, we either band together or we fall separately. Your job is to help keep this shop together, not beat up your coworkers just because they've got attitude problems"

Snobol looked down, biting her lip "Yeah boss. I got it"

"Good" He looked back at Griss and company "You three get out of here. Go do something useful for a change" He watched them with a hard gaze as they jogged away.

"Boss, do you want me and Grace on those bugs?" Snobol asked in a much more subdued tone.

He exhaled heavily "No, I want Grace to keep helping the rest of the Mods get back on their feet. Weve still got a few laid up from that fight" He turned back to the two Mods. Grace was nodding along to his instructions. He caught Snobol's chastened gaze.

"Snobol, I need you to break the programs we have with us into two groups. One group guards the shop. The other group travels light and starts looking for those outsiders. Their job is gonna be to locate and report back. Under no circumstances will they engage. Once they locate the outsiders we'll pull in as much of the gang as we can and take care of the problem"

Snobol straightened under his instruction. She raised her chin "I wont let you down Boss"

"Good, get to it" They both scampered off.

He watched Snobol beeline her way out of the shop with a strange sadness settling into his core. He drew back his shoulders and marched towards the nearest rig. He had some work to do if it was gonna be battle ready within the cycle.

.....

He was elbow deep in the engine block of the rig when he heard a commotion on the other side of the shop. He sighed, probably another scuffle. Sometimes he wished Tesler wasn't so insistent that he give programs better ways to fight each other. Couldn't the Mod programs to be better at fixing things? It would certainly save him having to repair so much furniture.

He closed up the fused code of the rigs and rolled out from beneath it, flicking up his goggles to see a crowd of Mods around the main door. Shouts mixed with low murmurs as the crowd slowly inched towards him.

Snobol's aggrieved voice came over the din "Let me through! What is this a concert? Nothing to see here!"

The Engineer stalked forward, gearing up to shout his way to the center of whatever Snobol had done to cause the ruckus. He started elbowing his way between Mods.

"It's the Boss, make way" one muttered, then suddenly the Mods parted and the Engineer saw the source of the commotion.

He almost crashed there and then.

And he really wasn't sure why.

Three programs stood huddled next to each other in the crowd. Snobol waving her arms around to make sure they had space. It was definitely those two mechanics from the fight earlier. The female with yellow and white lines and the male with aqua. There was an additional male with green lines. But that wasnt the unsettling thing about them. They all had their helmets down and stared at him, mouths agape, frames frozen.