Mara didn't quite know why she'd grabbed the baton. She had her own cycle, one Zed had specially designed with concealed compartments for equipment and an extended seat for carrying an additional passenger. But now she had another program's baton weighing heavily on her thigh.
They wove between the crumbling buildings of Purgos. Tron at the lead and Beck at the rear of the group, keeping everyone together and making sure they didn't get lost in the hopelessly disordered maze.
Layers on layers of mismatched building code made up the uneven mess of a skyline. The lower layers providing some semblance of structure that the actual base code of the Grid was failing to do. Just being in Purgos made a strange dizziness and unease settle in Mara's core and rattle in the back of her head.
She could swear her cycle was taking an undue amount of wear too. Her motivation arrays giving off an uncomfortable whine through her link with the vehicle code.
"What happened?" A groggy voice came from behind her. She half turned her head to view the User riding double with her. Mara had once complained to Zed how uncomfortable it was to ride double on a light-cycle. Which she had been forced to do in an emergency on several occasions.
She didn't want to dwell on how many times shed dragged an injured comrade off a battlefield. Or grabbed a friend that had had their cycle destroyed in a firefight. She was uniquely qualified to strap the User to her chest using a spare grapple line and hope he didn't knock them both off while they made it to their temporary hiding spot.
"You OK Sam? You took a big hit back there" She asked tentatively.
"Not my most stellar moment. We all make it out?" He leaned to see over his shoulder, then switched to account for Paige and Tron.
"Yup, you and me were the only casualties. The three renegades got us out just fine"
She felt Sam chuckle against her back. Then he hissed and winced.
"Yup, was not expecting that guy to whip out a taser. Man, I did not judge his character right"
Mara shifted, the outlines of a familiar face flashing behind her eyes. It couldn't have been him. It was impossible.
"Yeah, maybe" She hedged.
Tron cut a hard turn into a narrow hole between two buildings. Mara wouldn't have noticed the hole, and certainly wouldn't have tried to drive into it if she hadn't just watched Tron and now Paige slide into the shadows. She made the turn and the solid blackness flickered before revealing an upward ramp. The darkness had been a basic camouflage subroutine.
The ramp put them up into bare, half-gutted building. Various low-profile vehicles parked in the makeshift garage. Mara unhooked the grapple line, letting the User hop off her cycle and wobble away.
"Thanks for hauling my butt out of there Mara" Sam Flynn said with a slightly sheepish smile. Mara responded with a grin, though the uncertainty swimming in her core thinned it out some.
"Any time! Hopefully we don't get knocked down next time though"
"Ha! No kidding"
Tron glided up and gave the User a once over.
"How are you recovering?" His voice too flat and cool to come across as comforting.
His concern seemed very muted to Mara considering how ferocious he had looked when the User had gone down. Would it kill him to admit he was worried about other people? Mara shook her head.
"Im feeling alright all things considered. That jerk just shorted me out for a second i guess"
"I wasnt aware Users were vulnerable to electric overload?" Tron's implied question almost an accusation.
The User rubbed his head "Yeah, it doesnt quite affect us the way it does programs. But too much electric charge can cause a uh...Well it can cause a heart attack"
Tron was frozen for a moment. Icy concern settled in Mara's core. Watching Alan-One collapse had been truly unsettling. Had the User been that close to dying when the head Mod had tased him?
"I...see" Tron answered. An understatement judging by the tension in his frame.
Sensing the stress he had just caused in the programs around him, the User threw up his hands in a placating gesture. "It takes a lot more than a taser charge to put us down permanently. But yeah. We try to avoid massive electric shocks
"Looks like Users are more delicate than I always thought" Paige said mildly.
Sam Flynn smirked "Maybe, but I have taken an entire disc to the back and kept going" he pointed at Tron "I fought this guy hand-to-hand when he was repurposed and survived"
Tron grunted "Rinzler LET you live. But point taken. Ill grant Ive seen Users survive things that would have killed a program ten times over"
"But that doesn't mean we cant be hurt. Getting hit back there was my mistake. I misjudged that Mod gang leader. He seemed, reluctant to actually fight us. I was kind of hoping to talk him down"
At the reminder of the Mod leader Mara pulled out the stolen light cycle. It seemed so familiar. The packaged vehicle signature hauntingly so.
"I picked this up when that program left it. When he dropped his helmet. I couldn't really see well through the ice, but it looked like..." She couldn't speak the name. Hope after all this time would hurt more than it was worth.
Becks suddenly very small voice broke through her chaotic thoughts "Like Able right? I saw it too" Mara's face shot upward.
"You did too! Ha! I thought I was going crazy from that Mod smashing my head on the ground"
Beck moved towards her, his eyes on the light-cycle baton.
"If you're crazy then I am too. Cause to me, that looks like an Encom 786"
"Just like Able's!"
"Only one way to find out" Beck took the baton and cracked it, tossing it outward to let it rez.
The sleek lines of a familiar light-cycle formed. Mara gasped, sadness, recognition and hope so strong it hurt, flared to life.
"Hey, that looks just like my dad's old bike" Sam Flynn commented.
Tron moved forward soundlessly and knelt by the cycle, resting a hand on its side like it was an old friend.
"I hate to squash the hope you two seem to be building up. But I need to remind you that Able is gone. Yes, he had one of these old Encom models in his collection. But, remember those thieves we ran into outside Argon? They were stealing light cycles and discs. Its far more likely that this cycle was stolen at some point and acquired by that modded program" Tron said with grim finality.
Beck was having none of his mentor's dismissive attitude " Able was riding his Encom 786 when I last saw him. It was the cycle we had on him when he died. How many of these things could possibly be left?"
"Let's ask Zed!" Mara said excitedly, collapsing the cycle and scampering towards the lift.
She heard Tron sigh heavily but he made no move to stop her. She shot up to the web of abandoned apartments on the upper floors.
She found Zed, Alan-One, Quorra and Gem gathered in their makeshift base. According to Gem, it was a hiding spot maintained by Zuse's network of spies and sneaks. They had spots like this all over the Grid. Just an empty, derelict apartment building, with a stash of equipment locked and hidden behind camouflage routines.
Zed looked up and zipped towards her when she entered. He grabbed her by the shoulders. Looking her up and down with frantic speed.
"The Users are saying you guys ran into a gang of Mods! Are you ok? Are you hurt?"
Mara smiled and pulled Zed into an excited hug, pinging comfort for just a moment before she bounced away. The Encom 786 clutched in her hand. She thrust it towards him.
"Im better than OK! Zed look at this baton. Do you recognize it from anywhere?"
Zed took the baton carefully, doing a quick scan of the vehicle code.
"Is this what I think it is?" His voice slightly hollow with shock.
"An Encom 786 first gen light bike!"
"Just like Able's wow! How did you find this? I thought his was the last one!"
Quorra ghosted forward, her inquisitive gaze on the baton.
"Flynn had one of the last ones. But Sam lost it in Tron city on his last trip to the Grid"
"Our boss Able had one too" Zed said absently as he scanned the baton up and down.
"He had it on him the last time I saw him" Beck's voice was alive with anticipation when he entered. The rest of the recon team on his heels.
Quorra went to hug her counterpart. Pressing her lips to his in an odd gesture. "They said you got tazed by a Mod program" She said with just a hint of ire "You said you'd be careful"
Sam Flynn gave a nervous laugh "Uh, yeah. My bad"
Tron addressed the room "We were spotted once we got close to the city center. Purgos isn't patrolled by black guards anymore. Mods own the streets now"
Alan-One's face pinched with concern "That means it'll be a real fight to get through them. The firewall software doesn't work on those that aren't repurposed"
Sam Flynn spoke up "There's a decent number of programs under that pathogenic code spell too. But it looks like they're just being used for labor. Not security"
"That'll be a consideration then" Alan-One gestured to the three mechanics clustered around the stolen baton. "What's this about some special light-cycle that Flynn used to own?"
Mara wasn't quite sure how to explain something like this to the User. Beck spoke up while her processes were still grinding to find a calm and respectful way to explain it.
"The mechanic that used to run our garage died in the early days of the uprising in Argon. But Mara and I just saw a program that looks just like him. That program also had this cycle, that's identical to the one our boss had on him when he died"
The oldest Used looked pensive for a moment "I see, if I may ask how did he die?"
Mara looked down, this time guilt and shame clogging her outputs.
Zed spoke instead "He saved us. Some psychopath strapped a bomb to Mara and me. Able got it off us. But it activated. Mara and I got out. He didn't"
The User saddened "I see, so now you think he might have survived" it wasn't a question but a statement.
Mara clutched the cycle. She wanted to hope. Needed to hope "We didn't actually SEE him die. We jumped clear before the blast" her voice small.
Tron's low voice rumbled behind her "That blast would have taken out half a city street. He strapped the same bomb to me remember?"
"Who's running around strapping BOMBS to people? Seriously" Jet muttered. No one acknowledged his comment.
Beck, again, met his mentor's pessimism with classic stubbornness "Look, we know its very unlikely that Able survived that. But if there's a chance that he somehow made it. AND hes here in Purgos, shouldn't we at least try to confirm it?"
"What are you proposing?" Tron shot back.
"Find where the Mods are based, do some surveillance on their leader. If its not Able, fine. If it is, then we try to make contact"
"If it was Able why didn't he recognize us?"
"We dampened your symbol so its not obvious that three Trons are running around Purgos. We're undercover of course he wouldn't recognize us"
"Able knew what my subdued suit looks like. He would have recognized me. You're telling me he didn't recognize two of his mechanics too?"
"Its possible. Just likes its possible that he's alive"
"But not likely"
"As likely as you surviving CLU's takeover? As likely as starting an uprising in Argon?" Beck asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Alright, alright" Sam Flynn waved his hands to halt the building argument. Mara was glad for his interference. When those two got going they could argue for a while.
"Regardless of this program's identity, he didn't really seem like a bad guy"
"Until he tazed you" Tron snapped.
"Basically yeah. Also, we're reconning the city's defenses right? Trying to find the source of the energy drain? Looks like the leader of the Mod gang defending the city is definitely a target we need information on"
Mara nodded, liking this line of thought.
"They'll be hunting for us in force after that confrontation" Paige commented mildly.
"We caused some damage. They probably need time to get their forces together and fix the damage we did to their modifications" Beck responded to his counterpart in a much more gentle voice than he was using with his mentor
"So, the chances of another confrontation are higher the longer we wait and give them time to recover from that fight?" Sam Flynn asked.
Paige shrugged "Depends on the size of their forces"
Using a small holo projector, Gem pulled up a rough map of the city with red blinking dots creeping around the outskirts "The sensors I placed on the edges of the city to track comings and going are picking up a lot of malignant data. Grid bugs are invading the city in these sectors" Gem cut in dispassionately, gesturing to the incoming hordes of dots.
"Unless they want to be overrun they'll have to send some forces to repel the bugs "Tron commented, watching the holo projection of Gem's data.
"Have your User friends on the outside located their base?" Paige asked as she too approached the map. She directed her question to Jet.
Jet, gamely answered "They were watching your fight with the Mods from the outside. They tracked them to this area" He pointed to a web of buildings near the city center "But they cant pinpoint the building exactly. The link has been getting less and less reliable the further we get into Purgos. Something is causing interference. They're trying to isolate the signal and compensate"
"We're not worried about Tesler's goons tracking us through the link?" Sam Flynn asked with mild alarm.
"Judging from the broken down infrastructure in the city, we're taking the risk that Tesler just doesn't have the resources to constantly monitor wireless frequencies. Gem and I shot out to another building and fired it up. No one came to our location so our guess seems to be correct. Not to mention, that interference is doing his job for him in terms of keeping us from communicating" Jet responded with a tense slant to his brow.
"That is if he is not the cause" Gem interjected.
"Well that's great then, we've got an eye in the sky. Interference notwithstanding" Sam Flynn stroked his chin. He pointed to the area they suspected the Mods had their base.
"We should send a team to go in quietly and confirm the identity of the Mod leader. If he is your friend then they may be able to make contact. If we can get him on our side that negates the threat of the Mods"
Tron growled in the back of his throat "That's optimistic. This program openly stated that he works for Tesler. Part of why I'm certain it couldn't be Able. He wouldn't work for the occupation and he certainly would have returned to the garage if he was alive"
"Maybe he got repurposed or amnesia? Maybe both" Jet suggested.
"What like the Winter Soldier? With the metal arm?" Sam Flynn asked incredulously.
"Its not impossible. There's mind control here" Jet defended himself.
Tron's brow went down in slight confusion "If that is the case then he's twice as dangerous. He knows plenty about me and Beck, our tactics. He could do a lot of damage if he's under occupation control. And that's IF he's Able, of which I am not convinced"
Alan-One spoke slowly, silencing the rising discussion "It sounds to me like figuring out who this program is and where his loyalties really lie is of utmost importance. It could spell the difference between us fighting an army of modified programs or being able to waltz right up to Tesler"
Sam Flynn nodded "We'll need to send a small team. One that can do the surveillance and get out safe" he looked to Gem first.
"We can go!" Mara cut in, she gestured to the other two mechanics "We ran recon missions all the time back in Argon. We can be in and out in a flash"
Paige, surprisingly, proved herself to be a naysayer "Mara, are you sure you can do that and not get involved? What if its not Able? Can you really be objective here?"
Mara grit her teeth, a sudden flash of anger in her core. "If it was friend you had lost wouldn't you do anything to know for sure?"
Paige pulled back, a guarded expression slamming into place "Which is exactly why it might be better to send someone else"
Mara looked to Sam Fynn pleadingly "I promise we can do this"
The User paused for a moment, his gaze calculating. Instead of answering her directly, he looked past her to Beck and Zed.
"What about you two? It seems like Mara has her mind made up"
Zed placed his hand on Mara's shoulder, pinging confidence and comfort "Yeah, I know we can do this. Its almost too easy"
Sam Flynn leveled his gaze the last mechanic. His voice was grave and surprisingly intense "Beck, if you three go then I'd put you in charge of the mission. Its gonna be dangerous with such a small team. And there's a lot of variables we can't control. Are you confident? If not, we can send a different group"
Beck straightened, setting his jaw "I am confident. The three of us have made the impossible happen. We're the best team for the job"
Sam Flynn lifted his chin in response, impressed if Mara was reading him correctly "Alright then. You three are on Mod recon duty. I want another team checking out those Grid bugs invading this district" he pointed to an area on the map where red dots were pouring into the border of the city "I want to know what's causing the swarm and what forces Tesler is using to fight them off. We might be able to get a better idea of what's making Purgos break down so bad"
He looked to Paige and Tron "You two feel like tangling with more Grid bugs?"
Paige punched her fist into her other hand and smirked "Certainly"
Tron grunted "We'll try to stay above the fray. Don't want to get bogged down"
Mara was only half listening now. Her focus was almost entirely on the light-cycle in her hands. She probed the packaged code with her functions. It wasn't modified in any noticeable way. But Able had always been insistent on keeping his relics in pristine condition. Exactly as they had been when they were compiled. This cycle, despite its age, was also in perfect condition.
She put the cycle on her thigh. It was far heavier than any cycle had the right to be. But maybe, when she returned it to its owner, she'd finally be able to lay down some of her burdens.