Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tron: Rebellion

By: Shadow Chaser

Author's Notes:

This story covers the entire comic, Tron: Betrayal, flashbacks from Tron: Legacy, and my own story Tron: Adagio. The scenarios of the game Evolution are not mentioned in here as I did not play the game. All characters are not mine, they belong to Disney.

Summary:

This is a five chapter short story taking place in between Chapters 16 and 17 of Tron: Adagio. Tron did more than save the Isos. He began to secretly aid the growing rebellion against Clu and his regime. Does not include the scenarios for Tron: Uprising.

Story:

Act 1 – Spider’s Web

Music: ENCOM Pt. 1

She pounded on the door frantically, her breath coming in gasps as she hoped someone would answer. “Come on,” she muttered, glancing behind her as she continued to pound. Her fists were hurting by now, but finally she heard the bolts click and stopped her frantic pounding. The door opened and even before she was able to see the face that greeted her she shoved herself into the crack and pushed the door close behind her.

“Whew,” she gasped, giving the person who had let her in a crooked smile, “thought I was going to be rectified out there.”

“Do you even know what time it is right now Ariadne?” the person muttered, sounding exhausted and even yawned loudly, “Creator all mighty…”

“Hey, remember what Ophi said? No swearing!” she chided her companion before placing an arm around his shoulder and nudged him back deeper into his house, “now dear program-brother of mine, would you like to know what I got this time?”

“Oh, let me guess, a new security code to break the barriers holding the prisoners and like last time, it will not work and we’ll be doomed to run to another safe house and hold up there for cycles on end,” he groused.

“Silly Leto, not this time,” she guided him into a chair in the kitchen before bustling over to grab a glass and filled it with some pure energy to which she downed in several gulps before shivering at the abrupt renewal of her command lines and processes. Turning, she saw that Leto was staring at her, his eyes wide before the hint of a smile appeared on his lips.

“Really?” he sounded a little more awake now, “you really did it?”

“Stole it from Central Control myself,” she grinned, pouring another glass of pure liquid energy before sipping it, “wasn’t easy, but hey, I told you I could do it.”

“And you didn’t even get caught? Not even by the high and mighty security program himself?”

She snorted into her glass, “Tron? No…I was able to compel a few gridbugs to distract him and a couple of unit of security guards to chase after those horrid things.”

“Ari, if Ophi finds out you’ve done that…”

“She won’t,” she gave him a steely glare behind her glass as she drank the rest of the liquid energy, “will she?”

“Not from me,” he held up his hands away from his body, “you should know that sister.”

“Good,” she set the glass down before a wide grin appeared on her face and she impulsively bent down and hugged him, “this is our chance, Leto. Our best chance yet!”

“So,” he returned the hug before she sat down next to him, “tell me, how you got in and out of Central Control without anyone noticing you?”

“Not quite, Leto, I did have some pursuit, but I think I lost them when I entered our sectors,” she shook her head, “it was hard, but Shaddox’s building codes worked perfectly.”

“So when do we make our move?” he asked, his lips twitching with a grin of anticipation.

“I say we go now, before they realize that the codes are compromised,” Ariadne suddenly shook her head as Leto got up from his chair and moved towards a communication outlet, “we can’t let any of the others know. Not this time…”

“Why not?” he frowned at her.

“They’ll know that it’s another raid if we bring the others! Then these codes will be for nothing!”

“Ari, there are a lot of guards in there…” Leto looked at his program-sister, worried, “even I know that neither you nor I are that good. Cesta’s taught us all that we know-“

“Which is why we have to do this now Leto,” she looked at him her eyes imploring, “if not for the others, but for Cesta’s memory.”

“He’s not derezzed-“

“He might as well be after being rectified by Clu,” she shot back.

He sighed shaking his head before looking at her. “All right, let’s do it.”

“Yes!” her smile returned in full force before she grabbed his hand and practically dragged him out of the door.

* * *

Tron delivered the coup de grace on the final gridbug by smashing it with the heel of his boot, an electronic squawk issuing out from underneath before he looked around, his disc held aloft, wary for anymore gridbugs. They had appeared out of nowhere, attacking Sector 34 with such ferocity that he had not seen in a long time. He had thought that there was a gridbug leader amongst them, but none existed when he had arrived on the scene.

Shaking his head, his passive sensors pinging back an all-clear he holstered his disc once more and placed a hand on a nearby pillar, deactivating the security force field he had erected to prevent any regular program from entering. It had done its job at containing the gridbugs to several blocks within the sector so he did not have to go chasing after them. In the many cycles since the poisoning of the Sea of Simulation, the attacks made by gridbugs had lessened which had only served to further his suspicions that the gridbugs were from the Sea. But he still could not break into their shielding and scan their code and since they were few and far in-between, he had not had the chance.

The attack just now had been a bit odd. He was able to scan the gridbugs, but they did not even have shielding upon them and they read like ordinary programs. In the middle of his battle, he had tried to trace the origin and source of the programming, but his own skill and efficiency at derezzing the things had worked against him. It also did not help that they had swarmed him, forcing him to derezz them as much as possible before they could injure him.

“Security breach, prison block 1138,” one of the Guards alerted him through his ear and he tapped back.

“Notify Clu and deploy units, I am on my way,” he grabbed his baton and split it in half, forming his lightcycle before speeding off, headed back towards the central area of The Grid. This could not be a coincidence.

Clu had ordered Shaddox to build a prison facility to hold those he had deemed to be terrorists and rebels against the perfect system. Tron had protested, but after several guard towers had been destroyed around the city and several civilian programs injured, he had withdrawn his protest in light of the need for a place to hold those who tried to disrupt the security and safety of The Grid. However, he had only entered the facility once and it was to memorize the layout. Clu had all but barred him from entering the other time, saying that his presence was detrimental to the prisoner’s rehabilitation.

He had a feeling that it was more of Clu’s attempt to rectify the prisoners’ functions ever since he had been unable to stop Cesta’s rectification.

He arrived shortly at the checkpoint and got off of his lightcycle, sticking his baton back in its usual spot. “What’s going on?” he asked as he saw the units of Guards he had ordered deployed to the prison area standing about.

“We've been ordered to cordon off the area, sir,” one of the Guards spoke up.

“Why? The prisoners may have escaped and there are programs in there who may be threatened-”

“I ordered it,” Clu's authoritative voice made Tron turn to see the senior program walking towards them, dressed in his yellow-black armor. Several Guards stood behind him, wielding staffs and while their faces were hidden behind the helmets they wore, their body language radiated their intent to harm any program that would even try to attack Clu.

“Clu-”

“I have reason to believe that the prison has been compromised and must be demolished,” Clu overrode him easily and Tron stared at him.

“What?”

“You heard me,” the program stared at him and he thought he saw the ghost of a smile on his face, but perhaps it was just a flicker of a corrupt file or something. “We do not know how many of the prisoners have escaped, but I have reason to believe based on the protocols written for the prison that the best solution would be to demolish the building.”

“And all of the Isos in it,” Tron narrowed his eyes.

“They have disrupted the safety and security of The Grid itself; surely it would serve a better purpose if they were not allowed the chance to cause mischief anymore?” Clu raised an eyebrow at him, his tone simple.

“That's killing them outright! And we have fellow civilian programs in there! You would sacrifice them too just to eliminate all of the...criminals...in the prison?”

“Such sacrifices must be made for the greater good, Tron,” Clu replied.

“I've had enough of this,” he shook his angrily; appalled that Clu could even think of such a thing, “You will not demolish the building. There are innocents in there.” He unholstered his disc and giving one final look at Clu, daring him to contradict or stop him from doing his duty, before brushing past the line of Guards and headed in. As soon as he got into the door he saw several Guards lined up against the wall, peering beyond some pillars deeper in. Some of them held discs while others held staffs and the occasional sword.

“Level schematics sir,” one of the Guards spoke up, his helmet disappearing as he held his disc aloft towards him, a small projection of the various levels of the prison visible.

“Thanks,” Tron reached his fingers into the prison schematic and downloaded it to his own disc. He rarely had any help from the Guards themselves, most of them blindly following orders ever since Flynn created them to help patrol and protect the various sensitive areas of The Grid itself. This one though, seemed...different.

“Phoebus,” the program deactivated the projection, but held onto his disc as he introduced himself; “my unit was the first on the scene. We waited for orders inside, but since Clu has ordered the demolition-”

“Not if I can help it,” Tron cut him off a bit roughly before stalking forward, “your schematic says that the Iso prisoners are held several levels above near the secondary catwalks. How many Guards are stationed up there?”

“Lei is holding my second team up there,” the Guard ran to catch up with him.

Tron touched a nearby pillar and activated the emergency protocols within the building and surrounding area. The processes of all the Guards in the vicinity flooded into his own audio filters, but he was used it and shoved it under several layers of encryption so he would not be distracted.

Lei, take your team to level four and await my orders, he ordered over wireless. To Phoebus he tilted his head, “Do not kill any of the Isos. Do you hear me?”

“Yes sir,” the Guard replied and the rest of his unit also nodded their assent. He repeated his order to the second team and got a curt assent back. He directed part of the unit towards a secondary stairwell while he took the primary one and left at least two Guards back at the elevators in case any of the Isos were to take that suicidal escape route to the ground floor.

As they headed up, Tron overlaid the schematic through his eyes at brief intervals coming to a halt as they reached the level where the Isos were. Entering the floor, he saw that shards of data cubes and several discs were on the ground, civilian programs and prison guards killed by whoever was attempting to free the Iso prisoners. He gestured to two of the Guards to pick up their fallen comrades discs, knowing that they would have to be given to their next-of-kin programs after Clu was done examining the data left behind.

Continuing on, he thought he saw a brief movement beyond a secondary door and hurried towards it.

Multiple contacts! We need reinforcements up here! Lei's strained communication suddenly broke through the wireless.

“Get your team up there,” Tron ordered Phoebus who hesitated.

“But sir, what about-”

“Get up there! We need to contain the situation!” he shook his head before the program nodded once and redirected his team back towards the stairs to take them to where his second-in-command was.

Switching his disc to his dominant left hand, he overrode the protocols on the door and opened it with a definitive click. If the majority of the prisoners had overwhelmed Lei's position that meant that it was a diversion. The more important Iso prisoners were located here, or at least those that Clu had deemed serious offenders and were subjected to either deresolution or rectification. Tron activated the masking subroutine that all but made him seemingly invisible. He disliked using it, preferring to have a more pronounced presence so that all citizens of The Grid knew that he was amongst them, protecting them, but in this case, he wanted to make sure that the perpetrators did not have a chance of escaping.

“...hurry up!” whispered voices came from around the corner, “I thought I heard someone come in the door.”

“I'm trying, it's hard you know!” a frustrated voice replied, “This isn't the easiest to hack!”

Tron slid up against the wall and peered out. Down the hall were at least four Isos still in their cells, all of them eagerly lining up against the doors, waiting for the opportunity where two Isos were trying to override the security protocols to deactivate the electrical field that surrounded the cells. Any prisoner attempting to escape would receive a jolt enough to shut down their command lines and leave them paralyzed for several centicycles. It was an ingenious design by Clu that Tron recognized from a modification of the MCP's old cells in the old system. Clu had probably picked up the design from whatever Flynn had given to him when he created him so long ago.

The two Isos hoping to free their compatriots were male and female. The male one was attempting to hack into the system while the female looked worriedly on, her disc activated, the buzzing sound echoing in the hall. He shook his head wordlessly as he watched them. From what he was able to passively scan because of their advance shielding, they were only children, barely created before the poisoning of the Sea of Simulation.

He expected the older Isos to be involved in a rebellion against Clu, but now even children?! He made his decision; better to be scared off than to be captured by Clu and face imminent deresolution. Activating his own disc with a buzzing hiss, he threw it towards the two Isos, watching it ricochet off of the cells, startling the two of them. Stepping forward at the same time, he deactivated his subroutine and caught his disc easily in his hand.

“...Tron,” the female Iso whispered before her face twisted into an ugly furious expression, “Damn you!”

“Leave now and I'll pretend I didn't see this,” he ordered, letting some of the anger he felt at their actions bleed into his tone.

“Those bugs-”

“Ari, I'll handle this! You're better at hacking!” the male Iso suddenly grabbed her arm and forcibly knelt her down next to the glowing outline of what he had been trying to hack.

“Leto!” the female Iso, Ari or whatever her name was looked about to protest, but immediately stopped talking as he stepped forward and activated his disc.

Tron shook his head as he stared at the young Iso, “You don't want to do this Leto. Leave now with your friend and I won't even mention this to Ophelia.” It was a bluff since he and Ophelia, the leader of all of the isomorphic algorithms, had not talked since they had parted ways many cycles ago, but the Isos did not need to know that.

“She's my sister and you're a hypocrite,” Leto narrowed his eyes before suddenly throwing his disc at him.

Tron ducked under the disc before move to his left as the disc completed its apex and returned to the Iso who snatched it out of the air and charged at him. Outside of the arena, he could count on one hand how many times he had to draw his disc and actually fight against fellow programs. Fighting Isos was completely new and different, having stayed out of most of the conflicts between the Guard and pockets of occasional Iso protests.

It was not because he was not summoned or ignored the pockets of conflict, but he was either dealing with another problem or his presence more or less had basically stopped the conflict before it could escalate. Still he did not hesitate and acted, his skills and instincts built into his programming and honed by the cycles of combat in the arena, gridbug eradication, and defeating the MCP and Sark. He deflected the wild swing with the side of his disc, his leg coming up to kick the Iso in the stomach, making him stumble back a little before regaining his footing.

“You don't want to do this,” he warned as the Iso spat out a wad of excess liquid-like energy to the ground from his forceful blow.

“You don't understand us at all,” Leto growled out before charging at him again and to Tron's dismay, the same attack again.

He blocked the blow, swinging the program's arm wide, but suddenly leapt back as he realized that the program had only used one hand instead of both – his free hand holding a lit baton that swiped a blade down at him. Tron barely avoided the blade and brought his own disc up defensively.

“Not expecting that were you?” the Iso sneered triumphantly, pressing against the guard he had up.

Tron shook his head almost imperceptibly. He had hoped that the young Iso would give up, realize that he was fighting a losing battle and leave, but it seemed that the program was bent on making sure his compatriot succeeded in their plan. He did not want to do this, but he had no choice at this point. If the other Iso was a better hacker than this one then he would have to end this quickly before things got out of control.

He broke the stalemate and suddenly elbowed the program in the face, smashing his grin away before kicking him roughly in the inner thigh, making him howl in pain. Flicking his own disc a certain angle, he flung the Iso's disc away, before spinning and disarming the baton he had in his hand. His momentum also shoved the Iso backwards until he fell to the ground, stunned.

Tron stood over the Iso, his disc held at the program's throat, a grim expression on his face.

“Leto!” the female Iso's cry made him turn his head to stare at the stricken girl whose hands hovered above the panel.

“I'm asking you again, leave now and I won't report this to either Clu or Ophelia,” he flicked his gaze between the two of them.

“Don't listen to him! Leave Ariadne!” the young program called out, straining underneath his disc.

“No...no,” she shook her head, but started to back up towards the other end of the hall, “I'm not going to watch you be executed!”

“Well, well, what do we have here?” Clu's booming voice echoed from the entrance of the hall and Tron half turned to see the senior program walking in, Guards forming behind him. He silently cursed the foolishness and stupidity of the two Isos for not escaping sooner when he gave them the chance.

“You...” the visceral hate that emerged from Leto's mouth made him stare at the Iso he held under his disc with surprise, but what was even more shocking came next.

It was a circuit-chilling scream of anger and hate that emerged from the female Iso's mouth that made all them, all of the Isos still in their cells, the Guards behind Clu, even Clu himself, recoil. To anyone else, it would have sounded eerie, but to Tron, it sounded familiar. In that moment of hesitation, the Iso drew her disc and threw it towards the other entrance, utterly destroying it, before running through the escape route she had created.

I want her alive! Clu's command reverberated through the wireless as the Guards behind him surged forward in an effort to capture the young Iso girl. Tron stood up, holstering his disc as he pulled Leto to his feet and held his arm tight. They were ignored by the Guards as they passed by him to chase after Ariadne, but Clu stayed behind and approached them.

“Good job Tron,” the program smirked at him and he bristled at the condescending tone. “Take him back to Central Control, I have a few questions for him regarding what's happened here,” the program ordered and Tron raised an eyebrow.

“Wouldn't it be prudent to question him here? He-”

“And have everyone here sympathetic to him be allowed to witness it? No,” Clu shook his head, “you can use the Recognizer I brought if you wish. I know how much you don't like those things...”

It took a huge amount of effort and a boost in his personal firewall not to voice a few choice User obscenities and phrases at Clu. He was not his lapdog, yet the senior program was treating him as such. Finally he managed to ground out, “I do not answer to you. He will be kept-”

“Where I deem it necessary to the safety and security of The Grid,” Clu stared at him, his gaze level and steady, challenging him to defy the authority given to him by Kevin Flynn, the Creator.

“Then I would like to supervise the questioning of Leto,” he tightened his grip on the young Iso's arm, knowing that somehow if the Iso was left alone, he would be neglecting his duty to protect every and all citizens on The Grid. He could not openly defy Clu, but he would make sure that Clu would be held in check when questioning the young Iso.

“If that's your wish,” Clu agreed with a wave of his hand before walking away, his hand touching one of the blank walls and Tron felt the emergency protocols deactivate.

Clu was making too many changes to The Grid without Kevin Flynn's approval and he knew that it was up to him to make sure that the safety of everyone was still adhered to.

* * *

Act 2 – Spider's Trick

Music: ENCOM Pt. 2

Ariadne stumbled as her foot found a loosened conduit panel on the ground, but she managed to regain her footing and continued on. Sixteen, only sixteen of the many prisoners that they had initially freed had managed to escape. And it was that stupid, arrogant, buffoon of a security program Tron that had thwarted their plans. How he had defeated the gridbugs she had compelled to attack Sector 34 so quickly was beyond her processes. She had underestimated him and now Leto had paid the price. Her own program-brother was in Clu's clutches, having been unable to defeat the hypocritical security program.

She had not wanted to leave Leto, but she had no choice. He had told her to leave him behind and as much as she did not want to go, she knew that she had to bring news back to the others. They needed to know what had happened today. All of the sixteen of so many they had tried to free had scattered, and she knew that it would be a while before they would find their way into the various cells around The Grid.

Ophi would not like it, but perhaps she would forgive her after hearing of this.

She skidded to a stop as she approached the mouth of the alleyway she was running through. Smoothing her own command lines out, she activated a secret masking subroutine that had been modified by Giles, her sponsor and mentor. Giles had not said whether or not he had built the masking subroutine, but it enabled her to walk amongst even the Isos themselves without having them stare at her. When she was sure her disguise, or at least the fact that it was suppressing her growing panic, was in place, she stepped out of the alleyway and blended almost effortlessly with the pedestrian traffic in this part of the city with the other Isos.

Passing by a Guard tower that were now commonplace amongst the Isos, she surreptitiously glanced up at it and saw the two Guards stationed there looking out amongst the other Isos. They would have already gotten new orders from Clu to hunt her down, having been given her image which was why she activated the masking subroutine. After a quick glance to see that the Guards had not even noticed her, she followed the flow of the pedestrian traffic and ducked behind an alleyway close to the shining tower that stood out from the rest of the complex buildings they had all built. This tower in particular was not higher than the rest, but rather what drew everyone to it was its simplistic design.

No ordinary program on The Grid would notice it, only visible through other isomorphic algorithms' eyes, but this tower was one of the first built and thus was so simplistic. She knew that the tower could have been converted to one of their more elaborate ones, but Ophelia, for some odd reason, preferred it to be simple. She had said on more than one occasion that it reminded her of what was once was, not what could be. Ariadne did not understand what the leader of all Isos meant by those words, but then again it was not her place to question the wisdom of Ophelia. But in respect to her leader, those words were very unique, perhaps they had come from Kevin Flynn, the supposed and mysterious Creator she kept hearing about. Surely no other mundane program on The Grid could even think of something like that.

She looked around her before deactivating the masking subroutine and placed a palm on the door she had stopped in front of. It opened after a bar of light scanned her palm's code and she stepped in. Darkened halls greeted her, but she moved down it, turning this way and that, going down a couple of flights of stairs before reaching another door. Opening it, she stepped in and closed it behind her. She stepped forward and paused, her sensors picking up the presence of others in the room.

“I need to speak with her,” she declared in what she hoped was a calm tone. She was always nervous whenever she entered the room, but events could not delay what she thought Ophelia needed to hear.

The faint murmurs of the others in the room told her that they were considering her request before a sudden splash of light shined down upon her. She breathed a sigh of relief; they were allowing her to speak-

“I have already heard from the others what transpired in Sector 22 at the prison,” her voice was calm, strong, commanding, but Ariadne wilted a bit at the harsh tone she had adopted.

“It was the most opportune time we had in ages, Ophelia,” she tried to summon the courage to defend her actions, “I was able to rescue several of our fellow Isos-”

“Only sixteen of them,” another voice she recognized as Giles' slightly nasally bass tone spoke up, “sixteen out of so many.”

“Did you know that those sixteen had been uploaded with a tracking algorithm?” Ophelia continued.

Dread filled Ariadne as she realized that the sixteen that had gone underground had now compromised so many cells around the city. She could imagine the Guards led by Clu hunting down her compatriots one by one right now. “No...” she whispered.

“You are fortunate that this tracking algorithm was easily discovered and eliminated,” the leader of the Isos continued, her voice booming out in the darkness surrounding Ariadne. “However, your actions have put a severe strain upon the fragility of peace between us and Clu. I have clandestinely supported the actions of all of the cells from afar with the explicit instructions to be subtle. Your actions are anything but.”

“He wasn't supposed to be there! I had- I checked to see that gridbugs were attacking a completely different Sector so that only a few Guards were there! He was supposed to be defending that sector instead of coming after us!” she nearly spilled out that she was the one who had compelled a few gridbugs to attack Sector 34. “And now Leto is in Clu's hands! We need to rescue him.”

“No,” that one spoken word immediately plummeted her confidence and anger, replacing it with shock.

“But Ophelia...”

“You have clearly underestimated Tron's ability to safeguard the welfare of all citizens of The Grid, even from your childish actions,” she did not step from the shadows, but Ariadne had a feeling that Ophelia was addressing the others in the room, reprimanding them along with her, “this is why I have supported the subtle rebellion, not outright defiance.”

“Then we should just get rid of Tron and be done with it,” Giles snapped, his dislike for the security program evident in his tone.

“I will not condone a course of action that will lead to that,” Ophelia's response was immediate.

“Ophelia-”

“You will not harm Tron,” she cut Giles off firmly and Ariadne stared into the darkness, wishing that she could see their leader's face. “Anyone who even attempts to derezz him will answer to me.” The threat of her what her answer would be hung like a heavy unit upon the room.

A few soft murmurs erupted from the others in the room, but they died just as quickly and she had a feeling that the others could see Ophelia as she sensed that she was addressing her again. “Ariadne, your actions have cost us dearly. Leto's capture has distressed me, but consider it your punishment for acting so recklessly. Reflect upon your actions and know that in your future actions you must be more vigiliant of such things. We cannot risk open war against Clu and the Guards. It will lead to nothing but datashed and the destabilization of The Grid.”

“I...I understand,” frustration welled within Ariadne as her cheeks burned with the shame of her failure. She had disappointed their beloved leader, but she had been so sure that Tron would not have that much of an immediate response. If she had only been better at compelling the gridbugs to attack, to be more ferocious in their pursuit of the security program, perhaps she would have had enough time to free the four others and made sure Leto was safe. But now...

“Giles,” Ophelia called out and Ariadne looked up to see her mentor walking towards her, a grim expression on his face. He stood half shadowed in the dark, half in the light before shaking his head and escorted her out of the room. It took a moment for her visual filters to adjust to the darkness that was growing dimmer with light returning as they headed out of the room.

“Giles-”

“Not now,” he shook his head as he guided her down several more halls before arriving in the more familiar parts of the main compound hidden underneath an energy distributor near Ophelia's tower. It was hidden under several layers of encryption and also with false signals so that none of the residents or even enterprising Guards who patrolled the Isos' sectors were aware of it. Careful fine tuning of the encryptions had hidden this bunker for many cycles to the point where she figured not even Tron would be able to search for it, even with his vaunted abilities.

As soon as they entered and the door slid close behind them Giles whirled around and stared at her, “Why didn't you notify me about this?”

“We had no time!” she replied, “I got those codes directly from Central!”

Giles stared at her, his eyebrows raised in surprise, “How you got into Central without being derezzed will I suspect be a mystery to me, but it does not excuse the fact that you could have asked Cell G to back you up. They live near Leto and would have been an asset to masking your intentions and making sure the Guards were neutralized!”

“I acted,” she glared at him, “because there was no choice! There was no time! Tron was distracted, the Guards about to do a shift change, everything was in place!”

“So you did summon those gridbugs to Sector 34,” Giles replied shrewdly, “we've already received several complaints by some of our more enterprising kind who live there. 34 was supposed to be secure from gridbug attacks.”

“How else was I supposed to distract him? He's seemingly everywhere!”

“I understand and I sympathize with you, believe me, I really do. He has been a thorn in Ophelia's side since the beginning and she does not even realize it,” Giles looked away, a frown on his face.

“But some of the others of our brothers and sisters-”

“They are too ignorant, too ingrained into their own processes to realize the truth, that he is as much of a threat as Clu is, and you know as well as I do that he should be neutralized.” He paced around, “The only problem is that he has been trusted by the Creator, Kevin Flynn so eliminating him would be a problem the next time he returns, if he ever returns.”

“My concern is for Leto-”

“It would be best to consider him derezzed by now, Ariadne,” Giles shook his head, “Clu would not hesitate to rectify him after what had just happened.”

She stared at him with a pinched, hurt expression, “I refuse to believe that. He's my brother, Giles! You trained the two of us! How can you so blindly throw him away when the hope of rescue could still happen?”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Yes,” she drew herself up and stared at her mentor with an even gaze.

Giles studied her briefly before nodding once as if coming to a decision, “Then there may be a way. I hesitated to tell you about this, even after so long ago, because what may happen to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how you came to be, right?”

“Yes,” she was confused by his evasive wording, “myself, Leto, and a few other Isos were the last to emerge from the Sea of Simulation before the poison took hold.”

“That's correct, but what you didn't know and what Ophelia never told you and it is only known to just a handful of us, is that you were the last one to emerge, just as the poison was taking hold. Your code is very unique, even amongst the rest of the Isos. I have nurtured you like any of my other trainees to the best of my abilities, but your code can be exploited for even more improvements and upgrades that we would not know of, not even Ophelia has that capability.”

“What kind of upgrades?”

“That is the unknown factor right now,” Giles cautioned, “we've ran simulations of your upgrades and each of those simulations have seen a degradation of your code and eventually of your self, effectively derezzing you after a short while.”

“But there is a spike of improvements, right? Before I start to degrade, right?” she asked, hopeful.

“There is, but we do not know how long that time frame will be. It could be a cycle or several cycles or even less than that. And like most upgrades, it is permanent,” he watched her carefully as she considered his words.

“So what you’re saying is that, if I take this upgrade, I will be able to overcome anything for a short while before I die?” she asked.

“Yes,” Giles nodded once, “now you know why I didn't mention this to you-”

“I want to do it.”

“Pardon me?” he blinked at her interruption.

“I want to do it. Give me the upgrades. I'll rescue my brother, stop Tron, stop Clu and his persecution of us,” she said, the prospect of actually having some power to rival both Tron and Clu exciting her.

“Ophelia will not know of this. You will be alone should anything happen,” Giles warned her, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she nodded solemnly.

“And what do I tell Leto?”

“I'll tell him myself. Just...watch over him...” she refused to finish her sentence as she made a silent vow that she would survive this upgrade. She would not let herself die afterwards; she would survive and make sure that all isomorphic algorithms were safe in The Grid.

“Very well then, we're going to visit an old friend,” Giles smiled before gesturing for her to follow him and she did with her head held high. Hang on Leto, I'm coming for you.

* * *

She kept her masking subroutine activated - a personal gift from Ophelia, unmodified and unaltered, the original copy that the leader of the Isos said was given to her by her very dear and old friend – as she followed Giles and Ariadne at a distance. She knew that Ariadne had her own masking subroutine; all of the Isos did after Ophelia had shared the upgrade with them, but theirs were modified for their own purposes.

She knew that having an unaltered copy was a sign of Ophelia opinion of her, a personal friend and trusted confidant. And she hoped that she would never betray Ophelia's trust, unlike the two she was following. Yet, the fact that Ophelia refused to reign in or reprimand Giles, one of her more beloved advisors spoke volumes. However, it was not her place to speak her mind. She was to report and observe that was her duty. She activated a masked wireless transmission to the leader of the Isos.

Giles says there is an upgrade that is available to Ariadne that would increase her power to near unstable levels.

This is known to me, Ophelia's quiet reply came back, follow them, but do not act. I want you to strictly observe. If you are discovered, you may defend yourself, but until then, do nothing.

I understand, she replied.

Quorra, I am counting on you.

* * *

As a security program, Tron was never nervous, but he did feel somewhat apprehensive as he approached the room that the Guards in Central Control had dubbed an interrogation room. The word was not a foreign concept, but the idea that The Grid had gotten so dangerous that interrogation rooms were needed disgusted him. More than once, he wished Flynn was here to straighten things out and put Clu back on the correct path of creating a safe haven for both the regular programs and the Isos. But the portal in the east had not lit up for a long time.

He was not apprehensive of any Guards or even Clu stopping him from what he was about to do; he was apprehensive of what his actions would mean. Not only for the future of The Grid, but potentially the fate of all of the other programs in The Grid itself. He wished Flynn or even Alan-One, his User, would give him some advice. The only thing he was sure of was that his actions would hopefully help protect the citizens of The Grid a little further from Clu's current machinations.

The young Iso Leto did not deserve rectification by Clu's hand nor did he deserve deresolution. He believed that the Iso had only committed his actions because of Clu's continuing oppression and was led to believe that it was the only way of saving his own kind. Though he did not approve of the Iso's actions, he believed that perhaps with some leniency, the young Iso would realize that they were all working towards a peaceful resolution between the Isos and Clu.

“Sir,” one of the Guards greeted him as he approached the door.

“How is the Iso?” he asked as he stretched out a palm to open the door.

“He has not responded to any inquiries made by Clu. Sir, I would have to ask you not to question-”

“Is this an order from Clu?” he hand hovered above the panel that would let him in as he looked at the Guard.

“Yes sir,” the Guard replied in his usual flat monotone, “Clu ordered no one but him to enter the room.”

“Noted,” Tron placed his palm against the door and it hissed open before walking in and the door hissed shut behind him just as quickly before the Guard could reiterate his protest.

The young Iso was sitting in front of a stark white table, his hands unbound, but he looked paler than normal. A cursory scan with his passive sensors told him that he had been drained of energy for a long while, his circuitry and lines nearly visible underneath the surface. He didn't look up when Tron entered, staring blankly down at his hands which were folded in front of him. It was a sad state to see a program in, even for an Iso.

Tron leaned against one of the walls, discreetly placing his hand against the wall and altered some of the coding in the room before hiding those alterations underneath an encryption layer that not even Clu knew about. He would not put it past the senior program to accuse him later of what he was about to do. The only noticeable change was a slight dimming of lights in the room before everything returned to normal. But that slight dimming brought the Iso's head up to stare at him.

“What do you want?” Leto sounded tired and exhausted.

“How are you holding up?”

The program stared at him as if he had suddenly turned into a gridbug before looking away. “You can get rid of that concern; I know it's just a ploy.”

Tron frowned, the program was definitely stubborn. “Lack of energy for at least several cycles now, even I know that Isos are like any other program on The Grid. You need energy like all of us.”

“So?” the Iso groused, “doesn't mean that I'm going to say anything even if you give me some refined energy. Besides, you could have put a corrupted file in there or even tampered with it to create a virus that will force me to tell you the truth.”

“I'm not giving you any,” Tron pushed away from the wall and took a seat across from the Iso, folding his hands in front of him. He spooled off a part of his subroutine that he had used to blend into the surroundings with his fingers, modifying it as he stared at the Iso.

“Tell me, Leto, why did you attack the prison?” he asked conversationally as he continued to modify the subroutine internally, dedicating a part of his processes to the task at hand. The only sign that he was doing anything was two of his fingers twitching on his left hand, controlling the modification with sharp precision.

“What does it matter to you? You were probably listening to the talks Clu had with me,” the Iso glared at him.

“No, I wasn't,” Tron replied, “unlike Clu, I do have responsibilities to The Grid itself and its citizens.”

“A likely story,” the Iso snorted, “You’re like him; you enforce his policies and don't even realize what you're doing.”

Tron blinked and stared at him, “You really believe that?”

“Should I not?” the Iso shot him a flat smile, “the high and mighty security program Tron. Claiming to fight for the Users and protecting everyone. Where were you when Clu installed guards at every Iso sector and demanded we show where we are going, why we are at certain sectors that we are supposedly not supposed to be. Where were you when my brothers and sisters were captured because they were perceived to be terrorists? Where were you when the Guards deliberately destroyed some of our buildings because they were not an integral part of The Grid?! Huh? Where were you?”

Tron stayed silent, having no answer for the Iso's accusations. He wanted to say that he was there, fighting behind the scenes not to allow any of these changes to happen, but he was powerless to stop Clu from advancing some of those plans. He had convinced Clu to change a few, but the program had found new and devious ways to thwart his efforts. Even Flynn had acquiesced to many of Clu's changes, but still believed that his own creation was somehow being manipulated behind the scenes by some rogue faction.

“Your silence condemns you,” Leto sneered.

“My silence is more than you can imagine,” his frown grew deeper, “and you are too young to have witnessed half of those events that you just mentioned.”

“And how do you know that?!” the Iso was outraged, “did you scan me?! You scanned me, didn't you? That's like stripping the code off of someone and exposing them-”

“Yes, I did scan you,” Tron gave the program a hard stare, “it is part of my responsibilities to always scan every single program on The Grid when they first arrive! However, I cannot scan past the surface for any Iso, not even you.”

“You're lying,” Leto looked at him in disbelief, “I don't believe you.”

“Believe what you want,” Tron finally completed the modifications and brought out the subroutine, a series of lines and codes that appeared on the palm of his left hand, “but know this, I am giving you a second chance.”

“What is that?” Leto tried to back away from the table, staring at his hand, suddenly afraid, “that's a virus, isn't it?”

“No, it's a masking subroutine that will last for a short duration, enough to get you beyond Central Control's guards, before it deactivates.” He extended his hand forward, the subroutine glittering as bits and pieces of its code danced off of the bright white lights in the room.

Leto stared at it for a long moment before looking up at him, “Why are you doing this?”

“I want you to trust me,” Tron shrugged, “what you said may be true from a certain point of view, but I am trying to right the wrongs that Clu has done. Just know that you are not the only program affected by his radical changes.”

“What do you have to lose, huh? You have never lost what we had lost!” Leto's expression became pinched, “we lost all of our future brothers and sisters with the poisoning of the Sea! We've lost many of our brothers and sisters to Clu's raids and crackdowns on dissent!”

“I lost my friends,” Tron took a deep breath before speaking. The modification he made to the room ensured that Clu would never hear of this, but he was taking a risk with telling Leto of things that he never told any other program on The Grid, “I lost Cesta, my friend, my rival in the arena. I watched him be rectified and I could not do anything because in a twisted sense Clu was right, Cesta signed his own rectification warrant by participating in the raid against a Guard tower.”

“That tower,” Leto glowered, “and those Guards in there had been harassing many Isos in the sector, conducting unauthorized scans of Isos, intimidating them until they broke down and their circuitry polarized.”

“I lost Shaddox one of the first programs Flynn created, one of my first friends, to a gridbug attack before that, when I could not stop a gridbug leader from derezzing him,” he continued, the memory still stark in his mind. It had been soon after Shaddox had helped him figure out that Clu was hiding spies amongst regular programs with his own masking subroutines.

Leto had fallen silent, looking at him with an unreadable gaze. The subroutine still glittered between them as Tron stared at it, the faint, but bittersweet memory of when he had first created it and who he had given it to. “I...lost Ophelia...”

There was no visible reaction from the Iso, but Tron's passive sensors picked up a small spike of surprise that was in the process of being buried underneath some encryption. He twirled the subroutine with his index finger, making it spin a bit in his palm before inching it forward to the young Iso, “So don't tell me that I did not have anything to lose.”

Leto met his gaze for a long moment before reaching his own hand out and absorbed the subroutine into his own codes. Tron sensed the brief spike of integration before it disappeared under the advance shielding the Iso had.

“Don't use it until the right moment,” he warned the young Iso as he got up and placed a hand on the wall, erasing the coding, but leaving the encryption, before heading out. Clu would see what he wanted to see and be none the wiser. He did not look back at the Iso as he stepped out of the room and headed away from Central Control.

As soon as he was outside, he activated his lightcycle and sped off, intent on being on patrol and a few sectors away when Leto escaped. It was what he could do for now to help the isomorphic algorithm rebellion against Clu's tyranny without compromising his own status.

* * *

Act 3 – Spider's Perversion

Music: Castor

Ariadne was surprised as Giles took her up the elevator to Zuse's End of Line club. Of all of the places she had expected to go for an upgrade, this was the last. Perhaps Zuse would direct them to elsewhere? But Giles did say that they were to visit an old friend and Zuse was a fairly old, in relative terms of operational status, friend. The booming music rattled the elevator’s walls as they ascended before the doors opened and the heavy bass thundered in her ears.

Beyond the program bouncers standing near the elevators, she saw many programs dancing away, both Isos and more mundane basic ones. The irony of the image was not lost on her as she saw them co-exisitng with one another. She avoided the End of Line club because she believed that it was nothing more than a farce, a place where programs who did not want to think that there was conflict in the rest of The Grid. They were ignorant in her opinion, and deserved no less than rectification or deresolution for their ignorance.

There were no innocents in this brewing war and all of those who claimed to be innocent or wanted nothing to do with it were just waiting to be derezzed or rectified into service for Clu. But Ophelia had cautioned that they do things subtly, not boldly. She did not understand why she had advocated that, but for the time she would obey the Isos’ beloved leader. Ophelia, after all, was the first and thus the wisest amongst them all. She understood the intricacies of The Grid itself and understood certain things that Ariadne could not even begin to comprehend, or at least she had not had the process to comprehend.

As she and Giles threaded their way through the various patrons, she saw her mentor catch Zuse’s eye and Iso excuse himself from a group of enthralled programs he was entertaining.

“Giles,” Zuse smiled briefly at them, a smile that did not reach his eyes, “fancy seeing you here…and who is this young lady?”

“Ariadne,” she introduced herself flatly, a frown on her face. She already dislike the club and Zuse’s attempt to be dashing was making her dislike grow.

“Charmed,” the smile returned, though very briefly before Zuse realized that she was being deliberately rude to him and turned back to Giles. “I thought Ophelia had you attending to some business of sorts?”

“I’m here to see about that drink,” Giles replied.

“Drink…?”

“She’s the one,” Giles jutted his chin at her before Zuse did a double take and his smile all but dropped from his face.

“Her?!”

Ariadne crinkled her brow as she felt something invasive press against her sensors before she realized what Zuse was doing. “Hey!” she reached out and slapped him in the face, “stop scanning me!” The invasive feeling immediately withdrew, but Zuse did not look apologetic, but instead stared at her with a critical eye.

“You did not tell me that she would be able to feel scans,” the flamboyant mannerism was all but gone as Zuse shook his head before gesturing for the two of them to follow him. He led them up one level through a spiral staircase hidden behind a false wall and gestured for them to sit down on plush couches that were in the cozy office-like setting. There was a personal bar in a corner, but Ariadne had a feeling that this was Zuse’s own private chambers within the club, where he could entertain important guests or relax away from the others. The music still rattled the walls here, but it was muted against the audio dampener field that separated the view of the club from the club itself.

“You did not believe that she existed,” Giles sat down on one corner of the couch and nodded for Ariadne to do so too. She sat down, though reluctantly and immediately realized that the couches were indeed quite comfortable.

“I’ve heard the rumors,” Zuse dismissed his comment with a wave of his hand before moving to his bar and stared to mix something, “but surely all of them died…?”

“Most,” Giles replied, “she was the only one to survive.”

“Wait, what?” Ariadne interrupted them, confused, “what’s going on?”

“Did you tell her the consequences of this…upgrade?” Zuse ignored her question and looked at Giles.

“Yes, and she said she is willing to accept it.”

“I want to hear it from her own mouth,” the Iso was unconvinced and looked at her, “you willing to accept this upgrade that can and will kill you in a short while?”

“Yes, but what’s going on?” she stared between her mentor and the owner of the club.

She saw the two of them exchange a glance before Zuse held up the concoction he was working on, a clear gesture to Giles to explain to her whatever they were being evasive about. “Giles?”

“We have been fighting this war for a very long time, covert or not, the cycles have taught us a few things,” Giles folded his hands in front of him, resting his chin on them, “in a war, you have many weapons available to you. When we first started to resist Clu’s invasion of our sectors, we saw that he had the programs and the knowledge given to him by the Creator Kevin Flynn. He had an advantage over us. That was why we created cells designed to steal secrets from Central Control so we would be able to have some of that shared knowledge.

“Once we had the knowledge, we created different cells to develop on what we had acquired,” he continued, “all of this was done without Ophelia’s knowledge or approval. I made sure of that. She needs to be protected in case Clu discovers what we are doing and her lack of knowledge of our activities will save her.”

“How admirable,” Zuse commented sarcastically from where he was adding a few more ingredients into the mixture. “Her white and shining knight attempting to protect her from herself.”

“What she does not know will not hurt her,” Giles stared pointedly at the Iso, “and she will not know of this.”

“Of course,” Zuse snorted, “continue your lovely story…it was so enthralling.”

Ariadne glared at Zuse, but he did not seem to notice it before turning back to Giles. “And?”

“In our research, we learned that the gridbugs that attacked many of our sectors vociferously were of the same brethren as our own kind,” Giles said, “though they cannot be called isomorphic algorithms themselves. They are the basic forms of what we once were, only driven by their insatiable need to feed and destroy, the simplest of algorithms.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“When the Sea of Simulation was poisoned, you and several others came forth around the same time, not unusual for the Sea itself. However, like I had told you before, you were the last one to emerge, just as the poison was taking hold,” Giles looked at her solemnly.

“Yes, yes, I got that part,” Ariadne was impatient, waiting for the other circuits to be polarized.

“What I didn’t tell you and what only a handful of us know is that currently whenever an Iso is born, a gridbug is born with it. However, gridbugs could emerge from the Sea without an Iso emerging with it. Depending on the processing strength of that Iso, you may have the basic gridbug, but the strongest of us give birth to gridbug leaders. In the research we have discovered that these gridbugs are compelled to search out the Iso they had emerged from the Sea with. But along the way they have to sustain their appetite and so thus attack energy sources and everything on The Grid itself. There is no way to control the gridbugs and we dared not tell anyone of this because-“

“Someone like Clu or even Tron would blame us for it and give them the justification to persecute us,” Ariadne shook her head, “we are not to blame for something we have nothing to do with!”

“I wish everyone could believe what you just said,” Giles gave her a faint crooked smile, “and even so, we do not know enough about the gridbugs, because they are killed instantly whenever someone reports them. We have kept up pretenses so not to draw attention to the fact that few of us know the truth, but the measures we have taken have not been enough to contain gridbugs.”

“And me?”

“When you emerged from the Sea, there were several others too,” Giles continued, waving a hand at her to be patient. “However, the poison had already affected them and they…had to be eliminated.”

“Eliminated?”

“Oh just tell her already,” Zuse snapped impatiently and she looked at him, “they turned into gridbugs and you lot had to kill them because they were about to tear apart the Sector.” “It was better than experimenting on several gridbugs you’ve captured and releasing them near the Arena. Now that,” the program waved the mixture around a bit, “was a real mess. Nearly destabilized the whole Sector and I have to say, one of Tron’s finest shining moments, saving everyone. It took him several energy drinks to smooth out his own command lines, though I never charged him for it.”

“Just whose side are you on?” Ariadne had never met an Iso like him and stared at him, appalled and a little angry.

“My own,” the program gave her a fake smile as if it was the most important question in the world before returning to the concoction he was making.

She rolled her eyes before looking at Giles, “If they turned into gridbugs…and were eliminated, does that mean I would turn into one? What happened to the gridbug that emerged with me?”

“There were no gridbugs when you emerged,” Giles stared at her, “and that is what makes you unique. You have survived this long without being affected by the poison.”

“What are you saying?” she stared at him shrewdly, “that I’m a gridbug?”

Giles smiled at her, “More than that, Ariadne, you are the link between us. You are what we have tried for so many cycles to achieve, the perfect hybrid.”

“And weapon,” she felt the corner of her lips twitch up in a smile, “the perfect way to strike at Clu. The shielding we have versus the raw brute power of a gridbug?”

“Yes,” Giles nodded, “which was why we had recruited Cesta to our cause long ago. We needed to give you the best training and Cesta is second to none in the Arena on the days that Tron is not there. I am privy to all of Ophelia’s knowledge and secrets so I took it upon myself to mentor and guide you.”

“And Leto…?”

“He considers you like a close program-sister, Ariadne, but do not harbor any resentment towards him. He is our best hacker,” Giles replied.

Ariadne knew that she should have been angry at the deception, the secrets kept from her, but she felt oddly relieved, as if a burden had been lifted from her. She realized that Leto had been doing his duty, protecting her not as only a program-brother, but probably ordered from Giles himself to make sure that she, as a weapon, was not discovered by Tron or anyone else. He had brought her time to escape. She fuzzily remembered the moments after Leto had ordered her to leave; something within her had triggered her to scream her anger, an electronic howl that even she almost did not recognize. It had surprised everyone when she had done it, but it also gave her the opportunity to make her escape.

“Leto protected me,” she said, “It’s time I repay the favor. If I am the weapon that you think I am; if I am the hybrid that you think I am, then yes, I want those upgrades and stop Clu.”

“This isn’t something you can drink and have again, you know,” Zuse looked at her carefully as he stepped away from the bar, holding a tall glass of something that glittered and danced with its own light source. It looked like a liquid, but she could see shards of data within, little lines of code that glistened this way and that even though there was no light source on it.

“What is it made out of?” she reached a tentative hand out to it, but Zuse did not let her touch the glass.

“It will bring the gridbug code out within you instead of having it suppressed within your dominant Iso command lines,” Zuse looked at her, his eyes serious, “it is the same code that we tested on gridbugs to make them more Iso like…”

“Will I change?” she could not imagine herself like a sparking mass of mindless energy, only thinking of consuming as she made her way towards whatever goal that was the driving force behind the gridbugs.

“That, we don’t know,” Zuse tilted his head, “for all we know, you could derezz instantly after drinking this or have a complete meltdown with all of your circuitry polarized and command lines shorted out.”

“Or probably attack everyone in here,” she smiled tightly, enjoying how the proprieter’s face paled a bit at the mention of a rampage in the End of Line club.

“I hope not,” the program gave her a faint smile before allowing her to take the glass.

She stared at it for a moment before glancing at Giles then at Zuse. “Where is Leto held?”

“Our spies say Central Control,” Giles replied.

“Great,” she took a deep breath, trying to smooth the flutter that was within her command lines out, before downing the upgrade with a grimace on her face. It wasn’t exactly liquid that poured into her, but rather felt like hundreds of datashards ripping her throat apart. She could feel it coursing through her command lines, changing them, making them stronger. The spikes of pain grew and ripped across her processes until she could feel no more…

Ariadne did not hear the glass shatter on the floor, only the sound of a howling electronic scream that shredded her vocal unit, inhuman, wholly unreal, and so feral. It was the last thing her audio filters processed before blackness claimed her.

* * *

Act 4 – Spider’s Virus

Music: Round One

The HUD that popped up on his visual scanners suddenly triangulated the point the exact moment Leto had used the modified temporary subroutine Tron had given to him. He had not told the young Iso, but he had put a tracer in the subroutine that only he could scan and thus was able to keep an eye on the Iso as he made his way out of Central Control. He paused in his patrol, luckily in a not so populated area of The Grid, one of the more industrial sectors that housed refineries and aquifers. Exporting the HUD from his eyes to a projection screen he pulled from his systems, he watched as Leto, marked as a white dot amongst all of the red dots that signified Guards, made his way through the building, undetected.

Closing the HUD, he started his lightcycle up again and sped back towards Central Control. The cloak would only get Leto so far and Tron intended to be there to create a distraction of sorts so that the young Iso would be able to successfully escape. He arrived in short order and looked around at the Guards surrounding Central. A guard waved at him and Tron blinked, puzzled until he recognized the slight difference in armor design as the same guard who had helped him in the prison building, Phoebus.

Most of the Guards rarely acknowledged him, but this was the first time that Tron had even seen a Guard wave at him in a friendly manner like many programs did on The Grid. The last batch of Guards that had been vaguely friendly had also been under Clu’s orders to destroy an Iso tower to which he had disarmed the bomb to. He knew that over time since the beginning of The Grid, they saw him as an outside force, keeping an eye on their actions, a watchman against the mandate he had been given and thus only acknowledged him when ordered to do so or when a Sector was under threat. He did not mind the lack of friendliness on their part, their duties kept them separate, but he did mind that they went out of the boundaries of their duties and plant bombs or even poison the Sea of Simulation.

“Sir, good to see you, finished with your patrol?” Phoebus asked, jogging over to him as stopped his lightcycle, but did not get off of it.

“Almost,” he shrugged, “I forgot to ask about your unit, how did they fare?”

“A couple of casualties, but we managed to not kill any of the prisoners that tried to escape,” Phoebus grinned under his open helmet, “I’ve recommended commendation upgrades for Lei for her cool under fire. We’ll see if Clu approves of it.”

“I’m sure she is deserving of that honor,” out of the corner of his eye and through his passive sensors, he noticed that many of the Guards outside of Central were interested in their conversation and decided that perhaps it was not too bad of a thing to keep talking to Phoebus. It would certainly distract them hopefully enough for Leto to escape, but he found himself actually enjoying talking to the Guard program. It was like talking to Cesta or even Shaddox again and Tron had to admit, he missed his chats with the other two programs.

“Thalen, my bond-program, says that the next time she sees you in our Sector she will give you a good talking to for putting me in danger,” Phoebus laughed lightly, “she wishes I was assigned to one of the aquifers or something.”

“What Sector should I avoid?” Tron recognized the teasing tone in the Guard’s voice and felt a grin tugging the corner of his lips. When Flynn had started to mass import files and programs onto The Grid itself, he had also brought over the ability for the programs to develop within their parameters, a way of communicating with other programs. Though all programs were able to do so, especially when the emergency wireless was enabled, there were programs who communicated more frequently and on a better receiver than others. Flynn had coined them bond-programs and had tried to explain to Tron that it was similar to the User concept of having a close partner to whom one could talk to about anything.

It was only until Flynn had delicately mentioned that it was what Tron and Yori had shared back in the old system that Tron had understood what it had meant and Flynn had seen how quiet and withdrawn he had gotten and dropped the subject all together. Even now, Tron still missed Yori, though he thought he had found someone else in the form of Ophelia, but he too had lost her, though not to corruption. He lost her to the ideals and responsibilities that drove each of them and eventually drove them apart.

“Sigma, Sector 54 if you really want to know,” Phoebus replied, “she is a Siren at the Arena.”

“Then maybe I should avoid the Arena for a while,” he forced a smile on his face, the mention of the place bringing back bad memories of Cesta’s rectification. Truth was, he had not been back since that day, though it was more out of his duties than anything else. The Arena would find a new champion, he was sure of it; it always did whenever the reigning one fell.

Phoebus laughed, “Good one, sir. I’ll tell her to go easy-“

Tron’s passive sensors suddenly went on full alert as he craned his head around to find the source of the alert – there, in front of him! Shock coursed through his circuits as he saw a roiling mass of sparking electricity moving at a deliberate pace towards Central just as the other Guards noticed the same thing and all of the moved into position.

“Phoebus, evacuate the surrounding buildings!” he leapt off of his lightcycle and drew out his disc, activating it as he pushed past Phoebus and the line of Guards that were staring at the electrical mass advancing towards them.

“Sir I do not have emergency privileges-“

Tron reached back and grabbed the program’s arm before ripping deep into the circuitry, giving him an instant upgrade to use the emergency overrides before releasing the program’s arm and headed towards the mass. “You’re in charge Phoebus,” he called back as he threw his disc at the roiling mass, focused on the battle.

If this was a gridbug leader he would have to keep its attention on him instead of having it wreck havoc all over the place and that meant that Phoebus would have to take care of all of the evacuations. The last gridbug leader he had fought had taken almost every trick he knew to finally destroy it. And even then there had been lives lost – he was not about to let the same thing happen again.

His disc ricocheted back to him before Tron caught it and suddenly rolled to the side as he saw something that looked like another disc spit out from the mass. He followed the trajectory and saw that indeed it was a disc and was returning back to his owner. It was only then that Tron got a good look at his opponent and realized that it was not a gridbug, but rather a program surrounded by a mass of electricity that looked like a gridbug leader.

“Oh my Creator…Ariadne,” Leto’s whisper behind him made Tron turn slightly to see the young Iso had been successful in his escape, but the subroutine had expired, leaving him visible to everyone. But with the panic behind him and Guards doing their duties, no one had paid him any attention. It was the best distraction anyone could give him to escape and the irony of the thought did not escape Tron.

“Ariadne!” Leto stepped forward, his face stricken as he kept staring at program-hybrid.

“Get back!” Tron did not care if that was a gridbug or a program, all he saw was that the…thing…reared back on its two legs before an audio filter splitting roar of defiance filled the air. It sent many of the Guards and some civilian programs that were in the middle of being evacuated to the safer zones to the ground, covering their heads and crying out in pain.

Tron grimaced as his own audio filters were assaulted with the wrenching sound, but managed to throw up a dampener as visible shockwaves pounded the area. Leto was not as lucky as the young Iso fell to the ground, clawing at his ears, a wordless scream unable to be rendered through his mouth. Just as suddenly, the roar stopped and the thing seemingly grinned from whatever features were left of her.

Tron made a decision and through a quick check of his sensors, saw that though there were a few Guards left in the nearby buildings; most of the civilians had been evacuated. He knelt down on the ground and shielded off part of the Sector, reinforcing it with several layers of codes. Just as he was about to be finished, he grabbed Leto’s shoulder and shoved him out of the closing shield, startling the program who suddenly tried to charge back in.

“No! Wait! Let me in! That’s Ariadne! I need to-”

Tron ignored the program’s pounding on the outer edges of the shield as he stood up from the ground and grabbed his baton. He hoped that the programs trapped inside of the shielding would be smart enough to hide somewhere while he dealt with this menace.

“Ariadne?” he called out to the roiling mass of a program-gridbug hybrid.

“…L…e-e-e…to…” the voice that issued from the hybrid was barely audible, but Tron stepped forward cautiously.

“He’s safe,” he said, watching the thing warily, “you don’t need to do this…”

“…L…e-e…t-to…”

“I know you’re here to rescue him, but he is safe,” Tron started, “he won’t be derezzed, not on my watch-“

“…k-k…i-i-i…lllllll,” the buzzing electronic sound nearly drowned out what the hybrid was saying, but Tron suddenly moved as streams of energy erupted from her arms, shooting towards him.

He felt the slight buzz of increased energy hit the pavement near him before absorbing it into his own systems and boosted the shielding he had received from Ophelia. Tossing his disc towards the mass, he ran towards it, baton extended. He formed a sword with it and sliced downwards towards one of the appendages that had shot towards him, disconnecting it from its main body. He could not believe that this thing was Ariadne, the girl that had been with Leto in the attempted prison break, but whoever this thing was, it was determined to either harm or kill everyone in sight. It looked vaguely like her, but the fact that most of her features were eclipsed by the roiling energy mass that was a gridbug had all but obscured her true form to him.

The only thing he was sure of was that if it was truly Ariadne, she had just become the biggest threat on The Grid itself. And he would stop her at any cost.

* * *

It was a great effort not to draw her disc and join in the fray and it was only Ophelia’s command to her to observe and not interfere that kept her from doing so. Quorra narrowed her eyes behind her helmet as she sat on the highest point near the battlefield, her subroutine masking her from everyone. She was not able to hear the Guards’ commands through the emergency wireless, a feature on The Grid that was blocked from all Isos because of their shielding, but she saw that many of the civilian programs were streaming towards other safe Sectors, the Guards around Central Control taking direction with everything.

The odd thing was that she had noticed Clu within the top floor of Central Control which was outside of the shielding, just standing, an observer to everything. She would have thought the program would have joined in the fray or at least help direct the evacuations. But he seemed to be more interested in the battle between Tron and what was left of the Iso known as Ariadne.

She should have stopped Giles when she had heard first his proposal to Ariadne, should have stopped Zuse from giving the poor Iso girl the concoction that turned her into a monster, but she had heeded her leader’s words to only observe and report and now this had happened. She could not go into the shielding without compromising her identity and she knew that there was no way to break the shielding Tron had put up.

She watched as Leto pounded the edges of the shield, screaming to be let back in, to stop Ariadne from hurting anyone else, screaming for Tron not to kill her, not to hurt her. A couple of the Guards were also standing by the perimeter, concerned, but they made no move to restrain Leto, their attention focused on the battle between Tron and the gridbug hybrid monster.

She saw him leap up, attacking with both his sword and disc, the sparks flashing with contact as he dove deep into the heart of her mass, determined to find Ariadne’s weak spot. Flashes of hexagonal patterns erupted near Tron as he avoided another barrage of electricity and she focused in on those patterns, her own HUD identifying them as a distinctive shielding pattern that he had applied throughout his whole armor. She faintly recognized the pattern, though it had been heavily modified. It was impressed with Ophelia’s signature on it, making her blink in surprise.

Her leader had a history with the security program or at least had some sort of early contact that resulted in him receiving upgraded shields? That was interesting… She filed the query away for another time before focusing back on the battle. Suddenly Ariadne shrieked again the shockwaves clearly visible, though this time her audio splitting sound was somewhat contained within the shielding that Tron had put up. However, one of the nearby walls of the building that was within the shield crumbled from the force of the shockwaves, revealing two Guards covering a couple of programs who had been trapped in the initial barrage.

Quorra watched as Ariadne twisted her grotesque form, sensing new prey before attacking them. However, Tron intercepted her attack and was slammed heavily into the nearby wall. For a moment she thought that the security program had been derezzed before the smoke cleared and revealed that Tron was clearly holding onto one of Ariadne’s main appendages, teeth gritted in an effort to contain the surging sparks of electricity that played over the appendage that had tried to pin him to the wall.

She saw him shout something towards one of the Guards who looked stricken, but nodded and with the other one usher the programs quickly away before Tron made his move. He jammed the end of his baton into the appendage, digging it deep into the floor of the building before moving on top of it, crossing towards the center of Ariadne’s mass. The Iso yowled again, spitting and hissing electric sparks at him as she tried in vain to dislodge her trapped arm. He drew his second baton and batted away her other appendages with lethal force, slicing through them like they were nothing.

Quorra wondered how much over clocking he was doing on his command lines and processes as he threw the second sword, pinning two secondary appendages to the ground. The pinning of the appendages opened up Ariadne’s weakness, her still Iso body located in the middle of the roiling mass of electricity and Tron did not hesitate, raising his disc and slamming it into her chest. This time the keening wail of deresolution was uncontained as Quorra realized that Tron had shrunk the shielding towards Ariadne’s center mass, enabling her scream to reverberate through her whole mass. The light from the fatal blow made Quorra shield her eyes as she tried to see what was happening before the roar was suddenly silenced just as the brightness faded.

She lowered her hand and saw the security program standing where Ariadne’s center mass used to be, now a pile of inactive data blocks, holding her disc. It was finally over…

* * *

Act 5 – Spider’s Reflection

Music: Reflections

Tron ached all over as he turned the disc over in his hands, staring at what was left of the Iso program known as Ariadne. He was bleeding a little liquid data from what should have been derezzing hits by Ariadne after he had intercepted her attack on Phoebus and a fellow Guard trying to protect the programs trapped within the shielding he had erected. It was only because of the shielding that Ophelia had given to him and he had applied to his whole armor that he had survived this battle. His self-repair systems were already over clocking, but he did not care as he shook his head wordlessly.

She did not need to die like this, a mindless monster that knew nothing but hunger and the insatiable need to consume and destroy. What had driven her to become such a thing or even what had turned an Iso like her into such a thing was beyond him. Perhaps her disc would hold some answers… He made to activate its hologram-

“Is that her disc?” Clu’s voice made him turn slightly to see the senior program walking towards him.

“Yes…” Tron blinked slowly as he felt his sluggish processes respond. He needed energy; he could feel it in his circuits. If he had a little more energy, he would have realized that Clu had plucked the disc out of his hands without even a second word. It was only until a hand rested on his shoulder and a small vial of energy shoved under his face that he realized that he had been swaying on his feet.

He took the vial and downed the contents, surprised that it was unrefined energy instead of the refined ones that all programs drank. His command lines and processes slowly smoothed out and Tron blinked several times as he felt his self-repair system wind down from over clocking and began to properly heal himself.

“You okay there sir?” Phoebus’ reassuring voice spoke next to him and he realized that it was the program that had given him the vial and had steadied him.

“Yeah…” he took a deep breath and focused internally. He would need more energy in order to fully smooth out his processes, but this was enough to get him going at least. “Clu,” he saw that the senior program had taken Ariadne’s disc and was looking at it, his back turned to him.

“Hmm?” the program sounded distracted as he stared at the contents of the disc.

“The data on that disc-“

“Oh, this?” Clu deactivated the disc and held it up, a wan smile on his face, “nothing much, just an Iso’s life. The shielding in it is pretty extensive, so it would take time for me to decode it. I’ll share whatever information I find with you.”

Before Tron could get another word in, the program headed back into Central Control and as much as he wanted to go after Clu and demand that he share the information now, Tron stumbled slightly, suddenly feeling a drop in power levels before Phoebus caught him and held him upright.

“Uh, sir, you should really sit down-“

“I’m fine,” he replied a bit rougher than he should have, straightening as he glared at the door to Central where Clu had gone into. Clu would never share the information on the disc now that it was in his possession, he was sure of it. Or if he did, it would be altered. He knew he would have to try another hack into Clu’s files and perhaps put another marker like he did back in the Arena.

Flynn wanted him to find information to see if any of the Guards were manipulating Clu to act the way he did, but this incident and many like it only served to strengthen the belief that it was not the Guards manipulating Clu, but rather Clu manipulating the Guards and everyone else. But he could not act without proof and he still needed it. He shook his head before walking over to where his batons were, picking them up near the collapsed building and in the building itself. Holstering one, he kept the other one in his hand as he made his way back to the main pathway.

The builders would get this place fixed up soon and the programs evacuated would be allowed back in. “Casualties?” he asked Phoebus as he looked around, noting the sheer amount of damage Ariadne had caused.

“None sir,” the program smiled, “you saved them all.”

“We saved them all,” he absently replied as he glanced towards where he had last left Leto. As expected, the Iso was not there and Tron suspected that he had fled soon in the aftermath of the battle. He did not blame him, but wished that he had a chance to apologize to the young Iso for derezzing a program close to him. He had tried to help the Isos that were hostile to Clu by trying to save Leto from his clutches, but Tron feared that all he had done was exacerbate the situation.

Forming his lightcycle with his baton, he got on it and nodded once to Phoebus before speeding off, intent on recovering some of his energy. As he sped away, he could not help but feel that this was just the beginning of something terrible. But whatever it was, he would face it head-on and protect the system and its inhabitants.

* * *

“I…tried,” the choked sob fell from his lips as he stared up at the figures, all of them hidden in the darkness while he was bathed in light. He was hunched over on his knees, his effort to contain the pain and sorrow within him making him curl up on the ground. “I tried…but…he wouldn’t listen.”

The figures around him were silent, watching him with critical eyes.

“She…didn’t have to do that. Right? You told me that she didn’t have to! We were going to live in peace, just…why? Why did she do it?”

“Because she believed in you,” finally one of them spoke.

“G-Giles…why? You said I was supposed to protect her!”

“I know, son, I know,” the older operational Iso knelt down, in front of him, bathing himself in the bright light that shone above them as he reached out and placed a comforting hand on the young hacker’s head. “And I am sorry for your loss, we all are. She was the best of us…”

“She was like my own program-sister! She followed me everywhere; I got her into so much trouble and got her out of it…why would she do this?”

“Because she wanted to,” Giles sent a soothing command line through to him, “because she somehow found out what she was capable of. She insisted that she rescue you from Clu’s clutches.”

Leto took a shuddering breath before look up at him, “Why didn’t you stop her?”

“Believe me, I tried,” the program looked at him in earnest, “I tried. You know her; she was stubborn when her processes were set on something. We don’t know how she became what she was, but she must have broken into our secure files and discovered the formulas…”

He laughed weakly amidst a choking sob, “That’s Ariadne…maybe I taught her too well…”

“Come on,” Giles gathered him up into his arms and stood up, “there will be time to mourn…”

“W-Where, what are we doing?” he asked as the older Iso guided him out of the light.

“Ariadne’s memory will live on; she will be a symbol to our cause. We must plan a rally so that the other Isos know what has happened,” the program replied and Leto nodded, still hollow from her death.

“I’ll help, I won’t let anyone forget her,” he whispered.

“That’s the spirit…”

* * *

In her earliest memories, she remembered Kevin Flynn telling her something about tears, streams of water that were similar to the things that fell from the sky on occasion. He said it was like having liquid energy bleed out from their visual filters. She had wondered if they were like data bleeds, but the Creator had only laughed and said that they were not harmful. He then tried to describe when these ‘tears’ would fall and said most of the time it was when people were sad. He said on rare occasion, it would happen when the happiest event occurred in someone’s life. That had confused her greatly, but since the cycles she had understood a little more about what the Creator meant by his cryptic words.

She wanted to shed these ‘tears’ now, but as a program, she could not. Instead, she settled for sorrow as she stared at the holographic projection that played out of the disc she held in her hands. The battle should never have occurred, should have never even been allowed to happen.

But it was only the saving grace that Tron was able to contain the situation with his seemingly effortless abilities that gave her a glimmer of hope. She watched as he dealt the mortal blow to Ariadne before shrinking the shield to contain the blast that inevitably occurred whenever one fought a gridbug leader. As soon as the battle was done, the hologram dissolved and she looked up at Quorra who had stood silently while she was looking through her disc.

“What’s your opinion on what has happened?” Ophelia asked as she handed the disc back to her friend and confidant.

“I have no-“

“Quorra,” she held up a hand, “be honest.”

Quorra nodded once before flipping her disc nervously in her hands, “I could have stopped them when they reached Zuse’s club.”

“I’m sure you could have,” Ophelia smiled sadly, “and for that I wished that you had. But what is past is past. There is nothing neither you nor I can do about it.”

“What about Zuse or Giles? Should they not be punished?”

Ophelia looked away. How could she explain that she believed Giles had made a mistake even though he had been correct other times? That she wanted to forgive him because of his dedication to her, even though it made him somewhat a little fanatical. She knew that Quorra would not see it that way, but she wanted to believe that what Giles had said in Zuse’s club was the truth – he did not know what would happen to Ariadne.

“I will speak to them,” she replied absently before looking back at Quorra, “you have done admirably.”

“Thank you,” the young Iso’s cheeks tinged a bit pink at the praise before she turned to leave.

“Quorra?”

“Yes?” the program turned around, curious.

“Your thoughts on Tron?”

“An efficient fighter, well adapted to-“

“Not that, what of his actions before Ariadne arrived?”

“Oh, that. Um, it seems that he was trying to help Leto escape from Central Control.”

Ophelia made a small noise of agreement before Quorra blinked a bit, puzzled, but when Ophelia would not elaborate, she shrugged and left, leaving her leader alone.

As soon as Quorra had left, Ophelia turned to stare out at the windows of on the 72^nd floor of the tower she lived in. She unhooked her own disc and transferred the hologram she had just seen from Quorra’s disc to her own. Fast forwarding the images, she stopped at a particular one and a faint but sad smile appeared on her face. Tron’s determined face filled the disc in the middle of his battle with Ariadne, a bit distorted by the hexagonal shielding he had in place. She recognized it as her own shielding that she had originally given to him so many cycles ago and was happy that he had utilized so efficiently as a barrier through his whole self.

She knew that he wanted her to remember him as he once was, not what he could be, but Ophelia allowed herself the glimmer of hope that perhaps she could remember him like this, the protector of The Grid.

* * *

Clu slowly spun the disc with the tips of his fingers as he reclined in a plush leather chair. It was the best that he could have done under the circumstances, though he had been hoping for more since the plan was enacted many cycles ago. He could have considered it somewhat of a victory in some respects. It would only serve to galvanize the isomorphic algorithms even more, perhaps making their strikes more open and therefore enable him to enact even more sanctions upon them for their disobedience.

They were disrupting the perfect Grid, disrupting his plans to make sure law and order were obeyed. He could not allow such randomness happen in his duty to create what Kevin Flynn had made him to do.

“You did your part Ariadne,” he whispered mostly to himself as he stared at her inactive disc. “Though you could have done more…”

The only real regret he had was that the Iso had not eliminated Tron. However, this battle proved to Clu that a more…personal touch was needed. It seemed that the security program was a lot hardier, especially being an import from the older system. A process occurred to him…perhaps it would be more efficient to utilize Tron’s unique hardiness and ability when the time came. Filing the process away under a few layers of encryption, he spun Ariadne’s disc once more with his fingers.

The poison he had his ‘rogue’ Guards unleash in the Sea was two-fold. Not only did it prevent more of those isomorphic algorithms from emerging, it was also an experiment upon which he wanted to see what it actually did to an isomorphic algorithm that was infected by it. The results were terribly disappointing at first, his spies everywhere reported that many of the programs affected by it just eventually derezzed. It was only Ariadne who had survived, adapted, and was able to utilize her abilities. Granted there were so many variables that could have happened before Ariadne’s demise, but he could not have predicted a better outcome than what had just happened.

If the isomorphic algorithms bickered and argued amongst themselves over what had happened, all the better for it; it would certainly prove to Kevin Flynn that his vaunted self-creations were nothing more than useless programs with no purpose other than to take up space in The Grid and eventually destabilize it.

“Sir, there are rumors of a rally to occur in the near future,” one of his Elite Guards reported in and Clu pressed a button on his chair to reply back.

“Deploy the units. I am sending a file for you to use on the explosives. Make sure that all of them are covered with the shielding,” he activated Ariadne’s disc and downloaded her shielding information to his own disc before sending it across an encrypted wireless. Tron was not the only one who was able to hide things across the pathways of the Grid.

“Make sure you know where the rally will be held. I will not tolerate failure,” he continued before releasing the button. Shutting Ariadne’s disc down, he brought up his own files and thumbed over to the one with the list of Isos that he had deemed a threat to the stability of The Grid. If this was just a rally like all others, then a majority of the leaders, Ophelia and Giles included would be present. Clu smiled and was about to close the file when he noticed a small glitch in one of the corners.

His smile grew wider as he picked out the glitch, pinching it with his thumb and index finger. “How interesting…” he murmured as he recognized the signature as Tron’s. He shrugged as he put the file back, noting to himself to use the glitch that Tron had evidently tried to hide, to hopefully lead the security program on a different course when the bombs were all set.

Perhaps it was good that Ariadne had not derezzed Tron, after all, Clu wanted the sole pleasure of eliminating the aggravating security program. An ancient and dated program, especially from the old system, was not needed in a perfect world.

~END~

Author’s Notes:

So ends Tron: Rebellion. I hoped you’ve all enjoyed it and while I understand that it probably doesn’t live up to Adagio’s standards, it was my attempt to continue on where the comics left off. I know that by writing this story, I have essentially made it into my own little universe of sorts, diverting from canon. A few things of note, one of which is the character of Ariadne – she is the only one of her kind, and my attempt to try to reconcile a plot thread that I had made up of where the gridbugs may have come from in the new system. One of the main reasons why I killed her off was because I did not want her to become a Mary Sue which is too common in many fanfics of any fandom whenever there is a female OC around. Since I had experience writing Mary Sues, I felt if she was left alive, she would have eventually become one, especially in her special and unique state.

Her name is also indicative of the chapter titles and what she is. In Greek mythology Ariadne helped Theseus slay the Minotaur by giving him a ball of yarn so he could successfully find his way out of the labyrinth. Her name is also looks very similar to the word arachnid. I imagined gridbugs to be like a hybrid spider/energy mass from early on, based on both Betrayal and the original Tron.

I also wanted to point out that in this story Giles only represents on faction of what is probably a very large Iso underground rebellion going on (and yes he blatantly lied to Leto regarding Ariadne). He represented the extreme side of things of one who has been continually frustrated at what’s been happening and I took this little thread from his lines in Betrayal when Flynn and Tron visit the Iso city. I also added some tension of my own in there and I don’t know if readers were able to see it, but in my stories, Giles is clearly jealous of the relationship between Tron and Ophelia, but adores Ophelia to the point where he would protect her even from his own actions (alas Ophelia also wants to see the best in Giles – sigh).

Short story equivalent: Yes, it is a bit soap opera-like. ^_^ I’ve been told, even by my Latin teacher way back in high school that I write stories like soap operas, plots-within-plots-within-plots, etc.

The only thing I have to say about Clu and his actions in here, implied or said outright, is that he is already falling off the deep end and started it by poisoning the Sea of Simulation. I will never forgive someone for someone who commits the genocide of a bunch of programs, even if they do not have a defined purpose in a system like The Grid itself.

Any other questions, concerns, comments can be directed towards me in a review, email, or PM. Thanks and I’ll see you on my next posting!