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"What is your favorite color?"
Tron paused mid-step and waited a whole ten flops for context before he was forced to peer sideways at Quorra's expectant look. "Excuse me?"
"What is your favorite color?" the ISO repeated patiently, smile widening just a centimeter for good measure.
Tron slowly lowered his tablet, sensors alert. "Is something wrong?"
The smile vanished. "Why would anything be wrong?"
"The question is outside even your usual behavioral patterns. I thought I would save time by jumping to the thread's conclusion."
"Well, you jumped to the wrong block." She was actively frowning now, and Tron shifted his weight warily, trying to ignore how his hold automatically shifted on the tablet as if it were a disc he could fling. "Just answer the question - what's your favorite color?"
"I don't have one - "
"Just pick one!"
"Green," a randomizer query spat out.
Quorra's expression tightened in a way that he could not interpret, internal conflict clearly brewing before she abruptly said, "Pick another one."
This time, Tron prioritized caution below exasperation. "Quorra, you just told me to - "
"I know what I said! Pick another one! Preferably black, red, brown, yellow, white - "
"Why don't you just tell me what I should pick?" Tron rolled his eyes.
"It's not the same!" she growled back, "Now just pick one or do you need me to translate that into hexcode for you - "
"Fine, white!"
Quorra's face immediately cleared. "Okay!" she chirped brightly, and Tron barely had time to adjust his own stance to her suddenly un-threatening one before she was striding briskly away.
Tron struggled for a moment with the flurry of half-executed processes that had been stirred by the confrontation before he was forced to simply continue on his way, tagging the encounter so that it appeared under a catch-all category which included 'users', 'ISOs', and 'undefined'.
Tron eyed the yellow lines criss-crossing the doorway dubiously.
The entrance normally led to what Sam had labeled a 'closet', which apparently meant a recycle bin of sorts, as the user tended to toss in all his scraps, unwanted items, or lesser-used code until Tron feared for the limits of its compression algorithms. The one time he had witnessed Sam attempt to retrieve rather than submit something, the user had poked half-heartedly through its contents for only a few nanocycles before declaring that he didn't need whatever he had been looking for and moving on.
Now there were broad, yellow strips adhered in a messy web all across the opening, black diagonals slashing across their golden glow at regular intervals but for bold, blocky letters declaring, "POLICE ONLY - DO NOT CROSS" running in a scrolling marquee across their surfaces. Sam had explained once that 'police' were user security forces, charged with maintaining the public peace, which Tron extrapolated to mean included himself. Thus, he felt fully justified when he reached out to delicately pluck one of the lines from its anchors.
"Tron! What are you doing!"
Tron halted, turning his head with an arched brow only to find Sam running at him from the living area's opposite entrance. All routines abruptly on alert, he snatched his hand back just before the user could slap it away, then automatically reached for the Flynn's collar and dragged them both backwards, scanning and querying the closet entrance with everything he had. "What's the nature of the threat?"
"Jesus, Tron, let go! What's gotten into you?"
"What's gotten into me?" Tron echoed disbelievingly, finally stopping his backward drag and at least letting Sam get his feet under him, though he didn't let go of the user's collar yet. "What's the nature of the threat!"
"There is no threat!"
"Then why were you running and yelling at me?"
"I didn't want you to get - I didn't want you to disturb that!" Sam waved at the yellow web before knocking Tron's grip off his shirt and tugging it straight with an exasperated noise. "Can't you read? It says police only!"
"Am I not a 'police'?" Tron asked querrulously as he folded his arms.
"You are a kind of police."
Tron's eyes narrowed. "So, a subset, which should still qualify."
Interestingly, Sam shifted his feet with a glance aside, signs which Tron had come to associate with falsehood, or, at the least, evasiveness. "Look, you're like - you're like an instantiation of the superclass, but it's not like you inherited access to all its global variables or ... well, no, that doesn't work either - look, just stay out of there for now, all right? I promise, I'll let you in when it's done."
"When what's done?" Tron pressed with a subtle lean.
Disappointingly, this was one time in which Sam did not fold before the pressure. "Hey, stop that, will you? Look, I'm just doing some rennovating - I'm almost done! Just don't want people wandering in and falling into some hole I missed or something. You'll get to see it soon, buddy, and you'll love what I've done with the place - promise," the user declared with a smile that reminded Tron disturbingly of Quorra's from just the previous microcycle.
Finally convinced that he wouldn't be getting anything more out of Sam during the next few centicycles, Tron could only grudgingly respond with, "Fine."
Tron was deep within the foundations of the arena center when he felt it.
"Tron? What is it?" Shaddox asked, pausing his own diagnostics of the latest arena rennovations.
He held up a hand for silence as he bent down, touching his hand to the nearest surface. "Why is the portal open?" he murmured, trying to parse the reports he was receiving.
"You ... can sense the portal opening?"
The alarm in the architect's query was expected, but not the question. However, Tron was too busy trying to decipher the data he was receiving to chase down that particular suspicion - there were much more important matters occupying his processor time right now. "I have custom privileges granted me by both Kevin and Sam Flynn. Since then - " ... since Clu ... " - I've set special monitors on the portal's use. But someone's obscuring the ID tags ... something's wrong."
"Wait - Tron!"
He looked back in surprise when he felt Shaddox's grip on his arm, and there was a brief clash of subroutines that both assured him the architect was a friendly and identified the program's evident distress as suspicious. "Shaddox, I have to go. Sam wasn't scheduled to depart for another microcycle at least - "
"Hold on, Tron, I was just going to say that it's going to take a while to get over to the portal anyway. Why don't you tell Quorra up top that we're aborting the tests, and let her go take a look - "
Tron blinked in disbelief. "You are prioritizing the arena diagnostics over a major security concern? And suggesting that I send the ISO in my stead?"
Shaddox had the grace to look faintly embarrassed, but notably, did not let go. "Come on, Tron, why don't you just ask Sam directly? It will be faster than trying to get there physically yourself."
It was a logical and efficacious suggestion, but Tron had a hunch, and he had learned the painful lesson of ignoring his hunches. "I will," he nodded, and Shaddox looked relieved as he finally let go. "While I'm on the way there," Tron finished as he turned promptly on a heel and trotted toward the exit, ignoring the architect's belated splutter of protest.
As a security program, Tron was supposed to pick out patterns. There were patterns of events that allowed him to extrapolate potential threats, patterns of actions that allowed him to ferret out ill intent, even patterns of code that allowed him to pinpoint weaknesses in the seemingly randomized chaos of encryption. It was not dificult to see that there was a conspiracy brewing amongst those closest to him ... and he had already had his fill of those.
"Tron ... Tron ... will you just wait for a moment - "
Tron lengthened his strides when Shaddox sounded like he was gaining, all but running now as he rounded a corner that would bring him up one of the cycle ramps to the arena floor -
Quorra yelped, wide-eyed, as they nearly collided. Tron automatically sidestepped, slanting his body around her with one arm flung out for balance. A grip unexpectedly clamped down upon its wrist, turning him fully to face the grim face of Shaddox, and Tron was just resigning himself to the need to attack a friend once more when he felt a slim hand slap upon the disc interface upon his back - Quorra, behind -
[CMD: FORCE SLEEP]
[STATUS: STANDBY]
Tron grasped the couch's back and flipped himself over and behind it, almost before all routines had come fully online. One hand bent back behind him to touch the reassuring edge of his disc, he strained his sensors for every report he could scrape from the system, searching ... searching ...
... for nothing. There were no threats. There were no errors.
And the portal was now closed.
With some processor time free, now, to consider more than just immediate perils, he frantically ran sim, after sim, after sim, trying to match current events to a plausible scenario. What could possibly have allied a user, an ISO, and a Grid 1.0 program who had resisted even Clu's reign against him? Perhaps they feared the remnants of Rinzler's influence? But Sam had assured him cycles ago that it was over, that Alan_One had purged all remnants of it, and why would they put him down now after all these cycles of acceptance, only to leave him unfettered as he woke with his weapon at hand ... ?
As Tron slowly straightened, his eyes raked over the room, seeking anything out of place in spite of his previous scans. Sam's abode looked just as it had always been, with perhaps a few commonly used articles moved here or there; some extra tools left out, when he had been tinkering with lightcycle programming. The closet was now free -
Tron blinked as he slid closer to the door, barely aware that he had undocked his disc, its comforting hum warming his palm.
The yellow strips had been cut. Now they dangled limply from their anchors, curled streamers like the lightwall remnants of shattered cycle contestants. Jaw set grimly, Tron raised his disc in preparation, shifting his weight upon the balls of his feet ... and giving a silent command to activate the door as he plunged through.
Bedlam greeted him upon the other side. He had already targeted, released, and dodged before he processed the shrieks - Happy birthday, Tron! - and eye-watering flashes of lights, except that the unfathomable message was now a truly indecipherable mix of screams as bodies flung themselves out of the way of his rebounding disc. Programs - even brighter and more colorful than usual - were scrambling in all directions while Quorra, Sam, and Shaddox tried to duck and wave frantically at him at the same time.
"No - Tron, stop! Hold on, don't attack - stand down, stand down!"
Tron caught his disc, and though he cocked it in preparation, he did not release. The screams died down, and everyone peeked hesitantly out from under arms, furniture, and fellow program bodies. Sam looked warily about, and when it appeared that no one was going to be making any precipitous movements, slowly straightened up from his crouch. "Uh ... hey, Tron. Uhm ... surprise!" he grinned, all teeth and wild eyes and no certainty at all behind the expression.
Tron eyed the light-streamers festooning the ceiling, punctuated by clumps of what looked like dangling bits that had somehow been convinced to stay herded in designated clusters. Energy had been coaxed into flowing patterns around the room's contours, until it was almost dizzying to stare at any surface for too long. Programs - all familiar - filled the initially comfortable space until it felt crowded, attired with inexplicable headgear and bearing all manners of bright, color-clashing toys and devices. When everyone had ducked, he had glimpsed a strange, white object resting upon a table in their midst; rectangular and edged by all sorts of colorful patterns upon its top face.
"Sam. What is going on?"
"We, uh, we're throwing you a surprise birthday party."
"A ... what?" Expressions and body languages began to ease as Tron slowly docked his disc. There were old references struggling to surface ... birthdays. Kevin had mentioned birthdays. They were the days in which they could expect that he would not be on the Grid.
"A birthday! Uh ... " Sam glanced sideways and abruptly nudged the ISO forward with an even wider grin that looked like it strained his face's rendering parameters. "It was Quorra's idea!"
Tron turned with a perplexed look. "Is it Sam's birthday?"
Quorra immediately scowled, the same scowl she had worn when he had challenged her queries about his favorite color. He now understood that it appeared whenever she thought he was being uncooperative. "No, it's your birthday."
Tron could feel the furrows in his brow draw even deeper. "I do not have a birthday - programs don't have birthdays. Users have birthdays."
Quorra flapped a hand in a gesture that he could only assume she had picked up in the user world; it was nothing that translated amongst programs. "Don't be ridiculous, everyone can have birthdays. Everybody has an originating date."
A nanocycle's calculation was all it took. "But this timestamp neither matches my creation date or my last signed revision date."
Quorra huffed, but instead of looking even more exasperated, she abruptly looked kind and stepped forward to take his hand. "It is one user year since the day you came back to us," she said as she gave him a little tug, and he calculated backwards, only to halt as he was forced to contemplate the events which the range of microcycles encompassed.
The day of the Reintegration.
The day the Grid became free once more.
The day he fell in the Sea.
He only noticed that he had blindly followed her pull when Sam was close enough to clap a hand to his shoulder. "She attended an office party at Encom," he confided quietly, "and became obsessed with doing one too. But none of our birthdays were this close, and, well, I think you're as good an excuse to celebrate as anything, right?"
He didn't know what to think. Conversation was growing to a dull roar as the programs relaxed and began chatting amongst themselves, bright energy drinks swirling as beverages were passed around. Tron blinked as he was brought to the central table, and saw that the white object was some sort of decorated box, its textures complex, with a single message written in a script font upon the top: Happy Birthday Tron! All around its edges were embedded short, colored sticks, and upon their tips hovered ever-shifting fractals in a golden light, like miniature fireworks tethered to their ends.
"They are called candles," Quorra explained pedantically, perhaps enjoying a reversed role as the ambassador for user culture this time instead of playing the eternal student. "They can hold fire on their tips. The user custom is to make a wish and then blow them out."
"Blow them out?" Tron repeated numbly, feeling dangerously out of synch.
"Yes. In the user world, when you stream enough air over fires, they will extinguish," Quorra exemplified with a flick of her fingers like the burst of a firework.
He stared, feeling as if he was unable to tag anything in this situation with a proper type, much less give them a meaningful sort. These were user customs, yet he was not a user. This seemed like a celebration of sorts, which was meet considering the significance of the date, but it was centered upon the wrong designate. "What am I supposed to wish for?" he asked, his only resort, the blind execution of any instructions that sounded even halfway reasonable.
"Anything! You get to wish for anything you want, and if you blow out all the candles in one breath, it comes true!" Quorra declared excitedly, as if she were the lucky participant instead. "Oh, and you're not supposed to say what it is! Otherwise, it won't come true. Now come on, hurry, everyone's waiting!"
Only then did Tron think to look around again, and indeed, faces were all turned expectantly toward him.
It was different from the arena, where he was - had been - masked. It was different even when he had fought close enough to the edges to pick out individual features from the blurred masses. There, they had screamed for him, and he knew what they wanted, and gave them what they needed.
Here, he could see each and every one of their smiles as they raised their glasses, and he didn't know what was expected of him at all.
"Happy birthday to you - "
He leaned over the table's edge and tried to think of what he could possibly want. Something that he did not need to tell anyone ... something selfish.
" - happy birthday to you - "
It was stored carefully away, backed up on his disc, with a snapshot of the room as it was at this very moment.
" - happy birthday dear Tron - "
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes; cleared his active memory ...
" - happy birthday to you!"
... and blew.
The white box had been a 'cake'. Quorra had explained that it was vanilla, and that he had made a good choice with white, but tactfully suggested that the next time he go with black, as it apparently equated to something called a 'black forest dark chocolate cake' which was superior.
There were gifts, afterward; well wishes made tangible, wrapped in bright-colored skins and fanciful texturemaps, engendering appreciation or laughter depending on the giver's stats in aesthetics, empathy, and humor. He had accumulated more in one centicycle than he could ever remember possessing in his entire run-time.
Sam had tossed him an ordinary datapad that had contained an extraordinary set of specifications, then lured him away from the celebrating programs to show off the actual lightcycle that they belonged to. There was a nudge in the middle of his back after they reached the workshop, the room made shadowy by a single cone of light in its center, and Tron was left to enter alone as Sam hung back to watch.
Bare specifications could only speak of the cycle's performance; there was something more to its design that spoke loudly of a Flynn's signature. Father and son alike possessed a flair that was either unique to them or unique to users, who possessed the ability - the imagination - to invent something completely new instead of merely improving on what already existed.
But even as Tron's fingers twitched with the subconscious desire to run over sleek curves and feel the subliminal hum of leashed power beneath him, it was something else entirely that possessed his full attention now.
"Greetings, Tron."
"Al - Alan_One," he whispered as the figure pushed away from the cycle, unaware he had stopped until the user was the one to cover the last few steps between them.
Their eyes met, perfectly level. It was his own face looking back at him, though changed, as Kevin Flynn's had been. There was an expression there that Tron had never seen before - correction, something that he had never seen directed at him before. Because it looked a little bit like how Kevin had looked, when the first ISOs had emerged; when they had begun to build their delicate spline-based cities. Whenever he had talked about Sam, at each significant revision of the younger user's development.
A little awed ...
"Tron," the user said, and it was his voice too, and it shook him to the core to realize that his user sounded just like he did when speaking of Alan_One in turn.
A little wondering ...
"I cannot tell you how much of a privilege it is to finally be able to meet you in person."
Filled with the utmost trust and faith.
As a hand clasped his and pulled him into an embrace, Tron closed his eyes and carefully committed another file to disc and memory.