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"Why did you hunt me?" he asked her. "Why did you flee?"
"I hunted you because I love you more than mortal man has ever been loved by a woman. And I fled you because it is not given to mortals to love the endless. Only disaster can follow from this."
-Dream and Nada, "The Doll's House"
She runs. Her legs burn with taxed energy reserves, and the sounds of her footfalls seem to be thunderclaps each time she takes a step. She runs, and runs, and does not look back. She does not need to. She knows in the deepest corners of her root code that she is pursued.
She runs through the neon lit darkness, on the streets the ISOs designed, through the city that carries his name, tucked away in a corner of the vast house that Flynn built. He created this world. Created the functions, and designations of the programs she has lived, and fought beside for a full third of her runtime. They fight for Flynn’s world, for their directives, for freedom. The fight for the Users. But the User is here, somewhere in this vast system, hiding. Running. Just as she does now.
Not away from her hunter, but away from the others. The prey he has been sent after. The resistance has dwindled so badly in the past centicycle, and each raid occurring within scant micros of her last location. He is hunting them, but always staying one step behind her. She is a danger to them, and when she realized it, she fled without so much as a ping. She must go, she must face him herself, alone. On the battlefield of dreams, and lost love.
The bridge arcs over the lower levels of the city. It is close, and as she runs, she sees the line of three Recognizers rising beyond the pylons in synchronization. Three heads of the same beast. She grimaces, and course corrects to the edge of the bridge. She does not break her speed, only draws a baton from it’s place on her hip.
”Always carry two, it’s safer that way.”
She had laughed lightly, and traced the edge of his jawline. He leaned into it, eyes smiling though he tried, always, to remain a sternly serious Security program when talking to her about safety upgrades.
“But I am always safe with you.”
Memory files, and ghosts of the past on every street corner, now. She couldn’t afford to give them any space in her priorities. Not now.
Because as the Recognizers rose like a trio of colossus, three red lightjets rose to flank them as well. It was a deep ache in her code, but she knew which of those maneuverable, one-man crafts was his.
The edge of the bridge came, she used another of his lessons to use a public dataport to launch off of. And she is airborne. She is falling. Her hands grab hold of her baton, but she waits a count of 00, 01.
One of the red lightjets breaks formation, banks sharply, dives for her.
She breaks the baton in her hands, her own blue-circuited lightjet rezzing into existence around her. Laying on the throttle, the blue jet kicks off, banking sharply to fly .058 degrees on the parallel. Away, away, follow me, my love.
The red lightjet twists in a precision pirouette around her craft, and for one shivering fraction of a micro, she sees the glitter of her blue lights reflected in his black helmet. Her chest aches, her eyes burn, but she smiles at him regardless. I have missed you.
The hunting party peels off from their set trajectory, and correct their course to follow her blue lightjet. The hunt changes now, for their functions are dependent on his. Where he goes, the beast with many heads must follow.
She sends a silent prayer of thanks to the Users. Thank you, Lora-b. Thank you, Alan-1. Please hear us. Hear me. Please…save him.
The blue lightjet rolls, banks, dances for a moment with the red. It would seem teasing, playful; another memory caught out of place. A memory of happier times. Of learning how to fly the prototypes with him there to teach her, to chase her, and eventually catch her.
He always caught her, no matter how cleverly she tried to evade, or how far above him she tried to fly. Now, she needed every lesson, and every memory of shared of joy to reach out across the pain, across rewrite, and the lying smile of a monster in disguise. She teased, and played, allowing herself a single bittersweet smile when he followed her, rather than the designated target; the ISO’s safehouse. She bought the Resistance time to evacuate, and though it felt as though she might scream, cry, or crash to do it, she led the hunter away.
Greetings, Tron.
Away at .058 degrees on the parallel. Away in her own memories. When both lightjets were blue, and the cloud line hid the lovers from the world, she danced, and darted to, and fro, reveling in every matched move he made.
Greetings, Yori.
She only smiled when the jet’s systems informed her of target lock.