Chapter Text
Time seemed to slow as he waited for the end. Above the cliffside he’d been dragged over, Tron could just make out the light of Flynn’s portal flaring bright one last time before going dim. At least he could derez with the knowledge that the User had made it back to his world—that all was not truly lost. Flynn could find Alan-One, could make sure that Tron—some other, better iteration of him, at any rate—was restored to this grid to protect the system and its inhabitants.
This iteration had done his best, even if he’d ultimately failed. He could feel the need of the Grid calling for him, but lacked the strength to rise to meet it. All he could do was lie there, broken and, finally, beaten, his disc trapped beneath a pile of rubble, as the swarm of gridbugs tore him apart voxel by voxel. Alone as he was, with no one to protect or inspire, he could even let himself scream—for a while. Until they tear away his throat, at least.
The portal light was fading, his consciousness with it. His vision was dark around the edges, but still he saw, illuminated in that last weak corona, the silhouette of a program stepping up to the edge of the cliff. No, not a program—the figure had no circuits, emitted no light of its own. A User, then.
But no, that couldn’t be. A hallucination, surely; a misfire of his broken circuits. But the figure held out a hand, and suddenly a blinding-white lightstaff appeared. Tron could feel the mouths of countless gridbugs wrenching out of him as they turned to look, their attention drawn from his sputtering circuits to this new gleaming beacon, a more appetizing feast.
No, no, no, why had Flynn come back for him? The flash of peace he’d felt at knowing his friend was safe now fled, panic rising to take its place. He was too damaged to protect the User, too weak to protect himself. All he could do was cry, “No! Run,” with the last of his strength as the figure raised the staff to attack and vaulted off the edge of the cliff…
And then everything went dark.
He had never been programmed to require much rest, though even he could not function entirely without it. That hadn’t been as much of a problem on the old grid, when he never had to sleep alone, when he could let his consciousness fall away with the certainty that Yori was near, and would wake him if there was trouble. Ever since Flynn had transferred him to this grid, Tron rarely fell asleep with any ease, and once he got there he slept fitfully, his mind replaying images of past lives, past regrets—programs he had failed to save, lives ended by his own disc, the weapon forged of his very self.
This time, when he woke, gasping, reaching for that weapon—it wasn’t there. Someone else’s hands found him—found his body, anyway—trying to still his thrashing. A voice—not Yori’s, not familiar at all, but sweet and clear for all that—called out to him. “Easy, there. You’re alright, you’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
He turned his head, but didn’t recognize the program at his side. “My disc— ”
“It’s here,” she said hurriedly, reaching toward a surface behind him, then passing the disc into his hands. “It was caught in the rockslide, but—I think it’s in one piece.”
He sagged with relief as the edge lit up from his touch, a cursory glance enough to confirm that his code had not been altered or corrupted by the ordeal. “Thank you,” he sighed, and lifted his arm to replace it on his back—or tried to, anyway. He grit his teeth as a burst of pain from his left shoulder sent shock waves that wracked through him. Looking down, he saw that his body was now a jagged landscape of gouges and wounds.
“Oh lag,” the other program cursed, grabbing for him again, holding him still through the spasms. “Here, I’ll put it back, just—just take it easy, okay? There we go, I’ve got you. Easy, now.”
He let her click his disc back in its dock, let her ease him back to recline against a pile of soft, forgiving cushions. He was sprawled out on a broad surface that gave way strangely to the contours of his body yet still kept him supported, like being buoyed atop a perfectly-still lake. The strange program beside him sat on its edge, and reached toward a nearby tabletop to withdraw a bowl of pure, glowing, teal-blue energy. Into this she pressed a scrap of cloth, and wrung it out, and he watched as she pressed the damp cloth against the worst of his wounds, a hollow chunk missing from his abdomen where he’d been half-crushed beneath a boulder.
He could feel the energy rush into him, could see his own voxels begin to link themselves together and generate new ones, rebuilding the damage bit by bit.
“I was able to finish your back while you were offline,” the program said softly, her eyes on her work as she dipped the cloth back in the bowl, then applied more energy to the wound. “You woke when I turned you over. I’m sorry; I hoped you wouldn’t have to feel this.”
The sting of healing was very slight, given her gentle, meticulous administration—and it was nothing compared to the pain of the wounds being inflicted in the first place. He opened his mouth to tell her so, but the thought brought the attack to mind, and the wave of panic this memory inspired washed all other thoughts away. “The gridbugs,” he hissed instead. “They were headed for the city.”
“They were,” she agreed solemnly, her inflection assuring him that this was no longer the case. “They’re drawn to the energy. Nearly all the natural streams out here have been diverted to the cities now; they don’t know where else to go. I was trying to turn them back, but that group broke off from the others. They must have sensed you near, and thought you would make a fine meal.”
He hoped they’d choked on him as they derezzed. But did that mean...she had been the one to do so? He took a better look at his healer. Brown skin, darker brown hair that framed her round face in loose, jaw-length coils; full, plush lips and eyes so dark he could see the weak light of his weary circuits reflected back at him. She looked...soft. Pretty, and sweet. Not severe enough to be a Siren, let alone the brave, lone figure on the cliff who had saved him.
But who else could it have been? There was no one else around in this strange...place. They were in a cave of some sort, enclosed by dark stone walls carved so smoothly they seemed polished, which formed a round, open room with a domed ceiling. Shelves had been hollowed out of the walls to hold clothing and tools and strange objects he did not recognize, and pale golden lanterns illuminated all in a warm glow. The bed he laid on, the table beside it, and the desk across the way seemed the only flat surfaces, save for the floor. The mouth of the cave led out to a narrow, rocky stretch of the coastal Outlands and, just beyond, the Sea of Simulation. Looking out across the dark waves, he could not see the city, but rather the reflection of its radiant gleam stretching out over crests and swells.
Tron turned back to the program at his side, still diligently tending to his wounds, her touch gentle yet sure. “You...derezzed the gridbugs?” he asked carefully, trying to keep his disbelief out of his voice—trying to keep from offending the person currently healing him.
“I did not wish to,” she sighed. “But you are Tron! The Sea loves you! I could not let them harm you further.”
He frowned, uncertain of her meaning—or her sanity, perhaps. Or his own, for that matter. Maybe his code had glitched. Maybe that attack had dealt more damage than he’d realized. “That’s… But… But who are you?”
She looked up at him, meeting his eyes directly for the first time, a look of such bald astonishment evident on every plane of her face. He looked at her again, more purposefully this time: wearing a loose, one-shouldered gray tunic over an unarmored dark bodysuit, no circuits of any color that he could see. “Are you an ISO? A User?”
She laughed at that—and Tron tried to focus more on the fact that it sounded relieved than he did on the way her eyes sparkled as she did so. He wasn’t sure he succeeded.
“No, of course not,” she laughed, shaking her head, dipping the cloth back into the bowl of energy.
“Then who are you? What’s your purpose? Your name?”
Her laughter faded into a look of uncertainty, and he regretted being the cause because it had been such a nice laugh, but he needed to know. “I...am not sure how to answer you,” she said slowly, staring down at her lap as her hand swirled the cloth around in the bowl, then squeezed it out again. “No one has ever asked me such things before.”
He felt his frown deepen. “No one’s ever asked your name?”
“No,” she said, seeming not particularly disturbed by the fact, though he felt a little horrified. She moved the damp cloth to his right arm, where nearly half his elbow was missing. “The other programs I’ve met were not so curious about me. Or perhaps I am not so interesting.”
“That can’t be it.”
She met his eyes again, then shyly looked away. She was quiet for what felt like a long time, but he just waited and watched the shifting thoughtful expressions on her face—her scrunched nose, the way she chewed at her lower lip—and his elbow was nearly whole again by the time she began to give her answer.
“I...was made by the Sea. Before the others came, the ones you call ISOs. She wanted to know more about the Grid, and the programs who made it their home. So She poured a little of Herself into me—a very little, I’m so small and she is so vast… But She gave me what knowledge of Hers I could hold, and the capacity to hold some more, and She sent me out to the Grid to learn. So I watch and learn, and I tell Her all I find, and then She knows it, too. And She gives me what I need so I can stay living on the Grid—and I protect the Grid, when I can, and the programs who live on it, because She loves the Grid. That… That is my purpose, I think. If I have one. But…I do not think I have a name.”
She went silent again after that—which Tron found as a kind of relief. He needed a moment to...process all of that. It had never even occurred to him that the Sea of Simulation could...want anything, that it was capable of want, or thought, or desire. Alive, perhaps, or at least capable of producing life—he’d seen the ISOs firsthand, and knew them to be as sentient and emotional and capricious as any program. But the Sea itself..? And this strange...woman—not a program or an ISO or a User, but she had saved him from destruction… And she spoke of the Sea like a partner, like a friend...like a god.
But Tron himself had spoken to gods before. Some would even say he’d been speaking with one—if his internal chronometer was correct—less than a millicycle ago, when he’d put Flynn on the solar sailer and then ridden off to the Outlands to investigate the report of a gridbug swarm heading for the city. It wasn’t such a different concept, in that regard. She might not be any less sane than he was—although, he had to admit, lately he was really starting to have his doubts. Still…
“Flynn tells me stories about the User world sometimes,” he started to say, and was glad when she looked up and met his eyes again. “Of their histories, mostly. Means them as lessons, I suppose, but I’m not sure they always mean what he wants them to. But he told me, once, of a kind of User—Oracles, he called them. These Oracles could speak to their gods, and speak for them—on their behalf, I mean. And great kings would go to them in search of wisdom, and to beg for the gods’ favor. I suppose you’re something like that, hm? An Oracle. Flynn said…its name was Delphi. So maybe that could be your name, too?”
Her eyes were wide and dark and...marvelous, as he spoke. She sat up straight, still watching him with those eyes, and said, “Delphi…” Then again, more certainly, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips, “Delphi. That can be my name.”
“Delphi,” he echoed, smiling too because hers was so contagious. “It’s a nice name.”
“Is it?” she asked curiously, cocking her head to one side. “How do you know?”
Tron blinked in surprise, before realizing she wasn’t contradicting him—just asking honestly. She’d never had a name before. “Well, I...like the way it feels in my mouth, to say it. And it sounds good, too. It sounds like the sort of name I could hear, and—and think of you.”
“I see…” she said, nodding. Then, with a start, she grabbed the cloth again, and passed it over a few of the remaining, shallow scratches on his chest. “Thank you for answering. I think, perhaps, it was...an odd thing to ask. You’re the only program I’ve ever spoken with for this long. I’m afraid I’m...not very good at it yet.”
He reached up, curled a hand around her forearm and gave it a squeeze so she’d look up and meet his eyes again. “I think you’re doing great, Delphi.”
She smiled, and dropped her gaze back to her work again, bashfully. “...Thank you, Tron.”
He watched her in silence for a moment, glad he’d been able to make her smile again.
Maybe...too glad? He hadn’t had any partners on this grid—hadn’t had the time, let alone the inclination. Yori hadn’t wanted to be transferred over to this new grid, hadn’t understood why he had. Enough cycles had passed by now that he could think of her without longing or bitterness or regret, with nothing more than a wish that she was still safe and happy with that other, earlier version of him. But maybe...he’d spent enough time alone, as penance. He’d always functioned better with her around, with her decisiveness and clarity, with someone who understood him—as a program, not a hero or a figurehead or a savior—someone he could talk to, and care for, and be cared for in return. Maybe…
Maybe he could have something like that again.
“Well then, Oracle,” he began, drawing Delphi’s gaze to him once more. “I’m not exactly what one would call a king, but—if you have any wisdom for me, I’d be glad to hear it.”
Her emotions displayed so freely on her pretty face, and he watched with interest as her features shifted from surprise to delight to a wry, amused thoughtfulness at his request. “Hmm, let me see…” she said, tapping her finger against her chin as she let her gaze travel from his face down his body—considering him, or her nearly-finished handiwork, perhaps. He wondered if she noticed the way his circuits glowed brighter under the weight of her attention. He wondered...if she liked what she saw.
“My wisdom,” she declared solemnly, “is that if you intend to attack a swarm of gridbugs—you should be more sure of your footing.”
It startled a laugh right out of him—which ended in a strangled hiss, the movement jostling his left shoulder, still sporting the trace of a particularly hungry gridbug’s jaws. He was sorry to ruin the moment—things had been so strained, lately, that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed that hard.
He felt less sorry an instant later, when Delphi drew close and leaned into him, reaching across his body to press her cloth against the shoulder, her face nearly touching his.
“Oh no, I’m sorry,” she muttered, not seeming to notice their closeness though it had his full attention. “I shouldn’t have missed this…”
“It’s alright,” he told her, hoping he didn’t sound as dazed as he felt. In that moment, if she’d told him the whole arm needed to go, he’d probably grab his own disc and derez the joint on the spot.
But she opted to heal him instead, passing energy into his damaged bits until it was full and flush and good as new. She leaned back with a little satisfied nod and turned to him, their noses nearly touching. He saw her eyes widen as she realized their proximity—then seem to snag on something on his cheek that made her frown in displeasure.
“Oh— hold on, last one,” she said, lifting the cloth to his cheek. He fought to keep his eyes from closing, but couldn’t resist leaning into her. Her touch was soft, the faint brush of her fingers against his skin even softer, both of them gone too soon.
“There, now. All done,” she announced, drawing back from him, dropping her cloth in the now-empty bowl. “How do you feel?”
He looked down at himself, stretched out his arms and legs, surprised to see himself in one solid piece again. When Delphi stood to put the bowl away, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and hopped to his feet after her. “I feel good,” he answered honestly, taking a few experimental steps. He reached for his disc and retrieved it without pain, took a few practice swipes with both hands to be sure he had full range. “I feel really good. How do I look?”
He turned and found her watching him with an odd expression on her face—one he hoped might be something akin to appreciation.
“Marvelous,” she answered softly, and he thought that hope might not be misplaced.
He put his disc away again, and stood there looking at her, too. He wanted to stay here, in this strange place, with this strange Oracle—wanted to know more about the Sea, and about her life out here alone on the coast, and about her— what she liked and disliked, and how she spent her cycles, and whether she’d ever been to see the Games, and… And whether she wished to know such things about him, too.
But he had been away from his duties too long, away from the cities and their inhabitants, from the programs he was sworn to protect. His functionality had been restored, so now he could feel his purpose calling to him, demanding his service. What was a want in the face of a drive like that?
Biting back a sigh, he tore his gaze from Delphi and looked around for a baton, patting his empty thigh holsters. “I...don’t suppose you know where I left my lightcycle? I don’t have another, and it’s a long walk back to the city.”
It wouldn’t feel as long if she would walk it with him, he thought. But she wasn’t able to read his melancholic thoughts, and instead said, “Oh, yes! It should still be where you dropped it. Come, I’ll take you back there.”
He spun on his heel and followed her out the mouth of the cave, surprised when they passed through some invisible barrier there, the noise of wave crashing against shore suddenly roaring all around them. He looked back over his shoulder, and stumbled when he saw nothing but sheer rock. Reaching out a hand, he watched, fascinated, as his fingers passed through the stone without the least resistance. Some sort of disguise, transparent from within, seeming impassable from without, nothing to hint otherwise but for the pair of footsteps leading out of nowhere in the gravel below.
Tron turned, again, jogging a few steps to catch back up with Delphi, opening his mouth to ask something about it—and then finding all words fled from him as she glanced back at him and smiled, the wind off the Sea catching her hair and making it dance around her pretty face. Dumbly, he fell into step behind her, too enchanted by the fluid way she walked and the steady sway of her hips to be good for much of anything else at the moment. He felt as if a hook had pierced him through the chest—or someplace lower, more likely—and tugged him along by a wire that wrapped around her little finger. She could walk straight into the Sea itself, and he would stride placidly into its depths after her.
That...seemed to be what she was planning, actually. He opened his mouth again, not actually wanting to derez on the bottom of the seafloor this cycle, especially after she’d just gone to all that trouble patching him back up. But she stopped right before her boots touched the water, before he had to figure out what to say. He watched, fascinated, as she crouched down and lowered her cupped hand to the waves, then stood again with a palm full of the Sea.
Delphi looked at him, and smirked, and flung out her hand.
There, in the empty space beside him, the water she’d thrown arced and...hung. And spread. No, it rezzed…
Something. Something of the size and shape of a lightcycle, but without wheels and...floating above the ground. The whole thing was as clear and iridescent as a lightribbon—and as dark as the Sea. “Whaa—?” he said, eloquent as ever, lifting a hand to touch the thing. Unlike the disguised entrance to her home, this was solid against his fingers, cold and smooth as glass. “How did you..?”
“I told you; the Sea gives me what I need,” Delphi said, and he looked up to find her grinning at his reaction. As he watched, she passed a hand over her face, and in its wake a helmet rezzed, made of the same clear, iridescent material as the ‘cycle. She stepped up, threw a leg over the seat with practiced ease—somehow it held her weight, still floating above the ground. “Well?” she asked, eyeing him with an eyebrow raised, cocking her head to the space behind her. “Are you coming?”
He hoped she didn’t hear the obscene thing he muttered under his breath as he rezzed his own helmet and clambered on behind her, his arms around her waist.
Grid help him, he’d thought she was soft before. Now he knew she was, with the warmth of her pressed fully against him, her without a disc at her back to force any space between them—the curve of her belly under his arms, her wide hips between his thighs, her ass to his groin, all pliant and yielding against the solid facets of his armor.
“Hold on!” she called over her shoulder. Grid help him, he was trying.
And then they took off, and he had to grip her tighter. The thing was fast, as fast as his own lightcycle in the Arena if not faster, unhindered by the rough terrain but simply gliding right over it. He gave a whoop of pleasure, both heard and felt Delphi’s laughter in return, and he hoped he’d get the chance to race her in this thing sometime.
But he also tried to pay attention, to track the course they cut, tearing away from the coastline and out into the craggy Wastes, slicing down a valley and then shearing up a steep incline that made his circuits sing, rising up to the top of the cliffs. A breakneck pace, but a straightforward path—one he was sure he could follow again sometime, could find his way back to her.
They drifted to a stop near a faint glow of white circuitry, his lightcycle baton still pulsing where he’d dropped it. Tron peeled himself away from her body and stood, reluctant, torn between desire and duty. He stepped over to his baton and scooped it up, brushing dirt and gravel from it reverently, and turned to face Delphi. Behind her, dominating the horizon, the gleaming sprawl of the city named for him loomed, huge and spectacular, a beacon in the darkness, calling him home. He would not be him if he did not obey.
Delphi stood as well, her helmet derezzing as she stretched and strode to the very edge of the cliff, peering tentatively over at the spot where he had fallen. “You fell a long way,” she said. “I’m glad I found you in time.”
“So am I,” he laughed, moving to stand beside her. “I never thanked you for saving me, did I? Forgive me. Thank you, Delphi. For all of this.”
She turned and grinned up at him, the top of her head barely reaching the height of his shoulders. “It was my honor to help you, Tron. The Sea will be glad I did. I look forward to telling Her I met you.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling...odd to have the attention of something so great. Sure, he’d spoken with Users before, had walked with one in this world and listened to stories about the other. But they and their world were still so distant, so different— unseen and intangible, unknown and unknowable. The Sea was right here, present and permanent, as certain as the Grid beneath his feet. And it wanted to know about...him?
He thought of what Delphi had said, about being so small while the Sea was so vast, and he wondered if this was how she felt all the time. If so...she was made of sterner stuff than he was, not to collapse beneath that pressure.
“I, uh… I’m going to increase patrols around the city limits,” he told her. “Try to get a better handle on these gridbug swarms. And I’ll speak to Clu about reworking the aqueducts so we’re not totally stripping away the natural streams.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, but she nodded along. “I do think that would help. They’re not usually so aggressive, and they seem to know that programs are dangerous. I think if they could find energy elsewhere, they would leave the cities alone.”
“Right,” he agreed. “And if they did that, it’d save me a lot of trouble.”
“I’m sure it would,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “I don’t imagine you get a lot of down time.”
“No, I don’t. Between security and the Games… Well, there’s not much left. But...I do get some.” He looked down at his feet, shuffling uncomfortably, not sure what to do with his hands. “Maybe next time I had some, though, I… I could come visit you?”
“Visit me?” She sounded confused—maybe he’d made a mistake. She hadn’t met a lot of programs before, maybe she wasn’t ready for this sort of thing, wasn’t interested in anything of the kind… “You want… You want to see me again?”
His head snapped up, surprise forcing the words from his mouth, “Of course! ...Very much.”
“...Oh.”
Her reaction...wasn’t much to go on. He cleared his throat, not wanting to press her but determined to be certain, to make sure he wasn’t forcing her into anything—or getting his hopes up and making a fool of himself. Anymore than he already had, at least. “Do you, uh… Would you like to see me again too?”
“Of course!” she said, seeming as surprised by the question as he had been. And then her mouth spread into a brilliant grin, her dark eyes wide and glimmering as she reached out and rested her fingers against his chest. “Very much.”
Tron took a step forward, into her touch, laying his hand over hers to keep it pressed against him. He wondered if she could feel his circuits racing. He felt like he was tumbling over the side of the cliff again—this time, he was certain the landing would be infinitely softer.
“Then I’ll come see you,” he said softly. “It might not be for a while, but—as soon as I can. I promise.”
“I’ll be very glad to see you, whenever I do. Will you be able to find your way back to my home? I know it’s...not easily found.”
“I’ll find you,” he told her—and hoped she knew that this was a promise, too. “I’ll walk the whole perimeter of the Sea if I have to.”
She scrunched her nose and laughed at the thought. “That’s a very long way. I will ask Her to watch for you, and to bring you to me if you are lost. Save you the trouble.”
“I’d appreciate it.” He stood there, gazing down at her, trying to let this vision of her sear itself into his memory, to tide him over until he could see her again. He had to leave, he knew he did, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength to step away.
And so she was the first to do so, stepping back, still smiling at him; letting her hand slip free from his felt like losing a critical piece of himself. “Your city needs you, Tron,” she said. “I think I must give you back to them now.”
“For now, Delphi,” he amended. “But I’ll come back to you soon.”
“Yes,” she agreed—and perhaps it was the certainty in her voice, of her faith in him, that allowed him the strength to activate his baton, to rez his lightcycle, as she walked back to hers. Perhaps that was how he managed to turn from her and ride away. He was sure he couldn’t have done so without her help, somehow.
Some part of himself rode away with her, of that he was certain. He hoped it would be enough to keep her company—keep her safe, come what may—until he could be with her again.