Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the smallest corner of ENCOM, late at night, the last in the office, there lay one remaining blue computer screen, glowing into the eyes of a pale, hunched-over girl. Her eyes stared into the light, unblinking, deeply absorbed into the content that occupied her with utmost concentration. Her fingers, calloused and bony, clacked away loudly at the keyboard between herself and the screen.

She paused momentarily, taking a slurp of coffee, before drowning herself once again in the world behind the screen that consumed her. Just glancing at her, anyone could tell just how disconnected she looked from the world around her. Nothing could drive her away from the screen, as if she was possessed by the computer itself. When Cassandra Miller sat at her computer, it could be hours before she got up from it again. When she sat down at her desk, it was like she entered an invisible, soundproof sphere that blocked out anyone or anything that tried to interact with her.

Everyone at the office had eventually learned to not approach her, try to make conversation, and simply ignore her, because when seated in front of her computer Cassie Miller was almost like a computer herself, endlessly toiling away at the work that enveloped her.

No one at Encom ever thought there’d be someone more of a workaholic than Alan Bradley, but a few months earlier their new hire, Cassie, had blown his record out of the ballpark. Here she was still at the office at 11:50 PM, hours after the last employee had gone home. It was like this every time. There was no need for her to work overtime. If anything, she was far ahead of her timeline. It was simply that she found passion in her work.

Cassie’s dedication and love towards programming were inhuman, but the work that she produced was beyond anyone’s comprehension. Yet, all they could do was marvel at what she produced. Every product Cassie created was revolutionary in itself, groundbreaking and awe-inspiring.

Cassandra had her pick of the litter from the largest computer technology corporations when she graduated with a master's in computer science at 22, thanks to the multiple computer science breakthroughs she was accredited with and the countless awards under her belt. It was no surprise that she chose ENCOM, the corp that just recently rose as one of the world’s leading computer companies. She began right when Kevin Flynn assumed control as the company’s CEO.

So why was she an intern, when she could’ve started at a higher position without any prior experience? She simply showed no interest in materialistic values that others sought, such as promotion, and personally requested to start as an intern like all other new hires… but the reason why she was still an intern several months later was that she had terrible teamwork skills.

As a programmer, Cassie was a genius who promised greatness in her future, with high expectations from others to contribute much to the world. As a person? All the others at Encom loathed her. Unsympathetic, antisocial, haughty, blunt. People-hater. Robot-lover. She wasn’t a good person to work with, so the others didn’t mind that she preferred seclusion and working independently.

The only thing that made Cassie seem remotely human was her hobbies and interests outside of computers. When she wasn’t secluded at her computer, droning away at the infinite lines of green code for hours at a time, she was in the studio where she was a member, blowing off her steam and keeping her body fit by practicing jiujutsu. She never went competitive, only stuck to it as a pastime because it was stress-relieving. Let her get away from all her woes.

She read religiously, almost every wall in her apartment was adorned from floor to ceiling with shelves of texts. What Cassie enjoyed most when she wasn’t working was sitting on the couch with a blanket, a cup of coffee, and a good book. She loved music, and she couldn’t be caught without a pair of headphones around her neck and a walkman at her belt. Music is what motivated her to keep pressing forward throughout her entire life (besides sheer willpower) to help her shoulder the pressures and expectations of those around her, of the complex assignments and research in graduate school that she was conflicted by when she was still a teenager. Whenever there was a stubborn roadblock in her work, she’d flip a cassette tape into her walkman and pop the headphones over her ears, and everything would be okay again. She would often tune out the chattering of her coworkers with an electric guitar and euphonious vocals blasting into her ears, which helped to further cocoon herself into her inner world, to escape from everything, and simply throw herself entirely into what she loved: programming.

But no one at Encom knew any of this about her. “Simply a computer herself,” they would say about her out of earshot.

Well, except for the company CEO. Kevin Flynn.

And Cassie hated him.

He was too… laid back. Unserious. Imprudent. Cassie could tell he was just as passionate about computers, but god was he terrible at managing his company. He never had a Plan B, when something went wrong he would shrug it off and leave it to his advisors to scramble in panic and try to fix it. His ideas and projects were amazing, but he was too lax and inconsiderate to consider the possibility of anything going wrong, and when he did flesh out his projects he always left wide holes in his carelessness. When problems arose, he just shrugged, scratched the back of his head, went “oops,” and then did it all over again. He never seemed to learn from those mistakes.

And it drove. Her. Insane.

Flynn was a good guy and fellow genius, but Cassie really didn’t think he was cut out to be the leader of a world-leading computer technology corporation.

However, her perception of him would come to change all too soon.

“Cassie… Cassie! You still here at the office?”

Cassie was snatched from her deep stupor by the voice of Alan Bradley, her senior. He was also the head of her team and supervised her duties. He was the only person in this godforsaken place that actually treated her like a human.

“Of course I am. I have to get this project done, Mr. Bradley. I don’t think I could fall asleep tonight if don't get it done now.” Cassie replied in dazed mumbling and reached for her coffee again. Alan took it before she peeled her fingers around it.

“And this blue light isn’t good for your eyes, at least turn on your desk light.” He followed carrying out that action, and only then could he see the dark circles that illuminated underneath Cassie’s eyes, the paleness of her complexion, and her hair looking as if she hadn’t bothered to brush it when she got out of bed that morning.

“Good god Cassie… you have to take better care of yourself. I know you’re a genius and all, but believe me when I say you’re doing exceptionally . This project you’re working on is due in three weeks! There’s no need for you to be working overtime like this. And, for the last time, just call me Alan, please.”

“Mr… I mean, Alan. Every time I have work I just have to get it done. I’m so close already, I’ll lose my momentum if I stop now.” Cassie only continued to insist stubbornly.

Alan sighed and shook his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose. This girl was a piece of work . And he thought he couldn’t deal with anyone more dedicated to his job than he was. Cassie was extraordinary, and no doubt a coding prodigy. Yet, he feels like what she has available to her right now isn’t enough to challenge her. People would consider what she’s doing pushing herself too far, but for a almost computer-like mind that Cassie possesses, it simply wasn’t enough . She yearned for more and the company wasn't giving her that.

Though, the fact remained that what she was doing was too much of a strain on her body. Alan was worried about her physical health. Sitting at a desk for hours at a time, staring at a blinding screen without any break can really break someone. What Cassie had done in a few months was more than a regular employee at Encom had completed in five years, but it was evident that she needed to get on a healthier and normal routine.

“Cassie… Please, just go home. I’m saying to you as your manager. I insist that you go home, take care of yourself, and get a good night’s rest. Hunching over a computer and staring at a bright screen all day can really do a number on you, trust me.”

Cassie sat there contemplating his request, before, begrudgingly, shut down her computer and stood up from her desk for the first time in the entire day, scoffing. She took up her bag and headed for the exit. She couldn't defy an order from her superior.

"Fine. See you tomorrow, Mr. Bradley."

Alan chuckled lightheartedly and spread out his arms in weariness. "And I told you for the last time Cassie, just call me Alan!"

He was only answered by the swinging of the door, followed by the echoes of its banging.

"Well well, what do we have here? How are you doing today, Cass?"

Cassie refused to even glance at her boss, the CEO of Encom. Who she just happened to get into the same elevator as. This was already the sign of a long, bad day.

"What, I'm just trying to be friendly to my employees! Cut me a little slack, Cass, do you hate me that much? What did I even do for you to be so stiff towards me?"

"It's Ms. Miller, Mr. Flynn. Please do not refer to me under such casual terms, if you may. I don't know you well enough to permit you to call me by name." Cassie shot coldly, still refusing to look in his direction.

"Ouch. I can feel the sting on that one. And 'permit?' Geez! Can you blame me for just trying to form a bond?"

Cassie reached her floor and immediately took her leave without response, in an attempt to lose Flynn.

"Aw, come on! I was thinking, how about we go drinking after work? I've seen everything you've accomplished for us in the past few months, I'll treat everyone to drinks in celebration! How about it, huh? And just call me Flynn!" Flynn followed after Cassie, persistent to form a good relationship with her.

"Tomorrow is a weekday, Mr. Flynn , and I would prefer not to. I would not want to be hungover on a workday. And, it can be seen as rather undignified for a CEO to go drinking with his much younger, female intern. Now, will you please leave me alone and let me get to my duties, instead of bothering me?"

"Okay okay... hey, what're you listening to right now? Bon Jovi? Some Van Halen? Mötley Crüe, Duran Duran, Journey, AC/DC? You got some taste I wouldn't expect from you, but I like that about you! It's radical, man!"

Cassie turned to face Flynn for the first time, the pissed expression on her face showing she was just about fed up with him. The beet-red flush also hinted at her embarrassment. It was enough to make Flynn realize he should probably lay off her.

"I would do better than to announce my music taste to the entire office, Mr. Flynn. And if you would, I would use more appropriate vocabulary in a professional setting rather than such casual slang as 'radical.'  Now, for the last time, Mr Flynn, will you please care to act like an actual CEO of one of the world's leading tech companies?"

Nothing more of a sight than an intern bossing her literal boss around.

"Alright, I got it... But hey, it couldn't hurt for you to take a break and have fun once in a while, right? You're always so rigid and serious ."

"Frankly, it would help you plenty for you to learn to do the same as the CEO of one of the world's leading computer technology corporations, Mr. Flynn. Now, have a good day."

Flynn was left behind in the hallway, with the sound of Cassie's clicking heels growing further away.

"I would stop bothering that one, Flynn. She's not a people person, so don’t try to force it on her.”

Flynn turned to face his partner, the man he trusted most.

“Alan, man! I don’t know what to do with her. Cass' a genius but refuses to work with the others. What she makes on her own is amazing, but if I could just convince her to cooperate with the rest of the team, I think what she could make would turn out even better. Instead, she just holes herself up at her desk all day and refuses to talk to anyone except when it’s about work. Honestly, I never thought I’d meet anyone more stuck up than you.”

“Wow, thanks for that, Flynn. I appreciate you too.” Alan groaned with a sarcastic, weary reply.

“What? You’re a workaholic man, it’s true. But that girl is way worse than you. And aggressively antisocial. But seriously, why won’t you try to get her to engage with the rest of the team? You’re her supervisor!” Flynn slapped Alan on the shoulder, carefree and oblivious.

“You think I haven’t tried already, Flynn? I’m the only one Cassie will even talk to because I’m her boss, and, get this, she told me that I ‘was the only one out of everyone in this miserable place that seemed worth interacting with!’ She likes those computers more than us.” Alan brushed Flynn’s hand off his shoulder, taking a few steps forward.

“That so? Well then, I’ll just give her a reason to talk to us. I swear to God, Alan, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong as CEO. I’m trying my best here. Everyone else here at the office seems to like me except her!” Flynn threw his arms up to express his frustration.

Alan advised Flynn in his response, “Well… she has certainly vocalized multiple things on what she thinks you’re doing wrong. Daily. And I must say, she’s not exactly wrong on most of her points. But, yes, I do agree that she’s too harsh. She’s too harsh on everyone here, Flynn. She has high expectations because her skillset is more advanced than most people.”

“Ugh… What a piece of work, that one. What does she know about running a world-leading technology company? She’s fresh outta graduate school, and thinks she’s some hot shot just because she’s accomplished more than most people her age,” Flynn paused for a moment in contemplation, before his expression cleared, noting as if he had realized something. “Actually, you know what? Don’t worry about it anymore Alan, I’ll give her some space for the time being. Talk to you later, man.”

And then Flynn was gone the moment he arrived.

Alan knew he was very busy nowadays as the CEO of ENCOM, but sometimes he would disappear for days at a time without notice. (One of the many disapprovals Cassie had expressed to him when expressing her criticism towards Flynn’s authority.) Normally, Alan fretted over every little thing Flynn did, especially when it was something stupid and risky (which was nearly all of his decisions), but he decided to take it lightly this time.

Well, at least he was laying off her, Alan thought. The girl clearly had these bad socialization issues because she came from a rough background, so the best course of action for the time being was to give her what she was comfortable with and slowly ease her into socializing more.

All Alan knew about her when she started is that she was orphaned since she was a toddler, pushed around from home to home. The foster care system in this country isn’t very supportive, so it makes sense why Cass turned out the way she did. She went off to college on a full-ride scholarship to MIT at 14 to escape the system and was permitted to declare herself independent at the same time due to her special status as a foster kid, and has been all alone since then. Considering the nature of the foster system, Alan guessed that she had been isolated since the beginning.

Honestly, he wondered how Cassie made it this far into life with how she treated others. As she may not realize it, personality and social skills play a huge factor in many aspects of your life. She might even destroy herself if she gives off that mean attitude to the wrong person. If Flynn were any other normal boss, she wouldn't have been holding a job with them for a long time now.

Alan shrugged it off for now, before leaving as well to get on with his day.

“The digitization project… Just what in god’s name happened to it?”

As usual, Cassie was boarded off in her corner cubicle, engrossed deeply in her work. Instead of just working on a project, developing a new program, typing up a report, or fixing bugs in the mainframe today, she was delving into research. It wasn’t Cassie’s job to nose into the matters of their research facility, but all the information of the breakthrough they had a year earlier on the disintegration and reintegration of matter had all but vanished.

She was only doing this in the first place because this breakthrough was the reason she chose to start working at ENCOM a few months earlier. ENCOM was not her first choice for her long-term career, but their digitization breakthrough changed her mind entirely. It was something she wanted to be a part of and explore further. If they could send physical objects like oranges into a computer, how long would it be before they could start sending people?

The breakthrough was publicized greatly as well and had no signs of it being halted or canceled entirely, so then… Why did it look that way?

She narrowed it down to the project being boarded up and hidden away at the same time Flynn took control of ENCOM’s activities. He had ordered for the project to be halted so that ENCOM could prioritize other matters, and then it was simply never opened back up again. Canceling the project entirely would be all too suspicious. He then made a public statement to the confused science world that he was not canceling the project entirely, that progress was continuing- they simply were focusing on other things.

Cassie called bullshit.

What Cassie was doing was illegal. Highly illegal. She was hacking into her own company’s most private files and looking at the information she wasn’t authorized to see; however, she felt she had a right to suspect Flynn’s skeptical activities. For all she knew, he could be embezzling the company’s funds for an unknown, personal use. She was risking her job, life, and future, but she only took risks when her gut feeling told her she was right about something, and she just felt the nail on the head for this one.

She only had no evidence at the moment, so that’s what she was hacking into the system for.

Of course, she could ask the two previous figures who lead the project about the whole ordeal- far easier than risking her entire future- but Walter Gibbs just had to retire only a week after she arrived at ENCOM, and Lora Baines-Bradley was a loyalist to Flynn and just married to Alan, who was perhaps Flynn’s biggest loyalist, so she couldn’t trust going to her.

So, this was the alternative.

Obviously, she wasn’t doing the actual hacking on her work computer . Unless she wanted a one-way ticket to getting caught, that is. All she was doing was checking on the status of her hacker program she cooked up the week before, Sei, as it progressed its way further into the mainframe to extract the closed data regarding the digitization project.

Cassie had designed Sei to be stealthy and hide its traces within the system. Speed or time was not an issue; what mattered was the information itself, as long as Sei could extract the data and return it to her without being detected, it could take all the time it needed inside the system.

So far, Sei hasn't been caught. Which was good. However, it had already been at the core of the system for two days, scouring every bit of data within the computer’s memories, and had brought up nothing. Which was odd. As its user, Cassie had provided very specific and detailed instructions so that Sei would recognize the intel of the digitization project the moment it saw it. It shouldn’t be taking this long.

Sei had just provided a status update to Cassie. It had searched through 100% of all of ENCOM’s databases, and the information on the digitization project was gone . Like it was never there to begin with. All Sei had found was its original location, but it had been uprooted and moved elsewhere.

The only possibility was that it had been exported to another system entirely. This meant the file was extracted manually by someone, probably through a floppy disk or something like a serial line. ENCOM used the most modern equipment and software, such as the Kermit protocol which was released two years ago and is now widely used across computer tech companies. That was the serial line used at ENCOM, at least. If the data was transferred with the Ethernet to a separate operating system, then Cassie could easily trace it. Well, easy for someone like her , at least.

She could rule out the serial line option, as it is a physical connection and meant it was moved a very short distance, which is just plain stupid and also illogical. The data was moved out of the system entirely, which meant it was probably moved to another computer some distance away. That narrows it down to magnetic tape data storage or the Ethernet.

Cassie was screwed if something like a floppy disk was used, as it was a physical method of transferring data, which wasn’t traceable. It would give her no clues at all as to where the data was ported to. Ugh, if only wireless data transfer was a thing, it would make tracing the data to the system it moved to so much easier.

Huh, maybe that was something she could work on developing later.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand.

“Sei… I want you to see if you can investigate what method was used to transfer the data if you can,” Cassie whispered under her breath, as she keyed the new instructions for the program. It wouldn’t take it that long to figure it out, hopefully.

If Cassie were in this situation, she would have used a floppy disk. As said before, it was a more secure method of transfer as it had to be moved physically, so it was therefore the best option if she was making sure the data she was smuggling wouldn’t be found. Surely, Flynn couldn’t be so stupid as to use the Ethernet… right?

Actually. Scratch that. Cassie has a hope that Flynn fumbled his process. As he always did. She’s witnessed him do it in front of her enough times, so hopefully, he was stupid again when it came to this. Never in her life did Cassie think she would be hoping for Flynn to do something stupid.

For the first time ever, Cassie went home early.

"Flynn. You should come see this, it's important."

"Relax, Tron, I just got here. What's the matter?"

As usual, Tron and Clu were there to greet Flynn at the spawn location of the Grid at the time they had agreed upon. Well, a time that they had planned this time. Flynn usually turned up at his own discretion, but it was often enough.

“We’ve captured a hacker program that wasn’t created on the Grid and came from somewhere else. She refuses to talk or tell us who her user is, despite how much we’ve been interrogating her. We have a suspicion on who her user might be, however.” Clu continued, explaining the context of the situation.

“And? Do you know who they are?” Flynn continued, moving through a crowd of hushed programs in Tron City that had parted for him, in awe of their creator. The trio continued their discussion as they commuted their way through the city.

“Well, this foreign program looks nearly identical to another program named Elda, an antivirus security program that leads the antiviral division of the Grid’s security system. In fact, Elda was the one who caught her. It happened while she was patrolling Tron City. She first thought the program was a virus because the hacker was detected as an intruding foreign body, but it would’ve been caught by the firewall if it was. Nothing gets through the Grid’s firewall.”

“Why are you interrogating her? Wouldn’t you have gotten everything you needed off of the program’s disc?” Flynn raised an eyebrow in confusion, not expecting Clu to have made such a subpar decision.

“Flynn, we’re trying… But we can’t get the program’s disc off of her back. Whoever her user is, she coded her exceptionally, because she made a failsafe in case her program got caught. It shocks anyone or anything that tries to take it off, so we can’t trace where she came from or look into her memories. We’ve been trying threats, like deresolution, but she’s able to see through all our strategies. She deduced immediately that we can’t afford to derez her, otherwise, we wouldn’t know where she came from.” The conversation alternated over to Tron, leaving Clu left out of the conversation. Again.

“And? Can’t you also check the region, trace where she came from by what she left behind?” Flynn asked further, now growing worried. They boarded a train into a private cabin, which would take them to the Colosseum.

“She handled that too. She made sure to cover all her tracks, and peculiarly, she doesn’t leave coded footprints at all on the surfaces she touches. Her code is highly complex from what we’ve seen, and it looks like her user instructed her to accept deresolution if she was caught, considering how she’s behaving.”

Flynn only seemed to grow more disappointed as a reaction, as he let out a huff, leaning over and massaging against his temple with his fingers.

“Ugh… What a mess. It means someone on the outside knows about the Grid if they’ve sent a program to hack into it, which is a whole other issue for me. No other user besides me should know about this place, it's impossible! Just… ugh, where is this program now?”

Tron as well looked perturbed. He kept tapping his foot on the ground, and his hands gripped his knees tightly. The usually calm-and-collected program had never looked so concerned. “For now, we’ve detained her at the Colosseum. We are heading there currently.”

“Alright… Oh, and you say she looks like the program that caught her? They might have the same user, but I don’t know man, I’ll only know when I see the two of them.”

This situation felt all too familiar to Flynn. It had just barely been a year since he assumed control of ENCOM as its CEO, and just before he was sending countless hacker programs he had designed into the mainframe for months, trying to reach the core and retrieve the information that proved he was the creator of Lightcycles, Matrix Blaster, Vice Squad, and Space Paranoids. Despite the lack of background on the whole ordeal, he couldn’t help but feel that this was mirroring that situation.

“Now arriving at the Colosseum.” The cool female voice announced overhead, alerting the trio from the depths of their conversation and reminding them where they were.

“Alright… Let’s go see our hacker now, shall we? Let’s get going, programs.” Flynn’s signature grin returned to his face, as he clapped his two comrades on the back before standing up.

Underneath the Colosseum was a large facility for research and repair. While it wasn’t designed to detain criminals, it was the closest place they could transfer the hacker program. They had temporarily converted the chamber meant for testing new lightcycles for the games into a confinement chamber. All the equipment regularly used for testing new vehicles inside the reinforced glass cylinder had been removed, and in the center was a program on her knees, her arms held up and chained to two pillars that had been erected. Her head was tilted toward the floor, and her hair covered her face from view. Looming over her back was a large machine with many arms. Four robotic arms latched to her disc, while more were tapping away at the back, attempting to reconfigure the code that kept them from removing her disc. On the other end of the machine, outside the chamber, an engineering program was working away controlling the machine on a holographic pad, looking impatient and weary as they tried every method they knew to break through the stubborn, complex code that had been planted.

“What’s with the Star Wars interrogation droid huh?” Flynn asked at the sight of the giant, intimidating thing, with a raised eyebrow. Both Tron and Clu learned not to question the obscure references Flynn made often, just passing them off as things that were from the world of users.

“Since we can’t physically touch her disk, we found that only through the contact of this technical machine, typically used for creating batons, could we have any access to her programming.” Clu clarified.

Flynn shook his head languidly, accompanied by a sigh. He looked into the glass, trying to get a better view of the program it contained. Her outfit and circuits looked similar, yet different from the typical manner of dress that programs on the Grid wore. She looked like a program, but the particular style of her suit and the color of her circuitry, a vivid crimson, indicated her foreign nature. “Yeesh… And how long have they been working on her?”

“Since before your arrival? …Nearly a full cycle.”

“Agh, jeez… Okay then,” Flynn took his eyes off the program, directing himself toward the control panel where several engineering programs were working frantically.

“Hey there, how’s it going?” Flynn greeted the program casually as if he weren’t the Creator himself. The program flinched as a reaction, never having been so close or even addressed to by the Creator before. His eyes turned wide and he swallowed, before giving his report, voice shaky from disbelief.

“T-The subject’s code is very complex and nothing we have never seen before. It is very different from the code that we are accustomed to, and on top of that, it seems as if the program’s code was designed to be like a maze to navigate. We feel as if we’re no closer to finding and removing the code that restricts us from removing her disk than when we first began.”

“Alright, lemme have a look.” Flynn leaned over to take in the code for himself, while the program let him, recoiling in his nervousness.

Ah, so this was the issue. The code was written in an entirely different programming language than what the programs from the Grid were used to. Well… He had designed code to appear in a way that was intelligible to programs, but Flynn had to admit that besides that, the code was written incredibly well. It was organized, fluid, structured, clean, and completely flawless. Still, complex and difficult to understand at first glance. Flynn had gotten so good at coding, especially reading it in the Grid, that it was as easy as reading a book. Even then, he had to take a second to figure out what was going on with this. No wonder the programs were having so much trouble with it.

But, why did this code look so familiar to him? He just couldn’t put his finger on it. He was reviewing someone’s work back at the office, but he just couldn’t remember who…

“What can you tell from it, Flynn?” Tron looked over to have a glance as well, and his face immediately contorted into utter confusion. Tron had been around long enough to get basic programming principles, so this had to be completely incomprehensible to him.

“What I can tell is… that this program’s user really knew what she was doing when she created this program, and she understands code well. Almost like it’s second nature to them. Really like… somebody I know…” Flynn seemed almost dazed as he backed away from the panel, and slowly came to register what had been staring him in the face all along. How could he not get it the moment he saw that utterly confusing, twisting code?

“Hey, Tron… where is that antivirus security program you told me about?”

“Elda? I had her stationed here. Do you want to take her account of what happened?”

“Not exactly. I just need to take a look at her, like I said before. I need to confirm something.”

"Flynn, our Creator. It is an extraordinary honor endowed on me to be able to meet and speak with you, sir, if not the very pinnacle of my creation." The antiviral program in question, Elda, bowed so low that her long, flowing hair pooled on the floor the second she was summoned into the vicinity. It was auburn, Cassie’s hair color. An unusual hair color for programs. Programs typically had black, brown, or white hair. Or, an ashy or dark shade, if it was unnatural like purple or green.

Flynn didn’t even look at her face yet, but the voice was unmistakable.

"No no, please, no need for honorifics or flattery. I'm not some sort of God! Stand up, and please just call me Flynn, program." At this point, Flynn was starting to get tired of the extreme reactions he got whenever programs saw him. He had to clarify again and again that he wasn't a God or a Saint, asking the programs to treat him like a regular person. That didn't stop a full street of programs from getting on their knees and praying at the sight of him every time he entered the Grid, though. There was an air of superiority he exerted when in the Grid, which was always present no matter how much he tried to suppress it.

“My apologies, Flynn. I am the division leader of the antiviral division of the security system of the Grid, Elda. My purpose is to prevent, detect, and eliminate viruses and other foreign threats from entering or corrupting the Grid and its programs.”

Elda raised her head and brushed her hair out of her face, and once Flynn got a view, everything clicked. Besides the hair, Elda was identical in features to Cassandra. The only difference is that she looked slightly younger, and had a better complexion. Generally looked cheerier too.

“Alright… Ca- Elda! Amazing to meet you man, and thanks for your work. You did a great job capturing this hacker, I’m sure she was tough to catch… y’know, judging by her funky code and all that... Now, tell me if you don’t mind, could you tell me the identity of your user?”

“Oh, um, of course, sir. My user goes by the name ‘Cass-M.’ Why do you ask?” Elda responded, oblivious, for now.

Ah. Cassie’s ENCOM account username. Just as Flynn suspected.

“Right. That confirms what I wanted to know, I didn't need anything else, thanks. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to take a look at Ms. Hacker as well.” Flynn placed a hand on Elda’s shoulder briefly, before going over to the chamber again. The hacker program was still motionless and unresponsive.

“Flynn, I wouldn’t advise attempting to interrogate her. She’s refused to answer any of our questions…” Clu started, but Flynn raised his hand over his chest. “Clu, my guy, I’m not gonna try to interrogate her. I’m positive I already know who the culprit is anyway, this is just me making sure.”

Clu frowned, before stepping back. “Of course.”

“Alrighty then, let me get a look at this hacker program, yeah? Let me inside.”

The necessary programs rushed to accommodate Flynn's request.

There was a faint humming noise inside the chamber, coming from the machine. The engineers had paused their work for the time being, as the mechanism’s arms lay still. The ambiance was disrupted by Flynn’s footsteps on the shiny, clear floors made of streaming code as he approached the foreign program in the center of the room.

“Greetings, program. I’m not here to hurt you or anything like that. Also, you know, you’ll get a neck cramp if you keep staring at the ground forever.

Slowly, the program creakily raised her head, but not enough for Flynn to see her features completely. That was fine, it wasn’t exactly required. Compared to Elda, this hacker’s hair was short, but her hair color was the same.

Then, Flynn noticed the red bits of code fall from her face and chest as she slowly looked up. His heart dropped to his stomach when he realized. One side of her face had been shredded, and the circuitry surrounding her chest and stomach flickered, as damaged code stretched across her torso like slash marks. Flynn could tell she was in pain, as she winced just from the small movement just now.

“Aw, shit… The hell happened to you?”

Flynn came closer, til he was directly in front of the program. He got down to one knee, meeting her level. Even with a mauled face, he was still able to tell that she shared a face with Cassandra. This was her program, all right.

“Alright. Do you mind telling me your name?”

The program’s lips parted slowly, jaw unclenching and moving erratically. Her eyes couldn’t seem to focus on him, as they shook in uncontrolled, jittery movements. The damage was severe. Her voice trembled out in a static, glitched, unnatural tremor. “You’re not a program.”

Her voice echoed throughout the chamber, disturbing the somber atmosphere.

Flynn was patient. He didn’t want to spook her further, only get her to refuse to speak for another whole cycle. In the back of his mind, a thought trailed, that perhaps the reason they couldn’t get anything out of her was because of how they mutilated her. He couldn’t help but get the feeling that this was only done to her after she was in custody.

And, like Elda, her voice belonged to Cassie’s. Sure, a distorted version, but Cass’s voice nonetheless.

“That’s right, I’m not a program. I’m the Creator. A user. I made this place, and I want to know what you’re doing here. Because, under normal circumstances, it should be impossible for anyone to get into this place.”

Still, the program drew them away from the subject.

“I thought you were the other one. The one that was actually a program. Who looks like you. H-H-He ordered-ordered- them to do this to me.” The program’s voice trailed off in a glitched spasm, her head suddenly twitching and jolting for a short moment, robot-like and seizing.

This was a hacker program. She was not designed to be a fighter, to endure this much damage to her code. Being scarred on an external part of code was one thing, but this was a lot of damage. Mostly done to her core functions. Honestly, Flynn wasn’t sure how much more he could get out of her.

“Clu did? I’ll have to have a conversation with him later…” Flynn muttered under his breath, expressing clear disapproval. “Well… I’m not Clu. I’m not going to hurt you like he did. Do you think you can tell me your name?”

The program didn’t speak for a few moments. “My user instructed me not to.”

“Your user? You mean Cass-M?”

Flynn leaned in closer to the program's face, his volume dropping. His tone changed entirely, from friendly and understanding to blunt and cold, straight to the point. Flynn was rarely like this, and he felt bad, but this was a serious matter. Whoever was behind this program was incredibly dangerous.

He could feel the program flinch. And it wasn’t a result of her damage, this time.

“Your user wanted to make sure you didn’t reveal her identity. Yeah, sorry about that, I already know it. So it just completely defeats your purpose here, doesn’t it?”

He was met with silence. He responded by standing up, taking a few steps back.

“So then. Why did Cassie send you here? How does she know about the Grid? What is she looking for?”

More silence. Drat. He was hoping that by destroying her initiative on top of her functions becoming damaged, she would just reveal everything to him. But she was determined to the end, even when damaged to such an extent. Flynn had to admit, Cassie coded programs really well.

Flynn sighed, turning around to leave. Before the doors opened for him though, he was met with the echoing, distorted voice one last time.

“So, do you know my user in your world?”

Flynn turned his head, but just his head, gazing upon the broken program again. “Yes, I know her.”

A small grin formed across the program’s face, and she started to chuckle. It was low and bassy, slightly maniacal, and it was the clearest her voice had sounded yet. Flynn didn’t take it as a good sign.

“Hello, Flynn. My name is Sei. Make sure to t-tell Cass-M that I’ve carried out my function.”

There was a clicking sound, and then a strangely familiar beeping that grew higher in pitch. He quickly found the source: from the program, the strap on her right wrist.

It was disguised as a hand bomb.

Was that there before? How did it even get in her hand? How was it not discovered? Those questions ran through Flynn’s head, but he was too distracted to even consider them. All he cared about was getting the hell away from the chamber, now .

Tron was the only other program to notice quickly, and like the security program he was, he reacted accordingly.

“Flynn!”

“Is that a bomb? How did she get that!?”

“Everyone get down, NOW!”

Someone threw themselves into Flynn, grabbing him, and the sound of the explosion blasted into his ears before his vision turned white. And then it was all dark.

Chapter Text

Cassie hit the money. Flynn was an idiot once again (unsurprisingly), and had used Ethernet to transport the data to a separate operating system. When she got home, she checked Sei’s progress- and voila- had her jackpot. All she had to do was trace the location and hack into the private server that the data arrived at, allowing Sei to get inside the system so it could find and take it.

Even better, at around 1 AM Cassie’s excruciatingly loud and clunky printer started whirring, and multiple pages started spilling out onto the desk. And it was exactly what Cassie was hoping for.

She had the complete documentation and records of the digitization project, and she had made sure to acquire physical proof on paper that Flynn had smuggled the highly-classified documents and the hardware to this new location without the company’s knowledge or approval. According to official documents, all the hardware was still in company possession, and yet proof was here that it wasn’t. Cassie had concrete, solid proof. Flynn was done.

But… Cassie also lost Sei’s connection shortly after she received the data, and it wasn’t responding to her calls. She could only assume the worst had happened.

It was weird to admit, but Cassie treasured the programs she made like her children. Well, she only had made two complete programs in her life; because she was such a perfectionist she would delete all the programs she tried making because she wasn’t satisfied with her work.

The only program she ever finished all the way that genuinely turned out well (by her standards) was the antivirus program, ELDA, which she made for a computer programming contest when she was 21 and about to finish graduate school. The prize was $50k, and she really needed the money at the time otherwise she was gonna be evicted from her apartment, and also so she could pay off the last of her tuition debt. The amount of work and effort she put into the project was astronomical, and to this day, Cassie considers ELDA to be her best work. ELDA was the product of her blood, sweat, tears, and the very being of her soul.

She was proud of the creations she made because she put so much time and labor into them. Especially this hacker program, because it was her first time making one and she saw it out to the end, thanks to an unusual will of determination that wasn’t there for previous attempts. To see all that effort go to waste like that… Well, she felt a little pensive.

Still, at the very least Sei being discovered so quickly (and possibly terminated) made it clear that this operating system that it had been sent to had a much stronger defense system than the ENCOM mainframe. Sei lasted a week in the mainframe, yet barely three hours to grasp the information it was looking for before getting caught.

Flynn… What the hell was he doing over there? Even though she didn’t really like him (or anyone, for that matter, but him more than others), he didn’t seem like the crook type to do something super illegal like this. Despite that, she had the evidence in her hands right there.

Cassie had the IP address of the data’s destination and used it to find the actual address of the location. She looked it up on a map she printed out, finding it to be the old arcade that Flynn owned before he acquired ENCOM. Whatever he was hiding, it was over there.

She concluded that she would present her findings to him at his base of operations. She assumed that whenever Flynn would mysteriously disappear on emergency business trips, he would go there. But why would he be spending so much time at a secret computer in a damn arcade?

Well, she would have to find out for herself.

In one last surge of remaining energy, Cassie put all her effort into organizing the papers, compiling them into a crisp file and sliding it into her bag... before immediately collapsing on her couch. She was exhausted. It was 3 AM. She had work tomorrow. Flynn was already gone, and he should be back in what, a day? He was always gone on Fridays. She wasn’t sure about the weekends because there was no work.

Friday was in a week, so she’d simply beat him there.

"Sir... Sir! Are you alright?"

Flynn's eyes groggily opened, full of confusion and grogginess. He squinted, as he adjusted to the light and absorbed his surroundings. What just happened? What was he doing here again?

He registered the smoke that filled his lungs, the blaring siren, and the blue, derezzed pixels scattered all over the perimeter, before he was finally able to recognize the muffled voice of the person looming over him. Ah, yeah, that's right, the intruder program had gone and blown herself up and everything around her. He would have expected Tron to be the one that grabbed him, but instead, he found Cass... no, the antivirus program Elda hovering over him and entreating him in dismay.

“Sir? Stay with me!” Elda pressed anxiously, her eyes scouring the surface area of Flynn’s body for any damaged code- no, wait, for users, it's injuries.

“Ugh… Yeah, I’m okay, more or less. Just let me get up…”

Flynn tried to get up, only to find that his feet wouldn’t move to his command, and his body felt like a bag of bricks as he stumbled from the lack of balance. Elda caught him and supported his weight, and Flynn blinked several more times so that he would stop seeing doubles. His head was spinning… it was probably from all the smoke he inhaled. The facility was almost unrecognizable. Rubble had fallen into the hallway, making it difficult to navigate through the area or recognize its features. There were open wires hanging from the ceiling, holes in the ground that revealed the circuitry, and overall chaos.

Programs were running all over the place in a frantic hurry, shouting orders, digging out unconscious survivors from the rubble. The Black Guards had cut off the area, dismissing the anxious spectators that came from all around to see the commotion. 

A second wave of support programs, such as medics, took the survivors from the defense and immediately began their treatment. Several such programs had surrounded him, also assisting Elda with protecting the Creator, their highest priority.

“Where are the medics? Have you found Tron and Clu yet? Secure the area, now! As quickly as you can!” Elda bellowed orders to the nearest group of Black Guards, her experience and the excellent structure of her code allowing her to respond to the chaos accordingly. Her voice broke through his previously muffled hearing like an arrow, as it was filled with a loud ringing beforehand, and he could barely tell what was going on. He only just started to truly focus and absorb the sensations around him.

“I’m okay, I’m okay… Hey, Elda, what exactly happened again?”

The pain started to register in Flynn's mind as he shifted his body, and he visibly winced. He could feel the throbbing pool of an angry heat fixated around his lower back, caused by the impact from Elda pushing him into the solid, glass floor earlier. Elda took notice of this, unsurprisingly, given how acutely she was observing his every movement.

“You’re hurt. I’ll have a medic examine you, sir,” Elda had handed him off to a squadron of Black Guards before he could protest, giving further orders to the dozens of programs around her. “Stay on high alert! There could still be further danger!”

Elda proceeded to climb over the rubble and the ignited fires to get back into the main chamber, where a stream of sentries was rescuing injured programs. Her eyes darted across the room for Tron and Clu, her tension alleviated when she saw them standing and sound only a few yards away from her, though looking tousled and stunned. Tron came rushing forward the moment he set eyes on her.

“Elda! Where’s Flynn, is he alright?”

“He is mostly intact, sir. He does seem to be slightly dazed, so I’ve had him be examined by a medic.”

“That wouldn’t work… He’s a user, he doesn’t become injured the same way as us and he can’t be healed through fixing his damaged code, because his body isn’t made of code.”

“Oh… Of course, you’re right, sir,” The thought had never actually occurred to Elda. In all the chaos and activity coursing through her experienced and well-calibrated code, Elda had failed to remember as a part of her advanced function process that Flynn was a user, and therefore their treatments couldn’t apply to him.

“Don’t worry about it, just tell me where Flynn is. I need to see him. Please survey the remains and send a report to me after.” Tron, his short yet impactful orders in line with his strong-willed nature, was off before Elda could reply. Yet, Elda didn’t need to respond to take to his authority.

Tron was the System Monitor of the Grid, which automatically made him the superior of all security programs. Besides that, he was perhaps the most renowned and mightiest program throughout the entire Grid- the program that fights for the users- which made him very well-respected and feared alike. Elda was the former, having looked up to Tron as a role model as she was a fellow security program. Tron was the inspiration for all her arduous work, what she aspired to become. Just being an equal to him would be a dream come true.

Thus, she didn’t question a word of Tron’s sudden orders and followed them through dutifully. The moment Tron turned away, Elda pounced upon her new instructions immediately, making a beeline for the shattered, smoking confinement chamber.

What was formerly the hacker program Sei was scattered into millions of blue, derezzed pixels, splattered like blood stains against every surrounding surface. It was difficult to examine the area as the explosion had caused the baton configuration machine to burst into fire, but Elda could manage it competently enough. She sifted through the stacked piles of collapsed infrastructure, calling several subordinates in for assistance. Unfortunately, the blast had seemed to obliterate everything.

All the while sifting through the heaps of debris, Elda pondered to herself the earlier interaction she had with the Creator. The hacker program resembled herself, which indicated a high possibility of them sharing the same user. Elda recalled the difficult process and extensive effort it took to capture her. The time when she was finally able to see her physically, the hacker… Sei, whom Elda now knew, wore a black-cased helmet and mask so that her identity would be hidden.

When she finally captured her after rising victorious in a rigorous duel that exhausted them both, she was frozen with shock when she removed the helmet and saw that the program resembled herself perfectly in appearance. She didn't want to think much of it at first, but with Flynn's reaction to it, well… she felt more than worrisome about the whole ordeal.

Why would Cass-M do something like this? Well, Elda's never met her user, so she has no idea what she’s like. Programs are rezzed with the knowledge of which user created them, but nothing else. But seriously, why would she do this? And, how? Elda didn’t know very much about the world outside the Grid, but common knowledge was that Flynn purposely had it secluded from everything else for their safety, and because the Grid was still in early development. Incidents like this were the exact reason the Grid was kept secret.

Well, in the end, Elda had no business in the matter. She couldn’t help but be involved because, unfortunately, the culprit happened to be her user. But, unless ordered to, further exploring the predicament was beyond her function. She shouldn’t nose into such business and stick purely to her assignment and what was asked of her. Well… at the same time, what she was doing right now was beyond her expertise. Yes, she was a security program, but her skills were limited to addressing viruses because she had been created to target those purposely, rather than being all-purpose like most security programs.

What she was doing wasn’t related to viruses, but since Tron himself had ordered her, she was going to do it. She may not do the best job, but she would try the best she could. She was programmed to give only the best performance in any circumstance, after all. She was meant to thrive under pressure and in unfamiliar circumstances.

After a long and thorough search beneath the rubble, all useful evidence that remained was a portion of the program’s disc. Normally, the identity disc is all that remains of a derezzed program and they are very durable, but the disc had taken a direct impact of the explosion, so it was no surprise that it was blown to bits. Still, if they could analyze it and decode what they could, maybe they could piece together its origin.

“What is it you found, Elda?”

She snapped back to reality. Elda had been stuck in a trance of intense concentration, focusing only on the task that busied her. She had barely registered other programs around her, only doing so when giving orders. She finally took in everything else outside of what was relevant to her work and only recognized that the System Admin, Clu, was addressing her.

“Ah yes, sir… All we have remaining is a portion of the outsider’s disc. I’m having it sent off to the Security Department HQ now to be examined by our forensic technicians.” She presented the disc segment to Clu encased in the palms of her hands, the invaluable evidence floating within a digital container.

“Good. I’ll transport it there for you and also report to Flynn. Thank you for all your hard work.” He extended his hand expectantly. Clu was the System Administrator; the only person who held authority over him was Flynn, and by extension, Tron.

“Of course, I’m deeply grateful, sir. May I ask, are you alright as well? You were also hit directly by the blast.” Elda seemed to hesitate when handing the box to Clu. On one hand, he wasn’t authorized to do so, as it wasn’t in his function to transport highly important evidence to the Security HQ. On the other hand, he was the System Admin and was supposed to govern over such troubles that afflicted the Grid in Flynn’s absence. But why would he go out of the way to do something as minor as transporting the evidence of a crime scene, when that was a role to be left to a lower subordinate grunt? Not to mention Flynn was here at the moment, and Tron had already ordered her to give her report to him. Was Clu authorized to override Tron's orders?

“Yes… I’m perfectly fine, I was able to react and get far enough away so that I wasn’t injured. It was quite shocking that that program was able to sneak that bomb through our tight security system, no? I thought that our security line would be competent enough to not miss such a minute detail when capturing and debilitating such a dangerous, intelligent program, but it seems that… I was wrong.”

Elda felt a lump rise in the back of her throat. She didn’t know that the System Admin was so… condescending. Yet, she wouldn’t dare defy such a powerful, superior program. Especially not when she was the head of a whole division. And, he wasn’t wrong. In her entire existence on the Grid, she had never made a single blunder in her duties. So how could she let something as small as a concealed hand bomb get past her keen, observant eye? It was one thing if she were a mere sentry, but she was a division leader. Allowing such an obvious mistake to get by was completely her fault. She was the one who led the whole operation, after all. She had successfully tracked the hacker with what impossibly small, hardly-noticeable clues they left behind, dueled them viciously, and captured them with her own two hands.

In other words, Clu was implying that the whole fiasco was her fault. It could’ve easily been avoided. And he was right.

And, why was he staring at her like that? Clu was looking directly into Elda’s eyes. And Elda felt fear and embarrassment. The way he was looking at her now definitely made it clear that he thought it was all her fault.

“I’m… I’m very sorry for the mishap, sir. It was the greatest shame that I could have possibly made as the leader of a specialized division to miss such a crucial detail. I assure you, I will try as hard as I can to make up for it and will never make such a mistake again in the future, I swear on it.”

Elda should have given up the container at this point as a means of compensation. She was normally a very obedient program who served to give the best results she possibly could; serving to please and contribute to creating the perfect system, but weaved within her innermost code, a voice of defiance made its comment. Why is he talking to us so rudely? Why would the System Admin dare abuse his superior rank and use it to take advantage of us? If any other program had spoken to us this way, we would reprimand them for it. But Clu gets to speak however he wants because he’s the Admin? How dare he!

Thus, her hands had an iron grip on the container.

“Elda. I have heard of you before. It’s strange how you are not so well known, because I’ve heard about your groundbreaking accomplishments. Within three cycles of your resolution, you rose from a common security program to the leader of an entire division- an astounding accomplishment indeed, I must say. I’ve heard that you’ve never failed at your duty, and you’ve promptly put down every threat that has tried to sabotage our goal of creating the perfect system. You are the reason the Grid gets to run and develop smoothly without any interruptions: because you make sure to put them all away.”

He withdrew his hand and started to slowly circle Elda. Like a predator gloating and teasing its prey. His aura, his tone, all of it made her go on high alert. She was rooted to her position, stiller than a statue. And, why was it that that bad feeling she got whenever she encountered a threat to the Grid was going off from Clu? She only felt more guilt for feeling that way. Clu was not a threat to the Grid, he only had its best interests at heart.

Was it an error in her coding, or had it simply detected Clu for what he was?

“Th-Thank you very much, sir. I’m honestly flattered that you know this much about me.”

“Of course, of course. If anything, I’m shocked that you’re not better known, Elda. Your achievements are to be applauded for, they’re not something any normal program can achieve. It should be enough for Tron and Flynn to know who you are. Yet, you purposely put yourself out of the spotlight and work as quietly as you can. Why do you do that?”

Where exactly was Clu going with this?

“...Sir, it’s my personal philosophy that I should only work for the success of the Grid as a whole by doing my part and carrying out my function as efficiently as I can. I don’t care for or seek any pleasure through bringing attention to myself with my accomplishments.” Elda’s head perked up and her chest rose proudly, showing her pride in her work.

“Wow… All programs should strive to be like you. I’ve never seen anybody work harder to try and bring us to the perfect system. So, then…”

Elda felt a chill go up her spine, and her core felt hollowed out. Clu’s clammy hand was on her shoulder, and God, he was so, so close to her. Everything in her was screaming danger, yet having the knowledge that he was the System Admin as well, only made her grow more tense. It confused her and made her uncertain.

“...Why did you let such an amateur mistake occur? So we agree, this isn’t like you at all.”

Oh, why did he feel the need to humiliate her further? Couldn’t he just take the damn container and go? He was right about her mistake, but the need he felt to rub it in her face…

“To be fair… this hacker program was the hardest program for me to ever catch, sir.  It took me twenty millicycles to catch her. Normally, it never takes me more than one to catch a violator. Her suit was also designed peculiarly in contrast to ours, and, thus…strenuous for us to search every nook and cranny without any prior knowledge of it. But, I still admit fault on my part. This whole situation wouldn’t have occurred if not for my missing such a small thing. This shouldn’t have happened.”

The only possible explanation was that she had made a mistake. This was the logical conclusion to come to.

Clu didn’t have to continue speaking. His look of dismay told Elda everything she needed to know. So, in her indignity, Elda surrendered the container into Clu’s open hands.

“...You’re right, sir. Perhaps I shouldn’t be trusted with such an important task after all if I let something like this happen.”

She lowered her head to save herself from further guilt, which she felt intensely from Clu’s contempt gaze.

Clu grinned. It was just like the one Flynn had, but it was… different. Ominous. Calculating.

“Thank you, Elda. But please, don’t worry about it. I know you’ll only work even harder to make up for such a mistake in the future. I’ll even give you a recommendation to Tron, you deserve to be so much more than just a division leader and recognized for all your hard work.”

Clu clapped his hand in what should’ve been perceived as a friendly manner on her shoulder, turned away, and was gone. Elda was left alone in the wreckage of what was the confinement chamber, left to reflect on what had just happened.

She knew one thing for sure. Clu was not what he seemed.

It was evening. The sun glowed a hazy red over the horizon, beaming light directly onto the building that lit up the corner of the street. The large sign on the front bore the capitalized letters reading “FLYNN’S.” It has been over a week since Cassie had acquired all the evidence of Flynn's wrongdoings, and after several days of preparation- making backup plans, plugging every possible hole that could allow Flynn an advantage over her- Cassie was ready to confront him.

Cassie looked toward the arcade from the ground up, just gazing upon it. This was the arcade that Flynn owned and resided in before he took control of ENCOM one year prior. He still kept the place running, but he didn't spend as much time there as he used to. The arcade wasn't open as often as it used to be, with it only being open during the evening and late hours of the night. Peculiar. It made sense that this is where Flynn smuggled the stolen information from the company.

Snuck hidden inside her coat were the files containing evidence of Flynn’s misdeeds, all kept secure and organized within a folder. She planned to present all of this to Flynn as a form of blackmail.

She walked up the steps and pickpocketed the lock that was attached to the heavy chain barring the doors. It was something she, unfortunately, had experience with thanks to her… subpar childhood. She hated what she had to do in her childhood, but she's put it all behind her now. Repressed those memories within the deepest parts of her mind. She did what she had to do to escape and survive.

The insane academic challenge wasn't something she took on willingly, she chose it over the horrors she had to endure daily in those awful foster homes... Starting university at 14 on a full scholarship and bearing the pressure and expectations of success was better than being stuck in the hellhole that was the foster care system for even another day. The stress and isolation meant nothing. If she had to, she would do it all over again.

...That was enough dwelling on the past. Back to the subject on hand, if she was right about this, Flynn wouldn’t arrive for another hour, when the arcade would open. She had left work early that day. It had helped that she showed up to work four days earlier looking gaunter than usual, which resulted in Alan forcing her to go home and take care of herself, and made her go easy for the few days after since she had refused to take time off. She hated to miss out on work, but she appreciated him for that.

It was the most anxious work week of Cassie’s life. She had hoped Flynn wouldn’t notice anything, be the one to suspect her, call her into his office. Yet, Flynn was all smiles as ever, and just as annoyingly cheerful. So she was just as cold and critical in response. She was lucky that he didn’t notice anything at all in such a long period.

Of course, Cassie had planned a Plan B if something of the sort had happened, the first morning she had to head to work. First, she kept the files on her body at all times, if the former ever occurred. ENCOM also had security cameras all over that could record the conversations as proof of her crime if they happened inside the office building, so she spent a short hour of her morning hacking into the security system and putting together a small chip that she concealed inside the cuff of her sleeve. It had a small button that she could press and temporarily disable the entire building’s security system.

Besides programming, Cassie had some interest in engineering. It was the other road she planned to go down if programming proved to be a bad shot career-wise. She had taken some engineering courses in high school and college for extra credit, so she knew a thing or two about it.

Flynn hadn’t shown up at all the entire day for whatever reason. Normally, it wasn’t uncommon for Flynn to make sudden absences. It was one of his many flaws Cassie liked to complain about, after all. She asked Alan about it, and he said Flynn called in sick. He apparently got into a motorcycle accident the other day and couldn’t come to work. Whether this was a fluke or not, Cassie didn’t know. But his arrival at the arcade in approximately an hour would tell her the full story.

It didn’t take long for her to find the hidden entrance behind the TRON game through the dents and scratch marks left behind on the floor. TRON had been released shortly after Flynn took control of ENCOM, and it was their best-selling game yet. It broke several records and made ENCOM even more successful than ever. It was only suitable that this was the game Flynn would designate as his secret-hideaway entrance.

There was an eerie staircase and a dark corridor filled with cobwebs and roaches, then a door leading into a shifty office. And boy, was it everything Cassie had hoped for. She had struck gold. The tech for the digitization project was right damn here all along. Under a freaking arcade, just… lying about and collecting dust! Urgh, Flynn, that… utter buffoon! If he was gonna hide this stuff, he could’ve gone about it with a much more secure method.

But what Cassie found interesting was the whole setup and the placement of the hardware. It all wasn’t shoved into a corner or concealed within the space. It all looked like a regular office, but for whatever reason, the laser was placed directly behind the computer and desk, in the center of the room. Which seemed rather… dangerous, considering the risks the laser posed. Besides the hardware, which stood out like a fish out of water in the underground room, the office looked like any other old office.

A bulletin board pinned with papers and blueprints was off to the left of the room, over a couch left with random objects strewn on it. A shirt that read "FLYNN'S" on the front was left haphazardly on its side. The wall was made entirely of bricks, and the air was filled to the brim with dust, which made Cassie hack and cough. Storage racks and cardboard boxes filled with various pieces of equipment were left about carelessly, and Cassie had to be careful that she didn't knock anything over as she examined the room.

Piles upon piles of books, all related to computer programming, hung against the not-so-stable wooden shelves near the back of the room. Posters for ENCOM'S most popular games, the ones all created by Flynn, were hung up on every possible empty wall space. Wires ran all across the floor and ceiling, attached to all the computing equipment spread across every single corner of the room. Ultimately, it all came together to the PC in the center of the region.

The office was jammed to full capacity, and the whole thing just reeked of Flynn. You could tell he left his mark all over this room with the way it was set up.

So this was just a secret office Flynn had under his arcade. But, none of this told her what he was even doing here to begin with, or with all the hardware he had stolen. Well, except for the giant blueprint hung directly over the desk. It was titled, “THE GRID,” but… she wasn’t really sure what it was a blueprint of. A grid as it was called, but a grid of what?

Cassie looked at it closer, and then realized… it resembled a city. Whatever it was, she recognized the patterns to be identical to the map of the city she had printed out a week prior. Was this some sort of secret project Flynn had created? What was he planning to do with it? 

Nothing came to mind for her, she couldn’t even begin to fathom what Flynn was planning to do with what, well, seemed to be a digital copy of the city. Or how it brought the hardware from the digitization project into play.

She still had about 50 minutes until he arrived, so she decided to mess around with his computer a bit. Maybe hacking into it could tell her a hint or two of God what Flynn was even doing.

The computer was nothing Cass had seen before. The surface of the table was the monitor. And the keyboard was… part of the screen in a sense? A “touchscreen,” she dubbed it mentally. It reacted to her touch, which was something she had never seen before on a computer. The surface was smooth, and the whole design seemed so futuristic; nothing like the large, heavy, clunky boxes and clacky, plastic keyboards that she was used to. She was surprised that Flynn could come up with something like this.

There was a clock showing time before Cassie interacted with the screen, glowing dimly. It was not a regular clock, nor did it show regular time from how it was presented. It indicated the last time that the computer had been logged into, and it showed… Huh, not even 12 hours ago. That meant he called out of work that morning just to go here.

Wow. Flynn spent more time here frequently than Cassie expected. And it only made her views on the man plummet even more. He was skipping out of his responsibilities as CEO just to go here and exploit his company without their knowledge- what a degenerate!

Cassie didn’t even need to hack into the system. She just used the backdoor; honestly idiotic of Flynn to not remember and go over. But was she surprised? This was Flynn they were talking about, after all.

She opened the command prompt and keyed up a command to see all the files that were stored in the system. And boy, there was what seemed endless amounts of information. She couldn’t even be able to understand half of it, because there was just so much of everything.

There was a constant stream of information flowing in and out, all from within the system itself. It was all so complex, which is impressive if someone like her had a hard time understanding it. Cassie guessed that this was the “Grid” that the blueprint on the bulletin board indicated. She was able to find the digitization project’s files among it all, and several documents that explained everything. Flynn seemed to write these themselves, and here he seemed to organize his work, explaining each component of the Grid, its purpose and goal, and what it was there for.

The Grid was just a part of a vast system that Flynn used to create his ideas, and from what Cassie got out of his documents, it was a “digital utopia with infinite possibilities.” What did that even mean? A utopia? Why is he referring to it like it’s some sort of society and not a damn computer?

Cassie found program files and applications for things like lightcycles. Lightjets. Tanks. High-speed trains. Security programs… mechanic programs? Medic programs? Huh? This all reminded her strongly of… A video game. 

So… Did he just make this for games? Was that it? He. Had. To be. Fucking. Kidding. Was he insane? He stole highly classified, delicate important technology for freaking video games?

Cassie had already thought that Kevin Flynn was the biggest idiot she ever met, but all of this reinforced this belief to another level. But none of this still explained what he needed the damn digitization hardware for.

Then her eyes landed on the line prompt. “LLLSDLaserControl -ok 1.” It was on the very front page, the first item at the top of a long array of programs and software used for… God knows what exactly. She hadn’t noticed it before because she was so fixated on everything else.

This… was the software to activate the digital laser.

Very hesitantly, Cass jotted in the command. A new window popped up; “Aperture Clear? YES / NO”

The sound of activating, humming technology behind her- coming from the digitization hardware- rang into her ears. She slowly turned around to face the digitization laser which was. Um. Faced directly at her. And starting to glow a blue hue.

Cassie never turned around so quickly to slam her finger on “NO.” The next thing she thought was, “What the actual fuck, Flynn?”

This shit was such a safety hazard. She knew enough about the project to know that there were many precautions taken, and the best they had digitized successfully was an orange. Was he blasting the damn laser at himself? How the fuck is he even alive right now if he is? No, yeah no, there’s no actual way he’s regularly blasting himself with this damn laser, he wouldn’t survive the event…. Right?

Right?

There was a loud, clanging sound coming from outside the room. Up the stairs. Then, the swinging and closing of a large, heavy object. Cassie had never been yanked back to reality so violently. It even made her jump, nearly falling out of the chair. She hadn’t realized how much time had passed, or how deeply enveloped she was in the spew of endless, nearly-indistinguishable information she had breached into the palms of her hands.

Flynn was here.

She recognized footsteps slowly descending the dusty, stone staircase, light and faint. Flynn must’ve recognized an intruder by the broken lock on the door. Someone had discovered his top-secret, private, and illegal computer server, nonetheless. Cassie wouldn’t be surprised if he was going to attempt to apprehend her. She wouldn’t have done this if she wasn’t trained in martial arts to defend herself, anyhow.

She could tell when he was in front of the door, on the other side. He didn’t open it and was silent for a few moments. Trying to confirm if someone was inside.

She might as well be the one to break the moment.

“It’s me, Kevin Flynn. Don’t worry, I’m not a burglar. Why don’t you come inside so we can have a civil discussion?”

The door creaked open, and Flynn was there. Cassie couldn’t make out his exact expression due to the poor lighting, but what she could make out was the lack of surprise. He seemed to know it was her, impossible enough.

“I expected you, Cassie. But, man, I wasn’t expecting you to break into my arcade so you could blackmail me in my secret office, jeez… What you’re doing could get you into a lot of trouble, you know.” Flynn entered the space, easing himself into the tense atmosphere. But behind the laid-back persona, Cassie could tell he was on high alert. This wasn’t a matter to take lightly.

Good. She wanted him to be serious for once, anyway.

“I won’t. Because I’m here to confront you on the legality of your actions. Sure, what I’m doing also isn’t legal, but I’m doing it because I believe it is right. Especially when there is a corrupt leader like yourself in charge of such a large and powerful company.” She stepped closer to Flynn, stepping into the perimeter of the single light that spanned the wide room. Flynn did the same.

“ Corrupt? ” Flynn paused to laugh. For quite a while. What the hell? Was this a joke to him?

“Corrupt… Ah, that’s a good one. Man, Cassie, I knew you didn’t approve of my practices and philosophy as CEO of ENCOM, but to go as far as to say I’m corrupt? Either you’ve gone off the deep end, or there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“I believe there’s nothing here for me to misunderstand, Mr. Flynn. And this is no laughing matter.” Cassie’s expression remained stern, unchanging, and cross. She seriously wasn’t the sentimental type at all.

“Okay… I can explain everything. But, first, I want to hear what you have on me first. What are you here for, Cassie?”

Even in this situation, Flynn was as carefree and lighthearted as usual. And it made Cassandra sick to her very core. Did he not care for the consequences of his actions one bit? It only told her more about his true character, and she only became further disgusted.

“I’m here for that .” She pointed at the digitization hardware. “You’ve stolen company property without proper authorization and lied about its status to the entire world. The reason I came to ENCOM in the first place was for the digitization project, and you’ve thrown it away entirely in pursuit of… of… video games! I thought you were selling company secrets or whatever and planned to stop you, but you’re making such grave risks for VIDEO GAMES? You’re using it in this dingy arcade basement so you can develop your incomprehensible “Grid” nonsense in secret, without even telling the company about it or getting the project approved! Kevin Flynn, just what in GOD’S name are you doing here to make doing this so worth it?”

As she spoke, Cassie’s voice raised higher, becoming angrier, and her face redder as she fumed with rage. She threw the evidence at his feet when she finished, the evidence scattering everywhere. She had planned this interaction out, to speak with authority, to keep the upper hand over Flynn and intimidate him with just how much she knew, with the knowledge that she could end his life and career easily if she really wanted to. But it hadn’t gone the way she thought at all.

Flynn was silent, purely stunned. Then, the corners of his mouth began to rise, and his shoulders began to shake, as his throat rumbled lowly with chuckles. He covered his mouth to conceal it, but then couldn’t hold himself back. He keeled over, hands over stomach and bellowing with frantic laughter, in pure disbelief from how badly Cassie had misunderstood his actions. Well, it only made sense that she did, to uncover all of this without knowing the context.

“Stop… Stop laughing at me! Can’t you even take things seriously in a situation like this?” The redness remained on Cassie’s face, but it converted to a bright scarlet as she stood there rigidly, fists clenched tight.

“N-No… Agh, I am taking it seriously, trust me…! Hahaha!” Flynn still shook from his laughter, dying down as he wiped tears from his eyes. Then, he groaned in sudden pain and clutched at his lower back, bending over more.

“Ugh… and in case you were wondering, I was not lying about that accident, ouch…”

Cassandra raised an eyebrow, unamused, the redness also dissipating from her face. “So. You better have a damn good excuse and explain yourself, then. There’s no way I could see you justifying stealing company equipment and lying about project development for whatever it is you have going on here.”

“Don’t worry, I can do that. Besides, it would be entirely pointless to try and come up with an excuse about what I’m doing here to you. Doing something like threatening you is out of the question, not when you have this- ” He indicated to the scattered papers, picking up a few and shuffling through its contents, “-and you’re not the type to accept bribes. You’ve always had that extreme, self-righteous attitude. That attitude is what made you break into my arcade and confront me here, insane as it is.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“And so are you, Ms. Miller. You’re not perfect, or always right, you need to realize. You’re human like everyone else.”

Flynn walked past Cassandra, heading over to the computer and typing a few things into the command prompt.

“And that’s why I believe I can trust you with this. I can’t try to hide it from you, it’s an impossible task. And, it's really hard for me to explain my actions with just words, plus, you wouldn't believe me and just call me crazy again if I tried. So…”

The digitization hardware began to whir again, booting it up once more.

“...I'll just have to show you.”

….Cassie began to grow worried. Was he suggesting what she thought he was? He had turned on the laser and booted up the digitization software… Was he really blasting himself with that thing every time he came here? If he was, there was no way he was convincing her to do the same. Absolutely not!

“Yeah, um, I’m not shooting myself with a high-risk, dangerous laser, Mr. Flynn! Are you insane? Actually, I shouldn’t be asking that since I already knew you were!” She took a few steps back, growing frantic.

Flynn sighed, placing a hand on the rim of the desk. “Look, I know it’s crazy. You have good reason to be cautious, but please, I am begging you, this is the only way I can prove myself to you. There’s just no other way possible to go about this. Besides, I’ve already hit myself with this thing hundreds of times at this point, and I’m still standing in front of you, whole and healthy. Cass, I know you don’t trust me, but just this once, will you have faith in me? Only this one time. I’m being entirely truthful here.”

Cassandra let out a long, doubtful sigh, and, slowly yet surely, made her way across the room and begrudgingly stepped beside Flynn, directly into the laser’s proximity.

“If I don’t come out of this whole, I’m revealing everything you have here.” She hissed between her teeth, hands still balled into fists.

“You’re completely in your right to do so.” Flynn hummed, too languidly for Cassie’s comfort. He turned to confirm the aperture for the laser.

Cassie closed her eyes shut and held her breath, preparing for the worst. “God, you better be right, Flynn.”

“You don’t have to worry about a thing.” The tip of Flynn’s finger made contact with the flashing “YES.”

Cassandra’s body felt hot, then a falling sensation and cold, tingling feeling- as if her body had been dumped into a tub of ice water, and she continued to sink, then numb, senseless, and weightless in a blank void, all in the span of a single second. Then, she felt everything again. Her body, surroundings, her senses were all back in shape, and at the moment, nothing felt impaired.

There was nothing wrong with her. But the world as she knew it around her felt… off.

“Cassie… You can open your eyes now.”

Bright blue and white lines of light, everywhere. A gray, seemingly endless, stormy sky. Cybernetic skyscrapers breached those angry clouds. Shiny, smooth, metallic surfaces and floating ships patrolling those skies. The air seemed to feel electric to her, and she could perceive it as she inhaled it into her body, the digital energy coursing throughout her veins and reaching the smallest corners of her being, and finally expelled through the tips of her fingers, the exhales of her breath. Cassie was left breathless by it all, seeming to forget everything in the moment, simply enjoying as much of the awe-inspiring scenery that her wide eyes could take in as possible. It was everything and more she had ever dreamed of, her inner fantasies, ones she had thought impossible, brought to life. Visualized outside of her imagination.

Flynn chuckled beside her, crossing his arms.

“Cassandra Miller, welcome to the Grid.”

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry… This is the Grid?”

After Cassie had taken the time to recollect herself after being taken aback so violently by the breathtaking, previously thought impossible cybernetic world around her, she was brought on by a flush of emotions that Flynn was subjected to.

“Yes, this is the Grid. Now that you’ve had a good, long look at the whole thing, can you say you’d believe me if I tried to describe this place in words to you, nonetheless convince you it was real?”

Cassie opened her mouth to refute, paused, then retracted herself. She couldn’t think of a good counterpoint. “Well… no. I wouldn’t. It’s like I’ve been transported straight to the future.”

Flynn laughed. It rang out into the distance, echoing in the city that was somehow, simultaneously loud and quiet. “That’s how I felt too when I first came here. Thought I was dreaming.”

They exited from the front of the building. Cassie’s head turned in every possible direction to sink into the new world around her. She noticed the building they exited was an exact copy of the arcade, sign, and all. The two stood at the edge of an irradiated platform, connected to a long, descending stairwell that pooled into the streets below. Everything seemed to be flooded with light. 

Gazing into the sunless sky, she recognized the peculiarly-shaped ships to be, well… Recognizers. From one of Flynn’s hit games he developed. They looked so much more modern and sleek than their blocky, primitive arcade counterparts, however.

Everything about the Grid was a far superior, updated version of the world of computers Cassie knew, the black screens and trailing green lines. It even scared her how realistic this digital world felt, the conciseness of the environment to the real one.

Flynn simply watched Cassie, grinning from ear to ear as her eyes twinkled in sheer awe. She was like a kid in a candy store, and letting her experience this felt strangely wholesome. He knew she would bombard him with questions later, specifically about his goals and purpose with the Grid, but he knew that he had convinced her emotionally to go with him from this alone.

Then, Cassie noticed the people next. But… there was something slightly off about them. They looked like people, but their air didn’t feel human. Just from their gray, off-color skin tone, peculiar hairstyles that would be mocked in the real world, and most noticeably, the jarring, skintight black body suits sided with patterns of neon lights and circles, and the round discs attached on all their backs. From the ground, they pointed, stared, and whispered at the two figures that stood at the edge of Flynn’s arcade.

It finally brought Cassie’s attention back to Flynn, the only other “real” person here. It was then she noticed his wardrobe change.

“Yeah, so everything aside for the time being… what the hell are you wearing?”

Cassie paused in her tracks, her eyes lowering to scan Flynn’s outfit, brow raised and lip curled judgementally. A dark bodysuit of glowing lights and circuits stretched throughout his body, hidden by a black jacket that was illuminated with even more lights on the inside.

“Plus, no zippers, buttons, nothing. How do you go to the bathroom?”

Flynn nearly let out a chortle that he restrained, then quickly recollected himself, “Erm… I don’t. I don’t stay in this place long enough to find out.”

Cassie’s expression only changed to become more… unpleasant, at the response. She took the moment to look down at herself, to see if she had changed to fit the environment as well. She had not. She had no disc on her back and her regular clothes had stayed with her. Here she was mocking the dress of the people of this world, yet there was no doubt in her mind that she was the odd one out. The irony.

His expression changed as well, to one of amusement and curiosity. “I bring you to a world previously thought impossible to create, the physical epitome of the digital frontier as we know it, and you ask if I can use the bathroom in the suit I’m wearing?”

Cassie shrugged. “Well, it’s an important question anyhow. Anyway… Where are we? Is this the inside of a computer?”

“Essentially, yes. One year ago, I discovered this world entirely by accident. After I became the CEO of ENCOM, I sought to use my discovery for good by creating the Grid and changing everything we knew for the better. This place… The Grid, once I finish it, will be the promise that brings us to a new, better age. But, as the Grid is still a very young system, it’s still far off from being able to accomplish that for us.” Flynn began to monologue, explaining his origins and motivations to Cassie so that she may understand everything.

The images and words of the files Cassie read on Flynn’s computer flashed through her mind. She put the pieces together, the confusing words that seemingly had no purpose, and it all made sense.

Yet, not everything was there.

There was still so much to uncover, explain and analyze, process. There was simply so much to see and understand in order to truly get what Flynn was talking about. Just what Cassie had seen from a few minutes inside the Grid was the tip of the iceberg.

This was what she had been waiting for her entire life. She wanted nothing more than to seek out more of this mysterious world.

“...I’m not sold on this yet Flynn. I want you to explain and show me everything. And I mean everything. It’s amazing, don’t get me wrong, and it changes the entire perspective I’ve had on you, but I have to know everything to decide if this is just or not. You do realize just how grave of a secret this is that you’re hiding, do you?” She turned and glared at him with a sharp, intimidating eye. Again, the nerve she had to look that way at her senior.

“Of course, I have, why would I have gone this far if I haven’t weighed all the risks?” Flynn chuckled in response. He was then distracted by a trail of light rapidly making its way towards them from a highway, off to the side. Cassie noticed it too, and upon closer examination, realized it was a figure on a… motorcycle of some sort? Whoever it was maneuvered the cycle expertly, as they made a rather daring jump off the highway from a long distance, landing and swerving to a stop directly in front of the two. Cassie didn’t realize that her jaw was left unhinged once more until after the man had landed to a screeching halt directly in front of the pair.

She grew more bewildered when he dismounted the bike and it disappeared into thin air, compacting itself into a small baton in the man’s hand.

Flynn seemed to know the person, as he grinned and approached them friendly, slinging an arm around one of his shoulders and tousling him.

“Ah, there’s my guy, Tron! I want to introduce you to someone, come here, man!”

The named figure, Tron, seemed unafflicted by Flynn’s warm greeting, seeming to accept it completely unbothered. These two knew each other well. Up until this point, Tron had worn a mask that covered his entire head, and his face was concealed. It somehow disassembled on its own into what seemed like… sheer nothingness? Cassie couldn’t tell where the material of the mask disappeared into the neck of the man’s suit, somehow breaking the laws of physics. But this was a world inside the computer, which probably meant that such things didn’t apply here. There were levitating ships after all, and such a thing didn’t exist in the real world.

She was so distracted by figuring out the process behind Tron’s suit, she hadn’t realized the uncanny resemblance of his appearance to what somehow she knew until he was practically in front of her, with a hand extended.

“So… You are Flynn’s new companion? It’s an honor to meet you.”

When he looked at her, it was not welcoming. He only said those words to be polite, as he was looking upon her with dismay and suspicion. What the hell was up with that? But besides that…

“Alan?”

The name left her mouth before Cassie realized it, and her jaw fell open again in disbelief and confusion.

“Mr. Bradley? You’re in on this secret world with Flynn too? And wow, uh, what’s with the shiny getup?”

Cassie looked Tron up and down, feeling out-of-place encountering this man who was somehow not her manager Alan, yet still shared a replicate face with him.

“You know Alan-One?” He too, looked back at her with surprise, but then he was able to get a good look at her face that way, and the expression quickly changed to exhibit… was that hostility?

“Of course I know Alan, he’s my boss! Well, Flynn’s my boss too, but Alan supervises me at work!” Cassie cried out in response, but Flynn had to get in between them. Probably because he saw that look on Tron’s face and knew his security protocols were activating.

“He’s not Alan, Cass. It’s the program he wrote, Tron. He’s my good friend, the protector of the Grid. That’s also why they share the same face.” Flynn corrected, standing between the two and speaking before Tron had a chance to continue. “Tron, this is Cassandra Miller, the newest hire at ENCOM. I…. feel as if I can trust her with knowing about the Grid’s existence (and also she’s left me no choice), as she’s very different and has been placed under a… special circumstance, which is why she’s here. Please make sure to help her feel welcome, yeah?”

He grinned once more and clapped the two of them on the shoulder. “There’s a lot to explain to the both of you, so I’ll make sure to clear everything up while I give Cassie here a tour of the place. Don’t worry you guys, I got this all under control.”

“Knowing you, I doubt that…” Cassie mumbled under her breath. She proceeded to shove Flynn’s hand off her shoulder, and take a few steps back, asserting herself over him sternly, “Okay, Flynn, this is what you’ve had inside your arcade basement this whole time? This digital world for… video games, or whatever the hell it is you’re trying to make here. This entire thing is really cool and groundbreaking, but why would you hide this discovery from the programming world? I’m still not convinced that you’re not keeping this to yourself for ulterior motives. What’s gonna stop me from going out and revealing your secrets, this ‘Grid’ to the company, to the world? ”

With an exasperated sigh and hand to his head, Flynn crossed his arms and stepped back beside Tron, who was still glaring at her with an air of distrust and resentment.

“Cass, listen, I just said I’m gonna take this visit to explain everything to you, in order to get you convinced that what I’m doing here isn’t wrong. Time runs here a lot faster than in the real world anyway, so we have plenty of time to go over every possible worry you may have,” Flynn tried to reassure her, before motioning to the scenery around them, “And, I can tell you’re trying to stay disciplined about all of this, but the look that was on your face when I first rezzed you in here tells me I already have you hooked on what I got going here. You don’t have to be such a killjoy about it, just enjoy yourself, yeah?”

For the third time that night, Cassie’s face boiled to a hot red. “I-I wasn’t trying to- argh, Flynn! You can’t blame me, all of this is obviously amazing, a programmer’s dream brought to reality! Yes, it’s true, this is something I can only fantasize about and is everything I have ever wanted! But I have to keep face about all of this and make sure you’re not being exploitative of it, since stealing company equipment and lying about its research is a huge crime! It’s really difficult to justify, if at all, Flynn!”

“Flynn… You’ve done what? Is this why you’ve brought a foreign user into the Grid?” Tron spoke up, standing between the two.

“Tron, it’s simply a misunderstanding… I brought Cassie here to prove to her that I haven’t done anything wrong. Well, with context, anyway. But concealing details on the digitization project was all necessary in order for me to create what I have here. And, I had intended to confront her anyway, whether it be sooner or later.” Flynn then turned to face Tron, “And, I can tell you’re distrustful of our guest, the second you laid eyes on her. You’ve recognized her, haven’t you? She looks like the hacker program that got in here a few millicycles ago.”

Tron grimaced, looking over Flynn’s shoulder to shoot another stink eye at Cassie again. Which she hadn’t failed to notice. She was just about to ask what his deal was with her anyway. Were all security programs this rude? But, she was also intrigued by the last thing Flynn had said.

“...Hacker program who looks like me? You mean Sei? So this was the private server it had hacked into?”

“Yes, and I suppose you are Cass-M, her user? Your hacker program caused quite a lot of trouble and damage for us, you know-” Tron attempted to advance towards Cassie in a fit of rage, but Flynn held him back. It was good he did because by no means was Cassie about to let him come nearer without dislocating an arm, anyway.

“Tron, stand down. Cassie had no idea just what this place was, and users aren’t aware that they create people when they make programs. I’m sure she wouldn’t have sent her hacker if she knew it would be like this.”

“...Be like what? Wait, so my program, Sei, was an actual person I created? I made someone?” Looking down at her hands in disbelief, Cassie was shocked that this was what she was capable of. Or, anyone was, for that matter. If Flynn was the only person until now to know about this place, then no programmer has any idea to what extent they are creating when they code a new program, or simply anything at all in the world of code. Was everything here constructed by a user? They are building cities, birthing people- not just a sequence of green lines on a black screen- and no one in the real world has a single clue at all. If humans were aware of this, Cassie was sure they would be treating the matter very differently. They simply held so much more power than they realized.

Her expression changed to one of horror as she came to a sudden realization. Cassie winded back to that thought; they had more power in the realm of computers than they realized, which meant that Cassie had essentially sent a cyber-terrorist she created into a server that was a society of people, so…

Her face immediately paled.

“Just… So what did Sei do when I commanded them to come in here? Where is it… I mean, where is she? Can I actually meet her physically?”

Cassie didn’t take it as a good sign when both Tron and Flynn’s faces darkened.

“About that… Cass, I’ll just have to explain it to you as lightly as I can. But not here, we’re in public right now, we’ll have to head somewhere more private first.” Flynn started. He was right, crowds of programs had begun to gather around the three in the square, whispering and pointing. Their presence alone was creating a plethora of rumors, and Cassie’s shouting from earlier had certainly caused plenty of this commotion. A new figure brought into the Grid by Flynn, dressed in a strange garb, and accompanied by the mighty Tron. Seeing this, and growing further embarrassed with herself, Cassie passed a nod to Flynn in agreement.

“Alright, fine, let’s go elsewhere. But I want you to tell me what happened as soon as possible, right?”

“We can head for the Security Headquarters in the city center, but we’ll have to transfer you both privately since you’re users. I’ll arrange for transport. Now, come this way.” Acting accordingly, Tron herded Flynn and Cassie away from the public eye, leading them into an empty corridor underneath the ground. They moved so quickly, Cassie barely had any time to absorb her surroundings and take in more of this beautiful, mysterious world and its inhabitants. They made their way into a passage of brightly-lit tunnels, which reminded Cassie of the Holland Tunnel of New York, but much more clean and well-lit in appearance.

Awaiting them was a four-wheeled automobile of some sort. Like a more refined, sleek version of those monster trucks that you see on television. And, like everything else in this world, the design was futuristic. Tron hopped into the passenger seat and indicated for the other two to get in as well. Flynn went in nonchalantly, but Cassie seemed to hesitate, mostly just in awe at the beautiful thing. Ideas raced through her mind, and she wanted to keep looking at it as long as she could, soaking in every single smooth, rounded detail so that she may feed the ravenous, endless curiosity and thirst for intellectual challenge that her mind craved. As a programmer, she pondered behind the programming of the vehicle, how such a thing possibly worked, and how the code transferred over to this world.

“Cassie… Hey, Cassie! Don’t blank out on me again!” Flynn called out, and Cassie was called back from the depths of her mind again, which had been blazing through thoughts, theories, and conclusions in an almost computer-like manner. So many questions had pooled into her mind at once, and she struggled to sort through them all. Well, her mind had felt that way since the moment she entered the Grid, and she ached for the trio to reach their destination soon so that Flynn may finally relieve her dying inquisitiveness.

“Oh... I’m sorry, I’m seriously not used to seeing things like this. This whole experience is just so new and shocking for me…” She clumsily stepped into the vehicle, entranced once more by its interior. “Just… wow. What is this thing? I would call it a ‘car,’ but I’m guessing that’s not what it’s called.”

“It’s a light runner. It’s a type of vehicle we have here in the Grid. The one you saw Tron riding on earlier when he made his entrance was a ‘lightcycle.’” Flynn clarified for her. Tron remained silent, closing the roof of the lightrunner and activating it. The lightrunner roared to life, and the lines along them, whatever they were, burst with light, drawing neon white streaks all over. Simply captivating.

“So everything here is named with the word ‘light,’ in the title, how fitti-”

Cassie was interrupted when the lightrunner jumped off in acceleration, making the seatbelt pin her to her seat and having her yelp involuntarily out of surprise. The sensation was similar to the propulsion of a rollercoaster. Jeez, do they have driving laws in this Grid place? She heard Flynn’s laugh bemusedly from the passenger seat, and she rolled her eyes at him in response. “Ugh, hey, Mr. Tron, or whoever you are, just a little warning before you do that, please?”

“It’s just Tron. And, noted, Cass-M.” He responded rather curtly. He hadn’t seemed to warm up to her yet, which made sense considering that uh… she basically sent a terrorist to do God knows what abominations in this place. Even if he knew now it was a misunderstanding, it was in his code to respond accordingly to an entity that had shown itself as a threat to the Grid. Even though Cassandra was a user, part of the people that he sought to protect, she shared a face with her hacker program, and thus his coding had imprinted it to recognize that face as a danger.

Surprisingly, Cassie didn’t seem to hold Tron’s contempt towards her with any injustice. She had sent Sei to infiltrate Flynn’s private server and steal vital information, which she now realized had resulted in nothing good. She wasn’t aware of the details but knew that it was to such an extent that Tron felt this resentment towards her. Her stomach felt weak at the implication of what sort of horrors Sei had inflicted, with Cassie not having any idea at all. If people had been hurt… well, it was not something she had intended to happen. She wanted Tron to know this at least.

“You don’t have to call me by my ENCOM account username, just call me Cassandra, Ala… I mean, Tron. Sorry.” Cassie shook her head, internally condemning herself for her blunder.

“It’s no problem… Cassandra. And Flynn, we’ll be coming up on the city’s bridge shortly.”

“Gotcha. Feel free to look around when we get to that, Cassie. The bridge has a stunning view of the Grid.”

“Seriously? Oh… Wow.”

They exited the tunnel and merged onto what seemed to be a highway system with various other types of vehicles Cassie couldn’t even begin to name, and the burst of bright lights and what seemed to be an endless wave of skyscrapers, buildings, and freeways filled her vision. The only thing that seemed to remind her that she was inside a computer was the lack of sun and the voidness of the sky filled with storm-gray, thundering clouds. She could see where the city ended and realized why it was called the Grid. In the areas that weren’t filled with architecture and civilization, the ground was quite literally a “grid,” with the only objects obstructing the flat, seemingly endless grid floor being rocky, non-terraformed land.

And it was breathtaking.

It was something out of a sci-fi novel, and honestly, Cassie loved it, it was like candy for her hungry, ever-consuming mind. The whole thing was like if you mashed an architect and sci-fi lover’s dreams together. The lights seemed to go on endlessly, and Cassie wasn’t sure if she could make out any other colors than blue, black, and white. It was almost as if you made an entire city like Times Square in NYC. All the bright, neon lights seemed to sell the picture.

She watched what seemed like this world’s equivalent of trains move seamlessly throughout the city, and she wondered what they transported. Programs, most likely, and perhaps resources too. What were this world’s resources, and what do they account as valuable? Recognizers weave between the skyscrapers, and Cassie mused what made them capable of floating. She saw the moving people… no, programs, like little, bright bugs move through the streets below, and she wondered how the individuals who created each one would react if they found out they were creating people, people with emotions, personalities, and dreams.

Before she could only imagine the descriptions of the utopian, futuristic cities from her favorite books, but now here she was seeing it with her own eyes, seeing something she never thought possible for humanity to create. Or, at least, for them to reach in her lifetime. All inside a computer, nonetheless, which was more impressive from her standpoint.

In the meantime, while Cassie was left captivated by what the Grid had to offer, face nearly pressed up against the window, eyes giving that sparkling sensation that happened whenever something enthralled her, Tron turned to Flynn’s ear.

“Flynn… Honestly, are you insane? When you told me the last time you were here you’d address the user that sent the hacker here, I didn’t think you’d bring them inside the Grid. Is it so wise to show the person that has posed themselves as a threat everything about the Grid?”

Flynn sighed, mumbling back a reply just barely audible so that Cassandra wouldn’t hear. “She had no idea, Tron, and I also had no choice, because she blackmailed me. Cassie’s a bit of a jerk, but she isn’t evil. But look at her right now, she looks like a kid in a candy store. Would she have sent her hacker to wreak destruction if she had known this place existed? Up until this point, no one except me knew something like the Grid was possible. You have to remember that.”

Tron mumbled something unintelligible to himself, before warily agreeing. “All right. You better convince her, Flynn. I don’t know anything about the real world, but it sounds like she really has the power to hurt you with what she’s unearthed. I’m disappointed, I thought you were better than this”

Flynn chuckled. “I did have it under control. No normal person would have been able to uncover this, but she did because she’s unusual. Cassie’s just a genius, she’s abnormal for us users and is an outcast from society in the real world. She’s insanely perceptive, and it was my mistake to think she was no danger. And Tron, hey, watch the road-!”

He directed an increasingly-concerned Tron’s attention back to the traffic, and he had to skid to a sudden halt so that he wouldn’t plow right into the back of a truck. It snapped Cassie back from her mind’s pondering once more, and she cried out in frustration.

“Yo- hey! I said to give me a warning! Do you guys not have driving tests here in this computer world? That scared the life out of me!”

“I’m sorry, there’s just been a lot on my mind lately. I’ve been stressed due to a lot of disruptions on the Grid. As System Monitor, it’s my job to protect the Grid from any threats.”

That caught Cassie’s attention, and she scooted forward in her seat.

“Huh, a System Monitor? In the real world, the system monitor is a type of software used to protect computers from virus attacks and the like. Here, it’s a position of employment? Intriguing.”

Her eyes started to analyze Tron, absorbing every little detail and feature. It was like she was creating a mental profile on him, and gathering information. Her college roommate once described her psyche as “a mental filing cabinet designed to organize pretty much everything.”

“Not exactly employment,” Flynn pitched in, turning back in his seat to face Cassie, “He was created to be a security program by Alan, Cass. The difference is that a person can choose what they want to do, but all programs are designed with a purpose in mind, and they are best suited for what they are coded for. Programs as we know them aren’t changed that much in the Grid. Besides, well, the humanization part.”

This sentiment confused Cassie. She was one to always seek a logical, clear explanation for everything she questioned. “Okay, but if programs are like people in reality, doesn’t that mean they have the will to go against their coding and do what they feel is their calling, even if they originally programmed for something different? If, say, a program designed for technical support wanted to become a security program, could they do that?”

Flynn’s expression changed to uncertainty. He had never really thought about these things, it was difficult to explain the logical nature behind things that, are well, not logical. Such things didn’t need to be known in order to make progress in the Grid. But Cassie, as everyone knew her, would not stop until she had dug up an irrefutable response to explain the logic of the illogical things in life.

“That’s… something I haven’t thought much about, truthfully. Most programs are content with what they were designed to be, but, even though programs look like us, it doesn’t mean they’re ‘human.’ Think about the principles of programming, Cass, you can’t create a program and tell them they can be whatever they want without explaining what ‘whatever they want’ means. You still have to make very clear specifications, and you can’t explain in any clear, direct wording how to be ‘whatever you want.’ How do you let a computer know what it wants to do? It will need specifications on that as well, it can’t come to that decision on its own. It’s hard to explain, but while they do have feelings, dreams, and goals, programs are still bound by, well, what makes them programs.”

“So they’re not human… but they still have human traits like emotions, dreams, hobbies, likes, dislikes? Yet, they can’t understand ‘human’ characteristics due to the limits of their coding, the defining traits that make them ‘programs.’ Is there no immediate explanation to explain why this is? Huh…”

“I don’t know, I’m no philosopher. But if that’s something you want to explore, then take up the challenge.”

Flynn left it at that. He was only feeding implications to Cassie so far. He had a plan for her, and he was going to pitch it at the end of their tour. She didn’t have to take it, and it wasn’t a huge loss if she did, but he had a feeling that Cassie’s starving mind and sheer fascination with the place were hardly likely to refuse the offer he had in mind. If he was forced to take the risk of another person- and one with such brilliance as Cassie- knowing about the Grid, he would at least try to get something out of it.

“We’re coming up on the entrance of the city Security Headquarters, Flynn,” Tron announced, pulling up to the private lobby reserved for high-ranking programs. Cassie noticed that a line of masked programs in a sort of customized suit she hadn’t seen waited for them at the entrance, arms crossed behind their backs. Unlike other programs, their circuits gleamed orange. It was strangely ominous to her and reminded her of the stereotypical color scheme that the bad guys got in arcade games. The player, or the “hero,” or “good guy,” was always garbed in blue to contrast them. The recognizers she saw during the commute also donned the same pattern.

It was hard to explain, but at the time, it felt like a perturbed warning of foreshadowing.

She looked up at the sky, seeing the height of the building. It was about as tall as the office, except that at the very top, she could make out a large emblem in the shape of a “T.” She noticed it was identical to the symbol on Tron’s chest.

Then, Cassie noticed the masked man who wore a suit of yellow, waiting at the very front of the line. The circuitry and design of his outfit were customized, and the yellow color seemed to indicate a title of superiority over the identical orange soldiers. Tron rolled the lightrunner beside this man, and the hatch of the runner lifted, revealing the man in yellow looming over the trio. The mask that covered his head warped his voice, making it sound intimidating, fear-inducing.

“I see you’ve brought yourself a guest, Flynn. I was not aware that we made the Grid open to the public.”

Flynn chuckled, stepping out of the lightrunner and slapping a palm on the man’s shoulder in a cordial, familiar manner. “Oh no, we’re far from it, Clu! Here, this is someone I want to introduce you to. She’s an intern at my job in the real world, Cassandra, and she’s going to be my special guest for this visit. I want you to show her around, explain everything to her. We’re just getting her settled in for now.”

Flynn seemed to pull Cassandra over as she carefully exited the lightrunner, still unfamiliar with its layout. Cassandra grinned unnaturally at the man, not adjusted to socializing in what was considered a “conventional” manner due to her lack of experience with social cues. She shyly squeaked a “hello,” and then immediately recoiled within the pool of discomfort in which she drowning in. She stuck out her hand erratically, expecting Clu to shake it.

The man removed his mask, with it disassembling into the neck of his suit in the same manner as Tron’s, and Cassie nearly made fright if she hadn’t remembered the “programs resembling their users” Flynn had mentioned before. The man, whom Flynn had called “Clu,” was Flynn’s doppelganger, and from that Cassie could presume that this was Flynn’s creation; his program.

Clu smiled at Cassie, peering at her. His smile was identical to Flynn’s, but it held none of the warmth that he possessed. Cassie theorized to herself that perhaps this was a result of programs lacking “humanity.” Or, maybe it was simply this man’s personality. He may look like Flynn, but god knew if he acted like him (Cassie hoped deeply that he was not). So far from what Cassie had seen of Tron, he wasn’t much like Alan at all in personality. But perhaps that was due to him being so on guard around her (which she couldn’t blame him for), which didn’t allow her to see into his true nature.

“Hello, Cassandra. I’m Clu, the System Administrator of the Grid, the one who takes care of things around here during Flynn’s absences. It’s a pleasure to meet another user besides Flynn, and I look forward to presenting you with everything we have to show for the Grid.”

He stared at her hand curiously, as if he was confused, not sure what to do with it. Cassie stood rigidly in her place, and despite taking notice of this response, felt too frozen to simply detract her arm. Luckily, Flynn was there to mediate the situation.

“Oh, you’re supposed to shake her hand, Clu. It’s a customary, formal greeting between users in the real world, but I don’t blame you for not knowing it. It’s a reflex for most people.”

“No no, it’s fine, Flynn, he doesn’t have to, it’s just my mistake-” She began to retract her hand, but Clu spoke up.

“No, I insist. ”

He grabbed her wrist, making Cassie flinch. It wasn’t exactly a kind gesture, and she instinctively shot a glare at Clu before she could catch herself.

“Clu- Clu, don’t!”

Flynn moved forward to intercept, acting as a bridge, but Cassie raised her opposite hand towards Flynn, stopping him, telling him not to intervene.

Looking between the two users briefly, Clu turned to face Cassie again, making eye contact with her. Another short moment passed, and then he extended his hand, as if asking for a second chance, an offer of retribution.

Cassie let out a short huff and shortly replaced her hand’s position, but didn’t break the glare with Clu, as a warning. Not a word was exchanged, she set a boundary with Clu. His mind seemed to work similarly to Cassie’s, in tune and synchronized, and just by observing each other’s body language with minds that worked like computers (with one of them being an actual computer), the two had adjusted to respond appropriately to one another.

Slowly and with great interest, Clu reached out further, taking and shaking Casandra’s hand. Cassie felt the texture of his glove. She was rather glad she didn’t have to make contact with skin, she didn’t like the sensation. The material was a sort of rubber, with an armored coating on the back of his hand, cool to the touch. The tips of Cassie’s fingers touched the fluorescent circuit strips that stretched across his digits, and while she felt no heat, she could feel a spark of electricity moving through them, which aroused her largely-expanded curiosity further and raised more questions at the bottom of a long mental list. 

But besides the sensations of the suit’s material, Cassie noticed the firm grip Clu kept on her hand. Assertive. Almost as rigid as Cassie was. He shook her hand in three short, robotic movements, and Cassie’s entire arm moved like a ragdoll, her hand limp like a dead fish in his hand.

Clu waited one more moment. Then, he removed his hand, placing it back at his side. Cassie did the same, yanking her hand away the moment it was freed and feeling worse than she had before. She really wished she never extended her hand in the first place.

Flynn coughed, covering his mouth with his fist, before letting out a short chuckle and placing his hands on his hips. “Alrighty then, um… let’s head inside then, shall we? No time to waste, we have a lot of things to do and see!”

Flynn ushered them inside, with Tron following behind, like a personal bodyguard. Which he probably was. His job was to protect after all, and Flynn, the creator, and his new user guest were at high risk for every moment they spent inside the Grid. He moved beside them silently, invisible in plain sight, only to speak when addressed.

Programs moving busily through the halls stopped in their tracks when they saw Flynn, Clu, and Tron, immediately moving to make a path for them. Like the programs in the square, they pointed and whispered at the sight of Cassie, knowing immediately she was a user given her strange attire and her being accompanied by the three most important people in the Grid. Cassie was not one to appreciate the attention. She already tried to divert as much attention to herself in real life as possible, usually by being unpleasant to be around. But she couldn’t do that here.

“Okay, so first things first, let’s get you to the armory so we can get you your own lightsuit and identity disc. It will make things a lot easier if we do, and will draw less attention to you.” Flynn began, stopping in front of a large, glass tube, which resembled an elevator. He pressed his palm to a flat screen against the side, and unidentifiable figures and words appeared, which Flynn seemed to work through with familiarity. Cassie looked closer, fascinated and trying to decipher the mechanics, but resolved on looking at such things later if she ever had the time. She was more concerned with why she needed one of those uncomfortable-looking, armored suits of light anyway.

“Huh? Why would I need one of those? They don’t look comfortable to wear, can’t I be fine walking around in what I’m wearing now?”

She stretched out her arms, looking genuinely distraught. Flynn only responded with that stupid grin, which seemed to widen, while Tron and Clu both took a good look at her outfit up and down, trying to understand its obscurity. So this was what users wore in the real world? In their eyes, they couldn’t understand why the users would choose to wear such loose, impractical clothing that could easily be removed, unfit for fighting or convenient movement.

Instead of being connected in one place, she seemed to wear separate articles of clothing, layered on top of one another. And, the high-waisted yoke pleated jeans and solid navy blouse, connected by a wide belt and covered by the long overcoat, looked entirely out of place in the bright, neon-colored, smooth-surfaced futuristic world of the Grid.

“Erm… It may not look very fitting at first, but trust me, Cass, it’s not all that bad. It will help you be less, um, recognizable, and you need a suit to hold your identity disc. You’re gonna want one, an identity disc is the most important personal resource one can have to operate throughout the Grid, and it has a variety of uses. Just getting one alone will answer the basic questions you have about this place, so it’s kinda necessary. You alright with that?”

Cassie squinted at the discs that adorned the upper backs of the three men, raising an eyebrow peculiarly. “Uh… Well, if I have to, I don’t mind. Also, can’t I just get what you’re wearing, Flynn? You’re not wearing a suit like the others, you get to wear a jacket, shirt, jeans… relatively normal looking clothes.”

The four arrived at their destinated floor and walked out into the clean, bright, hallway. Flynn seemed to know where he was going, so Cassie followed him, while more programs roaming the hallway in their own business, looked upon them with surprise and awe, immediately clearing out of their way.

Flynn guffawed, continuing the discussion while Clu and Tron followed in silence. “Well, you can customize your lightsuit to your preferences in its appearance, I can show you how. But, I’m kind of the creator, so this outfit is my trademark. Sorry about that.”

Cassie grumbled in annoyance and crossed her arms defiantly. “Ugh! Of course, I gotta be the only one to wear the weird neon, latex motorcycle suit.”

“You’ll be fine, it’s not that big of a deal,” Flynn reassured wearily, before suddenly stopping at the end of a winding hall. “Ah, here’s the armory. They should be ready for you, I had them make preparations during our commute.”

Clu stepped forward to operate the door’s mechanisms, while Flynn gave Cassie a hearty slap on the back. She wished he would stop doing that to people. It was especially weird to do with a young, female subordinate, nonetheless.

“Alright, all you gotta do is step into the center of the room, and just stand there while the Sirens do their work. You don’t have to do anything else! Just come back out when they’re done, we’ll be waiting on the other side. You got this!”

“Sirens? What are those exactly?”

“You’ll see them in a moment. Don’t worry about it! See you in a minute!”

There wasn’t much warning. The large, heavy metal doors opened slowly, revealing a round, dimly lit room on the inside, with not much to note in features. Flynn gave her an encouraging push forward, but the doors closed before Cassie had time to turn and call him a dick.

Scoffing, Cassie turned to face back toward the front. She was entirely alone, or at least she thought so. She chose to examine her surroundings for a bit and looked around. The ceiling was very high, and it was illuminated by very bright lights in the center, disallowing her from estimating the exact height. Her steps echoed loudly throughout the chamber, and, like the rest of the Grid she had seen so far, everything was so clean. Every surface was shiny and smooth, without a speck of dirt (if that was even a thing here).

Still, nothing of notice at all besides these obvious facts. For an armory, the room was devoid of any armor or weapons of any kind. Perhaps programs had a different definition?

Cassie shrugged. There was nothing else to do, so she stepped into the center of the room, which was placed upon a raised platform. There was a marking that resembled the shape of feet, so she aligned her own over the pattern. Immediately, white restraints raised over her feet, and she found she couldn’t move from her place at all. She was about to panic when she heard a strange, mechanical whirring from four corners of the room, like the sound of an encased box opening. 

She realized that in the dimmer parts of the room, were molds shaped like female bodies, and these molds had separated, with women in tightly coiled buns and sky-high stilettos emerging, from what she could make out from the distance and the lack of light. Cassie could only make out the pattern of their circuits while they stood in the shadows.

With eerie, and, ironically, robotic-like movements, the four women moved with synchronized steps, their heels clacking on the very same note, with exactly replicated pitch and depth. As they marched into the light, Cassie realized their outfits were all white, and while most programs seemed to have their unique pattern of circuitry, all of them shared one. They moved uniformly, behaved uniformly, and looked uniform, except for the apparent difference in race (if race was even a concept in this world), and were identical down to the smallest degree as if the rehearsed scenario had been… programmed.

It really pulled off the computer-esque, digital environment that Cassie had only just remembered she was in, reminded her that these were not really people, despite how they may appear, but programs, designed by them, humans. Or, users, as they were called here. Even though this world was so obviously not real, Cassie had nearly forgotten it was not reality. Somehow. It just felt that way.

Entranced by their alluring features and unique suits (Cassie noticed all the women were also extremely attractive), the four women all stopped in unison when they reached the platform, surrounding Cassie, their faces entirely blank. She could understand why they were called Sirens now. They did not utter a single word, but immediately got to work. Again, in unison, the women raised their index fingers, and they seemed to light up, accompanied by the sound of ignition that resembled a lighter. Cassie momentarily wondered what the purpose of this feature was, but she immediately received her answer when they started cutting her clothes off her body.

She yelped. She writhed and tried to move the best she could with her feet restrained, and reflexively grabbed the wrists of two of the women, inhibiting them, her face burning red in simultaneous rage and flusteredness. The other two continued to work on stripping her as if she had not reacted at all.

“Hey, HEY! What the hell do you think you’re doing? These are some expensive clothes, don’t destroy them! Look, I can take my clothes off myself if it’s necessary, you don’t have to- stop, STOP!”

They successfully removed Cassie’s overcoat, and she wailed in agony at the torn sight of her beloved garment. “Nooo! My good overcoat! Don’t you know how much that cost?”

The two women whom Cassie had grabbed looked at one another, then back at Cassie. Again. In creepy, synchronous movements. “Do not be alarmed, esteemed guest of the Creator. We can arrange to repair and return your attire after the process if that’s what you wish. In the meantime, please allow us to carry out our function.” The one to her right spoke, her voice ringing with too-perfect enunciation, her voice distorted inhumanly. It was difficult to explain, but it was like Cassie was hearing the program’s voice through a computer but with the speaker quality raised. Made sense, after all, they’re inside a computer.

She sighed and shakily released the womens’s wrists apologetically. “I’m sorry, I just freaked out. In the real world, it’s considered an invasion of space to just… start stripping someone nude without their permission. As long as I get my clothes back in one piece, I don’t mind.”

The women turned to each other, faces still just as blank, and were about to operate once more, but Cassie once again interrupted, remembering something. “Ah, wait! Let me just get my…”

She fumbled at her belt, pushing her coat to the side so she would have access to the walkman she had strapped there. Cassie always brought her Walkman everywhere with her and had only just remembered it.

“Please, let me keep this item with me. It’s a special personal belonging of mine and I don’t want it to be taken away. Can that be allowed?”

The Sirens looked at each other once more, heads tilting with elegance. They exchanged no words, seeming to converse only with their eyes, and one of them turned to Cassie, nodding.

“Your request is permitted. Please, allow us to hold the item for you while we proceed with our protocol, and we will return it once we conclude.”

“Oh, of course, I don’t mind…” She handed her walkman off to one of the Sirens, who, somehow procured a tray out of nowhere. She stepped back from the platform, still as a statue, while the other three Sirens continued to surround Cassie, doing nothing.

“Um…” Cassie gulped, then cleared her throat, “So, you can continue now…”

The echo of her voice bouncing off the chamber walls only made the mood a lot more cringeworthy than it needed to be. It only reminded her painfully of her inability to interact with others fluidly. This was perhaps the reason she was so quick to push others away, because of her (in her eyes) ridiculous fear of socializing.

Immediately the women got back on track. The belt was severed into chunks (the buckle was literally right there, could they not figure it out by just looking at it?), and the pants were torn into several segments and slid off. The blouse was next, and somehow without her noticing, Cassie’s socks and loafers had evaporated into nothingness.

With each segment of clothing removed, Cassie could feel herself becoming more flustered. She was one bra-and-panty away from being stark naked. In a big, empty, room. With four women, their glassy, non-blinking eyes seeing everything no man or woman had seen before. This situation felt a lot more, um… wrong, than it needed to be. The Sirens somehow didn’t seem bothered at all. Probably did this sort of thing often.

Cassie was afraid they were going to take the rest off, but thankfully, they conceded here, turning and prancing back to the corners of the room, where rectangular cases were received and opened automatically through a sort of levitating transportation line in the wall, revealing segments of black armor cushioned on display.

Too focused on their actions, Cassie was interrupted by the abrupt, skin-crawling feeling of a sort of smooth, latex-like material running its way up her body, covering her entirely in a black, full-body suit. At least she felt a little more modest now. Feeling anything but uncomfortable in a skin-tight, latex suit that Cassie thought would be the stuffiest, most restrictive thing in the world, she begrudgingly realized that there was some truth to Flynn’s earlier words. In the real world, such an outfit would be hellish to wear, but right now she felt like she was wearing her comfiest pajamas, but made more breathable and fluid to wear, and insanely easy to maneuver. Huh. This really wasn’t so bad after all.

She also noticed that the balls of her feet felt higher in the process, and she looked down to realize the material had formed to give her shoes as well, in the form of raised wedge heels. They weren’t too high, luckily, and she liked the extra height it gave her. Wearing heels at the office gave her experience with learning not to roll her ankles too often.

The Sirens returned, operating in that inhuman synchronous movement, all holding segments of various body armor in hand. They began with her upper body, the plates of armor somehow suctioning themselves naturally to the smooth suit. They only attached major pieces, yet, in a freaky nature, the smaller segments formed themselves naturally around the rooves and curves of her body, linking themselves to the other major segments of the manually-placed armor, and the ticklish sensation made goosebumps raise on Cassie’s cool skin.

She was now covered in a complex arrangement of jet-black and monochrome gray armor, and she flexed her limbs, getting used to her new ensemble. It was not as constricting as she imagined; the opposite, actually. She thought it would make her feel hot and sweaty within minutes, but for now, she felt relaxingly cool.

She almost flinched from surprise when she noticed white lights blinking from the strips of circuits on her feet, which spread their way upwards in no time, soon encompassing her entire body. Like the Sirens, Tron, and Flynn, her circuits were white; a color she noticed that seemed to be reserved for special people or programs with exclusive roles. She even got her own personal pattern of circuits, which was pretty cool, to be honest.

She noticed in front of her, a sort of casing raised, with a round identity disc hovering within its containment. One of the Sirens turned to retrieve it, while the other three remained solid in their positions, all staring into Cassie’s soul. Overhead, from a direction Cassie struggled to consciously find, a cool, female voice spoke, in a slow-paced calm tone, with peculiar, unnatural intonation.

“Attention, Program. You will receive an identity disc. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disc. If you lose your disc, and fail to recover your disc before you develop into a Stray, you will be given a new identity disc, however, all information from your previous disc will be lost.”

The Siren who retrieved the disc passed it in a line until it reached the Siren who was directly behind Cassie. With two hands, she raised the disc and anchored it securely into a dock on her upper back. At that moment, Cassie seemed to tune everything out for a split second, then was abruptly yanked back into the environment around her, as if she was just born and freshly exposed to the cold air of the world, and more acutely aware of everything around her with a peculiar feeling of familiarity. It seemed to scare her, as she suddenly recognized everything for what it is.

This identity disc the Sirens had plugged into her seemed to automatically connect her to something, to the rest of the Grid. Like sliding a floppy disk into a computer’s disc drive. She didn’t feel like an outsider now, but she was a part of the system. She had previously felt she was watching everything within the Grid behind a veil, despite being there directly, but now, the veil had been lifted, and she could see everything truly for what it was. It felt both unreal and the most real she had felt at the same time.

“Mirroring complete. Disc activated and synchronized. Proceed to exit.” The same Siren from before announced, with that illusory, static tone. Only her mouth and jaw seemed to move. Everything else about her was still. Yet, her eyes showed signs of interest, as they examined Cassie closely, eager to see what a user was like.

“Alright, um… Thank you?” Cassie replied uneasily, deciding to find a way to break that soul-crushing eye contact with the Sirens by looking down at her outfit, pretending to have an interest in its design. The woman nodded in response, and in one last unified motion, the women marched backward, stepping back into their shells, and morphing into the wall.

“Here is your belonging,” the fourth Siren, who had stood entirely still until that moment, had come back up the platform, raising the tray towards Cassie’s direction. She took the walkman, and thanked the Siren in a murmur, then tried to find a way to attach it to her body. Too occupied with finding a place to secure her walkman, the Siren retracted herself silently, also retreating into the shell she had emerged from.

In a moment of clarity, Cassie found that the suit she was adorned in had many hidden, conveniently placed pockets, compartments, and straps. She settled on strapping her walkman at the waist, where she found the location of one of these hidden compartments. Honestly, the whole design and features of these “lightsuits” reminded her of the stillsuits from Dune.

The creaking, mechanical sound of a door opening echoed across from Cassie, and the luminous restraints lowered from her feet. She took one last look at the encasings the Sirens had returned to, and shrugged her shoulders, before stepping off the platform and walking towards the light.

The three men who had left her were waiting on the other side, and Flynn whistled as his eyes lit up excitedly at the sight of her.

“And look at you! A lightsuit suits you really well Cass, wow. I hardly recognized you! It wasn’t as bad as you’d thought it is now, was it?” Flynn laughed across his words, as he got up from the bench he was lounging on and went over to Cassie. From behind Flynn, Tron, and Clu gazed at Cassie with different expressions.

With Clu, Cassie couldn’t tell what was going on with him. His expression was nearly blank, with only a hint of bemusement. But Cassie didn’t trust a man that couldn’t be read. Tron, on the other hand, looked absolutely astonished. He still had that glowering expression, but, he seemed to be analyzing her new appearance, taking it in and coming to some sort of conclusion. What it was, Cassie had no idea.

Cassie huffed, crossing her arms. An action Flynn noticed that she did when she didn’t want to admit something or became crossed. “Yeah, it wasn’t. This is more comfortable than I thought it’d be. But you can’t blame me for thinking so, can you?”

“No, but come on, lighten up a bit. Now that you’re suited up, we can officially start our tour of the Grid. I’ll be your personal guide, you’re gonna love it, Cass.” Flynn seemed more ecstatic than Cassie would expect, for a man she was blackmailing. Either that’s how he really felt, or he was only putting on a show in order to convince her.

“I’ll come to that conclusion when you’ve answered my every question, Flynn,” Cassie responded in her usual cold manner, but, she knew that she already was in love with the place. Flynn could tell too, no matter how much Cassie tried to conceal it.

“I know, I know. I got it. Now let’s get going. Tron, Clu, come on.” Flynn motioned his hand towards the two men, who stood off to the side at the moment. The both of them nodded at Flynn, turning back to look at Cassie once more. Like Flynn, she shared the white circuitry he possessed. Neither of them had ever met another user besides Flynn, and both were compelled to see how she differed from him. Especially since Flynn had described her as a “genius” and “outcast,” they wanted to know what made her so special from other users.

So far, besides the feat of breaking through Flynn’s impressive protection for the Grid, this female user just seemed like a socially inept, stubborn, and bad-tempered lady.

“We’re currently at the epicenter of the city, the core operations of the Grid. The most important tasks are done here, and this facility alone houses a variety of functions that are crucial to keeping the Grid running.” Flynn explained as they walked through the hallways, and Cassie peeked into windows in rooms. Programs were hard at work doing things she couldn’t even begin to explain, using technology and tools that were out of this world.

The whole place felt familiar, and not just because of the identity disc that was installed into her.

“Hey… Isn’t the layout of this place just the ENCOM office? You just took the design of the entire city of the real world and copied it here!”

“Yes, it is. It makes the job a whole lot easier than designing everything from scratch, you know. It’s also easier to get around,” Flynn confirmed before he stopped in front of another large, important-looking door. “This is the military wing of the facility, the base of operations for security programs. Tron has more understanding of this area than I do, so do you mind taking over for this section, Tron?” He turned to Alan’s doppelganger, who until that moment was absorbed in boredom. “Ah… Of course, Flynn.”

He took the lead, opening the door and leading the others inside. “Here, newly-rezzed security programs are trained and assigned to divisions, and receive their orders. Most security programs work in the general field, but we have a few specialized subunits that work on very specific areas that may need more attention. Viruses, for one. General security programs, such as myself, can address viruses, but since they can quickly spiral out of control, we have a division of security programs purposed to suppress and prevent them. We also detain rogue programs here, criminals, anyone who shows themselves as a threat to the Grid.”

“Interesting… So this place is like one big police station. And, you guys get threats? Okay, well… Um. I know my hacker program was a threat, but… she was an outside threat.” Cassie chuckled awkwardly, briefly meeting Tron’s eye, being met with his irritation, and quickly turning away from him. “Okay. I mean, I get if there weren’t any security problems, there would be no need for security, but why would any program want to cause problems if they weren’t made to?” Cassie inquired, and through the balcony setting that they had entered, looked down upon the rows and rows of jail cells being patrolled by guards, each with several programs lounging inside.

“Programs are written to be competitive, that’s why. So, some of them can step out of line. As security programs, we’re here to curb them if they step out of line.” Tron answered, in a blunt tone. He wasn’t exactly as optimistic about Cassie as Flynn, and Cassie couldn’t blame him.

“Here is the training zone, where security programs practice by dueling one another. With safeguards, of course, so that no one gets derezzed.”

Through the window, Cassie could see several rings with pairs of programs, barrier fields raised in half-sphere above them. They leaped and jumped back and forth, with impressive parkour and acrobatics, while they threw and ducked from what seemed to be... Their...  discs at one another. Then, in one of these rings, one of the programs was hit square in the chest by a disc, and they were knocked backward in a manner that looked painful, groaning from the impact. 

All the programs engaged in duels wore green protective armor, and the program that was hit had his armor transitioned into a bright red. “Player One downed. Player Two is victorious.” The cool, female voice that Cassie had heard in the armory announced. The barrier collapsed, and from the sidelines, a group of programs approached the pair, helping their friend up and engaging in conversation.

“Oh, um… and, derezzed….?” Cassie questioned, just barely recalling the last comment Tron had made before she was distracted by the scene.

“It’s their word for ‘death’ or ‘kill.’ Programs don’t die in the same way as us, Cass. You’d be glad to never see a program getting derezzed, but, it’s not as gruesome as death in the real world.” Flynn clarified. “And, do you want to go inside and take a look at this? You seem interested.”

“Flynn, these cadets are in the middle of their training, we wouldn’t want to interrupt…”

“It’ll be fine, Tron, we’ll only be watching from the side.” Flynn interrupted, reassuringly, and begrudgingly for Tron, led them all into the room. Immediately, the reaction was whispers and stares, as for the young programs, it was their first time to ever see the Creator, Flynn, and the System Admin, Clu, in person. Yet, who was the strange woman beside them? The young programs could tell that she was not a program, by the white lines of light streaking her suit and the aura she exhibited. Had Flynn brought another user with him into the Grid? It was something unheard of.

“Please continue with your training and pay no mind, programs. Flynn is just giving a tour of the Grid to his guest. And you better be on your best behavior.” Tron announced, stepping forward and asserting himself. The programs, mostly out of fear and awe of him, got back to it, out of fear of embarrassing themselves in front of the three most important people in all of the Grid. All three of them were gathered here, just for this woman who was now obviously another user. They were witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, so they couldn’t mess this up.

The pairs that were previously battling resumed, in fact, seemingly putting more effort than before into their training, wanting to impress the mighty Tron. Cassie observed them, thumb and forefinger pressed against her chin. “So, discs are also used as weapons, not just as a personal file for memory and information? Talk about an all-in-one purpose, and it's definitely unique. Pulls off the whole ‘futuristic’ vibe of this place even further… which, I didn’t think to be possible at this point.”

Wanting to investigate further, Cassie reached behind her shoulder and undocked her own disc. She held it in both hands, examining it and feeling its texture. It was smooth, with a slight weight, and cool to the touch. She then held it in her dominant hand, wanting to get the full experience, and gasped when its edges lit up in her hand, surprising her. It made a whirring, electronic sound. She thought that she wanted to turn it off, and through some magic, telepathic connection, it did. She brought it back to both hands again and wondered how one could see the memories and information the disc supposedly contained. Again, as if the disc could sense her wishes, the center lit up into a 3D hologram, and Cassie was met with a bust of her head, rotating lazily within the empty center of the disc.

Then, her bust withdrew, and instead, images of her memories popped up, playing like a video for her to see. Events she recalled from the past week flashed by, and Cassie watched in awe, acting as if she had never recounted these affairs taken from her mind. How did this work? Did the disc somehow imprint everything she knew in her mind onto the disc? That sounded… insanely convenient. She had so much she had to remember all the time, if she could pull up her mental lists from her disc, it would make every menial task in her life effortless.

“Wow… This is just amazing…” She muttered breathlessly, too absorbed with her disc to remember the people and setting around her.

“Ahem… Cassie, you seem to be really fascinated by your disc, there.” Flynn broke inside her bubble, placing a hand on her shoulder. He placed a hand in front of her, touching and swiping the flashing images on her disc, making them retreat inside her disc. Wherever it went. Cassie couldn’t even begin to imagine how any of it worked. “But, time’s-a-ticking, and while I’m glad you’re eager to explore what the Grid has to offer, we’re still under a time constraint here. How about we move on?”

“I agree. Flynn, I have some business to get back to, anyway…” Clu, who had been silent up until that point (or, he had no opportunity to speak until then) began, but was interrupted by the sound of the door slamming open, and a figure rushing into the room.

“Tron, sir? I’m here with that report you asked me to give you, someone told me that you were here-”

The sound of footsteps stopped dead in their tracks, as if they were met with something unexpected. And that voice… Cassie was taken aback by it. Just, why did the owner of this voice sound so similar to her own?

She got her answer when she turned to see herself standing in front of her.