Yesterday's Legacy (Tron)

[crystalfic]

Title: Yesterday's Legacy
Author: crystalshard
Characters: Sam, Alan, Tron
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild computer violence.
Disclaimer: I do not own Tron, Tron: Legacy or anything associated with the franchise, save for a copy of the original film on DVD. It belongs to Disney. No money is being made from this story.
Summary: Sam has returned to the Grid and is trying to fix things. One day, a very familiar program is brought to him, and he'll need someone else's help to repair him.
A/N: Based on the 'ninja Alan' prompt over at a certain Tron meme.



As the program lay dim and motionless on the padded table, Sam called up the hologram image in her identity disc and began to carefully pick through the code. She wasn't as badly damaged as some that he'd met in the beginning, but the data corruption was still enough to bring her almost to the point of derezzing. How she'd made it through the cycles between Sam's escape from the Grid and his return, he didn't know, but he was glad she'd survived. Many, many others had not.

As with all the programs he'd fixed, the source code on this one was familiar. His father's hand, showing in every program that he'd designed and brought to the Grid. He was getting to know his father better through his programming style than he ever had in seven years and one day.

Code repaired, he fitted the disc back into place and watched as she recompiled, open metallic scars and exposed circuitry knitting back together to form a smooth whole. Another program picked her up and carried her away.

"I hope that was the last one for today, Amanda. I'm getting kinda tired here," Sam said to his right-hand program, a former inventory control system that Sam had found hiding with a group of programs that had still been loyal to the vanished Clu. She hadn't been particularly User-friendly until Sam had surprised her by sparing her life, and was now his most dedicated program.

"Just one more, Sam," she said briskly. "We don't know much about this one - he was found on the shores of the Sea of Simulation. There's no real external damage, but we can't get him to absorb any power. It's as if he's locked in permanent reboot."

Sam sighed. "All right. But this is absolutely the last one today, okay?"

"Okay, Sam," Amanda echoed. He'd ordered her to use his name on the second day of their acquaintance, and she did so faithfully - even when he wasn't sure he wanted her to.

A helper program walked in, a familiar helmeted figure carried in his arms. Sam stepped back involuntarily, the T-mark on the program's chest identifying him despite the concealing visor. "Rin - Tron."

The security program's glow was so faint that Sam could barely make it out at all, but it wasn't the angry orange he remembered seeing from inches away as Rinzler tried to kill him. It was white, the same shade that lit up Sam's own suit.

The helper laid Tron down on the table where the female program had only recently rested. He and Amanda left the room, leaving Sam alone with the being who was both the hero of his father's stories and the nightmare of his recent experience.

It would be so very, very easy to derez Rinzler. Claim that he hadn't been able to fix him, and that it was better for him to have been derezzed than hang on in that nulled state. Sam's fingers went to his light disc almost without his willing it, the outside edge lighting up with a hum as he gripped it.

Then he stopped. Breathed, clicked his disc back into place and really looked at the still form. R - Tron was oddly blurry at the edges, black pixellating into the surrounding space like charcoal dust suspended in air. Tentatively, Sam reached out, touching the program's helmet, wondering if it could be removed like a motorcycle helmet. As he felt around for the release, something went click and the helmet didn't so much come off as retract invisibly into the neck of Tron's armor.

He'd known that Tron resembled Alan, but he hadn't been prepared for the shock of seeing a younger version of his surrogate father lying pale and still on the ledge. Tron rolled bonelessly when Sam cautiously pushed at his shoulder to get at his identity disc, and flopped back again with that same kind of disturbing blankness that he'd seen in Quorra when she'd lost her arm. Sam brought up Tron's code, and stared in horror at the readouts.

Almost-familiar data was wrapped around Tron's program, invading it, feeding on it like ivy on an old oak. It wasn't quite the same as his father's familiar code, although the two styles were definitely akin. There were holes in the override data where Tron's original program showed through, but they were few and far between. Some of them looked new, the torn data raw at the edges, and Sam guessed that they were the ones Tron had created when he'd snatched back enough control to defy Clu. Others seemed older, having been patched around the edges, mute evidence that Tron had never stopped fighting.

Fighting hadn't been enough, though. There were tendrils of code burrowing down to Tron's core, taking over key processes that it must have consumed over time. The parasite - Rinzler - had stolen enough of Tron that he wouldn't survive without it, now. He could get rid of the worst of it, but he'd have to leave some of Rinzler in there just so that Tron wouldn't crash from all the holes. The only way to fix him would be to replace Tron's original data as he deleted the malware. The problem was, Tron wasn't his father's program. He didn't know how to give Tron what he'd lost.

"But maybe somebody else does," he said aloud.

Sam fixed all of his attention of stripping out as much of Rinzler as he could. The twin discs made things even trickier than he'd anticipated, but he managed to clear the worst of the surface code.

* * *

"Alan?"

Alan looked up from his computer to see ENCOM's new CEO leaning on his door frame. "Yes, Sam? What can I do for you?"

"You got a minute?"

Alan leaned back from his keyboard. "Sure. Come on in." Whatever Sam wanted, it was bound to be more entertaining than the budget reports that his subordinates seemed intent on drowning him in.

Sam took the invitation, even shutting the door behind him. Then he fidgeted.

"Come on, Sam, out with it. I don't have all day," Alan said briskly, trying to cut through Sam's uncharacteristic hesitation.

"I need your help," Sam said, almost too fast.

Alan gave him a quizzical look. "Wonder-boy Sam Flynn needs the help of a washed-up old software engineer like me?" he asked. He couldn't remember the last time that Sam had asked for help with anything.

"Please, you're the only one who can do this," Sam said, and it took all of Alan's concentration not to gape at that sentence. "Look, I've got to get back. Can you meet me at Dad's old arcade in about an hour?"

"An hour? Sam, I can't . . ." Then he saw the pleading look in Sam's eyes and he caved. "All right, one hour. But you'd better have a good explanation for this."

"I'll explain when we get there. Thanks, Alan," Sam said in evident relief. He was out of the door before Alan could ask any more questions.

* * *

There was a rush of light and the disconcerting sensation of being painlessly separated into millions of individual bits. Then there was the equally odd feeling of being stacked back together, and Sam was standing on the Grid, beside the man who'd been more of a father to him than his own biological parent.

It wasn't the same as the Grid he'd first arrived in. Much of it had derezzed or decompiled during . . . during his escape from Clu. The first time he'd come back, he'd been shocked at the amount of damage, and he'd worked to clean up the damaged code. Tron City was still being rebuilt, a mix of repaired structures and empty, blank spots where the buildings had been too badly corrupted.

Sam turned from his contemplation of the Grid to look at the man who'd travelled in beside him. If he'd expected anything, he'd have expected Alan to still be wearing his street clothes and glasses.

He hadn't expected this.

Alan's face and hair were still the same, the grin he was wearing showing just how the laugh lines and creases had come into being, but those was the only things that hadn't changed. He was clad in the same sleek black Program armor that Sam was, but it glowed blue instead of white. At the base of his throat were eight tiny squares in the shape of an A, and as Alan slowly turned to take in every aspect of the city, Sam could see the identity disc that fit snugly between his shoulderblades.

Finally, Alan completed his revolution and smiled at Sam. "It's changed a bit since I was last here," he said offhandedly. He looked down at his armor, stroking a line of circuitry on his arm, and Sam watched as the light brightened momentarily in the wake of his fingers. "I'd almost forgotten what it was like to wear this."

Sam was speechless, his jaw dropping slightly open as he stared.

Alan frowned a little at Sam's look. "Did Kevin not tell you - no, no, of course he wouldn't have," he said quietly, almost to himself. He shook his head a little. "Kevin took me into the Grid quite a few times, Sam. He said he wanted an outside perspective on it, but frankly, I think he just wanted to show off." Alan chuckled. "I didn't mind. It gave me the chance to meet Tron face to face. Boy, was that disconcerting at first."

"Yeah, that's kinda why you're here." Sam pulled out two lightsticks and threw one to Alan. Alan caught it neatly, as if the reflexes of his younger self were coming back to him with the restoration of his disc. "You ever learn to use one of these things?"

"Hah. I could probably still show you a trick or two, kid." With that, Alan turned and ran a few steps, leaping into the air as the lightcycle rezzed into being beneath him. The bike drifted sideways under full control, then balanced. Waiting.

Sam grinned, then did the same. "This way!" he called to Alan. He zipped away, looking back over his shoulder for the older man. He didn't have far to look - Alan was only just behind him, and catching up fast. Alan pulled even with him, and then refused to let Sam outpace him all the way back to Sam's residence.

Sam had chosen to live in the middle of the city, where programs could find him at any microcycle - or, if not him, Amanda. He'd made the place into a tower, enjoying the fact that it gave him the ability to glance over the city and see it rendering as he made adjustments. On the ground floor was the room where he met with the programs - and also, right now, where Tron was lying, in a room that only Sam could access. There was still a lot of bad feeling about Rinzler on the Grid, and Sam didn't want the program derezzed now after all the work he was doing to fix him.

Inside the house, Sam touched a seemingly blank wall. A door materialized, and Sam pushed it open, gesturing for Alan to precede him into the huge, high-ceilinged room that was unfurnished but for the plinth in the middle that held Tron's still form. Large windows placed around the domed roof let in an imitation of sunlight, brightening the place.

Alan took a few steps inside, then froze. He didn't even seem to notice as Sam sealed the room again. "That's Tron. What - what happened to him?" Alan asked, shock visible on his face.

Slowly, haltingly, Sam gave him the whole story - or at least as much of it as he knew. Clu's rise to power, Tron's repurposing as Rinzler, a short detour into the creation and destruction of the ISOs. Cycles of Clu's rule, his father's exile, and finally the escape from the Grid with Quorra and how his father's sacrifice had made it possible. How he'd returned to find the Grid failing, chopped strands of code and frightened programs trying to shelter in the malfunctioning city. How he'd started putting it back together, repairing the programs as well as he could. Then, finally, how he'd had Tron brought to him. He described as well as he could the damage that the Rinzler parasite had done to Tron's structure, trying not to see the pain in Alan's eyes as his mentor heard exactly what had happened to his program.

"All right. Let me take a look," Alan said, only a slight quaver in his voice betraying his feelings. The older man walked over to his creation, laying a hand on Tron's shoulder and causing the faint glow of Tron's suit to brighten almost imperceptibly. Tucking a hand behind Tron's neck, Alan pulled the program forward and carefully unclipped the twinned discs from Tron's back. Then he lowered Tron back to the ledge, returning to the middle of the room to activate the holograph.

Sam could see Alan's wince, but all he said was, "I see what you mean." He looked Sam steadily in the eye. "This isn't going to be easy, Sam."

"Yeah, I know," Sam agreed. "But I think that if any program deserves a second chance, it's Tron."

Alan smiled. "Yeah. Okay, let's do this."

Sam had been prepared for difficulties, but the malware infesting Tron's code was even more tenacious at the deeper levels. No matter how fast he deleted corrupted data, how quickly Alan rebuilt the software, it always came back. Eventually, Alan sighed and pulled back. "We can't do it this way. Deleting it piece by piece is not going to work. We need to wipe it all at once."

"How?" Sam asked, frustrated. "If we do that, he'll derez."

Alan looked thoughtful. "Maybe not immediately. The problem isn't really wiping Rinzler - it's rebuilding the code fast enough so that there's no interruptions in Tron's function. Here, take the discs. I have an idea."

Not quite understanding Alan's train of thought, Sam took Tron's discs and watched as Alan removed his own.

"Okay. When I say now, I want you to wipe every bit of the Rinzler code from Tron's discs, then give them back to me. Don't worry about holes in the programming, I'll deal with that."

Sam nodded, still not sure what Alan had in mind, but willing to trust him.

Alan held his light disc in one hand, as if he was about to throw it. The posture was so evocative of Rinzler that Sam had to stare at Alan's gray hair for a moment to prove to himself that it really was Alan. Ridiculous, he knew, given that Tron was lying prone only a few feet away, but the illusion was hard to dispel.

"Now!" Alan ordered. His body flexed, and then he threw the disc vertically up in the air.

Sam gripped the rings, then reached in and tore out the parasite software. It sucked at his hand before he flung it away, derezzing with a hiss in a corner.

"Sam, the discs!" Alan urged. Sam handed them over, noticing that the lights had gone a dull gray, only the barest flicker of power still left in them. Alan split the discs in two, then raised them above his head. His eyes were fixed on the descending light disc that he'd thrown only moments before.

"Alan, what are you doing?" Sam yelled in shock.

Alan's voice was steady. "Returning a gift."

And then it was too late for questions, as Alan's disc screamed back to its owner. Instead of catching it, Alan clapped Tron's discs to either side of it.

Energy spiraled out of Alan and into the discs, the glow getting brighter and brighter as he stood there, the three identity discs pinned in Alan's hands. Sam, squinting through the light, thought he could see them fusing together. Then there was a flash as a pulse overwhelmed Sam's senses, leaving him blinking bedazzled eyes to try and clear them.

When his eyes were finally cooperating again, he could make out the silhouette of Alan kneeling on one knee. His head was down, every line of him betraying exhaustion, and in each hand he had an identity disc. Both shone a clear, lambent blue against the smooth floor of the room, and Sam knew without asking that the data was clean.

"Alan? Are you okay?" Alarmed, Sam knelt down in front of Alan, reaching out with one hand and then pulling back uncertainly.

"I'm fine." Wearily, Alan raised his head and smiled at Sam. "Here." Extending his left arm, Alan pushed the disc he held into Sam's hands. "Put this back on him."

Sam took the disc, but stayed kneeling. "Alan, what did you do?"

Alan let out a breath, as if it was too much effort for him to hold it. "When I first came to the Grid, Kevin did a bit of mix-and-match on my disc and Tron's. He copied some things over - not memories, but skills. Lightcycle racing, disc battles, that kind of thing. He wanted another User to play against. He never knew that Tron and I went a little further . . . okay, a lot further. I backed up his functions - not all of him, just his functions - on my disc, in a secure area. And Tron had a little of me inside him, though I don't know if it ever did him any good." He took another breath, a sharp one. "With Tron's discs stripped down, I could reinstall the missing data. His second disc got overwritten. He'll only have one, now."

* * *

"Good," Sam said after a moment. "Having two discs was cheating."

"He was never supposed to have two," Alan agreed, his eyelids falling shut against his will.

"Look, Alan, are you sure you're okay?" Sam asked. Persistent, that kid.

"I'll need some energy, if you've got some," Alan allowed, forcing his eyes open again. Rewriting Tron's disc had required significant amounts of processing, and he was pretty much tapped out right now.

"I'll get you some now," Sam promised. "You just stay here, okay?"

"Don't forget to give Tron his disc back," Alan reminded him. "Let's get him rebooting, shall we?"

Sam nodded and went to fit Tron's disc back in place. The difference was immediately apparent - the circuitry all over his body brightened, becoming bluer, and his edges firmed up and stopped bleeding pixels. Sam disappeared through the door, making it vanish again.

Alan reached over his back, the effort taking more out of him than he'd expected, and clipped his own disc onto his back. A trickle of power flowed into him, enough that Alan could stagger to his feet, shuffling painfully across the floor until he collapsed next to Tron's plinth. "Hello, old friend," he said, knowing that the rebooting program couldn't hear him. "Bet you never thought we'd see each other again. I certainly didn't." He gave a huff of laughter.

The door shimmered back into place, and Sam stepped inside with two pint glasses that contained what looked like liquid light. Alan could remember drinking something similar before, back when Kevin had been building this place. He reached out a hand for one, and Sam crossed the floor and passed it to him. The first sip was like a shot of pure caffeine, Alan's suit glowing in heartbeat rhythm as he sipped the energy. "Oh, that's better," he sighed.

Sam was looking at Tron, his eyes flickering between the program and his User. "When's he going to wake up?"

Alan, now back to full strength, stood up in a smooth movement that he hadn't been able to manage in his physical body in years. "I'm not sure. It was a pretty comprehensive rewrite. He could reboot any time from now. I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

Alan could see from Sam's face that the young man was no more forgiving of 'wait and see' than he'd ever been. "I never knew him," Sam said abruptly. "I remember Tron from Dad's stories, but the first version I met was Rinzler."

Alan winced. "Well, maybe you'll get to know him properly this time," he suggested.

Suddenly, there was a chirp that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. Alan jumped, but Sam seemed to be used to it. "What is it, Amanda? I'm a little busy right now."

"Priority override, Sam," said a female voice that Alan didn't recognize. "Message from the Outlands. The system node that you patched is failing again."

Sam swore. "Alan, can you stay here and keep an eye on Tron? I don't want him waking up alone."

"Of course," Alan said, laying his palm over Tron's wrist. There was no pulse, of course, but the program's skin was surprisingly warm. He'd forgotten that.

Sam set the second pint glass down at the base of the plinth and vanished through the door, forgetting to make it vanish in his hurry. Since Alan didn't know the trick of it, he simply closed it and returned to watching over Tron.

Tron. The program was old, nearly thirty years in human terms, but the hundreds of computer cycles he'd run through had left no mark on that youthful face. Even the transformation into Rinzler hadn't altered him - the true damage had been done beneath the surface. For a moment, Alan felt a spark of pure jealousy at the program's eternal appearance.

Tron blinked.

"Alan-1?" he asked, frowning, his eyes darting every which way and clearly disoriented.

"Hello, Tron," Alan said, smiling with relief. "Good to see you again."

"I - I remember - ah!" Tron clutched his head, face screwing up in pain. "I remember . . . I . . ."

"Shhhh, it's all right," Alan soothed, sitting on the edge of the ledge and pulling the confused program into his arms. "It's over. Clu and Rinzler are gone. They can't ever hurt you again."

Tron clung to his User with all the strength that Alan had programmed into him, back when he hadn't known that his creation bore his face. Had Alan been in the real world, that grab would have broken his ribs. As it was, Flynn's meddling meant that Alan's Grid-self had some measure of Tron's resilience, and he simply held the program as it shook in his arms.

After a while, Tron's shuddering subsided. Alan let go as Tron pulled away, the program studying his face intently. "You've changed," Tron said, almost questioningly.

"It's called getting older, Tron. It's what Users do," Alan replied lightly.

Tron shook his head, but not at Alan's words. "I have all these memories - it wasn't me, but it was me, somehow. I remember fighting for Clu, not the Users. I remember hunting programs instead of defending the Grid. I wasn't designed for that!"

Instead of replying, Alan leaned down to pick up the glass of energy. Tron drank thirstily, and Alan was trying to find the right words to explain Rinzler to the distraught security program when he heard a noise. Tron had heard it too and, as one, the two silently took up fighting stances in the middle of the floor.

". . . saw them bring Rinzler here."

"Rinzler betrayed Clu. Derezzing's too good for him."

"Look, the Rebuilder left the door open. Maybe we can get him while he's rebooting."

Programs poured through the door then, all of them glowing the orange that Sam had explained was Clu's color. And all of them had light discs in hand.

"Hey, which one's Rinzler?" asked a surprised-looking program.

Simultaneously, Tron and Alan drew their light discs.

* * *

Sam raced back towards Tron City, muttering curses that had no meaning on the Grid. The node failure had been a set-up, which Amanda had discovered only moments after he'd arrived. He'd jumped back on his lightcycle and made the best time that he could, but Sam begrudged every nanosecond. What if Alan got mistaken for Tron and derezzed?

It was far, far too long before he pulled up at Sam's residence. Inside, he could hear the noise of flying light discs and the cries of derezzing or partially decompiled programs. Pulling his light disc off his back, Sam ran into the house and through the door that he should never have left open.

"What the hell is . . ." Sam yelled, only to skid to a halt at something that he couldn't believe he was seeing. ". . . going on here?" he finished in a near-whisper.

The floor was covered with broken code fragments, light discs in orange and blue skimming through the air. The two blue-lit figures at the center of the orange mob were spinning, ducking, twisting, both wearing the same face under clear visors. Rinzler's black helmet had apparently vanished with the erasure of the parasite program's code.

Try though he might, Sam couldn't tell them apart until one landed and snatched his disc out of the air, fending off an incoming disc as he did so and spinning to meet another attack. That was when Sam saw that he had an A on his chest.

"Alan?" Sam said, stunned, his light disc hanging forgotten in his hand. Alan met his eyes for a moment and then leapt away, the movement achingly graceful. He threw his disc at a cluster of orange programs, twisting in mid-air as Tron blocked two orange discs and smashed a third into derezzed bits. Alan's own light disc tore through a group of programs, one-two-three, before returning to his hand in time for him to shield Tron. Program and User looped their discs away, catching the same enemy simultaneously.

There were only two hostile programs left by now. They glanced towards the door, only for Sam to glare at them and settle into a combat posture. No way out except past me, boys.

As if they'd rehearsed this, Alan and Tron took advantage of their moment of inattention. They sprinted forwards in perfect sync, hands reaching out to grab their light discs as they finished their arc and curved back to -

No, wait. To grab each other's discs.

The two orange programs never stood a chance.

Sam was never going to think of Alan as dull again.