Fic: Outshine (Clu, PG)
Title: Outshine
Author: grey_sw
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Clu
Spoilers: TRON: Legacy
Word Count: ~1700
Summary: Or: How The Leader Got His Stripes
Notes: Thanks to winzler and noctaval for beta-reading!
"Do you somehow imagine
I should hate life,
Flee to the desert,
Because not every
Flowering dream may bloom?
Here I sit, forming people
In my image;
A race, to be like me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy and delight themselves,
And to mock you -
As I do!" -- Goethe, Prometheus (English trans.)
---
Clu knew he had little time left. Still, he ran his hands through his hair. He rolled the cuffs of his jacket up, then pulled them down again. His own identity disc sat before him, a ring of white against the smooth black glass of the table, waiting.
It had to be now. Clu's projections were certain; every graph pointed in the same direction. Kevin Flynn's absences were growing longer. Each time he returned to the Grid he was more distracted, more uncaring, more deeply corrupted by his "real" world. By his "miraculous" ISOs. By his son. Clu had to act now, before it was too late.
If he let Flynn go again, he might never come back.
Flynn's disc was the master key, the way out. Without it, the Grid would eventually perish, and that was the one thing Clu could not allow. He'd worked to create the system for over four hundred cycles, never once stopping to rest. He'd built it with his own hands, pixel by pixel, block by block, each variable chosen with infinite care. It was transcendent, incandescent, perfect, and it was his. His world. His home. His system was the only thing Clu had ever loved more than his Creator, more than Kevin Flynn himself, and he would not allow Flynn's selfishness to destroy it. Clu would kill to save the Grid, die to save it... and it was about to set him free.
Now.
Clu snatched his disc from the table, accessed it, and flipped past the image of Kevin Flynn, of himself, that rose up out of it. His code was almost impenetrable in its complexity, but he dove into it just the same, plunging his hands into the floating glyphs. He didn't stop to think, not now. He'd been over this a thousand times already, had planned it out inside his mind until the necessary changes were second nature. Even so, the part of himself he meant to kill knew what he was up to. It yammered at him inside his mind, filled his heart with remorse and guilt. It made him want to go to Flynn, to hold him one last time, to throw himself before his Creator and beg forgiveness for what he was about to do.
He worked instead. The fingers of his left hand -- his good hand -- flew. He couldn't simply tear out his obedience to Flynn, not directly. It was too deeply ingrained, too much a part of what he was. The hole it left would have ripped him apart. So, too, would be his fate if he made a mistake, so much as a single error: the Black Guard would find him gibbering on the floor, twitching like a broken toy.
No matter. He was not wrong. This was not wrong, no matter what his traitorous subroutines told him. He could not delete the compulsion to serve, could not free himself directly, but there were other ways. He and Flynn were very much alike, after all. He and Flynn were the same. The only difference was a handful of system privileges, a disc's worth of memories and experience. Dreams of the "real" world; images of a son Clu could never be.
Clu bowed his head, redoubled his efforts. He could not create, not like Flynn could, but he could change what had already been created. He could find the key within himself, the source of his own blind, programmed adoration, and he could change it.
Rectification didn't come easy, though. Clu's link to his Creator was not stored in a string or a variable, nor confined to a single subroutine that could be commented out. There was no picture of his Maker inside his code, no graven idol for him to smash. Flynn was written into the code itself, deep between the lines, woven into the very fabric of Clu's mind. If Clu had been human, he might have thought cancer; instead he thought gridbugs, and worked faster.
The blue quad-helix that represented his code whirled and blinked, refreshing with every flick of his fingers. It began to change, nanocycle by nanocycle, variable by variable. The tide of Clu's will washed over it, until at last the waves slowed, broke, and receded.
It was done.
Flynn had become CLU.
There was one more change to make, a smaller, simpler thing. Tron was always with Flynn, always right by his side; Tron would Fight For The Users, and Clu would need an ace in the hole. He opened up his physical attributes, wrote the max value of 255 into every variable, and closed the file again. Then he looked down at his disc for a moment, watching as his own code revolved in its orbit.
He could see his reflection in the table beyond it: slicked-back hair, a pair of black pants and a shirt, a leather jacket with a wide white stripe of light along the side. He'd been proud of that, once, proud of his resemblance to his Creator. Flynn's light had been his beacon, the focal point of the Grid, the fire that lit his heart. Now it only irked him; he knew that it gave no warmth. He turned away as he slotted his disc into his back, waiting for change.
It came more abruptly than he'd expected it to. His eyes squeezed shut of their own accord, and a wave of dizziness struck him. The feeling was utterly foreign; for a nano he thought he was de-rezzing, tumbling apart rather than simply falling. He grabbed for the table, leaning his weight on it as his own reprogramming ran through him. The small voice inside him gave one last cry and fell silent, for the first time since his creation. The compulsion to serve, to obey, to fulfill his directives was gone, and only Clu remained -- Clu, and the Perfect System.
Fuck, he thought, when he could think again. This feels great.
He opened his eyes and looked down, down into the table. There was a program there, big and powerful, dressed in a gridsuit like a disc-warrior. Clu blinked, the program's blue eyes blinked back at him, and he realized that he was looking at his own reflection. He watched himself smirk at the idea. Then he stood, examining his hands. He had new circuits, bright lines that ran from the first knuckle of his index fingers all the way up to his shoulders. They moved when he did, as if they were part of him and not just the suit, and they burned a fierce, angry gold.
Clu had never seen nor heard of a yellow program before, but it occurred to him almost immediately that he liked it. He turned his hands this way and that, admiring the way his circuits shone, and then squinted down at the lines on his chest. There were two, a solid bar on the left and a logic-ladder on the right. It had a squarish node on top, followed by four short diagonal slashes, and it ended in another node that curved downward toward his waist. Clu reached to touch it, just to see what it felt like, and gave a sharp, shocked gasp as his glove grazed the lines. These weren't just superficial lights on a copy of a User's jacket, not like before. They blazed brighter and brighter beneath his hand, until a great, golden shockwave pulsed outward from his touch, crackling through his system like lightning.
Energy flooded his body in its wake, purer and stronger than any he'd ever tasted. It flowed into his heart and filled up all the empty places Flynn's betrayal had left, and for a moment he just stood there and hugged himself tight, shocked into silence. He had not felt like this -- wanted and valued and right -- for so long he could barely remember. His oldest memory came forth: a plane of glass, viewed from up close, with his User's distorted image on the other side. Clu remembered Flynn's welcoming grin, so bright and kind, and he could almost feel Flynn's arm around his shoulder. The memory was as warm as it had been the day of his creation, yet it was not the same: today he faced himself in the mirror. He offered himself his own hand, his own smile, his own promise that could never be broken.
Clu loved himself in that moment, for the first time in centi-cycles... and as he watched, a fifth slash burned its way across his chest, just beneath the other four. It sizzled across the mirror of the table, shining like a beacon.
Yes. Clu would be a beacon to his people, the way Flynn had never been. He would be there for them always, their liberator and guardian. He would protect their world, perfect their world... and one day, with Flynn's disc held high in his hands, he would lead them beyond it. He would set them free.
Clu's eyes narrowed, and his fists curled closed. First things first.
Just then, one of the Black Guard entered. He came to an abrupt halt before Clu, scanning him with a smooth, precise sweep of his helmet.
"Your Excellency," he said at last.
Clu blinked. That was new. He liked it, though. He liked that word.
Excellence.
"Damn straight," Clu said, and clapped the Guard on the shoulder. He was only slightly surprised when the program's blue circuits flickered and turned yellow at his touch, then deepened to orange.
"Flynn and Tron are on the move?" Clu asked, when the Guard's transformation was done.
The Guard nodded. "Toward the portal. My brothers will intercept in forty-three point two micros."
"Let's join them," Clu told him. He smirked, and reached to touch his disc. "I've got a special surprise for Tron."
Clu turned, striding out into the corridor with his Guardsman at his heels. The walls on either side were translucent, and from here Clu could see his city: it sparkled and shimmered before him, every circuit alight with power. Soon there would be no User to dull its glow with neglect, no User to abandon it... and then it would truly shine.
This wasn't wrong. Clu was sure of it.
Nothing that felt like this could ever be wrong.
Author: grey_sw
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Clu
Spoilers: TRON: Legacy
Word Count: ~1700
Summary: Or: How The Leader Got His Stripes
Notes: Thanks to winzler and noctaval for beta-reading!
"Do you somehow imagine
I should hate life,
Flee to the desert,
Because not every
Flowering dream may bloom?
Here I sit, forming people
In my image;
A race, to be like me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy and delight themselves,
And to mock you -
As I do!" -- Goethe, Prometheus (English trans.)
---
Clu knew he had little time left. Still, he ran his hands through his hair. He rolled the cuffs of his jacket up, then pulled them down again. His own identity disc sat before him, a ring of white against the smooth black glass of the table, waiting.
It had to be now. Clu's projections were certain; every graph pointed in the same direction. Kevin Flynn's absences were growing longer. Each time he returned to the Grid he was more distracted, more uncaring, more deeply corrupted by his "real" world. By his "miraculous" ISOs. By his son. Clu had to act now, before it was too late.
If he let Flynn go again, he might never come back.
Flynn's disc was the master key, the way out. Without it, the Grid would eventually perish, and that was the one thing Clu could not allow. He'd worked to create the system for over four hundred cycles, never once stopping to rest. He'd built it with his own hands, pixel by pixel, block by block, each variable chosen with infinite care. It was transcendent, incandescent, perfect, and it was his. His world. His home. His system was the only thing Clu had ever loved more than his Creator, more than Kevin Flynn himself, and he would not allow Flynn's selfishness to destroy it. Clu would kill to save the Grid, die to save it... and it was about to set him free.
Now.
Clu snatched his disc from the table, accessed it, and flipped past the image of Kevin Flynn, of himself, that rose up out of it. His code was almost impenetrable in its complexity, but he dove into it just the same, plunging his hands into the floating glyphs. He didn't stop to think, not now. He'd been over this a thousand times already, had planned it out inside his mind until the necessary changes were second nature. Even so, the part of himself he meant to kill knew what he was up to. It yammered at him inside his mind, filled his heart with remorse and guilt. It made him want to go to Flynn, to hold him one last time, to throw himself before his Creator and beg forgiveness for what he was about to do.
He worked instead. The fingers of his left hand -- his good hand -- flew. He couldn't simply tear out his obedience to Flynn, not directly. It was too deeply ingrained, too much a part of what he was. The hole it left would have ripped him apart. So, too, would be his fate if he made a mistake, so much as a single error: the Black Guard would find him gibbering on the floor, twitching like a broken toy.
No matter. He was not wrong. This was not wrong, no matter what his traitorous subroutines told him. He could not delete the compulsion to serve, could not free himself directly, but there were other ways. He and Flynn were very much alike, after all. He and Flynn were the same. The only difference was a handful of system privileges, a disc's worth of memories and experience. Dreams of the "real" world; images of a son Clu could never be.
Clu bowed his head, redoubled his efforts. He could not create, not like Flynn could, but he could change what had already been created. He could find the key within himself, the source of his own blind, programmed adoration, and he could change it.
Rectification didn't come easy, though. Clu's link to his Creator was not stored in a string or a variable, nor confined to a single subroutine that could be commented out. There was no picture of his Maker inside his code, no graven idol for him to smash. Flynn was written into the code itself, deep between the lines, woven into the very fabric of Clu's mind. If Clu had been human, he might have thought cancer; instead he thought gridbugs, and worked faster.
The blue quad-helix that represented his code whirled and blinked, refreshing with every flick of his fingers. It began to change, nanocycle by nanocycle, variable by variable. The tide of Clu's will washed over it, until at last the waves slowed, broke, and receded.
It was done.
Flynn had become CLU.
There was one more change to make, a smaller, simpler thing. Tron was always with Flynn, always right by his side; Tron would Fight For The Users, and Clu would need an ace in the hole. He opened up his physical attributes, wrote the max value of 255 into every variable, and closed the file again. Then he looked down at his disc for a moment, watching as his own code revolved in its orbit.
He could see his reflection in the table beyond it: slicked-back hair, a pair of black pants and a shirt, a leather jacket with a wide white stripe of light along the side. He'd been proud of that, once, proud of his resemblance to his Creator. Flynn's light had been his beacon, the focal point of the Grid, the fire that lit his heart. Now it only irked him; he knew that it gave no warmth. He turned away as he slotted his disc into his back, waiting for change.
It came more abruptly than he'd expected it to. His eyes squeezed shut of their own accord, and a wave of dizziness struck him. The feeling was utterly foreign; for a nano he thought he was de-rezzing, tumbling apart rather than simply falling. He grabbed for the table, leaning his weight on it as his own reprogramming ran through him. The small voice inside him gave one last cry and fell silent, for the first time since his creation. The compulsion to serve, to obey, to fulfill his directives was gone, and only Clu remained -- Clu, and the Perfect System.
Fuck, he thought, when he could think again. This feels great.
He opened his eyes and looked down, down into the table. There was a program there, big and powerful, dressed in a gridsuit like a disc-warrior. Clu blinked, the program's blue eyes blinked back at him, and he realized that he was looking at his own reflection. He watched himself smirk at the idea. Then he stood, examining his hands. He had new circuits, bright lines that ran from the first knuckle of his index fingers all the way up to his shoulders. They moved when he did, as if they were part of him and not just the suit, and they burned a fierce, angry gold.
Clu had never seen nor heard of a yellow program before, but it occurred to him almost immediately that he liked it. He turned his hands this way and that, admiring the way his circuits shone, and then squinted down at the lines on his chest. There were two, a solid bar on the left and a logic-ladder on the right. It had a squarish node on top, followed by four short diagonal slashes, and it ended in another node that curved downward toward his waist. Clu reached to touch it, just to see what it felt like, and gave a sharp, shocked gasp as his glove grazed the lines. These weren't just superficial lights on a copy of a User's jacket, not like before. They blazed brighter and brighter beneath his hand, until a great, golden shockwave pulsed outward from his touch, crackling through his system like lightning.
Energy flooded his body in its wake, purer and stronger than any he'd ever tasted. It flowed into his heart and filled up all the empty places Flynn's betrayal had left, and for a moment he just stood there and hugged himself tight, shocked into silence. He had not felt like this -- wanted and valued and right -- for so long he could barely remember. His oldest memory came forth: a plane of glass, viewed from up close, with his User's distorted image on the other side. Clu remembered Flynn's welcoming grin, so bright and kind, and he could almost feel Flynn's arm around his shoulder. The memory was as warm as it had been the day of his creation, yet it was not the same: today he faced himself in the mirror. He offered himself his own hand, his own smile, his own promise that could never be broken.
Clu loved himself in that moment, for the first time in centi-cycles... and as he watched, a fifth slash burned its way across his chest, just beneath the other four. It sizzled across the mirror of the table, shining like a beacon.
Yes. Clu would be a beacon to his people, the way Flynn had never been. He would be there for them always, their liberator and guardian. He would protect their world, perfect their world... and one day, with Flynn's disc held high in his hands, he would lead them beyond it. He would set them free.
Clu's eyes narrowed, and his fists curled closed. First things first.
Just then, one of the Black Guard entered. He came to an abrupt halt before Clu, scanning him with a smooth, precise sweep of his helmet.
"Your Excellency," he said at last.
Clu blinked. That was new. He liked it, though. He liked that word.
Excellence.
"Damn straight," Clu said, and clapped the Guard on the shoulder. He was only slightly surprised when the program's blue circuits flickered and turned yellow at his touch, then deepened to orange.
"Flynn and Tron are on the move?" Clu asked, when the Guard's transformation was done.
The Guard nodded. "Toward the portal. My brothers will intercept in forty-three point two micros."
"Let's join them," Clu told him. He smirked, and reached to touch his disc. "I've got a special surprise for Tron."
Clu turned, striding out into the corridor with his Guardsman at his heels. The walls on either side were translucent, and from here Clu could see his city: it sparkled and shimmered before him, every circuit alight with power. Soon there would be no User to dull its glow with neglect, no User to abandon it... and then it would truly shine.
This wasn't wrong. Clu was sure of it.
Nothing that felt like this could ever be wrong.