The Long Road, Part 5b/?
Continued from Part 5a
“I need a motel,” Alan declares. His head swivels in the musty gloom without much hope.
“We're fresh out, but I think our next best option is not far.”
Kevin, again at Alan's side, nods in the right direction.
Their refuge is a domed, half-buried bunker governing the bridge access point. Tron bypasses the security lock on the door, but the interior is pitch black. They're forced to grope their way along one wall by the din of Tron and Quorra's discs. With his knack for the miraculous, Kevin uncovers a still-responsive control panel and brings emergency lighting online. Fiery stripes arc across their vision with the regularity of a printed circuit board, lifting the curtain on an expansive space roughly the dimensions of the exterior.
The structure is completely intact. Smoke free and shielded from unfriendly menaces, the facility also houses a stocked storage room. Quorra ferrets through the cluttered shelves of containers, batons, and Grid oddities with expeditious practicality.
“Aha!” She waves her trophy, a few innocuous-looking sealed packs. “Food rations!”
“Luck,” Tron muses, scrutinizing the find. “Most energy sources are tainted without purification. Food is a rare commodity usually consumed or hoarded.”
Functionally, the place is deadbeat holdover from war-a strategic defense point, rather than a think tank base of operations. The main room borders on bare, with spare, utilitarian features. Console interfaces are built into the walls, and a large semi-circular workstation, meant to be manned by two or three, is the only place harboring chairs. No luxuries for the grunts, Alan notes. Not a cot, not a bed, not even a simple, old-fashioned table. Even so, he should probably be glad. The building provides a semblance of protection, and a few sealed windows near the ceiling offer above-ground visibility. The sky-view of motley toxic pollution may not be picturesque. But a chilling numbness still seeps into Alan when he thinks back on winding, endless catacombs and their walls closing in on him from all sides.
Everyone partakes of a food ration except for Tron. Kevin's eyes dog Tron's footsteps as the program accesses a workstation terminal, and he nonchalantly wanders away from Alan to look over Tron's shoulder.
“Schematics for the surrounding area,” Tron says, nodding towards the display. “I will need them to establish a secure perimeter.”
“Sounds good. Are you okay?”
“I will be fine.”
The exchange is quiet and odd. Tron departs not long after, promising Kevin to return soon. He nods in Quorra's direction as he leaves, and she takes his place at the workstation. The echo of the door closing behind him reverberates in the spacious chamber. Alan settles on the floor, back to the wall. After staring in the direction of Tron's exit, Kevin joins him, looking preoccupied and faintly disturbed.
“When you said Tron was helping you, I'd assumed you'd restored his old code.”
Quorra glances uneasily at Alan. “We offered to, but Tron refused,” she says.
“Well,” Alan temporizes, “he didn't exactly refuse. Just said he preferred not to be helped.”
Kevin's mouth quirks up.
“The way Clu preferred not to be helped?”
When you put it like that...
Had Tron lied? Alan's memory isn't what it used to be, but he's not senile either. At some point, his program had made a claim about being obligated to obey Alan. Now Alan wonders why he didn't question the remark before.
“Is it a problem?”
“No,” Kevin sighs. “Just makes things more difficult.”
“He's fine, as far as I can tell.”
When Kevin doesn't reply, Alan looks to Quorra. She too appears uncomfortable.
“I left him,” Kevin finally confesses. “I left him for dead twice over.”
“You weren't the only one,” Quorra murmurs.
The room is as silent as a tomb. Alan decides it's time for a change in subject.
“I don't suppose this place has a first aid kit.”
Eerily similar half-smiles are his answer. Quorra hands Kevin her baton, and with scarcely fifteen minutes of silent zen-like meditation over the device, Kevin produces a hand-held machine resembling a barcode scanner.
“Dermal regenerator,” Kevin says. “Clu's invention.”
Quorra shoots Alan a knowing look and tactfully excuses herself, ostensibly to scavenge storage for anything useful. A flush creeps up his neck.
Kevin starts with Alan's feet. Under the Creator's touch, the suit derezzes up to the kneecap, allowing him to run the regenerator over partially scabbed gashes. Fortunately, mirror shards didn't leave the labyrinth with Alan; no pieces need to be picked out. The cuts simply fade out of existence, painlessly and with next to no scarring. Alan is amazed; it's almost as bizarre as having a demagogue construct a tool of healing. He doesn't gawk, but watches Kevin, who continues as if nothing extraordinary has occurred.
“Nifty device.”
“Made on the fly,” Kevin says. “I got cut up being careless on the Grid. The bleeding freaked everybody out until Clu fixed me.”
Kevin's not paying attention to the effects of his gentle prodding. He's absorbed in his task and grimacing unpleasantly, his motions verging on tragically comical in their caution. Airy, velvet-soft contact and barely-there manipulations: they're enough to tease and not enough to erase the world's frigid chill. He's a piece of glass in Kevin's hands. Or a veritable unicorn who's horn might break in an instant of carelessness. Alan's mouth goes dry as Kevin caresses the sole of his left foot, but it's just an inspection of finished artistry to Kevin.
One less experienced in love might be flattered. For Alan, however, the first flush of longing is gone, burned out by Clu. What's left is a stronger substance which bristles at delicate handling. Alan doesn't feel like a human being when Kevin's like this-not emotionally, anyway. Physically, the meat on Alan's bones sees straight past the lie.
When Kevin finishes Alan's calves and shows no sign of interest or awareness, Alan's done with being patient. He snatches the regenerator from Kevin.
“My turn,” he says.
He can't derezz a suit the way Kevin can, but Alan's more than okay with using his hands. He has Kevin dissolve his own gloves first before he applies himself to Kevin's boots.
The cuts on Kevin's feet aren't as horrible as Alan's. In fact, the only large one is on Kevin's right ankle. He applies the dermal generator. When he's done, he deliberately runs his thumb down the inner arch of Kevin's foot-just before he kisses the new skin.
Kevin doesn't say a word, but his eyes are on Alan's face now.
“Let me see your shoulders.”
The Creator clears his throat. “It's just my neck-”
“Flynn.”
Strange how one word gets cooperation.
Unfortunately, the request turns out to be more involved than Alan imagined. Kevin's identity disc is carefully extracted. The outer robe is doffed. The inner robe is next, and both flaps are tied down in knots. As he helps Kevin out of a loose shirt, he questions the arrangement.
“Since when did you wear so many layers?”
“Since I got old,” is Kevin's muffled retort. “The Grid doesn't exactly throw off heat.”
“My feet agree with you,” Alan says wryly.
He starts as the garment is discarded. Kevin's boots might have protected him, but his upper back, left side, and biceps are completely covered in gouges. Alan's fingers lightly trace over a gruesome incision near Kevin's first rib.
“Just your neck my ass,” he says. “How did all that crap pierce our wear anyway?”
Kevin shrugs.
“Dreams are only as logical as the dreamer.”
Healing all the damage requires slowing down, but with each mending, Alan is purposefully tactile-imprinting the texture of his skin on Kevin and lingering until heat burns the coolness of separation out. Inflicting pain isn't his purpose. However, if the choice is between presence and absence, he doesn't flinch from getting blood under his fingernails. The rusty dark soot which accumulates is love's most intimate signature, unicorns be damned.
Alan winds up behind Kevin, knees bent as he leans back on his haunches. The last scrape is closed. Neither of them speak, but as Alan carefully sets aside the regenerator, Kevin grabs his wrist. The rough, almost violent gesture tenders in stages. Kevin's hand guides his own around, and his knuckles are pressed tightly against parted lips warmed by the breath of life.
“Sometimes I wonder if I'm still in a dream,” Kevin says.
Alan enfolds his other arm around Kevin, embracing him from behind.
“Does it matter?”
Continued in Part 5c