Can has a Tron icon, aka fic: whoami
Title: whoami
Fandom TRON: Legacy
Characters: Tron|Rinzler, Zuse
Rating: T
Spoilers: the ending of TRON: Legacy
Word Count: 2,471
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Summary: He doesn’t know who he is anymore.
Author's Note: Meant to be a standalone but after I spotted this prompt at tronkinkmeme I decided to make this Part 1 instead. Hopefully I’ll get the fill/Part 2 up in timely fashion.
And thus I take the plunge into a new fandom. Oh god.
They find him on the shore of Sea of Simulation, after the massive explosion at the portal. It has closed since, leaving programs wondering about the events that have been rocking Tron City. The program lying facedown on the shore, sluggishly rebooting and missing his Identity Disk, may be the only one who knows what happened to their leader, their savior, the one who will lead them into the Real World.
"Is he one of the Black Guard?" they wonder.
"How long will it take for him to reboot?"
"What happened at the portal?"
"Is it really the portal? Where the rumors true? Was there really a User among us?"
"What matters is Clu. Without him Tron City will become chaos. He must know where Clu is."
"Why isn't he rebooting?"
"Where is his Identity Disk?"
"Wait. His circuitry is blue. He's not one of the Black Guard."
"Then who is he?"
Who is he?
Who am I?
* * *
He reboots in a world dissolving into chaos, programs derezzing one another in a quest to become the next Clu. He's alone on the shore of the Sea of Simulation. There are traces of other programs around him, originally drawn in by the massive explosion at the portal but now gone to address the war in The Grid. Strangely the gridbugs have left him alone. Maybe they were drawn away by other events, or derezzed by the reintegration.
Reintegration.
Clu.
Flynn.
He shakes his helmeted head, gloved fingers gripping at the smooth surface, and then retracts the helmet for the first time in cycles. He stares at the smooth surface of the Sea of Simulation, the horizon line unmarked by the obstacles placed by Flynn to prevent wayward programs from finding the portal while he's here.
The portal is gone.
Clu is gone.
Flynn is gone.
Everyone who knows is gone. He's all that's left.
He feels behind his back and his hand closes on nothing. He laughs bitterly.
He doesn't have his Identity Disk either. He is an unknown program. He doesn't have a User - Alan-1 is gone or has forgotten him - or a purpose. All he has is what he remembers, and what he remembers shames him.
An explosion rocks a corner of The Grid. He turns and slowly rises to his feet. He stares at the color of his circuitry as he walks along the uneven terrain, wondering if he can prove himself worthy again.
His circuitry turns white.
* * *
Tron City is in disarray. Clu's (probably) violent deresolution has left a power vacuum that makes it almost impossible for any other program to step in and take over. Clu's top command is gone, too. Zuse is untraceable and his secretary Castor reportedly died when the End of Line Club was destroyed. Every other power player had long ago been repurposed or derezzed by Clu and nobody knows when someone will come from the Real World to clean up the mess.
So while programs wait in vain for another User, another program, a Savior, to restore Tron City to its former glory they survive.
He survives. Programs rise and fall as the cycles pass and Tron City continues to collapse, yet he survives. He wanders, flits from sector to sector, allowing programs to enlist him in fights against other programs. He is still the elite combatant on The Grid, the ultimate gladiator, and programs begin to actively seek him out.
"Your circuitry is white," they explain. "A neutral program."
"Apparently that doesn't mean anything to you," he replies.
He fights anyways.
* * *
Zuse is alive.
He disappeared immediately after the Reintegration. And now he's back, a ghost of a program on the broken streets of Tron City, a whisper of code in the shadowed places of The Grid.
That should not be possible. Clu never meant for Zuse to live beyond handing over the master key. If Zuse survived the deresolution of the End of Line Club, then he may no longer be the program he once was and other programs don't know what they're talking about.
There is something else.
Zuse claims to know what happened in the cycles leading up to the Reintegration. He will sell the secrets to the highest bidder, the most powerful program, for a promise that not only will the program take control of Tron City but he or she will also give Zuse full reign of the Games.
The secrets come in two Identity Disks that came his way from the Sea of Simulation.
* * *
"I knew you'd find me," Zuse says, swaggering up to him with a smile.
He operates from an abandoned building in Tron City's downtown, a far cry from the state-of-the-art chic End of Line Club. Then again, the program leaning on the cane isn't the savvy double dealing program who once fought for the ISOs and later cut a deal with Clu to preserve himself. Zuse is desperate, willing to cut a deal with anyone in order to regain his position of power.
"Well, aren't you one very special program, hm?" Zuse asks as he walks behind the counter. "Don't hear much about programs that can repurpose another's Light Disc, let alone two."
He walks with a limp; a long deep crack runs up his leg, the edges red and jagged with broken coding. Zuse notices his stare and laughs, twirls his cane before hooking it on the edge of the counter.
"My war wound," he says. He turns and plucks a few bottles of neon codes, pours a bit of each into the mixer, gives the contents a stir, and fills a waiting cocktail glass. "That's what I call it. That's what everyone thinks. Earned it during the overthrow of the almighty Clu."
Zuse drops an umbrella into the tall thin glass and lifts it up in a mock toast. "Viva la revolución!"
The cocktail slides across the slick countertop. "This one's on me."
He doesn't move to accept. "Where are my Identity Disks?"
Zuse shakes his head. "Such an outdated term, only used by the oldest programs on The Grid. Shouldn't give yourself away, Rinzler; there are programs out there who'll like nothing more than to derezz you."
He flinches and his circuitry flares red before settling back into neutral white. "I am not Rinzler."
"No?" Zuse leans on the counter, eyebrow cocked. "What makes you say that?"
His circuitry flickers and turns blue. "I fight for the Users."
Zuse's smile is all teeth. "Tron."
* * *
His Identity Disks don't tell the entire story - he lost them at the command ship before the Reintegration - but they have enough data, have recorded enough of the events that transpired, hold enough information to guide the cleverest, most resourceful of programs in taking control and rebuilding Tron City. He never knew all the details of Clu's design - that wasn't his purpose after all - but he always kept himself informed. Anticipating the next step and knowing exactly how to serve Clu's needs always pleased him.
He shudders from the memories.
"A scavenger found it," Zuse says. "Broken down search program, picking through the wreckage of the Reintegration, the second great purge that erased everything Clu had done to The Grid. In all the chaos and lawlessness someone managed to find a damaged Light Disc at the edge of the Sea of Simulation and discover its secrets."
He drinks straight from one of the neon pink carafes. The cocktail on the countertop is untouched.
"Whoever heard of an outdated search program leading Tron City? No one. So, she brought it to a military program, who was later derezzed by another. Eventually the Light Disc came to me. Imagine my surprise when it split into two."
His shoulders stiffen. "Where are they?"
Zuse reaches behind the counter while grabbing the gun-cane and training it on him. He can evade the shots from the loaded cane easily, but he needs to know if they're his Identity Disks first.
The Disks Zuse sets on the countertop glow a dullish infected red. They're his, no matter how he feels about the circuitry color. He reaches for them but Zuse slides his cane over, pressing the bottom of it against his chest.
"Ah, ah. I'll give them back - for a price."
"They're mine."
"But in my hands." Zuse nods to the doorway behind him. "you didn't think I had backup security stationed all around the building, did you? If you want to walk out of here with your Discs you'll have to pay a pretty price."
"You have no right to possess another program's Identity Disk."
"Oh don't talk to me about what I can or can't do, Rinzler," Zuse replies. He picks up the Disks with one hand and presses them into one. "You can do what I tell you to do in exchange for your identity, or you can risk deresolution and fight all the programs coming in here right now to get it back."
He turns around to see several security programs filing into the building, wielding Identity Disks and beam katanas. He turns back to Zuse, who leans on his cane, the Identity Disk around his forearm and glowing white, cocktail glass in hand.
"So, Tron, what'll it be?"
* * *
He sits on a pile of wreckage at the abandoned Solar Sailer hangar, pulling apart and putting together his Identity Disks, then twirling them on his fingers. They glow blue in his hands but he feels it's the wrong color - Clu repurposed him to become the enforcer, the most powerful and merciless warrior on The Grid, and these Disks were his weapons of choice. How many ISOs and programs did he strike down for the sake of perfecting the system?
He doesn't know for how long he sits in the hangar. He stares at the Solar Sailer, recalling his and Yori's escape to the MCP's core and the disguised Flynn hanging off the side by his fingertips.
He wonders what became of Yori in the upheaval following Flynn's disappearance and his reprogramming. Was she repurposed? Derezzed? Hiding among the other programs in Tron City?
A group of search programs appear at the far end of the hangar, picking through the piles of outdated data. He watches them, then rises to his feet and walks back into the city.
* * *
When he pulls his Identity Disk from his back and splits it into two all the other programs jump back and several flee. He watches the braver programs step forward to face him as his helmet encloses around his head.
They encircle him but from a distance; they're so afraid that they won't get close enough to strike, won't get close enough to recognize him, and it shames him. He used to be one of the most revered programs in The Grid but so many cycles had gone by since Clu's takeover that they had forgotten who he used to be.
They see Rinzler and he does not.
"Die, you corrosive glitch," a damaged military program snarls, the cracks in her face flaring red, and she throws her Identity Disk at him.
He walks away from the aftermath unscathed. He places his Identity Disk on his back and never looks back.
* * *
I am Tron.
I fight for the Users.
I am Rinzler.
I serve Clu.
I am
* * *
A Siren runs a small club in one of two neutral sectors in Tron City. That's where he learns of Gem's fate, the one Zuse should've shared.
"She and Castor were derezzed when the End of Line Club was destroyed," the Siren says as she slides him a blue energy cocktail. "Zuse is lucky to be alive."
Lucky, indeed, he thinks as he drinks from the glass.
On the loft of the small club the two MP3s pound out a beat. One of them has a crack in his helmet but they're otherwise intact, not a code out of place.
"Survivors," the Siren says. "Just like the rest of us."
Her eyes flick to his Identity Disk. There is a knowing look in her eyes and smile.
The cramped dance floor is filled with programs looking to forget the civil war raging throughout The Grid. They welcome the pulsing music and the cocktails' buzz with a fervor he hadn't seen since Clu first took over the city.
"They're here to forget," the Siren whispers into his ear, fingertips tracing the circuitry and shape of his armor. A pleasant buzz sinks underneath, an increase in energy that intensifies with every sip of the blue cocktail.
He closes his eyes as the pulsing energy syncs with the music and for a cycle he forgets that he is Tron and he is Rinzler, the city's namesake and one of its most hated programs.
* * *
A search program burst into the club and shouts, "The portal is open!"
The music abruptly dies and all activity in the club freezes.
Something hums deep inside him, a throbbing sensation that intensifies the longer he sits on the barstool and stares at the search program like the others. Then the whispers start, fears and lies and half-truths about what it means, what the beacon of light across the Sea of Simulation means for the fate of Tron City. Is it Clu? Is it the Creator? Is it another User like Sam Flynn? Will peace be restored to The Grid?
He makes to slide off the barstool but the Siren, Crystal, holds him back with a hand on the shoulder. "I have something to give you."
He turns as she places two batons on the backlit countertop. "You will need these."
"Thank you."
As he circles the anxious programs towards the exit Crystal calls out, "Save this city, Tron."
* * *
High above the skyline is a bright white light. He stands outside the club and stares up at it for a long moment, remembering what it used to mean.
He walks down the street quickly, dodging anxious programs gathering to point and wonder, and then pulls out a baton.
Programs jump out of the way as he rockets down the streets on the lightcycle, weaving his way around street corners and makeshift tanks meant to maintain the sector's neutrality. He doesn't go to the portal itself - he can't, he just can't; he tilts the lightcycle around a corner and races down one of the main highways to an abandoned sector.
He hopes the User walking out of Flynn's Arcade is who he thinks it is.
He hopes this User will give him a purpose again.
Like Alan-1.
Like Flynn.
Like Clu.
I am Tron.
I am Rinzler.
Who am I?
Fandom TRON: Legacy
Characters: Tron|Rinzler, Zuse
Rating: T
Spoilers: the ending of TRON: Legacy
Word Count: 2,471
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Summary: He doesn’t know who he is anymore.
Author's Note: Meant to be a standalone but after I spotted this prompt at tronkinkmeme I decided to make this Part 1 instead. Hopefully I’ll get the fill/Part 2 up in timely fashion.
And thus I take the plunge into a new fandom. Oh god.
They find him on the shore of Sea of Simulation, after the massive explosion at the portal. It has closed since, leaving programs wondering about the events that have been rocking Tron City. The program lying facedown on the shore, sluggishly rebooting and missing his Identity Disk, may be the only one who knows what happened to their leader, their savior, the one who will lead them into the Real World.
"Is he one of the Black Guard?" they wonder.
"How long will it take for him to reboot?"
"What happened at the portal?"
"Is it really the portal? Where the rumors true? Was there really a User among us?"
"What matters is Clu. Without him Tron City will become chaos. He must know where Clu is."
"Why isn't he rebooting?"
"Where is his Identity Disk?"
"Wait. His circuitry is blue. He's not one of the Black Guard."
"Then who is he?"
Who is he?
Who am I?
* * *
He reboots in a world dissolving into chaos, programs derezzing one another in a quest to become the next Clu. He's alone on the shore of the Sea of Simulation. There are traces of other programs around him, originally drawn in by the massive explosion at the portal but now gone to address the war in The Grid. Strangely the gridbugs have left him alone. Maybe they were drawn away by other events, or derezzed by the reintegration.
Reintegration.
Clu.
Flynn.
He shakes his helmeted head, gloved fingers gripping at the smooth surface, and then retracts the helmet for the first time in cycles. He stares at the smooth surface of the Sea of Simulation, the horizon line unmarked by the obstacles placed by Flynn to prevent wayward programs from finding the portal while he's here.
The portal is gone.
Clu is gone.
Flynn is gone.
Everyone who knows is gone. He's all that's left.
He feels behind his back and his hand closes on nothing. He laughs bitterly.
He doesn't have his Identity Disk either. He is an unknown program. He doesn't have a User - Alan-1 is gone or has forgotten him - or a purpose. All he has is what he remembers, and what he remembers shames him.
An explosion rocks a corner of The Grid. He turns and slowly rises to his feet. He stares at the color of his circuitry as he walks along the uneven terrain, wondering if he can prove himself worthy again.
His circuitry turns white.
* * *
Tron City is in disarray. Clu's (probably) violent deresolution has left a power vacuum that makes it almost impossible for any other program to step in and take over. Clu's top command is gone, too. Zuse is untraceable and his secretary Castor reportedly died when the End of Line Club was destroyed. Every other power player had long ago been repurposed or derezzed by Clu and nobody knows when someone will come from the Real World to clean up the mess.
So while programs wait in vain for another User, another program, a Savior, to restore Tron City to its former glory they survive.
He survives. Programs rise and fall as the cycles pass and Tron City continues to collapse, yet he survives. He wanders, flits from sector to sector, allowing programs to enlist him in fights against other programs. He is still the elite combatant on The Grid, the ultimate gladiator, and programs begin to actively seek him out.
"Your circuitry is white," they explain. "A neutral program."
"Apparently that doesn't mean anything to you," he replies.
He fights anyways.
* * *
Zuse is alive.
He disappeared immediately after the Reintegration. And now he's back, a ghost of a program on the broken streets of Tron City, a whisper of code in the shadowed places of The Grid.
That should not be possible. Clu never meant for Zuse to live beyond handing over the master key. If Zuse survived the deresolution of the End of Line Club, then he may no longer be the program he once was and other programs don't know what they're talking about.
There is something else.
Zuse claims to know what happened in the cycles leading up to the Reintegration. He will sell the secrets to the highest bidder, the most powerful program, for a promise that not only will the program take control of Tron City but he or she will also give Zuse full reign of the Games.
The secrets come in two Identity Disks that came his way from the Sea of Simulation.
* * *
"I knew you'd find me," Zuse says, swaggering up to him with a smile.
He operates from an abandoned building in Tron City's downtown, a far cry from the state-of-the-art chic End of Line Club. Then again, the program leaning on the cane isn't the savvy double dealing program who once fought for the ISOs and later cut a deal with Clu to preserve himself. Zuse is desperate, willing to cut a deal with anyone in order to regain his position of power.
"Well, aren't you one very special program, hm?" Zuse asks as he walks behind the counter. "Don't hear much about programs that can repurpose another's Light Disc, let alone two."
He walks with a limp; a long deep crack runs up his leg, the edges red and jagged with broken coding. Zuse notices his stare and laughs, twirls his cane before hooking it on the edge of the counter.
"My war wound," he says. He turns and plucks a few bottles of neon codes, pours a bit of each into the mixer, gives the contents a stir, and fills a waiting cocktail glass. "That's what I call it. That's what everyone thinks. Earned it during the overthrow of the almighty Clu."
Zuse drops an umbrella into the tall thin glass and lifts it up in a mock toast. "Viva la revolución!"
The cocktail slides across the slick countertop. "This one's on me."
He doesn't move to accept. "Where are my Identity Disks?"
Zuse shakes his head. "Such an outdated term, only used by the oldest programs on The Grid. Shouldn't give yourself away, Rinzler; there are programs out there who'll like nothing more than to derezz you."
He flinches and his circuitry flares red before settling back into neutral white. "I am not Rinzler."
"No?" Zuse leans on the counter, eyebrow cocked. "What makes you say that?"
His circuitry flickers and turns blue. "I fight for the Users."
Zuse's smile is all teeth. "Tron."
* * *
His Identity Disks don't tell the entire story - he lost them at the command ship before the Reintegration - but they have enough data, have recorded enough of the events that transpired, hold enough information to guide the cleverest, most resourceful of programs in taking control and rebuilding Tron City. He never knew all the details of Clu's design - that wasn't his purpose after all - but he always kept himself informed. Anticipating the next step and knowing exactly how to serve Clu's needs always pleased him.
He shudders from the memories.
"A scavenger found it," Zuse says. "Broken down search program, picking through the wreckage of the Reintegration, the second great purge that erased everything Clu had done to The Grid. In all the chaos and lawlessness someone managed to find a damaged Light Disc at the edge of the Sea of Simulation and discover its secrets."
He drinks straight from one of the neon pink carafes. The cocktail on the countertop is untouched.
"Whoever heard of an outdated search program leading Tron City? No one. So, she brought it to a military program, who was later derezzed by another. Eventually the Light Disc came to me. Imagine my surprise when it split into two."
His shoulders stiffen. "Where are they?"
Zuse reaches behind the counter while grabbing the gun-cane and training it on him. He can evade the shots from the loaded cane easily, but he needs to know if they're his Identity Disks first.
The Disks Zuse sets on the countertop glow a dullish infected red. They're his, no matter how he feels about the circuitry color. He reaches for them but Zuse slides his cane over, pressing the bottom of it against his chest.
"Ah, ah. I'll give them back - for a price."
"They're mine."
"But in my hands." Zuse nods to the doorway behind him. "you didn't think I had backup security stationed all around the building, did you? If you want to walk out of here with your Discs you'll have to pay a pretty price."
"You have no right to possess another program's Identity Disk."
"Oh don't talk to me about what I can or can't do, Rinzler," Zuse replies. He picks up the Disks with one hand and presses them into one. "You can do what I tell you to do in exchange for your identity, or you can risk deresolution and fight all the programs coming in here right now to get it back."
He turns around to see several security programs filing into the building, wielding Identity Disks and beam katanas. He turns back to Zuse, who leans on his cane, the Identity Disk around his forearm and glowing white, cocktail glass in hand.
"So, Tron, what'll it be?"
* * *
He sits on a pile of wreckage at the abandoned Solar Sailer hangar, pulling apart and putting together his Identity Disks, then twirling them on his fingers. They glow blue in his hands but he feels it's the wrong color - Clu repurposed him to become the enforcer, the most powerful and merciless warrior on The Grid, and these Disks were his weapons of choice. How many ISOs and programs did he strike down for the sake of perfecting the system?
He doesn't know for how long he sits in the hangar. He stares at the Solar Sailer, recalling his and Yori's escape to the MCP's core and the disguised Flynn hanging off the side by his fingertips.
He wonders what became of Yori in the upheaval following Flynn's disappearance and his reprogramming. Was she repurposed? Derezzed? Hiding among the other programs in Tron City?
A group of search programs appear at the far end of the hangar, picking through the piles of outdated data. He watches them, then rises to his feet and walks back into the city.
* * *
When he pulls his Identity Disk from his back and splits it into two all the other programs jump back and several flee. He watches the braver programs step forward to face him as his helmet encloses around his head.
They encircle him but from a distance; they're so afraid that they won't get close enough to strike, won't get close enough to recognize him, and it shames him. He used to be one of the most revered programs in The Grid but so many cycles had gone by since Clu's takeover that they had forgotten who he used to be.
They see Rinzler and he does not.
"Die, you corrosive glitch," a damaged military program snarls, the cracks in her face flaring red, and she throws her Identity Disk at him.
He walks away from the aftermath unscathed. He places his Identity Disk on his back and never looks back.
* * *
I am Tron.
I fight for the Users.
I am Rinzler.
I serve Clu.
I am
* * *
A Siren runs a small club in one of two neutral sectors in Tron City. That's where he learns of Gem's fate, the one Zuse should've shared.
"She and Castor were derezzed when the End of Line Club was destroyed," the Siren says as she slides him a blue energy cocktail. "Zuse is lucky to be alive."
Lucky, indeed, he thinks as he drinks from the glass.
On the loft of the small club the two MP3s pound out a beat. One of them has a crack in his helmet but they're otherwise intact, not a code out of place.
"Survivors," the Siren says. "Just like the rest of us."
Her eyes flick to his Identity Disk. There is a knowing look in her eyes and smile.
The cramped dance floor is filled with programs looking to forget the civil war raging throughout The Grid. They welcome the pulsing music and the cocktails' buzz with a fervor he hadn't seen since Clu first took over the city.
"They're here to forget," the Siren whispers into his ear, fingertips tracing the circuitry and shape of his armor. A pleasant buzz sinks underneath, an increase in energy that intensifies with every sip of the blue cocktail.
He closes his eyes as the pulsing energy syncs with the music and for a cycle he forgets that he is Tron and he is Rinzler, the city's namesake and one of its most hated programs.
* * *
A search program burst into the club and shouts, "The portal is open!"
The music abruptly dies and all activity in the club freezes.
Something hums deep inside him, a throbbing sensation that intensifies the longer he sits on the barstool and stares at the search program like the others. Then the whispers start, fears and lies and half-truths about what it means, what the beacon of light across the Sea of Simulation means for the fate of Tron City. Is it Clu? Is it the Creator? Is it another User like Sam Flynn? Will peace be restored to The Grid?
He makes to slide off the barstool but the Siren, Crystal, holds him back with a hand on the shoulder. "I have something to give you."
He turns as she places two batons on the backlit countertop. "You will need these."
"Thank you."
As he circles the anxious programs towards the exit Crystal calls out, "Save this city, Tron."
* * *
High above the skyline is a bright white light. He stands outside the club and stares up at it for a long moment, remembering what it used to mean.
He walks down the street quickly, dodging anxious programs gathering to point and wonder, and then pulls out a baton.
Programs jump out of the way as he rockets down the streets on the lightcycle, weaving his way around street corners and makeshift tanks meant to maintain the sector's neutrality. He doesn't go to the portal itself - he can't, he just can't; he tilts the lightcycle around a corner and races down one of the main highways to an abandoned sector.
He hopes the User walking out of Flynn's Arcade is who he thinks it is.
He hopes this User will give him a purpose again.
Like Alan-1.
Like Flynn.
Like Clu.
I am Tron.
I am Rinzler.
Who am I?