Author's Notes: Well, this is a bit late, isn't it. About three years exactly. I'm in China, and struggling to write at all, so I'm just going to thank everyone who'd commented over the long wait, and mention that several stories set within this AU (around 30), as well as some other works of mine, can be found over on AO3, under Cameron_McKell. It's honestly my preferred platform to use, but I'll keep up to date on the stories I do have here.

Sam looked from Tron to the newcomer several times, trying – and failing – to come up with something to say, but every time his eyes were drawn back to that… void. Where a face should be.

'Well, I guess there are eyes… sort of.'

If two balls of golden light could be called eyes, that is.

Eyes or not, they flared brightly for several seconds, enough so that Sam had to look away for a moment, just in time to see Tron's eyes glow blue, as if in sympathy. *Identify yourself, program.* *Target is User SamFlynn.*

"What's going on? Who are you?" He asked the obvious questions because hey, they were obvious for a reason – they were relevant.

"This is Jin," Tron answered, reaching a hand out to the staff but not touching it this time. His eyes glowed faintly blue again, focused on Jin whose eyes flared like a brief but powerful flame in response to whatever was going on. *Disengage advisory. Threat level negligible.* *User or not, his presence is unauthorized.*

*I authorized it by bringing him here.*

"He is the program that manages the Grid's archives," Tron finished eventually, glow fading from his eyes for the moment.

"… Uh, nice to meet you," Sam said after a moment when Jin made no move to lower his staff from Sam's face.

Jin motioned curtly to one side with the staff, and after a moment's hesitation Sam moved in the indicated direction.

'I really hope Tron's chill about this whole thing means this is normal. I mean, it's good to see another functioning program, but I also don't want to be beaten up by a crazy guy in a hole in the ground.'

As Sam was herded over toward a glowing, bench-like slab of furniture, Tron detoured over to examine the nearest of a veritable maze of towering 'bookshelves'. Each of them was several stories high of white-on-white, circled by unconnected catwalks at each level, crammed claustrophobically close on their broad sides while their end sides were so far apart the distance between sections was too far to be jumpable, even for a program.

"Jin also protects the archives from unauthorized use," Tron finally explained, pulling what looked like a sheet of glass off of one of the shelves and flicking through lines of glowing text that appeared across its surface. The lights under Jin's hood flashed again at Sam as he sat down, casting shadows where Sam was trying very hard not to imagine a severed neck or something, and inspiration struck. *Mishandling of archive data will not be tolerated.*

'Is he trying to communicate?'

His suspicions were confirmed when Tron's eyes glowed in response as he spoke aloud this time, as well.

*"Users lack that form of input/output, Jin." User SamFlynn seeks to address system-wide error, and effect repairs.* Tron's eyes continued glowing after he'd stopped speaking, so Sam tried not to think about what else he might be saying, and instead focused on the odd, tingly feeling from his backside and along the backs of his legs, spreading from where they were in contact with the bench-thing.

'Man, can't even eavesdrop on the gossip, here. So not fair.'

Jin finally lowered the staff, hood tipping to one side as he regarded Tron – curiously, if Sam wanted to guess at the emotion the gesture was trying to convey. Another flare of light. *System-wide error? Clarify.*

Tron gestured to the data now arranged onto the glass he held, then offered it to Jin when he walked over. Jin didn't exactly have eyes that Sam could track the movements of, but he assumed the program was reading over the information.

He handed the glass back to Tron, who returned it to the shelf as Jin gave Sam a threatening wave of his staff, eyes glowing bright, before taking off down the narrow aisle at a run, using the staff to pole vault up onto the next level up on the following bookcase-that-wasn't-really-a-bookcase, before turning out of Sam's line of sight. *The sooner you leave, the better, User.*

"Nice guy," Sam said after what he hoped was enough time for Jin to be out of earshot.

'Or whatever the program equivalent is.'

"Not many visit System Utility 5," Tron replied, walking over but seeming unwilling to sit down on the bench with him for whatever reason, eyes alert on their surroundings.

"I can't imagine why," he replied sarcastically, subtly trying to shift over to make room, if that was the issue.

'Maybe he doesn't like to sit on the job, or something?'

Tron, of course, took his comment literally. "Most individuals lack sufficient clearance, and of those that have it, I know of only three that have come here over the Grid's runtime."

"Oh," Sam deflated a little. "Over the entire runtime of the Grid?" Tron nodded. "Who?"

"You, right now," Tron replied. "Clu, once, when looking for ways to stabilize the effects of the ISOs' uncontrolled expansion on the system's base code, and myself."

'And the rest of the time he's been alone? Aw man, now I feel bad…'

They waited in silence for a while after that; every now and then, Sam caught a glimpse of Jin flitting between the shelves, stopping here and there to examine something or pull out more sheets of glass. What Tron said about the ISOs nagged at Sam, but he figured he'd wait to ask about that later; it didn't seem like a conversation that he would enjoy having. Waiting in silence was awkward, though, so he fished around for something to say, and, eventually, remembered something.

"So, where is the system log you mentioned, before?"

A vague clanking sound came from somewhere off in the rows of shelves, but Sam couldn't see anything.

Tron gestured back the way they came, toward the elevator. "Through the door on the opposite side."

Sam blinked at him in surprise. "There was another door there?"

Tron nodded again. "You may investigate there while I wait here, if you like; only Users have access there."

Sam thought about that for a moment; it didn't feel right to split up already, but from what Tron said, that couldn't be helped.

'Wait a sec.'

"Is there a program in there, too?"

Tron's expression fell, and he looked between the doorway and the archive shelves a few times before nodding. "Yes; Yin keeps the system log."

Sam nodded slowly, then stood up. "And they've probably never had a visitor?"

Tron shook his head 'no', and Sam's mind was made up. "All right, then. I'll go take a look."

Sam didn't see Jin appear around the corner of one shelf as he made his way to the door. He watched with laser focus as the User bumbled around for the door lock, desperately peering around him when the door finally did open, and slumped dejectedly when it shut behind him. Without looking away from the door, he caught Tron as the other program collapsed, then laid his frame out over the ETC-slash-cot and returned to the archives.

Sam squinted against the sudden brightness as the hidden door before him finally opened, carefully feeling his way forward with each step. The ground beneath his feet sloped steadily downward the farther he went. A deep humming filled the space, completely overriding the sound of the door rezzing back in behind him. Eventually, his eyes began to adjust to the extreme light that seemed to come from pretty much everywhere at once, and he began to see shapes that weren't just his eyes seeing stars. There was something like a ring-shaped console a few yards in front of him, at what he assumed was the lowest point in the room.

At the center of the ring console sat a woman. The edges of her white robes seemed indistinct, blending into the surrounding white of the room. Her face seemed a pale gray, but Sam couldn't tell for sure with the way the surrounding light seemed to bleach out his eyes.

"Welcome, User," a peculiarly multi-tonal, feminine voice sounded, confirming his suspicions at least partly, and Sam hesitantly raised a hand in greeting, then kept it up to try and shield his eyes afterward.

"Uh, hi. I take it you're Yin?"

"Confirmed," she replied, serenely.

"Is there, I don't know, any way we could dim the lights a little? I can't see a thing in here."

"Please wait," Yin replied, followed by a series of soft beeps. Slowly, the all-pervading light dimmed, until Sam could just see the seams between the light panels that made up the boundaries of the room. The floor didn't exactly slope, as he'd thought; the room was spherical, still white-on-white, with the ceiling/side/floor tiles made up of vaguely flower-shaped arrangements of pentagons ringed in hexagons, with Yin's ring-shaped console actually partially recessed one such pentagon at the bottom of the room.

'This room is like one giant soccer ball…'

Now that Sam could see more clearly, it was obvious that Yin's skin was indeed a pale gray, like a living black and white movie. The black and white theme almost continued on into her robes, which were flowing and white, except the thin lines of circuitry that traced along the outfit turned out to be a pale, pale gold color. In place of hair, she wore a tall, almost bullet-shaped headdress marked with circuitry in more… unusual patterns than the ones on her clothes.

'I think I've been silent too long. Crap.'

"Uh… thanks for that. Yeah."

Yin inclined her head briefly, hands slowly working over the controls around her without looking.

"Input command," she prompted, and Sam scratched at the back of his head.

"Uh, command? … Oh, wait. You're asking what I'm, uh, here for? Right?" Yin nodded, so Sam continued. "Okay, so… This place has a log of everything that's happened in the Grid, so I was wondering… Uh, what's happened since the last time a User used the portal to leave?"

"Compiling data, please wait," Yin said, then, as if the sort of thing happened all the time, separated each of her arms into two, leaving one pair behind to continue leisurely type at the controls in front of her, while the second pair – or were they the originals? – moved much more rapidly over the console to either side of her.

'Okay. That's different. That's... definitely different. First the Headless Horseman, now Pleasantville's own Indian deity. No sweat. Yeah.'

Sam couldn't see where Yin's arms joined her body because of the design of her robe, but quickly decided that was for the best. There weren't any chairs in the System Log that he could see, unless Yin was sitting on one, but she just as easily could –

"Nope, not going there.'

Sam just plopped down where he stood, absently leaning back into the curve of the floor after a while.

Soon – really soon, actually – a dialogue box opened up slightly to Yin's side, right in front of Sam, and he stood back up to check it out. Text appeared in a long column starting at the upper left corner of the box, each line annotated with what clearly was some sort of timestamp, though he couldn't tell what kind just by looking at them himself. The remaining sections of each line seemed to be split between more familiar-looking prompts and requests, and their resulting status updates.

'That's not it, or this one, what kind of program is named that mess? … This is going to take forev – wait! There!'

Roughly forty lines into his search, Sam saw the name 'flynn'.

'[1007.5983249251]: flynn system\: delete\key\admin2\

[1007.5983272654]: system flynn\: Target destination?

[1007.5983299585]: flynn system\: destination\P\:files\a\admin\CLU\CLU. \

[1007.5983299721]: 4LM4 705.t942mu5\: run\track42\confirm\

[1007.5983300113]: system flynn\: Warning – deleting this file(s) could result in operating system error(s). Continue? (Y/N)

[1007.5983301555]: flynn system\: y

[1007.5983302000]: system *\: Error code 659. Source: A\:files\system\SystemUtility1\ Looking for solution. . . . .

[1007.5983302348]: 705.t942mu5 4LM4\: Error – file not found

[1007.5983302748]: LaserOutput system\: run\Logout\

[1007.5983302800]: CLU.782 system\: suspend\program\LaserOutput\071027.5983302810]: system CLU.782\: Error – insufficient privileges for requested action

[1007.5983302867]: system *\: Error code 659. Source: A\:files\system\SystemUtility2\ Looking for solution. . . . .

[1007.5983303158]: flynn system\: move\P\:files\a\admin\CLU\

[1007.5983303865]: RectifierPlatform1 LaserOutput\: run\Logout\

[1007.5983303953]: LaserOutput RectifierPlatform1\: Error – insufficient privileges for requested action

[1007.5983304000]: system flynn\: Target destination?

[1007.5983304294]: flynn system\: destination\P\:files\a\admin\flynn\

[1007.5983304578]: system flynn\: Warning – merging this file(s) could result in system infrastructure error(s). Continue? (Y/N)

[1007.5983305000]: system *\: Error code 659. Source: A\:files\system\SystemUtility3\ Looking for solution. . . . .

[1007.5983305248]: flynn system\: y

[1007.5983305625]: system *\: Error code 659. Source: A\:files\system\SystemUtility4\ Looking for solution. . . . .

[1007.598330600]: system *\: Critical error – Flynn_OS_S – Insufficient privila5r-y=f45c(j7k5+^t-e($+lc_54i*55+je7. . . . .

[1007.598330700]: system *\: Restoring Flynn_OS_S from backup. . . . . Error – bad file, restoring to default. . . . .

[1007.598330710]: system *\: B\:AlphaSector\Section1\Light\ Error – offline

[1007.598330720]: system *\: B\:AlphaSector\Section1\Directory1\ Error – offline

[1007.598330730]: system *\: B\:AlphaSector\Section1\Directory2\ Error – offline

[1007.598330740]: system *\: B\:AlphaSector\Section1\Directory3\ Error – offline

[1007.598330750]: system *\: B\:AlphaSector\Section1\Recognizer1\ Error – offline

[1007.598330760]: system *\: B\:AlphaSector\Section1\Recognizer2\ Error – offline

Sam looked up from the still-growing list, and scrubbed his hands over his face.

"Well that sucks."