I'm trying to figure out the programs' versions of human emotions. Exceptions? And catching the exception is like controlling emotions or something.

Yes, I program. No, I'm not got at it. A good programmer is usually not a university student who starts writing fanfics during finals.

Yori stood alone before the receiving array. The DLL programs that had filled the control room before were elsewhere, as her latest update reduced her dependency on them. Her User wanted the laser system to be isolated from the network, immune from attack. It was understandable, for a project that could eventually be directly responsible for the safety of thousands of users as they fled to Hawaii from the responsibilities of life over the network.

The array began glowing with subdivisions as it saved the input stream. Yori's hands flew over the controls, stabilizing random fluctuations. Her mind cycled rapidly, inventing new file storage standards as she worked. Whatever this was, it wasn't Tron, but it was as challenging as Flynn. Organic. And she had to do it by herself.

Except it was Tron. Wearing strange clothing that she assumed to be from the User world, as well as strange lenses over his eyes. And looking like he had just suffered a fatal runtime error. Did they update him to a new version?

The array derezzed, and Yori loaded a medium sized file. LLLSDLaserDiagnostics. Values were logged as a ping notified her the laser was no longer active

Why is there an object in the particle buffer? I can't clean loose particles out unless... She glanced at Tron, who was now standing, recovering from his crash. Of course Tron's new User clothes would cause problems. They would have to be sent back before the buffer could be cleaned. Or she could try integrating the object's particles with the system's storage...

Yori called a function on the console that displayed a list on a screen.

LLLSDLaserBufferContents
Water{mL}: 3.5E4
Carbon{g}: 2.0E4
Ammonia{mL}: 4.0E3
Phosphorous{g}: 8.0E2
Salt{g}: 2.5E2
Saltpeter{g}: 1.0E2
Sulfur{g}: 8.0E1
Fluorine{g}: 7.5E0
Iron{g}: 5.0E0
Silicon{g}: 3.0E0
+15

That list, those proportions, Yori had worked with them before. She knew what that was. She looked at Tron.

"Lora?" he said.

She threw an exception and crashed.

Lora stood in the laser lab, hunched over a keyboard. Her eyes scanned the monitor as her program wrote to it. "The laser'll be offline until tomorrow," she said to Flynn. "Yori's running diagnostics on the laser and finding loose particles." Something beeped ominously. "And she crashed. She's never done that before..."

"Sure she has." Flynn leaned casually against a wall of expensive scientific equipment.

"Well yes, but never with anything important."

"Maybe she was just so happy to see Tron that she crashed."

"Funny." Someone else entered the room, and she turned to them. "Hey, Alan!"

'Alan' glanced behind him. "Null pointer," he said. "Where is Alan?" Tron, then.

"Tron?" said Lora. "Didn't Flynn put you back?"

"I did," said Flynn. His face fell. "Oh..."

"Flynn," the program growled, "Where is my User?"

"In the Grid," Flynn said sheepishly. "Look I thought he was you!"

Lora punched Flynn's arm. "Alan has glasses, Tron doesn't. Tron glows, Alan doesn't. Tron is a computer program, how the hell could you mix them up?"

"I'm sorry, ok?" Flynn raised his hands defensively. "I'll fix this-"

"You can't fix this. I have to fix this, since it's my laser."

Gibbs chose that moment to enter the room. "Technically it's mine," he said. "What's wrong with it?"

"Flynn," Lora said, glaring at the person in question, "digitized Alan instead of Tron."

"Oh dear," said the graying scientist. "Doesn't he present Tron today?"

Tron remembered one of his conversations with his User. "Yes, he was going to try to... sell inanimate copies of me to some shareholders."

"More like convince the shareholders you're worth making copies of," Gibbs corrected. He sighed. "I suppose you'll have to do it."

Tron stood before the panel of shareholders. They were seated around a long mahogany table, wearing equally somber and dull charcoal suits. Any wrinkles or opportunities for self-expression had been nearly ironed out. Most of them sported patchy comb-overs.

The firewall was radiant in comparison. Probably because he had glowing circuitry.

He still felt like he was about to throw an exception.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Bradley," intoned Adam Smith, one of the shareholders. "I thought you wore glasses?"

Tron threw the exception. He froze, trying to catch it before he crashed. None of his memories applied-

"Trying contacts?"

-but the shareholder caught it for him. "Just trying them out," Tron improvised.

"Hm." Smith nodded. "So what do you have for us today?"

"TRON JA-30706," Tron said proudly. A bit too proudly, but it was justified.

Tron launched into his presentation about his duties in the system without actually saying he was a program. As Flynn promised, the second he said the word 'algorithm' they all tuned, out, nodding politely at regular intervals before nodding off entirely.

Adam Smith is named after an alias of James May.

melancholyvivace - There'll be more of both later on.

Guest - Good to hear!

I. J. Girl - I don't think she would've had too much difficulty. It's a specially designed facility. Once Tron and Alan are where they belong, though, something from another test may get loose...