Stand Alone Complixity

a Tron Uprising fanfiction

by Quincey Forder

DISCLAIMERS: Tron and all related characters and concept are property of Walt Disney Company

No profit is aimed for or made through this story, and seek to remain within the limits of fair use

Do not sell or otherwhise require payment to read this! All original characters are mine

-SAC-SAC-

The slight hum the filled the otherwise quiet, stale, air was the first thing the former Cmdr Paige noticed. She could remember how she got here, or what 'where' it was.

Her head was feeling like a bass canon.

Looking around, she had to squint her eyes to see through the penumbra of this...basement.

Everything was dull, grey and dusty, with no glow of streaming data, be it the civilian blue or the military orange or yellow.

As a matter of fact, only a greenish halo provided a slight illumination to the room she was in.

"How the trashbin did I get here?" she growled, then did a double take.

Her voice! It was different. Same tone and general sound, but... it lacked something.

In front of her a screen, imbedded in the desk -like she's seen in archives museum when she was a fresh alpha program, was provided the green halo

only three characters floated on its dark surface

C:\

Can it be? A DOS invite? In this day and age?

She sat in front of the pupiter and let her fingers run on the keyboard, requesting the list of the last action

a light caused her to gasp, and then caugh from the the ambiant floating dust.

ENCOM LAZER ACTIVATION,,,,COMPLETE

AUTHORIZATION USER KFLYNN

She blinked, then shut her eyes.

"I can help you, Paige, but you have to trust me." a hooded, cloaked figure in her memory said. "Pavel is closing in."

Her eyes shut open, That voice! It was like Clu's!

Except... except it sounded older, and gentler. That could only mean

"Flynn" She whispered. The very creater of the Grid, and their betrayer. Was it because of him that she was here? In this user forsaken place?

Getting on her feet, she walked away from the pupiter, her hand on the wall to keep a spatial point of reference. Her fingers brushed somethig. A datasheet of sort, then, further, a switch.

A yellowy white light flashed from the ceiling, then bathed the whole room, which wasn't large by any stretch of imagination.

Turning around, her eyes fell on a patroller! She gasped and thoughlessly jumped sideways, her hand reaching up to her shoulderblade,,,and only met with her jacket's material. No identity disk, not even her ICE armor.

FRAG!

An odd sensation in her chest, like pulse, echoed by the tumble in her tamples. But she had more urgent matter to worry about, like that...

Wait a nano!

It wasn't really a patroller, it was a poster of one!

A once flashy colored titled said SPACE PARANOID.

Paige snorted in self derision. If Beck could see her right now, he'd laugh his ass off, she was sure of it!

Laugh it up, mech boy! She thought with a grin, I'm still the better fighter and lightbiker of us!

The thought of the young mech program brought a smile to her lips.

It was unlikely she'd ever seen him, now. Maybe it was for the best, sticking with her would get the kid derezzed, she was sure of it.

Pavel wouldn't hesitate to kill him to get her through him.

"Frag him! Frag that Pavel!" she screamed, punching the wall in front of her, atop a small flight of steps.

She heard two different things, a deaf crack -accompanied to a pain in her hand that brought tears to her eyes- and a click.

The wall moved slightly

She blinked, surprised, looking between her already blacking and swelling fingers and the wall.

"You've got to be fragging kidding me," She hissed, as she went against the wall and pushed it open

She recognized the place immediately. It was Flynn's arcade

But it was dark, gloomy, the games were turned off and covered with sheets

The heels of her boots on the floor echoed in the dead silent place.

Slowly, she head toward the exit.

-SAC-SAC-

Ten years after the disappearance of Kevin Flynn, Alan Bradley was on his way home from a late night at work.

Trying to keep those sharks of the boards from Sammy's legacy -that is, if you assumed the worst and Flynn was really dead- was a full time job, but thankfully, Lora understood and supported his effort, acting like a surrogate mother to Flynn's son.

Son whom was now enterring the rebellous age of his teens.

His pager beeped. He kept it, because he knew that one day, somehow, if Flynn truly lived, he would reach for Alan through this piece of anachronic junk.

Still, it has its use in this age of rapid texing.

For Sam's school to reach him, for example.

As he stopped at the trafic light, it grabbed the small device

"Sam, if you got yourself in detention again, so help me God, I'll..."

It wasn't the school's number,

It was Flynn's Arcade's.

Making a U-turn in the snow covered street.

A million and one thoughs were going through Alan's mind.

It was easy enough to figure where he had been. Only a few people knew where he was going, where he had been before; even less took it seriously.

Could he be back after all these years? Dear God, that's gonna be a nightmare to explain to the Board of Directors and stock holders.

Isolated on an island after his boat sunk? AH! If he tried that, DC comics would see his geeky ass for whatever infrightment he'd make with that lame excuse!

As he arrived in front of the arcade, a figure bolt outside, and slid on the slippery ice covered surface of the sidewalk, ending right in front of this car, miraculously upstanding.

That's probably what saved the person's life, whoever it would be.

He saw her eyes widen in fearful apprehension, and his in horrified recognition

LORA!

He stepped on the brake pedal, hard. The wheels locked, but the momentum and snow reducing adherence of the tires (not) helping, the Sedan continued for a few meters too many, and slammed into the young woman, swooping her off her feet over the hood, windshield and roof.

She landed in heap with a thud and a groan.

The car finally skidded to an halt, and Alan burst out of the vehicle, running toward the fallen woman.

"Oh my God!" he cried, panicked, "LORA! Hang on, baby!"

Only, although she looked like a younger version of her, this wasn't Lora.

Close, but not.

-SAC-SAC-

Paige's world was pain.

She had known her lot of lightbike fall.

Trashbin! Only a few cycle ago she fell off one after... what?

She couldn't remember,

"Oh my God! LORA!" she heard a familiar voice calling. "Hang on, baby!"

So much concern and fear in that voice.

But... her name wasn't Lora. It was the name of her user and creator, before Clu rewrote her code from medic to soldier. Lora Baines.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

Before Quora's... before the ISOs' betrayal and massacre of her friends, coworkers, familly.

"Where..." she gasped, trying to get up from that white noise snow -how come there was WNS in the capitol city of the Grid?! "Where did you hear that name?"

She turned her head and saw his face.

Her eyes widdened in shock.

"Tron. You... you really...live." she hissed in a mix of awe and contempt.

Her eyes rolled up and she fainted, leaving a stunned and puzzled Alan Bradley to catch her.

End chapter 1,