CHAPTER 12 — FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE

THE GRID - FIRST TRONCYCLE

ANONYMOUS DARK CELL

White Blood Cells hovered around Sam's naked eyes as he adjusted his vision to the blurry and dizzy realization of their captivity. By the time he stopped seeing the cells for real, Quorra remained unconscious, tied behind his back. Although both of them are divided by these spiked balls on either side, they are bound by the chain link of the very same balls. The only visible thing in the dingy, dark room is the neon-lined ribbons emanating from their physical forms, and even that is of no use as no valuable detail or object of use is exposed in the vicinity. Increasing the vicinity though is a challenge altogether, as even one man cannot drag the combined mass of the balls and Quorra all by themselves. At present, he has only two options: - Wake up Quorra and break the chains or leave their future uncertain in the hands of a madman.

It is an obvious choice to whom Sam entrusts his future and attempted his best at waking her up. After wasting his physical energy waking her up, an unusual memory strikes him uninvited. He then ejects Quorra's Disc and opens the code segment. Tweaking a few syntaxes and modules inside the program, being the hacker he is, Sam woke up Quorra in no time and cursed himself for being such a naïve and ignorant douche at handling such a situation. Nevertheless, he took no time in bringing her back to her senses and emphasized to her the need for teamwork and improvisation in this dire situation, although the latter is more of a matter of training Machine Learning Models using a custom database, only this time those ML Models are ISOs. Quorra, being the battle angel she is, could sweep the rug under her enemies with a simple Light Sword, but is still a stranger to long-range combat; the culprit being her protective nature: whether it be her close ones or her very own Identity Disc. Sam could only guide her so much, but ultimately it is in her hands to turn it into her strength and not a fatal weakness.

Hearing the strange footsteps arriving towards them from a long distance, Sam instructs Quorra to be alert and follow the plan accordingly. Lighting up the room, their mysterious captor arrives in the same shabby and deformed face during the capture, much to their shock and horror. Sam is still a newbie, but Quorra being the more experienced one, had never seen such a monster ever in the Grid. Both of them owed the reason for this to the changing Grid Structure as they had discussed several times, but they chose to know the truth and stayed silent. This hunter had no distinctive facial features and started shouting gibberish upon seeing them alive, like a lunatic. Although he couldn't talk like a normal being, he compensated for that with his sharp and cunning nature, carving a niche for himself in the city of double-crossing pawnbrokers, violent street thugs, and tyrannical authoritative classes. He then fell down to the floor and crawled vividly toward the captive duo, like a rabid dog chasing people out of nowhere in the streets. His disordered fingers, although covered up in the same black cloth as his outer dressing, started touching their faces inappropriately, as if he was registering the sensual touch of a healthy, young Programs or whatever identity he didn't care of, delighting himself of how tasty these beings would be for real. Sam could tolerate himself being subject to such weird gestures to some extent, but seeing Quorra face the same tested his limits of patience up to eleven. But he chose not to express it and wait for the right time to strike gold. He instead, shifted his focus to his captured cell, which housed all types of tools and sharp objects, professional and hand-made ones. They seemed more like stolen objects rather than owned assets, implying this lunatic is more of a scavenger rather than a civilized Basic, even in the most basic sense.

Just when he was about to bring his face closer to theirs, he gets thrown back with a strong base voice vibrating his shirt pockets, possibly from the authoritative class personnel. As the device falls down in the mid-action, the lunatic searches frantically for the audio-visual gadget amid the agitated voice emanating from the person behind. Finally, when the madman picks up the device after a few shenanigans, he nods in agreement with a grumbled smile, as if he's acknowledged what the other person said. Seeing his smile, pat comes the reply: "I asked you to show their faces, not your awful smile, you dick". When the maniac turns the audio-visual feed toward the captives, the anonymous host seems to be in shock seeing their faces and especially their body ribbons, saying: "These Programs are not blue, they're white! ISOs? But they're a myth, it's not true! Only the sentries can make any sense of this". He then commands the maniac to show his face and commands him: "Listen, nutcase! Once I have them alive at Purgos, you'll spend the rest of your life devouring each and every delicious voxel of Programs. Till then, don't you even dare to lick my guests for fun, you hideous fuck!", shutting the call. As the call ends, the maniac roams in an excited frenzy around the room, jumping into mad laughter at his luck.

Sam, after seeing the host's face and deducing it to be one of C.L.Us soldiers, quickly grasped the gravity of the situation. Escaping barefoot from this hellhole without any guaranteed means of transport is way better than the sentry torture, he thought. He then called the madman towards him, and as the maniac approached him closer, Sam grabbed his face in the wink of an eye, and Quorra, who was busy with her silent sawing of the chains with her right hand, followed the suit by freeing both of them, booting up the Disc with its cyan-white light in full glory while sliding it on to her left, and in one mighty swing, sliced the nutcase in two halves uniformly and diagonally, from his right shoulder to the left wrist, in an autistic culinary detail. Even Sam hadn't expected Quorra to retain her warrior instinct with such fierceness, a product of her protective nature as a result of her naivety and innocence. Nevertheless, the couple made a move towards the exit door as the two halves of the psycho derezzing leisurely, the upper half eroding at a faster rate than the second half. As the sight of a live settlement became clear to their eyes, the couple were careful to not trust anyone whom they met and followed their escape down the alley: One reason being the current stream of events and the other being the appearance of the people over there and the ambiance itself, resembling a typical crime-infested slum in New York.

ARGON CITY

SOMEWHERE ALONG THE RUINS

Swimming in the pool of success, the army of the repurposed rally the ruins of the Argon City in pompous pride as they search desperately for any fool they could spot on, displaying false bravado while getting derezzed in ignorance. While they derezzed over hundreds of Programs in their victory parade, what others call casualties, they turned blind eye to the razed skyscrapers and burnt infrastructure of the areas they've scoured. The surviving Programs, who've either been witness to the chaos and destruction or are away from this drama, were petrified enough to find wisdom in either surrendering or escaping the apocalypse that is to come, if they would oppose the Sentries, even in the smallest form possible. Escaping from the city would be a privilege in fewer groups, but for larger masses, surrendering is the best option that they seem fit to follow. There was no other obstacle for the orange army than to declare Argon as their trophy and Capital City.

In the midst of fear and success, one Program, masked in anonymity, emerged from the crowd of silence and horror, and faced the sentries, firm on the ruins and on his stance, displaying his courage and fearlessness amidst uncertainity. The troops who have paused their rally, were dying to see the fool who has some amount of false bravado present yet, followed by those on the front rows who at first waited for some time to witness some other reaction from him, but laughed at later thinking it was yet another false bravado who is to be crushed under the sounds of their stomp. The commander forced the rebel to utter atleast one word but in vain, as the only things that were wasted his time and patience, not the rebel's confidence. Frustrated and impatient, the commander then ordered the bunch of soldiers at the frontline to decimate this fool into binaries and voxels in arrogance. Little did he know that he wouldn't have the time to regret his decision when the soldiers who approached the rebel to finish him off would be the subject of a deadly smoke bomb, thrown by the rebel. Using the time bought from the smoke bomb, the rebel soldiers of the White Leader Force flung into action out of nowhere, surprising the crowd in oblivion. These rebels rushed into their playing field with all kinds of weapons in their hands, be it Light Swords, Identity Discs or Light Grenades. What was a wave of lightning strikes for the enemy was a routine mock drill for these men in action.

These poor sentries didn't know what they had signed up for and had to become a helpless prey to these hungry rebels, who were craving for justice to their ruined lives and brotherhoods. These rebels gave neither second chance at survival nor the time for reasoning for the orange sentries, slicing these demons like a butter knife and vigorously scouring the whole smokey region for any left out bastards. Even the commander was no exception to the slaughter fest, as he went on to push all his cavalry one by one into the reality of deresolution, but even he couldn't hold off his inevitable fate for so long. Reserving the commander for the final showdown, the rebel squad surrounded the commander, giving him a small yet suffocating space for his last minutes. The Squadron Leader finally stepped in to deal with the commander all by himself, having a very good look at the incompetent and once arrogant wastrel who calls himself a commander of the enemy forces. He then waited for the smoke to settle down and then dragged the commander all over the ruins, beating him to a pulp, to the point that the sluggish carcass of the poor chap could do nothing but see the show going on. This procession carried on till the coliseum of the Argon City, which was clean and far away from the destruction of the General's Forces, and hooked the barely alive carcass onto a Light Staff firmly mounted by one of the rebel soldiers. When he was sure that the people of Argon followed his suit and were able to witness the phenomenon, the Squadron Leader then broadcasted a live audio-visual feed throughout the whole Argon City, making sure that the broadcast frequency did not spare the General's Command Ship as well. Facing the General and his close aides, the leader then began his manifesto:

"Citizens of Argon, and Evils of Argon! While we enjoy our brief moments of freedom from the tyrannical clutches of death i.e., C.L.U bestowed upon us by our creator Kevin Flynn's sacrifice, those who live under the mercy of the same C.L.U now try to display their false sense of Power and Authority by marching into our homeland with mad dogs, trying to replicate the horrors of the old times. This commander is about to become an example, a reminder to the coward seated in the skies above Argon, that it is TRON who spared him his coward life. We, the ideological and fierce disciples of TRON, will always be there to remind him of this fact, forever and ever. ( Turning his attention to face the enemy)General! Think twice before committing any such shenanigans in the future, for there will be no future of yours if you fail to do so. You have been warned! TRON LIVES!!"

Terminating the feed, the leader then derezzes the commander in a swift move, filling the air with a brief moment of shock, followed by the cheering and sloganeering of the crowd in unison "TRON LIVES! TRON LIVES!!"

PURGOS – PUSSY GALORE PUB

Amidst the random abuses, where insults and routine mayhem are a common sight at Pussy Galore pub in Purgos, a Program, ducked inside his dark cloak, approaches the counter and orders himself a mocktail amongst the menu of the worst drinks available in the whole Grid itself. Waiting for the drink, he becomes a guest to the rubbish and uncivilized mess the pub is home to. Everywhere the eye sees, the tables are filled with biker gangs, modding themselves with the shittiest of the colors and mods possible, flaunting their reckless behavior to entertain the audiences. Girls in those gangs, being the pivotal roles they are behind the curtains, are busy enough to taunt the boys to fight amongst themselves. For some, it's a matter of pride amongst the gang members whereas for others, the reward for winner is the girl's smooch. Taking his drink from the counter, the cloaked Program carefully navigated to his vacant seat amidst the littered floors and spoilt furniture nearby, and made himself and his seat comfortable to be seated upon.

Leisurely sipping his drink one sip at a time, he ordered one drink after another from his place, and continued the same until he saw another cloaked entity enter the pub. That entity was calculative enough to be seated at the rear of this person's seat and sat idly by when the main host broke the ice:

- What our friends at Argon have to say?

- The White Fox is throwing a party! They stroke the gold over there!

- Glad for them. And what about our uninvited guests?

- They are a pain in the ass to follow. They keep changing places as easily as their outfits. First a random warehouse in Purgos, next a pawnshop, followed by a weapons dealer, a few houses and the list goes on and on. There's no end to their demands!

- So, what happened? Are you still their guide or did they depart?

- They didn't have time to cover this city so I had to escort them safely out.

- Did you follow them until the outskirts? I heard dogs here chase the uninvited guests to deresolution.

- I couldn't be with them, but I sure had a tracker installed on their vehicles luckily, now they won't be a pain in the ass to take care of( hinting to his first remark sarcastically).

- Well done, my boy! Go have a sound sleep, and you could definitely need some dogs near your house.

- Sure thing, signing off ( disappears in thin air).