TRON fanfic: The Outpost (6/?)

[skye_writer]

Title: The Outpost
Author:
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Tron, Original Characters
Summary: No one knew where the virus came from. By the time they noticed it, it was too late. The Grid's factions put their differences aside and built a haven in the Outlands--the Outpost. Time passes; the Grid's programs survive. Then the Portal opens again, bringing Users back to the Grid, and what happens next may change their world forever.
Warnings: No warnings for this chapter.

PART ONE: INCUBATION

CHAPTER SIX: THE TRUTH

Rho sighed as she filled another half dozen glasses with energy. Working the mess was always rather thankless, and Mess 3 seemed to be busier than usual this millicycle. She had the worst job, too: filling the glasses was finicky work, especially since every bit of energy they mined out here was precious. Spilling even a drop was frowned upon. She tried not to spill, but she found herself easily distracted.

For one, none of her coworkers would leave her alone. By now it seemed half the Outpost had heard about the mission to recover the Users, and nobody seemed keen on keeping the members of the rescue party secret. Rho had fielded half a dozen questions when she’d arrived for her mess detail, and every now and then one of the programs on detail with her would find their way over to her and ask another question.

“What’s it like in the city?”

“Who are the Users?”

“Has the Creator returned?”

“Has Clu?”

She answered as best she could, but she couldn’t handle all of the questions when she still had so many of her own. Could Sam Flynn and Ed Dillinger Junior and Quorra really save them all? What had happened in that private Council meeting?

And most important of all: was the Nameless really Tron?

She filled another tray with glasses full of energy and pushed it through a cubby window to the mess line proper. The chatty atmosphere of the mess hall suddenly dropped to near silence. Rho peered through the window and immediately saw why: the Nameless had arrived.

Whispers followed him as he strode up to the mess line and spoke to Thia, the Mess 3 supervisor. Even from her spot at the window, Rho couldn’t make out what they were saying. The Nameless hadn’t even looked at her, though she supposed he had no reason to. He knew this was her work detail today, but who said he was coming here for her? Maybe he just wanted a chat with Thia.

Thia turned suddenly, her eyes landing on Rho with all the force of a physical blow. Rho started, knocking her head on the top of the window before hurriedly backing out of sight and into the work table behind her. Glasses rattled at the impact, but thankfully they were all empty.

Thia’s face appeared at the window. “Rho,” she said.

“Yes?” Rho asked, rubbing the back of her head.

“Nameless is coming back; he wants to talk to you. You’ve got thirty micros.”

“Okay.”

Thia’s face disappeared, and the door to the workline opened. The Nameless stepped in, looking utterly out of place in his armor. He looked at Rho, then motioned with his head towards a door that led further back. She nodded, and followed him into pump room.

Two programs sat in a corner of the room, chatting instead of going about their work. The Nameless gave them a look; the pair of them immediately got to their feet and vacated the premises, leaving Rho and the Nameless alone in the noisy room. It was here the liquid energy was pumped from the underground refinery and into the reservoir that allowed programs like Rho to fill glasses up for public consumption. She had a feeling the Nameless had decided to come back here for a reason: it was private, and it was loud enough that eavesdroppers would be discouraged.

The Nameless folded his arms and leaned with his back against the reservoir tank, not looking at Rho. “You can ask three questions,” he said over the din of the machinery.

Rho swallowed. She had far more than three questions, but she knew better than to press her luck with him. The first would have to be the one that was bugging her the most, but she didn’t know how to ask it. She almost didn’t want to say that name out loud, in case the very walls were listening.

But she had to know.

“Are you really—who the Users say you are? You—I thought you only wore his emblem because you believed in him, but they said—that name, and you flinched. I’ve never seen you do that before.” She looked up into his face, something she had not dared do when the question was in her mouth.

His jaw had clenched; she could see the tension in his cheek and temple. The scar that spread across his face seemed darker, but that might have only been the light. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Rho knew her brief break was slipping away, and that the chance for more questions was as well, but she held her peace. She only needed the answer to this. Everything else could wait for another time.

Finally, the Nameless let out a long breath. The tension seemed to spiral out of his body. “It’s true,” he said, bowing his head. “I am.”

Rho let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. A dozen more questions sprang to mind, but she only had two left. She asked, “How did they know it was you?” She didn’t ask: how has no one recognized you, in all this time? Where have you been all these cycles? Where did you go? Why did you return in time for the end of the war?

“They know my User,” the Nameless said. “Alan_1…” He sighed. “I’m not going to tell you my life story, Rho.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Rho replied, though she was aching to know. “Last question.” She thought, trying to figure out how to phrase her other questions as statements, how to ask them without actually asking. “What happened to you? We all… well, some of us wondered what happened to you, back during the first war. You vanished and we thought… I thought maybe you’d come back and overthrow Clu and his goons and give the system back to its programs. But you didn’t, and now… you’re back. Sort of.”

“I think that was more than one question,” the Nameless said, one corner of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. Rho looked down at her feet, embarrassed. But the Nameless kept talking.

“The long of it… we don’t have time for. The short of it is… Clu.” The smile vanished; his usual stony expression returned. “Clu happened to me.”

Rho stared, but said nothing else. She supposed that was the end of the conversation, though—she checked the chrono above the door they’d come in by—she still had a handful of micros left before she had to go back to work.

“Ask about something else,” the Nameless said suddenly; Rho jumped. She turned, and he was smiling a little again. “I know you,” he said. “You’re dying to know about half a dozen things, aren’t you?”

Rho bit her lip, thinking. It was true, so… “How did that Council meeting go? I heard some believers talking about how Atana wasn’t very pleased with how it turned out.”

“The Council meeting was nearly a disaster, and Atana is only upset that she learned the truth.”

“Which is?”

“Users are just as fallible as we are.”

“Oh. Makes sense, given what happened with Flynn, I guess. Still… do the Users have a solution yet?” This was the question that the other programs had asked her the most, and she wondered if the Nameless knew the answer.

“They might soon, but not yet. They won’t be back for three point two nine decicycles, so we won’t know until then.”

Rho’s jaw dropped. “Decicycles?” she exclaimed. “But—anything could happen—”

“I know,” the Nameless said. “But time moves differently in their world. Three decicycles for us isn’t even ten millicycles for them.”

She blinked. “Really?”

The Nameless nodded. “Really.” His eyes flicked to the chrono on the wall. “I think our time’s up.” He straightened up and gently steered her towards the door. “I don’t have to tell you not to—”

“Not a bit or a byte will escape my lips,” Rho assured him.

“Good.” He closed the door behind them, and Rho went back to her workstation and resumed filling glasses. “I’ll come find you in five millicycles,” he added. “Another border patrol?”

Rho grinned hugely. “You know I’m ready for that.”

“Just make sure to clear it with Halix and your supervisors.”

“I will.”

He left, and Rho continued her work. She heard the quiet that followed him out of the mess, and deftly deflected questions from her coworkers about what he’d wanted. Her thoughts swirled with the implications of knowing the truth about the Nameless. Tron had been gone from the Grid so long he was practically a legend. And yet he’d come back, with no one the wiser.

And she knew him.

The Nameless did not much associate with anyone, but for some reason he’d taken her on, shown her how to defend herself and taught her the folly of her recklessness. She’d been dying to know about him as much as anyone, but even she knew when to shut up. She could live without small talk, and babble about herself for micros on end. And he put up with her. And trusted her.

Rho was lucky. She knew that now. She never pressed the Nameless for details, and in return, he dropped hints, and now he trusted her with his biggest secret. She knew he would never have told her, if she hadn’t entered the Flynn’s building with him and heard what she’d heard. But it awed her, a little, that he did not deny her the truth about himself.

She’d keep his secret. After all he’d done for her, it was really the least she could do.