Tron: Deliverance

Aperture Clear?...<YES>

Getting vaporized wasn't exactly what Jet was expecting, truth be told. The comics and games made it look painful. People always screamed in terror as the evil death ray consumed them and they were burned to a pile of ash.

When Jet suddenly appeared inside the Grid he was slightly disappointed to find that the process of being zapped out of existence, turned into binary then uploaded to a computer had been largely painless. Although he did have a taste of burning rubber in his mouth. And his left foot felt kind of tingly and numb. But maybe that was just the nerves.

"Woah-kay, everyone make it through alright?" Sam's gravelly voice came from the left. They were in a dark and sterile room. The walls and floors were made of black glass. Thin beams of harsh white light shot through the high windows over an empty desk and console. Jet blinked as he saw his companions. They looked....different inside the grid.

Sam and Quorra wore dark clothing with lines of white light shot through the fabric. Sam's looked more like armor with opaque shoulder pads and a chest plate. Quorra now wore a skort and gloves almost up to her shoulders. Jet's father looked even more strange.

Alan Bradley was a generally unassuming man. He usually wore dark suits from mid-range brands, never wanting to rely on his clothing or looks. If his coding couldn't speak for itself then he didn't really see a point being in the industry. At least that's how he described it. Now he wore slim fitting shirt and pants with light lines like Quorra and Sam. But over the top of it he had a flapping robe with a wide hood and sleeves.

"Hey dad, the cyber-punk monastery called. They want their wardrobe back" Jet said with a chuckle.

"Well the 90s called and they want their leather jacket back" Alan responded blithely, brushing at the sleeves of his robe and tugging the hood up over his head.

Jet looked down and with a start realized he was also wearing the same dark pseudo-armor as Sam, but he also had the addition of a dark jacket with a hood. It wasn't really leather but it gave off the same opaque shine.

"Uhhh why do I have a jacket?" Jet asked no one in particular. He flinched as a high pitched voice screeched in his ear.

"I played with the settings for clothing. I know how cold you get sweetie and I didn't want to send you out without a proper jacket. You too Alan" Jet's mother's voice grated against his jaw bone. Sam and Alan also flinched and the volume that Lora Bradley's voice came through the link from the outside world. Quorra cocked her head to listen but didn't seem as bothered by the voice beaming directly into her head.

"Thoughtful as always dear, but could you turn your volume down a bit. I'm about to develop tinnitus" Alan said gently.

Lora's voice came through again, but softer this time. "Will do sweetie. And this is fascinating by the way, I can see where all of you are. Your vitals are looking great. Alan I think this is the lowest your blood pressure has been in 30 years"

Sam piped up, voice businesslike "That's great Lora but could you check if there's any patrols around us? Last time I beamed into this place I got arrested almost immediately"

"Its not really getting 'beamed' somewhere, its more like getting translated" Lora said admonishingly as a keyboard clacked in the background.

Sam rolled his eyes but couldn't help the fond smile on his lips. Jet smirked too. His mother's love of using the correct term for everything was both endearing and made him want to rip his hair out in annoyance at times.

"You're all clear. Roy, how is the overall stability of the Grid looking?" Lora's voice grew muffled as she turned to their other lifeline to the world of users, Roy Kleinberg. One of the original coders from back when Encom was just a couple of computers on the second floor of a laundromat.

Roy's slow and methodical voice rolled over the link "Its looking alright where you are. There are definitely some places with broken code out when you get away from the city"

"Can you see the sea of simulation?" Quorra asked.

"You mean this big dark spot of garbled code? Yeah I can see it. Im not gonna be able to make much of it thought" You could hear Roy shrugging with the comment.

"Well that's where we're headed. Keep an eye on it. If you see any signatures like ours tell us immediately. If anything survived of CLU's fleet its probably out in the water" Sam instructed.

Jet was only half listening, he was too busy looking through the narrow window.

The grid was.......beautiful. Thousands of lines of light contrasted with wet darkness. Streets made of glass and energy passing through the buildings like concrete. He was transfixed. Part of him hadn't expected the grid to be real.

It was all just a video game wasn't it? Even though he had believed Sam when he said he had been sucked inside the Grid –after Lora had confirmed such a thing was possible with the digitizing technology she had developed at Encom. But still, to be here, to see it with his own eyes. Pure giddy excitement rose up in his chest, mixed with a healthy dose of fear.

"Welcome to the Grid everyone" Jet said in a low voice.