Tron Legacy - It's Your Call - Initiate Sequence (19 page)
Read Tron Legacy - It's Your Call - Initiate Sequence Online
Authors: Carla Jablonski
Tags: #Fiction - Young Adult
Y
ou want to put distance between you and Clu as quickly as possible. You pound toward the bridge and the city. You hope you'll be able to lose yourself among the crowds in that glittering metropolis.
Suddenly, a blast of white light nearly blinds you. A Recognizer!
You dash to the side of the bridge. It's a long way down. But it's your best option. You slip through a space in the side rail. Once your feet hit the girder below, you slide, leap, and scramble down, down, down. You pass levels with ramps leading up and down, and other levels with brightly pulsating grid lights. You keep goingâthese upper levels probably have a fair amount of traffic. You need to find a far more deserted place to stop, regroup, and figure out your next move.
You continue down, your hands growing sore. Your shoulders burn from all the times you dangle before a stomach-clenching drop or hoist yourself up and over a girder. Is there even a bottom level in this world? Finally, you decide you've gone down far enough.
You duck under a girder and move cautiously onto the new level. You follow a ramp off the bridge and find yourself in a deserted, desolate area.
Perfect.
Y
ou ride in a circle, getting a feel for the bike.
Mistake! A disc whirs by your head, bounces off an edge of
the platform, and zips back toward you. You swerve, and it passes
close enough that you can feel its breeze.
There's no warming up in this game.
The crowd seems to like this new twist. They cheer loudly, stomp their feet, and hoot.
“The discs return to the thrower's hand,” Alex says into your ear. “That gives you a couple of seconds before he gets his weapon back.”
“Good to know,” you say. You rev your bike and weave around the other player, creating a wall just like his. Your opponent throws his disc again. This time you're ready for him.
“Hang on tight!” you tell Alex. You ride straight toward the other biker, even though you know his disc is hurtling right back to him. He holds his ground, waiting for the disc, certain you're going to crash into his wall.
Instead, you pop a wheelie and make a hard right. You narrowly whiz by his light wall and the disc misses you. Your opponent isn't so lucky. He smashes into your trailing light wall and derezzes.
“We win!” Alex pumps his fist in the air.
After that, you and Alex become the most popular stadium-game players. You're having so much fun, both of you forget to even try to get back home. Being champions rules!
THE END
Y
ou race to the other side of the room, desperate to find an escape route. The guards crash through the skylightâand then through the glass floor into the club!
You scream as you fall through the floor with themâsending the club into total chaos. You hear shrieks and shouts over the throbbing music.
Bouncers unsheathe their discs and hurl them. You're not sure if they're going after the Black Guardsmen, you, or random programs. You make your way toward an exit. You spot the cool-as-a-cucumber DJ still in his spot. He throws down a thumping bass line and starts moving with the beat. But the bartender ducks below the bar for cover. Bartik, the revolutionary, jumps up from his seat.
“Resist!” Bartik shouts to the crowd. People cheer, and his gang whips out their discs and go after the Black Guard. With merciless efficiency, though, the Black Guard take out every one of them. While their attention is on Bartik's gang, you hurl yourself across the club floor, desperate to get to the exit.
A disc whizzes toward Bartik. He grabs a nearby program and uses him as a shield. Bam! The program derezzes. But before Bartik can pull out his own disc, he's hit. The revolutionary derezzes.
The guards are like heat-seeking missiles. They cut a deadly swath through the bar, taking out everyone and everything that comes between them and their targetâyou!
Y
ou can't leave the Rectifierânot without your dad, not after all you've gone through.
You turn and face the Sentries barreling toward you.
“Come on, Dad,” you murmur. “Now would be a good time to make an appearance.”
“This doesn't look good,” Quorra observes.
“I have an idea.” You wave your dad's disc at the Sentries. “I don't need this, but you do!” you shout. “Come any closer and I destroy it!” This stops them. At least for a moment. You have no doubt that Clu will call your bluff. But he's not here. Yet.
“How's the gate?” you whisper to Quorra.
“Still closing,” she whispers back. Then she clutches your shoulder. “I see him!”
You whirl around to see a strange-looking aircraft.
“Let's go!” You and Quorra race to the edge of the deck. The gate is just about to clang shut. You each somersault under the metal spikes as the Sentries thunder toward you.
It clangs shutâyou on one side, Clu's army on the other.
Score!
K
evin Flynn is out there somewhere,” you hear a gruff voice say. “I'm sure of it.”
You suddenly feel one hundred degrees colder. Then one hundred degrees hotter. Did you actually hear what you think you heard? This guy is talking about your father!
“Ow!” Alex yelps. “You're digging your fingers into me!”
“Sorry.” You release your grip on Alex's shoulder. “I just need to listen to this.”
Alex rolls his eyes and heaves a big sigh, but he stays put.
You lean toward the booth and see a large, intense guy with a diagonal scar across his face. He's talking to an equally tough-looking guy. “The time is ripe, Bartik,” one man says to the other. “If we find Flynn, you know he'll support us. Victory is assured.”
“Not so fast, Veltor,” Bartik says. “Remember what happened last time.”
What happened last time? How is your father involved? You strain to hear them over the pumping music and the hum of hundreds of partying people.
Suddenly a lethal-looking circular object is at your throat. “We don't take kindly to eavesdroppers,” Bartik snarls.
Y
ou look past the whimpering Jarvis and realize the elevator has been activated. Someone will be coming up here any minute. This can't be good.
Quorra's expression tells you she's realized the same thing. Her head whips around as she searches for another way out. But there's none.
You spot a weapons cache and hope you can find something more powerful than your discs.
“Tron Chutes!” Quorra exclaims when you throw her the gear. “Brilliant.” You quickly strap one on.
Then she frowns. “They would be brilliant if we weren't sitting ducks trapped here in the bridge!”
The elevator doors begin to open. “Follow me!” you cry. You grab Quorra, and together you smash through the bridge window!
Y
ou're in my spot,” a voice snarls.
You look up and face the biggest guy you've ever seenâas if a sumo wrestler had been genetically combined with a basketball player. You can barely see the room beyond him.
“Sorry,” you say, sliding over. “Didn't know this part of the floor was taken.”
Mr. Big glares down at you. “What you in for?”
“Wouldn't give up my identity,” you say. “Made the wrong people mad. It's like some kind of dictatorship out there.”
The other prisoner's beady eyes glitter. He yanks you up to your feet. “We have more in common than you think.”
“Oh, yeah?” You wriggle out of his clutches. “How so?”
He brings his enormous face close to yours. “Some of my buddies,” he whispers hoarsely. “We're part of the underground.
We're going to overthrow Clu.”
Clu? Could he really mean the character your dad created all those years ago? He exists? And is he the person in charge? Or has this guy just been cooped up for too long?
“You in?” he asks. “We're working on our escape plans now.
We'll put you to work right away. I'm the leader.”