Tron: Deliverance

<RETURN TO SENDER>

Mara didn't quite know why she'd grabbed the baton. She had her own cycle, one Zed had specially designed with concealed compartments for equipment and an extended seat for carrying an additional passenger. But now she had another program's baton weighing heavily on her thigh.

They wove between the crumbling buildings of Purgos. Tron at the lead and Beck at the rear of the group, keeping everyone together and making sure they didn't get lost in the hopelessly disordered maze.

Layers on layers of mismatched building code made up the uneven mess of a skyline. The lower layers providing some semblance of structure that the actual base code of the Grid was failing to do. Just being in Purgos made a strange dizziness and unease settle in Mara's core and rattle in the back of her head.

She could swear her cycle was taking an undue amount of wear too. Her motivation arrays giving off an uncomfortable whine through her link with the vehicle code.

"What happened?" A groggy voice came from behind her. She half turned her head to view the User riding double with her. Mara had once complained to Zed how uncomfortable it was to ride double on a light-cycle. Which she had been forced to do in an emergency on several occasions.

She didn't want to dwell on how many times shed dragged an injured comrade off a battlefield. Or grabbed a friend that had had their cycle destroyed in a firefight. She was uniquely qualified to strap the User to her chest using a spare grapple line and hope he didn't knock them both off while they made it to their temporary hiding spot.

"You OK Sam? You took a big hit back there" She asked tentatively.

"Not my most stellar moment. We all make it out?" He leaned to see over his shoulder, then switched to account for Paige and Tron.

"Yup, you and me were the only casualties. The three renegades got us out just fine"

She felt Sam chuckle against her back. Then he hissed and winced.

"Yup, was not expecting that guy to whip out a taser. Man, I did not judge his character right"

Mara shifted, the outlines of a familiar face flashing behind her eyes. It couldn't have been him. It was impossible.

"Yeah, maybe" She hedged.

Tron cut a hard turn into a narrow hole between two buildings. Mara wouldn't have noticed the hole, and certainly wouldn't have tried to drive into it if she hadn't just watched Tron and now Paige slide into the shadows. She made the turn and the solid blackness flickered before revealing an upward ramp. The darkness had been a basic camouflage subroutine.

The ramp put them up into bare, half-gutted building. Various low-profile vehicles parked in the makeshift garage. Mara unhooked the grapple line, letting the User hop off her cycle and wobble away.

"Thanks for hauling my butt out of there Mara" Sam Flynn said with a slightly sheepish smile. Mara responded with a grin, though the uncertainty swimming in her core thinned it out some.

"Any time! Hopefully we don't get knocked down next time though"

"Ha! No kidding"

Tron glided up and gave the User a once over.

"How are you recovering?" His voice too flat and cool to come across as comforting.

His concern seemed very muted to Mara considering how ferocious he had looked when the User had gone down. Would it kill him to admit he was worried about other people? Mara shook her head.