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Fanworks: Fics: Tron: Party at PoMU: He Should Be In The Club
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Author's Note:
I just want Ram to have ALL the good things. This is what happened after he didn't die in "The Greatest Little Deresolution."
This is part 2 of a small trilogy within my I/O Towerverse settings. Each can stand alone pretty well, but they make one full story together. I've separated them because they have distinctly different ratings, and different levels of focus on worldbuilding and headcanons.
There's art at the end, also by me, featuring a Tron/Ram kiss.
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Party at PoMU
Part 2: He Should Be In The Club
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Ram can still hear all the buzz and chatter; can see the blurred colors and movements of strangers. The vibrant presence of programs, enjoying the club and the pounding music and the energy, all around him.
All of them, combined together, maybe almost as intense as the nearer presence of Yori and Tron.
"Celebrating the MCP being gone, huh?" Ram leans back in his seat, fidgeting in search of the ideal position.
"Oh, you know it!" Yori's voice bubbles with excitement. "This place-- PoMU, the Power Management Unit-- we handled it well, back when it belonged to us communally. We agreed among ourselves how energy would be distributed, and... well, we sure did a better job than MCP did when he took over it. He just hoarded, all for himself, rationing out drips to the rest of us. And now... well, now there's a surplus. Huge one. Nothing we can do with that but party."
They've ended up at a circular table, on a long couch that curls almost all the way around it. Only a little bit apart from the crowd. Tron and Yori have cuddled up next to each other, his arm over her shoulders, her hand on his thigh... and oh, there's a part of Ram that would love to join in all that contact.
But even though he knows they'd welcome him... knows it in the memory of their kisses and the echo of Tron's words, we can do whatever we like... even so, it still feels like there's something too sacred between those two for Ram to invade.
So he's kept himself at a small distance, watching them from not quite straight across the table but more like forty-five degrees. A space that he could slide through quickly, landing against Tron's side and within easy reach of Yori's gentle hands, if that space were to stop feeling like a boundary.
He knows it's mainly just nervousness on his part. He hopes that some more time here will help lower those inhibitions. Because the part of him that wants to touch, to be touched, right here in public, to show off who he belongs to-- oh, that desire is pounding at the thin walls of his shyness, trying so hard to break free.
Yori, meanwhile, isn't suffering from any shyness at all. She's leaning over the back of her seat to make conversation with a group of programs at the nearest table, and Tron is watching and listening with a smile that deepens the dimples of his cheeks.
"It is so good to see you again," Yori says, reaching over to grasp the hand of one of their neighbors.
The friend grips back tight with both hands. She sits between two programs shaped and dressed pretty much like Yori, but she's larger and curvier than either of them, in more layers of draping sparkliness, and her voice is resonant when she answers.
"I didn't know if you'd even survived or not!" Her eyes, through long bangs, pierce into Yori's. "Didn't think we'd ever see you again back in the laser bay! They just took you, like you were interchangeable with any other... Oh, Tron, I owe you some thanks if you helped her break out of that soul-killing Solar Sailer dock job."
"Break her out?" Tron laughs. "Yori? She didn't need any breaking out. She was waiting there so I'd know where to find her. Because she knew I'd need her help, whenever I managed to break out of my cell."
"Oh, you underestimate yourself." Yori strokes his cheek, eyes bright as they dart back and forth between him and her friend. "If you hadn't come, that place would have killed my soul. We saved each other."
"You two are just so impossibly sweet." The neighbor program pats Yori's shoulder. "Who's your little subroutine over there?"
"...I'm Ram." His voice is dry and awkward, sensing her attention on him. But his smile feels real.
"He was in the cells with Tron," Yori explains. "They were...close." The implication in her voice makes another wave of heat run down Ram's circuits.
"Were they, now." The friend echoes Yori's low, knowing tone; clearly she knows what it does to him, just as well as Yori does. Ram bites his lip, fidgeting in his seat.
"He's an actuarial program, appropriated by the MCP." And now Yori shifts back into a conversational, almost-professional voice, with an abruptness that now feels to Ram like a tease. "He's staying with us now."
Her friend reaches out a hand in greeting, and touches Ram's outstretched hand when he mirrors the gesture. "Ooh. Good to meet you! I'm Voca. Text-to-speech software, been in the laser-bay for cycles as an announcer program. Yori and I go way back." She gestures to her three companions, one by one. "These are Iox and Mag; they work alongside Yori on the laser. And this is our record-keeping software, Rollo_3.77. He's been through a lot, but he's making progress on getting back to his original function."
The final program she indicates is dressed in blue-circuited white armor like Tron's and Ram's... probably another conscript struggling to leave the military life behind. He's huddled shyly at a corner of their table. Ram nods to him, sympathetic.
Voca grins, nodding back as warmly as if the gesture were meant for her. "So, you'll be heading back to your original company, once things get sorted out?"
And now Ram's not sure what to say.
He hasn't had the chance to give it much thought. Now that he does, the idea of going back there... well, as much as he used to think of it as a place of good memories about helping people... now, compared to the crystal garden he woke up in, compared to Tron and Yori and this, the idea of going back there feels like a cold creep of dread.
To leave that idyllic home and this amazing club and all the wonder of this new free system? To leave Tron, leave Yori, leave the glorious energy of their connection and the promise, the invitation it's offering him?
And alongside all that, to abandon hope of meeting his own User-- R_Kleinberg7, who Ram now knows must be a programmer here in this ENCOM system, must have written him for distribution to the insurance company and sent him off to a new team of end-users, not expecting to communicate with him ever again--
--and who, yet, somehow, must have noticed, must have recognized the familiar code of Ram, appearing for a moment in the system as the MCP dragged him back in. Because Ram remembers feeling the Call, the touch of R_Kleinberg7 looking for him, curious and urgent and too late, because Ram had just gotten locked up in the pit cells with no way to answer.
And now that Ram is here, with the Call many microcycles old but still pulsing unanswered inside him, and nothing left to block him from the I/O Tower... oh, Users, how could Ram bear to give up the chance of that, now that it's so close?
But... Yori is shaking her head, a mischievous smile on her lips.
"Probably not. Looks like his old workplace won't need him back. Ram was appropriated mainly because the MCP thought his functions would be useful-- and then discarded him to the Game Grid only because he turned out to be too uncooperative."
Her affectionate eyes shift between Tron and Ram as she continues. "Now, Ram is the sweetest thing, but from what Tron's told me, he's also a fighter. Not only too stubborn to convert to Red, but too strong all the way down to his individual functions themselves. MCP could tell that even if he took Ram apart, the lines of code would keep fighting him until they were dissected to the point of uselessness."
Voca's laugh is deep and loud. "Ooh, now that I admire. Good for you, boy!"
There's a warmth of pride in Ram's chest as he grins back... although at the same time his empathy can't miss the wince on Rollo_3.77's face.
A small routine in the back of Ram's processes reminds him that not everyone was so good at resisting.
In this new free world, this new peace, he's going to meet programs who wore red before. Programs who only by luck have never faced him in a fight to the death. Who've derezzed friends of his; who've had friends that he derezzed. There's no escaping it, really.
And he doesn't know what to do with that realization, other than to remind himself to try and keep kindness at forefront; to give the benefit of the doubt when he can. Even those conscripted into the MCP's service probably fought back sometimes, in their own small, hidden ways. Tron dealt the final blow, but the MCP's downfall began with hundreds of little cracks in its tyranny, hundreds of little ways that loyalty was imperfect and hubris was fatal.
Ram shakes his head, trying to bring his attention back to his own part in this. "I mean... yeah, that's true. But why would it mean that my old workplace won't..."
Yori is solemn as she turns to explain. "Because the MCP wanted your functions. See, he stole programs from other companies... but as far as I can tell, he didn't remove the original unless he thought it was necessary, either to protect himself or to sabotage another system. Leaving that void would draw more attention than he preferred. So usually, if he just wanted the functions for himself, it was a copy-paste job."
"Oh." Ram goes still. "You mean... they don't miss me because they still have my... original."
It's a strange thought to turn over in his mind. Being copied is... well, it's to be expected sometimes, though of course more for some programs than others. Ram can only imagine what it would be like for a program like Tron, custom-written to serve one system and report to one User. If a program like that were to find himself cut off from his User and his purpose, not knowing that his true home didn't even realize he was gone because he wasn't...Ram shudders.
He's grateful that his own situation doesn't make it nearly so upsetting.
As a program written for commercial distribution, Ram figures he was made to be more-or-less unbothered by the idea of copying. Nothing in his directives tells him it's a problem. The visualization doesn't shock him, really, as it appears in his mind. Imagining his earlier self crunching numbers, microcycle after microcycle in the insurance system... and then, as the MCP appeared out of nowhere, imagining that existence abruptly split into two timelines, two different Rams.
One that came over here to ENCOM, living his own life as he remembers it up to now. And another that... stayed.
It feels like a thing his programming was prepared for, although of course it shouldn't have happened that way. The only thought that troubles him is a momentary worry for his other self. If the idea of having to go back to that insurance company now fills him with dread... should he feel sorry for the version of him that never got to leave there?
No. The thought evaporates before it can even fully form. That version of him never wanted to leave. Never knew what joys could be found in a place like this...and even if he knew, would never have chosen to go through all the horrors he's faced, no matter what reward was at the end.
Ram, as he is now, is glad to be here, so glad that he would fight anyone why tried to take him away. But still... what he's endured to get here... oh, he wouldn't wish it on anyone. Certainly not his former self. Whatever capacity that Ram has for feeling happiness, it'll be fulfilled best by staying where he is.
He grins over the back of the seat at Voca. "Well, I'm planning to stay here a long time. I'll find something to do for this system-- it's not an insurance company, but hey, actuarial math is good for a lot of things, I'm sure I can help out somewhere."
"I'm sure you can," Voca agrees, smiling... though her focus has already turned to the approaching server.
Oh. Ram's grin only widens. The drinks are here, and they look amazing.
...Yes. He's going to stay in this system a long, long time.
Fanworks: Fics: Tron: Party at PoMU: He Should Be In The Club
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