Copper

Tron: Uprising Junior Novel now available for sale. Amazon link available here. Written by Scott Beatty; Tron: Uprising belongs to Disney. As further disclaimer I am only posting chapter one of the book as a preview; please do not ask me to post further chapters. Thank you.


Chapter One


The Outlands were a barren wasteland, a dead ocean of simulated ice stretching endlessly to the cold, black horizon. There was the Grid – where life teemed – and then there was everything else, the lifeless Outlands. The edge of the digital world. A cold and dark place.

In the Outlands there was only the wind, which swept the landscape clean of random, unintegrated pixels, moaning low over the crystalline surface. Constant. Except for the rising hum of an engine, a Light Cycle racing across the ice. The Light Cycle trailed a ribbon of light behind it.

Beck crouched low on his Light Cycle to minimize the Outlands’ perpetual chill. Navigating into a more treacherous patch, Beck steered the vehicle through the switchbacks of ice dunes. He throttled up and the Light Cycle climbed a massive dune, plunging over the peak. He landed on the other side in a puff of ice crystals as the Light Cycle’s wheels spun for purchase. Then he rocketed forward again, his path traced behind him in a zigzag. The light ribbon would dissipate soon, but for now it was the only new structure – the only structure, period – that had altered the physical dimensions of the Outlands.

Beck smiled to himself as he zoomed on, intact. Made it.

However, Beck’s smile vanished just as swiftly as another Light Cycle emerged from the darkness, racing towards him from the side. The rider was masked behind a dark helmet. In another few seconds they would be face-to-face, assuming one of them didn’t freeze first.

Beck revved his engine and increased his speed, but the pursuer still gained. So Beck skipped a line – go to plan B – and swerved his Light Cycle back and forth in quick jerks, his light ribbon undulating in a helix pattern behind him. Then Beck made a hard right, a ninety-degree turn that would have blocked the mysterious rider’s trajectory if the pursuer didn’t execute his own parallel turn with graceful ease. Whoever he was, he was good. There was no shaking him.

Beck didn’t have to glance back any longer. His pursuer had pulled alongside him now and was driving dangerously close. Navigating the ice was hard enough without worrying over a collision –

Beck was jolted out of his WHAT IF? scenario as the mysterious rider knocked his Light Cycle right into Beck’s, trying to throw him off. Beck gripped the handlebars and held on tight as the rider leaned in for another jolt. Righting the wobble from each of the pursuer’s knocks was making it increasingly hard to keep the cycle balanced on the unforgiving ice and its randomly integrated friction coefficient. In simpler terms, it was slippery as anything, and the attacker’s onslaught wasn’t helping.

“You’re still here?” Beck yelled over the howl of the wind. “Thought you gave up!”

The masked rider turned, his helmet shifting from opaque to transparent. Behind the now-clear visor, Tron looked stoically at Beck.

“You’ve got a lot to learn.”

Beck scanned the field of ice and spied a fissure looming directly in his path. He smiled.

“Okay, old-timer. Teach me something.”

Beck twisted the throttle full back and shot across the chasm. On the other side, he landed with relative ease, his rear wheel fishtailing only slightly on the ice. Somehow, the trailing light ribbon had stabilized him on the treacherous terrain. Coherent light, indeed.

Beck smiled triumphantly, glancing back as Tron executed a flawless jump – minus any fishtailing. Ahead, another fissure broke the smooth continuity of the ice. Tron pulled alongside again.

“Stay focused, Beck,” he shouted over the howl of the wind.

“You focus,” replied Beck. “I got this.”

This time, Beck and Tron jumped simultaneously, near mirror images of the other until the landing. Beck’s rear wheel faltered again, the wobble more pronounced and harder to right this time. In the midst of regaining control, Beck was happy he landed at all, instead of wiping out.

Of course, Tron’s landing was error-free.

“Close call,” said Tron.

Beck was about to offer a retort when he saw a canyon up ahead. The previous fissures were nothing compared to the seemingly bottomless pit yawning wide to swallow them up.

Despite his bravado, Beck hesitated.

Tron showed no such pause. He raced ahead, his Light Cycle kicking back tiny chips of ice, which frosted Beck’s visor, briefly obscuring his vision. Beck wiped the visor and watched awestruck as Tron aimed straight for the canyon and soared across in a majestic arc, landing safely on the other side.

Beck steeled himself for his decision: if Tron could do it, so can I.

Beck hit the accelerator and shot forward, soaring across the abyss. But even as his rear wheel broke contact with the ice at the edge of the canyon, Beck knew he wasn’t going to make it. His Light Cycle started to fall. His hesitation had cost him too much forward momentum.

“Beck!” Tron yelled from the other side.

Beck had no time to respond. He let go of the Light Cycle and pushed himself away from it. In an instant, the plummeting Light Cycle deactivated, irregular planes collapsing upon themselves as the cycle folded back into a baton. His arms pinwheeling, Beck reached out, desperate to catch it, but his gloved fingertips just grazed the baton before it disappeared into the depths.

A few meters shy of the opposite side, Beck’s momentum sent him crashing against the canyon wall, mostly craggy ice broken into fractals. Beck struggled to grab a narrow handhold, but the shard of ice crumbled. He slid further down the wall, gloved fingers digging in as he reached for anything to halt his descent into the abyss. He finally stopped by jamming a glove into a crack and balancing a boot precariously on an outcropping only slightly less fractious than the first. He couldn’t stay there for long.

Beck nearly lost his tenuous grip, but just then a rope dropped beside him. He looked up. Tron had rappelled down into the canyon beside him.

Beck reached out and made sure the line was taut, and then he began to climb up and out of the canyon with Tron’s help.

“You know what you did wrong?” said Tron.

“Yeah, I followed you,” Beck replied.

“You hesitated,” said Tron.

At the lip of the canyon, a ledge of ice jutted out precariously. Tron made his way up and over it, climbing without hesitation.

Beck had a harder time, attempting two approaches before finally making it over the ledge, which strained under his weight. Just as he cleared the obstacle and stood on firmer footing, the ledge crumbled into gemlike fractals that followed Beck’s lost baton down into the abyss.

Tron removed his helmet and offered Beck a wan smile, but it was little consolation.

“How can I be ‘the next Tron’ if I can’t even keep up with the real one?” said Beck as he removed his own helmet. Instantly he felt the raw chill from the relentless wind scouring the Outlands.

Beck kicked a loose chunk of ice and it went skittering off into the gloom.

“You need to have faith in yourself if you want to inspire hope in others,” said Tron.

“Easy for you to say. You were programmed to protect the Grid. I was programmed to tune up engines. And it looks like I wasn’t even very good at that.”

Tron clapped Beck on the shoulder.

“You’re more than just a mechanic, Beck. You surpassed your programming. You stood up for what you believed in, all on your own. The uprising needs a hero like you.”

Beck looked around. He saw nothing but ice and digital desolation in every direction.

“What uprising? It is just you and me out here.”

Tron took a deep breath. He knew Beck had potential, he just needed Beck to see it, too.

“Aren’t you the one who said others will follow? That the revolution would spread if we ignite the spark?”

Beck just shook his head. “You’re listening to me now? I almost plunged into the bottom of a canyon. You risked your own life to save me. I don’t think I’m cut out to inspire anyone. Sorry.”

Beck turned away from his mentor, despondent.

“Beck,” said Tron.

Beck didn’t answer.

“Beck.”

“What?”

“Your baton?”

Beck turned and gazed down into the gaping abyss.

“You should probably get that,” said Tron.

“But I’m going to be late for work!” said Beck, turning just in time to be hit in the face with a glowing coil of rope.

The rope slipped toward the edge of the canyon. Beck snatched it up before it disappeared. He sighed.

“Right.”