You’re Beautiful
I’m pretty sure it’s unusual for a program to summon a user.
But one day, I fired up the command line, and Tron was pinging me.
“I have a request. Meet me at my folder in sector 2. I have something to show you.”
I was itching to find out what it could be. And I’ll admit, I was excited to see him again. Butterflies, y’know.
So I of course I beamed in. Work could wait.
Now, I did ask him for the address before I got in. But that didn’t mean I actually knew how the hell to get there on the ground. The strings of numbers on the wall panels meant stuff to the programs, but I was still more of an analog creature back then.
I was forced to ask for directions like a tourist. Which I kind of was. No-one recognised me, thankfully.
I made it there in the end. He had his own pad, away from everyone. High up, so he could see things happening on the horizon.
Tron was already waiting at the door when I got there. He was nervous. Shy. Almost Alan-like. He let me in, and showed me around. His house was unexpectedly groovy. Yori’s work, apparently. The lights were low, and colourful. Neon. Kind of like a nightclub, except there wasn’t any music playing. Just the distant hums, buzzes and beeps of the computer world.
We ended up in the main living room. It had this huge panoramic window.
“Alright, I’m here. What’s the big surprise?”
Tron evaporated into a pixelated ball of colour. I startled away at the intensity of it. When he rematerialised, i almost didn’t recognise him.
He was luminous. Like a statue made from silicon and light. Circuits flowed and curved over his body in an eye-catching pattern. They’d gone from geometric to…almost flowery. The light cast over the planes of his face, sparkling on his skin.
It was like something out of a dream.
“You’re beautiful,” I breathed.
Tron literally beamed at me. As in, he glowed brighter. “Really?”
“Yes, really! Have you looked at yourself?”
He fidgeted with his ponytail self-consciously. Without the helmet, it had poofed up into a fluffy crest, and there was this long braid in the back. It would’ve looked ridiculous on anyone else, but it suited him.
“I must pale in comparison to a user.”
“Oh, we do not have anything remotely like that. Man, I wish I could glow in the dark.”
Tron gave me this look, like I’d just said something silly. “You can.”
He took my hands in his. I could already feel this electric crackle where we touched.
“I can show you, if you want.” His voice was husky, and he leaned towards me, a question in his eyes.
By that point, I’d got the sense that he was coming onto me. And it was definitely working. I had no idea what I was walking into, this whole thing was a bit of a first contact situation. “Sounds like fun.”
He froze then. He hadn’t actually expected me to say yes. So I went for the kiss, hoping I hadn’t drastically misread the situation.
That definitely woke him up. He responded in kind, and trailed a hand down my neck, sending little electric shocks as he went. And a feeling. At first, numbers. So many numbers. They were overwhelming, calculations and measurements that were always running in the background. Then they resolved, into an impression of warm sparks crackling up and down my skin and in my chest, except it wasn’t mine. I saw flashes in his mind. Of Yori, Ram. Of me.
And I thought, this must be love.
Somehow, Tron heard me think it. He lifted me up like I weighed nothing and spun me around the room, laughing.
The two of us, we shone like stars.
Somewhere, a terminal was running a little hotter than normal.
