Tron Legacy Read Free

come on. I got it under control now.”
    Alan gestured to the mess around him. “Clearly.”
    “What is it?” Sam lashed back. “do you want to help me with my homework?”
    Alan turned his back on Sam and peered at the city skyline. “I heard you did a triple axel off the Tower a few hours ago,” he said. “rough landing, huh?”
    Sam rubbed the wrists where he’d been cuffed. “Could have been worse.”
    Alan sighed. “I also heard you sent the last batch of dividend checks to some interesting charities.”
    “The dog-park thing?” Sam gestured to his canine bud. “That was Marvin’s idea.”
    Alan folded his arms.
    “Are we gonna do this again?” Sam asked, shaking his head. “do I look like I’m ready to run a Fortune 500 company?”
    “No,” Alan said. “And truthfully, the board’s pretty happy with you where you are. That way they can keep doing whatever they want. What I find curious is that annual prank you pull on the company. You have an interesting way of being disinterested.”
    Sam put down his burger and wiped his hands. “Why are you here, Alan?”
    “I promised you if I ever got any information about your dad, I’d tell you first,” Alan said. “I got a page last night.”
    “Still rocking the pager,” Sam said, stifling a laugh. Pagers were so old-school. “good for you,” he added.
    “The page came from the arcade.”
    Sam shrugged. “So.”
    “So, that number has been disconnected for twenty years,” Alan said. “Ever since your father vanished.”
    Sam froze.
    “Two nights before your father disappeared, he came to my house,” Alan went on. “Flynn said he cracked it. He was talking about genetic algorithms, quantum teleportation. Flynn said he was about to change everything. Science. Medicine. religion.” Alan locked eyes with Sam. “He wouldn’t have left that, Sam. And he wouldn’t have left you.”
    Sam shook his head. He had heard this before. It didn’t change anything. It couldn’t change anything. “You and I both know he’s either dead or chillin’ in Costa rica,” Sam said angrily. “Probably both. I’m sorry, man. I’m beat, and I smell like jail. Let’s reconvene in a couple of years—”
    Before Sam could object, Alan tossed him a metal ring. Instinctively, Sam reached out and caught it. “The keys to the arcade,” Alan said. “I haven’t gone over yet. I thought you should be the one—”
    “You’re acting like I’m gonna find dad sitting there working!” Sam cried. “Ah, sorry, kiddo, lost track of time for, like, twenty years…”
    The older man nodded, stared at the flickering lights of the city. “Wouldn’t that be something?” he said wistfully. Sam felt a momentary pang of sympathy. He wasn’t the only one his dad had left behind. Then, before he could say anything, Alan walked out the door.
    Left alone again with his dog, Sam found his gaze straying to the Tron-game action figures lined up on his shelf.
    For the very first time, Sam noticed something. “What the…?” he whispered, looking harder. The plastic face on the Tron figure looked just like the face of Alan Bradley.
    When Sam’s dad had been trapped inside the computer all those years ago, it was Tron who’d helped Kevin defeat the evil Master Program.
    Does the digital world my dad created really mirror our world so closely? Sam wondered. The thought stayed with him, like an itch he couldn’t scratch.
    He stared at the keys in his hand, the keys to the arcade. Suddenly, Sam grabbed his helmet and jacket. Before Marvin had time to swallow the last bite of his double-double, no mayo, Sam was back on the freeway.

AS HEAT LIGHTNING RIPPLED THROUGH THE PURPLE SKY , Sam arrived in front of his dad’s gaming arcade. It was three a.m., the streets were deserted, and Flynn’s was dark and shuttered, just as it had been for two decades.
    Layers of old posters covered the entryway. There were flyers for concerts, movies, basketball games—twenty years of event