TRON: The REAL Last ISO

Riff Lorton was lost in thought and the subject was his friend Tony Wyzek, who was the leader of their gang, the Jets. Tony was rather strange. For one thing, Tony never told them much about himself. For another, Riff didn't know anything about his background. Who were his parents? Where did he live? Did he have any brothers or sisters? If so, what were they like? Riff decided that he would ask Tony those questions today and not stop till he got an answer.

"Well guys, I need to go home," Tony said as the day began to wane. "That reminds me, where do you live anyway? We know almost nothing about you. What's your family like?" Riff asked, pressing his friend for details. "I'd really rather not talk about it," Tony replied vaguely. Riff wondered why Tony wanted to keep his life such a secret. What was he hiding? That very moment, Riff made a decision: he and the other boys would follow Tony to see where he went when he headed home.

Riff and the boys followed Tony down a side street, then down a few others, until he came to a stop in front of Flynn's Arcade. Tony went inside the arcade, so the boys followed, wondering what he was doing. Tony went straight to the Tron game, and opened a secret panel in the side of the game. Inside the panel was a concealed keypad. Tony typed a strange series of commands that Riff couldn't see into the console, and suddenly the game's screen stopped showing the startup screen for Tron and instead showed a string of text. Tony typed something else in and suddenly Riff heard the sounds of a laser powering up. "Tony, what are you doing?!" Riff exclaimed, revealing their presence. "Riff, what are you doing here?! Riff, no!!!" Tony cried, but it was too late. The laser zapped all of them and the next thing they knew, they weren't in the arcade anymore.

"Ugh, where are we, Tony?" Riff asked. He didn't get an answer right away, so he turned around and was startled to notice that Tony now wore a skintight black bodysuit that had various places on it that lit up. All in all, Tony looked like a video game character. "Tony, what in the heck are you wearing?" Riff asked his friend. "This is what I normally wear when I'm here. This is where I live," Tony said. Before Riff had a chance to ask him any more, a figure came up to the boys. "Identify yourselves, programs," the figure demanded. "I'm sorry, but they're not programs. They just followed me here. Here's my identification disk. Everything should be in order," Tony said, handing the mysterious figure a disk that was stuck to his back. "Everything seems to be in order. Your friends will proceed directly to be fitted for bodysuits and gear. You will be allowed to go where you please, within reason. Is there anything I can do for you before I take your friends to their destination?" the figure asked. "Yes. Could you tell me when the next transport out of here will arrive? I need to get home and a friend was supposed to meet me here to drive me, but I think she's not coming," Tony requested. "Next light car to arrive in about two quarters of a cycle. Just present your identity disk and tell them where you wish to go. They will be able to retrieve your home sector information from it," the figure said.

However, it turned out not to be necessary as a couple of minutes later, a strange vehicle pulled up in front of them. A hatch opened in the top of it, and a young girl with black hair who wore a bodysuit similar to Tony's, except that it had parts of the shoulders missing, was sitting in the driver's seat. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic on the Grid was murder. Hop in Tony," the girl said. "Quorra! I was beginning to think you weren't coming. Does Mr. Flynn know you borrowed the Lightrunner?" Tony asked her. "Yeah, he knows I'm just using it to pick you up. Ready to head home?" Quorra asked him. "You bet! See you guys later!" Tony called, hopping into the Lightrunner beside Quorra and closing the hatch. They took off and Riff stared after his friend. When Tony got to the residence he and Quorra shared, he went into his room and tried to find stuff to do to pass the time until they had a mission to undertake on the Grid.

Later on, he heard a knock at the door. Tony went to open it and found Riff and the other boys wearing bodysuits just like his. "So this is where you stay, huh? Homey. I guess life is different when you live here," Riff commented. "Yeah, it is. Quorra and I aren't human beings. We're actually what are called ISOs (Isomorphic algorithms). We don't even have parents. We just appeared one day many many cycles ago. We're the only ISOs left. The rest were slaughtered not long after they appeared. The program known as Clu saw us as an imperfection and ordered us slaughtered. It was genocide. So we try to help as much as we can," Tony explained. Just then Quorra came in and announced they needed to go out because some program was getting massacred in Disk Wars. Riff and the others wanted to come along because they wondered what in the world Disk Wars was. Tony told them how to summon light cycles and Riff and the boys rode them after the Lightrunner. Riff couldn't believe how savage the Games area of Tron really was. Quorra was right-the programs were getting massacred out there. Was this what Tony did most every day? How could he stand it? Riff finally and the boys saw their friend clearly for the first time.

After Tony and Quorra rescued the program from getting himself de-rezzed, they dropped him off at a safe place in a sector Clu didn't go to. Then they headed for where the portal was and Tony sent them back through so they could stay the night at home, rather than spending the night in Tron. Tony promised he would meet them back in the outside world tomorrow, but he needed to stay here for tonight. When Riff asked how Tony planned to get back if what he'd told them about the portal was true, Tony explained that he had a pass that allowed him to access the portal from this side. Then Riff and the boys went through to await their friend on the other side. The next day when Riff and the boys saw their friend, they had a new-found understanding of how difficult his life was in Tron. However, they also found it exciting to have their friend tell them the stories of his life as an ISO living in a digital world.