“

Sam knew a staff was flying his way before it crossed his line of sight. He thanked his Escrima class for that but he’d never had stuff thrown in vectors back then. He caught it with more grace than he caught his first disc, but it still felt embarrassing.

”Why not discs,” he asked again. Tron had warned him to lock his in, and turn his lights off. Sam felt wrapped in cotton and suspected strongly that this was not how it went with Q. He rubbed his shoulder absent-mindedly and weighed the balance of his staff.

”You’re not ready for that,” Tron said, using his to clear the room of plugins; it would be just the two of them, no tricks or springload traps. Sam’s mind went to cheats anyway. If Tron could hold the thing so steadily as to tap commands to the room’s terminal, Sam was in trouble. And if he wasn’t, his mouth would get him there.

”’Scuse me, I did damn well with those things! Shoulda seen me mop up guards on that ship of yours.”

”You lasted 3.5 microcycles in my court. And I did see you.”

The terminal sounded its blip of acknowledgement. “Oh, yeah,” Sam grinned. “Quorra kind of kicked your ass there.”

Tron nodded with a smile, as pleasant as a shark. “That’s why Quorra gets the disc.”

Then his head dipped, and when he moved again Sam didn’t have to check the active programs list to know which name was there.

”