#/* ...there is absolutely an AU where Ed trapped Sr. in a drive or killed him in self defense to go along with that but uh... */

[not-that-dillinger]

Ed couldn't take his eyes off the computer, and it took him a moment to process what Sam had said.

Technically, he wasn't supposed to know about the digitization project; it had been a military contract, all clandestine with NDA's and excessive background clearance and stuff, but. after five years of prison, Edward Dillinger Sr. held an ocean's worth of anger about what had happened, and only person he could take it out on.

"The MCP," he said, as though barely breathing. "I--I know they say Tron destroyed the one on the server but--" Ed reached into his pocket and pulled out the still damp cleaning cloth for his glasses. He slipped off his glasses and rubbed at the lenses with them, though it was more a nervous habit and he didn't seem to realize he was only getting them streaked again. "--he said there was an unfinished backup copy, and thought there might be residual data that hadn't been purged. Before I--" He fell silent, staring intently at his glasses in his hand and still rubbing at the lenses, expression twisted in deep thought as he attempted to figure out how to explain the situation without bringing up the restraining order.

"He was trying to replicate the laser," Ed muttered. "The Data Wraith project, he called it... He was convinced the MCP would be the key to it's success."

He took a shaky breath, his hands still, but still staring at the lenses in his hands without really processing what he had done.

"Please tell me it's gone. That its data's been purged."

(Combining: GUEST :  for one muse to offer the other a place to stay. STORM :  for both muses to find shelter from a severe storm. Same universe as prev Ed and Sam rp?)

Sam had been tucked away in the basement of The Arcade, coding on The Grid’s terminal, so she didn’t hear the sound of the rain right away. When she did however it snapped her out of her trance. A jolt of slight panic coursing through her. The bike!

She raced up the stairs, pushing away the TRON machine she had moved back into place behind her so that Marvin didn’t wander in when she was working, and raced past the other covered, but no longer dusty, cabinet machines in the arcade till she was at the door, swiftly unlocking it. She paused under the covered threshold of the entrance when she saw just how much water was falling out of the sky. That was definitely one hell of a storm.

Well. It’s not like she was going anywhere anytime soon.

She flipped her hood up and walked out to the street towards her Dad’s… well her, Ducati now, kicking up the kickstand and grabbing onto the handlebars to walk it under the covered threshold. She lifted her head up when she heard the shuffling of feet and some splashes nearby. At first she didn’t recognize him through the rain until he got a bit closer. She lifted one of her arms, waving it slightly as she called out to be heard over the pounding of raindrops and howling wind.

“Ed! Hey! Over here!”

She rested the Ducati against the wall, still waving with her hand as she held open the door of the arcade to invite him inside.

@iamnoprogram

It was one of those days where Ed couldn't go home. One of the days where he was afraid of what he might do if he left his thoughts to wander. Usually he would stay at the office and code until he passed out at at the keyboard, but his meeting with Mackey earlier that day had been... it had been a lot of things, but certainly not good. Draining, mostly. And for reasons Ed wasn't quite sure of, it brought up old ghosts that Ed still couldn't put to rest. They were the sort of ghosts that made his office, which was normally a refuge, feel downright oppressive.

He'd hoped that a long walk would exhaust him enough that he could go home and pass out as as soon as he got to bed.

He'd been walking for about an hour and a half when the storm hit. It was one of those rare deluges came so suddenly, and so intensely, that LA's near non-existent storm drainage system quickly overflowed and flooded the streets. The kind he'd only seen a handful of times in the twenty-some-odd years he'd lived there.

Between the dark, and the rain fogging up his glasses, he had pocketed the glasses in hopes of preserving them when he inevitably tripped over his feet, and resigned himself to shuffling blindly back toward the tower and his car.

Not that he had any idea whether it would be better to go home or stay at the office.

He hadn't been walking back long when he heard someone calling his name, though it had still been long enough that he was thoroughly drenched, and shivering mildly from the cold. He froze in place on the sidewalk, having to take a moment to identify her by voice, since he was all but entirely blind.

"...Sam?" he asked, then realizing where he was, and that she was the only person likely to be there. He glanced both directions, and, seeing no lights, nor hearing any vehicles (there rarely were; this part of town had been all but abandoned since he was in middle school), shuffled across the street, navigating toward Sam by voice alone.

"Hi Sam," he said awkwardly, stepping under the eaves. "Uh, thanks," he said awkwardly, hesitantly following her into the Arcade.