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replied.
    Quorra’s eyes lit with interest. “What’s he like?” she asked.

IN THE LONG SILENCES DURING DINNER , the silverware clanked inside the massive space. The banquet hall itself was as large as the reception room. It had the same tall windows, and pretty much the same view of the flickering grid.
    A huge fireplace held a bonfire-size digital blaze that lit the room in an almost-natural glow.
    The table seemed as long as a city block. Enough food to feed a hundred guests was spread out on the white tablecloth. But the only ones dining were Quorra, Sam, and his father.
    “You digging the wine?” Kevin asked Sam. “My own special sauce. Never thought we’d have occasion to crack it, but here we are…”
    Sam warily lifted his glass. They all sipped.
    “You getting the black cherries?” Kevin asked.
    “I’m getting more of a motor-oil vibe,” Sam said.
    “Cool,” Kevin said. “I’m getting closer then.”
    Sam blinked, realizing what his father’s words meant. His dad had created everything in this digital domain—right down to the smallest detail, even the wine in their glasses.
    “How old are you now, Sam?” Quorra asked.
    Sam and his father both replied: “Twenty-seven.”
    Quorra cocked her head. “did you attend college?”
    Sam nodded.
    Kevin started to grin at that until Sam added, “Before I dropped out.”
    Kevin frowned. “How about work?” he asked his son. “Are you doing anything at Encom?”
    “I, uh…” Sam shrugged. “I check in once a year.”
    “Okay,” Kevin said, not hiding his disappointment. “Wife? girlfriend?”
    “Dog,” Sam said. “Name’s Marvin. He’s a rescue.”
    His father nodded. “dogs are cool.”
    After a long silence, Kevin met his son’s eyes. “I imagine you have a lot of questions,” he said.
    “Actually, just one,” Sam replied.
    His dad sighed, already guessing. “Why I never came home?”
    Sam nodded.
    Kevin rose and gazed through the window. “Those nights, when I went to the office, I was really coming here,” he confessed. “At first it was about the games. But it quickly became about much more…”
    Kevin faced Sam and Quorra again. “I realized this was a place of infinite possibilities,” he said. “But I couldn’t be here all the time. I had you, Sam. I had Encom. I needed partners to help out—”
    “Tron and Clu,” Sam said.
    Kevin nodded. “We were building a whole new world. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any more profound, something unexpected happened—”
    Sam recalled the conversation the night his dad had vanished. “The miracle?” Sam asked.
    “The miracle,” Kevin replied. “Isomorphic algorithms. ISOs for short. The next step in evolution. If my coming here to the digital realm was a small step in mankind’s evolution, then the ISOs were a giant leap.”
    “And you created them?” Sam asked.
    Kevin stared into the fireplace. “No. They simply manifested, like a flame. They weren’t really from anywhere. The conditions were right, and they came into being.”
    Kevin’s bearded face seemed suspended in the glow of the fire. “It was humbling,” he said. “Any program I wrote would inherently have my flaws embedded in it. But the ISOs—they were like flowers sprouting in a wasteland. They were individual. Creative. They had free will. As soon as I saw them, I knew this was why I came here, to build a world where they could be born into, then somehow bring their special gifts back to our world. The endless possibilities of their root code—their digital DNA—is spectacular. All I needed was time…”
    “So what happened?” Sam asked.
    “Clu happened,” Kevin said with a frown. “What I saw as a miracle, Clu saw as a virus. An imperfection. Clu took over. Staged a coup.”
    Kevin’s frown deepened. “Clu tried to have me derezzed. But Tron helped me escape.”
    “What happened to Tron?” Sam asked.
    “The Black Guard captured him that day,” Kevin said sadly. “I