thisavrou_log | Barter Bazaar!

Entry tags:

Barter Bazaar!

Who: The entire CREW! [ Open ]
When: A day sometime after the holiday bash thrown by the captains
Where: The Medical Tent
What: An opportunity for swapping resources
Warnings: N/A But if a thread takes a turn, let me know and I'll edit

As described in this OOC post, one morning the captains will send out handwaved messages to the crew, old and new alike. New crew members will be offered a pacdisc of their own with some starter goodies that they can choose to keep or work on trading with their fellow crew.

Established crew members will be encouraged (but this is not an order) to arrive at the Medical Tent at a handwaved time with any extra items they have which they might be willing to trade out.

Also as mentioned on Discord, players/characters can have scavenged some items from the settlements and caves.

Come and trade! Or just come and watch/take the opportunity to meet some new faces. There will be a table set up with freshly prepared purple deer meat and clean (aka not-purple) water available. Sorry, alcohol is BYOB, but certainly welcome!

If you have any questions, please direct them to the OOC post. Otherwise, enjoy!

Also, just for some IC setting flavor:

[ As it had been for a couple of days now, the medical tent stood set up and ready to receive anyone who decided to take the captains up on their offer. Some of the pacdiscs were inside, ready to hand out to the new arrivals or those individuals could have picked them up directly from the captains themselves.

Either way, the cots of the med tent had been pushed back to the edges, gotten out of the way but also providing places to sit. There were also some crates and other sturdy looking cabinets for sitting on as well, why the hell not. Maybe be a little careful as some of those cabinets might be on casters. Please no rolling around the medical tent! But if you do sit on one of those cabinets and end up 'bucked off' people are probably going to point and snicker.

On one side of the tent a table had been set up with freshly bbqed purple deer meat and some sides. The sides were obviously canned goods but they were there for a change of pace. Fresh water, untainted by purple-ness, was also set up in large containers at the end of the table. There was plenty to have and also plenty to be bottled up in individual containers and packed away.

There were also glasses and cups sitting ready for water ... or you know ... if anyone had brought the hard stuff! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yori has very little idea what of her random hoard might or might not be useful either to herself or to anyone, but she's had an interesting time wandering around to watch the trading anyway. She'll admit to watching Rinzler, too, thought she's trying not to make him uncomfortable about the fact.

When he moves to collect his things, it's a clear signal. Yori makes a quick excuse and heads for the exit nearest him, reaching it a few steps late. "Rinzler!" she greets with moderate cheer. As difficult as everything has been since the last crash, just seeing him is enough to make her smile.

She waves an idle hand back at the tent. "Find any useful trades?"

The voice (her voice) prompts a stall, and Rinzler pauses midstep, noise skipping just a little as he turns. He'd seen Yori in the tent, of course. He'd thought he'd done a good enough job not staring too obviously (the mask helped), but...

No. Different query. There's a momentary lag, stare lingering on that quick smile, before reaches to his PAC-disc and taps once, rezzing up the small gun with its grappling line and holding it up for Yori's perusal. He's not sure how familiar she's become with user firearms in general, but the tip stays pointed away from either of them.

A passing acquaintance with a range of weapons is enough to peer at the hook on the end and judge, "Very nice," though Yori would be lost trying to use it herself. A tool suited to Rinzler. If he was wiling to trade for it he's probably tested it too.

"I didn't find anything I needed enough to trade for, though who knows..." She flutters a hand at the infinite possibilities of what they might need urgently in the inevitable next crisis. "Anyway, it's nice to see everyone relax a little."

Not that being in a tent full of Users is a good time for either of them to let their guard down. One reason why Yori's trailing Rinzler out with very little plan as to what to say. "How are the transports doing?"

It's never wrong to ask about flying. Putting entire ships into storage is more like home than she thought Users could manage and Yori's very grateful to have them safe, but she still worries about the long-term effects.

His batons have the utilities to make it slightly redundant, but Rinzler doesn't regret the trade—especially when this system's drain is keeping him from using his own tools. Besides, the gun has better range. There's a slight uptick of sound at Yori's approval, and when her analysis is done, Rinzler returns it to the disc.

Relax gets a skeptical glance (he isn't, she isn't, and he's not sure the users should). Still, the query that follows is a good distraction. Rinzler's shoulders twitch in an irritated shrug, one hand reaching to activate his TAB.

Insufficient use.
Maintenance: required.

The former was frustrating on his own behalf as much as anything, but the local terrain didn't offer much opportunity. The latter concern, though, rated a serious design flaw. The PAC-discs had seemed like a familiar enough system of templates when first demonstrated, but apparently the storage mode didn't stave off corruption like it should.

She gets better data when the Users in the crew aren't quite so on guard. It is nice, even if the headtilt implies Rinzler doesn't appreciate the concept. She wouldn't be inclined to argue the point here even if Tron had ever quite understood it.

The transports are simpler to fly than they are to maintain. Yori's far from an expert yet at either one. It might not matter. "Whenever there's time and you can use an extra set of hands, I'd rather learn how to maintain the transports with you than just about anything else I could be doing around here."

Spending time with Rinzler is the strongest factor there, Yori has to admit to herself, but she does enjoy the transports and the hope of flight. There's not many tasks at the moment that benefit from her style of analysis. She can't make herself significantly more useful to the crew anywhere else.

The interest isn't much surprise—Yori has a transporter of her own to maintain, and learning to handle its upkeep herself is safer than assuming a useful function will be nearby whenever needed. The qualifier gets a slightly longer glance, though. In the end, Rinzler nods. He'll find the time, here or elsewhere.

...If she doesn't go home first.

Status: your ship?

"Fine last I looked, though that was a while ago." She pats the storage device in her bag with a quick smile. Amazingly useful.

It's only logical to have more than one person carrying a ship in case of emergency, but Yori finds herself touched that Rinzler trusted her with one of his own little flock. She just wishes it were as easy to get him to part with some fragment of all the things she can tell must be bothering him.

A while ago? Not good for maintenance, Yori! Rinzler's helmet lags, staring at her for a beat of unsteady noise before he twitches his gaze aside. Not his place to tell her... mostly... anymore.

(Ever, really. The ship-function had never been what he was coded for. Even if he'd gotten a lot of practice.)

Of course the ship needs care. Yori's a little dismayed that he doesn't actually express disapproval with more than the uneasy glance. "It's been hard to find the space to bring it out safely," she defends herself. "But now that we have a break, I definitely need to inspect it. Would you mind helping? When you have time?"

She'll offer to help with his ships, too, but she's noticed it's a lot easier to ask Rinzler for anything than to convince him to accept her assistance.

Easier is probably an understatement. The shake of the helmet is immediate—no, he doesn't mind. At all. It's only after that the enforcer hesitates, glance straying toward the nearby opening into the caves. If they're almost at the transport hub, as all the users seem to think—if Yori's going to go through... there won't be time for much longer at all.

Noise rumbles out quietly, a few beats before he adds:

No current assignments.

"Great!" Yori curls her hand around the stored ship, protective whether the pac-disk needs that or not. "Where's the safest place to bring a ship out, do you think?"

She can tell Rinzler is worrying about something, but there are so many options that she's not sure how to begin to address any of them.

It's not likely that the trip will be half as easy as the Users seem to hope. Nothing new there. Clu's presence is always a heavy weight on Yori's processes, but at the moment the mess seems to be more stable than she'd have predicted.

If she can't guess what's bothering Rinzler, she might as well tackle something that's been bothering her. "Rinzler," she begins, hesitant, "assuming we find help and don't get stranded somewhere worse again...do you think Clu would want to go back to the Grid?"

Assuming they ever reach a place where all of them can find a way back, return to Encom seems unwise. Yori doubts it is possible, and if it were she wouldn't want to leave the programs she's found here, or her chance to speak to Users on behalf of the systems they never see. She's long since come to terms with the probability that she's just a copy of the original, and even if she could merge back with memory intact she'd be in no position to force Flynn to change any part of his plans.

But she'd miss Rinzler in particular with a furious pain.

Rinzler lags for only a moment before nodding left and up a slope, toward an overlook a little ways apart from the main camp. The ground isn't quite as level as he'd like, but little of this planet is, and most of that has been claimed for sleeping platforms. Space is the priority.

He starts toward it without delay, picking a winding route with only a few rocks to scramble up. It's obvious at a glance that Rinzler's patrolled this way before. Little to do but patrol, as slowly as this group has been moving. Still, there's a hitch to his steps, a beat of hesitation, as Yori voices that question, that way.

Is she worried?

Or...

The dark mask shakes: left, right, left. No. Clu isn't planning to go back.

Good. She can only hope it's because Clu knows he was soundly defeated there. A half-amused quirk of her lips gives away her reaction to the thought.

Cautiously encouraged, Yori tries not to speculate ahead of her data. Clu probably won't force Rinzler to go anywhere she can't keep in touch, if the admin doesn't like the idea of returning to the Grid. She can speculate his reasons some other time.

Which leaves the important question: "Do you want to go back?" She leaves aside details of whether he'd prefer to go with or without Clu; loyalty is complicated, as she's learned herself.

Her foot scuffs against a small rock. She certainly ought to pay more attention to the terrain and less to Rinzler's body language.

Rinzler doesn't know Clu was defeated. But if Clu's motives for leaving his base of power are a puzzle, it's not one his enforcer is inclined to pry too deeply into. Not when he's so relieved for the results.

His head shakes again, sharp and emphatic. No. He doesn't want to return—to where or what he'd been. He doesn't have to. There's a shiver of lag, a stall that reads less tension than uncertainty: a half-sketched vector with no end in sight. But if Rinzler doesn't know where else that leaves them, he's willing to find out.

Clu said. (Clu promised). He doesn't have to go back.

The helmet turns just a little, lingering on Yori. Rinzler doesn't put words to his question, but it might not be so hard to guess.

That lets Yori grin, sharp with relief. "Good. I'd miss you. Returning to Encom isn't in my plans, either."

She misses all her friends, her sisters, and Tron, her Tron, young and hopeful and unshadowed...but Rinzler is absolutely the wrong program to say that to. And what would she say to him now, if she can't stop the chain of mistakes that darken his future? None of the ones she can warn about are his decision. She just hopes the original Yori is still with him and happy. No way to prove or disprove whether she's a copy.

Frustration whitens her knuckles. "I don't think I could talk Flynn out of anything even if I had a chance to try." She'd gotten zero response on the attempt to add a little caution to his leap straight off the edge of Sark's carrier into the MCP. "So I've calculated I have more chance to make a difference here."

Not that she'd turn down the chance to send a message to her earlier version, if they ever fine-tune the Ingress that far. Pure speculation, of course. More likely none of them are getting anywhere except by accident.

As undeserved as it might be, Yori missing him doesn't come as a complete surprise. But the tense is wrong, the surrounding words mismatched, and when Rinzler actually parses the statement, shock catches with a breath of static. He freezes, falters—reaches for the new communicator. Why? is mostly typed by the time Yori continues, and if he pauses long enough to hear the words, they still leave far too many gaps unanswered.

He deletes the phrase. Stares at the communicator. At her. The easy grin across her face is enough to almost cancel any questions altogether, enough to send a quiet matching joy singing through his lights. But... Yori has a place. She has people to go back to. She has much better things to do than sit here on this empty hub and watch as all the users leave.

Your system.

"For one thing I'd have a hard time trusting this thing to take me anywhere," Yori admits. "And after the Inugami mess I'm pretty sure that I'm a copy, so my system is fine without me."

Tron is fine. She has to hope that. Yori loves him, loves all of him, and can't make herself abandon the future for the chance of the past. Especially if Clu is sticking around. She'll avoid him if Rinzler insists, stay as safe as she can, but she refuses to let that glitched admin make himself Rinzler's only company for the indefinite future.

Why is this so hard to explain to Rinzler? Surely some part is safe to speak of.

She swings her hand forward, palm turning up in frustration with her own lack of words for once. "Going back..." alone, abandoning him and this journey and everything she might still learn... "feels wrong." Both the reasons that are about Rinzler and the reasons that aren't about Rinzler are sensitive subjects; she can't find a way to summarize them that he'd accept. "Maybe I've changed too much."

Learned things that make her believe she'd never be content to attend to blind User requests in Encom, not even from her own User. The weight of the future is heavy, even when she's seen so little of it.

Distrust in the Ingress might be more than understandable, and their repeated system transfers add still more reason for uncertainty. Still, compared to the alternative? This system was a power-leeching hulk, all others a long flight even with all the ships at their disposal. Even assuming they made it.

No, Yori's logic does very little to wipe the uncertain tilt to Rinzler's mask. But the strings (the sentiments) that parse out after... those are a surprisingly close match. The pitch to his sound quiets, hesitation over shock. She's not like him. He shouldn't assume parallels.

...still, Rinzler definitely knows the feeling of having changed too much.

You're certain?

Certainty is a lot to ask. What if they have to leave or die? If she went back could she drag Rinzler with her? Could they transit to the User world and make an actual difference in Flynn's choices? The wild hypotheticals don't matter compared to the basic choice: Yori no longer wants to go back to the system she was created to serve. It's very disorienting.

"As certain as I can be when we're missing so much data." Yori taps her fist against her thigh, frowning. "I hate how blind we are about the possibilities." The Ingress should be an amazing thing, if only it would quit tearing every system apart.

She shakes her head, letting go of the calculations she can't verify. "Whatever happens, though, I don't want to go anywhere without you."

Certainty is a lot. It also matters, especially now. They haven't even made it to the Portal yet, but when they do... well. If the choice is real, Rinzler doubts it will last. Few things seem to out here.

Not that Yori's last line doesn't force its own stall, certainty or no. Noise catches quietly, mask frozen on her face for a full tenth-micro before it lowers.

Not Tron.

At the sight of that name glowing where it was typed, Yori takes a moment to examine Rinzler's tight posture. When they'd first met, saying anything at all about Tron had been among the things that would cause him what looked like a painful bout of glitching. No thanks at all to Clu.

If Rinzler can say that much without more signs of code conflict or pain, it's probably safe to assume she can discuss at least part of that complication without hurting him. He's been on the Moira with a future version of Tron for months; she'd hoped he had managed to access some of the painful truths Clu wouldn't have wanted him to remember, but it's a difficult question to ask. Safer to avoid the whole thing and trust him to work around the block where necessary for her sake.

Well, now that she can ask, her own concern is as good a place to start as any. "It won't hurt you to talk about this?"

Best to be sure, where she can.

A beat of hesitation, and the dark helmet shakes from side to side. It won't hurt. (Not the way Yori's asking.) When he'd first encountered her, it's true—discussion would have been equal parts agonizing and impossible. But Rinzler's shared space with his copy for two cycles now.

He'd crashed his way to knowing what that meant on the first day.

"Good." Yori relaxes in sheer relief, offering a quick smile. Pauses. Then she comes to the conclusion that she still doesn't know what to say next.

She ought to have a better plan, now that she can talk freely at last. She's made plans. None of them calculate as free of pain, even without the code trouble. When she's been struggling with her own emotions so long, they're difficult to express.

Does Rinzler think she's somehow missed his essential differences from Tron? They haven't been able to talk as much as she would have liked, but she's not blind. "I know you're separate from Tron, and both you and the Tron here are separate from my memories of...Encom." Memories of love, sharp and deeply confused now.

She tries not to falter. "You've been my friend since Inugami, Rinzler. I wouldn't leave you behind by choice even if you didn't act so much like Tron." Probably not the right words. Yori can't find better ones.

Friend. Rinzler doesn't move from the spot, doesn't flinch or falter. She's said as much before, classified them with that term on the first day she came onto the ship. Well before he'd thought himself capable of matching. He might be, now—he's close enough, at least, to wonder—and that makes it all the more important.

She'd told him she cared. She'd told him his duplicate didn't change that. But for all the claims of value and half-filled references, Yori's reasons have gone largely unaddressed. Not because Rinzler can't guess what they are, but because he's afraid to contradict them.

He's still afraid. But he can't let her make this kind of choice for a mistake.

Not going to be Tron.

He doesn't want to.

"No?" Yori agrees, somewhat puzzled. "If you'd wanted to set Tron's name and priorities, I assume you would have said so before now." Alan-One's presence is plenty of opportunity. No wonder Rinzler would rather not, as terrible as that meeting sounded.

Since Clu had to lock away all knowledge of Tron, probably he never managed to trap that stubborn core into anything more subtle. So this choice is probably genuine. No surprise that after fighting so hard against code and habit to establish a person named Rinzler, her friend won't let that person go.

Yori can't approve of the part that's because of Clu; she knows he has to factor in somewhere. Still, she suspects there would be less change between Rinzler and Tron than Rinzler might assume. That's all the more reason it should be Rinzler's choice alone now that choice exists.

Why has this topic made Rinzler look so tight-braced against her reaction? She definitely should have found some way to tell him she'd support what he wants, even if they couldn't talk about it. "Have other people said you should? I'll defend your choice to them if they bother you."

Barter Bazaar!

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