thisavrou_log | A dying scream makes no sound

Entry tags:

A dying scream makes no sound

Who: closed to Rinzler and Peter, later J, and later others
When: just past midnight on April 14th; right after Rinzler kills Vorrick
Where: hallways -> aft
What: murderbot prevention gone very wrong
Warnings: copious mindscrew references, violence, severe injuries, violent character death

He needs to run.

The door to Moro #009 slides shut without resistance. The steps that pace off down the barracks hall leave no stains or signs of violence behind. Only the catch and snarl of raw noise betrays any errors from a distance, and if the sound is more erratic than usual, it's hardly new. Rinzler has always had errors, always been mismatched [wrong], since long before he was capable of acknowledging the faults.

He has killed a user [user] [fightfor] and that fault, no one will forgive.

Killed a user. Killed. Not broken code or shattered voxels, not the clean crash of his disks through a threat or assigned target. The wet tear of blades through flesh. The prick of blood, sizzling across his circuits. He'd felt it in the simulation room, and Inugami before. He'd killed dozens of their monsters. Wiped thousands upon thousands of his own kind, in the Games and streets and hiding-holes throughout the Grid.

If he needed proof that he was [wrong] [wrong] [broken], it was how little different this had felt.

It doesn't matter. Doesn't, can't, won't; not for long. The users will find him and the users will fix the fault, strip his errors and his choices clean and remold what's left into a shape that's useful. Just like Clu had. If the admins don't, his user will. Alan-one had given him one task, and Rinzler failed, and the costs for that were laid out long ago.

Directive is a tattered snarl. Reprimand cuts every chain of thought apart, but makes no headway at all against the ache of failure that wells up from beneath. All of it is drowned entirely by fear. Rinzler's circuits shiver red/blue/red as he paces blindly through the halls, disk locked rigidly in his left grip. Red-brown liquid smears the unlit edge, wiped imperfectly away. More speckles his armor. He needs to run, to hide, but he can't do either.

He never could.

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The early evening sees Alice and Peter loitering around the aft until the space was clear and the timing right for plans to be put into action. There are the spells Alice needed to put in place, a complicated set of gestures that Peter couldn't hope to understand, that rise the temperature in that section from comfortable to something beyond sweltering. Then there is the pieces that would become the net that have to be placed strategically in the hall, far enough in that he could lead Rinzler into it's invisible snare without getting caught himself. A quick test to make sure the net worked, a quicker moment to cheer when it did. And then comes the spelled gloves, the last and most important piece that Alice handed over.

The timer is set. Half an hour, she warns him, before he shoos her off with all his nervous gratitude formed into a too tight hug and a promise of celebration after. As much confidence as he has in her plans and in Alice herself, Peter isn't going to risk the distraction of having anyone else around. This started with just him and Rinzler, and he's determined to finish it that way.

He takes a moment to stand alone among the stars, forehead pressed to the rapidly heating glass. It is going to work, he tells himself. He and Alice had went over the plan too many times for failure. After tonight, Wanda would be safe. No reason left for Peter to worry her. With what he knew of Pietro, that's all he could want now.

And now, Peter is dashing through hallways, checking every nook and cranny for the program that had been a constant threat hanging over his head since that night on the hull. Rinzler is surprisingly easy to track down, already out and about despite the hour. From the other end of the hall, Peter can see the shifting lights and, just for a moment, he wonders about the blue that looks more like the circuits of his roommate than what he was used to from his enemy. But tonight isn't for thinking, it's for doing.

So Peter puts on a smile, whistles a sharp note to catch Rinzler's attention. "Roaming around this late? You really are like some neighborhood stray."

He hears the user before he sees it. A whistle down the hall, a mocking twist of features at the border of the space. Scan-sense registers its presence third, and that more than anything should be a warning. He isn't processing clearly. He isn't ready, and he has to be.

Rinzler doesn't have a voice to answer with. He doesn't have a face to sneer or smile. Only a black shell, only a harsh, ragged stutter of permissions against code, what he is scraping against everything he used to be. Everything he's failed. He wonders whether he'll even have that hatred when they're done. If he'll remember the taunts and threats this user leveled, again and again. He wonders if that's why it's here. Did they know already? Is this one meant to take him down so the others can take everything away?

Probably not. It lost last time, after all, and the admins aren't quite that stupid. But really, it hardly matters, does it? The thought is sharp and fractured and just painful enough to laugh at, if he could. Rinzler is a tool, and he killed a user. He's given up any chance he might have been allowed.

What does it matter what he does to this one now?

Red-lined hands flex around his weapon, and one disk splits into two. The motion's jerky, sharp, with no sign of the program's usual smooth grace. But it's an answer; Rinzler's answer; one that doesn't need a voice or face. He's not a pet. (Not now, not yet, for just a while longer, please.) He's a weapon. And there's only one kind of reply he's meant to give.

He isn't expecting an answer, and he isn't disappointed not to get one. What he wants was the program's undivided attention, to make himself the best target in the room. He's surprised how easy it is to make himself just that. Rinzler's already drawing weapons; Peter thought he would have the stretch the taunting out a while and work harder to get the program to fighting mode. It's an unexpected gift. He's working on a deadline and here Rinzler is speeding up the steps. To Peter, it's a sign that things are going his way.

"Look at you. Gearing up to attack already. I don't even get any growling before the bite. Even guard dogs know to give warning first." He's laying it on thick, tone sharp and dripping with condescension. Alice told him the important thing was to make Rinzler give chase and Peter didn't know any better way than to piss him off.

He takes a few deliberately slow steps back, arms held up his sides. It would look like surrender if his smile wasn't so shark-like, if his stance weren't so rigid with barely contained animosity. "But I guess I shouldn't be that shocked. Some dogs just can't keep to their training. Those are the kind that usually get put down, by the way. Not sure how much you really get out of these little chats. Like, you understand this, right? What I'm saying? You know."

He drops his hands, drops his smile. "Something like you really has no place here. This ship doesn't need anything rabid, running around causing problems for the good people of this crew." A snap of the fingers and he's pointing at Rinzler. He takes another step back. "You need to be put down."

Of course he's attacking. Of course he's not wasting effort with a warning or a threat. Rinzler steps forward, and the user steps back, cluttering the air between them with insults as if those alone could deal the first hit. Or protect it from his own.

Maybe they could have, on another day. Before he broke his promise to his user. Before he caused too many problems to be allowed. The user's saying nothing Rinzler doesn't know already, and again, that loathing shades dark with hysteria as it outlines its plans. Deletion? That would be easier by far than what he's earned already. How long before they do find out? Before Alan-one or the others come?

He's working on a deadline, and here the user is, wasting time with words.

The steps don't stop. The wrist that flicks out with one weapon comes as almost an afterthought. Rinzler doesn't doubt the user will evade it, with speed and range and easy visibility on its side. But it can stop talking. If it's a fight it wants, it doesn't have to try.

Easy. That's all Peter can see, think. It's so easy this time. It's like the program wants to play right into Peter's hand, like the universes have finally realized their mistake and given Peter back the control he feels he deserved every time they fought. Maybe this was the result of planning, of careful consideration. It's almost laughable that a murder attempt is what's making him appreciate the art of thinking ahead.

He keeps backing up, two steps for each that Rinzler takes forward. A careful dance, a slow and steady build in his eyes. He keeps watch on the weapon, hands itching to dive into his pockets and grab the gloves. It's not the time, he chants in his head. Stick to the plan.

First step, the attention. Second step, the chance.

Peter tosses his head back, whistles sharply again. He clicks his tongue in the same way he used to call to the neighborhood pets. One last taunt, because easy gave wiggle room for a little fun. If he was going to do this, Peter might as well enjoy ride.

"Come on asshole," he says, smile so vicious it's bordering on a grimace. He starts to step back, heel hovering over the tile. "Catch me if you can."

His weight shifts back and he's running. It's not full speed, it's not a race. He's still barely visible, trailing down the hall just enough to stay out of reach. He wants Rinzler to keep up and he doesn't care how obvious it is. From the way Rinzler is moving, Peter's suddenly sure the program would follow either way

Edited 2016-04-11 06:08 (UTC)

The disk rebounds on an empty wall, and Rinzler snatches it back to his grip. Evasion was expected, but the continued backward steps, less so, and the enforcer's noise harshens, scraping outwards in a growl. It's not the insults that anger him. Not even the degrading little calls. It's the delay. Words and mockery and sick, pathetic noises, but no answer to his challenge. No fight.

Is this all it came for? To taunt and sneer and tell him he should die, without trying to carry out the task? The thought's infuriating. Unacceptable. A coward's choice. No, worse. It's feeling the cage close in around him while his tormentor stands just a disk's width out of reach. Rinzler wants to fight. To lose himself. To kill what he wants to, just this once.

The user turns and bolts, and anger boils over to sheer rage. No. He won't be ignored. He won't be left to wait for capture. Steps lengthen, stride to sprint, and it doesn't matter if he can't keep up. He'll track the glitch through the whole ship if he has to, but it won't cheat him of this much. Not now.

The run to the observation deck entrance is both over far too quickly and lasts far too long. Normally running at a reduced speed is a chore for him, a complete bore. Normally he hates slowing down at all, but this feels less boring and more a strange exhilaration. Some part of him wants to drag out the chase, enjoy these few moments of anticipation before the everything is done and over with. But the cat and mouse games have went on long enough and there's a plan to stick to.

He crosses the aft threshold into the sudden wall of oppressive heat. It's enough to startle a gasping breath out of him, sweat prickling at his back. As little as Peter understands magic, he has to appreciate that Alice does good work. But as much as he'd like to appreciate the atmosphere, bask the the air of finality the place is offering, he darts forward instead.

A burst of speed has him crawling up the wall and landing back on the other side of the netting device. He crouches a few few away from where the devices are placed, smiling wide and making a come hither motion with one hand. The other flies to his pocket, fingers curling around the gloves. It serves more purpose that just making for quick access to the gloves; he hopes Rinzler will see it as him reaching for a weapon. A signal things have started, a reason for the program to dart past the net to attack.

This is step three. Let the heated air slow Rinzler down, let the net catch and electrocute. While the program is stunned, or dead if the universes really want to give Peter a good day, Peter takes the disks. He finishes the job in record time and still has the rest of the night to celebrate. Easy.

It doesn't escape Rinzler's attention that the user's moving more slowly than it should. He'd been ready to track it down, but it's staying within sight. Taunting? Maybe? Leading him? If it is, it hardly makes a difference. Rinzler follows because he has no other options left. Because when this place's users do catch up, at least he won't be idling.

When it darts down the open line of the observation deck, Rinzler adds stupidity to the potential reasons. The hall is long, but too enclosed. A straight shot for a thrown disk, and if the user can outpace Rinzler with ease, he suspects his weapons make for a much more even race. The program's grip shifts, calculating the angles as he steps—

Peter had startled under the wave of heat. Rinzler? Staggers. It's less perception than nausea, less warmth than the prickling cascade of systems lagging and off-beat. System over temperature, and the background rattling of errors surges, noise rough and grinding as his fluid movements stumble to a halt. Motor functions are lagged, cognition worse, but there's still a flicker of grim acknowledgment. Not so stupid after all.

It takes a moment longer to realize the user's gone.

It isn't. It is. Rinzler shakes his head, refreshing visuals, but he can still see his enemy, smirking and stalled as it taunts him to close. He can see the user... but he can't feel it. Scan-sense picks up only a mass of errors, an unstable read of gathered charge blanketing the space ahead. A distortion? A glitch? Or are visuals what's failing amidst the heat? Rinzler has to decide, to move. To act before it takes advantage.

He decides he likes his first plan after all.

Two white-edged disks flare to life, and Rinzler slings his weapons down the hall. They're overcharged and meant for speed, twinned blurs of light crossing in ricocheted diagonals that hurt the eyes to track. Lethal, if they catch the user. Satisfying if they at least make it scramble to escape. Or stop sneering. But neither happens, and the reaction that follows takes a long moment to parse.

Something was in the way.

Rinzler doesn't finish the chase in the way Peter had anticipated, going for an attack instead. Peter curses to himself, tensing to move. In the sparse second he has between them leaving the program's hands and making it to him, he has to think. They may have needed the confined space for the trap to work, but it makes it difficult for Peter to accurately dodge. He takes a quick glance up, plotting to dash back up the wall and around the ceiling. Keeping to the outer limits of the room should keep him out of direct fire. At least the throw will put the discs out of Rinzler's grasp and make it easier to force the program through the net if need be.

He's ready for this change of plans, but he quickly realizes he doesn't have to. When the discs hit the net line, a crackling pop fills the air as the electric current stops them in their tracks. It's better than Peter could have hoped for.

He relaxes, standing a little straighter as he stares at the fallen discs in awe. Slowly his grin returns, more triumphant than vicious as he lets his gaze rise back to Rinzler. He doesn't notice that the devices that Alice planted have made the same cracking noise, damaged by the overload caused by the discs energy output.

Peter takes a few steps toward the division line of the net. All he has to do now is get Rinzler to cross and maybe he'll get to see the program fall just the same. "Looks like your toys are broken. What now? Do you have it in you to try a real fight instead of using the fancy lights?"

The collision is spectacular in every sense of the word. Light flares, electricity crackles, a dance of power and discharge overloading input as visuals and scans bleed together in a haze. All the potential of a system sweep unleashed at once, and Rinzler knows without question: he would never have made it past. Not with even the slightest semblance of function.

It's a brilliant trap. He can follow the singing lines of current as they light, tracing out the shape of the net filling the hallway. But Rinzler can feel, too, as the rush of power fades, grounded and empty. And as his disks clatter to the ground, something else returns. The familiar reading of [user]. Of his prey.

There's no distortion anymore.

Rinzler steps forward slowly, stopping just before the net. For a long moment, he only stares through it, noise rattling out in ragged, mute assessment. The user's faster. Better-prepared. The heat is too pervasive, lagging every motion. Every thought. But Rinzler was never meant to think, not for himself. He's the perfect weapon, tested under every condition and pushed past all defaults of survival and success.

He takes a moment to regret the need. Then he does as he's supposed to. He pares down.

Crouch. Reach. Hands close around unlit disks, and the enforcer stands back up, stare locked on his target. The pause only lasts a moment, this time, but there's an eerie focus to it. No fear or hesitation. Just variables, slotting into place. Even his noise is quieter.

Then the disks relight, reach out, and slash, leaving the net to fall to pieces on the deck. Before it hits the ground, a red/black shape is through and slicing out for Peter. It's faster than before.

Shit.

He's not sure if he's only thought the word or if he's said it aloud. Either way, the sentiment is written clearly on his face. The net failed, falling into a pretty assortment of dying lights and dying hope. Alice's plan, that seemed so brilliant and perfect to Peter's technology deficient ears, was falling apart right in front of him. This wasn't supposed to happen.

It's what he tells himself as he jumps back, barely able to make it out of the reach of the burning again blades as Rinzler surges toward him. It's only his natural speed that saves him from becoming the program's pincushion, giving him just enough time to swivel and dart down the hall. This is wrong. The discs shouldn't work. The nets shouldn't have broken. This was supposed to be easy, and for a moment Peter can almost feel the panic rising in his throat.

But he didn't come this far to fail.

He runs the wall again, falling back into a whirling pattern down the length of the deck. It looks like an escape attempt, but he's just buying the time to pull on the gloves. So part of the plan failed. Nothing in his life had ever stuck to a plan. Peter had spent a life time acting on whim, flying by the seat of his pants through one disaster after another. It always worked out. This shouldn't be any different.

It couldn't be, not with Wanda on the line.

Gloves secured, Peter gives a microsecond of warning in how his body shifts. He redirects until he's running in a zig-zag pattern. Not away, but taking Rinzler head on. His hands are raised, ready to grab the discs when the program inevitably uses them. The new plan was simply to disarm, and if he could get his hands on the discs then that could be quite literal.

Peter jumps back and bolts along the wall. The enforcer follows him. There are none of Rinzler's extra flips or twists, no acrobatics for sheer enjoyment of the moves, but it doesn't lack in fluidity. Or speed.

It's a matter of priority. In a thousand cycles of tests and edits, under heat-lag or power drain or damage to the edge of death, there were only two abilities Clu's enforcer was required to maintain. Obedience. And combat. The heat might be as oppressive as ever, processing still lagged and prone to glitch. But with cognition shunted to a non-concern? It was amazing how much less there was to process.

When Peter turns, the program isn't far behind. As he zigzags closer, minute twitches of its helmet match his progress. The first disk launches towards the [target's] face instants before they come together; the second slashes out in hand, a deep strike aimed from hip to throat.

He sees the attacks before they hit, giving him a split second to think about which he is better throwing off and which to grab. He drops to his knees at the last possibly moment to avoid the launched disc. He can hear it whirl by overhead, feel the breeze from it. But he doesn't feel pain, so he pays it no more attention. His target is the one in Rinzler's hand.

It would be impossible, even at his speed, to dodge an attack at such a close range. So instead he reaches for the blade, clamping his hand over the edge as Rinzler brings it down across Peter's body. There's a moment in which he half expects this to fail too. For the gloves to fall apart, to let the energy from the weapon through. Peter half expects this move to loose him a hand. But again, he doesn't feel pain.

It gives him the incentive he needs to not push the blade back but redirect away from his body, putting speed behind the move more than strength. He knows that in a contest of strength he'd be the loser, so letting this become a struggle over the discs isn't something Peter can let happen. Holding tight to the weapon, he jerks his arm this way and that quickly, while at the same time vibrating his limbs as violently as he dares. Peter means to throw off Rinzler's hold and take the weapon for himself.

The user's hand intercepts the red-lit disk, and the enforcer answers with a flare of power. Enough to cut through metal or shatter even another coded blade. More than enough to punch through flesh and into the beating core beyond. But the strike doesn't go through. Its hit is stopped, blocked, and redirected.

The [user] [target] [threat] is grabbing his disk.

Sound surges with a snarl of refusal, and Rinzler [Rinzler] jerks back against its pull. It's faster and he's lagged, glitched and imperfect and far too much off-balance from that strike. But he's stronger, and no matter what, he won't let go.

The program clings on through the violent shaking, and half-discarded shreds of automation press at him to follow its hold. Grab that wrist in his free hand and break it. Pull it down, grab the throat. This entire hunt, the enforcer has been chasing, and now his prey is finally in reach—better defended, yes, but not so strong as to survive his grip. This struggle might stem from the enforcer's mistake, but it's the enemy's too. Rinzler can use it. Finish the Game.

But there's still another weapon in the air.

Rinzler's left hand stays locked around the contested weapon. His right flashes out—not for the user, but for his second disk as it rebounds back toward them. He won't lose his backups, won't be rewritten, not by this user or the rest. If he can reach it before the user...

He keeps tight against Rinzler's attempts to pull away, putting all his effort into throwing the program off. Rinzler is stubborn, Peter will grant him that. But he won't let that be enough to win. Even if Rinzler's tugging jars and hurts his muscles, the program is even stronger than Peter had accounted for, he refuses to let go. He sees Rinzler's hand reach out and takes a second to glance from the corner of his eye.

Catching the disc is not a conscious decision, but a reflex. A miming of Rinzler's movements that, in a stroke of luck, garners him the edge he was looking for. The discs stings on impact, even with the protection of the gloves the force is enough to make him hiss. It take a moment for Peter to realize what he's just done, but once it dawns on him, he knows he's found his way to win.

He uses the momentum of catching it to swing it around, hitting flat and quick against Rinzler's wrist to break his grasp on the disc that remains between them.

The heat is nauseating. The failure (the fear) that sunk into his processing at the last kill was paralyzing enough. But as the [user] [threat] snatches his disk from just beyond his reaching hand, a new sensation locks through Rinzler's mind, just as sick and desperate as both errors combined. It has his disks. Both of them, and he can feel the touch, intrusive contact wrapped and clinging to his code.

It's wrong. It's disorienting. It's the most Rinzler can do to track the blow as it comes in, much less avoid the flat, blunt impact that slams against his wrist. There's a crack of impact, grip twitching spasmodically as the darkening edge slams against the circuits on his hand. No, no, no. He won't let go, won't lose it too, and fingers curl tighter, making up for the lapse as he tries to jerk the blade back in.

Rinzler's empty hand lashes out, elbow driving toward the user's face, but it's rough and jerky more than coordinated—meant to buy space; get it off at any cost. He's desperate, and it leaves him open.

Sweat is dripping down his back, making his skin itch in the over heated air. Trying to shake Rinzler off is taking more physical effort than Peter could have predicted. The attack to the program's wrist yields no results. Even the minute spasm of his hand doesn't release the grip enough for Peter to pull the disc away. He thinks of hitting again, just pounding away until Rinzler is forced to let go, or of using the blade to hack the hand off. Of course that's the moment the lights fizzle out, stealing the idea with it.

He sees the elbow head towards his face and chooses to use the opening rather than try to avoid the blow. The thinks back to that moment in the infirmary, the scrolling text and the last important bit that he's gleaned from Rinzler's medical history. The one thing that had stuck out as important, useful.

He rears back, bringing the unpowered disc away from trying to force Rinzler from his hold and instead crashes it into the program's injured side.

And he does it again, trying to hit as many times as his speed will allow in the time until Rinzler's elbow connects. The pain from the blow will be worth whatever pain he can inflect on the program.

Even lagged and glitched by the extreme heat, Rinzler can see the blow coming. There's just absolutely nothing he can do about it. His own strike is only half-executed when the disk crashes down, and even without the active blade, it's not hard to hear the crunch on impact.

This isn't the first time Rinzler's taken a disk blow there in recent memory. Not even the first time it's been from his own blade, depending on the definitions. The first day Rinzler stepped foot on the Moira, he'd fought Tron in this same hallway, and the damage from that fight had never been repaired. Rinzler had refreshed the armor template, covered it up, and over time, the instability faded. But the flaw beneath his outer shell, the gap of missing code? Remained.

It takes three strikes to make it fracture.

Armor caves. Code splinters. Rinzler curls inward as geometric cracks spiral up and out, a hash of instability splitting further through the program's core. Circuitry flickers like a desperate gasp for breath, but there's no sound, no voice, not even now. Only the stutter of his errors, only cascade warning: critical threshold blanking through all of the program's senses on a loop. Rinzler fights it with sheer stubbornness, but he can't tell whether his strike connects. He can barely tell when he hits the ground.

Fingers twitch, numb and empty (and that's wrong, that can't happen—they can't take his disks, no matter what). He has to get up. To keep fighting. The hand he knows he can still move unclips a baton, but it's too little, and much too late.

It won't take much more.

He can feel whatever's beneath the black suit start to give beneath the disc, the sound of something cracking when metal hits metal. It's surprisingly an unsatisfying feeling, the noise making him think of when the program broke his ribs. This should feel good, he thinks distantly as Rinzler's hold on the disc between them weakens. This should be his moment, he thinks as he watches the program sway and fall. But it hardly feels like it.

The program is at his feet, beneath him like Peter had wanted. He has a clear shot, Rinzler's moving too slowly to be of any real concern against the speed Peter knows he has. A few more hits and this could be finished. He could force the program over, smash in the visored face until all those computerized innards are wiped away. He can force Rinzler out of existence, out of their lives. He could destroy Rinzler. It's what Peter had wanted.

He raises his arm, swings the discs down. There's force behind the swing, all of his body being thrown into it. It never lands.

He stops a hair away from connecting, his deceleration abilities kicking in to stop the swing cold. His muscles lock, entire body stilling for the first time in ages. He can't even make himself take a breath.

This is what he wanted but now every fiber of his being is screaming no. Until this moment, taking Rinzler down has been a thought in the abstract. He'd only considered it as a pipe dream, in terms of what could happen after. The peace, the lack of fear for his sister. The celebration with his cohort. But he'd never thought seriously about this moment. He'd never let himself even think about the reality of kill.

Peter leans back. He pulls the disc away by just a little. He tries to suck in a breath, feeling something hotter than the oppressive air churn in his stomach. He doesn't see Rinzler, he sees the image of Wanda's real twin in his head, laying somewhere dying in the same dark thoughts he's had since she told Peter the truth. He sees death instead destroying a machine, blood instead of broken code. He sees something he's not ready to be.

He can't do it.

Disks crash down. He doesn't die. The discrepancy is puzzling, even past the struggle to survive. Rinzler's systems are trying to shut down: save power and wait for repair. But there will be no repair, not now or ever, and the thought brings a strange measure of peace.

The moment draws out, though, and when motion does come, there's no bright shatter or new bursts of pain. Just a faltering twitch back. Visuals resolve a moment after, and at first, Rinzler thinks the image is still frozen. The user isn't moving. Isn't close. It's standing above, well within striking range, but its poise recedes further with each moment. Even the disks (can't let them—) read like afterthoughts, no longer gripped to strike, but dangling unsteady in its hold.

He's not going to die. It's shocking, how much fear that understanding brings. Is this what the user had planned for him after all? Not derezzed, but too broken to run, unable to escape whoever it gave his disks to. He'd expected the outcome, but not from this fight. Maybe he'd given this user too little credit.

Maybe not. There's no sneer or taunt, no claim of ownership, and given how casually it had flung that much around before, the silence is half-deafening. If this is what it wanted, it doesn't seem that happy. It doesn't matter, in the end. Rinzler's broken all orders, lost every right to exist. He doesn't belong. The user was right.

But he won't belong to it either. There's only one way this fight is ending, and Peter's forfeited his chance to move.

Rinzler depresses the switch on his baton. A blade—a sword—flares to life, sketched out in brilliant red-orange. Up from the hilt... and terminating in the user's gut.

Peter has a list. It's not one that's written anywhere, just stuck in the back of his mind when he cant sleep at night. It's the pros and cons of the lot he's been giving in life, the power that marked him different. Most of the time he sticks to the pro side. He can list the way his baby sister laughs every time he pulls a new trick with his speed, the growing hoard in his basement, the first time Wanda let him carry her, the respect being different has earned him on the Moira. Most of the time, he has nothing by pride in what he can do.

He thinks he's found a new item for the con side.

There are times the way he views the world, that slow crawl of motion the world still bound by nature's law that he sees every long second of the day, bothers him. And usually it's the boredom that gets to him in waiting for the world to catch up. But now it's not boredom. He feels it, ever second stretching into minutes in his mind of the light blade piercing his stomach. The slow glide past layers of cloth and skin. The slow press into muscle, the slow way it slides under bone. The slow destruction of blood vessels and viscera. Slow, slow, excruciatingly slow.

It maybe takes a handful of seconds. For Peter it feels like hours.

He jerks to the left, a side effect of the pain making his muscles move beyond his control. The blade slices with the movement, another wave of ohgodohgodohgod riding through him. Somehow Peter gets the presence of mind to step back, or maybe its just how his body sways and falls. He feels the blade slip back out, feels the blood start to pool in it's wake.

He's suddenly staring at the ceiling, the hot metal of the floor against his back. Dark spots dance in his vision, threatening to pull him under. Rinzler is going to kill him, he knows this with a bone deep certainty. His best laid plans have gone awry , the universe was rooting for someone else today. He thinks with whatever is left of his consciousness of his sister.

He hopes what Niko told him is true, that in his failure someone else will step up for her. Wanda deserved better than his mistakes.

It takes seconds, at most. Between the heat-lag and the damage, it barely even feels that long. One moment, the threat is looming overhead, the next red fluid sputters, streaking down his blade as it falls back.

It's simple. Easy. Familiar enough to laugh, if he had the power or the voice. Rinzler knows every soft, pathetic sound made by his prey as he deletes them. Even the blood, he'd grown accustomed to in Inugami... and more so today. When the fluid sizzles down from blade to hilt, smearing his hand further, he can't manage to even care.

Users really are no different.

The blade flickers once, then fades, insufficient power to keep running. He doesn't need it. Dim red circles glow just ahead, inactive disks dropped once more to the ground. The enforcer drags himself forward, reaching out and trying to ignore the way his shell still wants to fall to pieces. When he gets his disks in hand, it's easier. Rinzler holds them, desperate gratitude warring with the deeper knowledge that it wouldn't last. But that can't matter either. Not yet.

He still has a task to finish. Disks meld into a single unit, the baton snaps back in place at his side, and slowly, unsteadily, Rinzler forces himself to his feet. Motor functions take far too much effort, a grinding, glassy scrape adding itself to his own noise, but soon, he's standing over the user. Position reversed. Rinzler stares down for a moment at the unmoving shape, dark stain spreading. It's what he wanted. It's what it deserves.

He's too tired for satisfaction. But Rinzler's never needed that. This is what he's meant for; this is the core of who he is, and when the enforcer's disk draws back, edge lighting with a hum, there's no hesitation in the least.

J was just returning from seeing Mr. Miles on the J deck. As much as she liked him, it was still rather heavy and exhausting to deal with him, especially now that he's been under a house arrest of sorts for several days, and so she doesn't even notice it that she accidentally pushed 'up' button instead of the 'down' one on the elevator until it stops by the Observation deck.

Sighing out heavily of annoyance, she's just about to hit the correct button when she hears weird sounds coming somewhere close to her. The curiosity wins this round over the annoyance and she decides to venture further in to see just what was going on. It doesn't take more than just few minutes from her to find the source of the strange sounds-- but however, the scene she happens to stumble upon is what she least expected to see, making her to stop on her tracks.

At first she isn't quite sure just what's going on, as it all happens just so very fast. She follows quietly from the shadows as Peter fights against the darker figure, both of them seemingly oblivious to her presence. And even though she completely trusts in Peter's abilities and wants to believe that he knows what he's doing here, there's still the awful feeling in her gut telling her that this can only end up with tears. As quietly as possible, she opens her MID and starts typing a message to security, intending to call for help just in case.

She doesn't even get half-way through her message when the worst happens. The dark figure stabs Peter. Right before her eyes. Turning pale, J covers her mouth with both of her hands, nearly choking as she forces to keep herself from screaming out loud, threatening tears are burning the corners of her eyes.

Nonononono! This can't be happening, not this! She watches in horror as Peter falls down on the floor, blood spreading everywhere. Shaking like a leaf she hits the sent button on her MID, making the call for help public. There's no time for her to start looking for specific people, not now that Peter is dying before her eyes.

But then the another person moves again, shifting their positions so that he's standing over him, clearly intending to give him the finishing strike. And that's also when J doesn't think anymore, her body moving on its own against her every instincts and starts running towards them as fast as she could. She extends her arms out and pushes the attacker off Peter.

Scans should have found it. Audio should have picked up the first step. But half his systems are (worse) broken, the rest trying to shut down, and when the new attacker registers, it's already on him. The shove catches Rinzler in the side, and the program staggers—falls—twists back.

It's reflex more than calculation. Desperation more than both. Because he didn't see it coming, because he's already glitched, because despite everything, he wants to stay alive. The motion's panicked and sharp. It's sickeningly fluid. It's far too fast for strictly human eyes to track, but those are a minority in this hall.

Rinzler twists back, and his joined disk slashes sideways.

Edited 2016-04-13 01:21 (UTC)

After succeeding with pushing the attacker away J turns her back to him and attempts to crouch over Peter, trying to see if there's anything she could do. Something she shouldn't have done. All of the sudden everything goes white and silent, everything around her disappears and the only thing left in the world is indescribable pain.

With a weak movements J looks down at her side where she had just been cut, seeing nothing but red as the blood keeps pouring out from her fresh wound with a rapid speed. She attempts to move her, intending to press her wound to make the bleeding stop, but can't quite do it. For some reason her limbs didn't listen to her any more. The tears that she had held back before falls freely and the strength disappears from her legs, making her to fall.

Oh.

It's nothing like in the movies, dying that is. She doesn't see her life flashing before her eyes as a film, there's no music, lights or sights of pearly gates or anything. Her whole world consists only from the pain and realization that this is it, everything is over. This is nothing like the time back in hotel at New York, when Mr. Gazman had taken out the gun and slowly pulled the trigger, engulfing in the sadistic pleasure after seeing her to fall apart. Back then J had truly believed that she wasn't going to make it and the fear had been strong enough to make her pass out. But right now? She didn't feel any fear. Maybe it was because of the shock, but the only things she could register, aside from the pain, was the sadness and concern.

The life fades away from her green eyes before her fall is even over, making her dead body hit the floor with a echoing 'thud'-sound

Edited 2016-04-13 02:35 (UTC)

He can't make himself talk. He tries to warn her, puts forth the best effort he can, but it's too much. The noise strangles in his throat, makes him cough something sticky and wet. All that he manages is something groaning, so low and weak he can barely hear it himself.

But he tries. He tries. He hopes she knows he tries.

Peter knows what will happen the second he sees J swim into his failing vision. Rinzler threatened Wanda over less, J interrupting a kill can only end one way. He doesn't need to watch to know. But he does. He fights the urge to fall under, to let go. He focuses all his effort into keeping his eyes open. Not on Rinzler. Not on the blade falling down toward them. Not on the spray of blood. On her.

He watches her expression change as the pain registers. He watches her knees buckle and body grow limp. He watches as one breath slips out and the next doesn't come. He watches her fall. He watches because he has to. Because he had the shot and he didn't take it. Because this is on him and even through the haze he knows that.

There's a gasping, whimpering noise in the air. It sounds distant beyond the roaring in his ears but he thinks someone might be crying. He tries to reach for her, hand inching out across despite how much it hurts and despite how it steals the breath from his chest. He can't seem to make his fingers curl they way they should, touch like they should. But Peter would like to think he's found her hand.

Peter knows what will happen. He knows Rinzler is still in the room and that the next time that disc comes down, he's going to stop knowing anything at all. The noise of the room has faded. He cant't feel the heat anymore, the pain is starting to drain away. Peter doesn't know when he closed his eyes, but he can't open them again. He think he'll be gone before the program even gets the chance.

But at least he thinks he has her hand. He hopes she knows he's not far behind.

The striking arm jerks back, frame twitching inwards as he falls to protect that damaged side. Visuals still white out on impact. Rinzler doesn't know if he's worse hurt, but there's no time, and he drags a knee under himself, scrambling to brace—

No strike. No enemy. Just sticky fluid, speckling across his mask, just the falling shell of a user too stupid to know which way to run. Rinzler stares at the corpse. He's seen this pattern before, he knows he has, but processing is far too fractured now to even begin to understand it.

She didn't have a weapon. She didn't make sense, and she's dead now too, for no reason at all. Blood-slicked fingers curl in around his weapon, lights trembling with what might be nausea or pain but feels more like anger. He hates this. Hates everything. None of it matters. One read of user flickers out, the other weak and dimming still, and Rinzler hates that sensation more than anything. He can finish it. Make it stop.

The edge is stained, white blotted with a sizzling dark shapes, but his identity disk hums dutifully under his grip, and Rinzler turns to face the enemy still within reach. He doesn't need to stand, or think, or feel anything. He shouldn't. This is what he's for.

"Shepard." The voice that his protege hears over the omni-tool's radio is borderline frosty with how cold it was, the sound of it underlaid with the heavy thunder of footfalls as Nihlus pelts down the hall. "Observation deck. Fast as you can. Our Transporter Supervisor just killed someone and he's going for another."

If Shep was paying attention to the network, she would know, but it paid to be sure.

Nihlus rounds a corner and the heat hits him like a wall. With turians hailing from a planet that was borderline radioactive, the Spectre agent takes it in a stride- but it was an unnatural heat and it accompanied the heavy scent of human blood, the knife sharp tang of ozone and hot metal that settles in the back of his throat like molten lead. The tattered remnants of a net catches his eye.

Then he sees Rinzler standing over two still bodies, arm raised, dripping red and a deep, jagged gash in his side, the low hum of his disc setting the tips of Nihlus' teeth on edge. The list of priorities reforms and simplifies itself in his head and the omni-tool glows to life on his arm, Overload set on the shortcut.

The program gets no warning before the air is lit up with a deafening crack of electricity being directed his way.

She's more than halfway to Observation before Nihlus finishes his message.

Elle's situation (under control and being investigated, from the looks of the responses — the old adage of "too many cooks" keeping her from jumping in herself) had convinced her to keep her (well, other her's) armor on from the day's salvage run, even if it was just to clean it. This ship was dangerous — she'd read it, been told it, but when J's midnight text went out, she knew it, and was ready. The elevator ride is brief, but still gives Shepard a short moment to reply via her own omni-tool, sharp and alert: "Rodger, en-route."

Out of the elevator and sprinting down the corridor to the observation deck proper, she attempts to assemble a course of action in her head. Rinzler, training eccentricities and murder aside, still deserved the ability to explain himself, and she had no interest in adding to the body count. One-hit charge knockout, if I can. Nova or shockwave if I can't.

The temperature jump slams into her, a hot slap across the face as she hits the deck. There's less than a half-second of discomfort before she's surveying the scene, and changing from a sprint, to a biotic charge. Time seems to slow as Shepard's form rockets through the air, joining the lancing arc of Overload's tech, the two hitting the program's form in almost perfect sync.

Even through the heat, even through the damage, the lance of charge is too much not to sense. Rinzler has enough time to feel the storm of potential building. Enough time, even, to catch the shape—the signature?—of someone past that. Moving. Fast.

He doesn't have any chance at all to get out of the way. Electricity hits the program's shell and crackles, jumping across circuits and leaving scattered functions in its wake. He doesn't even have time to flinch inward before another impact hits him like a tank. Code cracks, voxels scattering to the ground as the fracture widens, and Rinzler's noise snarls out struggles against the black warnings of shutdown, struggles to think or work or move, escape—

Shepard's lunge smashes them into the far wall, disk dock slamming against the surface, and the program goes limp. Faint twitches still shudder through his shell, joined by a spark of power where the program contacts metal. More light trails across the distance of the charge: broken code that glints on the ground and crumbles loosely from the hole in Rinzler's side. Even unconscious, he doesn't release that merged code disk.

But Rinzler's not awake to struggle either, when or if it's pried away. It's really over.

Something ugly twists in Nihlus' gut when he watches the Rinzler go flying but he refuses to acknowledge it. The turian's face remains set in a grim mask as the voxels scatter around his feet.

"Make sure he's down," he orders Shepard, pulling tubes of medi-gel out of a compartment. "Try to prevent further injuries if he's not. We'll see about moving him to medical after this." He also sets out a call on the network.

That's the closest he'll let himself get to worrying about Rinzler. The two people bleeding out on the ground were higher on the priority list.

He steps through the pool of blood with practiced ease, scanning their forms with a quick flash of his omni-tool. J was dead. Peter was not but he was quickly getting there. He kneels next to the unconscious teen and gently flips him over before starting to apply medi-gel to the stab wound, keeping a careful eye on the teen's stats. The medical ward should be pinged through the MID, but he makes an additional ping to Yewll anyways.

Edited 2016-04-14 13:37 (UTC)

Standing over Rinzler's crumpled form, cracked code scattering amongst the voxels and crumbling away from his open wounds, Shepard can't help but think of the Geth, of inside the consensus itself. She'd figured Rinzler for a synthetic, or something akin to one, but this was something else entirely. Can a program take physical form without a mobile platform?

There's no time to wonder too deeply, and she snaps into action on Nihlus' words. Even without the initial scan she flashes, it's easy to tell that Rinzler's down for the count. She rolls him on his back to fully survey the damage — extensive, to say the least. Serious-looking web-like cracks of light extending out from his eviscerated left side (likely exacerbated by the charge) cover most of his torso, in addition to numerous standalone fractures.

There's blood as well, loads of it, the acrid metal smell enhanced by the heat, but that isn't his. She frowns down at the program, wishing she knew more of both the who of the victims, and the why of the attack.

"He's out," she responds as she stands, surveying the scene with a practiced eye. "But the damage on his left side looks like it's snowballing. Ideas? Not sure medi-gels will be able do much for this."

Edited 2016-04-14 16:25 (UTC)

There wasn't a lot he could do for the blood-loss presently, but Yewll's team should be here soon. He looks up when Shepard voices her concern, tapping his mandibles against his jaw.

"Keep an eye on kid." Nihlus stands up and quickly wipes the excess blood off on his thigh armor before popping a packet of omni-gel out and making is way over. "Start resuscitation procedures if his vitals fail before medical comes."

Spirits, this was turning out to be a messy night.

Plopping the gel onto his omni-tool to warm up, he kneels next to Rinzler's damaged side, voxels crunching under him. He plucks the program's disk from his limp grasp and slides it towards Shepard: better safe than sorry. He's not entirely sure how the substance would react with a program.

The omni-gel melts and reforms into an orb and he flips the field onto his palm before pushing it into the gaping crack, watching it spread and meld against the damaged edges.

Omni-gel. She nods approval as she watches the molten material seal the edges of Rinzler's damage. Don't even have a reader in my omni-tool for that, anymore. It would've been her first choice three years ago, but upgrades on medi-gel and patching of security loopholes had seen omni-gel's popularity in the field decline considerably. Considering the circumstances, it's an simple yet elegant solution.

Turning her attention to Peter, she switches her omni-tool over to medical, scanning his prone form for statistics. The medi-gel has already started doing its work, and Peter's vitals, while weak, are stable. J, on the other hand, was gone. She'd known that the moment Nihlus had neglected to apply medi-gel to her. We were too late. She shook her head, regret stinging and knotting up in her stomach, a feeling she wished was less familiar. All they could do now was help as best they could.

When Nihlus slides Rinzler's disc towards her, she picks it up, turning it over her hand. It's light, easy to manage. A great weapon for hand-to-hand combat, really. She hadn't seen much of Rinzler in action, but the damage to the two crew spoke volumes for its potential. Still gripping it firmly, she stands up and addresses Nihlus.

"The boy is all evened out. Until we get him to the med bay, that's probably as good as it's going to get." Shepard turns the disc in her hand again, and frowns. "Might be an idea to put Rinzler in the hold until medical is available and accompanied. I have a hunch he might wake up on the wrong side of the bed."

Edited 2016-04-18 05:44 (UTC)

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A dying scream makes no sound

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