now you've hit a wall, and you've hit it hard

[notglitching]

Who: Rinzler and OPEN
When: August 1-?
Where: Moro deck and beyond
What: Rinzler got his ass kicked and drags himself off to recover. A followup to this.
Warnings: severe injuries, references to mindfuck and violence. Glowy, glowy dismemberment. Rinzler?


He remembers gold lights and sharp impacts. He remembers words, slick and close and far too heated. Thin the herd. Bradley. Let's play a game. But not a game, a test, and every line far too familiar.

He remembers the snarl of nausea rising through his code, the moment where can't and shouldn't gave way to already did. He remembers failing. Fighting. He fought Clu, and the numb anticipation that truth brings is enough to jar himself halfway through reboot on his own.

Rinzler doesn't need to remember anything to know who won.

Gold lights. Gold lights, but when visuals reset behind the shell that holds him in, the room is empty, only his own faint red-orange glow illuminating the barracks floor. Broken code lies scattered on the ground in dull, grey fragments, half-faded back to null already. It might not be a proper system, but some values never change.

He has to go.

Functions stutter, half-settled from the reboot. He needs his disk; needs to work right (serve Clu), but Rinzler's been broken far too long to let those kinds of errors stop him now. He can't think about it (won't), and if diagnostics are too lagged to call, that hardly makes a difference either. The sharp spike of pain as he drags his legs underneath him reads instability, code lost on the right side below a knee. The battered ache through core and dock registers impact and interrupt, the source of his shutdown. A hand on the ground and he pushes himself up, but he's still unbalanced and unsteady, with no time to source the flaw. Rinzler reaches for the door.

...and stops, mask tilting with bewilderment, to the jagged, crumbling stump of shattered code where his left arm should have been.

Oh.

...

No. (Useless.) He can't stop, can't process any of it now. A staggered step forward and he jerks his right side to the lead, elbow slamming the control switch for the door. It slides open, and Rinzler lunges out into the hall, ragged steps forward because it's far too late to go back. His room is close, but not safe; Clu will find him and he can't be trapped again. He makes it to the lift, keying in a floor at random before slumping against the wall. The low rattle of code conflict echoes loudly in the space, and Rinzler locks his focus on the sound, letting his own white noise drown out as much as he can.

He has to keep running.


[[OOC: Pick a floor, any floor! Rinzler will dodge public areas as much as possible, but his orientation is slightly awful right now. If you want something more specific, prod at notglitching; he'll be in this state for the better part of a week. I'll match prose or spam.]]

Comments

[notglitching]

The stress on the word doesn't escape Rinzler's attention, but apart from a momentary lag, the enforcer offers no response. Her question is a more immediate concern—and certainly, much easier to answer. The black helmet dips in a short nod. There are conduits down here he can access. They might not make for as easy of a recharge as the unit in his room, but it's hardly impossible and much less of a risk.

[yorisearching]

That's good, especially since Yori can see a lot of scenarios where any or all of them might lose access to their assigned quarters. If the energy isn't everywhere like a free system, she needs to know where it gathers.

"If you don't mind, maybe you could show me how that works." She doesn't mention the convenient fact that this plan will also verify Rinzler has plenty of energy, not just enough to let him function. It goes without saying.

At least she doesn't have to track down User food for her own use anymore. "I like this ship better than the school, not that it's much of an achievement." Yori shakes her head with a soft chuckle. "But I've got to learn everything all over again." No language barrier here; everyone has encouraged her efforts to learn; if the captains are strange, at least they are present and making attempts to explain themselves to their accidental crew. And Yori has full access to the stars.

[notglitching]

Rinzler's stare lingers a little skeptically... but Yori is new to the system. He can't turn down that kind of data request just because he doubts she really needs the demonstration. His helmet ducks, weight shifting a little unsteadily on his damaged leg as he starts down the hall. She won't have any trouble keeping up.

He'd been there first in the user school too. Not by much, not as long as on the Moira, certainly... but enough to start recovering functions. To get used to the not-system, to share data when she asked, and it's strange, falling back to the same patterns. He keeps the MID rezzed up, but doesn't add any commentary, just angling his helmet slightly: acknowledging, encouraging. He likes the ship better too. It's been a long time since he's heard Yori talk about anything, and for now, he's content to listen.

It's much, much easier than processing just how many other things have changed since then.

[yorisearching]

Through the noisy corridor Yori keeps close pace with Rinzler, trying not let him see her wince at the painful differences between this and his usual smooth stride. He's doing well, under the circumstances. She just hates that it's necessary.

And she can't even attempt to hold his hand without blocking his remaining defense. She misses that too, the reminder of the school, but also of Tron leading her through unfriendly sectors of Encom...of early, happier times, when she was the one trying to guide Tron through systems where he wasn't allowed to delete anyone who got in the way.

Not safe to linger on Encom memories now. Rinzler isn't Tron; she has very little idea how much he remembers, except that he recognizes that name. She'd rather not bring it up again when he's already dealing with this much damage and probably even more worry over what Clu might do next.

Better to talk about a few things that aren't deadly serious. Maybe she can reassure Rinzler she's not always remembering Tron. "You remember the stars I put up in our room?" she continues. The darkness had felt so much better for those faint lights. "Turns out they're not accurate at all, but these are even more beautiful. Studying them for my new function is amazing. And the view from Navigation shows thousands of them!"

She manages not to quote too much stellar data he probably knows by now. Arriving late is a pain.

[notglitching]

Rinzler's helmet dips; a quick nod. He remembers. The dim, soft lights had been his preferred illumination at the school—and certainly less painful than facing the overwhelming brightness of the user world without his mask. Not a concern since he'd come here, of course; the enforcer's helmet had been restored with the rest of his armor functions when he rezzed in. If Rinzler's a little regretful for that fact sometimes, it's not anything that needs to be mentioned.

Yori's not wrong at all about those inaccuracies, though. He wonders how her function-assignment compares to transporter flight, and shelves the query for later inquiry. For now, he stops in front of a door labeled Electrical, and after a quick glance down the halls, steps in and nods for Yori to follow.

[yorisearching]

Yori can tell she's going to miss being able to see more reaction than a nod. But she won't ask Rinzler to remove protection he clearly needs just to make her happy. It's not hard to extrapolate from his posture when she's spent all month learning the differences between Rinzler and Tron.

She falls quiet as Rinzler pauses. The door's clearly labeled; Yori appreciates that in a strange and unfamiliar ship. She even has some idea what electricity means to Users, after the science homework.

Looking takes all her attention, the complex and foreign connections. Not as pretty as an energy pool, but far more power. More than the User school. Probably more than all of Encom, if she'd been able to see it. Yori tries not to run the calculations. There's no point in making herself feel even more out of place. She follows and closes the door behind them, the better to avoid attention.

"Are there a lot of these rooms on the ship?" she asks, voice gone soft and low.