There’s a long silence on Alan’s end of the call as he processes, disbelievingly, the program’s words. He’s hurt. Need your help. As if it were an accident. As if he’s anything like innocent or even benevolent in this scenario, trying to fix what he’d never broken.

“Now you’re upset that he’s hurt?” Alan asks, and that's what angers him more than Clu’s words ever could; Clu actually sounds upset, voice fractured and rough with static and Alan doesn’t know what possibility is worse: that the agitation in Clu’s voice isn’t genuine or that it is.

“You forgot, didn’t you? You-- ‘saw red’ again and forgot you couldn’t just patch him up when you were done like you did on the Grid.” And God knows how many times this had happened before for Clu to have lashed out without a shred of forethought as to the consequences because there were no consequences before. At least, not like this. There’s a short exhale of what might be laughter in the loosest sense of the word and when Alan speaks again, the words are so edged with disgust, they border on mockery. “This must be so difficult for you.”

He can guess what Clu wants. He also knows that he couldn’t help him even if he wanted to. “I don’t have Rinzler’s disk. And I don’t know who has it.” Which means he’s just as powerless to help Rinzler as Clu is.