Leave all the lost souls behind

[notglitching]

Who: Rinzler, Tron, and Bel Thorne. Later adding Wanda, Zam, Gregor, and maybe others!
When: A few hours past midnight on Jan 2 (actual murderfights), and fallout over the next few days.
Where: Starting at the Observation Deck, ending up in the hold and medbay
What: error--conflicting types for function declaration
Warnings: mindscrew/trauma references, laser disk violence, blood, injuries, and snark


Low-power shifts, it seemed, were part of every user system. The Moira might not shut down quite as fully as that school, but activity levels had dropped markedly half a millicycle back, and by now, most users were either in their quarters or off visiting the planet-shape below. Definitely an improvement, from Rinzler's point of view.

Dimmed as it was, the hallway illumination was more than enough to travel by. No need for scans to find a path, though he kept up awareness on all fronts as he climbed silently toward the higher levels of the ship. There was something disquieting about the empty spaces in this ship, reflections stretching, whispers calling from the edges of a room. All the more reason to keep searching for the threats.

And all the less reason to sleep. Not that Rinzler ever needed much dissuading on that count. He paused halfway up a ladder, gaze catching for a moment on the red-orange reflections on the wall. Reboot had always been a painful process, but on the Grid his systems had corrected any glitch too soon for the enforcer to retain any memory of why. But in the user world, in that user body he'd been in? There had been dreams. Faces in the wrong shapes, lights in the wrong colors, and a system far too vast and bright to be his world. Rinzler jerked his head to the side, pushing back the nauseating twist of [warning—] in his code.

He wasn't sure what would happen if he went to sleep now.

Focus redirected almost gratefully to the field of stars as he started out along the observation deck. These lights, at least, no one had turned off. But something seemed distorted further down the hall, and the enforcer slowed to a halt, mask fixing on the faint blue glow approaching the far entrance. Yori? Hope hurt, but logic wiped it far too quickly. He'd checked the directory, and besides, the shade was wrong, a cool blue-white that set his code on edge. Rinzler stilled, one hand reaching silently to retrieve his unlit disks. It didn't have to be an enemy, not here.

But it felt wrong.

Comments

[seeingscarlet]

Mind games with robot-things: fun for the whole family.

She'd wanted to see whether he thought she was objecting to the fight or the injuries. Bel hadn't seen what set the two off, so Wanda has no idea who started it. This one, if she were to guess, considering that he attacked Bel and the other one stopped.

"Why were you fighting?"

[notglitching]

Rinzler could have guessed, but neither of those were particularly high on his own radar. If anything, the most bizarre feature of the fight was that no one involved had been deleted by the end. Though he supposes his opponents might have turned on each other after he'd gone down.

Considering his current predicament, the enforcer isn't rating that too likely.

The helmet stays angled, a prolonged (and dubious) look before the enforcer reaches down to his MID. The holographic display that projects up from it glows the same red-orange as his circuits and is angled toward the window, viewable (with some squinting) from outside. Rinzler could just send it to the user's own device, but he'd have to look her up, and he hasn't seen enough to match ID with any certainty.

Besides. Maybe she'll get careless and come in.

Threat.

[seeingscarlet]

So either he can't or he won't talk. Splendid. This would be so much easier if her other powers would just work on machines. Somehow she's pretty sure no one will appreciate it if she tries creative applications of telekinesis here.

"You were attacked first?" Doubtful, but one word answers really aren't that helpful.

[notglitching]

No voice, no mind-reading, and she can't see the face he's making behind that helmet. Too bad; it's a pretty good one. Rinzler shakes his head.

Threat deletion: necessary.

[seeingscarlet]

This is really getting frustrating, but Rinzler's not going anywhere until somebody gets a proper explanation out of him.

"But why was it necessary if you weren't attacked?"

[notglitching]

The program just stares for a long moment. Threat should really have been answer enough.

Function.

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda's really making a good effort not to roll her eyes here. She almost succeeds.

"Yours or his?"

[notglitching]

It's okay. Eyeroll is one of the user protocols Rinzler knows best. He's especially good at ignoring it.

The helmet tips downward. Rinzler's.

[seeingscarlet]

The urge to telekinetically pick Rinzler up and shake him until he starts giving proper answers is steadily rising.

"And what makes him so threatening? He stopped when Bel told him to."

[notglitching]

See, and Rinzler thinks he's cooperating.

Corrupted duplicate. Glitched.

The enforcer's own noise is picking up a little, this time. The copy is wrong and it's broken and he needs to kill it before he has to think about the why.

[seeingscarlet]

Finally, they're getting somewhere. Maybe it's actually a good thing someone from Wanda's world is doing this. They've all already had the multi-verse talk, though they've been spared dealing with two of the same person thus far.

"The Ingress - the machine that brought us here - can bring people from different versions of the same world. He is not here to replace you."

[notglitching]

Replace him? The ticking rumble smoothed out in a low snarl of offense. Rinzer's mask jerks to the side—not disagreement, but negation. Of course it can't replace him. It's broken. That's the problem.