even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious;

[a_perfect_end]

Who: Alan Bradley and Clu
When: After Rinzler is incapacitated and discovered (floating point between Stardate 11.12 and 11.15.)
Where: Seriously, Alan; you need to invent or encode a Program-proof perimeter fence.
What: Clu Does Not Want (but absolutely needs) User supervision.
Warnings: Discussion of dismemberment, violence, abuse, and similar unpleasant dynamics; are Programs people; the usual fun and games



Now, now Rinzler's refusal to report in makes horrible, sickening sense. His enforcer hadn't been defying him, wasn't in hiding, and hadn't done this in some frightening ludicrous attempt to parameter: colloquialism: express himself or keep yet another secret.

Rinzler hadn't been off sulking. He'd been defeated. He'd been betrayed.

By Nihlus. By the very person--the User he'd entrusted with his very being--the one he'd chosen, over and above Clu himself, to rely on for safekeeping.

And Clu?

Clu had allowed it to happen. He allowed it to happen, and then he allowed it to continue. Of course it's his fault: it's always his fault.

He wastes a fistful of micros considering that, turning it over, flagging it maudlin and irrelevant, but keeping it in the queue--he'll have only himself to blame, if they should fail.

Alan should know by now that he never calls with good news.

Comments

[alan_1]

[Clu had called ahead the last time. This time around, his appearance at Alan’s door is unexpected, and his urgent battering sounds more like someone trying to break in than someone knocking.

Clu thus should not be entirely surprised when the door remains closed and locked. And that doesn’t come any closer to changing when Alan sees who’s on the other side. Still, he remembers the circumstances the last time Clu showed up at his room well enough and for all the arguing and bitterness that had followed, the admin had come with an offer of cooperation. Doesn’t mean it isn’t tempting to ask what he had done this time? through the closed door.]

I’m here. [Said hopefully loud enough for Clu to hear over the racket he’s making.] What’s this about?

[a_perfect_end]

[Ah, no. Clu with a goal is incredibly powerful but not particularly rational, or he'd just as soon have carved the panel open with a lit disc and pried his target free.

Rinzler is in dubious User custody, something about alien mind control that he didn't really listen to because it affected mainly organics. Not relevant. Relevant: Rinzler is dying. This means only one thing: Alan Bradley: get.

The how is immaterial and looking ridiculous will be meaningless if his enforcer, his prize, his only friend, loops to death on some damned sterile hospital surface not even built for his needs.]

Let me in let me in let me in OPEN. T H E glitching DOOR.

[Hark! Is that the pleasant, stable, totally reassuring squeal of reinforced space-worthy carbide steel yielding like tinfoil?

Lungs or no lungs, Clu pants raggedly on reflex, staring ridiculously as he stands where the door was an instant ago, quivering with the strain and a thousand other variables besides.]

I didn't do it it is not me he needs me but you specifically I will explain on the way follow me?

[Pause.]

Greetings. Let's go.

[alan_1]

[Alan has the good sense to step back when Clu starts yelling at the top of his non-lungs, the chance of him opening the door of his own volition rapidly dropping to zero. Not that it matters. Alan has only a moment to process the shriek of strained metal above the cacophony before the metal of the door starts to warp.]

Clu, what the hell are you--

[And then the door is gone. Or rather, it lies crumpled at the feet of an admin who looks seconds away from shaking out of his skin from agitation. Alan stares at Clu, then the door. Perhaps he should be frightened right about now, but he’s too busy with sheer incredulity to bother.

He doesn’t get much time to process it before Clu is speaking, a rapid-fire barrage of words that sound like they wouldn’t make sense even if Alan could understand them all. As is, the only coherent piece that gets through is ’I didn’t do it.’ And that only takes a few seconds to decode.]

Someone hurt him. [It’s not a question. It’s the only answer that makes sense given the it in that sentence, the all-too-familiar frenzy in the admin’s voice.] Where is he? What happened?

[Alan will follow for now and even postpone the argument about the exigency of ripping holes in people’s rooms -- but he expects answers on the way.]

[a_perfect_end]

[There isn't time for this, for Alan-1 openmouthed in astonishment and entirely justified adrenaline-fueled responses, but Clu knows better than to reach or grab, so he halts instead. Frozen for picos whole seconds, fat slow User time pressing thick against his priorities, weighing them down.

He might owe Bradley a new door; he certainly owes the guy an explanation.

Still, they can do that while running; he waves the User over with an old, old gesture, the one that once beckoned him and always promises excitement; Hey, man; are you seeing this?--]

Nihlus. [With a solenoid strobe that shudders through his whole frame, sodium-yellow like a warning board; bridge out ahead] Nihlus happened, man, all over him--specifics are still coming in--[Clu doesn't have them, aside from a vivid list of injuries that rattles out hot and bitter:] Rinzler's missing both legs and probably a chunk of his cache, not that any of you would be able to tell, plus whatever was done to put him down in the first place...and we should hurry.

Medbay: greater than 98 percent location match.

[Pause.]

...If I carry you, we can go very fast.

[alan_1]

[Alan follows the program, not liking the implications of Clu already starting to run to wherever it is they’re going, but the name the program utters next almost stops Alan in his tracks. Nihlus had hurt Rinzler? It doesn’t make sense -- and as Clu ticks through Rinzler’s injuries, Alan’s disbelief only grows.]

Nihlus? Why would he-- You're sure it was him?

[A sick feeling takes hold as Alan begins to process Clu's words in earnest. ’Whatever was done to put him down in the first place.’ Rinzler had already been incapacitated when Nihlus -- when whoever -- had taken his legs. Of course he had been. He would’ve fought otherwise. Alan suddenly has a horrible flash of memory back to finding Nihlus as a program, sitting calmly with his disk in his hands, one of his legs reduced to a stump of cleanly severed code. It can’t be the same -- there’s no way what Clu’s describing could have been an accident but--

If it wasn’t an accident, why did Nihlus do it?

It’s possible Clu’s wrong. It’s possible Clu’s lying. But before Alan can get a word in edgewise, the program interrupts with that unexpected offer.]

I can manage. [The only reason the reply isn’t as icy as it could’ve been is because Alan’s more focused on getting answers.] Who has his disk now?

[a_perfect_end]

[Irritation sizzles to the fore; he does nothing to suppress it.]


My data are accurate! I don't miscalculate, and when I wanna lie to you it'll involve the words Kevin and Flynn.


[They’re not even on the right deck; they'll have to take the glitching elevator and if they end up anywhere other than medical, he has already determined the needed mechanical torsion factors to kick a hole in the ship.]


It's Nihlus. His own Commander told me, because she was there and I--


[Was not, isn't said;was letting him do his own thing, isn't said, responsibility that scalds his pride and puts acid on his tongue.]


Your legs are old and I'm not stopping for you.

[alan_1]

[Irritation is mutual. Alan ignores the jab, keeping up as best he can while also trying to refocus the admin’s attention on the question he had asked before.]

The disk, Clu. Do you know who has it?

[If he doesn’t, it won’t matter how quickly they get to the medbay. Neither of them are of any use without the source of Rinzler’s code in-hand.]

[a_perfect_end]

[From the binary, a hard click that proves he can pronounce !!!...]

I was insufficiently precise.

...Shepard has it. May or may not guard it; forty-eight percent against. In this circumstance it will be nearby him.

His friends [bitter, bitter word, a nasty little syllable he doesn't like the taste of] know it's important.

feel free to have them get to the medbay next tag

[alan_1]

[Under normal circumstances, Clu’s words might have brought some small measure of relief. Now, Alan knows Shepard as an associate of Nihlus and that could mean anything. Had Nihlus acted alone? Or did he have help, like Peter had? A familiar twinge starts to set in between Alan’s eyes as the possibilities rush in. He still only knows what Clu deigns to tell him and he doesn’t even know if that much is true. All he can do is wait and see, and that isn’t nearly good enough when the life of one of his programs is on the line.

Still, he doesn’t have much choice. The elevator looms at the end of the hall ahead of them.]

Let’s just hope she’ll hand it over willingly.

AND HERE THEY ARE, THEN.

[a_perfect_end]

He does not spend time correcting the User; hope is an abstraction. Hope has no value. Results have value, and the only result they'll have is failure unless they make haste.

Their transit is a blur of junk flags and a grating, infinite test of his will; he waited a thousand cycles to capture the master key, but Rinzler is his. Rinzler is his.

It bubbles up from somewhere deep--backfile hash, very, very old. You are responsible forever for what you make.

The medbay doors whisper apart with sleek, mechanical efficiency, infinitely slowly. The attendants are rather more kinetic, practically flying out of their way, gabbling irrelevancies and clutching equipment to avoid being toppled. He shoulders through without hearing or seeing them--notes them as grey proximal impact flags; damage he can absorb without care, obstacles he could easily smash aside--and pings Shepard's MID.

Text. That's all. No games, no prelude, no greetings and twiddling about. There is no trap here to bait, only necessity.

Alan-1 can make the exchange if you prefer to deal with your own kind, but medics are useless here. Rinzler urgently needs help they cannot give him.

No please, never, ever, ever. Thank you can come, backhanded, when Rinzler is well and whole.

(...IF. his processor murmurs, treacherous.)

Now, to hope.