[If the first speech had drawn only detached amusement, the second cuts much closer to its target. Rinzler's spent a thousand cycles running up against his own feedback—being wiped and punished and reset for every breach of memory or thought. It's only in this place (as far as he remembers) that he's made it far enough to know how much of him Clu cut away.
Elizabeth has no way of knowing how much it's cost. How many times he's tried, how much he'd risked, and how badly all of it has ended. But here and now, by the wreckage of the system he'd attempted to choose, poised to return to the mindless, endless loop he's always lived in?
Rinzler doesn't need the reminder. He knows how stupid trying always was.
Still, her taunts offer much more to loathe than just his own mistakes, and noise rattles up in a snarl at that pointed, drawn out pause. Rinzler had been hunted by this crew. He'd been trapped. Locked up in conditions hot enough to fry him, shattered by new tormentors while still inside their cage. He'd had his mind forced open for rewrite, and the most, the only thing this system admin did was show up outside the cell to gloat.
She hadn't dealt with it. She certainly hadn't done anything to stop the users whose methods she now speaks so viciously against. But it's different, isn't it? When a user's on the line.]
Your functions.
[The text comes out tonelessly as before, but Rinzler's hunch is jagged with tension, helmet low and lights dim. He'd said already. They were her functions. Her choice. Someone needed to have those.
If she wants to mock him for his efforts, she can do so to the air. The display vanishes, and the enforcer turns, making to leave.]
no subject
Elizabeth has no way of knowing how much it's cost. How many times he's tried, how much he'd risked, and how badly all of it has ended. But here and now, by the wreckage of the system he'd attempted to choose, poised to return to the mindless, endless loop he's always lived in?
Rinzler doesn't need the reminder. He knows how stupid trying always was.
Still, her taunts offer much more to loathe than just his own mistakes, and noise rattles up in a snarl at that pointed, drawn out pause. Rinzler had been hunted by this crew. He'd been trapped. Locked up in conditions hot enough to fry him, shattered by new tormentors while still inside their cage. He'd had his mind forced open for rewrite, and the most, the only thing this system admin did was show up outside the cell to gloat.
She hadn't dealt with it. She certainly hadn't done anything to stop the users whose methods she now speaks so viciously against. But it's different, isn't it? When a user's on the line.]
Your functions.
[The text comes out tonelessly as before, but Rinzler's hunch is jagged with tension, helmet low and lights dim. He'd said already. They were her functions. Her choice. Someone needed to have those.
If she wants to mock him for his efforts, she can do so to the air. The display vanishes, and the enforcer turns, making to leave.]