Pause is accurate. The tip of the mask is small and cautious, limited and bland—not a sign of doubt (or question) so much as a delay. Waiting for clarification. Waiting for Clu: to explain, to command, to edit his parameters. It's exactly what Rinzler's meant to do—exactly what he's failed at so often in this place.

It's wrong.

Rinzler can feel the pressure of evaluation. Rinzler can hear the soft, short sigh the verdict draws. Not enough. Not right. Not what Clu was looking for. What is, then? The enforcer knows how faulty his behavior's been—how many actions have strayed unacceptably past bounds. He'd ruined himself with his own disobedience, and if his admin hadn't put him back together, Rinzler would be lucky to derezz.

Clu hadn't put all of him back, though. Not the way he used to be.

Sound rattles louder by increments. Not by himself. Not again. Rinzler knows again better than anything, knows what it means to loop through the same patterns for hundreds of cycles on end. He remembers more of it than he thinks he ever has before.

The tension has sharpened, close and stiff through every line of the enforcer's frame. The black mask dips, falters—comes back up with a sharp shift, a forward lean. Fingers curl at his sides, and if the posture isn't quite aggressive, the demand it broadcasts is still several values distant from correct.

What does that mean?