Input closes. Rinzler waits, but nothing follows—nothing, that is, but space enough to think. Diagnostics loop, stray processes flitting out to touch on each hard-won packet he can find. Nothing seems missing. Not that he would know, not if Clu chose otherwise... but there are no new walls. No spikes of punishment, no nauseating pressure or sick guilt. The catch of error (increasingly a constant) is... sparse. Almost inconceivably so.
And that singular exception is still hovering in queue.
Not an error. Not an error, and Rinzler wants it. He wants more. The impulse flickers through cognition, reckless and half-strangled by the weight of possibility. He wants his voice. He wants all of it, wants the function to be his. He wants his face back. He wants to see himself, see what Clu did to every line that makes him. Rinzler wants so much, so badly, when just a handful of microcycles back he'd been suffocating in the certainty that he would never be able to want anything again.
This is enough. Enough for now, and he will have a later, and that makes this everything. Even the power drain only dampens the electric brightness of his lights a little, a steady hum of awareness that borders on sheer awe. It's not a guarantee. Nothing is, least of all out here, and Rinzler knows that, knows that everything can end badly, and in how many ways.
But he's never before considered the chance that what he's become could turn out well.
He'll be careful. He'll remember. Facts, not orders, and even the line that follows holds only a latent pause of expectation. Enough to prompt obedience for any other form of output, but this is new (is different)—but Rinzler wants to, and he can. Clu's enforcer doesn't move from his position, but there's a slight tip of the helmet. Not down, but up.
"You won't regret it."
The words are clear. The voice, familiar. The noise that rumbles out beneath is quiet, and no interruption. Fact, not thanks. And with that certainty, another promise, challenging and sharp.
no subject
And that singular exception is still hovering in queue.
Not an error. Not an error, and Rinzler wants it. He wants more. The impulse flickers through cognition, reckless and half-strangled by the weight of possibility. He wants his voice. He wants all of it, wants the function to be his. He wants his face back. He wants to see himself, see what Clu did to every line that makes him. Rinzler wants so much, so badly, when just a handful of microcycles back he'd been suffocating in the certainty that he would never be able to want anything again.
This is enough. Enough for now, and he will have a later, and that makes this everything. Even the power drain only dampens the electric brightness of his lights a little, a steady hum of awareness that borders on sheer awe. It's not a guarantee. Nothing is, least of all out here, and Rinzler knows that, knows that everything can end badly, and in how many ways.
But he's never before considered the chance that what he's become could turn out well.
He'll be careful. He'll remember. Facts, not orders, and even the line that follows holds only a latent pause of expectation. Enough to prompt obedience for any other form of output, but this is new (is different)—but Rinzler wants to, and he can. Clu's enforcer doesn't move from his position, but there's a slight tip of the helmet. Not down, but up.
"You won't regret it."
The words are clear. The voice, familiar. The noise that rumbles out beneath is quiet, and no interruption. Fact, not thanks. And with that certainty, another promise, challenging and sharp.
I won't fail.
I'll prove it.
I'm better this way.