Follow the sunlight down

[notglitching]

Who: Closed to the Tron-Undertale Trainwreck Cast & Friends
When: June 24, shortly before the player plot ends
Where: The Center for Created Oversight and Affairs (Earth 91c)
What: Rinzler and Alan get in trouble; everyone else gets them out. With worse trouble. And frisbees that are brains that might be bombs?
Warnings: Mindscrew references for pretty near everyone. Personhood issues. VIOLENCE AND FRIENDSHIP, which are strangely inextricable.

"Multiple injured. One dead. In a world priding itself on peace and plenty, a utopia where Creators and Created have flourished together for centuries, the incident is horrifying to the extreme. Unthinkable that a Created would commit this kind of violence. Terrifying, that it isn't the first time. Eastgate City has been shaken since the attack at the rally, and to have another case of bloodshed so soon...

It truly is fortunate, that the matter has been closed.

Two nights ago, visiting Creator Alan Bradley was taken into custody following an outbreak of violence outside a local bar. Witnesses reported that Bradley's program initiated an unprovoked assault on passerby attempting conversation, agitating a child on the scene to join the fight as well. Though the child was initially believed to be responsible for the glitched program, Bradley proved able to control it on arrival—though not before his negligence resulted in a death."

The news goes on. It lists Ingress records and testimonials, identifying Alan Bradley as an offworld programmer clearly responsible for his creation's faults. A few sources even mention his effort to send away the program, and speculate darkly about what for. Not that it matters. Not long after the initial reports leaked, full of shock and rage and calls for retribution, Bradley's creation surrendered to the CCOA. That part, at least, no one speaks of with surprise. Even the most damaged Created know the debt they owe their keepers.

Besides, they don't know how to operate alone.

True, that Rinzler wasn't written to. True, that any risk to Alan-one is unacceptable—especially as a result of choices that he made. Rinzler attacked the users on the street. Chara helped, but he initiated, and Tron's maker only came to stop the harm he dealt from going further.

Still, not everything makes it to the news. There's no reference to Rinzler's missing disks. Not a word of the standoff that has built behind closed doors. On this world, as on any other, code is just another form of property—but Rinzler is Alan's property, requiring his creator's permission to modify or open up. It's not something that should have been an issue—the crimes the visitor is charged with are enough to warrant exile a dozen times over. Except that Alan Bradley has refused to leave without his program.

So they wait.

The stalemate won't last. Motions are underway already: invoking exigency for the risk posed to and by a program with no backup, filing to have Alan Bradley forcibly removed or else prosecuted as a native to their world. It won't last, but it's been long enough for those aware of the arrests to gather.

And possibly, prepare a less legal response.

Comments

Pre-Jailbreak

[notglitching]

[Eastgate City's Center for Created Oversight and Affairs is a large government compound. While the museum is accessible to the public, all other buildings are behind active security checkpoints, and equipped with surveillance, lockdown procedures, and a large quantity of human guards or security to be deployed at need. Along with, of course, the Created they look after. From the outside, not much more can be seen, though discreet inquiries will reveal that glitched programs and at-risk Creators are kept in different wings of the same building—a large structure also used for undigitizing new programs and assessing them for flaws.

Scouting things out? Plotting your incursion? Pre-breakout crazytimes go here.]

closed; hi i'm incapable of being concise

[alan_1]

It’s been a day since Rinzler turned himself in. They’d told him, as if it would make him change his mind. ”We can’t help him without your permission,” they’d said. ”The longer you keep this up, the worse it’ll be for him.”

Alan had spent the first few hours trying to reason with them: pointing out that both he and Rinzler would gladly leave through the Ingress and never return if they let them, that their own brush with a similarly “glitched” Program had come long before Rinzler had even set foot in their world. When it became clear that they wouldn’t listen, it turned to arguing—against their world, against their laws, against them as people. It doesn’t help, but it at least feels good to call them what they are: willfully ignorant, complacent, and complicit in a global system of slavery.

Not that they’d ever call it that. Their expressions are almost sympathetic when they hear his accusations and they gently correct him.

”We’re only doing what’s best for them. Can you really look at your own Program and say he wouldn’t be happier if he’d been created here?”

It’s useless trying to disagree. They bring up Rinzler at every turn—Alan’s tortured, broken Program, lashing out in confusion at innocent people—with calm certainty that this alone is enough to prove Alan wrong. ”We hardly think you’re fit to lecture us on Created welfare. Haven’t you hurt him enough already?”

Alan stops responding eventually. He can’t change their minds—and they can’t change his. The stalemate clearly grates at them enough as it is. There’s a viewing screen in his locked room for when they want to contact him; the conversations are predictably one-sided. ”He doesn’t have a backup to sync with. How long can he stay like this? Do you even know? Why won’t you let us help him?”

Alan stays silent every time. He doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know how long Rinzler will last.

He doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know if his decision is the right one.

After hours of radio silence, they try a different approach. Someone unlocks his door and asks him to follow. The sudden shift makes Alan wary. Has something changed? He follows nonetheless, still staying silent in case they take any conversation as an invitation for another debate. They lead him to a room he’s seen before; it’s the same one they questioned him in when he was first arrested. He notes that there are more guards on the doors this time around.

A woman enters and calmly states the facts. They’ve been holding him there for about two days now. If he refuses to accept exile, they’ll be forced to treat him as a native. That means trials, likely drawn out and highly publicized, and eventually, a near certainty of lengthy prison sentences. The woman is polite, but cold. The unspoken reasoning for the threats is obvious. ’You clearly don’t care about your Program’s wellbeing, but maybe you still care about your own hide.’ The woman continues. They’d like to avoid the eventuality of a trial as much as Alan would. For that purpose, they hope being able to see his Program will help change Alan’s mind. Their reasoning is clear, too: perhaps it will be more difficult for him to deny his charge care, if he can see him for himself.

It’s the first bit of reprieve he’s had for the past two days, so much so that he almost thanks them. It’s been nerve-wracking enough hearing that Rinzler is in custody without knowing the Program’s condition. But he stays quiet and only nods, hoping that the sudden wave of anxiety and anticipation doesn’t show in his expression.

And he waits, just as before.

what is this concise of which you speak?

[notglitching]

It's been three millicycles. One user-day, since Rinzler made the choice he had to. The only one he reasonably could. Alan-one had instructed him to go, and Rinzler went, but that was before he'd known the cost of his departure. Before his user had been taken into custody, threatened with harm, in punishment for Rinzler's crimes.

Ironic, when Alan-one has only ever told him to avoid violence. And all the more reason why Rinzler owed it to his user to correct the fault. Since his surrender, he's been stun-shocked and searched, restrained and inspected. Scans prying at his code, hands crawling over his shell: holding him down, dragging him up. Moving. Touching. They don't have access to override him, and he can ignore the attempts—at least until the power leech pares him down too much to remember he was supposed to.

They never ask him any questions.

Three millicycles in the users' keeping. Perhaps half of that, since control gave way to panic. But his disk is (missing) (safe), and time-sense blurs to a haze of helplessness and loathing. Core functions last longest. Rinzler was designed to fight, but he can't move. Designed to serve, but the commands burning through his dock on loop are [wrong]; he can't dismiss them, but he won't obey. It's more surprising than anything when the noise goes quiet, contacts clamoring with a buzz of power that gradually forces its way in. Enough to move (if he weren't chained). Enough to think (if that helped anything at all). Enough to hear the guards who've come to drag him out of his enclosure.

They're taking him to see his user.

The instructions are simple. Come along. Don't fight. The uniformed man spells them out in slow and careful words as one set of shackles gives way to the next. He's still drained, still weak, circuits aching with the push and pull, and the guards keep their weapons ready as they lead him down the hall. Still, they're not the reason he complies.

The room is stark and simple, two chairs across at table. One is already filled. Rinzler stalls in the doorway, an entirely different kind of panic swallowing up processing before he ducks his head and lets them drag him in. Cuffs are attached to the table, and then the guards retreat. The woman (admin?) supervising looks them over before nodding the other users out.

"We'll give you a moment."

[alan_1]

It’s only been two and a half days since Alan saw Rinzler—since he stopped him from killing any more people in an attack he has yet to understand. If he hadn’t known everything about the crime, their captors have been all too happy to fill him in. The victims had been a group of friends leaving a nearby venue. They had been unarmed. They had spoken to Rinzler and Chara before the pair attacked them. One had been killed and others maimed. Alan doesn’t know what set Rinzler off, but he doubts any reasoning could justify the program’s actions.

None of that keeps the concern from his gaze when a guard leads Rinzler through the doorway. He searches for the telltale glimmer of damage first, feels a wave of relief when he finds none. For all the danger Rinzler is in while he remains here, at least destabilized injuries won’t be one of them. He watches as they bring Rinzler in and shackle his wrists to the table across from him. Alan can think of a hundred he wants to ask the program. ’Why did you do it? What happened to your disk? Where have they been keeping you?’ But he remains silent, painfully aware of their captor’s scrutiny.

It isn’t until the woman nods the others out that Alan feels like he can breathe. As for what to say... That’s more difficult.

“You should’ve listened to me.” It wasn’t what Alan was expecting but the words tumble out all the same “You’d be safe if you were back on Thisavrou. I told you I'd meet you there.” The words are more regretful than angry. With Rinzler out of their reach, the CCOA’s only motivation for keeping Alan in custody would’ve been spite. Perhaps that would’ve been enough for them. But Alan is accustomed to waiting. Sooner or later, they’d have realized there was nothing to be gained by keeping him there. It would’ve been easier, knowing that he was waiting alone.

But Rinzler is here now. And Rinzler has limits that have nothing to do with a lack of patience.

Alan closes his eyes and takes a slow breath. He can feel frustration and panic just beneath the surface. ’There’s no way out. You couldn’t make him leave and now you’re going to lose him too.’ It’s the natural conclusion. But it still isn’t one Alan is willing to accept. “How many days do you have before you need to sync?” Alan asks. A logical question—and one that Rinzler can still answer even with his wrists shackled. It helps to treat this like just another problem, something Alan can solve if he just has enough information.

It makes it easier, to pretend he can still fix this.

Pre-Pre-Jailbreak; Pre-Jail (for Chara)

[notglitching]

'Well? Go!' 'Come, then.' From a user he obeyed, and a user he respected, and Rinzler had gone, had run with Chara: ducking through buildings and past them, evading the vehicles and ground-based teams alike. Alan-one will be fine. Alan-one will talk with him later, asking and judging, disapproving just like always of Rinzler's violence. Of the blood shed and lives taken over something so small, something that didn't have to escalate. Alan-one will be angry. Alan-one will be there, because he said he would.

Because he has to be.

They don't go back through the Ingress. If Chara brings up the suggestion, it meets a stubborn, silent shake of the enforcer's head, and eventually, they find an empty apartment to lay low inside instead. The lights and sirens passing by go quiet eventually, but Rinzler doesn't sleep: pacing and watching, calling and dismissing his TAB display without transmitting. A few hours in, he caves, firing off a quick status query. It bounces back immediately. TAB offline.

Morning light is just beginning to filter in when voices echo through the living room. Rinzler has gotten into the apartment's terminal, and the morning news cycle is just starting. The biggest story? A vicious late-night assault... perpetrated by Alan Bradley, an offworld programmer. According to the reports, Bradley butchered the code and mind of a program, perverting it to violence before releasing it into the streets. Multiple citizens were injured, at least one confirmed dead, and a search is currently underway for his Created, as well as a child believed to be coerced into Bradley's schemes.

Bradley, thankfully, is already in custody. A few anchors discuss the problem with Ingress travel, calling for more screenings and restrictions on visitors to their world. Others, however, are focused on the criminal. Bradley is of course responsible for his creation's actions, adding murder and assault to an unknown enormity of coding violations. Violations the rabid anchors are only too ready to condemn: calling for trials, for a life sentence, for more—

Rinzler turns off the feed, leaving only a harsh staccato growl filling the room.

[inconsequence]

For whatever reason, he will not concede to leave the man who interceded on their behalf, implying a level of connection on par with that they've come to associate with Asriel, with Frisk. Perhaps a connection of a different nature, but does it make any honest difference, what manner of devotion the pair may share?

Departure from the scene of the crime has only taken them so far, and with custody of their impromptu savior (consequence evasion again becomes entirely too transparent in its ease and capacity) has arisen the inherent flaws in this poorly-formed, poorly-implemented plan: namely, the fact that the "model" and its child charge are still guilty, are still ostensibly "at large," and thus, security will be uncompromising.

"What, then," says Chara, the word an exasperated hiss. "If you will not depart, what choice is there besides electing to stand and FIGHT?"

[notglitching]

Rinzler has yet to relax since leaving the scene, but Chara's suggestion draws a flash of tension nonetheless. Fighting was how he'd gotten Alan-one in trouble in the first place. Fighting was what he'd intervened to stop. And if that alone has never held Rinzler back, if he would gladly cut them all to pieces if it would make Alan-one safe... 'responsible for his creation's actions.'

It wouldn't help him. It could, in fact, do worse.

He doesn't know where Alan-one is being kept. He doesn't know if he could get there, much less what punishment would be displaced for the attempt. And even if he could succeed, even if he made it to his user before he suffered on Rinzler's behalf, fighting their way back out meant—risked—

(Cutting through the Moira's attackers, turning toward the sound of shots, only to see a different body slumped and still and gone gone GONE—)


No.


Rinzler shakes his head. Turns back to Chara. Reaches for his TAB.

Request assistance.

There's another choice.

Jailbreak!

[notglitching]

[Created in this world are made incapable of doing violence. Maybe that's why "weaponized bomb frisbees" takes the guards so completely by surprise. Still, security will converge quickly on any obvious attackers, so you might want to make use of their surprise.

Or their distraction.]

[pleasereset]

[It's a little worrying that lately Asriel's previous two months have involved him picking fights of some kind. Usually his style of fighting is more desperate, more reckless, and always with someone else's well-being on the line.

Rinzler's jailbreak situation is no different, except with one difference.

Asriel sure seems like he's gotten much better at fighting - almost strangely calm, strategic. He's made it halfway in, usually his newly upgraded disk to take down guards and causing a few distractions with his bomb disk.

Still, Asriel is a monster. And a monster versus armed guards still leaves him vulnerable with having such a paper-thin defense. As he rounds a corner, a guard with a gun spots him.

"Freeze! Don't take a step further, put your weapon down and put your hands up!"

He doesn't listen, gripping his disk tighter. His mind is entirely focused on what he's supposed to do, and nothing else.

The guard starts to pull the trigger, aiming to take the boss monster out in one shot.]

[beautifulspaceraptor]

Get down!

[ A gray and green armored hand snaps through the air in front of Asriel and there's a flash of blue-

The guard will have about a split second of stunned staring when the bullet ricochets off of thin air before they're tidily knocked out with a blast of Overload.

If Asriel looks behind him, he will find an armored human staring down at him through the visor of a smooth, gray helmet. The armor is clearly foreign and the stare is definitely disapproving. despite the lack of visible features. ]

... Asriel?

[pleasereset]

[Asriel jumps, startled by the hand in front of him and the appearance of someone in armor. Before he can figure out what to do or who he needs to fight, it's already over. His disk is still humming, clenched in his hand.

The guard aiming for him is dispatched, and suddenly there's a person in armor looking down at him. For a second, he isn't sure how to respond.

And then they call out his name.]

Um... thank you, for helping me.

END ZONE 1 GET (for Clu, Nihlus, and whoever else is showing)

[notglitching]

"Storage".

It's an innocuous label. A door no different than any other—albeit sealed under the current lockdown. Patrols circle the hallways of this wing, but once inside, only a single user mans the check-in desk and scans.

The other occupants of the room are going nowhere, after all.

The walls are lined with vertical insets: coffin-shaped depressions, each sized for an adult. At this time, standing shapes fill most of them. Men and women adorned with dim-lit markings, fluctuating faintly with the flow of power from the conduits that surround them. Programs, all offline. Removing them from their stations will have no effect on the condition; these Created have been edited at their backups, rendered incapable of initializing without command. After all, programs exist to work and serve. Allowing them to be conscious when they have been judged unfit for either would be cruel.

Still, there is one arrival to whom the CCOA has been unable to extend their mercy. One program who appeared without a disk. Whose Creator, continuing a breathtaking pattern of abuse, has refused to allow even the most basic modifications.

The low tick and rattle of corrupted code echoes very, very quietly from the far end of the room. The charging station housing Rinzler contains reinforced restraints, locking him in at wrists and ankles. If the lingering cringe is any sign, the enforcer has been struggling to pull his dock away from the panel just behind. At present, the armored frame is slumped and still, lights guttering barely a shade above pure blackness. There's more than one way to force a program to standby, and conduits designed to give power can equally be used to drain it.

It's the closest kindness they could offer.

Rinzler is, of course, awake.

KNOCK KNOCK

[a_perfect_end]

Clu waits and counts the track of feet. Nihlus falls into position. They flicker hand signs to each other--eyes up is universal, it would seem. Nihlus is in the hall, out of it again, and they're both sight unseen down the passage, facing what must be the door at last.

Wired as he is, he doesn't need the diagram to detect that sound, for the faint, steady rumble to tick over, too slow and too deep.

Hear it before you see it? That perception is an artifact of the human brain. In reality, sound requires a transfer medium--liquid, solid, whatever--and is many, many factors slower than light.

And still Clu waits. He can modify anything, anyone he can get his hands on, but the power required for this is prohibitive. There's no doing it over.

Agitated, living light simply bends through annoyances like blastproof glass, trivialities like polished concrete floors, and doesn't even slow down for sweet nothings like the neat, thin frontal bones of a human skull. Doesn't stop until the wrong end of the power curve makes him solid again, half-in and half-out of what might have been the room's only guard. Whatever it was, it's cauterized, sheared off too clean to even smoke.

"Do not," and the sound is moving slow enough to chase him, soft, gentle in its perfect wrath, "get up."

They are standing in a mausoleum dressed as a torture chamber wearing a prison--something too horrible to be real--and he's overdone it, and as hot as he runs, no light is infinite.

Darkness rushes in on his tracks. Or it was always there.

But Nihlus is there, too.

[beautifulspaceraptor]

The door hisses open the rest of the way and Nihlus slips in soundlessly, still donning the hologram disguise of one of the guards he'd scanned before they'd made their way down to the storage room proper. Taking in the sight of the dead human, then Clu, his eyes flicker briefly down to the temperature reading on his HUD.

That. Was an interesting new ability he didn't know about.

He doesn't stop to take in the rest of the room. The Spectre's eyes slide over the familiar figure at the end of it- the tell-tale low power glow of orange circuits- and then refocuses on the desk the guard had been manning. They're still logged in and Nihlus is familiar enough with the various UIs of this Earth by now that it only takes a few seconds to reverse the power flow in Rinzler's charge station.

"There's cameras in the room," he says over his shoulder. "We're about to run out of time very, very quickly. You'll need to unlock the restraints manually, there's no controls for them here."

The station would have probably been modified to accommodate Rinzler's specific... circumstances after all.

"Do you have enough power for that, Clu?"

As he waits for the answer, Nihlus hooks his omni-tool up with the computer and gets to work trying to find them an exit.

Post-Jailbreak

[notglitching]

[Injury repair? Expressions of gratitude? A chance to yell at people for their terrible life choices? (Or for yours.) Far away from there seems like exactly the right place. Have at it!]

ota

[pleasereset]

[After everything's settled, Asriel didn't get away completely unscathed. He did a lot of fighting guards, blowing up things with is newly altered disk, and generally fighting his way to help rescue Rinzler.

He hopes Clu is proud. He hopes Rinzler is too. He's really tired...

As soon as they're in the clear, Asriel finds a spot to sit down and rest. He's got bruises and cuts on him, but none of them lethal. And none of them as serious as his injuries on the Outpost. He does look awful though, his usually soft white fur looking a lot more scruffy and despite having his vision back, there's that burn scar across the left side of his face.]

How's... how's that for a Created?

[Yeah, he's still bitter.]

[notglitching]

[Rinzler is... well, substantially better off than he was. By any metric. Lights are still dim, motions ever-so-slightly stiff, and as aware as the enforcer always is of what's around him, there's a reflexive tension to his focus now. A need to check, to look, to know what reference points are near. Possibly, he's just questioning the reality of the situation.

Asriel should know it wouldn't be the first time.

No damage, though. Noise rumbles out quietly as he settles nearby, inspecting Asriel's. Some harm inflicted. Some repaired. Rinzler can guess where that last came from.

Still, the beta doesn't seem especially regretful for the experience. There's a skip and catch. Quiet... amusement? Probably. And if the sentiment is much more fractured underneath, a hex of half-filled lines hashing apart... Rinzler can be glad, for once, to be so limited in his expression.]

[yorisearching]

[The damage marks are bad, the bitter tone from the little pilot an even worse sign. Yori takes a seat near Asriel, wishing she had something helpful to say.]

You were brave by any standard.

[To Yori, Clu's participation makes the entire rescue extremely disturbing, but she's trying not to upset anyone by bringing that up at the wrong time.]

Can I help you with anything?

[First aid is about all she can do, but she brought a number of User-style kits and she remembers her training.]

OTA

[alan_1]

[There hasn’t been much time for conversation since they escaped from the facility. Alan’s barely had time to catch his breath, much less say anything substantial to his rescuers. Eventually though, they reach some semblance of safety and suddenly Alan is in a room with a group of people who risked their lives to save both Rinzler and himself.

Not that anyone seems to be in much mood for celebration. Relief, maybe. Alan expects he’s not the only one who wants to put the memory of his time on Earth 91c far, far behind him.

Still, after they’ve had some time to depressurize, he’ll quietly approach one of their rescuers.]

I’m sure this goes without saying, but… Thank you. For getting us out of there.

[yorisearching]

[The risks Yori took were minor compared to everyone else, but it still warms her to hear praise from Alan-One. She smiles at him.]

You're welcome. I'm glad I could do something to help--and that it worked out.

[Sort of. Well. They're alive and free of that planet, at least.]

And you, are you all right?

[Yori knows how Tron took being imprisoned by the MCP: he never stopped fighting, but even his stubborn spirit was bruised. Alan-One has the same stubbornness in a design with much less physical strength.]

[beautifulspaceraptor]

Bradley. [ It's cool and professional, military and appropriately ranked for a Spectre. ] You owe me some grocery money for this, I'll have you know.

[ The tone is dead serious, but there's a glimmer of tired humor in Nihlus' eyes. ]

How are you doing?

OTA

[yorisearching]

Practice at waiting while people she cares about are trapped doesn't mean Yori will ever like the helpless pressure.

All of them are back. All who can still be found.

Yori needs to prove that to her own overclocked analysis. Plus, most of them don't have the best record of seeking help when they need it.

Now that she can, she translates her worry into action, seeking out her friends and allies one by one. "I'm glad you're safe," she wants to say. "How are you?" --her best attempt at a polite status request, because she's been flinching from every calculation of the increasing chance she might lose some or all of them.

[notglitching]

Rinzler is tired. Rinzler is dimly lit, power cycles raw and worn while contacts prickle with accumulated ache. Rinzler is slow to move and even slower to settle, gaze tipping frequently to track the others nearby.

Rinzler is much better off than he has any right to be.

All of that is much too complicated to express, least of all nonverbally. He settles for a nod—functional—that lingers downward in a bow of thanks. With words or without them, the sentiment is much too small. But he's... here. Because of them.

He hadn't expected anyone to come.

closed to rinzler; time for srs talk (and maybe ikea)

[alan_1]

[Alan had told Rinzler they’d talk about what happened on Earth 91c when they got back to Thisavrou. And he meant it. That doesn’t mean he neglects taking a night to sleep the worst of the experience off. He’s too frayed in the direct aftermath to feel very coherent anyway and he at least owes it to Rinzler to save the conversation for when he’s all there mentally.

The time comes the following afternoon. Alan shows up at Rinzler’s door, still tired after a full night’s rest, but certainly better than yesterday. That does mean the events of the past week stand in even sharper relief. He wonders if the program even remembers the promise after everything they’d been through between then and now.

He knocks.] Rinzler? Are you there?

(SPACEkea I'm sure you mean)

[notglitching]

[Rinzler is there. Rinzler had even (for a change) spent actual time sleeping. Between that, his disk, and a half-finished recharge, he's almost up to standard function by the time the knock comes. He stills, fingers curling a little on the conduit.

Alan-one.

He did promise.

He promised, and he's here, and so is Rinzler. It's hard for any impending correction to weigh too heavily against that fact. The draw of energy recedes as he steps back, and Rinzler makes his way to the door, keying it open.

Reporting for lecturing, user.]