Even if Clu could get away, there is nothing to use, his disc having rolled away somewhere and rattled flat to a stop.
...Maybe it's under the table.
The thought kicks air through his chest, choked and hysterical beneath the gathering fulcrum pressure of Rinzler's grip.
Not Rinzler.
Voxels grind gold in the cut with the effort of turning his head, of looking away, of looking again--shaking his head with gritted teeth.
"Tron got in my way." A firefly shiver of gold, a jagged loop. "I smashed him because he was in my way--!"
Rinzler’s elbow is still digging down, like he’s just gonna go through by pushing harder. Less robust programs would already have sheared apart under the pressure. The angle of the disc shifts forward, inward in Rinzler’s hand, and a hot rush of alert: blurs Clu’s vision for a nano.
He makes one more grab at it--the knee; get them apart, go for the--
There’s a tiny, brittle little noise somewhere down deep in his back and a sharp bloom of static all the way up the trunk line, and he forces himself to lay very still as Rinzler slides the edge of his weapon flat to lay hands on him. It’s almost serene, the way Rinzler is grinning, and the touch when it comes is so gentle that his sensors ache more from expecting hurt than receiving it.
At least at first. Its palm just rests there, black and implacable with its oilslick sheen. And then, gently, whisper soft, the script pries its way in.
“No.” Harsh, jagged with feedback under the mounting icicle pull, and like the Sea a bottomless thing, an absence of light, a deep anode draw that has power welling to the surface as warm and sudden as the rush to clot a wound. “Don't; you aren’t even--”
It is so cold, bitter with the risk of shutdown. He’s never been this cold, a chill of certainty that bites in down to the core.
Because you’re weak.
He’s so cold he’s shaking with it. And that’s all it is.
no subject
...Maybe it's under the table.
The thought kicks air through his chest, choked and hysterical beneath the gathering fulcrum pressure of Rinzler's grip.
Not Rinzler.
Voxels grind gold in the cut with the effort of turning his head, of looking away, of looking again--shaking his head with gritted teeth.
"Tron got in my way." A firefly shiver of gold, a jagged loop. "I smashed him because he was in my way--!"
Rinzler’s elbow is still digging down, like he’s just gonna go through by pushing harder. Less robust programs would already have sheared apart under the pressure. The angle of the disc shifts forward, inward in Rinzler’s hand, and a hot rush of alert: blurs Clu’s vision for a nano.
He makes one more grab at it--the knee; get them apart, go for the--
There’s a tiny, brittle little noise somewhere down deep in his back and a sharp bloom of static all the way up the trunk line, and he forces himself to lay very still as Rinzler slides the edge of his weapon flat to lay hands on him. It’s almost serene, the way Rinzler is grinning, and the touch when it comes is so gentle that his sensors ache more from expecting hurt than receiving it.
At least at first. Its palm just rests there, black and implacable with its oilslick sheen. And then, gently, whisper soft, the script pries its way in.
“No.” Harsh, jagged with feedback under the mounting icicle pull, and like the Sea a bottomless thing, an absence of light, a deep anode draw that has power welling to the surface as warm and sudden as the rush to clot a wound. “Don't; you aren’t even--”
It is so cold, bitter with the risk of shutdown. He’s never been this cold, a chill of certainty that bites in down to the core.
Because you’re weak.
He’s so cold he’s shaking with it. And that’s all it is.
“No.”