thisavrou_log | Welcome, friend [Closed]

Entry tags:

Welcome, friend [Closed]

Who: Ram, Rinzler, Clu and Yori
When: Early December
Where: Around the corridors and housing stations of Avagi
What: Continuing threads from Ram on the TDM
Warnings: Disk fights and feels

Old circuits, new circuits, red circuits, blue circuits.

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The question seems to hang between them, the lack of system hum suddenly very noticeable. The only sound is Rinzler's rattle, changing sporadically, and Ram's hands curl as he waits, watching his circuits brighten--

--Flicker.

Ram's breath leaves him all at once.

Oh, oh Users.

'Tron.'

The name is barely out before a disk is heading straight for him, and glitch it he's fast. Even with the distance between them, there's no time to get out his own disk, no time to do anything except drop like a Jai Ali ring was derezzed from under him. The disk hits the wall, just scraping the top of his helmet and bounces back, by which time, Ram is rolling to his feet and unhooking his own disk, dropping into a familiar defensive stance. It lights up in his hands, but he holds onto it, having no desire or illusions that he even could hit the program across from him.

'Tron! Users delete it--' /Logic system compromised. Rerouting//. 'What can I do? How can I help?! Besides getting derezzed...' He had often anticipated and feared the day Sark would pit him and Tron against each other. But this... Never this.

Tron. Always Tron, of course Tron, and fury coils down the enforcer's spine—uncoils in a rapid blur. Two steps forward, angling up an adjacent wall for leverage and height. A twisting leap.

Lights burn solid red, but Rinzler can still feel the churning, awful agitation. Rinzler can still hear it buzzing in the background of every cry this error makes. He isn't Tron, and he won't listen, and if he could cut the faults out from himself, he would. But the loops of wipe and automation have been silent for cycles. Rinzler can think; Rinzler can know. Until today, he'd wanted to.

More than anything, Rinzler hates this program for proving Clu's restrictions right.

He snatches his disk from the air as it flies back, splits it as his frame inverts. Limbs draw in, centripetal momentum adding to Rinzler's speed, and he drops out of the midair turn blade first: both weapons slamming down toward the glitch's position.

If automation won't fix him, he will.

Ram has sparred with Tron plenty of times to be familiar with his style, the way he moves, the tricks and twists. As he watches Rinzler/Tron run up a wall and spring off it, he hastily resets this knowledge from /established style to /base level style. Calculations flare to life, already beginning to analyse the improved style and develop the necessary counters, parameters set to "evade and parry".

He'd thought this was over when they escaped the Game Grid.

/Terminate thought line-notime

Rinzler/Tron leaps for him, twin disks humming in his hands and his trajectory clear in Ram's mind. He dives to the side, rolling again and springing up as quickly as possible, disk up and ready to deflect. He should be out of melee range, unless Rinzler/Tron leaps at him again, but he keeps moving back. Any distance is time and every femtocycle counts.

'Talk to me,' he says, and his voice shakes, but not with fear. His circuits are bright as his functions run at max for the fight, but their glow is a darker blue. 'What happened? What can I do?'

Edited 2017-12-06 13:13 (UTC)

Rinzler hits the ground in a steep lunge, blade slashing after the retreating shape. When his target evades that strike, he releases. The disk scores a bright path of violence throughout the room, zig-zagged rebounds aimed to narrow its options for evasion.

Rinzler doesn't talk. Not now, not here, not at the beck and call of user-loyalists. Not for any program who tries to call him by Tron's name. Static builds up in a voiceless snarl instead, sheer murderous loathing sizzling as bright and edged as the weapon locked in his grip. If it were clever, the glitch might understand. He told it his purpose. He told it his name. He'll die before he lets it take that.

He'll kill it first. Then maybe it will learn.

The disk isn't the only thing in motion. Rinzler folds forward, lunge turning to a sprint without a nanocycle's hesitation. He won't let it out of reach. As Ram moves to evade the thrown attack, he'll find the dark shape on him. The other disk slices down in a close arc before he pivots: both legs sweeping to take the actuary's footing out from under him.

Still no response, and high likely hood of continued silence. Well, silence except for the growl which is now openly hostile sounding. Seems mentioning Tron is a bad circuit to hit and Ram's own circuits darken a little more at the implications of that.

He throws his disk, deflecting Rinzler's mid air at an angle that sends the enforcer's disk clattering across the room and giving Ram time to get in a better chance to ready himself as Rinzler leaps. He snatches his disk out of the air in time to duck and glance the second blow off to the side, then manages to back off a little, but Rinzler matches the step and they're in close combat now. At least they're at one disk each.

The sweeping legs catch him and for a femtocycle, everything seems slow as he falls, calculations racing. He tucks, using his momentum from falling to roll under Rinzler's legs as he stands again. It's not perfect and he hits one of Rinzler's legs on the way through, but leaps to his feet and sprints for the nearest door, wary still of what's happening behind him and ready to change trajectory.

This is not a fight he can win. With Rinzler refusing to speak, his blows all aimed to derezz and Ram's refusal to return the favour, eventually he'll make a mistake and that will be it. Get out now while he can.

The angle of the ricochet is fine. The power conduit his disk embeds in, less so. Lights flicker and pop, electricity crawling a brief lightshow display along the walls. Rinzler moves, a shadow silhouetted in the strobing.

A flash, and his prey is falling. Another, and it's rolling toward its feet. The actuary moves with combat-coded reflexes. Or stolen, or adapted, and Rinzler saves the confirmation grimly to his cache. Resistance. Encom had glitches like that too, then?

...of course an associate of Tron would be among them.

It's fast. He's faster. Weight shifts to Rinzler's extended lower body in a lunge, gap disappearing just as his target makes to rise. Ram will have one step before the enforcer's on him: a diagonal slash across his core followed, in the natural curve of the attack, by the opposite elbow. This glitch shouldn't leave so many circuits showing if it doesn't want them targeted.

Especially around the throat.

He doesn't get far, he's not exactly surprised. Although the time it takes Tron/Rinzler-- /Order priorities: survive and escape, assess Tron's situation. --to catch up, plus the trajectory of his second disk and estimated current location indicates he didn't retrieve his second disk before pouncing.

So that's something.

His proximity alert warns of the incoming and Ram spins and /trajectory calculated brings his disk up to block the first cut and then the second, his targeted arm moving back a little to delay the moment of impact and give him to get his disk into position. He feels the hum of Rinzler's disk by his elbow a femtocycle before his own disk knocks it away, his arm intact.

Blows deflected, he darts to the side, disk slashing out in a controlled arc Rinzler will easily avoid, but dodges will tell as much about a program's style as their attacks, plus it gives him a picocycle longer. He settles again, weight evenly spread and disk centred where it can be quickly and easily moved to wherever it may be needed next.

Edited 2017-12-09 15:19 (UTC)

The deflection is anticipated. The attack, welcome. Now it's a fight; now it's a Game, and no matter how the other program struggles, those only ever have one end

He sways back from the feeble swipe and follows the curve of the weapon, slashing in before the other program has a chance to settle. If the other program doesn't block the weapon, it will take his arm at the shoulder. If it does, Rinzler's plenty happy to follow through, forcing both weapons wide as he takes advantage of his longer reach to snap a kick into his target's core.

Ram's arm snaps up out of its curve, his disk rushing up to parry the blow to his shoulder. Rinzler seems to favour targeting his limbs for the moment. Their disks collide, the follow through knocking them both wide and making Ram's calculations snap to calculating the source and target of the likely upcoming unarmed strike. A fighter as skilled as Rinzler would not knock them wide if not to take advantage.

Sure enough, the blow comes. Ram twists and although the kick doesn't hit dead centre, it still catches his side and he grimaces. His disk swings back, aiming for Rinzler's retreating leg as he steps back into melee range.

(I'm pulling us over from here.)

"Haven't you?" Just a little wry, a little sing-song through his teeth. Yori's hand is very still on her friend's arm, as though he might bolt, or--maybe, to protect his back? "Outer space is pretty big, though; I can see why it wants context."

There is a truce of sorts in effect. Anything less and Rinzler wouldn't like it, would not like it more than enough to bring himself and all his allies to Clu's own door. For her part, Yori seems determined to avoid him entirely, which is an interesting proposition given that she lives in the next unit over.

With Rinzler. With Rinzler, who has barricaded himself in with his allies, and with her.

Clu hasn't missed the equation those terms factor out to. All that's missing is the proof to solve for.

...He cannot afford to lose what little he has. He wouldn't waste it on a quick grab at a shiny new disc, not even a classic Encom model.

"There's a lack of structure, here." That for both of them. "I miss being on a crew roster, I do, but this is much better than planetside--" He is not making sense. The whole thing will not make sense. "Oh! Sorry, man; a lot of this relies on prior data..."

"Didn't catch your designation?" If that's tense, it's with his own urge to get the forms right, to complete the courtesy. "And the System is, believe me, something to behold. Still kinda hoping to get back there, honestly."

There's hardly been time for a full report. If Clu had waited a day or two, she could maybe have given Ram the bare framework of Avagi as it is now and the planets that betrayals and the Ingress storm took. Immediate threats were definitely the right priority, and she still wasn't fast enough.

Next time she'll retreat to safety immediately, discuss reasons later.

"Users don't like to be assigned to work," she says, both comment on the present confusion and explanation to Ram, "they prefer to choose their own tasks. Right now the only functions being done are the ones people volunteer for." Yori shrugs a tense shoulder. "It does mean they're grateful for anyone who can actually carry out a useful task."

She would also like Clu to go back to his Grid, where he can be Flynn's problem instead of hers...but only if he leaves Rinzler behind. Best not to mention that.

After the disturbing encounter with Clu, Yori loses no time in dragging Ram toward the secured rooms claimed by Shepard's alliance.

The residential halls are hard to tell apart sometimes except for the strong smell of User sewage, unpleasant for most who can recognize it. But the three doors marked SHEPARD are a sign of safety and a relief, after the tension of even a "polite" conversation with Clu.

Wires and lights aren't much like the security measures in Encom, but they won't let Clu in. "I live here...Shepard's an ally. Shepard and Nihlus know what they're doing with Security," Yori assures Ram as she goes through the motions to identify herself and clear her guest. So does Rinzler, but that's part of the long story she needs to tell and hasn't yet.

The entry is into a User-influenced living space, soft couch and chair with the clean kitchen surfaces in sight around a corner. Strange, but not as forbidding as the blank halls and ductwork common to much of the station.

Yori waves at the seating. "You can sit, if you'd like? Let me check if anyone's around." Some of the small Users tend to listen in without invitation. Most of the time Yori doesn't mind. Most of the time she doesn't have to tell the entire long story of Tron's torture and reprogramming to Tron's friend.

'I'm looking forward to exploring,' he says. 'It's not every day a program gets to experience a User system.' "Outer Space" gets added to his /Research_later folder.

He tilts his head, frowning a little in open confusion at Clu's words, but it fades again as Yori provides explanations and he nods. 'I can see how that would be tricky,' he agrees. 'I'm happy to help.' Please, someone, let him help. He's been cut off from his function for far too long.

His designation? Ram considers, activating his calculations for analysing likely outcomes. Yori knew who he was from Tron. If Flynn created Clu's system, what agrees really enjoyed odds he's told of their ENCOM escapades? High. So it's likely Clu will recognise his name.

So does he lie or tell the truth? Lying would grant him some anonymity and continued ignorance of his abilities. But, in the likely circumstances Clu discovers the truth, there is the chance he will not alert Ram to the fact. Also he was following them for an undetermined period of time and may have already heard it.

'My name's Ram. Is there any chance you could go back? I'm still unfamiliar with how the comings and goings operate here.'

Edited 2017-12-10 20:07 (UTC)

Ram is putting up no resistance to Yori's tugs. If it weren't for the small issue that he has no idea where they're going, he would just as likely be pulling her along.

He needs a while to process everything and get some uncertainties straightened out, a few of which he'd rather not but "ignorance is bliss" is dangerous and inefficient.

There's a strange smell growing in the air and Ram wrinkles his nose at it. It doesn't fit anything he's familiar with. They're in a new area now, one with more features that he can use to navigate. They stop outside a door he presumes is Yori's living space.

'Good to know.' Always good to have security. He notes the names Shepherd and Nihilus for further inquiry, but lower on the priority list.

They step into the room and Ram notes the unfamiliar facilities. But it looks well kept and comfortable and when Yori offers him a seat, he grateful you collapses into it. He tugs his helmet off and drops it on the sofa next to him while he rests his elbows on his knees and buries his fingers in his hair.

'Well that was... intense.'

Any time Clu spots her, Yori's tension is automatically high, but the need to protect Ram had made this one even worse than usual. Intense is accurate. Terrifying is also accurate.

Yori doesn't see the small Users in earshot right now. Good enough. None of this is secret, anyway, since Clu knows Rinzler's story better than anyone. She just doesn't want to talk about it in front of them.

"I'm sorry I didn't move faster to get out of the hallway. The station isn't very big, but I wasn't expecting..." She should have, though. Clu's specialty is adding new levels of awkwardness all over the place.

She sinks into the chair facing Ram and forces herself to relax. Just for a moment. No threats here. If she lets her fear affect how she tells Ram about Rinzler, Clu really will cost her help she needs.

"This is a shared space," she informs Ram while she's trying to come up with the right words for the other discussion. "Shepard invites a lot of small Users. But Clu's forbidden. I appreciate that." For Yori to get any rest, she needs a refuge where he can't appear out of a wall without warning.

As he hears Yori head back to him, Ram raises his head out of his hands and leans back on the couch. It's softer than the ones he's used to and he sort of sinks into it, seeking minor comfort from the comfyness. The calculations are already run on how the couch's composition will affect his standing speed and he can't remember when that sort of thing became automatic.

'You did great, and thank you for helping me out, both with the floor and him.' He owes her big time. He picks up his helmet and turns it over in his hands, but doesn't put it back on. This is a safe space. Clu can't get in. Besides, he's never particularly like the thing. It was necessary in the Games, but it itched and he preferred not having his hair squished under it.

'Sounds like you and this Shepard put a lot of thought and effort into this area.' He smiles, a little more tension easing at the reassurance and thoroughness of the security.

They're both stalling.

He looks down, sighs, and looks up again. Sometimes the best way to break into a reluctant conversation is to start at basic facts that can lead into the topic. 'How many programs are here? Either from Encom, the Grid or any other system.'

The praise is some comfort. At least Ram doesn't blame her for the mishap.

How many, indeed. "There's Calla. He's remarkably like a program, though his world is a great deal different than ours or Alan-One's." And depressing, since the main feature is how Users have enslaved their programs outside the computer.

"A few programs have showed up and then left again." Tron and Quorra, but details would confuse things for no benefit right now. "Sometime later I need to tell you about robots and artificial intelligence," Yori notes, "and other cases that are similar to programs but not very much like us. That's not urgent, though."

She echoes Ram's sigh. "Then there's you and me, Clu, and...Rinzler. I need to talk to you about Rinzler."

His red gleam and Security status put him in contention for the most frightening person on this station to an Encom program fresh from the MCP's cages, which deserves warning. She wants Ram to manage friendship, and that's tricky even without factoring in the fact that Rinzler used to be Tron.

Ram is quiet now, leaning back on the couch and listening. He nods occasionally, adding names and notes to his files so he can look them up later, or has some point of reference should he meet those mentioned. He does make a particular note that some programs have left again. It is a possibility.

'Seems the system is even more diverse than I knew.' That's good. They can learn more from each other if they have more widely spread knowledge and experiences.

Ah, there it is. The source of both their agitation, if the way Yori hesitates over his name is any indication. Ram leans forward again, a few of his structural pixels twinging in protest at the movement, seems he pulled a few things in the fight.

'I met him,' he says, staring hard at the floor. 'Before you found me, another section of the floor gave out and he gave me a way across.' His lips twitch in a wry smile for a moment. 'I thought he was going to kill me or take me back to the cells, being red, but he took me to a room and gave me a communicator.' He holds up his wrist where it is still strapped on. 'I--'

He gets up in a single movement and starts pacing in tight circles. Were Yori familiar with the dimensions, she might recognise the distance to match the diameter of the Game Grid's holding cells. His jaw is clenched. Up until he met Yori, he had been unfamiliar with the potential for people to be taken from different times and therefore Rinzler had to be a copy of his friend, but now--

He stops and turns to face her, tense, an amalgamation of emotions in his expression. 'I... I know,' he says quietly. 'Just... please tell me. Is he a copy from another system, or is he... is he ours?'

Edited 2017-12-11 13:24 (UTC)

The red-lit display is obvious to people who knew Tron so well, which is why she'd hoped to defuse the chances of hostility. At least it sounds like Rinzler didn't make the worst possible impression.

Yori can't help a wince at the leashed pain in Ram's posture.

Both options apply. She tries to be as gentle as she can. "There's still a Tron in Encom." Happy, with Yori there, she trusts. Maybe still friends with Roy's programs, too. "Rinzler is the copy Flynn brought to his Grid, and he remembered us there." She and Ram have at least as much claim to him as Clu.

She rests her hands on her knees, a worried grip. "Rinzler doesn't want to be Tron. He's spent a long time learning he can be a person, he doesn't want to be wiped out by memories that don't feel like his." Can Ram accept that? Could Yori, without the long process of getting to know Rinzler?

A slow uncertain tilt of one hand. "I'm not sure if he'll want to remember you. But I hope you and Rinzler can be friends." Not quite like Ram and Tron were. Something new, here.

Contact, but no crack of damage. Hit, but the other program is still functioning. Still on its feet. Unacceptable. Rinzler upgrades his force modifiers accordingly, grounded leg uncoiling in a forward leap that meets the other program's step head on.

Feet coil in well above the return strike. His disk lashes out, a jarring clash aimed to disarm—literally or otherwise. But it's his free arm that drops down with the full force of his rotation: elbow towards throat, weight and power targeting to drop and pin.

No more running.

He doesn't relax at her first sentence, the way she phrases it leaves something unfinished. And then it's confirmed. Ram doesn't move, but there's a tightening to his eyes, and his circuit glow darkens and lessens.

Tron is still there, free of the MCP, with Yori, and Ram welcomes the small relief and joy that comes with that knowledge. But the rest... It is his friend. The Tron who taught Ram more skills than he could figure out himself, who was company and friendship and so unbreakable in his belief and determination. Somehow he's been twisted into the nightmare who tried to derezz him at the sound of his old name, and the possibilities of how, make Ram's face turn ashen.

Yori begins speaking again but Ram redirects the sound files to an archive to listen to later. On slightly unsteady legs, he walks back to the couch and sits down heavily on it. His elbows push into his knees and he drops his head to tangle his fingers roughly in his hair as if to pull the ache from his processor. Tron

'One nano,' he says, cutting Yori off. 'I'm sorry, just... give me a nano...'

Just a nano. To stop. To breathe. It's not an unreasonable request, especially after the day Ram's had. Rerezz and import, collapsing hallways and retreats to stable ground. Clu. And, of course, a different nightmare. Red lights and an opaque helmet. Paired disks that had done their best to slice the actuary apart.

Well before Ram's count is up, the door will slide open. It comes with a soft hum of pneumatics, and another sound that floats in on silent steps. Like the purr of a user animal, or the clicking of a damaged drive. Like the rattle of mismatch: faulty, wrong, corrupted scraping a quiet litany with every beat.

Rinzler steps into the space. Frame sloped to defaults; mask turning as he enters toward Yori's bright, clear glow. Even before scan-sense registers, her configuration flags something wrong. Hands clenching. Expression tense. Gaze and posture up, directed—

—towards the source.

A user-second for the door to open. A little longer for Rinzler to resolve his freeze. Sound jars up, harsh and aggressive, a jerky half-step forward toward the threat. The hand that flashes back is much more rapid.

"You."

Edited 2017-12-11 20:49 (UTC)

A moment to adjust is a reasonable request. Didn't she need User-months before the first sharp pains faded enough to calculate around? Yori watches Ram in concern, wishing she could ease that pain, entirely aware everything she needs to add is only going to make it worse for a while.

The hiss of the door registers, but she's slow to look away from Ram...until Rinzler's growl demands her attention.

This is her day for truly terrible timing. If she were trying to pilot anything she'd probably crash.

"Rinzler! Welcome home." Yori stands up at once, both hands outstretched to imply no hostilities here please as hard as she can, one to Ram and one to Rinzler. She takes a quick step to get between them, too, if they'll permit it.

As for the verbal request, she adds, "Ram's an ally." At least that. Better to leave Tron out of it. "Please don't damage him."

She can't demand too much from an angry Rinzler, and Rinzler looks much angrier than she'd expected. So much for first impressions.

Staring at the floor but hardly seeing it, Ram knows he needs to try and stop his logic circuits from glitching and parcel out the chaotic mess of emotions, but he doesn't know how or even where to start. He asked for a nano, but this is going to take far longer to sort properly.

So he can be forgiven for not hearing the door open. The rattle, however, given its source is also the source of his turmoil, does make it to his processor. His response is to close his eyes, duck his head lower and resist the urge to scream.

Didn't even get the nano.

He can't do this. He can't, there's no way he can do this right now like this. There's too much to process, too many emotions to ensure stable reactions. So.

/Compartmentalizing.

As Rinzler heads for the room and opens the door, Ram systematically locks everything down as he'd learned to do once they started pitting User believers against one another. It's not perfect, but it will hopefully make things easier to process. For now.

His eyes open and he looks up at Rinzler's single, accusing word. Even with the locks, his face is drawn, his form tense as he raises his head and slowly stands up, his hands slightly, extended, palms up.

This is not Tron.

'I'm not here to fight.' The weariness is perhaps most evident in his voice.

No effort to stand. No willingness to counter. It isn't here to fight, but it's still here, and Rinzler hardly cares for an excuse. The reach completes, fingers curling around his dock—

—as Yori steps neatly between.

Motion stutters. The flare of protective outrage gutters cold: at Yori's words, and the pair's configuration. Passive and defensive. Entreating and resigned. He'd known this error was once known to Tron, but he hadn't thought...

The fist curls, closed and empty at his back. The corrupted rumble doesn't slow, but it takes a moment to call vocals. To even parse what he can say. When he does speak, the voice will be perfectly recognizable to both parties.

If much more edged and bitter than Tron ever knew how to convey.

"Your ally."

Rinzler steps back.

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Welcome, friend [Closed]

Rinzler's thread

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some are sad; and some are glad; and some are very, very bad

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