A bit unstable

[notglitching]

Who: Alan and Rinzler
When: A couple days after Cayde's post
Where: 🙀 sector
What: Dad lectures
Warnings: Reference to stabbiness, probable references to mindscrew (see: Rinzler)


For all the time that Rinzler spends scouting the networked systems, he returns to Avagi for a few regular tasks. Quarantine and security checks at the Portals. Patrolling the system's halls for threats. And, of course, checking up more individually on his subsystem: the inhabitants of the room collective, and the scatter of important parties who live elsewhere through the station.

Needless to say, Alan-one is near the top of the list. Rinzler checks up on his user every three millicycles—whether to observe his status or to request the data more directly. With Alan-one's predilection for non-answers, both procedures are often of use. And if Rinzler had kept his observation more covert during his last visit... the practice wasn't unusual enough to warrant notice.

And Alan-one hadn't looked mad.

Today, he doesn't bother with the stealth. When Alan-one opens his door, he'll discover a low, ticking rumble—and, if he checks down the hall, its source, glowing from the alcove of an unused room. Rinzler waits until he's spotted to approach, mask ducking in greeting.

Comments

[alan_1]

Once upon a time, the sound of his program’s low, disembodied growl had unnerved Alan, especially when he couldn’t immediately find the source. Perhaps decontextualized, the noise had read as dangerous to some isolated part of his primate brain. Now, he welcomes the sound the way he would a friend’s unmistakeable footsteps.

The satisfaction at spotting Rinzler is more specific today: Alan has wanted to speak with him for the past day or so. The subject at hand isn’t exactly pleasant, but neither is it as fraught as it could be.

No one had died this time.

He gives his program a nod as he approaches.

“Rinzler. I was hoping to see you today.”

[notglitching]

The nod is relatively standard. The greeting, on the other hand, bodes poorly. Rinzler stills a few paces from his user, frame sloping in a little. There's only a moment's hesitation before he offers the usual query.

"Status?"

[alan_1]

“I’m fine. And yourself?” It’s a standard formality between the two of them, but Alan seems a bit more vigilant this time. He doubts he even has to tell Rinzler was this is about, but he extends the courtesy anyway, not quite willing to call out the program’s network peeping on top of everything else.

“I heard about what happened at the Ingress. With you and Cayde.”

[notglitching]

Rinzler's helmet ducks. 'Functional'. It is a default ritual—enough that neither answer precisely needs speaking at this point. More often than not, he'll still put it to words.

But this isn't quite the usual check-in. And Alan-one wastes no time in getting to the point. Shoulders slope, mask lingering half-bowed: the more formal pose of report. Or reprimand.

He heard that too.

[alan_1]

Rinzler gives no response other than a bow of his head—acknowledgement, but other than that, only patient anticipation of what’s to come. It’s more or less what Alan was expecting. Still, Alan follows his usual habit of letting the silence drag on for another moment or two, just in case Rinzler wants to offer any information himself. When he doesn’t, Alan continues.

“Have you experienced any residual effects from whatever... altered state the Ingress put you in?”

[notglitching]

The pause isn't unusual. It isn't comfortable either. When Alan-one proceeds to his first query, Rinzler's mask twitches to either side with no delay. He'd run diagnostics. Apart from a brief laps in his internal clock, he hadn't noticed any differences at all.

"No."

[alan_1]

“Good.”

It’s still concerning that the Ingress memorial can randomly hypnotize people, but at least it’s temporary. Now, onto the more prickly subject…

“Cayde said you attacked him when he tried to snap you out of it. Is that true?”

[notglitching]

True, yes. Detailed, no. In particular, Rinzler feels that if he'd been properly attacking instead of, say, lashing out in surprise, the glitch would be derezzed in short order.

Instead of telling stories to his user.

Alan-one probably wouldn't appreciate the distinction. Rinzler nods.

[alan_1]

It’s the answer Alan was expecting, but it still gets a sigh of exasperation out of him all the same. “Rinzler…”

It says a lot that Alan is only exasperated. At least, it's a step up from the dread Alan usually feels in the wake of Rinzler’s violent encounters. “I’m glad no one died this time, but you can’t just attack anyone who does something you don’t like. We’re lucky Cayde didn’t take it as badly as Peter.”

Alan knows Rinzler hasn’t forgotten the consequences of that incident.

[notglitching]

Rinzler hasn't. The automatic bristling demonstrates as much, if nothing else. Still, Peter_Maximoff had never been the one Rinzler was afraid of.

What exactly is his user warning?

Probably not what it sounds like. Probably, and he doesn't flinch or bow—not more than he already had been. There's a stiff, unhappy set to the enforcer's shoulders, but he doesn't stay completely silent. Not this time.

"Registered attack."

What was he supposed to do?

[alan_1]

Now that’s interesting. Cayde hadn’t described an attack—an invasion of personal space, sure, but nothing that sounded all that painful or dangerous. Once again, Alan finds it hard to comprehend how Rinzler, one of the most competent fighters he’s ever seen, can be so threatened by what sounds like such a trivial action.

“Cayde said he knocked on your helmet. Is that what you registered as an attack?”

[notglitching]

The mask twitches slightly to the side, sound rattling up louder. Described like that, it sounds pathetic. Is it?

"Sensory inputs: glitched." By the memorial. Also not an encounter he can rate even remotely well. "Observed empty room. Immediately after: combatant present, engaged in hostile contact."

In particular, the combatant's fist. Contacting Rinzler's head, with apparently instantaneous speed. The enforcer glares down at the floor.

"Assessment: faulty."

[alan_1]

Rinzler’s vexation at the description is obvious enough and Alan raises his palms in an appeasing gesture. “Alright, noted. You were in an altered state at the time.”

He feels like he’s walking a precarious line right now. On one hand, he can understand all too well why Rinzler reacted the way he did and much of the way the incident had unfolded had been plain bad luck. On the other hand, if they want to avoid a repeat of the events on the Moira, Rinzler will need to be more careful in the future.

“So Cayde appears. How did you retaliate?”

Cayde himself had been pretty scant on the details.

[notglitching]

"Returned attack."

Prompt and immediate. If the sensory failures had been embarrassing, if the miscategorization did log as his fault... this, Rinzler has no shame for.

It's what he was made to do.

[alan_1]

For his part, Alan doesn’t immediately pass judgment. At least, not yet.

“Can you specify? How did you attack him? What was your aim?”

Alan accepts that Rinzler thought he was being attacked and responded in kind. What he wants to know is whether there was any restraint on the program’s part or if he went immediately for the kill.

Alan has a bad feeling he knows which one it was, but he can still hold out hope that Rinzler will surprise him.

[notglitching]

The helmet slants, just the slightest fraction. While Alan-one's disapproval was obvious before they'd entered speaking range, the relevance of this query... baffles Rinzler. Still, his user is asking, and again, he won't lag.

"Core strike."

[alan_1]

A raised eyebrow. The answer’s not quite as specific as Alan wanted, but it’s revealing all the same.

“Were you trying to kill him?”

[notglitching]

And Rinzler bristles, just a little, under that stare. He's still not sure why his user is focusing on this—or at what point Alan-one assumed planning had been involved at all. Rinzler had registered an attack, and he'd reacted.

But the fault is obvious.

"Willing."

[alan_1]

“‘Willing’ and ‘wanting’ are two different things,” Alan points out, arms crossing. It’s times like these he wishes Rinzler would use more than one or two words per response. But, he supposes, his own message is the same either way.

“I’m not saying you should let people hurt you, Rinzler. If anything, that’s what I’m trying to avoid.” Trying to avoid again, he should say. Alan hasn’t forgotten the lessons of the Moira or of Earth 91c. “All I’m asking is that, unless you’re sure that other person is a lethal threat to you or someone else, you try to incapacitate instead of kill. If not for the other person’s sake, then for yours—or for mine.”

After all, Rinzler should know that Alan is as good as his word: he won’t leave Rinzler behind. No matter what.

[notglitching]

Wanting isn't what his user asked about. Still, Rinzler supposes he might have answered the same either way. Wants matter even less than failed efforts, and whatever the distinction, he'd still gone against his user's will.

And he suspects, going by Alan-one's phrasing, that he'd do so again.

Alan-one is his programmer. But Clu wrote his function, and the mismatch between the two rattles an audible hash as the enforcer bows his head. He doesn't let it lag the smooth, precise bow that answers: acknowledgement, subservience. He'll log the instruction to file.