A dying scream makes no sound

[notglitching]

Who: closed to Rinzler and Peter, later J, and later others
When: just past midnight on April 14th; right after Rinzler kills Vorrick
Where: hallways -> aft
What: murderbot prevention gone very wrong
Warnings: copious mindscrew references, violence, severe injuries, violent character death


He needs to run.

The door to Moro #009 slides shut without resistance. The steps that pace off down the barracks hall leave no stains or signs of violence behind. Only the catch and snarl of raw noise betrays any errors from a distance, and if the sound is more erratic than usual, it's hardly new. Rinzler has always had errors, always been mismatched [wrong], since long before he was capable of acknowledging the faults.

He has killed a user [user] [fightfor] and that fault, no one will forgive.

Killed a user. Killed. Not broken code or shattered voxels, not the clean crash of his disks through a threat or assigned target. The wet tear of blades through flesh. The prick of blood, sizzling across his circuits. He'd felt it in the simulation room, and Inugami before. He'd killed dozens of their monsters. Wiped thousands upon thousands of his own kind, in the Games and streets and hiding-holes throughout the Grid.

If he needed proof that he was [wrong] [wrong] [broken], it was how little different this had felt.

It doesn't matter. Doesn't, can't, won't; not for long. The users will find him and the users will fix the fault, strip his errors and his choices clean and remold what's left into a shape that's useful. Just like Clu had. If the admins don't, his user will. Alan-one had given him one task, and Rinzler failed, and the costs for that were laid out long ago.

Directive is a tattered snarl. Reprimand cuts every chain of thought apart, but makes no headway at all against the ache of failure that wells up from beneath. All of it is drowned entirely by fear. Rinzler's circuits shiver red/blue/red as he paces blindly through the halls, disk locked rigidly in his left grip. Red-brown liquid smears the unlit edge, wiped imperfectly away. More speckles his armor. He needs to run, to hide, but he can't do either.

He never could.

Comments

[notglitching]

Scans should have found it. Audio should have picked up the first step. But half his systems are (worse) broken, the rest trying to shut down, and when the new attacker registers, it's already on him. The shove catches Rinzler in the side, and the program staggers—falls—twists back.

It's reflex more than calculation. Desperation more than both. Because he didn't see it coming, because he's already glitched, because despite everything, he wants to stay alive. The motion's panicked and sharp. It's sickeningly fluid. It's far too fast for strictly human eyes to track, but those are a minority in this hall.

Rinzler twists back, and his joined disk slashes sideways.

[gentlemenpreferblondes]

After succeeding with pushing the attacker away J turns her back to him and attempts to crouch over Peter, trying to see if there's anything she could do. Something she shouldn't have done. All of the sudden everything goes white and silent, everything around her disappears and the only thing left in the world is indescribable pain.

With a weak movements J looks down at her side where she had just been cut, seeing nothing but red as the blood keeps pouring out from her fresh wound with a rapid speed. She attempts to move her, intending to press her wound to make the bleeding stop, but can't quite do it. For some reason her limbs didn't listen to her any more. The tears that she had held back before falls freely and the strength disappears from her legs, making her to fall.

Oh.

It's nothing like in the movies, dying that is. She doesn't see her life flashing before her eyes as a film, there's no music, lights or sights of pearly gates or anything. Her whole world consists only from the pain and realization that this is it, everything is over. This is nothing like the time back in hotel at New York, when Mr. Gazman had taken out the gun and slowly pulled the trigger, engulfing in the sadistic pleasure after seeing her to fall apart. Back then J had truly believed that she wasn't going to make it and the fear had been strong enough to make her pass out. But right now? She didn't feel any fear. Maybe it was because of the shock, but the only things she could register, aside from the pain, was the sadness and concern.

The life fades away from her green eyes before her fall is even over, making her dead body hit the floor with a echoing 'thud'-sound

[takeitslow]

He can't make himself talk. He tries to warn her, puts forth the best effort he can, but it's too much. The noise strangles in his throat, makes him cough something sticky and wet. All that he manages is something groaning, so low and weak he can barely hear it himself.

But he tries. He tries. He hopes she knows he tries.

Peter knows what will happen the second he sees J swim into his failing vision. Rinzler threatened Wanda over less, J interrupting a kill can only end one way. He doesn't need to watch to know. But he does. He fights the urge to fall under, to let go. He focuses all his effort into keeping his eyes open. Not on Rinzler. Not on the blade falling down toward them. Not on the spray of blood. On her.

He watches her expression change as the pain registers. He watches her knees buckle and body grow limp. He watches as one breath slips out and the next doesn't come. He watches her fall. He watches because he has to. Because he had the shot and he didn't take it. Because this is on him and even through the haze he knows that.

There's a gasping, whimpering noise in the air. It sounds distant beyond the roaring in his ears but he thinks someone might be crying. He tries to reach for her, hand inching out across despite how much it hurts and despite how it steals the breath from his chest. He can't seem to make his fingers curl they way they should, touch like they should. But Peter would like to think he's found her hand.

Peter knows what will happen. He knows Rinzler is still in the room and that the next time that disc comes down, he's going to stop knowing anything at all. The noise of the room has faded. He cant't feel the heat anymore, the pain is starting to drain away. Peter doesn't know when he closed his eyes, but he can't open them again. He think he'll be gone before the program even gets the chance.

But at least he thinks he has her hand. He hopes she knows he's not far behind.

[notglitching]

The striking arm jerks back, frame twitching inwards as he falls to protect that damaged side. Visuals still white out on impact. Rinzler doesn't know if he's worse hurt, but there's no time, and he drags a knee under himself, scrambling to brace—

No strike. No enemy. Just sticky fluid, speckling across his mask, just the falling shell of a user too stupid to know which way to run. Rinzler stares at the corpse. He's seen this pattern before, he knows he has, but processing is far too fractured now to even begin to understand it.

She didn't have a weapon. She didn't make sense, and she's dead now too, for no reason at all. Blood-slicked fingers curl in around his weapon, lights trembling with what might be nausea or pain but feels more like anger. He hates this. Hates everything. None of it matters. One read of user flickers out, the other weak and dimming still, and Rinzler hates that sensation more than anything. He can finish it. Make it stop.

The edge is stained, white blotted with a sizzling dark shapes, but his identity disk hums dutifully under his grip, and Rinzler turns to face the enemy still within reach. He doesn't need to stand, or think, or feel anything. He shouldn't. This is what he's for.

[beautifulspaceraptor]

"Shepard." The voice that his protege hears over the omni-tool's radio is borderline frosty with how cold it was, the sound of it underlaid with the heavy thunder of footfalls as Nihlus pelts down the hall. "Observation deck. Fast as you can. Our Transporter Supervisor just killed someone and he's going for another."

If Shep was paying attention to the network, she would know, but it paid to be sure.

Nihlus rounds a corner and the heat hits him like a wall. With turians hailing from a planet that was borderline radioactive, the Spectre agent takes it in a stride- but it was an unnatural heat and it accompanied the heavy scent of human blood, the knife sharp tang of ozone and hot metal that settles in the back of his throat like molten lead. The tattered remnants of a net catches his eye.

Then he sees Rinzler standing over two still bodies, arm raised, dripping red and a deep, jagged gash in his side, the low hum of his disc setting the tips of Nihlus' teeth on edge. The list of priorities reforms and simplifies itself in his head and the omni-tool glows to life on his arm, Overload set on the shortcut.

The program gets no warning before the air is lit up with a deafening crack of electricity being directed his way.

[squadgoals]

She's more than halfway to Observation before Nihlus finishes his message.

Elle's situation (under control and being investigated, from the looks of the responses — the old adage of "too many cooks" keeping her from jumping in herself) had convinced her to keep her (well, other her's) armor on from the day's salvage run, even if it was just to clean it. This ship was dangerous — she'd read it, been told it, but when J's midnight text went out, she knew it, and was ready. The elevator ride is brief, but still gives Shepard a short moment to reply via her own omni-tool, sharp and alert: "Rodger, en-route."

Out of the elevator and sprinting down the corridor to the observation deck proper, she attempts to assemble a course of action in her head. Rinzler, training eccentricities and murder aside, still deserved the ability to explain himself, and she had no interest in adding to the body count. One-hit charge knockout, if I can. Nova or shockwave if I can't.

The temperature jump slams into her, a hot slap across the face as she hits the deck. There's less than a half-second of discomfort before she's surveying the scene, and changing from a sprint, to a biotic charge. Time seems to slow as Shepard's form rockets through the air, joining the lancing arc of Overload's tech, the two hitting the program's form in almost perfect sync.

[notglitching]

Even through the heat, even through the damage, the lance of charge is too much not to sense. Rinzler has enough time to feel the storm of potential building. Enough time, even, to catch the shape—the signature?—of someone past that. Moving. Fast.

He doesn't have any chance at all to get out of the way. Electricity hits the program's shell and crackles, jumping across circuits and leaving scattered functions in its wake. He doesn't even have time to flinch inward before another impact hits him like a tank. Code cracks, voxels scattering to the ground as the fracture widens, and Rinzler's noise snarls out struggles against the black warnings of shutdown, struggles to think or work or move, escape—

Shepard's lunge smashes them into the far wall, disk dock slamming against the surface, and the program goes limp. Faint twitches still shudder through his shell, joined by a spark of power where the program contacts metal. More light trails across the distance of the charge: broken code that glints on the ground and crumbles loosely from the hole in Rinzler's side. Even unconscious, he doesn't release that merged code disk.

But Rinzler's not awake to struggle either, when or if it's pried away. It's really over.

[beautifulspaceraptor]

Something ugly twists in Nihlus' gut when he watches the Rinzler go flying but he refuses to acknowledge it. The turian's face remains set in a grim mask as the voxels scatter around his feet.

"Make sure he's down," he orders Shepard, pulling tubes of medi-gel out of a compartment. "Try to prevent further injuries if he's not. We'll see about moving him to medical after this." He also sets out a call on the network.

That's the closest he'll let himself get to worrying about Rinzler. The two people bleeding out on the ground were higher on the priority list.

He steps through the pool of blood with practiced ease, scanning their forms with a quick flash of his omni-tool. J was dead. Peter was not but he was quickly getting there. He kneels next to the unconscious teen and gently flips him over before starting to apply medi-gel to the stab wound, keeping a careful eye on the teen's stats. The medical ward should be pinged through the MID, but he makes an additional ping to Yewll anyways.

[squadgoals]

Standing over Rinzler's crumpled form, cracked code scattering amongst the voxels and crumbling away from his open wounds, Shepard can't help but think of the Geth, of inside the consensus itself. She'd figured Rinzler for a synthetic, or something akin to one, but this was something else entirely. Can a program take physical form without a mobile platform?

There's no time to wonder too deeply, and she snaps into action on Nihlus' words. Even without the initial scan she flashes, it's easy to tell that Rinzler's down for the count. She rolls him on his back to fully survey the damage — extensive, to say the least. Serious-looking web-like cracks of light extending out from his eviscerated left side (likely exacerbated by the charge) cover most of his torso, in addition to numerous standalone fractures.

There's blood as well, loads of it, the acrid metal smell enhanced by the heat, but that isn't his. She frowns down at the program, wishing she knew more of both the who of the victims, and the why of the attack.

"He's out," she responds as she stands, surveying the scene with a practiced eye. "But the damage on his left side looks like it's snowballing. Ideas? Not sure medi-gels will be able do much for this."

[beautifulspaceraptor]

There wasn't a lot he could do for the blood-loss presently, but Yewll's team should be here soon. He looks up when Shepard voices her concern, tapping his mandibles against his jaw.

"Keep an eye on kid." Nihlus stands up and quickly wipes the excess blood off on his thigh armor before popping a packet of omni-gel out and making is way over. "Start resuscitation procedures if his vitals fail before medical comes."

Spirits, this was turning out to be a messy night.

Plopping the gel onto his omni-tool to warm up, he kneels next to Rinzler's damaged side, voxels crunching under him. He plucks the program's disk from his limp grasp and slides it towards Shepard: better safe than sorry. He's not entirely sure how the substance would react with a program.

The omni-gel melts and reforms into an orb and he flips the field onto his palm before pushing it into the gaping crack, watching it spread and meld against the damaged edges.

[squadgoals]

Omni-gel. She nods approval as she watches the molten material seal the edges of Rinzler's damage. Don't even have a reader in my omni-tool for that, anymore. It would've been her first choice three years ago, but upgrades on medi-gel and patching of security loopholes had seen omni-gel's popularity in the field decline considerably. Considering the circumstances, it's an simple yet elegant solution.

Turning her attention to Peter, she switches her omni-tool over to medical, scanning his prone form for statistics. The medi-gel has already started doing its work, and Peter's vitals, while weak, are stable. J, on the other hand, was gone. She'd known that the moment Nihlus had neglected to apply medi-gel to her. We were too late. She shook her head, regret stinging and knotting up in her stomach, a feeling she wished was less familiar. All they could do now was help as best they could.

When Nihlus slides Rinzler's disc towards her, she picks it up, turning it over her hand. It's light, easy to manage. A great weapon for hand-to-hand combat, really. She hadn't seen much of Rinzler in action, but the damage to the two crew spoke volumes for its potential. Still gripping it firmly, she stands up and addresses Nihlus.

"The boy is all evened out. Until we get him to the med bay, that's probably as good as it's going to get." Shepard turns the disc in her hand again, and frowns. "Might be an idea to put Rinzler in the hold until medical is available and accompanied. I have a hunch he might wake up on the wrong side of the bed."