thisavrou_log | It's so surreal; there is no way out of here

Entry tags:

It's so surreal; there is no way out of here

Who: Clu and Rinzler
When: End of the month; post-slavery-rescues.
Where: Moro #015
What: Rinzler is a glitchy mess. Clu notices.
Warnings: Violence, injury, creeping, mindfuck, Rinzler and Clu in a room together.

Since his arrival, Rinzler's made a point to patrol every level of the Moira. But of all the halls and rooms and ventilation shafts, Moro deck is, by far, the most familiar. It's where he was first quartered, with two users flagged as malware and one too helpful for anyone's good. It's where he lives now. And a short walk between those rooms is another with much more significance.

Clu's quarters.

Rinzler stands in the familiar hall, in front of the familiar door, struggling against the root-deep certainty that things are different. That something new is wrong. The summons on his MID is terse, but hardly strange, a short instruction to report in. Rinzler's answered such calls hexes of times since his admin's arrival, served whatever tasks he was commanded. But Clu has yet to find his disk, and if the admin hasn't sourced that failing to Rinzler yet, his temper has been short at best, especially since the attacks.

Since Alan-one died, and his programs broke because of it.

Eyes close behind the black mask, processing looping back on itself. Memory is wrong, forbidden and not his. But he can feel it. For the first time in a thousand cycles, the partitions in his mind are shattered, and it's impossible not to feel just how much else is locked behind. Visuals refresh, and for a fraction of a moment, Rinzler sees blue flickering to life in his own lights.

He's not Tron. He's not Tron and he doesn't want to be, and the files slam shut as quickly as he can extract himself, circuits back to a clear red-orange burn. He's Rinzler. He serves Clu.

And he's been stalling too long.

Rinzler reaches out to the access panel, sounding a soft chime inside. Entry requested. Clu will know who and why.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

For his own part, there is usually no pressing reason to stray from Moro deck, so he does not. Clu's world is a closed one. He's thrown in with the crew, worked beside them and accepted eagerly enough the conditions of his new system--such as it is--but that doesn't make him one of them. The reality of the ship itself (do not think about outer space, do not think about it) is easier to quantify a room at a time.

Nothing stops the relentless analytic tick of perfect, but it can be drowned out. Feeding it routine and keeping his purview sufficiently small allows the range of acceptance his new circumstances require. It keeps his mind on his tasks, lets him fill the queue with concepts relevant to the job--just the developments in object-oriented logic since his creation kept him amused for almost a full day.

And it was working. It was. Until this.

Because closing his eyes and waiting and reducing himself doesn't fix change, it doesn't correct disaster, and it will never sufficiently address...death. Alan Bradley, the great and terrible Alan-1, was only human after all, and nearing the end of his natural runtime in the bargain. And he'd spent it without even an iota of a passing thought for what it would do to Tron, and to--

Clu exhausted the last of his options a while ago, and Bradley does not have the disc. He must discover who does.

Rinzler is broken--maybe beyond his own abilities, even with all the new study--and no amount of throttling his own resources will make that fact go away. He knows much, much better than anyone will ever give him credit for: it is impossible to fight the truth and win.

Clu will fix it. He must. The alternative is incalculable.

The damned doorbell is like etching acid on his very last spare circuit, but he knows what it's for and who it is.

No hanging back this time. There is nothing soft or coy about the way he fills the door frame, pushing out into the hallway shoulders first.

"Greetings!" A hard, bitter bark. "What kept you?"

And he rushes back into the dark of the low-lit berth, clearly expecting to be followed.

The speed with which the door opens is no surprise. But there's something jarring, something sharp about the way Rinzler's administrator shoves himself into the gap. It echoes of harsh laughter and a rigid grip, the edge of a disk and the tug of lines yanked back into place.

Rinzler doesn't flinch. Rinzler knows Clu's words (most words) weren't asked in search of any answer. He bows his helmet instead, and there's only the slightest lag before he steps forward, following the gold lights ahead. The door slides shut behind him, but it doesn't matter how much of his processing twists uneasily at the sound.

This is what he was written for. It needs to work. He needs to.

"Good." With the door shut, Clu twists on his heels; his shared quarters are, mercifully, large enough to allow for pacing in the center of the room. "Y'know, I didn't think you would show?" The smile is small and mean and it hurts his jaw, teeth gritted. "Just between us."

Rinzler does everything he's asked, and in a way, that's worse, that's part of the problem. Clu knows what rote compliance is. He can tell he's being mollified, and it feels too much like everything's just fine, man; everything's under control and it's. Not. Of course it isn't.

For lack of any choice, Clu's let it alone, let things develop as they will despite every subroutine insisting that all constructed systems must be maintained because nothing artificial can have a natural order, that the native state of made things left to their own is just neglect. He's let it alone, let Rinzler secret himself away glitch knows where to do things he has to monitor and guess at and worry over, because there is no other option and forcing the issue only harmed them both.

He's let it alone, he's waited and seen, and Rinzler has come back to him. Rinzler comes and goes as he's bid, following his instructions to the letter, and. For the first time in a great long while they'd fought a common enemy, side by side, and they'd won.

Just when they were finally, finally getting somewhere, Tron's User had to go and break himself.

"I'd ask for a sitrep, but it won't matter. I can't do anything about it." Flat fact, deepening to a growl. He'll wear a hole in the rug, turning like this, hands busy following the shape of his words, sharp gestures for punctuation. "At least he's back now, hmm? You've been to see him?"

Rinzler's reaction will do well enough for an answer. They're just chatting, and Clu's only real goal is to tighten the net.

The anger is impossible to miss. Rinzler stops when Clu does; waits, helmet bowed and shoulders sloped to defaults, as the administrator turns and paces, filling up the space. But even from the start, things are different, things are worse, and Rinzler stiffens, mask twitching after as Clu speaks. Hardly a surprise that he had failed in some way. But Clu hadn't expected....?

No. Rinzler pushes back the twitch of nausea. Of course he had obeyed. Of course he'd come. Nothing else had ever been an option. (~~Had it?~~) However much Clu knows, whatever he assumed, Rinzler knows his function. He serves Clu.

But Clu's not the only programmer on the station with a claim to Rinzler's code, and the administrator's next query makes it obvious just how aware of that all of them are. Again, Rinzler doesn't flinch (not quite), but the stillness is taut with wary recognition. The black mask dips, just slightly.

He's seen Alan-one.

Clu knew the answer. He'd already seen them talking, and while it wasn't in his skillset to lurk in hallways, he had been highly motivated--still was, even recalling it, by a bitter and gathering tension that no amount of rationalizing would banish to the back of the queue.

Everybody with a choice leaves him in the dust. And Rinzler has been making his own choices for some time now; even Clu can see that.

"See there? You can be honest with me." It should be a peace offering, even words in a soothing tone, but the ends are clipped and hard. "That wasn't so bad."

"But there's more, isn't there?" A flick of the chin for the obvious, the gap he's grown used to seeing between Rinzler's shoulderblades. "There must be a great deal more. And it's not, all this--" it twists his face and his fingers, a disgusted snarl, "all this is not for him, is it?"

Of course Alan doesn't have the disc ~~Clu had proven it~~, Alan isn't the reason it's gone missing, but he wants the confirmation.

After all, if Rinzler's risked himself this way for that guy, there is no hope.

Honest. The censure is sharper than it should be, an offset line lodged deep enough to catch and scrape through active processing. He hasn't lied. Not to Clu. But he's hidden far too much from both his programmers by now. And as much of his code flinches from the fact in guilt... there's a tiny fragment that locks stubbornly against it. A tiny whisper, not quite so far from hearing as it used to be.

(Clu made him this way.)

There's more. There's much, much more, and Rinzler is impossibly, utterly still as the accusation lands. It's not a freeze, or glitch. It's not defiance, or even fear. It's the space between one process and the next, stalled and waiting to resolve.

The black mask shakes. No. It isn't for his user.

It's his turn to stop, to consider, to cock his head just slightly and then stare.

Clu had made several finite and conclusive decisions, so many cycles ago, crossing all sorts of thresholds that he couldn't simply slam an Undo for and skip back across, humming a merry little tune.

One of those decisions--well, what was done was done, and in its place, over long observation, they'd evolved a certain understanding. He knows that slight shift in posture, every tense line of it intimately familiar.

Rinzler will fight him on this, whatever this proves to be, and is gathering resources for his next push through subsequent decision gates.

And it's his fault, it's Clu's doing, that message is clear. As to how in the blessed burnt-out Sea Rinzler expects him to repair or revert it without access to his code?

A shrug, a long slow calculated roll of the shoulders that leaves them squared.

Come at me, pro'.

"No, no, I can see that. You're certainly more than he expected, aren't you?" Even coiled to strike, he doesn't miss a chance to brag, cadence like knives scoring over a block of sugar: the same hungry praises Users might breathe for a hand-tooled leather interior or custom solid walnut stereo cabinets. "He doesn't quite know what to make of you, does he, you marvelous, obstinate thing."

"And since you seem intent on toying with me," it's a warm, brittle, live-wire hum, "let's play a game."

Clu's attention fixes like a lock, and Rinzler can feel the catch and stutter in his sound. The black shell hides his own gaze, but Rinzler knows better than to trust in that—better than to trust that any secret he might have would stay hidden when Clu really began to search.

His programmer doesn't need his disk to read him. He never has. Rinzler wants to cringe away, and Rinzler wants to hide, and Rinzler meets his admin's stare instead, noise rattling out louder because it doesn't matter anymore. Clu knows, Clu knows, Clu knows he hid the disk. The taunts slide past with the slick brush of contaminated power, because even Rinzler knows that much. He's not what either of them wanted.

Clu's definitions. Clu's game. The word is a threat, the word is a promise, and there's a cold certainty settling at the root of his processing. Because Clu isn't user, and his promises are fact. Still, Rinzler's helmet inclines, short and sharp, waiting for instruction.

Clu wrote him to win.

That is a familiar sound, an anticipated response to known inputs, and considering everything that's happened, that counts as--not a good sign, perhaps, but an understandable one, flowing logically from specific values.

Clu grins for the steady, certain gaze that meets his, the reassurance of challenge or resignation; either will do, either are better than any more secrecy. He very much dislikes surprises, but anything that proves out new skills, greater power, wider alliances: these things may be useful indeed, and Rinzler's let the potential of all of these things dangle between them for far too long.

In a way, Clu's being indulgent--there is no more room for play while Rinzler is clearly broken--but this is also the best bait he has, the single most appealing way to rivet his program's attention: the high-gain positive stimulus of raised stakes.

"All right!" Harsh, exuberant. "Let's go."

The first thing he did with his radical hologram space Swatch was give it an amberlith makeover, a burning golden display that thrums up the wall with a flick of his wrist.

"I have with me, right here, a list of persons or other beings that I can confirm, within tolerances, as your known associates." There's something feral, an ugly golden sheen, across the deep backs of his eyes. "And you're going to help me thin the herd."

Light flares up against the wall, and Rinzler's stillness breaks, a step to the side and half-turn as attention travels where directed. Clu's modifications are no surprise at all, but the content of the display is nearly enough to prompt another freeze. Associates. He knows the names, of course. Rinzler knows every label in the registry, but some are more familiar than others, and if his mask stays almost rigidly still, eyes slide up and down, tracking users. Allies. (Friends.)

Not a Game at all, is it?

Testing is familiar. And never, ever done.

Thin the herd. Associations match as quickly as they are rejected. Clu knows about the system rules. Clu wouldn't (can't can't) and Rinzler's fingers twitch only a little at his side before the black helmet turns, waiting for clarification. No demand, of course, but the expectation in his silence is just slightly sharper than default.

The look of him taking it all in is almost worth skulking around behind Rinzler spooling inferences in the shadows while his User asked him if he were keeping safe.

Puzzle games are not the most fun ever, not by a long shot--but they are necessary, and there is the most wonderful forty-eight point bar-six chance that the enforcer will get his Game as an outcome, regardless.

Because Clu likes winning, but he likes pushing it even more.

The choice of words was deliberate and is analyzed correctly--he can see it in the utter stillness that envelops Rinzler, the involuntary quirk of his fingers and the jagged, expectant edge to his wait for clarification.

He'll get what he wants, of course, but not before Clu sets another barb for him.

"I know it's not your favorite," sleek as a cat with a mouthful of feathers, "but it needs to be done. I'm afraid there's just too many of them."

The words are impossible; the implications have to be wrong. But it's the gloating satisfaction in Clu's voice that sets Rinzler bristling.

Noise snarls out in quick staccato, stare tearing from the list to his admin's face. He's furious (he's terrified). He's sick of circling the trap. Circuits flicker dark/bright with agitation, but there's nothing submissive at all about the sharp jerk of the enforcer's mask to the side.

Say it.

It's a sign of how far Clu has reduced his own internal sets that just prying a reaction loose feels like scoring points, that the grinding stutter of demand puts a spring in his step, but the primary object of this call can't be that; that's petty, and it isn't functional, and it isn't done.

Besides. Play with your food too much and it just goes cold--something like that, some ridiculous thing amid the thousand other ridiculous things Flynn had to say.

Ah, but now he has Rinzler's full attention.

"Works like this, buddy. Check this out: your disc is missing, isn't it, and you know, I was worried sick about you." It's a slick, jovial register, but Rinzler's not the only one who can simmer. "But you seem...strangely fine, for a guy in your dire position."

"So either it's in a locker somewhere, which seems like too much of a security risk, for your taste...or it's with someone else."

Someone you've put above me, is not said, is there in the narrowed gold glitter of his eyes.

I don't have it." Because of course his own name had been at the top of the leaderboard, struck out and vanished with a swipe of fingers. "Unless you have somehow developed exceptionally clever pockets, you don't have it, either--or not with you."

Rinzler's name glitters apart, and the next most-likely person takes his place.

Clu is not in the least wary, and thoroughly pleased with himself.

"D'you see? Eenie, meanie, et cetera."

The growl persists. So does the glare, and if expression is still locked away from sight, the raised, angry fix of the enforcer's mask won't prove difficult at all to read. He knows what he did. Both of them do. Rinzler had expected an order, expected Clu to test his willingness to hunt an allied target on command. But if this is different, it's no better, and he doesn't miss the unsubtle lack of clarity as to the consequences.

Command, perhaps, was only on delay.

His name discorporates to gold-edged fragments, and Rinzler's eyes slide almost unwillingly to the next value in the line. JM_Austen. A known factor, certainly, and one he'd helped in the last fight. But nothing at all like an ally. The helmet twitches back to Clu, stubbornly rigid. He isn't going to give in.

The steady low grind of discontent, growling sharp, tucks Clu's smile away almost as quickly as he'd put it on.

If he'd put out the eyes of everyone who ever glared at him, half the Grid would be blind. Still, he is not the one out of bounds here, and the open challenge of it, the flat, rigid denial rankles.

"Oh." With a twist of his neck, not blinking, reptilian and intent. "You don't like the rule set? I made it for you."

"I mean, I can just visit each of them myself."

All his threats are promises, because all promises are threats.

Clu made the rules. Clu always makes his rules. Until Rinzler had been elsewhere, and Clu had been gone, and the enforcer had needed to run by his own. That's why Rinzler's in this position, why his admin's bothering with lists or tests at all. He's been running outside tolerances for too long. He doesn't want to be reset.

Wants might not be enough (they never are), but anger helps. And it's easy to be furious: at the taunts, at the threats. At the slow, deliberate way Clu dangles them in front of him. Eyes slide sideways behind his mask, scanning the names, and Rinzler could laugh if he weren't so angry (if Clu had left him capable of laughter).

Nihlus isn't even on the list.

The black mask jerks sideways. No.

Clu has one ally from home and none at all aboard this ship. He knows he's turning his only weapon on himself, but he's so angry it hardly matters.

His control is ironclad. It is also finite, and he's already wasted precious time letting this situation escalate geometrically.

“No?” Harsh, knife-bright. “No?” He feels his knuckles pop, folding so tight the nails cut in. “Specify.”

“No you don't want to play, no it's not her, or no,” bitter and slow, quiet hateful intensity, “no, you wanna twist her pretty little neck yourself?”

Oh, that tone Rinzler recognizes, and there's a corner of his processing that knows already: he's gone too far. Defiance is an error, holding secrets a betrayal. But refusing Clu? That's an entirely new value of wrong. Or an old one. Memory is closer now than ever, flurrying across the gap in tiny sparks of pain and fear. Of screaming, helpless terror.

He can't he can't he can't fight Clu.

Specify. Command locks close and immediate, and Rinzler's helmet dips a fraction just by reflex. Command, but no permissions, and the anger flares back too, circuits flickering just faintly as the voiceless rattle of code conflict grows. He hates this. (~~Hates Clu.~~) He doesn't care about the user. He can obey, he can respond, he can run through the whole list at his admin's command. And none of it will help.

Spine curves a little further, hands curling just a fraction past what defaults would permit. It's not submission or acknowledgment. It's the tense, drawn coil of something backed into a corner. The mask raises to the list, then falters. He shakes his head again.

Not her.

Rinzler slinks back from his tone of voice, coiled over like high-tension wire, rattling sharp with a gathering conflict. Another glitch? Another error? And they are so far out of bounds already.

Clu grits his teeth, slides air sharp between them: tsk tsk, goading and deliberate. It’s easier to mug disappointment than he likes, one arm cocked to his hip to keep it stable, to unconfigure the fists he’s made.

“Okay.” Brittle, too light. “Not her. Not her means not any of these; ninety-eight percent confidence.”

Everyone Rinzler might have interacted with once or twice, however significantly, is gone; his worst antagonists also disappear from a list they never should have been on--Clu was forced to acknowledge outliers for want of more data.

Because Rinzler’s communicating, now, he’s holding conversations, but not with his own programmer.

“Coworkers, maybe?” He pushes into Rinzler’s personal space, arm outstretched, gold stripe blacking out the display where his palm presses into the wall. “New trajectory: you will stop me when I hit something interesting.”

It's an old, old power play. Try refusing him when he doesn't ask.

Entries vanish, rows tighten, and the list narrows to a double-hex of terms. All useless. The user Rinzler gave his disk to isn't there, search net drawing closed around nothing and no one of value. Only Rinzler, and he was trapped here from the start.

But the restrictions are tightening too, (and it hurts) (and he hates it).

New trajectory. Clu is there, Clu is close, proximity deleted as easily as the gold-coded strings, and Rinzler locks (because he's furious) (because he can't do anything else). Not coworkers. With the exception of Asriel, the transporter crew knew nothing about disks, Rinzler's or otherwise.

He doesn't have to acknowledge (he has to not), so Rinzler stays rigidly still, noise seething through the narrow gap between.

Nothing worth having is easy.

By the looks of it Rinzler is headed for a directly for a hard stall, at best, and only some of that is Clu's direct input; the rest is for Rinzler's User, for his new associations, for whatever is so dangerous, so aberrant, so powerfully flawed that they are at this juncture in the first place--Clu toying with status tests like they're even good for anything without a diagnostic.

Rinzler is in pieces, or nearly so, and all Clu has for him are increasingly wild guesses. He should be running debug. He can't.

That is Alan's fault, anyway--tangentially, if nothing else. Users are fragile, are weak and inconstant, and it's devastating when they leave.

"Okay, okay." It's not, but there are forms, there are rules that must be observed; he set them himself. He can't stop now: no room for weakness. "Not. Not this guy?"

Calrissian. Longest surname string first; order from chaos, exactness in all things.

If he makes that important, then it is, and there's room yet to think when all he wants is entirely hazardous to them both.

Okay? There's a fractional modulation to the whirring. Neither of them needs a code readout to catch the lie in that. But it's Clu's rules, Clu's orders, Clu's fault-glitched Game.

Rinzler's mask stays low, eyes lifting to the value. A user. An ally, one he'd flown with in combat and in practice both. Part of his transporter crew.

Not of interest. Not to Clu. He obeys (precisely) to the letter, outputting nothing at all.

Rinzler is being so very careful with him, and if that's not the very last string in the stack, it trembles close to.

"...Stubborn." Gone. Vindictive jab of his fingers, shattering Solo, frequently seen with the other one; they're all just strings to him.

"I'm going to find--" promises, promises. It curls his lips back over his teeth, hard acid syllables bit out between them. "You know what happens, you know what I do with errors."

"You know, you're right? This is my mess." It'd be laughter but it's all flange, a low crackling square wave sizzle. "But it was his first, wasn't it. Bradley and his amazing powers of conflict resolution, like he's faulting anybody. Gotta say, I'm impressed they didn't shoot him just for babbling!"

There's no taking these words back, but they unspool almost without his input, low staccato seething. "That sad old sack of solder talks real big, for a glitched heap of obsolete segfaulting meat scraps. Should've fixed him myself, when I had the chance."

He lets the IF dangle, ugly and self-evident, then cuts it loose.

"Maybe I will."

One name shattered. Then another. Closer and closer to a single row, and when that clears out, Clu won't have any other target to pare down. Not without more data, not without admitting his own values had been wrong.

Not without making Rinzler tell him the right one.

Clu's going to find the disk. Rinzler knows. He knows what happens to errors, he knows what Clu does, to his own faults or to any others that interfere. He knows just how faulty resisting Clu has made him. Whatever Clu would have found before, whatever memories or choices he'd have taken, Rinzler knows he's made it worse, and not just for himself. Nihlus can protect himself. Nihlus isn't weak. But if Clu finds out who took the disk, Rinzler knows better than to think it's Clu the user will be fighting.

But it's not Nihlus' name that hisses out between the admin's teeth. Nihlus isn't where the blame falls next, and Rinzler's mask jerks up and freezes as the line completes. Impressed they didn't shoot him. Bradley. Alan-one, Alan-one, it's Alan-one Clu's looped back to, and any flags or warnings of malfunction are swallowed up entirely in the void of sheer, unrestricted rage. Clu didn't get to talk about him. Clu didn't get to fix, or touch, or lay a hand on [his] [Tron's] user.

Rinzler doesn't register the static scrape that fills his sound before it cuts, dead silence overtaking the low rattle of code conflict. Rinzler doesn't see the flicker of his own circuits before they flip, red-orange replaced with clear blue-white. Rinzler is written to serve Clu, but there's no trace of obedience in the straight-backed glare that meets the admin's own.

Or the low, curt order that snarls back.

"Don't."

The names themselves are hollow, are little more than proxies, velvet lining for the snare. It doesn't even matter whether the data are accurate--there is a bitter, jarring percentage insisting that Clu is wrong, error hooked in with barbed fingers--it doesn't matter. His objective remains, the ultimate terms unchanged:

Same team. They are together, or they are nothing.

Clu will make sure of it.

It's not like he can stop; it's not like he can just quit now, tap Cancel and reprioritize; he's no User. His power comes with consequences, and with a price: the terms in front of him must be factored out.

One way or another, it has to be perfect. Zero, positive or negative, is round and smooth and final. No more error. No more glitches, or bugs, or faults. No more mistakes. Whether Clu is left with nothing is immaterial.

It must be perfect, and he's no User.

But he has one at hand--Bradley understands about the Grid, and has a stake in Rinzler's welfare, and he hates Clu, in the bargain.

Yes: if anyone can be pushed straight ahead in a blaze of glory by the truly ugly equation gathering in this room--it'll be him. It'll be that guy.

And why not? It has to be perfect: somebody has to be the hero.

Clu's available options retract and converge on that single point: decision reached. His only job now is to commit: to bury the needle, every savage subprocess he's ever had unwinding in a screed; it's ludicrous and bitter and it tastes good, to rip into a man who might actually stick around to hear what Clu said about him.

Rinzler draws all the way down in on himself, curled so tight he might literally snap, crackle apart in a hail of pixels--only, instead of shutting down, instead of throwing an exception and cooling off a little as Clu had projected--

Just as sudden as that, Rinzler is not himself.

...Not the predicted reaction.

Clu is wrong, Clu miscalculated--only the proof is delicious. The most awful, beautiful fourteen percent chance stands in front of Clu, irate and resolute and stiff of spine, all truth and freedom right to his boot soles, and burning foxfire blue.

It's too good, and it makes Clu so breathlessly angry he might actually overclock. There are games, and then there are Games, and of everyone to offer him resistance, only his oldest friend has ever come back for more.

The correct value flashes off his tongue in a snarl of pure venom, ozone-hot, power thrumming in every circuit:

"Or what."

Clu's glare is met without a beat of hesitation. No lag, no glitch, no restrictions at all that could stop the blue-lit program running as he needs. There haven't been for much too long, every filter wearing down by increments, but this is something new. Even past the flashes of old memory, despite the fear and frustration and desperate wanting that he's found, Rinzler has always known his function. Always known what he was meant to do.

[~~Rinzler~~] knows now too, but [~~his~~] [Tron's] purpose is different.

Protect the system. Fight for the users. Delete threats, but not a word of serve. Rinzler is a part, but Tron was whole, run independently taken form and motion and raw will. He fought for the users and the system. He fought for the ISOs, even if Rinzler can no longer parse any metric as to why. Tron never let go, never backed down.

Tron fought Clu.

And with [his] [Rinzler's] user on the line, no other frame of action is acceptable.

No hesitation. No pause. There's a brush of static, breath released with a rush that might be exultation at how readily the words come. He's been waiting for this. He's wanted it, and he hasn't, and none of that can matter now.

"I won't let you."

Clu is the system, but not here. Not in this metal berth rocketing through endless null. Not in this smaller compartment, this ridiculously colorful room that glows the wrong glitching colors even after reset. Not in the things he is about to do.

Nothing he is about to do is aligned to the needs of the system, because there is no system here; this is not ~~yet~~ his proper place. This is incorrect, unfair and excessive and mean.

Clu is wrong, and he knows it, but it's too late now: rules are rules.

FINISH THE GAME.

He ~~doesn't~~ ~~shouldn't~~ ~~wasteful, ineffecient, INEFFECTIVE~~ oh, he's waited for this, pushed and prodded and insisted on it, and if it isn't what he expected, still it's the best he can hope for.

Perfect cannot exist. He's known it a long, long time, looped the splinter of fact away on itself even longer, almost a thousand cycles of trying--relentlessly, tirelessly boiling lead into gold. All the rest of it--the Resistance, the segfaulted ISOs, his own Maker--was damned for dross and cast aside: they had to be.

His friend, the only ally he's ever made, is gone, so severely fractured he may never recover.

This is not ideal. This is not what either of them were made for.

This is the best Clu will ever get.

Ugly laughter coughs up out of him from somewhere deep, a molten chipset warbling out of tune. "You? I already fixed you. Try and stop me!"

His disc is right where it should be, until it's a live-wire weight in his hand, a tungsten beacon of raw, overwhelming threat.

Square up, Program, or you're going to get cut.

Perfect might not exist, but the arc of light that slices down is a close match. It matches [parameters: test]; some of the earliest, when stay and bow and don't fight back were as new to Rinzler as his name. It matches the bright and struggling seeds from long before that, too—twists and strikes and strange, easy laughter in a world only beginning to spark into life. That world vanished long before any ship or Portal or new friendships could have taken it; pared down and purged away with something much more final built over its ruins. But that's not the only reason the program doesn't pause.

The arc of light matches the blow that killed him, and Rinzler's batons snap to each hand without a thought.

Blue-white sizzles out in a stark line, one sword blade rezzed and standing in the way. But Rinzler doesn't stand, Rinzler doesn't wait in any fight, and this [he] isn't any different now. The sword twists toward the inside, aiming to knock Clu's aim wide, and his opponent uncurls in a fluid blur. Step, shift, arm lashing quickly to jam his other elbow toward the administrator's throat.

The halogen razor's edge of the blade whips in past his guard. Clu is overcommitted, still pushing down, but he manages to twist, keeping his disc between the sword and his arm--and taking an elbow in the throat for his trouble.

It would fell a human instantly, but he's no User; he gags on a snarl and slaps that arm away with the heel of his palm, shoving even further forward like he can just knock Rinzler aside with sheer bulk.

He doesn't have leverage to do anything, but it puts them close enough together to make further stabbing difficult and lets him land a barehand blow to that shoulder.

The choking snarl brings more satisfaction than it should, success joined to a twisting, sharp-edged loop of reciprocity. He can't let it distract him now, though—won't, because this fight is still too close. Literally, more than anything. Rinzler has always fought best with space to move, but this room is too small, too contained for the blue-lit program to keep his distance now.

A fact Clu wastes no time taking advantage of. The empty hand might not have the angle to do damage, but Clu's strength is more than enough to disrupt his own. The first strike knocks his close-spun stance apart, the second drives him back and down, and [~~Rinzler~~] wastes a scant nanocycle struggling because he can before he gives in to necessity.

He drops under the force, blade pivoting above to guard as the rest of his body coils and reorients. The blue-lined hand with the unrezzed baton plants on the ground, bracing as both legs swing in a low kick, redirecting that momentum. Trip, hook, drop him, one way or another—but hit or miss, he isn't planning to stay still. Even as the strike sweeps out, the program is turning on that lowered shoulder, readying to roll away. He can't be pinned, can't be trapped in place this time.

That instant's delay is enough to whip his disc hand close, following as Rinzler falters, chasing him and leveraging the walls. Rinzler with room to move is Tron with the speed and space and sheer finesse to make neat diced cubes of Clu.

Can't let him have it. Can't let him get away. Clu's disc glances off Rinzler's blade, sparking where it bounces, scoured inward against the wall, seeking any bit of stray movement and blazing to sever any open circuit in its path.

But Rinzler continues downward, perched to swing--a sharp, inelegant backward hop doesn't halt the panicked fulcrum force of Rinzler's leg smashing into his ankle, planting him hard on one knee. Clu thrusts upward, bare arm chambered to push, like a bullfighter with a cape but on the vertical above his head. If Rinzler wants to have it over him so badly, then over him he shall go.

Only he catches on nothing, grapples with nothing, Tron a black-and-blue blur trying to roll past him as he takes his feet.

Clu wastes a nano with some ugly thrill he ~~can't~~ doesn't identify, and just lashes out with a bootsole.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

It's so surreal; there is no way out of here

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