(no subject)

[sysadmin]

You want to upload me into a 'game'? You're as careless as Flynn, man. Do you even know what you're getting into?

I play to win, User.

Comments

[sysadmin]

[ He takes a step forward, confidence wrapped around him as surely as his cloak. You think you were broken as Rinzler? Program, you're pretty much shattered now. Clu can fix it. ]

Like you were a slave to the Users before?

aslkfdjafsdl your Clu is awesome. :'D

[notglitching]

[Freeze. Sudden and complete. Stare flicks up jerkily at the step, but for the most part? The program's utterly unmoving. Head dipped, just slightly, shoulders drawn in.]

I—that wasn't— [pause, break, almost a stutter in the rasping voice. Almost a rumbling skip of sound.]

I chose that.

oh gosh, thank you! <3 ngl, I'm nervous as hell playing him.

[sysadmin]

[ Another step, as though he's approaching a skittish Bit. Clu's voice has dropped to something steadier, smoother, trustworthy-- something so very much Kevin Flynn that the only difference is the yellow-lit circuits. Come on, Brogram, just let him help you. ]

Did you? And if it had been your User classifying the ISOs as glitches, as threats, would you have acted?

Sorry. I'm just. Grinning crazily over here. You're doing amazingly.

[notglitching]

[Sorry, brogram. Rinzler Tron the program's had enough of your help.

Lockup breaks at the other's step, and he jerks back, hand shifting up, ready to flash towards his weapons. Head shakes, quick and furious, though the low growl's stronger now, behind his words.]

I acted. And you broke the system. Not them.

Not Flynn.

Thank you! And your Tron/Rinzler is spectacular.

[sysadmin]

[ He stops his approach, but doesn't step back. Instead, Clu shakes his head, almost pityingly. ]

They did. Don't you remember how thing were before they arrived? You'd wiped out the gridbugs, there was progress, and Flynn was happy.

[ The unspoken offer is there. We could have that again. ]

;; Thanks. I'm... not used to playing him as anything but Rinzler

[notglitching]

No.

[Stare fixed, coldly certain.]

They were part of the system. You killed them. [Or he did, in the end.]
Destroyed us all.

[Gaze flicks down to his own circuits, and an edge of that same useless fury slides up through his voice. Too familiar, too close an echo (trapped, held, can't run—can't move).
It's not real.

He hates how weak he sounds.]

Worse.

[sysadmin]

I saved us.

[ His fists clench, because even now, even with all of them gone it still comes back to the ISOs. ]

They were rewriting the system, multiplying like a virus and attracting gridbugs wherever they went. How long before they took over the system resources? How long before they took the Grid from us? Flynn was ready to hand them administrator access to the system!

[notglitching]

Lie.

[That is a growl now, skipping rattle of conflict ticking up beneath the harsh word. Realization flickers across his expression, and the sound stutters, cuts completely. The bitter twist to mouth and voice doesn't leave, though.]

We could have handled things. [Together, not with tricks and lies and glitching viruses.]

You made everything worse.

[Worse than they would have allowed, worse than he would have allowed. Tron should have derezzed you from the start.]

[sysadmin]

And that's where our directives differ. [ His mouth thins. ] You'll always be the User's pet firewall. But Flynn didn't program me to only create the perfect system if it was convenient for everybody.

One of us had to plan for the day when Flynn never came back.

[notglitching]

No.

[Speech laced with static, fists clenched, expression blazing with refusal and sharp hatred. It's Tron's turn to take a step forward, threat clear in every line of code and form. Not anyone's pet, not again, not ever.]

Not my directive. [Teeth bare in a snarl.] Or don't you remember?

I was written to run independently.

[Until you took that from him.]

[sysadmin]

[ Clu doesn't retreat -- he knows you, Tron, maybe better than you know yourself. He's had his fingers in your code, and there's nothing you can hide from him now. ]

You fight for the Users. [ It's a sneer, an epithet. ] Did any of them ever come back for you? Flynn? Alan-1?

[notglitching]

I fought for the users. ['Fought'. A slip.]

And the system. All of them.

[Stance and expression stay fixed and furious. It's his voice that twists, at the question. Catches, something high and raw and desperate.]

They—didn't know.

[sysadmin]

A thousand cycles, and Flynn didn't once wonder. Hm. [ Go on, Clu, dig that knife a little deeper... ]

[notglitching]

[Tron just shakes his head. Flynn didn't wonder. Flynn couldn't have wondered. He should have been derezzed, should have been ended. He'd wanted that, at first. So badly.

Then he stopped remembering how to 'want'.]

...I told him to go.

[Quiet. Even. His choice. He failed.]

[sysadmin]

And he did, without even glancing back. But not before he stopped to save the ISO girl. [ A small shrug. ] I'm sure the thousand cycles of inaction was his way of honoring your memory, of course.

[notglitching]

[Stare slides back up. Furious. Bitter—and yes, at more than just Clu. Not that he'll acknowledge it here.]

Flynn's gone. [Lag, then mouth twitches faintly in a cold, edged smile.] So are you.

[sysadmin]

[ A twitch, and he bites back a growl, answering too quickly to hide the fact that the memory of that confrontation still hurts. ]

So is the system.

[notglitching]

[A pause, then he shakes his head.]

Just the parts of it you warped the most.

[Eyes lower fractionally. There's no satisfaction anymore in voice or expression. He can't be glad of this. Clu's death, yes. But not Flynn, and not all those thousands who had no choice but to follow.

But the Rectifier wasn't the system, and Clu had killed far more, in his thousand cycles, than had died in that explosion. Rinzler had killed more with his own hands. That blast never passed the shore. Not that the system would be in much better shape, the way Clu left it.

He wouldn't know.]

Not everything.

[sysadmin]

[ Clu stills. This is new data; in those last few nanos, when he and Flynn were the same person, the same awareness, he thought they'd destroyed everything, and he could still taste Flynn's-- his? --regret.

This shouldn't be possible. ]

What.

[ What's left? ]

[notglitching]

[Focus comes up, sharp and quietly furious.]

You destroyed the Rectifier. The Portal. Blasted the Sea. [No great loss, after what had been done to it already.]

The city's... [He trails off. He won't say 'intact'. Not after what Clu did to it already.] ...not gone.

[sysadmin]

[ His jaw clenches involuntarily at the mention of the Rectifier. They were his; his his army, his people. He swore he wouldn't betray them-- he's made them bright and beautiful and perfect.

And now they were gone. ]

Is it.

[ It comes out slow, considering. He could start again, if he ever got back to the city, but what would be the point? He'd miscalculated. ]

[notglitching]

[Tron knows that look. Or Rinzler did. Too well, too familiar, for far too long.]

You won't touch it again.

[Voice quiet. Lethal. A promise.]

[sysadmin]

Won't I? It's mine.

[ In almost every way that counts, anyway. ]

[notglitching]

Wrong.

[Just because you break something doesn't make it yours.]

Is that even where your user's sending you?

[Yes, emphasis. And something that could almost be a smirk, if the wary tension and coiled rage weren't still tracing every line of expression and response. The idea of Clu ruled by a user amuses him, and he's not bothering to hide it.]

[sysadmin]

[ And his expression rapidly turns disdainful. Users. ]

I don't think she even knows, yet. But I know better than to expect reliability from a User.