Power of voodoo
Who: Flynn, notglitching, and anyone else who would be involved.
Where: Outlands
When: Now
What: Actions, reactions, attempting to reason.
Warnings: Probably some mind screwery. Attempts will be made to keep violence to a minimum.
( Who do? You do. Do what? )
Where: Outlands
When: Now
What: Actions, reactions, attempting to reason.
Warnings: Probably some mind screwery. Attempts will be made to keep violence to a minimum.
( Who do? You do. Do what? )
And Rinzler liked to fly.
But the roar of wind and sky outside the dark shell that contained him could do little to drown out the agitation in his processing. He'd scanned disks off targets programs across the city, rifled through memory files and cross-checked data. It was rumor, mostly. No visuals, no solid data or images. Still.
Clu was back. The thought tightened through his code with formless relief. Rigidity. He needed (had to)-he was wrong (broken). Clu would fix it. (He always did).
Precise coordinates weren't readily available, but he'd gotten several approximate vectors, general regions outside the city. Triangulating the data narrowed it substantially. Reasonably far into the outlands, away from easy access or notice-by programs or users. (There were too many users.)
Not relevant. They didn't matter. Clu mattered. Orange-lined hands clenched on the control sticks, jerking more forcefully than was ( ... )
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Nor was Clu, but that would take time to realize, for the program.
Flynn was watching from a cliff nearby, sheltered by black boulders. Invisible. He'd told others he'd be here, because he had learned about avoiding secrecy with his whereabouts, but he'd told them that he'd ping them once there was somebody there. Until then, the waiting was his own.
And then there was a lightjet, the color familiar from looking back - and sometimes ahead - while Quorra was flying the larger aircraft.
Flynn sighed slightly and leaned forward, waiting for the program to enter the shelter so he could trigger the rest of the trap.
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Rinzler looked up.
The entrance was in front, hardly ten paces away. Closed, nothing visible but smooth wall, sealed opening. The program stared, unmoving. He should-he should feel Clu, shouldn't he? Know where to go, where he was supposed to go. He used to know. Now, he just felt empty. Wrong.
(He didn't want-)
Error-
Redirect cut through the fragmented uncertainty, sharp and edged, searing through the scattered shards of wrongness. Rinzler didn't move, didn't react at the familiar correction. No reason to. And he did know better. His motions were still slow, noise rattling out with a faint skip of ( ... )
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He knew there was a reason for not calling many people in before; now it made some more sense.
Again, Flynn sighed. It was next to impossible to think of this program as an enemy; he wasn't trying. This was a friend in need of help, and he was going to try.
The user was in readiness; he was already crouched low, both palms on the ground, his mind going through the code and the code triggers.
As soon as Rinzler stepped inside, everything changed. The flat, clear line-of-sight landscape vanished as walls started rising, quickly and silently, twisting passages in pre-determined shapes growing from the boulders of chaotic code into a maze. Harmless, but enclosing.
And the door itself... once closed, there was no keypad on the inside to enable its opening.
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...No.
The black mask snapped around as a faint sound registered in his periphery, noise surging sharp and quick as the door closed, edges melding shut to smooth, perfect regularity. Rinzler's own reaction was hardly slower-his disk flared bright in his grip, red and white slicing the air to stab in at the sealing boundary. The weapon lodged in the space-stuck, code locking into place around it-pulled free in a bright burst of energy and fractured voxels.
NoThe space didn't change, but his assessment did. Re-evaluation ( ... )
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"Rinzler. Discs for inspection."
No more immediately. But after a moment more, "slot beside the door." An instruction which way to give the discs over.
Flynn was already moving closer to and then through the rising labyrinth, the passages he used set up to close with barely a touch. The signal to the other was sent, and if the recording had worked, they'd look through the code accordingly.
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...No.
Error-
The joined disks in his hands flickered, darkened even as his helmet jerked sideways in denial. It was a lie. Trick. It had to be. But the program was still moving, mask lowering, form tightening in as the voice cut through his processes with command, protocol clamping down, but it was wrong and he couldn't and it-
Not Clu.
Rinzler twitched, turned-and aborted the motion, held rigid and unmoving as his noise skipped out harsh and uneven. Reprimand, order, need cut through his processing, a nauseating crackle of rejected effort, half-competed procedure and task. No. It was a lie, a lie-user trick. He clung to the fragment of coherent thought, looping it past the sharp-edged lines of constraint, control. He couldn't feel Clu. Couldn't sense his admin's proximity, the faint echo of creation, structure that should tighten in his code with direction, purpose. This wasn't Clu.
Clu would never have to do this.
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There were no discs.
There was also no sound. He stilled for a moment (and, well, hint of creation, he was none too close), then knelt down, using the same speakers that had delivered the recorded message, and trying to keep his voice as close to Clu's as he could. Which wasn't difficult, other than the awareness of deception.
"Ah. One of the corrupted copies."
Keep it brief. Keep it simple.
Once again, he berated himself for beginning with lies, but once on the course, quickly changing direction would do more harm than any potential benefit this plan might have had originally.
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...what?
Rinzler was having trouble processing. Between the pressure of command, the knowledge of betrayal, trap (lie), and the sharp edge of uncertain shame... he'd locked up. Frozen. External form unmoving, noise cutting unsteadily through the air, echoing in the dark shell of his mask, through the larger cage of the cell around. Hands rigid on his disks.
Internally, it was worse. Instruction hit distrust, protocol crashed against wrongness. He couldn't disobey Clu. He couldn't surrender his disks to someone else. It wasn't Clu. The conflict kept building, lines starting, aborting, response looping and cutting off half-resolved, processes lined with reprimand, error. He needed to break it. Break something, find a target, redirect himself.
Blank walls. Empty space. There was nothing but the words. The mask dipped. He wasn't... corrupted.
(Can't be.)
But he was wrong. Clu was supposed to-not Clu. Clu wouldn't-wouldn't have to ( ... )
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Mostly, he waited.
Pushing any further would likely reveal that it was not Clu, if Rinzler was uncertain. But he wasn't giving up on this until there was a clear sign he should.
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Not Clu. The black helmet rose just slightly as he pushed past the blank clear data of the walls-structure and form, no energy, no active function. It couldn't be Clu. Rinzler wasn't a copy. And he wasn't-wasn't disobeying. (Except with this.)
He had to know.
Something. Someone. Further than he'd thought. Difficult to make out. Rinzler took a jerky step forward, one hand leaving the merged disks to press uselessly on the smooth solidity of the wall. He needed to-was he-(trapped, can't)-Redirect. Circuits dimmed, the hunch turning to a lean against the wall as energy redistributed, power forced to the active scan, pushing to the edge of parameters. Past them. It was there, he was ( ... )
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Then he knelt, fingers finding the ground underlying everything, and made the slot provided for the discs close, improving, slightly, the integrity of the initial structure. Then he started erecting the walls which would finish closing the passages to the outside of the labyrinth.
"I'm sorry, old friend," he said out loud, so that the program would hear him, then he started the trek back to the observation area, closing more passages on his way.
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