Power of voodoo

[creator_man]

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.

Comments

[notglitching]

Someone was already in the air. Lightjet, though. Even if he'd had ready access, a recognizer would have been too obvious.

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 required as he twisted the jet sideways between a pair of narrow spires. He'd cleared the nearest range of black and empty rocks, narrowed in on the target zone ahead, and-there. A small structure. The black glassy walls blended well enough with the surrounding dark stone, but Rinzler picked it up easily enough, a point of design, order among the rough chaos that surrounded it.

Rinzler stared. Hesitated. Noise surged quick and loud, something twisted in his code. Then the black mask lowered, and the orange-lit jet cut a streak through the sky. Down. Towards the shelter. Clu.

There was nowhere else to go, in the end.

[creator_man]

Flynn wasn't inside that structure.

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.

[notglitching]

The baton snapped back together a distance from the ground, the jet derezzing around him as he fell. Further than was necessary-further than was wise, by most standards. Rinzler didn't care. Black clad-limbs tumbled over each other as the program dropped, twisted in the air. The ground came up fast, impact jarring through his code as he slammed into the dark rock below, hit hard. He didn't bother rolling to disperse the force.

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 irregularity as he pushed up to stand. A flickering process kept pushing for hesitation-no, caution-and he paused. Left a hand on the ground, scans spreading out for data, tracking recent energy signatures-there was something...

Not Clu? Similar, but-he wasn't sure. The Outlands didn't store patterns the way coded terrain did, just traces, echoes twisted, warped by time. The pause broke, and Rinzler let the half-structured fragments fade as he stood, stepped forward slowly. A twitch of stillness, partway to the door, and he reached back, undocked his disk before reaching to key the opening. If it was something else, best to have his weapons ready.

And if his admin were there, Rinzler didn't doubt what the first command would be.

[creator_man]

Ah yes. The energy signature.

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.

[notglitching]

The sensation of wrongness only grew as the passage opened to reveal an unlit space. He couldn't sense anyone-and even if Rinzler had been jarred so badly out of correct function as to not feel the pull of his admin's command, passive scans should have found a presence at this range. Or visuals. The structure simply wasn't that large. Still. He stepped forward, ignoring the faint stirrings of failure (relief) at the emptiness-even if Clu were absent, there could be traces, lingering echoes of data and structure that-

...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.

No.

The space didn't change, but his assessment did. Re-evaluation, re-categorization. Small, square, dimly lit. Dark walls thick and solid-completely even, barring the score he'd left in the now-sealed door.

Cage.

Rinzler's ticking rattle cut through the air in a snarl, hands jerking his disks apart as he fell into a crouch, helmet flicking up, to the sides, scanning for threats or exit. It was a trap. Always a trap. Betrayal. Lie.

...

Users.

[creator_man]

It had taken discussion with Yori, and a compromise, but eventually Flynn had seen some of the need for what she was advising. He still did not want to lie to his friend, and he was not going to be pulling apart and reassembling - or letting others do it - Tron's code on a lie, but the recorded message which initiated shortly after the shutting of the door was in Clu's commanding voice.

"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.

[notglitching]

Rinzler. Froze.

...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.

[creator_man]

Flynn paused when the front side of the cell was in sight.

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.

[notglitching]

No. The program's head jerked sideways, froze again as the voice returned. It wasn't Clu. He-

...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-

He didn't know.

The disks melded to a single unit as the program turned, motion slow, unsteady. Rinzler stared at the slot by the exit, rumble quiet, form drawn in. Head low, stance close, disk flat and unlit on his hands. Presentation protocol. This didn't match parameters. He hesitated. Stared. And tried something he wasn't sure he had permissions for.

If the scan detected Clu, he didn't doubt his mistake would be rectified.

[creator_man]

Flynn waited. Didn't approach, because if there was immediate danger, moving further would make a lot of people who didn't need to be hurt more upset, but waited. Still. Not too close, just in range to see if the discs were given away.

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.

[notglitching]

Rinzler focused on the scan, flinching away from the still-sharp edge of uncertainty, the background crackle of shouldn't and can't. He wasn't to question Clu. Wasn't to inspect his admin, wasn't to doubt or test or probe. This wasn't-he was-

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-

Rinzler stilled. Noise skipped, quieted almost to silence. For just a moment, he was utterly frozen.

Then the disk came forward. Slammed forward. Not surrender, not presentation, a vicious strike, driving towards the slot in a forceful twist. It cut at the edges of the small opening (weakness), surrounding voxels cracking, going bright, then dead as they slid to the floor. Minor damage. Nothing large, nothing open-a slim fracture at best. He'd do better.

User. Betrayal, trick, lie-he'd known it from the start. But now there wasn't conflict, wasn't uncertainty or doubt or hesitation. Rinzler's noise rose in a snarl, red-orange circuitry flaring bright as his weapons snapped apart. He'd been tricked. He'd been caged.

No more questions. He would break them for this.

[creator_man]

Flynn heard the resonance of the strike, deep and hard. He lowered his head, closing his eyes in the acceptance of defeat of the ruse.

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.