[Closed] Warm. Radiant. Beautiful.

[isoalgorithm]

Who: Quorra and Rex Salazar
When: The morning after this, courtesy of the Hearts Aflame event!
Where: A rooftop.
Format: Paragraph, action, etc.
What: Rex meets Quorra for their agreed not-date to get rid of those annoying strings and go roof-running afterward. Wacky hijinks ensue.
Warnings: None yet.

Comments

[naniteknight]

Quorra may have detected the low hum of turbine engines prior to those footsteps. The easiest way to reach a roof for Rex if he wasn't in the middle of a run was always the same...via the Boogie Pack. He'd touched down a short distance away at the other end of the roof, building the pack down and away into nothing before approaching his so-called "date."

Though he had been a little concerned about the situation initially, Rex had managed to push his worries away with the notion that their meet-up would be no more than two people hanging out. That would allow them to remain in close proximity to each other for a while without things turning awkward or complicated.

"Hey, Quorra," he said in greeting as he came to a stop just behind and off to her right. The color of the string around her thumb was definitely the same as his own and now that he was closer, he felt a sense of ease that he had previously been denied while not in her company.

He then lifted his gaze to the horizon. "Yeah, it is a nice sunrise. Half the time I sleep through them, but like I said before, I guess a lot of people take them for granted. Me included, heh."

[isoalgorithm]

"It's easy to take things for granted, once you get used to them," Quorra said in an easy, conversational tone. "But I don't think I'll ever take a sunrise for granted." If she ever did, she was sure Flynn would pull her up on it, like he had with so many other things.

She swung her legs to and fro, kicking her heels idly against the side of the building. "This is my favorite spot," she continued. "I come here almost every morning. It's great for sunsets, too - but those, I like to sleep through." She grinned, a little sheepishly, as if admitting some deep, dark secret.

It was strange, but looking back on it now and she couldn't fathom why she had been so anxious about this. Talking to Rex felt as natural as riding a lightcycle. Although she hadn't done that in a while.

"Why don't you join me?" she said, gesturing to the space on the edge beside her. "It'll be a while before visibility is good enough for us to go running. And maybe our strings will come off before then." She tugged idly at hers, but it didn't show any sign of loosening yet.

[naniteknight]

"Early to bed, early to rise, huh?" Not really his style, but he knew it worked for some people.

At her invitation to join her, he shrugged and figured he might as well. It was a little bit early to start their run.

Sitting down alongside Quorra, he let his own legs dangle over the side, his fingers curled over the roof ledge on either side of him. He had to admit, the warmth from the early morning sun felt good. Later, the sun would bring the temperature up to what was more typical for summer weather. Enjoying the slightly cooler morning air while they could was a good idea.

It was as he got settled, however, that an idea occurred to him.

"You know, the strings will probably come off on their own at some point, though today might be a little too soon. Dunno. I'm kind of wondering if maybe there's a trick to this, though." Taking his hands from the roof ledge, he brushed a finger over the string around his thumb. "What if the whole point of this is not just to make people spend time around each other, but to make them cooperate to get these things off? Maybe I'm the only one who can take your string off and you're the only one who can remove mine?"

[isoalgorithm]

Quorra smiled, returning her gaze to the sky, silent as he settled beside her. When he spoke, her gaze remained fixed, but unfocused; she mulled over his words for a minute, a thoughtful expression suffusing her features as the morning sun washed over them.

"Maybe," she mused. "I wonder if anyone else has thought of that." She hadn't heard anything on the Forge network, but then maybe people just weren't thinking in such linear terms. Quorra could, because she was a program, but after a thousand cycles with only a User for company, her thinking was more like a User's sometimes, anyway. Not to mention the fact that Isomorphic Algorithms had never been your typical cut-and-dried Basic-type program. But Rex's solution seemed logical to her.

Too logical for this place, she thought, but didn't say out loud. It was worth a try, in any case.

She turned to face him suddenly, the movement quick and catlike, swinging a leg over the ledge so that she was straddling it, one foot brushing the rooftop and the other still dangling over the side of the building. She extended her hand, thumb out like she was about to try hitching a ride. "Hold out your hand. We should try to time it so we pull the threads at the same time."

[naniteknight]

"Maybe I'm not the only one? Not like it's a complicated solution," Rex admitted with a thoughtful frown. "Seems pretty easy when I think about it, though I guess that could be part of the trick. So straightforward, no one would try it? So no harm in actually trying?"

When Quorra shifted her position to face him, the EVO followed her example. In holding up his own thumb, he noticed for the first time that his string was tied to the same hand as hers...which would make it easier for them to attempt removing said strings simultaneously.

Rex held his hand out with his thumb up and the rest of his fingers curled against his palm. His other hand hovered near Quorra's, fingers just an inch or so from the white halo around her thumb. "On the count of three?"

[isoalgorithm]

"No harm," Quorra agreed. It was all a little silly, actually, the two of them sitting there on the edge of a roof with such serious expressions over just a couple of pieces of string. She bit her lip to keep from laughing at the thought.

"Okay." She took hold of his piece of thread between two fingertips, paused. "I'll give you the honor of the countdown."

She couldn't help it. She giggled.

[naniteknight]

Rex allowed a smile to cross his face as Quorra giggled over their attempt to free themselves from the oh-so-cruel bindings. Both of them were cycle riding, weapon proficient fighters and there they were, messing with twine. If not funny, it was rather ridiculous.

He nodded a little at her words, more than willing to get them started. Carefully, he pinched her thread between two of his own fingers. "Heh, right. Okay, ready? One, two...three!"

On three, Rex tugged at Quorra's string loop, hoping to slip it right off her thumb. Unfortunately, however, it refused to budge.

Though disappointing as that was, Rex suddenly forgot about the failure quickly enough, eyes widening. Because as his hand brushed hers, it lit up with neon blue patterns, the lines sputtering to life and shooting up his lower arm as a sudden, small spark leaped up from their point of contact.

[isoalgorithm]

When Quorra pulled at Rex's string, predictably, nothing happened - but she gasped anyway. The gasp was thanks to what happened when their hands touched.

Her circuits flickered once, and she froze, her eyes wide. Dimly she registered the lines spreading up Rex's arm but she was far too distracted by the new input her system was trying to process. Her identity disc, holstered on her back, began to synchronize, its inner ring lighting up section by section til it formed a perfect, glowing circle. Quorra could sense the new information registering in her code, even though she couldn't hope to understand it. Not yet.

Mirroring complete. Disc resynchronized and reactivated.

She snatched her hand back, quickly. "What was that?" she demanded, her eyes sharp as they met his. She had never known any other User who could do anything like that - save for the one and only Creator, Kevin Flynn.

[naniteknight]

Rex was slower to react, blinking when Quorra suddenly withdrew from him as though she'd been stung. He'd felt something when they'd touched, his nanites reacting as though he'd made contact with a machine. There was something different about it, though. He couldn't quite describe it, but it had felt...raw. Like a living spark that he could sense through feedback and lines of--

Code.

Of course.

He held up both hands, gazing at them for a moment before balling them into fists. The nanites in him reacted to his mental commands, his hands lighting up again with those same circuit board patterns.

"My nanites," he finally said before looking back at Quorra, expression still plainly displaying his own surprise. "They reacted to you. You're a program, so... Man, why didn't I think of this before? I'm a technopath because of my nanites. Since you're a program, contact can create a link between us."

[isoalgorithm]

Quorra scrambled off the ledge, backing up a few steps, her expression guarded.

"And what did your nanites tell you?" Nobody in Anatole, save Flynn, knew she was the last of her kind, an isomorphic algorithm. She didn't trust the place not to come up with CLU or his guards, and if they heard it was harboring an ISO, she was as good as derezzed.

But she liked Rex. She had no reason not to trust him, but she had spent so long in hiding that it was difficult to open up. By choice, anyway.

[naniteknight]

"Whoa, hey, easy!" Rex couldn't help but feel just a little wounded by Quorra's sudden need to put a few extra feet between them. Standing up, he moved away from the roof edge, himself, but not all that much closer to Quorra. He didn't want to give her a reason to keep retreating.

"They didn't really tell me much of anything. Our connection didn't really last long enough to give me more than a quick burst of feedback." He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, trying to remember exactly how that it felt and wondering if he could really put it into words. "Mostly I got a very basic impression of you. I could sense the flow of code and, like...a spark of life, I guess? It was weird. I've never had contact with a machine or program that's alive, before."

The closest comparison he had was dealing with the AI named ZAG-RS back home, but Quorra was something else. Something truly alive. Despite how awkward the situation had become, their brief interaction was only serving to make him curious.

[isoalgorithm]

Quorra stood still and just looked at him for a moment, as if trying to ascertain the honesty of his words just by sight alone. The hurt expression on his face hadn't gone unnoticed, and she felt a little bad for her reaction - but she hadn't even told Sam what she was, and he was Flynn's son.

But if Rex truly didn't know her world, as Sam hadn't - what was the harm?

"I'm not just a Basic program," she said, dropping her gaze. Her hands came together, her fingers twisting the string still around her thumb. "I'm...an Isomorphic Algorithm. The last of my kind." She let out a breath, lifted her gaze to gauge his reaction. Strangely enough, she felt better, having said it aloud, as if imparting some dark, terrible secret.

Being an ISO wasn't so terrible, but what had happened to the rest of them was.

[naniteknight]

While the term "Isomorphic Algorithm" didn't mean much to Rex right off the bat, he fully understand the complications of being the only one of one's kind. Much like Rex himself, Quorra was one of a kind. And often being so unique meant you had people after you for one reason or another, whether it was in seeking one's unique abilities or...something a lot less pleasant.

Rex let his own hands drop to his sides as he mulled that information over a moment before regarding Quorra with a concerned frown. "If you're the last, what happened to the others? Why are they gone?"

[isoalgorithm]

Her expression changed, the transformation akin to a storm cloud moving across the face of the sun.

"The system administrator," she said, without looking away. "When he took control of the Grid, he deemed the ISOs an imperfection. He executed them all. Got rid of us like we were just...bugs in the system." She sighed, her shoulders slumping. "I barely escaped. But that all happened many cycles ago now."

[naniteknight]

Rex felt his chest tighten slightly at the mention of genocide. Unfortunately, he was familiar with people who thought that wiping an entire new line of organisms out was a viable solution, a fair reaction to something that was simply different.

"Some people have a bad habit of destroying whatever they don't understand. Or whatever they don't like or don't think fits with the norm," he responded, tone hinting at bitterness. "I'm sorry. That's not something anyone should have to face."

Somewhat hesitantly, he moved toward her, taking cautious steps and making sure to still keep a bit of buffer space between them. "Hopefully you'll be okay in Anatole. Obviously there's a lot of dangerous things around here, but no one here should be targeting you like the admin did."

[isoalgorithm]

"Unless he or his right-hand programs show up," said Quorra, her lips thinning as she briefly broke eye contact to gaze out over the misty rooftops of the city. "Besides, he doesn't know what I am. So even if he does show up, if I stay hidden..." Although she didn't much like the idea of going into hiding again.

"I don't know." A slow shake of her head. "The Creator is here, though. The one who made the Grid. I don't know whether he has any power here but if any rogue programs do show up, if anyone can do anything about it, it's him." She had absolute faith in Flynn, even when he didn't. The man inspired loyalty.

Just not in his mirror-image and former second in command, CLU.

Shuddering slightly, Quorra took a few steps back toward Rex and the ledge, still gazing out over Anatole's rooftops. "I like it here," she said quietly. "It's strange and dangerous, I know, but...I still like it." She looked up at him. "I'm sorry for reacting the way I did. I didn't know...I've just gotten so used to running and hiding for so long that it's difficult to do anything else."