[semi-open] computer programs + space lsd = ???
who ; the residents of Tronhaus
what ; TRIPPIN' BALLS also trip-sitting, depending on who you are
where ; Tronhaus
when ; Saturday the 14th
warning(s) ; ... computer programs tripping for the very first time?
( after the jump~ )
what ; TRIPPIN' BALLS also trip-sitting, depending on who you are
where ; Tronhaus
when ; Saturday the 14th
warning(s) ; ... computer programs tripping for the very first time?
( after the jump~ )
It's so... beautiful...
[He dips his fingers in the water and draws them to his mouth, circuit lines on his armor flaring brighter.]
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Tron, would you believe me if I told you I wasn't?
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... Sir.
Sir what are you doing?]
Tron?
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Anon eases into a crouch - slow, since he'd heard Twosix say something to the effect of 'sudden things are bad' - and peers at the glass.]
... looks like tap water.
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No, no, it's... it's energy. [He swirls his fingers in it, eyes wide.] Never seen anything like it, even on the old Grid. Pure source...
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Now, Anon is no schemer, really. He's a bad liar and plots aren't precisely his thing. But he's learned a thing or two in the last five hundred cycles... and since coming here. He can recognize when suggesting something might lead to a better course of action.]
Pure. Shown your User yet, sir?
[Because Alan seemed mostly normal, the last time he'd checked.]
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He'd never tell the story the same way twice, after.
Truth was, Clu saw Tron sitting sprawled, easy and content, in a safe, bright, clean room, in a place where he belonged and deserved to be, without a care in the world.
Something harsh and tight and mean clenched in the vicinity of his chest. A bitter routine that pushed honeyed poison across his tongue.]
Well. [Sleek and familiar.] Wondered where you'd wandered off to, Tron.
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You... y-you shouldn't be here. Not. Not now...!
[The glass of water slips from his fingers, falling to the floor and smashing into a hundred pieces, the sound a harsh bolt of light across his vision. Darkness begins to creep in, curling around the edges, distorting Clu's face into something out of a nightmare, the program standing above him suddenly seeming to loom taller, blocking out the light and energy until he filled everything. Tron falls to one side, the shattered glass digging into his armor as he threw one arm up in front of his face as though to block out the sight.]
You're not... you're not here! Go away!
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But on another level, it's not like he poisoned the water. And he'd never have let Tron keep it, not when it's clearly affecting him adversely.
And. Somewhere deeper still, there's the dark, insidious pull of the realization that made Clu change the Arena safety settings: You are alone. No one is coming to help you. Get used to it.]
Yes, I am. I'm the one thing about this that's real. [He's pretty sure that shouldn't go straight to his head, swift and bright as a shot of blue, but it doesn't really matter. The results are the same.]
I'm not going anywhere, man. Close your eyes and I'll still be there. That's a promise.
[The word still makes him shiver.]
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Y-you can't... I won't let you...
[His hand fumbles for the discs at his back, clumsy with the dizzying effects of the drug, and he struggles into a crouch, holding the weapon in front of him. Clu's mocking voice surrounds him, holds him down like a physical thing, binds him in place until he can barely move, and everything is black and gold and promises of power...]
I won't let you! [His voice is bordering on a scream, edging toward hysteria. The terror is overwhelming him now, memories of rectification twisted into formless shapes and color and everything is Clu, blocking out his vision and sense with his very presence.]
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Let me? [An echo, too light, all oil and sunshine--radiant, poisonous.] Let me?
[He's not an idiot and he's not closing the gap with Tron, armed, in a roomful of cutlery and similar, lesser potential weapons. No way.
Words have always been his best weapon, anyway.]
I'm hurt, Tron. We were friends. We could still be. I think Flynn would like that.
[The truth is always uglier when he's done telling it.]
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Even as that thought hits him he glances down, seeing his own limbs twisting, red-orange light bleeding from his circuits, flowing down his arms like liquid, digging into his armor, a physical presence, heat radiating off the tendrils of light as it wraps around him like tentacles.]
No... no no no stop it stop it stop it!
[He flings the discs at Clu, a wild throw that's almost guaranteed to miss, the weapon careening off the walls before crashing to a stop, buried in the wall next to the fridge. Tron scrambles backwards ( ... )
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[ Alan's waltz back into the kitchen was punctured by an identity disc narrowly missing him in favor of cutting through the wall between himself and the fridge. It's the first thing he notices, too shocked to look at anything but the rotating disc that inflicted on the wall a fate his neck almost suffered. Alan was not a man accustomed to near death experiences, it was enough to give him such pause that for a moment, he did not register the madness going on around him.
It wasn't until he was on the floor, at Tron's side, that his senses returned to him. Cautious not to get too close to Tron, seeing him more as a distressed animal under outside influence, he crouched down low at his side and looked up at the man with a face he recognized more readily than when it had twenty years etched into it. There wasn't any need to ask for his name. ]
Clu? What is this, what's going on? Tron, he-
...what did you do?
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Said hello. Offered to stay by him. [Forever and ever and ever.] Promised.
...That was a [Grade A dick move] mistake.
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