a_perfect_end | [DISCONNECTED] Mailbox [IC]

On the morning of July 16th, Clu will receive a copy of Kevin Flynn’s book The Digital Frontier: Mapping the Other Universe (Back cover). The book contains philosophical, technical, and speculative ramblings about computer systems and programs, ranging in content from brilliant to slightly deranged. An example page can be seen here.

[It's been nearly half a cycle since his permissions list expanded. Since Rinzler asked for the most crucial part of what he wanted; since Clu gave in to the inevitability of change. Rinzler is never going back to factory settings, and he'll never forget what that promise cost or for how long.

Still, careful is a tricky line to walk, and most days, Rinzler stays well on the safe side of it. He reports whenever ordered. Provides whatever data Clu might ask. Not everything he does, not always or anymore. But Clu has access to his disk, and acting past his function isn't half the violation that it used to be. Certainly, it hurts less.

All the same, some choices aren't precisely Rinzler's to make. Especially with the consequences so unclear.

The emergency broadcast went out to all TABs. Certainly, Clu doesn't need the ping that flags the post to his awareness, lacking even the window dressing of a word. Rinzler doesn't think it needs them. The uncertainties are obvious; the questions implied. Is Clu reporting in? Should Rinzler? Does his admin have orders for him on the subject?

Or is this another decision category that necessitates an us?]

[He's right, he's been right all along. None of these organics know their priority queue from a hole in the ground and they're going to level what little civilization he's even managed to find here with the sheer force of their twice-glitched curiosity.

But let him fix it? Oh, no. Oh, never.

...Still. That's hardly Rinzler's doing.

Sort by relevance. Get the things at the top of the queue out of the way first.]

Report: Status?

[Pause. Can cursors even flicker in a grudging manner? Clu is certainly trying for that impression.]

Inquiry: Status of Alan-1?

Functioning. No damage.

[It's a succinct report, if not... entirely comprehensive. Still, if Clu wanted to ask about prior status (exposure?), he would.

Besides, grudging or not, the second inquiry draws much more attention. There's a full quarter-micro's lag before Rinzler sends back:]

Assessing.

All of it, for the entire exposure interval.

We don't know if that--if it's transferable, and unless you collected hard data to the contrary, I

[He is repulsed that this parasitic whatsis exists and also experiencing an uncomfortable sensation related to Rinzler's well-being, and that is not lengthening his fuse] would rather have the specifics.

As in, currently? Concurrent with our--

...Good. If there is no response, I will accompany you.

[So much for succinct. And hopefully Clu's mind-reading powers don't extend to catching Rinzler grumbling at the screen. He's fine.]

No effects observed on asteroid.
No substances retained [certainly not ingested] on return.
Subsequent rest cycle interrupted to minor system errors. Resolved shortly.
No lasting malfunctions or damage.

[Fine.

...if staring slightly blankly at the... offer? No, order that comes next. Rinzler knows his programmers have been on not-overtly-hostile terms of late, but...

Alan-one should respond soon. That would be good.]

Acknowledged.

[Processed as though Clu hasn't spent over a megacycle coupling fragments into lines to read between, signal to noise to parsable results.

Still. Absent motive to prevaricate, Rinzler doesn't.

Nothing observed, nothing retained. It's not the same as an all-clear, not in this stupid frontier backwater Shangri-La with nothing like a decent debug team, and certainly no compiler suite.

Risks must be assessed. But there's no reason to let on he's doing it, not until there's evidence available. Not least because it can be turned on him.]

There's a delay on it...What's the interval?

No? Good. If any of that changes--duration, frequency, content, anything--duplicate the dump file and pass it to me.

[He squints at that last one. You bet your bits, acknowledged.]

Don't worry. I won't let him scrub himself twice.

[That last line is... marginally more comforting. (Marginally.) Rinzler cancels any effort to quantify how much in favor of redirecting to the relevant queries.]

Unknown.

Singular incident, estimated +0.6 millicycles after system transfer.

[He knows when he shut down, but not when the error (dream) began. He hadn't thought (until today) that it was anything worth reporting.]

[It takes Rinzler a while. Longer than it should? Maybe, but contact is so rarely his to initiate. The ISO was a special case, as was the virus before it. This time...

...he waits until he finds his copy. He waits until it's wiped for good. He waits a little longer. Rinzler spends no small amount of time hovering outside Clu's door, only to find it empty when he finally dares scan. But his contact on the TAB stays live. He's still here. The threats are gone. If Clu hasn't made contact, it has to be because of choice—and Clu's choices are paramount.

Two more days. Finally:]

Request update.

[He'd slunk out of the Ingress complex well and whole and alarmingly empty-handed, gone to find a garden with ferns enough to tolerate, and stared at them a while with his comm off.

But eventually his own ferns needed him.

The entire rest of the living room had fit just perfectly in the incinerator.

He turned the comm back on when the fact of not answering it began to weigh on the queue. Messages would only pile up if he didn't answer them, and some of them might be accompanied.

...That. Was not happening.]

Clarify.

[No hesitation.]

[...

The fact of a reply answers most of Rinzler's questions. Clu is alive. Clu is functioning. The silence (and absence) of the last few centicycles was by choice instead of hazard. Which means disturbing it was probably his error.

Too late to correct now.]

Status.

[He's only doing what he's supposed to do. He was written that way. Rewritten that way: pushed, prodded, pulled apart and pared away, more and more, and more than once--

I never needed you.

And Clu is just fine.]

Functional.

[There's an explicit timestamp and a neutral nondescript location shoved across with the next line.]

I have something for you.

Tomorrow.

[More preparation will not make him more ready, and they have more important things to discuss.]

[The first line is nearly a dismissal. The rest... not. Clu has something for him? As thoroughly as they've strayed from defaults, Rinzler has trouble imagining many conditions under which that could be good. What had he done? Or is it what he hadn't done? Should he have made more effort to track Clu? Where has his admin been?

Maybe he'll find out. Probably, he won't. Probably, it's just a task. He's delayed longer than he should, regardless.]

Acknowledged.

[He'll be there. Of course.]

[It's taken so much longer than it should, and it's such a small thing, and--

They'll never be as they were, but that was true already. They are not as they were.

That's his doing, too.]

Inquiry:

[The cursor flickers at him, steady amber solenoid beats, and then:]

Status? Location? Specify range and duration of position.

[How've you been, and how do you do?

...Y'did the sitting on the doorjamb thing, didn't you.]

[He has his answer. He has his orders. Rinzler isn't expecting a response. When his TAB chimes, it takes a moment to recall the texts. A moment longer to stop lagging and answer.]

Functional.

Kauto, R1. Scouting sector boundaries.

[Wow, Clu. He's not sitting on the doorjamb. That was yesterday! Besides, scouring the streets (or rooftops) allows for a much more comprehensive search.

Range receives a numeric estimate, along with a current vector and approximate path speed. It's the best he can offer for duration.

Rinzler has always hated sitting still.]

[Functional. Sure. They both are.

Fine. Just fine. It's all fine.]

Good.

[And if his fingers are just slightly unsteady as he turns over the packets passed to his TAB--

Wait. Wait, those vectors are--

He's. Moving.

This way.]

That's just fine.

[IT IS NOT FINE.]

[Wow, Clu. Paranoid much? Rinzler is, in fact, approaching on a tangent. And aiming to pass on a tangent, too. Just because he hates waiting on standby doesn't mean he doesn't know how to wait.

Tomorrow. Those were Clu's orders, and Rinzler has a timestamp and location to match, too. Under normal circumstances, the current message would qualify as a dismissal, but he'd assumed that much before and been wrong too. Better to be sure.]

Further data required?

[Clu should know better--does know better, rationally--but that's never slowed the racing of his processor before. He's always like this--just not always with Rinzler, and that had proved a massive tactical error, had exposed a huge vulnerability that he's too eager by half to just patch already: paranoia restored.

He won't fail them again, not by that route.

The message is exact, formulaic, adhering perfectly to the oldest possible formalities.]

No. Your report is sufficient. Thank you for your time.

[Now all that remains--for both of them--is to wait.]

[It's not Rinzler's formula. Not the one he's used to... not just that. Still, it can't be faulted for its clarity. Rinzler eyes the display for a long moment, fingers curling over the keys—before he nods (to no one) and closes the device.

Tomorrow.]

[The message comes in the middle of the night, without warning or preamble. It’s not the kind of news that should ever come through text and yet there it is, straightforward and brutally concise.]

Flynn is dead.

[He'd blocked and unblocked and re-blocked and re-unlocked Alan's ACE.ID, depending on his whim, ever since the User had plumbed Clu's entire visual directory like a cheap VCR.

(I wasn't sure you'd want it handed to you.)

And so it's bare, backhanded luck that Clu gets the news at all.

Prioritizing...]

WHERE ARE YOU.

[The cursor doesn't flicker so much as hang still, solid orange just long enough to be noticeable, and then disgorges the rest of the message entire.]

Specify: assistance required? Is Rinzler with you?

[That Clu is concerning himself with Alan’s own wellbeing in the wake of the news is perplexing, at first—until that last question. Of course it’s about Rinzler.]

Medical wing. [Perhaps it’s dangerous to give Clu such information under the circumstances. Alan finds it difficult to muster up much concern.]

I’m [He’s wounded and he can’t remember the last time he felt this wretched, but he isn’t the one who paid with his life tonight. He doesn’t have the right to complain.] fine.

Rinzler is here. I don’t need your help.

[Of course it's about Rinzler: Rinzler's the strongest common bond they even have, besides--

Besides this.

Clu can take this. He can handle it. It's fine. He doesn't have to feel a thing.

Not while he has someone to play with.]

I understand perfectly. You are there. Rinzler is there.

You are fine.

...Where is Flynn?

[Focus on fact; the truth is a weapon. Use it on others.

Keep it together.]

[Clu says nothing that Alan has not already stated himself, yet it brings a renewed rush of guilt all the same.]

~~I was too late~~

[He deletes it in anger an instant after he’s typed it. Of all people, Clu isn’t the one he needs to justify himself to.]

He was in the library. Something attacked him. I don’t know if they’ll put him in cryo.

[He doesn’t even know if the cryopods here work. He reflects hollowly that it’s very possible that Flynn is gone—this time for good.]

[Clu watches the text, tracks the omission, and wonders why it doesn't feel like he's scored a hit.

His fingers tighten above the display. He makes them relax, forces them open...Alan isn't the one who let go. And there are salient factors here that must be addressed.]

Library? No. I'm sorry, that's not correct.

It took him from the Greenery.

It moves very fast. Stay with Rinzler.

Looks like we'll find out how (or whether) people come back, here.

[The cursor hangs, flickering, while he gets the words into their best order.]

You didn't have to tell me.

[Cursor, cursor, cursor...]

Thank you.

[The sudden shift in emotional tack alone is enough to throw Alan off balance for a good minute or so. Even more so is the information Clu provides next.

After a long moment, Alan replies.]

It sounds like you already knew.

[Another long pause. Then, in a rapidfire of typing, another message appears.]

Do you actually want him to come back?

[In another time, Alan maybe wouldn’t have been so blunt. Now, he isn’t thinking about tact or grace. And, with Flynn's killer having fled back to the shadows, perhaps part of him wants to lash out at the person who’d taken Flynn away the first time.]

[The cursor just waits there for an interminable stretch of seconds, Alan-1 synthesizing information and best presenting it.]

~~I couldn't~~[Nothing, and all one chunk:] I did not know he was dead. Or in the library. Or how it got there, or where it is now.

Your best source of incoming tactical data is already with you. Stay by him.

[Dude.

Ow.]

Of course I do!

[The next question is short, simple, and, though Clu can’t tell one way or the other, entirely genuine. Everything Alan knows about Clu centers around a few facts: that he had hated Flynn, that he had spent a dizzying amount of time hunting him down, and that he had ultimately killed him. The following question is thus entirely warranted in Alan’s mind.]

Why?

[Well.

Straight to the point.

He can respect that, and he can perform the same courtesy.]

Killing him was never in the plan. Or, not in mine.

Disc is a tool, same as a socket wrench. I needed his.

He never needed to die for it.

[Alan would be hard-pressed to tell if Clu was lying face-to-face. Through text, it’s impossible.]

But he did. [Short and biting, a reminder neither of them needs. It feels almost ridiculous to be having this conversation now, discussing the death that happened almost two years ago instead of the one that’s taken its place now, but Alan knows this is the only time he’ll ever be able to talk about it this openly.

He can't flinch from Flynn's death any longer, not when he just saw the body.]

If you didn’t kill him, what did?

Everybody keeps saying that, yeah. I'll believe it when it happens.

[The last thing he does remember is Flynn's disc bright and slim in his grip, and then he was here.

...Dude. Seriously? Seriously, dude?

Dude!]

I keep telling you, a really fast [there are no such things as monsters, monsters do not exist] enemy, female torso, with bite strength like a forklift and an unbreakable grip.

It. Crushed--

Look, stay away from its limbs; four--or five--allowing for apparent vestigial structure. Super agile, in the bargain.

Edited (leaky formatting) 2018-02-10 16:55 (UTC)

[Alan had actually been asking about the first time Flynn died, but Clu’s already made it clear he doesn’t know anything about that, so Alan lets him patter on unhindered. He doesn’t mention that he’s already seen the monster nor that it had broken his arm. Though he feels something dangerously close to sympathy for Clu at the moment, part of him remembers well that Clu will likely hear—or see—that information from Rinzler later.

For now, he’s done the very least he can in this situation. Clu knows the fate of his one-time user—and perhaps Alan knows a little bit more about the admin than he did before.]

I’ll pass the information on to Rinzler. [It’s purely pragmatic. Business-like. It may be all the closing this conversation requires and yet, after a long pause, Alan grudgingly adds two more words.]

Stay safe.

[If only for Rinzler’s sake.]

Threat observed.

Stealth capabilities.
Four hands.
Strength limited to user metrics, no observed weaponry.
Derezzed immediate instance; additional numbers unknown.

External render: user with black eyes.

[So. Familiar.]

Your status?

I saw it.

Appreciate the limb count. It moves many factors faster than expected given comparative strength.

[A queued remark, there all at once in a flash of phosphor and deleted just as fast:]

~~He slipped.~~

[Irrelevant. It adds no informational value, and it's cruel to junk up another's processes in hazard mode.

Suck it up. Stick to the facts.]

I'm not damaged.

[There's a short... lag. Then:]

Timestamp of encounter?

[And, immediately after.]

Current location?

[Click, click, there's your integer string.

...Was it really less than yesterday? User time is gratingly slow and way too fast in the intervals that count for something.]

Me?

[Excusez-moi who reports to whom?]

Where are you?

Edited (lmao i am sorry i dropped this.) 2018-01-20 16:29 (UTC)

[Recent. Which means Clu might still be a target. Rinzler hadn't missed the creature's focus, in those brief intervals of struggle: reaching for Alan-one, even as he cut it down.

Whatever these things (thing?) might be, they don't attack randomly.]

Medbay. Securing Alan-1.

[He answers to Clu. But this matters more.]

Location?

[ A note shivers in the air, the quiet hum of a plucked string. He's not precisely sure where Clu's gone off to- asking through the network feels, somehow, impersonal.

~~Why does that suddenly matter?~~

The location? query is polite, warm by old, old habit. Alright, he gives. Where are you, man? ]

[Clu makes fitful use of the Library in jags, surrounded by projections read in sequential batches just as fast as they'll scroll down his favored corner wall. Today it's background on star formation: three feeds. Hydro-AND-aqua-AND-aeroponics in small spaces: five feeds, two specialist, and something either heavily redacted or just crunchily formatted on fertilizer.

There are sixteen separate tabs running Earth history, all of them gruesome.

There is one about relationships, but he keeps minimizing it.

...Gentle, warm, crystal clear, the query takes immediate priority.

It takes him a few picos--are those seconds, out here? Close to--but he comes up from the heady electric assault of new information with a brief, precise location packet; here with the coordinates, with a hum of cognitive activity, a certain ferocious sense of accomplishment and curiosity.

?status

You okay?]

[ Oh! Pleasant surprise unfurls in reply, measured out with thoughtful care. He's far better at this than he used to be, once upon a time eschewing the immersion required for anything more than a few short, impersonal commands. Distance finds itself replaced by comfortable familiarity, cozy as an old, favorite shirt.

Good. I have something for you.

He'll just amble in that direction, won't he. ]

[There's a drift of surprise along their connection, his own like an echo, a curl of inquiry: status? (you okay?) because that's important, it's always been important, even with his interest drawn out by the promise of more data and a something, nonspecific.

The windows continue to scroll, text shivering down the wall in amber rivers like night rain in the city.]

You keep bringing me things.

[Statement. Hint of a question--but smiling.]

...You can just bring you, y'know.

[DISCONNECTED] Mailbox [IC]

DELIVERY

May 4

text;

Re: text;

text;

text;

Re: text;

text;

7/25 or thereabouts

7/25;

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(wrap here? we're already logging the important bits~)

(Sounds good!)

text;

text;

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text; when you're tryna be apologetic but you're still Clu;

when you're not even trying to be delicate bc ur alan bradley

Re: when you're not even trying to be delicate bc ur alan bradley

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Immediately after Alan's call

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ping;

him hotline never ping;

C: ping;

-> Library! (action? description-spam, at least)