Eternal revolution

[sys_operator]

Who: C.L.U.
Where: Edge of the City
When: Now
What: Here comes trouble. Clu, having been discovered by Flynn and Alan-One, is finally nudged to return to the Grid and the City
Warnings: ... Non-comedic sociopathy? Megalomania and obsessive behavior.

Comments

[yorisearching]

The streets in this sector of the city were still emptier than they might have been, but safe enough, given the frequency of patrols. Yori had been paying a visit to old friends, and for once she was not thinking about Clu at all. About four-fifths of her mind was still analyzing the costs and benefits of a suggested lightjet remodel, leaving the remainder to work out a quick way home.

Reflexes that didn't bother asking permission had her disc drawn and glowing blue in guard position at the first glimpse of bright poison yellow as she turned a corner, all other processes dumped. She'd turned to put the wall at her back. Clu, you glitch-- Not an innocent, this time, and not Flynn wearing a younger face. Clu as he was after the betrayals

[sys_operator]

Clu's eyebrows arched at this program's response. Perhaps she looked familiar, the pattern of her circuits certainly looked as though he should recognize it but he himself didn't know her. Nor did he know why she should be so hostile or at least defensive towards him.

"Greetings, program." Mild, calm, and easy. Until he found out more about her.

[Thaaat's okay, I ran into a long delay myself. >.<]

[yorisearching]

The generic greeting was a faint relief. He didn't know her, then, or at least didn't recognize her. The Yori in his past might never have come to the Grid, or else had been derezzed mercifully early, or perhaps clever enough to escape notice.

His pretense at courtesy didn't fool her. But she overrode the initial panic to make a fair pretense of her own, forcing herself to deactivate and replace her disk on its port. It never had done any good to attack Clu head-on.

"Greetings, Clu." At the moment her acting ability didn't stretch to titles. Not with him. But she did shrug in what might be taken for a very faint apology. "That color makes me think of viruses." Like, for instance, the former sysadmin himself.

[sys_operator]

"... Ah." No, that explained some things but other things were still a mystery. As was her knowledge of him and her attitude towards him, which put her as one of the rebels but not one he had ever heard before.

"May I ask your designation and ... purpose?"

Something about her told him to be very wary of her, more than he was of most programs. And something about her was familiar, too. Not to the part of him that was System Administrator, but to the part of him that came from Flynn.

[yorisearching]

"System utility. Analysis." Yori gestured upward. "Still finding a purpose in the new system, like everyone else. Cleaning up after you, I suppose, from what I hear."

She neglected to mention her name or her actual designed function or her very personal experience with that last. Not by accident.

Yori desperately wanted to snatch out her lightjet baton and be elsewhere, but a need for information came out victorious. "How long have you been here?" she asked. "I don't know what anyone's told you about the place."

[sys_operator]

Clu's eyebrows arched further. Cleaning up after him? That was an insult, his system had been orderly and functioned perfectly. Until Flynn had intervened. If anyone was cleaning up after anyone, he was cleaning up after their Creator.

His jaw clenched, but he didn't say anything on that subject.

"Not long," he did say. "I only arrived in the city less than a microcycle ago."

[yorisearching]

Interesting that he hadn't responded verbally to the jab, which had been quite pointed, if terribly mild compared to what she wanted to say. And he hadn't tried to derez her for it, either.

Yori nodded thoughtfully. "But you remember everything at the Portal, before that? Some programs have trouble accessing recent events when they arrive." Usually because they'd been tortured or reprogrammed or had never experienced it in the first place, none of which should apply to Clu. Still, it explained why he was...a little less stupidly overconfident.

[sys_operator]

"I do." She hadn't introduced herself, either. Which put them at somewhat of a disadvantage, if not an unexpected one.

Some programs. Flynn had mentioned some of this, but now he wondered if this program could be of use in further explaining what was going on. Especially since she seemed at least a little more aware, or perhaps it was only greater self-assurance. Whatever else Flynn projected, it wasn't always or even often that, anymore.

"What sort of trouble has there been? Accessing recent events." Please, do tell him more. More information is always useful.

[yorisearching]

There were very few limits to the lengths Yori would have gone in order not to be useful to Clu.

However, it was pointless not to answer a question that was common knowledge to programs and on the network. Seeing his reaction might be helpful to someone eventually.

"The last thing a lot of programs remember is when your army murdered them," she informed him. The note of cheer was purely for provocation. "Unless of course they remember being forced to do the murdering. Not many programs left to remember you fondly."

[sys_operator]

Those eyebrows were just going to stay up there, weren't they. Her cheerfulness belied her words, making her either demented or deeply sarcastic. Experience suggested the latter. She didn't seem to have any good feeling towards him whatsoever, although she was apparently reluctant to be physically antagonistic.

Analysis mode. No, this didn't fit with anyone he knew or remembered as being in his Grid. Which meant this hatred was carried over from a different Grid, a different himself.

Now that was a disconcerting thought to be abruptly forced to confront.

"Rectified," he corrected, almost absently. "The system was cluttered, breaking down. It needed to be corrected."

[yorisearching]

"Rectified," Yori snarled, her capacity for politeness shattered by the word. "As though you had any--" She broke herself off, nearly choking on the fury, and spat instead, "Here's a test for you. Explain how your plan, your initial plan, was in any way better than Flynn's utter idiocy of wait-and-all-will-be-well."

She lifted her eyebrows in challenge. "That's a glitching easy target, isn't it? Have a cast. And I'm a Basic, after all; you claimed to be thinking of us. When it suited you."

[sys_operator]

"Flynn's plan..." Not that he felt like defending his Creator, but it wasn't the most accurate of statements. The wait-and-see part at least. "Was contingent upon programs, Basics or otherwise, knowing what to do with themselves. Or at least being able to think in the way a User would. He lacked the..."

Clu even smiled a little. Not happily. "The inside perspective."

[yorisearching]

"By which you mean your perspective?" Yori's scowl was possibly darker. "And who cared what other programs thought about it, because they couldn't choose? Is that what you mean? Because that's glitching well what it looks like."

Her hands were shaking, terror and rage and pure overpowering hatred that could not help but escape in words if she denied it actions, hundreds of cycles of dammed arguments spilling free. "You aren't the Users-blast-it definition of glitch-eaten perfection, crash you! How could you have been? Flynn made you after himself, and what kind of model is that? Big ideas, no sense. Crash it. You were never meant to do this alone."

Fury was coiled through her whole frame now, trembling. "Flynn might not have accepted or understood us, or believed we were capable of choice, but you were worse; you stole our choices from us, you glitch."

[sys_operator]

Clu didn't flinch or retreat from the smaller, angry program. His expression softened, except for the smile he was suppressing. Not that he knew why he wanted to smile, but something about her argument and her anger appealed to him. Maybe just the conviction with which she spoke. It reminded him, somehow, of Tron.

Something he'd have to look at later. He wasn't sure how good of an idea it was.

"In the absence of other criteria, I made my own," he shrugged, his voice still quiet and even, the same as it had been for at least the last several exchanges. "You might be surprised how many Basics agreed with me. Flynn never was able to settle on any set of detailed instructions or a definition of perfection."

Which brought back a few memories, too. "The first time I knew him... the first time I knew what knowing was, I hadn't been in existence for a microcycle then. He told me I would create the perfect system. And then ... nothing. NOthing useful or long-term," he amended. "For some time."

[yorisearching]

Yori had not been remotely surprised at the Basics who'd followed Clu. She had seen it all before. "You were our admin and we trusted you," she hissed. "And considering what you did to those of us who objected to the slightest details of your glitching stupid grand plan, I don't blame the others for keeping their mouths shut."

She flicked the description of Flynn's failure aside with a sharp motion. "We've established Flynn didn't know what he was doing. How does that give you any excuse for betraying us?"

[sys_operator]

"It's not an excuse," now he did get a bit sharp, if still not half as aggressive as she was. "It's an explanation. Have you ever had to command and direct a network as vast as this grid, with a primary objective whose parameters kept changing and were never very sufficient to begin with?"