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

[yorisearching]

With the MCP gone and Flynn vanished into the unknown, programs had looked to Tron and Yori for leadership somewhat by default, until the new structure of Encom's enormous and complex network was settled from outside. Getting control of that chaos had been very educational.

She wasn't going to say as much, because it required both mentioning Tron and giving away her own identity, in the faint hope Clu might not guess until she was safely away.

"I know it's crashing near impossible if you're trying to do it alone," Yori repeated instead. She was not going to flinch. Not this time.

[sys_operator]

He wasn't going to flinch, either. "And who would you trust to help you, in such an obviously important task?" Since she thought of it as important. So did he, for that matter.

[yorisearching]

Tron, of course-- No. Name no names that gave her away. "You had Shaddox to help, you had the Grid Champion, you had all the Stats and Analysis programs, you had experienced old programs from all different systems and Users and a right to ask advice from anyone in the entire Grid." Not mentioning the Portal at all. Much safer. Also not mentioning the Isos.

Her glare felt heated as an active disk edge. Yori leveled a finger. "And you had a duty, crash it, to accept their advice as honestly meant even when you didn't like it, and to respect their competence in their own jobs!"

[sys_operator]

"But their jobs are not system administration." Sharper, leaning in ever so slightly at her.

"Yes, a Stats and Analysis program might be able to give sound advice, within the scope of his training and ability. I have to consider more variables and more consequences than that. I have to consider this system. I have to consider, above all else, the wishes of a User who changed his mind at least once a Cycle." A slight exaggeration, but not by much. His frustration, not with her but with the situation, was mounting.

"When you can coordinate a system the likes of which has never been seen or created before, a massive, multi-purpose system, to the purposes of a User who doesn't even know what he built it for. Some nebulous vision of his future..." He didn't even know what. Frustration, mostly with Flynn, boiled over. He turned and stalked off a couple of paces, stalked back to her.

"You try keeping up with his whims, his changing mind, his constant appearing and rambling about how this could be better, this could be improved, and then

[yorisearching]

Fury and stubbornness were almost enough to brace Yori through the angry voice, the sudden approach of the face of her endless nightmare. Almost. She stumbled back two steps, hand firmly on her disk, and knew her own expression had given too much away--she was terrified, she was weak, she'd broken so easily and would again if he--erase him. No.

"You had every right to be angry," she said, her voice dropping to a lower, deadlier tone. "You had every right to scream at Flynn, complain to everyone in earshot, get everyone together and convince Flynn to take things seriously. It was a glitching complicated job and telling him we didn't have proper parameters wouldn't have meant you'd failed."

Yori narrowed her eyes till vision almost blurred, teeth clenched as tight as her disk hand.

"Nothing gave you the right to torture us! You murdered us, you tore our minds apart!"

[sys_operator]

"I don't even know you!" he screamed.

He didn't even notice, really, that he didn't deny the torture and murder accusations. They were true, after all, and the part that stuck in his mind was that here was this tiny program telling him how he should have run his Grid, and he didn't know her or her origins. For all he knew, she could have been a recent arrival.

Or, more likely, not that he thought about at this rate, from some other Grid.

[yorisearching]

"I'll remind my counterpart to be grateful for that if I ever meet her," Yori snapped. "One program you didn't have the chance to betray personally. As though it mattered. I know what you did to Tron--"

Much to her own horror, fury wasn't enough to keep her face from crumpling with despair at the name. She dug fingernails fiercely into her palms with a terrified determination not to overreact and make herself vulnerable again.

She scowled darkly. "And here you are back. Have you learned a bit's worth of sense yet, or are you going to try betraying us all again?"

[sys_operator]

"Tron attacked first."

He took a moment. Just a moment, to pull himself back together. Really, he should turn and leave without another word. He knew he should. Fighting with this program was pointless.

"I haven't yet decided what needs to be done," he told her, as coolly and calmly as he could manage.

[yorisearching]

The sheer illogic of that counterattack silenced Yori just long enough for her to bite back the innumerable obvious facts that contradicted it, and match Clu's cold stare with her own. "I wish he had! If Tron had ever once attacked you first instead of treating you as a friend, you'd have been derezzed a thousand cycles ago--and programs everywhere might actually be on equal terms with their Users by now. So try not to be an enormous glitch this time, if you can possibly help it."

[sys_operator]

He just stared at her. "You weren't there, you couldn't know." He still remembered the shock of it, however momentary. Tron, attacking him. Not with discs, but with fists was bad enough.

"I'm sure whenever I do decide, you'll be able to swiftly determine that my course of action is the absolute wrong one," he said then, with about 90% recovered composure and an ironic bow.

[yorisearching]

"Tron is Security! The first time you murdered an innocent, that was an attack on Tron," Yori said fiercely. "Introducing a virus was an attack on Tron. Making slaves out of free programs like a virus yourself was an attack on Tron. Turning the Games into death matches, that was a crashing personal attack on Tron. And he still didn't want to hurt you! You were his friend, crash your code!"

She didn't react to the bow, except to increase power to her glare. "I've got some helpful parameters for you, if you like. If it includes murder, torture, enslavement, or prioritizing your own glitching stupid whims above what your system and your people need, then it's wrong. Think you can remember that much?"

[sys_operator]

He ignored her rantings. She didn't know anything about it, she hadn't been there, she didn't know what happened. So she couldn't appreciate the magnitude of the betrayal. At least, that was what he told himself to help himself regain control.

Especially after that last comment. "I wasn't the one who prioritized his whims above the functionality of the system," he snarled, though he kept his place where he was and his stance rigid and still. "That was all Flynn."

[yorisearching]

She was giving herself away, she should go, she should run now and let him think whatever garbage he liked, all the better if he underestimated her, but she couldn't, she couldn't--

"If you knew Flynn was wrong, all the more reason you should have listened to programs like Tron," Yori growled. Like me. "Since Flynn never did." Her lips drew up, with a tremor more than fury and more shameful, a grief old and long-hated. "You were our friend--" The words escaped before she could rephrase. "Why? Why did you betray us, Clu?"

[sys_operator]

"I don't know you." But that came out less vehement, more tired and confused and upset. "There is no us. I haven't done anything to you, and I have no idea what you're talking about..."

He didn't take a step back, so much as lean slightly back and look up. Off into the distance. "Flynn was never there, Tron took his side. All the time." Which wasn't fair or true, either, but right now it seemed that way. Clu sighed. "Not all the time. But often enough to be... obstructive. He didn't understand what I needed to do. I still don't understand why he thought Flynn was capable... had some grand idea..." Something. Things that could not be quantified or labeled so easily, things he was much, much less skilled with.

[yorisearching]

Whether this Clu had ever known or heard of a Yori was entirely beside the point. She didn't bother to repeat herself.

"If Users had directives, producing grand ideas would be Flynn's." Yori didn't take her eyes off Clu long enough to roll them, but the suggestion colored her tone. There was a little fondness in the exasperation, but it filtered through too much grief. "Ideas. Never plans. Certainly never sensible plans. But plans are supposed to be our strength." If only Clu had been willing to listen.