R3SET
Who: AU!Jalen paying a visit
Where: Grid Arcade
When: Now, or as close as possible.
What: Jalen, if he'd lived, if everything had been different, and Clu actually been a nice guy.
Warnings: Angst. Random hugging? Violence only if your character attacks first - he's a Disk Wars champion, though, be warned.
( Deep breath, back to the subtext )
Where: Grid Arcade
When: Now, or as close as possible.
What: Jalen, if he'd lived, if everything had been different, and Clu actually been a nice guy.
Warnings: Angst. Random hugging? Violence only if your character attacks first - he's a Disk Wars champion, though, be warned.
( Deep breath, back to the subtext )
Comments 21
Stepping around the corner, Krypton leaned one shoulder on the wall and crossed his arms. The program seemed familiar, for some reason. "Co-admin Clu?" he repeated. "Tall guy, User clothes, looks like Flynn? He's . . ."
The memory file finally opened and Krypton stopped mid-sentence, shock visible on his face.
". . . Jalen?" he said weakly, glad that the wall was there to hold him up.
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...Pointedly still in front of the Arcade. Because he is master of tactics, obviously.
"I-- yes. That's what I said."
Be stern, be mean. Stay professional, and don't stutter.
Although the voice is a bit familiar. Hard to place, but the implications aren't pleasant.
"Identify yourself."
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Jalen.
He straightened up, though his knees felt like they'd been hit with an instability flaw. "My - my name is Krypton. You're on the Free Grid. Clu's here, somewhere. I . . . he was investigating the Sea."
Krypton shook his head slowly. "If you're from the same Grid as him - the Primary Grid, right? - then there's a lot you need to know. And not much of it is good news."
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"'Free grid'? Is this another whimsical name for the earth-born who want personal recreation grid networks?"
And Jalen wants to be suspicious...but there's something lean, and hungry about the way Krypton is speaking to him. It's in the ISO's voice, in his expression, and Jalen can't help feeling suddenly very uneasy.
"How - you can't possibly have a duplicate Sea! There is one, and t-that's at home!"
In his surprise, Jalen is losing the battle to seem professional, and "intimidating" if he ever did in the first place. Instead blinking a bit at the image of Krypton, and then venturing a question of his own.
"....You are not the same Krypton who wrote the code translation sequencing for the digitization upgrade...are you?"
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If this really were Jalen, then more of the claims might be true than she'd believed. Clu had found some solution to the Iso problem that involved letting a few of them live.
Which did not in any way mean that having Clu in charge was remotely a good thing for that world. Or that poor Jalen had kept his sanity.
She needed more information. Yori bit her lip fiercely, then smoothed her face and answered the public announcement on a more restricted level.
"Jalen," she greeted the Iso neutrally. "Your assumptions are wrong; the Portal's behavior isn't controlled by anyone. I did hear your co-Admin had arrived. Why do you want him back?"
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"Why? He is co-admin to the primary grid, representative of the code-born population of my-- of the hub, and liaison for Encom incorporated to Washington."
Frowning, and looking very unsure about all of this, it's more a stab in the dark, but;
"...Yori, yes? I know your originator. She's a friend, and a vital asset to the digitization program's team. Do you...remember? Any of that?"
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It was probably too harsh. She needed to see Jalen's honest reactions now, not give him time to recover, crash her own sympathies. The differences didn't matter half so much as what Clu's plans were now.
Yori leaned forward, fists carefully out of sight. "Please. Before I go into explanations. Tell me how important...Clu is to your world." She worked hard to strip the hatred from the name. This version of Clu was far more subtle, but surely anyone the admin had altered couldn't resist that invitation.
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"Th-That I what?"
Alternate pasts? Parallel timelines? It was possible, but...
Time flows as a river. There is no forward, and no going back, but it is theoretically possible to move to the side. Branch universe theory in a very compressed nutshell.
Flynn had given him a "book" the first time on the theories of an earth-born named Albert Einstein. Time paradoxes weren't impossible, just highly improbable.
Jalen was now feeling a bit of panic, and had never been good at keeping his emotions off his expression.
"I...I really think you are confused. And I already told you that he is important, I don't-- I don't know how to say it any plainer."
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"...I...yes. Once. Flynn mentioned something about early iterations of Clu being created to infiltrate other systems, and retrieve useful data."
More like mentioned in passing, once over drinks. Jalen was seriously considering whether he would need to have a long talk with Flynn soon about every past program he had ever written just to see if anymore bizarre surprises may be floating around on the internet, waiting to ambush him.
"Cl--....sir? I beg your pardon, but this is all very strange, and I am not certain I would know what to refer to you as."
Looking a little frazzled, and a lot confused here. Don't mind him, it's been a very strange day. Plus, it was the height of strange to refer to anyone else as "Clu" in the first place, so Jalen is defaulting earth-born manners in the face of uncertainty.
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