NOTES ON THIS FRAGMENT:

(note within the note—watch for an asterisk somewhere in the text. It indicated a footnote with an important clarifier I don't want to get into here.)

ANYWAY, this takes place later... at some unspecified point. Mostly you need to know that Tron has been interrogating Rinzler at various points, and getting nothing, largely because Rinz has no idea what's going on, either. In the course of these exchanges, things have been getting progressively more personal, and this scene takes place after a tirade on Tron's behalf, basically summarized as "you never should have existed you stole my body and my purpose" with the retort of, roughly, "you were dead and should never have come back." With an exchange about Rinzler was aver sentient as a basic which he affirms in a rare moment of loquaciousness. Tron says something like "I took back what was mine."

We go from there-ish. This exchange was something I wanted to write and knew was important, but I never got the chance to put it in context.


Rinzler


"You took everything from me!"

I wouldn't have guessed it could feel so good to scream at him, to hear my voice reverberating off the walls, coming back to echo in my own ears. It has a different timbre than his; and in the wake of its resounding, it is so gratifying to see his eyes widen, watch him step away from it, my voice, my voice out loud, more than a whisper in his head he can step on and silence.

"You are me," he says, oh so gruff and so reluctant, as if speaking past gritted teeth can protect him.

"No, I'm not." I step towards him, crunching a lost pixel from my mouth or my hip or my hand under my foot as I do. "I haven't been. Not for a long time. How long were you dead in there? How many memories do you not have because you weren't there for them, because they're in me?"

He says nothing for a moment. I have never said quite so much.

"At least . . ." he speaks slowly for someone who'd once been authoritative, "I remember something besides violence and agony."

"I'm so happy for you," I snap, grinding my heel into a broken piece of myself on the floor in place of laughing, "Tell me, how old are the good memories? Those blurs of light and color and white suits, how many of them can you still make out? You're old. You're ancient. How outdated are you, now? Are your systems going as quickly as your joints, old program?"

He lunges for me, and I sidestep him, leaning on my good knee. He's going to kill me for this.

"And how outdated is she? Have you asked her why she never sleeps anymore? Do you know where she goes when she's not in your bed?"

This time when he comes for me, he doesn't miss. He's still strong, and he grabs me by my hair and pulls my head so far back I'm almost worried he'll tear it off, pushing me sideways against the wall as he does. "You stay away from her."

Now we're angry.

"You keep me in a cage," I choke, "you'd better tell her to stay away from me. A tall order, given that she's the only program in the building with a conscience."*

His reply is to throw me over his knee, driving it so hard into my back that the circuits go dark in my legs.

Then he throws me to the floor. I land squarely on the mount for my disc, and for a moment all I can see is red light. To keep from screaming I have to grit my teeth, grit them so forcefully that one of the cracked ones implodes, choking me with dry pixels. My hands, still behind my back, are digging into me, my wrists crushed at the wrong angle under my own weight. The circuits in my legs are flickering.

Everything is tingling . . . Cool it, program. He will kill you.

Do I care?

"Go lick . . . a hot circuit," I manage to gasp at him before he picks me up with one hand and flips me over, yanking my disc off of my back before I can even get me knees under me. Let alone stand. NO. "Don't you—"

My words are interrupted by a violent cough, pixels rising from my broken throat forcing their way out of my mouth.

"Don't you touch that."

But he does.

Theyalwaysdo.

I want to push him down, beat his head into the ground, put a hole in his face, but I can't get myself off the ground, can't lift myself without my arms just yet, my back and disc port and everything screaming, a hundred different error messages clouding my vision.

And he does. He prods at my code, digs in it, taking his time, fixing every single piece of me that he broke and taking every last drop of power I have to do it. And it doesn't stop the pain. He fixes me, and breaks me. Leaves me aching on the floor, so drained I can't move, a heap against the wall, lying in my own pixels.

I had him all wrong.

His revenge is slow.

O0o0o0o0o0o0O

It's Yori who finds me, pausing at my cell door, cutting off her own little scream with a hand to her mouth when she sees the pixels on the floor. I've managed to push myself to my knees, and to at least set myself up so that I am leaning against that jutting rectangle of wall that serves as a bed.

"Users," she whispers, "what happened in here?"

She derezzes the force field long enough to step through, and kneels just out of reach of me, inspecting the broken pixels on the ground with a look of revulsion on her face.

Your counterpart.

I want to say it, to throw it at her and watch her expression fall . . . but then again, maybe I don't. I keep it in my head, and throw her a look instead.

What do you think?

She closes her eyes, and runs a hand through her hair. Her bangs spring back into place strand by strand, little flashes of pale blonde.

"On second thought," she declares, " I'd rather not know." I know you don't. Denial is easy, clever program.

You of all people must know that.

"Here," she says, and offers me a vial of energy that she is, for some reason, carrying in her boot.

. . . Why would you carry that around? You're an admin. Aren't you supposed to want for nothing?

I want to say "who have you been saving that for," but I don't.

I stare at her, and she looks back at me as if disarmed by my gaze for a long moment before pursing her lips and rolling her eyes towards the ceiling, following this display with a slow blink.

"Right. Cuffs."

"You could let me out of them."

Oh, so that you can say. I'm inarticulate today. Too full of my broken pieces, too softened by the sight of her. My voice sounds terrible now when it emerges, besides. Raw.

"Not likely," she retorts. Glares.

I lift an eyebrow at her, shake my head. The gesture sets my vision spinning, and I have to lean my temple against the cool, hard surface of the bed again to get the world to stop wobbling. I'm startled by something cool against my lips, jumping as much as my detrimentally weakened body will allow.

I open my eyes to see her holding the vial hesitantly towards me, near enough to touch my mouth.

"I'm not proud of it either," she says smugly, "believe me. Are you going to drink it or not?"

For a moment, all I can do is stare at her, systems switching to high alert.

I don't need your help—

-please help me. . .

. . . I'm fine, thanks—

-leave me alone . . .

. . . I don't know . . . how to react to you—

-clever program-

ERROR ERROR ERROR

I think the word I'm looking for is panic. But I don't say it, any more than I say anything else. She pressed the vile up against my lips and tilts it back. When the power hits my tongue, everything turns to silence.


Yori


He's so thirsty, and it's not surprising. He closes his eyes to drink, and won't look at me when he's finished, circuits just a little brighter than the near death dimness they were exhibiting when I walked in. He's a lot like Tron that way, he doesn't like to be vulnerable, and doesn't like to ask for help, and doesn't know how to thank anyone for giving it.

I wipe a little bit of liquid from the corner of his mouth, and he shutters from head to foot, staring with such intensity at the wall I half expect him to burn a hole in it. His expression is as cold and white and blank as an overbright street lamp, and I have to shake my head at him.

"Honestly. You'd think I'd deleted your gridsuit . . . calm down. I've seen you worse."

He glances at me, impossible eyes glinting in the dark cell.

"Me, or your counterpart?" He growls when he speaks.

"Both. Either. It doesn't really matter. You could still do me the honor of looking at me."

He closes his eyes instead, and doesn't speak. If you're going to be like that, I'm going to leave.

He bows his head a little. The nod, perhaps, is his version of thanks.

"You're welcome," I tell him, treating it as such, "now, do me a favor and don't knock me on my backside. I'm going to help you off the floor."

I reach for him and he reals, flings himself away from me, kicking me hard enough in my side for circuits all the way down my leg to flicker. I scramble away from his reach, turn to run, but then he grunts. I turn to inspect him from a safe distance, to find him wheezing on the floor, flat on his back, gasping. He looks like he's in more pain than I am by far. He's breathing too fast, circtuits flickering like a system with gridbugs, but he stays like that. Lays with his back all bent up by his disc . . .

Are you protecting yourself . . . From me?

I approach him again, picking my way across the pixel covered floor.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to help you. But only if you let me—do you hear me?"

He nods.

"Say it." Use your voice. His voice that sounds so much like Tron's . . .

"Help."

He says it like a command, though why I should expect better I don't know. It's enough, anyway, that it gives me the irrational, guilty courage to touch him again. I have to bend at an odd angle to reach him, my feet on either side of his body, bent over him. I hook my arms under his, and he releases a sort of hissing, violent, bitter sound. I don't know what it's supposed to mean.

I hurry to scrape him off the ground, trying not to notice that he smells sharp, but pleasant, like raw power from a spring in some forgotten corner of the outlands, Try not to pay attention to how hot his circuits are near mine, too hot for someone so weakened. By Tron . . .

He's heavier than I would have expected, he's really a solid program, it's just comparison to Tron that makes him seem so delicate. His legs are obviously weak, but he gets them underneath him long enough to help me push him onto that horrible hard wedge they call a bed. When he's settled, I jump back, as if I can compensate for getting close to him by getting farther away now.

He collapses back against the wall, eyes closed, as if even that effort were too much.

Users, Tron. What did you do to him?

Judging by the pixels that are everywhere under my feet, it looks like they beat each other senseless, but then again, the overwhelming amount of red almost seems to say the confrontation was one sided. What have you become . . .

No.

]No, This is Rinzler. He did SOMETHING to make Tron this angry. Tron just . . . moves faster. The ISO body is still new..

So are the sad ISO eyes. Rinzler is looking at me with them half open.

"He's not perfect, you know," he says, voice at once venomous and gentle, "he's broken."

I have to look away from him when I answer.

"So are we all," I reply, and then I leave him there. On a cold bench of a bed, with his own pixels unde rhis feet, barely able to move, and all because of Tron.

Does he really hate himself that much?

That thought stays with me till the end of the shift. I never manage to sleep.


*note: In context, this is not "let's fight over Yori", but more of "let's fight over Yori's approval of us" as she clearly objects to Tron's attitude in regards to him, but nevertheless upholding his decision to keep Rinz locked up and to turn a blind eye to some of the worst of it till this sort of thing happens. ANYWAY, Rinzler in this situation is a moral quandary for her, and he knows that he is for Tron on some level as well, and is using Yori as evidence that what Tron is doing is wrong. In context I think that would have been clear, but without it, I wanted to assure you all that this was not a "in which Yori is reduced to a pawn the men fight over" type of story.

If there is any substance to the element of innuendo to what he's saying, it's the accurate assessment on his part regarding the state of Tron and Yori's "marriage", which is not doing stupendously well beneath the surface. There are some communication issues emerging.