The scream caused Rinzler to snap back to alertness. He leapt to his feet, discs spinning in his hands as he looked for the threat. Nothing appeared as a threat to his scan of the confines of the small room. He looked around again, confused as to what had happened when another scream filled the air.
It was the User. She let out yet another scream and began struggling, as though fighting some unseen opponent.
"No!" she screamed out. "I won't let you take them! Leave them alone!"
The User began thrashing harder on the bed. She was begging someone or something. "Please, just leave them alone!" she half-screamed, half-sobbed.
Worried that the User would hurt herself, Rinzler tried to restrain her hands without injuring her. He had never seen anyone act this way before. What was wrong with her? Rinzler finally caught her wrists in his hands. Instead of stilling, the User began to fight even harder. She kicked at him and tried to push or pull him off-balance with her body. Blows rained painfully on his body; making him glad that he always wore his body armor. It was more difficult than he remembered, trying to restrain someone when he was not willing to risk injury to them. It was another reminder of how long it had been since he had used such skills. At last he resorted to practically lying on top of her, pinning her down with his body.
She snapped awake at the weight of a body holding her down. Someone was holding her wrists in their hands, keeping her from being able to use them. She could feel a body stretched over hers; the heaviness of it pinning her in place to the bed. She had just woken from one nightmare, only to find herself apparently living in another one. Panicked, she fought even harder. A featureless black face loomed above her.
Who was it? She couldn't remember. The need for her to be free was overwhelming. She tried herself from one side to the next in an attempt to shake them off of her.
"Get off of me!" she screamed at the black-clad figure. "Let me go!" She tried to push them off with her hands.
Growling, the figure gripped her wrists tighter and raising her arms above her head; slammed them into the bed. The move caused them to press even closer to her body as she lay trapped beneath them. The featureless black face was only inches away from hers.
It was the growling that did it. The angry, distorted, slightly electronic-sounding growl that filled the air and let her know the identity of the body above her. CLU's enforcer, Rinzler. Panting, she stared at where she thought his eyes were. She could see her breath fogging his helmet as he hovered over her. She wasn't trying to fight him now, but she was keeping the option to do so open. She could feel him—unmoving—above her. While he did not let go of her wrists, he seemed to be waiting. But what was he waiting for? She swallowed hard and said, "Please…let me go."
Her voice sounded small, even to her own ears. Rinzler seemed to be looking at her. She would have sworn that she could feel his eyes on her face; had she been asked. Slowly, he nodded and moved off of her, releasing his hold on her wrists at the same time.
She rolled off of the far side of the bed the moment he released her. Her eyes shot from one corner of the room to another; looking for some avenue of escape. She tried to stay towards the middle of the room, not wanting to be trapped in a corner. Eventually, her attention turned back to the dark figure on the other side of the room. "Why were you holding me down?" she demanded of Rinzler, glaring at him.
With what seemed like frustration, he pointed to her, and to the disordered bed.
"What?" she said angrily. "I had a nightmare…so? You didn't have to pin me down. It's not like I attacked you…" Her eyes widened as soon as she had said the words. "Oh, no. I did, didn't I? I attacked you in my sleep."
Rinzler shrugged his shoulders at her.
"God, I'm so sorry. I thought…" she pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead before continuing. "It doesn't matter. I'm not used to people grabbing me when I'm asleep." She gave him a concerned look and asked, "Are you okay?"
Rinzler shrugged his shoulders again. His attitude seemed to indicate that getting hurt was not an issue he worried about.
Abruptly the User seemed to wilt as he stood there looking at her. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him.
"It's true though, isn't it?" she asked, her voice soft and broken. Rinzler wasn't sure what she was referring to until she continued. "I've lost everyone that I knew before. If I can't leave and there's no way to get a message to them…. They are just—gone…. Oh god, what is this going to do to my parents?"
Tears spilled from her eyes and ran down her face. She tried to take a deep breath, only to have it come in gasps as she appeared to try to keep from sobbing.
Turning away from Rinzler, she went and leaned her head against a wall; hiding her face from his view. As he watched, the User's back and shoulders began to shake as choked sobs escaped her. A short scream that sounded torn from her core came from her throat as she slammed hand against the wall.
Rinzler realized that this was the first time he had seen or heard true despair from her. Ripped away from her world, beaten, cut, threatened with her end, and only now did she seem to break at all.
He wanted to help her in some way…how could he, though? There was nothing to help him understand this in his coding or his memory files. What was he supposed to do? Confused, he walked toward her. He wasn't something from her world; however, he might be familiar enough for her to relate to. At least, familiar enough to recalculate herself in relation to the Grid. Would it help at all? Rinzler did not know, however, he hoped it would. As he drew nearer, he reached out and lightly laid his hand on the back of her shoulder; trying to not startle her.
The last thing that Rinzler had expected was that she would turn and cling to him. Wrapping her arms around him, she laid her head against his chest and cried. He could feel the heat of her skin pressed against his circuits, and her breath as she sobbed in harsh gasps against him. Uncomfortably he tried to ignore the growing pleasure that was being caused by the sensations on his circuits. He had felt a User against his circuits before, if not in the same context. Flynn had sometimes pressed their chests together. Flynn had referred to the interaction as a 'hug', and usually wrapped at least one arm around his shoulders as Flynn did so. However, Flynn's 'hugs' had never lasted more than a picocycle. Was this the same? Tentatively, he brought his arms up and wrapped them loosely around the User. It felt strangely familiar to do so. Had he ever held someone like this before? He couldn't access any memory of having done so. Maybe it was in one of the partitioned files…. He tried to relax slightly as she continued to sob in his arms. The User's sobs slowly quieted until she finally stopped crying.
"Thank you," she mumbled into his chest.
Rinzler cocked his head at her inquiringly. What was she thanking him for?
Raising a tear-streaked face to his view, she spoke again. "You didn't have to do that. Thank you. It helps to feel that someone cares."
She took a few deep breaths and stepped back. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she attempted to compose herself.
"I'm never going to not miss them. At least I know that they are okay. Never knowing what happened to me will be the hardest part for my family." She gave a sigh. "Alright, so I'm going to be here for the rest of my life. I can do that. I can deal with this."
She went back over to the bed and began straightening it. Bending down, she picked up an object from the floor. Rinzler watched her, curious, as she began twisting her long hair into a rope. With a few deft moves the User had wrapped and pinned it in place on her head with the item she had found. She sat down on the bed and looked at him standing there.
"Why don't you talk?" she asked him abruptly. "If it wouldn't have kept me from helping CLU to erase and recode programs, I don't think you would have talked to me. As it stands, you do your best to ignore me or just not talk at all. Is it just that you don't want to talk to me because I'm a User…or what?"
Trying to ignore her questions, Rinzler went to the window and looked out of it again.
"Would you—just this once—give me a complete answer about you?" she asked, exasperated. When there was no reply of any type from Rinzler; she walked over to where he stood. She grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him around to look at her, saying, "I'm serious…answer me!"
At the feel of her pulling on his shoulder, Rinzler turned angrily towards the User. His distorted electronic growl was loud in her ears as he loomed over her.
She looked steadily at him, trying to look where she thought his eyes were. "It's not going to work," she told him. "I've had too much happen to be intimidated this way right now. So, would you please answer my question?"
She could feel her heart thumping loudly as she spoke. She hoped that her bluff worked. There was nothing that she could really do to make him talk. Added to that was the fact that having a large, growling, dangerous man this close to her when he was not happy with her question was nerve-wracking. He had not hurt her since the fight in the arena; however, she was not about to mistake him for something harmless. He was dangerous. She had the cut on her face to remind her of that fact.
"Please," she asked again, trying to keep her voice steady. "Please tell me that much about you…."
Rinzler made a noise that sounded like nothing so much as a snarl.
"And who do you think I should talk to?" he demanded savagely. His voice was an angry growl. Hearing it, she was reminded of a teased tiger, snarling a warning.
"Your friends, I would think. I haven't been here long at all, but I don't think that you sit down and have long chats with CLU."
Rinzler let out a short, harsh, barking laugh at that. He shook his head slightly. "You have to trust someone for them to be a friend. And you're correct. I do not 'chat' with CLU."
She gave a small frown at what she had just heard. "You don't have any friends…at all?" she asked.
Rinzler turned back towards the window. He raised an arm, resting it on the window above his head. A moment later he spoke. "I did, once," he said, looking out of the window. "Now…none of them are alive."
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice soft. "It's hard to lose someone you care about. It must be very lonely without friends." She was silent for a moment. "Why don't you trust anyone? And thank you for talking to me…."
"Can't," came the terse reply. "Can't trust anyone who answers to CLU."
She stared at him as he looked out the window; trying to imagine a life with no friends. The sudden understanding that now—here in this world—she had no friends, either, suddenly hit her like a blow. A wave of loneliness swept over her.
"It sounds like you and I have something in common, then," she told him.
The figure in the window turned its head to regard her.
"Well, I don't have anyone here, either. And since you just told me that I can't trust the other programs…how about if you and I are friends? I don't answer to CLU, after all…"
"But I do," came the growled reply.
"And yet you've never lied to me. At least, I don't think you have. So I'm going to trust you. Still offering to be friends, here…" she said.
"You shouldn't," he said, turning to stand facing her.
"Should not—what? Be friends? Going to be real lonely if I don't have at least one friend here."
"You should not trust me," he said, his voice flat as he did so.
"Why not?" she asked him, bluntly.
"I have been programmed to obey CLU. I have to follow any order that he gives me. ANY order." Rinzler stared at the User. Once she understood that he would hurt her, or even derezz her if CLU gave him the order, she would withdraw the offer of friendship. It was only logical. She would understand why he could not be trusted. A part of his code ached at the thought of having someone that he could trust. It had been so many cycles since he had trusted anyone. It would hurt when she no longer wanted to be his friend. A friend would have eased the loneliness.
"What you just told me is why I DO trust you, Rinzler. If you hadn't told me that and I found out later, I wouldn't be able to trust you as much…if I trusted you at all. You didn't have to tell me that, and yet you did. So, now I know that I can trust you to follow CLU's orders. But it looks like I can also trust you to be my friend…if you want to be."
The featureless helmet was still pointed at her. "What happens to that friendship the first time CLU orders me to hurt you?" Rinzler asked. "Or if he orders me to derezz you?"
She looked steadily at him. "You can try to," she told him. "If you do, that is my friend being forced to do something. It would be CLU hurting both of us; not you hurting me. And don't think that I wouldn't be fighting to keep from being hurt." She tilted her head up to get a better look at him. "Would you still be my friend if I hurt you in those circumstances?"
Rinzler cocked his head at her in surprise at that statement. Hurt him? That didn't seem likely. Somehow the User seemed to sense his disbelief, because she gave him a small smile and spoke again.
"Hey, it could happen," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm not saying that it will, but it's always a possibility. I do fight dirty, after all."
Rinzler looked at her for a long moment. Finally, he spoke. "Yes," he said.
"Yes, I fight dirty? Or, yes; you and I can be friends?" she questioned.
"Yes, we can be friends. I do not know what fighting 'dirty' is; or how not being clean would factor in a fight." He then said, warningly, "CLU must never learn that we are friends. You do not want him to find out. He would use that knowledge against us."
The User nodded in understanding before she grinned up at him suddenly. "You're my first friend here," she told him. "So, tell me a little about yourself. What do you do when CLU doesn't have you babysitting Users?"