A/N-CLU's orders must always be followed...but sometimes Rinzler can find a loophole.
As mentioned before (this will be true throughout the entire story)
To avoid confusion between spoken speech and signed speech…
"Spoken speech…"
' Italicized Signed speech…'
Rinzler had to admit that things were more—interesting since Feral had been adopted by the bit.
'Spike'—as she had named the bit—followed her everywhere. Feral told him that the bit reminded him of a dog—that was the term for a type of User companion, apparently—that she had once.
'So, you named the bit after your dog?' Rinzler had asked.
"No, I named him after my turtle. Plus, he gets all spikey when he says 'no'."
"What is a turtle?"
"A different kind of animal that some Users keep as pets. He was so little I wanted to give him a fierce-sounding name."
No matter what Feral had named the bit after, Rinzler had to agree that it was devoted to its 'program'. During the next session they had for Feral's combat and disc wars training the bit had flung itself against Rinzler, flashing 'no' repeatedly and trying to shock him. It had taken both Feral and Rinzler several nanocycles to calm the bit and explain that she was training; and not being attacked. Spike still did not enjoy the training sessions, and would zip around in agitation the entire time they trained.
The little bit had grown to accept Rinzler in time; a fact that Feral and Rinzler were both grateful for. It seemed to have developed the same dislike for CLU that Feral had. Now, she sent Spike to Rinzler whenever she had to be with CLU. She didn't want to risk Spike attacking CLU because she was alone—and end up with the bit being derezzed by the sysadmin or one of his guards.
The sight of the most dangerous program on the Grid being followed by a bit never failed to bring a smile to her face when she saw it.
Rinzler cleared his thoughts, concentrating on his current orders. A few steps more, and he was at the door to the quarters that he shared with Feral.
The door opened to reveal an unexpected scene. A User being chased around the room by an obviously upset bit.
"I'm sorry!" Feral yelled over her shoulder as she continued to try to circle around the room while staying out of what she called Spike's 'shock zone'. "I didn't realize that you weren't out of the room."
"No, no, no," said the bit, zipping closer to Feral as she dodged.
"Spike! It was an accident. I was coming back for you when I got ordered to follow CLU to the Games!"
"No," flashed the bit again, trying to get closer to her.
Glancing over at the door, Feral's face brightened as she saw Rinzler standing there. "Rinzler! Please, help me calm Spike down. I'm getting tired of dodging."
"Exactly why do you have to dodge Spike?" he asked, unable to keep his amusement at the scene out of his voice.
"I accidentally shut him in here earlier. I couldn't return to let him out until recently; and well…he's really upset."
'So I see,' signed Rinzler, unable to stifle his gravelly chuckle completely. "Come here, Spike," he said to the bit, holding a hand up and out. "I know that you are upset with her."
The bit slowly came to Rinzler, flashing 'yes' as it did so.
Rinzler chuckled again. "Don't worry; I will make sure that you go with her the next time she leaves our quarters."
Feral made her way over to where he stood near the door, keeping a careful eye on Spike as she did so. A small grin started to grow on her face at the sound of Rinzler's quiet laughter.
'Glad to know I amuse you,' she said. 'And when might I be leaving next?'
'Now, actually,' he told her. 'I have been ordered to take you with me to investigate and deal with a gridbug infestation that appeared at the outskirts of the city.'
'And you are in such a good mood about gridbugs because…?' she questioned.
"Because," he said with a tone of satisfaction in his voice. "The gridbugs have started moving towards the Outlands; and my orders have not been changed."
Feral's eyes widened as she looked up at Rinzler's dark, featureless helmet. Not for the first time, she wished that she could see his face. She would lay odds that he was smiling behind it right now.
"Loopholes," she breathed.
'Exactly,' Rinzler replied. 'If I take you into the Outlands once—because I am following my current orders—then the new orders take priority over the previous ones; unless CLU follows up and changes them again. Rezz up your armor; we are leaving now.'
Behind his visor, Rinzler was smiling. It grew into a grin as he watched the User almost drop her disc in her haste to rerezz her armor; all the while mumbling to herself that '…someone up there likes me…'
The three of them found the gridbugs easily enough. From their vantage point, Feral looked over at the seething mass.
"Rinzler?"
"Hmm?"
"WHAT are those?"
"Gridbugs…"
"Uh-uh. I've seen gridbugs, remember? Those…those are not what you showed me…."
"These are the ones from the sea. They're bigger than the other ones."
Feral gave a weak laugh. "Yeah, just a little bit bigger…"
'Bigger than the other ones…' was a gross understatement in her opinion. They were almost the size of Shetland ponies; all jointed claws and jaws to grip, tear, and rend. The creatures were almost mindless when they sensed a food source nearby. This time, THEY were the food source, and the gridbugs followed their steps in a voracious wave that only wanted to devour.
Rinzler had led the teeming mass of creatures further away from the city—a little at a time. Now, they stood on the edge of the Outlands. If the gridbugs spilled into the Outlands—even if Rinzler only had to take one step into the Outlands to deal with them—his previous orders would be over-ridden. He would be able to show Feral all of the system, including the Outlands.
Even if she never got the chance to use the knowledge to escape, the opportunity to have a place that they could not be spied upon was irresistible.
Feral stood at the edge of the Grid, waiting nervously for the gridbugs to surround them. She glanced out of the corner of her eye from time to time at the security program who waited; looking almost relaxed, his discs in his hands. She knew that relaxed stance was deceptive. When she was close enough, she could swear that she could feel the eagerness radiating from him.
Predator.
That was what Rinzler was. And now, his preferred prey was coming to him; thinking that HE was the prey. Rinzler reminded her of some large hunting cat. Maybe a tiger, with that black and orange. He ENJOYED the challenges he faced on the Grid. And if they were not programs—were more dangerous than programs—so much the better. He was a predator.
And he had been training her to be one…if she chose to be.
She didn't know who wrote the programs that she interacted with, but they were as human as she was. All of the hungers, desires, and wants of humans were found in them. Watching Rinzler, waiting for the gridbugs with him…she understood. She understood, because he had told her that she was now good enough that she could fight them with him. She understood because she could feel the bloodlust—the desire for conflict, to feel…no, to KNOW that you were better than your opponent—rising in herself at that very moment. She realized that Rinzler wasn't training her to be a predator; she already was one. He was only teaching her the skills to be a better one.
She would fight with him. They would win. But unlike Rinzler, she wasn't fighting because she wanted to keep the grid safe. Every gridbug seemed to wear CLU's smiling face, and all she wanted to do was destroy that smile.
The gridbugs were almost surrounding them now; if the 'bugs came much closer they would spill into the Outlands. Closer; just a little closer…there! Two of the bugs had crossed into the Outlands.
Rinzler attacked the gridbugs that had entered into the Outlands first, a high, thin whine coming from the spinning discs in his hands. He slashed down at the first gridbug while flinging his disc at the second Feral had just enough time to think '…he doesn't spring or snap into action. Rinzler flows…' before the gridbugs nearest to her were almost upon her. She attacked the nearest, slicing at it with her disc, and dodged the snapping jaws. Those jaws could tear a limb from her if they caught her. She disabled it, crippling some of its legs. Having slowed it down, she was able to derezz the gridbug. She threw her disc at the next one, keeping it at a distance. The gridbug gave a piercing shriek as her disc carved a gouge across one of its eyes, blinding it. The next blow derezzed it. And then the next gridbug was there. And the next.
And yet another…Feral lost track of how many gridbugs were still attacking. Her world narrowed and compressed down to this place, this moment. There was only the gridbug in front of her, and then the next. She was only aware of seeing her surroundings as flashes of light or motion: Spike, frantic above her and Rinzler, flashing 'no' whenever a gridbug came towards her; Rinzler, leaping and twisting in mid-air to land on a gridbug's back; a gridbug looming above her when she tripped; a cascade of pixels falling over her when she derezzed it, slashing and thrusting her disc up under its jaw.
Feral was not aware of anything but the next opponent. Music sounded in the air around her, unheard. Blood flowed from where she had been injured; it went unnoticed. A voice called to her; it went unheeded. There was only this, the need to win, to achieve her goal. They would all fail when they came up against her.
Something landed on her shoulder, pulling at her. She spun—disc slashing—to derezz whatever it was.
A moment later, panting, she looked up from the ground. Rinzler was pinning her, a knee on her chest, her wrists trapped by his hands.
"…they are all gone," he was saying. "There are none left. You can stop now. Feral? Are you hearing me?"
"Yes. Yes, I hear you, Rinzler," she said, still trying to catch her breath. "Can I get up now?"
"I'm not sure if I should let you, yet. You've tried to derezz me twice so far…"
"Oh, come on!" she told him, indignantly. "It was only one time, and I can't believe you're going to hold that first fight in the arena against me…after all, you were trying to kill me, too." She squirmed a little, trying to shift the weight of the knee on her chest. Was he always this heavy?
"You've tried to derezz me twice since you ran out of gridbugs to fight," Rinzler said, releasing his hold on her and standing up as he did so. He offered her a hand to help pull her to her feet. His gridsuit was torn in places, gouges scratched into his armor by the claws of gridbug legs. He noticed her gaze and shook his head.
"You don't look much different," he said to her.
Feral looked down at herself. He was correct in his assessment, she thought. Her gridsuit was ripped in places, showing cuts and scrapes all over her body. Several of them had bled, leaving sticky trails of drying blood on her. Pixels from the derezzed gridbugs clung to her still, slowly derezzing as she watched. She looked like she had just crawled away from a crash…or a battlefield.
"They did enter the Outlands, didn't they?" she asked, looking back up at Rinzler.
'They did,' he answered. 'We entered the Outlands to destroy parts of the gridbug invasion, which was what we were ordered to do by CLU. My orders are now re-prioritized and changed. Unless CLU reissues orders to keep you out of the Outlands; the loophole will work.' He looked around the landscape surrounding them for a moment, before his helmet swung back to face Feral. "What would you like to see first?" he asked suddenly, satisfaction and anticipation entering into his voice.
Feral simply stared at him for a moment. She was still trying to process the fact that she had just fought off a gridbug invasion with Rinzler, and he was planning a tour. The incongruity of the situation suddenly struck her as incredibly funny. She started to giggle. The giggling quickly turned into a full-blown laugh at the thought that here she was, looking like she had escaped from a battlefield…while giggling like an idiot.
"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head and trying to catch her breath. "It's just—oh, I don't think I can explain it…"
"Alright," she told him, taking a deep breath and trying to compose herself. "What do I want to see first? Hmm, where is your favorite place to go?"
Rinzler's favorite place to go was apparently also on the edge of the Outlands; however, it was still on the 'developed' Grid. Not that it looked developed….
He took Feral even further away from the city. The route that he took her by was still more…raw…than the areas she had seen before. Feral lost track of the time as she watched the scenery go by from the lightrunner's windows. After a while, Rinzler stopped the lightrunner.
'We are here,' he signed, and exited the dune-buggy like vehicle. Feral quickly scrambled out of the lightrunner to follow him.
"Where's 'here'?" she called after the tall program who was making his way to the top of a small rise. "Rinzler?"
He turned slightly, silhouetted against the sky. "Come and see," he said, holding a hand out in invitation.
Feral scrambled up to the top of the rise to stand next to him and looked down the other side. The sight before her took her breath away.
"It's amazing," she said in an awestruck voice.
"It is the Sea of Simulation," Rinzler told her. There was both satisfaction and sadness in his voice as he spoke.
The sea stretched out before them, going on to the horizon. Waves rolled into the shore, calm and implacable. Below them, several large rocks jutted into or rose out of the water; making what resembled a jetty like the ones from her childhood. Further off in the distance, what looked like islands were floating in the sky. More islands jutted up into the air beyond that. It was….
"Beautiful," she said softly. "I can see why this is your favorite place to go." Feral started to climb down the other side of the rise so she could get closer to the sea. Loose, flat stones slid and skidded under her boots as she made her way down the slope. She slipped and put her arms out to catch her balance as she neared the base of the slope. Soon she stood on a shoreline of black, flat stones that reminded her of shale or slate. Tumbling, clicking noises sounded behind her, heralding a small shower of gravel-like stones that were sliding or dislodged by Rinzler's feet as he followed her down to the beach.
Feral turned to see the circuit lights of the security program behind her. The red-orange glow from his circuits helped the taller program to stand out against the dark slope behind him.
'What do you think?' he signed to her.
"It's incredible," she told him. "What is it? I've never seen or heard of anything like this before. Not on the Grid, I mean."
Rinzler looked out over the waters of the Sea.
"It was one of the first things created on the Grid," he told her, in a voice that seemed both right there—and far away; as if he were reliving—or remembering—something. "The User who made the Grid said it was chaos; raw, untapped potentiality. That it held both the possibility of everything—and nothing—at the same time. Then, Flynn laughed and said it was 'Zen' that way. I have never understood that part…" he mused.
Feral stood silently beside him; looking out over the dark waters as well. Rinzler was her friend, they trusted each other; however, she had never seen or heard him so…open…unguarded…before. She didn't think that he realized that he had said the last part aloud.
A few minutes went by as they stood there unmoving, simply watching the sea.
Feral suddenly turned and poked the more muscular program in the arm. "Come on," she said to him. "Let's go get wet." She turned and was about to start walking to the water when Rinzler's hand shot out and grabbed her arm.
"We cannot," he told her, shaking his helmeted head 'no'. "The Sea is…corrupted. It was infected with a virus. If it touches a program's code, they will become infected and derezz. If it were to touch your disc, you might not derezz, but your gridsuit would. If your disc came into contact with it; it is possible that you could be infected, too."
She looked at him for a moment. "So, I can get as close as I want; but I can't touch it with my disc on?" she asked, a considering tone in her voice.
"That is correct. You must be careful if you get near the Sea." He gave a jerk of the sharp point of his helmet's chin in the direction of the rocky outcropping. "I would recommend staying on top of those rocks if you want to have a better—closer—look. They extend out into the deeper water, but are high enough that you will stay dry.
Feral nodded her head slowly in agreement. She reached behind her back and undocked her disc. "Good idea," she said, manipulating something on her disc. "Even better is letting you hold this for me while I go out there."
"Go out there…?" Rinzler tilted his helmet in her direction as she handed him her disc.
"Feral," he asked, his voice concerned. Warnings began to ping in him as he watched her scrambling up onto the first of the outcropping rocks. "What are you doing?"
She continued to make her way out towards the end of the outcropping that jutted into the deep waters.
"Feral!" he called, starting to follow her; wondering what she was planning on doing out th—was her gridsuit derezzing? Feral had almost reached the end of the outcropping, and almost the end of her gridsuit. Pixels continued to derezz or fall away from her body as she stepped or jumped from one stone to another. Already her back, arms and legs were bare; and what he could see of her front seemed to be in the same condition.
She stopped and waited at the very end of the outcropping. As the last few remaining pixels derezzed, leaving her completely bare, she gave him a mischievous look over her shoulder.
"Hey, Rinzler!" she called to him. "Did you ever hear of skinny dipping?" With those words, she turned and dove off the rocks into the dark waters below.
Panicking, Rinzler threw her disc on the ground and RAN. He leapt up on the rocks, racing to the end of the outcropping to scan the waters below.
"Feral!" he screamed. "Feral!"
There was no sign of her. Even the ripples caused by her entering the sea were gone, swept away by the waves on their way to the shore.
Rinzler crouched at the end of the outcropping, leaning out as far as he could to try to catch a glimpse of her in the water. If he could see her, he could…what?
He could not touch the water to pull her out. Even if it did not derezz him to do so, his code would not let him. The Sea held a virus. As a security monitor program, he was created to hunt down and destroy viruses and other system threats. If it could not be destroyed, it must be contained. Touching the water would turn him into a carrier for the virus, spreading it across the Grid. His coding did not allow him to take such an action. It would force a system shutdown on him.
There was nothing that he could do.
Rinzler screamed Feral's name again as he continued to try to see into the water below him. So intent was he that he almost lost his balance when she suddenly surfaced nearby, taking a deep breath as she did.
"What on the Grid did you think you were doing?!" he yelled at her; anger mixed with relief in his voice, his growl evident.
"Me! Rinzler, what in all the names of God are you doing on that rock?! You are so close to the water that if I had splashed more when I came up, or if I had surfaced closer, you would have been wearing half of the Sea!" she shouted back at him.
"You are in the Sea! I told you what could happen to you…" he said, his tone almost accusing.
"Yes, well…as you can see all fingers and toes are accounted for," Feral replied, her voice managing to sound both guilty and unrepentant as she rolled onto her back and lifted first one, then the other leg and foot out of the water for him to see. She continued to swim near the outcropping so that she could watch him. Back and forth she swam along the side of the outcropping, rolling and twisting her body through the water so she could keep her head above the water and Rinzler in her view.
"How are you doing that?" he asked, curious, a few nanocycles later.
"Doing what?" she replied, slightly confused by the question.
"That…floating, moving thing. How are you not sinking?"
She stopped swimming in surprise; only to switch to treading water when she did start to sink. "Programs don't swim?" she asked, startled.
"Swim?"
"Play or move in and through the water by themselves. Users learn to do it if they live near water, usually. It's fun."
"Surrounding yourself with water is fun?" he asked, skeptically.
"Well, it can be. I would have thought swimming would be something that you enjoyed. I mean…it's a skill, it can be done for enjoyment, and if you aren't careful enough—or pay it enough respect—it can end you. Kind of like fighting in the Games, or dealing with gridbugs. And I know that on a certain level, you do enjoy those things," Feral said, giving him a long, steady look.
Rinzler's helmet tilted as he regarded her. "That may be so," he said. "But programs do not 'swim'. We may immerse ourselves in energy pools on occasion; however, we do not go farther into them than we can walk out of easily. Most programs will not even go that far," he added.
"Well, if there is a large enough pool for us to use one day; I will teach you how to swim," Feral told him.
I mean, if you want to learn," she added almost shyly.
"Perhaps one day," he replied.
She continued to swim back and forth in the water near the rocks; occasionally diving back into the inky waters to swim beneath the surface for a while. After seeing how much it alarmed him the first time she did so, Feral began warning Rinzler before ducking beneath the water's surface. Once he was convinced that she was not going to derezz, and appeared to be comfortable with what she was doing in the Sea, some of the tension left Rinzler's body. He watched as she swam in the waters around the rocks that he perched on. Feral had not seemed this relaxed to him when at any other area of the Grid.
"What does it feel like?" he asked her abruptly. "Being in the water?"
She turned and swam closer to the rock. "It feels like freedom," she told him. Seeing him cock his head to the side, she elaborated.
"Out here, in the water, I can go where ever I want. I am limited only by my own strength, and the need for air. I can move in any direction, go as far as I am strong enough to go, and CLU can't touch me while I am in the water. If I could stay here forever, I would only come out to see you and Spike."
Rinzler thought over what she said, and then nodded. 'I can understand wanting to be free from CLU,' he signed.
Feral swam a little closer to where he waited on the rocks and stopped, treading water as she looked at him. "Scoot over, please," she asked. "Just make sure that you have a way to get back to shore from where you move to…"
Rinzler looked at her for a moment and then rose and moved from where he had been crouched on the rock; choosing to rest on a section of the outcropping that was closer to the shore. Once he had settled down to wait, Feral swam up to the edge of the outcropping. Placing her hands on the rock, she lifted herself out of the water onto the outcropping. She twisted her body as she did so, stopping when she sat on the edge of the outcropping—her feet still in the water, and looked out over the Sea. Rinzler waited where he was. Water was still streaming down her body, running from her hair and off of her skin. When the puddles around her stopped growing would be soon enough to come closer.
He glanced over at her, curious. He had never seen a User without clothing or a gridsuit covering their body; and had never seen a female User at all before Feral came to the Grid. She resembled the female programs that he had seen with a few differences. The most notable of which was her complete lack of circuits on her skin.
Rinzler found himself staring at Feral; wondering what it was like to have no circuits. She had said that Users had nerves—which were apparently like circuits—and that they did not match up with circuits on their clothes. She had never said that they didn't have circuits at all… What must it be like to go through one's entire existence that way? Did it dull or dim their senses? When he thought about the way programs interfaced—lining up their circuits so that they touched, and then opening up their code to each other in the most intimate form of connection found in a system—he could not help but feel sorrow for the Users for being unable to share that kind of intimacy. The realization of where such thoughts could lead caused him to turn away hastily.
Feral noticed Rinzler turning away from her. He suddenly seemed…unsettled. She looked down at the rock she was sitting on, determined not to pull away. "Am I making you uncomfortable?" she asked, not looking up from the rock beneath her.
"No," he replied. However, Feral noticed that he seemed to be looking at anything and everything but her. She idly traced patterns on the gritty surface of the rock beside her with her fingers for a few moments before sighing.
"If I had realized that me being naked was going to be such an issue I would not have gone skinny-dipping. At least, I would have stayed in the water. I thought that since I'm about as interesting to look at here as 'digital Barbie' it wouldn't be a problem," Feral mused. "I'll stay in the water next time. I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."
Rinzler shook his head. "No, it is not you," he said. "I was staring; it was rude of me. I have never seen a User without User clothing or a gridsuit on before, much less a female one…." His voice trailed off.
"And you were curious," she finished. "You looking doesn't bother me, Rinzler. I got comfortable with myself a long time ago. Heck, you can even ask me questions if you think of them." She shrugged. "It's just me, that's all. Well, most of me…there's some things that apparently don't translate digitally."
They sat silent on the rocks, looking out over the Sea. Several moments went by before Rinzler spoke again.
"It's the fact that you don't have circuits," he blurted out. "Flynn explained one that Users experience something similar to a circuit overload when they try to create a new User…" he said hesitantly.
"At least half of the ones involved, yeah," she answered; a small smile playing about her lips.
"Programs usually overload together because they enjoy being with one another; they interface so that they can know each other better, as well as give each other pleasure…."
Feral waited a moment before prompting him with an encouraging, "Keep going…"
"I realized that—without circuits—Users must not be able to experience the same intimacy and pleasure as programs," he told her. "I understand that you have to create new Users; it just seems as though it must be lonely for Users."
"The term is 'sex', or 'having sex', or even 'making love'. While it is how Users reproduce naturally, it is also done solely for pleasure," Feral said. "Which we have even without circuits," she added dryly. "It can bring Users closer together."
A few more moments went by.
"It can also be lonely," she said quietly, looking at the waves moving below. "Especially when you are with someone that…."
"Never mind," Feral said, abruptly. "Not part of this conversation right now."
They sat quietly for a while longer without speaking, content to watch the waving sea at their feet.
"Why didn't you tell me about circuit overloading?" Feral demanded suddenly. "Why didn't you say SOMETHING before CLU…" she stopped speaking, her mouth tight.
"It is not an easy subject to introduce," Rinzler said.
"You should have at least tried!" she said, her voice louder.
"What was I supposed to say?" he demanded. "How are you doing today, Feral; and oh, do you touch your circuits when you are alone? What would you have done if I asked you THAT?"
"I would have said 'no'!" she yelled at him, her hand clenched in an angry fist at her side. "And then I would have asked you why I would want to so. It would have been incredibly awkward; and when we were done talking, I would have at least known that what he did to me was possible. I would not have found out something in that way again!"
"Again?" Rinzler's helmet had snapped up to face her at the last word uttered.
Feral's face paled as she realized what she had just said.
"Feral, what did you mean…again?" he asked.
She turned away to face the Sea once more.
"Rinzler, bad things happen to Users on the other side of the computer screen as easily as they do here. Maybe easier."
Especially if you are not as strong or dangerous as others. Most User females are not as strong as the males, and usually lack combat skills." Her voice was quiet and sounded tired as she continued speaking. "If you are a female, it means that you are made aware of what can happen to you. You can at least try to partition it away in your mind; because you have known it was a possibility. You try to ...go away while it happens. If you didn't know it was a possibility, you can be trapped there with your mind unable to disengage. You are forced to experience it—not as something that happened to you—but as something that happened with you. Often you find you can't hide away even if you did know it could happen to you."
I found out about some bad things when I was young. And I didn't like learning about them that way."
It was quiet for several nanocycles before either of them spoke again.
"You never said. I've known you for almost 5 cycles, and you have never before said—" Rinzler began.
"Yeah, well. It happened a long time ago," Feral said, cutting Rinzler off before he could continue. "It was ugly, it was wrong, and now it is my past." She let out a small sigh. I could let it define what I was, or I could move on with my life. So I moved on."
She looked away, out over the dark water that continued to roll in to wash upon the shore. Several long nanocycles went by in this fashion, with the waves and Rinzler's muted growl supplying the only sounds.
"I can see why this is your favorite place," she told him finally. "It reminds me of some of the places I liked to visit before I came to the Grid. I wish I could show them to you."
There was a pause, and then Rinzler's rough voice was heard. "Perhaps you will tell me about them, sometime?"
Feral turned her head to look at him and gave him a small smile. "Yes," she said. "Perhaps I will. In the meantime; however, I think that I should get my disc and rezz up my gridsuit." With that said Feral pulled her feet up under her and stood. She turned and walked back down the length of the rocky outcropping, towards the waiting shore.
A few nanocycles later, Rinzler rose and followed her.
A/N-Song List: 'Digital' by Joy Division (beginning of chapter)
'Orchestral Sinistrations' by Lords of Acid (fighting gridbugs)
'Code Name: Vivaldi' by The Piano Guys (Rinzler's favorite place)
For my betas who pointed this out...yes, I am playing a little fast and loose with the timelines/music release dates vs.
Tron: Legacy/Feral entered the Grid timeline.
I would say "sue me..." however, I already asked you guys not to...
Instead I shall say, "Pbbtthhhhttt..."
A note on the gridbugs... I alway saw the regular 'normal' gridbugs as being approximately the same size as a rat; and just as dangerous. One might not be to bad to deal with; one thousand would not be fun...
But when you throw the Sea that generated the ISOs into the mix...I couldn't help but wonder what else was waiting to be birthed from it; especially after the Sea was poisoned. Enter my brain's view of the sea-birthed gridbugs. Their swarms may be smaller (20 instead of 1200, for example); however (this is where my brain laughs evilly) a swarm is just as dangerous to deal with, and a bit more intimidating for a User to see than a 'normal' gridbug.
Not something that a system administrator or security program would allow to roam unchecked through the Grid.