The fact was: Clu was bad for people, and when he hurt them enough, they split. They'd all done it. The pattern was perfectly evident.
What to do about it escaped him entirely. Often to the point of rage, almost always destructive--he was a big part of the reason Jarvis was, like that, one great perpetual jitter in program form.
Tron. Shaddox. Even his own Maker: he'd hurt them when they threatened his sense of order. When they didn't, couldn't, live up to his idea of perfection. He'd almost wiped away a miracle because they didn't fit the spec, and without a clean Sea, those few survivors would gradually age, like a User, and like a User--expire.
Die.
He could never make it up to them.
No more than he could retrieve the programs lost--
Was it really still today? His internal clock was fried, giving him back only alert and caution every time he moved. Or, while his code-brother walked them and he followed along as best he could.
The clearest thing radiating up from that juncture was a stray bit of--of music, and Clu couldn't really follow it, but it drifted warm through their proximity just the same. Something mellow and sort of, tender, like The Cetera Stuff that an age ago Flynn had teased him for, but kept bringing him more of anyway.
Until he'd ruined everything.
That would have to wait. There was the urgent matter of the door (not quite a big door, but with the same frisson of excited tension bristling from somewhere, dream or memory) and good or bad, Clu was the one with the auth here.
Even if he'd been distracted a bit for the smile, it vanished with a rude, wet snort for fragged--even though it was clinically true.
The code was right, and Clu knew it was right, but the input refused to accept his combination. Growling a little, he reached in and shoved until he was through the surface, through its concept of itself, until the idea of the door was pushed into EKEYREVOKED...
And in they went.
"Hah," smirking. Open, says me. "Told you."
His code-brother was clearly in awe of his impeccable powers of decoration.
Still, it was good to sit down, even if he needed some help. Template? Off? Yes. Breadboards above, if it meant he'd feel even a little less like he were melting, naked would be good. Useful.
And preferable to, he was still wearing it, a sticky spatter of backcycled red that made him grit his teeth on a sudden wave of pressure so strong it might as well be nausea--the thing was filthy and he needed to get it off, get rid of it--
Only, when he nudged to dismiss it, it stayed put. Great. Now he'd touched it. He hissed in frustration and scrunched his eyes shut in a bid for calm.
They flew open again for the gentle but unmistakable tug of self-separation from his disc.
"Hey!" Squinting, arms doing something ridiculous in the bid for a motion that would neither smear the sheets nor topple him over, "That's, mine--!"
But his code-brother only glanced down at it, turned it lateral, and saw it safely racked and stacked.
When his his code-brother touched him, Clu squirmed. All the hacker wanted was to help him. It was no different than Clu undressing himself for bed, except for the part where he was too charged to manage it, with a pang of dirt, gross; you're the reason he's touching dirt--
Just. That spot. There were a lot of connections there, circuits feeding out to the dock and inward to the trunk line. Reaction varied across individuals: some programs were ticklish. Others couldn't take the intensity and flinched away.
And for a few--
Clu shivered into it and didn't quite manage to smother a low, hungry sound.
This needed doing. It had to come off; he was running too hot. Hotter yet with the suit finally coming apart--so bright he could see himself, gold to the edge of crackling, like something molten.
"Cool it, huh?" Rueful, but not ashamed, and not pulling away. "S' too good."
They did not have time, and his code-brother probably didn't even want, to play with him.
no subject
What to do about it escaped him entirely. Often to the point of rage, almost always destructive--he was a big part of the reason Jarvis was, like that, one great perpetual jitter in program form.
Tron. Shaddox. Even his own Maker: he'd hurt them when they threatened his sense of order. When they didn't, couldn't, live up to his idea of perfection. He'd almost wiped away a miracle because they didn't fit the spec, and without a clean Sea, those few survivors would gradually age, like a User, and like a User--expire.
Die.
He could never make it up to them.
No more than he could retrieve the programs lost--
Was it really still today? His internal clock was fried, giving him back only alert and caution every time he moved. Or, while his code-brother walked them and he followed along as best he could.
The clearest thing radiating up from that juncture was a stray bit of--of music, and Clu couldn't really follow it, but it drifted warm through their proximity just the same. Something mellow and sort of, tender, like The Cetera Stuff that an age ago Flynn had teased him for, but kept bringing him more of anyway.
Until he'd ruined everything.
That would have to wait. There was the urgent matter of the door (not quite a big door, but with the same frisson of excited tension bristling from somewhere, dream or memory) and good or bad, Clu was the one with the auth here.
Even if he'd been distracted a bit for the smile, it vanished with a rude, wet snort for fragged--even though it was clinically true.
The code was right, and Clu knew it was right, but the input refused to accept his combination. Growling a little, he reached in and shoved until he was through the surface, through its concept of itself, until the idea of the door was pushed into EKEYREVOKED...
And in they went.
"Hah," smirking. Open, says me. "Told you."
His code-brother was clearly in awe of his impeccable powers of decoration.
Still, it was good to sit down, even if he needed some help. Template? Off? Yes. Breadboards above, if it meant he'd feel even a little less like he were melting, naked would be good. Useful.
And preferable to, he was still wearing it, a sticky spatter of backcycled red that made him grit his teeth on a sudden wave of pressure so strong it might as well be nausea--the thing was filthy and he needed to get it off, get rid of it--
Only, when he nudged to dismiss it, it stayed put. Great. Now he'd touched it. He hissed in frustration and scrunched his eyes shut in a bid for calm.
They flew open again for the gentle but unmistakable tug of self-separation from his disc.
"Hey!" Squinting, arms doing something ridiculous in the bid for a motion that would neither smear the sheets nor topple him over, "That's, mine--!"
But his code-brother only glanced down at it, turned it lateral, and saw it safely racked and stacked.
When his his code-brother touched him, Clu squirmed. All the hacker wanted was to help him. It was no different than Clu undressing himself for bed, except for the part where he was too charged to manage it, with a pang of dirt, gross; you're the reason he's touching dirt--
Just. That spot. There were a lot of connections there, circuits feeding out to the dock and inward to the trunk line. Reaction varied across individuals: some programs were ticklish. Others couldn't take the intensity and flinched away.
And for a few--
Clu shivered into it and didn't quite manage to smother a low, hungry sound.
This needed doing. It had to come off; he was running too hot. Hotter yet with the suit finally coming apart--so bright he could see himself, gold to the edge of crackling, like something molten.
"Cool it, huh?" Rueful, but not ashamed, and not pulling away. "S' too good."
They did not have time, and his code-brother probably didn't even want, to play with him.