When someone had been needed to make the trip to what remained of Argon City, Clu had willingly volunteered. True, it would take him away from Tron City for several centicycles, but of all the programs on the Grid, the hacker's background and skillset made him uniquely suited to the task. The mission as to be twofold; retrieve potentially useful data from the city's archives, and assess the state of the buildings and equipment that remained to determine if a full-scale salvage operation would be viable. There were no plans to attempt to repopulate any of the outer settlements, but a fair amount of equipment and the structures of the cities themselves had been left behind when the programs living there had moved on, and if enough of it proved to be in salvageable condition, there was not point in just leaving it there to degrade.
At least, that had been the plan. And it probably would have worked out fine, if Clu had taken a standard lightcycle or lightrunner modified for off-grid travel. But instead he'd opted to test out one of the new designs he'd had his eye on for awhile. Or perhaps 'new' wasn't really the word; more like 'rediscovered'. It was similar to a lightcycle but was significantly more rugged, with four smaller wheels, and lacking the partially enclosed canopy many cycles had. In theory, it was as ideally suited for that sort of mission as the hacker himself. In theory.
In reality, however, it had shown why the rediscovered design was still considered 'experimental'; approximately 2/3 of the way to Argon, the vehicle's engine developed a rather noticeable rattle. Upon examining its code, Clu realized that there was an instability in the engine's structural coding. He could patch it, and maybe make it to Argon, but what it really needed was a full teardown to determine if the flaw was a fluke or inherent and a complete rebuild or replacement of the engine coding. None of which he could do in the field. And even if his patch got him to Argon, there would be no guarantee that it would get him back, and trudging all the way back to Tron City through bleak Outlands terrain was a daunting prospect even for him.
So, reluctantly, after applying his patch as a stopgap measure, he'd turned around and headed back to the city. By the time he'd crossed the bridge into the city, the vehicle's rattle had returned and had graduated from 'noticeable' to 'worrying', and Clu opted to return the vehicle to its baton form and make his way back to administration headquarters via a combination of walking and lightrail. As he often did when he was out in public on his own, he rezzed up a neutral white circuit mask. He was proud of his nature and his circuit caolor, but on the Grid, yellow circuits tended to attract a lot of attention. And he really didn't feel like explaining the mildly embarrassing details of his failed mission to curious strangers.
Despite the white circuits though, he wasn't questioned when he arrived at central processing. A circuit mask was just that, and if a program's scans were functioning properly, it was fairly easy to see through; its goal was to deflect interest and avoid such scans entirely, not deflect the scans themselves. He handed the baton off to the mechanics, explaining the situation and why he was back so early. And with that done he rode the elevator up to the top level. Time to have a defrag, make a report, recalculate, recuperate, and eventually retry the mission. And there was no better place to do most of those things than in the quarters he somewhat shared with the admin.
Following his first and rather unimpressed assessment of the room's decor, they'd managed to make a few improvements to the previous rigid and mostly utilitarian design. Most notably, adding some cooler colored light panels in places to balance all the gold, and replacing the stiff black couch and other seating with things that were both lighter in color and soft and comfortable enough to actually promote relaxation.
Which had seemed to be something of a foreign concept to the admin at the time; even his lounging had tended to be calculated and a little forced. Thankfully that was improving, if only slightly; granted, being admin was a rather stressful function, but his tendency to internalize every bit of stress and tension had resulted a a number of minor function lockups and kinks in his energy processing subroutines. Thankfully Clu's hands were good for more than just hacking, and he was generally able to massage them away when he became aware of them, but still, it wasn't healthy.
At the moment, though it was him who was looking to take advantage of both the room's privacy and comforts. He didn't expect the admin to be there at this time of the milicycle, and calculated he'd have about half of one before his code brother returned and he'd be able to give him his report. His calculations on that front proved to be incorrect, however as when he entered the room, he could see the admin sitting in a chair, clearly visible from the doorway. And conversely, the admin would likely be able to see him just as clearly, as he stood there with his normally yellow circuits currently in neutral white.
Clothes make the man, apparently-CW- Mistaken identity, angst, feels, alcohol, religious themes
At least, that had been the plan. And it probably would have worked out fine, if Clu had taken a standard lightcycle or lightrunner modified for off-grid travel. But instead he'd opted to test out one of the new designs he'd had his eye on for awhile. Or perhaps 'new' wasn't really the word; more like 'rediscovered'. It was similar to a lightcycle but was significantly more rugged, with four smaller wheels, and lacking the partially enclosed canopy many cycles had. In theory, it was as ideally suited for that sort of mission as the hacker himself. In theory.
In reality, however, it had shown why the rediscovered design was still considered 'experimental'; approximately 2/3 of the way to Argon, the vehicle's engine developed a rather noticeable rattle. Upon examining its code, Clu realized that there was an instability in the engine's structural coding. He could patch it, and maybe make it to Argon, but what it really needed was a full teardown to determine if the flaw was a fluke or inherent and a complete rebuild or replacement of the engine coding. None of which he could do in the field. And even if his patch got him to Argon, there would be no guarantee that it would get him back, and trudging all the way back to Tron City through bleak Outlands terrain was a daunting prospect even for him.
So, reluctantly, after applying his patch as a stopgap measure, he'd turned around and headed back to the city. By the time he'd crossed the bridge into the city, the vehicle's rattle had returned and had graduated from 'noticeable' to 'worrying', and Clu opted to return the vehicle to its baton form and make his way back to administration headquarters via a combination of walking and lightrail. As he often did when he was out in public on his own, he rezzed up a neutral white circuit mask. He was proud of his nature and his circuit caolor, but on the Grid, yellow circuits tended to attract a lot of attention. And he really didn't feel like explaining the mildly embarrassing details of his failed mission to curious strangers.
Despite the white circuits though, he wasn't questioned when he arrived at central processing. A circuit mask was just that, and if a program's scans were functioning properly, it was fairly easy to see through; its goal was to deflect interest and avoid such scans entirely, not deflect the scans themselves. He handed the baton off to the mechanics, explaining the situation and why he was back so early. And with that done he rode the elevator up to the top level. Time to have a defrag, make a report, recalculate, recuperate, and eventually retry the mission. And there was no better place to do most of those things than in the quarters he somewhat shared with the admin.
Following his first and rather unimpressed assessment of the room's decor, they'd managed to make a few improvements to the previous rigid and mostly utilitarian design. Most notably, adding some cooler colored light panels in places to balance all the gold, and replacing the stiff black couch and other seating with things that were both lighter in color and soft and comfortable enough to actually promote relaxation.
Which had seemed to be something of a foreign concept to the admin at the time; even his lounging had tended to be calculated and a little forced. Thankfully that was improving, if only slightly; granted, being admin was a rather stressful function, but his tendency to internalize every bit of stress and tension had resulted a a number of minor function lockups and kinks in his energy processing subroutines. Thankfully Clu's hands were good for more than just hacking, and he was generally able to massage them away when he became aware of them, but still, it wasn't healthy.
At the moment, though it was him who was looking to take advantage of both the room's privacy and comforts. He didn't expect the admin to be there at this time of the milicycle, and calculated he'd have about half of one before his code brother returned and he'd be able to give him his report. His calculations on that front proved to be incorrect, however as when he entered the room, he could see the admin sitting in a chair, clearly visible from the doorway. And conversely, the admin would likely be able to see him just as clearly, as he stood there with his normally yellow circuits currently in neutral white.