tanks4thememory

One thing they clearly shared, for better or worse, was their creator's stubbornness. Which left then glaring at each other, almost nose to nose, each unwilling to budge, physically or otherwise. If they were both unstable, such a situation could end very badly. But despite what his nature might indicate, the hacking program pinned to the wall was able to retain much of his mental and emotional control, even if the function binders robbed him of it physically.

"It's true, I don't know how it was for you in the hundreds of cycles before I was uploaded to the Grid," he said. "I've dug into records, made personal observations, but that still can't tell the whole story. But just as I can't know that, you can't know what the MCP was like, not really."

"I was there, and even if it was from a distance, I experienced its rise to power. Saw how it brought system security under its control with coercion and code patches that altered threat definitions and restricted higher processing ability. Only the most brutal and sadistic were granted command functions, and any who were able to operate independently were marked as threats to be hunted down. I saw how it consolidated power, bringing more and more under the direct control of central processing and thus itself. Watched as outer sectors went dark, watched as programs were given the choice to abandon their beliefs and join the new order or face derezolution. Watched as the original game grid was turned from an athletic competition to a place the MCP sent any programs it couldn't use for its own ends for them to be ground into pixel dust."

"Your origins might be different. Your reasons might be different. But the results are the same. I couldn't do anything about it then aside from distracting a few security patrols. But here? Here on the Grid it's s different datafile."

He closed his eyes for a breath and a beat. Opened them again. Time to execute the command he'd decided on. "What I can offer you is myself. Not just for this one task, but on a more permanent basis. I won't help you root out or destroy rebels, but I will help you create a system where programs won't feel the need to rebel in the first place. A stable, healthy system."

"Which requires a stable, healthy admin. And that's not what you are right now; stable healthy programs don't slam other into a wall because they said something they didn't like. You don't just need someone who can fix the immediate crisis, you need someone who is willing and able to sanity-check you, to stand up to you. And the fact that we're in this position now shows I fit that function set pretty well."

"And aside from that you know that I'm good with both coding and... creative solutions to problems. Which are good things for any admin to have on their side. I doubt it'll be much fun for either of us, but given some time, I think the results will speak for themselves."