Clu was very proud of his brother's progress. He realized as he lay there watching the admin interact with Gana that he probably didn't say so enough, but opted not to amend that just yet; such a confession might be taken the wrong way under current circumstances and he didn't want to provoke another unnecessary panic. But all the same, he really was proud.
Where once he would have been barking orders and trying to shove himself into task sets that he was in no way built or trained for just to maintain control and avoid showing fear or weakness, the admin was allowing the recompilers to do their jobs. Allowing Gana to dictate terms to him, even! He'd come a long, long way, and if the progress had at times been as awkward and halting as trying to fly a damaged recognizer, it was progress still. And the state of the Grid improved along with the state of its admin, the new construction project being just one example, which was its own cause for celebration.
At present though, he returned the handclasp, processing over the feelings his brother was professing. And not just his own either, but Jarvis and apparently the whole suite at Central Processing. All worried about him. All caring about him. He found he didn't know quite what to do with this data, drafting and discarding a few responses before finally settling on, "Sometimes I forget that not everyone is as used to the idea of me being in danger as I am."
After a brief pause, he continued. "A hacker's function set is dangerous; there's just no getting around it. I got used to the idea pretty quick that every time I went out on a mission, there was a chance I wasn't going to come back. Had to; if I was too focused on worrying about that, I wouldn't have been able to perform my function. And as time went on and the MCP got more and more powerful, every mission got more and more dangerous. I didn't really get close to anyone in my home system for just that reason. There were plenty of programs I knew reasonably well and liked, and who presumably liked me too, but no one I was really friends with. Even in my own system, I was always just... passing through, to some extent."
"Of course the odds finally caught up to me when the MCP's forces did, and that was the end of that, til I was brought back online here. Just in time to be smack in the middle of a narrowly averted viral apocalypse. By the time I found my footing after that, it was back to business as usual. The next task, the next mission. Always on the run, always just passing through. Observing everything and everyone without really being a part of what they were doing, avoiding security with the odds getting longer every time. The odds caught up to me here too, eventually of course, though with thankfully much better results."
"But even for a little while after that, everything was a risk vs reward calculation, like it had always been. Even something as simple as visiting a recompiler." He didn't let go of his brother's hand, but instead indicating their general surroundings by angling his head combined with a gesture of his left hand that didn't bother lifting the arm. "Always had to decide whether it was more of a risk to deal with an injury I got while on a mission, or seek out medical help. Not that I thought they'd turn me away, but they were bound to turn me in after I was repaired, if not before. So I had to decide which was the bigger risk to the mission. More often than not, I wound up just working around it. Life was dangerous, injuries happened, I just had to deal and move on." He shrugged slightly.
Another brief pause. "Guess what I'm saying is that I'm just... not really used to being part of a suite. At least not the parts that involve people worrying about me like this. I mean I knew Jarvis worried, but he's Jarvis, you know? He worries about everything. Probably even worries about his worries. But with it being more than that, for you and him and everyone... Guess I'm still kinda new to factoring that in. To having someone waiting up for me."
"But I appreciate it. And I'll... try and do better." It was a quiet revelation, no drums or horns of fireworks, no User-bright light from above. But then noise would have cheapened it somehow. The revelation that the independence he'd always been proud of no longer meant that he stood apart, that he was just passing through... that he was now part of a suite, that he had friends and loved ones who worried about him, cared about him, feared for him... It was an epiphany that, now that he'd been struck with it, he wondered how he hadn't noticed it sooner. Something so simple, yet so profound and powerful, that he wondered if his brother could sense it dawning on him via the contact of their clasped hands?
Whether or not he could though, he'd definitely feel it when Clu squeezed his hand, and see it when he gave him a small, warm smile. "I'm glad you came," he said. "And I care about all of you too. Not sure I realized how much before."
no subject
Where once he would have been barking orders and trying to shove himself into task sets that he was in no way built or trained for just to maintain control and avoid showing fear or weakness, the admin was allowing the recompilers to do their jobs. Allowing Gana to dictate terms to him, even! He'd come a long, long way, and if the progress had at times been as awkward and halting as trying to fly a damaged recognizer, it was progress still. And the state of the Grid improved along with the state of its admin, the new construction project being just one example, which was its own cause for celebration.
At present though, he returned the handclasp, processing over the feelings his brother was professing. And not just his own either, but Jarvis and apparently the whole suite at Central Processing. All worried about him. All caring about him. He found he didn't know quite what to do with this data, drafting and discarding a few responses before finally settling on, "Sometimes I forget that not everyone is as used to the idea of me being in danger as I am."
After a brief pause, he continued. "A hacker's function set is dangerous; there's just no getting around it. I got used to the idea pretty quick that every time I went out on a mission, there was a chance I wasn't going to come back. Had to; if I was too focused on worrying about that, I wouldn't have been able to perform my function. And as time went on and the MCP got more and more powerful, every mission got more and more dangerous. I didn't really get close to anyone in my home system for just that reason. There were plenty of programs I knew reasonably well and liked, and who presumably liked me too, but no one I was really friends with. Even in my own system, I was always just... passing through, to some extent."
"Of course the odds finally caught up to me when the MCP's forces did, and that was the end of that, til I was brought back online here. Just in time to be smack in the middle of a narrowly averted viral apocalypse. By the time I found my footing after that, it was back to business as usual. The next task, the next mission. Always on the run, always just passing through. Observing everything and everyone without really being a part of what they were doing, avoiding security with the odds getting longer every time. The odds caught up to me here too, eventually of course, though with thankfully much better results."
"But even for a little while after that, everything was a risk vs reward calculation, like it had always been. Even something as simple as visiting a recompiler." He didn't let go of his brother's hand, but instead indicating their general surroundings by angling his head combined with a gesture of his left hand that didn't bother lifting the arm. "Always had to decide whether it was more of a risk to deal with an injury I got while on a mission, or seek out medical help. Not that I thought they'd turn me away, but they were bound to turn me in after I was repaired, if not before. So I had to decide which was the bigger risk to the mission. More often than not, I wound up just working around it. Life was dangerous, injuries happened, I just had to deal and move on." He shrugged slightly.
Another brief pause. "Guess what I'm saying is that I'm just... not really used to being part of a suite. At least not the parts that involve people worrying about me like this. I mean I knew Jarvis worried, but he's Jarvis, you know? He worries about everything. Probably even worries about his worries. But with it being more than that, for you and him and everyone... Guess I'm still kinda new to factoring that in. To having someone waiting up for me."
"But I appreciate it. And I'll... try and do better." It was a quiet revelation, no drums or horns of fireworks, no User-bright light from above. But then noise would have cheapened it somehow. The revelation that the independence he'd always been proud of no longer meant that he stood apart, that he was just passing through... that he was now part of a suite, that he had friends and loved ones who worried about him, cared about him, feared for him... It was an epiphany that, now that he'd been struck with it, he wondered how he hadn't noticed it sooner. Something so simple, yet so profound and powerful, that he wondered if his brother could sense it dawning on him via the contact of their clasped hands?
Whether or not he could though, he'd definitely feel it when Clu squeezed his hand, and see it when he gave him a small, warm smile. "I'm glad you came," he said. "And I care about all of you too. Not sure I realized how much before."