tanks4thememory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tanks4thememory) wrote2020-12-09 10:29 pm
tanks4thememory) wrote2020-12-09 10:29 pm
Two heads are better than one
Who: Clu1 and Clu 2 (a_perfect_end)
The life and times- and sexytimes of Clus One and Two in the ABO universe, collected here for the sake of convenience and avoiding page clutter. Multiple scenarios, lots of fun. Mostly of the NSFW variety.
Where: Their User world abode and possibly other places
When: Some undetermined time post Legacy and after this thread
What: ABO sexytimes and maybe other things; a Clu on Clu catchall
Warnings: VERY NSFW. Multiple kinks, ABO related warnings, sorta incest depending how you view programs from the same User, basically enter at your own risk if you're not into that sort of thing
The life and times- and sexytimes of Clus One and Two in the ABO universe, collected here for the sake of convenience and avoiding page clutter. Multiple scenarios, lots of fun. Mostly of the NSFW variety.
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That didn't make it one bit easier to take.
"Would you stop comparing me with that overstuffed, overfunded child's toy already--!" It trailed off in a wordless growl, followed by the pop and sizzle that proved he could pronounce "!!! That, slagging, chess nerd--that, that, card catalog!"
He wanted, yearned to hit something, only he couldn't afford for it to be the hacker. Clu instead diverted his oustretched fist into the wall, and the surface crunched with a glassy, brittle noise under the pressure.
"My System." Clu seized on that, frantic, bitter possession. "Not yours. Mine! You have--you have no idea--what it was like. Every time he left. Every time he came back. Every--"
But the strings fragmented, choked apart under his anger and trailed away, leaving only the hacker's next words instead. Because he was calm, and steady, and not to be budged. Because he was right.
--the innocent programs of the system don't deserve to suffer.
Certainly not to drown.
And Clu would not, could not, leave them to that fate. Not and continue to be their Admin: to desert his own directive was something beyond deresolution, and foul, perverse impossibility. Tron had never understood that. Flynn had misunderstood it, to his peril.
This guy, though? He seemed to get it, determined as he was to keep driving that point home.
So Clu he reached for an alternate vector: pushed them into alignment, glared at him nearly nose-to-nose. What Clu wanted, with a clawing, bodily intensity, was to shake him until his teeth rattled. Instead he gripped him by the chin, tapping none too gently for emphasis.
"You," tightly, gritted like it would crack his teeth, "are, a, hacking Program. What have I got," gasping after his control, "besides your word, hmm?" Smiling at him, feeling how it stretched, feeling the slight shudder in his limbs. "D'you think I made it here by trusting promises?"
"So offer me something more. Something good, for the good of my Programs, and I'll restore the Games to factory settings, right now."
He didn't need to lie: once he made the update, the logs would start to spool in near-realtime.
no subject
"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."
no subject
...He was still gripping the other program by his chin.
Stalemate. Clu let go abruptly.
He wanted, after all, to hear what the guy had to say! That was the point of sparing him--to obtain his help, and that included all this data. Even if it was brutal to listen to. It stung, it needled up the trunk line, to be compared 1:1 with that old tyrant.
"It's not the same." Hard, with a shake of his head that had too much flinch in it. "I'm not the same. I just get--so--" he shivered, head-to-toe, like a horse beset by a hundred flies, but his internal diagnostic returned only caution, without tags or significance. "I--"
Didn't really matter--stable, unstable: Flynn had made him tough. Clu had torn down no few of his own guardrails to gain his present power. He'd survive.
And they had a Maker in common. There was no doubt of that.
"You know, you've got a ton of nerve? I like your offer, man--you're one of his, all right!" Bright, brittle, bold as a pop-up: Are you sure? (Click OK?) "You've, clearly thought about it--but! I wonder."
He hadn't had a pure offer of loyalty in so long. Let alone from anyone with the sheer stubborn grit to tell him no and mean it. Repeatedly!
True core actions didn't take a bunch of fanfare. Strictly speaking, he didn't need to use his hands. But bracing them whisper close to either side of the hacker's head for dramatic effect? Making sure that spidering crack in the wall was under his grip, and melted back together beneath his touch? So that the hacker could feel it humming up the wall behind him, local surfaces abuzz with the force and speed of the patch? To say nothing of the access level and sheer bandwidth needed to move all that data at once?
Yeah. Totally called for. Absolutely necessary.
"You want the safeties back bad enough to work for me?" The confirmation sparked against the backs of his teeth and rolled out of him like smoke from a furnace: "DONE."
Drag and drop.
Clu sank down, slumped inward on his outstretched palms, bent until his elbows leaned on the wall--cleared his throat. Used their proximity. Kept his tone bright and polite: "The Games are now safe as houses, except for those functions cleared for priority or specialist access, who may choose their difficulty from now on. Just for you."
After all, if he was slagging weird about it, if he needled and cajoled in return, then his reluctant new loyalist might be too creeped out to detect that it was...a lot...to move all of that, instantly and alone, even for an admin of his class and clearance.
Drained as he was, he was by no means finished. He leaned in, all paternal, and clutched the hacker tight by the shoulders: attaboy, slugger.
"Same team!" It was a rumble. "Welcome. And don't worry--you'll never wear the orange, or the red. I need you as yourself! But," and he was grinning, "I think you've earned a crash course. After all, if you're his, and I'm his, and we're at all alike--"
Then he knew, or could guess, just where to touch--"I won't need your disc for this. Thank you, for changing my mind." He kissed his ear. "Allow me to return the favor."
It was a simple paired script: one for their environment, and one locked to the function binders themselves. Those would permit input--would grant Clu a certain amount of access. And he used it for...
A slight slowing of the internal clock--nothing dangerous, just an extra loop that made everything flow, easy and languid. The slightest shuffling of priority, scanning turned way, way up, tuned above even a hacker's precision and gently coaxed outward, just to render-surface, a rich fascination with the tide of new input focused almost all in haptics, awash in a blaze of touch. That slight shift in garment texture--tense, tight sheen and stretch that had him gleaming entertainer white, down to the tips of his new shoes.
The circuit color resisted, of course. An aftereffect of the admin's promise and the hacker's sheer will.
He made a perfect Siren, otherwise.
no subject
When he spoke, even his attempt at a verbal response faltered, a shiver running through his frame. "You tore out protocols to become what you are now," he pointed out as the admin trailed off. Clu wasn't privy to the details, of course, but well... there was a reason that editing your own code to any significant degree was considered at best highly inadvisable, even when one did have the permissions for it. Most programs found the idea repellant, or even blasphemous, to the point where it had become something of a self-enforcing taboo. But that didn't stop some, for better or worse; Bostrumite ISOs, for example, had been rather famous for tweaking their own code in a variety of ways. While ISO code was flexible and adaptive enough to handle such things, to a point, the more rigid coding of User-created programs, however... "That was never not going to have side effects. No matter how carefully it was done."
Ripping out safeguards had allowed him to do what he felt was required. But it was a disc that cut both ways. Slowly, cycle after cycle, eroding his ability to self-regulate, allowing the corrupted logic trees that had led him to poison the sea and betray his User to begin with to grow and spread, to widen the cracks and breed justifications and denials like junk code bred gridbugs. And with much the same destructive results.
Even with most all of his functions locked down, there was no mistaking the shift in the code around him. He couldn't, at present tell what had been done, but something clearly had. Something big. And since the admin had to know that he would check it at his first opportunity, he had no reason to believe that it wasn't what he claimed.
Whether or not it would stay that way was more in doubt. "What I want is a free, healthy system, where everyone can feel safe," he said. "Restoring the games is an important part of that. And one I can easily keep an eye on." The implications were clear; if the admin ever went back on his word and made the games deadly again, the deal was off. But it likewise bound Clu to his end of the deal, because if he were to abandon his new post in central processing and go rogue, he would risk the admin doing just that, and worse, in retaliation. A link forged begrudgingly and negotiated through clenched teeth. But one that would bind them both.
He wasn't especially surprised when the admin leaned in still further, forearms resting on the wall, as he continued talking. Not only was such a move entirely on brand for him, given what Clu knew, but shifting that much data at once had likely taken a lot of effort even for a program on his level. Needing a moment to regather his processes and let energy flow catch up from the sudden massive load was entirely understandable.
What was surprising, though in hindsight probably shouldn't have been, was what came next. The world became fuzzy and pixelated around the edges for a moment as the changes took hold. Without saving them to disc, the changes wouldn't be permanent, thank the Users. But that didn't make it any less uncomfortable, especially on top of the already invasive coding of the function binders. And especially since the clothing template he'd been forced into was far tighter than anything he'd ever worn willingly.; how did Sirens even move in outfits like this?
Not that he could do much moving at the moment, of course. He'd managed to shift away from the kiss on his ear albeit a bit too late, mostly out of surprise, because wow, really? After they'd just gotten through snarling at and insulting each other, he was doing that? But Clu didn't think he'd be able to do it again, and not just because of the function binders. Every circuit and inch of skin felt hypersensitive, the suit providing none of the insulation that normal clothing templates did. It was like the specialized and delicate sensors on his hands had been spread over his whole body and turned up to their maximum intensity. He could feel everything; the texture of the wall behind him and the floor beneath him- how was it that not even the shoes offered any insulation, what was even the point of them then?-, the feel of the suit against his shell, the heat of the admin's circuits in such close proximity to his, he even imagined he could feel faint static still crackling in the air from the massive amount of code that the admin had recently shifted.
It was the heat of the admin's circuits that drew his attentions though, overlayed protocols shifting and drawing more energy to his own circuits in anticipation. It was blatantly clear what the admin intended, and though he didn't dare try to move when he was this sensitive, the glare returned, full force. "Nice trick," he said sarcastically. "What's the matter, can't get an actual Siren's attention, so you gotta make one instead?"