Multiversal travel can be disorienting, but there’s no need to worry! All side effects are temporary and lessen with each trip. Your body may experience several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You may have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer dizziness while others are perfectly fine. You notice that the area you are in is filled with a soft cerulean light and feels slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you. Regardless of your current state, however, the stress of transit forces your body into unconsciousness.
Waking up is another story. Or maybe it isn’t.
You find yourself in a nondescript room; sometimes with others who have found themselves in the same situation, sometimes alone. Welcome to Avagi Station, your new home.
Avagi
That First Step, it is a Doozy:
There are always risks to exploring new environments and Avagi is rich with new nooks and crannies to explore. You’re checking out a new corridor that’s been opened, though there have been signs warning that there are areas where structural stability has been weakened by neglect and the passage of time. But maybe things have been going well, you’ve found a few interesting things of note and you’re ready to head back to your bunk for the day.
Except when you turn to leave, the floor is giving way without a screech of metal. Hopefully you’ve got some good reflexes and can catch yourself before you topple down a shaft that seems to go down at least thirty or forty feet. Do you call for help or struggle to handle it on your own? And more importantly, how are you getting around this giant hole in the floor now that it’s there?
The Buddy System:
In order to help new arrivals find their bearings the more experienced residents on board have decided to try out the buddy system in order until the new arrivals get their space legs. The guide is responsible for answering any questions, showing them all the important facilities and making sure their new friend doesn’t wander anywhere too dangerous. And what better way to get to know your buddy than to try and help them find all the supplies they need to be comfortable in their new home? Hopefully the barter blocks have some clothes in your size or else it could get a little bit awkward come laundry day.
Shining Bright:
The Observation Station is the best place on Avagi to get a look at the storm that rages all around. However today when you stop by there’s something strange and new to look upon. It’s not clear if it’s a change in the environment or perhaps an effect of the living energy that opens the portals but the entire room is filled with softly glowing floating lights. If you venture into the room and dare to touch one of the lights you’ll find that you find a song playing in your mind that fills you with a deep and abiding sense of peace. What you do with that feeling is up to you but it seems that these lights aren’t going to cause any harm then why not let yourself relax in a beautiful space for a little while?
Kaittos
This month there is a portal to the planet Kaittos, a peaceful world containing one large land mass and a scattering of lived-on islands across a clear blue ocean. On the mainland, a large city-state occupies the central region and southern coast and resembles what some travelers from some versions of Earth might know of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Bustling and lively, the city is clean and well provided-for due to the temperate climate and the bountiful natural resources found on its northern side; orchards, farms and forests extend into the distance, butting up against a small mountain range. The technology level is low compared to Avagi, with carriages and candles in place rather than cars and electric lights, but the craftsmen of the world have managed some very impressive mechanical feats.
Kaittans, the local residents of the world appear somewhat humanoid, but the bipedal race has hooves rather than feet, silvery skin and three eyes with vertical pupils. Although there is no sign of any other sentient species in the world, the locals are nonetheless excited to meet their guests, rather than suspicious or afraid; for some reason, they are not surprised that aliens exist, merely that they are here.
Visitors are encouraged to explore the city and partake in an exchange of goods and ideas, to share their culture and stories with the locals. Perhaps there’s a merchant willing to trade a bauble for a story or you want to try something entirely unknown to your palette in the culinary quarter. The possibilities, while not quite limitless, are enough to keep the curious busy for quite a while.
Rinzler doesn't have a face to glare with. Still, the sentiment is anything but subtle. The opaque mask fixes on Ram, frame bristling with a wash of sudden loathing.
Does it think Rinzler is stupid? That he can't recognize the stall, the push—the fault-crashed test for what it is? Avoidance and distance, boundaries strained in preparation for a break. Rinzler knows the patterns just as well as Rinzler knows the answer it deserves. Derezz the glitch. He shouldn't have given it the opportunity to start with. And certainly, a function that can't follow basic instructions has no place in Clu's—
This isn't Clu's system. He'd been trying to help.
This isn't Clu's system, and if this glitch can stop, for one micro, treating this like—
(—what he is—)
[Error—]
Fists are curling at each side. Noise scrapes out a discordant snarl, surging as Rinzler jerks his mask back toward the entry, wordless and enraged. He knows his function.
She inhales deeply, closing her eyes so she can memorize the way he smells, the way it feels to have his arms around her, the warmth of his body. "I can't believe you're here..." It's too good to be true, but he hasn't vanished yet. A thought strikes her, and she pulls back a bit so she can look at him, smiling. "I killed Ares. I ended the war."
He raises one eyebrow at her at the response, but doesn't press. For all he's heard about her from Tron, he doesn't know her well enough himself to know if there really is an issue, or to push the matter if there is.
The news makes his shoulders slump and his circuits dim a little, but the reminder of the seemingly flexible time makes him brighten again. 'Alright. If you're working on it, I'd be happy to help. Communication systems aren't my primary function, but I might be able to lend a hand on the signal calculations.' Figure out how to transmit across worlds.
'Users, it'll be good to see Flynn again,' he sighs, smiling. 'I can let him know I'm okay at least. I think Flynn mentioned a Clu, but from the way he spoke about him, he'd been lost and likely derezzed.' Then there is a whole slew of things that leaves him blinking and feeling... many things.
'Okay, we're going to need to talk this through properly,' he says, tugging at his curls again. 'You say we need somewhere private? Where can we go?'
[Bill is quiet for a while. He steps past Eddie into the room without a word, and moves straight to the writing, standing before it, his eyes tracing each letter and his fingers ghosting just above each word and name.
He stops occasionally, first at the reminder meant for Eddie himself, then at the promise, and finally at the list of their names. With calm fingers and steady limbs he crouches and rests his hand besides Georgie's name. When his eyes reach IT he stands back up and turns to Eddie, moving over and pulling the smaller boy back into his arms in a tight hug.]
As long as we're all t-together, Eddie, I don't care w-where I stay.
Performance of the y-year. [Bill shakes his head, but he can't help but smile a little at Richie's unending Richie-ness. He helps lead Richie through the side section until he stubs his toes on a stair, catching himself on a railing mid-fall.
Not all sections of Avagi station are created equal, and not all of them are in equal repair--meaning many of them are flush with unclaimed scrap. He's always short of conduit pipe, and if they're going to grow food in earnest, he'll only need more.
He's been following the bright, soft back-and-forth of voices for some time.
Timing is, after all, everything, and his is...
"Maybe I can help you with that." With a genial lift of the hand, both eyebrows high over a warm grin at Yori. "After all, I distinctly heard my name."
...Perfect.
Edited (lmao setup has conclusions.) 2017-12-01 01:21 (UTC)
Ram can practically feel the sudden fury radiating off him, and though he doesn't take a step back, he does tense and quickly reassess his calculations. This is admittedly not a reaction he had considered likely, at least not to such a degree.
'Hey, you'll forgive me for not wanting to turn my back on a highly capable security program with two disks,' he says, hands raised slightly.
With the increased anger, chances of the situation devolving into a confrontation are increasing. However force has not yet been used and the program has had ample opportunity to initiate, but seems more focused on getting Ram wherever he wants him to go. Which means he likely wants him there alive, though the lack of manhandling is a different matter, one Ram is still puzzling out. In the mean time, it is unlikely that he's been brought to this room to be derezzed, whereas continued resistance increases the possibility.
'Okay, okay.' he lowers his hands, activates his limited motion tracker and expands his proximity alert to a further reach while calibrating his reaction time. Then he walks past the program, the door forcing him to pass just within his reaction time range. He skips back out of range once he's in the room, but makes a point of positioning himself near the centre. Look, not trying to escape.
A jolt of electric fear pins her in place. "Greetings, Clu," Yori says after a moment, struggling for an even tone.
Meanwhile she runs a frantic analysis backward. How much had she said? Which parts had he heard?
Nothing he couldn't guess, but is he going to take offense anyway?
The administrator can't attack her openly without losing the fragile truce he seems to value. It's very little comfort when Ram's beside her, disk unguarded. Does Clu value that truce more than he'd enjoy the chance to make that much trouble? How can she judge?
Her hand tightens on Ram's shoulder with a shielded ping: calm/wait. They can't give Clu an excuse here.
The voice startles him and he looks up sharply. But even as he does so, even before he sees the yellow circuits and black bodysuit, he knows this is not Flynn. The voice is too controlled, lacking the informality that Flynn had always had. And yet, the face momentarily gives him pause, but it too is too set for Flynn.
Yori confirms it and Ram stays still, caught between warning and reason, he can only make sure he treads carefully. So he bites his tongue for now, staying close to Yori and keeping his gaze on Clu while trying to maintain an appearance of ease.
The yellow on black though. That's interesting. Yellow circuits in Encom meant hacker, but Yori had said sysadmin. And the black bodysuit with limited circuits, an interesting getup and familiar--
--ah, of course. Well, that could make things more... complicated.
(It's the kind of reaction Eddie would expect from Bill. A thoughtful reaction; one that he immerses himself in entirely. Eddie stands by, hands collected and knotting together anxiously at what Bill might say or do. What he might think.
But then Eddie's being hugged, a small sound escaping him, and his thin arms loop tightly around his best friend, his brother, and he buries his face into Bill's neck.)
I...completely forgot about all you guys.
(He confesses this very quietly, shamefully, as if Bill would actually blame him (he knows he won't). He leans back, staring up at Bill with large, wet eyes.)
I forgot about damn near everything, Bill.
(He slowly lets go of him, and glances at the wall.)
...I don't want to ever again. None of it. Even the bad.
(His eyes linger on the reminder for himself and he pinches his mouth into a thin line.)
I don't care either. I'm keeping you guys here no matter what it takes. (It's a bold declaration from Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie who was never the hero or the leader. But it was a decision he had felt fiercely about since remembering, that if his friends would ever show up, he'd fight the universe itself to keep them there. Nothing inspired bravery in him faster than his own loyalty. Which was a bit of his downfall, but no matter. If Eddie was worth anything at all, he was worth his friends.)
Oh. So that was Ares. They'd been wise to stay out of that one and find something else that needed doing instead. At her last statement, he smiles, a genuine smile, a rare sight on him. "I knew you could." She saved the world.
[ Stan rolls his eyes. The weather doesn't seem the pneumonia type but would that really matter when it came to Eddie? Probably not and who knows what flesh eating bacteria he might decide to go on about next! ]
Take the other shoe off. You look stupid with just one...
[ It really bothers him, okay.
However, he gently takes the puzzle from Richie and turns it over. ]
[ Stan doesn't go to the observation deck a lot. It's overwhelming to him -- but then a lot of things about this place are overwhelming to him. He hasn't seen the girl before but he looks at her perplexed when she talks.
It's alright, Eddie. We're h-here now. [Bill feels a shared shame, smaller than Eddie's, but his own memories had been a little distant since arriving, and there had been things he had either started to forget or fully put out of his mind. Eddie's conviction, though, is shared, and Bill just nods, reluctantly letting Eddie move about. As badly as he wants to just keep holding onto some part of his friends to keep connected to them.
He smiles at Eddie, a little thin as most of his have been since Georgie's death, but he doesn't falter.]
You won't f-forget again. We w-won't let each other forget. [They couldn't. There had been too much, and so much of it, painful or otherwise, was too important. Bill wouldn't let the dead kids be forgotten. He wouldn't let Georgie be forgotten. He wouldn't forget about what happens when they don't stick together and look out for one another.]
[If Bill could have seen him he would have laughed. As it is he helps his friend up the stairs behind him, holding his bike up as best he could as he carries it up the stairs with them.
When they get to the top, they're just on the other side of the hole, and Bill steps a few steps closer to look down into it again, now too aware of how deep it is after their trek up the stairs.]
Quick as that, she swallows the ends of whatever she was about to say, delicate and abrupt as the scissor snap of a bird's beak.
He'd startled her.
...How. Interesting.
Scans are a waste of energy and pings are an excess in this dead, charge-devouring place; he'd just as soon keep as much power as possible for himself. And lies are easiest with words. After all, he's not a friend, they're not friends, and it's not like she's made a secret of passing those packets to absolutely everyone.
"Greetings," bright, soft and deliberate, "Yori."
Rebels had managed to get it into his personal anteroom, once, eight feet high on the fourteen foot wall in throbbing, hideous, forbidden fluorescent Bostrumite green--
CLU == MCP
--and it was just as good for his resistors then as it is now: a spike of outrage like heat shimmer, just visible in lesser circuits--a twitch of the fingers, then gone.
Rinzler wants her.
That keeps the grin on his face, in his voice, keeps everything amusing.
"I have the strangest feeling I'm interrupting? But I do know any number of ideal venues, if you'd like suggestions. Good places for," maybe she'll push, or maybe he'll push first, "a close, quiet, secret chat."
He levels a look at the new guy, quick sweeping assessment of the blue and grey, matching to Encom system descriptions, to known data, to hazard a guess at potential functions--but he doesn't place this unit.
"I'm sure your," qualifiers, testing, "new friend will appreciate that? He," assumption, render-based, "did ask directly."
"Thank you for the offer," polite, so polite Clu could cut himself on the edges.
Ram's blue light under her hand is a reminder that her priority here has to be not provoking Clu. More than she already has.
It's an interesting question whether Clu actually has such places. Probably so. Rinzler would have arranged them, even if she doubts Clu's capability.
She manages at least a faint echo of a smile. "We'll find a place. I wouldn't want to trouble you."
Privacy from Clu is getting ever more valuable. The fact that Clu checks Rinzler's disks means she has to be careful, but it's so much easier to process necessity when she isn't looking at the program who's hurt Rinzler and tortured Tron.
The obvious threat in the offer means he might just be amusing himself. That's easier to accept than the tiny chance that he might actually want to talk.
SO he's been listening to them. How long for? The tension is as thick as a datacloud and every User second that passes in silence seems somehow louder than when they are speaking.
Yori had said Flynn created Clu as the sysadmin for a new system, but Clu took MCP like control. There is clearly a whole history there, but with only a few pieces, Ram is struggling to fill in the gaps. There are many questions, none of which it would be wise to ask while said admin was in the room.
How had Flynn done this? He helped them against the MCP, Yori told him not ten nanocycles ago that they were successful. How could his own program have been allowed to rise to such a position?
/Redirecting questions, folder: For_later
He meets the gaze evenly as it crosses over to him. 'A program such as yourself surely has better things to do than listen to catch up.'
Security. The harsh rattling skips, just slightly. Still, Rinzler won't correct the mistake.
He will follow Ram in. The other program's deliberate positioning is largely ignored; once inside, Rinzler turns toward the workbench, a few quick steps to retrieve one of the devices cluttering its top. He tosses it to the actuary without looking, turns and raises a hand slightly: showcasing the similar accessory currently attached to his right wrist.
"Communicator."
Avagi Communication Extension, the startup screen will inform Ram—in addition to prompting for an ID.
"Provides access to public broadcasts and shared data. Can enter own requests."
Ram starts compiling a list of the times the clicking noise changes, tagging the instances with how it changed and what Ram did or said beforehand. He doesn't know if he'll run into this guy again, but to be safe, he'd rather be better learned in what might prompt a reaction. He can cross reference once he has more data to make it more accurate.
All hostility seems to drop once Ram's in the room and he watches the program fetch something off a table and throw it to him. He catches it easily and looks it over, looking up in confusion, though not at what it is.
'...Thank you?' This, help, was very far down the calculated possible outcomes of their excursion. That seems to be happening a fair bit with this program, some reassessing is clearly in order. He'll check the communicator for bugs and listening devices once he's alone, but even so. 'Thank you.'
/Query_whyhelp?
Very little about this program is making sense. From his strange sounds, to his difficult to predict behaviour, to his voice, which is nagging at Ram's processor the more he hears it. This time, it's a segment long enough that he has a chance to record the last sentence and mull it over.
Ram's ping will bounce back unacknowledged. Unread, though the specifics might not be apparent. The user world doesn't carry proper signals. The program he's transmitting to isn't configured like Ram is. There are plenty of reasons why the effort might have failed.
Connection rejected is just one among the set.
Static rustles behind Rinzler's shell: recycled air, exhaled in derision. The actuary's stare is just as obvious as its bewildered courtesy, and plenty reason to ignore the latter. It has what it needs now to bother anyone but him.
Ram manages to keep the frown off his face when he gets no response but his own, unopened ping. He quickly lists through the possible reasons for this and quickly determines that there are enough that there's no sense in dwelling on them, and instead moves to a method he knows will at least be heard.
'Why are you helping me?' There is curiosity and a hint of confusion in his tone. It's not often he meets someone who acts so unexpectedly as to maintain such high margins of error in his calculations after this long.
The last one was Flynn.
'What's your designation?' Users, he doesn't think he's ever asked a Red Guard their name before.
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