#data processors

"...Right." Something in their eyes softens for a tick; in the uneven and makeshift lighting of the stopover entry, that sharp grey nearly looks blue for just a moment. "When they did that to you... did it hurt?"

It's a vague memory, one she can only think of as necessary. Some part of her, now, wonders if that was intentional. They'd taken her disc then, for just a little while...

No. She can't think about that right now. Focus. This place is strange -- and she still has no idea what this program really wants from her.

She nods.

"I can help, if you'll let me." Second time this cycle. "Just the surface render. Nothing else. I promise."

Paige feels herself shiver, that inside-out feeling returning unbidden. "I... I can't."

They shake their head, just a little, something foreign muttered under their breath -- but not at her, as far as she can tell. "I know. --Here."

From a pocket, they produce something that almost looks like... a filter circuit. The same kind of thing she'd plug into her synth pad, just smaller. About the size of her thumbnail, pressed into her palm with a careful sort of gentleness. Cold, like it's been sitting out on a desk somewhere, not carried on someone's person.

There's a chill in the room, yes -- but their hands are colder. She's seen that with data processors, before -- but only when they're so far into the fragmentation process as to be beyond repair. Cold hands and whispered voices, falling in and out of lucidity and panic as their bodies deteriorate and their minds slip into an infinite loop. Not standing here before her, coherent and calculating.

The filter is marked with a hexadecimal code.

"It only takes a couple of ticks," Signal says gently. "Doesn't plug in; just hold it to your light-lines. It'll reset, in the morning, after you've slept."

Temporary. Okay.

Takes a deep breath, counts to three, bracing for the searing shock -- but it never comes.

Her circuits, slowly and inexorably, drain themselves of their color, even as she drops the filter chip to the floor. And then flush with that now-unfamiliar green.

She feels herself start shaking again. Hates herself for it even more, now.

"How did you know?" she whispers.

"I remember you, Paige." They're smiling, but there's something melancholy in it -- something distant. "I was in the ICU the octet before you took your exam. One of the other processors didn't have anyone coming to see him. You sat there with him the whole time. When he was awake enough, he asked if he could help you study. --I assume you passed. You were better than some of the old hands."

"I did, yeah. But... I remember most of the processors I worked with. I don't remember you."

"There were a lot of us. It's alright if I'm not included in most." Signal winks at her, some levity back in their voice. "Look at that. You're a medic again."

"...Yeah." And she feels herself smiling, just a little.

Makes a decision, then. Pulls her hair down from its tight knot. It's longer now, as unfamiliar as Gallium itself has become.

She approaches the chamber with some amount of caution. The glass isn't opaque, but it is darkened -- the stillness and steady breathing of a data processor in that thing they call convergence. Conscious, but unaware, disconnected from his immediate surroundings. Must be the primary processor in the array, then. Not necessarily the fastest of them, or even the best -- but one with the skill and patience to keep them working cohesively.

"Bring him up. Slowly."

Thel doesn't listen, of course. Careless. The poor thing nearly falls out of the processing rig, held there only by the restraints. Must be from this Grid, with that external regulator hardware. It's… uncanny, unnatural -- like the distorted cry that escapes him as the pins retract from the input jacks laid across his shoulders. Shaking and ragged, his circuits clearly flooded from the feedback loop.

"Welcome back." She watches the processor emerge from the fog, dark eyes slowly coming to focus in the bright light. "I'd apologize for waking you, but it looks like they don't have you doing anything particularly important this cycle."

He doesn't respond to that. Either he's still recalibrating, or he's already decided not to cooperate.

"My name is Advan. We spoke about eight cycles ago -- but I'd think you don't remember that."

"No, I remember you, General." His voice is surprisingly clear, although he doesn't make eye contact. "Have you come to tell me I was wrong?"

"Not at all. I came to thank you, actually -- you were right. And your warning is the only reason I'm still alive." A chill spreads through her circuits at the idea of it; she holds it down as best as she can. "Not even two cycles later, one of my officers turned on me. It took me quite a while to find you -- I didn't have anything but an identification number to go on."

Some of them, she remembers, don't have anything else. But maybe he's older than she first expected; his arms twitch under the restraints, as though he's expecting them to come loose just for the thought. In a first-gen rig, they would.

"That's not the only reason you're here, is it?" It's not really a question, that strange certainty that seems to come from nothing in particular. "Gratitude isn't really in your people's emotional vocabulary. I've learned that much."

"My people? Should I have a conversation with some of my officers about their behavior?"

"System-separated -- no, there's a word you'd use for them, some of the programs in orange -- I've heard it before. I think you'd say they're…. repurposed."

"You're right about one thing, I didn't come here without motive. I've received a new assignment, out in Gallium City. I'll need a data processor to come along."

"There's a hundred in this matrix alone."

"And I owe quite a lot to one of them in particular." She feels a smile tug at her lips. She already likes him. "How many others are in your array? I understand we'll need to bring at least a few of them with us."

"I'm starting to think that this isn't a request." But he doesn't show any real apprehensiveness or hesitation, when she reaches over to loosen the restraints, freed from the cold mirrored glass. Still focused on something in the distance, in the way they all seem to wander. "There are five of us, total. Or… there were, when I was put into isolation. Eight cycles ago, I guess, if that's the last time you were here. They said I needed to recalibrate. Starting to imagine things. But the System doesn't lie to us, and... she must have brought you here. Because I know what I saw, General -- who I saw."

From behind her, Thel barks a sharp laugh. "Clever thing, aren't you?"

Advan turns around to admonish him -- now is not the time -- and realizes, with no small amount of unease, that her trajectory follows the processor's line of sight. He's been watching Thel, this whole time.

A rush of air as she steps back, one swift and silent motion, and shattered voxels on the floor.

"What's your name?" she asks quietly. And she knows, then, in the pervasive silence, that her earlier question about the array is a moot point. They're all long gone by now -- probably funneled into Demeter's new project. She can't help but wonder what saved him from the same fate.

"Wolfram."

His hands are shaking, as he replaces his disc. She almost feels sorry for him. Processors, after all, aren't really built for violence.

::You know it's not a big deal. As long as the port stays closed, anyway.::

::I know it means you're stressed, and that you're acting like things are fine, and you won't tell me why.::

::Do we really have to do this right now?:: Immediately hates himself for the way it sounds. She isn't wrong, but it's not like he can tell her what's going on. Not without freaking her out, which is the last thing either of them need, lately. Besides, she has a point, and he can't fault her for being worried about him. ::…Sorry. I'll go to the medical center first thing next cycle. Promise.::

::Gonna hold you to it.::

::I know. --But you don't have to. It's not your job anymore.::

::It's not about obligation. Never was. You know that.:: She yawns. ::I mean, you'd still do it for me, wouldn't you?::

::Yeah. Of course I would. No question.:: He leans over -- carefully, just in case she's right -- and kisses her on the cheek. ::Alright, I'll go patch this up. Go back to sleep.::

She hums something like an assent, and he watches her circuits dim to a slow pulse. A little too proud of herself, honestly…

Siv stands up, doing his best not to disturb her. He's a little out of practice, but he manages it. Closes the door behind him before turning on the light. He's missed this. Missed her. When did they start to drift off in separate directions?

The answer, of course, is looking back at him in the mirror. And then in triplicate, as he unfolds the panels. Shifts slightly, trying to get a better look at the dense array of silver scars stretching across his right shoulder, beginning to mirror to the left. Glowing brighter than they should; maybe it's worse than he thought.

Pulls out a set of patches, the wide ones that will cover most of it. Even the damage patches designed for data processors can't always handle it. The pin sockets are too close together, and there's too many of them, for it to adhere properly. And this doesn't quite stick, either.

It'll do for now. A stopgap, just like everything else.

This is a face he's become more comfortable with, over the cycles. Something that has to be settled into, every time his render changes -- and it hadn't come easily, this last time. A bigger change than it usually is, something that almost felt like a rollback. Too much like his sister -- who isn't exactly herself anymore… not really.

"And whose fault is that?"

The figure standing behind his reflection has no circuits to speak of -- but she radiates a faint light nonetheless. Someone both distant and achingly familiar. Not Yori -- no, Advan -- although easily mistaken. The same look Advan had given him, when she'd arrived in Gallium -- surprise, then disappointment, in how much he'd changed.

"Clu did this to her," he says quietly. "I don't know how. She should have been safe from it. It shouldn't have worked."

"You could have stopped her. You could have stopped so much of this -- but you've left behind everything I gave you."

--And then his input regulators wake up, the impossible sensation of all those pins reconnecting. For just a clock-cycle, he wants more than anything to feel the rush of free-flowing information through his circuits. The chance to chase down the root of the corruption spreading through the Grid, hold it up to the light… and pull it apart, line by line.

She's right. He could have, at one time. But the data rig in the Archives, the one Polaris had taken with him when he left Tron City, refuses to wake for him. Siv isn't a processor anymore -- the System's given him another purpose. The prototyping lab; giving his betas a home, untangling them from what the Occupation's done to them. The network; keeping watch over the programs of Gallium, giving them the tools to fight their own battles.

In the mirror, his circuits shiver -- momentarily giving way to those waveform patterns that increasingly feel less alien, the more he shifts into them, interacts with the network in them. And he knows then, beyond any doubt, that his User's wishes are no longer a factor. Not in his render, not in his function, and not in his decisions.

"No. I took what I needed, and left the rest." Siv takes a deep breath, willing himself to look her in the eye -- and then to stay standing, under the crushing weight of her gaze. "And I don't need you anymore."

"Do you really believe that?"

Before he can answer, the regulator circuits branch off, spidering across his shoulders with no input to temper them. Some long-sleeping part of his code reactivates, reaches out in a desperate reflex… and finds nothing in return, as Lora-Prime watches his circuits burn with something that might just be a smile.

"When you change your mind, I'll be here."

This train of thought is as much a distraction as it is a reminder. Because he can feel himself slipping, under the weight of all of it.

All he has to do is ignore it. Let it all pass unacknowledged, unfiltered. And if not, then it must be challenged. Remember that every bit of it is false by design.

The ISOs were never the problem.

One program's perfection is another's prison.

There is nothing wrong with me -- with any of us.

He'd rezzed in with the regulator circuits, albeit with that slightly-idiosyncratic bandwidth characteristic of the Encom processors. So they'd given him one of those rigs, pulled from storage somewhere. Two input, one output, forty pins each; eight pin monitoring. Direct access, no external hardware to get in the way of the connection. Not the one he'd asked for. It's a fraction of what it could be. But it's safer that way, apparently.

Not like this, what they're doing to him now. Constantly just under his maximum capacity, something he'd never worked up to. Something Yori had said was too dangerous for him to try -- it was why she hadn't given him the data rig he'd asked for --

"Cyrus. Can you hear me?"

Yori…? No. That's not right.

She'd never do this to him.

Demeter.

"Are you back with us now, little script?" Still blurry, but yes, it's definitely her. A smile in her voice, but there's nothing kind in it. "Your throughput's been dropping. Maybe it's time for a break."

"My throughput's fine." Those bright lights sting as his vision returns. Eyes refocusing slower than they should. "Not my fault it's all garbage data."

"Is it?"

"Sure. Garbage data, propaganda… Same thing."

Her smile turns sharp for just a microcycle, before shifting back into her usual false cheerfulness. "You look exhausted. Poor thing. Let's get you something to drink, hm?"

The sudden voltage drop rips through him -- the sharp silver pain of yet another improper disconnection. He clamps down the scream in his throat as four hundred and eighty pins retract from his back, his whole body trembling.

He knows what to expect from here. The lukewarm energy held to his lips, which he now knows not to refuse. Her quiet, false sympathy as she loosens the restraints just enough that they don't hurt, and tells him that he's only making this harder for himself. That she doesn't want to hurt him -- that it would be completely painless, if he would stop fighting it. That it's his fault, really, that they've left him here alone for cycles at a time in this cold and windowless room beneath the Archives.

"You're just so stubborn," she says -- and this time, the pity in her voice is genuine. "You know who you remind me of, sometimes…"

"This will be good for you, I promise." The memory's dim -- somewhere far away, all the way across the Grid. Maybe he's only been there a few times. Can't remember -- but he should. A sense of safety, a soft voice he can only imagine raised in laughter. "Be careful out there -- and listen to Yori, alright? I'll miss you."

"Yeah. I get that a lot."

Does he? If his memories are starting to slip… it might be working. There's an empty space on the other side of the room, where there used to be a second unit. Sometimes he wonders whose it was. Feels like maybe he should know that.

"He was good at this. I think you could be, too… if you'd just apply yourself a little more."

"Can't spread your lies without an amplifier, can you? And you don't have many of us left, not now."

"You'll come around eventually." Demeter presses the restraints back into place, patting his hand. "But in the meantime… the only program you're hurting is yourself."

"I know." He takes a deep breath -- steeling himself against what he knows is coming. "That's the whole point."

"How much longer do you think you can keep this up?"

"Good question." He looks up at her, meeting her gaze with as sharp of a grin as he can manage. "Let's find out."

And then it takes him down, back into the waiting current of hate and baseless fear.

Cyrus reaches for the half-formed image in his mind, but it's a fuzzy one. A gentle smile with just a bit of mischief in it -- "See you soon, kiddo. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Something tells him that he isn't.

"If we're lucky, huh?"

"Sure. They're friendly, mostly harmless. Good kids." Signal hands her the heated canister they've just finished preparing. "Here. This should help. Might be a bit strong, though."

"Thanks." She waits a moment first; and they notice, making a point of pouring the rest into their own glass with a playful grin. She wonders what's hiding underneath it -- watching as they skim through the documents on the data cube. Faster than should be possible, but she has no doubt they're taking in every word.

Sips at the concentrated energy idly, feels the warmth of it even out in her circuits. It is strong stuff, the kind you only need in unpowered places like this… or when your energy processing's been altered by constant direct input. Straight into your circuits, for cycles on end, until your body and mind start to give out.

Yeah. Data processor for sure. Or at least they used to be. She'd bet on the presence of those telltale silver scars at the base of their neck and across their shoulders. Not many of them left, not now. She worked with so many of them at the medical center -- sealing re-opened ports, tapering down their energy levels as safely as she could. It's entirely possible that Signal was one of them.

"…Who knows you're here, Paige?"

Oh, there it is. Her hands are shaking, and not from the cold. Keep it together -- but what does she have to hold together, anymore?

"Lie," hisses the sharp voice in the back of her mind. But what's the point? Tesler will be hunting for her soon, once he realizes what she's done. She has no home to welcome her. No sense of purpose, not now. No friends to lean on for support. Nowhere to go, and no one she can trust.

Only one program's offered her a way out of this.

"No one," she says. "I'm a program of my word."

"So I hear." And that smile turns to something a little less reassuring. "But Tesler seems to know -- and that means General Advan does, too. I don't know if she'll cooperate, if he decides he wants to look for you. But I'd rather not take that chance."

"…What do you mean?"

"I mean that you need to hide, and quickly. They'll be tracking your data signature. We need to fix that… and your metadata, too. Let me see your disc."

"No." She steps back, purely out of instinct, as an acute sense of danger grips her. But she can take them in a fight, if it comes to that. "Not happening."

"Won't hurt a bit, promise. I've done it myself enough times." They pull up a tool -- something that takes her a moment to recognize. It's a wrench, and not an entirely unfamiliar one. But this looks heavier than the ones Mara keeps in her garage, or even the one the Renegade would carry with him. Older, maybe.

But Signal holds it differently. Not with the casual nonchalance of the Renegade, or even the curiosity of Argon's mechanics, but with the same careful attention that Paige remembers having for her own tools. The sort of respect -- reverence, even -- that you have when your tools are capable of both wonderful and terrible things.

"You're not touching my disc," she says quietly.

"Alright, fair enough. But if you aren't careful, they will find you. I know you don't trust me -- and maybe you're right not to. But I can help keep you hidden, if you'll let me."

"I'll take my chances." Fights back the creeping panic, feeling that sharp and slithering pain, as if those code worms have returned, burrowing into her database. "I'm not doing that again."

By the time she realizes that it's slipped out, it's too late.

"…Oh." Signal rezzes down the not-a-wrench. For a tick or two, they seem unusually at a loss for words… and not quite sure what to do about it. "I wondered about that. Barbaric of them. I'm sorry."

"…What are you talking about?"

"There's a scar, under your eye. I'd guess your render usually compensates for it, but you're starting to run low on energy. For all I know, you might not even have known it was there." They regard her with something just short of pity, sharp grey eyes clouding over with emotion… or a memory. "You stayed there even after they did that to you -- and then you came all the way out here, you gave everything up. There was a reason, wasn't there?"

It's not really a question. She doesn't answer.

"I think you left because Tesler lied to you." Their tone implies no moral judgement -- although she suspects, given what she's read over the cycles, that Signal might be holding back a little. "I never will."