He said grab your things son || Tandem writing // PSL

[amirrorbrightly]

By the end of his second centicycle of solid maximal output, Clu was officially reaching his limits. His processing speed had slipped 4 percent, and was steadily dropping as he neared the Tower, and though there was still so much to do between cancelling great swathes of Flynn’s “pet projects” so that resources could shift primary focus onto the needs of the desperately overtaxed System, and a stack of requests in his inbox, Clu gave notification that he was in need of a little downtime.

True, he wasn’t yet to the point of needing to do a full reboot, and defrag, but…downtime. A little bit of quiet, long enough to let his self repair functions run. To that end, he allowed only three programs accompany him on board the Recognizer, and quietly pilot it back to the Tower’s landing platform. Two were sentries ( Ourin and Jay, part of Clu’s newly appointed Black Guard ) and the last…was still listed as [undefined] on his System tag.

It was true, though. Tron couldn’t exactly be called ‘Tron’ anymore, because the program standing silently beside Clu as the Recognizer circled once, then touched down with a groan of locking mechanism simply had too many new variables, and functions to be called the same ‘Tron’ that was installed with the Grid when it was new. The ‘Tron’ of Clu’s earliest memory files was even more different; he at least attempted some form of output above simple automation. But with time, and the surgical, soulless genius of Bradley paring away at the program, Tron became little more than the User’s pet hunter. He stopped speaking, stopped interacting, and the only output he gave back at all was little better than broadcast, and only a succinct response to a request.

As Clu considered the quiet program that had been his shadow for the last centicycle, he thought he could see something in the program’s eyes. Something…well…alive, for lack of a better term. This program did not hunch down as much, did not have the dead stare of a half-compiled automaton. His eyes looked around, seemed to see, and be aware of much more. Recently he had even started speaking without the need for a verbal prompt, too. But most important of all? This program had displayed none of the tagged warning signs that Tron had in the millicycle after his capture.
As Clu exited the docked Recognizer, he did note that Ourin, and Jay fell in behind this silent [undefined] still with a watchful air, but…less fear. Clu couldn’t help feeling a sense of hopeful satisfaction at it – but promptly squashed the sensation before it could fully process. Too much was too uncertain, and he couldn’t afford to get reckless just because he felt ragged with frustration.

After simply closing his office after his shadow, Clu left instructions with Jarvis to give him until next shift for downtime ( which the taskmanager seemed strangely relieved about ) and circled around the edge of his desk with a flask of negating calibration script he’d tweaked himself. It mixed nicely with a tall glass of undiluted energy, and to be perfectly honest? Clu felt he had earned himself the stiff drink.

“…Want some?” he asked, and absently pushed a second glass of the exact same thing toward the quiet program. He didn’t wait for a response ( the program would take it, or he wouldn’t ) only sat in his desk chair with a long sigh, and sipped at his drink.
Obviously, Clu did intend to make good use of this break, but in his own way. Still, the surprise he had stored safely away could wait another micro, or two.