Work Text:
Rinzler watches himself drown. Over and over again. His grid suit flickers blue for just a moment, before fading back to its steady orange. It’s all dark, then blinding bright all at once, then dark again.
The pillars of light that had been there a moment ago seemed to be gone. Everything was the purest black. Maybe something was interfering with his visual input. Maybe it is supposed to be this way.
The sea of simulation was unwelcoming to programs. He knew that, of course he did. He knew he was going to be eaten by the sea.
He knew it before he fell.
He knew it when he hit the surface.
He knows it now.
The sea fills his lungs, flooding into him. He can’t stop it. He gags and gasps on it, choking. But he does not derezz. There is a pressure in his chest, the sea no doubt. It doesn’t stop.
Time passes differently here. Everywhere is the same, the unending dark stretching in every direction. There is no horizon. No surface. No up or down.
Eventually he stopped looking for any difference. There is no point. He let himself drift. It is easier that way.
His body feels distant, almost like it belongs to someone else. He knows that his limbs are there because he can occasionally feel them shift with the currant, but they don’t feel like his anymore. He tries to move. Nothing happens. He tries again. Still nothing. The realization should frighten him. It does, somewhere deep inside. But even the fear has begun to feel distant.
He could feel the corrosion begin to trail over his circuits. It starts as a faint crawling sensation beneath his armor, then spreads outward. The orange light bloomed into cuboid patterns momentarily before everything flickered once more into black. He watches the light disappear.
There.
Gone.
Again.
Gone.
His system is failing. That should mean something. He thinks it does. This is destroying Clu’s work. Rinzler had been made perfect. Hadn’t he? He can’t remember. The thought slips away before he can hold onto it.
He tries to reach out for a memory instead. A face. The woman Clu taunted him with. Her name almost there. He can picture her eyes, maybe, the memory of his disk sliding through her neck. Or perhaps he is imagining them. The memory is too damaged to tell. Then there is a man. A man whose name he can’t remember. He knows it is important. He knows that he should remember. Something inside him aches at the absence of it.
And then there’s Clu. That one is easier. Clu is always easy. His voice. His hands. His orders.
Rinzler closes his eyes, though there is little difference between doing so and leaving them open. He wants to forget. He wants to remember. He doesn’t know which would hurt less.
The want to have the hands of everyone he ever cared about to pull him out is immeasurable. He wants someone, anyone to reach for him. Someone to tell him he isn't finished. The thought is so desperate it embarrasses him. He is not supposed to want things like that. He is not supposed to want.
Rinzler wants to do nothing more than claw off his helmet. To tear it away and scream. To beg for forgiveness, to beg someone, anyone to save him because he can be useful again. He can. He knows he can. He can be good. He can fix everything. He can–
There is no one here. The thought settles over him with a terrible finality. No one is coming. He is alone. He always was.
A flicker catches his attention.
Circuits. Blue.
For one impossible moment there are lines of light moving through the darkness.
Rinzler tries to turn his head. The movement sends static through his vision.
Nothing. Only black. His mind tells him it wasn't real. It couldn't have been. No one would be coming for him. He lets himself sink deeper, further into the deep dark. It closes over him.
And suddenly, violently–
There are hands on him. Strange and uncomfortable and strong. Rinzler jolts. A wild series of pings sound through his mind, cascading over one another so quickly that he can't separate them. The messages dissolve into noise. He tries to pull away. Something has him. Hands. More than one.
They're gripping his arms, his shoulders, somewhere beneath his armor. One catches him around the middle, holding his weight.
Rinzler panics. The sea. It has him. The sea is pulling him down. That is impossible.
He tries to flail, but his limbs barely respond. His fingers twist uselessly. He attempts to twist away from the grasp but it only tightens.
His visual input isn’t working. He’s too broken. That must be it. The sea is malfunctioning around him. Or he is malfunctioning inside it. There is no difference anymore.
He feels something press against the side of his helmet. Another set of hands. They move carefully. Too carefully. He doesn't understand. If the sea is consuming him, why is it being so gentle?
He tries to fight harder. The hands tighten again. He expects pain. Instead he feels himself being steadied. The realization is so strange that he doesn't know what to do with it. He stops struggling for half a second.
Something shifts beneath him. He is being lifted. No. That isn't possible. Programs sink here. Programs die here. They don't get lifted from their graves.
The whispers around him intensify. There are voices. Several. The sounds overlap in a tongue he can't recognize. None of the words make sense.
He tries to listen. Maybe they're commands. Maybe Clu sent them. Maybe this is another test. His mind desperately searches for an explanation that makes sense. Nothing does.
He feels himself being pulled upwards gently but hastily. Up. The concept is almost foreign. For so long there has only been him. And now there is movement. He can feel the pressure changing around him. The current seems different. The hands don't let go.
Why?
The question repeats over and over. Why won't they let go? He doesn't understand.
All he understands is that he is being touched. And touched by someone who hasn't hurt him. That frightens him more than anything.
His thoughts scramble. Is this a trap? It has to be. Everything is a trap. Obey and you survive. But the hands aren't attacking.
Rinzler tries to open his eyes. For a moment there is light. Something warm. Orange. It flickers through his ruined vision, accompanied by indistinct shapes moving around him.
He tries to focus. He can't. The world smears into glowing lines. One of the hands moves beneath his head. He goes completely still. The gesture is so careful. So impossibly careful. For one fractured second he thinks of someone else. A hand on his shoulder. A voice. A name. Something from before Clu.
The memory vanishes. “No,” he tries to say. He doesn't know if the sound leaves him.
The hands don't stop. He wants to tell them to let go. He wants to tell them not to. Both thoughts exist at once, crashing together. It's hard to tell which one’s real.
He waits for the sea to take him. It doesn't.
He waits for the hands to hurt him. They don't.
He waits for Clu’s voice. It never comes.
And then–
His head breaks the surface. Light floods his vision. Rinzler convulses. His processors scream. Everything is suddenly there at once.
He tries to inhale and finds nothing useful in the motion. His body spasms violently.
The sea is gone. The sea is–
Gone?
No. It’s impossible. He's still drowning. He must be.
He is being dragged. He cannot see who the hands belong to. His vision is nothing but fragments. Black. Orange. White. Gone. A face. Gone. Figures standing above him. Black armor. Black–
His processors stutter.
BLACK GUARD.
The identification comes with no context. The black guard. Rinzler knows what that means. He thinks. He should know what that means. But the information is buried beneath static.
One of the figures reaches down and grabs him beneath the arm. Rinzler jerks violently. The hand is real. He can feel it. Another catches his shoulder. A third steadies his head.
The guard. The hands from the sea. His processors cannot reconcile the two.
He tries to fight. He is restrained immediately. Not violently. Firmly.
They haul him higher. Cold air, or something like it, rushes across his grid suit. He hears voices. Closer now. Urgent. He can't understand them.
Something is spoken toward him. The word reaches him as a distorted burst of sound.
Their motions are coordinated. Deliberate.
Rescue. The word flashes through his damaged memory. Rinzler rejects it immediately. No. Programs like him don't get rescued. Programs like him get rectified.
Destroyed.
Used.
He tries to speak. Nothing comes out. His jaw moves. His voice produces only a broken burst of static. His processors grind and click.
One of the owners of the hands stares down at him. Rinzler looks back. He can't read the expression behind the helmet. He doesn't know whether they are afraid of him. Angry with him. Trying to kill him. Trying to–
Save him.
The hands pull him up the shore. His body scrapes against the ground. The motion is strangely gentle despite its urgency. They don't drop him. They don't leave him behind.
They drag him until the sea is several meters away. Then they stop. The world keeps flickering.
The black guard are still speaking. One of them places a hand against the side of his helmet.
Rinzler flinches.
His last coherent thought is not fear. It's confusion. Then his vision goes black. His body convulses then goes still.
He is drowning. He remembers drowning. He remembers being alone. He remembers hands.
He reboots.