notglitching | IC Contact: thisavrou

[Miller has had to weigh the consequences before. Search for ways to save his men versus the pain of losing them. Because, to him, each and every one of them depended on him considering their lives were of value. Not expendable. Finding the point where they needed to die for the greater good is excruciating.]

[But that's beside the point.]

Apparently people with more access to more important facilities than our crew were victims, too. Not that they're our crew, anymore. But the point stands that's a hell of a threat.

[Not our crew. It's true. It's also bitter and frustrating, a reminder of consequences Rinzler never forgot, not even for a moment. The ship had been better. It had been his, in a way this system never could be.

And he'd failed it, in the end.]

Moira: crashed to virus.

[No followup transmits, but the implication isn't hard to read.

Does Miller really think this place will do better?]

Did I tell you about the vocal chord parasites?

[He doesn't know that he did. Not in any decent detail, anyway. He might have, to some extent. He knows that he's mentioned some involvement with quarantines before.]

My base wasn't destroyed because of the parasite. We found it. We altered the parasite so it would fight itself. [Stop reproducing counts, right?] It worked, until someone decided they wanted to use it for themselves and created a new version at our expense.

I'm worried about someone figuring out a way to use this for themselves. Especially if it's creating a chance to gain abilities.

Ploiatos's activities and the ship's crash weren't your fault. The vessel was badly managed from the beginning, and hardly any of us were on the same page. You acted soon enough to save some lives. And if you think about it, whatever was wrong with him originated here. [With the Ingress. It seems necessary to add.]

[Miller hadn't told him. Not in detail. Not like this. Rinzler absorbs the summary without comment, and if it only reinforces his own conclusions about correct handling of a virus... he doubts that needs saying. Miller's not stupid. He knows where he went wrong.

He doesn't know where Rinzler did. The program stares at the reply for a long moment. The origin. The crash. Not your fault.]

Didn't say it was.

[He thought it, though. A lot.]

[Miller would still beg to differ. Just because he let the wrong asshole near that virus.]

No, you didn't.

But you were the one who insisted that we get rid of Ploiatos before it crashed. And it obviously bothers you.

The Moira didn't matter as much as the people on it. Most of them survived unchanged or returned to normal thanks to your suggestions. Calamities were minimal.

I wasn't that lucky with my home. But if I could have saved all of my soldiers, or more of them than not, even if I had been angry over the loss of my base, I would have succeeded.

I almost asked the people on that asteroid to help me. Glad the boss talked me out of it.

[One advantage of text? Miller doesn't have to put up with Rinzler glowering.]

System: dead.

[He didn't succeed.]

I'm going to be honest, and consider this a concern more than an attempt at consolation.

I'm not sure that the ship wouldn't have been blown up with us on it, anyway, if things didn't play out the way they did.

That's a matter better discussed in person.

[...well, it's a good thing Miller's not trying to console him. Because the pause that follows that line is anything but reassured.]

Location?

[This is not a "later" discussion.]

At my diner.

[He gives the address.]

Traffic should be less in about an hour.

[As close of tabs as Rinzler keeps on his allies, he didn't really need the address, but he accepts the permissions it implies. And eyerolls, privately, at the mention of traffic. Traffic was a concern for people who lacked their own transport.

He doesn't reply, but within about eight minutes, a lightjet dissolves to wireframe in the sky over Region One. Rinzler drops onto the diner roof with a light impact, scanning the structure for Miller's ID.]

[Perhaps for Rinzler, but traffic means he still has to usher the last customers out. To make "to-go" boxes. So when Rinzler gets there he's quick to escort him back to the kitchen where he's chopping vegetables.]

[So unfortunately a portion of this conversation gets to happen with Kaz putting tomatoes in a slicer. At least it's going very quickly.]

We were talking about the crash.

Do you think after the mess Ploiatos stirred up with that damaged Ingress that the Savrii would have allowed the ship to continue existing?

[Screw "hellos". Greetings are for losers.]

[In retrospect, Rinzler really should have figured that one out. Whoops. He'll at least stay out of the way until no other employees or customers are in the room.]

No.

Would have fought them.

[He still wishes they had.]

These people aren't like the Cadacuns. Their resources were limitless and they were much better at managing and using the Ingress. Not to mention they were hell bent on controlling who had Ingress technology.

[Serious conversation to have while one is packing away some food. He'll get it over as quickly as he can, though.]

We wouldn't have won. They had too much of an edge on us. We can't guarantee they would have let us have the option to leave, either.

[A skip of noise, harsh and irritated. Rinzler disagrees.]

Combatants: weak.

I'm not sure they're the type for combat.

The Artifixx spoke a language I better understood. [Though with less subterfuge.] I don't know that the Savrii would have gotten close enough for us to get a swing in.

They know a lot about what to use against us.

[He finishes up enough that he can leave everything to his staff to clean up and he hangs up his apron.] Have you been able to judge their combatants? [Because they did have that fun habit of throwing them under the performance bus.]

Ranged attacks: also superior.

[Is Rinzler missing the metaphor, or responding in kind? A mystery for the ages. To the query, he only shrugs.]

Observation: minimal. Primarily engage noncombatants.

[The researchers on Thiri. On the Midway Hub. A beat, and he adds.]

Easily diverted.

[He almost mentions that it wouldn't have been a sure enough win in his opinion, not when the ship was already generating its own enemies. But he stalls in the middle of putting on his overcoat.]

What is it that you miss most about it? The Moira?

[What is it that he... what? Noise picks up a little, but Rinzler lags in return, fingers curling at the edge of his projected keyboard. That... he doesn't... why would it matter?

It's gone.

...]

We were a system.

[They were. He was. He wanted it, and he was part of it, and even when it didn't work, it had been his.]

We were...

[He sighs and leans against the counter. Hums a thought to himself.]

I loved my base. My first base. It was like my family. I never felt like I had a place in the world since, and after I lost it...

Rebuilding it alone was nearly impossible. It was just me. And afterwards, I wanted my home back. I wanted it to be the same. But because I was broken, so was it. [And that is excruciating to admit. He has before, to Snake. To code talker. His paranoia and grief caused their soldiers to turn on each other at a crucial time. But he wants Rinzler to hear this.]

I know that system is gone, but we can build a new system.

[He says "we". Not because it's his home, or because he expects a home. But because he knows what being without your secure place is like, and he knows what it's like to be unable to find a new one.] It won't be the same. It won't be a replacement. It'll just be new.

We just gotta find people to help us. It's either that, or we're stuck relying on the Savrii. And we live right now only by their pity.

[The story isn't a close match. Rinzler has had other systems. Other homes. Ones he fit into much better than the Moira. Rinzler was broken long before he rezzed in aboard that ship. If anything, living there had only made the fractures more apparent.

He doesn't know why he misses it. He doesn't know why it mattered as completely as it had. Because they'd allowed him to fly and move and string together words without command? Because he'd wanted the function they assigned? (And when, along the way, had he learned how to want?) Or because of the functions who'd talked to him and fought him, learned and traded and gotten in his way? Because it was the first time anyone came back?

He doesn't know. He doesn't like it. The opaque shell twitches sideways, silent dissent—he doesn't build; he doesn't make. There's a system here already, and he trusts it not at all. He doesn't think any new creation would do better. That's too much to answer, though; too many words to string together. Pare down.]

This place: theirs.

[Their worlds. Their system. There's no room for anything else here, and Rinzler, at least, doesn't have the option of leaving.]

[Mostly his story is meant to say they could make their own system. If they didn't go into it with the wrong ideas, anyway. And to trust Rinzler with information about himself. But more to the point, this system is the Savrii's.]

Yes, it is.

And I don't like being a part of it.

Right now we don't have a lot of options. Not yet, anyway. But what if we did?

We don't seem to be particularly welcome, but right now the Savrii seem to perceive themselves as being philanthropists. [Because really, allowing them to live isn't quite the generosity one would think it is. Giving them money? Morso. Introducing them to a climate where they're generally an unwanted element in the populous? Well... he's had enough experiences with that. Let him tell you about the Base in Yokosuka, or the National Origins Formula of the US.] I'm sure they'll change their minds. [Cynic that he is. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe a little. But a building full of dead didn't do all that much to set him at ease during their introductions.]

[Of course the Savrii will betray them. Or die, or fail, just like everything in the user world seems to. (Himself included.) Rinzler doesn't care. Rinzler never believed them from the start.

But Clu is here, and Alan-one is here, and so are the others. Leaving was never an option.

The enforcer doesn't type any reply—only angles his helmet, noise quickening with mute frustration. Is Miller suggesting something, or was all of this just looping through what ifs?]

IC Contact: thisavrou

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