#//<-oh boy reunion time! (run away Flynn run far far away)

[enforcerrinzler]

The screaming pulled Rinzler from where they had receded into themselves. Some protocol clawing to the surface that demanded for them to see, retrieve protect. Rinzler looked up and shifted their arms, trying to see Ed better. But they were quickly shoved down again.

“Stay down, you’ll have your chance soon enough.” Hissed the guard above, a boot pressing down again into their disc a moment later.

From the angle he was now laying in Rinzler couldnt see much. Which mostly left them to rely on the bits of conversation that could be overheard. Boole and Khwarizmi. Rinzler searched the data base of high profile criminals they make sure to keep regularly updated. Nothing, empty in the minor crime section as well. Curious and concerning.

Eventually the screaming and pained sounds stopped. Rinzler heard movement and saw the leader pass by and toss something, the remote undoubtedly, to the guard above them. But their attention mostly focused on the white cloaked program behind the leader. Rinzler caught their eye for a moment, committing what little could be seen of their face to memory. A moment later an annoyingly familiar cold burn and then heaviness fell over Rinzler’s limbs again.

This cycle seemed to get better every nano. Was the net not enough? (It wasn’t, but Rinzler wished these traffickers were stupid enough to think it was.)

There was a few moments where only the shuffling of feet was heard as a few of the guards moved to set up a perimeter. The few programs that had stayed behind from the buyer’s group stayed together, mostly silent now that Boole had left.

Rinzler was content for now to just lay there and wait for some opportunity, whether it be from the guards or this mysterious group. But that notion shattered quickly when the guard above Rinzler kneeled down.

“You know that program you mauled earlier?“

The one Rinzler had clawed the throat of? They wouldn’t really consider that mauling. Though it would be nice to see a program in a derezzed in a pile of voxels right now.

“His name was Cirit. You derezzed him.”

Oh, good.

“Cirit was my friend.”

Not good.

The guard stood again. Cold metal pressed against the back of Rinzler’s neck. The staff. Pain lit his circuits bright, the current forcing his heavy limbs to spasm and twitch. Which only made the pain worse, as the controller module sent back a sharp freezing stab to each joint and his core for every unregulated movement. It thought Rinzler was trying to move, to break free and was punishing him for it.

“Go on. Scream.” From the pleased grin on the guard’s face he knew exactly what this was doing to Rinzler.

Rinzler grit his teeth, refusing to give the guard the satisfaction of a single cry of pain. Hissing and glaring even as the rattle from processor morphed into a mangled glitching mess of a sound. Shutdown was imminent, they could feel it closing in.

Then the pain stopped leaving the enforcer ventilating hard as their systems worked to cool down. Visuals and audio came back in grainy bursts. White filled their vision. For a moment Rinzler worried that the shaking forces had irreparably damaged his visual feed more than it already was. A few blinks later showed that wasn’t the case. A white veiled program had pulled the guard off Rinzler and was now standing infront of them.

“You were going to break it.” The program snapped, gesturing at Rinzler’s still twitching form.

“I was teaching it a lesson.”

“Boole will be happy to teach you one if you mess this up for us.”

That seemed to make the guard shut up.

The rough scraping of stone against the glass of his helmet grated in Rinzler’s audio receptors as the net was dragged away from the guard by the white hooded program. They were dropped in a heap still in the net next to Ed who didn’t look much better to Rinzler. Though the User had a gridsuit now, which was at least a visual improvement.

/* not specifically one of the prompts from the captured meme, but inspired by it... Hope this works? --@not-that-dillinger */

Coming here turned out to be the worst of Ed's impulsive ideas, to date. Picking the lock on Flynn's arcade to go exploring? Bad impulsive decision number one. Sure, that was technically trespassing, but he was just looking around, no harm there, and that part of town had long since been abandoned, it wasn't like he was going to get caught.

In hindsight, getting caught there might have been the better outcome. Then he wouldn't have found the hidden basement, or The Computer. (And oh, wasn't that creepy. He still remembered his father's disembodied voice coming out of it. He'd had nightmares of it clear through middle school, he did not need that again.) He should have turned around and gone home, or to a bar or somewhere a reasonable person would go after a long day at the office, but no. Bad impulse decision number two: hacking into Flynn's computer. Again, technically illegal, but. Maybe he cold solve the mystery of where Flynn had disappeared to?

...And that had led directly to bad impulse decision number three: shooting himself with a high powered laser.

To his credit, Ed knew what the laser was. His father had ranted and raved about it in what seemed like fits of madness when Ed was young. But. Yeah, could have gone way worse.

Naturally, Ed's first instinct on finding himself in a strange new world was to go explore. He was used to being cautious, aware of his surroundings when he was out, and quickly realized someone was following him. He tried to lose them in the not-so-dark alleys of the glowing city, taking turns at random until--

--he'd turned a corner and came face to face with five others, all wearing masks, and realized he'd walked right into their trap. The last thing he remembered before he passed out was one of the programs throwing something small and round at him, and the thick white smoke it emitted.

...

He awoke in a cell, some time later. At first, he tried to just... sit and observe, figure out where he was, and who had captured him, and why.

Except, there wasn't much beyond the two guards posted at the end of the connecting hallway, and it didn't take long before his claustrophobia made him feel anxious.

"Hey!" he screamed at the guards. "Let me out!!!"

The guard made a gesture that Ed couldn't quite see, but could safely assume was rude.

Ed continued to scream at the guards, because there wasn't much else he could do. He may have been trapped, but they also stuck with him.

Except it turned out, the guards could do something about that, and one of them marched over opened the cell, and--

--Oh. They had staves.

Ed lay in his cell, some time later, out of breath and everything aching. He was certain he had a cracked rib, if not more. And a broken nose from the way it was bleeding.

And broken glasses.

It was some time later that Ed heard footsteps approaching his cell. Everything still hurt, but he hauled himself to his feet anyway. "Come back for round two, asshole?" he asked.

In response, the guard disabled the force field that enabled his cell, and shoved someone else inside.

Then they reactivated the force field, and walked away.

Ed sighed, and sank back down in his corner heavily. He eyed the blur of his fellow prisoner warily.

Rinzler hit the ground hard, barely managing to cover his helmet with his arms to avoid it getting even more damaged. One of the guards had decided to use Rinzler’s helmet as an emotional outlet after he had gotten a nasty hit in on one of them. Any assistive programming in their helmet was completely offline and the glass had multiple cracks with a few bits missing from the back as well.

Usually, Rinzler would have turned and grabbed the guard’s ankle before they could leave. Would have tackled the program and forced them to guide him to the exit or derezzed them with his claws if the guard refused. But it wasn’t just a shattered helmet and pounding head that was keeping Rinzler down. His captors had latched a bizarre mechanism over his disc and dock that made his whole body ache and every move just seemed to make the mechanism dig in even more. It was frustrating and humiliating beyond belief to be thrown into this cell like a helpless beta, they were supposed to be better than this. Not to fall for some poor young program that had been forced to act as bait. They should have seen through it. Rinzler swore to themself that they would derezz every single one of those who had done this.

When the blurry room finally stopped spinning Rinzler was just able to focus enough to hear the sound of ragged breathing above his own broken clicking purr. He wasn’t alone. The Enforcer looked up towards the sound, spying the blurry figure. They couldn’t see any bit of light on the figure that could indicate their alliance, in fact they couldn’t see any circuitry at all.

“Identify, program.” Rinzler shakily pushed himself up into a sitting position, keeping his gaze on the figure in case this was just another trap.

@not-that-dillinger

[hamfamilyblog]

Summer, 2019 Highlights:

We were able to go to the US for 6 weeks, and took the boys to Lake Powell for the first time with Grandma and Grandpa Ham, and a lot of other family and friends. We were able to go on a new, three story, beautiful house boat.  We had great time. The kids tubed and practiced standing behind a blow up tube/ski trainer. The boys also went with dad on the surf wake behind the wave runner.  There was also a fun water slide off the tallest story of the houseboat, and the boys really enjoyed spending time with their cousins, Stella, Winnie, and Koben, in addition to all the other children on the boat.

Ellis learned how to ride a bike without training wheels at 4 years old, in Colorado. He picked it up very quickly. We enjoyed being outside every day in Colorado and playing with cousin Opal who lives nearby Nana and Grandpa’s house. The boys really enjoyed listening to their Grandpa Bobby play them a song on the banjo or guitar every night before bed. They would dance around the living room. It was so cute. Flynn has a ukulele at our apartment in Dubai, and since we’ve been back to Dubai, he tells me he’s playing the banjo while he plays it.

Flynn (age 2) learned how to swim on his own in little spurts. He loves going under water, diving down, and swimming around.  I call him my little “Nemo fishy.”

Ryker turned one while we were on our trip and got 4 new teeth. He now has 6 teeth (two on top and four on bottom).  He is standing well, but hasn’t yet taken his first step.  He continued to out eat both of his older brother combined, and his belly continues to grow! Ha

Auntie La La (my sister Lauren), had her first baby, and I was able to go to Texas to help her and meet baby Roman. I left the two older boys for 3 days with Grandma and Grandpa Ham in CA, and took Ryker with me.  Baby Roman is the sweetest, cutest little guy. We had a good time. This was the first time I’ve ever left my kids with someone. I have never left them for longer than half a day with anyone. I was told they did well, and they had fun with their grandparents. When I got back to CA to see them, little Flynnie was so overcome with emotion, that he broke down crying and just kept saying, “my Mama; my Mama.” He couldn’t believe I was there. He kept touching my face and hugging me and crying. It was so touching and sweet and made me cry too. Later he told me, “Mom, you gone a long time.” He wouldn’t let me out of his sight, and kept saying, “My Mama.”  Oh how I love my boys SO much.  And, I love to be with them and spend time with them. I’m glad though that I was able to go help Lauren, because it would have been very difficult to help her with all three boys with me. We enjoyed the summer, and I ended up returning home with all three boys (ages 4, 2.5, and 1) all by myself.  It is a direct flight from LA to Dubai (16 hours!!!). It was a daunting journey, but the boys did pretty well and there were lots of tender mercies I received.  Joe, my father in-law, gave me a priesthood blessing before the journey, and the trip went about as smoothly as it could of.  Lots of people were nice to me and helpful, and I immediately felt Heavenly Father’s hand in my journey when I saw where we were seated.  It was the most perfect spot where we could have been seated given my situation. It was right at the font of the airplane to the far right. So in front of our seating was the open area where people can get up and walk around. So I could be up standing or walking and still see the boys and they could all get their own seat while I was standing (technically, Ryker was my lap child, but he is WAY too wiggly, so I strapped him in a car seat for a lot of the trip, and had Flynn be my lap child). I had to request that our meals be sent only two at a time, because I had to help the kids eat, and wouldn’t be able to if all the meals were given to me at once. Flynn was able to stand in front of Ryker who was strapped in the car seat, and play catch with him.  It’s not allowed for kids to sleep on the floor, even though there is enough space in front of us.  Well, the kids weren’t sleeping and were so exhausted, and ended up on the floor with a blanket and little pillow. Several flight attendants saw this and could of said something to make me move them and wake them up (this has always happened in the past), but they didn’t.  I feel this was another tender mercy, because this made my trip easier.  The flight attendants also probably felt bad for me. Ha. I probably slept off and on for about 3 hours on the 16-hour flight, so I was exhausted and felt very thankful and a bit emotional when I got off the plane. I said a silent prayer and immediately thanked my Heavenly Father for helping me get through it. My heart always feels so enlarged as I see the kids run to their dad and hug him.  It is always a very happy, sweet reunion to be back with Mitch.  We were away from him for three weeks this time. Honestly, though, it’s the week after, full of jet lag with all the kids that is the hardest for me. I can do anything for 16 hours and push through, but the jet lag after is what kills me. It’s been a week now that we’ve been back in Dubai and we are all still struggling. We are close to being in the correct time zone, but still not there. I can’t wait to be able to sleep a whole night again without waking up or being woken up at random early hours.  Ellis starts preschool again next week for three mornings a week, and I will start work the week after, two mornings a week, at the hospital (Mediclinic City Hospital).