#/* up to you whether Yori or Eve has ever met either of them */

[not-that-dillinger]

"Hi Will," Ed greeted the robot. The sound the helping hand made was... concerning, but whatever it is, he knows it's not the helping hands' fault.

He smiled brightly at the stack of notebooks. "Thank you, friend!"

Before he could get to the notes, however, another approached... and delivered him a thumb drive. He frowned in confusion for a moment, but then recognized the writing on it Astraeus.

He held it in his hand as though breathing wrong would damage the storage device and program within, and stared at it as though looking away would cause the drive to vanish. The program on it had been Eos's twin, a VPN meant to obscure the sending and receiving locations of Eos's encrypted messages. Astraeus had been damaged in the same attack that had damaged Eos, except had ended up worse to the point where Ed had to take him off the server to repair him.

"You found him?" Ed all but whispered in awe. He watched the helping hand roll away, clearly mildly concerned by the obvious look of plotting. Ed would not interfere with that one.

Ed shook his head. Astraeos had waited a long time, but right now, Ed had to prioritize the newest addition to his constellation of programs He tucked the thumb drive into his shirt pocket, and finally turned to the stack of notebooks. He skimmed through the stack, then sat back down at the terminal.

::I'm back,:: he messaged Eve. :: Found Flynn's notes... the hands found my father's.... Among other things. How are you and Clu doing?::

@not-that-dillinger Continued from here because it apparently doesn't want me to reblog it...

Nitro shuddered softly. "There's... two kinds of reprogramming." He explained haltingly. "That we have experience with, at least."

"One's... medical, I guess. Repairing damage, making improvements, averting obsolescence... all done by Users or trained Medic Programs. Good thing, if a bit... disconcerting when you're not used to it."

"The other's Clu's specialty. He calls it rectifying. It's... it's hacking, I guess, given a fancy name, but it's so much worse than being infected with a Virus or a User breaking in to edit a Program's function without access rights allowing them to."

"It strips away everything that makes someone who they are. Memories, functions, personality, thoughts, hopes, dreams... all gone." Nitro looked away, clenching his fist. "He did it to so many. Friends became enemies in... well. Fractions of a second for you, our equivalent of minutes. Hundreds, if not thousands, wiped clean except for what he wanted to turn them into. Disposable armies, mostly. Bodies to throw at what few held out against him. He- even Tron was brought down eventually. Our stronghold, Eve, my kids... we're the last of the resistance, maybe forty fighters strong, the rest all refugees. It- for all I know, it could be just me now."