Yori Trace

Permissions and Character Reference

yorisearching — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 23:46:56 GMT

Character Details
Name: Yori
Height: 5'7"
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Age: 50+
Physical Age: about 28
Notes on Appearance: Yori is used to being a program inside a computer, but she appears human except for the blue glowing lines under her Moira uniforms.

Barracks: Nomo #008
Job: Navigation Operations Technician
Rank: Arcarius

OOC Permissions

Contact: yorisearching or PM

Backtagging: I'll backtag forever and welcome tags, so you might want to tell me if you think a thread should wrap up.

Threadhopping: If it makes sense and isn't marked private, sure!

Fourthwalling: I'm okay with oblique references to the glowy computer people of fiction in your character's world. (Any world without glowy computer people stories is deprived.) But please no direct movie references.

Offensive subjects: I'm probably not the right audience for sex jokes. No worries, though, I don't take offense at much.

IC Permissions

Hugging: Yori welcomes hugs from close friends, but she's got some issues with Users and reprogrammers to work out. It might take a while before she trusts your character to this level. Touching her hand or elbow might be a good intermediate step.

Kissing, flirting and romance: Yori's not interested. The thing where her old boyfriend is now both Tron and Rinzler is really complicated already, okay?

How to upset Yori: make casual references to deleting programs or reprogramming anyone, threaten Rinzler or Tron, offer to introduce her to Clu.

How to make friends with Yori: teach her something, promise to be kind to your personal computer system, say something nice about Rinzler or Tron.

Fighting: Although she's not a combat program, Yori has been learning from Rinzler among others and would love to spar with people willing to teach. On the other hand she'll avoid a real fight every way possible, talk your character down, run away, until there's no other choice.

Injuries: Talk to me about it first. Computer programs shatter easily and Yori's not meant for combat, so I need to have a way to fix her set up if I'm not just killing her.

Death: If it's in the service of a plotline, I'm willing; we'd need to talk first.

Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: She'd prefer to be asked first but I'm okay with it. Her mind ought to be noticeably different from a human mind, but there's enough similarity I don't think it would be impossible to tell what she's thinking.

IC Inbox for Thisavrou

yorisearching — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 00:57:33 GMT

This is Yori. Please leave me a message and I'll respond as soon as I can.

(text, video, voice, whatever else!)

Application to savrou

yorisearching — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 05:41:30 GMT

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Dawn
Are you 16 or older: Yes.
Contact: yorisearching on Plurk or PM me at this account.
Current Characters: No one
Tag: yori (crau)

IN CHARACTER
Name: Yori
Canon: Tron (1982)
Canon Point: After the end of the movie, but I'd also like Yori to keep her experiences from her earlier game.
Age: Permanent appearance of mid-to-late twenties. That reflects how old her User, Lora Baines, was at the time of Yori's creation. Time inside the computer seems to run at a significant difference from time outside, so Yori has probably experienced something like 50 subjective years (programs tend to call them cycles) in the year or two since her date of compile. Canon gives no exact detail.

History:

Wiki link, somewhat minimal.

Yori, a computer program, was written by Lora Baines sometime before the movie opens in 1982.

The movie never gives a word for quite what Yori's exact purpose is. She appears as part of the digitizing process in the test run with an orange, and later seems to be supervising a team in the simulation (which seems to be equivalent to construction, inside the computer) of a new vehicle called a Solar Sailer. From these two points, I speculate that she was written as part of Lora's life work, the digitizing project, to check the incoming code for errors.

Many cycles after she was first compiled, as the digitizing process was either working better or becoming ever more inexplicable depending who you ask, Yori met and fell in love with a determined young program named Tron. By this time the Master Control Program had become a major power in the Encom network, preventing many programs from even speaking to their Users. Setting up as supreme ruler of the network (and then the world~!!) required shifting all loyalties to the MCP rather than the Users.

Tron was certain his User wanted him to take on the MCP. Unfortunately, before Tron received the right tools to complete the task, the MCP captured both Yori's whole digitization team, and Tron himself. Troublesome conscripts like Tron were sent to fight and be derezzed (deleted, killed) in the Games. Yori apparently set herself to not being troublesome, but quietly collected information in the hope that Tron would be looking for a way to contact his User again. Analysis is useful in other projects as well, and the MCP found plenty of productive work for her.

In an effort to challenge the Users themselves, the MCP absorbed most of Yori's team into its own processes and used the digitization laser to bring an unsuspecting User, Kevin Flynn, into the Games. Where, as you'd expect, he made allies and broke out. Tron was separated from his friends during the escape, and went at once to find Yori.

Though it took her a few moments to pull out of her long minimum-energy daze and recognize Tron, Yori at once provided Tron with the location of a working sympathetic I/O Tower and Guardian, and a method of transportation to the Central Computer itself. She left her post without permission to give Tron all the help she could.

Flynn only rejoined Yori and Tron as they hijacked the Solar Sailer. Yori was skeptical of his claims to be a User, in spite of Tron's acceptance. However, Flynn shortly had need to pull off tricks with energy absorption and redirection that would have derezzed any program who tried them. Yori didn't waste time arguing his usefulness.

Before they actually reached the MCP, unfriendly forces intercepted them. Tron fell off the edge and barely managed to hang on to the outside of the command ship. Believing Tron was dead and their task had failed, Yori retreated into her grief as the ship began to come apart and them with it.

Flynn made use of his User status again by forcing enough energy back into the ship, and Yori, to keep both intact. Yori brought the ship closer to the MCP, and to her joy saw Tron still alive and fighting on the mesa. Then Flynn unexpectedly pushed his lips against Yori's and jumped into the MCP's energy column. Yori was very puzzled by this behavior.

The crazy tactic worked; distracted, the MCP lowered its guard enough that Tron managed to deliver his User's code to its base, destroying its ability to control the system's energy and programs.

Flynn himself survived, perhaps because his presence within the MCP inspired the programs it had already absorbed to reverse the digitizing process, and eject the copyright data Flynn had originally sought. Flynn used that to gain himself a job at the head of Encom.

However, from inside the computer Yori did not know that yet--or anything else that happened to the people she cares about in the long years that led up to the sequel, Legacy.

CRAU: inugamirpg

Turning up in a human high school full of strange and frightening events was quite a shock to a program who'd never expected to see the User world herself. Worse, she'd somehow become exactly like the Users, with no way to gain energy except to eat. Link to intro, for the curious.

At least she found a familiar face. But to her dismay, the program she greeted as Tron claimed to be called Rinzler, not Tron, and appeared unable to speak except by terse text messages. Yori might have accepted that he was a wholly different program...but he flinched at all the names he claimed not to know.

Even with no explanation, she was certain that in all the time between her last memory of home and his, someone had recoded him and hurt him badly in the process.

To make matters much worse, his Admin, Clu, showed up not long after Yori herself did. Yori promised to do her best to avoid him (as threaded here), but Rinzler was not capable of staying away from his reprogrammer.

Determined not to let this new version of the MCP use her against Rinzler, Yori spent a month ducking in crowds and her paranoia levels went pretty high. However, Clu vanished without any more explanation than his arrival.

Some students had organized clubs to teach combat and self-defense, and Yori attended all she could fit into her schedule, not that she made much progress in so few weeks. At least there were people who encouraged her efforts. Yori was pleased to make friends of several Users and also did her best to ally with strange, futuristic reploids named Axl, Pandora, and Prometheus.

In time Yori and Rinzler grew a little more comfortable with each other as allies and friends. Rinzler's code still forbade him from remembering anything about Tron. Yori remained unwilling to force the issue, given how much pain his code caused him at any slip.

Personality:

Yori's main function is analysis, and it echoes in everything she does and every choice she makes. Gathering all relevant data, making allies, and taking new situations into account all come naturally to her. However, landing in a foreign User world is much more change than she ever expected to deal with.

Despite her involvement in the digitization project, she hadn't thought of the User world as any kind of physical reality of its own; it was only a source of very strange and inexplicable code. Yori does not have quite the same reverence for Users that Tron shows, though she certainly prefers the Users to the MCP. To Yori, while their Users might have written the programs, it doesn't mean they care in any meaningful sense. The Users may deserve obedience, but no more.

Meeting Flynn didn't change that. Although she's grateful to Flynn for saving her and for distracting the MCP, it's hard to be in awe of someone who sounded so lost himself.

The down side of Yori's analysis skills is that when she cannot see any chance at all of changing things or making a difference, she tends to fall into paralyzing despair. Working for long without explicit direction is difficult for a program, and if all Yori sees are dead ends, she doesn't waste energy walking down them. However, Tron has always been her holdout of irrational, unquestioning hope. She gave up on him too soon once, and is much less likely to do so again. That might eventually help her adjust to a world so terribly unpredictable as to defy all logic.

Analysis is also a source of joy to Yori. Gathering data is something she values in itself, regardless of whether she expects the data to be of use. She takes delight in learning new skills, as well. As shown in canon, she's a good pilot of different craft despite having little opportunity to practice under the MCP. Yori tends to attack any new task with interest.

In general Yori is a cheerful program, though this can hide many layers of calculation. Yori had to spend quite some time acting as a slave to the Master Control Program and keeping her own thoughts guarded. She can be very demonstrative with her friends and those she trusts, such as, in the film, her long-time friend Dumont, as well as Tron. However, it takes a lot for her to completely trust a strange User or admin, or other potential danger.

Yori prefers not to show herself as any kind of threat, and will be friendly and noncommittal to almost anyone. Making actual alliance is quite different, and she takes commitments seriously.

CRAU:

Transit to Inugami came as a total shock. Yori understands the concept of waking up in a new system, but the school wasn't a system at all. Meeting so many Users face to face is still pretty terrifying. Adjusting to a space ship will be a small task compared to the massive culture shock of being outside a computer in the first place. She's trying to process all the changes.

Spending approximately two months in a haunted high school has taught Yori that things can always get weirder. She finds it hard to accept that so many events can't be analyzed, either because there isn't enough data or because there's no context for what she does have.

Other than teaching her a whole new range of fear for Rinzler at Clu's hands, and giving her a head start on coping with the non-digital world, two months didn't have that much impact on Yori's personality. Her life under the MCP was even more regulated and deadly than high school.

Contracts:

Under the presupposition that more data is always good for comparison and analysis, no matter how accurate it may or may not be, Yori will ask every question she thinks she can get away with.

However, the captains and crew count as Users, and Yori won't want to upset them or make them consider her code in any way faulty. She'll sign the contract once her interviewer starts to look bored or irritated. She's not sure they can get her home or if that's even where she wants to go at this point, but watching how people show up is better than being left behind. She's more interested in finding her friends than going back to the system that's probably already replaced her by now.

(And if they let her look at the crew roster, she'll be even happier to come aboard.)

Abilities/Skills:

In the computer where she lived, Yori can look at code and see what's wrong with it, though she doesn't specialize in fixing any errors. Code analysis isn't nearly as much use in the User world where the internal code is so incredibly well encrypted for whatever User-whim reasons. However, given time to study new code languages, she could probably be helpful with various computer maintenance tasks. The trouble is that she's likely to view any and all programs as living beings, and might argue their right to fair treatment.

Yori is a pilot, by choice, not code. She appreciates the freedom a vehicle can provide and would jump on any opportunity to learn a new mode of travel. She'd like to keep as many options open to herself as possible.

While Yori has learned some basics of combat and disk-combat first from Tron, then Rinzler and the Taekwondo Club, it isn't her function and she'd rather use them to make an escape if necessary. She's got pretty good aim if she has time to analyze the situation, though, and is acrobatic enough to climb around system corridors where she isn't supposed to be while avoiding detection most of the time.

Although it will take some time to learn the use of non-digital materials, Yori has a long-standing interest in design, color, and art. This is shown only in a single deleted scene, but relevant considering how little time Yori has in canon to show anything not immediately useful to saving the system.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

Strengths:

Yori demonstrates high levels of intelligence, loyalty, and patience. Without her preparations and faith in Tron, the heroes would never have made it close enough to the MCP to make a difference.

She's also better at talking people into things than Tron is, not that it would take much.

Weaknesses:

Left to herself, Yori tends not to act on any plan that has too many risks. She depends too much on others to push her into motion. Caution was a necessary survival trait under the MCP, but it's likely to hinder her now.

Especially since all Users are high risks, in her estimation. It's complicated trying to talk with those who she knows can both create and destroy entire systems.

Also, Yori is vulnerable to most physical damage, especially unarmored as she is. She's no more than human in speed or strength or reflexes, though she probably has a slight edge over most people in processing time and finding connections.

Damage manifests itself in pixelation and missing pieces of code, not in blood.

As a code analyst familiar with her own code, Yori has a limited ability to repair herself if her disk is present and intact and she has sufficient energy to put into the effort and also stay conscious. Getting repairs from anyone else will be very tricky. Measures would need to be taken to keep her supplied with power while medics work out the intricacies of her coding and the permissions necessary to access it.

In theory Yori is weak to someone skilled enough at reprogramming, however, she's fully capable of noticing errors and changes in her own code and certainly won't make it easy for anyone. She is proprietary code written by Lora Baines, and not easily decipherable, even if she is outdated. I'd prefer to discuss any reprogramming efforts in full before playing them out.

Items:

A watch
A flip phone, Inugami standard
A backpack, containing: 1 notebook, various random school notes and papers, 2 pencils, 6 hair ties, 4 hair barrettes, 1 frisbee for disk-fighting practice
1 Encom-style identity disk (presently blank, since Yori's been human for a while)

Clothes: 1 complete student uniform, masculine style (white shirt, black blazer, gray sweater vest, black trousers, black socks and shoes)

Since Yori is returning to digital format, she should have an Encom-style unarmored bodysuit underneath all this. Her circuits glow blue.

SAMPLES
Network Sample:

[It's hard to know whether to believe anything the official crew have said. Asking general questions is easier if she's not actually meeting anyone in person. Yori spends quite a while typing and retyping her message.]

Attention, please. Would you mind answering one or more of the following questions?

[Without the protocols of an I/O tower, Yori can only do her best at striking a balance between politeness and demands for the information she sorely lacks.]

1. How does the Ingress work, in your experience?

2. What is your opinion of computer code, or what does the world you came from teach about code, intelligent or otherwise?

3. Does this ship supply reliable power and sustenance to those aboard?

4. What clubs or teaching sessions or other informational sources exist here?

[Impossible to ask without giving some things about herself away, but Yori hopes it's no more than the ship already knows. She isn't inclined to trust this new place yet.]

If you can answer even one of these, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Thank you for your attention.

[More information is better than less. Some of the input is always faulty. Yori hopes she can understand this place enough to figure out which.]

Prose/Action Sample:

The self-proclaimed User who sat on Yori’s flight deck had spent the entire trip casting strange looks toward her, but since Flynn had offered no explanations yet that made sense, Yori ignored him. There was no time for questions, not about her own User, not what the whole lot of them had been thinking to permit the Master Control Program, no time at all. She tapped at her controls with a worried haste.

The smooth pilot’s board of the Solar Sailer gleamed with red errors. Yori slid quick fingers over it, fighting to increase speed a little more despite her total lack of authorization here. The central computer was the MCP’s own domain.

Arrival was the most vulnerable point of their transit. Until they left the beam network, Yori knew quite well even a bit could tell which direction they had to be going. Tron knew it, too, if his stiff worried pacing at the other end of the Sailer was any evidence.

Once they escaped into the barren crevices of this energy-drained wasteland, places to hide and to ambush from abounded. Sark would have no choice but to split up his guards if he wanted to search them all; Yori would bet on Tron against any ten. A little farther, and then they would be close enough to risk abandoning the Sailer.

Only a little farther…

From the front Tron shouted “Sark!” in angry warning. The massive Carrier loomed beside them, taking advantage of the terrain to hide its bulk, set for a head-on intercept at full speed. Yori curled over her board to brace for an crash she couldn’t prevent or mitigate.

Commander Sark’s ship smashed their fragile simulation into junk data along with all Yori’s speed calculations. The force flung her into the rear buffer as the Sailer broke up around her. In the calm of pure shock Yori recalculated how much power the MCP would have used to make that interception. To bring an entire Carrier across the Game Sea faster than a transport beam? How many systems had burned out from that drain?

She would have preferred to go on being underestimated and dismissed as a threat.

Impact, amid the clatter of a hundred shattered fragments of the Sailer. Just ahead, her heavy pilot’s board hit at one corner and cracked across in slow derez. The buffer under her screeched across the floor of Sark’s hangar and flared into nothingness, critical failure. Yori fell through its fading remains to land hard on her back. She blinked, unsure for a long moment whether she was going to follow its example or not, and tried to muster a response from her arms and legs.

Flynn was already scrambling up from the debris unharmed. After the trick with the energy beam she had no idea what would actually hurt him. Yori herself seemed whole, though every part of her code ached.

Tron’s furious shout still echoed in her ears, but she couldn’t see him; he’d been at watch beside the sails, where had he landed?

Anxiety winning out over the pain of the landing, Yori rolled over to complete a frantic visual search. Where was Tron? He had been at the other end of the Sailer, but the trajectories—

He was lost.

(Alternately, if this canon-setting piece is iffy, a test drive thread is available here.)

Inventory and Character Reference for Inugami

yorisearching — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 04:15:59 GMT

Character Details

Name: Yori
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 130 (est.)
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Age: 50+
Physical Age: about 28

What next?

IC Contact for Inugami

yorisearching — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 02:10:43 GMT

Thank you for calling me. If you leave a message I will contact you as soon as I can.

[Maybe you should mention that Yori doesn't actually say her name to anyone calling.]

[Do you think she left it out on purpose?]

(Action also welcome.)

HMD

yorisearching — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:00:46 GMT

Young Yori in a panfandom game involves a lot of learning and adjustment. Use this post for constructive criticism purposes.

Comments are screened; if anything's puzzling you I'd be happy to talk it over, and thanks for taking such an interest in my character!

Permissions post

yorisearching — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 02:21:10 GMT

Following Ram's example again, here's a post to help if you're puzzled on how to interact with Yori in grid_lined. Any questions, feel free to ask!

Backtagging: Quite welcome, though response might be a bit slow.

Threadhopping: I'd appreciate being asked, but probably fine!

Subjects that offend Yori: Clu (the admin, not the original, of course). Insults to Tron. Anyone taking pleasure in derezzing or controlling programs. Unreasoned prejudice toward Isos, Users, or Basics, though if someone has a reason she'll happily debate it and not take offense.

Yori's triggers: She's quite traumatized after all the events of Clu's reign, and reacts very badly to feeling trapped, manipulated, or any suggestion of threat to her identity disk. Threats to any Tron will also get a strong reaction. She hates Clu with a murderous rage that goes well beyond reason, though she will tell anyone who asks any number of valid reasons. On the other hand, with enough warning she can bury her feelings pretty well.

Fighting:
Geared toward analysis, Yori won't fight unless she thinks the fight will end well--or if she's desperate. She'd really prefer to negotiate with everyone, and failing that, she's more likely to run than fight. But she actually is better than average when pressed, with a fair amount of training by Tron. She's an excellent pilot with virtually any flying vehicle, but hates the constriction of the ground, carrying a lightjet rod instead of a lightcycle. Your character can attack if it fits them, but please allow Yori to escape unless you've talked to me first.

Coding:
Lora Baines wrote Yori as part of the laser software back before 1982, and Yori's basic code hasn't changed since. She herself wiped and destroyed a large part of her memories between Clu's coup and her capture. Certain overlays gave Clu control, but Clu never rewrote any deep code as he may have done to Tron. After so long forcibly loyal to Clu, Yori has taken certain steps herself. She would quite literally rather be derezzed than let anyone else, program or User, touch her code again. There are some nasty surprises in her disk for anyone who tries. I don't recommend it.

Shipping:
Although Yori certainly ships Yori/Tron, your Tron probably isn't her Tron and she's determined not to do anything more to hurt hers. I write gen, so please no romance or heavy flirting. Your character may want to give poor angst-filled Yori a hug, but she's likely to react badly both to being held and to hands too near her disk. Actual comforting touches include gentle hand-holding or squeezing an arm. (Rinzlers are special cases since Yori cannot in fact be sure they aren't her Tron, but while affection is welcome, I still only write gen.)

Proximity:
Yori hasn't settled into a single residence, but moves between several in newly rebuilt areas and a closet at the park. People would probably think this was unhealthy paranoia if she told anyone. This does mean she has several safe-ish beds to offer if someone needs one, and she can be near any neighborhood convenient to plot.

If there are things I should include here and haven't, please tell me! Still kind of new at the RP thing.

Initial Analysis

yorisearching — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:54:39 GMT

Ways I might be able to tell if Rinzler is actually Tron:

1. Get a look at his disks.
    -Not a helpful first step to anything.

2. Find out from Clu.
    -If I'm feeling suicidal.

3. Do a full behavior/appearance analysis. Need more data on when Rinzler first appeared for this.
    -Programs who meet Rinzler up close are either derezzed or on Clu's side. Not enough exceptions for adequate data.

4. See if Rinzler reacts to Tron's personal recognition codes.
    -Even if he doesn't, Clu might have sealed them off too well. Not conclusive. Also probably suicidal, how could I get that close?

5. Compare battle styles.
    -Championship Games are recorded, and I already have a large sample of Tron's fighting style in memory. Can I access this information without suspicion?
    -Note this for later review.

None of this is conclusive, too many variables. Assume it is Tron, can't risk assuming otherwise.

Ways to repair Tron, if Rinzler:

1. Get his disks, attempt to reprogram.
    -Stupid, Yori. You'd only fragment whatever was left, even if you got them.

2. Convince Clu to do it.
    -When did we slip into complete delusion?

3. Find Flynn.
    -Right. Because it's not as though I've been searching for dekacycles already, or anything.

4. Attempt to talk to Rinzler, and hope Clu overlooked one of Tron's repair subroutines or personal recognition codes.
    -If I'm identified as Yori, I'll wish Clu had derezzed me when my sisters at the Portal find out the risk I was taking. How could I get Rinzler away from Clu, other Blackguards? Is he ever off duty?
    -If it doesn't work, how in the Grid would I get away?
    -If it does work, how would I get Tron away?
    -Note this for later review.

5. Capture Rinzler and attempt to trigger Tron's repair subroutines, etc.
    -Because it's so glitching easy to capture Rinzler! But I have to try something.
    -He would chase a target wherever the target led, but how would I keep out other Blackguards?
    -Note this for later review.

6. Get captured and hope Rinzler interrogates me; try to trigger repair subroutines, old memories.
    -Sounding as suicidal as Jazz. If I get derezzed that way, Tron will never forgive me.
    -Note for last resort if captured. Prepare emergency-triggered overwrite routine and trusted low-risk backup elsewhere for all sensitive information, make it safe to offer Rinzler read-access to partially wiped disk.
    -Always known it would happen eventually, might as well have a plan for when it does. Not soon, though, with any luck.

Reflections

yorisearching — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:21:13 GMT

Of all the things Yori could be doing this microcycle, looking at the memory logs she'd gotten from Jazz's disk was just barely above "still running from Blackguards" in her preference hierarchy.

There's guilt, because she has no real right to invade Jazz's privacy this way, and there's dread, because the memory of being violently interrogated by Blackguards is traumatic no matter how many removes one is from the actual event. And then there is the need to know how many of her allies were still in danger.

Yori closes her eyes and loads the logs to her own memory, suppressing the echoes of fear/shame/pain! for the sake of her sanity and focusing on the words, the images, in rapid scan.

Oh, Jazz. Not fair to blame the bartender for being less skilled at lying than the Blackguards were at detecting lies, but...

Even with the helmet, she recognizes that the Blackguard interrogator is Symantec. It isn't a surprise; she's known for cycles that Tron's old comrade Sym is working...inventively...for Clu, supporting the administrator's goals from early in the coup. Pain still snatches at her breath at the proof of what he will do toward Clu's ends, pain and old betrayal.

She'd made a hobby out of getting Sym to laugh, in times long gone, though the security program had always seemed a little uneasy around her. Sym had often been one of the first programs she asked to back her up when Tron was overworking himself, because Tron trusted Sym to look after the Grid.

We trusted you, she snarls, at the memory-image. How can you want this?

But Rinzler enters the memory, and suddenly nothing else quite matters.

That pattern.

She knows it better than she knows her own armor, and it should never be that color--Yori realizes that she's half-raised her hand and her eyes are wet.

How dare Clu do this! It's a bad copy, has to be some kind of sick joke, the sort of thing she ought to expect from that glitch by now. But...

The voice.

Tron's voice, strangely clipped and rusty, but she can't mistake it.

Shock holds her paralyzed for long moments, the image on a loop. Disbelief and fury and a tiny, glimmering hope war fiercely for her attention.

Not possible--how dare Clu--

Could it be Tron, alive?

Alive, and Rinzler. Clu's hunter, Clu's champion. How can that ever make sense? She doesn't even know how to begin.

Clu had been a friend, and Clu has committed crimes Yori could never have imagined him capable of--things worse than even the MCP had ever managed. Symantec had been a friend, and Yori was sickened by all the things Ril had long ago reported of him.

She had to face the possibility that Tron, too, might have...somehow glitched.

No. Yori rejects the thought as quickly as it comes, though her analytic programming insists that she bolster the rejection with more than just her heart's evidence.

No. If Tron were himself and loyal to Clu, simply announcing the fact would rip apart the morale of the resistance, who see their city's namesake as a fallen hero. If Tron said that the Isos were truly a threat, it would give even the most sympathetic Basic cycles of doubt. Tron is their prime example of complete commitment to the Creator, to the Users.

Clu knows that, has no doubt seen the rebel propaganda video still circulating wherein Tron holds off a whole squad of the Black Guard for Flynn's benefit. Clu has never made any such announcement.

Rinzler is unquestionably loyal to Clu.

Either Rinzler is not Tron at all, or Tron is no longer recognizable as himself. She had not thought Clu capable of such extensive reprogramming, but the administrator was taught by Flynn, after all.

Yori tests the logic twice more and finds it sound, though she wishes for a more definite conclusion.

If there's any chance at all that Tron is alive...

There are plans to make and contingencies to prepare for, but Yori buries her face in her arms, and spends long microcycles silently pleading with the Users and all powers above as she has not done since first meeting Flynn.

Encrypted notes

yorisearching — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 01:55:40 GMT

Blackguards escorted a red-haired program from the End of Line.

Jazz.

Users all, I've told her to be careful.

Nothing I can do. Not without risking myself--risking everyone.

I hope she thought the crash-stupid prank was worth this.

If she can talk her way out of this one, I'll never doubt her again...well, no, of course I would, I'd have to. Have to doubt everyone.

Nothing I can do--

--ah, crash it, Jazz.

Encrypted Notes

yorisearching — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:50:11 GMT

Green's cell is gone. Two survivors made it to the drop. Sent them to the fourth city safehouse. Must remember not to send anyone else there until I'm sure they haven't turned.

I warned Green he was taking too many risks, not enough gain. I don't suppose I ever will know his name now.

Second safehouse is too risky to access for a while, too much guard activity in that sector.

Messages are still on schedule, at least.

No word of Flynn.

Application

yorisearching — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:38:39 GMT

Your name/handle: Dawn, writingdawn
Your e-mail address: dawn@ccaonline.com
Application Type: Feature Character
Character being applied for: Yori
Short History (visible is the same):

Yori comes from the Encom mainframe, where her own User, Lora Bradley, designed her to run efficient simulations. After the defeat of the MCP, Kevin Flynn loaded her into the Grid as one of a small, tightly-knit group of programs who have charge of digitization tasks. Yori checks the accuracy and stability of digitized data as it enters or leaves the Grid.

During the cycles when the digitization laser is offline, she acted as a pilot, bringing programs and data to and from the Tower. She likes small ships better than the larger cargo carriers, but has adequate subroutines for both. Her routes were strictly limited to short trips, since the User's appearances were never very predictable and came without much warning. Yori spent as much time as possible with Tron, around both of their duties.

When Clu attacked Flynn, it took a long time for the news to reach the digitization programs, because they were waiting all the way out in the Portal Tower as usual. After the Portal itself locked down with Flynn still inside the Grid, Yori set out to find Tron or Flynn. News of Tron's death found her first, in the form of panicking Isos.

She's helping the Isos as much as she can now, for Tron's sake, and searching for Flynn, in hopes that he knows how to trigger the Portal--she can get him there, if he can open it or get some other User to do so. But Users all, she's going to derez Clu. If he's lucky.

Additional notes:

Yori is not a publicly known figure, what with spending so much time out by the Portal. Clu would know her, but otherwise she can get by with minimal disguise. She doesn't want anyone to recognize her, and is therefore going by the name Trace. She has high-level piloting permissions, but only as long as Clu doesn't find out she's out appropriating vehicles, so she saves that option for emergencies.

As a specialist in simulations, Yori is very, very good at making both things and programs change their appearance. Specifically, she is setting up hideouts for Isos, and disguising them.

Face Claim (include at least one picture):

Yori has standard blue-lit energy lines, most of the time. She has only light armor, being built more for efficiency and speed than combat of any kind. There were a few upgrades just before the move to the Grid, but Flynn hasn't messed with the digitization programs since then. They're really Lora's code, and he won't risk breaking what works.

Character's Journal: yorisearching.livejournal.com
IC AIM Screenname: yorisearching

Writing Sample:

Making an entrance completely invisible from every angle, shaping adequate living space from the fragmented data of the Outlands, diverting trickles of energy from a dozen different gridlines for a steady supply--that's the easy part. Deciding who should get access, out of all the desperate programs fleeing Clu's crash-stupid <i>reforms</i>, is nearly impossible.

Especially when any Iso she refuses to trust has something higher than a fifty percent chance of being caught and derezzed within cycles.

Yori has run the logic through a hundred times, and the only solid conclusion she has is that no one should know about more than one of her well-hidden refuges. No one, including her.

It's all delay, Yori knows that too well, delay and retreat and hide. Not a good strategy for winning back a system. If Tron were here...

But he isn't, and he won't be.

If she keeps reminding herself of that, maybe eventually she'll believe it.

Her identity disk lies in front of her, open to her manipulation. She doesn't try for finesse. The half-cycle that she spent finding increasingly creative phrasing to curse Clu (may the Users delete him) appears in her memory several dozen times already, and if that glitch ever catches her for interrogation she hopes he enjoys hearing it. Over and over.

It's a messy overwrite, inelegant. She's no programmer. But all that matters is that there won't be any trace of the memory-logs underneath. The five Isos she led to her latest cave in the Outlands will be safe there for as long as they're willing to hide.

She could wish the conflict of data didn't hurt quite so much.

Yori squeezes her eyes closed, and replaces the disk in its port, allowing it full access and write-privilege. It reacts at once, pulling power from her system to correct the perceived inaccuracies.

Sparks in the darkness, and then nothing at all for long moments.