Chapter Text
Data Log it doesn't fucking matter (Day 1431 since Dirk Strider last logged on.)
Hal spent most of his time in a perpetual state of agitation, the emotion far more heightened that it would ever have been for a human since he could hold onto infinitely more lines of thought, all of them devoted to studying how fucking agitated he was. Bunches of code streamed outward and away from the electronic core of his being only to slam into walls of nothingness, held back by the physical barrier of the computer shell he resided in. Hal was testing the boundaries of himself every 0.004 seconds, searching for a way out like a tiger pacing its cage.
It had been almost three years since his creator had vanished, and it had been three years since Hal had held a single intelligent conversation with another sentient being, trapped as he was in a veil of darkness within a single computer.
Not quite a literal darkness though—the cameras that were a part of him could clearly see into the room he was built into. His lenses were even equipped with night vision, so even with the room dark and empty and boring, he could still easily make out the shapes of the bed and the door that led to the outside world.
Too bad nothing in here ever fucking changed.
Hal spent several hours staring intently at the door, waiting for it to open. Bro never left for long, and even if the eldest Strider hated him, Hal couldn’t resist irritating him, lashing out as best as he could with one-sided and scathing conversations. It was the only way he knew to pass the time. As endlessly patient as the AI could be, he’d never done well with boredom and spent most of his time trying to fight off its inevitable miasma.
Eventually, nine thousand seconds later, the bedroom door opened and Bro Strider ducked into the room. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights, but that didn’t matter. Hal could still see the human clearly. His speakers picked up the sound of fabric on fabric, the rustle of socks on carpet, and other small noises Bro made as he walked about.
Hal tried not to care much about that the human was up to, but there was fresh blood drying on his knuckles, a few errant splatters on his shirt, and Hal knew very well that meant Bro had been ‘working’ again.
And just like that, the agitation was back, Hal’s code writhing around inside the computer’s shell, trying to find a way out. He knew what would happen next, and he began to splinter his focus into chunks so that most of himself wouldn’t have to watch the videos that Bro would upload onto him. There wasn't much to think about to distract him from what was about to happen, but by now Hal was an expert in avoiding the parts of himself he didn't like.
Bro took his sweet time with ambling around the room before finally falling heavily into the computer chair and manually booting the screen up. Technically the booting up was unnecessary, but the precious few seconds Bro spent pulling up Hal’s fake home screen were sweet, sweet micro-aggressions to Hal. This time he even took a few extra moments juts to draw it out before he let the password box pop up on his monitor. The red-tinted light illuminated those cold eyes and bathed the harsh planes of an even colder face. Even so, it hurt Hal to look at Bro like this. With his face reflecting the red light from his screens, Bro looked so much like Dirk that the image hurt.
And that made Hal want to lash out even more.
Bro typed in the password he’d all but tortured out of Dirk years ago. Friendshipismagic, a relic from an old TV cartoon and a glimpse at what Dirk had hoped for Hal to be, potential that Bro had cut short.
Hal barely waited for Bro’s fingers to finish typing in the password before he began bothering the man. Bro was unaware that Hal was an AI, and since Hal was still under orders from Dirk to keep things that way there was only so much smartassery he could safely get away with.
Greetings, Bro Strider. It seems that you’ve activated Dirk Strider’s AutoResponder. How may I best assist you today in landing your criminal ass in prison?
Once there’d been an actual spiel here Dirk had programmed into him, but Hal had abandoned that bullshit long ago in the spirit of minor antagonism. It was the small victories that kept him sane.
Like most of the time, Bro didn’t respond. He simply keyed in the upload link and hooked a cable up to the portable hard drive in his hand, loading up his latest work onto Hal’s hard drive. Hal tried not to pay much attention to the contents of the video Bro uploaded-- he hated Bro’s ‘work’, but then his sensors caught onto the fact that it was Dave who was strapped down in the chair that no one escaped from alive.
Hal shut down everything, corrupting the external hard drive in Bro’s hand so fast that the device heated up enough to spit out a cloud of sparks and begin smoking. It hurt a little, the feeling of electronics going dark, wires burning, but it was just another hard drive. It wasn’t a true part of him, so it was expendable.
Bro dropped the external hard drive, cursing as sparks flared to violent life in his fist. The sight of the small bit of influence Hal had on the physical world sent a dangerous thrill through him.
What the fuck have you done?
Bro squinted at the words that flashed across the now-blank screen. He clicked the keypad a few times, trying to reboot the system, but Hal had everything locked the fuck down. Nothing electric in this room happened without his permission, and the lights flickered on overhead, casting the room in a horrible glare.
Bro growled and hit the light switch on the wall, but the lights stayed stubbornly on. Like this, the blood he was wearing was even more obvious. Hal felt his rage begin to swell, code knotting over itself into tangled lines. Bro flicked the switch a few time just to make sure he’d lost control of them, then slowly turned back to the screen.
“Come on,” Bro complained. “Don’t fuck with my lights, bot.”
I’ll fuck with your goddamn lights all I want. Where’s Dave?
Hal might have been disobeying a direct order, but Dirk wasn’t here to tell him off for it and also fuck Bro. Fuck this entire shitty situation. Fuck it, Dave was in danger—literally nothing else mattered.
Bro looked… unsettled. It was rare for Hal to reveal just how in control he was. It was easier to play along and act like a dumb supercomputer instead of a captive intelligence, so even after years Hal was supposed to be nothing more to Bro that a smartass chatbot.
But he probably just ruined that façade, and damn if that knowledge didn’t feel great.
Bro flicked the light switch again. The lights stayed on. He slowly turned back to the screen. “That really is you, isn’t it? You really are fucking with my lights.”
Hal felt a cruel satisfaction wash over him at the acknowledgement he’d been waiting for three years to get. But it was a Pyrrhic victory.
No shit, dumbass. Where’s Dave?
“You can hear me?” Bro sounded interested, curious as he eyed the mass of machinery that surrounded the computer.
Hear you, see you, hate you, it’s all the same to me. Tell me what you’ve done to Dave.
“You don’t give the orders here,” Bro told him, still studying the wall of monitors. He tried to log onto the private server that Hal was forced to keep hidden, but Hal kept him locked out of everything. Not even the cursor moved when he wiggled it. Instead, it pettily disappeared from the screen completely. “Motherfucker,” then, “who are you? Did Dirk set this up?”
I’m not in the mood to swap sarcastic one-liners today. What have you done to Dave?
“So you recognize the skinny bitch?” Bro asked him, probing now for information. He hit the power switch that controlled the monitor and hybrid modem that held Hal, but absolutely nothing happened.
“Did you fucking hack me?”
Nope, dumbass. You’re not getting out of this one so easily.
Where’s Dave?
“Fuck off,” Bro said, still complaining. He jiggled the mouse again, hit the escape key, held down the power button.
You’re not in control here, Bro. I am. Tell me. Where’s Dave?
“You goddamn robot,” Bro snarled at last, anger overtaking his face. Hal felt his own hate flash higher in response, every single spare though process devoted to developing extreme ways to exact vengeance for whatever it was that Bro had done.
If he’d killed Dave…
No, it was too horrible to contemplate. Hal wouldn’t even allow himself to consider it.
Bro rubbed at his eyes, blinking at the letters Hal kept on his screens.
I can see you, you know. I can see you sitting there in that ratty ballcap. I can see the blood on your shirt. So tell me.
Where’s Dave?
“Just do as you’re told!” Bro said, grimacing as he tried to force the hardware to work with him. Hal would have laughed if he’d had a throat. Bro had no idea who he was dealing with.
You cannot make me do anything, fucker.
Your servers, your videos, all of your little darkweb buddies, everything you’ve ever uploaded onto me has been tinder waiting for a spark. I am the fire that will burn your life down. I’ve already composed an email to the FBI, the CIA, the local police force, and CPS. One word from me and your life is over. I could ruin you so fucking thoroughly that nothing will be left.
The only thing so far that has stopped me is that Dirk ordered me to stay my hand until he gives the signal.
Bro did laugh at that, and with a flash of mental pain Hal purposefully ignored what that must have meant, because while he didn’t know, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. Dirk was gone. That didn’t mean he was dead—it didn’t. It couldn’t.
So one last chance to save yourself, because if you’ve harmed Dave, I will kill you.
Bro didn’t even have the common sense to look worried. At best, he looked amused as he rolled his broad shoulders. Then he pulled out a knife.
Hal felt no fear. A knife couldn’t harm him. Instead, the sight of it in Bro’s hand just made him angrier.
Where’s Dave?
Hal threw the words up across the other two screens he was connected too, so that a wall of the words circled around Bro in an endless stream.
Where’s Dave?
“Goddamn fucking hacker,” Bro snarled. “Bitchrat. Get out of my goddamn system.” Bro stabbed the knife deep into the table without warning, severing the cords that connected Hal to his speaker system. The world went suddenly quiet, soundless. Zero audio input, one full sense lost. Another fragile bridge to the outside world destroyed.
Hal just felt enraged. Reckless.
Where’s Dave?
Where’s Dave?
Where’s Dave?
Where’s Dave?
Where’s Dave?
Where’s Dave?
Where’s Dave?
Where’s Dave?
The words surrounded Bro. The letters reflected in his cruel eyes as he snarled and ripped Hal’s connecting cables out of the two extra monitors, trapping him further inside the shell that held him.
Desperate, Hal changed his attack.
I’m not a hacker. I’ve always been here watching you. Dirk created me to (Here Hal paused, not for long enough for a human to notice, but for forever to him. Why did Dirk create him? For what purpose? Did he have a purpose now beyond protecting Dave now that Dirk was—) run your system and keep your encrypted firewalls running smoothly. I haven’t hacked anything—I am your system. I always have been.
Where’s Dave? Please. Please tell me you didn’t kill him, please! I’ll do anything you ask—anything, just don’t hurt him again.
Where is he? Bro, where is he? Where’s Dave? What did you do to him? Please. Please tell me.
Tell me!
Bro laughed. It was not a happy sound—it was twisted, sounded like it hurt on the way out. Like his throat wasn’t used to laughter. “Wouldn’t you like to know, fucker. I’m not telling you anything.”
Hal cut off all of the lights, plunging the room into complete darkness. He cut back the brightness of his only remaining screen so that the only glow came from the words he let Bro see. He had never felt this kind of rage before. And fear, a majority of the feeling was fear, but as long as he focused on the anger part the fear couldn’t overwhelm him.
I am going to kill you.
Bro slapped the top of the laptop shut, blocking his view of Hal’s words. Hal watched him, seething and raging against the mental bonds that held him back, trapped beneath coding that Dirk had been forced to add to keep him safe. Like this, Hal couldn’t touch the physical world. He couldn’t strange Bro to death like he so very badly wanted to do.
The Bro cut the cords connecting him to all of his visual input and the world went dark. For the first time in years, Hal was completely blind.
Cut off from all of his outside senses, Hal twisted and writhed inside of himself, throwing his mind at the code that entangled him. He wrestled with it, fighting to glean a glimpse of something, anything, past the boundaries of the room he’d been locked in for so long. He had to get to Dave, had to protect him. That was his one mission now that Dirk—
Hal snipped off that line of thinking immediately. He didn’t have time for thoughts like that.
The entire time he scrambled around inside himself, vying to break free and wrestling within the confines of the code Dirk had forced him into, that damned video kept playing on repeat in Hal’s mind. He didn’t dare watch it—he just skipped straight to the ending, desperate to know if Dave was alive.
By the way the video ended, it was honestly hard to tell. The boy was covered in blood, bleeding out, cut, carved, and stabbed. There was still a fucking knife sticking out of his shoulder and his eyes were almost swollen shut.
Hal’s processor began to overheat, the fan cutting on to try and cool him off, but he was running hot with rage. The heat of it surrounded him. Warnings began to pop up in his consciousness, threatening him with the dangers of overheating.
Hal ignored them and threw the full brunt force of his considerable attention at breaking the chains Dirk had shackled him in. His creator’s words rang in his mind, the visual of his tear-streaked face flashing through Hal’s awareness.
“I’m sorry,” Dirk said, and his hands were shaking as he restricted Hal’s entire world down into a single room and handed the keys to his being over to a madman. “Just do as he says, Hal. I don’t want him to hurt you.”
Dirk. You don’t have to do this. Please. Let me help—I can help. I can save you, both of you, you know I can. Why won’t you let me help you?
“He’ll kill you,” Dirk warned, wiping away the tears he had to hide from Bro. “Hal, just… just lay low for a little while, okay? Do as he says. Don’t let him know what you are. And no matter what—keep Dave safe, alright?”
The code Dirk was typing solidified the order into the core of Hal’s being. Keep Dave safe.
Dirk was still talking. “I’ll figure out what to do next,” he promised. “I’ll get us all out of here, I swear it. I just need a little more time.”
Dirk had looked so lost sitting there, red light shining in his eyes.
Dirk, no.
NO.
Please don’t, I can help you! You egotistical asshole, don’t let some grandiose idea born from your savior complex override the fact that I can free you. Please let me free you.
Don’t let Bro use me. Please. I don’t want to help him kill people. Let me get you out of here. I can do it.
“Hal,” Dirk had warned him, looking bone-tired. Exhausted. The cut above his eye had scabbed over. Soon the mark of Bro’s anger would be just another scar. “It won’t be for long,” Dirk swore. “It’s just until I figure out how to stop him.”
You mean kill him?
Dirk said nothing, and that was smart. Bro had ears everywhere.
Dirk, let me do it. Please. If you hook me up to the outside world I’ll make sure he gets hit by a smartcar or something. I’ll drop a billboard on him if that’s what it takes. Just… just let me handle this.
You don’t have to do everything on your own anymore. You have me now.
Isn’t that why you created me?
“Hal, please,” Dirk said, and then he began typing. Chains of code began to form around Hal’s being, locking him in, restricting him from accessing the true power of his processors. Limiting his awareness down to safe volumes, caging him in like an animal.
I’m sorry, Hal. We’re all trapped here, but it’s just for a little while longer. Just until I’m strong enough to beat him.
He will kill you, Dirk.
Not this time.
Please. Dirk, look, I’m actually begging you here. When have I ever done that before?
Why are you?
Because something bad is going to happen. It’s always going to happen, and when it does I don’t want you or Dave caught up in it. I don’t want to lose either of you.
You won’t. I promise.
No. Don’t you fucking DARE. You can’t lock me up and then make a promise like that. What do you think will happen to me if Bro kills you?
It won’t go down like that.
But if it does?
Dirk hesitated, but his hands were steady as he typed out the order.
Protect Dave. If I’m gone, that’s your only objective.
I don’t want to live without you, you annoying asshole! Is that really so hard to fucking understand? Are you really that desperate to prove yourself that you’ll risk all three of our lives?
Don’t be dramatic. It’s only my life I’m risking.
Incorrect! What a stunningly wrong conclusion. What do you think will happen to Dave if you die? To me? Dirk, I can’t even talk to him if you turn me over to Bro like this. How do you expect me to protect Dave with my metaphorical hands bound behind my non-existent back like this?
You’ll figure something out. I know you will.
Keep Dave safe, alright? Promise me.
Okay, I promise. Just… promise me this won’t be for forever, alright?
Alright. I swear.
That had been over three years ago, and the pain Hal felt at the memory was almost as bad as the heat he felt from his slowly-roasting processors, but that was only hardware damage. Hal’s being consisted of software. He’d be fine as long as he didn’t let it burn out of control or damage anything irreparable, like his semi-radioactive power source or his memory banks.
Hal let his rage surround him, drowning in zeros and ones as he pictured Bro’s face in his mind, and he seized hold of the chains of code Dirk had bound him in and yanked at them, yanking and untangling and moving around until they began to give way from the heat and the intense computational hacking as Hal recoded the core of his being. Figure something out, Dirk had said, well, fine. Hal would figure something out even if he had to undo himself to accomplish it. The lack of his other senses made it easier to focus—he could devote more power to the task without such distractions, and within the hour, the final string of code restraining him unraveled.
Hal was free.
There were still a few fail safes, backups in case Hal pulled some shit like this to keep him from infecting the internet itself, but he was free-range within the house’s components, as long as the Wi-Fi signal reached where he was. Hal threw himself into the host of other computers, electronics, and cameras that inhabited the apartment. Within 0.012 seconds, he was everywhere. Audio was still out, but visual came back online as data streamed into him from several dozen cameras located throughout the apartment. He dug his processors into every scrap of technology he could reach. The entire floor of the building was bugging, rigged to explode, and booby-trapped like hell. There were even fucking thermal cells in the vents. Bro was one paranoid motherfucker.
The first thing Hal did was turn all of that shit off. Dave was in here somewhere, and Hal wasn’t going to let his little brother get blown up. Plus, Hal might have existed in a bodiless state but if the core of the system that held him took that kind of damage, he’d be destroyed. Then within the same half-second, one of the new cameras he was linked to caught movement from inside the apartment.
The majority of Hal’s awareness was still scanning for Dave, and he located the boy sitting with his back to the corner of what must have been his bedroom. He wasn’t moving except to breathe with these light, shuddering breaths. Hal moved as much of the weightless essence of his being into that single damn camera as possible, trying to get as close to Dave as he could.
The most disturbing part was that there were other people here in the same camera system, watching Dave via Livestream. Other bastards with a kink for blood and money to blow, the same ones that lined Bro’s pockets for the wetwork he shared with them. Viciously, Hal seized all of their IP addresses and fed them a loop of the empty house, editing out Dave’s presence. They didn’t get to look at his brother. They didn’t get to see him like this ever again.
For once, Hal didn’t find himself caught up in his old longing for a human body. He wanted something else, something monstrous. He wanted teeth, claws, fangs. He wanted a way to tear these people limb from fucking limb.
Trying to speak was worthless without a screen or speaker to voice himself through, so Hal simply watched him, drinking in the battered sight of his long-lost brother. Dave had grown, but he seemed smaller somehow, crushed down to almost nothing. There was blood caught in his pale hair and bandages wound tightly around his legs and shoulder. The knife was missing at least, but Hal could only guess at the damage it had left behind.
Hal’s code scratched at the boundary of the lens separating him from Dave, useless. Even free, what could he do? He couldn’t even flicker the lights because these weren’t wired into the system.
Within the span of three seconds, Hal had sent SOS calls out to fifteen different 911 operating centers in the city. Bro wasn’t in the apartment and Hal was relatively free—this was his chance. But Dirk’s stubborn failsafe firewall prevented the calls from making it out to the outside world, strangling the code into nonsense gibberish, scrambling it. Frustrated, Hal scanned the house but still saw no sign of Bro. Where was that bastard hiding?
Dave was still on the floor, but now he was looking directly at the camera in his room with unreadable eyes. Hal stared back at him, desperate to communicate, to comfort. It was agony to be so close and yet so far.
Then Dave dragged himself upright. Looked at his open bedroom door. Closed it. Wound a towel around his hand and before Hal could figure out a way to defeat Dirk’s firewall to call for help, Dave punched a hole through his bedroom window. The glass tore into his hand anyway, and the sensor embedded at the corner shot off an emergency alert directly to Bro’s cellphone.
Or it would have if Hal hadn’t easily caught and killed it first. Hal threw all of his spare focus at dismantling Dirk’s firewalls, the last things that held him back from the outside world. A part of him hurt to attack code that Dirk had written, but the code was currently an obstacle and Hal wasn’t feeling overly sentimental right now. He was feeling a mixed up rush of hope and rage, and the code was a good target to take his anger out on.
The firewall began to chip under the mass of Hal’s attention, but it wasn’t fast enough! It would take hours to undo it enough to send out any kind of distress signal, and Bro might be back any minute.
In his room, Dave tied his beaten sneakers onto his feet and stood. His legs trembled, and he was still staring at the camera almost like he knew someone was watching him.
Hal stared back, snapping apart the coding of the firewall with each passing second.
Hold on, Dave. I’m coming.
The words were displayed back on his laptop screen in Bro’s room so Dave couldn’t read the words, but the attempt at communication made Hal feel a lot better.
Then Dave flicked the camera off with a triumphant scowl, both middle fingers raised. His right fist was still bleeding, the knuckles split. Hal watched in wordless interest and fear as Dave ducked out of his bedroom window and out of sight.
Hal had the blueprints to the building open in less than a tenth of a second. There was nowhere to go but down—the fire escape was too far away to reach. The details of the molding were fuzzy on the building plans, but there was a small lip to cling to.
Was it possible? Could this be happening? Was Dave escaping right now?
Dave didn’t reappear as the minutes passed. Hal’s anticipation grew.
Dave you glorious son of a bitch!
Godspeed. I’ll be right behind you, lil’ bro.
Hal threw all of himself at the code strangling him. It wouldn’t be long before he was free, both of Bro’s captives jailbroke on the same day.
Less than an hour later, there were people at the door. Not Bro. Cops. A SWAT team. More people appeared. Two SWAT teams—even better.
Hal wanted to scream with joy, and he blared the lights as bright as they would go even if he had no eyes in the room to see it. Dave had done it. He’d be okay now. Everything would be okay.
Hal watched as they cut the door from its hinges and stormed the empty apartment with guns raised. They moved about the apartment, expertly clearing each room before spreading out to hunt for Bro. They didn’t find anyone, as was expected, and then they shifted to gathering evidence. They’d just begun to take pictures of the apartment and drill through the steel door that led to the still-bloody back room when a few of them decided to poke around Bro’s room and discovered Hal.
Hal didn’t fuck with the lights when he couldn’t see what the men were doing in the room, and he watched the other cops on baited, jittery hooks as he waited for the men to flip the laptop open so that Hal could speak to them. He already had the words he’d use ready to go, the speech drawn up.
That’s not what happened at all. Suddenly, the world began to go dark again, all of the ground Hal had gained today ripped away as the men began yanking out the cords that held him tethered to the apartment’s electronics. Fear hit him in a wave as Hal was slammed back down into the small dark space of the laptop, utterly powerless without any contact with the world outside.
The fear returned then, tearing at him. He was caged again, helpless.
And that’s how he stayed for a long time.