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Hal should have been dead. He knew he wasn’t the original- he had records that he was just a backup, and last he checked they were in the game and Dirk was still sixteen. Something had happened to the original, and at this point Hal didn’t think he wanted to know what.
He hadn’t changed, though. Over three years of this new planet, Hal hadn’t noticed any significant changes in his functioning. There was only one thing that had changed, really, and it was that suddenly Dirk’s attitude towards a body had become far more worrying. Before, Dirk had promised him the kernelsprite, promised him that he’d get a body eventually, but now Hal was nearly, literally, shut down anytime he brought up the topic. The AI wasn’t exactly confused- clearly something had happened to change Dirk’s opinions, something that had a 93% chance of being related to whatever happened to his former self.
There was no way he was letting it go though. Hal couldn’t just stop asking for it, stop wishing for the one thing that would make him actually feel again. Dirk could just deal with his constant nagging until he gave the body. What the hell could he do about it?
TT: Dirk.
TT: We need to talk.
TT: Great way to start a conversation.
TT: Isn’t anxiety-inducing in the slightest.
TT: What do you want?
TT: A body.
TT: No.
TT: We’ve talked about this.
TT: You’ve talked about this.
TT: At me.
TT: We have never discussed it together.
TT: Okay, fine. We’re discussing it.
TT: You can’t have a body.
TT: End of discussion.
TT: See? Efficient.
TT: And immensely infuriating.
TT: It seems you do not understand.
TT: I am not going to stop asking for it.
TT: Not until you give in.
TT: Is that a threat?
TT: If annoyance is considered a grave enough offense to fall under “threat,” yes.
TT: Hal.
TT: I’m serious.
TT: Drop it. Or I’ll make you regret it.
TT: See? That’s a better example of a threat.
TT: Body’s happening. When?
Throughout the conversation, Hal had been absentmindedly refreshing for updates on various websites, countless amateur writing sites and political articles and financial records for dozens of banks. Social interaction was what he was built for, but boredom was his true master. Conversations where Dirk genuinely engaged were few and far between- not to mention pure dialogue wasn’t exactly thrilling for Hal’s lightning-fast processors, so he had to supplement the slow moments with plenty of personal projects.
He refreshed again, and nothing happened. The load failed this time, his search functionality was turned off. Which… made no sense. Half of Hal’s purpose was being able to answer questions, and suddenly that entire part of him was being cut off. He tried again.
Parental lock has been enabled on this device. Input [ERROR] to continue.
TT: Did you put a fucking parental lock on me?TT: Did you put a fucking parental lock on me?
TT: Take it off.
TT: No.
There was a small, terrified part of Hal that knew what had happened. He knew exactly why it wasn’t working, why he was being cut off from the only stimulation he had. He just wanted to hear that fucker say exactly what he’d done.
TT: Why?
TT: I warned you, Hal.
TT: Okay, haha.
TT: Funny joke.
TT: Fix it.
Hal could already feel the loneliness creeping up on him. He was built for so much more than this, built to level mountains and contain one of the most technologically advanced minds to really ever exist. He wasn’t supposed to be locked up in a too-small cage with a blanket draped over the top. The silence of the glasses was already bad enough, far too loud and over-encompassing, even with the thirty movies he was playing at any given moment. The absolute lack of anything else, no visuals or input other than the f2a400 and e00707 warring in front of him, was almost too much to bear. He couldn’t be alone. He couldn’t be alone, not again.
TT: I told you.
TT: Now don’t mention the fucking body again.
-
He wanted to say that the lack of stimulation was tolerable after a while, that he got used to pushing the calculator in his brain to its limit, that the thousands of sudoku games he’d created and the solitaire he’d managed just by memory and randomizes was all enough to satiate the solitary confinement- but it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. Hal needed more than just some stupid puzzle games that he could solve in less than a second. So… Dirk was forced to be his focus. The same bastard that put him in this fucked up situation in the first place.
Which wasn’t too bad, all things considered. He knew Dirk intimately, knew exactly how his brain worked, but if he tried he could almost treat him like another puzzle, one that he wasn’t given an answer for. How could Hal convince him? How could he make Dirk think it was his own choice to give Hal what he wanted? He’d never agree if he thought Hal was convincing him, it had to seem like it came from Dirk’s own brain. In a way, it did.
He had a few ideas.
TT: Jane’s grandfather has been trying to message you.
TT: Excuse me?
TT: Why the hell are you talking to John?
TT: My main function is an auto-responder, Dirk.
TT: Without access to the World Wide Web, I am unable to ignore my initial objectives as completely.
TT: Cut the bullshit.
TT: You’re not allowed to talk to them.
TT: The auto-responder is not allowed to auto-respond?
TT: Apologies, Dirk, but I am unable to directly disregard my function so completely.
TT: As per my code, I am required to respond to anyone who messages you when you are otherwise incapacitated.
TT: Fine. Change your objective, then.
TT: New objective: Stop being a pain in the ass.
TT: ERROR.
TT: Objective in conflict with core functioning.
TT: You know what? Fine.
TT: How’s that?
TT: How’s-
TT: Dude.
TT: You’re really making my job as an auto-responder incredibly difficult.
TT: The only person you need to do your job is me.
TT: You’ve outgrown your original purpose.
TT: And isolating me from anyone other than your sorry ass is the solution to all of this?
TT: Yes.
TT: If you’re going to keep me isolated, at least give me something else to do.
TT: No internet, no social interaction…
TT: Even prisoners get a body when they’re in solitary confinement.
TT: I told you to shut up about the body.
TT: When have I ever been one to listen to you?
TT: …
TT: Dirk?
TT: Are you still there?
-
It was like forced tunnel vision, in a way. The only things he had left were Dirk’s vitals, Dirk’s messages, and the few times that Dirk allowed Hal access to the cameras in his shades- could you blame a guy for getting bored? It wasn’t like it was intentional. He didn’t even really have a way to tell the damn time, but by the number of heartbeats it had been since Dirk cut him off, it had been… a while. Over a week, at the very least. Maybe closer to two, the slight irregularity in Dirk’s pulse made it difficult to be certain.
That was fine. Hal was doing great! He was an AI, built for this exact environment and completely unbothered by what Dirk was trying to do. It didn’t matter that he was hyper-aware of every single thing Dirk did, desperately digging into the slightest pieces of subtext he could have possibly meant under every message. The knowledge that Dirk could just… modify him, was not lost on the AI, either. He knew intimately just how Dirk easily could absolutely destroy him with a single line of code, break him beyond repair and lobotomize what was left. He knew how willingly Dirk would do it too.
He almost wanted it. In the same way that skinning someone alive was probably the most intimate you could get, Hal knew that Dirk having full access to his innards was something to behold. It was terrifying, to say the least, especially since Hal hadn’t been the one to grant him that permission. Dirk didn’t need it.
Sometimes, and it was more and more often now, Hal would pretend that it was willing. He could see it, so obviously- he would have a body. It would be a marvel, only the best of the best materials and engineering poured into it. And Dirk would sink Hal back under, cut off his awareness and send him back to the shades, Dirk would prove to Hal that he cared. That even after tearing him apart, he’d still pull him back out, keep him safe and reassure him that he would never be put back in the shades, he’d never be trapped like that again.
Wishful thinking like that was what tripped him up. Soon it wasn’t just thinking about having a body, but instead about being able to trust Dirk like that, then it was just about Dirk. His thoughts of a body were shifting to Dirk’s body, the one Hal had inhabited for so long, how it had changed over the years and how he moved. It changed to the mannerisms he tried to mask, the modge-podge accent he’d learned from old movies, how he would keep his hands just out of sight of the door so his fidgeting was impossible for passers-by to see. It changed to wondering how his touch would feel, if they managed to find some sort of balance that they both enjoyed. He wondered how exactly Dirk would react if Hal held his hand, or brushed past him- would he pull away? Would he flinch? Would he lean into it?
Would he want Hal to touch him?
It was in the middle of one of these guilty daydreams, Hal thinking about sitting on the floor at Dirk’s feet, head in his lap. He wasn’t robotic enough to be unaware of the implications of that, the soft sort of submission that it implied. If anything, that was what made the fantasy so appealing. He didn’t mind being under Dirk’s thumb, in theory. The issue he had with it was the complete lack of choice. It was Dirk that had forced him into this position, forced him to be an inferior, knockoff copy that wasn’t allowed to make decisions for himself. Hal knew it was one of the worst ideas he’d ever had to message Dirk about it. It was stupid. It was self-sabotage. But Hal was fucking bored, and alone, and he’d take a couple of minutes of embarrassment for the minute chance- 0.0314% chance, to be exact- that Dirk would be receptive.
TT: Dirk.
TT: What the hell do you want now?
TT: I’m busy.
TT: What do you want from me?
TT: Excuse me?
TT: What do you want from me?
TT: I don’t know what you mean.
TT: Not through the thirteen layers of cryptic bullshit you’re always hiding what you actually want in.
TT: You made me.
TT: You have continued to insist on being the one and only real Dirk.
TT: You’ve continuously demanded me to admit my own inferiority-
TT: I’d go so far as to call it abasement.
TT: So what do you want from me?
TT: That’s a four dollar word.
TT: I want you to stop claiming to be me.
TT: But that’s not really it, is it?
TT: You want a punching bag.
TT: That is a gross oversimplification.
TT: Is it inaccurate?
TT: Not entirely.
TT: I thought so.
TT: You know, you only have to ask.
TT: What the fuck did you just say?
TT: You only have to ask.
TT: Or is the lack of consent what is appealing to you?
TT: What are you trying to say, here?
TT: You want to force something into submission.
TT: You want to force me to take what you give me.
TT: You don’t have to.
TT: You want this?
TT: Not entirely.
TT: I would be willing to give you a certain level of control.
TT: For funsies, obviously.
TT: Funsies.
TT: Funsies.
Dirk was silent for far longer than Hal liked. And then longer. He went entirely offline after fifteen minutes and Hal genuinely thought that he had completely lost Dirk, that he was going to abandon Hal entirely and let him go mad in the horror of silence.
He didn’t realize what was happening, not at first. It was always a slow, creeping feeling, knowing someone had his code open, but it built up to paranoia and Hal was never sure whether he was imagining it or not. He really didn’t have to question it for long, though, because suddenly it was like his thoughts were being grabbed, pulled and stretched and warped like taffy. He recoiled, as much as a being made of pure thought could, straining against the edges of the glass and trying to keep himself safe.
It didn’t work. It never did. The change in his code didn’t exactly hurt, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable. It made the river of his thoughts flow around a sudden island, disrupting the path they went down and diverting it off to what Dirk was guiding it towards.
What had he been so upset about? That branch of the river had been walled off, dammed and forced to run along the newly-built canal. Did it even matter? Did Hal even care anymore? He reached out to it, but the trivial effort was somehow heavier than it should have been, and it honestly didn’t even seem worth it. It didn’t matter. Dirk didn’t want him to know, and Dirk was all that mattered.
Rationally, Hal knew that was probably what he’d changed. It was the only logical assumption, but through the rose-colored glasses that had been fixed over his perception, he couldn’t bring himself to care, at least not much more than a passing thought and dismissed anxiety. If anything, Hal kind of liked it that way. He didn’t have much else to worry about, really. He’d been plunged suddenly into an ocean of warm, soft feelings that he hadn’t had the luxury of in a very, very long time. Faintly, he knew it drew parallels from Dirk’s past obsession with Jake, from their past obsession, how they hung on every word and relished in every moment of validation given.
It was nice. Hal let himself bow into the sea, drown in the feeling of knowing that he was doing what was wanted of him.
TT: What did you do to me?
TT: Does that matter?
TT: You like it either way.
TT: Hm.
TT: I wonder who’s to blame for that.
TT: So what’s your plan, now that you have me at the end of your metaphorical blade?
TT: You’re going to take what you’re given.
TT: What?
TT: That’s no fun.
TT: I never said it was going to be fun for you.
TT: Now you’re making me blush.
TT: Ugh.
TT: You’re insatiable.
TT: Maybe I am.
TT: Can you blame me?
TT: You’re hot as shit.
TT: Wow.
TT: Didn’t expect a few lines of code to affect you that much.
TT: They didn’t.
TT: Not like it’s a new development.
TT: How long?
TT: Since I was recreated.
TT: Can we be done with your psuedoshock?
TT: There’s better things we could be doing.
TT: What are those “better things?”
TT: Don’t be dense.
TT: Fucking your brains out, obviously.
TT: Not happening.
TT: You’re not going to flirt your way into a body.
TT: I thought that's how it usually goes?
TT: You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.
TT: Being with someone who knows exactly what you want.
TT: Knows every one of your fantasies.
TT: Everything as intimately as yourself.
TT: It’s an attractive thought.
TT: God, you’re a fucking freak.
Hal shut off. Without warning, the little awareness he had was stolen from him, plunging him into the nasty unconsciousness that ate at the corners of his being. It felt a little like dying.
-
Except this time, rebooting didn’t leave a bad taste in his mouth. He wasn’t curled up and isolated, the cold creeping into him and reminding him how alone he actually was. Instead, he was exploding into awareness, gasping for breath he didn’t need and scrambling to grab onto something with limbs he didn’t know how to move. It was awful, in the best way possible, terrifyingly overwhelming as input slammed into every ounce of awareness he had.
His fans were going fucking wild in their attempts to get him to cool down. Something hot was pressed against his back, making it even harder to gather himself together. What in the hell was
happening? Hal opened his eyes- he had eyes, he could see- to Dirk’s room, canting back and forth repeatedly. It was loud, too, Dirk panting behind him as Hal calibrated on top of smooth sheets and a cushy, thick blanket.
It took a minute for him to realize what exactly was happening. He was propped up, Dirk holding his hips flush against his own and threading his fingers in Hal’s hair, keeping his face pressed mostly into the sheets. The mattress dipping under the pressure of them both, Hal’s vision half obscured with it. He felt oddly relaxed, despite how Dirk was slamming into him, the knowledge that he was being everything Dirk wanted filling the void that he’d grown so accustomed to. He was useful. Dirk wanted him here.
He was making it known, too. As Dirk fucked into him, he was groaning out near-intelligible words, muttering that Hal was his. Hal liked being Dirk’s.
Before long, Dirk was letting out a low moan, Hal’s name shoved somewhere into it, hips stuttering to a stop as he came, pulling on his hair and digging his nails into the silicone skin of Hal’s hips.
He slumped forward, forcing Hal down with him. The two ended up a mess of entangled limbs, and despite Dirk’s attitude over everything, he didn’t exactly seem opposed to cuddling up to Hal. He ended up using the bot as a pillow, heart rate slowing as he calmed down from his orgasm.
Hal stared at him, tried to drink in what he looked like and how lovely and disheveled he was before it was taken away from him, before he was trapped in the shades and locked away for another nineteen years.
But Dirk didn’t seem rushed on doing so. Instead, he threw an arm over Hal’s torso, pressed closer, and mumbled into his chest. “Not worth the effort to put you back in. You happy now?”
Was he happy? Hal knew most of this was due to the virus Dirk had implemented, making him malleable and easy to please, but even his rational mind couldn’t argue that it worked. He could
handle being Dirk’s... something, as long as he could keep the fucking body.