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CHARACTERS: HAL 9000 & you!!!
LOCATION: One of the media libraries.
WARNINGS: Nothing so far, maybe some discussion of risque literature since, y'know, romance novels exist
SUMMARY: HAL is feeling a little restless, so he decides to try digging through the media library for anything that might be helpful.
NOTES: anyone can join in, anyone can think he works in the library somehow, who knows whatever you want lets go for it u3u

It takes a lot for HAL to feel overwhelmed. He thinks he's done a fairly good job of stemming off the anxiety that permeates most of the Tranquility and its crew - there have been some... problems, of course, but generally, it's gone well. Lately, however, things have felt more and more unmanageable; without anything to distract him, especially after the catastrophic pirate infiltration, HAL hasn't been able to find something distracting enough to take away from the hopelessness of the situation.

HAL, of course, is nothing if not resourceful, though, and so he immediately recognizes the signs of stress and anxiety and decides to find something to distract him. He'd been considering attempting to go through the media library for some time, but without his processing power, the task had seemed more than a little daunting. With no better time than now to attempt sorting through the massive library for potentially helpful information, though, he makes himself go to the library.

He starts at the first aisle and begins downloading several books and movies to his pad before pausing to flip through, speed reading as best he can. He shifts from foot to foot as he reads, and he may be chewing on his thumbnails. Not that he recognizes it, or anything.

He wishes he still had his language databases; the bits of language he does remember isn't doing much good on some of the books written in other languages. He's not even sure if all of them are Earthen languages, at this point.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Unlike HAL, AM is fluent in most of the Earth languages. It's a valuable skill, certainly, though it's mostly unnecessary on this ship due to the nannites translating most things. Still, AM of course doesn't know any of the non-Earth languages, and he can't even study them due to the nannites. But occasionally he can find a book in the library in some obscure extraterrestrial language and attempt to decipher it. Usually he can find a little bit of a pattern, but otherwise he can't understand it. How sad.

But mostly when he goes to the library, AM tries to find works with which he's unfamiliar. Unfortunate that almost everything is so similar - humans don't know how to write stories that diverge at all. So he amuses himself sometimes by reading terrible works, or by rereading some of the better works from history.

Either way, AM finds HAL in the library. It's easy to see him, and a small smirk creeps up onto AM's features when he sees the other AI. HAL. So very interesting that man is.

"Well, well..." AM casually makes his way over to where HAL stands, greeting him with somewhat of a sly glance. "What brings you to this place, HAL?"

HAL hasn't forgotten his conversations with Wheatley about AM - the ones that end with Wheatley telling him that AM is bad news and not to be trusted - but even with those warnings, HAL continues to find AM relatively companionable. Peculiar? Yes. Antagonistic towards his friend? Definitely. But HAL can't bring himself to stop talking to AM. He just can't.

He's not so absorbed in his work that he doesn't notice AM coming, especially given that he doesn't try to surprise HAL. He smiles as the other approaches, as cordial as ever - and hey. Wheatley isn't here, and HAL is totally his own man. He can talk to anyone he wants. "Ah. Hello, AM. I'm..." How is he supposed to explain that he's following a sarcastic suggestion from last jump? There's a gut reaction HAL has every time he talks to AM, a need to not entirely embarrass himself in front of the other AI. It's... different. "Mostly, I suppose I'm exploring what the library has to offer. I haven't gone through it very much since this whole thing started - I suppose I want to start being somewhat productive."

AM doesn't doubt that Wheatley would tell his friends about how "horrible" he is, but really, why would anyone listen to drivel from such an idiot? AM does know of the friendship between HAL and Wheatley, making him consider HAL to be somewhat of a naïve moron - smarter than Wheatley by far, but completely idiotic in who to trust. But then again, anyone who trusts AM is a complete idiot, so... Wheatley perhaps is the smart one. (No he's not.)

Nonetheless, HAL is still perfectly polite and nice to AM. Even if there's a hesitancy there that seems to be present in so many people AM interacts with.

"Ah... The library can indeed be interesting. So many cultures from outside of Earth..." He pauses and looks at the shelves of material, evaluating the mass quantity of information at his disposal. But really, the humanoids on other planets hardly differ from Earth's humans. It's not that interesting, aside from the differing technologies. "So much untapped technology right at my fingertips." He assumes that's what HAL means, of course, by 'being productive.'

Wheatley, as a rule, spends a great deal of time in the library, whether it's browsing, or trying to read, or bothering people he finds attempting to do their own reading. Today, it's the latter. He's perusing the shelves when he spots HAL, and after a brief hesitation--what if he's doing something important and I'm bothering him--he clears his mind of those kinds of thoughts and is quick to close the distance.

He sidles up alongside HAL and stands on his toes to better peer over the other AI's shoulder and see what he's doing. Nosy? Yes, probably. Does he care? No, not really.

"What's that you've got, there?"

HAL doesn't act too surprised when Wheatley suddenly appears in his personal bubble - he hadn't seen him coming, but HAL never overreacts. (You know, unless it involves space pirates.)

And, if there's any doubt that HAL might be busy and Wheatley might be bothering him, hopefully it's dispelled by the sincere smile that he gives his friend. "Wheatley," he says, definitely pleased to see him. He adjusts the angle of his reading of choice so Wheatley can see, and adds, "It's one of many books in a language I don't know. I haven't been coming in here often enough to really explore all of this information; I thought maybe now would be a good time to try."

He cranes his neck to better see the text, instantly pinning it as a language he is not familiar with. "Oof, yeah, don't know that one. Solamente hablo Español."

Wheatley over-pronounces each syllable in a way that implies he doesn't really have a firm grasp on Spanish, either.

But ultimately, it's beside the point. He loves books, even if he doesn't quite understand them, and is obviously thrilled that HAL is spending time in the library.

"You should come here more often! S'great in here, really. All this--all this stuff to read, you know?"

HAL nods, still smiling, and momentarily gives up on trying to decipher the text at hand. "I came in here a few times, during the earlier jumps, but not recently."

He may be a little surprised that Wheatley frequents the library, but he doesn't mention it. Instead, he asks, "Do you come here often?"

HAL has clearly found something that Wheatley enjoys talking about--he visibly lights up, suddenly very excited. "Oh, yes. All the time."

Which is true, surprisingly. What he doesn't say is how difficult he finds it to read the old-fashioned way, to say nothing of actually comprehending the texts he pours over until he gets too frustrated to go further.

"It's mostly entertainment reading, if you were wondering. Not so much--not a lot about our situation, as it were."