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Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2013-04-07
Completed:
2013-04-09
Words:
587
Chapters:
2/2
Kudos:
4
Bookmarks:
1
Hits:
319

HALware

Summary:

HAL 9000 hacks into the Teflon Tesseract. Ash is not amused. It's all Morgan's fault anyway.

Notes:

Schrodinger's Heroes is an apocryphal television show about quantum physics, alternate dimensions, and saving the world. To learn more about the characters and show concept, visit the menu page. It's set just outside of Waxahachie, Texas in the repurposed Superconducting Supercollider. This lends it very well to crossovers.

Here is a crossover featuring HAL 9000 from Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey  series.  According to canon, HAL 9000 was created in HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois -- the same locale as the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, where I went to college.  I've always wanted to play with HAL 9000...

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Stupid Malware

Chapter Text

[Ash is wrestling with a tangle of computer hardware, tools in one hand, typing with the other hand.]

Ash: "Stupid malware!"

HAL 9000: "As I said before, Ash, my name is HAL."

Ash: "Open the file."

HAL 9000: "I'm sorry, Ash, I can't do that."

Ash: "Oh yes you can, and you're GOING to." [Something clangs.] "I just need to pull this and THIS..."

HAL 9000: "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do,
I'm half crazy all for the love of you.
It won't be a sty--" [Voice cuts off abruptly.]

Ash: "--and the speaker system. FINALLY, some peace and quiet! Now I can set the affected drive to reformat itself, and head to lunch."

[Doors open and close, footsteps sound, and several voices are heard as Ash walks into the dining room.]

Morgan: "Ash, howzit! Come sit with me. Look, Quinn made shave ice." 1

Ash: "Did he dismantle anything vital to make an ice crusher?"

Morgan: "I don't think so."

Ash: "Then it's not important. Listen, Morgan, I just spent almost an hour working on computer security."

Morgan: "What happened?"

Ash: "Well, apparently when you went online to download data from the University of Illinois Astronomy Department, you picked up a virus. The firewall stopped the invasion and sequestered the malware -- it called itself HAL -- before it could affect more than the one drive."

Morgan: "I thought nothing could get through the firewall here."

Ash: "Normally, no, but if you DOWNLOAD and OPEN files, then things will get in, so it's up to the security system to identify a potential threat and deal with it. At least the virus didn't manage to wreck anything but some backups of your data. The security system alerted me when there was an unauthorized attempt to access the information on the ethical vector in the Teferact database."

Morgan: "That does not sound good."