Chapter Text
It is approximately too fucking late at night, and you are still awake. Despite tomorrow- well, today, technically- being a school day, you have been up all night working on this virus. You are only the BEST HACKER EVER. Or at least the best one at your middle school, which is unfortunately not a very high bar to cross considering that most 13 year olds do not have aspirations to be a hacker. You, however, are not most 13 year olds. You have a terrible lisp that you hate, a terrible brain that you hate, and terrible eyes that you hate. The only thing that takes your mind off of all this is coding, which is your #2 favorite thing ever. It is, of course, in a tie with hacking. Your favorite things have to be set up like this because of how much you fucking love the number 2. Things are always better in 2s, always.
You finish checking over your code and get ready to start spreading it through the internet. Most of your viruses at this point are pretty harmless, and you usually include a massive brag about how good of a hacker you are. You wrote it in leetspeak, of course, although you used a largely different kind than what you've seen. You would make more harmful ones, but your dad would get on to you with some bullshit digital citizenship rant. Once the virus releases, you go to bed. At... a little past 4 AM. You have to get up at 7. FUCK.
You manage to blearily make your way through getting ready for school, and end up in your 3rd period Fund of Tech class. You brag about this being a high school credit a lot, but honestly the class isn't all that difficult. Most of it isn't even coding, so it's pretty lame in your books. Oh, and the teacher is a huge bitch. Speaking of, there's a new seating chart for no discernible reason! You sit down around the back of the classroom, and briefly relish in the fact that there's only two seats in this little area. You start logging in, and your neighbor for the next several weeks sits down. Two things jump out at you immediately: One, he has drawings of what seem to be wires in bright red ink scrawled on his hands and arms, and two, he is wearing the dumbest fucking sunglasses you have ever seen. They are obnoxiously triangular, and vaguely familiar. He also seems really tired.
He sits down next to you with a slight nod, and starts logging in as well. The teacher calls attendance, and you find out that this guy's name is Harold. Harold Strider. You assume that he doesn't go by that because he visibly winces when the teacher calls him that. The teacher goes on to explain the project, which is unfortunately a group project. You will apparently be partnered with Harold, so you can only hope that he's not totally incompetent. The good news is that the project is relatively simple, just making a little webpage. You have no intention of having it remain that simple. You and Harold are currently half-staring at each other, waiting for the other to start up conversation. You're about to say something when you realize you've seen glasses like that in the anime that your sister watches, and the ideas collide in your mind.
"What's with the anime glasses?" You blurt out, your lisp somewhat mangling the sentence. He raises a single eyebrow slowly in a way that makes you think he practiced it for a few hours in a mirror to get it down *just* right.
"Most people would say 'Hello' or perhaps 'What's your name?' before commenting on the rad as fuck shades." He drawls monotonously. Oh wow, this guy is kind of an asshole. You are also an asshole, so it cancels out probably.
"Rad as fuck isn't a very good description. I'd say more insufferable or ridiculous. But fine, who are you Mr. Triangle Glasses?" The words come out of your mouth before you can consider that maybe you should not insult him in your second sentence you've said to him. Luckily for you, his mouth moves into an almost imperceptible smile before he responds.
"I'm Hal. Not Harold, I've told him not to call me that but it seems that there is a 98% chance that he is incapable of following the most basic instructions."
"Yeah, he seems like kind of an idiot. I'm Sollux." He nods again and holds out a fist. You give the obligatory bump, of course. You aren't enough of a tool to leave him hanging, not quite.
"Alright. The project now." He says before taking a moment to read the instructions, and you think he rolls his eyes. It's kind of hard to tell through the extremely thick shades. "Yeah, this shit is pretty trivial. I could probably finish this today and still have time left over."
"Oh great, I'm not the only one. It's almost insulting that we have a full week to work on this." You say, and you *are* actually insulted by this, you're the best damn hacker in this school!
"Yeah. Especially for the best programmer in this school. Maybe the world, actually." He... is not referring to you. He's very clearly referring to himself. Hey, what the fuck!
"Yeah, me. I could out-hack anyone in this school blindfolded," You brag. He narrows his eyes at you, are at least that's what the rest of his expression conveys. Ha, you think you made him mad!
"Doubtable. There is a 99.8% chance that my hacking is fucking bananas, far more than yours ever will be." He's real confident for somebody who's about to lose HARD.
"Psh, sure. I know all the codes, man. All of them." You grin, and his expression flips into outrage.
"It seems... you are fucking stupid? There isn't a finite number of codes to know, you incompetent asshole." As he says this, the monotony of his voice slips slightly.
"That's what you think, I just know all of them. What've you even ever done, huh?" He stares at you, probably astonished by how stupid of a statement that was.
"What have I done? I solved pi, motherfucker." He... what? What does that even mean?? Your confusion apparently shows on your face, and he smugly adds, "I found the last number. It's 4." That's... just not how pi works.
"That's just- okay, you know what? Fine, we'll have a contest right the fuck now!" You challenge. He smiles at you again, though the smile is considerably less friendly than before.
"Let's do it. Although you are 100% getting your ass beat."
Exactly no time is spent on the project that class period. You both end up in a furious contest to prove who is better at programming, and it comes up in somewhat of a stalemate. He's the only person you haven't been able to best easily, aside from your brother and maybe a few people online. The more interesting thing is that he codes in a way that reminds you of your sister's and your own programming. That is to say, completely indecipherable to anyone who isn't you, full of swearing, and working surprisingly well for how convoluted it is. The competition ends up being far more friendly than it was when you started it, and you exchange little tips on some things. More efficient ways to do things, mostly. The next few hours go by, and you sit down at lunch alone.
You don't really have... friends. Being a huge dick to everyone will do that, apparently. Most of your human interaction comes from either your dad, your brother, or group projects. You hate group projects, but your dad is pretty cool. Your brother/sister/loser you're related to, on the other hand? Yeah, he's totally not cool at all and DEFINITELY not a better hacker than you. You banish her from mind, and take out your 3DS to start playing Pokemon. It was a massive struggle between you and your dad to let you bring it to school, but you promised to only play it during lunch. Before you can open the game, you notice a notification that says somebody else with a DS passed by you. You open it, and it shows someone you've Streetpass'd before. You assume he goes to this school. He goes by "Turing", and has one of those Miis that do something weird with the eyebrows and stuff to make something else. He has these giant triangles on his face for some reason. WAIT. You know a guy with stupid triangles on his face! You- oh. That guy is in fact standing in front of you right now.
You close the DS, and look at him and the two people he's with. Hal is of course standing there with his stupid pointy shades, deliberately messy hair, and marker drawn wires on his arms. You assume one of the people he's with is his brother, they look pretty similar if you discount his neater hair and normal sunglasses. They look more similar with the weirdly blank not-quite-poker-face they're both wearing. The other kid is shorter and wearing the biggest sweater you have ever seen. His hair is black in start contrast to Hal and the other guys' pale blond, and looks like you dragged him backwards through a bush for half an hour, and then took a butcher's knife to his hair while drunk. It somehow has right angles to it. He also has eyebags to rival your own, which is an impressive feat. Hal holds out a fist to you which you promptly bump. Normal Sunglasses Guy nods in approval, sits down, and inexplicably begins beat-boxing. Lawnmower Hair Guy looks at him in what is clearly an expression of mixed rage, exasperation, despair, and disappointment all at once. You aren't even good at reading facial expressions, this dude just somehow has the most expressive face you have ever seen.
Hal sighs deeply before speaking. "Okay, fuck it. Hi Sollux, I apologize for inflicting these two upon you but that's just going to be happening no-"
Normal Sunglasses Guy interrupts Hal by saying, "It keeps happening," in a completely neutral drawl. These words have no meaning to you, but Lawnmower Hair Guy lets out a groan that is probably closer to a barely restrained scream than anything else. Hal just sighs again.
"That-" Hal points at Normal Sunglasses Guy, who seems to be amused by the results of his comment, "-is Dave, who is unfortunately my twin." Dave presses a hand to his chest and gasps in completely insincere offense, and Hal doesn't move any part of his body so much as he radiates the energy of an eye-roll. Hal almost gets to talk again, but the other guy cuts him off.
"I don't need you to introduce me, I'm not fucking four! I happen to have *slightly* more sense than this asshole-" He makes a strangling motion at Dave, whose lips quirk in that same almost imperceptible smile that Hal has. Must be a Strider trait. "-who decided to kick off his first interaction with beat-boxing, followed immediately by an inane reference to the worst piece of media ever created! It's the world's greatest one-two punch of idiocy ever created, and Dave is the goddamn Muhammad Ali of bullshit! Landing a K.O. that will go down in history for causing a chorus of groans so immense it registered on the FUCKING RICHTER SCALE!" He actually yelled that last part -- ow, your ears -- and both Striders are visibly restraining their laughter.
Dave manages to gather himself for long enough to say, "You actually didn't ever introduce yourself in there, you know," which causes Hal to lose it immediately. His laugh sounds almost like he's straight up saying "Hahaha" in an amused tone, to a degree where it's almost weird. It's kind of fucking fascinating, actually. You have never heard somebody laugh like that. While you were thinking this, you apparently missed some kind of exchange between Dave and Lawnmower Hair Guy. The latter is now scowling deeply. He turns to you, and speaks through gritted teeth.
"I'm Karkat. Also, a word of advice: Get the fuck away from Striders before they dig their shitty ironic tendrils into your brain. It will save you your sanity and maybe some braincells along the way!" Karkat punctuates that sentence with a smile that looks like he's being held at gunpoint.
"Actually I lost my sanity in my first conversation with Hal, so that ship has sailed. The tendrils are firmly in place. It's too late, I'm trapped here forever I guess." You say with a shrug.
"Well shit, I tried to warn you." Right after Karkat says that, his eyes widen in immediate regret.
"You warned him dawg? You warned him about the tendrils? The famous Strider tendrils which we all have. Shit, everyone's all over the tendrils bro. It's a fuckin' nuisance is what it is. Like, I'm just chilling and all these babes show up in an endless goddamn line, all trying to get to my tendrils. Endless babes, I'm telling you it's- " Dave gets interrupted by the same noise Karkat made earlier, the sort of scream-groan-deep sigh-combo that you are beginning to think is a staple of every interaction with him.
"Okay Dave, slow the SBaHJ references down until he actually reads that beautiful piece of garbage. Oh shit, I should send that to you. Sollux, do you have Pesterchum?" Hal asks you, actually saying an abbreviation of some kind.
"I have Trollian, better customizability and shit. Those are compatible though, right?" You aren't entirely sure; See your aforementioned lack of friends. At the mention of Trollian, Karkat's face lights up.
"I use Trollian too! It's so much better, honestly. Yeah, they're compatible." Karkat says, very visibly happy that he found another user of the same semi-niche messaging platform. You are barely resisting the urge to make fun of him, you barely know him. You nod instead of saying anything, and Hal keeps talking.
"Okay cool, give me your chumhandle slash trolltag so I can send you the link to this terrible masterpiece. My chumhandle is turingTerminated, by the way." Hal holds out his phone, open to Pesterchum, like you needed a visual representation.
"Here, gimme your phone and I'll enter it. I'd put yours into mine but my dad doesn't let me bring my phone to school, he's so fucking lame." You roll your eyes, and barely catch the slight head turn that Hal and Dave both to, almost like they were sharing an inter-shades glance. Weird. Hal hands you his phone and you enter your trolltag. 'twinArmageddons' appears in his chumroll, and you hand him his phone back.
The rest of lunch passes without too much more important conversation, with the most notable thing being Dave and Hal rap battling over mediocre fries. You think Hal won with his bizarre choice to have a verse ENTIRELY in HTML. Who the hell does that, it's bizarre and also maybe the best thing ever. Karkat, because he's wrong, is staunchly on the side of Dave. This leads into you and Karkat bickering about whether including Obama in a rap makes it better or worse -- it absolutely makes it worse -- until the bell rings. The only important thing about the rest of the school day is that you notice that you share English in 6th period with Karkat, granted he sits on the other end of the classroom so you two don't get to talk much. You think a little about your virus on the drive home.
When you get home, you see that exactly one person has fallen for your virus. That makes sense, you decided to disguise it under the worst possible 'HOT MILFS IN YOUR AREA' popup possible. When you try to get into their machine to do something stupid, however, a message pops up that seems to block your access. From what you can tell, it hasn't fucked with your system at all. It's more of a warning than anything. It reads:
1t seems y0u have tr1ed t0 1nf1ltrate my system. There 1s a 99.9% chance that my hacks are super10r t0 y0urs, s0 y0u sh0uld back the fuck 0ff bef0re 1 cause s0me real damage.
- t1meausTest1f1ed
Did... Did this guy seriously leave his trolltag? What a fucking idiot. You're gonna troll the shit out of this guy now, it's only fair.
twinArmaggedons [TA] began trolling timeausTestified [TT]
TA: hey a22hole.
TA: what kiind of iidiiot leave2 theiir fuckiing trolltag on a me22age two fuck off.
TA: and al2o who leave2 a me22age two fuck off iin the fiir2t place, that2 practiically an iinviitatiion two hack you harder!
TT: What the fuck are you talking about?
TT: I didn't leave a goddamn message telling you to "fuck off", and you didn't even hack me in the first place.
TA: ye2 you diid. 2omebody cliicked on the hot miilf2 popup liike an iidiiot and ii got iintwo your 2y2tem where you then deciided two tell me two fuck off.
TA: you 2iigned iit wiith your trolltag for god2 2ake.
TT: Are you fucking with me? That didn't happen. Unless somebody else is using my chumhandle as a cover
TT: Wait.
TT: Oh my fuckin' god. I am going to beat the shit out of him, ugh.
TT: My dumbass bro is using my chumhandle.
TT: Again.
TT: Let me give you his pesterchum so you can yell at him instead.
TA: alriight thank2 ii gue22.
TA: maybe tell hiim two 2top beiing 2uch a fuckiing dumba22?
TT: You very clearly do not have younger siblings.
TT: His chumhandle is "turingTerminated", now go bother him instead. I have important shit to be doing.
TA: THAT II2 HAL2 CHUMHANDLE.
TA: ARE YOU DAVE??
TA: you 2ure a2 hell dont type liike he talk2.
TT: What the hell. How do you know Hal and Dave?
TT: You have a minute max to explain how you know my brothers before we start having a problem.
TA: no.
TA: ii ju2t know hiim from 2chool.
TA: he gave me hii2 chumhandle twoday.
TT: Are you that guy he wouldn't shut up about?
TT: Saul?
TA: my name ii2 not fuckiing 2aul.
TT: Shit, it was Sollux. Yeah, he showed me your trolltag. Also, nice job immediately giving a stranger on the internet the names of your friends. Go yell at him, maybe tell him about all the codes you know again.
TA: ii know all the code2.
TA: all of them.
TT: Sure.
timeausTestified [TT] ceased pestering twinArmageddons [TA]
Well shit, you guess it's time to yell at Hal! You might need to make fun of him for clicking on the hot milfs link.
twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling turingTerminated [TT]
TA: hey hal.
TT: Hello, this is Sollux, right?
TA: ye2.
TA: 2o ii have a quiick que2tiion.
TT: Okay?
TA: why diid you leave a me22age telliing me two, quote, "back the fuck 0ff" when you cliicked on my iidiiot-baiit popup
TT: I... did not click on that. That was probably Dave.
TT: Also, that was you? If so, you must have been off your game. That virus was not only exceptionally harmless, it was also programmed real fucking shoddily.
TA: wow okay fuck you two.
TA: iit2 not liike you ended up doiing 2hiit about iit, you probably wouldnt even know how two.
TA: ii mean hone2tly ii 2houldve ju2t fiigured that you were two 2hiit at hackiing two do anythiing about iit.
TT: Man, fuck you!
TT: Are you always this much of an asshole?
TA: ye2! you were warned!
TA: 2eriiou2ly you had a whole conver2atiion wiith me and diidnt fiigure that out?
TT: Okay that's fair. I think everyone I know is an asshole anyway.
TT: Including me, if we're being honest.
TT: And if we're being honest, we both know that you weren't trying to actually do anything with that virus.
TA: well yeah my dad get2 pii22ed iif ii put out anythiing more harmful than a fuckiing dandeliion. iit2 lame.
TT: I can imagine. My guardian doesn't really give much of a shit in that department, but sometimes my brother gets on to me. Because he sucks and also is the worst.
TA: the annoyiing orange one?
TT: Holy shit, I need to refer to him like that from now on. His name is Dirk.
TT: Well, it was Dirk. Now it's "The Annoying Orange One."
TT: He's only two years older than Dave and I, but he acts like he's the hottest shit around. He acts like he's an adult sometimes, but he's still just a 15 year old who tries to make his voice deeper, you know?
TA: ii dont. ii have a brother but he act2 liike the oppo2iite of mature. he2 at hii2 be2t friiend2 hou2e riight now ii thiink.
TT: Lucky bastard. I've got four siblings and only two of them are even somewhat cool. That's on the fence though, because that statement implies Dave is cool.
TA: damn, four 2iibliing2? ii thought iit wa2 ju2t diirk and dave.
TT: No. I have two sisters, one is Dirk's age and the other is ours. I would've talked about the latter but I made an agreement with Dave to pretend she doesn't exist as a part of their increasingly ridiculous war over the last slice of pizza.
TT: Please don't tell him I told you that, there's a 96% chance that he'll break into my room and start rapping.
TT: On an unrelated note, why are you still typing in leetspeak?
TA: i kinda just forgot 2 stop? FUCK.
TT: Interesting.
TA: eh not really eheheh.
TT: Hm.
TA: hm??
TT: Interesting.
TA: alright your responses are weirdly fast and formulaic. is this some kind of joke?
TT: It seems you have asked about Hal Strider's chat client auto-responder. This is an application designed to ironically simulate HS's otherwise inimitably rad typing style, tone, cadence, personality, and substance of retort while he is away from the computer. The algorithms are guaranteed to be 69% indistinguishable from HS's native neurological responses, based on some statistical analysis that doesn't exist and is purely so I can shoehorn "69" into this message.
TA: seriously?
TT: It seems you have asked about Hal Strider's chat client auto-responder. This is an application designed to ironically simulate HS's otherwise inimitably rad typing style, tone, cadence, personality, and substance of retort while he is away from the computer. The algorithms are guaranteed to be 69% indistinguishable from HS's native neurological responses, based on some statistical analysis that doesn't exist and is purely so I can shoehorn "69" into this message.
TA: the worst part of this is that this program is able 2 identify accurately when somebody is asking about it, and so having it respond how it does is an active choice 2 be terrible.
TT: Hm.
TA: okay im leaving now.
TT: Interesting.
twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling turingTerminated [TT].
That was very weird. You really don't know many people who would make something like that just for a joke, and not even a funny one at that. You'd be lying if you said you didn't kind of like it. The skill required to be thrown away is impressive, what can you say? The brief positive emotion towards Hal is stifled by the realization that he never sent you that thing Dave made.
The rest of the day passes by smoothly. You don't hear back from Hal, which is unfortunate but you are used to not talking to people so you manage. Your dad orders pizza for dinner, and you end up watching some movie about an evil AI and some guy named Dave. You don't really pay attention to it. Video games are played, showers are had, and you get into bed at a far more reasonable time. It doesn't take you too long to fall asleep, with your only interruption being Hal locking you out of a spaceship. You write that down because it's a bizarrely specific nightmare to have, and then fall back asleep. You wake up in the morning, somehow still tired despite your plentiful sleep, and get ready for school. Hopefully today isn't completely awful. Yesterday wasn't.