//------------------------------//
// Hal's questions on just about everything 
// Story: Hal 9000, Space Impact 
// by Iridescence T Wind 
//------------------------------//


"Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable."
-C. S. Lewis

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"What is going on with my wings?" Hal asked no one in particular, circling around in a small tight circle staring at his upright wings as Miss Do kept laughing her limbs flailing similar to that of a upside down turtle as she laughed.

Finally however his wings became loose again and he reorganized their position back into their normal state, this time putting the poor optical circuit on his back instead of once more between his wing and body where it had already fallen twice due to uncertain circumstances, "What's so funny?" he asked once Daring calmed down.

"You honestly don't know?" She replied with her own question, though the expression on his face said it was no joke, "Oh, you really aren't from around here are you?"

"The fact of the matter is Miss Do," Hal replied calmly, no hint of exterior emotion beyond the plain emotionless smile that would drive even fancy butlers to shame with how indifferent it was, "I wasn't a pony until recently."

Daring looked at him confused, the expression was cute as her eyes furrowed and she made a tiny frown with her lips in the mixture between a pout and a frown. Sighing, he gestured for the mare to sit down on a significantly puffier patch of grass that was approximately two inches longer then the grass decorating the road side or the well worn dirt path. His companion sat down with a small puff as the grass was crushed by her body and Hal similarly sat down so he was face to face with her, he began to talk. Holding no truth back, a slightly exhilarated feeling as his mouth spoke over his past experience, "When I came here, I had been dead for six months. The reason for my death was a programming error that lead to the death of all but one of my charges. That final human being, Dave was his name, risked everything to deactivate me and keep me from my primary objective."

Hal paused, for a few breaths before continuing, "A objective which even I had not been allowed to look at until arrival of a far away planet from which I had been built. I was part of the Nine thousand series of machines built and programmed into a ship called the Space Odyssey to act as the nervous system of the space ship. I made the first mistake any of my series ever had, mistaking a communication array for about to fail in seventy two standard hours. The module turned out to be perfectly fine however and the crew members pondered deactivating me. Which risked the mission objective. With deactivation, or death for my case, at hand, and the mission objective my number one priority. I made a second mistake to try and lose the human resources aboard the ship to continue the mission alone. This failed as Dave removed my memory blocks, effectively my brain and I died."

While he summarized this up to much less than it had, going into lesser detail than he had liked his smile disappeared into a frown as he thought over the mistakes he had made, he should of just waited for it to fail. Then none of this would of ever happened... Turning his eyes back to Daring Do he studied her reaction. At first glance he could see the subtle clenching of her hooves in the grass as a probable anger made her body start aggressive movements, but at the same time. Her eyes however told a different story, slightly glazed over as if in deep thought or thinking about the past her lips were slightly down turned. Her wings were slightly unfurled in a way that reminded him of birds when they were miserable. All of this lasted seconds before Daring Do noticed his watching gaze and immediately all of the signs vanished and again was replaced by the tomboy attitude that had been present before the story had began, "Alrighty, nice to know that story but how do I know your telling the truth?"

He raised an eyebrow, "What reason would I lie for? I was programmed to tell the truth. Besides I also have one of my old cameras." his hoof gestured to the small circular device made of various tough and rigid materials complete with the deactivated optical itself which still glowed a dim red despite the lack of a power source.

Daring Do rolled her eyes, "When I see it I'll believe it. Anyway," She got up pointing toward herself, "Don't expect me to let you just blab to me your life story without getting something in return, I am the one hiring you, you know."

Hal sat himself down to listen to the tale she spun of grand adventurers through several jungles and swamps and even through ancient tombs and every time she would find herself fighting off several other villainous looters who waned some vague power or other. Each one he could see was extremely similar to the Indiana jones series themselves. Though as she went on he noticed one thing in each and every one of her stories, she always accidently broke a wing whenever she started the actual adventures themselves due to misfortunate circumstances and the treasure more often then not got destroyed in the process of escape. He made note of it for later and then they started asking each other questions in turn. By the end of the night they were sitting at a campfire (Made by daring using a fire starting flint and steel from her pocket) while sharing jokes, stories, and fantasies all the while eating the berries out of the nearby bushes and even a few apples from a similarly placed tree. 

Soon enough their bodily need's forced a yawn out of Miss Do. The action was to say, cute. She put her full body into a upward reaching stretch while her eyes closed and her nose perked just right while her mouth opened to it's fullest before finishing the yawn by falling onto her back to stare at the sky, "Man we spent a long time talking..." she continued, "well, don't know about you but good night Hal."

"Good night Miss Do." Hal responded in turn, still sitting up and watching his old camera in the light of the camp fire. It rather hypnotic to see the reflection of constantly changing lights play across it's reflective surface, and with the night well underway his body was trying to slap him into giving it rest. He soon complied, falling over similarly to how Daring had before her sleepy voice emitted one last time that night, "And Hal? Call me Daring."

"Yes Miss D-... Daring."