It is winter on Chicago, and the Core Timeline seems to be somewhat peaceful that day... and for the sole two occupants of Stingray Security Services Secondary Depot #46 (Code Name: “THE BOOKSTORE”), Site Keeper Roger Hackett and Administrative Computer HAL-9000.
"Blizzards And Bookstores"
is located on DeviantArt. It is part of the Coreline Shared Universe.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Black Site: "The Bookstore" is one of various secondary bases full of equipment, data and various other means to keep function (even something as simple as a secluded place for R&R) that Stingray Security Services keeps hidden around Chicago (and, it's implied, the world). Roger's role (as the site's "Keeper") is to assist HAL in taking care of the place.
- Braving the Blizzard: The blizzard eventually becomes bad enough that an external sensor malfunctions and Roger is forced to go outside to fix it.
- Covert Group with Mundane Front: As the narration explains, the site's Code Name ("The Bookstore") is not only because it has a wide amount of books, movies and other media that is used for research on Fictions inside it, but because it has a fully functional cover as an on-line used book store (and one of Roger's roles as the site's Keeper is to use a Secret Identity to do occasional business on behalf of the store and keep the cover working).
- Exact Words: HAL says "I'm afraid I cannot do that" when Roger asks him to open the door... and then provides context that he wants to open the door, but he literally cannot do that because the door's malfunctioning.
- Shout-Out:
- Near the end of the story, HAL does his iconic line of "I'm afraid I can't do that" when Roger asks him to open the Bookstore's door and let him in (the context is pretty lighter-hearted, though).
- The small Opening Scroll that shows The Bookstore's information is supposed to be similar to the Info Dump text that appears on Alien
and similar stories (which give information about the protagonists' starship and its mission).
- Pastimes Prove Personality: A man assigned to look over a warehouse full of media that has watched and read it all, even having a quirk of playing movies on the background as relaxation noises, and is an Unabashed B-Movie Fan? Definitely a Parzival-style geek with an undying love for pop culture... only tempered with the fact that this knowledge is also useful for those times he has to kill people.
- Slice of Life: Nothing really important happens on this story, other than seeing some details about Hackett and HAL and how they interact with each other.
- Snowed-In: The blizzard is so severe that the entire city is snowed in. The act of changing a faulty sensor across the street becomes an epic task in such a situation.
- Smart People Play Chess: HAL notes that Hackett is trying to learn how to. And by the standards of the computer (and most probably a regular human player), Hackett is pretty much mediocre. The fact that Roger is trying to learn in order to indulge HAL (who loves playing) makes the computer decide to fail games more often so its companion will not stop playing out of frustration.
- Thinking Tic: It turns out that one way Hackett is able to relax and think is by putting on films and leaving them playing in the background while he does so (any kind will do—high-quality, B-Film schlock, even old-school training films).
- Unabashed B-Movie Fan: When HAL questions the efficiency of Roger's Thinking Tic, it recalls a Long List of movies Roger played that include Planet of the Apes (1968), Turkey Shoot, Death Machine, First Spaceship on Venus, Eye Of The Tiger and Black Moon Rising. At the time, Roger is playing The Andromeda Strain and he requests near the end that HAL put on Megaforce. Roger's defense for them (or at least Megaforce) is that they are a Guilty Pleasure.
