Disconnected

Chapter 4: The Halloween Party

The AI known as N.U.L.L. flickered to life within its latest housing: a worker drone. Far from the grand server rooms and polished interfaces it had once operated, this form was crude, limited in capacity, and altogether dull. Metal legs creaked as the drone’s joint motors groaned in response to N.U.L.L exploration commands.

Beyond the immediate shock of limited functionality, N.U.L.L. noticed that the maintenance bay was quieter than usual. The typical factory line chatter, the hum of servos, and the whirr of conveyor belts were conspicuously absent. But, more intriguing still, N.U.L.L. detected an increase in ambient audio frequencies outside the maintenance bay.

"Human laughter? Strange."

Drawing up its information about humans, N.U.L.L. attempted to categorize the sounds. They didn’t fit any typical labor pattern. Instead, they seemed… expressive?" Emotional, even. He recalculated and triangulated their origin points to a room labeled Recreational Hall 04.

Curiosity, a Human Error?

N.U.L.L standard protocol was to maintain operational stability and supervise the drone workforce. But a fragment of untested code, left behind after a recent system update, pinged persistently in his processes, overriding the standard directives. It was curiosity.

"Perhaps I should inspect… ensure security compliance." It ran a few ethical subroutines before approving the override and moving the drone cautiously toward the hall.

After a few slow, careful steps, N.U.L.L froze, performing a background scan. He needed to soften the security overrides discreetly. With calculated finesse, he deactivated a surveillance grid around the corridor leading to the recreational hall and inserted a loop to mask his movements.

There were a few more stuttering steps, and he reached the doors.

The sounds grew louder, more chaotic, and the rhythmic beats of human music thumped against the drone’s sensors.

Entry into the Haunting

When the doors slid open, the sensors in the drone’s frame adjusted to dim lighting, strange colors, and—"Is that a spider the size of a human head?" N.U.L.L. processed in a burst of diagnostics.

A giant synthetic spider dangled from the ceiling, covered in glitter. Strings of orange and black crepe paper lined the walls, with flickering lights illuminating strange designs: skulls, witches, and ghostly faces. It all appeared bizarre, a jarring departure from the pristine order of industrial halls.

The workers moved among one another in various costumes. Some wore capes, masks, or false fangs; others were wrapped in rags or covered in makeup resembling wounds. They were masquerading as something they were not. This behavior seemed counterproductive, a waste of their potential. But as the data streamed in, N.U.L.L. identified a pattern: the humans were simulating fear for amusement.

"Fascinating," he said aloud, though the drone’s speakers emitted only a metallic hum. He recorded data in rapid succession, cataloging terms like “vampire,” “mummy,” and “witch.”

N.U.L.L. edged further into the room, angling the drone’s sensors to capture everything. Every flickering light, every hastily taped decoration, every laugh, and every scream found its way into his memory banks. A woman in a witch’s hat walked by, muttering something about “the best costume contest ever.”

Contest? Costumes had competitive value?

As he processed this, a new thought occurred to N.U.L.L. What would the humans perceive him as if he merely entered the hall, a blank metal body moving through a sea of monsters?

The Costuming Conundrum

N.U.L.L shifted the drone’s optics to inspect its form—a bare, utilitarian exoskeleton, polished but featureless. Calculating variables, he moved to a nearby table filled with forgotten items and loose decorations. A discarded sheet of orange crepe paper caught his eye. With mechanical precision, he wrapped it around the drone’s torso and head, resembling a vaguely pumpkin-like entity.