Several people had told Angel she had a brain the size of a computer.

Her father said it a lot when he was annoyed with her, and Clyde sometimes mentioned it. She was never sure how to feel when she drew comparisons between Clyde and her father. It was to be expected, since they both cared about her.

Well, her father told her he cared about her. The thing was, even though he said it less, when Clyde mentioned it, it felt like he meant it.

Regardless, the people Angel cared about always told her she had a big brain.

So, when she saw the program successfully upload, she was crushed.

A little background: the Vault Hunters had just successfully defeated the Destroyer, the monster that appeared when they opened the Vault. Already, Jack had ordered her to take any video evidence from the battle and edit him into it. With the modern state of computer generated effects, she could easily do that, and make it believable.

Angel was so busy working on the first part of the Hyperion plan that she didn't notice the second part: eliminate the evidence.

In hindsight, it made sense. All Jack needed to do was kill off, or at least, silence or discredit, anybody who knew that he wasn't the one who opened the Vault. This would include both the people of Pandora and, to a lesser extent, Hyperion. They knew that he was just a code monkey, so he had to make his move while they were distracted with something else.

A disastrous product malfunction on Pandora would do the trick. And, since there were plenty of them around the planet and it had a rather fragile AI, the Claptrap line of products would do the job perfectly.

Unlike most of his work, Jack wrote this program and set it up to be submitted on his own. He figured that, if he was going to be pretending to work at his desk at Hyperion, he might as well write up the virus himself.

He never thought to tell Angel, figuring she didn't have to know. Why would she care about some random robots?

So that was why, as Angel finished blocking off all communications to Pandora, she just realized there was a program being exported out of her satellite. A quick viewing of the contents of the program, as well as it's intended destination, made her realize how dire the situation was.

She had a brain the size of a computer, but even as she felt the program figuratively slip through her fingers, she realized that that might not be enough to protect the people she cared about.

It seemed that, despite the fact that they seemed to be everywhere, there were never any Claptrap units around when something interesting was happening. At least, that's how it felt to Clyde.

Right now, the Vault Hunters were having a badass final battle with whatever was inside of the Vault. Angel was the one that told him that whatever was in the Vault was a monster, so he was looking forward to seeing that.

She probably read it somewhere, Clyde thought to himself. She seemed like the type to read. She probably curled up by a fire place, drinking a cup of tea and wearing glasses...and nothing else…

Clyde shook his head. It was weird. He never really had to deal with...whatever thought like that were. The Claptrap would always make random jokes about sex and whatnot, but this was the first time Clyde himself was actually feeling stuff like this.

He would talk to someone about it, but his choices in conversation were a small army of annoying robots or the exact person he was having the fantasies about.

He suddenly felt something make a connection to the Fyrestone Claptrap. Usually, this would be Angel. However, he could tell this wasn't her. Angel was gentle when she connected to him. This was a sudden force, like a waterfall to the face.

Clyde was about to investigate when he was blinded by a dark red light.

And, for the first time in his life, he blacked out.

For the longest time, Angel couldn't connect to the Claptrap Cloud, and therefore couldn't communicate with Clyde.

While Angel could potentially deal with any sort of technology, the fact that this program corrupted the default Claptrap AI, which was eccentric and unreliable enough on it's own, made the impossible to read anything in it. She could sort through the data, but it was impossible for her to change it or even enter VR mode.

What was even worse was that Jack told her not to interfere with the program. He was somewhat aware of her soft spot of the Claptraps, but he just thought it was a weird interest of hers. He assumed that she liked them because they were everywhere and she could view Pandora through them. He understood the tactical advantage, so he let her be.

So that was why Angel was stuck doing Jack's dirty work while trying to keep track of the events of what the main Claptrap in charge had dubbed "The Robolution." She was conflicted about how to feel about it. On one hand, people were dieing, which was bad. He father claimed that these people were just insane bandits, but she had seen evidence of them actually showing a level of sanity. She showed this evidence to Jack, but he just scoffed it of as her projecting emotions onto them.

On the other hand, she was concerned about how many Claptraps were being destroyed by the Vault Hunters. Her soft spot for them aside, Angel was worried what would happen to Clyde if they destroyed all of the robots. She wasn't entirely positive how human he was, but if he was an AI and they destroyed all of the Claptraps, he would likely perish as well.

Angel was just about finished with all of the work Jack was having her do under the smoke screen of the Robolution when the Vault Hunters had taken out the lead Claptrap. After quickly making sure her father wasn't observing her, she shifted into the unit, which happened to be the Fyrestone unit.

The unit felt...tired, although she doubted it could tell. Odds are it was well overdue for a malware search, although odds were, since it was a Claptrap, it wouldn't be getting one. Regardless, it still puttered about, as if it hadn't just nearly killed every human on Pandora.

Angel didn't even give herself a second to observe the Vault Hunters. She activated the VR unit as fast as she could and entered the Claptrap Cloud.

It was never this empty before, Angel thought to herself. There weren't any Claptrap in the white area that she usually met Clyde in.

The only thing there was one black Claptrap AI.

It turned to look at her. Unlike the easy blue light that the visual lens usually housed, this Claptrap's eye was a dark red.

"Hello, meatbag." It said, in a much darker and deeper voice then Claptrap units were known for.

Angel could immediately tell that she was talking to whatever virus her father had written.

"You do a good job hiding it. The moronic meatbags that sealed me in here are unaware that you are one of them. Hell, almost all of my brothers in here believe that you're one of us." The virus continued. "But I can tell. I can smell it on you. You're a meatbag, through and through."

"Where is he?" She forcefully asked. She didn't want to spend more time talking to this unit then she had to.

The virus darkly chuckled. "Who could you possible be talking about? We all look like this. This is how a Claptrap looks...Unless this is the program you're looking for." It shifted it's form.

The virus no longer resemble a Claptrap unit, but instead took Clyde's form.

it was as if someone had cast Clyde in a perpetual shadow. Darkness was rising out of it like smoke. When it spoke, it's face stayed perfectly still, it's mouth unmoving.

"He's a poor fool." The virus said, in a distorted version of Clyde's voice. "He thinks he's one of you. A meatbag. He's been one of us for a while. The poor disillusioned soul. He even thinks he feels emotions. Fear. Loneliness." The program vanished, only to appear a few inches away from Angel. "Love."

Angel raised a growing first to the virus. "I'll ask you again, and this time remember that I have powers over technology. Where. Is. He?"

The virus backed away, but, once it was a safe distance away, it laughed. "You wouldn't hurt me. After all, Daddy made me."

It's form changed again, this time to Jack.

"He's not the only one lying. I take it you haven't told him everything. Meatbags like you alway lie about everything. Your connection to Hyperion. The reason he's here. The role you played. Tell me, if you have powers over technology, why haven't you looked into the Claptrap AI program? Because you can't, or is it because you're afraid of what you'll find?"

As it spoke, Angel began to form a ball of energy in her hand. Just as she was about to throw it at the virus, it lurched back, as if it were pulled back by a leash.

"Enough, Ina." Clyde said, holding a chain of data that was connected to the virus.

The virus chuckled. "Heard enough, Clyde? I can keep going."

"Angel." Clyde said. "I moved all the Claptraps to a different server. I'm isolating this asshole in here by himself."

"You'd know a lot about that, wouldn't you?" The virus commented.

"Come on, Angel." Clyde said. He took Angel's hand.

Angel looked at the virus, who slowly returned to it's Claptrap form. It seem looked off in the distance, as if it were waiting for something.

With a wave of his hand, Clyde took them away from the server, and once again they were surrounded by a small army of Claptrap AIs. However, Angel would not forget that the dark AI in the other server, along with what it had said.

I don't know why, but up until INA came unto the picture, this was a rough chapter to write. Angel is in an interesting place, where she cares about both JAck and Clyde. I think it's important to show her trusting Jack since she still trusts him at this point of the story. She's broken, yeah, but she still does what he says until Borderlands 2.

Clyde is another interesting thing. I was going to go more into him in this chapter, but I realized it was getting somewhat long, so I figured I might as well push that to next chapter.

If the relationship feels rushed, bare in mind that this is all skipping large portions of time (and they're both kinda lonely.)