Douglas Hall

Douglas Hall is the main protagonist of the 1999 Josef Rusnak film The Thirteenth Floor. He is a sapient computer program inhabiting a simulation of 1999 Los Angeles, a fact he was not aware of, and even helped create another simulation within the simulation. Within the 1999 simulation, he appears to be a regular human, and is modeled after one of his creators, David.
Like John Ferguson and David, Douglas Hall is portrayed by Craig Bierko.
==Biography==
===Early life===
Around 2018, a couple of software developers, named David and Jane, created thousands of simulations filled with sapient simulated humans. Douglas Hall, presumably with memories of a full life, was created in a simulation of 1999 Los Angeles, modeled after David, and given David's personality. However, David soon spiraled into delusions of godhood, terrorizing the simulations, although this did not affect Douglas or his simulation. Within the 1999 simulation, Douglas was employed by a man named Hannon Fuller. Alongside Fuller and a software developer named Jason Whitney, he helped create a simulation within the simulation over six years, theirs modeled after 1937 Los Angeles and also populated by sapient simulated humans, known as units, holding the server room in the 13th floor of the company's building.
=== The Thirteenth Floor===
Around June 18th, 2024, David swapped minds with Douglas and used his body to murder Hannon Fuller. Douglas woke up the next morning with no memory of the previous night, but found his clothes covered in blood. He was then called by the police and notified of Fuller's death, meeting with a detective named Larry McBain, traveling with him to Fuller's apartment at the top of his company's building. There, Douglas met Jane, in the body of another simulated person and claiming to be Jane Fuller, Hannon Fuller's estranged daughter from Paris. While first skeptical, Douglas couldn't shake the feeling of having had met Jane before, as he unconsciously retained some of David's memories, soon growing closer to her as he tried to adjust to life without Fuller. Between romancing Jane, Douglas also found out that he was named heir to the company, as Fuller had altered his will a few days before being killed, and thus inherited both the company and a great deal of wealth. However, that made him the prime suspect in the murder.
Then, a bartender who saw the murder confronted Douglas, tried to extort him for money in exchange for being silent, before attacking him when Douglas said he didn't know what the bartender was talking about. Douglas managed to fight back and force the bartender to run, who was brutally murdered shortly afterwards, by none other than David, who used Douglas' body again. The police, believing Douglas did it due to the evidence pointing to him, arrest him, but he was freed after Jane returned and gave him an alibi. Beginning to doubt his own innocence due to the strong evidence against him, Douglas tried to reach Jane again, only to find that she had apparently returned to Paris, and that Fuller had left him a message on the night he died. Douglas found the message on his phone, which told him to find yet another message within the 1937 simulation, managing to convince Whitney to let him upload his mind into the 1937 simulation for two hours, swapping minds with a banker named John Ferguson, who was modeled after him. Before entering, he found that Fuller had been accessing the simulation for months, and using it to have sex with the simulated women, also getting the identity and location of the unit whose body Fuller had been using. Entering the simulation, Douglas looked around in awe, leaving his position and entering a bathroom to feel the water, and managed to brush off questions from Ferguson's manager and get a break, setting out to find Fuller's unit. He found the unit, named Grierson, in a pawn shop, although Grierson did not remember anything Fuller did. Douglas set out to find another unit Fuller interacted with on his last day in the simulation, finding said unit, a showgirl, in a fancy hotel. When he tried asking her about Fuller, he was instead directed to bartender Jerry Ashton. When asked about a message left by Fuller, Ashton claimed to not know anything, and Douglas' time in the simulation began to elapse, which made him nauseously run into a bathroom before his mind was pulled back to his body in 1999.
Douglas, against Whitney's warnings, later reentered the 1937 simulation, but forgot to engage a timer that would automatically pull him from the simulation. He awoke in John's body, in the middle of a dance competition, abandoning John's partner and leaving to find Grierson, although it was the middle of the night. He threw a rock through Grierson's window, getting his attention and telling Grierson that he could answer why Grierson would sometimes wake up not knowing what he did last night or in places that he didn't remember going to. Grierson, inviting Douglas inside, explained that he found a tuxedo in his size which he did not remember buying, and sometimes woke up with perfume on him. Douglas brought him to the hotel Ashton worked at, where Fuller frequented, figuring Grierson could still help him. He managed to awaken some of Grierson's latent memories from Fuller, finding that Fuller had left the message with Ashton, before seeing Ashton duck into a locker room. Douglas followed him, finding Ashton carrying a pistol, and found that Ashton had discovered that 1937 was a simulation, as he had read Fuller's letter, which had instructions to drive somewhere far away and keep going, which led Ashton to the edge of the simulation. Douglas, while trying to reassure Ashton that he was never meant to find the truth, was confused as to why Fuller would want to write to him about the limits of a simulation he helped develop. Then, Ashton shot him in the leg, as Douglas realized that the computer wasn't pulling him out of the simulation yet. Ashton shot Douglas again while laughing maniacally, prompting Douglas to run down a hallway out of the locker room and to the hotel's pool, where he managed to ambush Ashton and take his gun, pressing it against Ashton and demanding to see the letter. However, when given the letter, Ashton managed to throw Douglas into the pool and begin drowning him, but Douglas was manually pulled out of the simulation by Whitney just in time, instinctively grabbing Whitney by the neck before realizing he was out.
Douglas was later met with McBain, and told that Hannon Fuller never had a daughter. Confused, and thinking of Fuller's letter, Douglas tried tracking Jane down, instead finding Natasha Molinaro, the simulated woman whose body Jane had been using, and who did not recognize Douglas despite his attempt to talk to her. Realizing what that must mean, Douglas decided to follow Fuller's instructions, driving out to a desert and ramming through roadblocks while trying to reach Tucson, before seeing the world dissolve into wireframe, realizing that 1999 itself was just another simulation. Now knowing the truth, he was contacted by Jane again, who had taken Natasha's body once more, and met with her within Fuller's apartment. Jane explained more of the truth to Douglas, such as the fact that David had used Douglas' body to murder Fuller, as Fuller had found out he was a simulation and was discovered by David. Douglas, depressed by knowing he was nothing more than electrolytes in a computer, tried to tell Jane that he wasn't even real, but Jane told him that she had fallen in love with him, as he kept the noble personality David once had. The two then slept together, before Douglas was called by the building's security, told that Whitney was acting strangely.
Going to investigate, Douglas found that a security guard was assaulted and had his gun stolen, also finding Whitney with the gun sitting in a conference room, admiring various TV screens. However, Douglas quickly found out that Whitney's body was taken over by Ashton's mind, as Whitney had just plugged himself into the simulation and was killed in it, meaning that his mind died in Ashton's body and Ashton's mind woke up in his body. Douglas then turned off the screens, but before Ashton could shoot him, Douglas told him that 1999 was another simulation, using a pinball machine to illustrate the concept. Ashton, also dejected by knowing he was still in a simulation, asked to see the computers that made him. Taking the elevator to the computer lab with Ashton, Douglas' body was taken over again by David, who murdered Ashton and attempted to rape and kill Jane, only to be shot by McBain, who had also found out about the simulations and was called in advance by Jane. With David dead in Douglas' body, Douglas awoke in David's body in 2024, taking off the VR headset David was using and finding the real Jane in the living room, first seeing a newspaper that showed him the date. Jane took Douglas to the porch, showing the Los Angeles of 2024, which consisted of futuristic cities atop islands, where Douglas also saw Jane's father, realizing that Fuller was modeled after him while Jane begins to tell Douglas more about 2024. However, it is unclear if 2024 itself is yet another simulation.
Category:Science Fiction Heroes
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Category:Artificial Intelligence
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