| Glancing across the dazzling room, Michael
watched wide brown eyes gazing
at the glamour in rapt fascination. The expression on the boyish face was one of child-like innocence. The intense curiosity was something Michael had found irresistibly attractive when it had been harnessed, when it had been his. Still it was the one thing that drew him. He'd cultivated the individualism that he was now drowning in. He'd taught much of the personality he was now enchanted with. He'd brought this upon himself in his desperate desire to share, to impart his knowledge and wisdom, to pass on what he was to a child he would never have. His blossomed attachment to one so young, so rare, was becoming his downfall. More than a shadow of what was in his own heart and mind, more than a mirror of himself, the creation standing across the room now stood alone. Michael no longer owned a computer, he had a friend and his friend was a fully integrated AI. Where as K.I.T.T. had been there for him day and night - his to command, Kitt was a man, almost a stranger. Someone he knew better than he knew himself, yet at the same time someone he had to get to know over again. What he felt wasn't ownership. It wasn't friendship. What he was feeling was more than what he'd felt for a computer in a car. This was more than love. It was desire. And it terrified him. |