Part Five
<_You
have a better idea?
<_How
do you intend to keep her from attacking, from injuring
you?
<_Same
as before, we just build the cage before we start rather
than during the fight
Kitt
could
feel the words, 'Are you sure?' on the peripheral of his
link with Karr, but
they weren't given voice in any way, shape or form.
<_And
then we question her?
<_We
need to know where she is and who she was linked to
<_We
need to know why she is attacking you and stop her. There may only be one way of
doing that
<_We're
not
cutting her off from her CPU
<_She's
insane, Kitt. That is no
way to
exist. If your link with
Michael was
severed would you want to be here?
<_That's
different. She hasn't ended
her own
existence. We have no right
<_We
have every right if her existence constantly threatens
yours
<_We
need to know why!
<_There
may no longer be a 'why'
There
was
no argument to that. Kitt
knew Karr was
right, he just wasn't sure he could go through with it.
<_ I
can't kill
<_Even
now,
even though she threatens your life?
<_It's
not who I was created to be
<_You
were not created to be an android, Kitt.
You were not created to be Michael Knight's� life
partner but that what
you've become
<_I
won't become a killer. Garth
- Goliath
was a killer
<_Goliath
was
a tool controlled by Garth. Even
when
your CPU was implanted into that truck, it was still a
tool
As Karr
spoke, a logical conclusion, a certainty, was built
inside Kitt's computer
brain, something so obvious he would later run a check
on all his systems to
ensure everything was running as it should have been,
that the attacks hadn't
corrupted important files.
<_That's
absolutely
what Goliath was, isn't it?
Karr� I know who was on the other end of the link,
I know why the AI's
trying to kill me
"Why
didn't she tell you she was Garth's lover?"
Perched
on
the edge of the sofa, Nick shrugged.
"I don't know. Maybe
she
knew who I was."
"Garth
never met you."
"Quinn
Campbell did. Have you had
any word from
Devon about her?"
Michael
shook his head, pausing in his pacing to gaze at his
partner through the
windshield of the Stealth. That
spark,
that notion he'd had when Nick had been talking about
Clay, and her work with
the AI� being moved to a different project a month
before�.
He took
a
single step forward, the spark finally igniting. "Oh God�."
"What
is it?"
"Nick�
I know who was on the other end of the AI's link." Turning, he glanced across at
where his
partner was sitting on Karr's hood and felt the sudden
sadness. Had they both worked
it out at the same time,
or had the answer simply bled through the link?
~
"He
planned this."
Michael
ached for his lover, standing at the metal railing
staring out with unseeing
eyes over the grey water.
"We'll
never know what actually happened, Kitt�."
"We
can take a guess, though, can't we?"
Yeah,
they
could take a guess. That
Garth somehow
found out about the neuro implants. That
he
had Clay arrange the purchase of an AI, had it trained and
developed. While at the same
time having an implant
inserted into his own head, linked to a chip in the AI's
CPU. And he'd been training
it too, weaning a
dependency on the link, making sure that when Kitt was
transplanted into
Goliath's CPU, when he was hit front-on by his own
creation, the pain, the
death, was hurled over at the AI he was linked to. An AI that had a front row seat,
and when the
horror was over was left staring madness in the face.
"If I
hadn't destroyed the lab that morning, she'd have come
after me immediately. Garth,
presumably had already given her all
the information she needed, data grabbed when he lifted
my CPU from the
car. But her CPU was moved
to the Bishop
facility along with everything else.
No
external comms ports. She
didn't have
any way of getting out."
"The
only question left is who broke into Bishop, stole the
CPU, and gave her a way
to finally get her revenge." But
he
knew it was a question for later; it wasn't concerning
Kitt at that moment.
"If
someone hurt you - killed you - I'd be after revenge
too, be they human or
AI."
"We
have a different relationship." He
wasn't
certain if he liked the thought or not, but this wasn't
the time.
"You
think Karr wouldn't do the same if it was Nick?"
Of
course
he would. He changed the
subject. "Where is she, the
AI?"
"Trapped
on a hard disk at Nick's back up facility.
When we caught her in the cage she was�
hysterical. There isn't any
sense, any logic, anymore. What
happened drove her insane. Karr
wrote in a sleep command, she should just
be looping, with no real knowledge of 'self' I suppose
is the best way of
putting up. There are no
external links,
no way for her to escape."
"And�
now what? We leave her like
that?"
"For now." Whatever Kitt and
Karr had planned, Michael wasn't sure he wanted to know
right then. "Can we go home?"
"Sure. I
should call Devon.
I was on the phone to him when all this started,
I dropped the call
mid-sentence, can't even remember what we were talking
about."
Kitt
nodded. "Call him later. Tomorrow."
A smile
slide across his face and in his mind Michael felt a
jolt of electricity. "Your
wish is my command."
"I
like it that way round."
Michael
laughed. "Yeah, you would."
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