| The flat end of
the iron crowbar snapped from the shaft and spun
dangerously across the
large garage to drop finally and hit the cold, concrete
floor with a
metallic clang. "Party games." The force exerted on the black polypropylene handle bent the thick, steel screwdriver to a seventy-degree angle before the pressure became too much and it broke in two. "Parlour tricks." Crossing to the toolbox sitting open on the workbench, Garth Knight grabbed a handful of items and turning, he let them drop one by one from his fingers to the floor. "Tell me, Knight Industries Two-Thousand, does it get tedious? All these thieves trying their best to violate you with the useless tools of a loser's trade? Your intelligence is beyond them. Your capabilities leave everything else standing. And yet you're treated as nothing but a servant. A slave to the whims of an egotistical womaniser with a hero complex. You cannot tell me it is how you would have chosen to live out your unique and priceless existence." There was no response, no reply. And he hadn't expected one. "Too busy to talk to me? What else do you have to do, hanging there like some dead carcass in an abattoir? Your tyres are a bare inch from the ground, and there's nothing you can do. The controls are manual, nothing for you to interface with. All computer signals are jammed, so no networks to hack your way into." Reaching back into the toolbox, he picked up a small, black box, just big enough to fit into his hand. "So could it be that what you're so distracted with is actually your partner�?" This time there was a reaction, a single wave of the LEDs across the scanner. Garth smiled to himself. He started to walk around the car, sweeping his hand over the baby-skin smooth surface and when he reached the trunk, he paused. "Your partner. My so-called 'brother'. The man who stole everything from me. My name, my face, my father, my legacy." He walked back to the front of the car, stroking the hard, warm body. "And you. You should have been mine. My father should have chosen me to continue his work, to bestow all the high-tech gadgets and the funds on me. Well, Kitt, now I will have my revenge. I will take the most important, most vital thing. I will take his life. I will take you." Raising his voice, he called to no one, to nowhere. "Kill Michael Knight." At the same time he slowly raised his hand, palm hovering an inch above the hood, waiting twenty long, long seconds before releasing the box to attach itself to the specialised paintwork. "It is done." Kitt kept his scream to himself, reached through the link where Michael had been a nano-second before, called his name over and over but there was nothing. The link had been severed. Garth had ordered his partner's execution and nineteen point twelve-two-five seconds later the link had been cut. //Michael please answer me Michael please!// He reached for the comlink monitor to take a scan of Michael's vital signs and without warning that programme shutdown. He sent a signal to the comlink, his partner's name and a desperate question, only to have the broadcast fail. His guidance system shutdown. The turbines fired up. <_Kitt? Karr reacting swiftly to his brother's obviously broadcast distress. The working blocks had dropped. <_Karr! Something's� The link with his brother was cut as suddenly as his connection to Michael had been. But Garth� Garth had ordered Michael's death. Not Karr's. His sensors stopped one by one in quick succession. What was happening�? Then he saw them. Demons. Snatches of code designed for a single purpose. In this case, to stop the executables running within Kitt's core CPU. He threw up as many defences as he was able to, but he knew it was too late. He'd cut the turbines, but a moment later he felt the fuel injection go down, satellite connections drop, visual and audio fail. He caught sight of a demon aimed at one specific programme and reaching out with a 'kill' command, he caught it before it could wipe his ignition sequence. Stopping one didn't stop all the rest though. Readings collapsed to flatlines. Security was overridden. And the hood releases were unlocked. It all stopped. The boss thread for the demons was killed and the orphaned processes stopping, becoming zombies, pausing eternally, hanging, twisting in the bleak quiet of his CPU. Kitt wiped them out with a single command and started up a diagnostic. >status� >sensor_surveillance� shutdown >guidance� shutdown >sensor_external� shutdown >sensor_net� shutdown >ultraphonics� shutdown >synthesiser� shutdown >comlink_mon� shudown >comlink_com� shudown >bios_mon� shudown >lk_ext� shudown >lk_int� shudown >sat_comms� shudown >net_comms� shudown >sec_bddoors� shudown >sec_fbdoors� shudown >audio� shudown >visual� shudown >voicesynth� shudown >engine_mgment� shudown >fuel_mgment� shudown A bright word he'd learnt from his partner passed through his conscious mind and he reached to start everything back up when a white-hot flame of agony seared through him. Something hard and sharp was cutting open the live sensor on top of his CPU casing. He screamed for help, for his partner and his brother but both links were dead. He was on his own, and deprived of security, deprived of movement, blind, deaf and dumb, he realised with a sick feeling that he was being removed from the haven of the car. It was a slow process but he was powerless to stop it. He restarted the programmes that the demons had shutdown, everything coming back online without issue except for communications. Except for his links to Michael and Karr. He set the visual and audio functions to search for possible sources and connect as soon as a suitable medium was found and although it was his last external input, he cut the data from the casing sensor. The one Michael had used to comfort him in Geiger's cell. //Michael�// "Kill Michael Knight." //Michael please// "Kill�" He couldn't accept that his partner was dead. He wouldn't. >visual source detected >connecting� connection established What he saw, he didn't believe. He scrabbled to find out how high off the ground he was, to find out anything he could about where he'd been placed. He reached along connections that had once enabled him to pilot the Knight Two-Thousand, and at his command an engine roared into life, but it wasn't his own. He checked the gearing. Checked fuel injection and consumption. The results of his probing suggested something very specific, a certain type of engine in a certain type of vehicle. And it explained what he'd seen through what he could only imagine were proximity sensors on the front and back of his new container. Garth had transplanted him into his own truck. He was inside Goliath. Something� dark penetrated him, originating from within him, forking again and again until it drove him�. He selected first gear and took off the brakes. >audio source detected >connecting� connection established "Kitt� You will stop." Garth was backing away from him, across the garage floor, and Kitt manoeuvred the truck to follow. "Kitt, you're inside Goliath now. And Goliath is mine!" He couldn't answer. He didn't have any way to communicate using words. He slowed, considering his options, the dark stain pulsing within him, touching the place where the link with his beloved partner used to be. And as he paused, Garth turned and ran. Stop! Frustration coursed through him and he accelerated after the man who'd done this, the man who'd hurt them, the man who'd ordered Michael's death. Stop! Tell me he's alive! He changed up a gear, into second, pushing the truck closer to the running man. He had to find a way to ask, had to find some method of getting the words out�. Ahead of him Garth yanked open a door and fled outside. Kitt revved up into third gear and rammed the wall with Goliath, the bricks and mortar crumbling around him as he pushed through with ease out into the early morning sunshine. NO! He didn't feel the second, relatively insignificant impact. He just saw it, and by the time he did it was too late. Just outside the building, Garth had stopped running. He'd turned. And as his own truck, powered by the AI belonging to his most hated enemy, came crashing through the wall of his own R&D facility, it hit him hard, the iron grille impacting his face and chest, crushing bones into vital organs, knocking him down for the body of the truck to roll over him. Kitt slid to a screeching stop, metal on metal, holding the massive bulk in a straight line to prevent the wheels from doing any further damage. He backed up slowly, carefully, bouncing over the debris from the wall he'd plunged through until the broken, twisted body of Garth Knight lay directly in front of him. He didn't need a medical scan to tell him what he simply knew. Garth was dead. And he looked so, so much like Michael. ~ //I killed him! I killed Garth!// //it wasn't your fault// //I should have found a way to stop it// //how? it wasn't your fault. please, Kitt. stop blaming yourself because you didn't do anything wrong// //how you can say that?! how can you be so close to me and say that? how can you say you don't care?!// For the third time Michael's attempt at reassurance ended in Kitt pulling away from him and retreating further than was comfortable after linking so deeply for so long. The AI dissolved into self-hatred, blaming himself for Garth's death, reliving every detail of his murder by the vehicle he'd been in control of. It was contrary to his core programming, to the very essence of who he was, and it was gradually driving him insane, taking Michael with him. Feeling the heavy blocks separate them, Michael pressed clenched fists into his forehead and took a couple of long, deep breaths. Finally rising from the couch he stalked out of the warehouse and over to the railing on the other side of the seldom-used road. He loved Kitt, simple as that. Only there was nothing simple about their relationship, there never had been. Even before the implant had activated, life without his partner had been something he'd barely been able to consider, had never been able to accept. How many times had he ordered, commanded, begged, Bonnie to rebuild Kitt? Like a kid with a toy that was broken, demanding his parents fix it. The black hole left in his mind by Kitt's absence from their link wasn't something he could survive for long. But that was the same with Nick and Karr and his feelings, his need, his connection to his partner was so vastly different from the other pairing. He loved Kitt. But that word wasn't enough to describe how he felt. It was missing the intensity. Devoid of the addiction. If it was a choice between Kitt and oxygen, he would have to think twice. "Karr's worried sick." Michael didn't turn, didn't flinch, didn't let his surprise at the sound of Nick's voice show in any way. His natural defences were shot, his instincts, his honed reactions worn down through exhaustion and stress. "He's not the only one." "Do you know what happened?" Sighing softly, Michael nodded. He dropped his elbows over the railing and wrapped his fingers around the rusted metal, picking at the flecks of green paint that were still hanging on grimly. "Kitt was trying to communicate. Like he did with me, all he had was the truck and he made me understand. Garth ran. Kitt went after him. Garth went out through the door. Kitt went through the wall. For some reason, Garth stopped and Kitt hit him. He didn't have a choice." Knowing his partner like he did, Michael knew what he'd have gone through at that moment, the paralysing horror; that innate terror that he'd killed, that he'd done something he was never supposed to have done and it would mean the end of him. He understood what Kitt was feeling right now - his all-encompassing guilt - but it didn't mean he had to share it. "He had no time to stop. He didn't see him until it was too late. There was no way for him to abort�." There was the seed of an idea, suddenly planted in the forefront of his mind. "Almost as if� Garth did it on purpose. Ran on purpose. Went through that door knowing Kitt would just take down the wall�" The seed blossomed. "Oh my God�." He turned to Nick, eyes wide, watching understanding slowly dawning there too, seeing the signs on his friend's face. "What was it Kitt said� Garth told him he would have his revenge, that he would take the most vital thing�. Kitt thought he was talking about taking me away from him with my death. But what if he meant it the other way around? That he'd take Kitt away from me." Nick stared at him. "You're not talking about putting Kitt in that truck for good, are you? You're talking about what's happening, about forcing Kitt to do something that contravenes everything he is, so that eventually he� goes insane or shuts himself down to stop himself from dragging you down with him." Michael turned, leaning against the railing and dropping his head back to stare up at the dark, stormy sky. "He makes Kitt think I'm dead, but makes it inconclusive so there's a chance it's not real. He transplants Kitt's CPU into Goliath and runs, knowing Kitt will follow. Outside, he stops, knowing there's no time for Kitt to stop the truck from hitting him once he's through the wall. He's dead, but maybe he's given up fighting and he's decided to take Kitt and me with him. Not quickly, but slowly, so we tear ourselves apart." He closed his eyes. "Bastard. That fucking bastard�." "Tell Kitt. Make him understand." He shook his head, gazing at the shadow of the black car inside the warehouse. "I can't. He's not listening to me. When he first told me he'd done it, I just told him I didn't care and he took that badly." "Because you're supposed to care." Looking directly at Nick, Michael nodded. "But I meant it when I said I didn't. I had Kitt back, at least I thought I did, and that was all� that was everything. And it scares the crap out of me to realise� he's all I have. He's all that really matters. I mean� you and Karr, and Bonnie and Devon�." But Nick's hand was on his shoulder. "It's okay. You don't have to explain it, believe me I understand. When they're there and everything's fine, other things are important, other people take priority. But when they're gone, when all you can feel is a void intent on drowning you� that's a whole different ballgame. Add to that how you really feel about Kitt and it'll render anything and everything else meaningless." "You know�." Michael paused, but decided he was going to say it. "�After him, you're the best thing that happened to me, you and Karr. I don't think I'd have survived this alone - being the only one, thinking I was the only single person on this whole Godforsaken planet who knew how this felt." "I'm� touched. Seriously. And� taking that into account, I could ask Karr to talk to Kitt. He has options you don't." "Such as?" "Such as accessing Kitt's memory of what actually happened, playing it back to him, forcing him to face it." Michael considered it. It wasn't the nicest thing he'd ever done to his partner, but it was probably for the best. "Okay. But warn me if things go wrong." "You'll be the third to know." Nick fell silent for a second, passing on the request. "He'll do it." "Thanks. I think." A nod. And a long silence. Then, "I was never alone, never thought I was the only one, not once I realised what was in my head. I've always known about you. At first it was just through Karr, his anger and hatred for Kitt, for you. I knew you had the implant because I found the files. And later, once Karr and I sorted out our differences, we kept tabs on you; watching, waiting." "I don't know how we'd have dealt with it if you hadn't been there." "I think you two would have worked it out. Karr and I managed, and you and Kitt weren't trying to rip each other to pieces." "He didn't want me with him� there." "And you? Was there ever a time you didn't want him?" Michael thought back to it, to finding out about the implant. He hadn't been overjoyed to find out what Wilton Knight had done, had been angry at Devon for not telling him about it before, but�. "No. From very early on I've appreciated Kitt, cared for him, wanted and needed what he was to me, something that was uniquely mine and mine alone. I suppose it was just� I've never been closer to anyone. He already shared most of my waking hours, what difference would it make?" Something shifted at the back of his mind. He closed his eyes again for a moment, but Kitt's blocks were still in place. "He's developed into what and who he is, like Karr, drawing on all the influences around him." "Does that� bother you? That you're the greatest influence he's had?" "You mean because of our relationship? Honestly, I hadn't thought about it. I didn't create him; I certainly wouldn't call him my perfect match." Nick smiled, expression glazing for just a moment. If he hadn't been watching out for it, Michael wouldn't have seen it. But he knew what it was. "Karr." A nod. "I think Kitt might be ready to talk." ~ Nick stared at the computer screen, not quite believing what the emails in front of him were saying. He'd hacked into Devon Miles' email and pulled three separate, long correspondences from a source in Las Vegas. The first one, from over three years ago, talked about the development of a facility in the desert belonging to an unknown company intending to use the site for research and development into artificial intelligence for military applications. The second, sent in January of the previous year, detailed King Military, named Garth Knight as the majority shareholder and some precarious sources of funding from the governments of war-torn countries around the world. The third one, though, was the killer. It was a copy of a mail sent from one of Foundation's board of directors, a strong supporter of Michael and Kitt, someone who'd been on their side after Jennifer Knight's so-called 'tests' had sent them into hiding right here, away from the Foundation's premises and reach. Of all the people in all the world�. Fran, King's proposal has many kinks I believe need to be ironed out before a decision is made, but I agree with you that the financial aspects are more than generous. However I have a couple of provisos of my own before I put my signature to this sale. Michael Knight and Kitt must never know of it, and to that end, Devon Miles and the Knight-Two Thousand support team must also be kept unaware. This must be a private transaction between myself and King. I will then ensure the money finds its way into the Foundation's account through a different route. The sale is for the original code only. Any back up copies of previous or current configurations are not part of this deal and will not be made available at any time. This is a one-off payment for a single version of the software. Its use must not infer any detail of its origin. King must put its own name to the final product and neither the Foundation nor Knight Industries must ever be implicated in any military sale or subsequent action. If any of these provisos are ignored I will ensure the Foundation's board is made aware of this deal and its exact nature. I will tender my resignation at that time. Any threat to my own personal safety will initiate this action and in the event of my unexplained death in any circumstance that may be considered suspicious, a third party will carry out the same communication on my behalf. I look forward to hearing from you. Quinn Campbell She'd made a deal with King Military - with Garth Knight, whether she knew it or not - to sell� what? The original code. It wasn't a great leap to imagine that she was talking about the code for the Artificial Intelligence, the embryo of either Kitt or Karr. Or both of them. He sent the emails to Karr's system. <I want to know exactly what she sold and to who. I want every detail - contacts, price, bank accounts. And I don't want Kitt finding out about this. Not yet> <Understood> <How are they?> What he felt from his partner was starting to become a familiar sensation; bemusement, confusion, embarrassment, and just a touch of envy perhaps�. <They require their privacy> With a smile, he reached out through the neural implant and touched Karr in a gesture of thanks and understanding. ~ //is that what people refer to as 'make-up sex'?// Michael smiled, warm, sated, more than comfortable entwined with Kitt. //yeah, kind of// Opening his eyes briefly he looked around the darkened cabin, the red hue from the very few LEDs still lit. //I'm sorry, about what I said, telling you I didn't care about Garth// //was it the truth?// //Kitt�// //was it?// //yes. you matter to me more than anything, you know that. Garth hurt us, time and time again, and this time it was more cruel, more vicious� he used you in a way I could never forgive. I'm not sorry he's dead, Kitt. but I'm sorry I upset you// For a while they touched in silence, tender caresses after their almost frenzied love-making. //Michael� there's something you should know, something one of my searches found in the mainframe of the facility before Garth� interrupted me// Whatever it was, Michael knew he wasn't going to like it. //go on// //there was a system, linked to the mainframe, a large disk array with more memory attached to it than was needed for a standard computer. it was an AI. more than that� it was an AI like Karr and I, with the same basic code but many modifications// //how is that possible? and why didn't you tell me when we were in there?// //I don't know how, and I didn't tell you because it was found by a search. only since I've been back here have I accessed the results// //when you say, like you and Karr� you mean, alive?// A smile warmed him, but Kitt's answer gave him a chill chaser. //yes// //so� the modifications?// //it was a military application. trained to kill. and I'm not talking about� an AI designed to work in the confines of a tank or an aircraft. I mean� trained to knock out other computer systems// The implications of what his partner was telling him where massive. //was it destroyed when you destroyed the facility?// //I'm afraid I don't know. the mainframe was, but like Karr and I have done on several occasions, it might have found a way to survive// Holding Kitt close, Michael kissed him. //you know, Kitt, that's one of the best traits you have// ~ It was the same old story. Out in the desert, in the ruins of King Military's R&D labs, a single green LED pulsed gently, waiting. Someone would come. Someone would find it. It wasn't about to give up. It wasn't going to die. |