Knight Rider AS

~F.L.A.G Underground Facility~

She woke abruptly at 4:00AM. She was surprised that everything was still dark. It must still be lights-out. The twinge in her jaw was gone, thankfully.

She stretched out in her tiny bunk, trying to enjoy the luxury of sleeping in for another hour or two. Her body just wouldn't rest anymore though. She was up.

She crawled out of bed and down the narrow ladder. Her desk had a laptop, but she wasn't interested in that right now. Someone who could only be Angela was snoring lightly in the other bunk. Kat decided to take her books with her to the kitchen.

The kitchen was deserted as well. That meant she got the whole huge space to herself. She kind of liked that. She read for a bit while she put on a pot of tea. At around five, and after two cups of tea, her stomach began to rumble.

She set about finding the ingredients for pancakes. They had the boxed stuff, but Kat didn't bother. She needed to fill up some time while everyone else woke up.

The refrigerator was a daunting monster. It was easily twelve feet tall and half that width. When she pulled open the door, it felt like she was opening a bank vault.

Next, she had to sort through the sheer mass of stuff inside. At least ten gallons of milk, and six dozen eggs. They had strawberry yogurt... she would have to remember that for later, if she could find it again.

She was just frying up a plate of silver dollar pancakes when Angela walked into the kitchen, yawning hugely. “Oh, that smells good. Whoever you are, please can I have some of that? Whatever it is.”

She made her way over to a table and slumped into a chair, her arms folded over the tabletop and she laid her head on them. Her eyes never opened.

“Not quite awake yet?” Kat joked.

“Nope, still in dreamland,” Angela murmured into her arms. “I don't recognize your voice, so therefore you must be the new Driver I saw passed out when I came in last night.”

“That's me.”

“Welcome aboard, Captain Long.” She saluted in her general direction weakly, still not lifting her head off the table.

Kat walked over and set a plate next to her, along with a bottle of syrup. “I can see I'm going to like you," she said with a smile.

Angela lifted her head. “Ooo, food.” She picked up a tiny pancake and stuffed it into her mouth, not even bothering with the syrup, or a fork. Kat placed a coffee mug on the table next to her. Angela gave her an adoring look. “I can see we're really going to get along.”

Kat's smile widened into a grin as she went back to the stove to make her own breakfast. More people were drifting into the kitchen, in varying states of consciousness. Some asked for pancakes, some fended for themselves. Carmen strode in, wide awake and talking to two of her mechanics. She was talking so fast Kat couldn't tell if she was speaking in English or Spanish. Though it sounded like both. She grabbed a liter of coffee in a travel mug and walked right out again.

After breakfast, Kat went to the main lab and talked to Pierce for several hours. He was bent on her absorbing as much information as humanly, or inhumanly, possible. He also introduced her to another new gadget.

Kat held the small vial up to the light. “Contact lenses?”

Pierce nodded, taking the vial from her and unscrewing the cap. “Try them out. They're far more useful than for mere vision correction.”

She carefully placed the contacts over her eyes. She blinked a few times, settling them in place. Pierce continued with his tutorial. “They are made of the same bio-nanos as your tooth implant, undetectable by bug sensors. With them, KITT can send you an image of anything he sees. KITT.” He called over to the car.

Suddenly a screen flared to life in front of her, showing her and Pierce sitting by his desk. The camera angle was low to the ground. Kat turned to the car and the Kat in the image turned as well. As her eyes moved around, the image stayed right in front of her.

Kat had a hard time suppressing her awe. “That's pretty cool,” she said to Pierce.

He smiled, enjoying the praise. “I know. KITT can also see what you see.” He handed her book back to her. “Time to go back to studying. I have work to do. There are several programs for KITT that are still in development.”

More reading wasn't appealing right now, so she tried stalling. “Oh, like what? I thought the car was finished.”

Pierce pushed his glasses up his nose. “Hardly. KITT is an ongoing project. He is constantly being upgraded as we collect more field data. His nano-skin, for example, has much more potential than we originally realized. We are trying to discover ways to exploit it as much as possible.” He turned a monitor to face Kat. There was a folder open, and a list of at least a hundred programs.

“Some of them are useless," he explained. “Or, not really useless, but they have no practical purpose. In some cases, they are liabilities.” He indicated one with his mouse. “This one here. It allows KITT to detect and interpret physical sensation through his nano-skin.”

“Physical sensation?” Kat's eyebrows raised. “Like... pain?”

He thought a moment. “Yes, I suppose it could be used in that capacity as well.” He smiled. “You can see why it's not practical though. Driving a car that could feel pain when he is capable of plowing through a brick wall.”

Kat nodded. “Yes, definitely a liability.” She had a musing expression on her face. She glanced over at K.I.T.T. She wondered if she could ever get Pierce to test out that program in her presence. That over-hyped tin can could use a good swift kick to its rear axle.

Pierce went back to his work and Kat moved to an unoccupied desk to continue her studying.

“You don't like me,” K.I.T.T stated flatly. It hadn't spoken aloud, only in her own ear. It had startled her for a second, but then she remembered the dental implant. Her jaw was still tender, so she wondered how she had forgotten it.

She turned her head to it. “Why do you say that?” She kept her voice low, so as not to call attention to the fact that she looked like she was talking to herself. She had strived to remain as professional as possible, and not let the weirdness of her new situation get to her. Knowing that it was only temporary had helped.

“You think I am nothing but an over-hyped block of junk metal that would have served a better purpose decorating a scrap yard," the car accused, the red light on the front sped up in its agitation.

Kat's eyes widened. “Holy crap, you can read minds too?” she whispered incredulously.

“No,” K.I.T.T said dryly, the red light paused. “You talk in your sleep.”

“Oh.” She relaxed, then became upset again. “Why are you listening to me sleep?”

“I have no choice,” K.I.T.T answered at once. “My primary directive is to preserve human life. And I am linked to you more completely than any other human. As my Driver, you are my direct responsibility. I must ensure that nothing happens to you.”

Kat frowned. “I can take care of myself, even when I am sleeping," she pointed out tersely. Was this more of that sexist crap again?

“I am not saying you are incapable, but we are still linked.” There was a pause. “And it's not like I have anything else to do with my time.”

Was it just her, or was there an edge to the car's voice? She decided quickly that it was just her. She raised her hands up placatingly. “You know what? It's fine. Whatever makes you happy.” She got up from the desk and walked away, muttering to herself. “I'm not arguing with a car.”

After Kat had left, K.I.T.T sat in silence. His red light flowed left to right, faster and faster. Pierce noticed his agitation from the corner of his eye. “Something wrong, KITT?”

“This isn't working,” K.I.T.T replied. “I was supposed to apologize to her for yesterday, but I just ended up fighting.”

“It'll take time,” Pierce told him. “You'll adjust to her personality eventually.”

“Will it be in time for the mission?” K.I.T.T asked.

He looked at the car over his glasses. “That I doubt. Maybe if you had six months, like with Sam.”

“I miss Sam,” K.I.T.T said wistfully. “He was so easy to understand.”

“That's why he was chosen over Katherine originally,” Pierce confided in him. “Katherine has the more impressive military career; Marines, test pilot at Cannon, but David made his decision after reviewing the psych profiles.”

K.I.T.T was silent while he digested this new information.

Pierce continued. “K.I.T.T, you are an impressive machine. Exceedingly extremely impressive.”

“I don't need an ego boost, Pierce,” K.I.T.T said irritably.

“I'm getting to a point here," he assured him. “What I'm saying is that, as impressive as you are, Katherine is used to being the impressive one. She pilots jets for a living. This looks like a step down to her, and since she's arrived here she has gone through more than your average weirdness and uncomfortable procedures.”

“What are you saying?”

“Maybe you can show her that being your driver isn't a step down. That it's not all a big sacrifice on her part.”

“Should I take her out to the test road and show her I can hit Mach 1?” K.I.T.T asked hopefully.

Pierce frowned. “You're still thinking about what Sam would like. Speed won't impress Katherine. You'll have to think of something else.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “You're on your own there.” He went back to his work.

********

Later that week, Katherine found herself in Angela's lab. Half of the space was lab, the other was art studio, as Angela painted in her spare time. Today, they were going to take a plaster mold of Kat's face. This would then be used to make a replica of her face so that Angela could create disguises for her.

“Here.” Angela handed her a couple of short straws. “Put those in your nose so you can breathe.”

Kat looked at the tiny straws, trepidation pooling in her stomach.

“We only have to do this once,” she assured her as she mixed the plaster. “Unless something goes wrong,” she amended.

Kat suppressed a whimper. Her military training took over and her face went blank. Angela smiled at her encouragingly, then started applying the plaster. “See you in a couple of hours.”

This was easily one of the worst experiences of her life. She had to sit perfectly still. Her eyes were shut and her ears were blocked. She was in absolute darkness and total silence. And all the while, her instincts screamed at her to fight her way out of the heavy weight that was suffocating her.

A low whimper did escape her chest and into her throat, but she stopped it there. She wasn't going to show any signs of weakness while she was here.

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”

Kat recognized K.I.T.T's voice in her ear. Her uneasiness vanished, replaced by confusion. What was going on?

“Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”

Kat recognized the opening paragraphs of 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy' By Douglas Adams. Not one of her favorite books; science fiction wasn't really her thing, but it was something to listen to.

She sat silently while K.I.T.T recited into her ear. She wanted to thank it, but she couldn't open her mouth to do so. Then she thought better of it. She was still sore about the other day.

********

Kat sat in K.I.T.T's driver's seat, poring over the thick computer manual Pierce had given her. She studied the complicated diagram on the page, then looked at the dash. She placed a finger gently on the first of a short row of small black buttons, all of them unmarked. “So, this button here turns you invisible,” she mused, reading.

“I wouldn't touch that,” K.I.T.T suggested. “That is not the button for my cloaking program.”

Something in the car's tone made her drop her hand. “Oh.” She squinted at the page. Invisibility was the second button in the row. She pressed that one instead.

Nothing happened.

“Well, are we invisible?” she asked in irritation. She felt like a fool. Invisible cars... honestly!

“Would you like me to connect with the live feed cameras outside?” K.I.T.T offered.

Kat stared at the dash. Were they really invisible, or was it just a joke? “Sure," she said after a moment.

A display flared to life on the windshield. Three different camera views were depicted. All of them were pointed to the raised circle, which was empty.

Kat stared in disbelief. “No, it's a trick,” she whispered. “You're messing with the cameras.” She stepped out of the car, turning automatically to look at it.

K.I.T.T shut the door, and she had no idea where it was. She stared in shock. How did a 5,000 pound vehicle just vanish? She was standing right next to it!

She squinted, trying to make the damned thing out. She concentrated hard and could just barely see a flicker or a shimmer of... something. Light? Reflecting the wrong way off of something? But then she blinked and lost it.

She reached her hand out, to feel where it was, but her fingers met empty air. She heard its synthetic voice chuckle. “I apologize Katherine," it said, appearing a few feet ahead of her. “The opportunity was too tempting to resist.”

Now it was making fun of her? It talked about resisting temptation, like it was somehow alive. “You're just a car," she accused.

From across the room a sharp voice startled her. “Oh no she didn't!”

“Carmen, settle down," Pierce warned dully from his desk. He didn't even bother looking up from his computers. The glow of the monitors reflected off of his glasses, hiding his eyes. Kat didn't think that his expression would be comforting. He was probably as furious as Carmen was, just better at hiding it.

Carmen was making her way rapidly over to her, speaking loudly in Spanish and gesturing at her. Kat took a step back, not sure what to expect.

K.I.T.T opened his driver's door in Carmen's path, between her and Kat. That made her pause. She turned the full intensity of her glare on the car. “Oh, no!” she cried indignantly. “Don't you dare protect her! You heard what she just said!”

“I know,” K.I.T.T said, its voice was flat. “I knew all along that she didn't like me. We have no choice but to work together.”

Carmen snarled in her fury. “You think Mami's not going to defend you when some-”

“Language,” Pierce warned her, still not looking up.

Carmen didn't miss a beat, glaring at Kat again. “-prissy little calientapollas-” Then she slipped right back into full Spanish.

Kat's own Spanish was limited, but K.I.T.T seemed to understand because it cut her off. “Carmen, that kind of language is not allowed on the compound. Do you want to get written up again?”

“Just a car!” Carmen snarled. She yelled at Kat over K.I.T.T's open car door. She could have easily moved around it, but she didn't, respecting that K.I.T.T wanted to stop her. “What was the last car that you heard of getting a 1565 on his SATs? What other cars do you know that can beat Charles in chess?” Her voice got higher with each question. “Do you know any other car whose favorite song is Smooth Criminal?”

Kat just stood there, stunned. She blinked at Carmen stupidly. Carmen made a growling noise, clenching her hands like she wanted to rip something. With effort she brought herself under control. Her dark chocolate eyes were burning. She didn't say another word, and just spat on the ground at Kat's feet. Then she turned on her heel and marched back to her station.

Pierce let out a low whistle. “You rendered her speechless. I am impressed,” he said as he continued to type at his keyboard.

“Viete a la mierda, Pierce!”

“I love you too, Carmen," he crooned dully.

K.I.T.T backed up a few feet, till he was next to Kat again. His door was still open. “Perhaps it would be safer if you came back inside," he suggested.

Kat slid numbly into the driver's seat. The door shut. The heavy book slid out of her hands and fell into her lap.

“You're extremely tense, Katherine,” K.I.T.T said worriedly. “Don't let what Carmen said bother you. She is very... passionate.”

Kat shook her head. “No, she's right to treat me like that. I haven't been making this whole thing easier on anyone.”

“An unwanted situation was thrust upon you without warning. It's understandable to react the way you have. You have carried yourself professionally, despite how you feel. You've given the best we can ask of you.”

“Stop trying to make me feel better," Kat muttered, picking the book up. She went back to her reading.

K.I.T.T's voice modulator light flickered irritably. Here again he was reminded that he didn't know what to say to his driver. He was used to Sam, who needed reassurances for his worries. He missed Sam. He didn't understand Katherine at all.

Kat reached out, putting a finger on another button as she read. Suddenly a siren blared and red light filled the large room briefly. Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing, and began rushing around on new tasks. The sudden chaos was in fact ordered and precise.

Kat clutched the book to her chest, startled. “What did I press?” she asked in panic.

“Nothing,” K.I.T.T answered. “Something has happened. Stand by and wait for your briefing.”

“Wait, the mission is starting now?” Kat demanded. “I thought I had another week!”

K.I.T.T was silent. A screen flared to life on the windshield, showing Charles' face. “Yes, it is early. David is not yet back from Washington, so I will brief you. The informant contacted Homeland Security, saying that the suspect will be moving tonight at twenty-one hundred hours, pacific standard time. He will be leaving Los Angeles then and heading to the ocean. Once he is there he may take a boat, but we cannot be certain. It could be a diversion tactic. We can't let him reach his objective. He will disappear when he does. Our informant has no further information for us.”

“Twenty-one hundred?” Kat asked hollowly. “That's six hours away, we'll never make Los Angeles in time.”

She felt the slight vibration of K.I.T.T's silent engine starting up. “Have faith," K.I.T.T said. “I may be just a car to you, but I am far from ordinary.” Kat raised her eyebrows at the hint of smugness in its voice.

“Are you ready for this, Katherine?” Charles asked her seriously.

Kat tossed the computer manual onto the seat next to her. She gripped the wheel. “I'm ready to end this ordeal," she answered, her eyes determined.

Charles smiled just a little. “I can see you will make a good driver."

“'Would', not 'will',” Kat corrected him. “This is just a one shot deal for me. I'm just here to help Sam out.” She felt like she was repeating a mantra.

“Of course," Charles amended. “Good luck, to the both of you.” His face disappeared as the raised circle the Camaro sat on lowered into the floor.

A long green lit tunnel stretched out before them. “There is a small silver button next to the fuel gauge," K.I.T.T told her. “Please press it.” Kat pressed the Turbo-Boost button and they sped down the tunnel impossibly fast.

The steering wheel locked suddenly under her hands. “I will drive for now," K.I.T.T informed her. “Pierce will continue with your briefing.”

Pierce's face appeared where Charles' had been. “The suspect is Timothy Haver. An alias of course. One of the many in Homeland Security's record.” The suspect's face appeared in the corner of Pierce's screen. K.I.T.T took it and zoomed in on it. Kat studied it intently. Pierce went on. It was still a few hours before they would reach Los Angeles, even with the 450 mph K.I.T.T was pushing, so they were able to go over the finer points of Haver's crime, plutonium smuggling, and discuss possible strategies.

Apparently, Mr. Haver was up to his usual business and had stolen plutonium from a U.S. plant and was attempting to smuggle it out of the country. Homeland Security had assured them that only a small portion of plutonium had been stolen, and that there was no chance of fallout in the middle of Los Angeles. She and K.I.T.T were tasked with recovering the stolen plutonium, then with capturing Timothy Haver. It was in that order, the plutonium's recovery was the top priority.

Kat could see why. You only needed a small amount of radioactive material to make a bomb. Even without the threat of fallout, a few buildings missing was still a big deal.

About an hour away Pierce finished his briefing, reminding her that an extra set of contacts was in the glove compartment.

Carmen's face appeared on the screen as she pushed Pierce out of the way. “Ten cuidado, KITT,” she said a little huskily. Then her expression turned stony. “You too, Katherine. I guess.” Then they were both gone, and it was just Kat inside the car.

“What did she say?” Kat asked.

“Be careful,” K.I.T.T answered.

The seriousness of their situation hung over her like a blanket. Kat decided to try and lift it, just a little. “So, you're favorite song is 'Smooth Criminal'?” She had her hands on the wheel, but she wasn't the one steering. Her reflexes weren't quick enough to handle the highway at the speed they were going.

“It is this week," K.I.T.T answered.

“This week?”

“It changes, Charles says that is a good thing. He was the one who advised me to listen to music. He said it would help my learning, hearing so many different perspectives at one time. He is also testing the limits of my AI by having me show preference.”

“So... what does that mean? If you can show preference?"

“It means I can think closer to the way a human does, rather than, say, your toaster,” K.I.T.T answered flatly.

“Right,” Kat said, feeling more tense than before.

There was a long pause. “I want to apologize,” K.I.T.T said. “For how I acted when we first met.”

But Kat wasn't ready to hear any apologies. “Forget it," she said. “Let's just listen to some music.”

********

Back at the compound, Pierce was listening to K.I.T.T through a small earpiece. “I think K.I.T.T has been more restless to be on his first mission than we realized,” he said to Charles. Carmen was not there. She had headed out in the Mobile Assistance Unit, following Kat and K.I.T.T.

Charles gave him a questioning look. “Why do you say that?”

Pierce pressed a finger to his earpiece, frowning. “For the last twenty minutes, he's been playing 'Born To Be Wild' over the radio.”

Charles smiled.