Knight Rider AS Season 2, Episode 1 - Knight and Day

F.L.A.G Headquarters - Underneath the desert in the vicinity of Arizona

Ian lay on his stomach, laptop open on his pillow. He shared the room with Pierce, but he wasn't around tonight. Nowadays he wasn't around most nights. He stayed up on the top bunk anyway. Even though no one would disturb him, he found more privacy comforting.

Sleep was such a long way off.

He had several tabs open in his browser, a few from Facebook. He was scrolling through his private messages now.

He had a minimal Facebook profile at best, just enough to assure his family that he was still alive. What was left of it, anyway. He had a few great aunts and a set of grandparents scattered around, but the only person he truly kept it up for was Danielle, his sister.

She was older, but only by a year. That didn't stop he from being the biggest big sister she could be. She made it her mission to look out for him when their parents died. She chose to get her GED rather than finish High School, so that she could work and take care of the house while he finished High School early and started taking college courses.

He was at the top of their Private Message feed, from three years ago.

"College would be wasted on me," she'd wrote. "We all know you're the smart one."

His reply was underneath. "We both have brains, you just choose to ignore yours."

"Hey! That's not nice! :p"

"Sorry. -_-"

He switched tabs, to a video she'd posted last year, after he'd joined F.L.A.G. The house had been sold by then and most of the money had gone towards his schooling and paying off debts. Danielle was showing off her new tiny apartment.

"Hey there fam! Just wanted to show of my new 'digs'." She laughed, then pointed the camera away from her face, giving the viewer a walking tour of the bathroom, the kitchenette, and her bedroom. All with narration.

Ian started the video back at the beginning, pausing on her face. She was only twenty-one, but there were deep circles under her eyes and her cheeks were drawn, pulled away from her cheekbones.

He switched tabs and scrolled through their shared messages again. The well wishes and joking around. Was there any hint at all in there about what would happen to her?

Another tab was a picture of his sister's face, smiling wide. Underneath it had some contact information that would reach him. Above it in red was the word MISSING.

He closed that tab, and all the other extra ones, scrolling back down to the bottom of the message feed. "What do you want? There's no money left over from the sale of the house."

He'd hoped his typing could push up the horrible picture that had been sent to him. His sister lying unconscious on the floor, in unknown and sparse surroundings. her hands were bound and she had a large purple bruise on the side of her face.

The message came back quickly. "Danielle has often bragged about your technical skills. She also revealed some of your past computer-related transgressions with a little persuasion. I have a job that I'm sure you'll be able to pull off."

"I'm not in Cali anymore, she must have mentioned that." There was no way Ian was going to tell this monster that he was in a secret underground base in the middle of the desert between Arizona and New Mexico. It was frustrating as all hell, but at that moment there was no way for him to go anywhere to save his sister.

"You won't have to leave your location at all. Everything can be done from a computer. If you do exactly as I say, Danielle will be set free unharmed. She will contact you through video to tell you she is okay with her own mouth, and then you can carry on your simple sibling interactions."

Ian took a breath before typing back. "And if I refuse, you'll kill her, right?"

"I will not take her life, but you both will wish I had." The next message came up right after. "I will break her." Then the next. "I will record everything I do to her carefully, then she will be returned, deaf and blind. The video will be uploaded to a public server that anyone can access, and then it will be spread."

"Everyone will see the torture and pain your sister will go through, except for her. She will be trapped in her own mind, unable to hear or see anything new ever again, till the last things she has seen and heard torture her to insanity."

"There are so many things that are worse than the reprieve of death. You have twelve hours to respond, before I start."

Ian slammed his laptop shut, breathing quickly. He wiped his eyes and gripped his hair while his nose dripped. He wiped it on his sleeve.

Behind the laptop, a thick blue folder sat on his pillow. On the cover was the logo for Knight Industries. He grabbed it and opened it to a placed he had bookmarked. He read over it carefully, because it was his only salvation.

xxxXXXxxx

"There's a smuggling ring operating in New Mexico," Pierce offered halfheartedly.

"Don't sound that way, Pierce," Kat admonished him. "People need help."

"Yeah, but can't they have more interesting troubles?" He swiped through the files on his new touch screen. The large monitor above them on the wall replicated the one in front of him.

He sat at his brand new metal desk (reinforced), in front of the new panel computer David had bought for him, to replace the one KARR had shot to oblivion just a few months ago. Touchscreens were flashy, but he found he could get used to flashy quite easily.

"All jobs that the Crawler finds are welcome," KITT said from his platform. "She knows our capabilities and what jobs they would apply to."

"We always deal with smugglers," Pierce said petulantly. Then he looked up. "Wait, 'she'? You said last week that the Crawler preferred to be called 'he'."

"That was last week. This week they are 'she'," KITT responded. "The Crawler is genderfluid."

Pierce frowned. "Both you and the Crawler have been spending too much time on Tumblr."

The Crawler was a simple AI that Pierce had written based off of Charles original code. Its function is to search and understand news postings and social media and understand the context, so it could find jobs for Kat and KITT. KITT was required to have five years of testing in varied environments before he could be put to any commercial use. Year one was just behind them, but they still had a long way to go. They needed jobs. Lots of different ones.

So the Crawler was created, but it wasn't as deep as KITT himself, which might be why it had trouble assigning more human definitions to itself. That's what Pierce thought, anyway.

"I have a job for you, KITT."

Everyone turned to Ian, who was standing up at his desk. His eyes were rimmed with red.

Pierce felt concern for his intern, but at the same time also a deep confusion. "You're not… allowed do that?" He ended with a questioning tone because he wasn't completely sure. "We're employees…"

"Check your contract again," Ian told him. "We all get one job from KITT. Each." He looked over at the car. "I need your help."

Kat turned her eyes up to David, who stood on the metal walkway outside his office door. His hands were on the railing. He didn't say anything to deny what Ian was saying, so she took it as consent. She looked back at Ian. "What are the details?"

Ian's left hand was clenched into a fist. "My sister has been kidnapped."

Surprise ran through the team like an electrical current. David spoke then. "Because of your affiliation with FLAG?"

Ian shook his head. "Pierce told you about my past." He looked up at his boss. "I was a hacker. Pierce found me because I'd broken into one of Knight Industries' servers. He caught me, but I guess I impressed him." He shot a glance at Pierce.

Ian drew in a shaky breath. "I was doing it for kicks, I promise. I wasn't working for anyone else. Somehow Pierce wasn't the only one who noticed me. That other person wants me to try again, to break into Knight Industries for them. I don't know who they are, but they have my sister."

"What do they want from Knight Industries? Money?"

Ian quailed under David's gaze, but didn't look away. "They want information on the Pawns Project."

David's expression turned icy. "What do you know about the Pawns Project?"

"Nothing, I swear." Ian's voice wavered. "I don't even remember seeing it the first time I went in. I was just playing around, honest. Everyone brags about Knight Industries security, and I just wanted to shut them up." His voice faltered, turning weak. "No system is safe…" His eyes were begging. "Please, help me get Danielle back…" Tears streaked his cheeks as he stood there, but he didn't sniffle. "Please… I just want her to be safe…"

"As long as we get her back safe, nothing else matters?" David asked sternly.

"Nothing else," Ian assured him.

"And you'll do anything?"

"Anything."

David shifted his gaze to Kat. "You have your mission, then."