Back by popular demand - the rewritten version of the Knight Isn't Over! :D Ya'll know the story if you've read the first version, but I'm gonna be mixing things up a bit here...as you can already see in the prologue here, things are gonna be a little different ;)
So, read on, and don't forget to drop a review, because I live on reviews and you wouldn't want me to die, would you? ...Right?
Summers in western California could be brutal. The heat blared down from the sky in shimmering waves that seemed to swallow the very air itself. The stretches of desert around that area seemed quite unbearable this time of year unless your car was equipped with both air-conditioning and a heat shield.
Michael Knight was lucky enough to have such a car.
The windows were rolled up tightly to prevent any heat from seeping into the Trans Am's cooled cabin, and the special coating on the surface of the car kept any heat from soaking into the car's black skin. Michael was reclining comfortably in the driver's seat, and had there been anybody to watch them on that deserted highway they would have been shocked to see him apparently not paying any attention to where the car was going. Despite this, the car maneuvered down the road as though driven by a professional hand. In point of fact, it wasn't driven by any hand, professional or not. Instead, the car was being controlled by a tiny black box tucked deep behind the mysterious Trans Am's blinking, flashy dashboard.
Amongst the myriad of buttons on the dash, one suddenly lit up. A small camera lens flickered open near the unlit column above the steering wheel. Kitt smiled inwardly as he observed his sleeping driver. He skimmed lazily over his vital signs, doing one of his periodic checks to ensure that Michael was safe and well. It was something he always did, despite Michael's repetitive protests about Kitt's frequent med checks being too personal. Kitt didn't care. It was part of his programming to keep Michael safe, and he was proud of the fact that he'd done it well so far, with only a few errors in ten years.
Ten years, four hours, sixteen minutes and nine seconds since Kitt had first met Michael. Their partnership had gotten off to a bumpy start, but now the two were bound by tragedy, trust, and a kind of brotherly love. Well, when two people had dragged eachother away from death's doorstep as many times as Michael and Kitt had, it creates a certain mutual trust.
They'd been through a lot together, to say the least. They'd been through hell and back a few times. Now, at last, life was starting to calm down. He and Michael were both settled comfortably into semi-retirement, working on less dangerous cases more frequently. Kitt didn't mind the lack of activity. All that really mattered to him was that he stayed where he belonged – with his driver, his family. And Michael had made sure that nothing would split them up, so Kitt had been content with his lot in life for a time.
Then, just a few months ago, his world had been turned upside down again.
Devon Miles, the longtime director of the FLAG board, had passed away suddenly. Everyone had mourned him deeply; he had been like a father to so many people, and Kitt had often looked to Devon for advice when he didn't know what to do. He knew that Michael had often done the same. Devon had lived a good, long life, being well into his eighties when he passed away, and was remembered respectfully by all who knew him. It still gave Kitt a twinge of pain deep in his circuitry to think that he would never see the sophisticated old British gentleman again.
Recently a new director for FLAG had been hired – a tall, black-haired, wealthy man called Ethan Lowry. In Kitt's opinion, he was just as his surname depicted – lower than a snake. Kitt hated the changes that were coming over at FLAG, nor was he particularly fond of the contemptuous looks Lowry often gave Michael. It was obvious that he didn't like Michael for some reason. Kitt had no idea why not, but he made it his business to make sure Michael was within his reach whenever Lowry was near. Similarly, Michael never took his eyes off Lowry when he approached Kitt, his wary gaze catching every single move the man made. Neither Kitt nor his driver trusted the man enough to let their guard down around him.
A familiar chime ringing throughout the car brought the AI back to the present. Normally, the chime would cause Kitt to metaphorically, and happily, sit up and get down to business. Now, all it got from him was a disappointed, irritable grumble and a few wayward temptations to ignore it.
"Michael. Wake up."
As expected, nothing happened.
"Michael, Lowry is calling. Wake up."
This roused a half-awake muttering sound from his driver. Progress.
But the progress was not fast enough for Kitt's liking. He wanted to get this call done and over with already. Accessing his sound library, he selected what he considered an appropriate wake up call and patched it through to the car's speakers.
The ear-piercing wail of police sirens tore through the car's cabin, causing Michael to jump halfway out of his seat with a few colorfully choice words, looking around wildly. "What the –?"
"Lowry's on the videophone," Kitt interrupted him dryly, patching the vid. link through.
A deep, nauseatingly phony voice came through the speakers. "Are those police sirens?"
Michael blinked down at the monitor, where Lowry's picture had just popped up. The man's appearance was as phony as his voice was. He always dressed in an expensive-looking suit, which wasn't much different than Devon's attire usually was. But where Devon always looked warm and friendly, Lowry managed to make the clothes seem off-putting and stiffly formal. One glance at his slicked, half-bald hair and classy clothing made one unconsciously sit a little straighter, acutely aware of his own appearance as Lowry's cold green eyes seemed to do a scan from head to toe, almost assessing you.
Michael shook his head a little, clearing it. "Morning, Mr. Lowry," he acknowledged the man before answering his question. "No, that was just Kitt's sense of humor. Or lack thereof." He shot a half-hearted glare at the voice box.
It didn't escape Kitt's attention how much different his greeting over the videophone was ever since Lowry had stepped into Devon's shoes. Before, it had always been "Yo Devon!" or "Hey, Devon, what's up?" Kitt had thought that a little reserve would be welcome. But he hated the rigid detachment that Lowry brought with him.
Another noticeable difference was that Michael and Devon would usually chat before getting down to business. Lowry wasted no time.
"I'm sending the Knight Two Thousand the coordinates to your next mission. You'll get a full debriefing there," the man said crisply, never taking his icy green eyes off of Michael. With that, the connection was cut.
"Why can't he just address me by my name?" Kitt muttered darkly, sorting the set of coordinates that he had promptly received as the link was cut into the correct folders. "You humans are always shortening labels and names. Why can't he? Why does he always call me 'the Knight Two Thousand' instead of 'Kitt'?"
"If I told you why, you would only grumble more, so I'm not gonna say anything," Michael muttered, rubbing his temple as though he had a headache.
"Where is he sending us this time?"
"The nearest airport." A note of dread began creeping into Kitt's electronic voice. "If they make me get on one of those planes…"
Michael snorted in amusement. Flying was one of the few things that Kitt would openly admit he was terrified of, and therefore Michael often teased him about it. All in good fun, of course.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure that if they do, you'll get first class. Maybe that'll take the edge off things."
"That has nothing to do with it! I don't have any control over where I'm going whether I'm in a first class cabin or the cargo hold!"
Michael snickered.
"Don't laugh!"
"Why not? Thinking of you in a first class cabin is funny!"
"I fail to see the hilarity of the situation." Kitt's voice dropped to a sulking tone.
"Of course you do."
"What's that supposed to mean?" If a Trans Am's 'glare' could kill, Michael would have been out cold.
"Nothing, nothing at all." He snickered again.
As it turned out, they didn't want Kitt to get on a plane. They only wanted Michael to get on one. Once Kitt realized this, he immediately switched from protesting leaving to protesting staying. So they were now sitting in the airport parking lot, discussing options. Which mostly consisted of Kitt loudly voicing his opinions and Michael adding his two cents here and there.
"They simply cannot make you go on one of those ridiculous flying contraptions without me!" he fumed as Michael listened patiently, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. "Knowing the way you attract danger like a magnet, that plane is most likely going to crash in the middle of nowhere. Who's going to help you out alive if I'm not there?"
"Well, somebody's paranoid…"
"My paranoia is a direct result of your recklessness in the past."
"So it's my fault now."
"Michael, it's your fault 56.072 percent of the time. I've kept track."
"Now wait a second! That's blackmail!"
"And I'll use it if I have to. But we're getting off the subject."
Michael grumbled under his breath. "You're tempting me to just get on that plane and leave you here anyway. I'm starting to wish you'd go back to not wanting to go."
"You will talk to Lowry about getting permission for me to come with you, won't you?"
"I don't know anymore. I might not be in the mood."
"…Won't you?"
"All right, fine, fine. Patch me through." Happily, Kitt did as he was told.
Despite this, they had no luck, and Lowry was firm on insisting that Michael go without Kitt. Something wasn't quite adding up…sure, Lowry wanted him to go across the country and a plane would be faster, but why wasn't he allowing Kitt to come? Michael's senses had become fine-tuned to danger over the years, and he was getting a warning bell at Lowry's insistence that Kitt stay behind.
"I don't like it, Kitt," he muttered, staring at the now-black monitor set in Kitt's dashboard.
"I don't either," Kitt confessed. "Why do you think he wants me to stay behind?"
Michael shrugged. "Could be he just wants to see how I operate alone, without you."
"But why would he want to see that? He should know that we always work together."
"Eh, his motives are twisted if you ask me. But it looks like we've got no choice."
"…At least we'll still have the comlink. Right?"
"Right." Michael held up his comlink watch and gave the dashboard a fond pat before opening the door and stepping out. "I'll comm. you when I get there so you won't pester Bonnie with your worry. By the way, tell her I said bye."
"I will. Goodbye, Michael."
"See ya."
Six hours. It had been only six hours since Michael had said goodbye to Kitt.
The plane ride had taken four hours, and it had taken another half hour for him to get to the hotel Lowry had reserved for him. His room was nothing like the little motels he and Kitt usually stopped at along their road trips. This was the Ritz compared to what Michael was used to. It even had a pool and spa.
After checking in, the first thing that he did was call Kitt on the comlink. When Kitt didn't answer, a second red flag raised in Michael's mind. Kitt never let a comlink call go unanswered. Never. Almost certain something was going on, he'd picked up the phone and dialed Bonnie's cell phone number. She had said that Kitt hadn't come back since he had dropped Michael off at the airport five hours ago.
In half a mind to get right back on a plane and go look for his missing partner, Michael had called Lowry to see what was going on. Lowry had told him pretty much the same thing Bonnie had – that Kitt's tracking beacon was offline, and he hadn't been seen or heard from in five hours. To top that off, he even rejected Michael's offers of coming back to help look for him.
Then he'd been forced to wait, staring at the phone, irritably awaiting Bonnie to call him back like she'd promised she would the minute she got a scrap of news. The television was on, switched to the news station to try and get his mind off of Kitt. It wasn't helping much.
When the phone finally rang, he leapt at it like a cat pouncing on prey. "Hello? Bonnie?"
"…Michael, we found him."
He sank down onto the bed in relief, forgetting all about the cover story on the news about a man who had threatened a woman with a gun just to steal a sandwich. "Great! Where was he? What the heck was he doing, cutting us off like that?"
"Michael, stop."
It was then he noticed the hitch in Bonnie's voice, and his heart sank.
There was a clanging sound in the background, and Bonnie muttered something about being right back, leaving Michael waiting tensely.
A distant explosion made him whirl around, only to realize in disgust that it was the television, the news story having switched from the sandwich thief to a small-scale terrorist attack. Frowning, he leaned closer. The area being displayed on the television looked slightly familiar…
Then he read the captions. The bombing had taken place in Oakland, California. The same town that he and Kitt had been in to get to the airport. His hands clutched the phone until his knuckles were white as he intently watched the broadcast, listening to the announcer drone on.
"At 1:00 this afternoon…" Oh God, it was even around the same time they'd been there. "…the Oakland Country Club in California was bombed by whom we can only assume are terrorists. Using three high-projectile heat seeking missiles, they hit the thankfully abandoned Country Club, destroying the interior, part of the golf course, and most of the streetscape outside. Nine people were wounded, but thankfully, nobody was killed in the attack. Two men are still missing…"
Michael didn't hear beyond that. His attention was suddenly diverted directly to a lone black car tipped on its' side amongst the rubble that the street had been reduced to. The clip was too fuzzy and far away to see and it only lasted a few seconds…but it was obviously a black sports car. And it was obviously highly damaged.
By the time Bonnie got back on the line, Michael was almost certain it had been Kitt. "The attack in Oakland…Kitt got caught in it, didn't he?" Each word dragged thorns across his throat as he forced them out, but he had to know.
Bonnie's answer was quiet and shaky. "Yes. He…we could barely salvage anything. One of the missies apparently hit him head on, and…" Her voice broke off.
So sudden. Six hours ago he had been joking and laughing with Kitt, arguing and bickering just like they always did. Now he was…gone?
It didn't feel real. It was all a dream – a bad dream, to be sure. Suddenly, after all the times he'd been forced to contemplate it, the thought of never seeing Kitt again had never seemed so impossible.
Michael covered his face with his hands. First Devon, and now Kitt...what would be next?