DISCLAIMER: I'd like to say that I don't own Knight Rider or Team Knight Rider or anything related to them, save a model car and a board game. I do, however, own Keri, Damien Steele, Ray the technician, the cars' holograms idea, and Elliot. Please don't sue me because I barely have enough money to pay bills as it is. If you'd like to use any of my ideas, please feel free to, just tell me so I can read it when you're done. ^_^

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

KITT stands for the "Knight Industries Two Thousand"
KARR stands for the "Knight Automated Roving Robot"
CPU stands for "Central Processing Unit"
(Of course you all knew those three.)

The miles are not accurate
The towns were randomly picked from an atlas
The dates and times were randomly picked (I made it 2015 because of K.R. 2000 and a suitable time lapse)
Italic sentences stand for someone's thought, or a car's speech.
Italic words stand for a stressed word.

I really hope you enjoy my story and please e-mail your questions or comments to me at Spencers13@yahoo.com.

Originally written in 1998 by Lacey Gilpin.
Edited and revised in 2002 by Lacey Gilbert (married name).

Reincarnation
By Lacey Gilpin

A JUNK YARD IN EDGEWOOD, CALIFORNIA
5 P.M. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2015

Keri walked through the old junk yard like she did every Sunday. She was looking for what she usually was: something neat that she could somehow make work perfectly again. She stumbled between the mountains of rusted cars and steel, and came upon an old faded, black car, which she identified as a Trans Am. It was sitting out in the open, away from every thing else, which was kind of odd considering that every thing was crushed, and then pushed together to form mountains of metal.

The car was stripped of all the major things. The wheels were missing, as were the seats and other upholstery. One window was slightly cracked at the top, and she saw some bees enter and exit through the space. Keri circled the car a few times, and was just ready to leave when she noticed a groove cut dead center in the front. She bent down and peered into it and saw what looked like a light contraption. It appeared the light could, if lit up, glide back and forth on the track. She was wondering why it was there when she was attacked from behind.

Quickly, she flipped herself around to see her attacker. It was the crazy old man that lived in the junk yard. She grabbed him, flipped him over and pinned him to the ground.

"What do you think you're doing, you old fool?!" she cried.

"What did you think you were doing, young missy?" the old man replied in a crazily cracked voice. "That's my car and I'd be thankin' you to stay away from it!"

Keri acted quickly. She picked up the man and flipped him over her head, slamming him on the ground behind her. Dust flew up from his dirty trench coat and off of the ground where he hit. He quickly got up, tears welling up in his eyes from the stinging dust and the sharp pain coursing through his back.

"You little wench!" he cried.

"Stay away from here, old man! And stay away from me!" she yelled back, not to be outdone. When the man approached her again, she took a swing and cracked him right in the nose. Blood began pouring out as he cupped it in his hand and backed away.

Keri gave him a threatening look and took a step forward. The old man jerked and ran in the opposite direction, afraid of another confrontation.

Old fool, she thought, turning away to look at the car he had been so ready to protect. This thing looks to be in pretty good condition. Maybe I can get it back to my house. I'd like to see if I can fix it up. I could cruise around town in it, just like the good old days. But if I'm going to get this thing out of here, I'd better find some wheels. With that thought, Keri trudged off deep into the junk yard, in search of four tires.

She didn't realize it at the time, but behind her the small slot in the front of the car came alive with a red light. It streaked back and forth a couple of times as if looking around, and then was gone again.

* * * * *

An hour later, Keri returned lugging two tires, one under each arm. She threw them to the ground in front of the dusty black auto. Sighing and placing her hands on her hips, she gave the car the once-over she had neglected to give it before.

"Hey, this thing definitely isn't as bad as I thought. There isn't a scratch on it, which surprises me! And all it really needs is seats now." She walked over to the door and opened it. Kneeling down, she peered inside and saw an incredibly decked out dash board. "Wow, where were you two years ago?" She asked the car, running her hand along the sleek yet dust-covered black dashboard. "I could have certainly used you as one of my cruise cars." She stood up and shut the door with a clunk. I'd better get moving if I want to get this thing home by nightfall, she thought.

Again, she trekked off into the junk yard to find the other two tires she needed.

After another two hours, Keri was putting the finishing touches on the seat she had just installed. It was torn, stained, and smelled of oil, but it were all she needed until she got the car home. The car no longer sat on four cinder blocks, but stood of four well-worn mismatched wheels.

"Okay," she said. "Let's go home. It's getting late." She climbed into the musty smelling car and reached for the ignition switch. "Hey! There's no key!" she exclaimed, making the discovery. "And there's no ignition either. What's going on here?"

Looking at the dash more carefully, Keri spotted a small red button, surrounded by other multicolored buttons, below and to the right of the steering wheel. Above the button was the word "Ignition" staring her straight in the face. "Stupid," she said to herself, pushing the button.

Suddenly the car came alive with winking lights and blips! The engine roared with a high-pitched turbine whine and became increasingly louder.

"Wow, this car packs a punch!" said Keri. She tapped on the gas pedal and was off.

* * * * *

She took it easy going home. She wasn't sure it would stay together, but as she pulled into her driveway she found the dusty black car to be a lot more than she thought. Glancing at the buttons on the console, she noticed one that read "Turbo Booster".

"I wonder what that one does?" she thought aloud as she depressed the button. It lit up for a split second, and then she heard and felt an enormous rush of compressed air being jettisoned beneath her. The car suddenly jerked and shot up into the air, straight toward her closed garage door! With the sound of screeching metal and tearing plastic, the car flew at an angle down into the door and tore it from its hinges, breaking it into a multitude of small pieces!

When the dust cleared, Keri slowly opened the door and stepped out into the wreckage.

"Damn," she whispered. Luckily, her closest neighbor lived a mile away. The crash would have woken no one. She looked at the shattered pieces of door scattered on the floor and wrapped around her new car.

"Oh, great," she said to herself, "Not only do I break down my own garage door, but I wreck my cool new car in the process."

Slowly, she began to pick up the pieces on the floor and throw them on the junk pile she kept outside. When she had all the pieces picked up, she tried to move the one piece of metal still wrapped around the front end of the car. She grabbed the edge and pulled as hard as she could. It came off with an ear-piercing screech and clanged to the floor. Just as she picked up the piece and began to drag it away, she looked at the car where the metal door had just been. The car didn't have a scratch on it! Not one!

"Something weird is going on here," she said aloud as she ran her fingers over the nose of the sleek auto. But Keri was tired, and didn't feel like frying her brain over it tonight. I'll play with it in the morning, she thought, and dragged the metal strip out to the junk pile.