You'll Get Used to It
By Sinead

Chapter Two

.o.

"How did you get the other AI? What's-his-name . . . Karr."

Pulling her head out of the fridge, the young woman looked up at her half-brother before looking back into the cold box, reaching in to pull out a beer and open it. She walked to the sink and dumped it down the drain amid her brother's rather loud protestations.

"That was my last one! Aw, c'mon, girl, how come you gotta do that?!" He tried to snag the can from her hand, but she stomped lightly upon his toes, causing him to curse and back away while she finished pouring it down the drain.

"Because it's vile yak pee and you know better than to allow it to ruin your liver." She tossed the can into a recycling bin and went back to the refrigerator to pull out a can of V8, shaking it as she walked back towards the garage. She answered his first question on the way out there. "As for Karr . . . well . . . I knew Dad since I was eleven, so that's gonna be . . . almost eleven years ago."

"You're almost twenty-two?"

"Two years younger than you, yeah. Anyway." She rested the can against her forehead to feel the chill of the metal there. "I moved in with Dad two years ago when Mom died. I knew about Kitt when I was sixteen, so for almost six years. He looks a lot different on the inside than when he had been first built, so you're almost able to think that he's a custom and not something else entirely. He was the first car that I drove. Mom was too sick to teach me, so she left that up to Dad."

"I'm . . . I'm sorry," Mike whispered, looking down. "I lost my own mother recently."

"I know." Gabrielle's voice was soft as she replied to him. "That's part of why I've been asked to come under the Foundation and help out with certain missions. They want to turn this into a family of operatives."

"That implies that we have to provide the third generation."

"Yeah, I'm not thrilled with that, either."

The two paused and then sighed simultaneously. The man looked toward where their father was sitting, conversing with a temporary CPU that was housing Kitt until he could be transferred into a new one built specifically for him. They were currently looking to upgrade his body as well. "I guess that we got that from Dad."

Karr growled behind them, but Gabrielle sighed and turned to look at the scanner, knowing that it was part of how he saw. "Hey. Hush. Mike, do you know what would have happened if someone had found out that Dad had us?"

"Lemme think about that for a moment . . . how about . . . nothing? We're not important!"

"Wrong," she hissed, looking up at his face with a glare. "At worst, we would have been killed before his eyes. When we were younger, unprotected, we were leverage against him. I had been safe because of where I was located. You had been safe because Dad and your Mom had split and you and she had left the area to hide." The look in her eyes gradually softened and saddened, and she turned around to enter the open driver's side door that Karr had opened for her. He left the garage with her curled up in his driver's seat.

Kitt rolled up behind his young driver, his deep voice soft, curious. "Are you all right, Mike?"

"No." Turning, he faced his . . . his car, his friend, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I think I just made a mistake."

"You really did, boyo."

Whirling to face his father, Mike was shocked to see the look of complete and utter desolation upon his face. Michael walked up to his son and stood a pace away. "You know the pain of your mother dying for you. I had lost her a long while back. Gabe's mother died protecting her. They had tried to capture the girl when she had been twelve, a year after I made contact. I had gotten to her first, but I wasn't fast enough to get to her home to get her mother. They tortured her, poisoned her. And she never really recovered, but was overjoyed that she had protected our little girl. This is why I didn't come to see you. I didn't want your mother to go through the same, or for you to be taken from me, too."

"You loved Mom."

"More than you know."

"What about Gabe's mom?"

Smiling, shaking his head, he whispered, "I loved her, too. When your mother and I split for your dual safeties . . . I won't lie and say that it didn't hurt. I loved your mother more than any other woman I had ever met, known, you name it."

"You're a player."

"When I was young, yes, I had been. Just like you are, now. Trust me . . . Sarah Graiman is a keeper. Don't let her go, son."

"Since when did this turn into a pep talk about my relational statuses?" Mike glared at his father defensively, but the man held his hands up in defeat, smiling reassuringly. The son sighed and then said, "So you came onto Gabrielle's mom."

"Opposite way. She came onto me after a year and a half of being single again."

"Who was she?"

Michael went silent, and his back and shoulders stiffened. But it wasn't him that answered. It was Gabrielle herself, back from the quick drive to clear her mind. Her voice was sad. "Her name was Bonnie Barstow."

.o.

"How are you holding up, Kitt?"

"The CPU feels odd. How long until I will be able to go into the new one?"

Gabrielle smiled and sat upon a stool beside Kitt's CPU, her hand resting upon it. Her voice was quiet, calming. "Very soon. They're working on a few things as far as it goes for a new body for you as well."

"I heard you tell your brother about Bonnie."

Looking down, finding that she had been stroking circles and wavy lines upon the CPU, Gabrielle sighed and kept silent. She didn't like talking about her mother and the choice that her mother had made to protect the safety of her family. With a deep breath, she whispered, "Yeah, Kitt."

The second-oldest AI scanned the room and saw that Karr was currently rolling up in a very silent manner behind Mike. "Look. Quick."

Kitt Junior was ignoring Karr, but as soon as the snarky AI revved his engine loudly and blared his horn behind Mike, startling the man into drawing a weapon and firing a bullet at the windshield, the young AI was after Karr like a bat out of hell. His mean laughter echoing behind him, Karr shot out of the garage, proving his better maneuverability over the Mustang as he hit a high speed the second he had a straight line to the door. Kitt the Second was still new to his body, so he moved a bit more gingerly, giving up precious seconds while Karr escaped.

Mike, panting, pointed at the two AIs currently leading a high-speed chase off of the Knight property. "I am not amused!"

"Well, don't look at me," Gabrielle said, her hand still moving slowly over the CPU shell. "He does these kinda things on his own. I'm his friend first, partner second, after all. I don't control him, just . . . advise him when he asks for it."

"Wait . . . what?"

Kitt decided that now was the time to inform Mike about Karr's past, and he asked the young man to replace Gabrielle at his side. Smiling, she moved back towards the kitchen to make some coffee. Ten minutes later, Karr rolled smoothly back into the garage. Something about him just screamed smug retaliation for something. Mike looked up at Gabrielle, who stood right at the entrance for Karr's current parking spot, her foot going up to rest on his bumper when he came to a halt before her. "All right, hotshot. What did you do?"

"Oh, nothing much, sweets." The tone dripped with a smug smirk, the kind that would be resting upon an oily car salesman's face after someone came back with a lemon.

"Karr," Gabrielle growled out warningly.

"What? I did nothing of great importance, other than not get caught."

"Caught?" the other three beings in the room chorused almost perfectly.

Michael and Charles strode into the room, neither looking very happy as they walked over to the two humans and two AIs. Charles spoke. "It has come to my attention that the Three Thousand is off the property."

"Yeah, Karr annoyed him by almost literally scaring the crap outta me," Mike replied as he cracked his knuckles.

"Do you know where he is, Mike?"

"Nope."

"Karr? If you would be so kind as to inform us of the Three Thousand's location?"

Snickering in a decidedly human fashion, the Trans Am replied, "By now, he is more than likely in the impound. I told you that I hadn't been caught. I didn't say that Junior came to the same fate."

Standing and kicking a tire before storming off to find a car, Mike snarled over his shoulder, "Gabe! You still owe me an explanation of how you and Karr met up, because I really wanna know how a sweet girl like you is partnered with the biggest jackass AI on the planet! For the love of God. The impound."

As soon as he was out of sight and Sarah with him to drive Kitt back, Michael spluttered before giving way to deep chuckles. Charles let his grin crack through while Karr murmured in a very pleased fashion, "Kitt asked me to teach Junior a few things. Of course I'm going to get the rookie in trouble until he manages to keep out of it."

Michael walked up to pat the black hood, still laughing. "I would have had Kitt do the same thing, only worse!"

"Oh?"

"State police. Not just the local police."

"Mister Knight, were you called by the authorities?"

"No, Charles was."

"Mister Graiman, who did you speak to?"

"Agent Rivai . . . Oh, Lord."

"That's right, Mister Graiman. I got him caught by the FBI."

.o.

Author's Note: Yeah. I did a second chapter. So sue me. I kinda like the idea of Karr tormenting the rookies. Everyone, thank you for your support, reviews, watches, and favorites! You're making this happen, you know. Without reviews and the inspiration from those reviews, this story wouldn't be going onto a second, possibly a third chapter.