Automan and all character names therein are owned by the American Broadcasting Company. Doctor Who is owned by the British Broadcasting Company. All characters are fictional and resemblance to any persons living or dead is coincidental. No copyright infringement is intended.

Automan: Re-Resolution

by Sailor Chronos

Chapter 2

She started her search at the beginning: the original division where she had interned in 1984 and had met Automan the first time. Over the next week, after a series of telephone calls and Internet searches, she found out that many changes had taken place there over the years. In 1989, Captain E.G. Boyd had retired with distinction and Lt. Jack Curtis had been promoted to take his place. But shortly thereafter Curtis was forced into early retirement due to injuries sustained in a firefight while apprehending some mobsters.

The new captain hadn't wanted the job, according to Tammy, an old friend of hers who was still at Parker Center; it had been foisted upon him by the police commissioner. As a result, probably as a subtle dig at the higher-ups, he had arranged a complete remodel of the department, including a massive upgrade to the computer facility that took place over the course of a week while the department's computer expert was away.

When Walter found out, he had been furious that he hadn't been notified so that he could help supervise the upgrade. His precious mainframe - including, Lina realized with a terrible sinking feeling, the Automan program - had been dismantled and removed. Due to the sensitive nature of the data it contained, nobody had been allowed to access it, not even Walter. In response to the snub, he had transferred to another division. Since that time, nobody had seen or heard from Federal Agent Otto J. Mann, and the crime statistics for the area had increased dramatically.

Lina swallowed hard. The streets of L.A. without Automan scarcely bore thinking about. Perhaps Walter had kept a backup of Automan at his home and taken him to his new division? Then she recalled Walter mentioning that because Automan required so much computing power and electricity to rez up, the hologram couldn't remain stable for long when directly initialized from Walter's home computer. That's why he had kept the core of the program on the mainframe and accessed it remotely. With the mainframe offline and his own machine not powerful enough, he just wouldn't have been able to call up Automan.

But that was twelve years ago. Home computers now were more powerful and could store huge amounts of data. She had to have some hope that Walter still had the program. She had to find him. More searches through county records revealed that he had married his long-time fellow officer Roxanne Caldwell, moved out of his apartment beside the marina and bought a small house in Maywood. Once she had his address, it would be a simple matter to go there and talk to him.

One sunny Saturday afternoon a few weeks later, she drove up to a modest but well-kept house and parked in front. A little nervously she walked up to the door and rang the bell. Would someone be home? Would they even recognize her?

The door opened, and a lithe woman with long wavy blonde hair streaked with grey stood in the entryway. Her eyes widened and she took in an excited breath. "Lina? Is that you? What a surprise!"

"Roxanne?" Lina asked, unnecessarily.

Her old friend hugged her. "I can't believe it! Come in, come in, have some coffee?"

Lina went inside and accompanied Roxanne to a fair-sized kitchen and dining area, where a coffee maker was emitting a wonderful smell and a dishwasher was humming in the background. "What brings you to our neck of the woods?"

"I was thinking about you both the other day, and realized how much time has gone by since we last saw each other," said Lina. "Your house looks terrific!"

Roxanne grinned. "Thanks. It's enough to keep it clean, but certainly not as hard as police work!" She laughed.

They engaged in small talk for a few minutes. It turned out that she and Walter had two tween-aged boys, both of whom were currently away at a cadet camp. One wanted to be a computer engineer, the other a police officer. Walter himself had been promoted to Lieutenant and was in charge of I.T. at their division. Lina took advantage of the first break in the conversation to ask, "Where is Walter?"

"Where do you think?" was the amused reply. "He's in the basement with his computers."

At that moment, Walter Nebicher entered the room. He had gained some weight - no doubt due to hours sitting in front of machines - and his wavy black hair was slightly grey at the temples. But he had the same eager smile that she remembered. He too, greeted her warmly with a hug. "So you're a full-fledged cop now, I understand," he said, having heard the tail end of the conversation.

"I'm also a computer geek, just like you," she responded. "I couldn't have had a better mentor than you, even if it was only for a few months."

He laughed. "Thanks. So what brings you up here?"

Lina stood uneasily for a moment, with her teeth clenched, then finally blurted it out. "What happened to Automan?"

Their expressions became instantly serious, and an uncomfortable silence ensued. "That's something that you two should discuss," said Roxanne delicately, and left the room.

Walter stared at the floor for a second. "How much do you know?"

"Just about everything," she admitted. "I happened to know where to look and which people to speak to about the restructure of our old office without ruffling any feathers. Please tell me, do you still work with him? You both helped me once when I got into that trouble during my internship, and I never forgot."

His glare of fury and betrayal bored into her like a laser. "Automan is gone," he said tightly. "They rebuilt the computer room when we were on our HONEYMOON, for God's sake! Then they wouldn't let me recover any of the data. Security issue, they claimed. I don't know where the storage drives are, or even if they still exist!" He managed a smirk, a shadow of his youthful humour. "My only consolation was the fact that nobody could access his program, since it was encrypted with a key that only I knew."

"But you must have had your own personal backup," she pressed. "For someone that important to you, you would have!"

"Of course I did!" he shouted. "But I couldn't run it with the resources I had at the time."

"But we do now," she pointed out. "Think, Walter! Computers now are thousands of times more powerful than they were twenty years ago. Not to mention the volumes of information available on the Internet! If you still have Automan, why not activate him? Think of what he could do; how much good he could accomplish!"

He looked at her grimly, then said, "Don't you think I haven't tried? For two years I tried to recreate the base code that I originally programmed, and even rigged a solar powered generator to the house to provide the extra power to rez him up. I couldn't get it to work, even with a top of the line PC. That old mainframe had more processing power and storage capacity, plus I could easily have forgotten some section of code that was essential to run him." He sighed and wiped his face with one hand. "Roxanne finally talked me into stopping, because it was consuming me. All I wanted was to get him back. He saved my life several times, you know."

Lina cleared her throat, trying to stop tears. "All this time I'd hoped that I could see Automan again, and thank him for what he did. I couldn't have become a cop without him, or you. But I hate to think that maybe, just maybe, he's still in his computer world somewhere, waiting in vain for you to call him."

"This conversation is over," Walter said flatly. "I can't set foot in that building again. We have done our grieving for Automan and moved on. Of course you are welcome to visit us, but please, no more mention of Automan. It just hurts too much."