Chapter 3
Conversation buzzed down in the Main Lab. Ian, Angela, Kai & Rei, and Carmen & Enrique were all trying to talk over each other. Charles stood on the upper walkway, observing everyone. They watched as a bleeding Kevin was escorted into the medical suite by security.
"I knew it was him," Ian said firmly.
"You did not!" Rei scolded. "Don't even pretend. None of us knew." Her expression became troubled. "If we did, we'd have said something."
"He's got keys for every room in the facility," Ian said. "Who else could it have been?"
She crossed her arms over her chest. "Well I know where that spray bottle of bio-nanos disappeared off to finally."
"Do you think he's the one that killed Samuel as well?" Kai asked worriedly.
"Yeah, he did," Angela spoke up then. She had both hands clasped to her chest, as if trying to shield herself from some deep ache. "Kat told me it was him…"
Carmen's eyes narrowed dangerously. She hefted a large wrench up to her shoulder and started towards the medical suite. Enrique held her back. "Tía, espera. Let David handle him."
She turned her glare on him and he removed his hand from her shoulder quickly. "El Diablo will take Sam's death out of his hide, I promise you."
Her lips pulled back over her teeth in a vicious grin. She lowered her wrench and let out a bitter chuckle. "Anyone else, and I would feel sorry for them…"
K.I.T.T decided it would be best to distract her. "If you need something to keep you occupied while you wait, my grappling hook was damaged in the last mission. One of the points is bent."
She turned to him at once, her expression tender. "Did those nasty kidnappers hurt mi bebé?" She hurried over to him and knelt down. She reached under the grill and pulled out the grappling hook. One of the points was indeed bent, and there were traces of blood on all three. She frowned. "I can change it for a new one in a jiffy." She disconnected it and stood up. "I'll grab a replacement out of the vault."
"I'll come with you," Enrique offered, following her.
She placed her hand on the screen next to the vault and the massive door unlocked. She pulled it open and stepped inside. Enrique pulled it closed behind them. They found a replacement easily enough. Enrique was just there to make sure his aunt didn't run off to attack Kevin when his back was turned.
He held the new hook while she placed her hand on the screen next to the door. The screen turned red. She frowned at it and pushed on the door. It didn't budge. She looked at her hand, then wiped it on her coveralls. She tried again.
The screen turned red.
Misgivings squirmed in her stomach. "Something wrong?" Enrique asked.
She jabbed the intercom button above the screen. "David, I'm stuck in the vault. Can you come open it for me?"
What came from the intercom speaker was not David's voice, but music. She jabbed the button again, frowning. The music didn't stop.
"Mama, we all go to hell.
Mama, we all go to hell.
I'm writing this letter and wishing you well,
Mama, we all go to hell."
"What in the…" Enrique looked at the door, then Carmen, then back. "What's going on?"
"Oh, well, now,
Mama, we're all gonna die.
Mama, we're all gonna die.
Stop asking me questions, I'd hate to see you cry,
Mama, we're all gonna die."
Carmen gripped her hands into fists, her shoulders shook from the tension in her arms. Her bare biceps bulged. She jabbed the button forcefully. "KITT, you open this door right now!"
"And when we go don't blame us, yeah.
We'll let the fires just bathe us, yeah.
You made us, oh, so famous.
We'll never let you go.
And when you go don't return to me my love."
She banged her fist on the speaker, but the music continued unabated. "KITT locked us in here?" Enrique asked in confusion. "How do you know?"
"Mama, we're all full of lies.
Mama, we're meant for the flies.
And right now they're building a coffin your size,
Mama, we're all full of lies."
She gestured to the speaker. "Because of that. This is just like that jammer thing from his game." Her voice raised again. "It's not funny! Open this door right now or I'm turning you into a Mini!" She placed her hand on the screen again. It turned red.
"Well Mother, what the war did to my legs and to my tongue,
You should've raised a baby girl,
I should've been a better son.
If you could coddle the infection
They can amputate at once.
You should've been,
I could have been a better son."
She paused as a shiver ran through her. "KITT, please," she whispered. "This isn't funny." She leaned both hands on the door. "Just open it."
"She said: "You ain't no son of mine
For what you've done they're gonna find
A place for you
And just you mind your manners when you go.
And when you go, don't return to me, my love.
That's right."
Her fingers gripped the cold titanium. "Mi bebé, por favor, abre la puerta..." Her vision blurred. "Por favor, no me hagas esto…"
"Mama, we all go to hell.
Mama, we all go to hell.
It's really quite pleasant
Except for the smell,
Mama, we all go to hell."
Enrique put a hand on her shoulder. "Carmen, what are we going to do?"
"And if you would call me your sweetheart,
I'd maybe then sing you a song
But there's s-t that I've done with this f-k of a gun,
You would cry out your eyes all along."
She lifted her head and pushed away from the door roughly. There was fire burning behind her eyes. "I'm not going to let you do this, do you hear me! If you think that, then you've got another thing coming!"
"We're damned after all.
Through fortune and flame we fall.
And if you can stay then I'll show you the way,
To return from the ashes you call."
She marched over to her workbench. On the way she grabbed the handle of a rolling tool chest and wheeled it over. She started setting out tools and parts on the bench.
"What are we doing?" Enrique asked her.
Her eyes were narrowed in concentration as she started to work. "We're going to get out of here."
"We all carry on
When our brothers in arms are gone
So raise your glass high
For tomorrow we die,
And return from the ashes you call."
xxxXXXxxx
"You look tired, Charles," K.I.T.T remarked up to him.
He lifted up a hand to adjust his glasses. "Today has been a roller coaster, and I'm not as young as I used to be."
"You don't have to push yourself so hard. David has everything under control."
The doors to the medical suite slid open and Kevin was escorted out by the security team. This time he didn't have the stretcher. Keth and Jason supported him on either side while he walked. Amanda observed silently, her hand over the gun at her hip.
Charles stared at Kevin, his expression aghast. He held onto the railing with one hand as he made his way over to the group. They met at the top of the stairs.
"Tell me why," Charles said desperately. "Why would you kill Samuel?"
Kevin glanced at him and let out a small laugh. "I didn't kill him." His lip pulled back in a smirk.
Charles' eyes widened. "Then what-"
Kevin turned to him. "Oh, trust me, I'm the one that faked his death at Base2, but I wasn't the one that pulled the trigger. I was just the delivery boy." His grin widened. "KARR is the one that killed him."
Charles leaned heavily on the railing, his head bowed. "Take him away," he said softly. Keth and Jason pulled him out the door.
The rest of the team stared at Charles silently. Angela hurried up the stairs. She put a hand on his arm. "Charles…"
He lifted his head and she could see his face was damp with tears. "Excuse me," he said with a weak smile. "It's been a long day and I should probably lie down."
She took his hand in both of hers. "I'll help you upstairs." Her voice was gentle.
"Thank you, child," he said gratefully. She hooked her arm through his and helped him to the door.
As they walked down the hallway together he gave her a sad smile. "You're so quick to help when someone is hurting. When are you going to spare time for your own wounds?"
She put her free hand on her chest, trying to stifle the pain echoing in her heart. "Later. I'll take some time later." She looked at the floor. "We all miss him."
"Not the way that you do."
"Before he went to Base2, he pulled me aside." She looked around. "That was before this place was fully up and running. He wanted to be the first one to have coffee with me in the cafeteria." She let out a laugh. "It seemed really important to him, so I told him okay." She put her hand to her red cheeks and wiped her eyes with her fingertips. "I don't even drink coffee…"
Charles put his hand over the one on his arm. "It's okay to cry for him."
"That seems a bit selfish to me, to cry over an ending when there wasn't even a beginning."
"Everyone deserves a little selfishness, every now and then."
She walked with Charles to his room and helped him into his bed. When she turned back to the door, she heard it click. She walked over to it and tried the knob. It wouldn't budge. She checked, but it wasn't locked.
"What's wrong?" Charles asked, sitting up.
"It won't open."
"Perhaps it's stuck. I'll called Casey." He reached over for his phone. "That's strange."
She turned to him. "What?"
"I don't appear to have a signal." He showed her the phone's screen. She pulled out her own phone and saw that she had lost her signal as well.
She turned to the door and pounded on it. "Hey! Anybody out there!" She tried the knob again. It turned, but the door refused to open. "What the hell is going on here?"
xxxXXXxxx
Diana finished putting together her medical bag. She wasn't sure what she would need to examine Samuel, so she added anything she thought might be useful.
She reached up to the back of her neck, feeling the scar under her turtleneck. Perhaps there was another reason David wanted her to work on a spinal implant. She knew first hand about spinal injuries, didn't she?
She closed her bag and headed for the door. She flipped off the light on the way. She put her hand on the knob, but found the door locked. She checked the lock and tried again, but it wouldn't budge.
She pushed aside one of the blinds covering the large window next to her door. She could see down into the Main Lab, but no one was on the walkway. She supposed she could knock on the window, but the room was practically sound proof, so it was unlikely she would be heard.
She knocked on the glass, hoping that maybe someone would spot her movements in the window.
Suddenly the entire pane of glass turned pitch black. She backed up in surprise. The room was plunged into darkness. She walked into the metal table behind her.
She hurriedly flipped the lights back on, breathing heavily. She stared at the blackened window. Just what on Earth was going on?
xxxXXXxxx
Kai, Rei, and Ian were still in the Main Lab. Everyone else was sequestered either in their rooms, or another part of the facility. Only three left. K.I.T.T wondered if he could take care of all three at once.
"You're not tired?" K.I.T.T asked Ian.
Ian laughed dryly. "You know I can stay up later than this, KITT. I want to wait to see what David says about everything. How could I possibly sleep right now?"
"I suppose if you have an adequate supply of energy drinks, we can play something while we wait."
He waved his hand. "Who can play a game at a time like this?" He looked around. "Though a Red Bull is a good idea..."
"I'm afraid they're all in the refrigerator upstairs," K.I.T.T told him.
He looked up the stairway, deciding. "Nah, I can wait a bit."
K.I.T.T decided to try with someone else. "Kai, you said a cannister of bio-nanos was stolen, when was this?"
"Last year. It was one of the first full canisters we produced. I reported it to David, but he didn't seem to think much of it at the time."
"He acts like we lost it or something," Rei said irritably. "A fifty-thousand dollar cannister and we just misplaced it." She threw her hands in the air.
"Why was it stolen though?" Kai asked. "What would KARR want with bio-nanos?"
"He got ROOC to help him out somehow, maybe he offered them our research." Rei's voice was bitter.
"Thankfully David holds our patents," Kai commented.
"Was anything else stolen?" K.I.T.T asked. "If something else is missing we might be able to determine what KARR's scheme is."
"We'd have to do a full inventory, and that could take hours," Rei complained.
"Which David will probably have us do anyway," Kai continued.
Rei sighed heavily. "Then we'd better get started." They both headed to the large inventory closet they used to store equipment. Once the door closed behind them, K.I.T.T activated the secondary lock.
Ian sat with his feet up on Pierce's desk, his laptop open and resting on his legs. "You're just going to wait there all night?" K.I.T.T asked him.
"If I have to," he replied idly.
"Fine, then." The barrel to his tranquilizer gun slid out from under his headlight. He fired a dart at Ian.
The dart hit him in the shoulder. He looked down at it. "What the-" He passed out the next second, falling out of the chair and onto the floor behind the desk.
The lights overhead turned red as an unauthorized vehicle burst through the hidden door guarding the tunnel entrance. K.I.T.T rolled off his concrete circle and lowered it down into the tunnel.
"That took you long enough," K.I.T.T commented as the circle returned, a black and silver Camaro sitting on it. "Didn't you leave New York before us?"
"I currently do not have a supersonic jet at my disposal," K.A.R.R replied irritably, the yellow light above his scanner bar moving back and forth quickly.
"I suppose I could lend you Bishop every now and then, as long as you don't get it dirty."
"Everyone is taken care of?"
"I did the best I could, considering my weapons are limited. No one is around to stop you."
"Good." K.A.R.R quickly patched into the facility's systems. Every computer screen in the Main Lab changed, showing K.A.R.R's scanner bar.
"You certainly have a flair for the dramatic," K.I.T.T commented. "You don't see this kind of cartoon villainy outside of the eighties."
"I do not have full control of FLAG, though."
"That's because you're not equipped with the right software. I've got FLAG under control. What do you need?"
"Before that, I want to make sure your knight will not be causing us any trouble. Where is she currently?"
"Kat? I've locked her up and the tracker in her implant will let me know if she get's out."
"Excellent, turn control of the implant over to me, so that I may keep her under watch. I've learned a long time ago that a knight never stays put."
K.I.T.T hesitated. "I've got her. She's not going anywhere."
"All the same."
"You don't trust me as far as you could tow me, do you?"
"Of course not."
"Fine, here's the credentials for monitoring the implant. Have fun."
"Excellent. Now, let us begin."
xxxXXXxxx
Up in the holding area Kevin and Sam waited by their doors. Red lights flashed overhead. The doors slid open and they both stepped out of their cells.
They walked down the hall side by side. At the end was a door with a panel next to it. The panel turned green and Kevin pushed the door open. "Let's head to the security office first, so we can raid the armory," he said with a grin.
xxxXXXxxx
A/N: We're at the halfway point and hings are heating up! What's going to happen next? Wait and see.
Want more Knight Rider AS after all is said and done? Let me know! Tell me what you'd like to see in a second season. What kind of episodes would be interesting/fun/hilarious? We're gonna need something good after the end of this season...
