Trials

"Lisa, get in the car now!" Lisa looked at Mike confused but jumped into KI3T's passenger seat and shut the door as KI3T launched himself for the rapidly opening doors to the outside.

"What is this for?" Lisa asked Mike as KI3T roared up the tunnel to the outside world.

"I needed to know that you would drop everything to get into one of the cars if you needed to. Sometimes we can't afford to finish what we were doing before leaving on a mission." Mike nodded as he turned KI3T around in the parking lot outside the tunnel.

"Ok so we just drove up out of the tunnel and now we are going back? That was sort of a waste don't you think?"

"On the contrary Lisa, I barely consumed any fuel and besides Mike has taken me out for less deserving tasks before. At least this drive served a purpose." KI3t replied.

"Oh please, all our trips out have served some sort of purpose." Mike complained back at the car.

"What do you call having me burn rubber in the tunnel called?" KI3T argued back in the typical monotone manner.

"Oh Pfft," Mike disregarded the car's statement. "Lisa you have shadowed me for two weeks on both scheduled and unscheduled missions, how do you feel?"

"I am fine with it; it is everything that I ever dreamed of." Lisa shrugged.

"So you won't try to kill yourself or KI3T tomorrow?" Mike asked.

"No, but what do you mean?" Lisa looked at Mike.

"You are doing my usual patrol tomorrow without me with KI3T observing to see that you do everything we have taught you." Mike told the younger girl.

Next day

Lisa climbed into KI3T's driver's seat, "Alright, so you and I are going on a little trip together, I guess?"

"Not my ideal situation but Sarah wants to know how you handle different scenarios without Mike around to cover for you." KI3T replied.

"Well she could have just let me take KnIFE if that is your problem." Lisa sighed, she was getting tired of everyone even the other cars being against her.

"Lisa, I don't know why you think I have a problem with you. You have proven yourself however Sarah wants you to train with me because I am more experienced at this then your car." KI3T tried to reason with the girl, "Maybe if you tried to see life through the other's eyes for once you would see that they aren't against you."

"KI3T please don't give me that whole story again. Sarah has given it to me numerous times on how life has been hard for them this last year. How every day is a struggle," Lisa said as she did a quick check of all KI3t's settings before they left the cave.

After leaving the tunnel Lisa asked KI3T for manual control and started driving KI3T toward the closest town.

As Lisa drove KI3T started talking, "has anyone ever filled you in on why FLAG dissolved and why we struggle each day to reclaim the credibility we used to have?"

Lisa looked at the center console briefly before looking back at the road, "KnIFE told me about how a group of men in black coats threatened everyone which is why KI2T was broken apart and his shell was in the garage where you and KnIFE were assembled."

"No one told you about why the FBI stripped the SSC apart then?" KI3T asked.

"No, what happened?"

"You know, though, about the partnership that Charles Graiman had procured with the FBI and the NSA right?" KI3T asked.

"Yes, that is why Charles kept me and KnIFE hidden, he didn't want them to know about the two of us." Lisa sighed as she looked back at the center console a bit longer than she had intended.

"Lisa please put your eyes on the road if you intend to drive or I will be forced to take control of myself." KI3T ordered, "Well what the FBI and NSA were actually after were the plans for KARR. Did KnIFE ever fill you in on our original prototype from before even KI2T?"

"He mentioned something about a failed project of Wilton Knight's, a car that was much like KI2T except it lacked your preservation of life protocol and instead had a very high self-preservation protocol." Lisa described.

"Yes basically that is the essence of KARR. The NSA wanted the plans for KARR so they could build a version of KARR to be used for war purposes. They ended up getting their hands on those plans and building a KARR that was viable. Mike was its driver. Just like the first KARR the project failed because it could not be trained to do what they wanted so they granted Charles Graiman a Commission to build myself so that they could perfect the KARR program and see where they went wrong." KI3T explained the story to Lisa.

"What happened?" Lisa asked the car.

"Charles controlled the project and, without knowing what the NSA had done to Mike because they had wiped his memory after the failure, chose Mike to be my driver. After Charles died there was no longer that strong force to control the project so they shut the SSC down, decommissioned me and installed my core into KARR in an attempt to balance out KARR's destructive programming." KI3T finished telling the story.

Lisa probed some more though, "Well you need to tell me what happened!"

"Sarah got the answers she needed and I had uploaded a copy of myself to the internet as a safety to whatever the FBI and NSA could do to me. She reestablished control over the SSC and got Mike, Zoe and Billy back on board. Mike freed my shell and they downloaded my files to a new core. Together we shut down the KARR project and started to rebuild Knight Industries and FLAG to how it was always intended to run."