Yegods it's been such a long time. Many apologies for the delay. I honestly have no excuse for this. Um. Sorry?

Initial.
File Twelve.

THE FOUNDATION FOR LAW AND GOVERNMENT
TWELVE YEARS AGO.

At first, Bonnie had absolutely no idea why the images on the monitor she was watching were playing in black and white.

KITT's visual screens and sensors consisted of six full colour top of the line security cameras: the only way the images could be coming up in monochrome would be if KITT were causing it deliberately, or if somebody had adjusted his channels to the Sepia setting. Bonnie couldn't see any reason why KITT would be doing that. At least, not at first.

However, as the day dragged on, and applicant after applicant got behind KITT's wheel to run the test course as a potential replacement for his current (fired) driver, Bonnie had begun to notice a pattern.

'Sepia again, Devon.'

'Yes, I can see... Oh dear.'

The pattern was as followed: If the images of events taking place inside of KITT came up in full colour with no signs of editing then it meant that the current applicant was doing okay and there was no reason to worry. If the images came up in black and white then KITT was less than happy with the way things were going but was prepared to tolerate them for a while longer, and if the screens came in with sepia tones, then KITT thought his current "driver" was nothing short of ridiculous and was preparing to throw him skywards via the ejector seat.

So far, only one of the screens had shown events in full colour, most had come up in black and white. This was only the third to appear in Sepia.

Now, watching the day's recordings in the Head Office that evening, Bonnie winced and Devon... coughed.

'Well then. I presume this means we can cross "Chuck" off the list of ah... applicants,' Devon said calmly. 'I believe that brings the grand total of dismissed prospective replacements to twenty four.'

'Maybe he's just... having some adjustment issues,' Bonnie suggested uneasily.

'Bonnie, so much as I hate to disagree with your expertise I don't think KITT throwing people out of his roof is a sign of adjustment issues so much as it is a sign of adolescent piqué.'

Bonnie rubbed the back of her head. Damn migraines. 'Okay, fine, you may have a point there. Damn it... He's not happy at all, is he?'

'How do you mean?'

'I mean that KITT doesn't want any other driver, Devon.'

'There is no technological reason for that,' Devon says, evenly. 'Nothing in his programming.'

'Except for the fact that they bonded,' Bonnie adds. 'They're friends. Wilton never planned for that, did he, Devon?'

Bonnie still didn't understand that. Wilton Knight had helped to create a highly complicated artificial intelligence, capable of growing and adapting faster than any living being, of moulding to his driver like clay. He had designed a creature that could think and act for itself, and yet somehow, he hadn't thought for one moment about what this incredible creation could mean. 'KITT's making conscious choices which have little or nothing to do with what he was programmed to think and feel. Not that he hasn't been doing that all along...' Despite what some people wanted to think, she thought irritably, and Devon, reading her expression, frowned in agreement.

'...But he has never overrode his programming for the sake of a personal choice before. It doesn't work that way. Frankly, Bonnie, if you don't know what's going on then I certainly don't.'

Of course, Bonnie thought, if anyone could understand what was going on inside of KITT's "head", it would be her. She'd known him since the moment he was born...

Devon leaned back in his chair, looking older than Bonnie had ever seen him. As if he couldn't decide between excitement, and dismay. 'Well... I'm not sure Wilton planned for this.'

Bonnie winced again at the image of another driver being thrown from the vehicle. She took note of the fact that KITT had clearly staged this event to take place somewhere with a nice soft landing. A nice, soft, extremely smelly landing in an oversized garbage can. Well, in KITT's defence, that guy had been the biggest pain-in-the-rear-end (or in KITT's case, pain-in-the-exhaust) she'd ever encountered in all her time with the Foundation, and he had been making some rather suggestive comments about Devon's competence as a mission director. But while she'd never personally had the experience of being flung skywards by KITT's ejector seat, she had already seen it happening enough times in the past to know that the landing was never comfortable.

They watched the figure from the car struggling with black bin liners for a few moments longer (KITT reinforcing his point, Bonnie realised). Then, with what Bonnie thought was more than a little aplomb, KITT flickered off the camera. The screen went black.

Wonderful. Bonnie rested her chin in her hands and sighed. At this rate, there was no way in a thousand years they would ever get anybody except for Michael into KITT's driver's seat.

PRESENT DAY, PRESENT TIME.

Bonnie and Michael returned to the Foundation at Jessica's request, when she informed them that a very strange event had taken place in the repair bay.

And by "strange event" she meant "miracle". Though since Jessica Mathews never dealt in flimflam and melodramatic superstition, she would be loathe to use such a word. Nonetheless, Michael couldn't honestly think of any other explanation for the scene he was now looking at.

The mechanics and other assorted members of FLAG stood around in a confused huddle, muttering to one another in bewilderment. A few people had wandered over from other departments just to see what all the fuss was about. They had gathered around the central podium where the remains of KITT's chassis were lying (or rather, where they had been lying), and were staring at the Knight Industries Two Thousand in confusion and alarm. Although it was quite a different confusion and alarm to the one they'd been experiencing several hours earlier, when KITT's body was returned to them in a mess of tattered pieces, stinking of scorched leather and blood stains.

There was no smell of burned leather now. No blood stains, either.

As Bonnie and Michael pushed through the crowd, something glistened, like an old fashioned camera flash brushing against glass. The glisten came from the podium, and when Michael looked up, he saw... KITT.

At least he was fairly sure it was KITT. It looked like KITT, that same living, sentient mind wrapped up in a steel and alloy body. The Knight Industries sat before them, looking almost as good as new. All that was missing was a sleek coat of paint and a molecular bonded shell. He looked repaired, completed... almost perfect, in fact.

According to Jessica, these repairs had all taken place within barely thirty five minutes. And not a single Technician had been involved with the process. KITT had done it all himself.

Bonnie wasted no time in racing up the podium to where KITT sat, seeming unsure whether to smile or frown. Michael looked at Jessica. 'Uh... Jess, I assume you have an explanation for what I'm looking at here.'

'You assume incorrectly,' Jessica said, and though her tone was as sharp and blunt as ever, there was a note of nervousness creeping in around its edges. 'And it's Jessica, not Jess. We've been through this.'

'Fine, fine, whatever, but prioritise please,' Michael said dryly. 'What the heck am I looking at?'

'It's just like I told you on the phone,' Jessica shrugged. 'KITT did this himself... we weren't even touching him. He... he said something about thanking us,' Jessica frowned. 'For everything we'd done for him, whatever that meant. And then this happened. His chassis just started to knit back together, Michael, right in front of me. It's like he's reconfiguring, even recreating his entire body from the ground up.'

Michael gave this information a moment or two to sink in and waited for it to begin making some kind of sense. When this didn't happen, he said: 'But that's impossible.'

'Apparently it's not.' Jessica scowled. She'd had to deal with a lot of things outside of her current understanding of the world today. Jessica Matthews didn't like it when she didn't understand. Michael had realised that from the very first moment he met her.

He was starting to really dislike the sensation of confusion himself. 'You didn't activate a restoration program, did you? Could this be some sort of self repair mechanism?'

'Not unless you know of a piece of software which can remould metal alloy. Seriously, Michael, what kind of self repair mechanism do you know which could do something like this?'

'I don't know, maybe some pretty big ones that you don't know about,' Michael muttered. A part of his brain insisted that this was impossible, that the glistening, perfectly repaired car before him could not possibly be KITT. There was no way the extensive damage to his body could have been undone in so short a time period, and absolutely no way that KITT could have done it all himself, without the assistance of the rest of the department. Michael looked around at the nervous gathering of onlookers and signalled to Jessica. 'Look, get these guys out of here, alright? This is more attention than we need right now. I'm going to go talk to him.'

Jessica nodded curtly, and for some reason, Michael found himself taking a breath as he stepped up to the podium. Bonnie was talking twenty to the dozen and seeming less bewildered and scared than she was excited. She was touching buttons and examining wires, staring in astonishment as they moved and changed under her fingertips. She looked up at Michael and fell quiet , shifting over so he could take her place in the driver's seat, while she settled herself into the passenger's side.

Michael stopped in front of the "car" and stared at it for a moment. The surface of the raw metal seemed to shift and mould momentarily, before settling, the way clay would harden and lighten as it dried out. It was almost as if KITT were –and this was really ridiculous– brushing himself down.

Michael sat down in the driver's seat. For a moment he seemed lost for words. 'Uh... KITT?'

'Yes Michael?' His voice was the same as always, at least, the same soft, Boston accent and ever-so-slightly clipped letters. KITT sounded... a little confused, actually. As if he knew what Michael was about to ask, but wasn't entirely certain how he was supposed to answer, or if he even wanted to. And if Michael didn't know better, he could've sworn KITT was feeling a little embarrassed by all of this attention.

'What the hell, KITT?'

There was a silent pause that seemed to last for eons.

'...Your guess is as good as mine.' KITT says eventually. 'I don't think I know what's happening myself.'

'Michael, look at this,' Bonnie murmured, indicating the console before her. Lights and shapes flickered across KITT's dashboard, as if he were testing his primary functions, checking everything was in order. At first glance, it almost seemed normal, but upon closer inspection everything changed. The patterns on the screen, the messages... they looked like nothing Michael had ever seen before. They certainly didn't look as if they belonged on the dash of the Knight Industries Four Thousand. The whole thing seemed so fluid and carefully laid out, that it was almost organic.

'Oh...kay, I'm not exactly an expert, but this doesn't seem to make any sense.' Michael looked at the vocal modulator which had always served as KITT's "mouth": it was in the same place, and still pulsing with the same, dim light it had always done. But there was something more fluid about those sharp red lines that indicated KITT's speech pattern. 'KITT you did this?'

There was a rustling sensation, like the distant whirr of an electric engine. It felt kind of like a shrug. Of course, Michael realised, KITT would still have an engine, right? 'The process seemed... fairly simple at the time. I remember doing everything. I simply don't recall how, or why.'

'The process?' Michael shifted uneasily in spite of the ridiculously comfortable seat beneath him.

'If you have a more appropriate description for it, then feel free to share. I'm working blind. Well...' KITT hesitated, seeming torn between amusement and fear. 'It might be fitting to say that I'm seeing you for the first time.'

Michael, who had been opening his mouth to speak, suddenly hesitated.

There had been times, long ago, when Michael had been pretty certain that KITT was looking at him. Which sounded strange, because KITT didn't have eyes, per se – he had scanners and monitors and complicated text reading devices. He had never seen a human body. At least not in the way that humans saw. However, there were times, when they were alone in some dark allotment smack bang in the middle of nowhere, or talking quietly on the endless, empty roads, when KITT might as well have had eyes.

Bonnie shifted uncertainly in her chair, and exchanged a glance with Michael. 'KITT, I don't understand...'

'No, Bonnie.' KITT said, calmly. 'Neither do I.'

It was eleven fifteen in the evening, and the Laboratory was empty for the first time in days. Empty, that was, bar for three people. Four if you counted the AI, and everyone counted the AI. If they didn't then he would have made his presence felt very quickly anyway. KITT was never one to be left out, especially not during conversations involving himself.

Every now and then, Michael would cast a glimpse at KITT's new "body". Still absent of paint or molecular bonding, he looked almost the same as Michael remembered him, except for all the ways in which he looked utterly different. Michael knew this was a contradiction but he couldn't help thinking of it that way. There was design here: a merging of the sleek, streamlined Knight 5000, and the more rugged looking 2000. The corners were smoother, more rounded, and the whole thing seemed so light that it could lift off the ground at the drop of a hat. The tyres were about the only thing which resembled anything normal, and yet they still seemed worn down and un-roadworthy. As if there was no way they could gain any traction on a busy highway. It resembled no known car brand Michael could think of.

But it was KITT. Whatever had happened to him, and whatever it meant, that was enough for now.

They sat, talked, and tried to understand. There were papers spread out on tables, photographs and images of KITT from the past fifteen years. Reports from the deepest recesses of the Knight Industries Vaults, programming codes, system checks, recordings, videos, several large cups of coffee, and dominating it all was a large map, dotted with ink and thumb tacks. For a while everyone had just stood there, staring anxiously at the strange spectacle of the Knight Industries Five Thousands miraculous resurgence, and waiting for one of them to make the first move.

'Okay... well, the first thing we have here is the location of the accident,' Bonnie said at last, pointing to a spot on the map: 'Mistletoe Valley. That's where everything began.'

Michael nodded. 'And here we have the place where Shawn and KITT were before they headed to Mistletoe. They were on a mission over 2000 miles away, near the Mexican border...'

'That's a long way from Mistletoe Valley,' KITT said. He seemed as confused as they were. Try as they might, the files and bubble chips he'd had containing his memories pertaining to this very event had been damaged beyond repair, and there was no space for them in KITT's new brain and body. This was as new to him as it was to them.

Which was annoying, but still, Michael told himself, it wasn't KITT'S fault. They would just have to do their best with what little information they had. Shawn's resting in peace, not to mention his own sleeping patterns, depended upon their working all this out.

'It is, isn't it?' Jessica nodded. 'Which means that something happened to make you both stop whatever you were doing and head to Mistletoe right away, without informing anyone.'

'I can't think why this would be.' KITT said apologetically. 'Surely we would never have made such an action without informing headquarters first?'

'Well, you did,' Jessica said. 'There's no record of you having contacted us between your last check in upon arrival near Mexico, and when we found you in Mistletoe Valley.'

Michael paused, thinking. 'Damn it. what else do we have?'

'Baldtson Laboratory, and... maybe The Louisiana Cellracer, provided that's not just a red herring,' Bonnie added after a moment. 'Baldtson Labs is divided into three main sectors –cybertronics, biophysics and mechanics. Both the cybertronics and mechanical departments worked on Dennis Row's record breaking Louisiana Cellracer. He was trying to break the land speed record this year, but he got into an accident. His car came off the track and exploded, while he was travelling at over fifty miles per hur faster than KITT's previous known top speed.'

'Again, that is possibly irrelevant,' KITT said. 'We're simply making a theoretical connection between the place I was... located, and the designers of the Louisiana Cellracer.'

'Maybe,' Michael shrugged. 'But that's all we've got right now. And I'm not sure I believe in coincidences.' He sat down heavily on an industrial tool box. 'So. Branch out. Throw anything at us, KITT, anything at all that you might remember, no matter how useless or meaningless you think it might be?' There was a moment of silence, before Michael spoke again. 'Okay, I'll go first, just to show you that whatever you're thinking, it can't possibly be all that crazy...' He hesitated before adding. 'The airport.'

Bonnie blinked at him. 'You mean that light weight craft that crashed through the wall.'

'After tearing a gash through a quarter of the city,' Michael said. 'And the driver who knew my name. Don't ask me how that's relevant I don't know, just...'

'Call it a hunch?' Bonnie suggested, and Michael had to smile. 'KITT? What do you think that was all about?'

'I honestly have no idea,' KITT said and, after another long moment he added. '...I do remember moving, though. At an exceptionally high speed.'

There it was again. Michael's brain was beginning to piece things together, though he wasn't sure yet how the final jigsaw was supposed to look. The Cellracer trying to break the land speed record... the Baldtson funded aircraft that collided with the airport... KITT, and Shawn's death while travelling at high speed... The Laboratory...

Speed.

'Well there's our first connection,' he muttered.

'Albeit a very vague one,' Jessica didn't seem at all convinced. 'I'm sorry, guys, but doens't this all feel a bit... Mystery Fiction Monthly to you? How do you know all of these amazing coincidences aren't simply that –coincidences?'

'Speak for yourself, Miss Matthews,' KITT said. 'I happen to enjoy Mystery Fiction Monthly... Though I admit the digital version doesn't seem to come with the same free-offer benefits as the paperback.'

Bonnie smiled vaguely at the confusion on Jessica's face. The poor woman was clearly out of her depth. She remembered teaching Jessica at University, what felt like a lifetime ago, how the woman's face had slowly transformed from bewilderment, to anger, to dismissal to slow, careful acceptance, whenever she was faced with a problem that couldn't be solved by plain logic and science.

The thing about Jessica Matthews was that you had to be patient with her. Which kind of reminded Bonnie of another person she knew rather well. 'Trust me, Jessica, when you spend as long as we have dealing with this kind of mystery-fiction-style hocus-pocus, you start to see connections everywhere,' Bonnie sighed. 'I know he acts like a sloppy, footloose vagabond, free from authority, order, and the need to wear sensible shoes, but Michael knows what he's talking about. Usually.'

'Hey! I resemble that remark.'

'What of Mister Maddox's disappearance?' KITT asked. Michael bit his tongue.

'Yeah, that's something else we need to work on.' He muttered. 'There'll be a connection there too, I'll bet.'

'How can we be sure we're not just forming connections where none exist?' Jessica asked after a moment. Then she shrugged in response to the incredulous looks this earned her. 'Well sorry, but it all sounds rather farfetched to me! You're theorising about some kind of... of massive conspiracy here, and yet the only connection we've made so far is that everyone was going really fast at the moment they died? Isn't that how most fatalities involving moving vehicles come about?'

'True, but most of those vehicles aren't the Knight Industries Five Thousand,' Bonnie said.

'Thank you, Bonnie,' KITT sounded pleased.

'And most lightweight aircrafts don't crash through three metre thick concrete walls, no matter how fast they're going,' Michael added. 'And who knows what that Mister Row guy was up to, with that private track and top secret testing field of his. And another thing: they're all connected to the Baldtson Laboratories in one way or another. Dennis Row's machine was built there; Mistletoe Valley is where we... found Shawn and KITT; that aircraft was a prototype design from their cybertronics department, and then there's those abrasions on the pilot's face when he died...'

'Which almost exactly matched Shawn's,' Bonnie finished quietly. She seemed to shiver. 'You're right, Jessica. It does sound like we're trying to piece together the pages of a murder mystery.'

'I'll say it is a murder mystery,' Jessica noted, quietly. 'And while we're asking difficult questions: we still don't know how KITT did that.'

She nodded in KITT's direction, to where Bonnie had a hand placed against his chassis: faint gold-bronze colouring which was nothing like his previous red or the black before that. The style quite unlike any make of vehicle currently on the roads today.

'As I said, I have no idea how it happened.'

'No, you don't have any idea about much,' Jessica said, dryly, then perked up before KITT could answer her back. 'But we have a name for it now. Instinctive Molecular Cohesion. IMC. KITT was somehow able to rebuild his frame based on the existing knowledge of his design and form in his databanks: and not just that, he was able to IMPROVE upon it, and... Create this. He rebuilt his entire molecular structure.'

Michael barely noticed Jessica's transition from ;it' to 'he' and now didn't seem a good moment to comment on it, so instead he kept staring it's KITT's dashboard, as if looking for answers.

'But –sorry, no offence, KITT, but you can't possibly do that,' Bonnie said.

'And yet he did.' Jessica said, a little sharply. 'Unless you think our department was able to completely rebuild him in under three hours?'

'We're FLAG, Jess.' Bonnie said. 'We've done the impossible when it comes to rebuilding KITT many times before and that sounds a lot more logical that what you're suggesting actually happened.'

'Look as flattered as I am by how well you think I run this team...'

'I'm not talking about this team, I'm talking about the old one.' Bonnie muttered. She sounded... irritated, and Michael, who knew her quite well knew they could put this down to her anxiety and nostalgia. Jessica wasn't so well informed and took Bonnie's comment as a personal insult.

'Well the old team isn't here! This isn't the flag you left fifteen years ago, Miss Barstow, with all due respect did you honestly think you could come back here and nothing would've changed?'

KITT coughed (in a sense, anyway). 'Ah... Bonnie? Miss Matthews, is this really the time for that particular argument?'

Easy, KITT you know better than to get in the way of Bonnie when he's trying to duke it out with someone. I'm guessing Jessica here's the same.' Michael muttered.

Jess and Bonnie seemed to falter at his words, looking embarrassed.

Bonnie sighed. 'I'm sorry, Jessica, this situation just has be a little freaked out, that's all... The thought that all of this could happen, without anyone's help... I mean look at him. You're saying that this just happened? That you didn't have anything to do with it? Then what did repair him? Did he activate some kind of... of hyper advanced repair cycle? He's never done that before and I'm pretty sure he wasn't designed to; this could've been caused by anything! Anyone.'

'Well, I think KITT knew what he was doing when... this happened, okay?' Michael said. 'It's not like we just let some alien run rampant over him. He's better than he was before!'

'You've never heard of the saying "beware the Greeks bearing gifts?"' Bonnie frowned. 'We don't know what caused this to happen!

'Excuse me, but as must as I don't want to interrupt this conversation about my welfare, I should point out that the AI in question is still right here,' KITT said, primly. 'And he's wondering why on earth everyone is talking over, through, and about him, but nobody is talking to him.'

'Hey, I'm talking to you.' Michael put in.

'Thank you, Michael, but my point remains. I wonder if perhaps we are reading too much into this.'

'You can't blame us for being concerned, KITT,' Bonnie said.

'I know, and I appreciate your concern, but I'm hardly a Trojan Horse. And this...' KITT's wheels shifted slightly. His dashboard flickered, as if he were testing himself. 'I see no downsides to this...'

There was a pause in which everyone looked at KITT with a united expression of "Huh?"

'Well, consider this from my perspective, I'm a car! Until now I have relied entirely upon others for my survival... My very body was dependent upon others. Now that dependency has been at least partially eliminated. At the very least I can repair myself now, in the same manner as any human body does. I'm capable of restoring my own programming, presumably on the move.'

'Comfy seating, too,' Michael wisecracked, ignoring Jessica's resulting glare. But in spite of his quipping, something inside of him shifted at KITT's words. It wasn't that he had never considered what it must be like for KITT, to be so incredibly powerful, so unique intelligent, and yet so stunted by a body which couldn't change. And now KITT had healed himself from a nearly fatal encounter.

'Well then maybe 'Molecular Cohesion isn't the right choice of word,' Michael said.

'Well, what would you call it?' Bonnie asked.

Michael looked KITT right in the vocal modulator. 'How about Evolution?'

'Oh, please,' Jessica sighed. 'Now you're being ridiculous. I've bought everything up to this, but now you're talking a different language.'

'Well, you're perfectly happy to believe in the existence of a self-activating self repair mechanism, right?' Michael said. 'Isn't that exactly what every living body does? Isn't that what you've done, KITT?'

'I… suppose so.'

'Yes,' Bonnie agreed quietly. 'Why should biology rather than technology determine whether KITT can evolve?'

'It's not that, it's the science of it all.' Jessica went on. 'That's not what evolution is. Evolution is... developing and adapting to an environment or requirement. It occurs in a species in-between each generation of individuals, not within one body in one lifetime. That's not evolution, that's just learning.'

'But KITT's something different to all of that,' Bonnie says. 'He's not a species, he's unique. And he's not biological. Who says he has to operate according to the same rules of development as humans do?'

There was another brief moment of quiet while they processed this information before KITT spoke. 'I think we're branching out into philosophy and metaphysics, Bonnie, and as interesting as it may be, I don't consider it relevant. If I understand this correctly, then we have a potentially dangerous situation on our hand. Several incidents, all connected by the Baldtson Laboratories and all involving high speed vehicles.'

'And you,' Michael finished coldly. 'KITT whatever's going on here, and whatever Baldtson is up to, I'm willing to bet you're right in the middle of it. Somebody is interested in you.'

'And that interest cost Shawn her life,' KITT finished, with what sounded like a note of heat and frustration. 'We cannot allow this act to go unpunished.'

'You're right, buddy,' Michael nodded. 'And we won't.'

'Then how do you suggest we proceed?' Jessica asked, eventually, her voice calm and composed. Clearly she was handing control of this situation over to them.

'We start by going back to the source.' Michael said, firmly, feeling strangely in control, yet simultaneously heavy with a sense of responsibility he hadn't had thrust upon him for a while now. He placed a hand on KITT's bonnet. 'KITT and I are going back to Baldtson Laboratories, and we're going to find some answers.'