FLAG Today: Bonnie Rising
by Julie Feldman
Canon characters are owned by Universal and were created by Glenn Larson. All the AU characters belong to me. I make no money from this story.
Chapter 1:
With KITT not being concerned anymore that his presence at family dinners would interfere with our time with Wilt, Lauren, Gianna and Devie, Sundays became our get-together day. We would usually eat outside so that KELI could join us, but if it was raining, we would eat inside the mansion with a Bluetooth mic/receiver set up in the middle of the table so that she could participate.
Sometimes Bonnie cooked, other times I barbequed and once in a while KITT would try his hand at something. He quickly found out that just following a recipe to the letter didn't automatically mean success in the kitchen. He spent one night reviewing every cookbook and TV cooking show ever produced (including those in different languages), and the next Sunday produced this AMAZING Szechuan feast. I was all for letting him do all the family dinner cooking from then on in, but Bonnie thought that was unfair. I don't know. If it doesn't require charcoal to cook, then my skills are a big, fat zero. Bonnie's not a bad cook, but during the week we usually eat whatever the Foundation's chef has for the staff. On Saturdays we sometimes will go out for a pizza or maybe something a little fancier. Other times, she'll make something, but like any skill, if you don't practice, you get sort of rusty.
Anyway, this particular Sunday occurred in mid-April, right after Easter. Gianna was a bit cranky with her first teeth coming in. Everyone took turns walking her around, rubbing ice on her gums and doing everything we could possibly think of to make her more comfortable.
"You know, an old trick some people use is to rub amaretto liqueur on her gums," remarked KITT.
"NO! Absolutely not!" said KELI firmly before any of us humans could respond. "Here, bring her to me." The red car opened its driver's side door and KITT did as the other AI commanded. He placed Gianna in the seat and KELI turned on her air conditioner full blast, started to play a calming tune and gently rocked side to side. At first, the baby giggled, entertained, but soon KELI's intervention had her asleep.
Lauren put her hand on the car's hood, shaking her head. "KELI, if you ever decide to leave FLAG, you could have a whole other career as a nanny."
"Oh, I don't know. What would KITT do without me?"
"What indeed?" he laughed jovially. Lauren wandered off, knowing the baby was safe and in good 'hands'. KITT leaned over KELI's windshield and quietly responded, "Show off!"
About an hour later we sat down to dinner at the picnic table. As we passed around the food, Wilt began to tell us how he had been approached by the department head for Artificial Intelligence Research at the Pacific Polytechnic University. It's only the best school in the country now for AI topics and it collaborates with NASA and private space endeavors in the development of non-human exploration protocols and devices. Just the fact that they approached Wilt for something made Bonnie and I as thrilled as possible. Wilton Knight was a justifiable genius, but his namesake was doing pretty well for himself, too.
"Yeah," he explained, "they are looking for a guest lecturer in Advanced AI topics for the Fall semester. I thought it would be interesting…"
"It sure would be!" Bonnie chimed in. "I always thought that you learn as much from your students as they do from you, you know."
"I agree, Mom. It's just that I don't see myself as a teacher, so I recommended someone else."
"You, not wanting the limelight?" asked Devie, knowing full well his brother hated to be the center of attention. Wilt just rolled his eyes at him.
"Come on, even your mother has learned to put up with reporters trying to get quotes about the Foundation. I think you'd make an excellent professor," I said. Obviously, I'm the really gregarious one in this family, although Lauren isn't shy. And that's a good thing, otherwise she and Wilt would never have gotten to know one another.
"But you know Wilt. He's unhappy unless he's working on subroutines or on the basketball court. I can't see him standing in front of a class delivering a lecture," replied my younger son. Like any second-born, Devie likes to needle his sibling. He's more outgoing and has more friends and social contacts than Wilt, but again like his namesake, you know when he doesn't approve of you. Actually, if AI was his field, he'd make a good substitute for his brother in the classroom. He can talk to a group of people without turning bright red and stumbling over his words with a large case of social anxiety.
Bonnie interrupted us. "Who did you recommend, Wilt?"
"You, Mom."
There was absolute silence for a moment. Bonnie's mouth hung open and knives and forks were suspended over the plates. I could swear that even KELI's scanner stopped for a micro-moment.
"No. Oh no, I don't think I'd want to do that," my intellectually gifted wife replied.
"Why not?" I asked. Bonnie's every bit as good as Wilt in the AI field, plus she has thirty years of experience behind her.
"Well…" she began to stammer. "I've got all my work here. My research and keeping KITT and KELI up to spec, and…."
I just laughed. There was an era when every time that KITT and I came back to the semi after completing an assignment, she'd have to practically rebuild him from the ground up. And as everyone knows, there were times, like after the acid pit and our encounter with the Juggernaut, when she really did rebuild him from scratch. And yes, I was the cause of a lot of the damage that he endured. But those days were well behind us. For one thing, with KITT being paired with KELI as her driver, he can perform much more precise and elegant maneuvers than I could ever think of. I was a bull in a China shop with him in comparison. He and KELI are like a precisely choreographed pair of ice dancers. And then Bonnie's learned a thing or two over the years about building more wear resistant components. Lastly, KELI's automotive body, thanks to general design advances and Devie's automotive engineering input, is much sturdier than any of KITT's automotive bodies ever were. So keeping the AI's functional was a non-starter as an excuse, in my mind at least.
"Bon, come off it. You know that the teaching assignment won't take up that much of your time and I think you're just uncomfortable being away from KITT, KELI and of course, me."
"Well…" she began.
KELI interrupted. "You know, KITT and I can also be your class assistants. I think your students would be very interested in us and that means that we can also help with your lesson plans."
"In fact," KITT chimed in, "we can write some lesson plans of our own to present, so you don't have to be responsible for the lecture of each and every class."
I could see that Bonnie was thinking about this. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I know if I'd been a student in Artificial Intelligence, taking a class where some of the instructors were AI's would definitely excite me.
"Alright, Wilt. If I don't have to lecture for more than 90 minutes a week, if KITT and KELI can participate, and most importantly, if this is one semester, and one semester only, I'll do it."