Chapter 5: Searching

Not far away, in the junk yard where Kitt was formerly staying, a young couple got out of their strange-looking car. The car, actually two motorcycles joined together, shut off its own engine and waited patiently.

Erica and Trek walked over to the junk yard guardhouse and began to question the attendant.

"Excuse me, sir," said Trek, "But have you seen a black car around here lately?"

The guard smirked at him, "You want a car, huh? Well help yourself," said the man waving his arm toward the piles of smashed cars behind him. "Of course, it will need a little, heh-heh, body work. Hah-ha!"

"Ha... Ha. Very funny, Mr. Comedian," Trek said under his breath, then louder to the man, he said, "Uh, you seem to have misunderstood my question, sir. What I meant to say was, have you seen a fully intact black car drive out of here?"

"With or without a driver?" the man laughed.

"I am rapidly losing patience with this guy!" Trek whispered to Erica.

"Let me handle this," she whispered back.

Trek covered his eyes with his hand and sighed, "Oh, brother, here we go." Erica straightened her tight-fitting jumper outfit and walked up to the laughing attendant.

"Oh, please help me, sir," she begged in a child-like voice. "If I don't find that car, I don't know what I'll do!"

The balding man stopped laughing and pushed up his dark plastic-rimmed glasses to take a better look at the striking woman. "Well, hello, my dear!" he said, totally forgetting about Trek. "Now, what can I do for you?"

Erica fluttered her eyelashes and spoke with a deep, sexy voice, "All I want to know is if you saw a black car drive out of here not too long ago."

"No, little lady, I'm sorry. I didn't see anything. But you know who you could ask?"

"Who?!" Erica and Trek said together.

The man leaned closer and said quietly, "That old wino that comes around her every once in a while. He might've seen something."

"Thanks for your help," muttered Trek.

"See ya, later," called Erica as she and Trek climbed back into their combo car. The engine, or rather engines started, and they took off into the junkyard in search of the old wino.

* * * * *

Erica sighed and glanced out her side window. She saw what she'd seen for the past hour and a half: piles of old, rusted, useless metal. The scenery depressed her. She released her set of handle bars and slumped down toward the access panel of her motorcycle part of the combo-car. The motorcycle continued to steer without her. She stared at the panel in front of her. On it was a 3-dimensional picture of her motorcycle rotating. It would rotate two full turns, then stop and go back the other way in a seemingly endless cycle. The name "Kat" was neatly set in the upper left corner. Around the edges of the small monitor were small horizontal and vertical multicolored bars that showed the 'cycle's status. Trek's motorcycle was identical to hers except the name in the corner was "Plato".

Erica drearily tapped a few buttons that lay around the small monitor. Each button she pushed let out a small bleep noise and suddenly the two cabs of the combo-car were filled with loud rock music.

"Ow! Turn that crap down! I can't make a sensible scan of the area!" yelled Trek, holding his ears and gesturing to his small monitor.

Erica grunted and turned down the music.

"Better?" she asked sarcastically.

"Much," he looked over. "What's your problem, anyway?"

She looked around at the scenery slowly moving past, "I can't stand this depressing landscape! I need Los Angeles! The buildings, the stores!"

"... The noise, the smog..." he continued for her.

"Yeah, well, it's a lot better than this trash heap!" she said.

Trek looked around and then back to her. "Just think of these mountains of cars and metal as buildings. And the narrow dirt roads between them as streets in a city."

She looked around yet again, "It's not working!"

"Well get your mind off of it by doing some scans for awhile. I'm getting tired of scanning."

Erica sighed and rolled her eyes, "Fine." She pushed a few buttons on the panel again. This time the music stopped and a slight hum emanated from the cycle. "Nothing so far," she informed Trek. "Wait. I've got a lock on a heat source."

"Where?"

Erica pointed to a rather large stack of crushed metal, "Behind there."

Trek adjusted his gray helmet, "Okay, let's go." They gunned the engine and turned sharply around the metal tower. Immediately, they spotted a vagrant digging through the trunk of a totaled car. Alarmed by the noise of the car turning and kicking up the gravel and dirt road, the old man turned around.

"Who the he...?!" he started to yell. When he saw the strange and vicious-looking car pointed toward him, he cowered. Dropping the tin can half full of rotting Spaghetti-O's, he turned and scampered away as fast as his legs would carry him.

"He's running!" yelled Erica.

"I can see that," Trek said pushing some buttons. Suddenly, in a shower of sparks and light the combo-car split into two separate motorcycles! "You take the right, and I'll take the left!" Trek instructed Erica.

"But you always take the left! I want the left for once!" she said.

"Go! Now!" he yelled.

"Oooh! I hate you!"

Trek continued forward, following the running old man, while Erica cut sharply to the right heading down a block of metal towers. Trek continued to chase the old man into the corner of the junk yard.

"Please! Leave me alone! I wasn't stealin' anything!" the old man called behind him. He looked back and saw he was still being pursued and tried to run even faster. He was about to turn around a pile of mashed TV's and stereo's to prevent being cornered, when he saw Erica speed around toward him at the far end of the trash block. Quickly, he turned around to run the other way, but saw Trek still following him.

Now he was cornered. The old man had nowhere to go. He slumped down in the very corner of the junk yard and began to cry. Trek and Erica both slid to a stop a few feet away.

"The poor old guy," Erica said with pity, "He's crying."

Trek dismounted his motorcycle and pulled his gray riding helmet off. Stepping up to the man, he said, "Why did you run?"

The ruffled old man looked at him through teary eyes, "I thought you were the cops. They're always tryin' to bust me. Say I've been stealin' stuff. But I wasn't. Elliot don't take stuff without askin'."

Trek looked over at his companion then back to the weeping man, "Uh... that's good that you don't steal, um, Elliot. But we're not the cops. We just wanna ask you some questions. Did you see a black car around here? It was in decent condition, but had no wheels or seats. Have you seen it?"

Elliot looked troubled, "You-you're not gonna turn me in, are ya?"

"For what?" Erica asked.

"Well," his eyes darted around trying to locate an escape route, "I kinda let a lady take it."

"You what?!" yelled Trek.

"I'm sorry! She hit me! She pushed me down! I couldn't get her away! She beat me up, then took the car! Elliot's sorry! He was taken by surprise! He didn't mean to let her have it!!" he shouted, panicking.

Erica leaned over and whispered to Trek, "This guy's obviously a loon. We shouldn't take any of his information seriously."

"I know," he whispered back, "But maybe he can give us a lead?"

Trek looked at the man just now starting to wipe away his tears. "Do you know her name?

"Who?" he asked.

"The girl who took the car. Do you know her name?"

"I think it starts with a "K". "Karen" or "Katie", something like that. I see her round here all the time. She likes to dig in the trash like me. But she don't look for food or clothes, she looks for metal stuff. Stuff with wires so's she can fix it. Guess she liked the car 'cause she could maybe fix it."

Trek had a look of intrigue on his face, "Do you know where this girl lives?"

"Not too far from here," Elliot looked toward the west and pointed. "She lives in the woods over that way. She don't like populated places."

"How do you know all this stuff, Elliot?" asked Erica.

The old man looked at her with a gleam in his eye, "I just do, girlie." His flat, monotone answer sent a cold shiver down her spine. She didn't like this guy.

"Come on, Trek, we got all we need. Let's go." She grabbed his arm and tugged slightly. Trek hopped onto his cycle and began to pull on his helmet. Erica already had hers on and was ready to go.

"Well, thanks for your help, pal. Oh, and uh... sorry we scared ya like that. No hard feelings?"

The man stood there with his long, dusty black overcoat blowing slightly in the wind slowly shaking his head. The duo sped off in a cloud of dust and debris. He watched them leave, angered yet frightened at the same time.

Oh, no, he thought. Not only did I loose the car to that girl, but now someone else is after it! Then he remembered the logo on Erica's blue jumper. "T.K.R.? Oh, no! That was Team Knight Rider! They were lookin' for that car!" he bit his lip. "That means the boss will not like it. Not at all. I've got to get it back before those bozos do!" With that, the man took off toward Keri's house.