Kitt and Michael raced along a deserted highway. Kitt was in control, Michael leaning back in the driver's seat and watching the landscape flash by. They had covered easily a hundred miles before Michael drew a deep breath and asked, "Is there anything wrong, Partner?"
"What do you mean?" Kitt kept his speed well over a hundred miles an hour, his voice level and even.
"You haven't said one word since I asked if you wanted to drive. Is something bothering you?"
"No," Kitt said, lying. It was a skill he'd picked up from Michael, but he wasn't as proficient as his human partner. Michael snorted, hearing the lie.
"Come on, you can tell me. What's up?"
"It's Karr," Kitt said after a long moment, pulling the car with ease round a hairpin bend, hardly squealing their tires.
"Karr," Michael repeated. "What about him?"
"He's alive."
"What?" Michael demanded. "Kitt, are you sure?"
"I'm afraid so," Kitt said. "I had hoped this was just a stray signal, but it's getting stronger all the time. He's alive."
"Wait, I don't understand," Michael protested. "How do you know? What stray signal? What's getting stronger?"
"Karr and I had....have.....a link. A private channel. Sort of like the neurotransmitter chip was supposed to work, only this one does work. I'd almost forgotten about it, it's been dead for so long, but last night it came back. He's different, though, Michael, he's changed. I don't understand this."
"I can't believe it," Michael said softly. "How much does it take to kill him? We scattered him to the four winds, he was comprehensively destroyed, how on earth could he have come back again?" He lay back in the seat, rubbing his face with one hand. "We don't need this again."
"I know, Michael," Kitt said, subdued. "But he's really different now. He's...softer. I think whoever brought him back this time must have altered his programming somehow. He's not blocking the link, which leads me to believe he's not aware of it, which means..."
"His memory's been affected?"
"I believe so," Kitt told him. "I don't know what to do, Michael."
"We have to find him," Michael said, his eyes closed. "We have to find him and destroy him for the third time, and bury him in a volcano or a deepsea rift or something, to make sure he never comes back again."
Kitt was silent. Michael had the sudden impression he'd said something very wrong. He had no idea how to make all of this go smoothly away. With a sort of desperate resolve, he tapped the button for the new videophone. Devon's office sprang into being on the screen.
"Devon," Michael said. "We've got a problem."
"Oh, dear," the Englishman said tiredly. "What now?"
"Kitt says Karr is still alive."
"What?" Devon repeated incredulously. Michael nodded.
"Yeah, that's what I said. Apparently there's a link between them. Someone must have found the circuit boards in the desert and brought him back."
"That's impossible, Michael," Devon said. "There simply wasn't enough of Karr left to bring back. Kitt, are you completely sure?"
"Completely," Kitt said, slowing to take a highway interchange. "I'm sorry, Devon, but Karr is still alive. I can only surmise that there was some sort of secondary source for the circuitry. Some kind of backup?"
"That's it!" Michael thumped the dash, ignoring Kitt's exclamation. "That has to be it. Someone must have pirated the old backup mainframe. He was still saved to that at regular intervals, right?"
"Yes, of course, like Kitt, but I don't see how," Devon said. "The backup mainframe's been off for years. I don't even know if its system integrity is still complete. There might be mice living in it, Michael, I don't understand how anyone could have got a functional Karr out of that old thing."
"Is there any other way Karr could have returned?" Michael asked Kitt. "Taking into account the comprehensive destruction of Karr's CPU?"
"I'm thinking," Kitt said. "No. Not unless someone copied Karr's CPU when he was stolen for the first time, which would have been impossible with the general level of technology available at that time."
"Come back to the estate," Devon said. "I'm starting a search for all the components of the backup mainframe system. If anything's been touched, we'll know." He cut the videophone connection, and Michael sat back in the driver's seat. Kitt pulled an elegant if illegal U-turn and headed back toward the estate. There was silence in the car for a long time, as both AI and man considered the enormity of their discovery.
"I wonder if this has anything to do with Riley," Kitt said after they'd left the expressway. "She was interested in Karr, wasn't she?"
"I don't know," Michael said. "Before my time. Devon said something about them having a lot of heart-to-hearts....or is that the wrong term? I think she was more involved with him than any of the humans around. But I can't see Riley Stone as a thief, or a software engineer."
"You couldn't see her as a mechanic, either, could you?" Kitt pointed out. "She's told me how much it took to convince you lot that she was ready, willing and able to do the work."
"Yes, well," Michael said. "She was gorgeous and rich, you know. One tends to dissuade the gorgeous and rich from doing manual labor."
"Does one?" Kitt said. His tone was light and teasing, but Michael heard the undercurrent of worry. He knew Kitt liked Riley, liked her a lot, but didn't know the real extent of his partner's feelings: he hadn't wanted to pry.
"Oh, don't worry, she threw our protectiveness in our faces and proved us all wrong," he admitted. "She drove for NASCAR, you know. Old man Balardine had taught her a few useful things, among all the fluff. I don't know what he wanted to achieve by teaching his daughter how to replace blown head gaskets, but it was a blessing for us. I'd never seen such a natural."
"She has a very sure touch," Kitt said. "Michael, may I ask you an odd question?"
"Sure, Pal," Michael said, puzzled.
"Why do people touch me? I mean, why do they...stroke me?"
Michael raised an eyebrow. He had not seen this coming. Racking his brains for a suitable response, the FLAG driver regarded the inside of the roof, the soft upholstery that surrounded him, and opted for the simplest and most obvious answer.
"You feel good," he said at last. "It's...pleasing, to touch you."
"It's pleasant to be touched," the Trans Am said in a soft voice.
Silence fell again; a companionable silence neither Kitt nor Michael felt compelled to break.
Jay Rose had bade his model squeeze goodbye for the week, as she was off to Mallorca to be photographed in the latest Dior dresses, and he was roaming his mansion aimlessly, as he often did. A screenplay sat half-finished in the guts of his supersleek laptop, reprimanding him silently for his negligence; he turned his beautiful back on it and stared out of his windows at the soft green beauty of the Loire valley below. It was time for a change, he thought: New York or Hollywood or Vienna or Paris or...somewhere urban, somewhere just brimming with somatic sensation. The jewellike loveliness of the vale was beginning to get to him.
One of his cell phones rang. He shoveled through a pile of fabric samples on a sofa and found the little buzzing thing, and pulled it out. "Rose," he said. There was a crackle.
"Jay Rose? It's Richard Harrington," a British voice said.
"Richard!" Jay crowed in delight. "It's great to hear your voice again! What are you doing with yourself?"
"Well, actually," Richard said, and Jay was aware of how tired he sounded, as though he'd been working for weeks without rest. "I'm involved in a project I could really use your help on."
"What's up," Jay said seriously.
"Jay, do you remember back in the eighties I was working for an outfit called FLAG that I wasn't allowed to tell you anything about?"
"Of course," he said. "Something about a car?"
"Yes. Is this a secure line?"
"No," Jay said, "hold on, let me call you back on a secure line." He cut the connection and tapped in a sequence of numbers that would activate an encoding system, and dialed Harrington's number. "Sorry. Now, I take it that whatever you're about to say is to be held in the strictest confidence?"
"The very strictest," Richard said. "Listen. FLAG had a spinoff project with a company called Knight Industries. The owner of Knight was a very rich old man with a dream, which was that one man could make a difference. Or rather, one man and one car. A car under the control of an artificially intelligent computer ten thousand times more sophisticated than the computers controlling the Apollo spacecraft."
"Artificial intelligence?" Jay repeated. "I thought that was just a pipe dream."
"So did I, until I saw it. Knight Industries produced not one, but two of these AIs. There was a problem with the first. They'd programmed him to preserve himself at any cost, and they hadn't taken into account that human lives were part of the "any cost" bit. They shut that one down quite quickly and started over again with the programming directive to protect the driver. That's beside the point; what I need you to understand is that the first AI remained conscious during his deactivation."
"Richard," Jay said slowly. "You're serious?"
"As I ever have been, Jay. You must believe me. It's so important...."
"I believe you," he said. "But it's all a bit much to take in. AIs...Do they have personalities?"
"The second one does. The first one is arguable, especially in the light of recent events."
"Fascinating," Jay said, his psychological training taking over. What must it be like to interact with a being of such complex simplicities? He found his dreadful enervating boredom leaching away. "What recent events?"
"Well, after the first AI-his name is Karr, by the way..."
"Car?" Jay cut in.
"Karr. Two Rs and a K. Stands for Knight Automated Roving Robot. Anyway, after Karr was deactivated, he was stolen from the lab where he was being stored and became the tool of a couple of criminals. The second AI, Kitt, and his partner Michael forced Karr off a cliff. They all thought he was gone for good. Then, some years later, a lucky beachcomber found him buried in sand at the foot of the cliff, and he came back again. That time there was a full-blown battle between the two AIs, and Karr was sort of comprehensively destroyed and scattered in the desert."
"It survived?"
"He survived, but in another form. There's a backup mainframe to which the CPUs send data constantly in the event that they are physically endangered. I and a friend found Karr's backup mainframe and the original programming disks, and I built him a new CPU from the mainframe and some new equipment. He survived. But here's where it gets complicated." Jay was listening intently, sitting at his desk, drawing pictures on his blotter, trying to visualize all the fantastic things Richard was telling him.
"Complicated?" he repeated.
"Yes. This is where I need your help, as the world's foremost headshrinker. Karr's original programming was to preserve himself at all costs, as I told you. This made him ruthlessly self-centered and amoral, ignorant of the value of human life, cold and emotionless and surgically precise. I altered that core programming to include preserving humans as well as himself. I also selectively erased parts of his memory, including his deactivations and his betrayal by his creators."
"You did what?" Jay almost yelled. "You've cut holes in his memory? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"If I hadn't, he would be unstoppable," Richard said. "I couldn't put him back in the car, it would be like giving a curious three-year old a flamethrower. I can't justify unleashing Karr on the world without some personality adjustments."
"But you seem to respect him as an individual in all other ways," Jay said, trying to understand. "Why bother bringing him back at all?"
"Because he is not only the ruthless killing machine," Richard said, and his voice sounded almost pleading. "Because there's more to him than that. I...we....knew he could have been so much more had they just given him a second chance and some deep attention right at the start."
"Is he still more than just an ex-ruthless killing machine?" Jay wanted to know. "How selective was your lobotomy?"
"Jay, please," Richard said, his voice close to breaking. "Do you think I wanted to do that? Do you think I wanted that responsibility?"
"Go on," Jay said.
"I wiped his memory of events since just before the deactivation. He remembers being activated and being tested and brought up to speed, remembers interacting with me and with my friend Riley, with the people at FLAG, remembers what that was like, but does not remember being betrayed and shut down. I am dreadfully afraid he's never going to regain his personality."
"You may be right."
"Jay," Richard said quietly. "For the sake of flying kites, will you come out here and see if you can heal his mind? No one else I know could even attempt to try, but you have a skill I've never seen in anyone else."
"Flatterer," Jay said, his mind racing. He was on vacation; would be for another month. "For the sake of flying kites, I'll try."
"Thank you," Richard said, and his voice held almost unspeakable relief. "Thank you, Jay." He gave his address, and Jay put the phone down slowly, his hand shaking a very little.
He realized that he had not been bored for almost twenty minutes.
He stood up as if galvanized and hurried into his bedroom, threw a few days' worth of clothes into a suitcase, packed up his laptop, a phone, a personal organizer and a bottle of Lafitte '54 in celebration for Richard's magnificent gift of excitement, and scribbled a note on a piece of paper which he left lying obviously on the nighttable. Locking the front door behind him, Jay ran down to his garage. He selected a BMW from his collection and threw the case and the laptop bag into the passenger seat, gunning the great engine and breaking the drive wheels loose in the gravel in his hurry to get out of the peace of his country estate and out to the airport.
Riley woke in the late afternoon to find herself alone in the bed. She remembered waking earlier with Richard by her side, and she had been unable to resist her overwhelming physical urges. Neither, it had seemed, had he. Afterward, both of them more relaxed than they'd been in days, he'd got up and disappeared in the direction of the shower, while Riley had merely lain there feeling like a very privileged and very hedonistic courtesan, and had eventually fallen asleep in the glow of her simple pleasure.
She rolled over. By the light slanting through the long windows, and of course the liquid-crystal clock display by the bed, she judged it to be around five in the afternoon. She got up, wearing only a T-shirt, and made her own way to the shower. Luxuriating in the hot water, she allowed a little of her dreadful hope to seep into her mind, with the memory of Karr's voice; almost like the old Karr's had been, cool and sleek and precise. Was it possible that his personality could have survived the tapeworm?
She found one of Richard's robes hanging on the back of the door, wrapped herself in it. She was so much smaller than him that the robe could have fit another of her inside its voluminous folds. Thus attired, she wandered out and down the stairs to the small kitchen area, and found herself a roll of Ritz crackers to satisfy the insistent hunger that closed its fist within her. Richard was nowhere to be found, and neither was the black car. She supposed it had a name of some sort: he could hardly go around calling it "the black car." Her Grey sat alone in the great concrete expanse of the first floor, looking rather forlorn.
"Hey, baby," she greeted him, walking over to the white Stingray, crackers in hand. She pulled herself up onto the low undulating hood, leaning back against the windshield. "You did good yesterday. I'd forgotten how fast you were." She often talked to her car this way, not expecting any response from him; he was not equipped with an AI. However, she felt him respond to her, felt rather than heard his presence. It was not something she could explain, but she knew Grey was in some sense aware of her.
"I wonder what they all thought of my disappearance," she mused aloud. "Kitt seemed to know something was badly wrong, but I hope he's got enough discretion to keep it to himself. And I don't think Michael really realized anything was up. Bonnie....well, Bonnie's empathetic as hell. I only hope none of them take it into their heads to go on a trip down memory lane." Riley laughed a little at the dreadful pun. Grey vibrated with the movement of her body against his, as if he, too, was laughing.
From above her head she suddenly heard a soft sound, a sound that was full of misery, that made her go suddenly still and cold against the warm metal of her car. She slid off Grey's hood and hurried upstairs to the second floor: the sound was coming from Richard's workroom. Where Karr was.
She found the room silent except for the quiet miserable whimpering. The radio had run out of battery power, sitting dead and quiet on the corner of the table. Karr's voice modulator was glimmering with the soft sounds of pain.
"Karr," she murmured, pitching her voice low and calming. "Karr, what's wrong?"
"...help me...." he managed. "...alone...dark....no sounds...."
She picked up the dead radio, uncurled the cord from the back of it and plugged it into a wall outlet. Just like Richard, to have mains current available and run down his batteries anyway. Fool. She found a station that was playing something soft and melodious, and put the radio back.
"Is that any better?" she asked. Karr had stopped whimpering at the sound of Sarah McLachlan.
"Yes," he said after a moment. "Yes, that's better." He paused, and then carefully said, "Thank you, Riley."
She sat down hurriedly. Karr did not thank people. Had Richard's coarse therapy really worked?
"You're welcome, Karr. Is there anything else I can do to help you?"
He didn't answer immediately. She noticed the fifth LED, which had been flickering when she walked in, was glowing steadily now. "I don't think so," he said. "Riley, when am I going to go out on assignment?"
"That's not yet been decided," she said truthfully. "Some things have changed a little, Karr. Tell me what you remember about the mission."
"I am to be paired with a human," Karr said. "We are to be sent out where other avenues of law enforcement have failed, to apprehend criminals and uphold justice." Classic stuff, she thought: this must be the very early programming, from the days when Wilton was still around.
"Fine," she assured the AI. "But can you tell me about the labs at FLAG? Tell me about some of the people there."
"You were there, Riley," he said, "and Richard, and Devon Miles, and a mechanic called Justin Turner. I remember an old man, too. Wilton Knight. Why did you change so much, Riley? Why aren't you Jane Balardine anymore?"
"I didn't like the name." That at least was true. "What was I like?"
"You were.....very young, I think, for a human in this business," Karr said thoughtfully. "You seemed to want to defy everything and everyone. Your eye makeup intrigued me; for a long time I thought you had been born like that, until one time you came in late after a heavy night without the turquoise eyeshadow, and I thought something dreadful must have happened to you."
She couldn't help laughing. "Do you approve of the more natural look?"
"I can't say I liked you with bright blue eyelids," Karr admitted. "And your hair is very interesting. There's something fascinating about you, Riley. I've always thought so."
"Why, thank you," she said, surprised and honored. "You fascinated me from the beginning. Do you remember that?"
"How could I forget?" he asked. "I had just been put into the car, and they'd connected something up wrong, and I couldn't see. I panicked, and you were there, and you talked me into holding still while you clipped the right wire to the right sensor. Everyone else was too busy running away and making references to chaos theory and 2001 and Isaac Asimov, and you were the only one who figured out what was happening and did anything about it. Only I remember I wasn't grateful to you."
"Gratitude wasn't....something that came naturally to you, Karr," she said, aware of skirting the edges of something very very sensitive.
"No," he said, thoughtfully. "Something's changed. I've changed. I would have reacted differently, looking back on it. I would have thanked you."
"It would have been unnecessary," she said. "I merely did what needed to be done. It's all right," she assured him.
"I should have done so much differently," Karr said softly, and the overtones of misery were back in his low voice. "I look back, and there's so much I did wrong."
"Not wrong," she insisted. "You were just different back then. We've all changed, Karr, it's a natural part of life. You are not what you were, as I am no longer Jane Balardine."
"I don't understand," the AI said wretchedly. "I'm a computer. What I am is what I was programmed to be. I can't evolve."
"You're an intelligent being capable of learning and modifying behavior," she told him. "Of course you can."
"Riley," he said. "Riley, for all the things I did, I'm sorry. I didn't seem to understand."
"It's all right," she assured Karr. For a long time they remained silent, and suddenly, on a whim, she asked, "Are your perceptors functional?"
"Yes," he said, surprised. "Why...?"
She reached out and softly touched the black oval that lay on the worksurface, a copy of the Knight Industries perceptors that Kitt used. Karr gasped.
"Am I hurting you?"
"No," Karr managed. "What are you doing?"
"Holding your hand," she said idiotically, and it was true. The perceptor rested in the palm of her hand, warm with her skin's warmth, held gently in the cage of her fingers. Karr lapsed into silence again, and as the radio segued from Sarah McLachlan to something soft by Cat Stevens, she became aware that the silence was a pleasant one. She was amazed and honored that Karr had not rejected the touch, intimate as it seemed, ridiculous as it might seem. Honored, and afraid.
What exactly had Richard done to Karr?
The AI was lost, in a way he'd not been lost before. He was so confused by the dichotomy between what he felt now and the way he remembered acting that he was almost disoriented, and the soft music and the sensations of being held in Riley's hand helped ease that disorientation. He didn't understand what he was feeling, at all, didn't understand why he so desperately wanted to stay in Riley's presence; the desire for human companionship was alien to everything he'd ever been. He was more convinced than ever that the answer lay in the great blank spot in his memories, and wanted desperately to know what he was forgetting, although he remained half-afraid of what that might be.
He regarded Riley critically. She was a reasonable specimen of the female human, slender, curved hips made for bearing children, but a little too narrow to do it easily; thin waist, long legs, not inconsiderable breasts. Her face was slightly asymmetrical, which fascinated him as a very rational being. One eye was a little more blue than grey, and set a little higher in her face. Her lips were full, well-shaped, and her cheekbones pronounced. The white hair was a gleaming cap, tight to her skull. Karr had little concept of what humans found attractive in each other, and his reference points were the other women who'd worked for FLAG and the occasional pinup girl from one of the mechanics' dirty magazines: Riley was something entirely different. Her voice was interesting to process, a low throaty musical voice that he'd only heard raised in song on one occasion. He found himself wanting to hear her sing again.
What was wrong with him? he wondered sourly. What on earth had happened to him to make him interested in listening to Riley Stone sing? He knew that the Karr he'd been last time he'd been awake would have run Riley down as soon as look at her if she was standing in his way.
Or would he? He tried to remember how he'd felt about her. It was unclear, but he seemed to remember a fascination with her even then, even when he'd been so...ruthless. Maybe he would have thought twice before killing Riley. He hoped he would have. He desperately wanted to think he would have.
Kitt and Michael pulled into the drive. Devon awaited them, a look of barely controlled fury on his aristocratic face.
"Karr's backup mainframe is gone," he informed them. Michael leaned wearily against Kitt.
"What do we do?"
"Kitt, can you use your link with Karr to track him down?"
Kitt considered. "It's possible. I don't know. I could try and see where he is through his visual sensors. That might mean alerting him to my presence."
"I don't know if we want to do that," Michael said. "This link could be useful. Can you tell us what Karr's experiencing without intruding on him?"
Kitt was silent for a long moment. "I don't believe it," he said at last. "He's....well, someone's holding him. I get the impression he's not been put into a car yet, and he's got a test perceptor activated. Someone's holding him."
"Holding Karr?" Michael repeated.
"Yes, holding him, and very carefully. I'm getting a great deal of confusion in his mind, but for some reason he doesn't seem cold. It's like he's become...mellower, somehow. He's very content to be held, which is strange in itself. I'm getting a strong sense that he's trying to remember something, but he's having difficulty, and there seem to be gaps in his memory. What he can remember is disturbing him."
Both Michael and Devon were silent. Kitt withdrew slightly from Karr, and tried to understand what he'd just experienced. He wasn't sure he could.
"We have to find him," Devon said. "It's too dangerous to let him remain at large. I'm sorry, Kitt, but it's necessary."
"I understand," Kitt said. "I'm scanning the area." He paused, and from the interior of the car both Michael and Devon could hear the faint twittering of his long-range scanners. "I'm not picking up any traces of Karr within a hundred-mile radius. He has to be either shielded from my scan or beyond that range."
"Right," Devon said. "I'll alert the state police for....oh, gods, he isn't going to be a black and silver Trans Am anymore, is he. We've no idea what he looks like now. This is going to be harder than I thought," and he ran a hand over his face. "Michael, do you have any idea who could have stolen the mainframe?"
"How many people knew it existed?" Michael asked.
"Good point," Devon conceded. "I'll have to track down who was aware of the backup mainframe and who still has access to the facility. That should narrow it down."
Kitt said nothing. He could feel Karr there in his mind like a faint headache, not entirely unpleasant, confused and disturbed and without clear thought patterns. Like sediment stirred up from the bottom of the pond, he thought suddenly, that takes a long time to settle again.
There was faint music playing somewhere. A song Kitt had heard a lot in the past few months, soft and hardly discernible, but there. His radio was off; none of the mechanics had their Walkmans on. Kitt turned down his external audio receptors a little, but the sound remained: it was with considerable surprise that he realized it was playing wherever Karr was. Karr was hearing these sounds, and they were being transmitted across the link to Kitt.
He concentrated on the faint music. The song ended abruptly, cut off by a snappy DJ's voice. "Hey hey, friends and neighbors, that's Hole, with Malibu, and before that Smashing Pumpkins, Perfect. Coming up next on 45 minutes of nonstop new music on KVHL 78.9, Salt Lake City, we've got some Liz Phair and New Radicals..." Kitt stopped listening. Salt Lake City.
"Karr's in Utah," he said softly. Devon and Michael turned to look at him as one.
"How do you know?"
"I can hear a radio station he's listening to, based in Salt Lake. I wonder how far the broadcasts reach?"
"What station?" Michael wanted to know.
"KVHL," Kitt said. "FM, 78.9. Why, do you know it?"
"Was it clear?"
"Yes," Kitt told him. Michael reached out and patted his roof.
"It can't be any further south than Capitol Reef, and it probably would be blocked by the mountains north of Salt Lake. He's probably in south-central Utah."
"Is there any way we can narrow that down?"
"Depends. Kitt, can you...see what he's seeing?" Michael asked, aware of how stupid it sounded.
"It's dark in the room, but I have a view of half a window, and there's red rock outside. Red rock and distant hills."
"You don't recognize the hills?"
"I'm sorry," Kitt said. "That's the best I can do."
"That's wonderful, Partner," Michael said, and meant it. "You've helped a hell of a lot. Devon, what can we do with this?"
"I'm not entirely sure. Kitt, how complete is Karr? How far from being installed in a car?"
"I can't tell. He's fully functional, but I don't know who's in control of him, and I don't know when they intend to put him in the car. I don't know if they plan to."
"It occurs to me that the best way to do this might be to wait until the people are in your field of view, Kitt," Devon said. "You can't see who's holding his perceptor?"
"No." Kitt couldn't; all he could see was the darkness and the edge of the window, and the side of someone's arm.
"They're sure to be moving around at some point. Could you keep an eye on the link, as it were?"
"Of course," Kitt said, at once. The strain of keeping his presence unfelt was not inconsiderable, but if this would help uncover the mystery and make sure Karr would not be allowed to go on a killing rampage, it was more than worth it. Silently he lit his engine and rolled into the garage, as the two humans made their way into the mansion.
Richard drove aimlessly, too fast, in the black car. The dash was minimalist, the requisite gages of tach, speed, oil pressure, temperature, fuel and battery charge were accompanied by a row of black buttons he hadn't bothered to label. A black flat screen, like a laptop's display, occupied the top of the central console, where the radio and climate controls would have been on a normal car, and below it was a small set of buttons which appeared to control some kind of communications system. There was a blank panel between the screen and the steering wheel which looked as if it was yet to be occupied. A Bose sound system was evidenced by the CD slot and tape deck tucked neatly at the bottom of the central console; the shifter was unlike any in production, for beyond the typical 1-2-3-4-5-R progression there were side slots for the stick marked TB and SPM. The speedometer read all the way up to 350 mph; the stalks beside the wheel were small and sleek, the button for the great hidden headlamps protected behind the wiper controls. The restraint systems weren't the typical three-point belts: they were more like a harness that clipped in front, like a racing restraint. There were no controls on the right half of the dash, merely the smooth curving of the black surface, unreflective and soft. The upholstery was a dark charcoal grey. There was no manufacturer's symbol anywhere on the car: rather, in the center of the wheel, the single word Shadow appeared slightly recessed, so slight it was almost easier to feel than see.
The car was a product of Richard's own fertile imagination and his friends' body shop in Salt Lake. No one but Richard and his lawyer knew of its existence: it was registered under his name as a "custom sports vehicle" with no description. He had begun to build it the previous summer, before the concept of reviving Karr had come to him; now, he knew it was for Karr that he'd spent almost three million dollars. The Shadow was for Karr; the Shadow would fit Karr as well, if not better, than the black-and-silver Trans Am he'd worn before. He pushed it to its limits on the desert road, at three hundred twenty miles an hour, hurtling along in the long light of late afternoon, losing all his worry and preoccupation in the single vital concentration and exhilaration of speed. It was beautiful, this thing he'd made, this weapon, this vehicle; he knew it would no longer be his, quite soon, and wanted to enjoy what he'd done for the last time. He was not at all sure he'd done a sane thing with his reprogramming, but Jay Rose was on his way from the Loire valley with a head full of ideas, and if anyone could stabilize Karr after deactivation and memory loss, he believed Jay Rose was that man. It was possible, he thought as he slowed the Shadow to a mere eighty miles and pulled an extravagant one-eighty in a cloud of red dust, it was possible that all of this might turn out well after all.
Speeding back to his house, he passed Capitol Reef and slowed to take in the beauty of the red Waterpocket Fold and the distant Henry Mountains. The sunlight was fading. It was not often that he realized how lucky he was to live in such beauty, but when he did, it struck him hard.
For a space of minutes he stayed watching as the light first dimmed and then faded entirely from the mountains, and the blueness of the sky hit him like acid. Shivering, he looked up at the stars, pulling the Shadow back out onto the highway and heading back. He couldn't define his desire to get back of a sudden; it had come upon him out of nowhere, and he wanted desperately to be back with Riley and Karr.
Breaking at least three laws at once, he thundered through the sleepy town of Torrey and turned up the winding drive to his house, bringing the black Shadow to a screeching halt in the foyer beside Riley's Grey. He hurried up the stairs and found Riley half asleep in his desk chair, Karr's test perceptor resting easily in her hand, her head lolling to one side. Soft music played. There was an atmosphere of such pleasant peace in the room that his sudden fear and worry were assuaged. At the sound of his arrival Riley roused, careful not to disturb the perceptor she held, and swiveled the chair to face him.
"Where've you been?" she said lightly. He leaned against the doorjamb, suddenly tired.
"Driving," he said. She understood; he could see it in her eyes. "How is he?"
"Resting, I think," Riley said. "He was...disturbed, earlier, when the radio ran out of batteries. I think it's good for him to have some sort of constant sensory input."
"Hence the perceptor?"
"Yes," she said simply. "If he was human, I'd hold his hand. This is as close as I can get."
Richard looked at her sharply, and she met his gaze without flinching. He nodded at length, and came forward into the room. "Have you eaten?"
"No," Riley said. "You?"
"No. How does pizza sound?"
"Heavenly," she admitted. "You mean to tell me you're able to get delivery in this remote little place?"
"There's a little diner down in the main drag that does takeout. I'll be right back."
"Pepperoni and extra cheese," she said. "No anchovies."
"Would I eat anchovies?" he asked, appalled. She laughed merrily.
"No, I suppose not. I'm surprised you eat pizza. You're European."
"Yes, but not utterly uncivilized, I hope," he retorted, smiling, and left. Riley grinned into the dimness of the room, suddenly aware of the fact that it was night, and gently replaced the perceptor on the surface of the desk in order to get up and turn on the light.
Karr murmured something. She sat back down in the office chair, unsure whether to pick the perceptor up again. He moaned, and the sound cut her to the quick, and she took the perceptor in her hand and began to stroke it ever so gently. "Shhh," she said. "It's all right."
"...Riley?" he asked. "Riley, I was alone...."
"I'm here. It was a bad dream, Karr, you're all right now. You're safe."
"I don't understand what's happening to me," he said quietly. "I don't know who I am."
She had been afraid of this. "Karr, something has happened to you, you're right. But you're going to be all right, I promise. Everything will resolve itself, you won't be confused anymore. Someone's coming who'll help you to understand what all the conflicts are, and deal with them. I don't have that skill, Karr, all I can do is promise that it will get better. Soon."
"I remember what I did, and I can't understand why I did it. So many of the things I said and did seem....wrong, somehow. But they were right then. I don't know how to rationalize that."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Riley mused.
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry. Just one of the most-used phrases in the world today. Tell me, Karr, is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"
He was quiet a moment. "Turn me so I can see you," he asked quietly.
Riley was touched. Gently she reached out to the black CPU, setting the perceptor out of the way on the table, and moved it a few inches to one side, so that Karr's active visual sensor held her in its range. He sighed softly. "Thank you," he said. "Riley, would you tell me why I'm here, instead of at the estate?"
She paused, aware that he could see her now, and that she needed to control her facial expressions. "There was an....error in your programming," she said. "We've brought you here away from the estate to complete your recovery. While you were unconscious certain aspects of the mission changed, and we had to delay the project. We'll get you back in a car as soon as we're sure you're really well."
He didn't respond for a minute or two. "Riley, who is Kitt?"
Oh, no, she thought. How on earth did Richard forget to include that in his erasure?
"Kitt is....another AI," she said. "Why do you ask?"
"I can feel his presence somehow," Karr said, carefully. "Inside me. Inside my mind. I don't understand it. It's as if another mind is touching mine."
They couldn't have a link, could they? she wondered. "How long have you felt this way?"
"How long have I been aware of him?" Karr repeated. "Since I woke up. It's come and gone; it's not a steady thing. I don't understand why he's in my mind."
"Is his touch....malicious?"
"No," Karr said. "Not at all. It's curious. He wants to know more about me." I bet he does, Riley thought. I bet anything that they've found Karr's mainframe's gone missing, and if that's so then my name is mud, as is Richard's. Added to which if Kitt has a link to Karr he can see where Karr is, and see what Karr is seeing...which means that Kitt is seeing me right now. Shit and double shit.
"Karr, you can't block him in any way, can you? You can't get rid of his touch?"
"I don't know," the AI said, surprised. "Why?"
"I don't think it's a good idea to have him intruding into your personal space right now. You're still vulnerable. He might not mean to hurt you, but he may anyway." She hated herself as she spoke the words. Kitt was the sweetest, most gentle being she'd ever known; he would never hurt anyone, ever, unless he absolutely had to. "Karr, I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to try."
"I'll try," he said, almost sadly. "I still don't understand any of this."
"I don't get much of it either." She thought hard for a moment. "Karr, I'm going to have to ask you a painful question. Please answer me as fully as you can."
"Ask," Karr said.
"If you were driving along, and a human child ran out in front of you, and the only way to avoid it was to do yourself some damage....like running into a median divider or something...what would you do?"
"Run into the divider," he said immediately. "Why?"
"I needed to know. And if the alternative to killing the child was more extreme? If you would be endangering yourself by avoiding it?"
"I would avoid it," Karr said. His voice, though soft with hurt, was assured. Riley found tears in her eyes.
"Thank you," she murmured. "I'm sorry, Karr, I had to ask. You'll understand all this soon."
He didn't respond. She rested her face in her hands, leaning back in the chair. For a long time there was silence between them.
"Riley?" he said in a small voice, after some minutes.
"Yes?" she asked, not raising her head.
"Would you....hold the perceptor again? Do you mind?"
She swallowed her tears, listening to the tone of pleading in his cold voice. She took the perceptor in her two hands, unaware that her tears touched it, and began to stroke its surface ever so gently. The air was sharp and crackling with sadness, and she knew he could see her crying softly, and did not have enough self-control to stop the tears for his sake.
"Don't cry," he said as gently as he could, after a while. "Please. Don't cry. I didn't mean to make you cry."
"It's not you," she said. "It's me. It's my fault. I'm sorry, Karr, about all of this. I wish it could have been done more smoothly."
"I don't know what all of this is about," he murmured. "But I really don't like the sensation I get when I see you crying. Whatever it is, I don't like it."
She sniffed. "Running mascara doesn't please your aesthetic sense?"
"Not as such, no," he said, lightly. "Riley, if it makes you happier, I'm trying to block Kitt from my mind. I would run into a thousand concrete barriers rather than damage a human. Now stop crying."
There was some of his old autocratic tone in the cool voice again. She took heart.
"As you command," she said.
Just then, Richard reappeared in the doorway with a pizza box, a bottle of cheap red wine and two glasses. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," she said, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. "I'm just tired. Damn, that smells good."
"It should; it's the best pizza in Utah, according to the manufacturers. Wine?"
"Please." She transferred Karr's perceptor to her lap, resting easily on her thigh, as she accepted a rolled-up slice of pizza and a glass of wine. She didn't hear Karr's stifled gasp as he felt the texture of her jeans, the warmth of her body. Richard was regarding her curiously.
"When's Jay Rose getting here?"
"Tomorrow morning early." Richard pulled up a chair. "How are you feeling, Karr?"
"Better," Karr said. Richard was amazed to hear the change in his voice. Still low and cool, it held a new tone of empathy and gratitude he'd never dared to hope he'd hear in that voice.
"I'm glad to hear it," Richard said, and meant it. "Riley tells me you're happier with the radio on?"
"Yes," Karr said. "It's helpful to have a source of data to process. It makes it easier to deal with not being in the car."
"We'll get you into a car as soon as we can," Richard assured him. "It's a whole new car. I think you're going to like it."
"Not a Trans Am?"
"No; this is a custom job. As fast as the Trans Am was, and a little sleeker, if possible."
"It's beautiful, Karr," Riley said. The food and wine were allowing her to regain her equilibrium. She felt steadier, more able to deal with things. She suddenly noticed Karr's perceptor was resting almost between her thighs, and retrieved it. "I need a third hand. I don't want to get pizza sauce on you."
"I'll take it," Richard, who had already finished eating, offered. "If you don't mind?"
"No," Karr said. "I don't mind at all. Thank you both."
"Our pleasure," Riley told him truthfully.
Kitt would have cursed, if it had been in his nature to do so. Karr had closed their link; he must have become aware of his presence. He groaned with frustration. For a moment he'd caught a glimpse of a face that might have been familiar, and a voice he thought he'd known, and then the link went fuzzy and he knew Karr was blocking him. A woman? he thought. Pale; pale hair, pale face...? and red mountains in the distance?
It was no use. He just didn't have enough information. He lit his engine in the dusk of the garage and rolled out onto the drive, where the stars were just coming out. The subject of Karr had been a painful one for Kitt since the beginning. He had felt his brother's cold loathing of him like a physical pain, had understood why Karr hated him so, but it remained unpleasant. He had managed to distance himself from the thought of Karr for years now, almost forgetting the past, believing his brother to be dead; now this phoenixlike Karr had risen again from the desert and the old backup mainframe data, and he had felt such a strange difference in Karr's mindtouch that he was afraid of what the future might bring. Karr had been confused, but there had been more than simple confusion in the touch: there had been the crude beginnings of emotion. Karr had felt....guilty, she thought. Yes, guilty, for some reason. Guilt was alien to what Karr had been. How could he have changed so much? Kitt wondered. Was it possible?
He had been so lost in his reverie that he'd not heard or sensed Michael approaching, until his partner spoke. "Kitt? Is anything wrong?"
"No," he said, automatically. "Well, yes. Karr's blocking me."
"He's felt your presence?"
"I assume so. Michael, he's so different. I don't understand."
"Different how?" Michael asked, pulling himself up onto his favorite place on Kitt's black hood.
"It's almost as if he's developed the ability to feel emotions. As if he's become suddenly empathetic."
"Karr, empathetic?"
"Well, yes, I know how absurd it sounds. But it's real. I mean, he'd have no reason to mimic empathy within his own mind, right? He's very connected to the people he's with. Wherever they are."
"That's bizarre. I don't know enough about computers to say if it's possible for Karr to have undergone a change like that. It sounds like he's been reprogrammed or something."
"Who could have done such a thing?"
"I don't know. Someone with heavy software skills, obviously. Is he blocking you completely?"
"No. I can sense his presence, but I can't get more than a mere echo of him now. I saw a flash of a woman's face just before he blocked me; someone pale, with pale hair, and the open window showing dark sky and reddish hills in the background."
"Pale hair?" Michael repeated. "Pale like Riley Stone?"
"That's who it was!" Kitt exclaimed. "I thought her voice was familiar. So Karr was Riley's 'family emergency.' Do you think she stole the mainframe?"
"I don't know, Pal. It's possible. But I don't think it was all her. There are more people involved in this."
"How do you know?"
"Intuition, I guess," Michael said. "I just do. Damn. I have to tell Devon about this."
"Go on, then," Kitt said, and sighed.
"What's wrong?" Michael asked, hearing the sadness in the sigh.
"It's just....well, I liked Riley. I can't believe she'd do something like this. And the change in Karr disturbs me. I don't understand how he can have become so different all of a sudden."
"Neither do I, Kitt," Michael said, running a gentle hand over Kitt's black hood. "Whatever this is all about, we'll get to the bottom of it. I promise."
"I know." Kitt sounded less wretched now. Michael gave the black hood a last pat and headed back up for the mansion, glowing with light from all the ground floor windows.