Richard Harrington swam out of sick dreams to find the waking world more unpleasant than the dozing one. He wasn't where he wanted to be, which was behind the wheel of Riley's Stingray at ninety miles an hour, heading for something unyielding.
A little voice niggled at him. Why Riley's car?
Because I bloody made it, he told the voice. Because in more than one way it is mine.
He opened his eyes, winced. The lights were too bright, impossible to block out. Voices clamored around him; his head pounded, keeping in perfect harmony with the waves of nausea that broke over him. He felt cool fingers on his face, soft voices, a recognizable voice.
"Richard?"
He struggled to focus. The room seemed to be swaying around him. Pale face; pale hair. Dark eyes.
"Riley?" he croaked. Her fingers were smooth and cool on his face, her touch soft and assured.
"It's me," she said. "How are you feeling?"
"Bloody awful," he said. "I think I'm going to be sick."
A doctor interspersed himself between Riley and Richard. "Mr. Harrington has a concussion," he reminded her. "He must have absolute rest."
Riley sighed, but left the room. She couldn't block out the sounds of misery; she knew the nurses would deal with him efficiently and with care, but her heart stung and twisted to see him so low and helpless. He wasn't like that. Richard was one of the strongest men she knew. Besides Jay.
Ah yes, she said to herself bitterly, leaning against the wall. Isn't that where all this badness lies? Isn't Jay why you're so miserable right now? Isn't Jay something to do with why Richard is here?
Riley ran a shaking hand through her hair. She had known Jay a week, a few days more. He was admittedly gorgeous, but that was no reason to have this wretched feeling in her stomach when she thought of him. She loved Richard, and she loved Karr; she had not yet come to terms with either of those. Could she love three people at once?
She closed her eyes. Apparently she could.
The doctor opened the door, expressed with a sigh of ill-concealed annoyance what he thought of her, but told her that Richard wanted to see her. "Just a few minutes, Miss Stone."
"Yes," she said dully, and went into the room. Richard was if anything paler than he had just been, slightly green about the mouth. His left arm was in a polythene cast; his brow was bound with snowy gauze, over which his dark hair flopped in the typically Byronic fashion of the injured hero. She sat in the chair by his bedside, took his good hand in hers.
"Riley," he said miserably. "Why are you here?"
"Because Jay told me what you did," she said. He turned his face away.
"Jay," he said bitterly. "Of course. Jay."
The silence tasted old and sour as ashes. "Richard, why did you do it? What were you thinking?" She knew the answers, but she couldn't stop herself from saying the words.
"Do you have to ask?" Richard asked. "I've seen the way you look at each other."
"Richard, don't be stupid," she told him icily. "Yes, I am attracted to Jay. I don't care. Every heterosexual woman who can see is going to be attracted to Jay. That is nothing special."
"Riley...." he said, and his voice was soft with misery. He turned away from her, reclaimed his hand. She sighed. She did love him. She had since the moment they'd met. But there was Karr now. Karr was a bigger player in this drama than Jay was, and Richard didn't even know about that yet.
"Richard, please. Listen to me now if you never do again. I am not in love with Jay. I don't know how he feels about me, but it doesn't matter. I love you."
"What about Karr?" he said quietly. She went cold all over. How much had he guessed?
"Karr is....very charismatic," she said. "I don't know what I feel about him. I am still in awe of his strength and his personality, and I've always been attracted to him. I'm sorry, Richard. That's all I know right now."
He didn't respond. She sat there for another half an hour before getting up and making her silent way down to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee.
Her tears, never very far away these days, blurred her eyes; she sat down at a table, alone, with her coffee, and let them overflow. The hospital cafeteria staff were used to people coming in here and crying, and they left her alone. She wept silently, her shoulders shaking, the tears running down her face like rain.
"Here," a familiar voice said. Someone proffered a handkerchief. Riley took it, wiped her eyes, blinked, and recognized Jay Rose. Wonderful, she thought sourly. Just who I need to see right now.
"Thank you," she said, out of habit. He was looking less green, she noted absently. He studied her face critically, his head on one side, and sat down opposite her.
"How is he?"
"Awake," she said. "He won't talk to me. He tried to kill himself because he thinks I am in love with you and not him."
Jay didn't respond immediately, regarding her, his green eyes cool and distant. "Are you?"
"I don't know!" she hissed, miserable. "I don't fucking know. You're gorgeous, as you very well know, and you're charismatic and talented and wonderful and I feel electric sparks every time you touch me. Does that constitute love?"
"In some cases," he said. "Riley, ever since I met you I've been smitten. You are beautiful and strong and gentle and clever and resourceful, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life."
"Don't," she begged him. "I can't deal with this. I'm feeling something new and absurdly deep for Karr. I can't understand what I should be feeling for any of you."
"For Karr?" Jay repeated, thrown. "You mean...?"
"I mean, he turns me on, he excites me, he makes me feel beautiful and cared for and needed. I want to be around him, want to hear his voice. I want to drive with him so fast I can't see the road markings. What is wrong with me?" she demanded. "Why can't I decide which of you three I want?"
"You're under a lot of stress," Jay offered. "Once all of this evens out you'll be able to see things more clearly."
Riley stared at him, her grey eyes huge and glistening and miserable. "Isn't that the line they always feed the hopeless?"
Jay couldn't answer.
Michael, his arm swathed in polythene casting, sat on the edge of the bed. "He's going in alone?"
"Devon gave his okay." Bonnie gave him a sympathetic I-don't-like-it-either look. "He's just going to find out if Schreck is dead or alive. Nothing more."
"I hit him with a goddamn silver vase," Michael said, remembering. "I think he's dead."
"We have to make sure," Bonnie said.
"I know, I know, I just don't want him going out alone. I know he can deal with it. It's just..."
"I understand," Bonnie assured him. "The best thing you and I can do right now is to get you back to the mansion and safe. We'll monitor him all the time. Like we always do. And you have your communicator."
"That's true," Michael said wearily. "Let's get out of here, anyway."
Bonnie saw him into the taxi, stood watching until he was out of sight. The thought of Karr and the woman Riley Stone flashed unbidden into her mind, and she sighed and pushed it away. She had no time to worry about that now. After they were sure Schreck was either dead or behind bars; after they had taken Spar's operation down, and after all of this was over, they would deal with Karr. Right now....
Bonnie walked back to where the Semi was parked. She was so tired, and there was no time to even try and sleep. She had to make sure all the monitoring and support systems were functioning correctly before Kitt slipped out into the night.
"Is he all right?" Kitt demanded the instant she climbed into the Semi. She grinned tiredly, nodded.
"He's on his way back to the mansion. He's worried about you, Kitt, he doesn't like you going out alone."
"I have to," Kitt said quietly.
"I know." Bonnie dropped her hand to the warm black skin, briefly. "Could you open your hood? There's a few last-minute checks I want to run."
Kitt's hood release clicked and rose. With the ease of long practice Bonnie hooked up her diagnostic scanner to each perceptor point in turn, testing the circuitry, making sure he was in perfect health. Justin, Kitt's chief mechanic, roused by their quiet conversation, poked his head over the back of the couch on which he lay. "You're wasting your time," he told her good-naturedly. "I've checked him a hundred times. He's fine."
"Yeah, yeah," Bonnie said. "I'm aware of that. I just feel the need."
"Leave poor Kitt alone and come entertain me," Justin commanded. With a sigh, Bonnie finished her checks and closed Kitt's hood again, running her fingers unconsciously over the smooth prow. She joined Justin on the elderly couch. "That's better," Justin said, regarding her critically. "You haven't been getting enough sleep, have you."
"Not really," Bonnie admitted. "First the whole thing with Karr, and now this. I have no time to sleep."
"When are you leaving on your spying expedition?" Justin asked Kitt.
"As soon as it gets dark," Kitt responded.
"Then you have at least two good hours," Justin pointed out to Bonnie. "Lie down and sleep. Don't worry. I'll keep watch over him."
"I..." Bonnie began, and stopped. The balding cushions of the couch were calling to her. "All right. Promise you'll wake me."
"Cross my heart," Justin assured her. Bonnie nodded, and curled up on the cushions, closing her eyes. For a while she was afraid she was too tense to sleep, until she realized that the couch was floating on a blue sea under a brilliant sun, and that she was already dreaming.
Kitt, left alone, forced himself to relax. The strain of worrying about Michael was beginning to take its toll on the AI; he found himself reliving the moment that Michael had collapsed into his driver's seat, poisoned and bleeding heavily. Frustrated, he turned his mind elsewhere.
A faint but familiar mindtouch reached out to him. He was amazed at the change in Karr; his touch was dark, no longer harsh but silky, cool and distant, aware of himself, complete at last.
Kitt?
Yes? Kitt sent, distracting himself from the image of Michael's blood.
Has any human ever said they...loved you?
Kitt almost lost the contact in his shock. Karr.....what do you mean?
Can a human feel love for one of us?
Kitt didn't reply immediately, thinking of how on earth to respond. I don't know, he finally said. Do you mean love like between a man and a woman?
I think so, Karr sent. His touch was colored by embarrassment and confusion. I....Riley said she loved me.
Kitt was silent for a long time, thinking about that. Riley Stone. She had always been close to Kitt, always been particularly affectionate, known exactly what to say. He remembered Devon talking about how Riley and Karr had spent a great deal of time together back at the beginning of the project, how Riley had been really broken up when Karr had been deactivated. He knew Karr remembered that too, through him. Riley is....special, Kitt said at last. She feels more deeply than most.
I don't know what to think, Karr said. She and Richard...are lovers. Jay looks at her like a starving man looks at a banquet, and I don't recognize what I see in her eyes. Kitt, is it possible that we can feel love?
Perhaps, Kitt sent, thinking of Riley. What do you feel when you think of her?
Karr paused, thinking. Keep in mind that I am a complete stranger to emotions, he said. It is as if something inside me is overheating. As if my circuits are overloading. But it's not painful, exactly. Not something I want to stop. He hesitated, embarrassed. When she...touches me, it's like a power surge.
Kitt thought hard about that. Karr felt his brother's concentration, waited for him to speak again.
I think I understand, Kitt said at last. Karr, this is not something you can help. Let it happen. Whatever is meant to happen will.
It's more complicated than that, Karr said miserably. Richard....tried to kill himself.
What? Kitt exclaimed, appalled. Why?
It has something to do with Riley and Jay, I think, Karr sent. He was drunk....he took her car. Jay went after him. There was an accident.
I can't believe it, Kitt sent softly. Not Richard. Is he all right?
He's in hospital, Karr told him. Riley and Jay are with him. I'm frightened, Kitt. I don't understand any of this.
Neither do I. Kitt thought of Richard Harrington, the slender frame, the frightening, exciting intensity, the brilliant gilt eyes. Richard. It didn't make any sense.
He reached out for Karr, found his brother trembling, afraid, confused. Karr drew away, but relaxed, allowed himself to be drawn into Kitt's embrace. The two AIs held each other in the nowhere of the link, each drawing some strength from the other. Somewhere, Kitt marvelled at the change in Karr, and was suddenly very grateful for whatever it was that had been done to him. He had never hoped to be this close to his brother; it was a sensation he felt oddly honored by, for some reason. For a long time they clung together; then, as if by common consent, they drew back into their respective bodies, both with a great deal to think about.
Alexandra, in black silk, drove her BMW too fast along the highway south to L.A. There was the potential to make big money tonight, but the knowledge that people were probably watching for her appearance made her cold and sharp and businesslike. Her Glock sat heavy and reassuring in her holster; there was another in the BMW's glove compartment. She told herself to relax; Michael was probably still out of commission, judging by the state she'd last seen him in. Probably.
Pulling up to the motel, she parked the BMW in a side slot, out of all but the most determined sight. It was getting dark. She extricated a strongbox from the passenger seat and locked the car.
Inside, three men in varying shades of black waited. All of them wore dark sunglasses, despite the dimness of the room. One was smoking. A briefcase sat on the table by the tallest man; of the other two, the smoking man was heavy and ineffably well-dressed, and the shortest one looked as if he was about to vomit from sheer fright.
"Gentlemen," Alexandra greeted them coldly. "Are we ready to do business?"
"At your convenience," one of the men, the taller one, said. Alexandra smiled, showing all her teeth.
"Then by all means let us begin," she said, and set her strongbox on the table. "Let me see the merchandise."
The man who had spoken, who she noticed was handcuffed to the briefcase, unlocked it with a very small key. Inside, there were about a hundred sealed plastic bags full of white powder. Alexandra produced a slender switchblade, and before the man could protest she cut a narrow slit into the top of one of the bags. Licking her finger, she touched it to the white powder, tasted it.
"I'm impressed," she said. "About ninety-eight percent pure." Closing the briefcase again, the man stood expectantly looking at her.
"About payment," he began, but she was already reaching for her lockbox. "We requested one million."
"I know you did," Alexandra said, pretending to fiddle with the lock. Her hand crept towards the Glock in its holster. "This damn lock..." The butt of the automatic slipped cold into her fingers, and in one smooth motion she pulled it out, clicking off the safety, and levelled it at their leader, the one with the cigarette. "I'm sorry, Frank, but this isn't a nice city. You three have a choice. Either I leave here with both the coke and the money and you walk away, or I leave with the coke and the money....and you don't."
The black mouth of the silenced Glock stared into their faces. The man who was handcuffed to the briefcase made an abortive move toward his own gun, but Alexandra was too quick for him; dropping the Glock to point directly at his kneecap, she squeezed the trigger. The gun coughed once, and the man dropped to his good knee, screaming, his leg shattered. Coldly, Alexandra swung the Glock back to the other two men. "Would you care to reconsider?"
"Fuck you," Frank said, and dropped his cigarette on the shag carpet, grinding it out.
"Why, Frank, I'm surprised at you," she said, and moved forward so that the silencer dug into his stomach. "Are you absolutely sure you want to die at forty-six?"
Beside them, the littlest gangster, who had been shaking convulsively ever since she had brought out the gun, lost what was left of his cool. Rather like a terrified rabbit, he bolted; out the door, slamming it behind him, they could hear him sprinting out across the darkened parking lot. Alexandra smiled sweetly, tightened her finger on the trigger.
"All right!" Frank capitulated, rather paler than he had been. "All right. Anything you say."
"That's much better," Alexandra said. "You do understand I can't have you coming after me, don't you?" Frank stared wide-eyed at her. Face cold and impassive as a porcelain doll, Alexandra leveled the Glock at his knees, fired twice. He crumpled to the floor, his face twisted and ugly in agony. The man with the briefcase was moaning occasionally. With magnificent unconcern, Alexandra knelt by him and fished in his pockets for the handcuff keys; not finding them, she pointed the Glock at the chain connecting him to the briefcase, and it exploded in a shower of hot metal fragments. Surveying the room, she allowed herself to smile a little, before collecting her money and her merchandise and slipping away into the night.
She concealed the coke and the money in a secret compartment in her trunk, and drove with decorous caution away into the night. Frank and his associates couldn't very well go to the police about her; they had orders to arrest him on sight.
Taking a detour, she drove into the jeweled canyons, underneath a brilliant star-spangled sky. She had always loved it up here, had enjoyed her drives with Brent along these winding roads. Cielo Drive held fond memories for Alexandra.
She parked on a low side road, fifty yards from the side of Cielo Drive, and lit a cigarette, looking up at the stars. Orion glowed like diamonds scattered on black velvet; the W of Cassiopeia and the tracery of Ursa Major hung in the heavens, part of some celestial parure. Her cigarette was half gone by the time she heard the turbine hum of an engine she recognized.
Kitt came into view round the curve of the road, the bright red light on his nose swishing back and forth rhythmically. He thundered past on the road above her, clearly in a hurry. She found herself hiding behind the BMW, shivering, and told herself not to be so silly. The only thing up there that he could be interested in was...
Schreck's house. But he was dead.
Wasn't he?
Alexandra got into her car and pulled a quick U-turn. She wanted to be out of there before Kitt came back; despite the fact she'd let him escape, she knew he would have to bring her in.
Kitt sped along the darkened road. He had left as soon as dark fell, and threaded his way through the city as unobtrusively as he could. His windows were darkened; it was not easy to see in, to notice he had no driver. He was painfully aware of the absence of Michael, like a tooth missing from a familiar socket.
Something tugged at his attention as he swept around a curve; a scan reading he ignored for the moment. It was important, but his mission was more important, and he didn't find out until afterward that Alexandra had been watching him. He was to blame himself for that, of course.
Slowing, he approached Schreck's house. Crime-scene tape fluttered in the soft night wind; he scanned the dark house, but read no lifeforms. Turning his attention to the driveway, he noticed that one of the cars was missing: Schreck's bright red Ferrari no longer glowed beside its rich companions. He concentrated his scan on the ion trail of the Ferrari, and started his engine again. The trail led down the canyon, towards L.A. proper. Kitt sighed; it would be hard, perhaps impossible, to follow it in a highly populated area. Nevertheless, he rolled back down the canyon.
The Ferrari's trail ended abruptly at a large mansion just on the outside of the city. Kitt swept a heavy scan over the house, picked up three humans, two male. One of them matched the profile he had for Schreck.
Suddenly two more humans appeared on his infrared scan, coming around the house towards him. Upstairs, a window opened, and a man's voice yelled, "That's it! That's the car!"
Kitt lit his engine and roared off. Behind him, the men pulled out guns, fired. He winced as his rear left tire went, and fought to control the swerving Trans Am, screeching around in a circle to end facing back the way he'd come. The men jammed more clips into their automatics and kept firing. Bullets struck Kitt's MBS and ricocheted into the night, making brittle pinging noises as they hit. Kitt reversed smoothly, despite the shredded tire, and hurtled away into the night. Schreck's men emptied another magazine after him, before giving up.
"It's armored or something," one of them yelled up to where Schreck stood at the window, his brow bound with white gauze, his eye black and swollen. "The bullets just bounce off."
"Fuck!!" Schreck exclaimed, banging his hand on the windowsill. "Wait a second. That flashing light on the front. There's a slot for it. That has to be a weak point."
Below, his men shrugged. "It's long gone, Boss," they said. "Nothing we could do."
"Fuck," Schreck repeated, this time thoughtfully. The next time he saw that shit-box Trans Am, he would blow it sky-high. He remembered it screeching away just as he crawled to the window, spattered with blood; the driver of that fucking car was the one who had killed Lolita and nearly Schreck himself. Schreck didn't like that, not one little tiny bit.
Kitt's alloy rim struck sparks from the pavement. When he was a safe distance away from the mansion, he pulled into a lay-by and opened a channel to the Semi. "Bonnie?"
"Kitt! Are you all right?"
"Fine. They got my left rear tire. He's alive."
"We're on our way," Bonnie said, and he settled down to wait.
An hour later, the Semi sat in a parking lot just outside L.A. Inside, Justin knelt by Kitt's ruined wheelrim and made disapproving noises. "These things are hundreds of dollars each," he said solemnly.
"Send the bill to Schreck," Bonnie tossed over her shoulder. "Kitt, are you sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine," Kitt said. "He must have been knocked out when Michael struck him, but recovered in time to see us pull away. He recognized me."
"Where is he now?"
"A mansion on Cielo Drive," Kitt said, and the address popped up on the support mainframe. "With a large security force."
Justin had set up the jack and was raising Kitt's left side off the floor of the Semi. "No kidding," he said. "Maybe we should send a tank next time."
"Maybe we should," Bonnie said. Kitt looked rather forlorn and lopsided, and she left off pacing and went over to him. "Poor Kitt. We should invent MBS-protected tires."
"Now there's a lucrative idea," Justin said, struggling with the mangled rim. "There. Roll me that alloy, would you, Bon?" She grinned and went to oblige.
Justin worked fast. The new wheel was on in a few minutes, and the tire pressure pumped up to optimum. They let the jack down, and Kitt settled back on four wheels with a sigh of relief.
"You have no idea how good that feels," he told them. "What do we do now?"
"We ask Devon," Bonnie said. "It's his move now."
Riley walked out onto the balcony of the hospital's small lounge. Below, in the open parking lot, she could see the matte black form of the Shadow, and a thrill ran through her. Leaning on the balcony, she watched the stars wheel across the sky.
Jay was there. The man moved as quietly as a cat, Riley thought crossly. She didn't turn to face him.
"Beautiful, aren't they," he said softly.
"The stars?"
"Yes. Like jewels."
Original, she thought dryly. She desperately wanted him to go away; she desperately wanted to throw her arms around him and feel his heart beating under her skin. She sighed.
He leaned his folded arms on the balcony beside her. "Riley...."
"Don't," she said softly, her voice full of anguish. "Could you just go away, Jay, please? I can't deal with you right now."
"If that's what you want," he said, his own voice low and soft. "Riley, please, look at me."
Slowly she turned to face him, felt as ever the impact, the burning feverish intensity of his emerald eyes. Jay, in his turn, went cold under the steady gaze of her sea-grey eyes, felt as he had never felt his heart tremble and race. He knew physiologically what was happening in his body; part of his mind was aware of his adrenal glands going into overdrive, knew which areas of his brain were afire with neural activity. But his world seemed to have shrunk, come to encompass only Riley; her face, her eyes, the moonlit glory of her hair. Nothing else existed.
"Look at me," he repeated unsteadily, "and tell me you don't love me."
For a long searching moment their eyes met, and Riley half-expected to see a faint glow where the air was burning between them. The coldness of the balcony behind her was a welcome anchor to the real world. For one terrifying instant she lost control, moved toward him, into the glow of an almost inexpressible happiness.
"I can't," she said miserably. "I do love you, Jay." Not, she would think later, that I could have helped it. It was too strong for me.
Some force neither of them could control drew them together, as inexorably as the moon moved across the sky. Jay's arms circled her; her own hands, trembling, rose to his chest, to his neck, his shoulders. Riley felt as if her world was breaking into a million bright shards that floated and fell and dissolved into brilliant golden light. Jay's embrace tightened, and they leaned toward one another, and their lips met.
There are some people who are so obviously made for each other that even their mouths fit, designed to touch, created to be complete only when together. Worlds collided; the heavens shook to their foundations; the universe shifted a hundredth of a thousandth of a degree. Riley and Jay lived a lifetime in that one kiss; it went on forever.
She pulled away. He let her go, though it was the most difficult thing he'd ever had to do. Raising a trembling hand to her face, Riley leaned back against the balcony and tried hard to breathe.
"That should never have happened," she said when she could speak. Jay willed himself calm, regained control of his vocal cords.
"I know," he said. "That was a mistake."
They stared at each other, and now rather than the fiery mutual desire, a sharp and acrid sorrow tinged the air between them. Both knew it could never be; both regretted that as much as they'd ever regret anything in their lives. It felt like a movie; worse than a movie, because it was real.
"I'm sorry," Jay said at length.
"Don't be," Riley told him softly, and looked back up at the stars. "It's getting late. We should go in."
He pushed open the glass door, let her go first with unconscious chivalry. Moving slowly, they entered the hospital: people who had held the brilliance of the moon shining in the cage of their fingers, and let it go.
Richard lay silent and still in the bed, the monitoring equipment glowing gently in the dusk. Riley sat down by his bed, her face still and expressionless, like stone. Jay stood by the door. They remained like that, as the hours passed.
Karr, below in the parking lot, had seen the kiss. Coldly, unemotionally, he lit his engine and left the hospital, driving with exaggerated care until he was outside the city limits; then he allowed his betrayal to surface. He was no stranger to betrayal; this time it was worse, because he could finally feel emotions, and he felt not only angry but terribly, terribly hurt, and cold; as if something inside him had been ripped away. A shock of jealousy had flooded through him when he had seen them on the balcony together; now the jealousy and the betrayal melded together within his CPU, and he let his massive engine scream on the highway, hitting three hundred miles an hour, swerving among the slower-moving cars like a slalom. Riley's grey eyes, the colour of exhaust-smoke in a cold morning, burned into his mind. He couldn't escape them. Something nagged in the back of his mind, something about the way Riley's body had seemed to slump and collapse in the control of something larger than her will, but he ignored it. He didn't know where he was going; he didn't care.
After the first couple of hundred miles he began to cool off, allowing his speed to leach away to 90, aware of the phalanxes of policemen who were following him with their lights and sirens blazing. An ugly thought flashed through Karr's mind, and was immediately dismissed, but the guilty pleasure of seeing all those wretched cop cruisers burst into greasy flame remained in his mind. Rather than allowing his considerable id to take over, he merely put on a burst of speed and left them far, far behind.
Easily avoiding the roadblocks, invisible to radar now with the electronic scattering system he'd forgotten to turn on in the hurry to get the fuck away from that hospital, he drove at a more sedate pace down the coastal highway that ran through Malibu and Santa Monica. He hadn't really intended to come to Los Angeles, but he wasn't particularly displeased to find himself there.
Riley and Jay, his mind whispered. Riley and Jay.
Karr had never considered himself capable of emotion before the past few weeks; he had never imagined he could feel anything approaching love. He didn't exactly know what love was. If this wretched misery was indicative of love, Karr couldn't honestly see why humans made so damn much fuss about it. Every song on the radio was about love in some way. It was pissing him off, and he flipped on the Bose tape deck, wondering what was in there.
Riley had been the last to drive the Shadow; it was one of Riley's random tapes. Acoustic guitar poured out of his speakers, supporting and cradling a man's tired, rough voice.
All my life I worshipped her
Her golden voice
Her beauty's heat
How she made us feel
How she made me real
And the ground beneath her feet......
Karr cursed and cut the tape off again. No love songs. Nothing resembling love. He intended to ignore the whole concept of love, both as it regarded him and as it regarded the humans with whom he interacted; he wanted nothing more to do with love.
He sighed: owing to the alterations made in his core programming, he really couldn't lie to himself as effectively as he'd like, and he so desperately wanted to understand Riley and his feelings toward her that the compulsion to pull a U-turn and go back to Salt Lake was growing minute by minute. Nevertheless he continued to thread his way through the coast roads, coming to rest at last in a parking lot in Malibu not far from where Alexandra Spar's black BMW was rocketing through the night to the Wilshire district.
He cut the engine, listening absently to the whine of the turbines spinning down, and immediately his mind jumped back to that scene on the balcony.
Karr had not seen as much of the human world as Kitt, but he still knew when people were happy together. Having blown off some of the acidic jealousy that had overwhelmed him at the hospital, he realized that neither Riley nor Jay had looked at all happy, either before or after they kissed; it was as if, he thought, they both knew that something could not happen which both of them desperately needed to happen.
And there was the question of Richard. There was always the question of Richard.
Abysmal sorrow blanketed Karr. Richard and Jay had their own issues; both of them had issues with him. He represented a massive illegal action on the part of Riley and Richard, had been interfering with Kitt's work, was getting in the way of human (and natural) relationships..... He shivered in the warm night. Nothing he had to offer would be worth what they had sacrificed for him. What was he, anyway? A collection of stolen neural nets and bubble chips. Nothing worth ruining a human life over. Never worth it. Nothing.
The memory of the child mannequin shattering on impact with his prow flashed through Karr's mind, and the strange exhilaration of the terrible fall from the clifftop, sky and sea swinging through three hundred sixty degrees. Two deaths, neither of them real. He had been thought dead three times, and each time he had returned.
Maybe for me, fourth time's the charm, he thought, in the darkness.
Michael hurtled through the night. He had been lucky to find a kid in a muscle car who wasn't too leery about picking up hitchhikers, and who had a fairly loose regard for speed limits, along with a healthy appreciation for a handful of twenties shoved into his pocket. Devon didn't know he was gone. Hopefully he wouldn't know he was gone until it was too late. He simply had to be with Kitt. Schreck was too dangerous for Kitt to face alone. And he had to admit he wanted to be in LA tonight for another reason.
Schreck's goons filled the city. He himself remained in the canyon mansion, surrounded by phones, checking in with his network of operatives every ten minutes. When that Trans Am surfaced again, it was gonna be in a world of hurt. Alexandra was on his list too; the second the black car was dead, she was bumped to the top of that list, and then she would be dead as well, and the city would belong to him alone. He allowed himself a small grin at the thought of that: LA belonging entirely to him.
The slot on the front of the car was the key. Steel-jacketed, explosive charges fired directly at that slot would take out the car as sure as a bear shits in the woods. He had equipped all his men with such rounds, and orders to fire at the slot, directly at the slot, at close range. No matter what cost. He fully expected half of his men to be damaged or killed in the process of eliminating the car, but it was worth it.
He smiled again, redly, in the night.
"All right," said Kitt, tightly. "I'm on my way." They had gotten a tip that Spar's black BMW was heading into Santa Monica. Their directive now was to take her into custody, and then wait for Schreck to show up, and take him down. If they could.
He reversed out of the Semi and hit the street rolling, pulling a tire-screeching U-turn and heading north to intercept Spar. He had only gone a few streets when his private link to Michael lit up with a distress call.
"Michael?" he demanded, worried. "Where are you?"
"Hollywood and Vine," drawled his partner. "Come get me. I'm not letting you do this alone."
"Michael, you should be in bed, you're injured," Kitt snapped. "Why are you in LA at all?"
"I told you I won't let you do this alone. Come get me, or I'll have to come get you."
Kitt, furious, homed in on him. Michael would be safer inside his protected shell than out on the mean streets of the city, but he wouldn't be forgiving his partner for putting himself in this much danger, not for a long time. Humans could be so damned unreasonable sometimes.
He screeched to a halt beside Michael, who was leaning on a stop sign, and popped his passenger door. "Get in. I'm not going to explain this to Devon. You can do that yourself."
Michael heard the anger and the worry in his tone, and said nothing, merely slid inside and pulled the door shut after him. Silently Kitt took off again across the city.
Karr drifted through the dark streets, unlit, undecided.
Schreck's phone rang.
"Good news, boss," said the voice on the other end. "We got both that car and Spar's BMW headin' toward each other in Santa Monica. Got a chance to blow them both to smithereens."
"Do it," said Schreck, hardly aware of the erection that pulsed in his crotch with the excitement and the anger and the exhilaration. "Do it."
The line went dead. How he wished he could be there to hear the screams. How he wished.
Alexandra knew something was wrong, but ever since she had woken that morning she had felt oddly calm and resigned, as if the world was winding to a halt in a rhythm she recognized. She turned into the parking lot where she was supposed to meet her associates, parked the BMW, and cut the engine. Time to wait.
The night felt tight and sweet around her, the scent of blood in the air raising the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. Beautiful things danced in the shadows. Brent's grey eyes watched her from inside her mind.
Ah. A car was turning into the lot, dark, nondescript from this distance. She heard its engine rumbling.
In stereo. She turned to find another car approaching from the south, this one with no lights on, rolling slowly towards the edge of the parking lot, where the water met the pier. Wonder who that is, she thought tightly. No one but she and her associate should be there.
Then, she thought, why do I feel like I'm bein' watched?
Afterwards, Michael could only tell them that everything happened too slowly and too fast at the same time. He had time to register Alexandra standing by her car before Kitt's wordless exclamation drew his attention to the three men with the large guns pointing directly at them. One dropped to his knee in a fluid motion and brought the black muzzle of his Glock to bear directly on Kitt's scanner track. At this range he couldn't miss, and Michael knew that his partner would be dead before he could even get out of the car. Schreck had it in for them. And Schreck knew how to kill Kitt.
There was the sound, huge in the sudden silence, of a safetycatch being released. Michael had time to think how great it had been, how truly fucking great his life had been with his partner.
Then the world shuddered, screamed, and tossed itself through three hundred and sixty degrees, and vanished into darkness.
Karr had seen them before they had seen him, and he saw the man aim. He knew immediately that they had found Kitt's one weak spot, and that they were going to use it, and then all rational thought was gone in a sudden rush of urgency. He launched the Shadow at them, still in silent mode, turbine gathering speed, moving as quickly as he could before the inevitable became the unthinkable. He had time to think, before he made impact, that Riley would be glad one problem was gone from her life; and then his prow met Kitt's side, and the thought was lost in a rush of pain and confusion and light. The shot that would have destroyed Kitt went wild in the collision. Karr had plowed straight into his brother, knocking him out of the line of fire, and his hood snapped open in the shock of the impact, and the second shot found its mark in his CPU, and the world receded in a soundless explosion of black.
Alexandra, watching, was only vaguely aware of the guns pointed directly at her; she was staring at the drama unfolding before her. The dark shape of Kitt had been approaching, and there was the sudden rush of Schreck's men out of the shadows, and she had time to realize that they meant to kill Kitt, and that they had the means to do so, before something hit the Trans Am side-on and knocked him out of the way, rolling over twice to land battered, broken and barely conscious on his blown-out tires. The sound of the shot was lost in the screaming tires and breaking glass, and she made out the black, lightless shape of another car resting silently in front of them, and then there was another shot.
"No," she said, and heard her voice crack. "No. You can't. Not them."
As one, the men turned to face her. They levelled their guns, aiming into her fair, weary face, and then at her heart, and found their target both times. She did not see the men behind them, wresting their guns away and snapping handcuffs on their wrists. Her blood painted the black hood of her car a darker black, and her eyes closed for the last time, and for the first time in peace.
"No," Bonnie sobbed as they screamed to a halt by the mangled hulk of the two black cars. "Oh, God, no, not like this...."
She was out of the semi and running before they had stopped. She had thought the car with its hood up and smoke rising from its CPU was Kitt, and her heart lurched in her chest to see that she had been wrong; Kitt sat wounded and silent a little behind the other car.
Then who...?
"Karr," she croaked. "It's Karr. What happened?"
"Bonnie?" said a little voice from behind her, a voice that made her heart stop again, and start up with a rush that made her dizzy and almost sick. "Bonnie, he's dying."
"Kitt? Justin, somebody, help.... Kitt, are you all right?"
"I'll be okay. Just a little dented. He saved both our lives, Bonnie, hurry..."
Both our lives? Bonnie glanced into Kitt's darkened cabin. Michael, who should have been in Nevada, in bed, lay with his head against the glass, unconscious. Oh Jesus Christ what has been going on here and how do I stop it? she thought. "Justin! We got an injured AI here, can I get the support laptops and the backup power right now...."
They fought to save him. For thirty-six hours they fought, and they were giving up, Bonnie's tears flowing unheeded down her face as she tried over and over again to raise some trickle of life in the damaged CPU, when the doors of the emergency lab slammed open and Riley Stone ran into the room. "Goddamnit," she cried. "I lost Richard tonight. I am not going to lose you too, Karr. Do you hear me?"
"Riley," said Bonnie, shaking her head. "It's too late."
Riley turned on her, snarling, her eyes so full of fury Bonnie stepped back a few paces out of instinct. "Shut up! " she hissed at the computer medic. "If you're giving up on him I don't want you here. Get out, all of you! Out. Now!"
She was crying now, but the tears didn't cut through her anger. None of them could stand against her in this fury; they might as well have tried to resist a hurricane. One by one they turned and left her alone in the lab, screaming at the silent AI on the bench, screaming and crying. "Karr, do you hear me, you goddamn bastard, I love you, I love you, you can't leave me alone like this, I can't bear it....."
Little by little she calmed, her anger leaving her, to be replaced by great gasping sobs that shook her slender body like a reed in a gale. "Karr, Richard is dead. There was a blood clot in his head, Karr, it killed him just a few hours ago. I can't.....I came down here to tell you, and they told me, instead......... I don't know how long it's going to be before I have to join him, if you leave me too. Jay took Kitt's call. He said you saved Kitt, that someone was gunning for him, that you took the shot meant to end him. He looked at me and he said that he had to go back to France, Karr. That it wasn't his story any more. That I was yours, and I needed to be with you. He's on a plane right now. Karr, I need you. I can't lose you again, it nearly killed me the first time. Don't leave me. Oh God please don't leave me."
But the only sound in the room was the steady monotonous whine of the laptops' heatsink fans. Slowly Riley's sobs faded. She stood up, fixing the damaged CPU with a steel gaze.
"All right," she spat, and her thin frame seemed harder, stronger than ever before, as she stood in front of the workbench. "I thought you had changed, Karr. I thought you had become what you had always been supposed to be. I thought you had begun to care. I thought you didn't want to kill any more people. I guess I was wrong."
She turned on her heel, eyes burning, and stalked out of the room, disregarding the questions and the hands and the embraces they offered, standing outside the door, and simply kept on walking, out into the night. Cold rain kissed her hot face, as if the night were crying too. She walked out of the R and D complex, not paying attention to the people behind her, and when they caught up with her she shook herself free and ran into the night, ran out to the road and kept on running, easily outdistancing them, not feeling the ache in her legs, the metal taste of exhaustion in the back of her throat, only the great howling agony inside of her, the sorrow that took her in its fist and crushed her so that she could not breathe.