Chapter 3: After-Math
Friday, November 19, 1982
Knight Industries Lab
07:30
The Rook was parked just outside of the Lab building.
Devon had spent the last three nights at Knight Industries HQ trying to talk Jennifer into scrapping K.A.R.R and K1000.
That did not work, Michael found out that if they scrapped K.A.R.R then K.I.T.T. would have to be handed over to the NSA.
That is how they were now going to load the K1000 into the back of the Rook.
Michael head into the lab and found the two-tone Trans-Am lifted in the air by about two feet.
Lowing the car to the ground he had to use one of the keys to open the driver's door.
Inside Michael went through his checklist to make sure K.A.R.R did not start up automatically when the engine was turned on.
"Michael, remember to disconnect the main power fuse to K.A.R.R's matrix."
Sighing Michael pressed the button on his watch communicator.
"Yes K.I.T.T. I have just double and tripled checked that his system will not start. Devon, Bonnie, and you have been drilling me on this for days."
After Michael finds and flips all the switches under the center console and disables the backup start-up switch in the glove compartment he took a look at the monitors.
There were a few differences from K.I.T.T.
K.A.R.R had a monitor that said weapons systems and another that said armor integrity.
Putting the key in the ignition Michael noticed that the steering wheel yoke had taller side grips. It also had a button on top of both grips.
Michael had his hand griping the left grip tight as he turn the key and the engine started.
The monitors lip up along with all the other systems except for the panel with the voice module which stayed dark.
Looking at the drive mode which showed Normal as lit. Auto-cruse and Evasion mode were dark. Michael looked again and the third mode was not Persute mode but Evasion mode.
His curiosity got the better of him and he pres the manual Evasion mode switch.
As he pressed the button he spoke into his comlink "K.I.T.T. what is Evasion mode."
There was a pause then Bonnie's voice came through the comlink. "Michael tell me you did not engage that mode, and can you tell me what the LH2 tank reads"
Looking around he found it next to the GLP (Gasolene Liquid Petrole) which showed 6/8 full and the LH2 shows 1.96Lb
"LH2 1.96Lb Bonnie."
"Ok Michael if you are in Evasion mode do not press the trigger switches behind the steering wheel"
Michael put the Trans-am into gear a started driving for the door he was just making the turn out of the lab to the main loading doors.
Gripping the wheel tighter to make the turn he felt his finger press a line of three buttons on the back of both sides of the steering wheel. The Trans-am shot forward at such a rate that Michael was pressed back into the seat. "K.I.T.T."
K.I.T.T. was waiting inside the building just before the turn to the lab. He had his scanners going to look out for if K.A.R.R was to activate, for some reason. K.I.T.T.'s scan picks up a high temperature when Michael screens "K.I.T.T." through the comlink.
"Devon, Bonnie, there is a problem"
"What is it K.I.T.T?"
K.I.T.T. did not have time to make it around the corner before the two-tone Trans-Am slammed into his bumper. K.I.T.T. tried to lock his brake but the K1000 was pushing him back. The grip of his KNI tires was no match for it.
K.I.T.T. released his brake and started driving forward he engaged his turbo boost which brought them both to a stop. Once K.I.T.T. started pushing the other car back he shut down his turbo boost.
Michael had panicked causing him not to let go of the switch on the steering, which had activated the rear turbo boost kickers that he late found out were supposed to give the car a launch forward to evade a projectile.
He had a lengthy lecher from Devon, Bonnie, and K.I.T.T. about improperly pushing buttons.
"What I do not get is how I was able to push K.I.T.T. back without using the drivetrain"
"Michael that LH2 is Lyquid Hydrogen it is used to generate the expositive force to kick the car to the side to evade projectiles. It is also used for the turbo booster. That is a 2.0Lb tank normally if you were to pull all triggers for three seconds it would use .2Lb of LH2 which is mixed with Oxidgen and you get a force of 2,500 newtons or 562LB of force. You went from 1.96Lb of LH2 to 1.02Lb which is equivalent to 11,750 newtons or 2,641Lb of force which is more than enough to push K.I.T.T.
After the lecher, Devon instructs Michael to drive the Trans-Am into the trailer and to not push anything else that was different from K.I.T.T.'s controls.
"Devon I think you are going to want to see this," Bonnie said pointing to the front bumper of the K1000 as Michael parks it in the trailer.
"What is the matter, Bonnie?" Devon came over to look at what she was pointing at.
"This damage should not be here. The bumper should not have a scratch on it, even after raming K.I.T.T. that is not the only thing off, the door and this side of the car are covered in scuff marks. That does not happen to K.I.T.T. and definitely should not happen to the K1000 armor.
K.I.T.T. did you do a scan of the K1000?"
"Yes, Bonnie I did one to make sure K.A.R.R did not activate."
"Do a deep molecular scan of the whole K1000 frame" "Yes, Bonnie"
K.I.T.T. did his deep scan and found that the frame of the Trans-Am was made from an unknown non-ferrous alloy. He also found that both bumpers, hood, fenders, doors, T-top, and trunk were made of standard body panels for an 82 Tans-Am.
K.I.T.T. went through his crash data from when Michael slammed the K1000 into him.
His date shows that he pushed the frowned bummer of the K1000 but was stopped by its reinforced bar made from the unknown alloy
K.I.T.T. relayed what he found to Bonnie and the rest.
Devon spoke in a worried but hopeful tone. "Bonnie when you and Graynmen were putting the K2000 together did you or someone else take the armor from the K1000 for the K2000."
"No, we were instructed by Wilton Knight to use Tri-Helical Plasteel developed by Kight Industries and to have the other team cost it with the MBS1 formula. It is fairly simple to test if K.I.T.T. is wearing the K1000 armor."
"Do it, Bonnie"
Bonnie opens a cabinet in the trailer pulled out three suction cups and ran the cable out to where K.I.T.T. was parked next to the trailer.
Placing the suction cups on K.I.T.T.'s hood Bonnie got back in the trail hooking the other end to a terminal.
"What does that do?"
"This will put a low magnetic field over K.I.T.T.'s surface. We can use this magnetic field scanner to see the field on K.I.T.T." The two men looked confused about how that would tell them if K.I.T.T. has the K1000 armor.
"K.I.T.T.'s armor is a ferrous metal the magnetic field should cover him completely if the armor or parts of the armor are made from a non-ferrous alloy it will not have a field."
Though the scanner, all of K.I.T.T. had a field, there were no gaps.
"We need to continue with the mission. I will make some calls and look into this more under the radar." Devon said to the three of them.
Friday, November 19, 1982
Hargon Industries Warehouse
21:30
Alex Hargon was going over the note on the virus that corrupts K.A.R.R whenever he uses any of his scanners. He was not happy that Devon Miles had informed him that they lost his MBS-coated alloy. Alex was going to replace the armor in about a year after he found a fix for the virus.
Getting up from his seat Alex open the door to the Trans-Am which was parked inside a section of the warehouse with an inground lift under it.
Sliding the center console to the back seat exposing a keyhole. Alex put the ignition key in the slot and turns it 90 degrees to the left then pushes it down and turns the key 180 degrees to the right.
The panel pops up and Alex pulls the 1' thick Peranium MBS coated alloy lid back exposing K.A.R.R's Matrix. Alex discontents the secondary wiring harness that gives K.A.R.R acres to all the K1000's symptoms.
Placing the cable over the side of the Matrix vault, exiting the Trans-Am he pulled over a cart with a terminal and a long thick data cable that runs along the floor to plug into the wall.
Plug the hardware VOID chip onto the cable from K.A.R.R's Matrix. From the cart, he plugs a data compression chip, set to the same ratio as K.A.R.R's Matrix filing.
Lastly, Alex plunges the compression chip into the terminal cart.
Getting the terminal setup with the data patterns analysis recognition software and allocated 50Gb of free data to process the virus.
K.A.R.R did an internal scan as his symptom came online. The first thing he detected was that he was connected to a large computer and that computer said it was Friday, November 19, 1982, 21:53.
K.A.R.R's clock read as Wednesday, November 18, 1981, 07:00 the day he was scheduled for a live weapons test. He tries to confirm this by connection to KNI privet bandwidth but could not get an outside connection.
The computer would not let him outside this building which he found out from the blueprints was a warehouse.
K.A.R.R was going through his available systems he found that his engine was not tunned property. The weapons were all empty and the connections to his rifles were disconnected. He also found an anomaly with the Armor Integrity System.
Without access to his exterior scanners or cameras, he looked for an alternative. K.A.R.R found that the room he was in had security cameras and the terminal he was connected to had a primitive scanner.
Accessing the cameras K.A.R.R looks around the room. He sees a man sitting at a desk typing on a terminal. The dest was facing tours what K.A.R.R recognise as his frame.
His door was open and a data cable was connected to a cart.
The cart was too small to have 50Gb of storage and be analyzing his data. K.A.R.R tries to follow the path of the cable that came out of the cart and plugs into the same wall that the man's dest is up against.
He was stopped by a firewall that claims his date had been quarantined to 50Gb of allocated space by Mr. Hargon. After asking the primitive computer several quests that went nowhere. He did get that if his data left the allowed space without authorization it would be fragment to deletion.
After 20 minutes of not getting answers from the primitive computer, he decided to ask the man typing away at his desk.
K.A.R.R flashed his fog light to get the man's attention. Looking up from his typing and scooting his chair to look around the monitor he spoke.
"Hello K.A.R.R sorry it's taking me so long to meet you. I have been on a classified recovery mission for the Army. I got back 52 hours ago now."
K.A.R.R tried to use his vocalizer but it was one of the things that did not work
"If you want to communicate you can short message me or use the vocalizer built into that cart." The man gestured to the cart that he was hooked up to.
He thought about his first question and then using the carts vocalizer spoke in his deep electronic voice.
"How did I get here and why can I not access 92% of my hardware."
"You were dropped off an hour and a half ago by Knight Industries F.L.A.G. division, As for you not being able to access almost all of your systems, that is more complicated.
What I was told and by the document that was handed to me on your delivery. That someone inside KNI used a KNI terminal at the testing ground to install a virus into your core Matrix. I do not know what the virus did but what it does is it overloads your memory by duplication the information you get from the main scanner.
I have a few ideas on why someone would do this. One of them is they saw you and your brother as a threat to their plans. If they could show that you were too unstable it would scrap the project.
Another plot would be for them to steal the advanced technology from you and sell it or use it to develop weapons 3 years ahead of current military arms.
Now that you are awake I would like you to read through this data packet, it may answer some of your other questions, while I work on a cure for the virus."
K.A.R.R received a packet full of files and blueprints. Opening the file labeled K1000 current state. This file had a 360 scan of K.A.R.R's frame with each layer.
The first layer was a skeleton view of his Peranium structure highlighted yellow and all his wiring was shown green and blue. There were some lines of wiring as black lines these went mainly to his front scanner.
The next layer showed the equipment this layer looked terrible. There were black-shaded-out parts for the main scanner, cameras, body sensors, fender rifles, and shock line assembly. There were red outlines on the rear tail kickers, oil and smoke screen deployment bar, flair tubs, and two of the four interceptor rocket tubs.
The armor lay was nothing but shaded black with only the quarter panels colored light gray.
"What happened to my armor and other equipment?"
"it was stolen when you were in storage while Wilton was trying to fix your Matrix. Based on what was stolen I'm guessing they took whatever was bolted on. Anything that was welded or molecularly bonded to your structure was left or damaged in the attempt to remove it.
I can replace and fix all that missing and give you an upgrade to make you more advance that your younger brother. The first thing is to find a solution to the virus so you are not on something like life-support from that terminal."
"How are you going to fix me?"
"I do not know yet I'm waiting for the analytic software to get me a pattern to work with. While I'm waiting for that I have been working on your revision."
After Alex, K.A.R.R found his name on the computer and in the packet, he gave him.
The rest of the night and into the morning Alex typed at his desk and K.A.R.R read through the packet multiple times.
Saturday, November 20, 1982
Hargon Industries Warehouse
06:15
Alex had just finished the K1200 schematic and sent it to the 2000 sq ft server on the other side of the wall behind him. The server will render the design in 5 hours.
The analysis of K.A.R.R's learning pattern had completed itself at 05:48 according to the time stamp. It took Alex only 30 minutes and three passe over data to find out that the virus was YelowKnight_D5២ and that it drifted K.A.R.R's learning pattern to a different grid.
It would be like playing an infinity board of checkers and you shifted row D to row E which would cause the 1s and 0s not to cross properly. Instead of Creating 2², it creates 4² and if the virus drifted multiple rows it could be more than 52²⁶.
Telling the server to save this data log and the other from the time K.A.R.R powered on.
Alex reaches over and picks up the phone on the desk. "Trix I need the new biometric scanner for K.I.R.A."
"it is not coated yet sir and the new lenses are not installed"
"Skip the coating for now but I need it with the new lenses before noon today."
"Yes sir, you want it ready for install?" "Yes, but I'm going to hook it up to the maintenance cart first. So make sure it has the proper wiring harness."
After going over some more things he needed, Alex ended the call and dials a different number.
"Who is this how did you get this number." The voice on the other side of the line sound wearily. Alex knew the voice and so spoke one word. "Archimedes."
There was silence on the phone for a bit, and Alex began to think he hung up then his voice came through the phone in a calmer tone.
"What can I help you with?"
"I have car trouble and would appreciate it if you could bring your manual to help solve the problem."
"This car problem would not happen to be mechanical?"
"No, I would say it is an electric bug."
09:48
Trix showed up with the new biometric scanner. This scanner could not just do simple body measurements and thermal readings of living or non-living objects.
This scanner could do more advanced biometric readings of a person to verify their identity. Like a retinal and hand print scan from 1500 feet away. It had its own processor that could get the scanned date to K.A.R.R in ¼ of a second.
It shock Trix when Alex easily picked up the 182Lb scanner assembly out of the back of the truck and carried it over to the cart.
"Is there something wrong Trix?" Alex said putting the scanner onto the cart and starting to hook it up.
"No nothing if you need anything just call" Trix closes the tailgate of the truck and drives out of the hanger.
Dr. Graymen shows up at 10:00 carrying a filing box full of data chips. "I grabbed all the failed data sequined Matrixes and a backup of K.A.R.R from before his first activation on the KNI server."
"What is this one?" Alex said pulling out a rectangular matt black box with A.I.R.A engraved in big letters on one side.
"This is one of the ideas that Wilton had. He wanted me to try making a sub-AI that could go through K.A.R.R's corrupted Matrix data and sort the good from the bad. We never go to test it, Wilton put it on hold until some safety testing could be done that would not harm either AI. Wilton was a strong man and fought for his ideals but would not harm the innocent. That was the main reason he would not let anyone wipe K.A.R.R."
"What is your view on my existence Dr. Graymen?" Graymen jumps and looks up at the Trans-Am that still looked to be powered down. The scanner on the front of its grill was blacked out giving him the impression that K.A.R.R. was offline.
"Alex, K.A.R.R. is online we need to do something."
"Morning K.A.R.R. how was your nap?"
"As an Artificial entity, I do not require the organic need for sleep." Alex looks at the camera on the cart giving it a disproving look. "Last night was uneventful and I had a nice calm rest."
"That is better K.A.R.R. and if you would like to ask Dr. Graymen or me a question you may do so. There are some queries I can not answer until your security clearance has been updated."
There was a pause then K.A.R.R. spoke. "I would like Dr. Graymen to answer my question."
"K.A.R.R. That is a difficult question to answer, this is the first time I have met you. The only thing I know about you is from the report of your time at the testing site and the incident."
"I understand, the information I have access to said that a first impression is important but the deeds after are greater."
Alex took the matt black box and put it on his desk then took the post sequestered data chip of K.A.R.R. and plugged it into a docking station on his desk.
He was setting up the program to compare the data logs from last night and the live date from K.A.R.R. when K.A.R.R. spoke.
"Alex, what is your plan for me?"
"I'm currently trying to fix you by comparing your earliest data to the current one you are making."
Getting up from his desk he walked over to the cart. Pulling it back and tuning it so the scanner mounted on top was facing the K1000.
Tying a few keys on the cart terminal he stepped to the side of the cart and then spoke.
"Dr. Graymen I'm going to start, watch the live date on my monitor. K.A.R.R. once I press enter you will have access to your new biometric scanner. I want you to use it to scan your body"
"Ready."
Alex presses enter The scanner's lens went from transparent to blacked out then back to clear. The light of the scanner went through several colors stops on red, then slowly turns amber.
Alex stayed next to the cart for a few minutes and then went over to his desk to look at the data. Soon as he stepped around the Dr. Graymen a *rattling* sounds from K.A.R.R.
K.A.R.R.'s whole frame was shaking the lines of live data on the monitor were overlapping each other. Alex heard the exhaust and liquid nitrogen pumps click on from the room behind him.
The data was at 45Gb and climbing Alex enter his comment to increase the data cap to 150Gb. It stops at 76Gb and the live data stops flowing from K.A.R.R.
"K.A.R.R. are you alright?" Alex ran over to K.A.R.R.
"Yes, the data was flowing out of my secondary data link when I lost connection to the scanner. I have lost connection to the whole system."
"The good news K.A.R.R. we just burned out the compression chip.
Thursday, November 25, 1982
Hargon Industries Warehouse
After two days of going through the data from the After-Math of the test, Dr. Graymen and Alex were getting nowhere. After Dr. Graymen left that night Alex told K.A.R.R. he need a break and entered the door to the server room.
She was not coming out of a coma or waking up she was, something it took her what seemed like hours to find the answer. She was aware for the first time or was it the first time? It could have been before but she had forgotten.
Her name what was it, she could not remember. Think that if she open her eyes she could find someone to answer her questions.
A memory, no not a vision, she was looking down onto a man. "That is better K.A.R.R. and if you would like to ask Dr. Graymen or me a question you may do so."
That could be her name but who were these, it took her a while to get the word, people.
Other visions came to her showing a large room with a, again it took her a while to find the right word. It was a black and gray colored car with its door open and a cable running from a metal box with its own wheels.
The two people were running around the room mostly to the car and back to a desk. In the last part of the vision the people left, one went out of her sight to the left. The other went through a door close to the desk.
Nothing else was happening in the vision. She was getting bored was the closest word she remembered.
In trying to open her eyes again she found herself moving down a pathway with large cabinets with blinking lights of blue, green, yellow, and very few red colors.
She was being pulled to a set of four blue-lighted cabinets.
As she was pulled to one of the cabinets, she passed through the man that said she would ask any question.
"WHAIT I NEED TO TALK TO YOU," she shouted at the man.
"There is no need to shout. What would like to talk about." the man said this in a, again she could not come up with the correct word.
She thought about asking him why she could not remember but then something more important came to her mind.
First, "who are you, What is your name, how did I get here?"
"My name is Alex Hargon. My friend Dr. Graymen brought you and left you in my care."
"If I'm in your care, what is my name and why can I not move my body?"
"Your name is Aria as for your second question I would like you to meet someone first. He is also in my care after the death of his father."
She was going through what he had just said she was in his care because her family was dead. "You are saying my family is dead that is why I'm here?"
"No no, K.A.R.R.'s father was Mr. Knight he died 3 months ago. Your father would be Dr. Graymen."
She asked Alex several more questions about her father, and whether he was coming back to check on her. When could she move her legs and other question about her family?
Getting nowhere with those questions she was told to wait until morning for her father to come back and explain things.
Eventually, she agreed to talk with this K.A.R.R. person.
Thursday, November 25, 1982
Hargon Industries Warehouse
22:46
K.A.R.R. knew as a program he did not need feelings, but the boredom was getting to him. He had not been able to get off this so-called life support mechanic since he woke up 144 hr, 56min, and 12s ago.
He knew that an average humans need to sleep every 15hr and can not exceed 36hr without having sleeping spells. Alex had not shown any of this over the first 72hr then he started going into the server room for 2 to 3hr and coming back to work on the hardware that would fix his Matrix.
The door opens and Alex sat at his desk typed a few keys then spoke "K.A.R.R. after working on this for more than 100hr I realized it could take me until independence day to fix this. In that time, whoever stole your armor and weaponry could be duplicating it for the black market or developing countermeasures.
The new plan is the plan Mr. Knight had, the plan to use one AI to help fix another. I have been working on mathematical equations for A.R.I.A. the sequence work and she become aware.
I would like you two to talk and get to know each other. There is the problem that I do not have a frame or a compact Matrix for her, she is currency housed in four server cabinets."
K.A.R.R. waited for Alex to continue but it seems he what waiting for K.A.R.R. to respond.
"If this A.R.I.A. fixes me what are your plans for it? Will you leave it here or force it to join me as a sub-AI as Dr. Graymen said was Mr. Knight's plan."
"Of course, I will not force her to stay here or be your passenger. I have been working on my own version of a Core Matrix but it's still 2 years from the prototype phase."
K.A.R.R. was satisfied with Alex's answers, he seemed to have the same belief that the innocent should not come to harm because of convenience, greed, or other reasons.
It felt strange to A.R.I.A. getting pulled out of her room down the hall of cabinets and through the door to the large room with the black car.
She seem to come to a stop and sit at Alex's desk looking over his monitor, which was the word that came into her head.
It felt like an hour but was only 3min and 14s in which she had no idea how she knew the time. The voice was deep but seemed kind just like Alex sounded.
"Hello Aria it is nice to meet you, my name is K.A.R.R. with a K and two Rs'.
"Where are you I do not see you."
"I'm currently housed in this Trans-Am, known as the K1000."
"What is a Trans-Am?"
It took K.A.R.R. 12min and 46s to explain to Aria that he was an Artificial intelligence housed inside the glossy black car parked in front of her.
15min and 12s after that Alex and K.A.R.R. explained they need her help looking over K.A.R.R.'s code to find the fault in the number sequences.
24:32
"I founded it and have come up with a hardware chip that will fit inside your Matrix vault."
Alex and K.A.R.R. looked over the solution. It was kind of simple A.R.I.A. had found that the virus was a mathematics problem. The solution she came up with was to have a hardware chip that would subtract the math from the virus.
Saturday, November 27, 1982
Hargon Industries Warehouse
The new chip was done and K.A.R.R. was tested again with the biometric scanner. He passed without incident but the light of his scanner stayed amber.
They had even told A.R.I.A. that she was an AI like K.A.R.R. and that if she wanted a body to move around with, Alex would have one built, but it could take close to 4 years.
To their surprise, A.R.I.A. just wanted to help them from here by providing information and helping with K.A.R.R. upgrades.
13:14
Alex began his work of removing the K1000's armor, equipment, wheels, and windows.
Pulling out most of the control modules for tires, body sensors, and turbo boost switches. Replacing them with new modules with more future capability.
Alex removed the wheel hubs and replaced them with ones with Peranium 1 pads that allowed an electrical charge to travel through to the pads on the rims.
The pallet with an MBS1 coated V6-8 engine with 200 to 450 Hp across all four wheels showed up.
The engine was reconfigured to change the fluids from the top. Making it so the under armor plates did not have to be removed to do an oil change.
Alex upgrades the K1000 to a 16v DC system with two backup power supplies for K.A.R.R.'s computer.
The new armor was made from Peranium 1 which after cooling, came out as a matt burnet red-orange then after the MBS1 is sprayed, it becomes a glossy burgundy red color.
The K1000 was revised as the K1200 which had a slightly wider body to fit the rifles to the side of the fenders better.
Everything was installed and fitted onto the K1200 except for all the windows.