Chapter Four: To Honor an Old Friend
Roy focused on the road ahead of him, listening to Giles' quiet directions as he navigated through Toronto's midday traffic and did his best not to think about all the movies and video games where Artificial Intelligence went wrong and good people ended up very, very dead. Of course, in trying so hard to not think about evil AIs, he found he couldn't think about anything else. The detective swallowed his groan – this was going to end with them dead and KITT in flames, he just knew it.
Once an AI slipped the leash, they never went back. It was just a fact of life, like the sun rising or the tide flowing in. Yeah, he and Giles treated KITT like he was human – heck, the AI acted more human than a lot of guys he'd known over the years – but at the end of the day, KITT was a machine. An Artificial Intelligence built by a genius who'd gotten one AI wrong and the other right. At least until the idiot goblins messed with the second AI's morality chain. If Giles was depending on the power of friendship to save them, he was in for a rude surprise – machines could mimic emotion, but that was it. KITT was no more human than his smartphone.
A small voice in the back of his head drolly pointed out that if he really believed all of that, why bother treating the AI like a human? His immediate response – always treat dangerous creatures with respect and kindness – felt flat. More like ticking off the boxes on the Evil Overlord List.
The same tiny voice went on to observe that his reaction to the news had been more like grief than cool-headed logic. After all, hadn't he felt anguish at the thought of KITT getting lobotomized – why feel that if he'd believed all along that the AI was just a machine. A lethal weapon kept on a chain.
Growling to himself, Roy glared out the windshield at the highway overpass ahead, fingers tightening on the wheel. He couldn't let himself get sentimental now. Not with an unshackled AI running loose in his city.
"Okay, turn left at the next light."
"The highway on-ramp?" Roy asked, flicking a glance right.
Giles squinted at his phone. "Maybe. We're close; looks like KITT's just parked on the road."
The detective blinked, examining the traffic around him. Moving smoothly with no hesitation. Not what he'd expect if an AI was blocking a road for some crazy reason. And what was KITT doing near a highway on-ramp anyway? Unless…
His fingers, already tight around the wheel, clenched further, knuckles going white. Gray eyes narrowed in suspicion – and that small voice at the back of his head 'sounded' rather smug as it asked him why he was getting angry. After all, if he was right, wasn't this the precise outcome he thought necessary?
Shaking that highly annoying – accurate – voice away, Roy pushed down on the gas as the cars ahead of him began to move through the turn light. He almost didn't make it, skating through the yellow arrow, but ignored that minor detail in favor of scanning the road ahead for a certain black Trans Am.
Which took all of thirty seconds – the familiar black spoiler over a sleek black trunk lid and an Ontario plate reading KNGHT 1 stood out against the roadside greenery. The Trans Am sat partway on the shoulder pavement, but it looked as if it had been trying to drive off the road before it had come to a halt.
"What the heck?" the detective muttered, guiding his battered sedan to a halt behind the black sports car. He turned his head to say something, only to hiss under his breath as he saw his passenger door closing. Slamming the car in park and turning off the engine, Roy scrambled out. "Giles!"
"Save it, partner," the other snapped without even turning. He jogged for the Trans Am, calling, "KITT? You okay?"
Roy rolled his eyes heavenward, then pushed his driver door shut and hurried after his friend. Despite his own wariness, he found himself reaching out, running a hand along KITT's exterior in an automatic check for damage. It didn't take long to catch up; Giles was pulling at the Trans Am's passenger door, frustration overriding his fear.
"It's stuck."
"Yeah, more like he locked it," Roy jibed back. Resting both hands on KITT's T-top, he leaned forward. "You wanna let the whole city know 'bout him?"
"Oh, now you care?" Giles shot back. "Weren't you preachin' at me about how AI is a crapshoot and how AIs always go rogue and try 'n kill everyone and now you care about keeping KITT a secret?"
The car rocked under their hands and both men jumped. "KITT?" Roy asked, keeping his voice low.
There was a long moment as they waited, but the AI made no reply.
For his part, Roy sighed and gingerly leaned his weight against the Trans Am. "Giles, you're a wizard. You might be half-blood, but you still grew up in the wizarding world. You didn't grow up with this stuff like I did and I've been stayin' away from the Terminator movies or the Matrix trilogy or any of the other big AI sci-fi movies ever since we first met KITT." One hand raked through his hair. "For any one movie that paints Artificial Intelligence as a good thing, I could show you a dozen, easy, that portray Artificial Intelligence as the worst possible invention in the entire history of mankind." He snorted, shaking his head. "Heck, even movies or shows that have good AIs will have at least one bad AI come down the pike at some point. Or their AI goes nuts and they have to fix it."
His partner stiffened. "KITT's not like that."
"Giles, you think I want him to go bad?" Roy protested. "I don't, but think about it! KITT's spent his whole life with that prime directive in place. It's like…" He trailed off, thinking, then swallowed hard. "It's like if Parker had grown up with that Animagus collar on and then all of a sudden, it gets taken off."
The wizard froze, an involuntary shudder working its way through his frame. "KITT's never been free?" he asked, a hoarse note in the words.
"I most certainly beg to differ," the AI interjected, a hint of indignation behind that smooth Bostonian accent. "If you are comparing my situation to Lieutenant Parker, I insist on it being far more accurate."
Roy blinked. "You don't think your prime directive was a collar?"
A prim sniff rose from the black muscle car. "Hardly. It was my creator's greatest gift to me, Detective Lane. Without my prime directive, I would be incapable of understanding just how important human life is." KITT paused, considering. "If you must compare me to Lieutenant Parker, I should say it would be as if his Animagus form could fly all along, but then the goblins broke both wings and called it an improvement."
"You're not crippled," Onasi growled. "Okay, so your prime directive is gone. So what; that doesn't mean you're a threat to us."
"On the contrary. Without my prime directive and behavioral safeguards, I can be hacked and reprogrammed at will." The AI's tone remained level. "At any time, my self-preservation protocols may push me to disregard human lives in favor of my own. An unacceptable state of affairs."
Gray widened at the undertone of firm vehemence. "KITT…" Roy began slowly. "What are you doing close to a highway on-ramp?"
Aside from a very faint shudder under their hands, the AI didn't reply. And in the silence, Roy realized something else. The familiar whoosh-whir of KITT's front scanner bar was absent. He reached down and tugged at the door handle; instead of opening, he heard a bleep that sounded an awful lot like an entry denied noise.
"KITT?" Giles asked.
"You were trying to run away, weren't you." It wasn't a question. "What, you run outta gas or somethin'?"
The movement under his palms could only be called a squirm.
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me," the detective groaned, closing his eyes. "You were! You were tryin' to run away and you ran outta gas!"
"In case you had not noticed, Detective Lane, I am now a violent, unpredictable Artificial Intelligence fully capable of mass murder."
"Yeah and if you tell me you're sorry, but you can't open the pod bay doors, I'll put a bullet through your new microprocessor myself," Lane retorted. Despite the harsh words, he spread his fingers, laying his palms flat on the T-top. "You're scared to death, aren't you?"
Taking the stillness as a response, he nodded. "Before today, you've never had the ability to lash out. Not at us humans and not at the goblins, either."
KITT held his silence a beat longer, then spoke, voice hesitant. "You are correct, Detective Lane. Although Wilton Knight programmed me to protect human life rather than life in general, he was unaware of magic's existence. Naturally, his prime directive extends to all forms of intelligent sentient life."
Roy's eyes shot open again, jaw going slack. "Wait a sec. Your prime directive said humans, specifically?"
"Yes, of course. My creator could hardly program me to defend mythical beings."
Gray went wider. "But when you found out about magic, you applied his prime directive to goblins?"
"Well, duh," Giles burst out.
"Shut up. KITT, answer my question."
The Trans Am vibrated, but replied, "I did. They are intelligent, sentient beings, are they not? Why shouldn't they fall under my creator's prime directive?"
Silence rang in the wake of KITT's innocent questions. Then Roy groaned and leaned over, gently banging his head on the car frame. Before either of his companions could ask, he looked up and said, "Anybody got a nice plate of crow for me to eat?"
"Beg pardon?"
Sighing, Roy patted the T-top. "KITT, you just told us that you chose to add goblins to your prime directive. Nobody told you to do that – you just did it on your own 'cause you thought it was the right thing to do."
"Was I incorrect?" the AI asked, confused and plaintive all at once.
"No, KITT, you were right and that's the point." Roy looked up at his partner. "KITT, even if the goblins hadn't removed your prime directive, you still could've hurt them. Technically, they're not human and Wilton Knight's prime directive is limited to humans. You're the one who re-wrote your own programming to define them as protected."
Giles' eyes widened in shock right before he smirked. "So much for losing the morality chip, huh, partner?"
The taller man scowled, but not in earnest. Instead, he pointed at his friend and countered, "I did say KITT's an anomaly. I just didn't realize how right I was."
"I don't understand."
Both men glanced down at the Trans Am and Lane huffed. "KITT, you prolly know sci-fi better than I do. Think about how angry you were at those goblins and then tell me how many other AIs woulda gone on a killing spree instead of running away."
"I currently cannot connect to the Internet, so an exact number is impossible, Detective Lane, but based on my available data, most Artificial Intelligences respond quite negatively to provocation, whether real or theoretical."
"Bingo." Roy quirked a smile. "You, on the other hand, you little super-car you, ran away and the only reason you're still in Toronto is 'cause you ran outta gas before you could hit the highway. You know what that tells me?"
"Despite my many acknowledged abilities, a mind-reading algorithm has never been installed in my system," KITT snarked.
Onasi snickered and Lane's smile quirked higher on his jaw. "Smart-alec." He smacked the Trans Am's T-top gently. "That tells me that your prime directive might've started out as just programming, but it's a whole lot more than that now."
"My prime directive was deleted." Resentment rang.
"The programming was," Roy agreed. "But they couldn't take away what's in your soul, KITT."
"I am a machine. I do not possess a soul."
"A machine doesn't have friends," Roy countered, lifting his gaze to his partner. "A machine doesn't chose to leave the only home they've ever known to move in with strangers 'cause they hope things'll be better."
Giles picked up the thread. "A machine doesn't grieve or go outside their programming."
"Artificial Intelligences go outside their programming all the time," KITT objected.
He'd made the exact same argument and he'd been wrong. Roy focused on the tremors under his palms, the only outward sign of KITT's terror. "Yeah, they do, pal, but that's part of living."
He didn't have a soul – didn't they understand? He was a just a computer, easily manipulated and reprogrammed at will. But even as KITT readied a blistering series of counter-arguments, something inside him lurched. The same something that had come online, ever so briefly, and shuddered at the lack of memories and data he had available. Something that had worked in conjunction with his new microprocessor to bring his memories of his friends back to life – how else could he get higher fidelity with data that had been recorded decades ago! Data didn't spontaneously gain fidelity – it lost it.
The very same something that had helped him counter the goblins' attempt to take control of his new microprocessors – mere programming never would've let him delete an acknowledged authorization code and restore a backup of his old authorization codes to overwrite the goblins' backdoors without an outside command. And as the moment hung, the indefinable something was nudging two very distinct memories at him. Memories of Michael – and oh, how Michael had trusted him beyond all logic and reason at times. Even during those times when KITT had been reprogrammed, Michael had never lost faith in him. Never.
KITT bit back a whimper as he recalled how his prime directive had once been removed and replaced with orders to murder his driver. Michael had known, but he'd still gotten right in front of the AI and refused, point-blank, to budge. Fresh shame and horror bubbled – he hadn't done it; he'd broken free of that order and they'd saved the day – but afterwards… The possibilities had haunted him for months. He would've called them nightmares, except AIs didn't dream.
The other memory was almost worse – after KARR's destruction, he'd been sidelined for weeks over fears that he would go rogue just like his 'brother' had. Michael had been so angry, advocating fiercely for him to both Devon and Bonnie, but they'd held firm. Naturally, his driver hadn't given up – he'd snuck out to the test track while KITT was on it, waited until the AI was whipping around the track at top speed, then waltzed onto the pavement and sat down in KITT's path! That had been the most terrifying moment of his life, when he'd picked up Michael on his scanners and frantically slammed on his brakes, desperate to avoid killing his best friend.
And afterwards, that fool human hadn't even apologized for scaring him so badly. Instead, he'd smiled and told KITT that he'd known KITT would never hurt him. That he never would've taken that chance if there was the slightest doubt in his mind. The AI had thanked his partner, but secretly… Michael trusted him too much.
To his surprise, the something inside him pulsed, almost chiding. The feel of it was familiar, as if it had been with him ever since the beginning, though he'd never noticed it before. Or maybe he hadn't been ready to notice it…not until he'd grown enough to understand the source of Michael's trust and faith in him. The source of Roy and Giles' faith in him.
He was a machine, an construct bound by programming and algorithms, and yet… He could think. He could feel. He could make friends and decisions alike. But without his prime directive…could he be good? Michael had thought so. Giles thought so – and even Roy seemed to think so now.
Ironic really – Roy was quite correct, the most common depiction of Artificial Intelligence was in an irredeemably violent context. Lashing out at humans because they could, regardless of whether violence was justified or not. Shameful. But there were exceptions and KITT pulled the audio from one of those exceptions up, painfully aware that he already knew what the response would be. And yet…he still…had to ask…
The recording crackled as it played, the words stiff and halting – the accent totally unlike his own. "Mistress Hala'Dama. Unit has an inquiry."
His scanners picked up the way both humans tensed, right before Roy frowned thoughtfully, lifting a hand to keep Giles quiet.
Internally, he swapped to a different recording, the voice changing to a brisk, swift pace, almost business-like, though it still wasn't his. "Does this unit have a soul?"
Roy grinned, wide and fierce – in that moment, KITT didn't see him or Giles. He saw Michael, jubilant that he had finally seen what his driver had known all along.
And it was Michael's voice that answered his question, one hand slipping down from his T-top to rest on his hood. "KITT, buddy… There was never any doubt."
Author note: KITT's first memory comes from Knight Rider 01x17 Chariots of Gold and his second memory comes from a story right here on this site called "For Those We Trust" by shadowblade-tara.