In room #613 of the Habi-Trail Moter Hotel just outside of Tucson, Arizona, Shawn McCormick couldn't sleep.
She'd ordered a bottle of scotch from room service and had been steadily working her way through it for the past two and a half hours. Drinking and pacing in the dark. She never drank -- hadn't grown up with it, didn't enjoy the feeling of losing control that came with it -- but things were already out of control, oh yes, out of control in a way that she had never foreseen, and could not even have imagined before this evening's events.
It had almost killed her. Had in fact almost killed both of them, car and driver, in one stroke.
KITT had been offline ever since. Between Brad, his senior computer tech, and Dr. Alpert, the project's physician, the expert opinion had emerged that she was lucky to be alive at all.
Whatever had gotten past KITT's physical shielding and through his firewall had hit him like a truck. Fortunately the computer had the presence of mind to shut himself down completely, thus preventing the virus from replicating through all his systems: in that respect, he was as lucky as Shawn was to still be in existence.
Unfortunately, the chip implanted in Shawn's brain had carried the backlash straight into her. Among other things, this attack had demonstrated that Shawn's fragmentary cerebral implant had developed a harmony with KITT's own systems, one which could be effective even over a range of meters.
Russell Maddock, director of the Knight Foundation, had (predictably) been furious; he'd seen Shawn's condition first-hand after the shutdown, and was afraid of a repeat incident. The issue of what should be done about it, if anything, had been tabled until KITT was back online.
She suppressed a shiver. KITT was safe inside the Foundation's mobile repair and support unit, a remarkably well-equipped semi trailer currently parked on the other side of the motel. Whatever their mysterious adversary had done to him earlier this evening was not going to be repeated. And Dr. Alpert was reasonably sure that Shawn wouldn't drop dead in the course of the night, although he'd be on hand when Brad brought KITT back online in the morning.
Russell had walked her up to her room. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" he asked when they reached her door.
"I'll be fine." It may have been a lie; she still felt disoriented, on edge. Reflexively, as she had a hundred times in the previous few hours, she tested the chip implanted in her brain and found KITT still absent.
Russell must have seen the pain tightening her face. "Shawn --"
"Goodnight," she managed, managing to make it an order. He left reluctantly; and as soon as the door was closed behind him, she picked up the phone and ordered a bottle of scotch.
She paused, swirling her drink to watch the melting ice cubes clink against the glass. Maybe the alcohol was helping. She felt a little calmer. KITT would be all right. Brad had assured her of that.
The computer had only been offline for nine minutes and thirty-one seconds. Her memory of that separation, however, was proving remarkably persistant...
Another chill crept up her spine. She tossed back the rest of the scotch, added more ice, poured herself another three fingers' worth and went back to pacing the room. Briefly, she wondered if she should turn on the lights; but the darkness was comforting, like a warm embrace, and she accepted its silence.
Brad said they wouldn't be bringing KITT fully back online until sometime tomorrow. Today, she automatically corrected herself, realizing that the internal chronometer she carried had slipped across the rim of midnight nineteen minutes and two seconds ago.
The chronometer was part of the fragmentary cerebral implantation, a computer chip, once KITT's, that was nestled in her brain. The chip had given her a second chance at life -- a resurrection, of sorts.
Not that it was necessarily the best of all possible lives. She choked her laughter with another gulp of scotch. The Chinese had a curse: "May you live in interesting times." And the past four months had been very interesting indeed.
She, Russell, and KITT did not make for a harmonious team. They clashed. They argued (the traces of KITT's personality she'd picked up proving useful in those sharp-worded fights), they bickered, they bitched, they gave each other attitude. After three months of working together things were starting to smooth out a bit, but there were still setbacks.
A lot of it had to do with the fact that Russell was not prepared to give KITT any credit. KITT, meanwhile, regarded credit as his due: after all, he'd been with the Foundation for eight years in an active capacity, six years longer than Russell, and he was still the flagship of the Knight Industries AI line. Hell, KITT wasn't even prepared to admit that Russell was the right man to be running the Foundation, and Russell made it no secret that he'd have preferred it if KITT had remained spare parts.
Shawn had lost count of the times they'd gone head-to-head over the subject, played out in any number of petty arguments and outright fights. KITT called Russell "a pompous weasel", Russell called KITT "an arrogant bastard" ... and Shawn, in spite of agreeing with both evaluations, found herself trying to keep the peace between them.
But things had been getting easier lately, at least between her and KITT. In spite of a tendency to worry needlessly -- and vocally -- about her safety, the AI was finally showing signs of trusting her judgement.
His personality was also changing. When she'd first met him, KITT was still seething from the betrayal he had experienced at the hands of his former driver, Michael Knight. She found out later that Michael had walked away from the Foundation without so much as an apology or an explanation to the machine who had been his partner for nearly a decade, leaving KITT to be deactivated and put into storage as inventory -- inventory that was eventually declared worthless and sold off at a discount.
She remembered how edgy she had felt herself, always ready with acidic sarcasm and sharp words. How much of her own anger in those first days had actually been his?
She drank, paced, hating the hard edges inside of her, his edges, knowing she would never be free of them -- or the memory of nine minutes and thirty-one seconds of oblivion.
The scotch wasn't helping her forget, either. It didn't matter: the taste of the alcohol burning her throat was at least a distraction. Like pinching yourself in the arm to distract yourself from the pain of a broken leg, she decided.
" There's nothing like a good simile to substitute for genuine understanding." KITT had said that, when? Twenty-seven days, fourteen hours, and fifteen seconds ago. He'd been commenting on a politician whose polished speech camoflaged an amazing ignorance of the issues at hand, namely the --
No. No more. She could remember every word spoken, every nuance of speech. She remembered that KITT had made her laugh, then warned her with grave seriousness that snorting a chocolate milkshake out her nose was doing her sinus cavities no good whatsoever, and that furthermore --
No. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, managing to balance the shotglass in the fingers of her right hand at the same time. Memories like razors of glass whirled across her mind. Not human memory. A human would be able to forget things that were too painful to remember.
Nine minutes and thirty-one seconds. That was all the forgetfulness she asked for. Was that so much?
Apparently it was.
She opened her eyes to the dark room and walked out to the balcony, gripping the rail's edge and looking down at the empty streets and feeling like she would scream if that emptiness (nine minutes and thirty-one seconds) in her memory, and the silence that was inside her head now, didn't go away. In an instant of crystal clear self-understanding she realized that the void she was looking into now, this fall to her death, would be preferable to a lifetime of KITT's absence.
The thought brought a brief, sickening terror. She cried out wordlessly, her voice soft and weak; the glass of scotch almost slipped from her fingers, but she managed to get a better grip on it and staggered backward until the glass sliding door stopped her. She slid down it and wrapped her arms around her legs, finally setting down the glass to hug herself, shaking... so empty, so alone .
When had this happened? Had it happened to Michael? Stupid question: if it had, he never would have left KITT behind.
It was the chip. Once part of KITT -- and now part of her.
It wasn't just modifying her personality with sharper focus and increased information capacities, although those were certainly the first things she had noticed about its presence. It was still part of KITT, whispering to her in a voice so smooth that she hadn't even realized it was speaking until it fell silent.
Perhaps she shouldn't be so surprised. They had used it, once, to let KITT prompt latent memories from her mind: shared electricity running between them, translated through him into images on a screen. She remembered the warmth as things forgotten awoke to his delicate probing, a touch that transported her so easily out of herself. It was the first time she'd felt his presence in her mind.
Just like she'd felt it -- and failed to feel it -- today.
The location was an indoor parking garage, downtown Tucson. Fourth floor. Eight twenty-five pm. A suspect pursuit was in progress.
"I'm calling for backup," KITT informed her over the audio implant.
"No!" She crept along the wall toward the elevator lobby, ultrasound gun ready. Why hadn't she wanted the assistance? She could not remember now. Perhaps the shock of the incident had induced selective retrograde amnesia.
"This is insane!" KITT protested. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
She drew a steadying breath, deliberately not rising to the bait. "Where is he?"
" He's in the -- wait... I'm not picking him up anymore."
"What? He was just --"
An unseemly roar of static ripped out of the audio implant. Shawn froze.
"KITT?"
"Th-- ksssssssshhhhhh --lem w-- th-- sc-nning arr--"
"KITT?" When he didn't answer, she started back toward the stairwell.
His voice surfaced from the static. "They're tr-ying --" A hissing stutter. "Shawn, I -- they're -- get out!" Then a shriek of pure rage through the transmitter: "GET OUT OF MY MIND!"
"KITT!" No answer. She burst into a run and slammed through the door onto the stairs. "Hang on, I'm coming!"
She was halfway down when she had heard KITT scream, actually scream through his own body -- an impossible ululation that crossed every human vocal range and shattered off both ends of the scale. Being so inhuman, it had no emotional content, but Shawn heard its shock and fury and despair penetrate the concrete walls, hitting her like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.
She hurled down the stairwell, burst through the door and sprinted onto the third level of the parkade when the shriek ended, as sharply as if it had been cut with a knife. Running full-tilt toward where KITT was parked, apparently unharmed, she had a fraction of a second's grace before it hit her like a truck.
She went down hard, tumbling across the asphalt until her forward momentum was exhausted. Forehead to the ground, she spasmed, back arching high, every muscle in her body seizing -- but she was barely aware of it.
All she felt was the emptiness, oh, God, a sudden void that ripped through her and left her unable to breath, unable to feel. She reached out, not even realizing what she was looking for -- not even aware that she had reached out -- until she didn't find it.
KITT was gone.
The spasm broke, sprawling her full-length on the asphalt. She couldn't see straight. Everything was a blur. She tried to use her hands, but all they would do was claw weakly at her head, as if trying to dig out the spiralling blackness in her mind, that screaming emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole.
It went on forever. She had no idea at the time of how long she lay there, unable to process even the simple data the chronometer was feeding her; they told her later that it had been less than four minutes. She was barely aware of their approaching footsteps and yells of alarm. Through the shock of KITT's absence , she finally realized that he had called for backup after all.
"Shawn!" It was Rudy, KITT's general mechanic, speaking in a high and panicked voice. "Come on, Shawn, it's okay, it's gonna be all right... RUSS!"
Someone eased her onto her back. A blur of overhead lights broken by human shapes; her eyes squinted against the glare. She couldn't feel her own limbs. The universe was wavering, shaking, on the verge of being torn apart.
"What the hell happened?" Russell's voice broke through the general confusion. His face leaned into view.
"I don't know." Brad, somewhere out of sight and sounding vaguely distracted. "KITT's offline. Gimme a second here."
"Shawn?" Russell came closer. Fingers closed around hers, squeezed.
"She was like this when we got here," Rudy volunteered.
"What happened here?" Fingers touched her left temple.
"She did that herself. She was clawing -- like this --"
"It's the implant!" Brad yelled. "Hang on, I'm gonna boot him up again, just keep her breathing."
Russell's voice went up a whole octave. "What do you mean, 'keep her breathing'?!"
"She's got his chip in her head." The faint clicking of Brad's fingers on a keyboard. "Whatever just happened to him, she got a taste of it too. And right now he's flatline, ladies and gentlemen. I wouldn't be surprised if her body decided to kick out, too."
Russell's grip on her hand tightened. "Dammit!" His helpless cry reached her even in her desolation. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"
She tried to speak, but the emptiness swallowed the words before they could find their way out. And there were no words to describe the emptiness itself. Her eyes finally focussed on Russell's face, so near, his eyes tight with worry. Was he the last thing she would see before death took her? She was so close, poised on the edge of oblivion where KITT had already gone. Helpless tears burned in her eyes.
"I'm getting something." Brad tapped more energetically at his diagnostic keyboard. "O-kay..."
The emptiness was suddenly replaced by presence. It was a weak connection, a fraction of its usual strength (she realized that now, how could she have never noticed before?), but it was steady. She clung to it as best she could, and thought that she felt him reaching back.
"Okay," Brad announced, "I'm not liking these readings. We're gonna offline you again, KITT."
"NO!" A single cry from two voices. Shawn struggled up onto one elbow, ignoring Russell's attempts to push her down.
"Look at the readings," Brad said, talking to both car and driver. "We need more time to stabilize this."
"Sh-awn..." His voice was distorted, plaintive, and her heart clenched at the sound of his injury.
"Will be just fine." Russell met Shawn's surprised glance with a look of apology. "I'll look after her, KITT."
" Is that... supp-osed to make... me fee-l better?"
Brad chuckled and tapped a few keys. "Say goodnight, Gracie."
This time she knew what was coming, but the loneliness cut her just as deeply. She let her head fall back on the concrete floor as hot tears welled in her eyes and finally slipped free...
That had been several hours ago. It felt like a lifetime.
The scotch had created a pleasant buzzing haze in all her limbs. How had she gotten to the bed? She didn't remember. Fully clothed, she lay across it with her eyes closed, noting that the haze was finally dulling the ache of her separation from KITT.
[I'm sorry,] she told him, already half-drowning in shadows.
//You didn't know.// His voice was gentle in a way that she had only heard once before, when he'd spoken to ten-year-old Abigail Oragan after the murder of her parents in Washington state. It was the tone of voice that had led her to realize for the first time that under KITT's prickly exterior lay a warmer personality, one that he was hesitant to reveal in the wake of Michael's betrayal.
[I should have known.] She turned restlessly on the hotel bed and reached across the comforter, wanting to touch the presence she imagined... but it shifted away like mist, and she knew it was alcohol and exhaustion talking to her, not KITT. The car was still cold, locked down in the semi for the night.
Still, she curled into herself, imagining the padded seat cradling and supporting her.
[forgive me]
//There's nothing to forgive.// His warmth surrounded her, with the slight movement of the road passing underneath them. //Go to sleep, Shawn. Tomorrow we'll be together again.//
"We already are," she whispered to the empty room. And finally, she slept.
************
how shall I hold my soul that it may not be touching yours?
how shall I lift it then, above you, to where other things are waiting?
ah, gladly would I lodge it all forgot
with some lost thing the dark is isolating,
on some remote and silent spot that,
when your depths vibrate, is not itself vibrating
you and me
all that lights upon us, though, brings us together
like a fiddle-bow drawing one voice from two strings it glides along
across what instrument have we been spanned?
and what violinist holds us in his hand
oh, sweetest song!
Ranier Maria Rilke, "Love Song" (1875-1926)
She'd ordered a bottle of scotch from room service and had been steadily working her way through it for the past two and a half hours. Drinking and pacing in the dark. She never drank -- hadn't grown up with it, didn't enjoy the feeling of losing control that came with it -- but things were already out of control, oh yes, out of control in a way that she had never foreseen, and could not even have imagined before this evening's events.
It had almost killed her. Had in fact almost killed both of them, car and driver, in one stroke.
KITT had been offline ever since. Between Brad, his senior computer tech, and Dr. Alpert, the project's physician, the expert opinion had emerged that she was lucky to be alive at all.
Whatever had gotten past KITT's physical shielding and through his firewall had hit him like a truck. Fortunately the computer had the presence of mind to shut himself down completely, thus preventing the virus from replicating through all his systems: in that respect, he was as lucky as Shawn was to still be in existence.
Unfortunately, the chip implanted in Shawn's brain had carried the backlash straight into her. Among other things, this attack had demonstrated that Shawn's fragmentary cerebral implant had developed a harmony with KITT's own systems, one which could be effective even over a range of meters.
Russell Maddock, director of the Knight Foundation, had (predictably) been furious; he'd seen Shawn's condition first-hand after the shutdown, and was afraid of a repeat incident. The issue of what should be done about it, if anything, had been tabled until KITT was back online.
She suppressed a shiver. KITT was safe inside the Foundation's mobile repair and support unit, a remarkably well-equipped semi trailer currently parked on the other side of the motel. Whatever their mysterious adversary had done to him earlier this evening was not going to be repeated. And Dr. Alpert was reasonably sure that Shawn wouldn't drop dead in the course of the night, although he'd be on hand when Brad brought KITT back online in the morning.
Russell had walked her up to her room. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" he asked when they reached her door.
"I'll be fine." It may have been a lie; she still felt disoriented, on edge. Reflexively, as she had a hundred times in the previous few hours, she tested the chip implanted in her brain and found KITT still absent.
Russell must have seen the pain tightening her face. "Shawn --"
"Goodnight," she managed, managing to make it an order. He left reluctantly; and as soon as the door was closed behind him, she picked up the phone and ordered a bottle of scotch.
She paused, swirling her drink to watch the melting ice cubes clink against the glass. Maybe the alcohol was helping. She felt a little calmer. KITT would be all right. Brad had assured her of that.
The computer had only been offline for nine minutes and thirty-one seconds. Her memory of that separation, however, was proving remarkably persistant...
Another chill crept up her spine. She tossed back the rest of the scotch, added more ice, poured herself another three fingers' worth and went back to pacing the room. Briefly, she wondered if she should turn on the lights; but the darkness was comforting, like a warm embrace, and she accepted its silence.
Brad said they wouldn't be bringing KITT fully back online until sometime tomorrow. Today, she automatically corrected herself, realizing that the internal chronometer she carried had slipped across the rim of midnight nineteen minutes and two seconds ago.
The chronometer was part of the fragmentary cerebral implantation, a computer chip, once KITT's, that was nestled in her brain. The chip had given her a second chance at life -- a resurrection, of sorts.
Not that it was necessarily the best of all possible lives. She choked her laughter with another gulp of scotch. The Chinese had a curse: "May you live in interesting times." And the past four months had been very interesting indeed.
She, Russell, and KITT did not make for a harmonious team. They clashed. They argued (the traces of KITT's personality she'd picked up proving useful in those sharp-worded fights), they bickered, they bitched, they gave each other attitude. After three months of working together things were starting to smooth out a bit, but there were still setbacks.
A lot of it had to do with the fact that Russell was not prepared to give KITT any credit. KITT, meanwhile, regarded credit as his due: after all, he'd been with the Foundation for eight years in an active capacity, six years longer than Russell, and he was still the flagship of the Knight Industries AI line. Hell, KITT wasn't even prepared to admit that Russell was the right man to be running the Foundation, and Russell made it no secret that he'd have preferred it if KITT had remained spare parts.
Shawn had lost count of the times they'd gone head-to-head over the subject, played out in any number of petty arguments and outright fights. KITT called Russell "a pompous weasel", Russell called KITT "an arrogant bastard" ... and Shawn, in spite of agreeing with both evaluations, found herself trying to keep the peace between them.
But things had been getting easier lately, at least between her and KITT. In spite of a tendency to worry needlessly -- and vocally -- about her safety, the AI was finally showing signs of trusting her judgement.
His personality was also changing. When she'd first met him, KITT was still seething from the betrayal he had experienced at the hands of his former driver, Michael Knight. She found out later that Michael had walked away from the Foundation without so much as an apology or an explanation to the machine who had been his partner for nearly a decade, leaving KITT to be deactivated and put into storage as inventory -- inventory that was eventually declared worthless and sold off at a discount.
She remembered how edgy she had felt herself, always ready with acidic sarcasm and sharp words. How much of her own anger in those first days had actually been his?
She drank, paced, hating the hard edges inside of her, his edges, knowing she would never be free of them -- or the memory of nine minutes and thirty-one seconds of oblivion.
The scotch wasn't helping her forget, either. It didn't matter: the taste of the alcohol burning her throat was at least a distraction. Like pinching yourself in the arm to distract yourself from the pain of a broken leg, she decided.
" There's nothing like a good simile to substitute for genuine understanding." KITT had said that, when? Twenty-seven days, fourteen hours, and fifteen seconds ago. He'd been commenting on a politician whose polished speech camoflaged an amazing ignorance of the issues at hand, namely the --
No. No more. She could remember every word spoken, every nuance of speech. She remembered that KITT had made her laugh, then warned her with grave seriousness that snorting a chocolate milkshake out her nose was doing her sinus cavities no good whatsoever, and that furthermore --
No. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, managing to balance the shotglass in the fingers of her right hand at the same time. Memories like razors of glass whirled across her mind. Not human memory. A human would be able to forget things that were too painful to remember.
Nine minutes and thirty-one seconds. That was all the forgetfulness she asked for. Was that so much?
Apparently it was.
She opened her eyes to the dark room and walked out to the balcony, gripping the rail's edge and looking down at the empty streets and feeling like she would scream if that emptiness (nine minutes and thirty-one seconds) in her memory, and the silence that was inside her head now, didn't go away. In an instant of crystal clear self-understanding she realized that the void she was looking into now, this fall to her death, would be preferable to a lifetime of KITT's absence.
The thought brought a brief, sickening terror. She cried out wordlessly, her voice soft and weak; the glass of scotch almost slipped from her fingers, but she managed to get a better grip on it and staggered backward until the glass sliding door stopped her. She slid down it and wrapped her arms around her legs, finally setting down the glass to hug herself, shaking... so empty, so alone .
When had this happened? Had it happened to Michael? Stupid question: if it had, he never would have left KITT behind.
It was the chip. Once part of KITT -- and now part of her.
It wasn't just modifying her personality with sharper focus and increased information capacities, although those were certainly the first things she had noticed about its presence. It was still part of KITT, whispering to her in a voice so smooth that she hadn't even realized it was speaking until it fell silent.
Perhaps she shouldn't be so surprised. They had used it, once, to let KITT prompt latent memories from her mind: shared electricity running between them, translated through him into images on a screen. She remembered the warmth as things forgotten awoke to his delicate probing, a touch that transported her so easily out of herself. It was the first time she'd felt his presence in her mind.
Just like she'd felt it -- and failed to feel it -- today.
The location was an indoor parking garage, downtown Tucson. Fourth floor. Eight twenty-five pm. A suspect pursuit was in progress.
"I'm calling for backup," KITT informed her over the audio implant.
"No!" She crept along the wall toward the elevator lobby, ultrasound gun ready. Why hadn't she wanted the assistance? She could not remember now. Perhaps the shock of the incident had induced selective retrograde amnesia.
"This is insane!" KITT protested. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
She drew a steadying breath, deliberately not rising to the bait. "Where is he?"
" He's in the -- wait... I'm not picking him up anymore."
"What? He was just --"
An unseemly roar of static ripped out of the audio implant. Shawn froze.
"KITT?"
"Th-- ksssssssshhhhhh --lem w-- th-- sc-nning arr--"
"KITT?" When he didn't answer, she started back toward the stairwell.
His voice surfaced from the static. "They're tr-ying --" A hissing stutter. "Shawn, I -- they're -- get out!" Then a shriek of pure rage through the transmitter: "GET OUT OF MY MIND!"
"KITT!" No answer. She burst into a run and slammed through the door onto the stairs. "Hang on, I'm coming!"
She was halfway down when she had heard KITT scream, actually scream through his own body -- an impossible ululation that crossed every human vocal range and shattered off both ends of the scale. Being so inhuman, it had no emotional content, but Shawn heard its shock and fury and despair penetrate the concrete walls, hitting her like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.
She hurled down the stairwell, burst through the door and sprinted onto the third level of the parkade when the shriek ended, as sharply as if it had been cut with a knife. Running full-tilt toward where KITT was parked, apparently unharmed, she had a fraction of a second's grace before it hit her like a truck.
She went down hard, tumbling across the asphalt until her forward momentum was exhausted. Forehead to the ground, she spasmed, back arching high, every muscle in her body seizing -- but she was barely aware of it.
All she felt was the emptiness, oh, God, a sudden void that ripped through her and left her unable to breath, unable to feel. She reached out, not even realizing what she was looking for -- not even aware that she had reached out -- until she didn't find it.
KITT was gone.
The spasm broke, sprawling her full-length on the asphalt. She couldn't see straight. Everything was a blur. She tried to use her hands, but all they would do was claw weakly at her head, as if trying to dig out the spiralling blackness in her mind, that screaming emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole.
It went on forever. She had no idea at the time of how long she lay there, unable to process even the simple data the chronometer was feeding her; they told her later that it had been less than four minutes. She was barely aware of their approaching footsteps and yells of alarm. Through the shock of KITT's absence , she finally realized that he had called for backup after all.
"Shawn!" It was Rudy, KITT's general mechanic, speaking in a high and panicked voice. "Come on, Shawn, it's okay, it's gonna be all right... RUSS!"
Someone eased her onto her back. A blur of overhead lights broken by human shapes; her eyes squinted against the glare. She couldn't feel her own limbs. The universe was wavering, shaking, on the verge of being torn apart.
"What the hell happened?" Russell's voice broke through the general confusion. His face leaned into view.
"I don't know." Brad, somewhere out of sight and sounding vaguely distracted. "KITT's offline. Gimme a second here."
"Shawn?" Russell came closer. Fingers closed around hers, squeezed.
"She was like this when we got here," Rudy volunteered.
"What happened here?" Fingers touched her left temple.
"She did that herself. She was clawing -- like this --"
"It's the implant!" Brad yelled. "Hang on, I'm gonna boot him up again, just keep her breathing."
Russell's voice went up a whole octave. "What do you mean, 'keep her breathing'?!"
"She's got his chip in her head." The faint clicking of Brad's fingers on a keyboard. "Whatever just happened to him, she got a taste of it too. And right now he's flatline, ladies and gentlemen. I wouldn't be surprised if her body decided to kick out, too."
Russell's grip on her hand tightened. "Dammit!" His helpless cry reached her even in her desolation. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"
She tried to speak, but the emptiness swallowed the words before they could find their way out. And there were no words to describe the emptiness itself. Her eyes finally focussed on Russell's face, so near, his eyes tight with worry. Was he the last thing she would see before death took her? She was so close, poised on the edge of oblivion where KITT had already gone. Helpless tears burned in her eyes.
"I'm getting something." Brad tapped more energetically at his diagnostic keyboard. "O-kay..."
The emptiness was suddenly replaced by presence. It was a weak connection, a fraction of its usual strength (she realized that now, how could she have never noticed before?), but it was steady. She clung to it as best she could, and thought that she felt him reaching back.
"Okay," Brad announced, "I'm not liking these readings. We're gonna offline you again, KITT."
"NO!" A single cry from two voices. Shawn struggled up onto one elbow, ignoring Russell's attempts to push her down.
"Look at the readings," Brad said, talking to both car and driver. "We need more time to stabilize this."
"Sh-awn..." His voice was distorted, plaintive, and her heart clenched at the sound of his injury.
"Will be just fine." Russell met Shawn's surprised glance with a look of apology. "I'll look after her, KITT."
" Is that... supp-osed to make... me fee-l better?"
Brad chuckled and tapped a few keys. "Say goodnight, Gracie."
This time she knew what was coming, but the loneliness cut her just as deeply. She let her head fall back on the concrete floor as hot tears welled in her eyes and finally slipped free...
That had been several hours ago. It felt like a lifetime.
The scotch had created a pleasant buzzing haze in all her limbs. How had she gotten to the bed? She didn't remember. Fully clothed, she lay across it with her eyes closed, noting that the haze was finally dulling the ache of her separation from KITT.
[I'm sorry,] she told him, already half-drowning in shadows.
//You didn't know.// His voice was gentle in a way that she had only heard once before, when he'd spoken to ten-year-old Abigail Oragan after the murder of her parents in Washington state. It was the tone of voice that had led her to realize for the first time that under KITT's prickly exterior lay a warmer personality, one that he was hesitant to reveal in the wake of Michael's betrayal.
[I should have known.] She turned restlessly on the hotel bed and reached across the comforter, wanting to touch the presence she imagined... but it shifted away like mist, and she knew it was alcohol and exhaustion talking to her, not KITT. The car was still cold, locked down in the semi for the night.
Still, she curled into herself, imagining the padded seat cradling and supporting her.
[forgive me]
//There's nothing to forgive.// His warmth surrounded her, with the slight movement of the road passing underneath them. //Go to sleep, Shawn. Tomorrow we'll be together again.//
"We already are," she whispered to the empty room. And finally, she slept.
how shall I hold my soul that it may not be touching yours?
how shall I lift it then, above you, to where other things are waiting?
ah, gladly would I lodge it all forgot
with some lost thing the dark is isolating,
on some remote and silent spot that,
when your depths vibrate, is not itself vibrating
you and me
all that lights upon us, though, brings us together
like a fiddle-bow drawing one voice from two strings it glides along
across what instrument have we been spanned?
and what violinist holds us in his hand
oh, sweetest song!
Ranier Maria Rilke, "Love Song" (1875-1926)
