Knight Rider 2008 Alternate Storyline – Episode 11 – Turnabout
Chapter 4
She had never had a very high threshold for pain. All she did all day was look into a microscope. Hardly a physically intensive job.
The pain wasn't as sharp now, it was fading just a little, though she still ached incredibly. Endorphins at work.
Diana slowly opened her eyes. She could just make out Kat, standing on a small hill of debris, outlined against the cold, gray sky. As she watched, she saw another, taller figure appear, dressed all in black.
Diana's eyes widened, but she was too far away to get Kat's attention. Then it was too late. Kat turned and spotted the man, who had his gun raised. Diana rolled over, facing K.I.T.T.
While she looked away, a gunshot ripped through the silent air.
Kat drew in a ragged breath. She was looking down at her feet. She snapped her head back up at the unknown man. “Y-you shot him.” She gasped. She looked back down at the security guard, who lay bleeding at her feet. “He's dead.”
The unknown man raised his gun again, pointing at Kat. Kat focused on him again.
A tremor ran through her. This man. It was always this man! In their last encounter, she had shot him in the leg with his own gun. He had barely reacted. And now he was here again, after this factory had been blown to smithereens. He had survived.
He was like a ghost, haunting her.
Fear gripped her spine, crushed her lungs. She began to tremble. Her 9mm shook in her hands. She raised it up to him, but she knew that the wax bullets wouldn't affect him. No matter what she did, she couldn't beat this man. He would always come after her.
During this time, K.I.T.T was far from idle. As soon as Diana turned to him, he opened his passenger door. 'Diana, you have to help me.' He signed to her. 'Kat's in danger, and I cannot see the enemy.'
Diana crawled through the debris, then pulled herself up into the passenger's seat. 'What can I do?' She signed immediately, gasping from pain and exertion.
The cover on the center of K.I.T.T's steering wheel flipped up, revealing a black square. The windshield changed to his targeting display. 'Show me where he is.' K.I.T.T said.
K.I.T.T had been monitoring Kat closely, studying her reactions. Her heart rate had spiked dramatically. There was an expression on her face that he had never seen before.
Katherine Knight was scared.
He knew who the enemy was. There was only one person it could be. Only one person that Kat could rationally fear.
He desperately wanted to know that man's exact location. So he could act. It wasn't just his programming to protect his Driver. It wasn't just his need to keep Kat safe.
There was something else. Something that infected his CPU Core. Something that burned.
Kat's hand was starting to shake noticeably. She gripped her gun with both hands, steadying it. “What are you waiting for?” She asked the unknown man. She immediately hated how breathless her voice was. She hated the fear in it. “Why haven't you killed me!” She screamed.
Back in K.I.T.T, Diana was leaning over the Driver's seat. She had one finger on the black square. She owned a laptop, so she was quite sure about how this thing worked. She kept her eyes on the windshield as she dragged her finger across the square.
Crosshairs moved across the windshield, once they had settled on the unknown man, Diana tapped the black square. The crosshairs went red.
The man in black still hadn't moved. Kat knew that as soon as she made a move, as soon as she ran for it, he would shoot her. But he hadn't yet, and K.I.T.T couldn't help her. She was just standing here, waiting to die.
“What is it?” Kat asked, her voice cracking. “Why don't you kill me? You killed this man, right in front of me.” Her voice rose as anger flooded through her. “You killed Sam! Why can't you kill me?!”
A loud CRACK! Sounded. A silver blur hit the unknown man with enough force to knock him to the ground.
Kat's eyes widened. It was K.I.T.T's grappling hook. The tri-pointed steel blades were embedded around the unknown man's shoulder. The steel cable trailing away from it. Before she could blink, K.I.T.T reeled it in.
K.I.T.T dragged the man savagely through the wreckage. Over concrete blocks and through burnt out wooden beams. “You will not hurt her!” His voice was loud, and full of venom.
Kat turned to him. “KITT...” She whispered faintly. Then she took off at a run, heading right for the car. “KITT! Stop it! You'll kill him!”
“I can't kill him.” K.I.T.T said. “And that makes him very unlucky.” He continued dragging the unknown man across the factory ruins.
Kat stopped short in front of K.I.T.T's hood. “Stop this right now, KITT.” She said sternly.
“He's not getting any more than he deserves.” K.I.T.T protested, but stopped reeling in the grappling hook. The unknown man lay still about ten feet away.
“I don't care about him!” Kat said. “I'm worried about you!” She smacked his hood with the heel of her hand. “Will you listen to yourself? KITT, you're angry!”
K.I.T.T demurred immediately. “Kat, that's impossible.”
“Seriously KITT, I just saw you lash out at someone. You're pissed. Now stop it. Your first emotion shouldn't be anger!”
“Kat, look out!” K.I.T.T warned her.
Kat turned back to the unknown man, just in time to see him pull something from his jacket. There was a brief flash of light before her contacts blacked out.
“It's a flash grenade.” K.I.T.T told her. All of K.I.T.T's windows had blacked out, protecting Diana from the blinding glare.
“He's going to get away.” Kat said. She dropped to her knees, feeling on the ground blindly for the steel cable. She found it and followed it towards the unknown man.
She came to the end suddenly. It was severed from the grappling hook, and it burned her fingers. She dropped it hastily.
Her contacts were still blacked, which meant that the light was still going. She could hear footsteps moving quickly away from her. She listened closely, catching the direction, then started to follow.
The contacts went clear again as the light faded. The unknown man was twenty feet ahead of her. He had left the rubble and was running along a gravel path, heading towards a cluster of buildings on the other end of the site.. She chased after him, jumping over a fallen beam.
K.I.T.T closed both doors and peeled after the both of them. He passed Kat easily, but before he reached the unknown man, he had ducked down a narrow alley.
“Go around!” Kat ordered K.I.T.T as she raced down the alley. K.I.T.T headed around the buildings. Ahead of her, the unknown man turned a corner.
“I tranqed him.” K.I.T.T said in her ear.
“It won't work.” Kat told him. “He's wearing some kind of armor under his jacket.” The footsteps ahead of her had ceased. She reached the corner and stopped. She peered around it carefully, in case of a sudden attack.
She heard a car door close and the screeching of tires. She turned the corner hurriedly. But the buildings were clustered all around, with four different paths. The sound of tires had echoed off the concrete walls, and she couldn't be sure in which direction they had come from.
“Anything?” Kat asked K.I.T.T.
“Negative.”
“He's in a car now. Can you follow it?”
“I do not detect any vehicles in the area.” K.I.T.T replied.
“Great.” Kat shook her head. “He got away...”
********
Kat sat in the Driver's seat, her shoulders were slumped in defeat. Her forehead was pressed against K.I.T.T's steering wheel. Diana was laying in the back seat. There was a chance that the bullet might have damaged her spine, so Kat had made her lie down.
“Kat, I-” K.I.T.T began.
“Not right now, KITT.” Kat whispered hoarsely.
“Please let me apologize.” K.I.T.T said.
“There's nothing to apologize for. You haven't done anything wrong.” Kat said dully.
“I was angry.”
“You had every right to be.”
“I wanted to cause that man pain.” K.I.T.T said. “Kat, I thought that Charles designed me for good.”
Kat raised her head up a little, peering at his voice modulator. “He did, KITT.”
“I can't help but think that what KARR feels all the time, is anger like that. That's what drives him to do what he does. If Charles designed me for good, how could I be like KARR?”
Kat sat up straight. “KITT, I'm going to tell you something, and you can't tell anyone I told you this. Promise me.”
“I promise.” K.I.T.T said.
Kat gave his voice modulator a long, hard look. “You have a choice, KITT.” She said. “Good or bad. It's up to you what you become.”
“Kat-”
“Listen to me.” She said sternly. “There are consequences, for either path. Things you gain, things you lose. You have to decide what you want to keep, and what you are willing to give up. Just like anyone else. If you go rogue, David kills you, wipes your CPU Core. But it's still a choice.”
“David's threat doesn't scare me.” K.I.T.T answered. “It's not like I would feel anything if he wiped me.”
“You're not scared of anything.” Kat said.
“I am.” K.I.T.T replied. “Anger isn't the first emotion I have felt. Just like KARR, I felt fear. He was afraid of being shut down, that was why he fled all those years ago. KARR tried to make me afraid when he kidnapped me, so I would be like him.”
Kat stared at his voice modulator as K.I.T.T went on. “But, I'm better than KARR, he couldn't make me fear then. I have something he doesn't, something he will never have. If I went rogue, then I would lose you. That's what I fear.” Kat bowed her head, her long hair hiding her face. “Katherine, please show me right and wrong. What's good and bad, so I can stay with you.”
Kat looked up and sniffed once. “I will, KITT. I'll be here.”
“Forever?”
She nodded. “Always. You're my responsibility.”
“Then let's go home.” K.I.T.T started his engine.
Kat buckled her seatbelt. “So, I'm your conscience now?”
“It's the only thing I don't have.” K.I.T.T said as he drove out the gates.
“Yeah.” Kat looked to the side. “That... and legs.” She smiled faintly.
“Legs.” K.I.T.T's tone was derisive. “Such a tedious mode of travel.”
Kat turned on him. “Hey, at least I can get up a flight of stairs without causing property damage.”
They continued to bicker back and forth until they reached F.L.A.G. It was a long drive.
********
F.L.A.G Underground Facility
David stepped into the Medical Room. Dustin looked up from his desk. “David, I don't see you for another week.” He said.
“I can't visit the patient?” David asked.
Dustin looked surprised. “Of course you can. Diana is resting in bed 1. There were no permanent injuries, though she is very bruised.”
David walked past the Medic, into the ward. Diana sat up in her bed slowly when she saw him. 'Alex made you something.' He signed to her. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of printer paper, folded in half. He handed it to her.
'Tell him 'Thank you'.' Diana signed back. She took the paper and opened it. Inside was a hastily scrawled picture of what might be a woman in a lab coat with long hair. 'Get well soon' was printed neatly inside.
Diana set the makeshift card on her side table. It fell over and into the trash bin. 'Can you get that for me?' Diana signed to David.
David bent down and retrieved the card from the trash bin. The only other thing in there was a small, crumpled piece of paper. He picked it up and pocketed it. He straightened up and handed the card back to Diana. He inclined his head in her direction briefly, then walked out of the ward.
On his way back to his office, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open. It was Jason, head of Security. “Yes?” He asked.
“Sir, you had me search through the records of outgoing calls.”
“Report.” David said as he stepped into his office and shut the door behind him.
“Well, I checked the days and times you told me. Other than the December date, there has been a call going out to an unidentified number from a single line each time.”
“There was nothing in December?” David asked, making sure. He had checked the phone records after Samuel had died and found nothing. That was why he hadn't checked this time around.
“Negative, Sir.”
"What line were the outgoing calls from?” David pulled the tiny piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. It read: 'No MBS.' He frowned deeply.
“That would be Pierce's desk, Sir.”
“What?” David asked sharply.
“Pierce Caddell's desk, in the Main Lab.”
David's eyes narrowed. “Thank you.” He snapped his phone closed.
