Part six

Fork in the Road

By TT Snim

~*~

Lightning’s white aura engulfed everything, making night into day and showing every thing in its vibrant color: flowers, the brick work of houses, trees and their tender leaves... everything...

~*~

“This is why I left.” Bonnie said with a gasp. The tears were still flowing, but she wasn't overcome by them.

“Why is that, Bonnie?” Devon asked softly. He had his hand on her shoulder and was holding a box of Kleenex.

“I can't stand to watch h-him get hurt a-and then have to put him b-back together... only to see him h-h-hurt again.” She shivered and gasped he way people do when trying to keep themselves from another round of tears.

~*~

The dark form of a car was speeding as fast as it could down a twisting rain soaked road.

~*~

Michael was leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded, head down. “Bonnie, I wish I could promise it won't happen again after this is all over, but I can't. And we need you.”

She shook her head. “You don't need me. You need people who c-can fix the p-problem with out h-hurting Kitt.”

Devon started to rub the shoulder he was holding. “You don't hurt Kitt, Bonnie. Even when a procedure is uncomfortable he wants it to be you and not anyone else. When you came back everything became so much better.”

She sniffed and took another tissue from the box. “But he'll still get hurt. Whether I'm here or n-not.”

~*~

Kitt hit a patch of road where the water hadn't run off and started to hydroplane. He slammed on his brakes instead of trying to safely steer out of it. Loosing his traction completely he slammed in to the dripping roadside railing, smashing it to bits. Steam rolled off his overheated hood. His battered engine popped and knocked like it was tearing into itself.

~*~

“That's unavoidable, Bonnie.” Michael said gently.

She turned to him, a strange fire filling her eyes. “It is too. You work him too hard Michael. You use him in ways he isn't supposed to be used. All the extra turbo boosting, the wild chases, the relentless over exertions! You have to be more careful!”

Devon withdrew from her and looked a little shocked at the vehemence of her outburst.

~*~

Kitt felt hollow and weak. The run had drained him. Even worse was that the program to lull the pain hadn't fully run its course yet, making him feel even more numb and tired. He tried to pull back on to the road but stopped when he suddenly felt disoriented.

~*~

Michael pushed off from the wall, clearly hurt. “I have never over exerted Kitt.”

She stood and started to hyperventilate. “Yes you do.” She snapped. “You always take him out whenever you please. You use him to excess.” She snatched the box of Kleenex from Devon and walked a short ways down the hall. For a moment she stood, one hand on her hip, the other clutching the now slightly crushed cardboard box. She raised this hand to her forehead and sighed with a shaky breath.

~*~

Kitt again tried to pull onto the road. Slower this time, after focusing on one point in the black-top to keep his sensors anchored. His wheels churned gravel for a moment before finding a foothold. Another flash, this time followed by a low and angry rumble.

~*~

“You shouldn't do the things you do to him.” She said in a low gravely voice. “Look where it gets him.”

“Hey.” Michael stood, hands clenching into fists. “I didn't do this to Kitt.”

“No, but your irresponsibility probably didn't help!” She retorted.

~*~

Kitt started back down the road, back to the foundation. He was losing power and feeling more and more numb. He had been wrong, and now he was paying for it.

~*~

Devon stood, an old soldier not wanting to step in the crossfire, but seeing no other choice. “Bonnie, Michael, that is enough! What happened to Kitt was no one's fault.”

“He didn't help any.” Bonnie hissed. “He should have been more careful and just left Kitt alone when he should have.”

~*~

Kitt had to stop. He slowed down and waited as his engine cooled again. This time the popping and knocking was much more menacing. So he sat and waited. He would have to travel much slower returning home then he had leaving it.

~*~

“What do you want me to do Bonnie?” Michael snapped back. “Only take him out when absolutely necessary? Never let him have any fun? He's not made of glass, he's a car, built to be driven and driven hard!”

~*~

Kitt cut the headlights to conserve his power. He was starting to feel little tremors every few feet or so in his prow compartment; tremors resulting from something being jarred loose. He wanted to speed up and hurry back home, but he was too afraid that something would blow and he'd be all alone in the growing storm.

~*~

Kitt had listened to the argument long enough. Despite the direct warning not to, he fired up his engine. Cables and sensors were torn too shreds as the mutilated metallic parts started to work.

~*~

Kitt pulled to a stop again and waited. A truck passed him, then a small Beretta. After that the road became desolate. No one wanted to drive in the tempest that was now raging all around him. Not even him.

~*~

It wasn’t up to them. It was his life....

“Kitt, what are you doing?!” Bonnie shouted over the grinding noise. Michael was right behind her, his face growing a little pale.

.... Or the lack thereof.

“What is that smell?” Devon asked.

“Oil burning.” Bonnie replied. Something crunched with a sickening squeal of metal against metal. A shower of sparks exploded has he slammed the hood shut. “KITT STOP!”

~*~

That was it. He couldn't go any further. He was completely drained and due to the wrong signals flowing through his battered body, he had misjudged the amount of gas he had left. Now he was just another abandoned vehicle on the side of the road.

~*~

“WHY?” Kitt demanded, trying to be heard over his own chaos. “Michael didn't always have control over me. I wanted to drive hard for myself, Bonnie. I love to drive hard.”

~*~

Kitt still felt to proud to admit he had been wrong. It had been his last struggle for normalcy, a last defiant cry to push back the inevitable. He refused to turn the homing beacon on and call for help.

~*~

Michael stepped in front of him as Kitt opened the garage door.

“Knock it off, Kitt!” He barked. “You're going to get yourself killed.”

“I'm going to die anyway, so if I'm going to die, I might as well do it on my own terms!” Kitt snapped back. Then he had charged. Michael, shocked by the vehemence in Kitt's voice, and stunned that his partner would be so irrational all of the sudden, jumped out of the way, drop jawed. Kitt revved once more and barreled past him.

“Must be the stress.” Devon sighed; sounding exhausted all of the sudden. His statement was followed by defining silence as they watched the red of the taillights fade into the dim morning light.

~*~

How long, Kitt wondered, before he completely shut down out here? Hours? Days? The foundation had probably already made a call to local and state police. Sooner or later he would be found. It was just a matter of time.

Time.

It was an absurd thing now. His body could sit here for eons without so much as a molecule shifting out of place. But his mind would fade. If he shut down now, he would probably short and, if the tests were anywhere near accurate, he could lose part or even all of his memory. Virtually dying, while still functioning; brain dead with a working body.

Well...

OK, it wasn't a working body. But it wasn't going to rot away, and if he died...

Kitt reeled at the thought. A new terror started to creep into him. Yes, he had thought about dying since that morning nearly twelve hours ago. But it wasn't until now; alone on the side of the road, that death was suddenly an overwhelming monster looming before him.

The fact was, he didn't want to die. Part of his programming, that part responsible for allowing him to feel all of the pain, was unstoppably telling him that he had to keep fighting death, no matter what. And he wanted to. Desperately. But he was caught here, seemingly, between a rock and a hard place. He didn't want to return to his nightmare for anything. But it was the only way to survive.

And he had to survive.

It was his duty to survive. He had a reason for being here. He had been created to fulfill a purpose.

But in order to fight death, he had to go back to all of the pain. And what was more was that if he went back, he was admitting that he was totally hopeless and helpless alone. He couldn't save himself despite having helped so may others. Admitting to this was nearly as crushing as the thought of death.

So, for countless minutes, he struggled between accepting that he was doomed and needing to go through all of the pain again just to survive or staying here and slowly fading into a blissful oblivion.

Death.

Was.

Not.

An.

Option.

The thought solid in his mind for the brief moment caused him to flick on his tracking device. It wavered between actually working for his sudden resolve and fading due to loss of power. But finally it came to life.

And it started broadcasting in an invisible sound only Kitt could detect. A beacon that seemed to announce to the world Kitt had lost his struggle for control.

He withered in the realization that now it was completely up to the others to save him.

He shut down all he could and went completely numb, save only the constant piercing cry of the homing device.

~*~

Kitt was suddenly jarred from his fitful slumber by a harsh jerk on his prow. It sent a lightning flash of pain through out his whole body. The chain that was anchored to his now powerless body started to winch him up and on to a ramp.

Through a gauzy haze, Kitt scanned the area. Michael was standing stoic and blank looking about twenty feet away. His arms were folded and his eyes were hidden behind dark shades. Bonnie was in the ramp looking over a checklist. Kitt noticed that there was an array of equipment surrounding his slowly moving body. It wasn't attached, but it was warm from recent use.

“Kitt!”

He rolled his scans to another direction and saw a young man climb off of a motorcycle. It was RC. He raced over and nearly tripped over one of the power cables connecting a monitor to a generator. He reached out and steadied himself against Kitt's side door.

“Hey, man, are you all right?” RC asked.

Kitt tried to reply no, but couldn't manage to even do that. RC was glancing in the window so Kitt typed it on to one of the monitors. As soon as RC spotted it, his face, which had been full of relief, turned to worry.

“Devon told me what happened. I've been out looking for you all night. Michael was too. He's been really worried about you, Kitt. Very worried.”

Bonnie? Kitt typed.

RC glanced up at her. Kitt followed his gaze. She looked angry.

RC turned back to Kitt and nodded. “She's more worried then the rest of us, she just doesn't let it show when she has her techs around. She is your doc, after all, Kitt.”

The conversation was cut short as Kitt was jerked again and dragged all the way into the waiting bay of the semi. Ideally he wondered why Bonnie had rushed to check him before having him pulled in to the semi.

She was marching up to him and he had a feeling he was about to find out.

“Everyone leave.” She said dryly.

“I'm going to stay.” Michael's voice rasped.

She nodded as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “OK.”

As every one else left, Devon managed to slip in. He closed the ramp. Bonnie looked as if she wanted to chase him out too, but knew that she couldn't. He was her boss, and... Kitt's friend.

“First of all, I'll say that that was the stupidest thing you have ever done.” She started, now trying to both ignore the two men and control her emotions at the same time. Losing control would be very unprofessional... and Kitt could tell that all she wanted to be right now was professional. That was it.

“I'm sorry.” He found himself eeking out. His voice was slowly gaining power and for the first time he noticed that he had been hooked up to a power feed. He couldn't recall who had plugged him in, or when, but he knew it had to have been before everyone was tossed out. Honestly, he had been watching Bonnie the whole time.

“Sorry isn't going to cut it, Kitt.” She said, his name being said too shortly and with too much bite. “What on earth were you thinking?” She added. Now she was looking right at him. Not at his body, but at him. Her gaze seemed to penetrate his scanner path perfectly.

“I... I just wanted the yelling to stop.” He admitted weakly.

She hung her head, a very briefly lapse from her professionalism. When she brought it back up, her eyes were not as cold, but seemed twice as angry. After a moment of the intense gaze she, tore herself away and went to the coffee pot.

After a moment of silence Devon stood, Michael remained glued to his spot, eyes fixed on a point right ahead of his sneakers.

“Kitt.” Devon said in a much calmer and softer voice than Bonnie had used. “You being Flag property aside, we were very worried about you.” He wasn't looking at Kitt, not even in his direction. He was pouring himself some tea. “It's quite clear to me,” He continued, “That you are intact enough to get around on your own. However, you have caused your engine even more irreparable damage.” He poured in a slight amount of cream and added some sugar. “Bonnie has informed me that she has disconnected your engine completely. You no longer can control it. You can, however, still feel it, as I'm sure you have noticed.”

“Yes.” Kitt replied, sullen.

“It needs to be hooked up for you to feel, if I understand correctly, so that you may assist in procedures.” He took a long sip before sitting down at a chair and sighing. “Kitt, FLAG needs you. Therefore we have decided to assign a specialist team of experts from all over the country to try and redesign the way your engine will fit. It's taken a lot of funds and we expect you to cooperate fully from here on out.”

“I understand.” Kitt replied, wholly dejected.

“Furthermore, Bonnie will no longer be in charge. She will be assisting the team personally, but your future is no longer in her hands.”

“I understand.” Kitt managed a second time.

A deep and unsettling silence fell over the semi as Kitt waited for Michael to add his thoughts. But to his despair, Michael just continued to stand where he was, staring at the same spot on the floor.

“Michael?” Kitt asked finally.

“Not now, Kitt.” He answered softly. Not even bothering to look up.

With nothing more to cling to now, Kitt shut himself down as safely as possible, willing the vicious silence between him and his partner to be over powered by the desolation of his own exhausted sleep.