"Knight Rider" concept and characters copyright Glen A. Larson.
"Lattiece Requium", character of 'Ella Jameson' copyright Madeleine Jane Hughes, 1998

re·qui·em
're-kwE-&m also 'rA- or 'rE-, noun
Middle English, from Latin (first word of the introit of the requiem mass), accusative of requies rest, from re- + quies quiet, rest
14th century
1 : a mass for the dead
2 a : a solemn chant (as a dirge) for the repose of the dead b : something that resembles such a solemn chant
3 a : a musical setting of the mass for the dead b : a musical composition in honor of the dead

Allow me to explain.... It has been a long time since I have written something like this. For those familiar with my Fictional Works in the Babylon 5 universe, this will not come as a surprise. For those more used to the gentle pace of "Soul Survivor", if this is not your type of thing, please do not continue.
You read this because you have chosen to. And if that is the case, please enjoy.

Lattiece Requiem - Part One

by elfin

Hell was blazing around them; fires igniting in the electronics, the fumes becoming toxic, the countdown nearing zero. Michael fought to concentrate on the job in hand. Somewhere behind him he could hear Kitt screaming. He had to block out the sound. He did not want to think of what this was doing to his partner, or of what had already been done. Blinking madly, Michael typed in the final access code and hit Enter. The countdown stopped. For a moment, he felt triumphant. Then the console behind him caught fire. The blaze streiked across the room, slicing through the middle of the warehouse, cutting him off from the lab area. He started to run, forcing himself toward the open door behind him, depressing the comlink button as he sprinted through the chaos, shouting into the communicator. "Kitt! Get outa here!!!" There was no answer. The whole place was going up, he knew that now. "Kitt!!" He pushed the door open and stumbled out into fresh air, running onwards until he was clear of the building and the heat from the multiple fires were generating. "Kitt!!!"

Michael stopped, falling onto the grass as his legs gave way, choking the smoke out of his lungs. Tears streamed down his face; partly the effects of the smoke and fumes, partly because he knew his partner was still in there. Kitt was trapped, without the strength, maybe without the will, to fight any longer. "Kitt...." It was not a shout this time, but a heart-broken cry into the link that remained open between them.
A quiet plea cut through the sound of burning. "Mich...." Suddenly, with an almightly explosion, the warehouse blew apart, launching a fireball into the air, showering the surrounding concrete with debris. Michael turned from the heat, dropping his face to the cool grass, sobbing bitterly.

No one came. They were in the midst of nowhere, why should anyone come? They. He. Micheal stood, shaking. He looked around. Below him, the remains of the Lattiece warehouse smouldered. Behind him, up the slight grassy incline, Devon's convertible waited silently, soulessly, uncaring that the life of the man that had brought it here had been shattered since it had been parked. It was just a car; his boss's car. His own car, his partner, was gone. The flat concrete that surrounded the warehouse was littered with burning debris and twisted metal that caught the bright sunlight.

He had no idea how much time had passed. The comlink was flashing 00:00:00. He knew what that meant. The link had been terminally severed. The building had gone up with Kitt inside. Taking careful steps, Michael hobbled across the grass, slowly starting to circle the skirting concrete. He reached the end where Kitt had been imprisoned, and ran back toward the rubble. All he could see was the devastation left by a warehouse full of electrics exploding. He rubbed his face with the back of his hand, his tears speading the grim and dirt over his skin. Finally his legs gave way and he collapsed back onto the scorched grass.

Michael sat wretchedly, taking deep gulps of air. He had been too late. Kitt was gone, so everything was gone. A sound snapped his head up, a familiar growl, then a lull followed by a gut-wrenching noise, like rubber and metal battling for supremecy. Michael stood, hurrying forward, back into the rubble, back into the slowly-dispersing smoke. "Kitt?" There was a high-pitched squeal, and Michael used it to locate his partner, buried under a massive amount of the wreckage. Michael stripped away some of the corrogated roof that seemed to be muffling the sound. Finally he made out a tyre beneath it all. Dropping to his knees on the filthy floor, he pulled away more of the debris. A choked sob forced its way from his throat as he saw what was revealed. He stretched out shaking fingers to the black tyre before him, following the rubber round until his skin touched a heated metal spike that had obviously been thrust through the tyre with immense force. The spike came up from the concrete floor, went through the tyre and out the back, returning down into the ground, just under the car. Michael took a guess that all four tyres were held like this.

Needing to break every few minutes for air, it took Michael some time to clear the debris from around his car. And each time he revealed more of the bodywork, it pushed him a step closer to breaking. The car was a wreck. Both headlights had been forced up somehow; one had been smashed, the other battered. The hood itself looked as if a considerable weight had been dropped onto one side of it, twisting it upwards, exposing much of the right-hand side of the engine, crushing the rest. If Michael had not heard the growl of the engine himself, he would not have believed that it stood a chance of starting. Windscreen and windows were smashed, the metal twisted. The left hand side of the rear was caved in, and the exhaust system looked, from the back, as if it had been blown apart.

Almost not wanting to know, Michael peered in through the broken glass of the driver's window. He gaze drifted across the dash - or what had once been the dash. There was nothing left. The screens were smashed, each button had been individually pulled from its position and left hanging by the wire that connected it. Worst of all, the voice panel had been gouged. Michael reached in through the window, touching his fingers to the so familiar panel, to where Kitt had spoken to him from for many years. "No...." He kept telling himself that the engine had been running, Kitt had been struggling to free himself, there must be something of the computer left. "Kitt, if you can hear me, I can't free you." His voice choked. "I'm going to get help. I won't be long, I promise." Michael watched the dash for a moment, and stepped away.

As he turned, a low, keening sound began, emenating from the car. The engine roared to life and the rubber started to tear against the metal. The force Kitt was exherting on his bonds was incredable, but Michael guessed that it was not something his partner had not tried before. Kitt was hurting himself, putting strain on an engine that was not up to taking it. Michael returned to his friend's side. "Kitt.... It's okay, it's okay. It's over. They're dead. Wendy and Chris are both dead. It's over." His words had no effect. The keening moan grew louder, slightly higher. Desperate, Michael reached inside to try to find the perceptor that had been placed above the steering column, just behind the wheel. Blindly, completely unable to open the crumpled door, he carefully searched the area with his fingertips. He felt broken glass and plastic, a few wires ripped from the dash. His fingers swept over a small, circular smooth surface. The perceptor. Relieved, he pressed gently, trying to soothe. Kitt gave a scream unlike anything Michael had heard before. He pulled his fingers back suddenly as the engine shifted to a higher gear, Kitt's attempts becoming more than frantic.

Michael desperately looked around. The fires were still burning, surrounding him. He could walk away, go for help, try to ignore Kitt crying out for whatever reason. Or he could remove the tyres. A quick search of the heated debris about him got him a crowbar. He picked it up and stared at it. Who was he kidding? These tyres were put on for life. Kitt had been exerting the force of the engine on his tyres, probably from the moment he was imprisoned here and it did not look as if he had shifted in all that time. Michael did not stand a chance. He dropped the bar, trying to sound like he was under control. "Kitt, please. You have to let me go and fetch help." Michael stepped back, turning from his partner. "I won't be long, Kitt, I promise." The wailing grew in intensity, the car starting to shift from drive into reverse, back and forth, each time pushing against the metal spikes that held it firm. Tears ran down Michael's face as he started to run from the scene, up over the grass to where the convertible was parked. He could still hear his partner's cries.

*

This was something Bonnie had seen before, to a degree. Several times she had driven to a scene and faced the wreckage that was her car, her baby. Never had she seen Kitt in quite the state he was in when they pulled the Semi onto the grass, next to the smouldering remains of the building. And Ella had no previous experience of anything like this. She had first met Kitt as a computer in a box on a workbench in a garage. The car body had been a wreck after an attack with an anti-tank weapon. That was nothing compared to the sight of her lover held in his place of torture by four metal bars through his tyres. She was out of the trailer before it had stopped, running through the rubble toward Kitt. He was fighting still to get loose, but as Michael jumped down from the semi, following a horrified Bonnie, he heard his partner's cries soften slightly. Ella was talking to him, soothing him, but not attempting to touch him, as if she understood something that Michael had not.

Bonnie started to fetch the required machines from the semi to free Kitt. "Don't stand too close," she advised those around her. "The moment I free him, he's going to move." Ella continued to talk, just calming Kitt down, just reassuring him that they were there, that they were working to get him out and to take him home. He was beyond terrified; he was traumatized, and Ella recognized that quickly. The first bond broke apart with help from Steve, the Semi's driver. Michael paced back and forth, desperately wanting to comfort his partner, glad that at least Ella was having some calming effect. The second bond collapsed, freeing his front wheels. Immediately, Kitt used them to get traction, to pull against the metal still holding him. Despite Bonnie continually reassuring him that they would free him in a couple of minutes, Kitt did not stop the engine. They snapped the third bond and the added traction gave Kitt the extra grip he needed. The pressure became too much and the final metal bar gave way. The car shot forward, pulled a shakey one-hundred and eighty degree turn and rocketed out of the remains of the building. "Kitt!!!" Michael ran after his partner, jumping over debris and striding over the grass, stopping feet from where Kitt had slid to a halt. The engine was overheating; smoke was starting to pour out of the radiator. Bonnie stepped forward, confused and alarmed, not used to this sort of behaviour from their car.

"Kitt," Michael soothed, "it's all right. I know you've been hurt, and I know you're scared, but you're safe now. You have to let us let after you. Please." A few seconds passed, and then the engine stuttered, and Kitt rolled back to them, struggling up the waiting ramp into the safety of the Semi. On the ground, Michael and Ella gazed at each other, their looks speaking volumes. Bonnie had followed Kitt up into the trailer, and was pulling up the ramp. Kitt's keening wail had become a low whimper, but still a constant. Ella and Michael stepped up into the side door, and they finally started away from the scene of Kitt's terror.

Within the trailer, Kitt was gently rocking back and forth, obviously feeling as trapped as he had been back in the warehouse. There was not much Bonnie could do in the Semi. She had attempted to take the CPU out of the engine compartment, but Kitt had given a cry of fright and reversed suddenly, backing into the rear of the trailer and crumpling it instantly. Now, Ella was sitting on the workbench nearest to the car, talking to Kitt, soothing him quietly. Her voice seemed again to have some small effect, and her calming influence had allowed them to get a monitor cable connected into an external CPU port. At least now they could run a few high-level integrity tests on the system to ensure Kitt was not in any immediate danger. Standing by Bonnie's side, watching the readings on the monitor, carefully interpreting them, Michael voiced his inquiries softly. "What have they done to him?"
Bonnie shook her head. "I couldn't start to guess. The CPU's stable, for now. There are a lot of functions that have been shut down, almost as if he's trying to... to make himself smaller."
Michael sighed deeply. "Why won't he let us take him out of the car? We've done it before...."
Ella turned from her seat on the work bench. "Mobility." Bonnie heard her, and understood. "In the car, he can run. Take him out of the car and he's trapped, more than he feels at the moment." Gently, she reached across and touched the hood, trying to comfort. Again, Kitt cried out in fear, slamming back into the trailer door, allowing more sunlight into the Semi. Ella pulled her hand away quickly, shocked by his reaction. She turned to Bonnie, tears starting to form in her eyes.
Michael stepped forward. "When I found him, I tried to reassure him, I touched the external perceptor and he freaked, he tried to pull away from me but he couldn't because of the bonds."
Finally Bonnie stopped thinking. "Let's just get him home, okay?"

*

Devon smiled when he saw the semi pull into the driveway. Just back from holiday he had been surprised when he had found the place deserted by his senior staff. The semi continued straight up the long drive to the garages at the back of the estate. Devon watched it go, frowning slightly.

Michael watched Kitt reverse out the moment Bonnie let the ramp down. The car spun in the warehouse, searching for the way out, frantically looking for an escape route. Unable to find one, the main doors blocked by the semi, Kitt took the only available route to the outside. He shot forward, accelarating madly, burning out what little was left of the engine, until he hit the corrogated metal wall of the warehouse, which disintergrated as the car passed through. Michael shouted after him, running through the wrecked wall, ducking the pieces of swinging metal. "Kitt! Come on, Pal, please." He got outside in time to watch Kitt barrelling back down the driveway.

Devon started up the gravel drive, following in the path of the Semi, worried now. He heard a terrible noise, like the final minutes in the life of a car engine. And then he stopped in his tracks when he saw the familiar golden prow of their car coming toward him. There was no time to move. All he could do was trust in their programming, and in Kitt. In the next second, Kitt sent the car into an uncontrolled spin; trying to avoid the person in his path and loosing the fragile control he had on the vehicle. Michael raced down the drive, saw Devon, and saw his partner crash fiercely into the three trees to the right of his boss. Bonnie was in close persuit, not believing what she was watching.

All Devon could do was stare at Kitt, as Michael approached them. "Kitt, Partner, you okay?" Gently, Michael ran his hand over the body of the car. Kitt tried the engine, but there was nothing there anymore. He started to whimper, tired of hurt and terror, unable to run anymore. Michael rubbed his palm over the top of the car, stroking gently, murmuring softly, as Devon approached them.
"Michael?" Michael looked up. Devon was white, staring at Kitt.
"Devon.... How... how was your holiday?"
Devon's head snapped up. "What?"
Michael shook his head and returned his attention to Kitt. "Kitt, let us take you back to the warehouse, okay? Let us look after you, please. We love you, Kitt. Whatever's happened, we want to help you get over it." There was more whimpering, but somehow, Michael could sense that it was okay for them to help.

*

"Has he spoken?" Devon looked across at Ella as they walked. She shook her head.
"When we got to the garage, it was almost like wailing, now it's just quiet whimpering. He's utterly traumatized. Bonnie reckons that someone's hacked into the CPU, but everything seems stable, and the system integrity is quite high. There doesn't seem to be any loss of data." Devon gently touched her arm, stopping her.
"Come on, Ella, you don't have to do that. He's much more to you than just a system. You must be so worried." Ella nodded, unable to speak for a moment. Devon put his arm around her shoulders. "We'll look after him, my dear. He'll be fine."

The technicians managed to get both doors off the car, and cleared the inside of glass, allowing Michael to finally get physically closer to his partner. Kitt had panicked the moment the doors had started to come off, but Michael's presence seemed at last to be having the same effect as Ella's. As he sat in the car, even the whimpering quieted, becoming more periodic. Bonnie's gentle care soothed him further, as she freed any perceptors trapped under the crushed engine. Kitt had, once or twice, managed to start the desvastated engine and reverse away from her when one of the instruments had slipped. She was still confident that he would not hurt her, that he would not pull forward and hit her. Now and again, she knew she had hurt him; the pitch and rhythm of his whimpering would change to one more like the sound of crying. Usually, it would be if she was near a perceptor, and had brushed it by accident. They had covered the perceptor inside the cabin, with a large gauze strip, to stop anything touching it, but even that had proved to be too much, and the low keening sound had started again. Now, Michael just had to be careful not to knock it.

Bonnie had tried to find out why that perceptor in particular, and the others in general, were so over sensitized. There seemed to be no actual reason for it, but she dampened the input to a minimum. That seemed to bring Kitt some relief. She wished he would talk to them. Healing him without some indication of what was wrong, was going to be an exceptionally slow process. Ella stepped carefully through the system, ensuring everything was as it should be. It was an odd feeling, looking so closely at the simple words and numbers that made up the being she had fallen so deeply in love with, a being that reciprocated her feelings.

Kitt's first words came that night. Michael had climbed out of the car to stretch, and as he wandered around the garage, he had decided that he needed coffee, and maybe a danish if they still had some over from supper. He told Kitt where he was going, and that he would be back in a few minutes, then he headed for the door. As he stepped into the warm night air, there was a quiet murmur, and it stopped Michael in his tracks. He looked back and heard it again. Returning to his partner's side, he called Kitt's name. There was a moment of silence, and then Michael heard his own name spoken back to him, hesitant and fearful. Relief fit him like a tidal wave; he had started to wonder if whatever Kitt had been subjected to, had done permanent damage, deep inside where the programs did not reach. "Yes, Kitt. It's me, Michael." He returned to sit inside the car, aching to be able to sooth Kitt, to be able to touch him as he had in the past; it had helped before, at other times of fear or upset. "You're home, Pal, you're safe. Do you understand?" He kept his tone gentle, calming.

There was another sound that might have been an acknowledgment. "Kitt, please talk to me. Tell me what happened."
There was a pause, and then Kitt started whimpering, the sound quickly becoming something more. If he closed his eyes, Michael could believe he was sitting with a crying man. Desperate to do something, Michael wrapped his arms around the steering wheel, dropping his head against the dash. When that did not seem to help, Michael took a chance and reached up, laying his palm as softly as he could against the perceptor. Kitt screamed in terror, firing the engine which was no where close to being operational. It coughed and spluttered, but the turbines started up, and they gave the car enough power to enable Kitt to reverse into the wall behind him. Michael took his hand away instantly, talking over Kitt's scream, trying to calm him again. The wall had crumpled with the force of the impact, and the corrogated metal had become twisted around them. But Michael knew his soothing words were getting through; the turbines were down to a low hum. "I'm sorry, Kitt." Michael touched the dash, keeping well away from the perceptor. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, or scare you. I'm sorry." He looked up, smiling sadly at Bonnie, Ella and Devon who were watching them from the doorway. "I won't touch you again, I promise. Just pull forward slowly,and shut off the turbines. Please."

Kitt did as Michael asked, limping the car into a corner, nose first, and stopping there, pressing against the wall. Watching from the entrance, a tear ran over Ella's cheek as she watched Kitt try to hide in the corner, away from them all, away from everything. What the hell had they done to him to reduce him to such a state? She looked on, feeling Devon's hand on her shoulder, a sympathetic touch of understanding, as Bonnie approached Kitt slowly. "Michael?" She spoke to him quietly, crouching by the opening where the door would have been. "What happened?"
Aware of Kitt listening, still whimpering softly, Michael kept his hand on the steering wheel. "I put my hand over the perceptor," he told her quietly. "I just wanted to let him know I was here."
Bonnie nodded, touching his leg. "I'll have another look over the input readings. We must be able to find something. Steve says that it may be up to another two days before the new body's ready. The engine will be finished by tomorrow afternoon." Michael's eyes widened, asking the obvious. Bonnie nodded in understanding. "I'll speak to you in a little while. I'll go and make some coffee. Maybe Ella can sit with him for a little while."

Once she had gone, Michael curled himself in the seat, running his fingers over the front of the dash, over the mess they had made of it. He rested his head against the steering wheel, hugging it gently. "You'll soon be back to your old self, Kitt. We'll have the new car ready for you soon, and we'll put you straight into it, I promise. You'll feel better then." It was all he could think to say. There was a long silence, finally broken by a quiet whisper. Michael was not sure he had heard it, and he glanced down at the voice panel. A moment later, two of the red LEDs flashed momentarily, as Kitt whispered Michael's name. "I'm here, Kitt," he reassured.
"Hurt me...." The pain in his partner's voice pulled at Michael. How could he have let this happen?
"I know, Kitt... I'm so sorry...." Michael hoped Kitt would talk to him now, tell him at least some of what had happened. But Kitt said nothing more. Michael sensed some sort of calm settle over them, albeit a very fragile one. He stayed, unwilling to leave now.

Bonnie looked up as Ella wandered into the kitchen, she could see the strain taking its toll. "Are you...?" Bonnie started, but Ella held her hand up, palm out, stopping her in mid sentence.
"Don't ask, please. If anybody asks, I'll crack."
"It's okay to crack."
Ella shook her head. "That's not what anyone needs right now." She sat herself up on the work-surface, accepting the coffee gratefully. "I'm scared of what will happen when we move him to the new car."
Bonnie nodded. "I know. Once he has a fully working engine, one wrong move by us and we couldn't stop him from driving out of here. He does seem to have accepted that we're helping him so maybe, with any luck, he wouldn't go far. We just have to be careful." She sipped her coffee. "I've been thinking... about the way the perceptor in the dash was left in tact, while the rest of the inside was smashed to bits. It's as if they knew it was there, and were purposely leaving it alone when the destroyed the rest of the dash board."
Ella frowned. "Why?"
Bonnie shrugged, staring silently into her mug, lost in thought for a moment. Finally she looked up. "It's sensitized, to the point where even now we've cut the input to a bare minimum, it's still too painful for him. What the hell would cause that?" She saw a flash of something cross Ella's face. As if she knew the answer. Then it was gone, replaced by a mask of heartfelt worry. Bonnie decided not to push; if Ella knew of anyway they could help Kitt, she would say. She loved him. Bonnie trusted in that.

*

The new car was finished early the following evening; the incident with the garage wall had startled the technicians into working through the night to help Kitt. Bonnie fitted the new engine before finally moving the CPU over, talking to Kitt the whole time, telling him exactly what she was doing at every juncture. He was quiet for the whole operation, save for a moment of panic when the old perceptors were disconnected, throwing him into silent darkness. When the swap was complete, Bonnie brought the perceptor inputs up to medium strength and handed control back to Kitt. Through the whole thing, the car had been surrounded by technicians and engineers, and had they thought about it, they would have realized that at no time was Kitt able to move without injuring someone. But people were tired, and no one thought about it, until the moment they stepped away.

A technician, whose job it had been to fit the new dash into the car, had left the plastic covering over the voice panel. He noticed it as they were all congratulating themselves on their work, and he leaned in through the open window of the driver's side, steadying himself with his hand on the steering column. Bonnie saw it happen, but she was too slow to stop it, and her shout of warning came a moment too late. Kitt screamed as the perceptor was touched, firing the engine to full throttle, spinning the wheels and throwing the car into reverse. The technician had pulled back when the engine had started, surprised despite what he knew. He was out of the way when the car shot backwards, turning in a squeal of new rubber, leaving ugly black marks on the ground of the garage, and flying out of the open doors. Bonnie closed her eyes; one wrong move. And that had been it.

Kitt's departure was watched by Michael and Devon as they stood in the window of the lounge, talking quietly. Michael swore under his breath, and dashed out of the house, starting off down the driveway on foot, hoping Kitt would calm and stop before he left the grounds. The sun was starting to set when he found his car. Kitt had stayed in the confines of the Knight estate. He had driven around, through the woodland, to the lake beyond, and had stopped in the shade of the trees on the opposite side of the water to which Michael approached. He rounded the lake slowly, until he could see Kitt's scanner, now darkened. He sat down, several hundred yards from where Kitt was parked up, engine still idling. "I'm here, Pal," he called out, quietly. "It's okay now." He inwardly flinched when he thought about telling Kitt that at the start, when he had found him trapped in the rubble of the warehouse, and how many times since then that they had caused him to run from them. "We keep hurting you, Kitt. Tell us to help, how to stop the pain for you. We can't help you if you keep running away."

Michael watched Kitt pull forward slowly, until his front bumper hit the nearest tree. Then he let the engine die. Finally, miserably, he spoke. "Stop them touching me. Please." The despair in his friend's voice brought tears to Michael's eyes as he nodded.
"I will, Kitt, I promise. I'm sorry."
Another long silence, and then Kitt asked softly, "Could you come closer?"
"Of course...." Michael stood, walking over to his partner. The driver's door clicked open quietly, and Michael sank down into the seat, that had been warmed by the evening sun through the trees.
"They wouldn't stop touching me," Kitt began, sounding desparate and frightened. "I tried to stop them, I tried to block it all. But I was so tired.... They were draining me, pushing until I couldn't block them any longer. I thought if I fought them for long enough, you'd come. But you didn't. So I gave up. I stopped fighting and let them do... what they wanted. I let them...." He trailed off, shame snatching his words, making it impossible to go on. Michael could do nothing but sit there, his heart aching, his fingers curled through the base of the steering wheel, knowing Kitt could register the pressure without his contact being a 'touch'. He thought through what Kitt had just said, trying to link meanings into the spaces, trying to read between the lines. Asking for details was not going to help at this point, Kitt would only say what he was ready to say.
"I'm sorry I took so long to find you. I didn't know where to start.... I was so frantic when they took you. I wished you'd let them take me instead, Kitt."
"So do I." The words were out before Kitt could stop them. Michael stared at the voice panel, a mix of emotions coursing through him. "I'm sorry...." Kitt stammered quickly. There were tears in the apology. "I'd never wish that on you... on anyone. I didn't mean it.... I'm sorry...."
Realization hit Michael hard. This was real; this was not going to simply go away, or be put right with a little TLC. Whatever those people had done to Kitt, it was going to take months, maybe years to heal the wounds. This was not just a battered bumper or even a loss of confidence. This went far deeper; this was for keeps. Michael rubbed the steering wheel gently, needing to give Kitt some contact, some comfort. "Ssh, it's okay." He thought for a moment, searching his brain for something that would help. "Look, Kitt, if you'd rather talk to Ella...."
"No!" His answer was instant, his voice the strongest that Michael had heard it since he had found his partner. Slightly calmer, with more desolation, he continued. "I can't.... How could I ever expect her to forgive me?"
Michael's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He almost voiced his train of thoughts, but managed to keep his questions inside his head. 'Why do you feel you need Ella's forgiveness? What could they have done to you that would possibly hurt her? What could have possibly caused you this much pain?' "Kitt...." Frustrated by his own inability to figure this out, Michael groped for what he hoped would be the right words to comfort. "Whatever happened, whatever they did to you, it wasn't your fault." He softened his tone. "You have nothing to be ashamed of. There's nothing any of us have to forgive you for."
"You don't know." Kitt shot back, audibly upset.
"Then tell me," Michael urged him gently. "I can help if you talk to me."
"I can't...."
"You can. Whatever it is, you can talk to me. No secrets, Kitt, remember?" Michael waited, but there was no reply. For a long time, they sat together; Michael still trying to work through what Kit had told him.

In Kitt's complex electronic mind, he was trying to keep everything from falling apart as it had done so often recently. Blocks that he had set in place while under attack were still there, and he was scared to move them, knowing what was behind the walls he had erected in desperation and terror. He could still remember how their initial invasion into his CPU had felt, like something else in his mind with him, something malicious and dangerous, trying to snatch little strands of control wherever it could; at first surprising him, then scaring him. He shut it out of as much of the CPU as possible, protecting his memory and central 'being' as best he could under the sudden, unexpected onslaught. Had he known what was to come, maybe he would have given up then, blown the CPU before they blocked his ability to do so.

"They fed me a virus," Kitt murmured, almost to himself. Michael's head snapped up, and he watched the voice panel. "They'd already hacked into my CPU, I fought them then. When the virus came, I had to fight that too, and destroy it before it destroyed me." Michael squeezed his eyes shut against the threatening tears. Opening them, he looked outside the window at the darkening sky. He could only imagine what a virus meant; he did not and could not know what Kitt's world was like. Michael could only go by the effect it had obvious had on his partner; not for the first time, he wished he knew more. "They tried everything. After three days, I had nothing left. I was exhausted." Kitt's voice was growing more agitated, and Michael realized he was trying to explain something without actually saying it. "I couldn't fight anymore."
"Kitt...." Michael leaned forward, wrapping his arms around the steering wheel, aching, more than he could ever remember doing so before, to hold his friend, to be able to comfort and sooth as he would another human being. A single tear fell from his eye, landing on the area surrounding the perceptor in the steering column.

Immediately, the engine roared to life. But Kitt knew better by now, knew that running away never freed him from the pain. Something inside him snapped, and he simply started to sob; letting the overwhelming, heavy energy surges out over the voice modulator, feeling the breaking pain flood his circuits. Michael pulled back, stunned, for a moment not knowing what he had done. He glanced down and saw the single drop of water on the steering column. Very gently, he wiped it away, knowing that the prolonged pain would be worse than a single moment. As his fingerpad brushed the sensitive area, Kitt yelped, slamming the car into reverse and crunching into the tree trunk behind him. "Kitt! Stop!" Michael yelled at his partner, hoping to get through the building hysteria. Kitt stopped the car dead, yet a subtle trembling remained, like an abused animal cornered by its cruel captor. Michael scrambled out of the car, closing the door, keeping his hand on the bodywork as he moved around to the hood. "Kitt, it's okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout at you. It's over now. Ssh. It's okay." He stroked his hand over the paintwork, sitting gently against the fender, continuing to talk. Slowly Kitt settled, the car stilled and the sounds quieted. "That's it.... There.... It's all right."

He willed his own pulse to slow down, breathing deeply. What the hell was going on? This was a new perceptor. Bonnie had ensured the input was down to a minimum, practically to nothing. Yet a single teardrop had sent Kitt reeling. "You touched me...." Kitt's accusing words stabbed at Michael, yet something in that desperate tone voice shifted his thoughts, and suddenly things started to fall into place. He blanched as he stared down at his hand on Kitt's hood.
"Oh God.... Kitt.... That's what they did, isn't it?" Michael bit his lip, keeping the rest of his thoughts to himself until he could confirm it with Bonnie. He continued the gentle rubbing of the hood, the soft, soothing caresses of his voice, until Kitt started to shut down functions to finally get some rest.

*

Leaving Ella sitting with a sleeping Kitt, Michael and Bonnie walked in the moonlight. Once away from the car, Michael told Bonnie that he thought he knew what was wrong. "He's linked touches to that area of the dash, to the pain he felt when they touched the perceptor. That's why no matter how little input actually goes in through the perceptor now, he still gets upset. He registers pressure anywhere on the dash, he registers feeling in the perceptor." Bonnie nodded.
"So... what?"
"That's what they did to him. They tried to attack the CPU and he fought them, every step of the way. And then they discovered the perceptor, maybe when they attacked the dash itself. They touched him there, stimulating the perceptor until it became hypersensitive, and they continued to do it - maybe stopping Kitt from blocking the input - until it was causing him pain, a great deal of pain." Michael stopped, realizing Bonnie was no longer walking beside him. He turned, seeing her several steps behind, stopped dead, staring at him. "It's okay, Bonnie. We can retrain that neural net, can't we? Show him that he can feel without it hurting."
But Bonnie was shaking her head. "That's not it." Michael returned to her, gently touching her arm. "The reason the perceptor becomes sensitized is a sudden release of energy, after it has built up over a period of time."
"What energy build up?"
"One that comes of stimulating the perceptor in a certain... manner. Ella told me." Bonnie looked Michael straight in the eye. "The release of that energy is Kitt's equivalent... of an orgasm." Michael's eyes widened.
"You mean he...." Bonnie nodded. For a moment, Michael's mouth worked with his brain, opening and closing until he had put the two facts together. "That's what they did," he whispered finally. "That's why he's in the state he's in. That's why he doesn't want to talk to Ella." He started to pace, cruching twigs underfoot as he walked back and forth. "How could they do that? What did Kitt ever do to them? Oh God.... It's little wonder he's freaked whenever someone's touched him."
"In his CPU, that area, someone touching it, is linked to his experiences. If they'd kept touching the perceptor after the energy release, it wouldn't have taken long to become physically painful, as it were. But he would have been in pain a long time before that. He would have fought the build up if he could. Only Ella has ever done that with him, only Ella has ever touched him like that. It's theirs, it's private. They violated him, and we have to try to get him to talk or he won't ever get over it."

*

Kitt woke slowly, bringing several functions back on-line. Most functions, especially those related to the facilities provided by the car, had not been initiated since he had been imprisoned. He did not need them, and he could not cope with them. He could barely cope with the essentials.

Ella, sitting in the driver's seat, smiled as she watched the few lights wink on. "Kitt?" She whispered his name, not wanting to startle or frighten him.
"Ella...?" Her mere presence seemed to immediately upset him. She nodded, sighing sadly.
"Michael has just gone to get a drink, he'll be back soon." They sat in silence for a while, Ella becoming more worried every minute that passed. It seemed to her that Kitt was not comfortable with her any longer, and that upset her more than she would have believed. "Kitt," she murmured finally, "Is it over between us?"
More silence. Ella nodded, and put her hand on the door handle, thinking she would leave this to Bonnie, Michael and Devon, and maybe one day she and Kitt would meet up again. Somehow. Just as she opened the door, she heard him speak. "Don't go, please?" Ella drew her hand back, watching the dash. "I don't want it to be over, but I don't think you'll want to know me anymore."
Ella sat back, resting her hands on the seat beside her. "Why shouldn't I want to know you?"
Kitt hesitated, but he knew he had to tell her, because maybe then, she would stay. Just for a little while. "They forced it, Ella. I couldn't fight any longer. I was so tired. They found the perceptor, and they started... touching me, like you do. It wasn't you and I tried to block the surges, I tried...." He pleaded with her to believe him. "I couldn't. When... it happened... it was heavy and uncomfortable.... I'm so scared it'll never be the same."

Fighting down anger and hatred towards those that had hurt her lover, Ella curled into the seat, pulling it foward until she could lean against the dash. "I'm going to kiss you, and you're going to feel it. Okay?"
"I can't... it hurts."
"It only hurts because you believe it will. Believe me. You trust me, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then believe me when I tell you that it won't hurt." Gently, slowly, she leant over, and touched her lips to the perceptor, as she had so many times before. Kitt fought down the instant panic, and tried to remember how it had been in the past, how Ella's lips had felt when they had touched him before. So slowly, the hurt began to fade. Pulling back slightly, she soothed him with her voice. "I'm not going to leave you. You won't go through any of this alone. I'm here, and I do understand what you went through, what they did to you. I understand what it meant, and how much it hurt. But nothing's changed between the two of us, and I promise you that one day soon, it will feel like it used to feel. It'll be incredable again."

Ella could hear gentle sounds coming from Kitt, she could not make out any single words, but they were sounds of something close to relief from constant pain. Keeping her arm away from the perceptor, knowing it was not over, Ella continued to hug him.

Bonnie knew, the moment they got back to the car, that Ella had already worked it out. The way she was sitting, the closeness Kitt was allowing, without first having trapped himself under a tree or two, told her that everything would be all right again. Sometime soon. When Ella saw the two approaching, she gently kissed Kitt again, and opened the door, reassuring him that she was not going far from him. "He told me." She said quietly. "Not all of it, but the important part, the part that's upsetting him." She looked at them both. "You know, don't you?"
Michael nodded. "We worked it out between us."
"He only told me because I was going to leave. I thought that's what they might have done when you told me how he'd reacted to you stroking the perceptor, in the warehouse when you found him. But I wasn't sure." Michael stepped around them to sit in the car. Bonnie rubbed Ella's shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
Ella nodded. "I will be. I'm glad they're dead, no matter how terrible that might be." She smiled sadly, and Bonnie nodded, undestanding. Ella wrapped her arms around herself. "They took something from him, something very personal. I just hope, in time, I can give it back to him. I don't know if he'll ever feel the same way, exactly. But I doubt it."

***

Part Two

by elfin

Beyond the hood of the car, the grass bank led down to the blackened remains of the warehouse. The sun was setting behind them, casting long shadows that looked, to Michael, almost like ghosts in the rubble. Ghosts they had come here to lay to rest. "Who were they?" Kitt asked him quietly.
Michael dropped to eyes to the voice panel for a moment, and then looked back out at the horizon. Wendy and Chris Lattiece, hackers who had met a convention, of sorts, in New York. He had found out a lot about the Lattieces, mostly from a friend of Bonnie's. What she had told them had disturbed him greatly. The Lattieces hacked computers because they got off on it. The further they got, the more damage they did, the greater the thrill. Finding Kitt must have been like finding hidden treasure. How did he tell his partner the truth? 'They were perverts who got their sexual thrills from hacking into computers. They must have been ecstatic when they found you; a computer that would react, that would fight and scream. Did I mention that Bonnie found dried semen in the cracks of the hood of the car? The more they made you suffer, the better it got for them.'
"Michael?" Kitt had noticed his hesitation.
"Sorry, Kitt." He took a deep breath. "Chris Lattiece was a computer genius, working for the RSA. He and Wendy met at a convention in New York."
"A computer convention?"
"Not exactly. It's called Erotica; it's a convention for those who appreciate... erotica. Wendy Carlsone was a robotics specialist who had already been kicked out of a cybernetics research group at MIT for what Lori described as 'suspicious test results' following a couple of experiments. A couple of months after the convention, Chris quit his job, and they seemed to go underground. Six months ago, their names started getting linked with a spree of computer crimes - illegal money transfers I think. Two months after it started, it all stopped. But even before the spree, rumours and stories apparently swept the internet. They were reknown for their interest in AI computer systems; a great many AI system crashes are rumoured to be connected with the Lattieces."
"If they were so fond of AI systems, why did they hurt me?" The self-recrimination in his tone was heart breaking.
"They weren't nice people, Kitt." Michael cringed as he said it, knowing what was coming next.
"I'm not a child, Michael." His voice was soft. "I was there. I want to know about the people who hurt me. I want to understand why they did the things they did." Michael still could not bring himself to speak. "I know you're trying to protect me. I know I could find out myself, if I... asked the right people. I'd rather it came from you, than some stranger on the internet." Michael guessed that Kitt's threat was an idle one; he had not linked externally with any other network or machine since the attack. He was still only running a part of the system, still unable to cope with anything more. But he was right. Better that it came from Michael now. That was, after all, why they had come here.

Kitt had asked to come back. His memories were of a terrible place of abject terror and pain, much of which he had still not talked about. Sitting here, now, he felt safe only because Michael was with him, and Michael was armed. His need to know about the Lattieces had been born of his determination to believe it had not been his fault; that he had not somehow asked for what they had done to him. Ella had told him, over and over, that there was nothing he could have done to stop it. But that had not stopped him playing the initial capture again and again through his CPU, looking for other options he could have used, and pushing himself toward hysteria. Kitt's sudden obsession had set a few alarms sounding in the lab, as he pushed the limits of his already stressed systems. Without panicking, Bonnie had gently, almost impercetably, instilled a simple puzzle into the forefront of the CPU, which had caught Kitt's attention instantly. Bonnie had continued to work, designing a firewall protocol to stop all external access to the CPU when Kitt connected out to another machine; a protocol that would protect at all levels, automatically dropping links when an intruder was getting too far into the system. It few minutes after Bonnie had sent the puzzle, Kitt had quietly driven up beside her, and thanked her.

"Partner, Wendy and Chris Lattiece were sick people. They dragged you into their nightmare. The more they hurt you... the more enjoyable it was for them."
Kitt seemed to think about that for a moment. "Michael, I shouldn't have fought, should I?"
"Why would you say that?"
"Maybe if I hadn't fought back... they wouldn't have... liked it so much." Kitt's voice was rough with self-disgust.
Michael laced his fingers over the steering wheel. He did not know what to say to lessen Kitt's suffering. "They would still have hurt you. If you hadn't have fought, they would have wiped everything - killed you."
"Maybe that would have been preferable." Kitt sounded defeated. This had upset him more than anything that had happened in the past, and that scared Michael.
"Nothing would make losing you preferable." He told his partner firmly. "Nothing. However selfish that may sound."
"But I feel so...." Kitt searched for the right words, but his inner feelings were too difficult to describe, he could not find the human translation. It was like fear of everything, of starting functions, of leaving the safe haven of the Knight Estate grounds, of talking to people, of trying to say how he felt. It was vulnerability, and terror, and hatred, toward himself and what he had allowed to happen.
At a loss about what to say, Michael leaned forward and, after a moment's hesitation, he touched his lips to the perceptor, as he had seen Ella do. He could sense Kitt's surprise, and hoped he had not done the wrong thing. "You're beautiful, Kitt." He murmured. "I love you, very much, and I am here for you. You can't expect to get over this quickly. They hurt you deeply, physically, mentally, emotionally.... There is no part of you that they didn't touch, and what you're feeling is very human and very real. But Kitt, you have people surrounding you with care, and love, and we will get you through this. Don't think the pain will go away over night, because it won't. But over time, I promise it'll get easier to deal with."
There was a long pause, during which Michael could only hope his physical closeness had not scared his partner. There was a part of Kitt that belonged to Ella only, and probably always would; he did not want to encroach on that, however much it irked him in his darker moments. Finally, Kitt spoke. "Thank you." His voice sounded a little brighter and a little smoother. "This must be difficult for you too."
Michael was suprised by Kitt's apparent insight. "I'm fine, Kitt. I'm here for you."
Another silence stretched ahead of them, broken at length by Kitt's voice, so soft now it drifted through the quiet. "Before they started to hurt me, just after they'd brought me here, they had intercourse on my hood. I... I was fascinated. I know it was wrong, but... I'd never seen anything like that before. I thought about Ella; how I'll never be able to touch her, or to give her any kind of pleasure." Michael almost told him how wrong he was, almost asked him how he could say that; had he not ever seen the expression on her face when she looked at him, or spoke to him, or even talked about him? But he kept silent, at least for now; this was the first time Kitt had spoken so openly about his experiences at the hands of the Lattieces. Michael did not want to stop him from talking. "I love her so much.... I saw that in them, between them. They loved each other. I thought that anyone who could love like that, wouldn't be able to hurt someone else. And then, when they started... touching me... I felt that they were taking Ella from me. I begged them to stop. I told them that I would do whatever they wanted - I knew I could get away if I could persuade them to release me - they told me that I was already doing everything they needed me to do." He paused, and Michael knew it was time to ease some of the pain Kitt had just brought back upon himself.
"Ella loves you, you do know that, don't you?" There was no reply, but Michael knew his partner was listening. "You ought to watch her more carefully. Her expressions, her smiles when she's around you, they all mean something; they're all for you."
Kitt hesitated, before he said, "I know." There was a smile in his voice as he added, "I see her all the time."

The sun had set, leaving the darkening night with a fresh warmth. Michael honestly believed that some ghosts were being laid to rest. "They found the formula for the MBS in my CPU," Kitt said suddenly, sadly. "I wasn't even aware that I had it. After they'd smashed me up... they had intercourse on the mess that they'd left of the hood. I just felt... sick. I didn't want to think about Ella, I couldn't believe that they could associate the act of love-making with so much cruelty...." Michael blinked back tears; the actual physical attack on the car had been brutal. They had narrowly missed smashing the CPU into pieces; Kitt must have been terrified. But the Lattieces' sexual acts seem to have cut him deeper. The car body had been damaged before, and had always been repaired. But this perversion of what Kitt had always believed to be a private, almost sacred act, seemed to have shaken him to the core of his soul. "I thought I was starting to understand, about love... and sex, in a way. Ella was starting to teach me what love meant. I'm sure Wendy knew what she was doing when she... when she found the perceptor and started to touch me. It's difficult to explain why it hurt so much...."
Michael waited a beat, and then spoke softly. "It's easy to understand why. The part of you that Wendy touched, is Ella's, it's the part of you that only Ella has ever seen. That's very private and personal to you. For someone else to forcefully take you.... I promise that we all understand how much you hurt." Michael trailed off quietly, letting Kitt take in his words, hoping they would make some small difference.

After a little while, Kitt asked his partner if they could go closer to the building. Michael put the car into drive and started her rolling gently down the grassy slope. Kitt's tyres crunched over debris when they hit the concrete. Michael had planned to tour slowly around the site, but Kitt applied the brake, and Michael took that as a hint. He pulled up, just over the grass, at the opposite end to where Kitt had been held captive. "Are you okay?" He quieried gently.
"No." Kitt sat in silence for a moment, and then took control. Michael sat back as the Auto Cruise lit up and the car inched forward, starting along what was left of the large building. They came to a halt a few yards from the remains of the metal bonds. Michael wrapped his fingers around the base of the steering wheel in a gesture of comfort and support.
"I'm here, Pal," he told Kitt. Kitt did not hear him. He heard the distant echoes of shouts, the sudden, sharp pain of metal spikes being thrust through his tyres. He felt once again, the sudden panic that shot through his systems, the terrible sounds of his wheels fighting for freedom. But this time he knew what was to come, and he fought harder, against memories that could never be altered.

A gentle voice cut through the fear and hurt. Michael. Michael was here, and he - Kitt - was safe, free. "I'd like... to go home," he said softly, unable to handle the car himself. A second later they were leaving the Lattieces' place behind and heading for the sanctity of the estate once more.

fin part two