Swan set the final neural net.  It had taken twelve hours to construct the final network of paths in which Kitt would reside for three or maybe four days.  She knew Nicholas and Karr, knew the link that bound them together and understood that Michael and Kitt shared the same bond.  She had promised, sworn on her soul that Kitt was perfectly safe, that she realised what they meant to one another.

Michael promised her that she had no idea what they were to one another.

“I’m ready.”
She turned, rubbing her eyes, gazing at the two computers before her.  And at her own creation.  The android had been modelled on her brother.  Jez was dead now.  But the android reminded her of him from the outside.  At the lab her project was known as ‘Jez’.  Here, she hadn’t spoken of the ‘droid in that manner.  Because here, for just under a week, he would be Kitt.  And Kitt to them was as human as Jez was to her.

“I will inform Kitt.”  Karr went quiet while the silent communication between the AIs happened.
‘they are ready’
‘karr are you sure this is safe?’
‘yes. i will be here, i won’t leave you. i will make sure they return you as soon as possible’
‘thank you for everything’
‘anytime’     ‘brother’
 

Nicholas watched.  Michael fidgeted.  Kitt moved down the physical channel between Karr’s CPU and the neural nets of the android’s brain, invisible to all but Karr who used his own energy to keep Kitt linked into his own CPU.  He kept that up while Kitt settled into his new ‘home’.  He kept it up until Bonnie and Swan had moved the memory over into the ‘head’ of the android.  He kept it up until the download of data was completed from disks to disks.

And then he let go.

Nicholas was there to catch him when Kitt finally left his CPU.  Like Michael so many hours before, he was left with a feeling of emptiness and desolation that took him back to the agonising years in the Knight Industries warehouse.
<I’m here, you’re not alone.  Never alone>  Very rarely did Nicholas have to offer this level of comfort.  Karr was as independent, as private, as introverted as himself when it came to emotions.  But at this moment he was vulnerable.
<He was so scared, Nicholas.  After the attack, he told me he had no choice but to go to Knight.  He knew it would hurt his partner but he had had no choice>
<I know.  He will be okay>
<I’ve lost the link to him, so has Knight.  He’s alone, Nicholas.  When was he last alone?>

*

Five feet, nine inches tall.
Short, sandy brown hair that looked like silk.
“He has brown eyes.”  Swan looked down at Michael where he sat on the edge of the workbench on which the android lay.  It hadn’t moved yet.
“Will Kitt have access to the… body?”
“Yes.  It’ll be like… when you go from walking, to driving a car.  Different function, but you have the knowledge to do it.”
Michael smiled without humour.  “No, it won’t.  It’ll be like putting my brain inside… inside a car, and expecting me to know how to operate the controls.  What makes you think he’ll be able to equate the functions he has with the ones needed to control this?”

But he looked so human….  Michael reached over, touching the silky hair.

“I know you’re upset.  You’ve lost your connection with him and although I can’t begin to understand what that feels like, I can try to imagine what it means.  This isn’t for more than three days.  He’ll be back with you soon.”
Moving away, she glanced over to Nicholas and Karr standing close by.  She’d known MacKenzie once.  She wasn’t sure she knew him now.

*

Bonnie looked up as Swan carefully put a mug of coffee onto the workbench beside her.  They’d disconnected Kitt’s damaged CPU as soon as they’d been able, to allow Bonnie to start work.  Over the next three days she’d exist on caffeine and maybe four hours of sleep a night until she had that oh-so-important computer mind fixed.
“Thanks.”
“I’m not feeling altogether welcome here,” Swan commented dryly, dropping into a nearby chair.
“You’re helping save his life.”
“So where’s the gratitude?”
Bonnie shrugged.  “Do you really need it?  Don’t tell me you’re not getting what you want out of this.”
“I guess.”

The two women regarded one another.  “They feel you’re using them.  Kitt’s in desperate need of a lifeline and along you come with perhaps not the perfect solution but definitely a solution.  It’s not the first time Michael and Kitt have been attacked, it won’t be the last, but they’re getting tired of it.  They’re not up to trusting strangers at the moment.”  Swan took a sip of her own drink.  She didn’t do coffee, couldn’t stand the taste of the stuff.  She did Diet Coke.  Caffeine and E numbers.  She lived on Diet Coke the way that Bonnie lived on coffee and Devon lived on tea.  “Give Michael and Kitt some time, okay?”  She turned back to the electronics in front of her.  “Let them work it out by themselves.”
“I need….”  But she stopped, and instead of explaining that there would be a lot of instructions she would need to give to Kitt, a lot of telemetry she would need to record, she nodded.  Now was not the time.  They were all exhausted.  “I’m going to get some rest.”

Bonnie watched her go and cast a glance around her.  After the attack, Justin had come to collect the remains of the car and return the shell to the Foundation lab for rebuilding.  They had the equipment, the parts and the team there.  They had the dedication there.  Justin wouldn’t let anything bad happen to the TransAm.  And he’d promised to return within the week with the completed car.  Some of the engineers had joked that they were so used to rebuilding it now they had schedules and plans.  But everyone there knew what it meant to rebuild.  And no one involved had missed the implication of the missing CPU casing.  Sighing to herself, she returned her attention to her task.
 

Nicholas tapped furiously at the keys, accessing files that were encrypted, running decryption programs, saving what he needed before leaving through the back door.  No one was fast enough to stop him, block him or even realise he’d ever been there.  Currently he was in FLAGNet, perusing Jennifer’s files, checking the access dates and names on the files regarding the Tarasine experiments she’d had run on Kitt over a year and a half ago.

Someone had definitely been at the files recently, reading the data collected that terrible day.  Just for good measure, he took a copy of everything and then deleted it, wiping the system clear not of the evidence they had performed the tests, but of any results, any data concerning Kitt’s performance that day.  Anger unfurled within him.  Usually he went in and out without being seen.  This time he wanted to be seen, he wanted them to know he’d been there.  Someone was using Jennifer’s torture of Kitt against him.  Someone wanted Kitt dead.  The million-dollar question was who.  He didn’t give a rat’s ass why.  Not yet anyway.

Logging out, closing the laptop he took it down to where Karr was parked, ten feet from where Michael still sat, the AI keeping a vigil over his younger brother.  Getting into the car Nick closed the door and stretched his legs out over the passenger seat.  He reopened the laptop.  “Look at some files for me?”
“I’ve nothing better to do.”
“Good.”  Nicholas gave Karr the files he wanted analysing.  Times, dates, systems that had accessed the data on Tarasine.  “I want to know who shouldn’t have been there and what they looked at.”
“You don’t think Jennifer staged the attack?”
“I don’t know.  She never wanted him dead - she didn’t ever see him as alive - just as something she could sell.  I can’t see a motive.”
Karr mentally shrugged and started to scan down the lines of data.

Nicholas sat back, eyes coming to rest on Michael.  He had shifted from the workbench to a chair he’d moved closer in.  He was waiting.  Nicholas knew what Michael was feeling, the awful disconnection of his most intimate link with Kitt.  All he had now was the physical form lying inert before him.  How the hell he was surviving was anyone’s guess.  As to what Kitt was going through in that body they’d imprisoned him in, Nicholas couldn’t even begin to imagine.  He was regretting it now, regretting ever calling Swan in.

<He will survive.  You did what you thought was best>
<Now I’m the good guy?  What happened to suspicion regarding my motives?>
<I do not suspect.  I know what your motives were.  Now I know you’re regretting it>
Because he must be so alone.  Both thought it, neither gave mind nor voice to it.
<Back to work, Karr, I need that information>
 

Michael sat up, knocking the chair away and closing up to the workbench.  Liquid brown eyes were looking up at him with such terrible fear that he would have believed the man lying before him was human had he not known the truth.
“Kitt, can you hear me?”
Across the room, both Bonnie and Swan turned at the sound of Michael’s voice, at the words of his question.  Swan stood, coming over to her ‘lab’.
“Kitt, you need to access sub-routine p/9 and p/10.”
A moment later, they heard, “Michael….”  The sound of that so-familiar voice took Michael completely by surprise.  It was Kitt’s voice.
“Partner.  I’m here, it’s okay.”  He looked up at Swan with a question in his eyes.

Swan smiled.  “I duplicated it, coded the same voice - accent, pitch and such - as is coded in the CPU.”
“Why?”
She smiled gently.  “Is it Kitt?”
Michael looked at his partner.  He didn’t know how he knew, he just knew.  “Yeah, it’s Kitt.”
“Would it be recognisable without the voice?”
He almost laughed.  “Yes.”  His answer stunned her, but before she had chance to question it, Kitt asked,
“Michael, where am I?”
“Karr told you what we were doing, remember?  You’re in Swan’s android.  You’re in a human form.  You’re safe, I swear to you.”
He covered the android’s hand with his own.  Swan saw it.  “Sub-routine e/2.”
A quiet whimper escaped the pale lips and Michael felt pressure on his hand as Kitt’s fingers closed over it.  He might have whimpered a little himself.  Because in all the years they’d worked together, in all the months they’d been in each others’ minds, this was the first time that Kitt had ever touched him.

The realisation hit him like a brick, squeezed his heart, even went a little tiny way to filling the massive hole Kitt’s absence had left in his mind.  He returned the hold on Kitt’s hand with both of his own as Swan spoke.
“Kitt, listen to me.  The sub-routine system is simple.  e/ are limbs, fingers, arms, legs, feet, head.  p/ sub-routines are senses, sight, audio….”  She continued for a few minutes, explaining the basics of her system to the one currently operating it.  Kitt listened.  But the whole time he kept his eyes on Michael, trying to say everything that he’d have otherwise poured through the link.  Finally Swan finished.  “Now try sitting up.”

Gripping Michael’s hand, Kitt tried a combination of sub-routines that seemed right.  Nothing happened.
“Try again, slowly.”  Another combination, this time slower, more defined.  And this time it worked.
“Michael….”
He looked at Swan.  “Could you just… give us some time?”
She hesitated, there was so much that she had to tell Kitt, had to do for him.  But again she just nodded.  “Sure.”

There was no privacy.  But this was the best they would get here.  For a few seconds, Michael couldn’t break the lock between his eyes and Kitt’s.  He was aware of something passing between them, like an echo of the link they shared, there just for a moment and then gone.
“Kitt….”
Breaking the eye contact, Kitt looked down at his other arm and after a moment, he lifted it, turning the hand.  “Wow.”  The sentiment was quiet, uncertain, but it was more than Michael had expected.
“Yeah.  Wow.”

Swan had dressed the android in a pair of Jez’s black jeans and long, loose denim shirt.  He’d always looked good in them, her beloved younger brother.  They fitted the android as they’d fitted Jez.  But there were no socks, and for a moment Kitt’s attention had been drawn by the discovery that he could wiggle his toes.  Smiling despite himself, Michael reached down and covered the toes of Kitt’s left foot with his hand.  When he looked back, Kitt was gazing at him again.
“I can… feel you.”  His voice held amazement.
“I know.  I can feel you too.  Here.”  He rubbed his fingers over the toes, marvelling at how human they felt, how real the skin was.
Kitt touched his forehead.  “But not here.”
“No.”
“It’s hard.”
“It’s worse than hard, Kitt.  I can’t believe how much I miss you, how difficult it is….”  He broke off.  “Sorry, you didn’t need that right now.”
“It’s the same for me.”  Kitt reassured, “I miss you, Michael.  In Karr’s CPU….  And the attack….  Oh, God, Michael, why?  Why?  Who?  Who’s done this to us?”

It was instinct, a natural reaction for Michael to move, to put his arms around his partner and draw him close.  They’d hugged a thousand times before, in their minds, in the place where their link connected them.  Now they held one another physically for the first time.  Michael shifted up onto the workbench, tucking Kitt’s head against his shoulder.  He combed his fingers into the silken hair, holding him tight and close.
“It’s okay, partner, it’s okay.  I’ve got ya.”  He tried to wrap his whole being around Kitt as he could do when he held him in his mind.  “It’ll be over soon, I swear, Kitt.  Bonnie’ll fix your CPU and you’ll go home.”  He felt Kitt snuggle against him, trying to burrow deeper, to shut out the rest of this frightening new world.  His mood had swung too quickly from curiosity to upset and that worried Michael.  “I won’t leave you.”  He reassured.  “I won’t let you go until this is over.  And then… God, Kitt, I couldn’t lose you.”  Turning his head, Michael pressed a kiss into that silky hair.  “I love you.”

Eyes closed, Kitt searched his mind again for the mental link with his partner, not the hardware but the warming presence.  He’d thought before that he’d felt something.  But there was nothing there now.  He was reminded of being in Geiger’s prison, being held in Michael’s arms, fingers brushing over his sensor where no one had ever touched him before.  Now Michael was holding him again.  But the sensory information was coming in from all over, not just from one place.  Michael was all around him, surrounding him, hugging him.
 

For the first time since Swan had set foot in the warehouse, Nicholas felt something akin to peace with his decision to contact her.  He couldn’t help but smile to himself when he looked out of the windscreen to see Michael and Kitt locked in a tight embrace.
“Does it strike you as odd that the same neuro implant technology could produce such different results?”  Karr said nothing, but sent a wave of questioning.  “You think that would be us if the situation were reversed?”
“I’m not the hugging sort.”  But there was a note of amusement in the AI’s tone.  He went back to Nicholas’ files for a time.  Then, “Nicholas?”
“Umm?”
“Kitt and his driver… they have a… different closeness to us, don’t they?”
Nicholas pulled in a deep breath.  “They had an easier start than we did.  There was so much pain between us for so long, they trusted each other from the beginning.”
“I’ve seen them, when they’re sleeping.  They stay close to one another, wrapped in one another.  Kitt often reaches for me too.”
“And I don’t.”  At least, not as often and not as intensely.  There were moments, brief encounters, and throughout their 'career', especially after Michael and Kitt had shown them that the implant could be such a beautiful thing, there had been more.  But never for long.  Nick couldn't say why, but in a way, it frightened him.  The moments of intimacy were always chased by the fear of revealing himself.  Karr knew him, but still, the instinct of self-protection was there.  It was hard to lose.

Nicholas shook his head.  He had known that having Kitt and Michael around would change them, but he’d not expected such a startling change in the AI he was linked to; the same AI that had once been nothing but a cold-blooded killer, hell-bent on destroying the other car, its driver and the human intruder in his mind.
“You’re right, Karr.  They have a very different closeness to us.  Their relationship… shatters the boundaries.”
Karr seemed to contemplate this.  Nicholas could feel him mulling over his thoughts.  “Is that why Dr Barstow and Knight are no longer… dating?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
"I never affected you that way."
Nick blinked in surprise, then he understood.  "No, not really.  Although it was awkward at first, I have to admit."
<Why?>
He was silent for a while.  <Because I was afraid of what it might do to the bond we had by then>
Now it was Karr's turn to be surprised.  <You thought I could be jealous?>  He sounded almost amused.
Nick laughed briefly.  <And that, yes.  But I didn't know how much would translate through the link, what you would feel, what you could understand>
<I understand the human need for.... sexual intimacy>
<You sound like a medical book.  Yes, we humans have a certain need>
<I can accept that.  I accept Dr. Christopher.  She is good for you.  And I can process the data>
Nick gazed at the dark dash. "Data?" he asked out loud.
Karr was silent and his driver sighed, shaking his head.
<Knight found a human partner.  What changed him?> the AI then wanted to know.
Nick mulled it over.  "I don't think anything changed him at all.  He’s still the same."
Another pause for thought.  “Baring that in mind, Nick, what will the impact of this current situation be?”

Nicholas looked up again from the screen of his laptop.  He stared at Michael and Kitt, the embrace had loosened but they were still sitting with their arms around one another, holding and touching in a desperate need to replace the intimacy lost from their minds.  Karr’s question slowly blossomed in his own mind, with all its implications.  Perhaps the AI understood more than he was admitting.