gone_byebye | (no subject)

"All cities have areas of congestion," Kitt agreed. "Luckily, my sensors can usually pick them up and they can be avoided. But for now, Ray, if you would please - I need the sticker applied to my plates."

The blue plate that read KNIGHT in yellow letters.

"I'll have to get Michael to remove it later."

"I can scrape it off if need be before you go," Ray said as he knelt down to apply the tags in the appropriate places. "Not like I haven't had to do that for Ecto's registration stickers. Is there anything else you need before we go out?"

"Besides putting my satchel in my trunk--" which he opened "--I'll only ask that you not get pulled over. I have no identifiable VIN."

"Won't be a problem," Ray says, stashing the satchel as requested. "Oh, hey, hang on a minute." He returns to Ecto for a moment. when he's at Kitt's side again, he has a small white plastic device in his hand. "This," he says, "is an EZ-Pass. The toll booths around here are fitted with radio receivers; this device has a transponder in it. We can cruise through an EZ-Pass toll at about fifteen miles an hour and the transponder will deduct our toll from my bank account. Easier than waiting in the cash-only lines, and safer than running the tolls entirely, since there are license plate cameras."

Kitt closed his trunk and opened the driver's side door for Ray to climb in. The view might've been more than anyone could've expected. "I see," he said. "That does make things much easier, and thank you for the warning."

"Whoa," Ray said, staring at the electronics for a while. "Okay. That's just.. wow." It took him a moment to remember to get in. "Almost makes me wish I'd studied computer science instead of EE. Almost." Carefully, respectfully, he runs one hand along some of the more interesting displays. "Do I need to know any of these in particular, beyond the blatantly recognizable stuff? And which controls do I use for turn signals, switching on the headlights, adjusting the mirrors, stuff like that?"

"If you'll look at the display," said Kitt, "I can show you the most basic controls. The buttons here and here are for turn signals. Lights, I control automatically. Mirrors can be adjusted through the lever at the side of your door, there, and the opposite side can be adjusted accordingly with the first. As you can see, my wheel is what's known as a 'gullwing' style. This requires that you keep your hands at nine and three. To either side of the wheel are more buttons. The ones you should not touch are as follows: Turboboost, ski mode, the oil and smoke release-" every button he mentioned, he showed on his screens. "These aren't normal functions, after all, and I can't quite say that Ecto would have them for you to use if the situation arose."

Ray nodded, following along with the instructions. "The only vehicle I can think of that has those as a matter of course is the car in the video game Spy Hunter," he said. "Which was, if I remember right, a heavily modified Isdera Imperator 108i. I think they manufactured four or five of them per year, in the real world... uh, anyway. No touching the turboboost or the other three. Right, got it."

"And, again, do be careful with the accelerator."

Before Ray, the display below the voice modulator shifted from 'Auto Cruise' to 'Normal Cruise.' Kitt's engine started with the low rumble of a V8, counterpointed with the high whine of a turbine. "I'm quite ready when you are."

"Naturally," Ray said, smiling slightly. "All right, then. Just a moment."

He buckled the safety belt and made an unsuccessful stab at cracking all his knuckles at once.

"Okay," he said, carefully getting everything into its appropriate place. "Let's start with this. Nice and simple to begin with."

mustn't overdo it on the gas mustn't overdo it on the gas mustn't overdo it oooh that sounds nice mustn't overdo-

Yeah, the inside of his head was occasionally an interesting place to be.

"Ray, not to intrude, but are you planning to drive me through the closed doors?" he asked. It wasn't that he couldn't take it - quite the opposite. But the doors themselves? Those, he thought, could likely be expensive.

"Nope," Ray says, reaching into one of his pockets. "Automatic garage-door opening system. Modified, of course, but still." He touches the button and smiles in some satisfaction as the doors open.

[OOC: I had actually assumed the main doors of the Firehouse to be open. I suppose I should have said that. Hook and Ladder No. 8 has had its main door open every time I've gone by there this past summer.]

((See, I wouldn't know these things. I live in the middle of nowhere. *L*))

"Thank you," said Kitt, scanner whispering in slight amusement as he waited for the doors to fully open.

"The gearshift is there in the pillar to your right," he said. "My engine functions as an automatic transmission."

(( Oh, no worries. I wouldn't expect you to know; I just kind of assumed that the door was open. For reference's sake, this is the Ghostbusters Firehouse- the real building they used in the movie. ))

Ray just smiled, nodding, and waited for the doors to finish- ah, there. "Okay," he said. "Welcome to the Tribeca streets... sorry about the cobblestones." For that was what awaited them just outside; Varick Street was half paved with cobbles, and half with asphalt. Ray considered it a fitting excuse for moving very slowly to begin with, and getting used to the basic controls.

The cobblestones were no problem for Kitt's suspension. After all, he could take a turboboost with complete ease. "Given the offroading Michael has managed to do in me, cobblestones would be the least of my worries," he said.

Ray had complete control. While Kitt did monitor, he didn't try to change Ray's guidance. Besides that, he knew that Ray's experience didn't quite include a Knight Industries engine. Or at least, not one with quite his capabilities.

He did, however, stretch out his sensors and go through his maps. It was simple to check precise positioning. "Have you decided to go to the airport first, as an opportunity to get used to my handling?"

"That would probably be best," Ray said as he set the two of them out on a course bound for the Manhattan Bridge. "The experience of getting to Floyd Bennett Field will present a pretty fair number of opportunies to learn in and of itself- it's thirteen miles from here, across the borough of Brooklyn. Fortunately it's a pretty straight run."

[OOC: It's nearly one AM and it's getting amazingly hot in my apartment. Can we slowtime before the heat drains away all of my mental cohesion?]

((That's fine. *nods*))

"I don't doubt it. City driving most always does. A good thing I'm quite used to it. It's really rather interesting being in New York City. It's a completely different coastline from what I'm used to. Thankfully, it's not quite as distracting as it could be. Having you at the driver's side may well be a good thing for this first stretch."

"At some point we're going to have to go over the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge," Ray said. "Longest suspension bridge in the world. It runs from Brooklyn to Staten Island, but from Staten Island we'd have to either take the Verrazzano back or go through New Jersey to get back to Manhattan. They don't allow cars on the Staten Island Ferry."

He smiled as a couple of taxis fell in on either side of them; Canal Street, which led to the Manhattan Bridge, was pretty wide at that point, and he always felt a little better with flankers when he drove through Chinatown. Mostly because half the time, it was cops handling intersection traffic rather than traffic lights, and he didn't trust Chinatown truckers.

"That will be interesting," Kitt agreed. But he noticed, as the taxis fell in alongside, that Ray smiled.

"The taxis seem reassuring to you." In typical Kitt fashion. "Can I ask why?"

"I have a recurring memory of the second bust that we went on in Ecto," Ray says. "It was on the other side of Chinatown, in the apartments at Confucius Plaza. A truck came barreling out of one of these side streets, ignored the police officer directing traffic, and came within a hair of torpedoing Ecto amidships. Ever since, when I drive through this part of town, I feel much more comfortable if there's another vehicle nearby that could conceivably slow things down if that happened again. It's a horrible thing for me to admit, since that means there'd be terrible damage to the taxi driver and any passengers, but there it is."

"I must admit that usually, when trucks come bearing down on me that way, it's intentional." But just to be safe, Kitt scanned the sidestreets as they passed. As much as it might jar Ray, he'd rather have the chance to prevent such an accident rather than simply let people be injured.

"I believe part of what we'll learn will be what I term 'damage control.' How to stop quickly and, if something must be struck, strike it as harmlessly as possible. All this will likely be best done on the airfield."

"That's probably for the best," Ray agreed as the approach to the Bridge came into sight. "There's no sense in coddling my fears, at any rate. And I can't think of any better person to learn that stuff from."

The Manhattan Bridge was one of several in New York City that have no tolls on them, like its closest neighbors, the Brooklyn Bridge on one side and the Williamsburg on the other. It also featured quite a lot of traffic, and the occasional pothole. In short, it was a fairly typical lower Manhattan bridge, with a lovely view of the borough of Brooklyn at the other side.

Kitt was just slightly edgy, out over the salt water. He knew what it could do to his circuitry, but there was also the fact that, if the bridge was that risky, they wouldn't allow traffic on it at all.

"The one thing to remember as I teach you is that, at any time, I can take over control if the need arises. On the display below my voice modulator, you can see my different modes. Now, you're on Normal Cruise - that means that you have control. There is also Auto cruise - in use when I am in control - and Pursuit. Pursuit Mode is for high speeds. If you'll notice to your right, below the displays, there are lit buttons. You can use those to change modes manually. Mostly, we'll be in Normal Cruise."

Although it wasn't actually salt water, this far up the Hudson. Down by the Brooklyn bridge it was more of an estuary. Here it was just river water- polluted, admittedly, but river water. So that was something, at least.

"Either you or Bonnie told me about the existence of Pursuit Mode," Ray says. "At least, I'm pretty sure it was one of you two, and not Karr. But that's good to know. Means I have something to fall back on."

It wasn't a very long bridge, fortunately. The off-ramp led, in one direction, to what looked like a nightmare of a highway. Fortunately, Ray steered straight for a four-lane- no, six- street full of traffic lights rather than maddened commuters: Flatbush Avenue. "Little bit less than ten miles from here," he said, "and it's all this very same street. When the sign comes up for Aviation Road, that's the turn for the airfield."

One of Kitt's displays reflexively displayed the correct map. "I've interfaced with the local network," he said. "Except for the police mainframe. I'll wait until I have more time for that."

But at the moment, he had streets, intersections, directions for the local area and phone numbers and addresses for most of the nearby businesses. "It isn't so terribly different from the time I'm used to," he observed. "The bureaucratic computers are a bit faster. That's all I've noticed."