(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

The door opens onto an alleyway between two buildings- one residential, one not. "Here we are," Ray says, stepping out and holding the Firehouse door open behind him. "Home sweet- uh, hang on a minute, I need to check the year."

He trots off to the newspaper box on the curb, then gives Kitt a thumbs-up.

Comments

[steadfastknight]

"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."

[gone_byebye]

"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.

[steadfastknight]

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."

[gone_byebye]

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."

[steadfastknight]

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."

[gone_byebye]

"... okay, feeling a little bit redundant in terms of directions," Ray said. "But that's okay. Better that we know what we're doing."

"It might be different if we were taking a different route and going around Brooklyn," he then said. "The Coast Guard's got some pretty interesting scanner equipment and security measures in place off Coney Island. Trans-Ocean 66 kind of proved how vulnerable our GPS grid was, not to mention the very real dangers of things popping up where they had no right to be."

[steadfastknight]

"I'm still getting my bearings," Kitt offered.

"And we may have to eschew that route."

After a pause, Kitt thought that perhaps an explanation may be best.

"Depending on the kind of scanners they have, it might be that my signals have already showed up on their screens. I've been in the middle of a military weapons testing range before, but I don't believe raising governmental eyebrows would be a good way to end our outing."

[gone_byebye]

"Well, a, the scanners are almost entirely pointed out to sea or up at the sky; they're kind of like those guns in Lawrence of Arabia, the ones that had to be taken from the land because they covered the sea but couldn't be turned around. And b, going around the south end of Brooklyn's not a good idea anyway. That's where the BQE becomes the Belt, and I assure you, the Belt is pretty much proof that God or Robert Moses hates cars."

Besides, Ray kind of liked driving down city streets in an impressive car. Not that Ecto wasn't, in her own way, but she was a Company Car, and people noticed her for what she stood for, not who was inside.

[steadfastknight]

"That is heartening," Kitt said of the scanners. "To be abducted by the military in any reality would be bad enough, but to do it in one away from home would be... Well, I'd never hear the end of it."

He'd already learned to be wary of jacks and, moreover, hydraulic lifts.

"I can't imagine much that would be more humiliating than limping home to tell Bonnie that I managed to get myself caught by the wrong military."

Little did he know that flame decals awaited.

[gone_byebye]

Ray shrugged as he signaled for a lane change. "Given that it's the Coast Guard, it's currently not technically the military anyway. Right now they're still Department of Transportation. They're only the military during wartime. Weird arrangement, I know, but there it is. But, yeah, I understand what you mean. Don't worry, it's not going to happen."

There is a brief, nightmarish moment of an Ecto-1 done up with flame decals in addition to her regular paint job. Someone, clearly, has been smoking the bad crack.

[steadfastknight]

"I do have something of a secret weapon, as they say, against the military if it were to come to it," Kitt agreed. "You'd have to have enough time to climb out first, but I can always transform."

And humans didn't give out signals like he did.

Fear.

[gone_byebye]

"..."

Ray didn't answer that for a while. About, oh, a quarter of a mile.

"Sorry, Kitt," he said at last. "I, uh... was thinking of you and the Autobots for a minute there. Um. Sorry."

[steadfastknight]

"....Autobots?" Kitt asked. That was one term that was certainly not in his database.

[gone_byebye]

"A group of... it's from fictional entertainment when I was a kid," Ray says. "Cartoon by the name of 'Transformers', about robots who crashlanded on Earth after a millennia-long war on their native Cybertron. They each had two forms- a robot, usually humanoid, and the shape of some Earth machine or device. The Autobots, who were the good guys, were almost exclusively patterned after peaceful machinery like cars, trucks, microscopes, things like that. The Decepticons were a lot more warlike and dangerous. I was just picturing a ten-foot-tall shiny black Transformer running around in Oregon, where the show took place."

[steadfastknight]

"...That's... quite interesting. And it sounds like something Michael would watch avidly," he said, actually a little curious. "What year did this cartoon begin?"

Because, with any luck, it'd mean he'd have the chance to catch the premiere. Or show it to Michael, and watch him enjoy it. That was almost as good as watching the show itself.

[gone_byebye]

Ray thought for a bit. "1984," he said at last. "It runs for three years. There's other variants on it, too- other cartoons, comic books, stuff like that. There are a lot of toy tie-ins- I mean, it comes from Japan, which has a long and honorable tradition of integrating entertainment forms with each other as well as with the marketing department. And there's eventually a theatrical release movie of it in 1986. The whole thing has a very strong conservationist theme- Earth is a strategic target for these guys because we're a powerful source of the substance they use to run on, and the Decepticons want to plunder the planet for it while the Autobots would be just fine coexisting with the humans and not draining us dry. Fun stuff."

They pulled up to a red light. "Oh, you'll like this part. The Transformers have souls. They refer to them as 'sparks', but they're very clearly souls- it's part of being their own entities instead of merely automatons."

[steadfastknight]

"That's the same year I'll be rescuing Karr," Kitt observed and, as Ray spoke, he rather curiously went through some of the local servers to find-- "It seems I've found some video clips, as well as audio."

But then as he heard the bit about sparks, that rather forewent his curiousity about video and audio and left him considering. "It does sound like Karr and I," he quietly observed. "Something in our coding makes us more than simply artificial intelligences, or so Bonnie has claimed time and again."

[gone_byebye]

"They're really popular with the Internet crowd," Ray said. "A new series is due to start next year. Everyone's waiting to see how it turns out." Well, at least everyone who was as big of a geek as he.

He nodded. "Two of the Autobots are twins, it so happens," he said. "Sunstreak and Sideswipe. They're Lamborghinis in their non-humanoid forms. Twins are what happens when, for some reason, a spark proves to be more than a single prepared body can handle. At least, that's how I think it works. I know they have to build the body first and get all of the basic computing equipment into place, but after that, bringing a spark into play is the important part. Otherwise, all you have is very sophisticated metal. You guys... I think they'd recognize you as something like themselves. From a different source, obviously, since I don't think there were any Transformers made with Earth tech, but nonetheless."

There wasn't much of Brooklyn left before the airfield by that point.

[steadfastknight]

Kitt guided his next search toward those twins, though he'd already brought up a bit about the Autobot leader. "Led by a semi-truck named Optimus Prime," said Kitt as he reviewed his research. He displayed a quick video clip of the Transformers movie.

"Ironhide. I need you to---"

"Oh my heavens, that's Karr's original voice!" Kitt blurted, blanking out the rest of the clip.

[gone_byebye]

Ray blinked, nearly letting go of the steering wheel. "Seriously?" he said. "You're sure?... what am I saying. Of course you're sure. You'd know his voice down to the exact frequency. They probably used the same human as a basis for the voice. Voice actors have longer careers than screen actors, since you can't see them getting old."

[steadfastknight]

"It is indeed Karr's original voice - I would recognize it anywhere. Except his held, perhaps, even less emotion," Kitt considered as he played the clip over once more. "I remember it perfectly."

And then, from his memory, he played the altercation between himself and Karr, the first time they'd spoken - indeed, the voice matched.

"Of course, the years at the bottom of the cliff somewhat eroded Karr's circuitry to give him the voice he has now..."

[gone_byebye]

Ray whistled. "Yeah, that'd make a difference," he said. "Like people who smoke for twenty years and wind up sounding like Miles Davis, Wow. That's pretty funky."

He happened to glance up then. "Oh, hey. Aviation Road..."

[steadfastknight]

"It's one of the effects salt water can have on us, over time," Kitt said, and put the video clips out of his mind.

But he would show Karr later.

"From what my scanners are picking up, this does look like a good place to at least begin our lessons, even if we need to move practice to a place more condusive to real-life situations."

[gone_byebye]

"Plenty of that where we've just been," Ray said with a smile. "I mostly remember this place because my uncle Lloyd took me down here once or twice when I went through my model rocketry phase. There's not a lot of spots in this borough where you can really shoot off a rocket, and Uncle Lloyd was usually good for a weekend stay when my parents wanted me and my sister out of the house... anyway."

He pulled around to the end of a former runway.

"This looks like a good spot to start."

[steadfastknight]

Kitt scanned the area. It was close enough that he could do... most of what was on the test track.

Aha, the test track. He showed an image on his monitor - and it looked like something a Nintendo would manage, but still. High technology for his time.

"If you'll look at the monitor - this is the Knight Industries test track. I'll guide you through an approximation of it before we begin, so you can get a feel for my capabilities."

In front of Ray, the mode shifted from Normal Cruise to Auto Cruise.

"Keep your hands on the wheel, but don't fight me for control."

And with that, Kitt took over. The gas pedal pushed down to the floor. The spedometer climbed before Kitt engaged the brakes and spun them into a one-eighty. From there he continued - but in reverse. Anyone watching would think that Ray was one hell of a driver.

Another one-eighty, but this one done in reverse as well, and then they were barreling straight forward into a complex series of twists and turns, hairpins and near full reversals. On Kitt's display, a little dot showed their progress along the test track itself.

Once the turns were done, Kitt lifted onto two wheels as the button labeled "Ski Mode" lit. Not too long after, he went to the other side. No ramp necessary.

"As you see," he said as he dropped back down to all four wheels, "on the monitor, normally a large wall would be looming ahead of us. I'll give you the choice if you're willing to try a turboboost."