(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

A door opens in the side of the old Hook and Ladder No. 8 building, and Ray stepped through. Holding the door open, he gestured for the others to follow him into the alley.

Comments

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

Bonnie looked toward Kitt, watching his scanner pulse side to side steadily, and she reached out to wrap her fingers a little more tightly at the edge of his hood. "How bad was it?"

"Bonnie," Kitt almost whined.

"It's all right, Kitt," she murmured. "I know it wasn't you."

[prototype-karr.livejournal.com]

"Impressive," the Milliways KARR said, chosing to focus more on the death than on what happened to the alternate Bonnie. Even if she was an alternate, he still didn't like the thought. "Even I've never managed to actually kill anyone, and I threatened to make a girl explode once."

The other KARR made a rather horrfied little sound at that, but added in, "We have had altercations since then. Now Kitt is very, very hostile towards us."

[gone_byebye]

"The hell of it was, he didn't do it on purpose," Michelle said softly. "He was just trying to get out. Inez thought he was going to veer away at the last second, and he didn't." She looked over to Bonnie. "There were a lot of broken bones, including the left femur and part of the pelvis. Lot of time spent in traction. Even modern electrical stimulation implants can't make the major load-bearing bones regrow as quickly as the rest of them."

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

Bonnie winced and she gently pressed her hand to Kitt's hood. "I see. Yeah, I... I can see that."

Odd how she almost saw it too clearly. "Accidental. Just wanting a way out."

She could see it of her Karr instead of Kitt. Unless... Well... she knew how Kitt felt, abducted.

"I can see it."

[prototype-karr.livejournal.com]

"She is well enough now," Michelle's KARR offered. "The breaks did heal. But Kitt is still out there somewhere, and so we've had to stay on alert." He turned, aiming his prow more towards Kitt. "We assumed you were him at first, when we first heard the reports about another car."

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

"That was me," said Kitt. "And I can understand the worry. I didn't think before acting, and I apologise."

And he expected small retributions from most everyone involved.

"But it's more important that we've got it... mostly cleared up." Bonnie looked around after saying it. "Right?"

[gone_byebye]

Michelle nodded. "Yeah, I think so. No harm, no foul. We've kinda got bigger problems to worry about than that."

[prototype-karr.livejournal.com]

"Indeed," KARR said. "Far bigger. Compared to them, this is...not a pleasant surprise, but not a particularly bad one."

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

Bonnie looked over at them then, rather uncertain. "Bigger problems?"

"Dare we ask?" asked Kitt, rather redundantly.

[gone_byebye]

With a sigh, Michelle glanced over one shoulder. It was more a habit than anything else; she knew perfectly well that somebody's scanners would have picked it up by now if anyone else were in the area.

"Uncle Sam knows we exist," she said quietly. "And not the reasonable part of the Federal government, either. I could almost figure out how to handle things if it was the FBI or the DOD or something, but..." She ran a hand over her face. "Inez had a sister. He'd trusted her enough to give her some information about exactly what he did for a living. That was probably a mistake, in retrospect, because she was his next of kin, so she found out about his death immediately. And then she just ... she really didn't take it well, big surprise, but she was one of those people who turns the anger outwards instead of getting all depressive. Basically, a couple of photos and some performance numbers found their way into the hands of the National Security Agency. The spooks are very interested in us, and they don't take no for an answer."

[prototype-karr.livejournal.com]

"And I have no interest in being taken apart in the quest to find out how I work," Michelle's KARR said firmly. "It is against my programming." His scanner dimmed a bit for a moment. "We have been on the run from them for some times. It is quite grating; I do not like traveling by train."

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

Bonnie nodded and considered, her weight rested against her own Karr's fender. "Yeah, that's what we're constantly worried about... too much government interest leads to nothing but trouble. The first thing they'd want to do is break the partnership."

Her hand automatically went to Karr's headlight.

"How do they track you?"

[gone_byebye]

"Different ways." Michelle shrugged, looking down at KARR. "Surveillance cameras in populated areas. Traffic copter footage- okay, it's not real time, but they're patient and they know our approximate travel capabilities. Weird news reports. Discussions on Internet message boards with geographical clues in them. Reports from county and state cops who find themselves getting impossible numbers on their radar guns. For a while they had a lock on the radio interference generated specifically by KARR's CPU- that was pretty hairy- but we managed to turn the tables on them when we got our hands on Federal TEMPEST hardening specifications. He's shielded now. They can't pick up on his outputs unless he wants them to, for whatever reason."

[prototype-karr.livejournal.com]

His scanner brightened a bit as Michelle looked down at him. "Which I don't, at the moment. I like not being chased."

Bonnie's KARR, meanwhile, nudged at Bonnie a bit, popping his headlights as one was touched.

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

Bonnie gave Karr a little smile as he did that, fingers shifting to actually hold on.

"Well... From my point of view, I could tell you... Radar's hard to fool unless you work on getting some sort of... modifications, maybe adding some stealth panels, but that's more difficult than its worth. There's always the option of planting false info through about a thousand different proxies, but even then, they might find a way around it..."

It was quite a problem they'd gotten themselves into, but Bonnie, typically, was looking for a way to solve it.

[gone_byebye]

"We're working on it," Michelle said. "Believe me. The proxy idea's a good one, though. What we'd like to do is find a way to put their appetite off us once and for all, but in the meantime, keeping them chasing shadows is enough. For now, anyway."

[prototype-karr.livejournal.com]

"I hope they do not find our Kitt while shadow chasing. He may be dangerous to us now, but I would not wish for him to be taken away by agency. I do not think he deserves that."

[gone_byebye]

"Nobody deserves that," Michelle said quietly, but sternly. "Especially not from these guys."

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

And then, it was Kitt that spoke. "Have you thought of asking them, over an encrypted line of course, exactly what it is they want?"

Bonnie blinked, but then shrugged. "He's got a point."

[prototype-karr.livejournal.com]

"I believe I know what they want-me." He paused. "And I am not sure if my being in one piece matters or not."

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

"What you believe and what you know are two different things," said Bonnie with a shrug. "There's no substitute for knowing for sure."

[gone_byebye]

Michelle opened her mouth, but several things happened before she could answer- Kitt, Bonnie, KARR. She closed her mouth and waited for the others to finish.

"We're pretty sure he's right," she said quietly. "Everything we've ever run into when we've encountered these guys two-on-two has indicated that. And the last thing we want is to give Nonesuch any further technology. Echelon is bad enough- sorting through our allies' radio and television signals for potentially sensitive espionage-worthy information? That's pushing national security's limits a little too far. The NSA isn't investigators like the FBI. They're spymasters. We're pretty sure they want KARR as the forerunner of mobile, nearly undetectable spy-tech platforms."

[not-a-surgeon.livejournal.com]

That, Bonnie had an answer for.

"So offer them a true drone. Cars can be made self-mobile without AIs, and if I can put MBS on a hearse..." She shrugged. "But it's probably the AI they want more than anything. These boys are more advanced than any other AI out there. I'd put money on it even here."

[prototype-karr.livejournal.com]

"And I do not like the idea of potentially being pried apart so those could be made, or the idea of simply being taken for research. I am quite happy working for FLAG and being partnered." His scanner flashed at Bonnie's comment. "That is the most likely thing."

[gone_byebye]

Michelle rested a hand against KARR's side. "It won't happen," she said. "They won't get you- I won't let them." Then she glanced over at Bonnie. "I don't know that I even like giving them that much, but... you know, after a couple of thousand miles at the mercy of Amtrak, plus all that time hiding when we could be doing stuff that's needed..."

She kicked at the ground with a frustrated sigh.

"... wait. On a hearse? what?"