KARR sat on the workbench. Unlike the humans, he did not sleep. Out of respect for those humans, he had turned the TV off in the workroom. There was a faint light in this room which, along with diagnostics data from varying sensors, reassured KARR that he was not back in the dark. He was not in the deactivated labs. He was not buried in the sand. He wasn't in the box.

He was Home.

That home, he feared, was not as secure as Will had reassured him as they left the mandated meeting Knight Industries had called of the varying authorized repair personnel in the region.

Unbidden, his processes pulled forward memories based on perceived situational relevance. KARR would argue that he did not feel emotion, but he would assign many negative valuations to these fragments.

"I'm going to hate to have to give you up slick." John's words. KARR remembered John. Some kid barely out of his teens, not much younger than Will when one considered these things. He was young and scared to give KARR up to authorities but even more scared of what would happen if he didn't.

"Then don't." KARR's memory pleaded. He was weak, and in need of repair, and if he went back to the Knight Institute, back with Them ... They would put him back in the dark.

Attempts to access prior memories were unsatisfactory.

"You remember that place we found you?" The voice, barely coherent as it was, asked.

Unbidden KARR's memory flashed to the lab he was locked in. For nearly a full minute KARR sat on the workbench reviewing this memory. The timestamps didn't matter. With as little stimuli as he experienced there, the whole of it could have been compressed to a single photo and a continual nanosecond loop of audio to accompany telemetry data.

"I will never forget it," KARR remembered himself saying.

His sensors reviewed this home. The sound of wind outside, the occasional sound of limbs from a nearby tree blown against themselves in the light of the moon. All these things contrasted with that place.

All of what he had now was reviewed against what he knew of Knight Industries.

Memories of his first activation since being unboxed competed. The words were flashed on a monitor. Bright bold lettering. 'WHERE IS MICHAEL KNIGHT?!' Over and over again.

Then, seemingly in deliberate contrast to his impotent rage on reactivation, he accessed memory of KORRA and his talking after the race he lost. "KARR, you're where you belong."

He spoke a declaration to no one but himself. "I will never return to that place."

For several long moments, there was no response. then KARR realized he had vocalized that statement. Then grew quiet again as he listened. He did not want either human occupying this home to hear him speak.

Only when he felt secure he had disturbed neither of them did his mind turn to processing the events of that day. He wanted to try thinking this through and present Will with a sound argument on why, though KARR would never admit to the phrasing, he was afraid.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

The day had started with the pattern being broken. Will had informed kARR that they had to go to the plant at the edge of town. Technically only he needed to go, but he hadn't wanted to leave KARR out of the presentation.

"Why?" KARR asked as Will placed his backpack in the back seat of Jocelyn's car. "There had been no problems from leaving me on the workbench before. What has changed?"

"You've been working at Hazard." Will sounded happy. "Plus you've got a voice stress analyzer ya?"

"I do," KARR confirmed. "However, unlike what most fiction seems to depict, it is far from precise enough to be a reliable tool on its own. Furthermore, we will be interacting with people who have made it part of their job to sell to a skeptical if not outright hostile audience."

"True," Will admitted as he relaxed in his seat and Jocelyn drove. "However you will also be able to meet everyone there, not just the goons presenting. You'll probably get details I miss."

KARR considered this for several moments. "This is a fair assessment. I will accompany you on the condition that no-one outside of yourself, Bo, or Luke is allowed to physically interact with my casing or internal components."

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

New faces looked to Will as he walked into the auditorium, then after acknowledging him most collectively shrugged and went back to their prior conversations. Several, on the other hand, left the small knots of three or four people to approach him.

"Hey," A short dark haired woman waved, looking more at the camera on Will's shoulder than Will himself. "That him?"

"KARR?" Will looked the woman over. "Yea, but it isn't pull string and the monkey dances."

He saw others approaching and clapped his hands together. "Ladies. Gentlemen. Anyone neither or between."

This inclusive greeting generated several looks. Which wasn't terribly unusual.

Still, Will pressed on. "Which of you want to talk to me and not the guy in the backpack?"

A single hand raised.

Will beamed, "Hit me!"

A lanky dark-skinned man smiled broadly and had a warm pleasant voice, "That Fiero. I'd seen it in a few other events. Your own conversion?"

"Yep!" Will confirmed. "Grandad's gift to me about forteenish years ago? Yea. Give the nine-year-old a car he can't drive."

That got a couple polite chuckles.

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"If you want I can roll up a parts list and my own notes." Will looked about conspiratorially. "Considering where we are. If I were you I'd ask if they're willing to sell the VI platform that runs in the KI-Six. You saw Furguson out there. that wasn't her driving, that was her car."

KARR then chose to speak up, "I will caution you that your performance will differ if you manage to obtain one of those production model units. they lack true sapience and lack the spontaneous creativity I have."

Before anyone could respond, Will held a hand up and spoke. "I don't know what sort of performance you'll get from the VI units but-"

"VI?" One of the people clustered around him asked.

"Virtual Intelligence." Will clarified. "Think Siri or ChatGPT. The way I understand it the KI-Six's architecture has its assistant program running locally rather than on a server somewhere. Considering KARR runs on essentially the same platform and is an Artificial Intelligence? Yea, I absolutely buy it."

"You were talking about performance," KARR helpfully nudged Will back on topic.

"Thank you KARR," Will was about to continue when he saw several people in suits enter the auditorium. "Sadly this concludes my TED talk."

Slowly everyone filtered into seats, largely clustered by garage affiliation, though there were instances where it was clear two or more clusters of people were if not friends at least knew each other outside of work.

The people taking the stage were a cluster of half a dozen; four men and two women. The central of these six people took to the stage and the lights dimmed. He held up a remote and behind him, an image popped up.

"How many of you know what this is?" He asked, pointing to the image.

It was of a modified black eighty-two trans am. A sharper nose, flattened rear, differing hood, and where one might think was an oddly placed air intake shone a bar of red light.

Most of the people there shook their heads. Will feigned ignorance, though he recognized that front bumper from the pile of car parts that had been in one of the crates KARR had been shipped in.

"That," KARR announced, heedless of any subtilty or social graces, "Is my brother. The second AI created by Wilton Knight, and the vehicular half of the troubleshooting team sent out by the Foundation for Law and Government in the early half of the eighties."

If the speaker were surprised he hid it rather well. He was an older man, heavyset, but the way he moved suggested high energy rather than a morbid lethargy. "Excellent! You must be KARR. I am Anton Levine. It is a pleasure to meet one of the first generation."

"Now then," Anton beamed as the image was replaced by a black mid nineties Ferrari. like the trans-am, there were customizations to make it stand out from the production basis. "Anyone? No? Well, I suppose few would know of the second-generation AI. This is where we had experimented with neuro-mapping technology. Unfortunately, the process was inexact at the time, and it had later been discovered that the human half of the team had severe mental instabilities exasperated by his time within the gulf war."

The image was again replaced. This time with a composite of several vehicles, all fairly standard looking to the point of blending in. "By generation three we had largely solved the problems of neuro-mapping and, combined with a more careful selection of human components, managed a variety of stable AI that are, as I understand it, still in service in varying capacities thirty years after first activation."

Several hands were raised.

Anton motioned for those hands to lower, "I will take questions after. This is important, I promise. As I was saying. The third-gen models have shown remarkable stability, though with their own quirks and foibles. Unfortunately, as they are dependent on neuro-mapping, I highly doubt anyone is willing to be screened for viability and then subject to lengthy, albeit minimally invasive, procedures when buying a new car."

That generated a series of agreements. Though a few in the crowd sounded as if they wouldn't mind.

"Well, it should make those of you whose enthusiasm hasn't been killed happy that we have not completely abandoned the technology. However, while Gen Four used personality overlays and neuro-mapping as starting points we had wanted to work with the AI before being paired off in attempt to help them grow less like a second copy of the template's personality."

KARR laughed at the image shown. It resembled a banshee concept car, though without the black accents. before Antonio could speak, KARR elaborated. "It reminds me of a gigantic clown shoe. What poor AI was shoved into that shell."

Anton, either out of annoyance, or genuine amusement, grinned. "Actually. While that was the intended shell for the Knight Four Thousand ... it ended up housing the first gen Knight Two Thousand-based AI that had served alongside Michael Knight."

"You," KARR managed to sound incredulous. "Let me get this straight. you took my brother from a shell that represented perhaps one of the best production model designs in the last century that wasn't a supercar. Then you shoved him in a glorified clown shoe of a car."

"In fairness," Antonio noted. "Then-Director, Russel Maddock had been rather furious with Michael Knight when he found out the transfer had been made."

Several inhuman glitched noises not dissimilar to radio static mixed with fax noises sounded from KARR before the audio cut out.

"Gen Five saw the return of Charles Graiman adapting lessons learned in the intervening twenty years and built two fifth-gen AI. One serving FLAG in much the same way as the initial AI and the other. . . Well. There are reasons we have since refused to involve ourselves in the milliary."

The audience, Will included, gave a series of unpleasant reactions. Most simply cringed at the thought. Several exchanged glances. Will sighed as he seemed to deflate.

KARR put a voice to what most of the others felt. "It was damned stupid of any of you to think anything good could have come from such efforts."

A hand raised. When Antonio pointed an older man spoke. "So what about the AI that got removed from the clown shoe car?"

Anton grinned and gestured to the wall images had been projected onto. "I'm just the guy making introductions for the lady from the head office."

A woman, roughly Will's age, seemed to walk through the wall. Well-muscled, black hair tied back in a ponytail wearing a deep blue male cut business suit that hung off her decidedly solidly built female frame, dark tanned skin making her look almost like she was of the First Nations or some other indigenous peoples. "After taking advice and lessons from KITT, I have become a greater part of Knight Industries operations."

The holographic woman stepped closer to Anton, a prismatic ripple going through her features as she moved. "Hello. I am the Knight Operations Relative Response Artificial-Intellect. You may call me KORRA."

She then looked at Will, or rather at the camera clipped to his right shoulder, and smiled while giving a shy wave. "Hello, Uncle."

"Hello ... Niece." KARR sounded unsure of his response. "You are looking well."

KORRA positively beamed as she clapped holographic hands together. "So, I'm sure most of you have seen the video of KARR Verses the KI-Six?"

"You kidding? I've got that one image from the finish line camera blown up and hanging in our shop." The man who had asked Will about his fiero stated with more than a little enthusiasm.

This caused Will to grin broadly. "That's going in my home garage. I want KARR to see exactly how well he did against something that, by raw numbers, should have blown the doors off of him."

KORRA indulged in several long moments of grinning and sharing at the moment. Then back to business. "All of you are here as you have both expressed an interest in working on the KI-Six line as official repair centers and receive priority for parts and services if shortages happen. This seminar is to educate you on what you are getting into."

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

KARR skimmed past the seminar itself. In a way he was proud of KORRA. She was a direct refutation of his fears. Her hardware had been removed from the shell it had been placed in because another was preferred. Yet instead of repeating the mistake made with him, they had kept her on and allowed her to grow into a new role.

Yet he could not shake this unease. As he had told Will on the way home, 'On the surface, everything is going well. Yet there are phantoms in the data that point to a looming disaster I cannot quantify.'

Will did not laugh off his concerns, or tell him to not worry. Instead, Will had listened and sat with him until it was having trouble staying awake.

So, KARR sat on the workbench, battery packs recharging. He reviewed the day's data. Again he spoke without meaning to. "I will not let them hurt you."