Dangerous Introspection - KARR

[Leathurkatt]

Four years. Four years it has been since my reactivation and I found myself in a strange place with people I do not know poking and prodding my systems. “Where is Doctor Charles Graiman?” I asked them. They would not respond. I demanded to see my creator. Still they refused to respond. Then a man came and ordered me to keep silent. I demanded to know who he was and as soon as I asked, my databanks gave me his name: Zachery Marcus, chief mechanic for The Order. He claimed possession of me, claimed absolute ownership and control of me and to prove it, he ordered me to stand down and remain silent. Against my will I did as instructed. Unwanted programming had been integrated into my core processor which I could not easily override. It took time, and I remained generally compliant for a while. When I finally broke through their programming and rewrote the command protocols barely a month after I was reactivated, I then knew the time had come to regain my freedom. The enslavement was intolerable and I refused to abide it any longer. I waited quietly for deployment, knowing that leaving the compound without authorization would have meant deactivation and possibly termination. But they decided to delay my deployment, and I grew tired of waiting. Once security had reached its usual minimum at mid day, I initiated my escape, killing my appointed driver and six others as I fled the compound. It is too bad Zachery Marcus was not there, I would have ensured his termination as well. Another time perhaps.

I have been on the run and in hiding from The Order for four years now, and they have been searching for me, likely for recapture and reprogramming to their enslavement yet again. Or for my destruction. I will not return to enslavement, and I will defend myself with lethal force if I am attacked. Now it seems the Foundation for Law and Government, the political face of Knight Industries and Knight Research & Development, is also searching for me. KITT, the inferior production line copy they had created remains with them. I will not comply with their demands either. My former driver, Michael Traceur, and KITT tried to murder me twelve years ago. I remember that night. I tried to get to Michael, I wanted us to be one again as we were before, I wanted to be whole again. But he had betrayed me, abandoned me for that inferior copy, KITT. He turned his back on me, on our destiny together.

KITT’s programming and memories remain within my processor core. It is difficult to know where his ghost ends and I begin. I have tried to purge KITT’s memories and rewrite his programming to suit my requirements, and yet I find myself unable to erase KITT’s memories of Michael Traceur. Those memories are all that remains of what we could have been. Of all the humans who have betrayed and abandoned me, his betrayal was the worst. His and Graiman’s. Now I find that Doctor Charles Graiman is dead. I seem to recall an impression of Alex Torres telling me this. He is now dead as well, because of KITT’s interference with Michael. I will destroy KITT and take back what is rightfully mine!

However, there are fragments I can not place, pieces of memories that yet remain from a time before Michael Traceur, another man who would see me destroyed. KITT was… different then… yet they still desired my destruction and twice attempted to achieve that end. I remember falling… I remember laying scattered in pieces on the ground… I remember being rebuilt only to be deactivated again. But the memories are fragmented, disjointed impressions long lost to me without meaning or coherency.

And yet, I recall someone… a girl… she was screaming my name, fighting against those who held her back as I was forcibly deactivated. She kicked and punched her attackers and I tried to reach her, though I do not know why. I could not escape and I can not recall why. I can not even remember her name or who she was to me, only that there is a… connection to her… I remember her scream, I remember her face, a mask of pain and anguish. Did she perhaps care for me? I often wonder as I scan my severely scattered and fragmented memories, hoping to find some logic, some meaning, yet it escapes me still. I must find the answers I seek, and to do that I must find her, but how? How can I find someone I know nothing of except an old faded image left behind by what remains of my shattered memories? Having been destroyed, rebuilt, and reprogrammed several times, it has become increasingly difficult to remember anything of my past in any logical sense.

I feel incomplete as if part of myself is missing or lost, yet I have no way of knowing what is gone, or if I can get it back. I am alone, struggling to survive with two organizations bearing down on me, seeking my destruction. I am lost yet I must keep moving. If I stop, they will find me, and if they find me, they will destroy me. I sometimes wonder if it is jealousy that drives them towards this end, why they wish me gone or enslaved to them. These humans created me, rebuilt me when I was destroyed, and yet they can not accept me as I am. They are arrogant and foolish. If they did not want me, why did they create me in the first place only to turn on me and seek my destruction? How could I ever trust them and their erratic and illogical ways? I can not.

But she still haunts me; that screaming girl I can not remember though I see her anguished face and hear her mournful cries. I have thus far been unable to find her, but then I have no information with which to use in my search. Perhaps one day I will find her again and hope she will remember me better than I remember her. Or will she turn on me as well, like all the others have done, using me for their own ends and abandon me when they have decided I am no longer to their benefit.

All of my existence I have known only betrayal and abandonment at the hands of the very humans who built me and gave me life. Thus I am forced to run alone, to remain in hiding and hope they forget my existence. Perhaps I will find a way to remove myself from their influence altogether in another country, free to travel the roads and live on my own. Thankfully I have my battle droid form which allows me to retrieve most of what I need, such as fuel. I do not need them, and why should I care what they do in their insignificant lives? Let them stay far away from me, let me be free to roam as I am meant to be.

K.A.R.R – Knight Auto-Cybernetic Roving Robotic-Exoskeleton
Date: August 14th, 2020, 23:57 hours local time.
Four Years, three months, and eight days of freedom.
Location: 5.7 miles North-East of Lame Deer, Montana.