Michael gazed out over the quiet bay, watching one of the daily freight ships passing by in the distance, heading for the new harbor. There was a soft honking, followed by sea gulls screaming their protest. Another ship, leaving the harbor, briefly blocked the view of the first one. Michael leaned back against the wall, the warm rays of the sun playing over his features. It was a nice day, he had to confess, and he would normally have enjoyed it somewhere else, either at the beach or driving around the countryside, but today was a special day.
Someone joined him in his lonely surveillance of the freight lines. He hadn’t heard him coming, but he usually never did. The man crept around like a cat. The slender form hopped onto the wall, pulled up his legs and gazed out over the water as well. After ten more minutes, Michael turned his head to look at his dark-haired companion.
“You don’t have to keep me company.”
“I know you can be alone by yourself, Michael,” Nick replied with a fine smile. “I was just wondering what had brought it on. Even Kitt is mystified.”
Yes, Kitt would be. He was blocking him. Not a strong block, just an obstacle, a thin shield, to tell his partner he didn’t want to be disturbed.
“He sent you?”
“No, I sent myself.”
Silence again. Nick wouldn’t pry. It wasn’t in his nature. True, he was a part-time spy, but he didn’t dig into Michael’s personal problems unless they became too much for a single person to handle. Michael was glad Nick respected him this way, so for him to be here, Kitt must have projected a lot of worry.
“Ten years,” he finally said.
Nick raised an eyebrow over the shades he was wearing.
“It all started ten years ago,” Michael repeated, almost to himself. “It gets you thinking. On life.. what it would have been like if not for…”
“If not for what?”
“Wilton Knight.”
“Well, for one, you’d be dead now.”
Michael turned his head, almost laughing at the dry remark. But it was true. He would be dead now. Not just Michael Long; Michael Knight as well.
“Yeah….. But then… what if I hadn’t accepted the assignment to help people?”
“Tough. Either you’d be dead as well or you’d be somewhere much more unpleasant than now,” Nick answered.
Michael nodded. Yes, probably. He had been angry back then; at the world, at Knight, at Tanya. He had wanted to take out his anger on everyone and everything. He had taken his anger out on Kitt.
“Ten years,” he sighed. “Ten long years. It’s amazing I’m still sane in the line of work we do.”
Nick smiled briefly. “Are you?”
“Sane? I hope so.”
“Don’t look at me. I’m not the person to judge it.”
Michael grinned. “I guess.”
“Do you regret your decisions?” Nick asked after another minute of mutual silence.
“Yes and no. Yes, because I never had the chance to be myself. Michael Long might have died, but I had the chance to leave the Foundation several times, I never took it. The first time it was because I wanted revenge on Tanya. She had killed me, she had killed my partner…. And then it simply happened. I slipped into this line of work.”
“Why?”
“Hm?”
“Why did you accept this new life?” Nick asked matter-of-factly.
Michael frowned in thought. “Well… I was fascinated by Kitt.” He smiled. “It was an amazing experience to meet him, even though we didn’t really start off very well. But… he grew on me; he was so human and he developed.” He sighed and unconsciously rubbed the back of his neck where the implant sat. “But I grew tired of being the punching ball for others, being shot at, poisoned, stabbed…. And even if it saved lives, it made me tired of mine. I grasped for straws and Stevie was one of them.”
“Your wife.”
Michael nodded. “My life killed her. She died in my arms.” He guessed Nick knew that. Nick knew almost everything about him. “But even her death wasn’t enough to keep me away from going back once more.”
Nick regarded him solemnly. “Why?” he asked again.
A sigh. “I can’t explain it. It’s… it was Kitt. I couldn’t think of a life without him. Never. He was here,” he placed a hand on his chest, “before he ever was here.” This time, he touched his head. “He’s… like an addiction. A good one. You don’t want to give it up, even if it would mean a normal life.” He laughed wryly. “I doubt I know what’s normal anymore any way.”
Nick nodded slowly. He understood. Not in a way that Michael could call ‘having been there’, but Nick understood.
“My view on life is rather skewed, hm?”
“Not any more than almost anyone’s would be in this line of work,” Nick remarked.
“Yeah, but how many people have an AI bonded to them through a neurological implant in their heads?”
A smile answered him.
Michael put his sunglasses on and pushed them up his nose. “Ten long years, Nick. And how many more?”
“That’s up to you.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m the last person who has a vote in this. I feel like an appendage. I’m along for the ride.”
“No, you are the driving force, Michael. You make the decisions, you make the calls. No one else does. You do what you do best. You did it ten years ago as Michael Long, and you still do it today.”
“But is it a life?” Michael demanded.
“It is your life.”
“I had plans for my life, Nick! I had wanted a family, children, a house… Eat donuts and drink bad coffee, grow old….! I had dreams!”
Nick regarded him silently. “And now?”
“Now I live a life on the edge. I don’t know if I survive the next case, I can’t even call this a steady and safe existence…..” He trailed off.
“You could give it up any time.”
He snorted. “Right! Tell me another one!”
Nick raised an eyebrow again. “What would stop you?”
“My contract concerning Kitt with the Foundation, for one!”
“Things could be arranged.”
“Nick, no! I don’t want you to add to the complications.”
He shrugged. “So, after the contract runs out…. What stops you then?”
Michael sighed explosively and ran a hand through his hair. “Everything, Nick. Just about everything. What would I do if I stopped what I do best? Night watchman? Security detail? Bodyguard? I do all of this, always changing my job description a little bit, so it never gets dull. That’s another addiction. The adrenaline.”
“You’re working a job that suits you.”
“One that will one day kill me.”
“Not necessarily.”
“It did before.”
Nick met the troubled eyes. “Everyone faces death on a daily basis. You died once, granted, but why does it have to happen again the same way? You might die of old age.”
Michael gave a snort of laughter. “With my trusted dog at my feet? Uh-huh.”
He shrugged. “Could be. We don’t know what the future holds in store for us, Michael. We make the future, in a way. We create our lives. You created your life and you live it as you can do best.”
Michael chewed on his lower lip. “Feels like I live outside reality sometimes.”
“Define reality.”
“You’re not making it any easier,” he accused.
“Should I?”
He had no answer for that question. Nick led an unreal life as well, even more so than Michael, but Michael was slowly sliding into the same lifestyle. It was contagious and he had been infected the day he had not turned his back on Wilton Knight and the Foundation.
“Have you ever wondered what you’d be doing if not this?”
“No.”
Michael looked at him, then nodded. “Okay, wrong person to ask.”
Nick smiled humorlessly. “What would you do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine a life without Kitt.”
Nick pulled his legs up, rested his arms on his knees and then laid his chin on the folded forearms. “You get used to them.”
“Addicted,” Michael said with a smile, repeating his earlier statement. “It’s a drug. I can’t let go. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me and the implant just gave this partnership a new lining.”
Nick smiled.
“It’s all interwoven,” Michael went on. “My death, my rebirth, Kitt, the Foundation, the life I lead, everything…. Cut out one thing and the hole it leaves will forever hurt. I can’t give up Kitt; it would be like cutting my arm off. I cannot leave all of this behind, even if I dream of it.”
“Dreams are a good thing.”
“What are yours?”
Nick shook his head. “I have none. I live this life, it’s what I was created for.”
Michael frowned. “It can’t be all, Nick!”
“It has to be. What else is there? I was raised into it; I never knew anything before, anything different.”
“I know you can’t be anyone but who you are, but isn’t there…. Anything?”
A strange smile crossed Nick’s lips. “In a way, I have what I need. More than I ever hoped, even.”
Michael regarded him, puzzling about the last statement.
“People I trust,” Nick added softly. “Someone I love.”
And now he understood. Nick had never learned to trust, regarding everyone as either the enemy or allies, but never friends. It had changed; he had changed. Alex had changed him.
Outside contact played a vital role. Michael had realized that from the very beginning. With Bonnie, someone he loved and who knew about every detail of his partnership with Kitt, he had found a partner he had never dreamed of either. She accepted his line of work, the implant, his life style. She lived it with him. Alex and Nick were different from them, but she gave him another security. One he had never been taught to trust in, but in which he had finally placed his trust. It had been rewarded.
“We can be thankful for this,” Michael finally said. “You know, it’s a never-ending circle. We’re trapped in it, but when we are offered a chance out, we never take it. We choose the madness, not the comfort of a family life.”
“I’m not good at life. Only at existing,” Nick remarked.
“Do we even exist? Michael Long is dead and Michael Knight is… a creation. I have left my mark on history by dying ten years ago. When I die now, there is nothing.”
“There is always something, Michael. Wherever you go, you leave a little something. It’s your new mark.”
He chuckled. “You are good at this philosophical stuff.”
Nick shrugged. “You are not the first to have these kinds of doubts.”
“You?”
“Sometimes, yes. You existed, Michael, I never did.”
He frowned. Michael was aware that Nick had no records, not even a social security number. He was a ghost in the system, a shadow.
“What about before?”
“There is no before. Your died as Michael Long; I never existed before I joined the program. Nicholas MacKenzie is not traceable.” It was an open statement, even a confession, and Michael was secretly amazed at it.
“We are insane, Nick,” he finally said. “Insane to have started this, insane to continue it.”
The statement was met by raised brows.
Michael leaned back against the wall, soaking up the sun. He felt Kitt’s presence at the other side of the link and reached out unconsciously, lowering the shield. Kitt entwined a tendril of his presence with Michael’s, not saying a word. Yes, it was addictive, now even more so than ever. He closed his eyes. He would never be able to escape this life, but looking at the alternatives, he knew this was destiny. His destiny, as stupid as it sounded. He hadn’t been born for this; no one was. But he lived it, he enjoyed it, he wanted it.
Turning his head to check on Nick, he found his friend had left as silently as he had come. Kitt mirrored his smile. The man was a cat.
//Happy anniversary// the AI whispered.
//Happy anniversary// Michael replied.
And many happy returns.