Thread: KITT/Tabs

[boom_queen]

Who: KITT and Tabs
When: Does it matter?
Where: Outside the school and then shots!
What: Hahahaha. So a mutant and a car walk into a bar...

This might have literally been the craziest thing Tabitha had ever done in her life. The whole thing was bizarre and ludicrous and the fact that she believed that a wrong number had connected her to a sentient car made her wonder if she was completely lucid or not. But then she had to go and say "let's go do shots". Because if there was one thing Tabitha Jane Smith never turned down it was shots. And now she was waiting down beyond the gates of the school where the asphalt met the dirt and grass, with the hood of her zip-up sweatshirt pulled up. One did not dress up for shots. One expected that they were going to be so plastered by the end of the night that they were going to need their sweatshirt to wipe up someone's vomit. Or something. Either way, a series of misfired texts and ridiculous banter had led to this and she was half expecting some 50-year-old bald guy in a Saturn from the 90s to show up. Which was fine. Not exactly welcome. But fine. By the time she was done stuffing timebombs in his tailpipe he'd think twice before doing all this crazy talk again. And if he actually was some sort of car turned android... well, shit, Tabby had seen a lot weirder.

Comments

[ki2k]

In order to pick Tabby up so they could go to a bar together, it was necessary for KITT to arrive at her school as, well, KITT. The car. The android version would have to come later, and after an explanation, no doubt.

But hey, for now, car. A nice car. A souped up, modified eighties Trans Am. Still probably the fastest car on the road. The kind of car that fanboys drooled over, pulling up to the curb where Tabby was waiting, the passenger door swinging open in invitation, and still no serial killers in sight.

"Tabitha? It's nice to finally meet you in person. So to speak." So far, so decent.

[boom_queen]

Well, it wasn't a Saturn.

She didn't know a ton about cars, but even she knew this was a nice one. One that had a lot of buttons she was going to want to push.

Tabitha had one hand jammed into the back pocket of her jeans. The other was on the ready just in case she had throw a timebomb at the driver and make a run for it.

Actually, come to think of it, no one was going to be happy she'd given out this address to a stranger. Eh.

But as she peered into the car -- it was talking, friggin' talking -- she didn't see anyone in the driver's seat.

"Oh shit. Oh holy fuck. Oh my God. You're actually a talking car." Sure, she'd been inside the Blackbird, and that was pretty high tech. But this was way different. And better. She was clamoring into the passenger seat without needing a whole lot of encouragement which, in hindsight, probably wasn't brilliant. But Tabby had a bad habit of acting first and thinking later.

She was poking at the dashboard without waiting for any sort of permission to be as nosey as humanly possible. "Tabby. Or Tabs. People only call me Tabitha after I've blown something up. What do I call you? KITT? Mr. Car? Sweet Ride?"

[ki2k]

Oh god no. Please, not the buttons!

KITT couldn't scan for any of her bombs - how could he if she hadn't made them yet? - which was fortunate, or he might have thought twice about stopping. He was a very trusting and somewhat naive Trans Am.

"Yes, I know. I told you this, but I suppose you were spooked enough by our first conversation that you didn't show up. Surprise?" He was also very forgiving of people. It was his prototype that was the murderous one.

Oh dear. So many shiny buttons, and all so tempting. "Tabby it is. Wait, you blow things up? Should I be worried? Please don't poke all the buttons at once, you'll lock up my processor. And some of those are just plain dangerous unless you know what they do." Oooh. Sweet Ride, he liked that one. But no, no, it wouldn't do. "KITT will be fine." He pulled away from the curb, heading for a bar that seemed better than a dive but still played live music.

[boom_queen]

"Oh. Uh. Oops." In her excitement, she completely forgot the mutant who blows shit up and steals all your stuff part, which is kind of a big deal. "I promise not to blow anything up tonight," she said, drawing an X over her heart with her finger. "Except this slammin' shot party we're having."

She paused with all the finger jabbing, not quite sure where to look to look at KITT. Like. Was the radio its/her/his eyes? "Do you have a manual? If I had a manual I could figure out which buttons to push." Because danger was her middle name... one of them anyway... and if there were dangerous buttons she wanted to know what they did.

[ki2k]

Yeah, it seems like it would be!

"Oh. That makes me feel ever so much better about things, thank you." Except the shots. Okay, he could live with that. Probably? He's never actually gotten drunk before.

Oh, that. His vocal modulator is located right above the gull-wing steering yoke, which apparently is a crotch-buster in and of itself when driving. Good thing she's not. That's his face, that modulator, when he's in the car.

"Now Tabby, don't you think that would be akin to my asking you for your medical records? I have a better idea. Take a look over the buttons and you can ask me questions about them individually." There. Much safer, probably. "At some point I should probably also explain how this whole 'car to cyborg' thing works as well, but all in good time."

[boom_queen]

Unfortunately -- or maybe fortunately in this case -- Tabby's brain was a little like a game of Pong and "car to cyborg" made her (at least temporarily) move away from the buttons.

"No, no, no. I wanna know how the hell a Trans Am turns into a person-cyborg thing." Because what the fuck? She'd seen some seriously strange things. She was sitting in one of those strange things right then. And she's looking at a voice modulator like it's a face. And she's been having conversations with a damn car. But how it's going to fold itself up into a person form is so far beyond her that she can't help but be interested.

...the buttons can wait. She'll get back to them.

[ki2k]

KITT lowered his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "Magic." And then he resumed speaking in his normal voice. "No, seriously. That's what it is, for the most part. Tabby, you have to understand that as an AI, I deal - I try to deal - in logic and reason. As I've often said, my circuits work best when I operate in a reality mode. However, what's happened to me and my driver in the past several months is so far beyond the scope of my understanding that I've had to come to the acceptance that there are certain things in this world that can only be appropriately described as 'magic'. Or the supernatural, the paranormal. In any case, my original driver was injured by something I have no explanation for, and I was subsequently paired up with another driver, who is rather an expert in the paranormal, and weird things seem to happen quite often around him. Long story short, when he found what appeared to be an ancient bracelet with unknown inscriptions on one of our missions and he asked me to analyze it, I should have realized that all was not as it seemed, and exercised more caution than I did. I can't remove it, but I have learned how to control it. My current driver and his witch friend speculate that the bracelet was designed and imbued with a spell to wrangle non-human entities into a human-shaped form for ease of containment. In other words, it would turn, say, a dragon into a human so it could be dealt with. As I wasn't organic, it transformed me into the closest approximation - an organic android, or cyborg. I assume that whoever created the bracelet knew how to remove it so it could be used on more than one entity, but again, I haven't been able to."

KITT had never quite learned the art of brevity.

[boom_queen]

Tabitha was staring at the voice modulator with something like incredulity in her expression. It wasn't so much that what she was hearing was outside the realm of possibility -- she did live with a telepath, after all -- it was just kind of hard to wrap her mind around.

Then again she created timebombs from the palms of her hands and she was pretty sure that if she asked Doc McCoy she could get a scientific explanation for it, but she didn't really care as long as it worked.

So, luckily for KITT, Tabs wasn't the kind to get too caught up in the nitty gritty "how does this work?" details. The fact taht there was an amulet or bracelet or whatever that made a car look human was pretty much... well, to be honest, that was all the explanation she needed.

"So, like, do you weigh the same as a car when you're an android? Do you have super strength? Can you run as fast as you can go on wheels?" See? Those were the important things to Tabitha.

[ki2k]

It had been hard for him at first, too. Anything that wasn't based on logic or reason was almost impossible for an AI to accept, yet he'd had no choice. Now here he was, going out for an evening of drinking with someone he'd pretty much just met. Oh how his life had changed!

She would need to be explaining these things to him once he found out about them...

Thank goodness she believed him? Maybe, but she'd find out it really was the truth soon enough.

"My strength is greater than that of the average human, I can run pretty fast but not as fast as the car - the car can achieve speeds in excess of 325 miles per hour, Tabby - and no, I don't weigh as much as the car. Where the excess mass goes, I have no idea and in order to keep myself sane, I've decided not to think about it. Any more questions? We're almost at the bar."

[boom_queen]

"Oh, Kitt, I'll always have more questions." Tabitha has a somewhat insatiable curiosity that some people found obnoxious. Luckily, she didn't dwell too much on whether people found that particular personality trait annoying or endearing.

"Like... can cyborgs get drunk? This is important. Because I need to know if I'm going to be holding your hair back over the toilet in about four hours."

Wait. Did cyborgs have hair?

More importantly. "And when you turn into a cyborg, or you going to turn into a 60 year old bald man who still lives in his mom's basement?"

See? She asked the things everyone needed to know.

[ki2k]

"You sound very much like me, Tabby. Asking questions is how you learn." KITT was often told to shut up when he got to be too annoying with his questions or commentary.

"I have no idea. It's going to be an experiment. I certainly hope if I can get drunk, it won't be so excessive that I vomit." There was amusement in his voice now. "No, not anything like that. Plenty of hair, mid-twenties, thin as a rail. No basement dwellers for this AI, I promise. I rather look like my main technician. For all intents and purposes she could be considered my 'mother', so I think it's fitting."

And with that, he pulls up to the curb in front of the watering hole he's chosen. "I'll let you out here and I'll join you in a few minutes, all right?"

[boom_queen]

"Why? Are you going to be all naked when you change shape?" she asks, raising and wiggling her eyebrows at... well, still the voice modulator.

Could he "see" her? That was another important question.

Either way, far be it from her to question a carborg's request. "I'll go get us drinks. Try not to freak out the locals with your magical shapeshifting stuff. They like to act like assholes when they see something they think is weird." Slipping out of the car, she headed into the bar, which was just the way she liked it. Dark, slightly dingy around the edges, and just a little bit smoky.

Once at the bar, she settled in and started ordering drinks since she had no idea what a cyborg would even like.

[ki2k]

"Only the very first time." His voice is full of amusement now as he watches the expression on her face. He can see her just fine - onboard cameras make sure of that.

'Carborg'. If she ever calls him that he wouldn't object; it's pretty funny really.

"Thank you. I'll do my best. Now let me see, where is the nearest phone booth?" He's kidding, he's kidding, he's actually going to look for a quiet alley. As she says, he wouldn't want to be scaring the locals! Though being honest, despite appearances, he could more than likely take on an entire group of thugs with only minimal damage. Not that he'd want to find out!

Oh. The bar isn't quite as nice as he was expecting. He waves his hand in front of his face, shooing away the offending blast of smoke that hits him full-on. Once the smoke clears he spies Tabby sitting at the bar, with an array of drinks in front of her. Oh my. Nothing for it though, he offered to buy her drinks and from the looks of it, she is.

"Tabby?" He walks up and slides onto the bar stool next to her. "Do I need to introduce myself?" He's smiling, but his eyes are still a little wide at all the drinks.

[stealsallyourstuff]

She hadn't been ignoring him when he'd said he'd buy. But Tabby's kind of a do shit and roll with it girl and once she got to the bar, she decided that the carborg was going to be shown a good time, with a lot of alcohol, if it killed her.

Anyway, she'd told the bartender someone else was picking up the tab.

She turns, mid-shot -- because getting started early wasn't unheard of for her -- and her eyes went wide. "Ho-lee shit, dude. That actually looks real." She's also not one for politeness or not doing things that are totally rude, so she reaches out to touch his (its?) face to see if whatever makes up the "skin" part actually feels real too.

[ki2k]

Apparently! He hopes that having a good time won't come to that, any ill-timed or inconvenient deaths. That would be a definite buzzkill.

Maybe they should make taxi arrangements before they start drinking.

Especially since she's already started without him. He eyes the bartender almost apologetically. The guy's in for a long night.

"It is real." He tolerates her touch good-naturedly, because he understands her curiosity. "It's human skin. Human flesh, human blood. Human body, for the most part, with some electronics, wiring, hardware, and circuitry interspersed throughout. I'm sort of like a new-school Cylon, if you know what that is." He frowns for a moment. "I'm actually a lot like a new-school Cylon, come to think of it." At any rate, he's pretty sure he's a real boy.

[stealsallyourstuff]

"Frakking Cylons." So sue her, sometimes, when she got bored, she had Syfy binges.

But boundaries aren't something Tabitha really concerns herself all that much with, so it's a good thing he doesn't take offense to the touch. Hopefully he's as good-natured when she opens her mouth and says something really inappropriate.

"So... like... do you have a working dick and shit?" Which she's apparently said louder than she intended, because a couple of other people at the bar turn to the look at her.

Oops.

[ki2k]

"Right? I was rooting for the humans, personally." Programming was a hell of thing sometimes.

Annnnnnd. Hmmm. His eyes have gone wide, and he's looking at the people who are now watching them with a rising feeling of panic. He can feel his face burning as he tries to splutter out an answer.

"I. I. Um. I." Okay, Kitt. Close your mouth, gather your thoughts, try again. "I think so." Maybe the floor will open up and swallow him whole.

It doesn't.

Instead, he does the next best thing, grabbing one of the shots Tabby's got in front of her and downing it in one go, not even caring that it burns his throat and makes him cough after, it's better than dealing with the stares.

[stealsallyourstuff]

"Oh, stop staring," she say to the people looking their way and waving her hands at them in annoyance. "It's like you've never seen a robot do shots before." Honestly, Tabitha is so rarely serious with anything says or does that she really doesn't give a damn what people around her think. Especially strangers.

But she's laughing at his reaction through all this. "You think so? Christ. Isn't that like the first thing you test out?"

Well. Maybe in her world. But normal people, and cyborgs, didn't tend to live in her world.

[ki2k]

Kitt is forced to facepalm now, because Tabby is just so... blunt. Which he knew. But hasn't directly experienced until now. It was going to be an interesting evening. He offers up a weak smile for the people who are now only glancing at them, having been shamed into not staring anymore. He desperately wants to mouth about how she's kidding, but he doesn't want to attract their attention again.

Keeping his voice low, he shakes his head. "What? Of course not! It's not very dignified, is it? Besides, I've had other things to do." Like... replying to misfired text messages. And visiting museums. Normal things that normal people did, who didn't live in her world. He needs another drink. Thank goodness she has plenty. Maybe this time he'll taste it.

[stealsallyourstuff]

Oh, yes, replying to misfired text messages was so dignified.

"Relax," she says, still laughing, and holding her hand up behind her to flip off the people who still have the balls to glance over at them. "Fuck 'em, right? They don't have enough going on in their own pitiful lives to not be interested in things that are none of their damn business."

The last, of course, is said louder. Public shaming at its best. Good job, Tabitha Smith.

She shoves a couple more shot glasses at him. "Don't be shy. If you don't drink it we won't be able to find out how drunk I can get you."

[ki2k]

No, that was a matter of Kitt being a troll. For fun. It doesn't take dignity of any sort to be a troll.

"Of course. You're right. We'll never see them again either so it's all perfectly fine. Right?" He gives her a weak smile and notes that the floor still isn't opening up. Sigh.

He shoots another side-eyed glance her way but he does pick up one of the shots, studying it for a moment before downing it the same way he did the one before. There's more sputtering and coughing as it burns his insides out, but other than that he's completely fine. He's always wanted to see what it was like to be hollow and now he'll have the opportunity! "You're going to be drinking too, right? Or are you just going to be watching me get drunk?"