Trek Sanders walked through the comic book store intently. He was looking for an extremely rare comic book, the first the first ever Batman comic. The mere fact that this store, in rural Washington had it was shocking.

Trek had longish light brown hair and bright blue eyes. He was a boy genius who had graduated from M.I.T at the age of twelve. He didn’t boast about being a millionaire all that often. Trek was fascinated with all forms of media, especially television. He had recently joined the Foundation of Law and Government’s (FLAG) organization known as Team Knight Rider.

Trek thought about his teammates as he carefully leafed through the older comics.

Jenny Stevens was very quiet. She had long dark hair and dark brown eyes. Trek had always thought of her as very exotic. Jenny knew a lot of martial arts; she and Duke often trained together. She had been in the military before being recruited into FLAG. She drove the red and white mustang known as Domino. Dom was a great car and Trek found he got along with her better than most of the other cars.

Duke Depalma was also quiet, sometimes more so than Jenny. He was an extremely accomplished fighter, and a former cop. He was a solidly built black man with cropped brown hair. He drove the black Ford truck known as Attack Beast. Needless to say, Trek had never heard of a more accurate name for anyone.

Kyle Stewart was the Team’s leader. He had been in the CIA, but FLAG had recruited him to lead the team. Though he never said, Trek had a feeling that Kyle had seen a lot of stuff, not all of it good, in his day. Kyle had a lanky, yet strong form. He had closely cropped light brown hair and blue eyes. He drove the gray car known as Dante. Dante was a rule following truck with a light British accent. Trek often thought of Dante as Kyle to the extreme.

Trek would have to say the person he worked closest with was Erica West. Ironically enough, he hardly knew anything about her. Hell, he didn’t even know if Erica was her real name, she had short blond hair and clear blue eyes. He did know she had been in prison until Kyle had recruited her personally. The joke around Sky One, the monstrous plane the Team and hundreds of other people called home, was that Erica was Kyle’s ‘Pet Project.’ The rest of the Team didn’t know it, but Trek had put an end to that rumour quickly, at the cost of a split lip . . . and a bruised fist. Erica had already proved her bravery to the Team more than once, even if she usually hid it behind a selfish, sarcastic attitude.

Erica rode the motorcycle known as Kat. Kat was yellow and black, a twin to his own bike, Plato. Kat worried all of the time and disproved of Erica’s occasional smoke. Trek often wondered if Jenny and Erica hadn’t gotten the wrong cars.

Trek’s bike Plato spoke in quotes and references only Trek could understand. They had an oddly symbiotic relationship, which was in contrast with the others and their cars. Kat and Plato could combine into one car, which either he or Erica could control at once.

Trek grinned triumphantly as he spotted the comic. With a slight bounce to his step, Trek walked over to the counter and paid for the comic, which turned out to be fifty bucks cheaper than he’d expected. The Team Knight Rider member winced when he saw the time. He was supposed to be back at Sky One fifteen minutes ago. Dante would have a fit.

Trek couldn’t believe how late it was. The streets were deserted. He walked over to Plato and placed the comic inside a compartment he had recently installed onto the bike.

"Time to go, Buddy," Trek told him; "We’re late."

"Not so fast, Mr. Sanders." A raspy voice interrupted.

Trek froze. The voice belonged to Mobius, the Team’s archenemy.

No one knew who Mobius was, but they did know that he was in a wheelchair courtesy of an unknown virus. This was a specially equipped wheelchair, which could shoot incapacitating darts if you got too close to it.

With the initial shock fading, Trek sprinted towards Plato, only to feel a sharp prick behind his right knee.

More quickly than he would have imagined, a cold numbness started to spread through the rest of his body, until he succumbed to unconsciousness.

***

Mobius surveyed from the shadows as a recently hired man lifted the unconscious boy onto the truck that had just arrived.

"Careful!" Mobius ordered sternly; "I don’t want him hurt."

The man nodded fearfully. He knew Mobius could have him killed with the snap of a finger. The man frowned as the truck sped away. It was supposed to wait for him.

He never saw the man who shot him from behind.

***

"Where is Trek?" Kyle Stewart demanded in annoyance.

The youngest member of the Team hadn’t bothered to show up for their early morning meeting, or the late night one for that matter. Trek hadn’t answered his communicator and tracking devices showed he hadn’t moved from his position for nearly twelve hours.

After their meeting, in which they had discovered that the body of Joseph Simmons had been found, they had decided to find Trek and get an explanation.

For his sake, Kyle thought, it had better be a damned good one.

Joseph Simmons was a well-known contract kidnapper whose victims’ tended to turn up dead. He was a short strong man, with small green eyes and short dirty blond hair. The owner had found his body outside of a comic book store.

Kyle’s gut instinct told him that Trek’s absence was related to Simmons’ murder, but he wanted to ignore that feeling for now.

"There he is," Duke said quietly.

Behind the police line, he could see that Simmons had been shot twice in the back, with a 22-caliber pistol.

That no one had reported any gunshots told Duke that the murderer had used a silencer to stifle the weapon’s discharge. His police trained mind told him the crime had been executed quickly; Simmons had never even seen his killer.

He relayed the information to the Team.

"Jenny," Domino stated; "My sensors say that Trek’s three feet south from here."

As one the Team followed Domino’s directions. They looked around until they spotted Trek’s watch under a piece of newspaper.

"This isn’t good." Erica said after a moment.

***

Consciousness was not kind to Trek.

His right knee down felt strangely numb and the rest of him was cold.

"Don’t worry, Doctor Sanders. The numbness will fade in a moment." Mobius told him.

‘Doctor?’ Trek thought. He hadn’t been called that in years.

Mobius was right, after a moment, Trek started to climb to his feet. The young man yelped as he felt someone help him up. It was Starr, Mobius’ female henchmen.

"We’re not here to hurt you, Trek. Don’t you remember?" Mobius’ voice was surprisingly gentle.

"No," Trek replied. He remembered Mobius outside of the comic book store but that was it. His right knee was still a little sore from the experience.

"The rest of your Team is dead." Mobius told him gently.

"What? What did you do to them?!" Trek demanded, trying to get closer to Mobius. Unfortunately, a side effect from the knockout drug resulted in a wave of dizziness that sent him to his knees. Starr helped him up again as Mobius explained.

"I had nothing to do with it," Mobius began; "In fact, my men attempted to rescue your comrades, but we arrived too late. Perhaps this footage will explain better than I can."

Trek’s eyes widened as a television screen came up near him. In a moment it clicked to life. He saw Domino and Beast enter a warehouse, followed by the others. The young man jumped as the factory exploded from the outside and inside simultaneously.

"Even if the others were . . . killed," Trek paused, taking a deep breath; "The cars could have withstood the explosion." Trek said, suspicions making him forget his lightheadedness.

Mobius had anticipated this, "Scans indicate that the explosives used to trap your Team were laced with Napalm, as you know, one of the few substances powerful enough to destroy the AI chip in the cars."

"You should be rolling around for joy," Trek said harshly; "The Team’s dead,"

"On the contrary, Mr. Sanders." Mobius replied; "Your team was lured into a trap by someone using my name. I don’t appreciate that. Fortunately, he’s been taken care of,"

Trek half smiled; he was glad the person who had killed his team had paid for it.

"We have informed FLAG of your whereabouts. Until they arrive, feel free to stay here. My lovely assistant Starr will give you a tour."

It was then that Trek noticed his surroundings. He was in a dimly lit room, but he could see several tasteful pieces of furniture. The young man noticed he had been stretched out on a black leather couch.

"Do you always live like this?" Trek asked Starr. It would be useful information to learn. Kyle would . . .

Wait, Trek closed his eyes as he remembered, Kyle was dead . . . might be dead-

"Usually. Mobius cares for his associates well." Starr replied; she was being surprisingly friendly, as opposed to the last time they met. She had tried to kill him, and Erica, and Jenny, and Duke and Kyle.

In about an hour, Starr had shown him everything from the kitchen, to the garage where Plato had been stored, undamaged. And finally to his room, which had been well furnished. It wasn’t painted, but it had a state of the art computer and a t.v.

"Can I check out the tape that Mobius showed me?" Trek asked.

Starr nodded; "we figured you’d want to check its authenticity."

She handed him a tape. After a few moments, he had it scanned into the computer. Breaking the habit of good typing, Trek stared down at his fast moving fingers to avoid staring at the screen’s grisly contents.

"It’s real," Trek whispered in shock; "No evidence of tampering. They’re really . . ."

Trek started as he felt Starr’s hands massaging his shoulders. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d become.

He leaned into her hands, closing his eyes. Trek learned that for all of her other traits, Starr could give one hell of a massage.

"It’s all right, Trek." She said gently; "The guys who did this won’t hurt you."

Trek stood up quickly, shaking her hands off, "Uh, thanks, Starr. But I’d really like to get some sleep now, if that’s all right?"

She nodded. "Okay. Some FLAG guys will be here in the morning, I think." She left the room and shut off the lights.

Trek sat down on the bed, his mind working a mile a minute.

The others were dead. And now Mobius, who says he didn’t do it, had started acting like his long lost brother. It was just too confusing to sort out tonight.

It took several hours, but at last, Trek’s turbulent mind let him get some sleep.

***

By the time the Team returned from the site of the murder, FLAG was already demanding for an explanation. Kyle had quickly told them that they were doing everything in their power to find the person responsible for the murder.

"You don’t think Trek-?" Duke began in shock. It was inconceivable, Trek carrying a gun? Let alone using it?

"No way," Kyle said quickly; "But I have a feeling he’s mixed up in this somehow,"

"Trek, in trouble? There’s a first." Erica muttered sarcastically.

Jenny was about to retort on her absent teammate’s behalf when she realized Erica was right. Trek did have a penchant for getting himself into trouble.

Jenny just hoped it didn’t get him killed this time.

***

Starr walked into Mobius’ room quickly.

"Is Sanders-?" The old man began.

"He’s asleep," Starr assured him; "I think he’s beginning to trust us. He checked the tape, just like you said he would."

Mobius didn’t smile, but his voice spoke volumes about how he was feeling, "Excellent, those actors lives’ were not wasted, after all. Now tell the others, Trek Sanders is to be treated as a guest. He’s not to be harassed in any way; he’s allowed full access of this facility, unless he tries to leave. Is that understood?"

"All right, I’ll tell the others right now," Starr said walking out of the room.

***

Kyle and the others were getting worried. There hadn’t been word for Trek in over three days now.

And the news they’d recently gotten was far from encouraging.

FLAG had evidence that Simmons had been seen dealing with Mobius’ female assistant, Starr.

"Things just keep getting better and better," Erica muttered.

***

All in all, Trek couldn’t complain.

He’d spent three days in Mobius’ dwelling and he hadn’t been beaten, drugged, or asked for information once . . . yet. True, he was being watched like a hawk, and guns were trained on him if he moved towards the exit. Other than that, the four people he’d spoken to were downright polite. It was as if Mobius was giving him time to come to terms with the fact that the only real friends he’d had in a while were dead.

It was still hard for Trek to believe. But it had been three days and they hadn’t come to rescue him. The facts were getting harder and harder to ignore. The undoctored videotape, the fact that there had been no communication from them, it was all starting to come together. He’d asked Mobius why he had kidnapped him and Mobius had replied that it was for his own protection.

"It makes sense," Trek said to himself; "I have a lot of technical knowledge that people would find useful."

Mobius and Starr had been especially nice to him, though Trek saw far less of Mobius. He and Starr had become, not quite friends, but she had stopped carrying a gun when she came to visit him. He was getting the best as far as food and clothing went, and Trek had pretty much free reign of the entire place.

"Can I contact FLAG?" Trek asked Starr, "They’ll probably come if they hear it from me."

"Sure, Kid," Starr had even started to call him by a nickname.

Trek had to admit it was nice being referred to as ‘Doctor Sanders’ once in a while as he relayed the message to FLAG. It made him feel like his abilities were appreciated.

When was the last time Kyle, or anyone for that matter, had said; "Way to go, Trek. Nice job!" He usually got; "Come on, Trek. Can’t you go any faster?"

What a stupid thing to remember, Trek. He scolded himself; they’re dead so they can’t really tell you ‘good work.’ Now can they? Maybe if they come and haunt you. But am I sure they’re dead? This is Mobius and Starr after all. But, why would they help me, then? Why haven’t the others come here? Face it, Sanders, either they’re dead or they don’t want you around.

For the first time in three days, Trek finally acknowledged his friends were dead . . . and he let them go.

" ’Night, Starr." He called out as she left. That night, Trek was finally able to get to sleep peacefully.

***

At the same moment he was let go, Kyle Stewart received, for the first time in his career, relatively good news from FLAG headquarters.

"Kyle," the floating head began; "We’ve just received an anonymous letter stating the whereabouts of your teammate."

Kyle started; "Where is he? We can get there in-"

The disembodied head shook; "I’m sorry, Kyle. But your project is too valuable to risk on a tip like this."

We’ve had less to go on before, Kyle thought morosely. But he forced himself to stay quiet as his superior continued.

"However, we cannot ignore the possibility that this is a credible source. FLAG has decided to send another group of agents to investigate. If Dr. Sanders is there, then he will resume his original assignment with your team. Is that understood?"

Kyle nodded silently as the head winked out.

Then he set to the task of telling his team the news.

***

"We should be allowed to go!" Erica exclaimed; "He’s our teammate."

Jenny nodded, "Erica’s right. He might not recognize those agents."

"Unless his theory is right," Duke thought out loud.

"What?" Kyle asked, frowning in confusion.

Duke cleared his throat; "Nothing. A while ago, Trek told me he could spot a FLAG agent a mile away. Just by the walk."

"I can do that with cops," Erica grinned. She tried to stifle it when she remembered that Duke had been a cop.

"Oh really?" Duke asked, he sounded genuinely interested.

Kyle grinned. Even when he wasn’t here, Trek could start a debate.

The Team leader sat down and prepared to watch the dispute, he hoped it lasted a while. It would be a good way to distract themselves from events that were out of their hands.

***

When Trek woke up, everything was gone.

The people, the lights, the furniture, everything. Well, everything except his bed, himself and Plato. Trek bent down and found a note taped to Plato. It was from Starr. She told him that it had been fun while it lasted and their new location. Trek shrugged and folded it into his jacket.

At that moment, the door was kicked down and several FLAG agents stormed through.

Trek resisted the urge to laugh at their confused expressions. It would probably get him kicked out of the organization entirely.

"Mr. Sanders!" The obvious leader exclaimed, "Where are the perpetrators? Are you injured?"

Trek almost laughed at the rookie’s use of big words.

"No!" Trek replied; "They escaped while I was sleeping. I’m fine."

The man breathed a huge sigh of relief; "Good. Now we’ll escort you to Sky One. I understand your teammates are anxious to see you,"

Trek’s expression darkened as he revved Plato up; "Boy are you out of the loop." He muttered.

***

Team Knight Rider gathered around the entrance Trek was coming through like he was a celebrity. All that was missing were the cameras and the autograph sheets.

"If he’s hurt-" Kyle began.

"The agents who ‘rescued’ him said that he was fine." Jenny told them calmly. She decided not to tell them that Trek had been the only person there.

Before anyone could reply, Trek walked through the door. The Team let out a collective sigh of relief.

Trek was fine . . . outwardly.

The kid paled when he saw his teammates.

"Are you all right, Trek?" Jenny asked, moving to place a hand on his shoulder.

Trek shied away from the gesture; "Yeah, I . . . I’m fine. Mobius and Starr just told me you were all dead, that’s all. Oh well, my mistake. If it’s all right, I think I’ll get some sleep now."

"What was that all about?" Kyle asked, echoing his teammates’ thoughts.

***

Trek breezed into his room, shut the most of the lights, and locked the door. He needed some time to think.

He started pacing around his room in what had to have been record time.

They were alive? Why had it taken them four days to come get him? Why had Mobius been so nice? T.K.R wasn’t dead, Trek knew he was happy about that. That was about the only thing he knew for sure.

"Maybe I’m going crazy," Trek muttered to himself, pacing around the various pile of stuff in his room.

"That’s one explanation, but I hope not the only one. Mobius lied, but why? What’s the point of making me think they’re dead? Why am I talking to myself? I never talk to myself. Shut up!"

Trek managed to quiet himself. He was so confused right now; he couldn’t even remember his own middle name.

Before he even realized it, Trek was heading for the garage. He stopped cold as he saw Duke turning corridor. He tried to turn back into his quarters, but the former cop stopped him.

"What took you guys so long? I mean I was there for four days." Trek asked, suddenly curious as to the lack of a rescue attempt. For all they knew he could have been dead. It was sheer luck that Mobius decided to be nice to him. Nice, except for messing with his mind that is.

"FLAG had us investigating a murder they think Mobius was involved with." Duke replied, suddenly uneasy about Trek’s behaviour.

"Oh, I see. I was just kidnapped and you guys were out reliving your old detective days. Wow, you sure know how to make a guy feel wanted." Trek moved to walk away, but once again Duke stopped him

Trek shook off Duke’s hand angrily. Not to sound selfish, but he was annoyed that FLAG thought a murder investigation of a clearly dead person took precedence over the fact that he had been kidnapped and might still have been alive.

"Trek, where’s all this coming from? Are you feeling all right?" Duke asked. Trek was acting very weird.

Duke knew Trek had had a nervous breakdown as a kid, and he was worried that the stress of being kidnapped and told they were dead, only to be proven wrong, could prove to be too much for him.

Trek’s demeanor changed so suddenly it made Duke dizzy.

"Yeah, Duke. I’m fine. I was just going to check if Plato still had the comic book I bought a few days ago." Trek improvised, surprised by how steady he sounded.

"Okay," Duke said. Before he forgot, he added, "Oh, Trek. The Doctor wants you to see him soon. Something about FLAG wanting to make sure there aren’t any drugs in your system."

Trek nodded, "goody, I’m jumping for joy now." The younger man muttered.

Duke frowned, but continued on his way.

***

The second he shook Duke, Trek returned to his quarters.

"Plato?" He called into his monitor, knowing the bike would hear him.

The bike appeared a moment later; "I read you, Professor," it replied.

Trek grinned; "I need your advice. You and I both know what’s going on better than anybody. And we don’t know too much. What do you think?"

"Door number two! Door number two!" Plato exclaimed.

Trek nodded; "That’s what I thought too."

The young man remembered how nice Mobius and the others had been to him. They hadn’t hurt him or asked for anything. Unlike asking for the damned near impossible, which Kyle often did.

Trek remembered it vividly. A psychotic terrorist had developed a new virus that could wipe people out in literally hours. It had taken this man a decade to create this virus, but Kyle needed counteragent for it in three days.

Trek had been forced to start from scratch, with only minimal data and a gene from the virus to work with.

It had taken him two days of nonstop work to complete it. Of course by then little things like sleeping and eating had become secondary priorities to him.

In Trek’s head, ‘secondary priority’ had always meant you didn’t have time to do it.

The counteragent had worked like a charm, the virus had been destroyed and the terrorist thrown behind bars.

However, the Team hadn’t even noticed Trek’s state of exhaustion until it was too late. He had passed out two days into their next assignment. Trek had lost fifteen pounds and slept for three days entirely. FLAG had only recently declared him able for active duty. Going out to get this comic was the first ‘strenuous activity’ that the doctor had allowed him to do in a while.

***

Trek still couldn’t believe they hadn’t noticed how his condition had deteriorated. He had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror fifteen minutes before his collapse, and he had started heading for his quarters when Kyle had called him in to attend a meeting.

Was it just that they were too busy to notice, or was it that they thought he shrug off a case of exhaustion, dehydration and starvation? He wasn’t the Energizer Bunny, damnit.

Trek remembered the few hours after learning the Team was ‘dead.’ Starr had forced him to eat a meal in order to keep his strength up. She had been very nice about it, though and Trek had gotten the feeling she genuinely cared about his health. It was a nice change and she actually listened to what he had to say.

Trek always got the feeling he was the Knowledge Man of Team Knight Rider. ‘Tell us what we need to know, then shut the hell up.’

"That clinches it, Plato." He told the bike.

"You wanna go where everybody knows your name," Plato said in a singsong voice.

***

Several people greeted Trek when he walked into the garage, but he didn’t pay much attention to them. The headache that had wormed its way into his skull was robbing him of his ability to focus.

As usual, he ran a cursory scan of Plato before preparing to ride him.

"Trek, where are you going?" Dante inquired, "Kyle and the others are expecting your report in a half hour."

"Tell them I just need to clear my head," Trek replied truthfully.

"Who do you think we are, your secretaries?" Beast demanded angrily.

Trek shrugged nonchalantly; "You’ve been temporarily reassigned." He answered curtly.

He left before they could reply.

***

Trek was so busy fighting his headache that his driving skills were on autopilot. Before he even realized it, Trek had parked Plato between an alley and was at the doorway of a recently evacuated factory. Double-checking the letter Starr had given him, Trek walked in.

"Are you alone?" A stern male voice demanded.

"My bike’s outside, but no one’s with me." Trek replied steadily.

"Good," the voice replied, practically beside Trek.

At that moment, Starr stepped out of the shadows with what was obviously a bodyguard behind her.

"Are you doing what I think you’re doing?" Starr asked incredulously.

Trek smiled sickly; "Let’s just say enough’s enough and it’s time for a change."

Starr smiled back as they prepared to leave on their bikes, "Welcome to the team, kid. Bit of advice, don’t ask Mobius about himself. It pisses him off."

"All right," Trek said as the three rode off

***

As the pulled up to Mobius’ most recent base of operations, Trek grinned.

"Owen." He whispered after a moment. Trek smiled. His full name was Trek Owen Sanders.

"What?" Starr asked as they parked.

"Nothing," Trek replied; "Everything’s just a lot clearer now."

***

Kyle got a strange sense of déjà vu as he wondered where Trek was. He had talked to Duke, but that had been two hours ago.

"Here we go again!" Erica exclaimed; "Can’t he ever stay in one place for a while?"

"When I saw him, he was really jumpy," Duke told them; "He said he wanted to make sure he still had a comic book he just bought."

"Where is the kid?" Attack Beast demanded, suddenly appearing on the screen; "When I see him I’ll-"

"Whoa, wait a minute, Beast. You saw Trek? Where is he?"

Dante appeared beside his counterpart; "Well, Trek was unusually rude when he told us to tell you he’d gone to," Dante cleared his throat; "‘Clear his head’."

"Trek has been under a lot of stress the past few days," Jenny reminded them. "I think we can forgive him for acting a little different."

Kyle opened his mouth to reply when the phone rang. He picked it up, half expecting it to be the President to yell at him for blowing up another monument. Though, Kyle couldn’t think of which one it was this time.

"You might as well put me on the screen, Kyle." Mobius scolded him without anger; "I have a feeling this little announcement will interest the rest of your team as well."

Kyle placed the phone on his shoulder. "It’s Mobius," the former CIA agent told them; "He wants to talk to us."

At that moment Mobius appeared on the screen. As usual, they couldn’t see him, but his assistant Starr was in plain view. She had her arms crossed and was wearing a black suit.

"I get the feeling you didn’t call to socialize, Mobius," Kyle said; "Just tell us what you want."

"Kyle, Kyle, Kyle," Mobius tsked; "You simply have no sense of the dramatic. But if you insist on rushing through this."

"I can’t wait to see their faces!" Starr exclaimed, practically giggling with anticipation.

"Patience, My Dear." Mobius said gently; "It’s being taped."

"What’s so important?" Duke asked ardently.

Mobius sighed; "Just a moment, Mr. Depalma. I just wanted you to get acquainted with the newest member of my team. Or should I say ‘reacquainted.’"

"Bet you weren’t expecting this." A voice sounded outside of the Team’s range of vision.

"Trek?" Jenny and Duke exclaimed in unison.

"Yep." Came the disembodied reply. Trek stepped into the screen’s filming range wearing his leather jacket and black jeans. He crossed his arms as he leaned against a nearby counter.

He looked totally relaxed, and completely in control.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Kyle demanded furiously. He’d seen too many people become turncoats to accept this quietly.

Maybe it was the way the light was reflected off of Trek’s face, but there was something decidedly sinister about his expression.

"I will always be a person of logic," Trek told them. "Hence, I always side with the winning team. Guess who that isn’t? Besides, these guys have a better dental plan."

"When I’m through with you, you’ll need a dental plan." Beast stated angrily.

Trek shook his head slightly; "I don’t think so. In fact, I think you guys will need a lot more than a dentist when we’re through with you." He paused, thinking it over, "Probably a coroner."

Starr chuckled.

"You see," Trek began after a moment; "I can be a surprisingly nasty guy when I feel I’ve been wronged. And I feel you wronged me. As Ed Harris says in The Rock: ‘Prepare to reap the whirlwind.’"

"Why are you doing this, Trek?" Jenny asked. She could hardly believe he was saying these things.

"Four days!" Trek screamed, suddenly angry; "I had been kidnapped for four days before FLAG decided it was convenient to show up and get me out of there! I could have been dead for all you knew and it still took you four days to come in after me!"

Quickly regaining his composure, Trek gave them a sick smile, it sent shivers up Jenny’s spine; "Fortunately for me, my new associates were kind enough to actually be friendly to me. Good thing, too. By the way, you guys really need to work on your response time."

"I can guarantee you, Trek. FLAG will respond quickly to this." Kyle normally gave people the benefit of a doubt, but this time he knew for sure his teammate had switched sides.

Trek gave an exaggerated shudder; "Oh, no. FLAG’s after me. Big deal, Kyle. Judging by the amount of time it took FLAG to actually ‘rescue’ me I don’t have too much to worry about."

"I can guarantee you, we’ll be down your throat so fast, it’ll make your head spin." Beast told him.

Duke shot the truck an angry glare.

Trek shrugged; "Whatever helps you sleep at night," there was a decidedly condescending note in his voice. Kyle did not appreciate being spoken to like a four-year-old.

"Well," Mobius interrupted; "I’m afraid we’ll have to be going now."

"Good luck finding a replacement," Trek added, "Here are job descriptors you need to use: Needs to be a rocket scientist, know when to shut up and not care about being appreciated. I’ll send my resignation tomorrow."

The screen winked out.

***

"Can’t they, you know, trace us?" Starr asked after a moment.

"Only if they feel like going to Paraguay, Rome, Indonesia, Montreal and Calgary." Trek smiled, pushing himself off of the counter.

"What?" Starr asked, confused by the kid’s confident statement.

"If they tried to trace down all of the signals I’d bounced our signal off of, they’d be as rich as me . . . in air miles." Trek chuckled.

"Well done, my boy." Mobius praised him. "You’ve already become a valuable asset to this Team."

"If I had a dollar for every time Kyle said that, I’d be in debt," Trek told them.

"That’s going to change, Trek." Mobius assured him, "That’s going to change."

***

Needless to say, FLAG was not pleased about this latest development.

"Sanders has extensive technical knowledge about not only your cars, but of Sky One’s systems as well. If he’s defected, the results could be disastrous!" Their superior officer told them. "We’ll have an emergency meeting and you’ll have your orders by tomorrow morning."

"I think ‘if’ is a pretty moot point right now." Beast muttered as the screen winked out.

Duke silenced the Truck with another glare.

No member of the Team was quite willing to believe it. Trek, betraying FLAG? True, he had never been the most ambitious teammate, but he had always seemed loyal. . . until now.

"What was that he said about ‘The Rock?’" Jenny asked, remembering the words he had spoken.

"He said, ‘Prepare to reap the whirlwind." Kyle answered numbly.

Jenny recalled seeing Trek a couple of weeks ago. He had been happy about finding a copy of that movie at an extremely cheap price. Instinct told her he hadn’t picked those words randomly.

"Guys," Jenny said after a moment. "I really need to check something out. I’ll be right back."

***

Trek’s room was immaculate.

That was just plain odd. When terrorists had taken control of Sky One, Erica and Duke had been forced to hide out in Trek’s room to avoid capture. According to her teammates, Trek’s room had been filthy, with plenty of places to hide.

But now, it was spotless. There was nothing on the ground; various books, comics and tapes had been stored alphabetically on his two bookshelves. There was a stereo with several neatly arranged CDs, as well as a laptop and a t.v. Jenny winced as she noticed his watch on the desk as well.

"Either Erica was exaggerating or Trek cleaned up his act." Jenny said to herself.

She fingered through the movies, oddly enough, finding several of her old favorites. She picked up ‘The Rock’ and walked out of the room.

She had just made it to the door when a disturbing thought hit her.

What if Trek had cleaned up because he thought he wasn’t coming back?

***

Jenny watched the movie absently. She had seen it a couple of times before, so she knew the plot by heart. Scarcely a second after the Ed Harris uttered the words that Trek had so recently used, the screen fizzled and went black.

Jenny leaned forward in sudden interest.

Trek was on the screen. He looked agitated, jumpy.

"If you’ve figured out this much," he said with a small smile; "Just keep the faith."

Plato’s voice was heard off camera, "And now back to our regularly scheduled program."

The movie returned onto the screen as though nothing had happened.

After a stunned moment, Jenny was able to activate her communicator.

"Kyle," she said; "I think you’d better get over here, there’s something you should see."

***

"Okay," Erica said as the screen showing Trek’s message faded to black; "I’m confused. Is Trek with us or not?"

"I say it’s a sham," Beast said harshly. "He’s just trying to trick us."

"Before we jump to any conclusions," Kyle said calmly, "Let’s find out when Trek’s little message was added. Dante?"

"I’m already on it, Kyle." The British Truck assured him.

After several anxious minutes, Dante said; "I was able to determine that the, ahem, new addition to the tape was added about a week and a half ago. Well before any of this fiasco started."

"You see?" Beast said, "The kid’s been planning this for a week!"

"But what’s he planning?" Duke wondered.

Trek had displayed a tendency to go out on his own, when he thought he was responsible for something. A few weeks ago, an earthquake machine he’d designed as a child had come back to haunt him. Without Plato or even his communicator, Trek had gone undercover in order to stop his invention, and former mentor, from destroying Las Vegas.

"We should report this," Kyle said to himself. "I’m sure FLAG will want to evaluate it before they make their decision."

Kyle glanced at a nearby chronometer, "It’s getting pretty late, let’s get some sleep."

The Team nodded and dispersed to their respective quarters.

***

Jenny breezed into her room, deep in thought. It was pitch dark inside.

"Lights!" She ordered.

"I need to speak with you," the voice of the man known only as Shadow addressed her from behind.

Jenny whirled around in surprise, unable to suppress a gasp of surprise.

FLAG didn’t know who Shadow was, or what his ultimate goal was, but he had given them information on several occasions, which had saved their lives. On the few times he’d spoken to them, he’d displayed eerie precognitive abilities.

"Your friend has put himself in great danger," Shadow began.

"Trek? You know what’s going on?" Jenny asked, staying where she was.

Shadow nodded; "He’s gone to retrieve information that was lost. But Mobius," Jenny could have sworn she heard bitterness spoken with that last word; "Needs to remain convinced your teammate is working with him. Otherwise, he’ll have your friend killed."

Jenny concurred; "I’ll inform the others."

Shadow nodded; "You must be careful about the information you give them. They must still act as though they do not know where Trek’s true loyalty lies. All will be explained tomorrow."

"All right," Jenny said. But Shadow had already vanished. She squinted, as the lights in her room suddenly became active.

"Kyle?" Jenny tapped her communicator.

"Huh?" Came the drowsy reply. It was obvious he’d been in a deep sleep.

"Shadow came for a visit."

There was no hint of drowsiness in Kyle’s voice as he replied, "What? When? Did he-?"

"Kyle," Jenny interrupted, "Just meet me in Meet me in the briefing room and I’ll tell you what happened."

***

Jenny quickly recapped her conversation with Shadow as Kyle sat down.

"So, according to Shadow, Trek’s still working for us?" Kyle summed up the situation.

"He also said we need to pretend we don’t know this yet. Trek could be killed if Mobius suspects." Jenny added grimly.

Kyle understood the dangers of this kind of work all to well. He remembered dozens of horror stories he’d witnessed in the CIA when one of their own went undercover as a deserter. Usually they’d come out alive, with the information they were ordered to retrieve; and more. On the other hand, some were never found. Sometimes they were never found intact.

"Should we tell the others?" Jenny asked. She didn’t want Trek to be in danger, but she didn’t want Duke and Erica to take the ‘shoot to kill’ orders they were undoubtedly going to receive tomorrow literally.

"We’ll tell them the bare minimum," Kyle said after a moment; "We won’t tell them about Shadow. But we can tell them to capture Trek alive."

Just as Jenny was about to leave, she spun around, remembering something. "Kyle!" She said, catching her breath, "Shadow said ‘all will be explained tomorrow.’ What do you think he means?"

Kyle frowned, "I guess we’ll know tomorrow." He replied.

"Okay. Goodnight, Kyle," Jenny left quickly.

"Goodnight, Jenny." Kyle replied, leaving towards his own quarters. He was still tired, but Kyle doubted he’d get any sleep.

***

Trek, Starr and Mobius were busy coming up with ways to further distract Team Knight Rider from their ultimate goal.

Not surprisingly to Mobius, Trek had proven that he had a veritable fountain of knowledge when it came to the most up-to-date FLAG technologies. Unfortunately, since the Team was still rather young, he didn’t know too much about his teammates personally.

"I could send them a virus with my resignation," Trek suggested. "It could take them years to purge the system, and they wouldn’t have time to do too much else."

"Years?" Starr echoed, it was a shocking prospect.

Trek grinned, "This virus is my personal favorite. We call it the Gambit Virus. Whenever it replicates itself, the new generation changes it’s codes so that you have to start from scratch if you want to purge it. The coolest thing is how it handles Anti-Virus programs."

"How?" Despite his cool exterior, Mobius was fascinated. The boy’s genius was truly an untapped resource. That idiot Kyle should have capitalized on it when he had the chance.

"It infects them!" Trek laughed; "But it doesn’t destroy them. Gambit’ll tell the Anti program that everything’s fine, meanwhile the hard drive’s being shot to hell. When that’s gone, the software is next on the list. Of course, after about a half-hour of exposure to Gambit, the most advanced system is pretty much rendered useless. In exactly twenty three minutes and fifty two seconds."

Starr had lost track of the conversation, but Mobius was intrigued; "How do you purge it?" He asked.

Trek grinned. "Password, it can be typed or spoken. Usually by this point, you can’t type anything because Gambit’s gotten to the keyboard functions so everything you type comes out garbled. The best part is, the password’s can be anything, and only the sender knows how to disable the virus. You can infect a system by password too."

"How many people know about this thing?" Starr asked. "And how many people can use it?"

"Three, including me," Trek replied. "And I’m the only one who can make it, the others only have copies. We call it Gambit because that’s one of their favorite X-Men."

"I see," Mobius answered. "How quickly can you manufacture it?"

Trek counted a few numbers off in his head. "About three hours." He told them.

"Take your time," Mobius replied easily. "We won’t rush you."

"Whoa, that’s a change." Trek smiled as he headed off to start working.

***

"My Dear," Mobius told Starr as they watched Trek leave; "We have just gained a significant advantage over Team Knight Rider."

***

What Mobius hadn’t anticipated was Trek overhearing that remark.

"Sike." He whispered as he set to work.

***

It happened around one O’clock in the afternoon.

The Team was waiting for their orders when the received an email from an unknown source.

The subject line was Resignation.

"Looks like Trek kept his promise." Duke observed.

The first line said, ‘The Password is Excalibur.’

Kyle frowned as the computer changed. It read ‘downloading file.’

Dante called out to Kyle the second he finished analyzing the document; "It’s a virus!"

"Stop it!" Kyle called, unsure of what to do. Viruses were Trek’s department.

Jenny grinned as an idea came to mind. She quickly typed the word ‘Excalibur’ and the screen flashed a message that said the virus had been neutralized.

"How did you do that?" Erica demanded in astonishment. Jenny had never seemed like the Hacker type.

"Trek told me," Jenny replied, smiling as she pointed to the first line of the file.

***

Trek deleted the email quickly. He knew Mobius could detect if he had sent the virus, but he couldn’t know that Trek had also given them the tools to disable it. He just hoped they figured out how to use them.

Just to be on the safe side, Trek added several encrypted files over the deleted data. Now they couldn’t find the virus, or the email, without looking for it directly, and decrypting his codes; which would take a while.

"It’s done," Trek said with a grin. "They won’t be bugging us for a while. Unless they’ve got a spare plane."

"Will Gambit infect the cars as well?" Mobius asked. He had started to become fond of the boy.

Trek had demonstrated a well-pronounced mean streak.

"No," Trek said. "I’ve got something better in mind for them."

"What?" Starr couldn’t wait to hear this.

"I’m going to switch them." He said

***

Mobius couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this. Trek’s plan was so ridiculously simple that no one would have ever thought of it.

"This old episode of the fifties Batman show gave me this idea," Trek began, "Catwoman gave this drug to Robin called ‘Catatonia’, which made him act the opposite of the way he’d normally act. I figured, why not do it to the cars?"

Starr laughed, disbelieving; "That’s it?"

Trek gave her that cold smile of his, "that’s it. Think about it, Dante suddenly reckless? Beast, singing ‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts’? Kat, not giving a damn about what happens? Domino, suddenly acting quiet and reserved? Not only will that throw off the Team, but the AI switches as well. They’ll break under the conflicting data they’re receiving. When our work is done, Plato will be the only artificial intelligence on the planet and TKR will be out of business."

"And," Mobius dangled this tidbit in front of Trek’s face like a prize, "I have vast resources which will enable you to adapt and improve upon your motorcycle’s Artificial Intelligence chip. Not only will you have the only AI chip, you’ll be able to make it as powerful as you want."

"Now that," Trek grinned, "Is an interesting prospect. Because it just so happens that I’ve come up with several new weapons systems I could add to Plato. They’re small changes, but they’ll be extremely effective."

"The next few days should prove to be most interesting." Mobius predicted.

***

Several hours after the conversation, Trek sat at his computer terminal.

"Okay, Mobius," he whispered, "let’s see what you’ve got for me."

After ten minutes, 98% of the information he had hacked was saved onto three different disks. One of the disks was on Plato. The other had been downloaded into him, just in case anything happened, and Trek had the third one in his computer on Sky One, courtesy of an Internet up-link he had just designed. That was the backup, in case both he and Plato didn’t make it back to Sky One.

As he became more and more involved in this scheme, Trek had calculated that that was the most likely possibility.

Due to a plant by Mobius into one of her teeth, Jenny had inadvertently become a spy for him. Fortunately, Kyle and the others had managed to recover 90% of the hijacked data. Trek had decided that the other ten-percent of it should be recovered. Since a gunfight could damage the computer, or give someone time to erase the files, FLAG needed a plant. That would be him, unless FLAG shot him before he could relay the information to them.

Trek grinned as the last of the FLAG files, and a few others, downloaded onto his disks.

"Mission accomplished." Trek grinned. "Now, to make sure Mobius doesn’t use my Gambit file." He quickly erased Gambit.

Personally, Trek couldn’t believe he had created such a lethal virus. What had he been thinking?

"Freeze, Sanders. I knew you were a traitor from the start." Jeremiah Evans called out.

Evans was one of Mobius’ mechanics, he was short with stringy blond hair and buggy brown eyes. He had displayed a profound dislike for Trek.

The young man knew Evans had been in the military, and thus, had a thing for loyalty.

That was quite an accomplishment for a mercenary.

"It’s not what it seems." Trek winced at the cliché. He was glad he hadn’t turned to face the engineer.

"It seems to me like your betraying our mutual boss." Jeremiah replied tightly.

"God, you are an idiot, aren’t you?" Trek scoffed contemptibly, standing to face the other man, "good thing Mobius decided to make me in charge. You’d probably kill us all if you tried to make a bomb . . . out of your little Lego pieces. You should know Mobius only trusts the big stuff to real engineers, not some flunky who couldn’t cut it in the army."

Evans lunged, but Trek had anticipated that. Recalling something he’d seen Jenny do, Trek grabbed Evans’ wrist and twisted his arm backwards.

"One wrong move and I break your arm." Trek told him lightly, almost jokingly. He moved Evans’ arm a fraction of an inch and the older man cried out.

Evans nodded his understanding fearfully.

Trek shoved him forward.

He didn’t have to go too far out of his quarters before he saw Luke, Starr’s bodyguard walking down the hall.

Luke was about 6’5 with broad shoulders and long blond hair and gray eyes. Trek had learned he suffered from night blindness and had a very short fuse.

"What the hell is going on here?" Luke demanded. Evans began to struggle, preparing to respond.

Trek moved Evans’ arm again, silencing him before he could reply.

"I caught our little friend here trying to frame me." Trek replied, his voice dripping with disdain. "He was at my terminal downloading files when I walked in. Wants the boss to think I can’t be trusted."

"The boss doesn’t like traitors," Luke told Evans as he took him from Trek.

"The kid’s crazy!" Evans yelled hysterically, "I caught him downloading the files! I swear to God! I didn’t do it!"

Trek shook his head, "Yeah right, Evans. I just got here." He smiled sickly as Luke dragged Evans away,

"And I don’t intend to leave."

***

No one saw Mobius smile at the encounter.

Yes, the future was indeed promising for young Trek Sanders.

***

Kyle had reported Shadow’s conversation with Jenny to FLAG. Once again, they told him that they would confer to come up with a course of action. The Team was sitting in the briefing room, trying to determine their own plan.

"Forget this!" Beast declared, "The kid’s a traitor. I say we take him down like one!"

"Beast, we haven’t proven anything yet." Jenny pointed out calmly.

"What about that virus?" Beast countered.

"Only two non essential files were damaged by the virus," Dante pointed out, "I’ve scanned the virus and it proves that if Trek had not given us the password; the entire mainframe would have crashed in a matter of minutes. Twenty three minutes, fifty two seconds to be exact."

"You know what?" Kat began, "I think Mobius did something to him. Maybe he was drugged-"

"I’ve seen people drugged," Duke replied. "There wasn’t any indication of it from Trek."

"Maybe it’s something new?" Kat suggested. "Mobius could have given it to Trek when he was kidnapped-"

"Face it, the Kid’s snapped," Beast said harshly. "Not drugs. Just snap."

"That is one possibility," Dante chimed in, "Trek has been known not to handle stress well. It could be that he has indeed reached his-"

"Don’t even say it, Dante," Kyle interrupted. "Trek hasn’t gone insane." It was a frightening concept.

"How do you know?" Dante countered, "It could be that helping us was an indication of his insanity. He’s unsure, even at this point, who he has sided with."

"Hey," Domino interrupted, Jenny noticed how her car had been conspicuously absent from the other conversations, "You’ve thought Erica was a traitor before. You even thought Jenny was a traitor before."

She paused, "But someone always believed in them, gave them a chance. I think we should do the same for Trek."

The Team paused. They needed time to think over Domino’s words.

***

"How do you plan to administer the virus to the cars?" Mobius asked Trek. The two of them were sitting in a comfortable meeting room. They had both gotten here a good ten minutes earlier, so they had decided to talk about their next action against Team Knight Rider.

Mobius had wanted to give Kyle time to go on the offensive, but Trek had convinced him otherwise.

The evidence that FLAG had already posted a spy into his network was enough incentive for Mobius to continue his attack.

As for Jeremiah Evans, his body wouldn’t be found for several months. Luke had taken care of that most efficiently.

"I’ve still got some friends on Sky One." Trek smiled, "I’ll give them a little routine about being drugged and how it’s wearing off. However, I’m still your ‘prisoner’ and the only way to get me out is if this disk," Trek held it up for Mobius to see, "has my location and a couple of other files I’ve managed to hack into on it."

Trek grinned in satisfaction, "How ’bout that?"

Mobius had never been, nor would he ever be, in awe. But this came close.

"My boy," he smiled, "that’s positively ingenious. And it should prove to be quite an interesting endeavor."

Trek was startled at how easily Team Knight Rider had believed in his defection. He thought it would have taken a little more convincing and was hurt that it hadn’t.

Another thing that scared him was how easily he had slipped into the role of working for Mobius. It had hardly taken any effort for Mobius to believe Trek was working for him.

If it had been any of the others, except maybe Erica, Mobius wouldn’t have believed it.

Did everyone think he was such a likely candidate for becoming a traitor?

Trek decided to find out for sure.

"Mobius," he began, "did you think I’d ever, you know, end up working for you?"

The older man paused for a moment, "of course. Just not so soon."

At Trek’s shocked expression, Mobius continued, "You said it yourself. Unlike most young men your age, you rely on logic to guide your actions."

"You’ve got a point," Trek agreed, "but that doesn’t answer my question."

"Really?" Mobius replied, "I think it does."

It was then that Trek noticed the chessboard on the other side of the room.

"You play chess?" He asked.

"Of course. You sound surprised." Mobius answered.

"It just seems like you spend your waking hours trying to kill Kyle and the others." Trek replied humorlessly.

"One cannot devote oneself to a single activity," Mobius told him. "It takes the beauty out of the overall accomplishment."

"Touché," Trek agreed, "How about a game?"

"You play?" Now Mobius was the one who sounded surprised.

Trek shrugged. "I was something to learn."

The two moved over to the table.

"Please, go ahead," Trek said, gesturing towards the pieces. Mobius chose the black pieces. He moved a Pawn for his opening gambit. Trek did so as well.

"Standard opening." Trek observed, calculating his next moves.

The two played in silence, until Trek’s tenth move.

"I thought you would have seen that," Mobius told him in disappointment, moving his black Bishop in such a way that he would have checkmate in two moves. The boy had seemed to be a promising challenge.

"I did," Trek replied triumphantly, he moved his Rook and captured the opposing king.

"Checkmate."

"Well done," Mobius replied gamely, "I haven’t had a challenging opponent in a long time."

"Rematch?" Trek asked, placing the pieces back at their starting positions.

"In due time, my boy. You see, it’s time to play game of a different variety."

***

Team Knight Rider received yet another call from Mobius and Trek.

"Miss me?" Trek inquired with an icy grin.

"Not in the least," Kyle replied. Curious as to the reaction he’d get from the kid.

Anger skirted across Trek’s face, but it was gone quickly. "I should have expected that."

"Why would we miss a traitor?" Beast asked.

Trek shrugged. "When I’m through with you guys, you’ll wish I was on your team."

The screen winked out before they could reply.

***

Kyle and the others were busy trying to decipher Trek’s last message. Who was he going to target? The entire Team? Would it be a specific member?

Before they could decide, the holographic head appeared; undoubtedly to give them their orders regarding Trek.

"Kyle," he began, "Trek Sanders has extensive technical knowledge regarding FLAG and all of its operations. Since his defection is quite obvious, we’re giving you orders to shoot to kill."

"With pleasure," Beast muttered.

"But what about-?" Jenny began.

The hologram understood what she meant, "Ms. Stevens, FLAG is well aware of Mr. Sanders ‘messages’ and have concluded that they are a ploy on his part to make you uncertain. You will follow our orders if you are confronted with Sanders? Is that understood?"

Jenny nodded solemnly.

***

"its about time FLAG made a decent call!" Beast declared.

"You call that decent?" Erica muttered. "Give me a break!"

"Here’s what we’ll do," Kyle began. "We’ll catch Trek alive and tell them that we didn’t have another choice."

"We’ll need a better story than that." Dante stated, "if we are to defy FLAG orders and succeed, that is."

"We’re not defying FLAG orders," Kyle said with a small smile, "we’re just going to forget we heard them."

***

It was late at night before Trek felt secure enough to head out to the garage. He knew this part of his plan would stick out, but it was the only chance he had.

Trek was just glad a bout of insomnia hit him when it did. He sneaked through the garage stealthily, staying in the blind zones, areas where the security cameras weren't filming. He was just lucky that Plato was in one of those spots.

"Plato." He whispered, "keep your voice low."

"Understood, Captain," Plato whispered.

"I need you to listen to me, Buddy, okay? I want you to go back to Sky One, but stick to the back roads so you aren’t seen. When you get back, I don’t want you to board the plane until I call for you. That might be a couple of days, okay?"

"I say, I say, I say; I do believe I understand." Plato responded in the voice of the giant chicken on Buggs.

Trek would have laughed, but the situation was too dangerous.

"Just go." Trek ordered. "Don’t talk to the Team, I’ll be there as soon as I can."

Trek just hoped he was as lucky as Plato was, at least he got out intact.

***

The few people who saw the motorcycle without a driver wouldn’t be given too much credit. One woman was drunk and the other man was a drug dealer, who had tried to get a free ride of the bike. The last was a man who had only recently been released from a mental institution.

***

Plato remained smartly out of Sky One’s, and the cars’ scanning range. They wouldn’t detect him until he wanted to be detected.

And so he would stay, until Trek called for him.

***

Trek did a damned good job of faking panic and anger the next morning.

"Those bastards!" He exclaimed as he walked into the garage.

"What?" Starr demanded. "What happened?"

"They must have calibrated the beacon to force Plato to return to Sky One." Trek told her. "It was a good move but they’re going to pay for it."

"How do you mean?" Mobius asked. He had just heard of the incident and was now speaking to them through a nearby monitor.

Starr explained the situation.

"Don’t worry," Trek told them with sudden calm. "I’ll just do the same thing."

***

Trek tapped into the specific file carefully. If he typed one wrong number, he’d get the wrong car and then his plan would be shot to hell.

Trek grinned as the icon of a black Ford truck appeared on the screen.

***

"Hey, Beast." Trek smiled.

Beast scanned around, but the kid wasn’t anywhere near him.

"Don’t bother looking for me," the kid told him. "I’ve tapped into your AI chip. We can chat now, but no one else will know about it."

"What do you want?" Beast demanded silently.

"I’m here to talk about what you want," Trek inform him lightly. "You don’t seem to like me very much."

"You just realized this?" Beast scoffed. "I hate traitors."

By his voice, Trek was unfazed by the insult. "You seem to want a piece of me." Trek told him, "I just wanted to oblige."

"Anywhere, anytime." Beast snarled.

"I’m downloading the coordinates now," Trek said. "Come alone. Unless you can’t function without a human at the wheel."

"I’ll be there," the Truck assured him tightly.

"I’m looking forward to it." Trek replied as he began downloading his location.

***

"Duke, I’m leaving." Beast told his human counterpart.

"What?" He demanded.

"You heard me, I’ll be back." The truck sped off the plane before he could respond.

***

Beast sped into the alley. "Where are you?" He demanded. Trek must have activated a scrambler, Beast’s sensors weren’t working.

"Right behind you." Came Trek’s reply.

The big truck skidded around, unprepared for when someone jammed a CD into him.

The virus began to do it’s job.

***

Trek took this moment to defect . . . again.

Sliding the syringe he had ‘borrowed’ out of his jacket, Trek made sure the sedative was inside.

"How’d it go?" He asked Luke, the only other guy with him.

"Fine," the bodyguard replied. "The thing’s already started to work."

Trek schooled his expression. The virus was supposed to be a dud. He must have made a mistake.

"Oh well," Trek sighed.

Trek jamming the syringe into his neck took Luke off guard. He fought the drowsiness for as long as he could, but eventually succumbed to unconsciousness.

***

Trek walked towards the truck. "Hey, Beast." He smiled uneasily, "how are you feeling?"

"Super duper!" Beast replied, it was such a corny voice that Trek had to fight the urge to laugh.

"Okay, Beast, we’re going back to Sky One now." Trek told him.

***

"That’s too bad, Trek. You had such promise." Mobius’ voice sounded behind him. Trek knew Mobius wasn’t here. It was just a monitor.

The loud noise and sudden, stabbing pain in his shoulder caught Trek by surprise. The young man turned around and saw Starr with a smoking gun.

That explains the pain, Trek thought. Determined to keep calm.

Starr moved forward, but Trek sprinted as fast as his injured shoulder would let him.

The female henchwoman fired again, but this time her shot went wide and ricocheted off Beast’s bulletproof armor.

Trek opened the passenger door and dove in. Beast shut the door automatically.

Beast meanwhile, had chosen this moment to start singing ‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts."

"Beast," Trek managed to gasp out, "Beast. Let’s go back to Sky One now."

"Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head . . ."

"Beast!" Trek cried out in desperation. "Let’s go back to Sky One!"

"Okay," the Truck practically giggled.

***

This had never happened before.

Beast was abiding to the laws of the road, without one violent comment.

Meanwhile, Trek was bleeding to death.

"Can you please hurry?" Trek screamed for the millionth time.

"Ah, ah, must let other drivers go ahead." Beast reminded him gently.

Trek had tried several times to remove the CD, but his hands had gone inexplicably numb.

"Beast," Trek tried again. "I’m hurt, I’d like to go and see the doctor on Sky One so I can get better, okay?"

"Whatever you say, Trekkie." Despite his pain, Trek was still annoyed by the nickname.

Beast finally speeded up.

Trek finally lost consciousness as they pulled up Sky One’s ramp.

***

"Hi, Duke!" Beast exclaimed. "You’ll never guess who I found!"

Duke knew something was wrong right away. Beast was being way too friendly.

"Who?" He asked.

"Trek!" Beast replied happily. "But he’s hurt. See, look."

Beast opened the door to allow Duke access to Trek.

The kid was unconscious and pale. Duke saw the bloodstain on his shirt and ragged hole in the back.

"Get a doctor over here, now!" Duke screamed to no one in particular.

***

Several hours later, Team Knight Rider sat in the doctor’s office, awaiting Trek’s prognosis.

Trek had been shot in the shoulder with a 22-caliber pistol. It had been a clean shot, the bullet went through, he had lost a lot of blood though.

"What was he doing?" Jenny wondered to herself.

"And what did he do to Beast?" Duke added. Gill, Scotty and the other engineers couldn’t figure out what had been done.

They speculated for a few minutes until the doctor emerged.

"How is he?" Erica asked. She was surprised by how worried she actually was.

"He’ll be fine." The doctor stated. "He lost a lot of blood as you already know and there was some minor muscle damage; nothing a little physiotherapy won’t cure. Incidentally, we did several scans and found no spying devices on your friend."

"We need to talk to him," Kyle stated, "is he awake?"

The doctor thought this over. "He’ll be awake for a few minutes, but drowsy. You have until he falls asleep to talk to him. After that, you leave."

The Team nodded as the doctor lead them to Trek. He looked all right, albeit a touch pale and there was an IV dripping into his wrist.

"Hey, Guys." He smiled, "sorry. I meant to get back in one piece."

"What happened, Trek?" Jenny asked softly.

Trek relayed the short version of the story to them.

"He wasn’t supposed to get infected," Trek whispered. "He went ahead before I could knock him out. Just take the CD out and he’ll be fine."

"Where’s Plato?" Kyle asked, but Trek had already fallen asleep.

***

A few days later, Trek was back in the garage, sporting a sling. Trek gave Beast a wide berth.

"I knew you hadn’t betrayed us, Trek." Dante told him confidently. "But why did you do this?"

"For this," Trek replied. "Oh yeah!" Trek managed to tap his watch. "Plato."

The bike appeared out of nowhere. "Reporting for duty." He said.

Trek chuckled and pulled a floppy disk off of the bike. He explained their contents to Kyle, who assured him he’d get a commendation.

"You could have told us," Domino sounded upset, but only a little.

Trek shrugged, "somehow I have a feeling Mobius would have found out if you all knew."

"You could have told someone!" Beast told him. "You know, just for bleeding on my seat I should-"

"‘Some as big as your head.’" Trek said in a singsong voice.

Beast quieted down.

"What was that all about?" Duke asked him, never seeing his car so humble before.

"Just a bit of blackmail." Trek assured him. "No harm done."

***

Back at Mobius’ new base of operations, Starr and Luke were fuming. Mobius however, had anticipated this event and remained calm.

"I look forward to our next game, Mr. Sanders." Mobius said to no one in particular.

THE END?