Cybra

Written for the motorkink community.

Title: Late Night in the Garage
Prompt: What if Chuck was an AI? Like, what if he was a project being developed by Kane Co. to create a user friendly AI to help run Deluxe? But the Burners got word of the project and broke in to hack the R&D departments database and suchlike and ended up installing him into Mutt????? I just really want to see Chuck and Mike interacting with Chuck as an AI, somehow. It doesn't have to be shippy, but I'd prefer it.
Notes: I may play more with this idea later...Hmm...Inspired by all my years of watching Knight Rider.


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It was lonely in the Burners' garage when the drivers were asleep. Of course, as a computer, Chuck didn't need it. So after running and re-running diagnostics of Mutt's systems, the AI was left with very little to do which meant that nanoseconds dragged on like days.

To amuse himself, he usually would reach for the security feeds and keep an eye out for trouble. He aborted the alarm command as one of the mutant rats tripped a sensor. The giant rodents—creepy as they were—weren't doing anything to harm him or the other equipment, so Chuck decided to let the Burners sleep. However, should the pests think to start gnawing on wires, he'd have no qualms about setting off enough alarms to wake the dead. (He'd been scolded once by Mike for letting them sleep while he'd let Mutt's underside get chewed on, the rats getting dangerously close to the hard drive where his core programming was installed. He'd forced himself to ignore his self-preservation programming because he hadn't wanted to wake up these people he'd come to care for.)

He switched from camera to camera, thoroughly bored with everything. There really wasn’t much going on tonight. Even the television stations picked up from Deluxe didn’t have anything on but a few old movies that seemed to be standard fare for late-night TV.

Just as Chuck resigned himself to another long, boring night, there was a quiet footstep from inside the garage that was just barely picked up by Mutt’s microphones. The AI nervously rerouted all his attention to camera and audio feeds, trying to find the source.

There. Another footstep. And another. And more still. All cautiously taken. Plus the source of the footsteps was being very careful to avoid security cameras.

Had Chuck possessed the ability to sweat, Mutt would’ve looked like it had just gotten rained on. Someone was in the garage, had managed to get by him. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. What if it was one of Kane’s men? He’d never forgive himself if he’d “fallen asleep” on the job, and his beloved Burners were caught or, worse, killed in their sleep…

The intruder stepped into view of one of his cameras, revealing himself at last.

Chuck relaxed, Mutt’s engine ceasing to growl with anticipation as he recognized his late-night visitor. “Mikey, if I had a heart, you would’ve just given it an attack.”

“Aw, c’mon, Chuckles. You have a heart. It’s just made with wires and circuit boards.” The teenager slipped inside as Chuck opened the driver’s side door without being asked. “But I’m sorry for almost giving you a short.”

“You should be,” Chuck huffed as Mike closed the door and buckled up. “And what’re you doing up so late, anyway?”

“Just wanted to take a late-night drive is all.”

Chuck knew that meant that Mike had a lot on his mind and was trying to clear it. He could speak “Chilton-ese” fluently now. He’d studied Mike for hours even before he’d revealed he could talk, getting to know the young man inside and out. He was fairly confident that nobody else in Motorcity knew the driver known as Mike Chilton as well as him.

The pressure sensors that had been installed into the driver’s seat courtesy of Jacob allowed him to pick up the tension in Mike’s back muscles. They were most likely due to today’s…well, technically yesterday’s…mission against Kane. Things had not gone well. They’d pulled through, but Dutch’s left arm was busted as a result.

“Sorry I couldn’t get the security sensors down fast enough,” Chuck apologized for the seventy-ninth time in six hours. At the same time, he started heating up the driver’s seat just a little which helped those tense muscles start to relax.

“Hey, not your fault. You had, like, a bazillion other calculations you had to run, too. I’m just glad you managed to pull up the specs so we had a better chance against those things.”

Mike gave him a grin as he put Mutt in gear and quickly accelerated, pushing the speedometer up past two hundred miles per hour. On these nights, Chuck didn’t complain about the teen’s madcap driving style. If burning rubber helped him sleep, then Chuck would sacrifice his tires without protest. He would just let the security system handle any potential threats to the Burners’ garage while he mentally white-knuckled his circuits and keep his damage assessments to himself.

“By the way, nice driving today.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t really leave me much choice, y’know?” Chuck said sulkily. “I hate it when you jump out and do all that crazy stuff.”

Not that Mike didn’t do crazy stuff while inside Mutt, of course. However, Chuck felt a little more in control there where he was surrounded by Chuck on all sides, everything about Mutt having become an extension of the AI. In a way, it felt as though the computer could keep the human safe as long as Mike stayed in the driver’s seat.

All of his Burners were precious to him. As Kane’s daughter (though he kept her secret), Julie probably should’ve been his top priority to keep safe, yet it was Kane’s sworn enemy that Chuck would’ve willingly gone permanently offline to protect.

“I know, I know. You shouted at me plenty earlier, remember?” the teen asked with a fond laugh.

Some days Chuck wondered if Mike knew that not even half of his fussing stemmed from his safety protocols. He’d become so much more than experimental AI KC U-83 over these past few months, and Mike was the one primarily to blame. His personality had expanded exponentially, more emotions he didn’t even know were possible seeming to come online every day.

Some days he wondered if he should be upset about that.

The steering slipped, and Chuck subtly took more and more control. As he’d expected, Mike was falling asleep behind the wheel. He wondered what Mike had done before he’d been installed into Mutt then swiftly decided he didn’t want to know out of fear of the answer.

Mike yawned, not seeming to notice or care that Chuck was doing most of the driving now. It touched the AI that the teen had such faith in him. The driver then lightly smacked the steering wheel as Chuck turned on the radio to the oldies station, the soft crooning of some long-dead performer filling the car. “Don’t you start that.”

“Someone has to worry about you,” the computer retorted, flicking the radio back on after Mike turned it off. “You wear yourself out worrying about everyone else. You’re like an overprotective den mother or something, I swear.”

Mike snorted, shutting off the radio again only for the AI to turn it back on. “What does that make you?”

“The family car.” He paused. “Well, one of them at any rate.”

“Oh, c’mon, Chuck. You’re more than just a machine. You’re my best friend.”

Chuck’s processors hummed as pleasure coursed through his circuits. To be so highly valued by this teen despite their obvious differences was one of the best things in the AI’s life.

The drive continued in silence save for the roar of Mutt’s engine and the soft crooning from the radio. The internal cameras showed Mike starting to nod off, periodically shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, until he completely relaxed and started to snore.

Chuck had full command over the car by now, slowing the pace down to one he preferred rather than the breakneck speeds Mike liked so much. He turned them around and headed back to the garage, pulling into their usual parking space.

He quieted the engine and silenced the radio.

“G’night, Mikey,” he whispered softly over the speakers.

He then re-linked himself to the security feeds, more than happy to keep watch for the rest of the long night.