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Something blew up close to him. There was a sound like a small avalanche of rocks somewhere close by, followed by something heavy hitting the ground. With a soft groan he opened his eyes and looked into a spider web of cracks running through the windshield he was facing. He inhaled deeply, his head hurting, like every other inch of his body. Through the cracked windshield he saw smoke drift by, clearing his view.
"Oh .... my ....God!" he whispered and tried to sit up a bit straighter in his seat. Wherever he looked there was nothing but destruction around him. Burning car wrecks littered what had once been the street and buildings lay half or completely collapsed on the ground. Now and then sparks flashed out of a severed cables.
"Kitt?" he asked, his eyes still pinned to the world outside, which seemed to be right out of a catastrophe movie.
Out of the loudspeakers came a crackling sound. "Mi ....chael?" the addressed coughed.
"Yes, pal, it's me. How are you?"
A screen lit up and a damage report appeared. Michael read over it and was relieved and shocked in one. He wasn't an expert on his friend's systems, but he had learned enough throughout eight years of looking over Bonnie's or April's shoulders to get a rough idea what the report meant. It wasn't as bad as he had thought, but also not very good. But at least Kitt was functional.
"What happened?" he wanted to know, not sure whether what he remembered was really what had happened.
"It appears that the alien space craft released a high intensity energy beam. The epi center was about 20 kilometers away from out current position and the tide of fire tore through the city center and then hit us with 48,75 % less of what hit the center of Washington. My molecular enhanced skin saved you from sharing the same fate as other humans."
The fate of other humans, Michael thought in horror. Death. Kitt had saved him, but millions had died.
"How long were we ... unconscious?"
"About seven hours. My internal chronometer has failed, so I'm only guessing," Kitt apologized.
Seven hours. Suddenly a thought struck him. "Devon! April!"
Before Kitt could say something Michael was out of the car, ignoring the pain shooting through his body. He didn't know how badly he was injured and he knew that he was really lucky that the shock wave that had hurtled Kitt through the air had not killed him. He looked around and his eyes fell on a partially overturned semi truck. It was burning slightly and part of the trailer had been torn off.
"No!" Knight whispered and ran toward the truck as fast as possible.
The bodies were burned so badly that they were nearly impossible to recognize. If they had been any closer to the center of the wave of destruction there wouldn't have been anything of the people left. They would have been mere ash.
Michael Knight screamed in emotional pain and sank to his knees, sobbing softly. Devon, R.C., April.... all dead. He still remembered the smile April had given him when he had proposed another date; and the frown on Devon's face when Michael had once again made an advance on his daughter; and R.C.'s grin as he witnessed the usual banter between the friends. All that had been destroyed in seconds.
"Can you drive?" he asked in a near whisper.
The Knight Industries Two Thousand had to try twice to get his specially constructed engine to work. "Where to?" he asked softly, almost carefully.
Michael only stared up into the sky where the giant disk of the alien ship was slowly moving away from Washington. The sky was revealed as a soft blue and gray blanket, which was already touched by the first rays of the morning sun.

Today was the third of July.