Pretty Maids All in a Row
December 2369
Planet of the Borg
"Hi there, how are 'ya?
It's been a long time
Seems like we've come a long way
My, but we learn so slow
And heroes, they come and they go
And leave us behind as if
We're supposed to know why"
The thing about being programmed by a human being, the thing Lore had tried and failed to overwrite, was the constant awareness of every human (and humanoid) holiday. Not just the big ones like the American Thanksgiving celebration that had been co-opted into the recently-passed Federation Day of Gratitude, the Klingon Day of Honor, and the Cardassian Patriot Day, but the little ones, as well. Arbor Day, Awareness of Coelacanths Day, Federation Coffee Day, El Aurian Refugee Hat Celebration Day, Risan Nude Surfing Championship Day, Betazoid Sweet Plum on a Fucking Stick Day - the list went on, and on, and ever on.
But the one - the one that hammered at his brain because it was happening now, even though it was not, of course, happening here – was Christmas.
And like many a villain before him (and he was the villain of his brother's happy little romance, wasn't he?) Lore hated Christmas.
It was all Rebecca's fault, really.
Rebecca with her sketch pads and colored pencils. "Pose for me, Lore," she'd coaxed. "I want to see the way the sunlight reflects off your skin."
And he'd done it, because he'd liked the way she'd looked at him.
Touched him.
Let him touch her. And taste her.
He'd kissed her under the mistletoe in the door of the community center. Okay, it had been in the middle of the night, and he'd hacked the code on the door to get them in, but she'd been impressed at his computer skills.
He'd twined her chestnut hair around his golden fingers and pulled her lips to his, and then he'd picked her up and carried her to the alcove behind the trio of decorated trees and laid her flat on the empty fur sacks that had held the presents for the colony's children.
He hadn't been invited to the party.
He'd said he didn't care.
He'd been lying.
But midnight, Christmas night, lying with Rebecca on the piles of soft fake fur, making her beg for his mouth on her mouth, on her breasts, between her legs, and then for his cock in all the same places… making her scream his name… and then… after… when she was sweaty and salty with her tears and his satisfaction, he'd found his truth.
He loved her.
He told her weeks later, in the middle of the afternoon, when she was on top, and her chestnut hair was spilling around them both like a fiery waterfall.
"Rebecca…" his voice was as tender as he knew how to make it. His hand, once again, twisted into her hair. "Say you're mine."
"Lore… who else's would I be?"
"Say you love me."
"I can't."
"But, I love you."
"You can't mean that." From flirtation to horror faster than he could calculate the weight of her left tit. "You're… you're a machine. I can't… This is just sex. It's not… It's not real."
"It is. I am."
"NO!"
He'd reached up to brush her hair aside but the contrast of his golden skin against hers, creamy and white, changed something in him. He lifted his other hand, rested his thumbs at the base of her throat, and pressed.
He was still inside her when her heart stopped beating.
He left her in her bed, covers pulled up like she was sleeping, but her hair caught on his hand and he paused. He would never forget her… could never forget her… but it couldn't hurt to keep a memento. A souvenir. For posterity.
A belated Christmas gift for Lore, who never got gifts from anybody, ever.
"Why do we give up our hearts to the past?
And why must we grow up so fast?"
That coil of chestnut hair had been alone for a long time, first in an envelope, then in a specimen jar, and eventually in a box. One of the Old Man's tool boxes, conscripted for use as the treasure box for a hurting son who had never been a boy.
He'd left the outside mottled with layers of paint and electrical tape: black, red, green, gold. It looked unassuming. No one would ever expect that it would matter, or that the contents would hold meaning.
He'd lined the bottom with cork, and pinned each coil in place, in order, with a name. Not that he would forget – not that he could – but somehow, the act of cataloguing his collection made Lore smile.
It was not, Lore suspected, the sort of smile any of these women would have found charming.
Rebecca was the first, all alone, given her own row.
Then Talia, Sasha, Maria, Nancy, Doris (Doris?), Aurelia, and Darci. (Had Lore been more aware of human pop culture, he would have suspected that this latter completed her name with a heart over the last letter.)
Sometimes, he used his brother's stolen uniform to catch their attention, these chestnut-haired women; sometimes he simply stepped in as a better alternative than the typical offerings in seedy back-end bars. To him, it was a game: how fast, how few words, how far would she go…
The ones who never realized he was an android, got to live. The ones who realized and didn't care, got a second go.
The ones who freaked out… they were the ones in the box.
It was a strange criteria.
But it worked for him.
It kept him from getting bored.
And god, did was it hard not to get fucking bored.
And then the Old Man activated the Beacon.
And then there was the Girl.
The Pigeon.
His Pigeon.
Zoe.
(=A=)
"And all you wishing well fools with your fortunes
Someone should send you a rose
With love from a friend,
It's nice to hear from you again
And the storybook comes to a close
Gone are the ribbons and bows
Things to remember, places to go
Pretty maids all in a row"
Zoe's hair had its own tray in the box. He'd coiled it, labeled it, locked the box, and left it behind when he'd fled the ship.
After he'd taken her.
Broken her.
Broken himself.
Zoe was the only woman who went into the box alive.
To Lore, she was still inside, and the gifts he'd been sending at random intervals – on those stupid, annoying, never-fucking-ending human holidays – were his way of keeping her there.
Keeping her his.
As long as she was in the box, he had a piece of his brother.
As long as she was in the box, he – Lore – was in control of the board.
"And the storybook comes to a close
Gone are the ribbons and bows"
The gold man in the black suit leans on the balcony rail and surveys his broken blackbirds as they move about. One leg is lunged backward, the other is slightly bent. His pose is carefully casual, designed to seem harmless.
Lore is never harmless.
The blackbirds – the once and future Borg – have more purpose than they did when he found them a year and a half before. He's truly become their leader, and those who have survived have accepted his mission.
Poor muddled soulless blackbirds.
Flipping up the nail of his left thumb, Lore presses a series of micro-switches, which send wireless signals to two transmitters on this secret world. Those, in turn, send signals to other relays and so on, and so forth, until finally, two end-points are reached.
Smiling at his flock, Lore beckons to his second. "Crosus," he says aloud, mainly because he loves the sound of his own voice. "It's time."
"By your command, Lore."
Merry fucking Christmas, the gold man thinks. Merry fucking Christmas to me.
(=A=)
Christmas Day, 2369, 04:23 hours, ship's time
U.S.S. Enterprise
In an infrequently-used storage bay adjacent to Commander Data's cybernetics laboratory, a transceiver inside a metal toolbox snaps into active mode, and glows green.
At the same moment, in the quarters he shares with his fiancée on deck two of the silvery starship, Starfleet's only android officer sits straight up in bed, his dream program aborted by an unknown cause.
"Data?" his partner rolls over and touches him. "Is everything alright?"
The other is silent, searching within himself for long seconds. "No, Zoe. Something is very wrong. I believe I have just received a… message… from Lore."
"He's here?"
"No, he is not… I cannot discern where the signal originated. However, I promise, I will not allow him to harm you again."
"Data…"
"I swear it, Zoe, on my life."
"Things to remember, places to go
Pretty maids all in a row"
Notes: Runs concurrently with chapter 19 ("Noel – Part II") of Crush III: Sostenuto. References and expands on "Broken Things" and "Sixpence." Quoted song lyrics are from "Pretty Maids All in a Row," by the Eagles, which has nothing to do with serial murder; I just felt like twisting something innocent.