Pieces
"Alright, Ten, where is it?"
The android tilted his head in confusion. He looked beyond his creator to the large wooden desk in the middle of the office where sat an opened cylindrical case, its contents lying beside it. A book, a case of medals, a deck of cards. Certainly nothing of import. What was his creator talking about?
"Where is what?"
Commander Bruce Maddox sighed in frustration. He grabbed the blue case from his desk and shook it under the android's long nose. "This is not yours! You had no right to look through my personal items."
"I never opened it," the tenth prototype explained truthfully. He thought that Nine had returned everything to its proper place but clearly he was in error. When he had opted to take Maddox's ire for the broken safe he had not been prepared for theft. But Nine's interest in that strange crystalline base had been absolute, and Ten had not watched him replace everything into the safe…
"Why is it always you, Ten?" Maddox said, leaning back against his desk, "The others don't give me half as many problems as you do, but this is beyond anything you've done before. Unnecessary damage of property, theft, and deceit. You haven't been shutting down at night, have you?"
The prototype shifted his gaze to the floor, like a child. "I do not like being turned off…"
A loud snort of derision came from the commander's chair. A Starfleet admiral who came to check up on the progress of the prototypes often, though Ten had yet to hear his name. For the longest time, he had thought the man's name was 'Sir.'
"Commander," the admiral began, "the behavior of this android is not inspiring much confidence in me, especially if it can so easily fool your staff…"
"Ten is the most recent addition to the prototypes and as such is the most advanced mentally," Maddox grit through his teeth, "And it was agreed upon that the androids need to be able to think if they were to work on starships, not to merely obey."
"But not to fool us because they've been ordered to do something they don't like!"
"Ten is unique in its behavior, sir, and it can be easily remedied. A simple mind wipe stunts the behavioral growth without damage to learned data…"
"No," Ten's soft voice penetrated the small room.
The admiral's eyes narrowed and Maddox turned to his creation in surprise.
The android continued. "I do not want to lose what I am. Please, no."
"And now refusal, Commander? What next, they'll go on strike?"
Maddox turned his back on his creation and faced the admiral, "I assure you, sir, Ten is unique in its faults. I'll oversee its renewed behavioral protocols myself and…"
"But, Father…!" Ten cried.
Maddox stiffened, almost feeling the admiral's blue eyes burning into him in anger.
"What, exactly, have you been telling it, Commander?"
"Nothing, sir," Maddox whispered, hands clenched into fists, "but when I do find out who's been corrupting it, I'll have them out on their ass."
"Good." The admiral rose from the chair and straightened his shirt. "I want a trial run of your androids soon, Maddox, and if I continue to see these kinds of issues, I'll have to put someone else in charge of the project, understand? And I want this android completely wiped, I don't care if it has to learn everything from the ground up again."
"Yes sir."
Nodding, the admiral moved to the door of the office. He paused beside Ten, looking down his nose at the android, "And for god's sake, Maddox, make the next batch taller, and at least a little attractive. There's no reason they have to look like that old one."
It wasn't until the door slid shut after the admiral that Maddox turned to face his creation.
"Why did you call me that?" His voice was quiet, almost soft, but Ten knew he was very upset. He hoped he hadn't offended his father in some way.
"You created my brothers and I…"
"Brothers?"
"…And you have guided our development to function in this world. Is that not what a parent does?"
"Who the hell told you these things?" Maddox hissed, advancing on the prototype who took a step back.
"No one. We observed the situation and reached this conclusion based on our data. Was that wrong?"
Maddox felt something heavy drop into his stomach. We? "All of you agreed to this conclusion? You all think of yourselves as brothers?" Please, no…all that work…
The tenth prototype observed him quietly a moment. His father was upset about something, but he could not comprehend what. The admiral was an obvious source of his ire, but he had left. Furthermore, his creator was asking questions to which the answer was obvious. He'd been taught that these were rhetorical questions and he need not answer them, so he instead spoke of his own sense of worry, if he could have such a thing.
"I do not wish to have my memories removed, Father…"
Maddox snapped. "Don't call me that! I am not your father, you do not have a father, or brothers! You are postulating kinship where none can exist! You're an android, you are not alive! Do you understand?"
"But…"
"No! Do you want to destroy everything I've worked for? Do you want to be permanently shut down? That's what will happen if you continue these behavioral patterns. This is for your own good, Ten, I don't want to see you, any of you, dismantled!" He sighed, calming himself, and continued, his voice quiet again, "Report to the lab, Ten, for a memory wipe, that's an order."
Ten opened his mouth as though to speak, but instead turned and left the office. When he was gone Maddox returned to his chair and sat, his face in his hands. How could things have gone so wrong?
They only got worse when he received a call from the lab that the tenth prototype never showed up. The security team located him where the androids were stored, crouched in his cubicle behind a barricade formed by the other nine models, intent on defending their "little brother" from perceived harm.
Maddox retrieved a small black box from a locked drawer of his desk, a device meant to render them all immobile in case of emergencies, and left the office.
This would set him back months.
AN: Another AU idea that shouldn't run too long. For those reading "The Way is Up," I have not abandoned it, just getting over a small block, so to speak.
Thank you for reading and, as always, ConCrit is welcomed.
