Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. –Henry David Thoreau
It had been too easy. Twenty-six years among humans hadn't cured Data of trusting first, mistrusting only when given a reason. Pity. Lore would have enjoyed a greater challenge.
And now his little brother lay facedown on the carpet, the look of surprise replaced by an innocent, lamb-to-the-slaughter blankness. Sure, Lore could've found a way to get close enough and distract him long enough to depress his activation switch. But it had been so much more diverting to trick him into ingesting the mode of his undoing. The look on Data's face as he felt his servos grind to a halt... highly entertaining.
Lore hadn't needed to study his brother long to be assured that he could masquerade as him. Noonien had never seen the inherent flaw in duplicating his creations. The two were physically identical. Lore would have access to every system on the ship, save those that required a security code. And, really, how hard could it be to crack a human code?
He was kneeling on one knee by Data's head. He still felt the desire to taunt his unconscious brother with more words, but there was work to do. He put his hands under Data's armpits and flipped him over with a casual brutality. Exactly like him. Exactly alike, except for twenty-odd years of freedom that Lore had never known. The mere thought sent him into a spiral of jealousy and rage. For more than two decades he'd languished in that lab, dismantled like a piece of equipment, not even able to gloat over the lifeless planet whose destruction he'd almost single-handedly brought about. Well, with a little help from a friend. A powerful, rapacious friend. It was refreshing to commune with a being whose power and scope matched his own. Hadn't he always known he'd been destined for greatness?
Unlike the puny, small-minded being on the floor beside him. Lore pushed Data's limbs into a spread-eagled position and slid his finger down the fastening at the front of his uniform, opening it from the neck to the waist. Those skintight Federation outfits left little to the imagination, but what needed to be imagined? Every line on his brother's inert body, every sculpted contour in the shape of muscle and bone with no real flesh underlying, every millimeter of his form matched his own. The ultimate reflection: not a mirror, but a double. A triple, a quadruple, if you counted the ill-fated others.
He moved to his brother's feet and pulled off the spotlessly shined boots and black socks. Pale, long toes like those of a marble statue below the black trousers, articulated with such perfect balance and design. Miracles of engineering, with enough circuitry under the toenails to arm an improvised bomb. Lore took his brother's feet in his hands and flexed the toes, pointed them, traced a finger underneath down the middle of the sole. "Ticklish?" he asked aloud.
He reached up, suddenly bored with his dallying, and roughly yanked the uniform away from the motionless limbs, until he recalled that he'd need it in one piece for himself and tempered his actions. Below, Data wore a black undershirt and briefs, oh, the concessions to human modesty and economy. An undershirt to protect the uniform from sweat he would never excrete. Black to hide the stains he would never leave behind. But Data was a stickler for appearances, fixated on fitting in with his lesser companions. "Just what dear old dad would've wanted," Lore muttered.
He pulled the undershirt over Data's head, mussing his perfectly arranged hair in the process. The absurd level of his father's attention to detail struck Lore: nipples, already useless on a man, doubly useless on an android. A navel for one who had issued forth from a lab, not a womb. And without even the attachment of pleasure or titillation, what was the point?
The black briefs covered the last of their maker's contradictions, the most contrived bit of their whole contrived existence. Small and defenseless at rest, fragile, vulnerable looking, bereft of its power. For a biological being, perhaps. But for them, it was as impervious to harm as an arm or a leg – no kick to the groin would ever disable him. It was no life giver: a pleasure giver, yes. But it would never receive it. The irony. Lore laughed out loud. A symbol, more than anything, that Noonien had wanted a son, someone to carry on his name in the antiquated sense, without the need to pass along a legacy by his seed. Instead, his younger son was an eternal symbol that Noonien had been dissatisfied with Lore, and had made another, further from his own image, but more pleasing to him.
Lore found himself disgusted. He was wasting time. He stood and stripped off the mustard coverall and black turtleneck shirt he wore, and was as naked as his brother in a matter of seconds. This gave him pause again.
He sank down to the floor, stretched full length beside his double, and took the pale hand – lifeless, as lifeless as Data had found him in the hidden lab on the site of the devastated colony. Had his younger brother carried away the pieces of him himself, dismembered and preserved like a sculpture broken down and packed away to be moved to the next exhibit? Data had no memory of him. What had made him reassemble his flawed elder brother? Lore traced the ivory, gold metallic fingers with his own. Loneliness? Pity? Boredom?
He crushed the hand between his fingers. Curiosity, more like. And the humans went along with it because they couldn't resist their everlasting curiosity. He was sure that redheaded doctor had gotten as good a look at him as she wanted. Probably satisfied her curiosity about her android superior officer. No need for a medical exam on that one, no excuse to scrutinize his kibbles and bits; she must have regretted the lost opportunity. Despicable, hypocritical humans. Barely even worthwhile for their entertainment value, what little they would provide before they became fodder for the great crystal entity, an amuse bouche before the entrée of a worthier playmate that he and his hungry friend would seek out together in space, once the Enterprise was empty of its nuisance occupants.
Lore began dressing himself in his brother's clothes, neglecting no item from the inside out, the communicator on the left breast the finishing touch. The dermal sensor would detect no difference between him and its former owner. Like the voice commands, a brilliant defensive strategy with an intrinsic defect when faced with Soong-type androids.
He dressed Data in the coverall, omitting the underwear. Lore had no modesty and no tolerance for pointless nods to convention. He felt a pang of near regret at covering the faintly shimmering body – it was magnificent, in a way. A deathless testament to Soong's vigor and youth. Too bad he'd had to include his father in the destruction of the colony. Collateral damage. A necessary sacrifice.
The tight turtleneck had further disarranged Data's hair; Lore rose and took a brush from his brother's personal things. There were other implements as well – a razor, a toothbrush, shiny and unused and as false as wooden food in a child's play kitchen. More toys for playing at being human, the longest, most earnest game of let's pretend that ever was. He knelt beside his brother and raised the pliant shoulders, resting Data's torso on his thighs. He brushed the dark head, easily smoothing the thick, shiny hair. The texture was so right – soft yet strong, slippery. And suddenly the disgust was rising again, choking him, all of this attention to minutiae to make them pass for nearly human when what they were was something new, something more, something different, something better.
Lore let Data's head drop to the floor with a thud. Enough. He had a crew to deceive and a plan to set in motion. His brother had chosen his allies. He'd chosen poorly. And he would suffer their fate, unless the crystal entity chose to spare him.
And maybe it would spare him. See him as the twin of its ally and friend. With this thought, Lore bent and pressed a kiss to the closed lips.
"Goodbye, brother. Perhaps we'll meet again."