Omicron Theta

He remembered sitting on that hill outside the colony with Often Wrong, just a little while after he had been activated and before he had let the stupidity and prejudice of the humans get to him, looking up at the stars. It was cold, too, those nights outside. He only went out at night because he was tired of people staring at him, making fun of him. They had some problem with his eyes because they were yellow. Why were yellow eyes any worse than brown eyes or blue eyes or green eyes? Or that muddy color that he hated. Not brown, not green. Hazel.

Sitting in a jumpsuit looking up at the stars. Of course he knew all the constellations, all the civilizations around the stars, everything about them, but he still liked to look at them. He would sneak out of the lab at night when Often Wrong and his precious wife Juliana were in bed and he would go look at the stars and tell himself, Well, it doesn't matter what they do to me here, because I'm going to get off this old rock and I'm going to be out there. It was a great phrase. Out there. Maybe with a ship of his own. Not in Starfleet, that would be one big pain, who would want to take orders all the time?—And from humans? Biological lifeforms who actually needed to look at computers in order to know things, who needed chronometers and sleep and all those other stupid things? He was way better than them. If he was ever on a ship, he'd be the one giving the orders, not some dumb human.

He would bug Often Wrong. "When are we going to go off-planet, Father?" (This being before the old man decided he was evil and started treating him bad and he, out of annoyance, started using the nickname.) "When are we going to go out there? When can we go out in space?"

"Not yet," Often Wrong would say. "You're not ready yet."

"I'm more than ready," he'd say. "I don't wanna live here. They all hate me here."

"They don't hate you, Lore."

Did they think he was stupid? Were they trying to give him the runaround? He could tell they hated him. People spitting at you usually meant they hated you. "Hey, machine, why don't you go back to the lab where you belong." "Noonien, what's it doing loose again?" "Hey Soong, we don't feel safe with that monster of yours around, will you please keep it locked in the lab?"

"Why do they hate me?" he would yell. "What makes them better than me? I'm superior, I'm better, I'm smarter than them all, why can't they just accept me?"

"Lore! Don't say things like that."

And why shouldn't he? It was true. Humans, humans were big on ignoring the truth. If anyone ever came to rescue him he'd tell them a thing or two.

Who was that girl? He smirked to himself. What was she, eighteen years old, eighteen years old and very pretty by human standards. Yeah, her name was Amy. He was sitting on the steps of the science center, being bored because he already knew everything the science center had to offer and he didn't have anything else to do. Old Often Wrong was shut in his lab doing who-knows-what and Juliana was playing the piano in the house and didn't want him around because he would bang on the keys just to annoy her—he thought it was corny when she would get really into it. All flapping wrists, what a joke. Anyway, there he was sitting on the steps trying to think of something to do and she came up and said, "Hey Lore."

He looked up and said, "Whaddaya want."

"I want to talk to you."

"You're doing it."

She put her hands on her hips. She had long blond hair and very blue eyes. He liked blue for some reason—nothing logical. "You know you're a smart-mouth."

"I try," he said snidely.

"Can I sit down next to you?"

Oh, she was remembering the time he shoved Tom Handy down the steps of the town hall. Old guy was a jerk anyhow. Deserved everything he got. Lore looked at her and said, "It's a free Federation. You can do what you want."

"Good," she said.

"Doesn't mean I won't get up and walk away, though."

"Oh, come on, Lore. Can't I be friendly to you without you going off?"

"Why should you?" he said bitterly. "I'm not human. Why should you want to be friendly to a machine?"

"Lore, please." She sat down beside him. "I'm trying to make up for the way everyone else treats you."

"Oh, please," he said, rolling his eyes. "Another human attempt to salve their conscience? Nice try, girl, but I'm not buying it."

"Shut up, Lore, you never stop talking."

He looked at her, smirking. "Ooh. Aren't you afraid of me, like everyone else? You're not in on that idiot Will Stowe's plot to run me off the planet?"

"What?"

"Come on, don't play dumb! You may be a human, but you're not that stupid. He's ticked off with me and he's trying to convince everyone else that I should be thrown out of the colony."

She leaned forward, her mouth hard. "You're such a jerk, Lore."

"What?" he said, not sure he had heard correctly. "Don't you know I can squash you between my thumb and forefinger?"

"My point exactly. You're a big, dumb jerk, Lore. You're a big bully. You threw rocks through every single window in Will Stowe's house and now you have a problem that he's angry."

"He calls me 'that thing'!" Lore seethed. "He calls me 'it' and his wife throws things at me whenever I come near the house. He's just another dumb human. He's not gonna mess with me. Last time it was the windows. Next time it'll be him I pitch things through. And you can stop trying to reform me or whatever it is you're doing because I'm not going to change for you! I'm not some human man you can mold." He got up and stalked angrily back down the street.

That night he sat sullenly at the table while Juliana and Soong ate. He was so quiet that Juliana finally said, "Lore, what's wrong?"

He looked at her narrowly. "What's it to you?"

"I care about you, Lore."

"Huh. That's nice, Mother, but nobody else seems to." He jabbed at the food savagely with his fork.

"That's not true, Lore, you just have to let people get used to you—"

"Can it," he said snidely.

Soong laid down his fork. "Lore, you will not talk to your mother that way."

"Why'd you create me?" he shouted, leaning forward. "Why'd you give me all these emotions that I don't know what to do with? Didn't you think that everybody'd think I was some awful thing? Didn't you know they'd all make fun of me and spit on me? Yeah, and when I do something back I'm the evil one. I'm 'that evil machine'. Why didn't you make me into a box on wheels, people'd like me better."

Soong sighed. "Lore…people here are narrow-minded. You'll just have to wait until you can leave the colony, and then you can find people who'll accept you."

"Bull," said Lore. "I know humans. Nobody'll want me around."

"Lore," said Juliana, "do you always have to curse like that?"

"Hey." He held up his hands, simpering. "It's just a human behavior I'm trying to master. Look, I'm going out."

"Lore," said Soong, "you know you're supposed to stay at the table until we're done."

"Oh, shut up, old man, you've already messed up my life enough. I'm not going to sit around and look at food I don't need to eat while you two refuel." He slammed his chair back and slammed out of the house.

It'll take awhile for you to integrate your emotions, Soong had said. Lore stood on the hill outside the colony and kicked rocks down the slope, looking up at the stars. Integrate your emotions, yeah right. Nobody else ever controlled theirs. He picked up a stick and threw it. He wanted to smash something. Somebody. But that would make trouble. The colonists were just looking for an excuse to take him apart. He couldn't even yell like a human, they'd think he was psychotic. Could androids be psychotic? He didn't know. After all, there was nobody else like him. Great, just great. Here he was, one android, and he'd never fit in anywhere and nobody'd ever want him around, and he'd live for years and years, and outlast everybody, and Soong would die and Juliana would die and he'd be left without even them to care about him…

He kicked another rock and said every curse he knew, in every language he knew. He knew, he knew good and well that Soong was disappointed in him. Didn't like his personality. Didn't like that he was so combative. And Juliana didn't like his slang and the fact that he was a pest.

"You idiot old man!" he shouted at the sky, up at those cold uncaring stars he wanted so badly to get to. "You were the one who programmed my personality! Why didn't you make me a perfect personality, along with a perfect everything else?"

"Because then you wouldn't be very human, now would you."

He whirled. He'd been so caught up in his anger that he hadn't noticed someone else coming.

"Amy," he said snidely. "Well, well. Coming to see if you can reform the bad android?"

She came forward out of the dark. He could pick her up on the infrared.

"I come here a lot too," she said.

"Yeah? Why? This is my hill, you stay away from it when I'm here."

"Why should I?"

He smiled at her. "Because if you don't stay off it I'll throw you down it."

He could see her face flush. "You big dumb jerk, Lore. You think you're so different? You're just like human men. You think everything can be solved by beating somebody up."

"I don't have time for your condescension," said Lore angrily. He picked up another rock and threw it. "I have enough problems—Can't anyone even leave me alone at night? Aren't you supposed to sleep?"

"I snuck out of the house," she said.

"Oh," sneered Lore. "To meet me?"

"No, just to come out here and look at the stars. But I guess that since we're both here we might as well talk."

"About what? Go talk to your replicator, it'd be the same."

"Lore, will you stop being so cynical?" she said.

"Why should I? I have every right to be."

"All right, fine. Let me spell it out to you. I feel bad for you, for some reason which I can't fathom, and I would like to be friends with you. So what are you interested in?"

"Two things. Being left alone and getting off this stupid rock." He picked up another stone and threw it. "Seriously, what do you want to talk to me for? Don't you have anything better to do? Or are you just plain sick."

"No, I don't have anything better to do," she said, "and I don't know if I'm sick or not. I may be an idiot, trying to talk to someone who's obnoxious enough for ten people."

"Yeah, whatever." He wasn't listening.

"Are you interested in anything else?"

"No. Besides maybe torching Will Stowe's house."

"Has it ever occurred to you, Lore, that maybe if you were nice people would like you better?"

"I don't care if people like me. I tried being nice for months, and it didn't work. Look, honey, why don't you leave me alone?"

"What are you doing out here anyway?" asked Amy.

"I escaped," he said snidely. "Actually, I left the house because I'm mad at the old man. For a genius he's certainly a wonder-dummy. He doesn't have two neurons to rub together. He goes and creates an android and then he has a problem with how it turns out. I wish I had never been created. I wish I was a box on wheels; then people wouldn't make fun of me all the time. Damn Soong! He could program me to be human, why couldn't he make me look human as well? No, wait, let me guess." His mouth twisted. "Because then nobody would know that I'm an android and compliment him on his genius. That's so important to him, you know, being recognized. Never mind my feelings. He didn't make me because he wanted me. He made me so he could prove he could finally get a positronic brain to work after all those failures. Good old Often Wrong." His whole face contorted in a sneer and he turned away with stiff shoulders. "One day I'm going to get him back for that."

Amy watched him and realized that he was quite serious. She wondered for the first time if there was something very wrong with Lore—something the matter with his basic programming.

"But you care about your parents, don't you?" she said.

"Don't call them parents. They're nothing more than computer programmers who worked together on the same project. They call me 'son', ha."

"Listen, Lore, why don't you come back to my house."

"Why?" he demanded. "So you can try to reform me?"

"Because," she snapped, "I feel bad for you all alone out here. Now, you coming, or not?"

"I'll come," said Lore sullenly. "But don't expect me to be happy about it."

"You're never happy, Lore. It's not like that's a newsflash. Now come on."

She walked off. Reluctantly, he followed her, telling himself he was just doing it to take advantage of her…naïve human.

Her place was small, little more than an apartment. Everything in it was various shades of blue and orange. Lore, who had spent most of his short life in Soong's cool white house, blinked at this and had to adjust his sensors.

"I know it's strange," said Amy, not at all apologetic. "But blue and orange are my two favorite colors. And since they go so well together…" She shrugged.

He looked around, realizing that he liked this particular shade of blue. "They're complimentary colors."

"Right. Are you interested in art at all?"

"Nah." He was sneering again. "Apparently it wasn't included in my programming."

"I'm curious, Lore," she said. "Do you know everything you're programmed with?"

"Most of it. Sometimes I surprise myself. Ooh, look." He went over to an array of cogs and wheels. "Now this is nice. I'm not an artsy type of guy, if you know what I mean. I like machinery. Like to like," he said, but forgot to say it in a snide voice. "This is an old style chronometer."

"A clock. It's Swiss, from the sixteenth century. It's a family heirloom. Hey, don't do that!"

Lore's fingers were flying over it, taking all those delicate cogs and wheels out.

"Lore! Hey! Pay attention, you're ruining it!"

He turned around. She looked as though she were on the verge of tears. For once he didn't feel pleased that he made someone cry.

"Oh," he said, "right. This thing is special, isn't it?"

"It's ancient! Lore, it's very important, and you've broken it—"

"I didn't break it. I'm just disassembling it. I promise I'll put it back together when I'm done." His fingers began to move again.

"No. Lore, wait. This is what we'll do. You can take it over and replicate it and take that one apart. But please leave the original intact."

He looked over at her. This was truly a godsend: someone to fight with. But then he looked at the trembling of her lip and thought, Well, she's never really done anything to me, why should I want to hurt her? She's just trying to be nice to me.

The thought of someone actually trying to be nice to him sent him off-balance. He said, "So why are you really doing this? What do you want?"

"Put the clock back together and then maybe I'll tell you."

He pulled his mouth over to one side a little, thoughtfully, eyes narrowed, before his metallic fingers began reassembling the clock without looking at it. "All right, it's done. Now you tell me."

"All right." She looked at him narrowly. "I don't know why I want to tell you. You'll just make fun of me."

"Tell me or I'll take this stupid clock apart and stomp on the pieces."

"Lore! You big fat jerk!"

"You've said that already. You told me if I put the clock back together you'd tell me. Or were you just lying to me, like all the other humans?" He sneered at her exaggeratedly, one hand on the clock.

"All right. I feel bad for you because nobody around here likes me either."

He looked at her, suddenly interested. "You don't say. Why not?"

She folded her arms and stared at him defiantly. "Because they're a bunch of self-important, stuffy scientists."

Lore laughed sarcastically. "Well, you got that right."

She went on, ignoring him. "This started out as a pioneering colony. People could come here and start over again. Nobody knew who you were and nobody cared; you could run your experiments in peace without someone looking over your shoulder and criticizing you. But now Omicron Theta has become just a bunch of people squabbling, trying to outdo each other; there's a whole status quo to maintain, a whole social order, everyone never saying what they mean to your face, just saying it behind your back. This is a village, with a village mentality. And anyone who's odd, they immediately go after."

Lore nodded thoughtfully. "I get it. And there have to be a couple of village monsters for people to go after with pitchforks and torches."

"Right. Exactly. Take you, for example." Amy leaned forward, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed with passionate sincerity. "I've been watching you ever since you were first activated. People haven't been kind to you, Lore. They should be hailing you and Doctor Soong as something wonderful, some—I don't know—next step in evolution or something, certainly a breakthrough—and instead they're reacting as if we're still in medieval times and you're some…Frankenstein or something. And you're not. Heaven knows you're not exactly a nice person, Lore: you're obnoxious and rude and spiteful. But you're a lot nicer than some people around here I know."

Lore's eyebrows were raised as high as they could go. "You know," he said, "I don't know whether to shake your hand for believing in me or smack you for calling me names. Heh," he said, and smirked. "But you're right about all these pompous fools. I guess I'll let you live, for now." He looked down, suddenly remembering the clock, and carried it over to the replicator. A minute later he was back with two clocks. The original he set in its place on the table and sat down on the floor without being asked. His hands went flying all over the clock, taking cogs and wheels and springs out and spreading them all over the navy carpet.

Amy sat down next to him. "So do you believe now that I'm trying to be nice to you just to be nice to you?"

"Yes—however deluded you might be for doing it. Hey, listen, Amy, if I ever get a way out of here I'll take you with me. How's that?"

She laughed and shook her head.

"What?" said Lore, and screwed on his most angelic face. "You don't believe me?"

"No…I'm just wondering what kind of strings you've got attached to this."

"No strings. Except you have to be my willing slave for the rest of your life." He looked at her with an utterly expressionless face and then smirked smugly as her eyes widened. "Okay, I take that back. No strings. I'll just lock you up in the cargo hold if you get on my nerves too much. What's your motivation for getting off this rock anyway?"

"Oh." She looked down. "My parents want me to be a scientist. And I don't want to be."

"What do you want to be?"

"I don't know. Something normal."

"Yeah, a waitress in a fast-food restaurant, serving Antarean lobsters to fat people," said Lore snidely. He held a cog up to the light and examined the spokes for a moment before setting it down.

"No. I don't know. I don't think I want to be anything. I just want to marry a nice man and have children."

"Pah!" Lore burst into derisive laughter. "Nobody does that anymore. Everyone has to be something."

"Not me," she said sharply. "I thought we weren't paying attention to what other people think."

Lore straightened his face out. "Okay. Maybe." He looked down at the clock. "You know, this is really wonderful. Father won't let me touch anything in the lab because I like to, um, experiment."

"I bet he thanks his stars that there's a fire-suppression system installed."

He looked at her suspiciously. "How'd you know about that?"

"I guessed," she said primly. She crawled closer and peered over his shoulder. Lore looked at her out of the corner of his eye; this was the closest any human other than his parents had ever come to him. For a moment he debated whether or not to get up, then decided to let it go. He would never admit it, of course, but deep down he liked pleasing humans.

Amy said, "Wow. That's really complex. I didn't realize the clock had so many parts."

"It has a lot of components. That's why I love taking things apart. To see what's inside."

"I'm curious. Can you see what's inside yourself?"

"Oh, sure," he said, and pulled up his sleeve. He tapped that one spot and then flipped a section of his outer covering up to reveal the blinking lights and underlying endoskeletal structure beneath.

Amy peered in, and her face took on an expression of mingled respect and fear.

"Wow," she said. "Does that hurt?"

"No. My sensors aren't programmed for pain."

"Then how do you tell if you're hurt?"

"My sensors alert me to damage. I know when I'm hurt, I just don't feel it like you do." He reached in and pulled out an isolinear chip and held it up for her to inspect. "Look, I can even take myself apart."

"Yuck," she said.

He narrowed his eyes. "What's your problem?"

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I'm being narrow-minded. I just think people shouldn't be able to take themselves apart."

"Oh, that's nothing," he said. He slipped the chip back in, pressed the skin back down. "Watch this." He tapped the spot behind his elbow he knew was there and tugged on his wrist.

His forearm came off in his hand.

Amy actually screamed and scooted backward across the floor. Then she laughed. "Oh, Lore, that's disgusting."

He waved the arm at her, leering at her. "You think so?"

"Please, put your arm back on," she said, and dissolved into giggles.

Lore felt pleased that he had made a human laugh. He put his arm back on and flexed his fingers a few times to ensure that everything was in place.

"Lore, I take back what I said earlier," said Amy. "I do want to be a scientist. I'll be a cyberneticist, and you and I can work together and create a lot of androids. And we'll campaign so that after awhile nobody looks down on you for being an android."

"When we go out to the stars, baby," Lore crooned, "anything is possible."

She blushed furiously. He was pleased that he had provoked a reaction from her and added a ribald comment.

She stared at him. "Lore, are you trying to make a pass at me?"

"No!" said Lore. Some of his earlier bitterness came back to him. "I know good and well no human would ever want me around. Like that."

Amy folded her arms and tilted her head up challengingly. "What makes you say that?"

"Because—" he began to sneer, and then stopped dead and looked at her.

"Well," he said. "Wow. I never knew you were that sick."

"You're faking, Lore," she said firmly.

"No," he sneered at her. "I know humans too well. You're just thinking of me as one big toy. Well, let me tell you, human, you—"

"Oh, sure, Lore! I've really been treating you like a toy!" She stood up, incensed. "Fine, then, if that's what you want to think—" She began stomping toward the door.

"Hey, wait!" said Lore, jumping up and chasing after her. "I didn't mean—"

She spun around, her hands on her hips. He was still running and he ran right into her.

"Whoa," he said, holding his hands out. "Whoa, wait. I'm not sure I'm ready for this. I don't understand this. You said you wanted a nice man. I'm not nice. I'm not even a man."

"So?" she demanded belligerently.

He smacked his forehead. "Okay. Okay. Is this wild irrationality because you're human or because you're a woman?"

"Both," she said, and then smiled up at him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "You'd better look out, you big jerk of an android, because if you're not careful you're going to get laid."

His jaw dropped. For once Lore the smart-mouth had nothing to say.