Dr. Maddox and Sumner continued to review the test results, seeing if there was something that they missed, on the main computer with B-4 hovering behind them. He looked over and saw Geordi looking out of the lab's window, staring at the transparent aluminum wall outside that kept millions of tonnes of water out of the institute.

B-4 walked over to him trying to get his attention, "Geordi? Are you alright?"

"I don't know," he said after a few ominous seconds as he turned towards B-4. "I should be happy that you're alive. But... who the hell was he?"

"You are referring to the apparent Soong android that was destroyed with the Scimitar," said B-4.

"Yeah," said Geordi. "The last time I saw you, you were running down the Enterprise's corridor, heading towards the Scimitar. Only it wasn't you. You know what's worse?"

"That you did not know when the other Data had replaced me," B-4 replied.

"Worse," said Geordi. "I couldn't tell him apart from you, Data. Not in the slightest."

"Geordi," said B-4, "with your approval, may I continue to be known as B-4?"

This took Geordi aback even when he asked, "Why?"

"Geordi," said B-4, "with the exception of inaccessible memory file fragments, my memories began on Kolaris 3 with me opening my eyes and seeing Data looking down on my head. Then Data uploaded his memories into my positronic net."

"You called him 'Data'," Geordi noted.

"Yes," said B-4. "Someone was able to recreate Dr. Soong's work, and he died saving the Enterprise and her crew. And from what I can interpret from his memories, he believed he was Data. And I believe I have the obligation to allow him to be remembered that way."

"Even though you don't know why he was created," Geordi thought out loud.

"That is true," said B-4. "However, his actions after stardate 46010.1, the earliest possible time that I was replaced, do not indicate any maliciousness in his nature. In fact, quite the contrary, he was good natured up until he downloaded his memories into my positronic net."

"I hope you're right, B-4," said Geordi forcing himself to call his android friend B-4. "But what I still don't get is..." Geordi stopped when he saw a holographic display of B-4 internal and external workings in different colours that Dr.'s Maddox and Sumner were overlooking. "Wait a minute. What is that?"

"The results of the quantum dating scan," said Sumner. "Colour coded for when B-4's parts were fabricated. Most of his head is in red cause they're 500 years old. Most of his body is in blue, built 46 years ago."

"Could you zoom in on his head?" Geordi asked which they complied. "Right there," he then said pointing at some computer chips in B-4's head that were the same shade of red as the rest of his head, minus portions of his face. "Those are his memory engrams."

"So?" asked Sumner in confusion, which caused Maddox's eyes to widen.

"Didn't you have to replace Data's memory engrams a short while ago?" asked Maddox in verification.

"Yeah I did," said Geordi. "They were damaged by a Son'a weapon a few years ago on the Baku homeworld. It was suppose to be a simple anthropological study on the Baku, but it turned out to be a conspiracy to relocate them illegally. And they shot Data to keep their secret.

"Also, look at the left side of his head," Geordi also pointed out. "We had to repair his epidermal layer on his face twice before, but only once over his left eye. And there's no skin damage to his neck."

"Yes, I see," said B-4. "You are attempting to determine a possible time frame to when I was replaced by Data."

"Yeah," said Geordi. "When the Borg tried to stop Zephram Cochrane's warp experiment in 2063, they removed a good portion of Data's epidermal layer on the left side of his face, and his eye covering. B-4 doesn't have that type of damage."

"The Borg did what?" asked Sumner, making Geordi realize that information on time travel, and techniques regarding time travel were suppressed by Starfleet intelligence to reduce the risk of someone trying to go back in time to change history or to create an alternate reality that can make things worse for the other time line.

"But B-4 has repairs to the left side of his head over his ear," noted Geordi. "This was... what happened again?"

"According to Data's memories," said B-4,"he was retrieving radioactive material from a space probe that crashed on Barkon 4 on stardate 47611.2."

"Right," said Geordi remembering that incident.

"However he had no memories as to what transpired until he was retrieved by the Enterprise," B-4 continued. "Is it possible that was when the exchange took place?"

"I don't know," said Geordi after a resigned sign. "You showed the same damage as Data did, but I don't know how much alike they are."

"But why bother making sure the damage is the same?" Maddox asked. "We never knew what happened down on that planet, so no way to that he was damaged that way."

"What about other damage or something that happened to either android?" asked Sumner. "With all the hell Data's been through, chances are there's more."

"On stardate 47615.2," said B4, "The Enterprise encountered the D'Arsay archive that began to transform the Enterprise into a D'Arsay city, as well as Data into its culture."

Geordi looked over B-4's scan and nodded his head, "There are signs of Data being partially transformed and restored during that time. So it has to be some time after."

"On stardate 48650.1," B-4 examined again, "Data's emotion chip was fused into his neural net, and had created a bypass on stardate 48652.2 to allow him to engage and disengage it on command."

Geordi looked at the scan again, "No sign of the fusion of the chip because the section was removed, but there are signs that there was a bypass set up. The time signature is off a slight bit, but it's still in normal parameters."

"I am sorry, Geordi," said B-4, "But I have no further information as to any other detectable maintenance on Data to help correlate the scan. As well I do not have my diagnostic information as to the electromagnetic signature that a warp field leaves in my electro-servo fluid prior to Data finding me on Kolaris 3"

"Don't worry about it, B-4," said Geordi trying to comfort his friend, despite without his chip he doesn't really need comforting emotionally. "But we now have a much closer time frame as to when it happened."

"Between stardates 47611.2 and 50893.5," B-4 confirmed. "However Data's memories do not detect any disruption with his memories during that time frame."

"And we still don't know how he was constructed," said Maddox.

"There is a possibility," said Dr. Sumner. The others noted that he had a grim look on his face. "Have any of you heard of section 31?"

"The only reference to section 31 that I am aware of," B-4 answered, "is within the Starfleet charter, specifically Article 14, Section 31 that makes allowances during times of extraordinary threats."

"It's also the 'official' name of an agency within Starfleet that conducts secret missions and black ops projects. Conspiracies and black ops projects is sort of a hobby of mine," said Sumner. "Rumour also has it that they tried to use a virus to wipe out the Dominion Founders."

"Genocide!" Geordi said with great shock, the idea that an organization in Starfleet would commit such a crime.

"It is conceivable," said B-4. "Sometime in 2358, the USS Pegasus was equipped with a Federation cloaking device capable of phasing through solid objects by Starfleet intelligence, which was in direct violation of the Treaty of Algeron."

"I know, but still..." said Geordi still in shock over the attempt at genocide, making him doubt his remaining days in Starfleet even further. Getting himself together after his out burts, "Okay, what does this section 31 have to do with duplicating Data?"

"Around the time, what was the greatest threat to the Federation?" Sumner asked.

"The Dominion," B-4 replied.

"Right," said Sumner. "So if there were a fight between a Jem'Hadar soldier and a Soong android, who would bet in favour of?"

"Based upon what we know of the Jem'Hadar," B-4 continued, "I calculate the odds at 35 to 1 in favour of the android."

"They did what I tried to do to Data," said Maddox while supporting himself on his desk, still regretting what he nearly did nearly 20 years before. He nearly won a JAG court case that Data was property only to come about full circle where he recently had to fight for B-4's right as an individual. Now someone apparently bypassed the Articles of the Federation to create an android that isn't protected because no one really knew.

"Yeah," said Sumner sympathetically knowing how much this hurt his friend. "They might have found a way to use transporter duplication. It's happened before."

"Dr. Sumner," B-4 spoke up, "there is one thing I am curious about. Would it not make more sense for me to have returned to duty while they experimented on Data? Thereby allowing the conspiracy to take place without anyone's knowledge?"

"Maybe, I guess. I don't know," said Sumner, admitting he doesn't have all of the answers. "But either way there is no way to prove it, not without Data's... remains."

Geordi knew that Sumner was trying not to say anything in a hurtful way, but he understood that what other way was there to say it? When he saw the Scimitar explode, and seeing Captain Picard shaking his head when Troi asked about Data, that was when he knew that his friend for 15 years was dead. The explosion would have left nothing of Data except... "Wait, there may be something. LaForge to Enterprise."

A couple of hours later, Geordi returned to the institute with a black box where everyone had reconvened in Dr. Sumner's lab. Geordi was thankful that the lab was on the same floor so there isn't that much of a change on the pressure of his ears. When he walked in, he saw Dr. Sumner chatting with a gorgeous woman on the screen, with Dr. Maddox taking readings from B-4.

"...and the equipment is all ready for later," said the woman on the screen.

"Um, sweetheart, I thought we agreed not to talk about that in public," Sumner replied.

"Blake, as long as they don't know what we're talking about, why worry?" she said with a devilish smile on her face.

"You always loved torturing me that way," he replied.

"Always. See you later," she said with a loving smile that Sumner returned. He then turned back to everyone after signing off. "My wife, Vanessa."

Geordi and Maddox gave Sumner a glance that asked how he got so lucky. "Dr. Sumner," B-4 speaking up, "may I inquire as to the equipment she was..."

"No! No. It's kind of personal," Sumner interrupted. He looked at Geordi and the mysterious black box he had in his hands. "Is that it?"

"Yeah," said Geordi as he placed the box on the table and opened it. "These were Data's memory engrams that were damaged when the Son'a shot him. Captain Picard wanted to hold on to them in case they needed to be used as evidence against anyone involved with the Baku relocation. They were not needed, thankfully."

Geordi handed the box over to Sumner and said, "The memory crystals themselves are damaged, but their outer casings are undamaged."

"Cool," said Sumner. "Thanks. I've got B-4's memory chips ready." Sumner took Data's memory chips to a table with the scanner on top of it.

Geordi then looked over to B-4 who seemed distracted, and walked over to him. "Hey, how are you doing?"

"I am fine, Geordi," said B-4. "It is somewhat... disconcerting having Lore's memory engrams in my positronic net."

"I'm sorry," said Geordi. "I didn't know of any other way to do it. I thought you'd like to see the test results as we saw them."

"That is appreciated, Geordi. Thank you," B-4 replied.

"M-372, and M-372 with burn marks," is what the others heard Sumner say as he put the 2 chips into the scanner. "HAL?"

"Good morning, Dr. Sumner," said a very mechanical voice from a computer that Geordi remember hearing from a very old movie with an avatar that looked more like a red eye inside of a lens.

"What can I say?" said Sumner to the others. "I've been a Stanley Kubrick fan for years. And the funny thing is that HAL-9000 never said 'Good morning, Dave'."

He turned back to HAL, then turned back to the others and said, "Yet the funny thing I keep reading how Martin Scorsese was one of the greatest directors of the 20th century, and I don't see how. The emotion of his movies is very bland and stale, and his overall presentation looks like they are suffering from terminal erectile dysfunction. Now Christopher Nolan, there's a movie director. I like J.J. Abrams work, but I wish he could have held off on the lens flare."

"Um, Blake?" Maddox asked as he pointed out HAL to Sumner.

"Huh? Oh right," said Sumner as he turned back to HAL. "Sorry, I am a big movie fan from the 20th and 21st century. Seeing how people saw space travel before First Contact and alien encounters, and seeing how they were at the time.

HAL?"

"Yes, Dr. Sumner," said HAL.

"Please run a comparative scan with the memory chip in scanner 1, and compare the undamaged portions of that chip to the one in scanner 2," said Sumner. "Run quantum dating scan, phase variance scan, radioactivity, molecular imagine, routine scans."

"Understood, Dr. Sumner," said HAL, "commencing."

"Blake, there is something I realized," said Maddox. "We actually have no real reason to believe that this section 31 of yours actually exists. Let alone being able to recreate Data."

"That's true. But we'll know in," as Sumner looked at his watch and counted down, "3...2...1."

"Scan complete," said HAL with Sumner raising his eyebrows with a grin of smugness. "Scan results of subjects' 118-Alpha and 118-Beta matches 100% within described parameters."

HAL's answer caused Sumner's eyes to bug out and his grin faded immediately. He then turned back to HAL and said, "Repeat?"

"Scan results subjects' 118-Alpha and 118-Beta matches 100% is described parameters," HAL repeated.

"Shit, that can't be right!" he said as he tried to match another pair of memory engrams. "M-377, now where's the other one? Here it is. HAL, repeat the scan on these 2 memory chips."

"Understood, Dr. Sumner," said HAL, "commencing."

"Wait, what's going on?" Geordi demanded with Sumner ignoring him. The scan only took 30 seconds but it felt like 30 years to Sumner. "Scan complete," said HAL. "Scan results of subjects' 118-Gamma and 118-Delta matches 100% in described parameters."

Sumner repeated the scan for the third time with HAL once again stating, "Scan results of subjects' 118-Epsilon and 118-Zeta matches 100% is described parameters."

"Doc, what the hell's going on!" Geordi demanded this time.

"This is impossible," said Sumner looking even paler than Maddox did when he met Geordi earlier that day. "HAL's saying that both sets of memory chips are genuine. Neither one was replicated."

"What?" asked Geordi with heavy confusion, turning as pale as he did when he saw earlier tests results that B-4 was in reality Data.

"Both sets are from B-4's head. And both are from Data's," said Sumner. "Transporter duplication would have a phase variance discrepancy. Replicated would have a different quantum dating result. Molecular imagine from both sets are exactly the same."

"Blake, what are you saying?" asked Maddox?

With a blank look on his face as he turned to Maddox, Geordi and B-4, he said, "I'm saying... both B-4 and Data are the same android."

End part 2