Mister Data's Step-Sisters
by Rob Morris

Trying to get his mind off recent events with Spock and Sela, Picard decided to make use of his time aboard the Klingon ship by doing what many on the Enterprise avoided-making small talk with Data. He saw him studying a readout of cybernetic schematics laid out in a humanoid form.

"Data, is it an android?"

Data shook his head.

"No, sir. There are only 506 known types of androids or like mechanisms registered and or speculated upon. These historical files recently recovered indicate none of these. On the bright side, I am now more fully aware of my roots and history."

Picard, bored out of his mind, bid his Second Officer continue.

"You mean like Doctor Soong's somewhat illegal visits to Exo 3 and Mudd's World?"

"Far more than that, sir. I have even discovered limited human facsimile androids present as early as Earth's late 20th Century."

Now, Picard took active notice.

"How limited are we talking? And why was this never heard of before?"

Data appeared to grow trepidatious.

"They were female in design, sir. Intended to provide certain males with a form of unquestioning comfort. A renegade scientist once employed by that era's Cybernetic Enhancement Intelligence service was divorced by his wife. Despondent, he came to a small town in the American state of Connecticut. Using the technology later used to enhance a celebrated astronaut, he reconstructed her from whole cloth, so to speak. Unlike Doctor Soong's post-mortem efforts toward my mother, this man chose only to recreate his ex-wife's appearance and voice."

Picard drew the inference.

"Pathetic. I've never understood the need some have for a submissive partner. We all play parts--but for the sole purpose of pumping your ego? He may as well have ordered himself an inflatable companion, for all that was worth."

For Data, who was very nearly dissected so that a race of worker drones could be built, these words were welcome indeed.

"Yes, sir. But unfortunately, he also encountered many like-minded men in this town. A grand conspiracy eventually grew up, murdering the wives of the town, and replacing them with these quite literally soulless, life-like constructs. Only one woman ever raised a true alarm. But she too was replaced."

"So these cowards and lowlifes won the day?"

"For the immediate future, Captain. But in early 2000, this town was found and sealed off. Quite carefully--it was removed from the map, and its technology all magnetically wiped. Having been a closed community for decades, no one had known of its secret. Only a combination of archaeology and declassification yielded this sorry matter up to present-day scrutiny."

"Data? By that point--who was left in that comfortable-looking hell-hole?"

Struck by how often Picard let him continue these tangents, Data felt he now had better insight into Spock's legendary friendship with Kirk, touched briefly on when they met the Ambassador.

"Only the town fathers, sir. Eventually, the murderous scheme extended to claim a great many of the children, as teenage rebellion became a target of this regime. But their day at long last came around. They suffered a fate the report referred to as 'Bobbittizing'. I later found out that this was a euphemism for...."

Picard cut him off.

"I'm...familiar with that euphemism, Data. Jack, rest his soul, once explained it to me. But if the androids had no real personalities--how did they rebel?"

"To be precise, sir, they did not. To rebel, they would had to have been far more than what they were. It was in fact the very limits of their programming that destroyed the conspirators. Recall the date of their final fall."

Picard winced. That date had been one of many 'apocalyptic' ones that came and went in that era, finally ending after 2033. Picard imagined that even the deeply religious must have been tired of them at that point.

"You mean to say that the androids' systems were non-updateable?"

"Indeed. So it was that something that came to be a non-event for the rest of the world destroyed the corrupt town of Stepford. They had very well and truly insulated themselves against the harsh changes of feminism, sexual openness, and economic globalization."

Picard smiled, as awkward as the described fate made him feel.

"But not against Y2K."