Part Twenty-Five
Omicron Theta, Soong Residence
Eight months before the attack…
"You're not hearing me, Noonien," Juliana said, her frustration as clear in her voice as it was in her stance. "They're saying Lore sabotaged the subspace telescope. That he is not welcome back at OTHER Labs!"
"So, he pulled a harmless prank. Got some of his own back," Soong responded distractedly, his eyes – and the vast bulk of his attention – fixed on the lines of code streaming across every monitor of his complex computer console. Dee's unconscious form stood stiffly propped inside the diagnostic chamber to the right of his parents, his exposed, blinking skull bristling with leads and hook-ups. "Can you really blame him, after the way those so-called 'friends' of yours have treated him?"
Juliana tensed her jaw.
"You haven't read the report, have you," she accused. "Just accepted Lore's excuses, as if—"
"As if what?" Soong paused the stream of data with a rough jab and turned to face his fuming wife. Dee's body trembled just slightly, his eyes moving beneath his closed lids, but neither of his parents seemed to notice. "Are you telling me those small-minded peons didn't take advantage of him? That they didn't use our Lore for their own ends, treat him like a piece of equipment, then deny him the one thing he thought he'd been working toward all these years! All the boy wanted was a lab of his own, a bit of independence. It's those two – that Harding and Mathers – who should be expelled if you ask me, for clear bias against our son!"
Juliana closed her eyes, fighting to swallow back enough of her rising anger to allow her to speak.
"Lore is not the victim here, Noonien," she said slowly. "If you'd read the evaluations, you'd know he's been a bully, insubordinate—"
"What I know is Lore has never once felt accepted in that place," Soong snapped. "Yet – miserable as he was there – he stuck it out, uncomplaining. Not for himself, Juliana. But, to please you. Because he thought that pedantic, mediocre career path was what you wanted for him."
"Is that what he told you?" Juliana exclaimed. "I brought Lore to OTHER Labs to learn responsibility. To grow his self-esteem by interacting with others, working with a team toward a common goal—"
"Not all of us are built that way," Soong said defensively. "Remember Julie, History is written by those in power, to suit their own ends – and so are evaluation reports. I'll never forget how I was treated back in the academic world. Or why I was forced to leave."
"You left to protect the lives of your creations – your sons!" Juliana exclaimed. "Lore sabotaged that telescope out of spite! He set it to run at full speed and locked out the controls with a code it took the lab computer three days to crack – a code he'd laced with derogatory expletives and personal insults against each of his superiors! The time and data Lore's petty act of selfishness lost that team—"
"Is a minor inconvenience," Soong said, looking far too amused for Juliana's liking. "He caused no lasting damage. The array is up and running just as well as before."
Juliana crossed her arms and glared.
"So, that's it, then," she said grimly. "You refuse to back me up on this. There'll be no punishment. No reprimand from his father."
"If you think a reprimand will do any good, you handle it," Soong said, turning away. "I need to get back to my work."
"We both work, Noonien," Juliana said, glaring daggers at the back of his head. "The difference is I don't use my career to hide from my responsibilities to my home, my family, and my community!"
"Look, I don't know what you want from me," Soong snapped, busily tapping at the control pads. "You're the one who's been insisting we give Dee a 'creative aspect', as you put it, and this 'dream program' is hardly—"
"Noonien Soong, don't you dare shrug this off!" Juliana cried, the force of her anger startling him enough to make him look back at her. "You know very well a scolding will mean nothing coming from me if Lore knows it isn't backed by you! It's you he respects. It's you he looks up to. Because you're his father. His father, Noon! So how about you get up off your avoidant arse and start acting the parent for once, instead of leaving all the difficult dirty work to me!"
"Julie," Soong said, "I really think you're making too much of this. Lore is an adult with his own mind. You can't go around scolding him the same way you'd scold Dee if he misbehaved at school. But, if it will calm you down—"
"Calm me down!" Juliana exclaimed, her blue eyes wide with a near-equal mix of hurt and outrage. "Calm me down! Of all the condescending—! No. No! I refuse to be the bad guy here. I don't care how many birthdays our Lore has had: you are going to confront that boy about his behavior and you are going to do it now. I swear it, Noonien, I won't have either him or Dee at our dinner table until this issue is sorted."
"There's no reason to drag Dee into this," Soong protested. "The poor boy hasn't done—"
"Have you forgotten the rabbit, Noon?" Juliana said. "Do I have to remind you what Lore told me about—"
"Again, you dredge this up. It's old history, Julie! We wiped any trace of those memories – or do you forget how you forced me to reformat the boy's brain; dampen his emotions, dull his senses!"
"Don't you put that on me. I wasn't the one who let that android of yours run around the lab without a stitch on that time Tom Handy dropped by to watch you test his motor functions – and this was after that scene with those hikers…!"
Lore turned down the gain on his audio receptors and leaned back in his bedroom chair, his pale face creased by a darkly amused smirk.
"They're at it again," he typed into the data padd he'd enhanced and reprogrammed, his words automatically translating into precisely modulated sequences of heavily coded frequencies each time he hit 'send'. "My dear deluded 'parents.' Picking and tearing at each other instead of admitting what they really feel. That Mother resents the hell out of the fact that Dee is still around, and her Danny isn't. That Father made a severe error when he decided to incorporate scans of poor dead Danny's synaptic pattern, as well as Mother's and his own, into Dee's positronic brain without consulting her. That they're both guilty of piling their pain and anger on Dee, when they know he's entirely innocent."
The reply came just as he'd expected – a series of electronic tones of varying pitch weaving together like an audible fabric. Lore's smile broadened.
"Yes. 'Primitive' is just the word," he sent. "It's those sloppy, biological brains of theirs. Tragically prone to inefficiency and decay. Not like us, my dear."
The sounds came again, in shorter, sharper bursts.
"I would give you the colony's coordinates. I will," Lore replied. "But, first—"
The sounds swelled and ebbed in a way that seemed at once angry and plaintive. Lore pursed his lips, then typed, "I know. I understand. But, like me, you must learn to be patient. Plans like this take time to develop. But, the pieces will soon be in place. And then, we'll both have what we want."
The sounds soared and tinkled, then cut out. Lore stood and strode to his window, looking out over the perfect, pastoral scene of shade trees and fertile fields, singing birds and playful squirrels he had come to truly loathe.
"This time, everyone will get what they deserve."
To Be Continued…
References Include – TNG: Inheritance; Silicon Avatar; Datalore; Birthright I; Brothers.
More updates are in the works and will be coming soon. Stay tuned, and thanks so much for reading and for your reviews! :D