LI.
"You've give up everything for me."
Stop! Please!
The pain was unbearable. He felt the urge to move, to tighten every limb as if that act alone would somehow alleviate the fire coursing through him limbs. No matter how hard he tried, nothing helped, and, strangely enough, he seemed to no longer be able to move and…and the pain had stopped. Had it?
Lore remained perfectly still and quiet, though not entirely by choice. He attempted to raise his hand but found himself unable. He was not even certain he felt his limbs anymore, or any other part of him. Without the ability to move, it was difficult to know if he still had sensation. He listened intently, but he also heard nothing. Absolutely nothing, not even the sound of his own biomimetic systems. His sense of hearing was no longer functioning.
Where am I?
Quickly checking his internal chronometer, he registered that there were forty-two hours for which he could not account. That much time must have passed since he was rendered unconscious, but…where was he now? What was happening?
Lore felt a hard sensation in the back of his head, not too rough but sudden, as if his head had been moved a few inches over a surface. A fresh wave of fear ran through him. He was lying down, which he had not even been sure of a moment ago. Yes, now he could feel a hard surface behind his head, his back, his legs. He was on a table of some kind, or possibly the ground. Once again he tried to listen. Nothing. He tried to open his eyes, but he doubted he would see anything even if he did. No light penetrated his eyelids, which could only mean that his sense of sight was not functioning or he was in a very dark room.
His head moved again, ever so slightly, and he felt pressure at the side of his head. Something kept brushing across his ear, rustling his hair. Skin? Fabric? Both? He tried to inhale, to smell the air, but even that was denied him. He was totally paralyzed! His panic began to increase exponentially. It was happening. It was finally happening. Bruce Maddox had won, and now he could see himself laid out on the examination table in the Daystrom Institute lab. It would be just like those first moments, years ago. The same lights would be shining above his face, the same technicians busily moving behind him. Only, this time he would be completely aware of everything. He would feel his consciousness slip away with each file Maddox deleted, each memory he so crudely discarded so that he could get to the clean positronic template he so desperately wanted.
And all of it because of something he did not do. He was too terrified to be angry. He could only hope—not that it mattered now—that Anna did not believe it. He remembered the numb look on her face when the guard said those words, accusing him of murder.
I didn't do it. I love you, Anna. Please take care of B-4.
Without warning, the pressure at the side of his head ceased. He felt a small vibration move through the surface he was against—the floor? Table?—as if an object had been dropped. Then, he felt a light flutter as something moved through his hair. Could it be…was it…fingers? Suddenly, the fingers left his hair and ran down his cheek, gently.
What the hell?
The hand vanished and he felt another moment of pressure at the side of his head, followed by a tiny snap.
All sensation ceased, and his mind once again fell into nothingness.
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Another two hours of lost time. The world was still black.
He wasn't on an exam table. Or, if he was, it wasn't an exam table at the Daystrom Institute. He could feel vibrations through his back, low constant vibrations like the hum of a warp engine. He was not on Earth.
Hello? How silly that he would think the word, since he still could not utter it. Was he on the Enterprise? No. The Enterprise engines were out of commission. The Titan? Would he be on Riker's ship for some reason?
A brush of wind moved across his face suddenly. Despite still not being able to breath, the movement of the air was enough for him to detect something. Coffee and…sunflowers? Sunflowers!
Anna! Is that you!
He struggled to move, willing his limbs to respond to his demands, but it was useless. A quick, panicked check of his internal systems showed that his primary motor link was disconnected. In fact, several of the sensory input links were missing; sight, sound, taste. He felt a tiny snap at the right side of his head and in a flash he could see dull lights through his eyelids.
Yes! But he still could not open his eyes.
Another gentle snap and his head filled with sounds; the rumble of the engines, the far off hiss of environmental systems, and…the thump of a heart. He could hear low, steady breathing very close to him, and the pressure at the side of his head continued.
Say something. He listened as he tried to focus on the blurry bits of light coming through his eyelids, but nothing happened for the longest time. The breathing continued, ragged at times, while the heartbeat changed tempo constantly. Unable to get anymore from his senses, he pulled inward. His primary sensor nodes were being reconnected, that much he could tell from the sudden renewal of his hearing, but…something was wrong. The nodes were being reconnected, but his primary management port was not responding. If all of the nodes were reconnected without that management port—.
Stop! In a flash like lightening he swore he could hear the scents the air, taste sounds, and feel the blurry lights before his eyes. Shit!
"No! Damnit! No!" A voice cried in miserable frustration. Her tone cracked under strain, as if tears were fighting for space.
Anna? It's you! Anna, I'm here!
With his sensory inputs conflicted and overloaded, an emergency shutdown commenced. The world was black again.
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The room, or wherever he was, was very quiet. He could still hear the gentle hum of the warp core, but the engines had stopped. He could also hear breathing, though it was not regular. The breaths were broken here and there by sudden gasps and stops. Sobbing.
He did a quick check of his internal systems and felt an overwhelming relief. His primary management port was conducting a restart, systematically running through each input before moving onto the next. Hearing was good, as was sensation. A moment later the lights reappeared over his eyes. Everything was coming together. Only his motor functions would take longer, as they too were controlled in stages. Lore was nothing if not complex.
The realization that he could open his eyes was an instant relief. He looked up and immediately recognized the ceiling of his own ship, the bridge specifically. How had be gotten here? What was going on? In addition to being able to open his eyes, he found that also move them. He looked to his left and saw the far wall of the bridge. He scanned over, trying to look down, but without the ability to move his head, his forward sight barely cleared the bridge of his own nose. Still, he just managed to see the top of the view-screen. Swirls of pink and purple flowed outside like a thick fog. A nebula. He was in a nebula. He scanned past the screen and over to his right where he knew the main navigation console would be.
His eyes fell on Anna. She was sitting on the deck barely a few feet away from him, leaning her shoulder against the side of the console just near the steps. She was sobbing in a weak, exhausted manner, as if she had already been crying for some time.
Anna. Look at me, I'm here.
"I'm sorry…." She gasped, barely speaking, "I'm so sorry…."
She didn't know he was there, really there. Lore stared at her, silently willing her to just look up and see him. She pressed her hand over her eyes and trembled before she seemed to pull herself together a bit and lifted a data pad that was in her hands. She looked at it, squinted her eyes to see past the haze of her tears. A better view of her face was possible, and Lore's heart nearly broke. She looked dreadful. She looked ill.
The paralysis in his chest came to an end and he drew a deep breath. Anna's head turned sharply and she saw his eyes looking at her. In a flash, she dropped the data pad to the deck and came to his side.
"Oh! Hey, hey…." She touched the side of his face with cold fingers, "Lore? Are you with me?"
In the universally agreed upon method, Lore blinked once for yes. She gasped and covered her mouth with his hands. Her crying only seemed to increase.
"I'm sorry." She said again, "I…I don't know what else to do. I've been over the schematics twenty times. I've done everything right! I—." She clenched her eyes and tried to catch her breath.
It's fine, Anna. Just be patient. Each of his systems was running through an independent startup, and he supposed she was unaware of that. As he once again looked over his surrounded—when not outright staring at her—it became clear to them that they were alone. It was also clear that Anna had been forced to conduct some kind of repair on him without assistance. With each passing moment, his dread became worse. What had happened?
"We're on your ship." Anna said as she wiped vigorously at the tears on her face. "I had no other choice. Maddox had you. He was going to go through with his experiment and I couldn't let that happen."
He blinked once for yes, having no way to reply otherwise. So much was missing and yet he could at least fill in some blanks. He had been accused of murder, and somehow that accusation had allowed Bruce Maddox to regain custody over him. However, he seriously doubted the story was as simple as that. Much had happened in his missing forty-five hours. Much.
His primary motor function port finished its startup, and in an instant he was himself again. He sat up and wrapped his arms around her as she seemed to collapses against him.
"It worked!" She cried, the words muffled against him.
"Yes, I'm fine." He assured her. He turned his head and pressed his cheek against her hair. He had so much to worry about, so much to be enraged over, and yet all he could think about was this. Anna was there, with him. "What happened?"
She wiped her face across her sleeve once more and pulled back slightly, "They…they said you killed Owen. And everyone believed it. The courts, they—Ah, damnit! They gave you to the Daystrom Institute. There wasn't going to be a trial, no jury. That was it."
He closed his eyes against the rage building in his chest. He could remember the look on Maddox's face in those last moments before he lost consciousness. It all made sense. Maddox had known he was about to get what he wanted, which meant Maddox knew he was innocent.
"Maddox did this." He said suddenly, "If Warrick is dead, Maddox killed him, or had him killed."
"I know." She whispered, "But the evidence was…perfect. Everyone thinks you're guilty, Lore." Before he could ask the question, she leaned over and reached for one of the many—many—data pads that were strewn around the deck nearby. She pressed a few keys and turned it toward him, her face like a death mask. Lore watched a grayish blue image play across the screen. He had two reactions; the moment he saw himself enter the frame, and the other when he watched what appeared to be his hands break Owen's neck.
He looked up sharply, "This was the evidence against me?"
She nodded, "And it's perfect. Geordie couldn't find any forgeries. He tried."
"How did you discover it was fake?" He asked. There were so many damn questions! Why were they out here? Why had she not taken her proof to the authorities, to Picard?
Maybe Picard wouldn't want to hear it. No. He actually made a conscious effort to shut down that thought. He was hardly friends with Jean-luc Picard, but he knew the man's sense of justice was better than that.
Anna shook her head slowly. She took the pad from him and laid it face down on the deck, "I didn't. Lore, I don't have any proof it's fake."
"What?" He reached up and placed his hands on her arms, "Anna, I…I did not murder Owen."
"I know." She said, smiling bitterly, "I don't need proof. I know that footage is a fraud because I know you wouldn't do that."
He smiled, but like hers it was a bitter thing. What did they have to smile about at the moment? They're situation was dire to say the least. As if to make his point, he looked all around the room before coming back to her, "How did we get here? I assume Maddox took me."
Now her bitter little smile changed. It became sly and a little…guilty? "I…rescued you." In a quick rush of words, which really did seem to be taking the energy out of her, she explained as much as she could. She told him about hacking into the Daystrom Institute database so that she could she could find out exactly when Maddox planned to perform his experiment. She told him about getting the pattern enhancer from Seven and of how Teni created the diversion that allowed her to get to his ship. His greatest reactions came at the mention of Seven and Teni. He considered Teni a friend, but Seven he hardly knew. He simply couldn't believe that both of them would risk their freedom to help him.
"…if he had just cooperated I wouldn't have had to shoot him." She said with a gasp.
Lore's jaw fell open, "You shot Maddox?" That thought should not have put a surge of guilty pleasure through him, but damned if it did! As quickly as the satisfaction came, though, it melted. He was still accused of murder, and according to Anna everyone still had every reason to think he was guilty. But, more importantly, Anna was with him in this.
"Anna, you…." He shook his head and pulled his hands away from her, "You shot two people rescuing me. You can never go back. Never. You've given up everything for me."
"I know." She smiled up at him, "You would have done it for me."
"I have nothing to give up." He countered, "Anna, you'll never see your family again, your sisters." Anger was working its way into him again. He was not angry at her. Certainly not. He was angry with Maddox, though anger hardly seemed an appropriate word. This was the exact opposite of everything he had ever wanted for Anna. He had left because he wanted her to be accepted by other people, and now she could not even see her family again. Her life was destroyed, and all because of Bruce Maddox.
He lowered his hands to the deck and clenched them. The carpeting came up between his fingers, tearing into shreds.
Anna came toward him again and wrapped her arms around his neck, "I hope you're not trying to change my mind, because it's sort of done." She forced a chuckle, "Besides, I…I have faith in them. At least I know Seven thinks you're innocent, and she'll keep trying with the surveillance footage. She's the second most intelligent person I know."
He laughed into the curtain of her hair, "I see. And who's the first?"
"Stop fishing." She smiled and kissed the side of his neck several times. She drew a quick breath suddenly and winced. She pulled back and Lore saw her face contorted into a grimace of pain.
"What's wrong?" He asked, alarmed.
"It's okay, I just…Oh." She pressed a hand to the side of her chest, "I took too much of the growth stimulant, that's all. And…and I haven't slept in quite a while."
He frowned and took a moment to fully absorb her pale skin and red tinged eyes, "What's quite a while?"
"Almost two days." She sighed.
"Come on." He stood and pulled her up with him. Still holding her hand, he led her around the control platform and toward the Port side corridor where his quarters were. It was the same room he had made up to fool Teni into believing he was human.
"Lore, we have to figure out what we're going to do." She objected, though her tone and the fact that she wasn't pulling against his hand hardly put weight into her words.
"Where are we now?" He asked.
"The Bolston Nebula." She replied.
"Then we'll be safe here for a while." He continued to pull her toward the room. "You have sleep now."
"I don't want to sleep." She grumbled, "I want to figure this out."
He sure as hell was not about to lecture the woman who had just saved his life, but he wasn't going to allow her to become ill either. He did not have Dr. Crusher's resources, and the idea that Anna's lung condition might become complicated by exhaustion was simply unacceptable. He smiled, "Fine. We'll talk about it until you fall asleep."
Once in the room, he led her straight to the bed where she sat on the edge and immediately laid down. So much for her assertion of staying awake. He knew she was worried about their situation, and so was he, but it could all wait. If he was being honest with himself, he really needed to think. He came to the edge of the bed and unfastened the buckles on Anna's boots, pulling each one off. He then removed his own boots and kicked them aside.
"What are you doing?" She muttered, already half unconscious.
"What does it look like? I'm going to sleep." He said with a smile. He went around the other side of the bed and crawled in next to her, pulling her back snugly against him.
"You...don't sleep." She mumbled.
He smiled again and pressed a kiss to the soft space behind her ear, "I know, but I think I'll pretend. We'll figure out everything later."
She made some kind of noncommittal grunt before her breathing ran deep and she was out. Lore kept his eyes open, if for no other reason than that he had spent too much time already being unable to see. The room moved with the light coming through pink and purple gas clouds outside, making the walls play like a kaleidoscope. His thoughts shifted from Anna and all she had given up for him, to the cause of everything. Bruce Maddox. Despite the sudden pit of rage that seemed to weigh in his gut, he knew almost immediately that he would do nothing. As much as his desire and sense of habit ran toward revenge, he dismissed the idea outright. He was not going to risk capture—or worse still. Anna's capture—for the sake of vengeance. The value of one compared to the other was no contest.
Instead, he found himself thinking about B-4. Did his brother think he was guilty? He wasn't sure. B-4 had changed a lot since he had known him in their youth, and he was not sure how B-4 would react to the kind of convincing evidence Anna had showed him. And Bee was alone now…. He would have Picard and LaForge, who—and Lore found this difficult to admit—actually seemed to care about him. His only real consolation came with the sure knowledge that Maddox didn't want Bee. Bee was useless to him, and he would have no reason to go after him.
Lore finally closed his eyes, but of course did not sleep. He listened to the sounds of the warp core and the nebula gas against the hull as he considered what they would do and where they would go once Anna woke up.
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Bruce Maddox hobbled through the main entrance to the Daystrom Institute lobby with an empty bag over one shoulder. He wore civilian clothes and a murderous expression, which kept the new cadet at the reception desk from uttering one word of hello. Despite the asinine order of the surgeon to stay off his feet for at last the next twenty four hours, Maddox winced and groaned as he made his way past the desk and toward his lab. He didn't have much time. Or, maybe he did. He didn't know! He only knew that it was it for him here. Even if they never found out about everything, he was never going to be able to do his research after this. He was a Goddamned celebrity now, and not the good kind. Good scientists did their work in anonymity because that was the only way for good work could get done.
Probably the first human to be maimed with a bullet in two-hundred years. That was the joke moving around some corners of the media, especially in those outlets that had been "skeptical" about the court's reversal of Lore's standing. Those so-called ethical do-gooders who had been calling for Lore to get a trial and a jury and blah blah blah, only seemed to be growing louder since the news of everything went public. …in two-hundred years….Yeah, real fucking funny.
He pressed his code into the pad and stomped into the dim lab. Just as he had demanded, the place was completely unchanged from the day before. As he passed the entrance to the main area, he looked down and his nose wrinkled. The room had the sick scent of rust and metal that only comes with large amounts of blood. His blood. It still marked the floor in a sticky congealing mess. It would all be taken care of as soon as the authorities gave the go ahead, probably in a few hours.
Maddox wondered if he had even a few hours. It was quickly becoming clear that Lore had more allies than he ever would have imagined.
He dropped his bag on the exam table and began collected his work files from their various locations. Data pads, chips, even a few hard copy journals here and there. He was sure to grab everything he had on Soong's work, and did not forget to take the few precious bits of data he had managed to gather before that bitch had stormed into the room and put a piece of lead into his knee. There was no useless data in the room, he always made sure of that, and so he gathered up every chip and data-rod he came across, tossing them into the bag.
He even had to collect a few things he saw on the floor, which must have been knocked over during the chaos.
He did not even give the room a backward glance as he pulled the bag strap over his shoulder and left the room. He wasn't sure, exactly, where he was going, but he knew this. It wasn't going to be anywhere near the Federation. The Federation had already proved, in his eyes, that it was more concerned with appearances than actual progress, that its officials were slaved to their own elitist, philosophical ideal rather than reality. These were the same people who refused to utilize Borg technology, for crying out loud. They gave the terms science and discovery a bad name.
But, there were people and places out there that had a practical approach to things, and he had no doubt that they would welcome him and his work with open arms. If it was to their own benefits, so what? He could understand that.
Maddox winced and clenched his jaw as he once more crossed the lobby and headed toward the frigid October night. The cadet behind the desk stood suddenly and said, "See you tomorrow, Doc."
Maddox practically spit as he turned and gave the cadet a frosty look, "Don't count on it."
