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FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER
"[N]ow that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and
affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek
for sympathy?"
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
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The ship sparkled; it was, Malcolm mused, obviously a very new and well-made
machine. He'd never seen such technology, and if the situation had been
different, he would have loved to run all over the ship just poking around the
various types of weaponry.
The doctor, however, had other plans. He led them out of his laboratory and up into the bridge of the ship. Malcolm wondered what had possessed him to leave Hoshi alone in the shuttlepod. He hoped she could contact the Mdaran police.
At first, he'd tried to stop thinking about anything threatening, knowing perfectly well that Amata could hear every thought. But he'd given up after only a few minutes; the tickle of her mental touch had not invaded his mind at all, and he assumed she'd either gotten better or stopped.
He glanced back and forth between the doctor and Amata, the latter eagerly talking and the former nodding with a broad smile. As the doctor showed her various things on the bridge, Malcolm watched nervously, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.
Amata possessed the power to kill the doctor; of that he was absolutely certain. He had aquiesced to coming with her because he feared she would go back on her word and try to enact her revenge.
There probably wasn't much he could do to stop her, he though ruefully, but that hadn't occured to him in the shuttle.
Now, though, looking at the doctor (what was his name? Imran something? Malcolm couldn't remember) he feared more for Amata. He'd seen that look only a few times in his life.
Apparently greed was not limited to humans.
"And here, my dear, is our translator," said the doctor, gesturing to a panel lit with red and yellow symbols. "This is how we can speak to one another, because your language and mine are not the same."
"Yes," said Amata. "Enterprise has a translator, too. My friend Hoshi uses it. She and Malcolm taught me to speak."
"Wonderful, my dear, wonderful!" said the doctor. His voice, sickeningly sweet and affectionate, nearly made Malcolm gag. "And what does your friend Malcolm do on Enterprise?"
"He is in charge of the weapons," said Amata. "He makes things blow up."
"Ah, yes, weapons do make lovely explosions, don't they?" The doctor glanced at a panel, and for a moment his face hardened. "Why don't you go and get your other friend, Amata? The one on your little shuttle? I'd like to meet all your new friends." He smiled once more at Amata.
Oh, bloody hell, no, don't do it, thought Malcolm vehemently. Amata did not even glance at him. She simply smiled and ran eagerly throgh the doors, leaving Malcolm alone with the doctor before the lieutenant could make a move to follow her.
The doors hissed shut just as Malcolm reached them. "My dear Malcolm, I'd like to talk to you," said the doctor, and his voice held none of its former sweetness.
"What are you planning for her?" said Malcolm. Why bother with pleasantries? He'll probably kill you anyway.
"She is very valuable to me," replied the doctor. "Strong, fast, intelligent, able to sense the thoughts and therefore the actions of her enemy before they can do a thing. A supersoldier, my good Malcolm, one able to defeat any foe. Imagine what an army of her kind could do. Imagine what people would pay for an army like that." He tapped at the controls on the panel in front of him. "She will be tested once your little Mdaran friends come to get you. She'll demolish their ships singlehandly from the inside."
Malcolm's jaw clenched. "She wouldn't kill for you."
"Wouldn't she?" said the doctor. "I made her. She'll do anything for me. She is totally under my control."
"Really? Why do you have to use that syrupy kindness then?" Malcolm could not feel the seal in the door to pry it open. He moved away, eyes sweeping the room for another escape route. "She was ready to kill you when we docked with your ship. I talked her out of it."
The doctor smiled once more. "You will regret that in a moment. Tell me something, Malcolm. She has obviously searched your mind many times. How did she fail to hear your warnings?" He turned away, still smiling, and Malcolm slid towards a door he spotted in the opposite wall.
Without warning, pain swept through Malcolm's skull, ten times worse than anything Amata had inflicted. He crashed to the floor, all senses deserting him, clenching his fists so hard that his nails cut into his palms.
On the floor of the shiny new ship, blood sparkled, and the doctor nodded in satisfaction.
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She runs through the halls of the pretty sparkling ship, running her hands over the smooth glass and the glittering lights as she passes them. So much prettier than the grey halls of Enterprise.
Here is the airlock; she knocks on the door before opening it. Hoshi looks up at her, worried, as she climbs down the ladder.
"Where's Malcolm, Amata?"
Amata feels fear from her friend, and it reminds her why she no longer calls either of them friend. They think she will hurt them. Her creator does not think that.
"He stayed with the doctor. I think they will be friends."
Hoshi does not look convinced. "I contacted the Mdarans. They will be here in fifteen minutes to apprehend him, Amata. We need to get Malcolm off the ship and get away. They didn't seem too happy with your creator."
So wrong, Amata thinks. He loved his children. He wanted them to be strong, so he tested them. What do they think a good man like that has done?
"Why?" Amata asks. In Hoshi's mind she sees visions of dead people, all different kinds of dead people, laid out on tables and cut into pieces.
"He killed people to make you," says Hoshi, and she looks like she will cry. "That's why they're angry. It's not your fault. We'll tell them, but we must get Malcolm out of there. He's a dangerous man, Amata!"
"No he isn't," Amata tells her. "Come with me."
Hoshi glances around at the shuttle. "Where are we going?" she asks as they climb the ladder.
"To Malcolm," replies Amata. She is angry because Hoshi is scared, scared of Amata.
They reach the bridge, shiny rose and silver doors, and go in. Only the doctor remains. "Where is Malcolm?" asks Amata.
"I've taken him to somewhere safe. There are enemies coming," he replies, not looking up from his screens. "It will be very dangerous. I'll take your friend Hoshi there in a moment so she can be safe too."
Hoshi looks around fearfully. "Don't worry," says Amata.
For a moment Amata realizes that she cannot feel Hoshi's mind. But the doctor starts to speak again, and she is distracted.
"I need you to go to the transporter room, Amata. Once the ship comes, I will transport you onto the ship," he says. Amata feels a twinge of fear. "Don't worry; they cannot hurt you. But they will try, and they will try to hurt me, and your friends Malcolm and Hoshi."
"Malcolm and Hoshi are not my friends," Amata says defiantly. "They are afraid of me." Hoshi, next to her, draws in a strangled sob. "I want to stay with you."
The doctor shakes his head sadly. "They aren't afraid of you," he says. "They are afraid for you, because you are special. They worry about you, that's all. I know you can feel fear from them, but you are misinterpreting it, my darling!"
"Is that true?" Amata asks Hoshi, who nods.
"We don't want anything to happen to you, Amata," says Hoshi, and tears slip from her eyes. Amata still cannot feel her thoughts. But she feels the doctor's, her creator's, and knows that Hoshi is telling the truth.
"Go and do what you can to weaken their ship. Do it just like you did when you left Enterprise," says the doctor. "I need your help. Protect me and your friends." He looks at the panel again. "Go now, my dear. We have only a few minutes."
Amata nods and leaves the room. She must protect her friends. They really are her friends. And her creator! She is happy; she has a purpose. Soon he will make others like her, and she will have brothers and sisters.
But before she has gotten ten meters down the corridor, she hears a scream and an angry shout, and turns back, running quickly back to the control room.
Hoshi leans, pale-faced, against the doorframe. Blood pours from her nose, and she gingerly touches her forehead. Amata gasps and immediately helps her friend up.
"Get away from her!" booms the doctor, and all trace of kindness is gone from his voice. Wisps of smoke rise from a hole in his formerly clean lab coat, and he clutches at his shoulder as . "Go to the transporter room, Amata!"
Amata stares at him, aghast. She can feel pain from both of them; Hoshi trembles, and in the ensign's mind Amata feels the doctor invade and try to rip and tear and kill. She sees a phase pistol in Hoshi's hand; she had not noticed it before. The ensign had fired before he could get all the way in.
"Where is Malcolm?" cries Amata to the doctor. Liar, liar! Treacherous scum! With the pain he has let his guard down and now she sees everything. He doesn't care for her at all. She was right. She should have killed him when she had the chance.
"Where is he?" she screams. With a bound she is across the room and at his throat, and though his mind is powerful his body is not, and he crumples beneath her grip.
She finds the image of Malcolm in his mind, tearing through his thoughts with as much roughness as she can muster, and, throwing the doctor over her shoulder, walks quickly toward the door. He shouts in protest and pain but she ignores him.
"The Mdarans will be here soon," she tells Hoshi. The young woman, pinching her nose, trying to make it stop bleeding, nods. "Tell them we are in the laboratory."
"Here," says Hoshi, and hands her the phase pistol. "It's still on stun. You might need it."
Amata takes it and smiles; Hoshi returns it weakly, and now Amata can feel that though Hoshi is frightened, she is also concerned for both Malcolm and Amata. Hoshi's friends.
They reach the laboratory, and Amata sets the doctor down, who collapses in a heap on the floor. She sees Malcolm, prone and pale on one of the dissection tables. For a moment, she fears that he is dead, and reaches out a hand in defeat. Amata makes a last-ditch attempt; she touches the still mind and feels nothing. She closes her eyes and digs.
She finds nothing.
But suddenly, deep inside him, she sees his dream. Malcolm-the-child runs over the grass of his homeworld, laughing in delight at the lovely colors of the sun setting over the English moors.
"Come with me, Malcolm!" cries Amata, running after him. He must not go into the sunset! Her heart breaks as he keeps running, and she calls again and again. For all her speed in the real world, she cannot keep up with him in his own world.
He is nearly out of sight when he finally turns, cartwheeling over the grass. "Come on, Malcolm. Wake up, my friend!" He reaches her, takes her hand, smiling with joy as only a child can smile.
"Amata?"
She hears his voice in the real world, and slowly opens her eyes.
A second becomes an eternity as she gazes, eternally relieved and happy, into his wondering face.
Then searing pain erupts across her shoulders, and everything goes black.
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