What a difference a day made,
Twenty-four little hours...
"Perhaps if you tell me what is disturbing you, I can… help?"
Leora Eileen O'Reilly wasn't in the mood for a come-on line, especially one so obviously over-phrased. Hastily wiping her eyes she told the stranger, "I'm fine, thanks."
"But you are crying. Is there some way in which I may assist you?"
Now she took a closer look. Unlike the few would-be hotshots who she'd been approached by since her arrival at the academy, this one looked a bit older than entrance level. A little odd, too… deathlike pale, and apparently very uptight in a social sense. He might really be serious.
"Look, no offense, but if you're looking for company you came to the wrong place." It's not that she thought she was all that irresistible, in fact she was well aware that aside from the auburn hair and green eyes she wasn't a second-look magnet on this campus. At 35 she was quite a bit older than the other cadets. They'd let her enter the independent certification program, designed for those with life-skills who likely wouldn't require the full four year treatment. But a few of the freshmen were always on the prowl it seemed, regardless of age or appearance. The pale stranger retreated a step.
"You seem to have misunderstood my intentions." God, he was so formal. "I observed you were in distress, and I wondered if I might be of assistance."
Distress was an understatement. Next day was the double final in warp drive history and basic warp technology, and she was buried in warp drive math notes. She understood the theory of warp travel, and knew its history inside and out, but the mathematics left her awash in confusion.
"Sorry if I misread you. I'm kind of battling a deadline here, and my upcoming final in basic warp technology is at odds with my absorption rate."
"It is a challenging course."
"So you're taking it too?"
"I have achieved two advanced certifications in warp technology and warp cell design and construction. I merely observe that to a student it is a daunting task."
"Oh. But if you're an expert can you tell me if a reasonably functioning brain can absorb the finer details in a 24 hours?"
"That would depend upon the focus of your difficulty."
"Oh." She couldn't think of anything else to say. A warp tech genius, or so she hoped, and how to engage his help without giving him the wrong idea? Who was she kidding, she'd screw the nearest engineering cadet for the key to this puzzle.
"May I sit down?" Polite, too. And handsome in his way, despite the pallor, Leo couldn't help but notice. There was something about him, maybe his hesitant manner, that was attractive to someone who'd been dealing with the aggressive arrogance of youth for the past couple of months.
"Sure." Suddenly aware of her manners, she extended her hand. "Leora Eileen O'Reilly, I'm sort of a junior level cadet. Don't let my age fool you, I'm a rank beginner in this place." She noted a warmth in his careful grip that seemed not quite biological in origin.
"My name is Data. I am attending a Federation seminar in first-contact diplomacy for the coming two weeks."
"Data? That's a unique name. Your parents must have had pretty particular hopes for you."
"My 'parents' were Dr. Noonien Soong and Julianna O'Donnell, scientists at the Daystrom Institute. I am an android."
Her eyes widened. "Soong and O'Donnell are your dad and mom? That practically makes you royalty. I knew androids were enlisted in Starfleet but I've never actually met one. If you're not a student, what do you do?"
Data took note of Leo's characterization of his creators. It engaged him. "I am a lieutenant commander in Starfleet, second officer aboard the USS Enterprise D."
Deeply impressed, Leo let out a low whistle. "Wow. I feel like I should ask you for your autograph or something. Enterprise… that name is legend regardless of the alphabet. What does this place possibly have to teach you?"
"As an android my technological, historical, and logistical reasoning is flawless. As an android, however, my interactions with non-synthetic life forms are challenged by my inability to process emotion and a resultant lack of 'intuition'. I am attending this seminar in order to add to my positronic inventory of humanoid responses to various stimuli."
"Kind of like learning to read all over again, huh?" Leora replied with a smile.
"Yes. I believe that is correct. I will learn to 'read', and also to project, the proper cues necessary in first contact situations."
Leo closed her notebook, caught up in the conversation. "But don't you have to have those skills for all situations with humanoids?"
Data nodded. "That is correct. But the first-contact scenario is more intensive, more acute, and the skills required must be learned and utilized more quickly than in everyday contact with humanoids. It was decided that such an intensive seminar would be quite useful to me in my typical duties, as well as any unusual assignments that might arise."
"Aha, so you're learning to think on your feet rather than on your circuits." This elicited a confused expression. "I'm sorry, Data, that was a little tacky."
"Tacky? Similar to paint not yet dry?"
She laughed. "No, similar to rude, but more aesthetic than personal."
"Ah. Tacky." He paused for barely a second to store the concept.
"Gawd, I wish I could suck up warp technology like that."
"Unfortunately, chemical processing is slower and less efficient than the positronic sort. Then again, it sometimes allows for non-linear reasoning that eludes strictly digital processing… intuition is something that I will never master."
"It's kind of like sideways reasoning, you skip a few steps, go from point a to point c or d. Kind of a shortcut. But it really isn't impossible to translate, you just have to look at it differently. For instance, suppose you're hiring someone for a job with little supervision. You want to find out if they're a hard worker or a slacker, right? So what do you do?"
Data considered this. "I would ask the applicant for prior work references, and they will tell me about the applicant."
"But suppose this person is a real slacker and a liar, and has someone just posing as a former employer?"
"Then I would have no way of knowing the truth."
"Well thinking strictly digitally, you're right. But look at it from a more oblique angle. It's been pretty well established that slackers have a certain attitude toward themselves and life that makes them feel entitled to slide by. Things like, oh, tending to blame their failures on others, or convincing themselves that people have it in for them, or just that they're so cool everyone else should have to take up their slack. So what you do, in addition to having the references, is ask a few open-ended questions about the applicant, like what brought them to where they are today, existentially speaking."
"Tell me about yourself."
"What? Oh, yeah, right, that's the question people always got asked in my time but it works better if it's more focused. Something like, tell me why you left your last job. If you hear a litany of how the boss was a jerk, they didn't appreciate me, blah and blah, or if they've had something like five jobs in two years, you know there might be a problem."
"This would seem to be time consuming."
"Well yeah, when you first get into it. But after awhile you learn which questions to ask, what responses to look for. It gets programmed in. In your case, it would go digital. Or positronic. But it would be there for handy access." He sat silent, considering this.
"You are saying, then, that human non-linear reasoning can routinely become integrated into a positronic network?"
"Why not?"
"It would seem unlikely that such a random method of chemical reasoning could be parsed into predictable bundles of data."
"You know about chaos theory? Fractal physics, strange attractors?"
If an android was capable of registering surprise, it was written all over this one's face. "I am familiar with the theories. They were explored in some detail in earth's late 20th and early 21st century. Central to the theory is that the concept of chaos is a fallacy, that given sufficient analysis and perspective every phenomenon can be seen to have an order of its own."
"Exactly! So the goal of learning anything isn't just processing the data, but identifying its 'order'. Then it's a slam-dunk."
"Slam dunk?" He processed. "Basketball, earth 19th century and beyond. Ah. Extremely easy."
"Trust me, Data, if you took the right approach you could be reading and projecting things like intention and attitude as if they were tech manuals. If sorry little humanoids can do it, for a positronic wonder like you it should be a,"
"Slam dunk?"
"Exactly." Leo realized that her stress had drained away in less than half an hour of conversation. She sat back in her chair and took a deep breath.
"You seem to be less distressed now."
"See? You know that even though you didn't ask me."
"I am able to interpret a finite range of human behavior patterns. Some are more generalized than others."
"Ain't that the truth. So I'm not ready to shoot myself anymore, but I still can't make head or tail of this warp math."
"If you would like, perhaps I can help you identify its 'order'."
Was he making fun of her? Nah, his expression was so earnest. "That'd be great, but what about your seminar schedule?"
"I have no further sessions until 0900 hours tomorrow. When is your exam?"
"0800. It's gonna be a long night…"
"I do not require sleep."
"Damn, how do I get in on that?" She laughed when she saw his puzzlement. "Sorry, just being a smartass."
"Ah. Making humorous comments for their own sake."
"Well that's the kindest definition I've heard lately. So where do we start?"
Data scanned her notebooks for about five seconds before announcing, "You seem to have made an error in interpretation in the beginning stages of your analysis…" and they went on from there.
It didn't take all night. Not even close. In just two hours Leo had absorbed the principle behind the warp mathematics that would be featured in her exam. Various classes and specs of ships would be presented, various regions of space and locations of galaxies represented, and the warp drive calculations would have to be solved for each based on current location and desired destination. This in addition to the history of warp drive technology development, which for her had been a breeze. History had long been her strong suit, along with logistics and administration. After correcting minor errors on four sample problems Data had created for her, he declared the lesson a success.
"I believe you have sufficient grasp of the principles to perform well on your examination. You have a keen mind, all that was required was the proper focus. There is a human tendency to lose focus under progressive stress and pressure, and this is exacerbated by lack of sleep and food."
"Sleep has been a luxury this week, for sure." Leo closed her notebook and texts and dropped her head to the table. After a moment or two, Data leaned a bit closer.
"Leora Eileen? Are you unwell?"
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "I'm fine, now. And call me Leo, everyone does."
"That is a male name."
"And 'Data' represents what gender?"
"I did not intend to offend you. I meant that 'Leo' is a name typically applied to human males."
Leo shook her head and put a reassuring hand on Data's arm. "Really, it's okay."
"Smartass."
"Well if you're gonna call me names…"
This time he didn't rise to the bait. "An engineer on the Enterprise NCC1701 once said 'fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.'"
"You're a quick study, Data. But then I guess they built you that way."
"In some respects. In others I am considerably slower. But you have not explained, why are you called 'Leo'? Is it derived from your given first name?"
She nodded. "Partly. Also because it's my initials… Leora Eileen O'Reilly. L-E-O, Leo."
"Ah. An acronym."
"Yeah I guess so." There was a moment of silence between them. The library was all but deserted, it was 8pm and everyone had gone to the social club, or their dorm rooms, or to the various game centers scattered around campus. "You really saved me from certain failure. If I flunked warp tech I'd be sunk. I need it to get into my declared program."
"And what is your declared program?"
"Starship administration. It's pretty new, I guess, but I jumped on it when I saw it listed. It's practically the only thing I can learn quick enough to get certified in during my lifetime."
It had taken Data a while to put it together, but he was beginning to understand that Leora Eileen O'Reilly was not a typical cadet for reasons apart from her age.
"Where is your home?" he asked. "You have said some things which indicate you are a stranger to more than the Academy."
She shifted uncomfortably, gathered her stuff, and tried to change the subject. "Look I need to decompress. I'd offer to buy you dinner or a drink, but you don't eat and you don't drink. I'm not sure what to do for you to say thanks for the rescue."
"Your continued company will be sufficient thanks. And your answer to my question of where you have come here from."
"Commander, are you trying to pick me up?" Leo said this with an unmistakably mischievous gleam in her eye.
"Smartass." Internally Data became a bit concerned that he would overuse the reference, but Leo's smile told him otherwise. There was something about this woman that reminded him of Tasha, though he hoped her history was not as painful.
"You got that right." He was waiting expectantly. She had to admit she enjoyed his company. There was something calm and accepting about this "synthetic" life form that seemed more natural to her than almost anyone she'd met since arriving in this utterly alien sphere of existence. It spoke of genuine interest and not the idle curiosity (inevitably a precursor to campus gossip) she'd grown so weary of. And she was very tired of being judged. And it's not as if an android could have a sinister agenda. Giving in to her very nonlinear intuition Leo told Data, "Come on, I know a place where I can eat and you can listen."
