This fan fic story chronicles Lore's life prior to his initial encountered with Data.
Contains mild violence and sexual content

Journey to the Dark Side: A Lore Story, REDUX
Written by: S. Bell

Chapter Two: Going Under

The next day, Lore met Jacqueline and Alex at the prearranged location. He noticed that they were with about a dozen additional people, some of which he can hear whispering.

"What's he doing here?" one young woman asked harshly.

"Because I invited him. Do we have a problem here?" Jacqueline replied firmly.

"But won't he rust?" one of the guys replied to which Alex chuckled, prompting Jacqueline to jab him in the ribs.

"No, I will not rust." Lore replied.

Once they got to the lake, they changed into their swimsuits. When Jacqueline emerged from the changing room, she saw Lore — who was wearing a blue swim trunks. The sight of his well-defined body took her by surprise and her heart fluttered for a moment. Her eyes traveled along his firm chest and down to his chiseled abs. His pale skin shimmered in the sunlight. She finally brought herself to break her gaze and noticed that several of the other women were also staring at him, their tongues practically touching the ground. Lore looked at Jacqueline, who wore a lavender colored bikini. He noticed that the other women wore bikinis as well — some with brighter colors that Jacqueline's — but she somehow stood out to him. Alex noticed the android staring at his fiancé and became irritated. He lifted Jacqueline up and ran into the water with her laughing along the way. Everyone else followed — everyone except Lore who sat on the jetty and dangled his feet in the water. He watched the group as they swam and splashed around, some diving under and coming back up. However, his focus seemed to remain on Jacqueline, who laughed as Alex tickled her before they kissed. Lore experienced something strange. However, he couldn't tell what it was, but it forced him to look away. Something inside him seemed to want the image he saw to go away, but he couldn't understand why. He was so preoccupied that he didn't hear someone sit beside him.

"Hey, why aren't you swimming?" asked Alex, "Are you afraid you'll short circuit or something?"

"I can't feel fear and I'm water-resistant. However, I don't have the buoyancy to float in water."

"Really?" Alex replied slyly as another young man sat on the other side of Lore, "Well, I wonder how long it takes you to rust."

As if on cue, Alex and the other young man pushed Lore off the jetty. Lore somehow managed to hang on with one arm as he dangled waist deep in the water. He looked up at Alex and grabbed hold of his ankle.

"I wonder how long it takes for you to run out of air." Lore said before he let go of the jetty and fell into the lake, pulling Alex with him.

Alex splashed to stay afloat, but it was useless as Lore's body weight quickly sank to the bottom of the lake. As he struggled to free himself from Lore's grip, Alex wore a face of panic. Suddenly, Lore finally released his grip when he saw that Alex appeared to be growing weak. Other than the young man who assisted Alex in shoving Lore off the jetty, there were no witnesses to what happened and the man began to yell for help. A crowd quickly gathered and two people dove in after Alex. By the time they entered the water; Alex had already resurfaced and was gasping for air.

Lore was still at the bottom of the lake looking up through the water at the blurry images above him as he proceeded to walk. He took the time to ponder what had happened. He tried to figure out what had compelled him to grab Alex's ankle and he was confused about what prevented him from releasing him until it was nearly too late. Lore was aware that Alex could have died and found it to be a most disturbing situation. Once back on land, he noticed the crowd around Alex — who was sitting on the ground and hysterical.

"Keep that freak away from me! The bastard just tried to kill me!" he yelled.

The crowd parted as Lore approached, this enabled him and Alex to face each other. Jacqueline stepped forward and had a confused look on her face.

"Lore, what happened? Why did you pull him in like that?"

"I didn't intentionally pull him into the water. After he and his friend pushed me, I had an… impulse to grab his ankle. I don't know why."

"You pushed him?!" Jacqueline screamed at Alex.

"I was only playing around! He's the one that tried to drown me. He said he wondered how long it would take before I ran out of air!"

"I didn't intend it as a threat. I was simply curious. The average human can hold their breath for approximately two minutes. However, that number varies depending on a number of factors including water pressure and —"

"Lore," Jacqueline interrupted, "but why did you hold him under water like that?"

Lore squinted as he tried to analyze possible reasons for the occurrence, but nothing seemed to make sense.

"I don't know. For some reason, I just couldn't release him. I suspect that it's a result of an anomaly in one of my processors. I'm sorry I've alarmed you; I'll inform my father about this. If there's a problem, he'll be able to fix it."

"Yeah, well you do that, you freak!" Alex snapped as he stood up.

"Alex, name calling solves nothing." Jacqueline said firmly as Alex stormed off. She turned to Lore, "I hope Dr. Soong figures out what happened. I'll see you later okay."

As Jacqueline ran to catch up to Alex; the rest of the crowd stood in silence as they stared inquisitively at Lore.