"What the hell were you thinking?"

The young ensigns shout echoed off the walls of the empty holodeck. Anyone walking in would probably think the boy was mad; thankfully that wouldn't be a problem as he had set the doors to remain shut, no one on this ship could ever hope to override his programming.

"Micah, answer me damn it!"

"What's the problem?" Wesley span to face the direction his friends voice came from, before him stood the hologram of a teen, around the same age as him. The boy had dark skin and blue eyes, they had been green the last time the other being had shown himself as a hologram, brown before that and the skin had been lighter. Not for the first time Wesley wondered what his friend had looked like when he was alive. He wondered if Micah himself even remembered.

Wesley took a deep breath to calm himself before speaking.

"You violated him"

The face Micah was wearing twisted in confusion "He's a computer"

It took all his will power not to shout "He is not..."

Wesley paused to collect his thoughts.

Micah waited.

"He is a person"

"A computerised person"

"That's not the point!"

The shout echoed around the room again and Micah continued to wait calmly for his explanation.

"He's not a ship Micah. He's not a device you can just play with when you feel like it. He's a person Ok?."

"But he's a computer."

"An android, Its different."

"It didn't feel different" it was true. Micah had been living in the system for longer than he could remember, had been manipulating and controlling computers since even before then, walking around the ship inside Data was as easy and natural as flying a shuttle around or manipulating the holodeck to create the form he was currently wearing.

The internal workings of the Android were more complex than most electronics he had encountered but that novelty wore off after the three nanoseconds it took to catalogue them.

It had been fun having a solid humanoid shaped body again.

Until Wesley found out.

Micah had never seen his friend angry with him before. It was upsetting. He didn't like it. Even so he couldn't understand what had caused this anger.

"He's a person" The young crewman repeated. "He has feelings"

"I'm not sure that's entirely correct, at least not in human terms, although he does have some remarkable algorithms dictating his behavioural patterns that might be interpreted that way. It's difficult to explain verbally, perhaps if you had a look at his programming you would understand better."

"No! I'm not going to do that. I told you. It's a violation of privacy. I couldn't do that to him."

"He doesn't need to know. He didn't know when I did it. I erased all the relevant memory data. its like I was never there."

Wesley ran hand through his hair and began to pace across the room "But you were there" He muttered "Anyway, that's not the point either."

"Then what is?"

"I told you, he's a person, an individual and that deserves a level of... of respect"

From the blank look he was receiving the ensign knew the other boy (if he could still be called that) didn't understand him. Perhaps it was so long since he had been human he just didn't know how to empathise anymore. All he knew was computer and not computer. All he understood was programming and code.

"Just promise me you won't do it again? Please?"

The silence stretched out in the holodeck as both young men regarded one another.

"Ok, I promise" The image disappeared. Wesley sighed, still acutely aware of his friends presence all around him. Embedded in the core of every computer in this ship, and every other ship like it. He wondered how long that promise would last.

He wondered if he would one day die and join his friend in the system.

Wondered how long it would take him to forget his own face.

How long it would take to lose touch with humanity.

Pressing his hand to the wall Wesley went to unlock the door, before changing his mind and using the keypad instead. He was still human... for now.