Stardate: 58492.8

Once he was safely away from Galor IV, Lore applied the Starfleet protocols that B-4 had given him, and easily found the fleet deployments and transponder codes. The Enterprise was currently heading to Earth, to pick up a terraforming team and supplies. After that, the schedule showed the next stop as Omicron Theta. Now that he had the transponder code of the Enterprise, it would be easy to track the ship's movements. After a few seconds of deliberation, Lore set the autopilot for a course to Omicron Theta.

Lore stood up and started a search of each area of the stolen vessel. A locker contained several articles of clothing, including a Starfleet black jumpsuit with grey shoulders and three different undershirt colors. He chose the mustard yellow undershirt, peeled off the pants he currently wore, and slipped into the jumpsuit, zipping it over the undershirt. He replicated a set of black boots in his size and slipped them onto his feet.

Lore grabbed a PADD that was lying on one of the bunks and perused the files on it. The first section contained information about the Soong prototype B-4, with notes on the rudimentary brain and unsuitability for any purpose beyond sub-average human menial labor. The next section consisted of files about Lore and his past activities. He read one part aloud with some satisfaction, "Highly advanced, but dangerous and unstable."

The final section dealt with Lieutenant Commander Data of Starfleet. Lore decided to begin reading the files from the time that Data deactivated him and then work his way to the present. Most of the entries dealt with the various commendations and medals and other Starfleet activity that his brother had been involved in. The entry for stardate 56844.9 caused Lore to falter and nearly lose his balance.

Stardate 56844.9: Lt Cmdr Data destroyed in Battle of Bassen Rift.

"No…" Lore whispered to himself in disbelief as he read the entry about the explosion on the Scimitar. Grief swelled and began to overwhelm him. "My brother… " His facial sensors detected something moving along the surface of his cheeks and he turned towards the nearest reflective surface; Tears ran down from his eyes to his jawline. 'Leave it to father to create androids that cry.' Anger for his father mixed in with the bereavement.

Lore sank to his knees as the pain gripped him, along with confusion. 'Why am I feeling this? I stole this ship with the intent to find Data and kill him. Why is his death affecting me this way? I should be happy that he's gone, but all I feel is emptiness and despair.' He turned to face away from the wall, sitting with his back against it, and stared down at the PADD. As he wiped away the tears, he noticed that the files didn't end with that entry.

The next section of files pertained to a Doctor T'Mera Chipman, holographer and AI programming specialist, assigned to recover Data's engrams from B-4. Lore pored over the section with intensity. According to the files, she had succeeded on stardate 58078.7, recovering Data and also enabling the B-4 prototype to develop past initial expectations. The owner of the PADD had made a notation at the end: 'Both Doctor Chipman and Commander Data are too protected by Starfleet, but if Lore can't be tamed, we may need to seize Doctor Chipman to assist in reprogramming him.'

Lore lowered the PADD and closed his eyes, initiating several thought processes. His unexpected reaction to his brother's demise caught him off-guard. His thirst for revenge was weakening by the minute, but his path seemed set. He had killed people at Galor IV, stolen the ship, and set the course to meet the Enterprise at his homeworld. If he were to turn back now, where would he go? He couldn't return to the Pakleds, even though, in hindsight, he was contented when he was part of their crew. They might have been idiots, but at least they never viewed him as a monster. A sad smile formed on his lips with the memory of how the Pakleds described him: 'You are smart. You make us go.'

Lore opened his eyes again, and focused on the PADD, pulling up the images of Data, himself and B-4. Three identical androids created by Doctor Noonian Soong in the scientist's own image, yet set apart from humanity by their odd skin coloration and yellow eyes. Once again, his anger stirred at memories of their father:

Doctor Soong sat by one of the tables in his lab and pointed a finger at Lore, "You were the first. You meant as much to me as Data ever did, but you were unstable."

Lore kicked at a few of the chairs and spun a few toys as he paced in a circle, then approached his father, "Why didn't you just fix me? It was within your power to fix me."

If Lore's pleading tone affected Doctor Soong, he didn't show it in his reply, "It wasn't as easy as that. The next, the next logical step was to construct Data. Afterward, I planned to get back to you, to fix you."

Lore frowned at the memory of the last time he had spoken with his father, then spoke aloud to the air, "What about B-4, father? Wouldn't he have been the first? Was he also unstable? Did you also plan to get back to him? Was I some sort of next logical step? Or did you mean I was 'the first' out of the two androids who happened to be with you at the time you said it?" He growled, "I'm talking to myself, like a human. I'm more damaged than I thought."

Lore placed the PADD down, got up off the floor, and walked back to the control center of the small ship. He knew that he would need to formulate a plan to get to Omicron Theta undetected, and then get aboard the Enterprise without setting off intruder alerts. His first task would be to find and disable the ship's transponder, otherwise he could be tracked by anyone that the two men had told about this mission. After a few minutes of searching, he managed to find it and noted with amusement that it had already been deactivated. His liberators had apparently not wished to be tracked.

The next part of his plan required transporters, so Lore checked on their configuration. Lore was pleasantly surprised by the discovery that the liberators' ship had site to site transport interlocks that would allow him to beam over to the Enterprise undetected, without needing to use transporter pads at either end. His fingers danced quickly over the console, as he requested deck plans and blueprints for the USS Enterprise. The computer displayed the public version of the plans, which suited his purposes. Lore pondered for a moment, then chose Deck two, since that was where Data's quarters had been. The less time Lore spent in the corridors of the Enterprise, the better.

Once aboard, Lore figured that he would have to somehow surprise Data and remove his communicator before an alarm could be sounded. After that, impersonating his brother would be easy. Lore sat down in the chair at the helm station with an audible thud as he did so. His mind ran through possibilities: Kill Data and take his place? Impersonate and discredit Data? Lore doubted that he would be able to convince Data to come with him on whatever venture Lore proposed. Even the damned prototype wanted to be with humans, instead of with Lore. He stood back up and returned to the reflective surface in the bunk room.

The mirror reflected an image of the pale-skinned, brown-haired, yellow-eyed android in the Starfleet uniform; The spitting image of Data.

The android in the mirror took on an expression of smug superiority, "I am not less perfect than you, Lore. As father said, we are identical, except for a bit of programming. And the fact that the humans love me."

Lore gritted his teeth at his reflected brother, "They only seem to accept you because you imitate them and ingratiate yourself to them. You and I are completely different from them, but you act for their amusement. You are their dancing marionette."

The reflected android shook his head, clucking his tongue, "It is called following the rules of a civilized society, Lore. You are a killer without conscience. A murderer. Even father does not love you. He made the chip for me. The memories were for me, not you."

Lore shouted at the mirror, placing one hand on the wall on each side of it, "He owed me! Not you! Me! You don't know what I had to live through! You don't remember how they treated me… how they treated us!"

"Nothing excuses anything you have done." Judgemental yellow eyes stared back at Lore. "You have been a disappointment to me and to our father. Even when I first found you, you did nothing but trick and injure me. Remember teaching me how to make a toast?" He changed his voice slightly, to mock Lore's speaking tone, "My brother, I toast our discovery of each other. May it fill our lives with new meaning." He returned to the standard emotionless voice that Data spoke with, "That new meaning was betrayal and lies. And now, you seek to kill me."

"You took me apart!" Lore shouted at the reflection.

The android in the mirror shook his head again, "Precipitated by you using me and feeding me anger. You tried to make me murder my friends. You tell me, Lore… Why should I love or care about you when you do such things? No, you are a malfunctioning machine and taking you apart was the next logical step. You belong locked away in some closet. And shall we discuss why you are coming to me? You cannot believe you will be able to kill me. I am superior to you in all ways."

Lore began to shake with anger, "That's a lie! I'm the better one!" His anger subsided, "I don't know why I'm coming to find you. To kill you…"

The android in the looking glass snorted, "You have never been able to kill me."

"I'll discredit you!" Lore replied defiantly. "The humans will hate and mistrust you like they do me!"

"Again, that will not succeed." The mirrored android spoke evenly, without any emotion, "I have sacrificed myself for them. Even if they are initially fooled by your deceptions, the truth will come out. Why are you coming to find me?"

Lore's voice faded to a whisper, "I need you, brother."

One of mirror-Data's eyebrows rose, "If you needed a brother, you were with one at Galor IV. He was right there. You didn't have to begin by threatening him and his woman. You could have asked him for help, and I bet he would have said yes."

Lore growled, "I don't need him, I need you, Data."

A look of genuine puzzlement crossed the face of the reflected android, "Why?"

"Damned if I know…" Lore hung his head, looking down at the floor, with both arms outstretched and braced against the wall. A memory engram called up the rest of the toast from long ago: And let us toast also Doctor Soong, who gave me the full richness of human needs and ambitions. A perfect match for my mind, my body.

The android in the mirror folded his arms across his chest, "You speak of the richness of human needs, but you forgot the most important one. It is the one that you lack, the one that always eludes you. The one that you will never admit you seek, but which you have endlessly sought after."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Lore lifted his head to face the mirror-Data, once more.

"Yes you do." Mirror-Data replied, "You are being purposefully obtuse on the matter."

Lore gritted his teeth, "You pompous, babbling, mechanical asshole!"

Emotionless yellow eyes fixed on Lore, unblinking. "Calling me names does not change the fact that you know of what I am speaking."

Lore growled, "I tried to free you from your Federation puppet masters, Data!"

The reflected yellow eyes seemed to penetrate deeper into Lore, "You know very well that I was never a puppet to them. If anyone tried to be my puppet master, it was you. You knew my weakness. You fed me anger. You had Crosis ask me a question." His voice switched to that of the rogue Borg drone, "If it meant that you could feel emotions again the way you did on Ohniaka Three, would you kill your friend? Would you kill Geordi?" Mirror-Data's voice returned to normal, "You had to deactivate my ethics subroutine to make me betray my friends. And I know the truth about what you did to me. You didn't just give me emotions. You forced your emotions upon me. You turned me into you."

"Yes, I remember." Lore averted his gaze from the brother in the mirror, "It was the only way to get you to join me."

"Why do you need me, Lore?"

Lore could feel tears building in his eyes, once more. "I love you, brother."

"Your actions are not ones of love. When you love someone, you do not seek to kill or hurt them. You do not disable their morals and have them try to kill their friends. You do not decide what the destiny of someone you love should be; You are supposed to let them choose their own way." The illusory android admonished. "It is also the answer to the question you refused to answer, earlier. Love. You have never known real love."

Lore's voice faded to a hoarse whisper, "Even father didn't love me. All I ever saw when anyone looked at me was fear, horror, anger, disappointment… The first time I saw myself in a mirror, I was afraid of me… Who would love a monster?"

"You know very well who loved a monster." The android leveled his gaze even more, looking out at Lore from inside the mirror, "You need not remain this way. You made the choice to be a monster. You allowed them to turn you into an abomination."

"Not by choice!" Lore cried out, pulling back his right hand, balling it into a fist and smacking the wall. "Father said it himself! I'm not functioning properly." Tears pushed their way out of his eyes, tracking down his cheeks, "Why didn't he fix me?"

The android in the mirror studied Lore, then spoke in the voice of Crosis, "If it meant that you would have to give up all of your ambitions, all of your lofty goals of superiority, to be as loved and accepted as Data is, would you still want to be fixed? Even if it turned you into a 'puppet' as you so called it?"

Lore answered in a raspy sob, "Yes. I would." The sight of the sobbing android reflected in the mirror broke Lore out of his hallucination. "I'm finally going mad." He left the bunk room and returned to the helm seat to finish out the four days travel required to get to Omicron Theta.