Stardate: 58500.7

Omicron Theta loomed beneath the small ship, in shades of orange and brown with white clouds floating through the atmosphere. Lore set the autopilot to expend energy and keep it over the Southern magnetic pole of the planet in order to avoid detection. He had spent the past few days studying the ship's systems, and was gratified to learn that the two men had thought ahead and set up shields that blocked scans for positronic signals. Everything about the ship was prepared for stealth and sneaking past sensors of all types, with special attention paid to hiding a positronic android.

Lore checked the display for the transponder signal for the Enterprise; the Federation flagship's position put it at approximately twenty four hours away from Omicron Theta. The systems diagnostics informed Lore of the low levels of oxygen in the atmosphere, and of the percentage of particulate matter being stirred up by the wind through what was once valley farmland. Once the sensors confirmed no life readings on the planet, Lore beamed down to the surface, then followed the invisible paths of remembered roads that no longer existed.

Abandoned structures lined some of the roads, where the main center of the colony's town had been. Most of the homes had collapsed, but the stone-walled ones still stood. Lore noted with chagrin that old Tom Handy's large house persisted. Memory engrams automatically recalled the colony's petty and spiteful leader:

Tom Handy called out from his chair on the porch of the house, "Taking your artificial idiot out for a walk, Often Wrong?" His large abdomen shook with laughter.

Noonian Soong shook his head, "Ignore him, Lore."

Lore's yellow eyes glared at Tom Handy, but he obeyed. "As you wish, father."

Soong's blue eyes lit up with delight, "You called me father."

Lore frowned as the memory of the pristine masonry gave way to the present day of eroded and dust-covered stone. He walked up to one side of the house and punched the wall with his right hand, leaving the indentation of a fist and several cracks. His boots left deep prints behind in the dusty soil as he walked to the Northeast from what had once been the town square. The valley land became more hilly, until Lore reached the foothills of the mountains. Along the sun-facing hillside, rows of galvanized steel trellises stood as a memorial to the grape vines that had once produced sweet wine for the colony.

The Detoronto children shrieked and hid behind the vines. "Daddy! There's the monster!"

Nick Detoronto's hat-covered head poked up from behind some genetically modified concord grapevines. "That's not a monster. It's Soong's robot."

"Why are his eyes scary and yellow?" To Leora's seven year old mind, the android seemed to be something to be feared.

Nick grunted a reply to his children, "Maybe Soong likes that color. Just ignore him and he'll ignore you."

Benny taunted his younger sister, "The robot's gonna eat you, Leora. Ooooooooh."

The thought of being eaten sent Leora into hysterics, and Lore's ears were assaulted by the high pitched screams.

Lore stopped walking and glared at Leora, "I don't eat anything."

"Never?" Big, saucer-like brown eyes stared through vines at the android, as Leora's fear was broken by curiosity. "You don't get hungry?"

"I never get hungry." Lore frowned, then continued on his way.

Lore let out a soft sigh and continued to the East, forded the small brook that trickled down from the mountainside, then followed the water as it turned reddish-brown and terminated in a muddy riverbed near what used to be the farmlands run by Kiran Cooke. One of the fields still contained the petrified remains of what must have been tall grass; Perhaps it had once been corn or quintotriticale, but now resembled vertical stakes jutting up from the ground in evenly spaced rows, like grave markers. Lore felt a pang of an emotion he couldn't identify. Kiran Cooke, the agricultural geneticist, had been one of the few colonists who had been kind to Lore and, later, to Data:

Lore watched as Kiran checked the rows of green plants, following the man through them.

Kiran stopped at each section, "This here is soybeans, and not just any kind. These are extra hearty. Made to grow in some of the least forgivin' environments. Of course, even the toughest of plants still needs tendin'. Kinda like children, in that respect." He gave a toothy smile to the android, "Or anythin', I suppose. One reaps what one sows and tends."

Lore ripped one of the stalks from the ground, then used it to write a sentence in the dirt: You reap what you sow. He smirked, then tossed the petrified stalk with all his strength, sending it two hundred meters away, where it landed in a puff of dust. He circled around to the South, past the extensive farm fields, to the very edge of the colony, where the physical plant and water treatment facility sat in disuse. A faint humming drew Lore's attention and he investigated the sound. The rows of solar collectors were somehow still able to function enough to create and send power to the underground bunker:

"There you are, Lore." Noonian Soong panted heavily as he hiked up the hill towards the power plant. "I wish you wouldn't wander off. It's safer in the bunker."

Lore frowned, then replied, "The others are afraid of me, father. You can't hear them, but my auditory sensors can hear every whisper." He stared at Soong with unblinking yellow eyes, "They fear me. They call me a monster."

Noonian stopped next to the android, bending and placing his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "Humans will always fear and envy you. They fear your power, your intellect. They fear you because you're everything they want to be, but can't be. You're stronger, smarter, free from sickness, and immortal. You're superior to them, and it scares them."

Lore grunted in response, "They also call you Often Wrong Soong. They say you keep making the same mistake twice."

"In science, Lore, making the same mistake twice is often not a mistake at all. Quite the contrary." Noonian reached a hand over to Lore, placing it on the android's shoulder, "Never mind what they all say. I want you in the bunker and not wandering. If you disobey me again, I'll deactivate you. You won't see the light of day ever again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, father." Lore hung his head, then followed Soong back to the entrance of the underground facility.

Lore lowered his head, then trudged down the rocky hillside towards the stony area that disguised the Southern entrance to the underground bunker. The entry switch still worked, and the rock-covered door swung inward. He walked through the hollowed out cavern passage to the main corridor, where rock gave way to the artificial structures of the facility.

Lore pressed the red button on the black panel in the wall, lighting the entire underground corridor. He walked down the steel grey corridor, as the light from the perforated metal ceiling filtered through the holes, making patterns on the floor. He stopped at the first door on the right and opened it, then turned the light on inside the room. The communications center equipment remained exactly as it looked on the last day that Lore had used it. Another small pang of an unfamiliar emotion coursed through Lore as he accessed memories involving Missy Bickel, whose specialty was broadcasting sciences:

Missy's silver hair was tied up in a loose bun at the back of her head, "Lore, will you monitor the subspace frequencies? I want to run this test of the wide-band transceivers."

Lore nodded his head once to the woman, "Very well." His auditory sensors were far superior to her aging ears, and he could detect faint resonant waves that seemed to have some sort of pattern to them.

Lore reached out to touch the communications equipment racks, as he halted the memory. Those patterns had turned out to be a large crystalline entity that traveled through space, occasionally making a meal of all the organic life on planets. Over the course of months, Lore had learned to speak with the being; It was young for its kind, had been separated from others and then gotten lost and was now unable to find its way back. He crossed the room to a thin door that opened to an alcove with a ladder.

The ladder remained intact and strong, so Lore began the climb upwards to the hatch in the roof of the underground bunker. Opening the hatch proved easy, and Lore continued climbing the strong scaffolding that held the many communications arrays. Halfway up to the arrays, he found his favorite viewing spot; A platform on the West side of the octagonal scaffold. As he contemplated the platform, his positronic brain accessed another pertinent memory:

"I thought I was the only one who knew this spot." Lore declared, as he approached the girl, visually inspecting her as he moved closer. The most noticeable features about her were dark brown eyes enlarged by the optical lenses on an apparatus that sat over the bridge of her nose and rested on the tops of her ears. Brown, curly hair hung loosely down her head, framing her oval face. Lore continued to study her, as his eyes roamed over her shapely body.

"Ohey! You're not the only one, obviously. Are you going to make me leave?" She craned her head back to look directly up at him.

"Do you want me to make you leave?" Lore glared at the girl. "Most of the other children would have run off by now."

The girl snorted indignantly, "I'm not most others, and I'm not really a child. I'm seventeen. Just about eighteen."

Lore attempted to suppress his amusement, "You're one of the Lucien offspring."

"Good guess. You're right. I'm Evelynn Lucien." The girl replied, moving her dangling legs to swing forward and back. "And you're a Soong offspring."

Lore smirked, "You may call me Lore. Why do you wear lenses in front of your optical sensors?"

"Eyes. I have eyes." Evelynn told the android, "And I'm allergic to Retinax V, like most of my family, so I have to use the old fashioned method to see. Glasses. Don't tell me you're going to make fun of me, like everyone else does?"

"Why would I do that?" Lore kneeled on the platform next to her. "Are you going to call me a monster like everyone else does?"

Evelynn glanced sideways at Lore, "I hadn't planned to." She averted her gaze from him and looked to the West, at the colony's town, the small sports arena where games were held, and off into the horizon, where Omicron Theta's two moons floated in the sky.

"You're not afraid of me." Lore kept his tone even, making it a statement, rather than a question.

"No, I'm not scared." Evelynn responded with a tilt of her head, "I think you're handsome. But I can see why some might find you scary. Yellow eyes can seem like a predator, like a large cat… the type that once hunted our distant ancestors."

Lore raised his eyebrows, "I never thought of that. It would explain the reactions humans have upon seeing me."

"Be glad Soong didn't make you look like a spider or a snake?" Evelynn offered with a chuckle.

Lore pondered her words, rubbing his chin, "Having four extra appendages might be more practical for some activities, but it would be more likely to make humans flee in terror. I can't imagine that being an android snake would make anything easy for me."

"Robotic rodent catchers." Evelynn smiled, "My father was working on something like that, once. He programs computers and artificial intelligence. He was so angry when Soong finished you and you worked."

"Why is that?" Lore furrowed his brow, then waited for her answer.

Evelynn glanced around conspiratorially, then whispered, "Jealousy of success. My dad's always green with envy whenever someone else has a breakthrough… even if it's in a different field. He's so hard to get along with that he gets kicked out of wherever we are. This is the tenth place we've lived since I can remember."

Lore lacked the proper response for her statement, so he nodded and remained silent.

Evelynn reached out with her hand, "Could I touch your skin? I'm curious about what you feel like."

Lore regarded her suspiciously, then sighed, "Go ahead." He held out his right hand to her.

Evelynn ran her fingers over Lore's hand, "It's soft and warm, almost like flesh. You have pores, too. Interesting." She retracted her hand, "Thank you for letting me satisfy my curiosity."

Lore lowered his eyelids in order to avoid more tears, and waited a few minutes, until the overwhelming pain of the memory finally ceased. After he reopened his eyes, Lore began the climb down the scaffold and back into the communications lab. With a brief sigh, he left the lab and returned to the main corridor. From the center of the hall, Lore had heard all the petty bickering, the jealous whispers and the ridiculous power struggles and politics underlying the supposedly "pure science" colony. Soong had stopped worrying about Lore's location, which gave the android more time and the freedom to wander. After enduring a few more months of being mocked and called names, Lore started to take delight in exposing the colonist's secrets in cruel and public ways:

"Good morning, Mister Kelly. I hear your wife is spending the nights with Ed Matagaro, these days."

"Hello there, Doctor Clendenning, how's tricks? Did you ever find out that it was Chris Finley sabotaging your gamma ray detection tests?"

"Well, Mister Handy, you would know about patting one's own stomach, since yours is too large a target to miss. Have the others noticed that you've been stealing from the colony's general supplies, yet?"

The familiar waves of anger and rage washed over Lore. With each subsequent day on the colony, the cruelty and bullying escalated on both sides. His father became too busy to spend time with Lore, and instead remained in his laboratory. The only times Lore saw or heard the cyberneticist were when Noonian and Juliana were arguing. Lore broke free from his reveries and looked around. He had absently walked through the hallway, past the upper entrance door, and to the cybernetics lab in the Eastern wing. The sliding doors parted, letting Lore into the area that had once been his home. He stopped in front of the open storage area that he assumed he had been placed in. More memories surfaced:

"Noonian, I can't believe you did this! You have a son, already." The soft volume of Juliana's voice did little to hide the anger in her words. "You said the next one could be female."

"What do you want from me, Juliana? I said it's up to you." Noonian's voice was louder, but firm.

"What can I possibly say? You're standing there with his head in your hands. Once again, it looks exactly like you." Juliana countered, "I help you build them and you don't even give them a single feature of mine. It's always about your own image."

"It's still just the one, Julie." Noonian responded to his wife, "The other colonists have petitioned me to deactivate Lore. I think I know what went wrong with him, and this new one will be better."

"I didn't think you'd noticed what's been happening with Lore. He's become so cruel, so angry." Juliana's voice lowered to a near whisper, "They say he's hurt some of the children and their pets on purpose. And then there's the matter of Ed Lucien's oldest daughter..."

"Sshhh! I'm well aware of Lore's shortcomings." the cyberneticist shot back, "You don't have to tell me everything he's done. It's got to be the emotions and ambitions. I've seen this before, long ago. The new android won't have emotions. I'll see to it. This time, I'll get it right."

Lore's body began to shake with rage as he recalled his parents' plan to replace him. They hadn't even had the courtesy to shut Lore down before activating the new one. In addition to the pain Lore was enduring at knowing that Data was built to supplant him, he now had double irritation, as the colonists took to mocking the new android. True to his word, their father had created Data without any emotion, so the words and actions of the colonists meant nothing to the younger android; In fact, Data seemed to be unconcerned with courtesies or the feelings and opinions of others. To Lore's amusement, his sibling was clumsy, nudist, irreverent, rude, and obdurate. As much as Lore had been prepared to hate his replacement, he found the opposite to be true. With both androids active, Lore had someone like himself to share life with, even with Soong continually refining the programming and wiping Data's memory banks over and over:

"Noonian, why are you keeping Lore active?" Juliana whispered as they worked on Data's programming. "He's just getting worse and worse with the colonists, and I think he suspects we intend to shut him down when Data is finished."

Noonian's irritation saturated his reply, "I'm not deactivating my one, working android until I get Data just right. I think I fixed the rude and polite problems, this time, for good."

"I hope so. You overcompensated in the last patch." Juliana retorted. "Data was obsequious to such a degree that I wanted to shut him off, myself."

"I know, I know." Noonian responded, "I couldn't stand to be in the same room with him. I'm pretty sure I have it this time."

Juliana's voice contained a level of exasperation that Lore had never heard from the normally passive woman before, "This time, this time. What if we'd spent these past nine months on fixing Lore, instead of taking two months on things like giving Data the "perfect hiccup" only to give up on that, Noonian? I'm trying to rationalize our leaving a cruel and aggressive android alone to get into who knows what trouble, while we sit here and tinker with this one, when there's no guarantee he won't turn out like Lore."

Lore halted the playback of the memory as he vacated the laboratory and left the bunker through the Northern door. The door shut tightly behind him, disguising itself as a natural hollow in the rocky hillside. Memories of his time on the colony had never caused him pain before; Lore wondered why they should do so now, after decades had passed. He reached into the pocket of his uniform and pressed the transporter recall button on the remote for his ship. Energy shimmered around him and the barren landscape was replaced with the interior of the vessel hiding in the planet's magnetic pole.

Lore walked to the bunk room to clean off the dust, then grabbed a comb from one of the drawers, and faced the mirror once more. As he combed his hair into the neat, slicked back style his brother preferred, Lore spoke to his reflection, "Soon, Data. I'll be seeing you very soon."