Stardate: 58505.5

T'Mera walked into Holodeck Four, through the main workstation and detention area. "Sorry about the wait, Lore. I've never understood why they're called briefings, when they're usually anything but brief."

Lore stood near the suspended punching bag, "What's the verdict? Here or Galor IV?"

"You will remain here, in the Holodeck." T'Mera replied as she sat down at the workstation. "It's been agreed that the Enterprise is a better location."

Lore grumbled and kicked at the bag, "I'm surprised they don't all want me spaced again."

Ensign Murphy remained with the two holographic guards. "Did you want me anywhere in particular, Doctor?"

T'Mera shook her head, "You're fine where you are. This should be a fairly boring duty for you, Ensign." She pressed buttons on one of the consoles, "Computer, begin constant timestamped recording starting now. Five recording devices. Place timestamp in the lower right. Doctor T'Mera Chipman, beginning procedures on the Soong-type android known as Lore."

Lore sauntered over to T'Mera's side, "You're quite at home in here, aren't you?"

"I'm a holographer. It's what I do." T'Mera pointed to a nearby rolling chair, "I want you to sit in that. I'm going to need to open your head ports and keep them open. Will you be fine with that, or will you want a hat to cover the open ports and monitors?"

Lore picked up the chair, moved it closer to T'Mera, slammed it down on the floor and then sat in it with a defiant look, "I don't want a hat. Just do what you have to."

T'Mera opened one of the drawers in her holographic workstation, then stood up and moved next to Lore. With the tap of her fingers, she opened several panels in Lore's head, flipping up the hair and bioplast until the metal, wires and blinking lights of his positronic brain were visible. "Three temporal port monitors set… Two occipital, one parietal and sensory.." She attached monitors to the side and back of Lore's head. "Two in the cerebellum and stem port. One in the frontal forehead." She placed a final device on his right temple, "Broca monitor."

Lore frowned as the monitors kept being attached, "How many of these are there going to be? I don't remember father ever doing this to me."

"Just ten, and then I'll need to cable you into an isolinear storage unit, briefly." T'Mera pulled out the cable and hooked it into one of the ODN conduits in Lore's head. "I can't speak for Soong, but when I do something, I do it to the best of my ability. Soong also didn't use scientific methods or revision control. Try to keep an open mind, Lore."

Both Lore and Ensign Murphy groaned in unison.

"I'll be here all week. Try the replicated veal." T'Mera smirked, then typed into the console.

Lore rolled his eyes and slouched in the chair, "What's the cable for?"

"I'm making a full backup of your matrix, just in case." T'Mera opened another drawer and removed the round container. She opened it, picked out a red candy worm and popped it into her mouth, "Would either of you like some chewing gum? It's one of my habits."

Ensign Murphy shook their head, "I don't eat or drink, but thank you."

Lore glanced in Murphy's direction, "I don't need to eat or drink, either, but thank you, Doctor. It seems as if you'll be chewing alone. I assume my holographic guards don't eat or drink, either?"

"Nope. These two don't have any eating or drinking protocols." T'Mera bent at the waist to peer closer at Lore's brain. "Wow. I can tell Zome Rylan patched your connections."

"Is that bad?" Lore raised both eyebrows, started to turn his head to look at her, then stopped.

T'Mera traced a finger over one of the connections, "It'll hold. Not the most elegant work I've seen. And I think… Computer, one overhead spot aimed at cranial apex." A floating light appeared over Lore's head. "Oof. I'll have to have Data look at that. While you're being backed up, we may as well discuss the worst-case scenario. In the event that you start to go into cascade failure due to emotional overwhelm, what do you want me to do? I could do a force quit, deactivate you, and then start to wipe memory engrams and try you on a half-wipe."

Lore remained silent for a few minutes, then answered, "If I can't cope with the things I've done, then I don't deserve to live. Let me cascade and then vaporize my cranial unit. Use my body for spare parts for B-4 or Data."

"Ah, you're an optimist." T'Mera tapped more buttons on the console, "Is your interlink sequencer in synchronous or asynchronous operation?"

"Synchronous." Lore furrowed his eyebrows. "Why?"

T'Mera replied as she set up the 3D midair holographic displays, "I just want to make sure I'm using the right debugger for you." One of the displays showed a neural net with the pathways being highlighted each time an impulse traveled along them. "And there is your brain, Lore." She unhooked the cable from the ODN conduit.

Lore folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in the chair, "Well? Is it better than Data's?"

T'Mera raised an eyebrow, then snapped her gum noisily, "It depends on how you define better. I'd rather not get involved in your sibling rivalry, if it's all the same to you."

"It's not all the same to me." Lore sneered at the holographer and stood up, kicking the rolling chair hard enough that it rolled halfway across the floor of the holodeck, "You don't even have to answer, since I know it, already. Of course, everything of Data's is better. Often Wrong didn't fill him with substandard parts! No, that honor was bestowed upon me."

Ensign Murphy and the two guards moved forward momentarily at Lore's outburst, but stopped and remained at the ready.

T'Mera tilted her head to the right, following Lore as he began to pace, "I'm curious. This is the first I'm hearing about substandard parts. Did Doctor Soong tell you that? Did you overhear it?"

Lore threw both arms up as he stomped back and forth, "I heard him telling Juliana that Data would be much better. Tom Handy was the one who told me I was made with substandard parts. At the time, I believed it, but looking back, I wonder if he said it just to get me upset."

"I don't know too much about the colony, Lore, but it's possible that the colonist lied. I've seen the list of people who lived and worked there, and I wouldn't have trusted most of them to run a jumja stick stand. I'll try to get confirmation of the substandard parts supposition." T'Mera checked the neural net display, then watched the android, "Your body seems to be functioning fine and from what I can tell, the components are similar to what Data had. I think it's the programming causing you problems. If it makes you feel better, Soong was substandard in programming all three of you."

Lore stormed over to the punching bag, "You said I can hit this thing when I'm mad, right?"

"That's correct." T'Mera nodded as she typed into the console, "It's set to withstand two of you beating on it, so enjoy. Try not to break your own hand." She began to return to her work, then turned to add, "Also, since there could be a bit of waiting time, is there anything non-violent that you enjoy as far as passing the time? Books, music, holovids?"

Lore replied between punches, "I never was much for hobbies. I'll let you know if I want anything. I spent nearly two years drifting in space, so I learned to entertain myself."

"That's a long time to be spaced. I could set up the far corner of the room with holographic breakables, if you want?" T'Mera waved her hand in the air, and a pen-sized tool appeared in her grasp. "You could smash expensive-looking things while I make the chip reader."

"You mentioned the chip reader, earlier." Lore continued to circle around the room, punching the bag as he passed it. "What's that going to do?"

"I want to query the programming on the so-called emotion chip without slotting it into either one of you." T'Mera answered while she worked on creating the reader, "I can understand you not having the time to do that, since you were trying to deprive Data of the chip, but I don't entirely understand his motives for shoving it in, one random day."

Lore gave a noncommittal grunt in reply as he pushed the rolling chair back near her desk, "What are those lines of text on the small display?"

"That, my dear Lore…" T'Mera smiled at the android, then snapped her gum, "Is the decompiler taking everything in your brain and logging the output to a form I'll be able to read. It will give me the direct view of your source code and let me see where you made your own heuristic alterations." With another wave of her hand, the tool changed to a different type.

Lore gritted his teeth, turned the chair backwards, then sat in it, using the seat back to rest his arms and chin on, "In other words, you're going to know every little thing there is to know about me. I'm torn between being upset at how intrusive this is going to be and amazed at how much you seem to know about how we work." He let out a snort, "So, if you're so good with all this, how come you never built your own androids?"

T'Mera absently lifted her left hand and pointed with her thumb in the direction of the two holograms. "I've created hundreds of androids, just not sentient ones, since that would be irresponsible. My androids are all made of photons, force fields, tractor beams and the like. I'm not a cyberneticist or a robotics engineer, and I won't ever degrade Soong's true bit of genius in creating your physical body and brain. However, he was not a good programmer or father, in my opinion."

Lore's yellow eyes fixed on T'Mera and his voice turned cold, "Why are you doing all this? At first, I thought you offered it because you were afraid I would kill you, but you don't seem to be afraid of me. It can't be that you're doing it for me, since you have no reason to care about me. Is it for Data? For some feather in your cap?"

"It's very difficult to explain, but I'm doing it because it bothers me that nobody tried to fix you." T'Mera responded, stopping her work and turning her head to look at Lore directly. "I get a sense that you're not supposed to be the way you are, and that everyone ignored the problems, rather than work harder. As an example, they gave me B-4 and told me to recover Data. They gave no thought to B-4, aside from him as a container that was carrying Data's engrams. It bothered me, and although it wasn't part of my job, I did everything I could to save B-4, in addition to Data." She let out a sigh, "I don't know if I'm making any sense to you."

Lore muttered, "I suppose so. You make more sense than Often Wrong did. He told me that he couldn't fix me because constructing Data was the next logical step."

"Constructing Data was his next step, but it was not logical." T'Mera turned back to her work, giving her gum another snap between her teeth, "If something is not functioning, the next logical step is to determine the cause of the malfunction and proceed with repairs."

Lore pushed against the floor with his feet, causing the chair to roll with him on it, "That makes sense to me. Is it true that Vulcans can't lie?"

"No." T'Mera glanced briefly at Lore, then back at her work, "Vulcans, as a general rule, do not lie. However, if logic demands it, then a Vulcan can certainly tell a lie."

Lore stood up, pushing the chair away, and resumed pacing, "Then how do I know you're not lying now? What if logic demands it?"

T'Mera stopped working, lowered her head and stayed silent for a few minutes. With a sharp intake of breath and an exhale, she swiveled in the chair to face Lore. "Exactly what is it about this situation that's striking false with you? Do you need to see my background files that prove that I do quite a bit of systems analysis? That's a fancy term for "I fix other people's broken programming." Is there something I need to explain better?"

"It's not you!" Lore threw his hands in the air as he stomped in a circle around the punching bag. "How come you think you can fix me, when the man who created me told me it's not that easy and that he couldn't figure out what went wrong with me?"

"Lore, it's not going to be easy." T'Mera stared directly at the agitated android, "I think I can fix you because I know I have the skills, knowledge and persistence to do so. While Soong was a talented cyberneticist, he really wasn't good at programming, psychology or the upbringing of artificial lifeforms. May I give you a phrase to tell yourself, when reality doesn't seem to match what Doctor Soong told you?" She waved her hand and the tool vanished.

Lore stopped his forward motion and his yellow eyes seemed sad and soulful for a moment, "What phrase?"

T'Mera held up her right hand, index finger extended to point to the ceiling, "Repeat this to yourself when what he said doesn't match what you experience: Soong was full of shit."

Lore stuck his tongue in his cheek, then spoke, "Soong was full of shit." He furrowed his brow, then returned to a neutral expression, "That does help." He walked over to grab the rolling chair, sat in it, then used his feet to roll back to T'Mera's side. "I think I'll watch you work. I've never seen anyone use holographic tools before."

T'Mera's lips curled into a kind smile, "That's fine. I can set some music to play while I work, so it's less boring, if you wish."

Lore pondered for a moment, "The song you were playing when I met you… Could you play that one first?"

"Of course." T'Mera tapped some buttons on the console, starting the playlist. As she returned to building the chip reader, she could see Lore relax in his chair when the music began to play.

And your heart is breaking

What are you gonna do now

That you're tired of faking it?

Well, it's hard to take it

When you know what happens each time

The devil with the green eyes

Said you were never meant to be mine

'Cause I came up from a dark world

And every love I've ever known is dead.