*Trigger Warning: There are references to sexual assault.*

Stardate 58534.3

T'Mera led Juliana into the detention area of the holodeck, avoiding the urge to be humorous and wave to the unseen observers in the viewing room. "There's a table and some chairs that we've been using for casual chats. Would you like anything to eat or drink? The holodeck is fully functional, which includes replicators."

"No, thank you. I'm fine." Juliana answered as she headed for the table, then sat down in a chair.

Worf dipped his head to T'Mera, "I'll return to the bridge, Doctor. Data should be arriving fairly soon."

"Thank you, Commander Worf." T'Mera gave a nod of acknowledgement to the Klingon as he exited, then gestured for Lore to sit at the table.

With only a slight show of reluctance, Lore walked over to the table and sat down in one of the chairs.

Once the android was seated, T'Mera returned to her workstation.

Juliana broke the awkward silence, "It's… a pleasant surprise to see you again, Lore."

Lore smirked back at Juliana, "I assume the emphasis is on the surprise part. What can I say? People have a bad habit of reassembling me. How have you been since I last saw you? I hear you went back into geology."

"I did, yes." Juliana's lips formed a tight smile, "I admit I'm more at home with minerals and mudflows than with circuits and servos."

Lore's eyebrows lowered and a moment passed before he spoke, "Ah, do you still make jewelry? I always thought you were a talented lapidary."

Juliana tilted her head to the right, "Jewelry? I don't recall ever making jewelry. You must be mistaken."

Lore fully frowned and glanced to T'Mera, then back at Juliana. "I have a complete memory record." He paused, "But it's not important." His shoulders relaxed as he saw Data enter the holographic detention area.

"I'm sorry it's so awkward, Lore." Juliana's tone of voice conveyed apology. "The last time I saw you was…" She trailed off, not finishing the sentence.

Lore completed the sentence for her, "When you and Often Wrong were deactivating me." He smirked, "It does kind of put a damper on the reunion." He lifted his chin as Data entered the holodeck, "There you are, brother. Now, we really feel like a family."

Data walked over to T'Mera and gave her the customary kiss, then approached the table, "Greetings, Lore… Mother." He sat in one of the empty chairs, "I apologize for my tardiness, but my help was needed on the planet."

Juliana smiled at Data, "It's quite all right. Lore and I were getting reacquainted. I also met T'Mera." She leaned towards Data and whispered, "She's very pretty."

Lore leaned towards Juliana and whispered to her, "T'Mera's got Vulcan hearing. She can overhear you when you whisper."

The left side of Data's mouth lifted up in amusement, "She is also an android, but thank you. I find T'Mera to be aesthetically pleasing, as well."

T'Mera gave a lighthearted chuckle as she worked, "I ain't been droppin' no eaves."

Juliana blinked in surprise, turned her head to look at T'Mera, then turned back to Data. "I couldn't even tell she's an android. Who built her?"

Data hesitated, then replied, "I built her body and her positronic brain. She was a fully organic woman with whom I had fallen in love, but she had a terminal injury. I knew that father had perfected the synaptic scan technique, so I transferred her mind into an android body just prior to her death." Data quickly added, "With T'Mera's consent, of course."

"Oh." Juliana seemed to ponder Data's words, "I knew he was working on synaptic scanning, back on Omicron Theta. He even used some of that for the two of you. I shouldn't be surprised that he finally succeeded. Noonian always did have a way of eventually getting things to work." She moved her gaze to Lore, "T'Mera will be trying to repair you? I hope she can do it. I begged and pleaded with Noonian to try and fix you, but he felt it would be better to deactivate you and build a new android."

Lore raised an eyebrow, "Which isn't quite what happened. You two designed and built Data and left me active until I called the Crystalline Entity to the colony."

Juliana shook her head, "No, no, Lore. We deactivated you before we created Data."

Data mirrored Lore's confused expression, "How long did it take for you and father to create me?"

"Why, almost five months." Juliana lifted her right hand to her chin, "And then it took three months to get you to where Noonian wanted you to be. You had such trouble with motor skills and sensory input. And Noonian just kept tinkering with you, trying to get you to be as human as possible."

"Don't forget his nudism." Lore smirked. "That, and the rudeness, were my favorite traits of Data's."

Juliana scowled, "Now, how would you know that, Lore?" The scowl vanished, "Oh! Data must have told you."

Data held up his left hand with the index finger extended, "Perhaps we should skip over who was deactivated and activated when, for now, since there is a discrepancy."

Lore stuck his tongue against the inside of his left cheek, "Fine with me. We could gossip about B-4. At least I know I wasn't alive when he was made."

Juliana's blue eyes became wistful, "Poor B-4. He nearly worked. It was so close."

Data offered, "You might be pleased to hear that B-4 is now alive and functional. I did not tell you sooner, because I wanted to make certain that he would remain active with no chance of cascade failure."

"B-4 is working?" Juliana widened her eyes, "How?"

"Doctor Chipman was able to repair his indexes." Data placed both his hands flat, palms down, on the table in front of him, "She proceeded to repair the errors in his programming, and with some guidance, his neural net began to grow. B-4 is currently residing at the Daystrom Annex on Galor IV."

Juliana clasped her palms together, "That's wonderful! Noonian was never able to figure out why the others were unstable, but with B-4, he was able to deduce the causes."

Data leaned forward, to rest his hands on the table. "Mother, if it is all right, I do have some questions about your escape from Omicron Theta."

Juliana tore her eyes from Lore and fixed them to Data, "What do you want to know?"

Data's eyebrows lowered asymmetrically, "I wish to get a better idea of the timing involved. You had deactivated me, then transferred the colonists' logs into my memory banks, but never had the chance to reactivate me because the Crystalline Entity attacked and you had to leave in a hurry."

"That's right." Juliana switched her focus from one brother to the other as she spoke, "It attacked the bunker and I ran to the shuttle pod, only to find Noonian dragging your body with him. I made him leave you behind and we managed to lift off without the entity seeing us. I've already apologized to you for leaving you behind, even though we had room, Data."

Data nodded to the geologist, "It is not apology I am seeking, but clarity."

Lore rolled his eyes, "The Crystalline Entity ignored you just like a whale ignores two escaping krill among hundreds." He regarded Juliana dubiously, "It was just you and Often Wrong in the shuttle? No equipment or books or anything?"

Juliana frowned as she concentrated, "It was so long ago, it's difficult to recall. Now that you mention it, I do remember that he had already packed books, equipment and some personal items into the escape pod."

Data canted his head to the left. "Were you injured during the escape?"

Lore leaned back in the chair, folding his arms across his chest and lifting the front two chair legs off the ground, "This is ridiculous."

"Hmm." Juliana paused for a moment, "I don't remember being hurt, but I must have been. I woke up on Terlina III with Noonian standing over me. He said I had suffered some sort of head injury but had recovered after being comatose."

The scowl on Lore's face caused three horizontal wrinkles in his forehead, "... that I can believe…"

Data ignored Lore's commentary and continued to ask questions, "For more clarification purposes… Lore is under the impression that Doctor Soong used substandard parts in his construction, but that higher quality components were used in mine."

Juliana snorted and waved her right hand dismissively, "Entirely untrue. I helped put both of you together, and the very same parts were used for you, Lore, and for Data, except for the phase discriminator. Who said Lore had substandard parts?"

"Tom Handy." Lore pressed his pale lips together, studying Juliana's face intently.

"Pfft." Juliana shook her head, "Mister Handy could never tell you all apart. I'm sure he thought you were B-4, who did happen to be constructed with whatever we could manage to salvage from the other prototypes."

The anger faded from Lore's face and he glanced at Data.

"You had mentioned to me that you left father because he loved his work more than he loved you…" Data steepled his fingers on the table, "Would you happen to know what it was that he was working so long and hard on? Did you assist him?"

Juliana's eyebrows knit together, "I don't know what it was, and he wouldn't let me assist him. That was part of the problem. He was shut up in his lab all day and I had very little to occupy my own time. I couldn't continue to live that way."

Data's eyes oscillated as he processed the information, "Thank you for clearing up those points for me."

"I'm glad I was able to do so." Juliana smiled, then looked between the android siblings, "It would be nice if you could be repaired, Lore." She gazed directly at Lore, "From the moment you were activated, you had a cruel, evil streak. It was heartbreaking. It seemed as if every day, someone had a complaint about you, and then there was the matter of Ed Lucien's daughter."

"What?" Lore shouted, slammed his hands on the table, and stood up so quickly that his chair fell over. "What matter of Ed Lucien's daughter?"

Juliana put the fingers of her right hand to her lips, "It's so difficult to speak of, even after all these years. You…" She paused, as if hunting for the proper words, "You sexually assaulted Evelynn."

Lore's golden eyes blazed with anger, "Who told you that?"

Distress showed in Juliana's blue eyes, but she answered, "Ed Lucien told me that he had caught you in the act."

T'Mera stopped working and swiveled in her chair, observing the three at the table with a concerned expression on her face.

Lore's hands clenched into fists. "I never assaulted Evelynn. I would have given my own life for hers, if I'd had the opportunity! I'll tell you something about Ed Lucien. He was cruel and far more evil than I ever was, and that's taking into account that he comprises one quarter of one percent of my own personality. Didn't you ever see his wife… Evelynn's mother? The bruises…" He unclenched his fists and threw his arms up in the air, "But no, of course not. Human perception is weak and limited. You never would have noticed the shallow, nervous breathing or the small fractures in her bones… the nearly imperceptible way she would flinch. Even when humans do see such things, they pretend that it's not their business."

Lore's expression hardened into a satisfied grimace, "Yes, I finally killed Lucien, when he tried to destroy me. You can call me evil, and perhaps I am, but ask yourself how humans can simply look away and not see what goes on around them. With all of my superior senses, I couldn't be blind… I couldn't pretend not to hear it all. I absorbed every bit of it."

"Please calm down, Lore." Data shot a worried glance at his brother.

"I will not calm down!" Lore shouted, then kicked his fallen chair away. He slammed his palms flat on the table and stared at Juliana, "I don't know why your memories are so faulty, but it took at least a few weeks before I started to turn "evil", as you so put it. It took months of neglect and mistreatment. I'll be the first to admit that I let it turn me into a monster." He gritted his teeth, "But do you want to know something? At least I meant to kill the colonists! I was enraged and malicious and I wanted them out of my misery. What's your excuse, Mother?"

"I… I don't understand…" Juliana stammered as she glanced back and forth from Lore to Data.

Any veneer of sarcasm drained from Lore, leaving only the rage, "You took equipment in the escape pod, and you had room for Data, but didn't take him. That's fine. He's just an android, and we androids don't have a lot of natural enemies. No, leaving Data behind wasn't your crime." He paused, watching the faces of Juliana and Data, "There were other colonists, including small children, hiding in the bunker. It says quite a lot about you and Father that neither one of you filled that extra space with one of them. You could have saved one or two of the colonists, or more, if you'd left the equipment behind. They never even crossed your minds, I'll bet. For all that you claim to care about them, the other colonists didn't really matter to you."

Data's eyes widened and his jaw dropped in surprise and sudden comprehension.

Juliana burst into tears, then knocked over her chair as she pushed away from the table and ran past the guards and nearly into a wall. In a voice choked with sobs, she spoke, "Computer… exit." The arch appeared and the sliding doors whooshed open, letting the overwrought woman through them.

Lore straightened up and met the eyes of his shellshocked brother, "The sad thing is that, because of all the lies I've told in the past, nobody's going to take my word over hers. Data, I had a total uptime of two years and three months on Omicron Theta. Juliana didn't even remember that she used to be a lapidary."

Data stood up calmly, his eyes oscillating, "I have scanned the colonists' logs and there are a few mentions of mother giving handmade jewelry as gifts to others. This is most puzzling."

Lore walked over to retrieve the chair he had kicked away, "You should go after her, perhaps. Tell her I'm a monster. That I'm irredeemably evil."

Data nodded to his brother, "I will try to speak to her." He began to walk away, then turned to face his brother once more, "I have met irredeemable evil, Lore, and you are not it." With that, he exited the holodeck.

Lore's eyes met T'Mera's, "I suppose I could have handled that better."

T'Mera nodded in agreement, "Most likely."

Lore stalked over to his punching bag and began to pace around it, "I wasn't expecting there to be such a discrepancy in her memories."

The holodeck doors opened with a whoosh, letting Phillipa Louvois inside the detention area. She dipped her head in acknowledgement to the security guard, then walked through the room to stand near T'Mera's workstation, while addressing Lore. "Hello, Lore. I'm Captain Phillipa Louvois, and I'm from the judge advocate general's office, assigned to your case."

"Hello, Captain. I suppose thanks are in order?" Lore stared at Louvois without blinking, "You're the expert who's come to take my measure?"

Louvois remained near T'Mera, but nodded to Lore, "In a manner of speaking. I'm going to take your testimony and hear from others about you, and then try to make a ruling about your legal status."

"You're not going to just assume I'm lying about everything?" Lore scowled, then punched the bag.

Louvois frowned, then looked at T'Mera, "Doctor Chipman, at the risk of seeming insensitive, is there a way to tap directly into Lore's memories, so that we can be certain they're not fabrications? We've found three witnesses to the years in question on Omicron Theta, but two of them are considered unreliable. I'm taking their depositions anyway, but it would be nice to have something verifiable."

T'Mera rubbed her chin, "Yes, there is a way to tap directly into Lore's positronic matrix. It's somewhat invasive from a privacy standpoint, but painless. I can link Lore's neural net into the holodeck, search for the pertinent memory engrams and then extract Lore's memories into something we can directly observe. It'll take maybe an hour, at most, for me to establish the interlink parameters and security measures and then eighteen hours to transfer and program the sensory information into the Omicron Theta full representation." She turned to regard Lore, "If Lore consents to it, that is."

"I consent." Misery exuded from Lore's bright yellow eyes, then mixed with sadness, "If it proves the truth, then let everyone see my secrets. They'll see Data's, as well." A pleading tone entered his voice, "Will I still be repaired?"

Phillipa Louvois' lips formed a tight smile, "Yes, you will. I'd just like to observe your memories before Doctor Chipman starts to tamper with your programming. In the meantime, you'll still have daily sessions with Counselor Veluna."

Lore walked over to his rolling chair, then sat reversed in it, "Fine, Captain."

"I'm going to make some of the arrangements." Louvois declared, "Doctor, begin the interlink measures, and I'll inform you when we'll reconvene." She turned and walked past the guards to the holodeck exit, then passed through the sliding doors into the corridor.

Lore used his feet to roll his chair closer to T'Mera, "In addition to the interlink parameters, you may want to replicate enough popcorn for everyone who's going to come see my memories."

Data tapped his combadge as he hurried through the corridor after his mother. "Computer… locate Doctor Juliana Tainer."

"Doctor Tainer is located in the forward starboard observation room on Deck Ten." came the reply.

Data entered the nearest turbolift, "Deck Ten, forward." within a short time, the lift reached its destination and opened the doors. Data hurried through the sliding doors, then headed to the starboard observation room. He easily located his mother; She stood at one of the large windows, staring out at Omicron Theta. Data slowed his pace to a more casual one, then stood quietly at Juliana's side.

Juliana wiped the tears from her cheeks, "You probably think I'm awful. All those hateful things Lore said to me, but he's right. I don't think it ever occurred to us to save anyone else. I've never even given them a second thought." She looked up at Data with blue eyes filled with remorse, "You have to understand. It was utter chaos. I don't remember most of it, and as you said, I must have been injured…" She trailed off in disbelief, "... I wouldn't have willingly left people to die, would I? But I did… We did..."

Data calculated the proper response, as he reached an arm out to wrap around Juliana's shoulders. "It was a very long time ago, Mother. You and Father made mistakes, it is true." He kept his voice placid, "It is very possible that many hidden events from the past will be revealed by Lore. Secrets. Mistakes. It is important to be strong, and to forgive yourself for your part in any of it."

"I didn't want to tell you this…" Juliana's voice wavered, "But given how the conversation with Lore just went, you would most likely figure it out soon enough." She reached out with both hands, placing one on each of Data's arms and slid them down past his wrists until she grabbed both of his hands in hers, "There's no pleasant way to put it. I'm losing my memory. I'll go to replicate a meal, then right after I finish eating, I forget I've just eaten and I replicate another meal. Sometimes I lose my concentration, or I lose the ability to recall some words."

Data frowned, while he clasped her hands, "Have you seen a doctor about these symptoms?"

"No." Juliana shook her head, "I haven't been to see a doctor since…" She paused for a moment, then frowned, as well. "I don't think I've seen one since I was on Omicron Theta. The Atreans aren't all that familiar with human physiology, either, so I never felt the need to go."

Data hesitated, as if weighing his next words, "Mother, I would like to ask Doctor Crusher to give you a physical, if you would be willing to consent to that."

Juliana gave Data an encouraging smile through her tear-stained face, "All right. I suppose it's about time I had a checkup. At Doctor Crusher's convenience, of course. There's no rush."

"No, there is no rush." Data pushed his concern to the background of his thoughts, "Would you like to go to the lounge and have a drink while we converse?"

Juliana composed herself, "That sounds lovely. You can tell me all about you and T'Mera. I'd like to hear how you met, about B-4 and anything else you'd want to tell your mother."

Data offered his right elbow to her. After she took it with her left hand, Data led her to the lounge and recounted the tale for the next ninety minutes.