Omicron Theta in 2335

Doctor Noonian Soong lowered his left hand, nearly dropping the small tool he held. A smile of delight spread across his face, as he looked into the yellow eyes of his newest creation, "Happy birthday."

The android's yellow eyes darted back and forth, taking in its current surroundings. "Happy birthday?" His eyes settled for a moment on the young, auburn-haired woman standing near a tool-covered table. "A celebration of the anniversary of the birth of a person or an institution." He turned his gaze back to Soong.

Doctor Soong chuckled, "You're absolutely right. I should have said "happy birthdate". Or, in this case, happy activation date. Let's run some tests, shall we? Does your internal chronometer tell you today's date?"

The android's eyes oscillated for a moment, "Stardate one-two-six-six-six point zero. Earth equivalent date is September fifth, 2335. Omicron Theta colony is currently in its early spring season."

Soong clapped his hands together, "Excellent. Now, stand up, rub your stomach and pat yourself on the head."

The android lifted itself out of the chair, then moved its arms to comply with the instructions.

"Beautiful, beautiful." Soong watched, then added another instruction, "Whistle for me. Pop goes the weasel."

While still moving its arms and hands, the android whistled a faltering rendition of the song.

Soong grunted in disappointment, "Oh well. That's enough of that."

The android stopped whistling, patting and rubbing, and dropped his arms to his sides. The eager expression on his face transformed to shame.

"How about this one." Soong began a slight dance and song, "I say to-may-toe…" while swinging his arms to his left, "And you say to-mah-toe…" then swung his arms to the right.

The android copied his creator, "I say po-tay-toe…" adding the proper hand swing and pointed fingers for each part, "And you say po-tah-toe… Let's call the whole thing off…"

Soong's face returned to the ecstatic smile, "Ha! Juliana, did you see that?" He turned to look at the red-headed woman. "He didn't just copy me, he continued the song where I left off."

Juliana smiled back at the cyberneticist, "I saw. I have to admit, Noonian, I was skeptical, but you did it."

Soong closed the distance between himself and Juliana, "I finally did it! He's perfect, on my first attempt." He embraced his wife, then turned to marvel at his creation, "The way he moves and speaks, his nuanced facial expressions… they're so completely human."

The android looked at the couple, then addressed Doctor Soong, "You are Noonian." He turned his attention to Juliana, "You are Juliana." His brows furrowed for a moment, "Who am I?"

Doctor Soong furrowed his brow in concentration, then smiled again, "You are Lore."

"Lore." The android repeated, "A body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group, typically passed from person to person by word of mouth." After another moment of contemplation, the android nodded, "I am the Lore of Omicron Theta."

Doctor Soong beckoned to Lore, "Come this way. Let's test your equilibrium and other functions in the main laboratory. I can hardly wait to show you off."

A beatific smile formed on Lore's face and he followed Soong out of the cluttered lab.

"Everything checks out." Edward Lucien's voice held a slight enmity to it, as he checked the readouts on the workstation's display. "I suppose congratulations are in order." With his right hand, he pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose.

Lore focused on the strange apparatus on Lucien's face, but remained silent as the testing came to a conclusion.

"I foresee a possible Zee-Magnees Prize nomination in the future for you, Smith." Edwin Matagaro laughed, "Or will you accept it under your real name, Soong?"

Doctor Soong shook his head as he unplugged Lore from the equipment, "I didn't do this for any damn prize, and certainly not for the unappreciative cretins in the Federation." He patted Lore on the back, between the shoulder blades, "No, this gift is for building the future of humanity."

Ed Lucien mumbled, then spoke more clearly, "Soong, the problem with its cadence is just a slight mathematical timing issue. Unless you need this Lore to be a professional singer, I'd say don't bother fixing it."

"I suppose you're right, Lucien." Soong answered, "A few imperfections, here and there, will make him seem more human, anyway."

The lab doors opened, admitting two children, both of whom rushed over to Ed Matagaro. Both children had short blonde hair and blue eyes similar to the scientist. "Father! Father!"

"Josh, don't shout." Matagaro smiled at the children, then spoke to to the quiet one, "What do you have in your hand, Jae?"

Jae held up two pieces of paper, each with a drawing on them. One drawing depicted simple human figures on what resembled a parrises squares court, with four participants wearing blue and four in red. The other drawing was similar, except the humans were represented with stick figures.

Lore stared intently at the simple drawings.

Josh grinned as he explained, "We drew the match for you, father. I wish Jae could play in it."

"Jae is a few years too young for that game." Matagaro accepted the drawings from his daughter and pinned them up on the message wall. "People have been known to get hurt or even killed in parrises squares."

By this time, Jae had surveyed the lab and stared at Lore with interest. She lifted her right hand and pointed to the android.

Josh followed his sister's motion, "Who is that?"

Ed Matagaro chuckled, "That is Lore. He's an android. Doctor Soong activated him earlier this morning."

Josh waved to Lore, "Hello."

"Hello." Lore replied, imitating the handwave.

Ed Matagaro herded the two children towards the door, "Now, I have a lot of work to do, still, so why don't you two run along home? Thank you for the wonderful art."

"Okay, father." Josh replied, and then he and Jae ran back out into the corridor, with the doors shutting behind them.

Lore watched the children run off, then focused on Doctor Soong as the testing continued.

Juliana and Noonian sat across from each other at the table in their living quarters, with Lore seated at the foot of the table. As the husband and wife ate dinner and chatted, Lore watched them with interest. As each of them lifted sauteed greens to their mouths with a fork, inquisitive yellow eyes followed the movements of Noonian's left hand and Juliana's right hand.

"Now that you've succeeded, maybe I can go back to geology." Juliana smiled, in-between bites. "I'm almost out of quartz, too. I was thinking of making more jewelry."

Noonian smiled at Juliana, "Whatever you want to do. Making jewelry keeps you in practice for the finely detailed work of putting androids together, after all." He beamed at Lore, "And to think that I have Ira Graves to thank. If I hadn't worked with him on the synaptic scan technique, it wouldn't have occurred to me to use that to create a ready-made personality."

Juliana regarded Lore with delight, "It seems to have worked wonderfully."

With an expression of sheer pride, Noonian gazed at the android. "Lore is an ultimate triumph and his immortal life will be an eternal tribute to me. A monument to my brilliance."

"Of course, dear." Juliana smiled as Lore began to mime using a fork, lifting food to his mouth and chewing. "Oh, how cute. He's imitating eating."

Noonian nodded, "That's part of it. He learns by watching and imitating. I tell you, the future looks bright. I probably won't even need to train him. He could just roam around the colony and learn."

Stardate: 12674.1

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." He turned one hundred and eighty degrees, pulling Lore along with him, and walked along a central path to the East, towards the agricultural fields.

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."

"I heard the other children call their biological male creators "father." It seemed fitting for me to do so." Lore replied as they continued to stroll along the path, "Father, why did that fat man laugh at us?"

"Jealousy, pure and simple, Lore." Soong frowned, "Just pay him no mind. Old Tom Handy thinks he's the big man because he's one of the founders of this colony, but all that does is make him a fat fish in a tiny pond. I thought a walk outside would be nice, but now that I think better of it, I've decided I'd like you to remain in the bunker."

Lore frowned at the words, "There is a lack of stimuli inside the bunker. I can experience much more out here." His olfactory sensors picked up the faintest sweet fragrance of the blossoms from the quince trees lining the path between town and the farms.

Noonian remained silent for several minutes, then offered, "What if I ask Missy Bickel to teach you what she does? She works with all the communications and security equipment, and unlike some of these ignoramuses on the surface, she appreciates someone else's achievements."

"That would be acceptable to me, Father." Lore replied, taking a moment to glance up at the clouds in the sky. His ears picked up the sound of someone singing, and he refocused his eyes in the direction of the sound.

"The sons of the prophet were valiant and bold and quite unaccustomed to fear… But of all the most reckless or so I am toooold, was Abdul Abulbul Amir." A heavily tanned man in a wide-brimmed hat and dirty brown coveralls sang as he tended the trees. "There were brave men aplenty, all well known to fame, who served in the ranks of the Czar… bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bahbah bah bahbahhhh… Ivan Petrovsky Skavar…" He waved to the cyberneticist and android as they passed by.

Noonian returned the wave and smiled when Lore imitated the hand gestures. "Excellent, Lore. You've picked up on social interactions."

"Who was that man, Father?" Lore glanced back as they passed, then turned his eyes forward once more.

Noonian brought Lore along to the South path, back towards the bunker, "That was Kiran Cooke. He runs the farms and deals with the agricultural genetics and modification. You won't need to worry about things like food and eating."

Lore raised an eyebrow as they moved closer to the hidden door, "You and Juliana seem to take pleasure in eating."

"Yes, for us, it's evolved that way, Lore." Noonian answered, "But if we don't eat, we can die. I gave you an ability to eat and drink, if you want to observe human customs, but it's not imperative for you. You'll never starve, never get dehydrated, never become ill, and, most of all, you'll never die. I gave you all the strengths of being human, and none of the weaknesses."

"Thank you, Father." Lore's mouth formed a wide smile as they returned to the underground bunker.

Stardate: 12784.8

Lore watched Missy Bickel, as the elderly woman opened a hidden panel in the wall and punched in an access code. As on most days, Missy had gathered her silver hair together into a loose bun on the lower back of her head, although Lore could see the flyaway strands that she had missed. Missy's gait was uneven and stiff, but she remained ambulatory as she vanished through the door that opened. "Missy, are you old?"

Missy's voice echoed from inside the small, hidden room, "I suppose I am, Lore. I'm surprised you waited a month to ask me that."

"I wanted to wait until we'd reached a level of familiarity that affords more personal questions." Lore responded, while he checked the communications equipment in the main area. "Missy, what's in that room and why do you go in there twice a day?"

Missy stuck her head through the door, then smiled at Lore, "This is the colony's security monitoring station. It used to be that someone was always manning the station, back in the beginning, but it's a boring job and turns out that all we needed to do is have the computer run it, compress and archive each day, and keep the records. Other than the occasional dispute, we haven't needed to use them. I just come in to check the long range sensors for weather reports in the morning and evening." She shuffled back out of the room and typed the code into the panel, closing the door. "Our defense system is in there, too. The bunker has shields similar to a starship, if we need 'em, but we haven't, so far. This world has nothing anyone'd want, except for a handful of scientists looking to work in peace."

"Peace." Lore parroted the word. "If they want to work here in peace, why is there so much arguing amongst them? My auditory sensors are superior to that of a human's, and every day, I hear people's voices rising in volume as they argue and disagree. Some have even threatened the others."

"Bickering's just human nature, I'm afraid." Missy patted Lore on his right shoulder. "Will you be a doll and check the tower? It's nice to have someone else to do it. I'm getting too old to climb. I suppose I should look for another person willing to learn these systems."

"Of course." Lore nodded with his reply, then crossed the room to another door; A visible door, unlike the one leading to the security monitor room. He entered the small alcove and climbed the ladder to the hatch, which was easily opened. From the open hatch, Lore continued to climb the strong tower, checking for any signs of damage to the equipment. Once the arrays were all checked, Lore stopped at a platform halfway up the tower and stood at the railing on the western side.

The view from the platform afforded Lore a vantage point from which to observe the town, the arena, the farms and the far horizon. The faint sounds of children and teenagers traveled the distance to Lore's ears, indicating that there was an activity currently in progress in the sporting arena. A sigh emitted from Lore's lips and he climbed the ladder down to the alcove and closed the hatch above him.

Missy smiled as Lore returned, "Thank you. You can return to Doctor Soong, now. That's all I need, for the day."

"I'm glad I could be of service to you." Lore bent at the waist and dipped in a slight bow to Missy. "A good evening to you, then, Missy."

Stardate 58537.3

Enterprise - Holodeck Four

"Computer, pause program." Captain Picard's voice interrupted the holographic presentation, which froze around them. The visuals from Omicron Theta faded and the light gradually increased to allow the observers to see each other.

Data tilted his head inquisitively, "Is there something wrong, Captain?"

"Mister Data, has the away team found and checked that security room in the underground bunker?" Picard rubbed his chin as he frowned.

Data's eyes widened in comprehension, "Not to my knowledge. It seems that there might be more to the underground bunker than we had discovered. This includes wherever it was that Doctor Soong activated Lore. That is not part of the laboratory in which we found Lore."

"You'll need my access code for the security room." Lore offered, then spat out a thirty digit string of characters. "The Soong's quarters and personal lab are through a door behind the first panel to the right of the cryogenic storage unit. All you need to get in are Soong's or Juliana's handprint. Data's hand will activate it."

Captain Louvois spoke, "I think we can call a recess for now and reconvene in three hours. That should give people time to eat or rest, and for an away team to locate the hidden rooms that are shown in Lore's memories."

"Thank you, Phillipa." Picard smiled softly at Louvois, then tapped his combadge, "Commander La Forge… I will be sending Commander Data down to you. Please meet him at the underground bunker."

Geordi La Forge's voice emanated from the system, "All right, Captain. I'm on my way, now."

Data leaned to give T'Mera a quick kiss, then walked swiftly to the exit.

Captain Picard, Captain Louvois and Doctor Crusher filed out shortly afterward, followed by Counselor Veluna.

Lore stood up and walked towards Lieutenant D'Sora, "Still think I'm informative?"

D'Sora gave Lore a lopsided smile, "Yes. So far, it doesn't seem that bad."

Lore's eyebrows lowered as his expression grew grim, "What we just watched are my salad days. The real "meat", so to speak, is coming. After that, a few "just desserts"." He threw D'Sora a pained smile as he made his way back to the table. "Enjoy this respite. When it starts again, things will begin to get much, much worse."