Sisters

(Soji, Sutra, Narek, Picard)

For Soji, looking at Sutra is like staring at a distorted reflection: her own face, her own gestures, but the metallic coloring of an early-model Soong-type android. She tilts her head and it's uncanny; old recordings of Commander Data show him moving in exactly the same way.

They are sisters. Soji should trust her. She does trust her.

And yet …

"You still pity Narek, don't you?" the older synth asks as they stand by the window of Dr. Soong's office.

Past the clean white buildings of the settlement, they can see the harsh desert landscape where the Romulan must have run when he escaped. Sharp rocks, glaring sunlight; even the cacti look as if they could make you bleed. Sutra's yellow eyes are cold as she surveys the prospect.

"If you think that means I'd hesitate to stop him, you're mistaken," Soji flashes. "I wouldn't."

"Good." Sutra smiles. "He can't be trusted, you know. None of them can."

Soji knows she's not only referring to Romulans, but to organics in general. She looks down in the direction of where the holding cell must be; she can't see it from here, but she can imagine Picard sitting on that hard bench, exposed to the stares of every passerby behind that force field. All because he argued that summoning the Admonition's creators to slaughter the Romulans wholesale might not be the only solution.

She swallows hard.

"Picard isn't like Narek. He wants to help us."

"He wants us to need his help. Like every organic, he wants us to rely on him. It's only another way of keeping us under control. Fear is such an effective way to do that, don't you think?"

Sutra catches Soji's eye, and something about that yellow stare is so human – inhuman, Picard might have said, but no machine's eyes would ever gleam with such subtle malice – that it stops Soji cold.

Whatever else she might be, she is still a psychologist. After spending three years on the Artefact, counseling XB's, and having whatever naivete she still possessed torn away by Narek, she ought to understand the workings of the mind.

Everyone, to a certain extent, shapes their own reality. This is something she always used to tell her patients, trying to help them turn their stories of assimilation, pain and loss into stories of strength and survival. The stories we tell ourselves influence the lives we live, and vice versa. This applies to our fears as well as our wishes. We always see our own fears reflected in the world around us. Narek is afraid of synthetic life forms, and he's made enemies of an entire colony of them. If Sutra's fear is of being controlled, what does that say about her?

Soji remembers the speech the android leader gave after Narek's escape, how they laid out Arcana's body on the street with the hummingbird pin still piercing her eye, Dr. Soong wailing his grief and outrage for all passersby to hear, and everyone rallying to Sutra's cause. Without that display, the synths might have listened to Picard. It was all so very convenient, as far as Sutra was concerned.

Too convenient.

Could Sutra have killed Arcana herself? Or maybe all she did was let Narek out of the cell. The logic of sacrifice, which has preoccupied Soji for days now, would seem to permit killing one person for what you perceived as the greater good.

Please, no, a desperate voice cries out from the back of Soji's positronic brain. Not my sister too. Please don't let me be betrayed again.

But in the meantime, she has never been so grateful for being an android as she is now. Becoming aware of all the myriad human displays of emotion that are programmed into her – the way her breath hitches in her throat, her heart races, and her eyes flutter just before she breaks down crying – has made her mercifully able to prevent them before they start.

It takes enormous effort beneath the surface, but as far as Sutra knows, nothing has changed.

"I'm so tired of being afraid," Soji says, and it's absolutely true.

"Never again." Sutra wraps an arm around her sister's shoulders. "I promise. You're among family now."

No, I'm not, Soji thinks, ordering herself to lean into the embrace.

But as soon as I break Picard out of that cell, I will be.