When Will woke that morning, he didn't realize anything had changed until he went to shower. Under the scalding water his eyes cleared, the weight of heavy adolescent sleep burned away, and he saw a darkness on the tender skin that was the inside of his wrist. Something like a bruise, something that hadn't been there before.

Will wanted to call out to someone- to his father, maybe, who wasn't home- but didn't, containing the lightheaded white feelings rising in his chest. He turned off the shower and hopped out, squinting in the brighter light over the bathroom mirror, was that what he thought it was? It must be.

He rubbed at it with his thumb, a frenzied kind of action, his hair still dripping across his acne-spotted forehead and into his eyes, down his chin. The room was silent, but it didn't seem to be.

"Come on," he muttered, desperate, as the letters started to come to the surface, the darkness condensing and solidifying, taking form. Will bit his lower lip, squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again, and once he had the thing was complete. The name.

It was only one word- and even for a word, it was tiny, only four letters. Four strange black letters.

Data.

"Dad," Will said when he saw his father next, the following evening, the whole school day done already. There, Will had worn a long-sleeved shirt on purpose, hiding what was on his wrist. He didn't know why, but he hadn't wanted people to see. "Dad, I got my name today."

"Good for you," his father replied, but he didn't sound happy or curious, just flat. "Now you're one step closer to being an adult."

Already he was brushing past, already like it didn't matter- the way he was with everything to do with Will.

"Don't you want to know?" Will asked, even though he thought he already knew the answer.

"What would be the point of that?"

Will didn't show him.

The film Will was watching was in only two dimensions, a simple projection, old school. It was apparently also a very old story- a tale from Earth, from a time long before warp travel had even been conceived. It was about a princess who was raised alone in the woods by fairies, to protect her from a wicked witch that had cursed her at birth.

The film was about halfway through now, and the princess met a strange man in the woods, he was drawn to her singing. Will already knew what was going to happen. The princess discovered that the man was a prince, and had her name written on his wrist- and his name was on hers, likewise. The little figures on the projection danced with each other for joy, and sang a song about how happy they were.

Will thought of his mother- what would the prince do, if the princess were to die?

Turn into his father, probably.

Will went to the school's councillor eventually, when he needed to tell someone, but didn't have anyone else to tell. She was a nice woman- and she knew him, from when he had been a child. It had been she that had helped him, back then.

"What your parents had was special," she said to him. "They were very lucky to have found each other. You know, most people don't."

Will thought again of the prince and the princess, their figures magnified and reflected throughout all media. The story of the eternal love sought and found, that which permeated the world of fiction and aspiration, which flooded human thought at every turn- but it was a lie.

"Did you find- her?" Will asked, pointing at the councillor's wrist, where he could faintly see the name 'Anne', followed by a surname he couldn't read.

"No, never," the councillor said. "But you know, there's nothing wrong with that."

"Susanna Parker," Mark was saying, looking at his wrist, words slightly slurred from the drink in his hands. Riker was slow to respond, equally intoxicated- it was the Academy's orientation week, after all, and what was university for, if not for drinking? "What a beautiful name. Beautiful name. Hey!"

Mark shouted loud enough to semi-silence the bar, drawing eyes from all around. "Any Susannas in here?" Laughter, a few calls of 'no', more laughter after that. Everyone knew what he meant.

"What've you got?" he asked Riker, reaching for his wrist. Riker pulled away, shook his head, drank some more. The confused look people got when they looked at it, he had seen too many times.

He wasn't going to ask if there were any 'Datas' in the bar.

The woman lying naked next to him was Maria. She let out a long sigh, sweat gleaming across her forehead and ample breasts.

"That was lovely," she said. Riker smiled at her, and took her hand in his, to kiss the long fingers there. "I agree," he said.

She opened her eyes to look at him, and then her grip became less passive, taking his hand and twisting it slightly to see. He let her.

"I'm so glad you didn't decide to save yourself for...uh, Data. What?"

Riker laughed. This wasn't as annoying as usual because she was beautiful and his body was still steeped in post-coital peace.

"Weird, isn't it? I don't even get a surname. Not that it matters much- for now, I have you, don't I?"

She giggled, and the light of Riker's lamp caught in her eyes.

"Aren't you looking?" said the handsome man at the bar, with the dark eyes and plump lips. Riker shook his head.

"I have other goals."

The man seemed confused by this, or maybe saddened. Still, their fingers intertwined on the table. Riker wanted to kiss him.

"Like what? What matters more?"

Riker shrugged. These kinds of thoughts he didn't like, they dragged down the mood.

"I plan to make captain by thirty-five," he said, as a joke, and the man just looked at him.

In the end, they did sleep together, but in the warm darkness afterward they didn't talk. Riker didn't understand the romantic type- the statistics were all there, weren't they? The vast majority of human beings never found what they were supposed to be looking for.

And when they did, what good did it do? Riker's mother had died. Having his father's name on her wrist hadn't stopped that.

There was more to life, he had long decided, than chasing down letters you would never find.

Deanna smiled at him in the lights of the Betazed Aurora Borealis, and she was so beautiful it hurt.

"I love you," he said, and that smile changed into a beam.

The moment was so wonderful Riker suddenly found himself feeling angry- there was an injustice here that he couldn't stand. He loved Deanna so much. Why couldn't she be the one he found? Why couldn't he stay with her forever? Because she wasn't human, she wasn't the person whose name was on his wrist, well that was all phooey. The thought that inter-species relationships were invalid in some way, that anything other than the perfect match would always be unhappy and never last, he couldn't stand that. Every other humanoid species in the Alpha quadrant got along fine without the stupid names, why couldn't humanity?

"Don't think about that," Deanna said, and she reached out to touch his cheek. Of course she could feel his frustration, and she knew him too well not to guess its source. "Be happy. I'm here with you now. The future can be left to the future."

He kissed her deeply then, and the lights were so beautiful, and so was she- everything was perfect. This was all he needed.

"One last cheer, for the new couple!"

All the glasses were raised. In them sparkled a champagne that looked like liquid gold.

Between raised arms the woman's face could be seen. Her cheeks were a brilliant pink, her eyes sparkling, all her white teeth visible in the light- she glowed, seeming to both take up and emit all the light in the room. Things like beautiful versus plain, young versus old, they didn't matter on a face like hers, not in this moment. Her husband, who stood beside her, his face was hidden by the spectators, layers of shade to that light. From between those waiting bodies the couple's hands could be seen, entwined. A grip that fit perfectly.

It was a golden moment- gold in the champagne, gold in the light, gold in the woman's hair. All hands raised in a salute to this.

The woman laughed, her voice the only one in the room, and then it was broken- that perfect instant left in a dimension all of its own, no longer accessible by anyone.

Riker was standing a few rows back, in the depth of those shadows, where the warmth of that light couldn't quite be felt. He lifted the champagne glass to his lips and drank deeply, but it did not taste as wonderful as that moment had been.

"It's a lovely sight, isn't it," said Captain DeSoto, and the words were spoken in Riker's general direction, but whether they were actually for him he didn't know. There was a wistful kind of look in the captain's eyes- the kind of dulled longing that everyone felt at these times. Everyone, save the couple, of course. Riker couldn't bring himself to reply.

"Oh, and congratulations to you, of course." DeSoto continued. "The Enterprise. Quite a noble posting, that one is."

Riker nodded, a little dip of the head to acknowledge that the captain was acknowledging him. It was a kind afterthought on DeSoto's part, to mention that at a time like this, but it didn't really matter. O-eight hundred tomorrow Riker would be gone from this ship, but he had already made his goodbyes.

He had heard Deanna was getting transferred to the same ship, as a councilor, the sort of posting he knew she would be perfect for. He wondered what he should feel at that- it had been a long time, after all, since they had been together.

Like everyone had said, it hadn't lasted.

But even so, Riker had only grown more tired- more resentful, though he didn't like to be that way- of the whole idea of the quest. He didn't care for it, and those who obsessed over it were bothersome to him. The fact that he was here- that it was human custom to celebrate found matches so decadently- annoyed him. Why create a culture of people who longed for things they would never have? And even if they found that person, like this couple now, that didn't guarantee eternal happiness, or some other such idealistic thing. People, after all, were still people- this couple would surely disagree, would run into difficulties, just like anyone else. They weren't special and everything couldn't become instantly perfect just because they were lucky enough to track down someone to sleep with for the rest of their lives. There was no fairytale ending.

And more importantly, either member of the match might die tomorrow, in something as simple as an engineering accident. What would happen to them then?

Riker didn't care to be unhappy for the rest of his life over a lack of something as ephemeral as that. He could be perfectly satisfied without it- he had his work, which he was passionate about, his lofty goals. He had friends, and creative hobbies, the trombone he loved to play. He had lovers- lovers that lasted years or even only a single night, it didn't matter. Tomorrow he would be reporting on the flagship of the Federation as second in command, an exalted position he deserved to be proud of.

He had enough.

"It was an honour serving with you," Riker said to DeSoto, who wasn't looking at him at all anymore.

The new Enterprise, Riker saw her through the windows of the docking station. She was a beauty. Though he had fallen asleep in somewhat ill humour, he was beyond ecstatic now- with one bag of personals slung over his shoulder, another in his left hand, he felt like an explorer, like he had always wanted to be. Scratch that, he felt like a child! This kind of excitement he hadn't felt in such a long time. He was already wearing his new, red commanding uniform, the collar holding shining silver pins. This was a new phase in his life, one he was more than ready to meet.

Already the personnel was bustling about inside, some of them no doubt having been picked up on other stations in the days before. Everything had that bright, clean, new-ship smell. Riker had done some reading into this model- she was state of the art, pioneering technology none of Riker's ships had ever had. Some of which, he was sure, no Federation ships had ever had.

He was on the forefront of history, here.

Once his room had been settled and his bag put away, Riker already felt at home, and was yearning to see more of the ship.

As second in command, he should probably find his way to the bridge.

The captain of the new Enterprise was a strong, stern sort of person- French, apparently. Reporting to him for the first time, Riker knew instantly that Jean-Luc Picard was a man he would respect. The kind of man who deserved to be on a ship like this- and the fact that apparently, Riker was also that kind of man filled him with a mixture of fierce pride and pure excitement. Already, he wanted to do well by this captain, and when they shook hands he had a feeling that the sentiment was returned.

"Enjoy surveying the ship, Number One- oh, and please, fetch Lieutenant Commander Data from Holodeck Six, bring him back to the bridge with you."

"Yes, sir."

Riker saluted out of the ready room and was making strides towards the hallway before he realized fully what had been said.

Fetch Lieutenant Commander Data from Holodeck Six.

Riker suddenly felt like someone had stabbed him in the gut- he didn't feel any pain, but there was an implication that he might, once his nervous system caught up. There was a knife made of ice slicing into his belly, he could certainly feel that. All the wind had left his lungs.

"Are you alright, sir?" said some ensign who had just come in from the corridor outside, and Riker pulled himself back together enough to nod, straightening his back, resuming his walk. His head was spinning, almost like he'd had too much, but he knew he'd sobered up fine after the party last night. He really only had one coherent thought: it can't be, it can't be, it can't. How could it?

What in the world would happen to him, if it was?

All this time he had spent, not looking. To all those pitiful romantic hearts, it was surely unfair, to stumble upon it out of nowhere like this.

Once the ensign was out of sight, Riker stood back against a wall, trying to get oxygen back into his brain. Had it been any other name, any ordinary, comprehensible name- Susanna, Mary, Samuel, Will- he would surely have been able to temper himself. Oh, to be cursed with a name so plain as Mark or Madison, where it felt like every other person you met had the name you were looking for but did not have yours to match. But Riker had never met a 'Data', not anywhere, not once.

After a moment, Riker developed some presence of mind and walked over to one of the screens on the wall. A surreptitious glance to ensure no one was staring at him- he was alone- and he asked the computer to pull up Lieutenant Commander Data's public Starfleet record.

There wasn't much, of course, a public record was always very brief, intended only as an overview of an individual's status and accomplishments. The wall monitor couldn't display images, either, only text. Riker skimmed the words that rose on the screen. Male, he saw that- was it a surprise or not?- homeworld Omicron Theta, a tiny colony planet. Younger than Riker was- again, another surprise, or was it not- a series of date ranges and ship names and positions held. Risen fast through the ranks, this 'Data' had, even faster than Riker himself, and- and also, and also, something else.

Seven letters he had skipped past at first; but the species classification listed was not 'human'.

Android.

Riker let out a little breath, smoothed his palm over his chin. He imagined Deanna standing next to him, one hand out in front of her eyes as though he emitted a bright light; too much, Imzadi, all those feelings. You need to relax.

Now he didn't know what to think. Or, for that matter, what to feel.

But he had been given an order- he wouldn't spend his first day as second-in-command lollygagging in the hallway. He didn't think Picard was the sort to approve of tardiness. So, off to Holodeck Six.

When the pneumatic doors to the Holodeck hissed open, that was another surprise; he had heard of this technology of course, but he hadn't yet had the chance to experience it. The midsummer forest he stepped into- so very like those that he remembered from home- felt so real he wondered for a moment if he was dreaming.

That would be something, wouldn't it? Man dreams he gets a promotion, and meets his soulmate in an Alaskan paradise. Well.

The ground felt like it should under his feet, the leaves he brushed just like real ones under his fingers. But there was one thing- the air, though appropriately cool and breezy, did not smell as fresh as it would on Earth; there lingered in his breath a bit of the sterile ship's-interior, that which he had become familiar with over the course of his career. Almost real. Almost alive, but not quite.

Riker heard someone singing.

He approached carefully through the trees, breath bated for no good reason. The stream by his feet bubbled happily. The singing grew clearer- a man's voice, or a male one, at least- but he didn't recognize the song. He thought, or guessed, that the language was Gaelic. The lyrics to music usually weren't picked up by the Universal Translator- as with all art forms, something in it was too complex. The melody, though, was all minor-key, and haunting.

Riker caught sight of something artificially yellow, a Science uniform most likely, and then he stepped through the trees into a clearing.

There was a young man sitting on the grass, encircled by a vibrant bloom of wildflowers. He was dark-haired and astonishingly pale, no colour in his cheeks or even his lips whatsoever, and where his skin caught the light it shone, not like sweat, but like glass. Handsome, in a certain peculiar way; Riker wouldn't deny that.

The man stopped singing so abruptly it was like a recording had been switched off. He looked at Riker and cocked his head, and it felt almost like being pinned to a board, fixed in that oddly flat gaze. His eyes were yellow, Riker observed- or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they were gold.

"It is marvelous how easily humans do that, sir," said the man smoothly, but the words hardly registered to Riker, for how startled he was by the voice- the tone was so even, the cadence so precise, it could only be described as 'digital'. It sounded nothing like the singing before, which had been soft- almost eerie. "I have been told that my voice lacks the feeling and nuance that is required for the art form. I hope that, with practice, I can improve."

Riker gaped, and the man- but surely, this was Data- let his startling eyes flick across Riker's uniform and back to his face.

"From your insignia, I assume you are Commander William Riker, second in command on this vessel," said Data, and he stood to extend a hand, the movement so quick and fluid it almost didn't look real.

"I am Lieutenant Commander Data. It is nice to meet you."

Riker took his hand, but shook it only once before letting go. His mouth felt dry, and so did something else inside, like a little part of his heart was shriveling up in his chest.

"Ah- yes. You too." Riker remembered to speak, then, at least there was that. "Captain Picard wants us both up on the bridge."

"Very well, sir." Data cocked his head again, a motion that did not remind Riker of an animal so much as some kind of primitive ticketing machine, or a hypospray dispenser- machine. God. This was a machine.

"I looked up your record," Riker said, as they began to return through the forest; his fingertips felt oddly numb.

"Yes, sir. A wise procedure, always."

"Your rank of Lieutenant Commander," Riker continued. "I assume now it must be honorary."

(A cold thought: perhaps it had been built for this ship. Only the most cutting edge technology for the new Enterprise- Holodecks and automated commanders.)

Data turned to him, with eyes that glowed like the headlights of a twentieth century car.

"No, sir. Starfleet Class of '78; honors in quantum mathematics and exobiology."

"But your files, they say…" something was certainly dried up in Riker, like a dead leaf curled around his heart. "Say that you're-"

"A machine?"

As simple as that.

"Yes."

"That is correct, sir. I am an android. Does that trouble you?"

Now the dried leaf was on fire- in an instant, that question had ignited it.

"To be honest, yes, a little," Riker said, but he was lying, he meant a lot. He almost wished he was dreaming. He had no right to feel disappointed- to be so confused- after all, he hadn't asked for this. Ever since the mark had appeared on him at age 14, he had spent his years not asking for it.

"Understood, sir," said the machine. "Prejudice is very human."

The fuck?

"Now, that troubles me," Riker said, and he surprised himself a little with his own sharpness. "Do you consider yourself superior to humans?"

Data cocked his head again, and when he spoke- when it spoke? Riker wasn't sure- his tone of voice was exactly the same as it had been before.

"I am superior to humans in many ways. I am stronger, and faster, my body is more durable, and less susceptible to harm. I possess a total linear computational speed of 60 trillion operations per second, so I can process information and execute tasks far faster than a human can, even at peak performance."

Riker listened to all of this, feeling vaguely dizzy. Not just a machine- a computer, and a supercomputer at that. One that had agreed with the question, are you superior-

"But," Data continued before these thoughts could spiral too far. The word seemed to click on the air, like the tap of an old computer key. "...I would give all that up, to be human."

Riker stopped where he stood, and after a step so did Data, turning back to him with- well, what at least looked like surprise. Despite it all, Riker felt something of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Too much had happened today- it was emotional whiplash, making him giddy, making him dumb.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Pinocchio."

Data blinked; the motion was like the flicker of a camera shutter.

"Sir?"

"A joke," Riker said feebly.

"Ah! Intriguing."

They continued walking- Riker wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh like a madman, or sit on the floor and cry. By the time they reached the door to the Holodeck, he had assembled himself somewhat. But he couldn't put himself back in 'work-mode', not yet- not without one more thing.

"Tell me, Mr. Data," Riker said, once they stood in the corridor. "What species- uh- designed you?"

"I was built by a human scientist, Dr. Noonian Soong, on Omicron Theta."

"I see. Then you know- humans…" Riker tapped his own wrist, though the name was covered by his uniform (thank God) and the android's camera-like eyes flicked to it once, then back to his face.

"Ah! Yes. Are you inquiring if my creator gave me a soulmark?"

Yes. Riker didn't quite manage to say the word. Yes, and does it say Will Riker?

But:

"I am not in possession of any such mark, sir. It is still unknown what mechanism determines the name that appears on human adolescents. As such, it was not possible to replicate the process artificially on me. Moreover, the appearance of a 'soulmark'- and the 'soul-mate' that would accompany it- suggests that the owner would, themselves, need to be in possession of a soul."

The machine cocked his glassy, attractive head, and said in that uncannily flat voice:

"But I am an android, sir. I do not have a soul."

Then he turned away and began heading for the bridge, leaving Riker in the corridor with a chill in his gut, and the beginning of a killer headache.