Authoress Note: This is a sequel to La Petite Mort and takes place four months after that story (and two and a half months after the Picard Season 3 finale). You don't need to read the previous story to follow this one. However, it does give a deeper background to the events here, so I hope you'll enjoy it and leave a comment.
Still Seeking Home
By Arianwen P.F. Everett
Dr. Soji Asha fought any admission that she was completely lost, as actually being lost would be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back and Soji wasn't ready to give up the animal for good. She just needed to find an independent pilot whose ship was headed in the direction of the Ghulion system, and then hail her family on Coppelius and have them send a shuttle to come pick her up once she'd reached the Vayt sector.
Indeed, until two nights ago she'd had passage on such a ship, only for the captain gamble away his vessel and get shot and killed while attempting to steal it back. The new owner, a surly Ferengi, had no intention of honoring the previous captain's contract with her and had gone so far as to put his hand on her posterior in an attempt to barter sexual favors for access to his new acquisition. Soji had considered leading the aged troll on and then commandeering the ship once he'd gone to warp, but she was no more a thief than a prostitute and at that point she'd believed that she had other options.
Now she was doubting that certainty, and loosing all sense of direction in the mass of tradesmen here on Lignia III would be admitting she was beat. The map she'd downloaded at the information center was obviously out of date and though her programming kept her from going in circles as a human might in this situation, it was useless in locating independent trading vessels, not owned by the large freight-running conglomerates, that were her best shot at getting off this way station and back into space.
After a few moments of deep breathing and deliberation, Soji decided to make her own map from what she'd already seen of the bustling spaceport. That way she could avoid the areas she already knew were dead ends. Closing her eyes, she began translating all she'd experienced onto a grid, only to suddenly be brought out of this attention-intensive endeavor on hearing the sound of her name repeated twice. Turning 45 degrees counter-clockwise, Soji's eyes searched in the direction of the shouts that had ended her map making and saw a handsome, brown haired man jogging towards her. She immediately placed him as Q, and memories of their drunken one night stand and the following morning four months, one week, and five days ago, filled in the gaps, causing her to smile as well as blush slightly before greeting him. "Hey Q!"
"This is certainly a surprise. I never would have figured on running into you at this overgrown lumber yard," Q began as he came to an abrupt halt. The man possessed an extra-human precision to his movements, but Soji just assumed those were one of the perks he'd added to his matter-based form when he'd been forced to take a leave of absence from his Continuum in order to 'get his shit together' following his father's death.
In truth, 'overgrown lumber yard' was the perfect descriptor for Lignia III's primary spaceport. Nearly the entire planet was covered in some of the densest, most desirable deciduous hardwoods in the known galaxy, and while at the dawn of the twenty-fifth century most objects that contained wood were replicated, hand crafted furniture, art, and building materials were highly sought after for those with the currency to pay for them. They were status symbols throughout the Federation and beyond, so Lignia III did a brisk trade, which was why the spaceport was so busy and by extension, difficult to navigate.
Yet that still didn't explain why either of them were there, and Soji blushed again, this time from embarrassment at her present, stranded state. Then again, he'd informed her the first time they'd met that he could read her thoughts, so attempting to hide her error wouldn't do much good. Sighing in resignation, Soji conceded to the inevitability of admitting her mistake. "Yeah well, I kind of chose my ride poorly, and what was supposed to be a scheduled stop over ended with the ship's captain dead and me without a way back to Coppelius."
"Ouch! That sucks. Well.. I'm leaving in about three hours, and getting to Coppelius would only require a minor detour from my itinerary. Tell you what; if you'll promise not to go poking around the restricted areas of my ship, I'll give you a lift, no charge save the pleasure of your company and maybe a game or two of kadis-kot, or strategema, or whatever you'd prefer. Running freight can get pretty isolating at times. It would be nice to have someone to talk to.. and you needn't worry, as I won't be grabbing your ass like that ancient Ferengi you were recently thinking about." Q added with a smirk after he'd finished defining the conditions he'd need to impose to make this deal work.
Truth be told he needed less than an hour to finish loading his cargo. The rest of the time would be spent figuring out which ship systems he wanted to hide from his prospective passenger and mark them for her.
He also needed to pick up today's lunch and dinner from an Andorian barbecue that had gotten extremely impressive reviews in all the best freight running sites. Good food was one of the few base mortal pleasures Q allowed himself to indulge in while he remained self-exiled and he had to admit that he was a bit over eager to finish his work and get to the dining concourse.
The drives of this body never ceased to disconcert him, but returning to the Continuum before he'd processed his grief and regained enough composure to shield his fellow Q from his pain would only get him formally expelled. Then he'd be at the mercy of a modestly-upgraded human body for the rest of his days.. or worse. He sure as hell didn't want to end up an amoeba again, so compromises with his current form were necessary if somewhat distasteful.
"Pity. I wouldn't mind you grabbing my ass," Soji quipped in response, before chuckling at Q's eye roll. Truth be told he was no less handsome than he'd been that night several months ago, and considering the man he'd shown himself to be the next morning.. well she really wouldn't mind him grabbing her ass, even if she knew that his views on matter-based sexual practices meant there was little chance of it.
Now it was Q's turn to be flustered. He'd telepathically heard her opinion of his sexual prowess loud and clear and it had brought back his own erotic memories, startling his body into a response. Yet that didn't change the fact that as much as his corporeal form might want to.. appease.. Soji again, he just couldn't. He was finally making progress on regaining a sense of who he was, and he wouldn't risk what he'd worked so hard to rediscover just for meaningless physical pleasure.
The memory of how vulnerable and out of control he'd been that drunken night still haunted his dreams and even if he he'd made his peace with the sexual act itself, it would feel like a step backwards into vulnerability, and just beyond that was the bottomless well of grief, and.. No! The only answer was no. He was irrepressible, just like Dad, and he was moving on, moving forward. Always forward.
"Well I would, so keep your mits to yourself," Q finally replied playfully, feigning nonchalance. It wouldn't do to have her realize the rabbit hole her flirty comment had sent him down. He liked Soji and was grateful to her for showing him kindness and consideration when he'd been at his lowest. It was that gratitude that had moved him to offer her a ride back to Coppelius, but he needed to set some boundaries for both of them.
"As you wish. You're the one doing me the favor after all. I promise not to snoop around your ship, and to refrain from sexually harassing you, and I get a free ride home. That's more than fair," Soji conceded, not wanting to push her luck. If this bizarre almost-friendship was all Q wanted from her, then she could live with that.
"Alright then, meet me back here in two and a half hours and we'll seal up and head out. Now, if you'll excuse me, I still have work to do.. Oh, and if you loose your way again, my ship's name is the Icheb. Just search the information center's mainframe and you should have no trouble finding it. It's the only ship currently docked with a name that starts in I," Q advised Soji before turning back to his vessel to continue taking inventory of the oak, pine, ash, and cedar that had been delivered to him less than an hour ago. And once that was done.. Andorian barbecue!
Two and a half hours later, Soji made her way to berth 89 and found Q sitting on the exit ramp of his ship, reading a hardcover, paper book, and presumably waiting for her. Feeling a bit wicked, Soji let her mind drift to the morning after their drunken night together, as she'd watched a sublimely naked Q bending down to pull on his boxer shorts. As expected, the vivid memory projected his way caused the young, brown-haired entity to startle and close his book.
"We really need to get you spayed, don't we?" Q questioned cheekily as he closed his book, tossed it onto some as yet unseen surface inside his ship, and trotted down the ramp to stand in front of her. He understood that Soji had intentionally projected her memory of his naked form as a means of telepathically tweaking him out of his reading rather than in a genuine attempt at seduction, but it was a still jarring to view his organic shell from her perspective. He'd never taken a good look at it unclothed, instead viewing it as a means to an end. Now he was forced to wonder how anyone could find such a primitive shape attractive, and yet somehow Soji did. She'd been programmed to think like a heterosexual, cis gendered, human female, and she found his body enticing. That was just bizarre.. unequivocally bizarre.
"I got your attention, didn't I?" Soji questioned smugly as she hefted her slipping travel bag back into place.
"A tap on the shoulder would have sufficed," Q huffed dryly, rolling his eyes at the synthetic woman before him. Still, he couldn't be mad at her as she had the rare talent of making him laugh, something no Q could walk away from.
"True, but this was more fun," Soji rebutted, finding the expression that crossed Q's
face highly entertaining. Despite only knowing him for a little over four months she
felt completely at ease with expressing her mischievous side in his presence, and he
appeared to enjoy her companionship as well.
It would be nice to have a friend closer to her own age again, or at least closer to the
age she felt herself to be. Sometimes it still stunned her that in a chronological sense
she was only five years old when everything in her programming swore she was
twenty-four. She remembered so many friends from childhood all the way though
college, but now she understood that they'd been no more real than characters in a
holo-novel. Shortly after leaving Coppelius she'd gone so far as to check, but none
of them had ever truly existed and with the exception of Elnor and Kestra, neither of
whom she was really all that close with, and the other friends she'd made through
Picard were so much older. After their one night stand Soji had hacked into Star
Fleet's files on the Q Continuum and she'd learned that this particular Q had been
born in 2373, making him a mere twenty-eight years old, which just seemed so much
more relatable.
"Well, as Dad used to say 'One creature's torment is another creature's delight.',
so who am I to argue. Anyway, if you'll just follow me we can begin the not-so-
grand tour and get moving. When we arrive at Coppelius, I'll beam you down to
whatever coordinates your little synthetic heart desires and continue on my way.
Considering that more than half of my ship is comprised of technology that's several
centuries ahead of anything the mortal powers in this quadrant are capable of creating
I don't exactly feel comfortable sticking around longer than is absolutely necessary.
I'm only one entity, after all, and in this body.. well, let's just say it's safer to beam
and run," Q commented as he motioned for Soji to follow him between two bound
cords of oaken logs stacked nearly to the deck head.
On either side of the central corridor there were six rows of the same with four
columns front to back, and from prior research Soji knew that this ship design should
have eleven additional and identical cargo bays. Still she didn't see how Q was
turning much of a profit. Natural hardwood was desirable in much of the Alpha and
Beta Quadrants, but the large scale freight companies made independent operators in
the lumber trade rare. No, there had to be more to Q's operation than met the eye but
she'd tuck those questions away for another time. Truthfully it was none of her
business. "That's fine. Again, I'm just grateful for the ride. Though I'm curious; last
time we met you mentioned that you were living in your godmother's guestroom and
looking for a job and an apartment. How did you go from that to owning your own
ship in barely four months?"
"I solved the Brenetti Dilemma and used the prize money to purchase a sturdy, old
freighter, which I then completely overhauled and reprogrammed. Honestly, it was
quite fun, mixing and matching technologies from civilizations long dead with
contemporary ones, and then masking the whole thing to appear commonplace. Even
with the labor of two dozen holographic engineers working round the clock it still
took me nearly a month to complete the refit, but much to my surprise I greatly
enjoyed the exercise," Q explained with enthusiasm as he led Soji through his ship.
This information made Soji stop in her tracks. "So the safety standards on this ship
aren't up to…"
"I assure you this ship is safer than any vessel you've ever traveled on. I'd never
endanger my own existence with shotty construction and I wouldn't risk yours either,
especially now that you've determined we have the potential to become friends. It's
not the safety standards I've played fast and loose with; it's the computer core, the
deflector dish, navigation, shields, weapons, holographic systems, and of course, the
engines. To any security officer running an inspection of my vessel all of it would
read as nothing out of the ordinary. In reality, the Icheb utilizes far more advanced
tech than anything they would have ever seen before or will likely see in their
lifetime. For instance, once we leave orbit I can have us at Coppelius in just under
six hours, rather than the nine day journey you'd expect on a ship like this at
maximum warp. That's what the Icheb can do and what I'm hiding from the
grasping primitives whenever I dock," Q explained with pride, a pride his brain was
screaming he needed to temper with caution.
For some strange reason he felt a keen desire to brag about his ship, to divulge every
little secret so that Soji would be appropriately impressed with his genius. Then the
reason suddenly struck him and Q wanted to scream in frustration at his human form.
He'd been peacocking! This body was most definitely still attracted to Soji and so
he'd rambled on, trying to demonstrate just how intelligent he was in hopes of.. what..
wining her as a mate? What good would that do either of them? Seriously, this
corporeal form he'd consigned himself to could be monumentally annoying in the
lengths it would go to in order to satisfy it's baser drives.
"Nice! I'm guessing that's why you wanted my word that I wouldn't go snooping
around. You didn't want to risk me informing Admiral Picard of what I'd seen while
here," Soji surmised, gently bobbing her head in understanding. It made sense. Q
was a very private person.. entity.. and he didn't trust Star Fleet, or more precisely he
didn't trust Star Fleet to consider his interests when choosing a course of action. He
feared being used and humiliated, this time for his technology, four months prior, in
having details of their drunken night ending up in the hands of those who'd exploit
what he'd deemed shameful behavior for their own ends. Either way, his wishes
would be cast aside to serve Star Fleet's agenda and Soji understood better than most.
The synth ban and the Romulan attack on her homeworld had taught her the lengths
organics, and synthetics like herself, could be driven to when fearful, and if she'd
learned anything by hacking into Star Fleet's records on the Q it had been that
underneath the bravado in those reports and log entries lay a deep fear of the race
of godlike beings that named their entire species with a single letter.
As such, Star Fleet held no moral or ethical conflicts in squirling away every tidbit of
information they could find on the Continuum's members, even extremely personal
information they'd blanch at collecting on an ordinary Federation citizen. It wasn't a
stretch, or in any way irrational, for Q to believe that given the chance Star Fleet
would pull apart his ship to advance it's own technological abilities without his
permission, regardless of whether or not he'd broken any laws, and headless of the
consequences his fellow Q might impose upon him when they discovered how he'd
'allowed' such advance tech to fall into the hands of 'grasping primitives'. As Soji
and Q had once agreed, it was a dangerous universe and neither of them were fools
when it came to confronting that reality.
"I won't deny the thought had crossed my mind.. and now yours," Q conceded,
pleasantly surprised that he hadn't gotten a lecture on the virtues of Star Fleet and the
great Jean Luc Picard.
"You just love to remind me of your enhanced telepathy, don't you?" Soji replied as they finally cleared the cargo bay, the doors automatically parting to admit them to the main corridor of the ship.
"It's a piece of my true nature. Contained in this form I rarely get a chance to express myself, so when the opportunity arises, as it has with you, I want to.. oh, what's that human saying.. shout it from the rooftops. Maybe I do go a bit overboard but it's not easy living a life you know to be wrong for yourself. However, if it disturbs you that much I'll refrain from mentioning it," Q answered honestly, hoping Soji would see that he didn't mean to annoy or embarrass her. He'd promised the first time they'd met that he'd never use her thoughts against her and he intended to keep that vow. It was just easier to listen to what she was thinking and respond to her concerns without waiting for her to speak them. That's how the Q naturally did things, and doing so with her made him feel like his old self again. He missed his old self.
"That would be much appreciated. And I know what you mean about living the wrong life. Sometimes I forget that I'm not human and fall back on my constructed memories only to be jolted out of it moments later, and the rest of the the time I'm wondering why my programming still includes things like hang overs and hunger pangs now that I know that I'm synthetic. How am I to truly explore what it means to be an android if I'm still plagued by human frailties that serve no purpose in me?" Soji ranted in commiseration. He was trapped in a human form and fighting to retain his Q nature as best he could, while her programming prevented her from living as either fully human or fully synthetic. Both were existing in ways that fundamentally felt unnatural and, presently, neither was in a position to do anything about it.
"Finally, someone gets it! Soji, I think you're right about the two of us becoming great friends," Q responded in relief. Aunt Kathy loved him, and she empathized with his grief for his father having experienced a similar emotional collapse at the loss of her own, yet she seemed unable to comprehend this aspect of what he was enduring. She assumed he was irritated that he couldn't just have his way with a snap of his fingers, but it went far deeper than that. It was a matter of identity, the very essence of who and what he was born to be.
"Misery enjoys company? Is that it?" Soji retorted with a smile.
Q nodded appreciatively at the familiar, and quite apt, human expression before launching into his list of instructions for his guest's next few hours. "Precisely. Now, you can pick any of these rooms for your quarters, with the exception the first door on the right. Those are mine. My crew are holograms so you won't be inconveniencing anyone. Right now I need to head to the bridge, one of the restricted areas of the ship, to deal with all the paperwork and exit procedures Lignia III can throw at me. If you need anything in the meantime just call up the hospitality hologram. Questions so far?"
"Hundreds, particularly if you can make good on your six hour timetable, but I respect your privacy. Don't worry. I'm sure I'll be fine and I promise to abide by your rules, Captain Q," Soji answered with brief smile and a quick salute.
"Just Q. Starship captains have too many mundane responsibilities and who wants all that extra work," Q responded, not desiring any sort of mortal title. It would be one more step down when he needed to be going up if he were ever to rejoin the Continuum.
"Noted. Now go; I'll be fine on my own for a while," Soji assured, as she tapped the panel next to one of the doors and stepped inside, before giving a little wave and stepping back so that the door could close.
"Whatever you say," Q replied to the door with bemusement before starting the short journey to the Icheb's bridge.
However, he barely made it six feet before the ship's hospitality hologram fell into step beside him. "She seems nice. I can see why you like her."
"I highly doubt it. Your programming couldn't begin to understand what goes through the mind of a Q when choosing his friends," Q responded, hating the intrusive nature of this hologram. Admittedly, the real Q he was based on was no less of a busybody with zero filter, yet despite those flaws and outside of once getting his dad kicked out of the Continuum and turned human, this particular Q had mostly been a loyal friend to both father and son.
"Maybe not, but I don't need to understand why you chose her to approve. She's smart, understanding, and she has a talent for getting you to open up," the hologram replied as he scanned Q's facial expressions and body language for clues as to his thoughts and emotional state.
"Unlike yourself, Soji's easy to talk to. Now, I really do have to get us out of here. Go check on her; see if she needs anything. You are the hospitality hologram after all. Do your job," Q commanded, before turning the corner and entering the bridge. Sometimes he wondered if he'd made the right decision in modeling certain crew members on his nearly omnipotent family. Having them around made Q feel less lonely at times, but it also brought up baggage he'd rather ignore.
"Aye. Aye. Captain Q," the hologram teased before vanishing to see to their new guest's needs, and Q rolled his eyes. Maybe he'd given that one a bit too much personality.
Fifty-five minutes later the Icheb finally broke orbit and Q stretched out the tension in his neck and shoulders, attempting to shake off his frustration. The dock master of the Lignia III spaceport was a moron who preferred to make everyone jump through hoops rather than type in a few commands to expedite arrivals and departures, so Q had been compelled to submit multiple copies of his flight plan to four different departments in the planet's bureaucracy when only one was officially required. Still, fighting back meant the risk of inspection, so Q had done the extra work and was finally off world. He trusted his system for hiding his tech but he didn't wish to 'court trouble' as Aunt Kathy would put it. It took him all of ten more minutes to get the ship far enough away from the planet to inconspicuously open a spacial flexure that ended in an out of the way corner of the Vayt sector and steer the Icheb inside. Five hours hence the ship would reemerge into normal space and after that it was just a matter of cruising at warp 8 to Coppelius. Even without his powers space, matter, and time weren't all the difficult to manipulated. Sentient beings were less compliant.
But how to get Lignia III's dock master on his side was a question for another day.
Now that the navigation hologram was monitoring the helm, Q could take advantage
of not traveling alone for once and he smiled as he called out. "Hospitality, where's
Dr. Soji Asha?"
"I made her some tea and brought her a book from your library. She said that she appreciates the quarters but doesn't like being cooped up, so she dropped her bag on the bunk and I took her to the mess. She seems content there," the Hospitality Hologram explained, upbeat at how useful he'd been that day. Usually he served Q his meals, cleaned up after him, and provided whatever recreational objects his programmer requested. Beyond that he had little to do. Soji accepted his suggestions and was now curled up with a good book and some tea barely an hour after boarding. Hospitality sincerely hoped she'd become a regular guest, both for his own program and his programmer's mental health. Everything in the his code confirmed that now living in a mostly-human shell, Q needed someone to talk to. If he preferred Dr. Soji Asha's company, so be it.
"Alright. I guess I'm headed to the mess. Have a cup of my usual decaf waiting when I arrive.. and retrieve my book from cargo bay one," Q added, as he made his way to the room he now knew Soji would be in.
If Soji just wanted to sit and read, he could handle that. As a Q he innately understood the power of quite companionship. Life in the Continuum sometimes meant millennia-long stretches of time where nobody spoke, but being together with one's fellow Q took the sting out of what would otherwise cause loneliness. For some reason, even after knowing her but a single night, Soji had given him that quiet peace in the morning after. They'd spoken, yes, but her presence had somehow gone beyond words for him. She understood his grief and he'd felt no judgement towards him for not viewing the universe as most humans did.
When he entered the mess and the doors shut behind him, Soji was engrossed in her book, flipping through the pages far faster than the human she appeared to be ever could, but not nearly as fast as he knew she was capable of. Letting her surface thoughts fill his mind, he realized that she was appreciating and analyzing the story as she went along, which was slowing down her read time. Regardless, she didn't immediately look up as he'd entered the room, so Q cleared his throat to alert her to his presence lest he startle her when she finally did. "I hope you like the book."
"Some of the language is a bit.. blue.. but the descriptions and characterizations are out of the ordinary and certainly hold your attention," Soji commented as she briefly examined the colorful cover before returning to the text inside.
"Yeah, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a pretty fun read, but it also has some salient things to say about how a being might retain their sanity while living in an oppressive system. Considering my frequently uneasy relationship with the Continuum.. well, it resonated. When I bought this freighter at auction I found that novel and about three dozen others in the back of one of the cargo holds. I'm guessing they belonged to some former crew member. I skimmed most of the books but this was the only one that made it into my personal library," Q explained as he grabbed the cup of decaf he'd ordered from the replicator and took a long sip.
"So, the Brenetti Dilemma.. I heard about that when I was on Denobula a few months ago, including the fact that whoever solved it did so anonymously. They just delivered the algorithm to the Vulcan Science Academy on an untraceable channel and included a banking code and instructions for the prize money to be deposited once the algorithm was confirmed to their satisfaction. Some reporters attempted to track down the account holder but the bank the number was linked to is on Free Cloud, so obviously no luck," Soji detailed, regurgitating all the rumors she'd been privy to when the news broke that the mathematical puzzle that had eluded Federation mathematicians and their predecessors for over twelve centuries had finally been solved and that the answer had already been independently replicated and confirmed. For days it had been all anybody was talking about and the fact that the source of the algorithm was unknown made the story even stickier. Everyone loved a good mystery.
"I just needed the prize money to build the Icheb. If I hadn't submitted the algorithm anonymously those reporters would have located me on Earth. You know how jealously I guard my privacy, and poor Aunt Kathy would have been hounded by her superiors to bring me in for extensive, brain-meltingly boring interviews with whatever passes for the Federation's best and brightest mathematicians. All my life Aunt Kathy has shown me love and loyalty and I didn't want to put either of us in that position," Q explained as he sat down at on one chair and propped his feet up on another, setting in for a conversation now that Soji had folded a page in her book and put it aside for the time being.
"And yet you've freely admitted to me, someone you've only met briefly, that you're the one who solved the dilemma. Why?" Soji asked, uncertain as to why Q trusted her after such a brief acquaintance. Admittedly, his confidence wasn't misplaced; she would keep his secret, but how he knew that was perplexing. She couldn't think of anything she'd said or thought that would lead to that level of certitude.
"Maybe it's because you've known exploitation and betrayal yourself and have learned from the experience. Maybe it's because you've only demonstrated empathy and compassion regarding my father's death where others have been dismissive or cruel. Maybe it's because your own father proved himself trustworthy to mine and the structure of your positronic brain, along with much of your programming, derives from his. To be honest I'm not entirely certain why I trust you; I only know that I do," Q replied, staring into his half full mug as he tried to explain what he innately sensed from her through spoken language.
Soji nodded. Despite all that she'd been through, she knew Q.. this Q.. valued her friendship and wouldn't betray her any more than she'd betray him. Taking one final drink from her near empty cup, she wearily sighed at all the two of them shared and all they both had yet to deal with. "My father.. your father.. I think I finally get your point with that poem. How did it go.. 'They f*ck you up your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.'.. and you were right that it fits the two of us very well indeed."
"Oh my! Are you intimating that the newly reanimated Commander Data.. oh dare I say it.. isn't perfect! How will I go on with this knowledge?! Ignorance truly is bliss!" Q exaggerated, while melodramatically resting the back of his hand against his forehead while pretending to faint back into his chair.
"You heard about that, huh?" Soji questioned, barely suppressing a chuckle at his antics. Standing up, she headed to the replicator and watched as the mug disappeared, before returning to her seat at the small, round dining table to hear his response.
"Only what I saw on the news. Your father was one of the 'Heroes of Frontier Day'. I'm guessing his new chasse was designed to age. Otherwise your pops has clearly been through the ringer," Junior joked, this time eliciting a small smile from Soji.
"Yes, his program was transferred into a golem. Unlike my own body, golems degenerate with time as to simulate the organic experience of aging and dying," Soji explained, still completely perplexed as to why her 'Uncle Altan', as he preferred to be called by the Coppelius Androids, would give her father a deteriorating body when he could have just as easily transferred Data and Lore, along with the memory files of Lal, B4, and himself, into a more durable one.
It was one thing with transferring human consciousness. For some reason neither Altan Soong nor Bruce Maddox had ever figured out why a positronic brain couldn't take human programming whole. Memory could be easily transferred, but any attempt beyond that always resulted in cascade failure, like what had killed Soji's older sister, Lal. Bruce Maddox had speculated that whatever caused Lal's demise, whatever made her heuristic pathways unable to adapt and integrate her emerging emotions, was 'baked into the human cake', and he, himself, had died with that belief.
Yet Soji's father had been an android all his life. He'd never been human and neither had her Uncle Lore. They could have been placed in an updated positronic brain contained in superior android bodies like the ones she and her brothers and sisters inhabited. Instead her father was now fully integrated into an aged, mortal golem.
That was what unnerved Soji the most. As far as she was concerned death was something to be fought to the bitter end. As horrible as loosing her sister had been, Soji took comfort from the fact that Dahj had literally died fighting for her life and that of Picard. She had not left her sister willingly, but had taken from her by force. Why her uncle had ensured their father would also be taken from herself and the other Coppelius androids in a few short decades, Soji couldn't understand. She only knew that it hurt.
"And yet you realize that Data won't be angry at your Uncle. You know he'll accept this artificial mortality because it puts him closer to being human, which just leaves you with impotent rage at the both of them. Believe me, I understand," Q surmised as he stood and placed a hand on Soji's shoulder. He remembered when Aunt Kathy had done this for him aboard Voyager, after his father had disappointed him over that stupid essay, and then again when the Continuum had decreed he was to remain human.
"I'm not sure I'd call it rage exactly," Soji replied, sighing as the feelings she'd been trying to avoid since leaving her last diplomatic mission two weeks ago rose to the top of her consciousness. Q had struck right at the heart of the issue, but it made sense that he'd get what she was going through.
Had Q's mother managed to kill him, his father would have lived, but his dad hadn't been willing to accept that outcome and so had concocted a insane scheme, creating a transwarp conduit and a nightmarish alternate timeline, all in the service of keeping his son's hunters at bay just long enough for him to die and make any assassination attempt moot. The senior Q had acceded to a preventable death and made that choice without even consulting his son, just as Altan Soong had given Soji and her siblings a chance to get to know their father, only to ensure that they'd inevitably watch him die once more. Both had received a poisoned gift and there was nobody left alive to be angry at. Q had been right; Soji was boiling with impotent rage.
Even if her mother, her friends, and everyone else she'd known in her constructed human past hadn't been real, learning that fact had devastated her. The loss had been real, regardless of whether or not those she still mourned had been. Dahj had actually been real only to be snuffed out by Romulan zealots, and Narek and his twisted love for her had been real too. Yet it had evaporated in the face of his fear of her and her people. She'd lost so much. She was thoroughly sick of loss, and now her family was demanding she show up on Coppelius, all smiles, and ask for more. She didn't want any more loss and it was unfair of them to ask!
"You're right; it isn't fair, not fair in the slightest, and yet we both have little choice. In a few hours you'll go back to Coppelius and, eventually, I'll return to the Continuum. It's family. Fair doesn't factor into it," Q sighed with exhaustion, plopping back down into his chair.
"Then why do we accept it? Why do we dance to their tune?" Soji queried, not really expecting an answer but needing to hear the question spoken aloud.
"I think it's because the alternative is not to dance at all. Besides, I still have hope for the Continuum. I firmly believe that they can be better tomorrow than they are today, so I dance. You've spent these last two years attempting to reshape the Federation's perception of synthetic lifeforms, maybe now you need to go home and work on reshaping your fellow androids' perception of themselves, including that of Commander Data. You know the regard I hold for your father, but if I've learned anything from my own species, it's that nobody's perfect. There's always room for improvement," Q mused after giving the question some thought. The effort was crushing, especially now that he no longer had his dad to shoulder most of the burden, but Q saw too much potential to just give up on the Q. They needed him, and he needed to believe that someday he could honestly say that he needed them too. As he'd written in his essay years ago on Voyager, he hoped that one day he'd view the Continuum as a home. He still did.
"Now who's pulling canned, meaningless platitudes out of their ass?" Soji returned with a smirk, reminding Q of the accusation he'd once levied at her that morning they'd first met after their one night stand.
"If you recall I apologized for that poor choice of words months ago. However, in this instance I stand by my canned, though very not-meaningless, platitudes. You're angry at Bruce Maddox and your Uncle Altan for your programming contradictions and how Soong unnecessarily condemned your father to a third go around with mortality, and you recognize that both dubious choices stem from the same human vanity that the brevity and hardships of their lives makes them more enlightened and morally superior to less finite beings like ourselves. When my dad got his powers back after being made human, he spent the next several millennia of Q time being an obedient little Q out of fear that if he expressed his true feelings and ideas he'd be cast out again. That choice allowed the Continuum to postpone having to wrestle with the utter stagnation our civilization had fallen into, the same stagnation that had left my father's life so bereft of meaning that he'd had to get his jollies through tormenting less evolved species in the first place. Soji, if you don't stand up for what you know to be true, in this case that there's innate value in exploring what it means to be an ageless, synthetic life form without holding up a measuring stick to your human progenitors every step of the way, then you'll end up miserable and your people will stagnate as mine did for billions of years. I don't want that for you, or Commander Data, or the rest of your family," Q insisted, needing Soji to understand the importance of his words.
His father had been adamant about this point. Life wasn't worth living if you were prevented from even questioning the status quo. Technically Soji was free to criticize Bruce Maddox and Altan Soong's programming choices and Data's quest to emulate humanity, but doing so would alienate her from her fellow androids, and likely Picard and all the friends she'd made since meeting him. She could well end up standing alone, but sometimes that fate was better than cow towing to the opinion of the crowd. That's what being irrepressible was all about, refusing to compromise yourself in the name of conformity regardless of the personal cost. That's what the uncle Aunt Kathy referred to as Quinn had taught his dad and what his dad had taught Q.
"I appreciate that, but I can't help thinking that if you truly believed in bucking the system, you'd already be back in your Continuum right now fighting the good fight, not hauling lumber.. and myself.. around the galaxy. Isn't it a bit hypocritical to expect me to challenge my people, when you refuse to challenge your own?" Soji interrogated coldly, knowing she was being unfair with her accusation. Her research suggested that the Q Continuum executed free thinkers, or at the very least locked them away inside comets and threw away the key. If she pushed her family too hard the worst that would happen would be that they'd ask her to leave or refuse to ever speak with her again. Q could loose his life or freedom for eternity. The stakes were far greater for him, but he'd touched a nerve with his preaching.
"My remaining in corporeal form doesn't stem from a fear of returning to the Continuum or a refusal to confront my fellow Q, but from a desire to protect them from my grief and loneliness. Look, to be a Q, or at least to be a Q in the Continuum, is to feel the the totality of every other Q at every moment. Usually an individual can shield their own thoughts and emotions from the whole for privacy's sake, but.. I can't, not now. It all just hurts so much, every moment, and I've lost the ability to contain it, to contain.. everything! If I returned to the Continuum today they might well banish me, but only to preserve their own sanity. You want to talk unfair; it would be supremely unfair that they should have to share my overwhelming pain when it's not their own, when it's unwillingly pressed upon them. I would be no better than the Borg Queen was, imprinting my thoughts and feelings upon everyone else while denying the other Q the sanctity of their own minds, and rightfully my people would reject me if I were willing to do that to them," Q explained vehemently, refusing to be called a hypocrite. He was being a responsible Q by not being a Q at the moment. Soji was attempting to escape a hard truth, and out of a desire to ensure she dealt with it and found some kind of resolution she could live with, Q was holding her feet to the fire.
"I'm sorry," Soji replied softly, realizing that she'd erred in her assumption.
"It's all right. Being a Q is so radically different from anything you've ever encountered, you couldn't hope to understand," Q admitted, hoping Soji would see that he took no permanent offense. Her accusation had been based in a lack of understanding rather than malice. Now she knew better.
"Lucky you," Soji returned as she rolled her eyes.
"Not always, but being Q does have more upsides than down. I'd never deny that. Now, about that game you promised earlier. Do you have a preference?" Q teased, as he stood back up and moved towards the replicator.
"Recently I've been studying kal-toh. Do you play?" Soji replied, putting aside her book for later. If she didn't finish it, that would be fine. She could download her own copy once they reached Coppelius.
"I play most games invented in this galaxy," Q answered with a self assured sniff before replicating a set, the precariously stacked pins jingling softly as he moved the board between them at the center of the dining table.
"I don't doubt it. Well, let's see how well you do with this one," Soji responded as she made the first move and and watched the small patch of pins reshape themselves. She was glad to have a distraction from the heavy conversation of the previous half hour. Q had given her a lot to think about, but deep down she knew it had been a long time coming. He was right. She did need to confront her family, and thank fully the time her new friend's ship was cutting off her journey would get her home before her father's arrival, allowing her time to compose her argument. Oddly enough, now that she was resolved to the coming discussion, Soji felt more at ease than she had for weeks. Her mind and heart were in accord and she could focus on the game at hand, and so she set about devising a strategy to wipe the superior smirk off the face of the entity seated across from her.
