Part Fifteen
To Lab 42…
Lab 42 was in another building, at the far side of the research complex. Lore hadn't anticipated any problems getting there - it was barely four hundred feet away! - but the first time Lore attempted to leave the building housing Graves's office on his own, he was herded straight back in by a junior research assistant who feared the idiot 'droid had gotten himself lost. Lore had to fight the urge to pull away from her impatient grip, childishly stammering that he'd only gone outside to look at the pretty trees and flowers that lined the Cybernetics Annex's central quadrangle. But, to his irritation, the next morning Graves ordered security to keep Lore inside the building, no matter what. With so many eyes on him, all the time, Lore had to wait…
…and wait…
…and wait…
…until Graves and his assistant finally left for court...to offer evidence against Lore's father.
Lore had considered sabotaging Graves's case, designing a computer bug to garble his data, but that would be petty and, besides, he wasn't ready to reveal his little game just yet. His father could handle Graves, of that he was certain. Lore just had to make sure he and Charlie would be ready to greet him once Soong finally came for them.
In the meantime, Lore wasn't wasting his time of forced captivity. Although he couldn't yet risk breaking Graves's encryption code and connecting to the institute's subspace network, Graves's adjoined office and private lab was the only space in the whole complex that wasn't under constant computer surveillance, which made it the perfect nighttime venue to practice his speech and coordination without any nosy security guards or lab techs catching wise to the reality of his situation.
The reality being that Lore was rapidly discovering just how very strong, and exceptionally fast, this new android body really was…and that his control over it was getting better all the time.
He'd persuaded the boy, Bruce, to give him a collection of challenging tongue-twister poems and songs to practice and, despite the idiocy of the words, Lore was delighted to find that, as the nights crawled past, lyrics that had once left him literally tongue tied now slipped skillfully from his mouth. Lyrics like:
Sheila is selling her shop at the sea shore
For shops at the sea shore are so sure to lose
And, she's not so sure what she should be selling
Should Sheila sell sea shells or should she sell shoes?
and
Tito and Tato were tattooed in total
But Toto was only tattooed on his toe
So Tato told Tito where Toto was tattooed
But Tito said Toto's tattoo wouldn't show!
Lore desperately wanted to show off to someone, to demonstrate his new skills, but – as always – he knew he had to wait.
…and wait…
And then, in that peculiar way time has of moving both too slowly and too quickly, Soong's anxiously awaited trial was suddenly only hours away, and Lore found himself standing at the top of his prison building's stone steps, waving good-bye to Graves and his assistant with all the poise and self-possession of an addlepated toddler. The android kept waving until the transport had diminished into the cloudless horizon, then clumsily lowered his arm and bumbled down the steps to inspect the nearest flower bed.
No one stopped him. The lab techs and security guards that had gathered to see Graves off simply meandered back to their posts, not one of them seeming to notice or care that Graves's pet android had wandered off on its own.
Slowly, Lore stumbled further out onto the grass, smiling aimlessly at the sky as he passed busy researchers and Starfleet personnel, all too focused on their duties to spare much attention for their surroundings.
Even though he'd never been out this way, Lore knew where he was going. Campus maps were readily accessible, and it took little effort for Lore to amiably shuffle and bumble his way straight up to the guarded entrance of the windowless, high security research facility where his brother was being held. Not even the uniformed Starfleet haircuts posted by the security scanners gave him much more than a second glance as he lumbered by, nodding and smiling, smiling and nodding...
"Hey, just a second there!"
Lore froze and turned, a vacant smile hanging from his lips.
The security officer looked slightly amused.
"I know you. You're that robot Graves keeps in his office. Where do you think you're going?" he asked.
"I am L-L-Lore," Lore said brightly.
"Good for you," the officer said. "But where are you going?"
"Inside," Lore told him helpfully.
"Why are you going inside?"
Lore blinked, as if confused.
"I wa-was t-told to g-go inside," he stammered.
"OK. Who told you?" the guard pressed.
Lore pretended to think, putting on such a comical expression the guard and his friends began to chuckle.
"D-doctor… Doctor…"
"Oh, let it through," another guard said impatiently. "You're only confusing the thing."
"Yeah, better go easy, Jake, or it'll bust a gasket right here!"
The guards started laughing and Jake shook his head.
"All right, go ahead," he said.
Lore beamed blankly at him, staying right where he was. The security officer rolled his eyes and gave the android a gentle push toward the door.
"Inside you go," he said.
Lore obligingly shuffled through the sliding doors to the sound of the humans' ignorant laughter. It took most of his considerable concentration to hold back a vengeful sneer as he headed for the lift that would take him to the facility's heavily secured basement.
The lift required a security code and retinal scan. It was a peculiar feeling, to know he had retinas now, retinas as entirely unique to him as the contours of his ears and the swirly prints on his fingers and toes. He didn't have any sort of security clearance, though, so having unique biodata wasn't really much use in this instance. Lore had learned wits and deception were much more valuable resources.
Lore dithered by the lift doors, playing harmless, until a pair of researchers came marching down the corridor, ID tags swinging officiously from their belts. They each tapped in their respective codes, endured their respective scans, and stepped through the lift's sliding doors without casting so much as a glance at the android.
Probably assume I'm just some mindless service robot… he thought darkly.
Again suppressing the urge to sneer, Lore slipped into the lift with them. The two humans got off only a few floors down, but Lore continued to the fourth basement level, noting with bitter amusement that it was marked on the lift's keypad as B4.
Lab 42 was to the left, then left again, but once there Lore found himself stymied by another, much more complex security panel just outside a pair of heavy, interlocked sliding doors. Lore wondered briefly if he should risk trying his new android strength against the magnetic locks, but decided against it. A display of mega-strength would only undermine the helpless image he'd worked so hard to cultivate these past few months.
Fortunately, the occupancy light was on, the security readout indicating Drs. Tyler and Isuri were currently inside. As the day shift would soon be coming to an end, and Lore knew no one worked down here at night, all he had to do was wait for the doors to open, and then...
"Greetingss to thee! Thou musst be the android known as Lore!"
Lore turned to blink at the newcomer: a slender Andorian female with a slight, sibilant accent. He recognized her from Graves's personnel portfolios as one of three Andorian scientists selected for a temporary exchange program with the Daystrom Institute.
"Hasst thee been ssent down for maintenancce?" the powder-blue woman asked, her antennae twitching slightly as she tapped concernedly at her data padd. "I have no record of—"
"D-Dr. G-Graves ordered me here b-before he l-l-left," Lore stammered, his gold eyes as wide and innocent as he could make them. "Wh-where is R-Room F-Forty-T-t-two?"
The Andorian glanced at the wall, where the number 42 was clearly etched in black numerals a foot tall. When she turned back to Lore, her antennae drooped down and there was a rather sad look in her eyes the android couldn't quite figure out.
"Why, thou art here, ssilly boy," she said kindly. "Let me key thee in."
She entered her pass code, which Lore instantly memorized, and stood still for the biodata scan. A moment later, the doors slid open with a deep, pneumatic hiss.
"If thou shouldst be in need of anything," she said quietly, catching Lore's eye before he could shuffle past her. "Pleasse assk of me, not of them in there or of the Mr. Dr. Gravess. The thingss I have sseen… I begin to think they do not undersstand how beingss like thee and C-5 are so rare, so precciouss. I express regret to find thy treatment here hasst been most sshameful."
Lore regarded her, a lightening-brief flash of his own personality breaking through his vapid façade before he could catch it. This Andorian scientist was one of only three people he'd met here who had called him anything but 'it' or 'thing'…and the only one so far to acknowledge that he and his brother were 'beings.' That deserved something. Something special.
"Charlie," he said.
"Ssorry?"
"My brother," Lore told her, without a trace of stammer. "His name is Charlie."
The Andorian's expression warmed, just slightly, and she dipped her antennae in respectful acknowledgement.
"I sshall remember, the Mr. Lore," she said politely, translation into Federation Standard making the elegant formal address sound oddly awkward. Maintaining her posture of respect, she walked him safely through the security field and waited for the door to close behind him before heading back to her duties with a sigh.
To Be Continued...
References include: The Measure of A Man; TOS: Journey to Babel; and the Danny Kaye song "Tongue Twisters" by his wife Silvia Fine (1951).
Next Time: Lore finds out what's been going on with Charlie, and what Graves might have in store for both of them... Stay tuned!
I really, really wanted to get to Charlie's scene before I had to go back to work because not too much after Charlie's scene comes Data stuff and I really, really, really want to get to Data's part of this story! But, with the move and everything I don't think I'm going to make it so it'll probably be a while before the next update for this, or any of my other stories. Sorry! I very much want to thank you for your reviews and support. Thanks so much for reading! :)