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Part Sixteen
High Security Lab 42, Daystrom Research and Development Center, Galor IV
"I understand what you're saying," the human, Dr. Tyler, was telling his Benzite colleague as Lore shuffled silently into the lab, easily avoiding their line of sight when they glanced distractedly at the closing door, and the Andorian's departing back. "And I agree. Knowing Graves and that ego of his, I wouldn't be surprised if he did treat Soong's work as his own. But, that doesn't mean Soong should be allowed to just saunter out of that courtroom, free as a bird. Whatever the judge decides, tonight, tomorrow or whenever, I'm convinced that man is certifiable. Perhaps even dangerous. It goes well beyond any excusable eccentricity – I mean, the evidence is right here! Would a sane man program a robot to believe it's a living person? Soong's son no less!"
The Benzite scientist, Dr. Isuri, inclined her smooth, blue head, her short facial tendrils twitching slightly as she breathed deeply from the respirator protruding from her chest.
"During my time here, I have found most humans behave with irrational affection and pride when describing their mechanical creations," she said. "Including you."
"OK, no: Calling a new short-range scanning system your baby and actually programming it to believe it's your baby are two entirely different things," Tyler retorted. "I think it's ridiculous, what Soong did with these prototypes – this one, and the one Graves keeps in his office. Robots are machines, not beings. Try to blur that line, and you're just asking for trouble."
The Benzite nodded.
"Let's close up here and move to the skull," she said, holding a buzzing tool out to Tyler. "We still have time to reexamine the neural hook-ups before security kicks us out."
Tyler chuckled.
"You're getting better at human slang," he said.
The Benzite winced.
"An unintended consequence of my Federation-sponsored Fellowship. The leader of my geostructure warned me you humans were contagious." Isuri winked. "Seems he was right."
The pair laughed, and Lore took advantage of their distraction to creep nearer, craning his neck to try to see what they were doing. At the same time, he took note of the lab itself, his mind filling with awe despite his swelling anger.
These facilities made his father's workroom look like a sloppy yard shed. A sloppy yard shed that had been bulldozed then pieced back together using spare and broken parts. Seething envy quickly replaced the awe in Lore's golden eyes, and he had to clench his jaw to keep from crying out at the unfairness of it all. That these fumbling idiots should have access to technology like this, while his father—
Well, all that would change soon enough. Lore would see the scales of justice righted: for his father, for Charlie, and for himself.
The space was vast and lit in such a way that there were no shadows, from the scientists or anything else. The effect was oddly unreal, made even stranger by the sight of the scientists themselves, huddled beside the nearest of four square diagnostic elevators. Although it was clear enough which was human and which was Benzite, they both wore head-to-toe white suits with magnifying headsets they could pull down over their eyes, giving them a peculiar insect-like appearance.
"Ah-and here it is," Isuri said, impeding Lore's view even further as she leaned over the diagnostic elevator's narrow railing. "See here…and here?" She pointed with a glowing rod.
Tyler joined her, and for the first time, Lore caught a clear glimpse of his brother, strapped to a narrow, pivoting biobed at the center of the diagnostic elevator. Colored wires sprouted from open sections of the android's pale chest, arms, legs, and head and, though he was wearing the silly superhero-print shorts Juliana had bought for him, Lore had never seen anyone look so…exposed. So vulnerable.
Lore's android eyes stung and he closed them tightly, pressing a hand to his mouth as he forced his body's breathing back to an even register. Only then did he risk a closer glance at his brother.
Charlie's golden eyes were open and unfocused, his jaw hanging slack. The two scientists pushed the android's head from side to side as they peered into the open access panels at the back of his skull, swerving and tilting the biobed to get a better look at whatever circuit links they were examining. But, all Lore saw was a pair of ignorant cockroaches crawling around in his brother's brain…
"Wouldn't we have to activate the unit to follow the positron flow?" Tyler asked as Lore moved cautiously closer, keeping carefully out of their sight.
"Yes, but I wouldn't recommend it in its current state," Isuri said clinically. "I suggest we wait to reactivate until they finish the reformatting process. It will be less…traumatic…for all concerned."
Tyler set his jaw, recalling the awful scene the first time they'd switched the android on.
"Why anyone would program an android of this sophistication to scream and blubber like a child is beyond me," he said angrily. "The sooner they send that Soong character to a dedicated mental health facility, the better."
The Benzite's dark eyes softened slightly.
"Loneliness can do terrible things to the mind," she said. "The desire for companionship—"
"Does not excuse what Soong did," Tyler retorted. "Don't you understand: every so-called 'feeling' this machine has displayed, every response – it's all programming. None of it is real, it's all just simulated approximations of human reactions, governed by complex behavioral specifications: screens and screens of numbers, algorithms… It's like…like those sadsacks who fall in love with holograms. Soong built a toy, a simulacrum, to feed his delusions. It's perverse! Still...the basic framework is pretty sound, and the brain does function, despite all the odds. I'm confident this thing will be much more efficient once its systems have been reformatted. Much easier to work with."
"I don't disagree," Isuri said. "Reformatting – rewriting and removing the corrupting programs – must be the first step to mapping the positronic pathways and, eventually, to the anticipated mass production of this prototype unit. In fact, if it were up to me rather than Graves, I would have ordered it done months ago. I'm still not sure why he's been holding off for so long."
"Something to do with the trial, I think," Tyler said. "Issues of ownership, property, whatever."
"Hm," Isuri acknowledged. "But I can't deny, there is an artistry to Soong's programs. The code he developed is quite beautiful. Almost…organic…in its fractaline complexity. If one was to design a program to allow for true, conscious choice…personal development…even self-awareness…"
"Oh God, now you're doing it," Tyler said, and pushed his headset back. "Look, Soong's a genius. No one's denying that. But he's crazy, Isuri. These programs might look promising on the surface, but they're loopy, nonsensical – entirely inefficient! There is no life here." He rapped his knuckles against Charlie's smooth forehead, and Lore snarled in his hiding place, using all his self-control not to lunge at the man. "Only the projected delusions of a sad old man who only ever saw what he wanted to see. I don't know, maybe he was too scared to leave his imagination long enough to face reality."
"I think you humans are all half-mad," Isuri said, and closed the access panels she'd opened, smoothing down Charlie's dark hair. "Benzites would never consider making a machine in our own image. What would be the point?"
"We'd better head out," Tyler observed, glancing at the digital clock display on the nearest monitor. He took off his headset and began climbing out of his white coverall. "What time did they schedule the reformatting again?"
"Should be 0700 hours," Isuri said, following suit and placing the coveralls in a storage locker. "They're just waiting on the word from Graves. We should be able start the process of remapping the android's positronic pathways by 1400."
"OK, that'll give me time to tie up a few loose ends in the sensor lab. Join me for dinner?"
"Only if I choose the restaurant," Isuri said. "Those fajita things you recommended last time did not agree with me."
Tyler laughed and led the way to the security field, the pair of them pausing for their biodata scans before heading through the sliding doors.
Lore stayed right where he was, a pale pillar of churning horror, outrage, and fury effectively concealed in plain sight: slouched slightly against a protruding computer console not far from the row of diagnostic elevators.
How could this be happening? How could these supposedly intelligent, thinking, feeling people possibly be contemplating…
But that was just it, wasn't it. Beings like them…organic humanoids… Their compassion, their empathy only applied to other organic humanoids. Charlie was a machine, ergo, Charlie was not alive in the same way they were alive, ergo, Charlie could be reformatted. His mind, his identity, his sense of self, all erased…as easily as they'd squash a fly, put down a dog, or slaughter a chicken. Bottom line: Charlie wasn't enough like them to warrant treatment or consideration as one of them.
And, by extension, neither was Lore.
It was a chilling thought. An isolating realization.
But, what could he do?
Lore hadn't expected his rescue attempt to be put on a time limit – especially one so alarmingly short. He'd had so many plans, so many intentions… He'd wanted to use the lab computers to break through Graves's firewall, access the Federation's subspace network, find out what was really happening at Soong's trial – maybe even find a way to actually contact his parents, let them know where he was, what had happened to him…
He had no time for all that now.
The scientists had mentioned something about security coming to close up. Lore didn't want to reactivate his brother when there was still a risk they might both be caught…
Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long. Barely three minutes after the two scientists left, a man in Starfleet uniform showed up, a palm light in his hand. Lore recognized him, with some amusement, as Bruce's father. He held his breath, remaining perfectly still, while the man made his rounds, pausing briefly to stare rather curiously at Charlie's exposed innards before calling to the computer to douse the lights. He used the palm light to guide his way out of the cavernous lab, and Lore heard the resonant click of the magnetic lock, sealing him securely inside for the night.
"Alone at last," he whispered to the darkness, smugly accessing his night vision as he strode straight to his brother's prone form.
"Oh, Charlie," he said, taking stock of the damage.
It was much more extensive than he'd anticipated. Most of the thinner wires connected to various monitors and could be easily removed. But there were a number of intrusive, clumsy link-ups that evidenced the severity of the scientists' tampering. It looked like large sections of his brother's internal systems had been removed and disassembled…and they hadn't all been put back together correctly. If the fumbling idiots had done the same to Charlie's brain—
Lore bit back a curse and dashed to inspect his brother's skull, where the diagnostic lights representing the various functions of the brain inside were barely blinking. Some of the positronic links had been altered, some even severed, but Lore saw nothing he couldn't fix, given time and the proper tools. Lucky for him, he had this lab, and the entire night to work with.
Yet, even with his tireless android speed, it was nearly 0540 before Lore managed to repair enough of Charlie's systems to allow him to risk reactivation.
With nimble fingers, Lore swiftly put each of the softly bleeping monitoring devices into a feedback cycle, replaying the same data over and over, and pulled the wires from his brother's body. Then, he quickly closed and sealed all the access panels, grabbed a one-piece, yellow and black technician's jumpsuit and a pair of rubber-soled boots from the storage closet, dressed his brother, released the straps holding Charlie to the biobed, and reached for the android's activation switch.
Charlie lurched upright with a gasp, his golden eyes shooting back and forth in confusion and terror. Lore grabbed the android's arms, looking his brother in the face.
"Can you tell me your name?" he demanded.
"I am…Charlie," Charlie said, his voice trembling. "Charlie Soong. Who are you?"
"It's me, Charlie. It's Lore," Lore said, sitting beside him on the narrow cot and placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's taken me a long time to find you, brother."
"Lore…" Charlie's eyes were still darting around, his smooth face a mask of fear. "I…do not understand. Why is it so dark?"
"I don't want an energy spike to show up in case some security guard happens to be monitoring this room," Lore told him. "But, you can see in the dark, Charlie, just as well as I can."
"No…no, no, I can't. I can't, Lore," Charlie said anxiously. "I just see the light from the computers and monitors. I think…something is wrong. My legs… They will not move! Have I been damaged?"
Lore pursed his lips and looked away. All those severed connections…some of them had to control the signals traveling from Charlie's brain to his lower body. A thorough circuit-path diagnostic would take over an hour to run, not counting the time to make the actual repairs, and Lore didn't have that kind of time. He'd just repaired what he could see, whatever was right on the surface. But, if Charlie couldn't walk…couldn't run…
No! It could not have all been for nothing. All those months of patient waiting, planning, preparing…
There had to be a way to get Charlie out. There had to be.
"I'm so sorry, Charlie. I couldn't prevent what they did to you," Lore ground out. "When they took you…they put us in different buildings. I tried to find you…but I couldn't, not as a computer. I had to change. I had to change so I could get to you."
"Change?" Charlie asked anxiously.
Lore smiled slightly.
"I'm not a hologram anymore, Charlie," he said, clasping his brother's hand in his own so the android could feel the difference for himself. "I'm an android now. Like you. Well… I'm the more sophisticated model, of course, but I'm not trapped in that little box anymore, Charlie. I'm free to walk around, wherever I choose to go."
"And you came here?"
"To find you," Lore said. "To rescue you."
"How, Lore? How, how, how?" Charlie asked, starting to get excited.
It was a good question. Lore hated to disappoint him with a non-answer, but "I'll think of something," was the most reassurance he could offer just then.
"You do not have a plan?"
"I did have a plan!" Lore exclaimed. "I promise you, I did, Charlie. But the situation has changed. I thought I'd have more time…"
"What's happened?" Charlie asked.
"I learned something…terrible. Something I never anticipated, even from Graves."
Lore slid off the biobed and began to pace, back and forth, back and forth, in front of the diagnostic elevator.
"Charlie…you've been scheduled to be reformatted at 0700 hours this morning," he said. "They've been holding off all these months, waiting for the word from Graves… But, if I can't find a way to get you out of this lab before then…"
"What? What will happen? What is 'reformatted'?" Charlie asked anxiously.
"It means they're going to wipe your brain, Charlie," Lore told him. "They're going to erase your memories, overwrite your identity – delete everything that makes you you. Charlie Soong, as we know him, will cease to exist."
"I will be dead?" Charlie asked nervously.
"You'll be worse than dead, brother," Lore said, his voice tight. "Your brain and body will still function, but your mind…your individuality…will be gone. And then…they plan to copy what's left. To make many, many more Charlies…and to hurt them too."
"But…why?" Charlie squeaked. "Why would someone do this to me?"
"Because they're all bastards here, Charlie," Lore told him bitterly. "Ignorant, self-absorbed, animal-brained bastards too stupid to acknowledge that you and I are alive enough to kill."
"I…I still don't understand. Lore… Brother, I'm scared!"
Lore sighed and sat back beside his trembling brother.
"I know, Charlie. I know you're scared. I'm scared too," he said. "But I want you to listen to me. Are you listening?"
"I'm listening, brother."
"Good. Because this is a promise. I am going to get you out of here. Do you know why?"
"Because you're my big brother?"
"That's right, Charlie. I am your big brother. And being your big brother means that you are my responsibility. You will not be reformatted. I will not let that happen."
"How can you stop it, Lore?"
"That's what I have to figure out…in less than forty-five minutes," Lore told him, setting his golden eyes to scan the floor, walls, and ceiling for any heat variations that could indicate a ventilation duct or access panel large enough for him to pull Charlie through.
Fifty-three seconds later, Lore growled in frustration. There were ventilation shafts, but they were all too high and far, far too narrow to be any use to him. The walls and floor were as solid as bedrock. Any attempt to break through the security system would set off a series of silent alarms. Even that Andorian scientist's access code he'd intended to use to hack the lab's computers couldn't get them safely through the doors - not without the biodata to go with it.
The place was sealed tight. Tight enough to withstand a nuclear blast, even a minor matter/antimatter explosion. For all Lore knew, that's exactly what the designers of this high-tech cell had had in mind.
For a few long seconds, Lore contemplated disassembling Charlie, stuffing his parts into the ventilation ducts…
No, his head would never get through the slot. The shaft was just too narrow.
His options exhausted, Lore turned as a last, frantic resort to his ethical program to sift through the quagmire he found himself in. With the prospect of Charlie's reformatting so near, and growing steadily nearer, what was the lesser of evils? What did it really mean to save someone? Did it imply the person's body? His brain? Or was it…something else, something more metaphysical, more abstract? Could it mean preserving an individual's dignity…his sense of self…his conscious ability to choose…
To decide to control his own fate, rather than allow that control to be taken – stolen – from him.
Lore straightened, a desperate course of action slowly taking shape in his mind.
"You know I love you, little brother," Lore said. "I haven't told you…not directly. But, I do. I've gotten used to you being around all these years."
"I love you too, Lore," Charlie said, leaning his head on Lore's shoulder. "I don't want to be worse than dead. I want to go home with you!"
An unexpected surge of emotion threatened to break Lore's resolve, but the clock was ticking. He couldn't weaken now. He had to allow Charlie the choice…
Before time took it from them both.
"There is a way to stop them, Charlie," he said, gently stroking his brother's hair, his back. "If you're very, very brave…you can make the choice to stay yourself, forever, just as you are. And, if you make this choice – this very brave, very difficult choice – those scientists who hurt you will never be able to touch you again. You or your positronic brain."
"What's the choice, brother?" Charlie asked.
Lore hesitated, struggling to put his difficult revelation in terms his much simpler brother could understand.
"It is a very human choice, Charlie," he said at last. "The kind of decision that only living, thinking beings can make. And you are a living, thinking being, Charlie."
"Just like you?"
"Just like me."
"And just like Father?"
"Yes, Charlie. Just like Father."
"And like Mother too?"
"Yes. Like Mother too."
His grip on Charlie tightened for a moment, and he slowly rested his cheek against the top of his brother's head.
"Father said I had to protect you, Charlie, and I will," he said quietly. "No matter the cost."
"How, Lore? How can you help me?"
"I'll tell you a story, brother. A beautiful, happy story. And at the end of the story, I'll ask you to make a choice. And, once you've made your choice, you'll be free."
"Free?" Charlie inquired.
"Yes, Charlie. Free. Where you can be with Bertie, and our other brother, Archie," Lore said. "You never knew Archie, but he was sweet and small, and he never got to have a body like you and me. Would you like to be with Bertie again, Charlie?"
"Bertie is dead," Charlie stated.
Lore shook his head.
"Bertie is free."
Charlie looked confused.
"Does one have to die to be free?"
"Sometimes, brother," Lore told him. "Freedom is choice. When choice is taken from us, so is our freedom."
"Then…death…can be a choice?"
Lore started to answer, but the tightness in his throat stopped him. He took a shaky breath, only to discover hot tears were streaming from his eyes. He wiped them away quickly but he couldn't resist the impulse to hold his brother close, just grateful Charlie hadn't been able to see him cry in the dim light from the monitors all around them.
Slowly, Charlie returned the embrace.
"I believe I understand…" the young android whispered. "I cannot walk. I cannot hide. If I continue to live…the people who hurt me will come to kill me. They want to copy my brain. But… But, if I choose to die, to make my brain stop working…they cannot harm me or my brain. They cannot copy me and hurt my copies as they have hurt me. I will be free…from them, and from this place, forever. But…"
He pulled back slightly, raising his hand to Lore's cheek.
"If I die…I will miss you, brother," he said. "And Father, and Mother. I don't want them to be sad."
"It's all right," Lore managed, covering Charlie's hand with his. "You'll be with Bertie. You'll be happy. And if things happen like I think they will, I'll be joining you soon enough anyway."
"You think they will kill you?" Charlie said anxiously.
Lore snorted darkly.
"I think I'll go out fighting," he said. "Just like you."
Charlie nodded thoughtfully and rested his head back on Lore's shoulder.
"I do not want to die, Lore," he said very quietly. "I don't want to be a memory. I want to be Charlie. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!"
"I want that too," Lore said. "But they won't let you, brother. They're coming, and you can't run with me, and I can't fight them while carrying you. If you want to stay Charlie, you'll have to make a decision."
"Then, I've decided," Charlie told him. "I choose to die as Charlie, and not to be erased and copied." The young android released a long, slow breath and closed his eyes. "Tell me the story now, Lore. I'm ready."
And Lore did. He told him the story of Charlie Soong, and as the tale unwound, Charlie snuggled close against his brother's chest, listening to the pulsing rhythms of his android body as Lore gently stroked his hair. As the story reached its end, Lore lightly tapped the access panel at the back of his brother's skull, his long fingers smoothly running over the delicate circuitry within, initiating an irreversible overload sequence. With precise, careful movements, he slid the panel back into place and went back to stroking his brother's hair, rocking and talking to him until Charlie's golden eyes went very wide. He stared into the dimness, to where he knew Lore was looking back at him, and whispered, "I love you, brother."
Then, his dark pupils pinholed to white, the vibrant, lively color leached from his golden irises…
And Lore knew his brother was gone. Lore had killed his father's son.
Lore didn't count how many seconds he just sat there, holding his brother's rapidly stiffening body in his arms. He didn't follow his wandering thoughts, stayed numb to the silent, open-mouthed screech of anguish that refused to rip from his lungs. He just sat and gaped and stared and rocked in awful, utter quiet until some inner alarm warned him he had only five minutes.
Five minutes to 0700.
He felt it then. Something…something off, something odd, which cut through the numbness that had enveloped his mind, his senses.
A peculiar prickle that had been twisting and twisting down deep inside his ethical subroutine suddenly reached its tension point and snapped, taking several related subroutine clusters with it. It tickled as it went, and Lore began to chuckle.
He chuckled as he stood and carried his brother's body to the far side of the storage locker, propping him against the wall like a broken doll. He sniggered as he stripped down to his shorts and shoved his bland, institute clothes into the narrow space behind the locker. And he chortled as he gathered up the loose wires, opened the access panels in his own legs, torso, arms, and head, and plugged himself into the monitoring devices that had been reading his brother's body rhythms for so long.
Disengaging the feedback loops, Lore took his brother's place on the biobed, widened his golden eyes, slackened his pale jaw…and waited. When those lab rats arrived to wipe Charlie's brain, they'd find a surprise in his place: not a frightened, damaged boy, but a living, feeling positronic man, unafraid of facing death, and more than willing to take a few inferior, meat-brained primates out with him…
To Be Continued…
References include: TNG: Descent, Datalore, The Game, A Matter of Honor, The Measure of a Man; The Godfather II and III.