Part Twenty

Omicron Theta Science Colony

Soong Residence, early afternoon…

Bright eyes,

Burning like fire.

Bright eyes,

How can you close and fail?

How can the light that burned so brightly

Suddenly burn so pale?

Bright eyes…

Soong ground his teeth and turned his frustrated glare to his wife, busy at Lore's workstation.

No, correction. It was Juliana's workstation now. Since their return home, Lore hadn't shown much interest in their work. He hadn't shown much interest in anything, except—

Bright eyes,

Burning like fire.

Bright eyes,

How can you close and fail?

How can the light that burned so brightly

Suddenly burn so pale?

Bright eyes…

Soong's fists clenched and he stood, his chair clattering loudly against the floor. Juliana jumped and blinked up at him in surprise.

"Noon…?"

"That's it!" he said. "I swear, Juliana, I can't take it anymore. If I have to listen to that damned song one more time…!"

"Oh, no," Juliana warned, rising to her feet. "Noonian, don't you dare go in there. Not with that attitude!"

"It's my house, I'll go where I damn well please," Soong snapped. "That boy's been sulking long enough. How an android of Lore's intelligence can just sit there, day after day, watching that same bizarre cartoon over and over and over again—!"

"Watership Down…" Juliana said softly, an aching sadness creasing her features.

"Whatever the damn thing's called, I'm turning it off, right now," Soong proclaimed, and marched for the door.

"Stop!" Juliana said firmly, cutting him off before he could reach the corridor. "You are not going to barge in there and start yelling. It'll only lead to the same argument as before, and I won't have it!"

"Then, what do you suggest I do?" Soong demanded. "Honestly, Juliana, if I didn't know my own work so well I'd swear a stranger came back on that shuttle with us, not—"

He clenched his fists and lowered his head, his heart aching for the bright, cocky boy he'd known; the eager helper, always by his side with a wry smile, a snide aside…

"Not my Lore," he finished quietly.

Juliana reached for his hands, and sighed.

"I don't know everything that happened at that institute…we'll probably never really know," she said. "But however much he may have changed on the outside, I know…I feel…the android that came home with us is our Lore. Your son will come back to you, Noon, you just have to be patient with him. He's been through so much—"

"Yeah, well, he's not the only one," Soong grumbled. "The last year's been hard on all of us, Julie, not just Lore."

Juliana released his hands and crossed her arms, as if cold.

"You weren't there, Noon," she said. "You didn't see that lab – Charlie's poor little body… They'd taken him apart…those…those so called scientists! Taken him apart and pieced him back together and, still, our Charlie managed to survive. He kept clinging to his life until the very end, and Lore…he saw it, Noon. He saw it all…"

She shivered and strode over to lean against her desk, holding back her tears with a shaky sob.

Soong swallowed and slowly walked across the room to place a hand on her shoulder.

"Look, whatever happened there happened. I can't fix that," he said, struggling to hold back his frustration. "But, despite everything, the android in that room out there is in perfect working order. Yes, he suffered some emotional blows during his time on Galor IV, but that's life."

He stepped away and ran a hand through his graying hair, expelling a deep sigh through his nose.

"Lore is twenty-one now, Julie," he said. "He's not a child. But, to function as an adult, he has to learn to work through the lows as well as the highs, and he can't do that if we continue to allow him to camp in our living room, staring at kiddie rubbish until that positronic brain of his rusts out of his ears! He needs to get out, Juliana, make friends, start a life of his own!"

"A life of his own?" Juliana exclaimed incredulously. "Have you forgotten so quickly? We won a minor skirmish in that courtroom, Noon, not a war. Outside this house, Lore remains a machine, an invention! He has no rights, no standing as a living being, no citizenship—"

"And he never will unless he pries himself off that couch and starts showing this ignorant galaxy that he can earn those things: on his own, by himself!" Soong retorted angrily. "It's up to him to stand up and prove he's alive – that he is a sentient, thinking, feeling being. If that trial taught me anything, it's that I can't go out there and prove it for him. And, neither can you. After all, Lore chose to become an android, didn't he – to swap the CPU I constructed for him for D-6's humanoid shell? If he wants to be a man so badly, he can damn well start acting like one!"

Juliana pursed her lips and glared.

"What?" Noonian exclaimed. "What's that look? You have to know I'm right about this."

"Sometimes," Juliana said coldly, logging off her station with an angry jab of her finger, "I wonder who the android in this family really is."

Soong wrinkled his brow.

"Now, what is that supposed to mean?"

"Work it out," Juliana said, and strode past him, out the door. "I'm going to talk with our son."

Juliana found Lore just where she knew she'd find him: in the dark, lying flat on the living room couch in front of the viewer, his silvery CPU box cradled in his arms like a teddy bear. She sucked in her cheeks and shook her head, her heart aching for the troubled boy she saw there.

"Lore, love," she said gently. "I was just about to make myself a pot of tea. Would you like me to bring you a cup?"

"I'm an android, Mother. I don't need your damned tea," Lore muttered from the dimness.

"All right," she said gamely. "How about a spot of company, then?"

She moved toward the couch and tapped his sock-clad feet.

"Scooch over a bit, and let's watch the ending together. I like this movie too, you know."

"Yeah…I know…"

Lore breathed a world-weary sigh and heavily, reluctantly, pushed himself up into a sitting position. Juliana sat beside him and waited, patiently, until his exhausted pride gave out and he slumped dejectedly against her, resting his head on her shoulder. She held him close and rubbed his arm, trying not to react to the way the shifting light from the screen highlighted the tear tracks on his pale cheeks, the yellow puffiness around his golden eyes…

Juliana gently stroked his hair, hearing his sob-like sigh as she pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

"How can you…"

He choked a little, and pushed away from her, moving to the far end of the sofa, his CPU box clutched in his arms.

"How can I what, Lore?" she asked.

"How can you stand to stay here?" he snapped, his yellow eyes burning. "Why don't you hate me, like he does? Like I do…"

"Because you don't deserve that, Lore," she told him firmly. "And your father doesn't hate you. He just needs time to adjust. You both do."

"Don't make excuses for him," Lore said, his face fixed in a sullen frown. "Ever since he first saw me like this, he's been distant...cold. Because I messed with his work, you see. I derailed his longest running project. Me."

"Lore—"

"It's true!" he exclaimed. "When I...stole D-6's body... I fundamentally altered the only successful creation he's ever really made on his own, and I can never undo that damage. I can never...never go back..."

His fingers tightened around his silvery box, his golden eyes filling with bitter, unshed tears.

"My, aren't we in a mood," Juliana commented. "Maybe we should change your name from Lore to Marvin."

Lore wrinkled his nose.

"Funny," he said, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I was wrong, Mother. So wrong…about everything. I thought, if I could just force Graves to admit… Everything would fall into place. Father would have his reputation back. He'd take the reins from that two-faced, malignant narcissist and he would set things right. He'd make those institute people understand that…that Charlie and I…"

He lowered his head and squeezed his CPU against his chest.

"But, that's not how justice works out in the 'real' world, is it," he muttered darkly. "'Innocent' does not equal 'vindicated.' Especially when there's no real verdict on the books. After all, 'Graves,' is a brand sponsors trust. 'Soong' is just some awkward eccentric with only a big mouth and a collection of defective positronic prototypes to his name. Archie, Bertie…Charlie… Lore…"

"That's not fair," Juliana said. "You're not defective, Lore. Not you, not Charlie. You may be a little depressed right now, but that's—"

"No, I'll tell you what's not fair," Lore interrupted angrily. "It's not fair that Graves could just cut a deal like that, decide to drop all charges, instead of being forced to face what he did to Charlie…to me…! It's disgusting."

Juliana pursed her lips and nodded slowly, but Lore wasn't finished with his outburst.

"I don't understand…" he said, his voice tight with angry frustration. "We were forced to endure all that…that pain, that humiliation, for an entire year! And nothing's changed, has it? Nothing's gotten any better. Father's work is no more respected now than it was before. Hell – outside this colony and Galor IV, his trial barely rated public attention! All court records have been sealed tight by the Daystrom Institute, labeled a mere 'internal' dispute over 'proprietary' information. And that's that! Graves is going to step down from his post with full honors next year – not to mention with enough backing to continue his research anywhere he damn well likes. And – lucky us – we get to return to this backwater rock! No harm, no foul, no...anything."

He sank back further into the shadows.

"I told Charlie he was a living being. I told him an android's choices matter, that our freedom…our individuality…our deaths… That they actually mean something. But, no one cares, do they. No one out there wants a conscious, thinking android around. Androids are objects; computers are tools. Things like us…we're constructs, not people. Never people…"

He lowered his head to his knees, his mussed hair falling over his pale forehead.

"God, I hate humans."

"You don't mean that, Lore," Juliana said gently.

"I do," he said, and looked straight at her. "Charlie died, Mother. He died in my arms, and not one human being in that whole damned institute could grant him enough basic respect to acknowledge it. That's because you have to live before you can die. You need a living soul that can pass on." He gestured to the screen, where the film's credits were rolling, unheeded. "Rabbits can die. Seagulls, snakes, fish, insects, grasses, flowers – even bacteria die! Androids just shut down."

"I know you're alive, Lore," Juliana said. "You have a mind, and a soul that—"

"Do I?" Lore demanded flatly. "Or did Father just program me to think I do?"

"If you're alive enough to question your existence," she told him, "you're certainly alive enough to die. I miss Charlie too, Lore. So does your father."

Lore shook his head.

"No - Father doesn't care. Not really," he said. "Just like he didn't care about Bertie, and he doesn't care about me. I endured a synaptic transfer to save my brother because my father convinced me I had a responsibility to look out for him. And the irony is – if I hadn't bothered, Charlie would be here now! That personality matrix you two have been working on would have been installed in the D-6 frame and I… I'd still be the positronic computer Father wants by his side. Instead…"

He scowled and held his empty box close.

"I'm in here," he tapped at his forehead. "And, he's already moved on to his next project."

"I don't understand," Juliana said. "If you're talking about D-6, you know very well your father and I have been designing those programs for years now. It's only natural to start construction on a D-7 frame. Besides, you shouldn't be alone, Lore…especially not after all you've been through. I think having a new little brother to care about…or, perhaps a little sister…might be just the thing to help you get over this rough bump."

"I don't want another brother," Lore snapped. "I don't want you and Father to create another android! Has this past year taught you two nothing? What the hell gives you the right to keep churning out these conscious, feeling androids that have no place, no future?"

Juliana regarded him, rather taken aback.

"Do you really believe that, Lore?" she asked. "That you have no future?"

"Do you think I would have said it if I didn't mean it?" he retorted.

"In that case," Juliana said, and got to her feet, "I think your father may have been right after all. It's past time you left this dark room and stepped out into the light. There's much more to this universe than that terrible institute, Lore – and this house. Tomorrow, I'm taking you to work with me. And after that, I think we'll see about getting you a job."

"What do you mean, a 'job'?" Lore scoffed. "Who the hell would hire a machine? And, for what? I have no experience, no credentials, no degrees—"

"You have wits and cleverness and the ability to put them to good and creative use," Juliana stated. "And that's more than enough to start. Now, you can stay in here until suppertime if you wish, but I want to see your face at the table tonight. We are going to have a proper family meal, you will eat every bite of food I place before you, and when we've finished the three of us are going for a walk. Outside. Under the trees. Am I understood, Lore?"

Lore scowled at the screen, where the movie he'd set to loop ad infinitum was just starting up again.

"I've never walked under the trees before," he said. "I could never go further than the yard…"

"Well," Juliana said, "perhaps some things in your life have changed for the better after all."

Lore regarded her, but didn't reply. Juliana leaned in to kiss his cheek, then smoothed his dark hair back from his forehead.

"I love you, son," she said. "Don't forget that."

The android nodded, just slightly, but she could see her words had had an effect. She left him there with his movie, and headed for the kitchen to plan and prepare their meal.

To Be Continued…

References include: Watership Down, 1978 animated film directed by Martin Rosen; "Bright Eyes," song written by Mike Batt for the movie, sung by Art Garfunkel; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Thanks for your comments and reviews! I hope you liked this chapter! :)