Hey wow, an update! You know how sometimes you try to get your brain to concentrate on one thing and it decides to come out with something totally and surprisingly else? Like, this afternoon I sat down fully intending to write out the next chapter for "Croaked" and this came out instead, which really startled me since I have been officially blocked on how to move this story on to where it needs to go since last February! So, instead of stopping and switching tracks I kept on with it and now here it is, a brand new chapter to help get this story going again. Apologies for the very long delay, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! :D

Part Twenty-One

Omicron Theta Science Colony

Rhoda Forrester had seen the android here and there, usually hanging around just at the outskirts of town. He would pick a place and stand there, often for hours, staring at the people through his odd, yellow eyes as they walked through their daily routines.

"There's something wrong with that machine," Rhoda's aunt would say, quickening her pace to escape the android's gaze. "Something should be done."

Rhoda's uncle would shake his head and pull the pipe from his mouth.

"That thing ain't hurtin' no one, Ruthie," he'd say. "'Sides, ain't like there's a whole lot in the way of entertainment round these parts. Ask me, it's just curious."

"Ask me," her aunt would snap, "your sister Eileen should have made Soong leave that awful machine at the Daystrom with its so-called 'brothers'. Thing like that belongs on display, not loose in the street!"

Then, she'd huff and grab Rhoda's hand.

"Keep your eyes ahead, Rho," she'd admonish. "Don't look at it."

Rhoda did as her aunt said. She kept her eyes ahead and quickened her pace until they'd left the peculiar android well behind.

But, her aunt's concerns weren't Rhoda's. If anything, Aunt Ruthie's fear only tickled Rhoda's curiosity…and her memory.

"Tim," she asked her brother one warm, Saturday morning. "Do you remember when we were little?"

"What of it?" Tim asked, his eyes fixed on his game padd.

"There were these two robots that used to play with us – what were their names?"

"Charlie was one," Tim said distractedly, pounding his thumbs against the screen as he fought to beat the level. "Then there was…Brett? Burt?"

"Bertie!" Rhoda exclaimed. "That was it: Bertie and Charlie!"

"Yeah…" Tim muttered, still more focused on his game than his little sister's questions. "They were the ones the Daystrom Institute confiscated from Dr. Soong. You know - Mom had to go to court to defend him in the trial a few years ago?"

"Yeah, I know," Rhoda said. "That's why her law practice got bigger, and she has to keep going off-world all the time now to try cases. We still don't have a real court system of our own here on Omicron Theta."

The game padd let out a clanging sound-effect, and Tim snarled.

"No – no, no, I didn't mean to hit that one – gah! Stupid math riddles…"

Tim grunted in frustration and put the game aside.

"Look, Max and the guys are getting a couple of Parrises squares teams together at the athletics center. I gotta go."

"You know Mom and Dad don't want you playing Parrises squares," Rhoda said, frowning as her brother got up and headed for the closet for his padded, blue and black uniform.

"What do they care," Tim retorted, stuffing the uniform, some jaw and joint guards, and a pair of rubbery black shoes into a bag and slinging it over his shoulder. "It's not like they're here to object. Besides, I'm fifteen. I don't need their permission!"

"Mom says it's too dangerous. She says you should wait until you're at least seventeen before—"

"What are you, Mom's echo?" Tim grunted. "Renny Marr plays all the time, and he's only thirteen."

"Shouldn't you tell Aunt Ruthie and Uncle Jake you're going?"

"You tell 'em," Tim said, already heading through the door. "I'll be back after lunch."

Rhoda clenched her fists and glared at the door as it slid closed behind her brother's departing back.

"Fine!" she snapped. "If he can go do whatever he wants, I can too. Hey, Aunt Ruthie!" she shouted into the house, pulling her purple jacket from the closet and slipping it on. "I'm going to the ballpark! See you at lunch!"

"What? Wait—!" Aunt Ruthie's voice called back from upstairs, her footsteps charging down the hall, then the staircase. "Don't you go out on your own, young lady! Hang on just one minute and I'll—"

But the living room was empty. Rhoda had already gone.

Rhoda didn't go to the ballpark. She went quite the other way, past her father's corn field and straight into town through the back lane. She came out near the middle of the main street, just in time to see Dr. O'Donnell, Dr. Soong's wife, coming out of the Fresh Food Market, her anti-gravity sled loaded with groceries. She looked tired, and as she stretched her arms behind her back, her slightly bulging abdomen showed clearly beneath her light, spring jacket.

Rhoda ran over to her, making sure to look first before she crossed the street.

"Hi, Dr. O'Donnell," she said. "How's the baby doing?"

"Oh, he's making himself known, that's for sure," she said in her pretty, lilting accent.

"So, you know it's a boy? Have you decided on a name?"

Dr. O'Donnell smiled.

"We've known that for a while now," she said. "Our boy will be called Danny. Danny Soong."

"That's a pretty good name," Rhoda said. "Better than mine, anyway. Tim and Dad are always teasing me, calling me 'Rhoda-dendron'."

Dr. O'Donnell laughed a little.

"But that's lovely," she said, "and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. But, how are you this fine morning? Sure, the hyacinths and new tree buds do make it smell like spring on Earth."

Rhoda shrugged, trying not to think about how angry her aunt would be at the way she'd run out of the house on her own.

"I'm OK. You want some help?"

"Why thank you, Rhoda," Dr. O'Donnell said. "I did have Lore with me today, but he's gone off somewhere again. Used to be, I could barely shift that boy out of the house. But, ever since…" Her blue eyes lowered, and she sighed. "Well, it's getting harder and harder to pin him to one place."

"Lore," Rhoda repeated, helping the scientist lift the grocery bags into the back of her speeder. "Is he the android with the pale face? The one who watches the street every morning before school?"

"Does he?" Dr. O'Donnell wrinkled her forehead. "We may have to have another talk, Lore and I…"

"Eeww, yuck!" Rhoda exclaimed, dropping a crinkly package into the trunk. "You really eat fig bars!"

Dr. O'Donnell laughed.

"That's Noonian," she said. "He loves those things. Myself, I prefer strawberry."

"Me too," Rhoda said, and they shared a smile as Dr. O'Donnell closed the trunk and set the sled to return to its corral at the front of the store.

"Here, dear," Dr. O'Donnell said, pressing a credit chip into her hand. "This is for helping me. Go pick yourself out a nice treat. And, be sure to give your mother my regards when she gets back from Starbase."

"I will," Rhoda said, squeezing the chip happily. "Thanks, Dr. O'Donnell!"

"Please, it's Juliana," she said, getting into the speeder. "If you should see Lore, tell him I couldn't wait, and he's to come straight home. Good bye, Rhoda."

"Bye, Juliana!"

She waved as the speeder headed down the street, then turned to head into the Fresh Food Market – only to bump into a tall, slender man dressed all in black.

"Oh, excuse me—"

"No, excuse me," the man said, and Rhoda looked up to see Lore's white-gold smirk. "Left without me, did she? How typical."

"Juliana told me you're to go straight home," Rhoda said, her heart pounding against her ribs as she stumbled back, putting the lamp post between herself and the android.

"Did she, now…" He regarded the girl through narrowed eyes. "You're sure she said straight home?"

Rhoda nodded.

"Well…" Lore pretended to look around, moving his hands in front of him as if making measurements. "Looks like there are quite a few buildings standing between me and our house. Can't go straight from here. Guess I'll just have to hang around for a while."

Rhoda snorted a little.

"You're pretty weird," she said.

Lore raised his pale eyebrows.

"You think so?"

She nodded and smiled, inching a little closer.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Lore shrugged and leaned back against the market's prefab wall, tucking his hands behind his head.

"Why not," he said. "Mother is constantly telling me I should find someone to talk to. Might as well be you."

Rhoda giggled, and stepped even closer, leaving the lamp post behind.

"Why do you watch the street?" she asked.

"I don't watch the street," he told her.

"But I've seen you," she said. "Almost every day before school."

"You've seen me watching the people," he corrected. "Not the street."

He peered down at her.

"I've watched you," he said. "Walking with your aunt and uncle, is that right?"

She nodded.

"Yet, I've noticed your brother gets to walk to school on his own."

Rhoda scuffed her shoe against the pavement.

"He gets to do everything on his own," she muttered bitterly.

"Doesn't seem quite fair, does it," Lore mused, and Rhoda closed the distance entirely, leaning against the wall by his side.

"I'm not supposed to talk to you, you know," she said.

"I can keep a secret," Lore said, and she smiled from ear to ear.

"Is Dr. O'Donnell really your mother?" she asked.

"She likes to think so," Lore said, his yellow eyes scanning over the busy street.

"Are you excited about your new brother?"

Lore grimaced, and even seemed to shiver a little.

"Brothers," he grunted. "Replacement parts...to repair the broken family unit..."

"Huh?"

"Forget it," he growled, and for a long moment they just stood in silence, watching the people walk by.

When it started to look like Lore really wasn't going to say anything more, she asked him: "So… If you don't watch the street, what do you do all day?"

Lore's lips stretched, just slightly, and he turned his golden eyes to the bustling farm supply depot across the street.

"See Mitch Wells over there?" He pointed to a hefty man with a yellowish mustache and a battered old hat. "He goes around bragging he's kicked his tobacco habit. But, I know he sneaks a few pipes. Every day at lunch."

A woman brushed past them into the Food Market, her eyes purposely fixed ahead to avoid Lore's gaze.

"Know her?" he said.

"That's Mrs. Emerson," Rhoda said.

"Her husband Roger calls her Dot," Lore said, "but she prefers the more dignified 'Dorothea.'" He smirked. "Pretentious prig. Puts on airs like some grand queen bee just because, when the first colonists drew straws, her house came out first in line for construction."

"Why should that matter?" Rhoda asked.

"Hierarchy," Lore sneered. "Pecking order. Know how I know?"

"How?"

He shot her a rather conspiratorial look.

"Ol' Queen Dot likes to hold court with her minion friends over in Cathy's Tea House every Wednesday at four," he said. "They sip the local tea and nibble tiny sandwiches and trade what they call 'gossip'. But what you really see, if you care to watch, is four bored old farts with watercress between their teeth making up a lot of mean-spirited rumors and innuendo about their neighbors."

Rhoda looked up at him.

"You really know a lot about the people here, don't you."

Lore smirked, and chuffed a slight laugh through his nose.

"What did I tell you about secrets?" he said.

"You can keep them?"

Lore looked down at her, his golden eyes eerily intense.

"Why did you come here today?" he asked. "All alone?"

"How do you know I'm alone?" she challenged.

"Don't insult me, little girl," he said. "Just answer the question."

"I came here to find you, if you want to know," she snapped. "And I'm not a little girl! I'm almost thirteen!"

Lore's brow furrowed, and he lowered his arms to his sides.

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I guess…mostly…"

She frowned and straightened her posture.

"To show I'm not scared of you, like Aunt Ruthie."

Lore snorted.

"Maybe you should be."

Rhoda's frown deepened.

"You still didn't say why you stand around by yourself all the time," she said. "If you want to get to know people better, why don't you just go up and talk to them?"

"That might sound like a logical suggestion," Lore said, "to someone who didn't know humans. I do. And, I have learned that their actions reveal much more about them than their words."

"So, you just hang around staring at people?"

"In part."

"What's the other part?" she asked.

"I'm waiting," he said, leaning back against the wall as he watched a father protectively pull his small daughter up into his arms before walking past him into the market.

"Waiting for what?"

"For one of these 'good folks' to speak to me."

"I'm speaking to you."

He slid his eyes over to her.

"You don't count."

"Because I'm a kid?"

"Precisely," he said, and smirked. "Give it a few years, and you'll be passing me with your nose in the air just like the rest of these small-time frauds."

"That's what you think?"

"That's what I know."

Rhoda scowled.

"Then, I take it back," she snapped. "You're not just weird. You're a total jerk!"

Lore barked a sharp laugh.

"If I'm a 'total jerk', why don't you leave?"

"Is that what you want?" she challenged. "Because I will."

Lore slid his eyes away.

"I thought so," Rhoda said in satisfaction, and gave his arm a little nudge with her elbow. "Hey," she said. "Do you eat?"

"I can," he said, rather suspiciously.

"Dr. O'Donnell gave me this for helping her load her groceries." She held up her credit chip. "I was going to get some strawberry bars. You want one?"

"I prefer fig," he said.

"Too gross!"

She wrinkled her nose and dashed toward the market's sliding doors, then paused to cast a grin over her shoulder.

"Hey, Lore. If you're not here when I get back, don't expect me to come talk to you again."

"Don't worry," he said, rather grimly. "The damage is already done."

"Damage?"

Lore smirked darkly.

"You'll find out," he said. "Then again, you're young. You might get away with just a few scoldings."

He pushed off the wall and started to walk away.

"Hey – wait!" Rhoda called after him. "Don't you want a strawberry bar?"

Lore paused, then turned and walked back to her, fixing her with his stare like a hawk tracks a mouse.

"I'm going to tell you this because, many years ago, when I served as your house computer, you were the only member of your family to call me by my name," he said, watching her blink rapidly as she tried to recall the memory. "I am not your friend, Rhoda Forrester. Nor do I wish to be. You're only hurting yourself by letting these townspeople see you talking to the likes of me."

"Why?" she demanded.

"Just step inside that market," he said, his pale brows quirking above his golden eyes. "They'll tell you. Society is usually quick to beat its strays back into the herd."

He smirked and raised his pale hand in a dismissive wave.

"See you around, kid," he said, as if it were a promise.

But, the budding trees were wearing their fall colors before Rhoda Forrester saw the strange android again. And when she did, he was standing beside a look-alike. A nearly exact duplicate Lore called D-7.

To Be Continued…

References Include - TNG: Silicon Avatar.

Reviews are always welcome! Please let me know what you think! :)