Part Twenty-Two

Omicron Theta

Soong Residence

"It was a miscarriage. The boy was born prematurely."

Tom Handy's voice carried over from the long hallway, where he paced as he spoke into his personal comm unit. Soong and Juliana sat silently in the kitchen, just listening, neither one meeting the other's solemn gaze.

"Yes…yes… Surfactant," Handy said. "Surfactant. Yeah, it's this slippery sort of molecule in your lungs. Reduces surface tension. Huh? What's it for? It's so you can breathe in and out. Yeah. The poor kid's lungs weren't mature enough to produce all the proteins and lipids that form the stuff. Lungs couldn't open, just stuck together. No…no, there was nothing anyone could do. No, we've just got the clinic. Bare basics, you know that. But even in an Earth hospital, there's no way they could have— Hm? Well, not in time to make any difference. Even if they tried that, there's still oxygen deprivation, brain damage, the whole mess. Yeah, even in this day and age. Yeah, that's right. Unavoidable tragedy. Natural causes. Yeah. So, then we're good? Yeah, thanks. I'll tell them."

They heard the soft bleep as Handy ended the call, his footsteps on the carpet as he walked back to the kitchen…

"Well, that should satiate our friendly local press," he said dryly, moving to resume his seat at the little round dinner table across from the unnervingly still pair. "Ari, the editor, she sends her condolences. Eileen's handling all the official documents. Registering the death certificate…"

Handy glanced up at them.

"He's the first," he said. "The first of us colonists to…you know… Pass on. Your little Danny may not have been here long, but he made history just the same."

Juliana stood and strode out of the kitchen.

Handy looked as if he'd been hit.

"Juliana? I-I didn't…!" he exclaimed, rising quickly to his feet. "I was just trying to say your boy won't be forgotten. I didn't mean to—"

"It's not you, Tom," Soong said, staring in the direction his wife had gone. For the first time since Handy had known him, the aging scientist sounded truly…frail. "I doubt she heard a word you said."

In the living room across the hall, Lore tightened his jaw, his golden eyes burning. He'd been sitting there alone since Tom Handy came over, listening, observing…

Now, he clenched his fists and stood, his gaze fixed on the little game table where Charlie and Bertie had spent so many hours playing checkers.

He felt his eyes begin to sting and he had to turn away, the memory of his brother's voice rising from his churning thoughts…

"Charlie… Do you love me?"

"Oh, yes, brother! Absolutely!"

"Why?"

"That is a silly, silly question."

"Humor me."

"But, it's so silly! I love you because you're you! You are first, and first is best! You can talk with Father and Mother, understand them in a way I have never been able to achieve. There is always…a gap. Mother says it's because you're older, but I know it's more than that. Our construction is different…and yours is the superior mind."

"You really believe that."

"Of course! Bertie and I discussed this often. It was our goal to learn as much as we could, to practice our cognitive skills at every opportunity so that, when we turned eighteen, we would both be smart enough to act and think exactly like you! That's why we played so much checkers! To practice, practice, practice!"

Lore swallowed hard, roughly forcing the computer-perfect memories into a long-term storage file and sealing it tight with an encryption key.

"And the humans say Danny is the first," he muttered to the ghosts in his mind. "The first to die. More like the first to be acknowledged in their records. To them, my brothers, you barely registered as broken household appliances, yet dear, dead Danny is to be memorialized in their statistics sheets - a permanent point of trivia in Federation colonial history. R.I.P. Deceased Colonist Number One, the only child of Juliana and Noonian Soong!"

Lore's nostrils flared, his teeth clenched hard against the red-hot fury seething inside him.

"Of course, Danny dearest was constructed of cells, not silicon. And when cells shut down, the humans call it 'death.'"

He glared at the dark vidscreen, at his own pale reflection in the glass.

"The only death that counts…"

"I think…" Juliana sighed deeply and sat on the edge of the bed. "Noonian, I think we must be cursed."

"That's nonsense, and you know it," Soong said angrily.

She glared up at him, her fierce blue eyes rimmed with red.

"Danny's gone, don't you understand that!" she snapped. "Don't you understand what it means! Everything we talked about, everything we wished for… All our plans, our dreams… Our family! It's all over now!"

"More nonsense," Soong asserted. "We're still here, and Lore. And, if D-7's latest functionality tests are any indication—"

"Don't talk to me about D-7!" she cried. "I don't want to hear it!"

"He's our child too, Juliana," Soong retorted. "More yours than mine if you take his programming into consideration. You wanted to design an android with the soul of a man - that's how you put it. Our son's virtual twin; a self-aware positronic mind with the capacity for imagination, creativity, ethics, musicianship, sexuality, personal growth—"

"No!" she shrieked, rising to her feet to confront him. "Not anymore! Damn you, Noonian, can't you get it through that thick skull of yours? There isn't going to be any 'twin' experiment now, no grand twenty-plus year comparative study of the development of the human and positronic brain! D-7 has no twin! And, I can't live in this house knowing…"

"Knowing what?" Soong demanded.

"Knowing that machine downstairs is still functional," she cried, "while our child… Our child is…"

She choked, and Noonian watched as she collapsed into tears. After a long, awkward moment, he shuffled over to sit down beside her. She leaned her face into his shoulder, and sobbed.

"Oh, Noon…" she muffled against his sleeve. "Everything was going so well. I…I can't understand…why…!"

"It's not your fault, Julie," he said, wrapping his arm around her. "It's nature. There was nothing malicious or preordained about it. Now, I know it hurts. I swear to you, it's killing me too. And poor Lore… He's barely said a word to anyone since we got back from the clinic. But, we have to acknowledge that none of us could have changed what happened."

"I can't believe that."

"Julie, you—"

"No," she said flatly. "Maybe it wasn't preordained that we should lose this child. But, I cannot accept that what happened was not malicious, even if it was nature's doing. He was my child, Noonien. I wanted to hear his laughter, watch him grow up... To have that...to have him stolen away...! There is nothing more spiteful, more poisonous in this world!"

Soong sighed and rested his cheek against his wife's auburn hair.

"This isn't the end, Julie," he said. "We've suffered loss before. Remember how hard it was losing Bertie? Then, Charlie—"

"You are not comparing our child to your androids," Juliana said flatly, pulling away from his embrace.

"Our androids," Soong corrected. "And, no. I'm just saying it's no good giving up. After all, we are both scientists. And, in science, things sometimes go wrong. Projects fail. That doesn't mean we never get up and try again."

"Projects!" Juliana exclaimed, rising to her feet. "Are you really so cold? Do you honestly see no difference between our son and those...those machines—"

Soong shook his head, prying himself up from the bed with a soft grunt of effort.

"Don't start this, Juliana," he said. "Not now."

"I want you to test the well again," she said, and he sighed.

"We've tested the water in this house at least eight times," he said. "The water is fine. The filter is fine. The mineral concentration is just a little higher in the summer because of the heat. That's why your tea tasted strange. Well, that and the hormones, but—"

"Don't put this down to hormones," she snapped. "You felt just as queasy as I did, and the effects lasted nearly two weeks."

"During which time we had the water tested, we had the filter tested, we had ourselves tested, and everything came out clean."

"Lore made us that tea, Noonian. He brought it to us every day for at least two months, always at the same time..."

"Lore was just trying to be considerate," Soong retorted. "He knows that local herbal stuff has always been your favorite. You keep at least half a dozen fancy tins in the cupboard, and they all tested clean too. There's nothing in that tea dangerous to us, or to Danny. Not even caffeine."

He stepped closer, placing a gentle hand on her arm.

"Now, I know you're angry and I know you're tired, and I know you think you need someone or something to blame. But fuming over some imagined conspiracy isn't helpful, and this bitter attitude you've been showing lately isn't fair to Lore. Or D-7. They lost a brother too, you know."

Juliana scrubbed a hand through her long, loose hair and turned toward the window.

"I know," she said. "I know, and I'm sorry. I'm just... I can't—"

She sighed.

"I'm not like you, Noonian," she said. "I can't chalk this down to...to science and nature and just move on. I'm going to need some time to come to terms with this. And, I'm going to need you to let me have that time."

She turned to face him.

"Can you do that, Noon?" she asked. "Can you try, just this once, to put me before your androids?"

"Our androids," he said again, but her expression only hardened further.

He pursed his lips, then nodded.

"All right, Juliana," he said quietly. "Whatever you need."

To Be Continued...

References Include - TNG: Datalore; Brothers; Inheritance.

I had a hard time writing out this chapter. A really hard time. Such a hard time, I ended up procrastinating for...well...a ridiculously long time. But, I got a bunch of nudges on this story over the past couple of weeks, and another couple of nudges earlier this week, so I forced myself to break through the troublesome block and get this chapter done. It's my own fault for inventing Danny and connecting this story with 'Alternative Data' in my mind. But, next time Data will make a real appearance, and Lore's troubles will become more apparent. This chapter just had to get out of the way first. Sorry about the long wait, thanks so much for the nudges and for reading my story, and please stay tuned for more, coming soon! :D

Reviews Welcome! :D