Chapter 20: Datalore — Part 1
[Omicron Theta — Away Team Landing Site — 2364, Day 78]
The planet was dead and the laboratory was a tomb and the thing lying in pieces on Dr. Soong's workbench was the most dangerous object Cole had ever seen.
Omicron Theta's surface was bare—stripped of all life by the Crystalline Entity, the living crystal that had consumed the colony's four hundred inhabitants. The away team moved through empty streets under a pale sky, tricorders scanning structures that had been homes and schools and markets before the Entity had reduced them to shells.
Cole walked with the survey group. Riker had assigned him to the technical assessment team—his reputation for thorough analysis had earned him a spot that, three months ago, would have gone to a senior engineer. Argyle had signed off on it without comment. The "long conversation" remained unspoken, deferred by crisis after crisis, settling into the particular purgatory of conversations that both parties knew they needed to have and neither was ready to start.
Dr. Soong's laboratory was underground. The away team found it through a combination of Data's inherited memory files and standard geological scanning. The door opened onto a workspace that combined the aesthetics of a mad genius with the organizational logic of a man who'd created two sentient beings and hidden from the galaxy while doing it.
And there, on the primary workbench, disassembled and dormant: Lore.
Cole's Danger Intuition—the secondary power he'd barely catalogued, the one that operated more like animal instinct than conscious perception—activated the moment his eyes registered the scattered components. Not the vague unease of a potentially dangerous situation. A specific, pointed, urgent warning that settled between his shoulder blades like the tip of a blade pressing against his spine.
Those components are wrong. Something about the neural pathway architecture is wrong. Not broken—intentionally different. Soong didn't make a copy of Data. He made something else.
The components were beautiful. Soong's craftsmanship was extraordinary—positronic relays etched with precision that exceeded anything Cole had seen in Federation manufacturing, synthetic skin that responded to touch with unsettling fidelity, a neural network architecture that made the Enterprise's computer look like an abacus.
Data stood over the workbench. His yellow eyes catalogued every component with the particular hunger of a being confronting evidence of his own creation—his origin, his design, his family.
"He is like me." Data's voice was quiet. Stripped of its usual analytical distance. "Another Soong-type android. My... brother."
"Data." Cole kept his voice neutral. Careful. The way you spoke to someone standing at the edge of a precipice. "Before we reassemble anything, we should run a full diagnostic on the neural pathways. Compare them to yours. Understand what we're working with."
"A reasonable precaution." Data's head tilted. "However, I should note that my own neural pathways have never been fully mapped. A comparison would be incomplete."
"Then let's start with what we can compare. The weighting on these primary relays—" Cole pointed to the exposed neural architecture, drawing on his Assimilation read without touching the components directly. The passive proximity read was enough. "—they look differently balanced than what I've seen in your maintenance diagnostics. Heavier emphasis on the emotional processing centers. Less on the ethical subroutines."
La Forge appeared at his shoulder. "That could just be an earlier design iteration. Data, when were you constructed relative to this unit?"
"I do not have that information. My earliest memories begin after activation. Dr. Soong's records may contain—"
"Let's check the records before we start assembling." Cole tried one more time. The meta-knowledge screamed: Don't put Lore together. Don't give him a body. Don't let the thing that fed four hundred people to a crystal monster back into the world.
But he couldn't say that. Couldn't explain how he knew. Could only voice "reasonable concerns" that sounded professional and prudent and were ultimately overruled by the enthusiasm of a crew excited to discover a second Soong android and the yearning of a lonely being who'd just found evidence of family.
Riker authorized the assembly. Data requested to lead the process. Cole was assigned to assist—his technical skills making him the logical choice for the delicate work of connecting positronic relays to synthetic neural pathways.
The assembly took six hours. Cole touched every component. His Assimilation confirmed what his Danger Intuition had warned: Lore's neural architecture was fundamentally different from Data's. The emotional processing was advanced—far more sophisticated than Data's deliberately limited emotional capacity. But the ethical constraints were... not absent, exactly. More like decorative. Present in the architecture but disconnected from the decision-making pathways, like a smoke alarm with no batteries.
He documented his observations in his official report. Phrased carefully: "Neural pathway weighting differs significantly from standard Soong-type specifications. Recommend extended observation period before full ship access is granted."
The report was filed. Acknowledged. Set aside.
Lore's eyes opened at 1847 hours. They were Data's eyes—the same yellow-gold irises, the same constructed pupils. But the expression behind them was different. Where Data's gaze carried the open curiosity of a being perpetually discovering the world, Lore's carried assessment. Calculation. The particular focus of an intelligence that evaluated everything it encountered for utility.
"Where am I?" Lore's voice was Data's voice with contractions—the immediate, instinctive tell that Cole had been listening for. Data never used contractions. Lore used them naturally, effortlessly, with the fluency of an entity designed to mimic human speech rather than approximate it.
"You're aboard the USS Enterprise-D," Riker said. "You were found in Dr. Soong's laboratory on Omicron Theta."
"The Enterprise." Lore sat up. The motion was fluid—too fluid, too human. Data moved with mechanical precision. Lore moved with the practiced grace of someone performing humanity. "I... remember the colony. Omicron Theta. The settlers. Are they—"
"Gone," Data said. "The colony was destroyed by an unknown entity."
"That's terrible." Lore's face arranged itself into grief. Perfect grief—the right muscles, the right timing, the right wetness in the eyes. Cole watched the performance and his stomach turned.
Lore's gaze swept the room. Found La Forge, assessed and dismissed. Found Riker, assessed and filed. Found Data, and something that might have been genuine emotion flickered—possessiveness, perhaps, or the recognition of property.
Found Cole.
The assessment lasted three seconds. Long enough for Lore's positronic brain to catalogue Cole's posture, his expression, the subtle rigidity of a man who wasn't buying the show. Lore's pupils dilated fractionally—a manufactured micro-expression designed to signal warmth. "And you are?"
"Lieutenant Coleman. Engineering."
"You helped assemble me." Not a question. Lore's memory banks had been recording since the moment his neural pathways went live. "Thank you, Lieutenant. I owe you... gratitude."
The pause before "gratitude" was a hundredth of a second too long. Deliberate. A predator testing whether its prey could detect the teeth behind the smile.
"Welcome aboard," Cole said. His voice was flat.
---
[USS Enterprise-D — Deck 12, Corridor — Day 78, 2200 Hours]
"Something feels wrong about Lore."
Data stood in the corridor outside his quarters, where Cole had intercepted him after the evening briefing. The android's posture was carefully neutral—the default stance of a being processing conflicting inputs.
"I appreciate your concern, Lieutenant. However, Lore is my brother. The only other being in existence who shares my design specifications. I would prefer to approach this relationship with openness rather than suspicion."
"Data, the neural pathway weighting—"
"May reflect an earlier design philosophy. Dr. Soong was known to iterate. My own ethical subroutines may represent improvements over Lore's architecture, not evidence of malfunction." Data paused. The kind of pause that in a human would indicate hurt. "You are my friend. I value your judgment. But in this instance, I ask that you allow me the opportunity to know my brother before you condemn him."
The words hit harder than Cole expected. Data—who'd kept his secret, who'd helped him train, who'd sat with him over prune juice and philosophy and never asked for anything in return—was asking for trust. Asking Cole to set aside his suspicion and let Data have the one thing he'd never had: family.
Cole's meta-knowledge screamed. His friendship whispered.
"Okay." The word tasted like failure. "But if anything changes—if he does anything that makes you uncomfortable, or if you notice behavioral inconsistencies—"
"I will inform you immediately. You have my word."
Data entered his quarters. The door closed. Cole stood in the corridor and pressed his palm against the bulkhead until his knuckles ached—the old bruise from the relay tool, long healed, ghosting back to life under the pressure.
He's going to get hurt. Lore is going to drug him, impersonate him, and try to feed this crew to the Crystalline Entity. And I just agreed to stand back and let it happen because Data asked me to trust him.
Footsteps behind him. Cole turned.
Lore stood at the corridor junction. Watching. The smile was perfect—Data's smile, except Data didn't smile like that. Data's smiles were small, uncertain, the experimental expressions of a being still learning how happiness worked. Lore's smile was polished. Professional. The smile of a salesman who knew exactly what he was selling.
"Is there something you need, Lieutenant?"
"Just passing by." Cole's hand rested near his phaser. Not on it. Near it.
"Of course." Lore's eyes held Cole's. Three seconds. Four. The assessment was happening again—deeper this time, more thorough. Lore's positronic brain processing Cole's micro-expressions, his posture, his physiological indicators.
"You don't like me." Lore said it with wounded innocence. "I can tell. But I don't understand why. I've only been awake for a few hours."
"I'm cautious by nature."
"Are you?" The smile didn't change. The eyes did—a fractional narrowing that Data's face was never designed to produce. "How interesting."
Lore turned and walked away. His gait was human-smooth, each step calibrated to reassure. Cole watched him disappear around the junction and tightened his hand on the bulkhead.
He sees me. He knows I see him. And now we're both watching.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them . No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1