Finders Keepers
Fandom: Star Trek : The Next Generation / Star Trek (2009)
Summary: Contains spoilers for the movie. Part 1. After an effort to remove all the portions of Nero's drill that fell onto San Francisco, a cave closed down since the gold rush is found and an android inside of it. Richard Daystrom's research team takes possession of it and reassembles it.
Characters: Data, Richard Daystrom, Flint (Akharin)
Words: 3,057
Notes: Inspired by Prompt 05-08-2008 B-3 at realmof_themuse
"Oh... there it is...."
Richard Daystrom sat back as the figure on the table before him sat upright, staring forward with gold eyes. They went wide, and he glanced around curiously at the white, sterile room and the harsh lights. It had taken a lot of work to figure out how to put this boy together, and a bit more trying to figure out how to get those power cells functioning again and then where his power switch was. He watched as the brown-headed android curled his hands in his lap almost modestly, looking around in utter confusion.
"Hey there, can you speak?" Daystrom asked, putting his hand on a smooth shoulder. He had a booming voice and a big, dark presence; it intimidated a lot of people. He was trying to play it down, though. This new machine they found could very well be sentient- perhaps some remnant of an alien culture that had passed through this star system long ago. With its pale golden skin and bright gold eyes, it was obviously not intended to look human; and with a design this advanced giving him flesh toned skin should have been within the capacity of the cyberneticists behind him.
The android touched at the gaping tear in the material covering his myomer musculature at what should have been his clavicle with one hand. "May I have some clothing, if possible?" he requested in a flat, moderated tone, faintly touching the damaged area.
The voice reminded him vaguely of a Vulcan, and Daystrom thought back to a time when his laboratory used to be filled with them. He shook the nostalgia off to offer another friendly, white-toothed smile. "Sure thing. Dr. Flint!" he called to a gray haired scientist across the room. One that turned and cast a careful, analyzing glance over his shoulder toward his superior. "Go get our new friend something to wear, won't you?"
Daystrom turned his attention back to the android who was looking all around the room, at the blinking of distant computers and white-washed walls, and then at the mirrors that lined a far wall. In fact, very intently at them.
I wonder if he can see that those are two-way, he wondered to himself. Despite his fascination, at the same time it made a creeping sensation crawl up his skin. The hair at the back of his neck prickled up, and he cleared his throat to summon his rationality and draw the machine's attention toward him (which he received, in a slow turn of his head). "We will be friends, right?"
"I am uncertain of your intentions, though I can expressly say that I intend you no harm. However, while my primary functions have been recovered I still retain a significant amount of damage to my front chest plating and circulatory system. I will need 200 myomer polymer strips of 1.4 millimeter by 9.2 millimeter length, sufficient fiberoptic cording of 0.0067 width, and I can provide you with a list of chemical combinations required for the production of bioplast sheeting. The final repairs I can perform on-"
"Whoa, whoa," the large man said, patting Data's shoulder. "You're going too fast for me- Do you have a name? Can we start with a name?"
"Lt. Commander Data, sir."
"Data? That's your name?" He received a brief nod in response. "Lt. Commander? That sounds impressive."
"May I have a PADD, sir?"
"Aren't you polite? Yes, but here comes Dr. Flint with your clothes right now. I'll find you one while you dress."
The older man, who had been looking grimly serious toward everyone else in the room, actually smiled as he handed 'Data' the garments, a generic facility uniform similar to the one that he and Daystrom were wearing. It was a smile that rubbed the project manager the wrong way. He always looked too smug- like he knew everything. Like he was just playing dumb. It wasn't like he could throw outright accusations, though. Flint never made any plays to take Daystrom's position from him. That separated him from most of the workers at the Starfleet Robotics Department. His help had been invaluable in his most recent research into the multitronic computer-
But when he smiled like that, Richard just didn't trust him.
Still, though, he motioned Flint over as he started to look for a PADD to give to the android. He did notice the scientist gently settle a hand on a golden shoulder, almost a fond gesture (which was as quizzically received as it was for Daystrom to observe, it appeared) before he came over to join the other human.
"He doesn't seem hostile," Daystrom remarked, cleaning one of the older PADDs of unnecessary data. "What do you think?"
"He looks familiar to me. He looks like a cyberneticist I've seen- just with a different coloration to his skin."
"Who?"
Flint didn't respond. He simply stared toward the table as the android adjusted the bright blue jumpsuit so it fit properly. Not comfortably. Properly. It was trying to look presentable, and cover up the damage that had yet to be corrected.
Not it. He.
Daystrom's eyes didn't stray from Flint. If anything, his dark-eyed gaze became even more intent. "Who?- what are you-" he cut off as the PADD was taken from his hands by his counterpart, he crossed over to where Data had finished dressing and offered it to him.
"Tell us what we need to fix you..." he said, almost warmly.
The android stared at him, then down at the PADD, seemingly bewildered by its cumbersome appearance- then started flying through the information immediately available. He lifted his chin abruptly, lips slightly slack. He looked up with his eyes wide. "2263.421? That is the Stardate?"
"Yes, were you expecting something different?" Daystrom asked, leaving Flint's refusal to speak with him be for the moment. For the moment, anyway.
Data's attention drifted back to the PADD, and uncertainly he started to type out a list of materials.
I'll take that as a yes, Daystrom though, with an uncertain look toward the ever vigilant and now even more curious Flint. "We could better help you if you were to tell us what's going on."
"I am uncertain if that would be wise, sir," Data remarked, offering the PADD back. "May I ask about the circumstances involving my discovery?"
He knew he would be found. "We were digging out a lot of the mess left behind from when Nero attacked." He looked on the android's face for some element of recognition. He recieved a canid head-tilt and utter confusion in response. "...Anyway, we found you in a cave. We found your head first and then your body later." He didn't mention how he had wanted to take him apart. Flint had insisted that they reassemble the android to see if it functioned, which Daystrom was now questioning his motives behind.
"May I see a record of recent history?"
"Certainly!" Dr. Flint said before the project manager could argue, reached to type in the directories for basic computer link-ups. Data's brows darted up in regard to the scientist's willingness to help, but instead turned his attention to reviewing the history made available to him.
Seeing this was getting out of his control, the project manager's warm demeanor had diminished to a spark of what it had been. "Dr. Flint," he said, almost coldly. "Mind if I speak with you outside?" He indicated the doors to the side of the line of mirrors.
"Oh, certainly," Flint said, countering with absolute elation. Which was irritating for Daystrom, considering how utterly disinterested he was in interacting with any of his biological coworkers. They walked together to the door, both glancing back at the android to see if it was doing anything unexpected; which he wasn't. He was absorbed in what he was reading. Almost as soon as they were through and the door was shut, Daystrom stepped up and stared into his colleague's face.
"What the hell are you doing?" he said, disregarding the row of Starfleet security that was patiently waiting by the one-way glass in case the android had gone on some sort of berserk killing rampage.
"He's giving us material components of his own fruition and saving us months of research-"
"No! This is personal for you. I can tell. Now who does he look like!" Daystrom spat angrily back, dark hands balling into fists. Flint didn't seem affected. He just stared back with disinterest.
That disinterest he gave all people. It made Daystrom wonder if the man was a machine himself. He seemed to be lacking in compassion for anyone; anyone but that verbose automaton in there. But finally, at least, he seemed to find Daystrom worthy of response.
"I've been researching within the cybernetics community outside of the Federation for some time. He looks like he might have been produced by a particular scientist I know."
"Which particular scientist?"
"I need to check..."
"Which particular scientist, Flint?"
"I need to check!" the older man snapped back at him, his own hands forming fists. "You have no idea what you're dealing with. If these people have found what I suspect they've found, we could be looking at the most amazing technological development since Zephram Cochrane's warp technology. I think what we have in there is a positronic brain-"
"Impossible," he received a snarled response. "That's the stuff of Asimov and science fiction."
"You managed duotronic. We're bordering on multitronic! I didn't think they were anywhere near this point in their research. I thought with the way he was reclusing himself, that he wouldn't finish anything capable of sentience within his lifetime. That's why I need to know!"
"Who the hell is it, Flint! I expect an answer!"
"Sibahl Soong."
"...Arik Soong's son?" With that, the project manager's rageful tone evened. No, that sounded unlikely. Arik had barely made any headway into cybernetics. With his abrupt change in specialization, and then the abrupt appearance of a son with no wife or significant other of note, he was set lightyears behind Daystrom. Something that the specialist took a certain amount of pride in. Sibahl was a genius exactly as his father was (too much like him, in the way that it rose suspicion that no one ever questioned directly), but he doubted even with dedication, at Sibahl's age, and being so very removed from the Federation, that he could have ever built that magnificent creature in there.
Flint was right, though. There was the vaguest resemblance. He looked like a younger version of Soong.
"...No, it can't be. And we're going to proceed as planned once we have him functioning well enough to present to the Admiral's committee. What better to defend us in a war against the Romulans and Klingons. Think of how many human lives they could save...." he put his hands on Flint's shoulders.
He had to gain his composure, convince the other scientist what he was doing was right. Flint wouldn't be easy to convince. He never had been easy to convince.
But he received a nod after a moment, and a resigned look. "I know..." His eyes drifted to the glass, watching as the golden skinned man sat down the PADD on his table and stood to wonder about the room. Daystrom looked himself. He had an expression on his face, almost as if he had lost something but didn't know how to react. Maybe he had. Maybe Flint would see that they would be doing the android a service.
Flint was just watching.
~*~*~
After lights out, Data continued to sit up, staring ahead of him. He rubbed at the newly repaired segment of bioplast, judging the evenness of his sensors. He did the best with what he could. The repairs were nearly seamless, but not all of the fiberoptic sensors were attached. Patches were dull to the contact.
A sense of unease had settled upon the android. After encounters with men such as Maddox and others from the Daystrom Institute, especially as they were seeking references for the construction of Daystrom 1 to operate all of the environmental grids in Federation space, he had come to often recognize most of their intentions as hostile. Even when masked with a thin veil of kindness, the underlying result was inevitably an urge for knowledge and disregard for his wishes. Every second until the facility reopened was being spent pondering arguments, escapes, offers of technology, ways to contact what would have been the ancestors of crew-members that might never be.
He looked over his shoulder as the door to the laboratory slid open, his brows climbing high on his forehead as he saw the kinder individual from earlier. Dr. Flint. The one that seemed to speak with legitimate interest in his well-being.
The bright light from the hallway meant that Data’s vision had to adjust to make out the details of his face, his pupils contracting.
“I know what you are…” the aged man breathed. “And I’ve been looking for you for millennia.”
What might have been almost construed as the faint inkling of what we would call hope dropped away, and was replaced by methodical reasoning. “You have been searching for me in particular? But I have only been in San Francisco-”
“No! No, you don’t understand. Soong must have found the source. We discussed it. I didn’t think it was possible, I’ve been looking for it for so long. But here you are!” He crossed the room, motioning to Data. “The key to positronic technology. And if I take you back to Soong, he’ll have to tell me where he found it.”
Data opened his mouth to argue. Whichever Soong he was talking about couldn’t be his father. His father would have been an infant at this time. In another forty years, he would have still been working in a lab along with his mentors. In another few decades he would be marrying Juliana. But then it struck him. His father had learned cybernetics initially from his father, and he from his father before him. Flint thought that one of the previous Soongs had made him, and was offering him a way out.
Data wasn’t about to deny a way out.
The android nodded, hopping down from the table. “I will accompany you if you believe we can triangulate their location. Given the nature of the facility’s duotronic technology and your intimate knowledge of its layout, I believe we can make our way out effectively…. May I ask what you meant by millennia?”
“I’ll explain everything to you when we leave,” Flint said, grabbing Data’s wrist firmly and pulling him toward the door.
It was perplexing behavior, but the android went along with it. He slowed as they passed two limp guards in the hallway, tried to pull away and check their pulses. Instead, he found his arm pulled even more roughly, Flint insisting that they kept going. Data did follow obediently, though the nature of his benefactor was called further and further into question. Cries back to Fajo sparked in his memory engrams, but simultaneously they were giving him an avenue of escape.
He looked back over his shoulder, examining them with both educated eyes and childish bewilderment. They were slumped in a way that would indicate death, breath still… and the security officer around the next bend had been similarly incapacitated with eyes transfixed vacantly toward the ceiling.
At this point, Data wanted to pull away.
With a jerk of his arm, he removed himself from Flint’s grip and staggered back to the body of the guard. He reached for the phaser quickly, snagging the communicator with his other hand. Then a fizz of static passed before his eyes, his limbs stiffened uncontrollably, and his awareness left him once more.
~*~*~
When Data woke, he was restrained. Not back in the lab, though, but in an older model runabout. Disabling bracers were placed around his arms and chest. As he tilted his head, though he couldn’t feel them, he could hear the click of wires running from his head into a console.
“You have removed me from Daystrom’s laboratory.”
“With no help from you,” Flint’s now familiar voice said from the front of the shuttlecraft. Data followed the sound with his eyes, only seeing the back of a seat and a patch of grayed hair above it.
“You were harming innocent officers. I have a fundamental respect for all life.”
“That’s surprising. Soong never cared much for that sort of thing. He felt that people should decide for themselves… Deciding for themselves just ended up frying all the circuits of those young women, though…”
The android stared flatly. “…Young women?”
“Emotions, Data. They break artificial intelligences. They fry them. Even Daystrom’s own twisted engrams keep breaking his. They can fake them, but if they feel them? That’s it. Except you. You’ve been given the perfect set-up to accept basic emotions. I figured out that last part… now I just have to get that first part from Soong so I can finally make a woman that will last as long as I will.”
When he was met with silence, he finally turned his chair to look back. Data’s eyes were darting as he churned through files, suddenly realizing who it was that had him. Of course “Dr. Flint” had no problem killing those guards. He had little attachment to humanity left. He was Brahms. Leonardo DaVinci. He was Alexander the Great. Data’s gaze toward him was slow and deliberate. He wanted to know how to make a mate to persist with him through history. He was going to trade him to Soong for that knowledge.
What would he do when he discovered that Soong did not in fact have that knowledge?
That’s when he felt a tick, and he gasped nervously. Nervously. “What… have you done to my positronic net?” he asked, surprised by the abrupt waver in his voice.
“I told you. Basic emotions that you have to slowly awaken to. The diagnostic confirms that it’s working.” Flint’s fingers clenched into fists, his gaze now as insistent as Daystrom’s ever was. All that moron had to worry about was his precious multitronic computer. Flint had eternity, and Data was his key to finding that escape.
Summary: Contains spoilers for the movie. Part 1. After an effort to remove all the portions of Nero's drill that fell onto San Francisco, a cave closed down since the gold rush is found and an android inside of it. Richard Daystrom's research team takes possession of it and reassembles it.
Characters: Data, Richard Daystrom, Flint (Akharin)
Words: 3,057
Notes: Inspired by Prompt 05-08-2008 B-3 at realmof_themuse
"Oh... there it is...."
Richard Daystrom sat back as the figure on the table before him sat upright, staring forward with gold eyes. They went wide, and he glanced around curiously at the white, sterile room and the harsh lights. It had taken a lot of work to figure out how to put this boy together, and a bit more trying to figure out how to get those power cells functioning again and then where his power switch was. He watched as the brown-headed android curled his hands in his lap almost modestly, looking around in utter confusion.
"Hey there, can you speak?" Daystrom asked, putting his hand on a smooth shoulder. He had a booming voice and a big, dark presence; it intimidated a lot of people. He was trying to play it down, though. This new machine they found could very well be sentient- perhaps some remnant of an alien culture that had passed through this star system long ago. With its pale golden skin and bright gold eyes, it was obviously not intended to look human; and with a design this advanced giving him flesh toned skin should have been within the capacity of the cyberneticists behind him.
The android touched at the gaping tear in the material covering his myomer musculature at what should have been his clavicle with one hand. "May I have some clothing, if possible?" he requested in a flat, moderated tone, faintly touching the damaged area.
The voice reminded him vaguely of a Vulcan, and Daystrom thought back to a time when his laboratory used to be filled with them. He shook the nostalgia off to offer another friendly, white-toothed smile. "Sure thing. Dr. Flint!" he called to a gray haired scientist across the room. One that turned and cast a careful, analyzing glance over his shoulder toward his superior. "Go get our new friend something to wear, won't you?"
Daystrom turned his attention back to the android who was looking all around the room, at the blinking of distant computers and white-washed walls, and then at the mirrors that lined a far wall. In fact, very intently at them.
I wonder if he can see that those are two-way, he wondered to himself. Despite his fascination, at the same time it made a creeping sensation crawl up his skin. The hair at the back of his neck prickled up, and he cleared his throat to summon his rationality and draw the machine's attention toward him (which he received, in a slow turn of his head). "We will be friends, right?"
"I am uncertain of your intentions, though I can expressly say that I intend you no harm. However, while my primary functions have been recovered I still retain a significant amount of damage to my front chest plating and circulatory system. I will need 200 myomer polymer strips of 1.4 millimeter by 9.2 millimeter length, sufficient fiberoptic cording of 0.0067 width, and I can provide you with a list of chemical combinations required for the production of bioplast sheeting. The final repairs I can perform on-"
"Whoa, whoa," the large man said, patting Data's shoulder. "You're going too fast for me- Do you have a name? Can we start with a name?"
"Lt. Commander Data, sir."
"Data? That's your name?" He received a brief nod in response. "Lt. Commander? That sounds impressive."
"May I have a PADD, sir?"
"Aren't you polite? Yes, but here comes Dr. Flint with your clothes right now. I'll find you one while you dress."
The older man, who had been looking grimly serious toward everyone else in the room, actually smiled as he handed 'Data' the garments, a generic facility uniform similar to the one that he and Daystrom were wearing. It was a smile that rubbed the project manager the wrong way. He always looked too smug- like he knew everything. Like he was just playing dumb. It wasn't like he could throw outright accusations, though. Flint never made any plays to take Daystrom's position from him. That separated him from most of the workers at the Starfleet Robotics Department. His help had been invaluable in his most recent research into the multitronic computer-
But when he smiled like that, Richard just didn't trust him.
Still, though, he motioned Flint over as he started to look for a PADD to give to the android. He did notice the scientist gently settle a hand on a golden shoulder, almost a fond gesture (which was as quizzically received as it was for Daystrom to observe, it appeared) before he came over to join the other human.
"He doesn't seem hostile," Daystrom remarked, cleaning one of the older PADDs of unnecessary data. "What do you think?"
"He looks familiar to me. He looks like a cyberneticist I've seen- just with a different coloration to his skin."
"Who?"
Flint didn't respond. He simply stared toward the table as the android adjusted the bright blue jumpsuit so it fit properly. Not comfortably. Properly. It was trying to look presentable, and cover up the damage that had yet to be corrected.
Not it. He.
Daystrom's eyes didn't stray from Flint. If anything, his dark-eyed gaze became even more intent. "Who?- what are you-" he cut off as the PADD was taken from his hands by his counterpart, he crossed over to where Data had finished dressing and offered it to him.
"Tell us what we need to fix you..." he said, almost warmly.
The android stared at him, then down at the PADD, seemingly bewildered by its cumbersome appearance- then started flying through the information immediately available. He lifted his chin abruptly, lips slightly slack. He looked up with his eyes wide. "2263.421? That is the Stardate?"
"Yes, were you expecting something different?" Daystrom asked, leaving Flint's refusal to speak with him be for the moment. For the moment, anyway.
Data's attention drifted back to the PADD, and uncertainly he started to type out a list of materials.
I'll take that as a yes, Daystrom though, with an uncertain look toward the ever vigilant and now even more curious Flint. "We could better help you if you were to tell us what's going on."
"I am uncertain if that would be wise, sir," Data remarked, offering the PADD back. "May I ask about the circumstances involving my discovery?"
He knew he would be found. "We were digging out a lot of the mess left behind from when Nero attacked." He looked on the android's face for some element of recognition. He recieved a canid head-tilt and utter confusion in response. "...Anyway, we found you in a cave. We found your head first and then your body later." He didn't mention how he had wanted to take him apart. Flint had insisted that they reassemble the android to see if it functioned, which Daystrom was now questioning his motives behind.
"May I see a record of recent history?"
"Certainly!" Dr. Flint said before the project manager could argue, reached to type in the directories for basic computer link-ups. Data's brows darted up in regard to the scientist's willingness to help, but instead turned his attention to reviewing the history made available to him.
Seeing this was getting out of his control, the project manager's warm demeanor had diminished to a spark of what it had been. "Dr. Flint," he said, almost coldly. "Mind if I speak with you outside?" He indicated the doors to the side of the line of mirrors.
"Oh, certainly," Flint said, countering with absolute elation. Which was irritating for Daystrom, considering how utterly disinterested he was in interacting with any of his biological coworkers. They walked together to the door, both glancing back at the android to see if it was doing anything unexpected; which he wasn't. He was absorbed in what he was reading. Almost as soon as they were through and the door was shut, Daystrom stepped up and stared into his colleague's face.
"What the hell are you doing?" he said, disregarding the row of Starfleet security that was patiently waiting by the one-way glass in case the android had gone on some sort of berserk killing rampage.
"He's giving us material components of his own fruition and saving us months of research-"
"No! This is personal for you. I can tell. Now who does he look like!" Daystrom spat angrily back, dark hands balling into fists. Flint didn't seem affected. He just stared back with disinterest.
That disinterest he gave all people. It made Daystrom wonder if the man was a machine himself. He seemed to be lacking in compassion for anyone; anyone but that verbose automaton in there. But finally, at least, he seemed to find Daystrom worthy of response.
"I've been researching within the cybernetics community outside of the Federation for some time. He looks like he might have been produced by a particular scientist I know."
"Which particular scientist?"
"I need to check..."
"Which particular scientist, Flint?"
"I need to check!" the older man snapped back at him, his own hands forming fists. "You have no idea what you're dealing with. If these people have found what I suspect they've found, we could be looking at the most amazing technological development since Zephram Cochrane's warp technology. I think what we have in there is a positronic brain-"
"Impossible," he received a snarled response. "That's the stuff of Asimov and science fiction."
"You managed duotronic. We're bordering on multitronic! I didn't think they were anywhere near this point in their research. I thought with the way he was reclusing himself, that he wouldn't finish anything capable of sentience within his lifetime. That's why I need to know!"
"Who the hell is it, Flint! I expect an answer!"
"Sibahl Soong."
"...Arik Soong's son?" With that, the project manager's rageful tone evened. No, that sounded unlikely. Arik had barely made any headway into cybernetics. With his abrupt change in specialization, and then the abrupt appearance of a son with no wife or significant other of note, he was set lightyears behind Daystrom. Something that the specialist took a certain amount of pride in. Sibahl was a genius exactly as his father was (too much like him, in the way that it rose suspicion that no one ever questioned directly), but he doubted even with dedication, at Sibahl's age, and being so very removed from the Federation, that he could have ever built that magnificent creature in there.
Flint was right, though. There was the vaguest resemblance. He looked like a younger version of Soong.
"...No, it can't be. And we're going to proceed as planned once we have him functioning well enough to present to the Admiral's committee. What better to defend us in a war against the Romulans and Klingons. Think of how many human lives they could save...." he put his hands on Flint's shoulders.
He had to gain his composure, convince the other scientist what he was doing was right. Flint wouldn't be easy to convince. He never had been easy to convince.
But he received a nod after a moment, and a resigned look. "I know..." His eyes drifted to the glass, watching as the golden skinned man sat down the PADD on his table and stood to wonder about the room. Daystrom looked himself. He had an expression on his face, almost as if he had lost something but didn't know how to react. Maybe he had. Maybe Flint would see that they would be doing the android a service.
Flint was just watching.
~*~*~
After lights out, Data continued to sit up, staring ahead of him. He rubbed at the newly repaired segment of bioplast, judging the evenness of his sensors. He did the best with what he could. The repairs were nearly seamless, but not all of the fiberoptic sensors were attached. Patches were dull to the contact.
A sense of unease had settled upon the android. After encounters with men such as Maddox and others from the Daystrom Institute, especially as they were seeking references for the construction of Daystrom 1 to operate all of the environmental grids in Federation space, he had come to often recognize most of their intentions as hostile. Even when masked with a thin veil of kindness, the underlying result was inevitably an urge for knowledge and disregard for his wishes. Every second until the facility reopened was being spent pondering arguments, escapes, offers of technology, ways to contact what would have been the ancestors of crew-members that might never be.
He looked over his shoulder as the door to the laboratory slid open, his brows climbing high on his forehead as he saw the kinder individual from earlier. Dr. Flint. The one that seemed to speak with legitimate interest in his well-being.
The bright light from the hallway meant that Data’s vision had to adjust to make out the details of his face, his pupils contracting.
“I know what you are…” the aged man breathed. “And I’ve been looking for you for millennia.”
What might have been almost construed as the faint inkling of what we would call hope dropped away, and was replaced by methodical reasoning. “You have been searching for me in particular? But I have only been in San Francisco-”
“No! No, you don’t understand. Soong must have found the source. We discussed it. I didn’t think it was possible, I’ve been looking for it for so long. But here you are!” He crossed the room, motioning to Data. “The key to positronic technology. And if I take you back to Soong, he’ll have to tell me where he found it.”
Data opened his mouth to argue. Whichever Soong he was talking about couldn’t be his father. His father would have been an infant at this time. In another forty years, he would have still been working in a lab along with his mentors. In another few decades he would be marrying Juliana. But then it struck him. His father had learned cybernetics initially from his father, and he from his father before him. Flint thought that one of the previous Soongs had made him, and was offering him a way out.
Data wasn’t about to deny a way out.
The android nodded, hopping down from the table. “I will accompany you if you believe we can triangulate their location. Given the nature of the facility’s duotronic technology and your intimate knowledge of its layout, I believe we can make our way out effectively…. May I ask what you meant by millennia?”
“I’ll explain everything to you when we leave,” Flint said, grabbing Data’s wrist firmly and pulling him toward the door.
It was perplexing behavior, but the android went along with it. He slowed as they passed two limp guards in the hallway, tried to pull away and check their pulses. Instead, he found his arm pulled even more roughly, Flint insisting that they kept going. Data did follow obediently, though the nature of his benefactor was called further and further into question. Cries back to Fajo sparked in his memory engrams, but simultaneously they were giving him an avenue of escape.
He looked back over his shoulder, examining them with both educated eyes and childish bewilderment. They were slumped in a way that would indicate death, breath still… and the security officer around the next bend had been similarly incapacitated with eyes transfixed vacantly toward the ceiling.
At this point, Data wanted to pull away.
With a jerk of his arm, he removed himself from Flint’s grip and staggered back to the body of the guard. He reached for the phaser quickly, snagging the communicator with his other hand. Then a fizz of static passed before his eyes, his limbs stiffened uncontrollably, and his awareness left him once more.
~*~*~
When Data woke, he was restrained. Not back in the lab, though, but in an older model runabout. Disabling bracers were placed around his arms and chest. As he tilted his head, though he couldn’t feel them, he could hear the click of wires running from his head into a console.
“You have removed me from Daystrom’s laboratory.”
“With no help from you,” Flint’s now familiar voice said from the front of the shuttlecraft. Data followed the sound with his eyes, only seeing the back of a seat and a patch of grayed hair above it.
“You were harming innocent officers. I have a fundamental respect for all life.”
“That’s surprising. Soong never cared much for that sort of thing. He felt that people should decide for themselves… Deciding for themselves just ended up frying all the circuits of those young women, though…”
The android stared flatly. “…Young women?”
“Emotions, Data. They break artificial intelligences. They fry them. Even Daystrom’s own twisted engrams keep breaking his. They can fake them, but if they feel them? That’s it. Except you. You’ve been given the perfect set-up to accept basic emotions. I figured out that last part… now I just have to get that first part from Soong so I can finally make a woman that will last as long as I will.”
When he was met with silence, he finally turned his chair to look back. Data’s eyes were darting as he churned through files, suddenly realizing who it was that had him. Of course “Dr. Flint” had no problem killing those guards. He had little attachment to humanity left. He was Brahms. Leonardo DaVinci. He was Alexander the Great. Data’s gaze toward him was slow and deliberate. He wanted to know how to make a mate to persist with him through history. He was going to trade him to Soong for that knowledge.
What would he do when he discovered that Soong did not in fact have that knowledge?
That’s when he felt a tick, and he gasped nervously. Nervously. “What… have you done to my positronic net?” he asked, surprised by the abrupt waver in his voice.
“I told you. Basic emotions that you have to slowly awaken to. The diagnostic confirms that it’s working.” Flint’s fingers clenched into fists, his gaze now as insistent as Daystrom’s ever was. All that moron had to worry about was his precious multitronic computer. Flint had eternity, and Data was his key to finding that escape.