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Data’s poly-alloy spine was disabled below vertebra C6-7, which sat behind the hollow of his throat. Soong had activated his cognitive functions during his final hardware check, tinkering with him via an open chest panel.
“When I was a boy,” Soong told him, checking the hermetic seals on Data’s central servo pump, “we used to sing a song about bones. It was silly, really. It was so inaccurate!” He glanced at Data’s face. His eyes were open, unblinking. “It went something like: the thigh bone’s connected to the knee bone, the knee bone’s connected to the shin bone,” —he looked at Data again, hoping for a facial reaction as he was yet unable to speak, but he continued staring at him, vacant— “the shin bone’s connected to the ankle bone. And so on.”
He tightened a bolt inside Data’s chest cavity with his fingers, then reached for a tool to tighten it further. “It ignored all mention of joints or ligaments,” he continued, “which are the actual means of connecting bones. Well, human bones. Yours are different. Yours are—”
“Is he ready yet?” called a voice from the corridor.
Soong folded back Data’s bioplast. “Wait, Lore.” The diamagnetic panel sealed itself perfectly until you could no longer see the join unless really looking for it. Data was ready to meet his brother and the world.
“There you are,” Soong whispered, smiling down at him. He bent and kissed his forehead with a proud peck; to his surprise, Data’s mouth curved into a slight smile before returning to its default, the first facial expression he’d ever made.
“Data?” Soong asked with wonder in his voice. “Data, you smiled!” Bending, he kissed Data’s forehead again, and Data smiled in just the same way. “Lore, come and see this.”
When Lore entered, he’d pulled his sweater’s sleeves down over his hands and pinched the loosened fabric in balled fists. He almost tip-toed, crossing the lab with wide eyes. “What’s he doing?”
“Watch.”
Soong demonstrated, kissing Data’s forehead, eliciting that small smile again.
Lore didn’t react immediately. He processed the stimulus and reaction, looking between his father and Data, blinking slowly. Jealousy, perhaps? There was no predicting how his mood might shift these days, especially with Soong’s attention focused elsewhere.
Finally, Lore said plainly, “He must be copying you.”
Stepping closer to where Data’s body reclined, a sheet covering him from his waist down, Lore repeated Soong’s action and kissed Data’s forehead. Data smiled for his brother as he had his father, though he blinked a few times while staring up at him. He looked to Soong, then back to Lore, a puzzled expression sliding across his features.
“He’s confused,” Lore said, laughing. He laughed again when the sound prompted Data’s eyebrows to knit together in a frown.
“What do you think of him?” Soong asked. The scene before him was quite the sight to behold: his first creation amazed by the basic reactions of his newest.
Lore leaned and kissed Data again, pulling back sharply to watch his smile replace the frown. He peered down at him like he was witnessing a miracle taking place and kissed him a few more times in quick succession.
“Am I programmed to love him?”
“No. Why? Do you feel anything for him?”
“Yes,” Lore said with a nod, not taking his eyes from Data. “Is that normal?”
Was anything about this normal? Soong didn’t think so, but he assured Lore that it was quite human to love one’s brother.
Lore had little patience for most things, apart from Data. He understood his younger brother was still learning about the world around him, still in the process of understanding basic concepts like balance and color. In the way a parent familiarises their child with language by talking to them before they develop the ability to respond, Soong encouraged Lore to behave normally around his brother. If Data couldn’t process something he saw or heard or felt, he’d learn from exposure and repetition.
They sat together in Soong’s garden, amongst flowers that hummed with insects going about their business, upon a blanket of Omicron Theta’s green grass beneath the yellow-orange sun. It was Data’s first visit to the garden. He’d looked at it through the window, watched the flowers bend in the breeze or tremble beneath the patter of rain. Today was the first sunny day since his activation, so Lore wanted to show him how beautiful nature could be when one was in it, not just looking at it from afar.
Reaching out his hand in a few jerky, robotic movements, Data pointed at one of the white flowers dotting the grass.
“A daisy,” Lore confirmed.
Data swung his hand to the side and pointed at one of the larger yellow flowers that battled the daisies for space in the lawn’s green.
“A dandelion. These are dandelions, too.” Lore plucked a dandelion that had gone to seed from the grass, and Data’s face crumpled in concern. “It’s okay. Father doesn't mind if we pick these ones.” He shuffled forward on the grass, legs crossed like Data’s, mirroring his posture. “There’s a magic trick you can do with these. Do you know what a magic trick is, brother?”
Data’s eyes glazed momentarily as he accessed the term. Once they’d refocused, he nodded, spurring Lore to hold the downy dandelion seedhead up to his lips.
“I’ve made a wish. If I blow all the seeds away in one go, it’ll come true.”
Data stared, captivated. Lore directed a stream of breath at the fluffy, feathery seeds, scattering them into the air like an army of miniature parachutists. The breeze carried them a little way, Data watching them until they settled on the grass. None remained on the dandelion.
“Now you.” Lore ripped another seedhead from the grass and handed it to Data.
His brother hadn’t yet mastered speech, but the mental processing of conjuring a wish appeared plain as day on his face.
“Take a deep breath and blow on it.”
Inhaling until his chest stuck out and he could hold no more air inside him, Data screwed his eyes shut and released the breath in one powerful blast. It was strong enough to blow the seeds and head of the dandelion clean off, leaving only the stem in his grasp.
Lore chuckled. “Looks like it’ll definitely come true.”
Data nodded and laid the stem delicately, almost apologetically, onto the grass beside him. He’d get the hang of his own strength soon enough.
“These ones do a trick, too,” Lore said, plucking one of the daisies from the lawn. “You can ask them if someone loves you.”
Data’s eyebrows rose far up his forehead.
“Let’s see if father loves us.” He teased one of the narrow white petals from the daisy, the tip stained with purple like a brush dipped in paint. “He loves us.” Moving on to the next petal, he pulled it free from its bulbous yellow center. “He loves us not.”
The plucking continued, as did the chanting of he loves us, he loves us not, until one petal remained.
“He loves us!” Lore announced, delighted, removing the final petal and tossing the naked stem aside. Data followed its trajectory, then looked around for another.
With rudimentary motor skills, it’d take Data a while to strip a daisy of its petals, but he persevered, gripping the stem carefully in his right hand while plucking with his left, nodding while mentally counting the negative and positive results.
While Data busied himself, Lore made a chain from the daisies within reach. He took his time, half an eye on Data while he linked the flowers one by one, crushing a hole into their stems with his thumbnail and joining the next one like threading a needle. When he was finished, he joined the first and last daisy to make a loop.
Data smiled as he removed the last petal. A positive result, then.
“Who loves you?” Lore asked.
Data pointed at his brother.
Lore knew then that the flowers somehow possessed wisdom, because he did love his younger brother, there was no denying that. Reaching out, he placed the circle of daisies on Data’s crown. The white and yellow looked quite well against his jet-black hair.
Soong must’ve done something wrong when he’d programmed Data. He was human, and humans made mistakes, but his error causing Data discomfort—the best way of describing it—didn’t sit well with him.
Somehow, Data got himself caught in feedback loops. When encountering something he didn’t recognize, he could easily become stuck staring at the thing in question, like a hen mesmerized by a chalk line. If he heard something he didn’t understand, a question he couldn’t answer or a sound that was new to him, he sometimes looked like he’d gone on standby while trying to process it. Hopefully, he’d grow out of the loops, but now they occurred regularly, Soong needed to find a way to combat them temporarily.
When Data was alone, he often wandered off to admire Soong’s aquarium. It was large and globular, like a giant soap bubble, and filled a whole corner in Soong’s study, introducing some well-needed color to the sparse space. The fish it housed were a tropical variety, transported in stasis from Earth’s Australasian coral reef by one of Soong’s old friends. If Soong couldn’t find Data, he’d usually find him standing before the aquarium, eyes following one of its inhabitants in particular: Acanthurus Lineatus: the striped surgeonfish.
The fish fascinated Data. Its stripes were a dazzling turquoise and luminous yellow that reflected the heat lamp like a gold bar in the sun. The way it moved hypnotized Data too, gliding back and forth in the tank’s clear water, turning swiftly when it reached the edges. Sometimes, Data pressed his fingertips to the glass to attract it. He smiled when it opened and closed its mouth at him through the concave glass that magnified everything within.
The thought came to Soong when Data was stuck in one of his feedback loops that a color like the surgeonfish’s stripes might be the key to unlocking his mind. Directing a holographic projector across the room, he brought up an image of a surgeonfish before Data’s field of vision. Just like that, he was back, blinking away his confusion and returning to whatever he was doing.
After a while, Soong decided that as he wouldn’t always have a holoprojector to hand, he should find an alternative. It was Lore’s idea to scroll through the replicator’s vast catalog for something suitable; he even offered to search.
It wasn’t long before Soong had a chance to test the item that materialized on the replicator tray following many hours of searching: a plush fish in the surgeonfish’s colors with a large glass button for an eye and strips of soft, sheer fabric for fins. He dropped it onto Data’s lap as he sat statue-still on the kitchen floor, staring at his ankles, glued into one of his loops.
Data blinked out of his trance and looked at the soft toy. Lore and Soong kept their distance as he squeezed it experimentally, tipping his head this way and that as he came to terms with the fact that this fish did not need water to survive and, indeed, was not currently surviving.
“You like the fish, Data?” Soong asked.
Data turned to him, his golden eyes wide and lost, searching for further explanation.
“It’s a toy. A present from your brother.”
Lore stepped forward. “Do you like it?”
Turning back to the toy in his lap, Data flipped it over and inspected it. When he looked back at his brother and father, he was smiling, which could only be a good sign.
In the following few weeks, Data carried the fish with him everywhere and didn’t get stuck in any further loops.
The first time Data saw another human that wasn’t Soong, he immediately hid behind his father’s back and pressed his face into the space between his shoulder blades. Lore did the same thing the first time he met another human, too.
It wasn’t fear. Data couldn’t feel fear. Neither could he feel embarrassment. Soong put it down to a natural aversion to the unknown. While Data was the curious type, he’d probably never questioned there being anyone in the universe besides his creator and his brother. If he had, perhaps he’d assumed they’d all look alike. Seeing another living, breathing person for the first time, whose face, voice and dress differed to Soong’s, was bound to be a strange experience for him.
Lore tugged Data away from Soong’s back by his sleeve and turned him to face Tom Handy, Soong’s neighboring cyberneticist and fellow Huazhong University graduate.
“Say hello, Data,” Soong said encouragingly.
Handy cocked an eyebrow. “Can it speak yet?”
“Yes!” Lore cut in. “You have to give him a minute.”
Glancing at his watch, Handy mouthed counting down from fifty-nine. Data stood there, gaze fixed on Handy’s face.
“Go on, Data,” Soong pushed.
“It’s no problem if it can’t,” Handy said, giving Soong a sarcastic look that neither of the androids would pick up on.
“Be patient!” Lore snapped, saying what his creator was thinking.
They abandoned the introduction after a few minutes of Data opening and closing his mouth, impersonating the surgeonfish, and Soong and Handy got on with their business.
Just as they were leaving, everything wrapped up, Data offered his hand to Handy and said with a clear, confident and overly loud tone, “Hello, Data.”
Handy chuckled, taking Data’s hand and shaking it. Meeting Soong’s gaze over his glasses, he said, “Halfway there.”
Something as small as a dipped mattress wouldn’t usually wake Soong. He was a deep sleeper—a common symptom of always retiring to bed bone-tired. Who wants to sleep when there’s lab work to do, experiments to check on or new research papers to read? Splayed atop his duvet, often in the same lab coat he’d worn all day, Soong’s internal body clock woke him the moment the sun broke over the horizon on whichever planet he currently called home. There was a reason for his light sleep now, though. Fatherhood.
He was in that deep stage of waking where you’re only conscious enough to realize you’re not dreaming. The kind where you can drift back into the darkness of sleep easily. A distant echo of some low noise had distracted him—real or imagined, he wasn’t certain. It repeated, louder: a great boom of thunder that almost seemed loud enough to shake the room’s foundations.
Interestingly, the storm hadn’t woken him. What stirred him awake was Lore’s overheated body crawling across the mattress and slumping beside him in the dark.
“Father?” His voice was high and quivering.
The bed dipped in another spot, springs creaking. It’d be Data—his brother’s shadow.
“What is it?” Soong asked, eyes closed. His eldest wriggled closer.
“I’m frightened.”
It was unlike Lore to admit to what he usually termed lesser emotional responses, ones that only foolish humans exhibit. Lately, he’d had trouble with emotional surges, almost like a toddler going through their ‘no’ phase, only his was a whole kaleidoscope of emotions, not just stubbornness.
Soong opened his arms, allowing Lore to press himself between them. He hid his face in his father’s chest, head tucked neatly under his chin, and shivered.
Data lay behind Soong’s back, silent and still, probably curious as to why he was there.
“It’s weather,” Soong said, hoping it would be of some comfort to Lore. In his short life, Lore had never experienced a storm. Data hadn’t either, but he didn’t have the emotional capability to find the bright flashes of light or rolls of reverberating sound anything other than contradictions to normal ambient levels.
Lore mumbled into Soong’s bed shirt, the fabric obscuring his voice. “It’s horrible.”
“You’re not thinking straight,” Soong said, stroking Lore’s shoulder idly. “Look up the mechanics of storms.”
He felt rather than saw Lore access his memory. His neck stiffened, head making minute movements from side to side. It was a gesture program Soong built into them both, so they’d appear lost in thought to those who wouldn’t appreciate the undertaking of searching the vast knowledge repository he’d provided them.
“I understand now,” Lore said. Understanding what caused the sound and light, and how harmless storms were in the grand scheme, perhaps he’d let Soong return to his well-needed rest.
Lore’s shivering returned with the next bout of thunder. It was indeed loud, probably right over their heads, but Lore shouldn’t have any reason to fear it. Regardless, he pushed his face further into Soong’s chest and scrambled at him, pulling at his clothes and holding tight enough to be uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry, father,” Lore whimpered. “I’m still frightened… despite knowing better.”
Behind him, Data moved a fraction closer, his side pressing against Soong’s back. The movement probably indicated that he wished to soothe his brother. Lore often sought comfort physically; he’d have observed it.
“What do you think, Data?” Soong asked, encouraging.
“On which subject?” As clinical as ever.
“The storm. And your brother’s fear.”
“Storms commonly cause distress in humans,” Data said, matter-of-factly. “They are a powerful” —a loud roar of thunder interrupted him and, immediately after, a flash of brilliant blue light filled the room, making Lore flinch and hold Soong even tighter— “atmospheric reaction. Depending on their intensity, they can cause fires, flooding, third-degree burns—”
“Yes, thank you Data,” Soong said. Lore wouldn’t appreciate an exhaustive list validating his fear.
Though, it wasn’t valid. Not with his programming. Positronic brains were superior to their organic counterparts in that respect. You could tell an arachnophobic human that a tiny eight-legged creature couldn’t harm them and while they’d understand, they’d never relinquish the fear entirely. Fear was human nature. Genetic, inbuilt behavior was hard to unlearn. Lore learned fast. His innate fear of something big and loud was understandable, even impressive from a scientific perspective, but if he knew that the big loud thing couldn’t harm him, he should disregard the emotional response. It didn’t make sense.
A triple flash of lightning left the room aglow, accompanied by another fierce growl echoing across acres of farmland and bouncing off the clouds. Lore was whimpering when it ceased, clinging to Soong how a drowning man clings to a rope. A need to comfort him replaced Soong’s desire to analyze his reaction.
“Shh,” he soothed, folding his arms around him even tighter. “It’s okay, Lore. It can’t hurt you. You’re perfectly safe.”
“Father?” Data asked. “Is it a fact that the storm cannot hurt us?”
“Yes!” Soong almost hissed it. “The building's insulated with ionic dampening fields. Even a direct hit wouldn’t affect us.”
“Did you hear that, Lore?” Data asked over Soong’s shoulder, almost proud. “We are completely safe.”
Lore grabbed at Data, releasing his grip on Soong’s shirt. He tugged him closer, forcing Data onto his side until he was pressed against Soong’s back, their linked hands resting on his waist. Being sandwiched between two 100KG machines could’ve been an uncomfortable experience, perhaps even a little unnerving, but Soong felt quite safe. If only Lore did. There had to be a reason for his continuing and unnecessary fear.
“Lore?” Data whispered, breath cool against Soong’s nape. “I have scanned the colonist’s memories in their entirety. Do you share the memories of a Simon Roth?” Lore didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. All he could do was shiver in his father’s arms and listen. “If you do, I would recommend erasing them. His core file contains a number of personal fears which may be influencing your current emotional state.”
Leave it to Data to solve a puzzle his creator couldn’t. Soong felt like a fool. When his fellow scientists volunteered their neural pathways to help ease his new lifeform’s journey into becoming more human, or at least be more in touch with humanity, there were bound to be side-effects. Roth had always been a bit of a wimp, one of those overcautious types who’d be much further in his research if he wasn’t worried about it half the time. It was a miracle he’d made it to the colony at all.
“Lore?” Soong asked, rubbing his shoulder encouragingly. “Do you have Roth’s file?”
A jerking nod of his head affirmed that he did. With a trembling, broken voice, he announced that he was removing it from his system.
Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, Lore sank into the bed immediately, relaxed and calm. The storm continued above, but Lore was at peace with it, as calm as his brother. He lifted his head from Soong’s chest and looked up at him gratefully. Only when the lightning lit the room again were the streaks of gold on his cheeks visible, painting his lashes and eyelids with smeared, shimmering tears.
“I’m sorry I made a fuss.”
He didn’t leave. He kept his arms locked around Soong, his hand still linked with Data’s. Pushing his face back into Soong’s chest, he promised he would be still and quiet until morning.
Soong fell asleep again quickly, bookended by two warm, mechanical bodies while the sounds of the storm melted into a pleasant dream.
