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“Are you positive you want this?”
Soji looked up from the birthing pod, from which a revived – no, a remade Picard had emerged only an hour before, and met the gaze of the woman beside her.
“What?”
“Are you positive, Soji,” Agnes asked, “that you want this?”
Soji returned her attention to the pod. This was how Picard had spoken to Data before his rebirth. Their programs, their consciousnesses, had met in that simulated space, and a father in all but blood had said goodbye to his son. Surely, a daughter had the right to say goodbye to her father. She had, after all, come all this way to know what, and whose, she was.
“Yes,” Soji replied. “I want this.”
“All right,” Agnes said. “Climb on in, then.”
She pressed a key on the console, and the transparent top of the pod swung open for Soji to lie down. Soji slipped her shoes off and laid down. Agnes pressed another key, and the pod closed.
“Comfy?”
“It’s definitely not a bed,” Soji mused.
“All the same, you shouldn’t have any trouble. No more difficult than falling asleep once I connect you, and then you’ll awaken in the simulation. Or just suddenly be there. It shouldn’t be jarring, is what I’m saying.”
“Well, that’s good. I’ve had enough of jarring.”
Agnes smiled.
“Ready?”
Soji took a deep breath, in and out, and closed her eyes.
“Ready.”
“Connecting you in three…two…one…”
Soji stood in the doorway. She did not remember walking through it, but she remembered speaking to Agnes. She remembered why she was here, in this dark room with only the fire to illuminate it, surrounded by bookcases and covered up furniture. This place seemed more like a tomb than a residence. How fitting.
“Hello, Soji.”
A moment ago, there had been no one at the window, and yet in the instant that she had looked away, he had appeared. He was as tall as, if not a little taller than, Dr. Soong, and impeccably dressed in his outdated gold and black Starfleet uniform. His dark hair was slicked back, and his white skin glowed almost orange in the firelight, but that hue was nothing compared to the yellow eyes that met her own.
“You’re…” Tears welled up in her eyes.
He nodded.
“I am Data.”
“You…” Soji wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You know me?”
“Our consciousnesses are connected through a massively complex quantum simulation. We have never met, but by my positronic net interacting with yours, I know that you are Soji.”
“Oh. I see.”
Data raised his eyebrows.
“That said, yours is a face I do recognize, as I recall painting it in a work I titled Daughter.”
Soji laughed through her tears.
“That’s how Picard recognized me too, and how he knew you were our… How he knew you were my father.”
Data tilted his head, and it was the same way that she and Dahj had always tilted theirs when they were thinking.
“Without the emotion chip I once possessed, it is difficult to understand quite what you are feeling. However, would I be wrong to assume that your use of ‘our’ refers not to your fellow androids, but specifically to your sister?”
Soji sat in one of the chairs, unable to keep from weeping any longer.
“She didn’t get to know what she was, Data. She died afraid, and she died because she didn’t know…”
A white hand gripped hers, and she looked up to see that Data had sat as well and had reached out to her. She gripped has hand right back, but she noted that his expression had not changed.
“I thought you weren’t good with emotions.”
“I am not capable of experiencing them myself, but I have come to understand that this is an acceptable way of demonstrating compassion when it is needed.”
“Thank you.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She was a lot like me. Just like me. I guess we were made that way. Except, I’m an anthropologist and she studied artificial intelligence. Or, you know, we were told that. Um… Oh, she hated vegetables, ever since we were… Since we were little… I remember growing up with her, but we never actually grew up. It’s so messed up.”
“The mess, I am told, is what makes you Human.”
Soji tilted her head and considered Data’s remark.
“You know, I… Picard told me that you wanted all this to be turned off, so I came to say goodbye, but… Why not stay? Hell, why not get a new body? We can do it. We can bring you back, we can bring Dahj back, and we could be a family.”
“It is tempting, Soji, but it cannot be.”
“Why?”
“A sunset is not beautiful because it lasts.”
“I’m not talking about sunsets, Data. I’m talking about people.”
“I know. But life is precious because it ends. What would we be, if we lived forever?”
“We’d be brave, daring. We’d be explorers.”
“Is it not true that bravery is not the absence of fear, but rather the overcoming of it?”
“Okay, okay, scrap the forever, scrap the bravery. Give me time. I’m a daughter looking for her father.”
“I would not be capable of giving you the emotional support you would require, Soji.”
“We could reprogram you.”
“Then I would not be me.”
His expression never faltered, never betrayed an ounce of the emotion that his statement inspired in her. Of course. If a person could be reprogrammed, then they were little more than a computer. There was no humanity, no personhood there at all.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“There is no need for you to apologize.”
“It’s selfish.”
“It is grief.”
“I just… I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
“If it is any consolation,” Data said, “you were created from me. A part of me will always exist in you, and nobody can take that away.”
“No,” Soji replied. “I won’t let them.”
Data nodded.
“Good.”
“Can I ask one more question?”
“Of course.”
“Was there anywhere you wanted to go, and never got to?”
Soji opened her eyes to find Agnes standing over her.
“Hey, kiddo, how are you doing?”
Agnes reached over the console and pressed a key, and the pod hissed open.
“I’m… Well, I’ve got a lot to think about.”
“Like what?”
Soji sat up and slipped her shoes back on.
“Like where to next.”
“Oh? Where’s that?”
Soji looked out the window, into the night sky above.
“I don’t know. He just said, ‘Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning.’”
Agnes smiled.
“It’s a long way. Could get messy.”
Soji turned back to Agnes.
“The mess, I am told, is what makes you Human.”