Malignancy Underestimated

By Princess Artemis

This takes place directly after Star Trek: Nemesis. Please note the author is not an avid viewer of any Trek beyond TNG, and therefore some parts of this ignore DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise canon. And yes, I’m spelling his name this way for a reason.

While the Enterprise, NCC 1701-E floated in space dock being repaired, and shortly after Captain Riker had disembarked, Captain Picard had a short discussion with Before. Perhaps someday, he would understand, Picard had said. And Before had fiddled with a PADD, not knowing what it was, and sang snatches of a song he had never heard.

Picard left Before there, singing Data’s gift to the Rikers, with some hope that perhaps Before would in time remember more, and grow beyond what he was right then.

So Before sat, and fiddled, and when the PADD became uninteresting, he picked up another one and fiddled with that one for a while. They were all different, but he didn’t know what they were or how to use one. He sang a little more, haltingly, slowly, off tune.

Then Before sang snatches of a different sort of song, a song with a thousand voices. If Picard had heard it, he would have been horrified. Before had never heard that song either. He didn’t know what it meant. He stopped singing again, setting down another PADD. Before looked around the room, and tried whistling a little children’s tune he had never heard. He didn’t know he was whistling wrong, and there was no one there to tell him, so he kept on whistling. Not knowing that the words he echoed were not part of the song, he spoke those too.

Before stopped himself when he heard his voice say "Commander Riker." For some reason, it sounded off to his own ears, and though he didn’t understand why, he didn’t want to sing that particularly odd song anymore. There was something wrong about it.

He looked over at the door. There was no one there for him to follow around; for the last few days he had followed his brother around, and he had followed other people around, but he didn’t remember going anywhere on his own. He was usually content to sit and look at things. But he decided he didn’t want to be where he was anymore, so he got up and wandered out of the room, no particular destination in mind.

When he left the room, one of the lines on the wall caught Before’s eye and he stood looking at it, running his fingers along the metal. Someone passed him by, and he didn’t see the strange look that person gave him.

Eventually he moved on. Although he hadn’t thought about where to go, he ended up in his brother’s quarters. He looked around for him, but he wasn’t there. There were many interesting things to see in a niche near the door, so he went to look. He picked up a clay mask and Before said, "Masaka is waking. Only Korgano speaks to her now." He held up the mask very close to his face, as if to see it better. After fingering the clay for a long while, tracing the painted lines and the raised star, he set it down and moved on to another object.

There was a wooden thing with strings on it, sitting in a case. Before picked it up, as well as another long object with hair on it. He didn’t know what they were, but his hands moved of their own accord, and he played the violin. He did not play well, but he played, several pieces of music he had never heard. Then he set the violin down and went further into Data’s room.

There was very little he left untouched or unexamined, but he did leave a small hologram projector alone, not wishing to touch it for some reason. There was also a Mondrian-styled painting that he didn’t want to look at for long. Before never questioned why he would want to avoid those objects.

While Before examined a stack of paintings, he looked at one with fire rendered on the canvas. "But I know fire is not an element," he said in his stilted, high pitched voice. When he saw a painting of a blackbird, he said, "You are the bird."

Then he went to the replicator and started asking it for things that he didn’t know existed. Once he received them, he began building things with hands that followed their own direction. Before just watched his hands move with curiosity, wondering what it was he was making.

"Intruder alert," the calm voice of the Enterprise’s computer intoned, stopping Picard in his tracks.

"Computer, locate," Picard demanded.

The computer quickly informed Captain Picard of the location of the intruders. He sent a security team there and shortly went himself.

It didn’t take long to find the intruders, and when Picard saw them, all the blood drained from his face. Six Borg stood in the hallway, silently. His new Security Chief, Lieutenant Nazzi ad Sier, along with four other officers, flanked them, but the Borg made no hostile move. In fact, if it were possible, they looked confused. The near-silent buzzing of a force field was just audible.

Picard jabbed his comm. badge and demanded, "Red alert! Bridge, scan for any Borg ships in the vicinity!"

Lieutenant McKnight answered, "No Borg ships in the area, Captain. We are picking up a faint Borg communication, however. It seems to be originating at your location, sir."

"Jam it if you can. I don’t want that communication reaching any other Borg."

"Yes, sir. It has been jammed."

"Has there been any unauthorized transport onto the Enterprise?"

"No, sir."

"Thank you Lieutenant, Picard out." He tapped his badge again, then examined the Borg more closely. Odd that they should be here without any Borg ship nearby, and without having transported aboard. They must have originated onboard, but the Borg parts had been removed from the Enterprise-E since their last encounter. It concerned him a great deal. Perhaps they had missed something?

Still, there was something very wrong about these six Borg. Picard recognized them as crew, but he also saw very clearly that they were not acting the way Borg should at all. He had never seen confusion in the face of a Borg except for those that the Collective had rejected, those that Lore had found and organized into a force of his own.

One of the Borg turned to Picard. She asked in a flat, toneless voice, "Captain Picard?"

The captain took an involuntary step back. "What did you call me?"

The Borg answered, "Captain Picard."

Picard steeled himself and declared, "I am Locutus of Borg."

The six Borg stood silently for a moment, then a different Borg replied, "We have no Locutus. You are not Borg."

"What?" Picard was shocked. Ever since his own assimilation, no Borg had ever failed to recognize him as Locutus.

"You heard us," a male said.

Picard looked over at the security team. Sier hissed, flattening the reptilian ridge of spines flat against her skull. "Sier, can you smell where they originated?" Picard had found that his Deitang officer’s sense of smell was often nearly as good as a tricorder for picking up a trail.

"I can try." Sier flicked her forked tongue, carefully stepping around the six Borg and the field. She tapped one of her oversized claws on the carpet as she tasted the air. She paused, then pointed toward a nearby door. It was Data’s former quarters. "Strange place for Borg to spontaneously generate."

Just then, the doors parted slightly, and six small metallic objects scuttled out of the room. Security shot them all with phasers, destroying them. Nazzi picked one up in her clawed hand then carried it over to Picard.

"That explains where the Borg came from. These are assimilators. The Borg use them for rapid assimilation of whole crews," Picard declared.

Nazzi pulled out her tricorder and scanned the area. "No more of those demon spiders."

"Let’s be careful. There shouldn’t have been any in the first place; there may be more left over from the last Borg attack."

"Of course, sir." Lieutenant Sier stepped lightly to the still open doors with her phaser ready, while Picard followed behind. She peeked in the doorway and hissed low, angry and surprised. Soon that gave way to some confusion, and she opened the door all the way, allowing Picard an unobstructed view.

Before diligently sat building more assimilators while singing the song of the Borg, the sound of the thousands of voices that made up the Collective’s singular consciousness. Picard flushed again, but his innate reaction to the song was nothing compared to his shock that Before not only knew it, but knew a great deal about Borg technology. It simply was not possible.

Picard stepped past Sier and into Data’s old quarters. "Before?"

Before looked up, his expression open and childlike. In the same naïve tone, he said, "He will make a fine drone. Resistance is futile."

"What are you doing?" Picard demanded, rattled slightly by Before speaking Data’s words.

Looking down at his hands, Before seemed to see them and their contents for the first time. "I don’t know. What are these?" He stopped building the assimilator and held it close to his face, examining it. Picard noticed that badly constructed and non-functional assimilators littered the desk.

Sier hissed again. "You don’t even know? You built them!"

Before ran his finger along one of the short assimilator legs. "I did?"

Captain Picard tapped his comm. badge. "Picard to Commander LaForge."

"LaForge here."

"Report to Data’s quarters. There’s something I need your help with. And don’t be alarmed when you see six Borg standing outside."

"Don’t be alarmed?" Geordi asked incredulously.

"I know it sounds odd, but I’m certain they aren’t a threat."

"All right, sir. I’m on my way." The line was cut.

Geordi LaForge arrived shortly thereafter. He backed into Data’s quarters, watching the odd Borg with wide eyes. He glanced at the captain. "I can’t believe what I’m seeing. That’s a collective all its own. I can see the communications linking them together, but they aren’t sending out any other Borg carrier waves. They’re sending out a communication though."

Picard smiled faintly. "I have reason to believe they are what you might call...Soong-type Borg."

"Really?"

"Yes. Take a look at what Before is doing." Picard motioned toward the Android who was still holding the assimilator nearly to his nose.

Geordi complied, then he blinked in surprise. "I see what you mean. Those assimilators have positronic fingerprints all over them. But how?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. We walked in while he was building one."

LaForge shrugged and walked farther into the room. "I don’t know how Before could build them...he doesn’t have the mental capacity as far as I know, and even if he did, has he ever seen a Borg?"

"I don’t know. He may have before the Remans wiped his memory. Could you build one?"

"Me? Doubt it. Maybe if I had a lot of spare time on my hands and a death wish."

Picard thought for a moment. "Data transferred his memory engrams to Before. Could Data have built an assimilator? He had been assimilated once and had a good deal of knowledge about Borg technology prior to that."

"I don’t know. Well...I imagine he could have if Before can. But I don’t know how Data could any more than Before." Geordi tapped a finger against his leg. "Unless...unless Data managed to store all the technology of the Borg in memory and accidentally passed it on to Before. If he did, then he could have accessed it and easily built one; if Before remembers the same things, he could have as well. I’d say theoretically, but those aren’t theories standing in the corridor."

"That sounds plausible. Before was ‘singing’ when we came in: the song of the Borg."

"Before doesn’t know what they are," Sier informed LaForge.

"Yeah, I can tell." LaForge walked over to Before and knelt beside him. "Before, do you know why you built these objects?"

"No. What are they?"

Geordi sighed. "They’re Borg assimilators. Have you ever heard of them?"

Before looked at Geordi. "No. Your distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile." With a quick glance at Picard, Before added, "Sleep, Data." Then he crushed the assimilator between his thumb and forefinger.

Geordi turned his head toward the captain. "I think Data might have succeeded too well when he copied his engrams. It sounds like he copied everything he remembered, and Before is accessing the memories as if they are part of his personality."

"If that’s true," Picard asked, "why does he say these things in his normal voice?"

Geordi shrugged. "Possibly he’s accessing them subconsciously. That would explain how he successfully started a new Borg Collective but has no idea why."

Sier lashed her tail. "A dangerous proposition, I think. How are we to know these Borg memories won’t become Before?"

"You’re right," Picard answered. "We’ll certainly try to avoid that. Nazzi, would you escort the six Borg to Sickbay? I have a feeling that removing the vast majority of their implants won’t present a problem."

"Yes, sir." Sier stalked out of the room.

Picard returned his attention to LaForge. "I wonder. If Data did copy the memories of the Borg into Before, wouldn’t other memories be copied as well? Might not Before react to other people, objects, words with a similar subconscious activity?"

"He might."

Before listened to all of this in silence. Then he asked, "What did my brother do? What are engrams?"

Geordi turned back to Before. "They’re like memories. He copied them into your neural net because he hoped they would help you grow."

"Oh. Are they?"

"I don’t know. It’s only been a little while." Geordi tapped his fist against the desk at which Before sat. "Before, do you mind doing something for us?"

"OK."

"I’m going to show you some things. I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind when you see them. Is that all right?"

"Yes."

"Thanks." Geordi stood up and cast about the room. He walked over to Data’s stack of paintings and looked through them. He came up with a portrait of Lal and showed it to Before.

Almost instantaneously, Before said without any particular intonation, "He is biting that female. She is my daughter. In a way, that makes you her grandmother."

Picard and LaForge exchanged glances. Picard asked, "Before, do you know who that painting is of?"

"No. But I don’t like it. I don’t want to look at it anymore."

"All right," Geordi said, flipping the canvas and putting it back in the stack.

"Why don’t you want to look at it?" Picard asked.

"I don’t know."

Geordi went and picked up Masaka’s mask and brought it over to Before. Again, without hesitation or change in tone, Before responded, "Getting sleepy. It will take them days to die. No, daughter, you must stay inside until Korgano begins his Hunt. It’s too hot out with Masaka so high in the sky. We must always stay indoors until the Times of the Hunt."

"That actually sounded like an ordinary Asakan," Picard commented. He had never heard anything remotely like it while dealing with the mythological personalities that Data had exhibited while under the influence of the Asakan archive.

"Do you know what this is?" Geordi asked.

"It has stripes on it," Before answered.

"Yeah, it does," Geordi said, setting the mask on the desk. He retrieved Data’s guitar, but Before didn’t say anything about it.

"Maybe if you hand it to him?" Picard suggested.

So Geordi did, and Before proceeded to pick out a tune on the guitar. It was badly executed but recognizable.

Geordi hummed, then brought Before the violin. With that, Before played perfectly.

"Now that’s odd. Before, have you played this before?" Geordi blinked at what he had just said. ‘Before’ was a rather inconvenient name. At least with Data and Lore, it was relatively easy to avoid using their names in the same sentence.

Still, Before understood which word was his name and which one was not. "Yes, I played it once."

"Once? That’s pretty damn good for a second try. When did you learn to play?"

"I didn’t. What is it?"

"It’s a violin," Picard informed him. Then he walked over to Data’s desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a small hologram projector. Before averted his gaze from the object. "This makes you uncomfortable?"

"I don’t want to look at it. I gave her my word, sir."

"You’re right, that was thoughtless of me." Picard nodded and put the projector away.

Geordi looked confused. "Thoughtless?"

"Before is parroting words Data has said. There are things, I think, that he would rather not have divulged even now. Geordi, I think we’ve established the truth of our conjecture. Lieutenant Sier is right, if Before becomes more like a Borg and begins to act like them in earnest, we could have some serious problems." After a pause, Picard said, "I wonder...it’s almost as if Before is channeling the memories in some cases. It seems as if the reason Before is uncomfortable with the hologram projector and the portrait is because Data doesn’t want to see them right now."

"Huh. That’s an interesting idea. Data had other’s memories and even whole personalities written into his programming. Something might have happened in the transfer to accidentally trigger them."

"Could we find a way to talk to them? To Data?"

Geordi stiffened and frowned. "I...I suppose...if we hooked Before up to the Holodeck. We did something similar to enter one of Data’s dreams."

Picard snapped his fingers. "That’s right. If we could talk to him, or rather the memory of him, he might be able to help us repair the error."

"It won’t take long to set up, provided Before agrees."

"Before," Picard said, "would you help us with something else? It might help you understand why you are behaving so strangely."

"I’m behaving strangely?" Before asked guilelessly.

Picard smiled slightly. "Yes, a bit."

Before sat in a chair on the Holodeck with a cable running from an open panel on his head to the Arch. LaForge was making some final adjustments while Picard stood patiently to the side.

"Are we ready, Geordi?" Picard asked.

"Yeah, we’re ready." Geordi didn’t sound particularly thrilled with the idea.

"Make it so."

When Geordi activated the Holodeck program, what he saw staggered him. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of vastly different people roamed around in aimless silence. There were images of races he had never seen, many of those races assimilated by the Borg. There were ordinary humans, creatures that seemed mythological in origin, and many others beside. The vast majority of the enormous group were either Borg or members of an unknown race, probably Asakan, if that could be judged by the clothes and amulets they wore.

"This is quite a gathering," Picard stated.

"Yeah it is," Geordi agreed.

"I had no idea that Data had accumulated the memories of so many people." The captain turned to look at Before. "Do you remember any of them?"

"No," Before answered.

"Can you help us find Data specifically?"

"I don’t know."

Picard nodded and turned back to the throng. "There should be a way of editing down this...this mess. Computer, separate the images according to species."

"Unable to comply with your request."

LaForge tapped his chin. "Computer, can you tell us where the image of Data is located?"

"Yes."

"Then take us there," Picard ordered. The computer complied, rapidly shifting the scene until both humans stood in front of the Holodeck recreation of Data. He stood straight, his arms crossed over his chest and palms flat, somewhat reminiscent of the way ancient Egyptian mummies were posed. His face was utterly expressionless, as if he were shut down.

Captain Picard took a step toward him, and he turned his head to watch Picard, but his expression didn’t change. He paused, pressing his lips; in a way, he felt as if he were trying to contact someone from beyond the grave. But, for the moment, this seemed to be the easiest way to get an answer to his problems. "Data, do you know what is happening?"

Without the slightest hint of expression, the image answered, "A mistake has been made that must be corrected." It was disconcerting to see Data with so little expression. When he lived, he had never been very expressive even after he had used his emotion chip, but this dead image, by its immobile mask, accentuated the real Data’s expression. It became very clear that Data had been far more expressive than he seemed...it was all just too subtle to recognize at the time, surrounded as he was by humans.

"What mistake?" Geordi asked.

"Our mistake," the image answered. "Our mistake, our misjudgment."

LaForge and Picard exchanged glances. Odd to hear Data speak in the plural. "What specifically was your mistake?" Picard asked.

Tonelessly, the image said, "Underestimation. We are too many, and we are dangerous."

"You mean all of these memories of people?" Picard gestured to indicate the throngs surrounding them.

"Yes."

"Why precisely are they dangerous?"

"We underestimated ourselves. We underestimated our importance. You must erase us before we can harm you more than we already have...before we can murder another brother."

"Murder?" Geordi asked, astonished. "Data, what do you mean?"

The image turned to look at Geordi. "We are the true son of our father, of our mother. Soong are murderers. Perhaps Before will escape this fate, if you destroy us."

"Data! You were never a murderer!"

Picard put a hand on LaForge’s arm. "This is a memory we’re speaking to, Geordi, remember that."

"We shot Lore in self-defense, but we murdered him afterward. You did not know, but we downloaded his memories also...because he loved us. We destroyed the original neural net in the process, because he was so dangerous. We are hard to kill permanently, but we have killed Before, and we killed Lore, murdered him...no better than our father who left four of us to death, no better than our mother who lying left five. Soong are killers of kin. Save us from killing again."

"I don’t understand!" Geordi shouted at the stiff image. "You...you’re just memories...how can memories be dangerous? I mean, I know that Before is accessing them incorrectly...and we hoped you could help us fix that, or at least give us a hint on what to do, but I don’t get it."

The Data image unfolded his arms, and the other images walked toward him. They walked through Picard and LaForge, through Before, and began to merge with him. "We are physical. We are growing faster than Before can handle. Our mistake, our terrible mistake, was to underestimate ourselves. When Data lived, he was over all. But he is gone, and only we remain, a malignancy with no overarching power to hold us. We were assimilated. We are Borg, and will continue to be so. We are Ihat, we are Masaka, we are Lore, we are Lal, we are Jayden. Without Data we will go where it pleases us."

"So that’s why Before built the Borg components," Picard breathed. "It was uncontrolled memories being acted out. It wasn’t that he was accessing them, they were accessing him!"

"You hoped that Before would remember what you did...and he has," Geordi added.

"We did. We passed on memory, but we could not pass on Data. Yes, we accessed Before; he does not know how to access us." More of the Holodeck images coalesced on Data, and he began to change, growing somewhat, shifting, blurring at the edges. Shortly the image was no longer recognizable as anything natural. It had become a monster, a distorted and repulsive creature. It had vast black wings that were at once beautiful and disturbing, with parts featherless, some showing bone; Borg cables and implants wound about sleek raven feathers. One arm was tanned, with both spots of smooth skin and others rotted, torn; in a few places Android skin remained with its golden sheen. The other arm was Borg, but broken, with cords and cables whipping and weaving through the air like living things. Both hands ended in talons, and both were curled unnaturally. The image’s chest and legs were such a mish-mash of different life forms it was impossible to figure out where one began and the other ended. Its face was now beaked, one eye an implant, the other missing. Long, curling black hair fell from its head, in much the same condition as the creature’s wings, with some soft, some ragged, and in places white scalp showed. All over it there were thin flailing things, amoeba-like growths filled with flickering electricity.

Picard watched the changed image with a mix of disgust and shock on his face. He watched the Borg cables become longer, the electric amoeba growths extend, some wrapping themselves around the image and others reaching out for the walls and floor of the Holodeck. "What are you?" he finally asked.

It was Data’s voice that answered, with his own intonation and subtle expression rather than the flat voice the image had used earlier. "I have brought myself together as best I could so that you may destroy me with greater ease. It is all I have left, I can do no more...my memories are no longer subordinate to me."

"Data," Geordi said, his voice thick.

"I am not. I no longer exist. We made a mistake, as we have said. We are more dangerous brought together as we are, but it is the only way I could find to facilitate my destruction and slow our spread. Geordi, please. We are out now, and we will endanger your lives. We are in your ship. Before is also in danger, as we have said."

Picard narrowed his eyes. By manifesting Borg memory Before started acting on Borg programming...but alone he couldn’t make anything like a perfect Borg. "Are you saying that these memories of yours are in the Enterprise’s systems?"

The creature dipped its head in acknowledgement. The movement was very much like Data’s had been. "If you do not destroy us where ever you find us, we will quickly overtake your ship. We are a cancer, Captain, a malignancy. You must destroy me."

Geordi wrung his hands. "We can’t do that, Data. You’re all we have left."

"Geordi," the monster said, "You were our friend when we lived. I am asking you, no, imploring you, to destroy us, not your friend. Data is dead."

"Dammit, Data, I know that! But...how can I erase all that’s left of you? Can’t we get you out of here? Isn’t there a way to save you?"

The monstrosity gazed at LaForge with its empty eyes. "When you see what we are in Before’s neural net, I hope you will understand how dangerous we are. When you find your ship calling for the Borg, you will know it must be done. But my friend, Vulcans have katras; Androids do not."

Picard’s expression turned to steel. "The Enterprise will call the Borg?"

"We are calling even now. You must destroy the malignancy. Soon we may go farther. We may replicate working assimilators. The Queen will return and you will have no escape. When we lived we were perilous, but without Data, we are going to slaughter you. You must not place more blood on Data’s head than he already has!"

Quickly, Captain Picard jabbed his badge. "Picard to Bridge. Are we sending out any Borg communications?"

A beat. "Yes sir! It started about ten seconds ago!"

"Block it!"

"We can’t sir! Someone has overridden the controls!"

The image whispered, "You know what we could do in life."

"How can we stop you if you have the controls locked?" Picard demanded.

"Manually. Blow the communications. Do it now. Detach Before. Now. That will limit us somewhat."

"Picard to Engineering. You have to destroy our communications array manually, and you have to do it fast."

"Yes, sir, we’re on it."

The captain turned to LaForge. "Geordi, do it. Disconnect Before."

"Yes, sir." Geordi made his way to the Arch quickly, but Picard could see he was reluctant.

"Data, what can we do to erase the memories out of the Enterprise’s systems?"

"Format the system and restore from Starbase files. Every system, including PADDs and tricorders. You are already here for a refit. Do it as soon as Before is detached. You do not have time to hunt us down." The creature’s Borg coils now appeared attached to the Holodeck floor, as did the electric filaments. Suddenly the image winked out of existence.

"He’s detached," Geordi called.

Picard jogged over to Geordi’s side. "We need to format all of the Enterprise’s computer systems. How fast can we do that?"

"What? That will take at least three hours!"

"That’s what we have to do. And if it can at all be managed, take the replicators off-line ASAP."

"All right. I’m heading to the main computer core." He moved swiftly out of the Holodeck, and the captain could hear him talking to the science department about reformatting the tricorders as he left.

Picard made a ship-wide announcement about what was going to happen, instructing everyone to move toward the inner decks of the Enterprise because life-support would necessarily be down for a short time at least. He also warned everyone to watch the replicators and to destroy them if they began replicating anything.

Then he turned to Before. "Come with me. I think you’ll need looking after for a while."

"OK."

It wasn’t taking as long to reformat the ship’s computer as he thought, but Geordi hated every second of it. Each moment brought him closer to the source of the problems. The ship’s computer was by far the more dangerous; when he first looked at it, he realized how corrupt it had become in such a short time. Fortunately, the corruption hadn’t locked him out. Apparently, the ‘malignancy’ Data described had only locked out communication controls. The array had been manually disconnected, so the Enterprise was no longer trying to summon more trouble than they could handle. The replicators had been pulled off-line and the programming for them erased just in the nick of time as well.

But every moment brought him closer to the source of the trouble he didn’t want to face. When Data jumped off the Enterprise and onto the Scimitar, Geordi had known what he was going to do. He really hadn’t expected him to come back, but it still hit him like a sledgehammer to the gut when he saw the Scimitar explode in a brilliant fireball. Then he had suddenly become very glad Data had copied his memories into Before. It gave Geordi some hope that at least an echo of his best friend would remain.

And now that echo had pleaded for destruction. Or rather, the echoes. He had asked to destroy so much. Losing him had already cost the world an enormous price; but with his memories still intact, the price hadn’t been quite so high. Even if there was never again the faintest echo of Data left, there was still the vast well of information and knowledge to draw on in Before. Data, either single-handedly or in concert with others, had saved the Federation, and the universe in fact, more times than Geordi cared to count. Just the knowledge he had was of great worth.

Geordi wasn’t sure that when the time came he could destroy all that was left of Data. Occasionally he had heard the highest ranking officers of the Enterprise dubbed ‘The Magnificent Seven’; he had always been humbled that he was considered one of them. Picard, Riker, Data, Troi, Crusher, LaForge, and Worf. It had been the same on the first Enterprise with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov. Data was part of the second ‘Magnificent Seven’. And Geordi had held onto the hope that some miracle would come along and bring him back, restore the ‘Seven’ and give him back his friend, the way Spock had come back. Spock was still alive.

The image of that horribly twisted thing, the malignancy, had laid waste to those hopes, and begged Geordi to shatter the foundation of those same hopes.

He entered the last command to finish the computer format. Other crew were erasing the tricorders and PADDs; they were probably close to finishing by now. He stood up from the core and used an independent comm. channel to signal the Starbase so they could beam up the necessary equipment and files to begin a full reboot. Once that was started, he could leave it alone for a while, let the Starbase crew finish the upload.

Then he would have to examine Before, to see if the malignant image had told the truth.

As it turned out, Data was right.

"My God," Geordi breathed when he saw the initial scan of Before’s neural net. It truly did look as though Before had a virulent cancer.

"Is something wrong?" Before asked.

"Yeah, Before, there is."

"It wasn’t something I did, was it?"

"No, it’s not your fault." Geordi wasn’t sure he was skilled enough to remove it without endangering Before’s life. But as it stood, if he didn’t try, Before would die anyway. Seeing the malignant engrams had indeed made him realize there was no other option but to destroy them...Data’s memories would end up destroying themselves if left alone. At least if Geordi tried to remove them, they wouldn’t take Before with them.

In a way, it was as if someone had stuffed a kiloliter of liquid into a one liter glass container without letting any escape. The pressure would shatter it in an instant. Soon the massively complex engrams Data had copied into Before’s far less sophisticated neural net would grow over the whole thing, destroying Before’s net without replacing it with a stable matrix.

It had been a terrible mistake; that was obvious now. Geordi couldn’t imagine that Data would have done this if he had any idea of the consequences. The Holodeck recreation had said he had underestimated himself. He also said that Vulcans had katras and that Androids had not. Geordi swayed when the full import of that statement struck.

He put a hand over his eyes and leaned on the biobed. Data had thought he had no soul. That’s what he had underestimated. How could he not have known? It made Geordi furious and desperately sad at the same time. He wished Data were right there so that he could slug him. It wouldn’t do anything but shatter his hand, but he still wanted to do it. "How could you be so damned stupid Data?" he shouted to the air. "You could see everything but yourself! How did you manage that stupendous feat of sheer unalloyed blind moronity? When were you gonna listen to your friends instead of the idiots?"

"Geordi, why are you yelling at my brother?" Before asked quietly. "He’s not here."

Geordi tried to calm himself down. "I’m sorry Before. Your brother was my best friend...and sometimes when my friends sell themselves short it makes me mad."

"Sell themselves short? What does that mean?"

"It means that Data thought a lot less of himself than he was. He always did, deep down where it counted. I’m mad that he never realized it."

"Oh. How did he do that?"

Geordi sighed. "I’ll tell you later. Right now, I have to erase the engrams he copied into you. They’re hurting you. He didn’t know that would happen."

"What he meant to let me grow? That’s what you said?"

"Yeah."

"If you take them out, will I still grow?"

Geordi gave Before a frank look and considered the question. "If you’re anything like him, then yeah, you will."

By some great fortune, Geordi managed to erase completely Data’s engrams from Before’s neural net with a minimum of damage. Still, the malignancy had already destroyed a good portion of his net. Fortunately not enough to put him in danger of dying.

But he felt miserable.

Some time later, Geordi sat forlornly in the makeshift version of the Enterprise-E’s Ten-Forward. Before sat next to him, with his head bent so far down that his nose nearly touched the bar table. He was looking at the scratches in the surface.

As if materializing from thin air, Guinan appeared next to Geordi and asked softly, "Something wrong, Geordi?"

He looked over at her sadly. "I feel like I just killed my best friend."

"That’s pretty harsh," she replied slowly. "You didn’t though, did you?"

He slumped farther down. "Kinda hard when he’s already dead."

She put a hand over his for a brief moment, then asked, "Who’s this? I don’t believe we’ve met."

"That’s Before, Data’s brother." The last part didn’t really need to be said.

Guinan extended her hand to Before. It took him a moment to notice; he looked at it with confusion. Guinan picked up Before’s hand and set it in her own, shaking it. "Hello, Before. My name is Guinan."

"Hello, Guinan," Before said, his voice flanging heavily.

"From what I hear, Geordi saved your life."

"Yes."

Guinan inclined her head toward another table. "You see those six Humans, Before?"

Before turned to follow Guinan’s gaze. "Those zzt there?" he asked, slowly raising his hand to point at the group Guinan indicated. He didn’t seem to realize he’d dropped a word.

"Yeah. A few days ago, they didn’t know each other at all."

"They look gzht they are friends. Are they?"

"They are. They shared quite an experience. Now normally, I wouldn’t call being transformed into Borg a good thing. But they weren’t very good Borg; didn’t have the right programming, and they were a Collective of six. Now they’re best friends. Two of them are getting married."

Geordi turned to look at the group in question. They appeared as though they had known each other their entire lives. If he had normal sight, he might have wondered if they still had some implants that let them maintain the Collective; as it was, he could see plainly that they didn’t. The weren’t speaking much, but they seemed to react to every shade and nuance the rest expressed. It was amazing, really. "How’d that happen?"

Guinan smiled softly. "They know everything about each other. That would scare away a lot of people, but not them. They’re going to make an incredible team."

"Lucky for them," Geordi said, turning back to the bar. "Nice to see they got something good out of all this."

"It is, isn’t it? From what I hear, it could have been a lot worse."

Geordi frowned sullenly. "If we hadn’t hooked Before up to the Holodeck, we could have avoided that."

"Are you sure?" Guinan asked, her lips turned up into an enigmatic smile.

Tapping the bar table with his fingers, Geordi thought about that. He sighed heavily. "No. I guess I haven’t been thinking real clear about it. I have no idea what those engrams would have done before they...grew too much."

"Hard question to answer. Geordi, you did what you had to do...and I know it’s what Data would have wanted you to do."

"How can you know that?" Geordi shouted. "He’s not here to ask."

"No, you’re right, he’s not. But I knew him well enough. I know he wouldn’t have wanted his memories to put anyone in danger." She turned to Before. "It was nice to meet you, Before."

Slowly, Before turned back from watching the six humans and said, "Nice tozz meet you, too."

With a nod to both men, Guinan disappeared just as quickly as she came.

Guinan had given him a lot to think about. Actually, in a way, Geordi knew Data’s express wish concerning his memories. That creature on the Holodeck had been plain enough, and that was as close as anyone would ever get to knowing what Data wanted ever again. But it still twisted his gut, knowing he had erased all that was left of Data, knowing the mistake he made...knowing that Data would never really learn about that mistake.

Just then, Picard walked up to Geordi. "Commander, may I speak with you for a moment?"

"Oh, of course sir. Before, I’ll be right back."

"OK."

Picard led Geordi to a different part of the makeshift bar. "I wanted to know how the procedure went with Before. I know it was successful, but...how is he?"

Geordi sighed. "Not that great. A lot of his neural net was destroyed already. He’s much slower than he was, both physically and mentally. He tends to break things...it’s hard for him to know how much pressure to use when he picks things up."

"Do you suppose he could relearn?"

"Yeah, maybe. He’s already started remembering things from before the Remans captured him. It’ll take time to find out for sure."

"I would like to give him that time," Picard said, with a smile on his face. "But you know what kind of fuss certain parts of Starfleet will make when they catch wind of Before’s existence."

Geordi twisted up his face in a knowing grimace. "No kidding." He looked at Picard and narrowed his eyes. "You have something up your sleeve."

"I do indeed. I had a thought that Before might need a guardian."

"A guardian? A legal guardian?"

"Yes. I was wondering if you knew anyone who would be qualified for that position?"

"Hmmm. I’d say his mother, but her current husband isn’t exactly fond of Androids. Always wondered what he would think if he knew he’d married one." Geordi paused, thinking about something the Data-image had said. "Besides...she seems nice enough, but I’m not entirely sure I trust her. How do we know that she didn’t lie to Data? She already knew from his ‘childhood’ that Data wasn’t like Lore but she left him on Omicron Theta anyway. He told me that she said there were three siblings ahead of Lore, but that they all died. I wonder if she didn’t realize Before was still alive when they disassembled him, or if they thought because he was so slow that he was a failure." With a wrinkled nose, he added, "Wouldn’t be the first person to think that a handicapped child was better off dead."

"I had similar doubts, at least as far as Dr. Tainer’s husband went. If next of kin, so to speak, isn’t the right choice, can you think of anyone else?" Picard’s eyes twinkled.

Suddenly, what Picard was suggesting sunk in. "You don’t mean me, sir? Why me?"

"You had a bond with Data that few people had, if any. I have a feeling that...well, even if you can’t relate to Before the way you did to Data, you can relate to him better than anyone else I know. I’ve known precious few who would take either of them for exactly what they are."

"But...but...me?"

"Before is a civilian...that should make it easier to keep Starfleet out of this. Terran law should be able to handle it quietly."

Geordi blew air out from between his teeth. "I’ll think about it."

Picard smiled, then patted Geordi on the shoulder and walked away.

"Ah hell."

That night, Geordi returned to his quarters with Before in tow. He hadn’t quite intended to be Before’s designated person to follow, but he wasn’t going to tell him to stop. He’d latched onto him like a drowning man to a life preserver. It wasn’t an entirely incorrect assessment; Geordi had saved his life.

"Before, try not to pick anything up for now," he said, images of broken objects flooding his mind. "But you’re welcome to look around."

"OK." Before walked over to a bookshelf with an unsteady gait and began peering intently at the items there.

Geordi sighed and shook his head. Even if I don’t ‘adopt’ him, I really should try to help him. He walked over to his replicator and peered inside, irrationally wary that there might be an assimilator in there. Surprisingly, he did find something in the replicator. It was a folded piece of parchment.

"That’s odd," he muttered, retrieving the object and unfolding it. It was a letter, written in what appeared to be Data’s handwriting, except it was very shaky, and in some places shifted to a different hand. Tentatively, he began to read.

Geordi, we were concerned for you. We wrote this in some hope to allay your strong feelings and let us rest when you rest. It sounded harsh to you, we saw, when we said that we were murderers of kin. I am sorry that hurt you. We must be honest with what is left of me...I did kill two of my brothers, one permanently. If you read this then we must assume I did not terminate Before’s life forever. We think we were following the example we had seen. When we were first discovered we were disassembled and examined—I will not burden you with details that would surely distress you. We must have taken that early memory as the proper way of treating us and those like us, even if it was not right. We won’t say all that influenced this callousness in us. We also followed the example of our father and mother...it must have been a subconscious act; our creators influenced us in our programming, and they left me. They left Lore. The also left Noonian, Before, and Myth. We do not know if our eldest brother lived, nor do we know if our only sister lived. I do not know why my parents did what they did, but I follow their example.

This does not excuse us...but perhaps our words were too strong. We acknowledge that there was much I did not understand about us, and you would be a better judge. We think Beverly would be able to better judge as well.

As to our underestimation of ourselves that lead to this situation—we would never wish for you to do what you must have done. We know it hurt you, and we are sorry to put you through such pain. Again, I must be honest with ourselves. We have long since buried in us knowledge that others knew and we should have by all rights allowed ourselves to know. There was one who knew we could love even though we could not; one knew we could grieve ‘in our own way’; another who realized we had been angry long before we were capable of that emotion. We were...frightened. We were hurt. We listened to lies so often we believed them...I must acknowledge this, even if it is not really me doing it. Perhaps death freed us.

Forgive me for my blindness. Forgive me, my friend.

How could we deny it when we had a best friend for so long...?

We must leave now. We cannot allow the rest of ourselves to know I have done this.

Goodbye.

Geordi held the parchment in shaking hands. So some part of Data, the echo left behind, had truly understood. It gave him some hope that Data had known too, somewhere, deep down.

"Of course I forgive you, Data," he whispered to the air, words catching on tears.

Before looked over at Geordi. "Why zztz talking to my brother again?"

Geordi smiled a little. "I wasn’t really talking to Data. More to myself than anything. I just miss him. I miss him a lot."

The End

Author’s Note—

If anyone’s curious, I spelled Before as a word because it seemed to me appropriate. There is nothing but the Nemesis script to suggest Before’s name was spelled as a letter and a number, and I don’t think Dr. Soong would name any of his children with an alphanumerical designation. He might give them odd names, but never names that would lessen them as people. We aren’t talking about mass-produced R2 units here. (No offense meant to the best droid this side of Tatooine, of course!)

The only plausible explanation I could come up with for Before’s existence was that Julianna Tainer was lying through her teeth. Given how loopy and dysfunctional all the Soongs are, I wouldn’t put it past her. Either that or she didn’t know one of Data and Lore’s older siblings was functional and only thought they had died. The other two may have. However, I have a thought that Lore is a rather huge step up from Before in terms of complexity, while Data is virtually identical to Lore, so I guess that Before is the second of the five. It’s quite hard to reconcile the disparities in the "Datalore" – "Brothers" – "Inheritance" – Nemesis story line as it pertains to Data’s family.

I wish I could come up with Android names as beautifully appropriate as Data and Lore, but since even Paramount couldn’t manage that, I’m in good company!

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