. . .

. . .

. . .

If Arik Soong had known what he was getting into, maybe he would have done things differently.

Maybe. But probably not.

_o\O/o_

Noonien Soong slept in the lab, his thick book of notes for a pillow. He woke with a snort and lifted his head — his cheek still stuck to the pages, the pages still damp with his tears. His bleary gaze fell on E4 slumped in the reclining workchair: eyes wide, body inert, shut down. Again.

Soong snapped his notebook shut with a dusty thump and hurled it across the room. It fell short of the android's placid face — which was just as well, as he'd regretted it before the book even left his hand.

His temper he'd inherited from his predecessor, Eli Soong. Whether this was nature or nurture he'd never been sure; either way, it had kept him on his toes as a child and fired his will to study and learn and master the Work. It had also made the good moments all the sweeter, when the old man would scoop him into the air or say well done or make them something special and sugary after dinner.

Best of all were the stories before bed — stories from peoples and worlds all across the galaxy. Old stories, ghost stories, factual histories, myths and fables and everything in-between. Eli's sharp eyes would mellow to a deep sea-blue, and sometimes he would talk late into the night, occasionally pausing mid-sentence to scribble a note or tinker restlessly with their latest project. Noonien would struggle to stay awake, trying to follow an increasingly fractured narrative. He hated not knowing the end to a story.

Eli's supply of tales seemed inexhaustible; he never failed to deliver when Noonien asked for something new. Noonien suspected this was because he started making them up on the spot — certainly even the tried-and-true tales changed colors over the years. Which was all the better; there was a shortage of color out in the Kolaran desert, forty-odd kilometers from the nearest village.

Noonien had sworn that if he ever had to hide away all alone with the Work, it'd be somewhere with rain and shade and green.

_o\O/o_

"Tighten up that pump dilator, will you, Nu?"

Eli's gnarled hands were still strong and agile, but in the past year he'd been making more frequent use of Noonien's long, youthful fingers. Eli was not a patient man, but he was a good teacher. And Noonien was a very good student.

"Ah-ah, narrow that beam a notch. I couldn't quite standardize the sizing, and better safe than sorry... that's it. Good. What do you think about meatballs for dinner? I tried to program fennel seed into the replicator and I guess we'll see if it took..."

The old man often rambled as they worked. Usually about nothing in particular; over the years Noonien had learned to tune it out. But ever since he'd entered adolescence Eli had returned again and again to a very particular subject.

"Take my advice, boy. Never fall in love. We're not made for love, we Soongs. We're made for greatness. We can't change who we are. I know it won't seem like it to you, but there's really no point to it, love. Not for us. And there's certainly no time for it."

Eli flipped up his spark mask and reengaged the temporary dampening field.

"Besides, we're just not any good at it."

_o\O/o_

Noonien fell out of his memories, and saw with a start that he'd crossed the room to within arm's length of E4. He'd been staring into those empty yellow eyes for who knew how long. Backing up a few paces, he leaned against the cold metal of the storage unit.

See? You're too old now to go without sleep.

He'd been overambitious in this model's initial construction; that was obvious now. All his life — all his ancestors' lives — had been spent in pursuit of a stable positronic matrix. And he, Arik Noonien Soong, had finally achieved it with B4.

It had worked! He had done it! The very first! The hope and dream of four generations, fulfilled!

But the elation was short-lived. He wanted more. He tried not to; he tried to be content, to nurture B4 and support Juliana and be satisfied. But he couldn't help it. It wasn't enough.

He would begin again.

A new android who would go beyond simple stability, beyond mere science — his next creation would be the stuff of legend. Nuances of personality and feeling, desires and dreams, intellect, power... and immortality.

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp." …But why should a machine's?

C4 had come to consciousness slowly, his eyes rolling under his eyelids and then opening as if from a dream. His face was just as blank as his brother's had been, but where in B4 there had been stiffness, there was in this new creature a softness — a vulnerability — that put an unexpected lump in Noonien's throat.

The android's golden eyes went straight to theirs. He looked back and forth between them, then reached up to touch Juliana's face. The movement was halting and clumsy, but his fingertips fell gently as feathers against the corner of her smiling mouth.

C4 was a sensitive boy, if a little... excitable. The furniture suffered. But this was to be expected, Juliana and Noonien agreed. All children threw tantrums; C4 just didn't know his own strength. They made minor adjustments: programming a requisite time delay between cognition and action; uploading a library on mechanical engineering to help him better judge proper force — finally imposing artificial limits on his tensile strength.

"Training wheels," Noonien said cheerfully to Juliana.

If anything, the young android seemed to enjoy the attention, humming to himself as they scanned and probed and tinkered. But sooner or later he found ways to circumvent their precautions. The new parents grew suspicious — his fits of pique began to seem forced. When they scolded, sometimes a hint of smugness played around his mouth. And they never had to tell him twice to go wait for them in the lab.

But it would get better, they told each other. It would get better. He was young. It would get better.

Until one day they knew it wouldn't.

"We have to take you offline this time, Cee. We need to go deep, and it will be safer if you're deactivated."

"I don't like being deactivated, Mother."

"I know. But it's for the best. You don't want to frighten the neighbors like that again, do you?"

"No, but..."

C4 hesitated, his eyes searching Juliana's face. Noonien's hand twitched; he wanted to go ahead and flip the switch while the boy wasn't looking, but he curbed his impatience. All this talk, talk, talk was indulgent, if you asked him. Better to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. Kinder, too, really — if you thought about it.

But Juliana's voice remained soft and unhurried.

"But what, Cee?"

C4 sucked in a breath and put his hands over his eyes.

"You'll wake me up again, won't you? When I'm fixed? I said I was sorry. Please don't leave me alone in the dark. You won't, will you? Mother? Father?"

Juliana had her hands full with preparing their equipment and she shot Noonien a pointed look. He frowned, then reached down and stroked C4's head. The gesture was quite unlike him but the young android leaned into his touch, oblivious to Noonien's awkwardness. He'd always been a glutton for affection, this one, pressing close and posing for caresses, shameless as a cat.

"Hush, boy. We'd never do that. Never."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

And immediately C4 relaxed into the dark leather of the chair, nodding with relief. He lowered his hands and turned his pale, trusting eyes up at Noonien.

"Okay. I'm ready now," he said evenly, and obliged by leaning forward, exposing the nodule in the small of his back. Noonien deactivated the android and gently settled him back into the chair.

Strike one.

_o\O/o_

Noonien returned to the present to find himself with his hand on E4's head. He stopped and looked down at his aging fingers nestled in the fine, dark hair. He frowned. Strange, how much easier this was when the android wasn't awake to feel it. After a pause, he resumed stroking.

His eyes wandered up and found B4's shelved head looking out at him. Stranger and stranger: Noonien didn't remember opening the storage closet. B4's features were as immobile as his brother's — but his frozen expression was far from neutral. The damage, bad as it was, did nothing to mask his look of helpless panic.

_o\O/o_

The second time they deactivated the android who would become Lore, they decided to wipe his memory banks. It wouldn't do him any good to remember the blood in the forest, the trails crashed through snapped branches strewn with torn fur. Much better to start with a clean slate.

When he awoke they told him he was a new android. They told the colonists he was a new android. And they named him D4.

Which, it turned out, was a mistake.

"Mother, why isn't there a C4?"

Juliana looked up from the calculations she was running through her environmental simulator. The two young androids sat together on the carpet, playing with a chess set. Even checkers was beyond B4's grasp, of course, but he liked the carved shapes of knights and queens and castles. D4 was helping him stack them into a tower, alternating black and white into a pretty pattern. With his thumbnail, D4 filed a tiny chink into the stone bottom of the final pawn, and balanced it at the very top. Bee beamed.

Juliana tried to keep her voice casual. "What do you mean, Dee?"

"Well, there's Bee..." Without warning D4 brought his fist down on the floor, sending a tremor through the whole house and toppling the tower. Bee buzzed with laughter. "...And there's me. Why did you skip C?"

"You are C4, Dee," the older android said cheerfully, scooping the pieces together to begin again.

Juliana started. She and Noonien had reprogrammed Bee's memory banks, too; they had even taken the precaution of setting up a self-activating reroute that would integrate any residual memories into B4's storage of experiences with his brother's latest incarnation.

To Juliana's relief, Dee rolled his eyes.

"That doesn't make any sense," he said, not unkindly.

"Yes; you're getting confused again, dear."

"But I remember. Cee left. You said he was gone. And then... and then..." Bee's eyebrows knotted. "And then he was not gone anymore, because Dee was here." His expression cleared and he blinked fondly at his brother.

Juliana was saved from replying when Noonien flitted into the room and screeched to a halt in front of the replicator.

"Aribica coffee, black, hot, three sugars."

Either something was going very well or very badly in the lab; Juliana held her breath, hoping it was the former and that her husband would dart away again like an over-caffeinated hoverbird.

Instead he wheeled on her, eyes distant but stormy.

"And stop coddling them, Juliana." Noonien took an impatient sip of his steaming drink and spluttered, giving Juliana a chance to turn toward him and mouth a fierce Shut Up. He waved his hand dismissively and nodded at B4.

"You're right, Bee. I think you're old enough to know. There was a C4, but his software corrupted and became unstable. He suffered a cascade failure and is no longer functional."

The lie was well-turned and effortless; it sent a shiver through the heat of Juliana's anger.

Noonien blew on his coffee impatiently. "That's good remembering, Bee," he added as an afterthought. "Very smart of you."

He glanced at Juliana, expecting her to look appreciative; she was always saying he didn't praise the boys enough. To his surprise, her eyes were brimming with many things, none of which was appreciation.

From the floor, D4 spoke in a trembling voice.

"You mean he... died?"

Noonien saw the boy's eyes were shining gold with tears. Noonien frowned, his lips parting in confusion. But before he could think of anything to say, B4 began babbling. When upset, the android's voice rose an octave and became eerily monotone — monotone, and very loud.

"YOU DID NOT TELL ME THAT CEE WAS DEAD." The white king was turning to powder in the crush of his fist. "I DO NOT WANT CEE TO BE DEAD. YOU DID NOT TELL ME THAT CEE WAS DEAD."

Juliana pressed her hands to her ears. "Bee! Quieter, please!"

B4 complied, though his voice remained high-pitched and flat.

"I am sorry, Mother."

"It's all right, dear."

"It's not all right!"

D4 was on his feet, the distress in his voice as painfully human as Bee's was mechanical.

"Why didn't you tell us? Why did — how could that happen? You said we wouldn't die. That we would never die. And..." he scrubbed at his face angrily, "... and why am I crying, and you're not? Aren't you sad? Don't you miss him? Don't you care?"

Noonien huffed indignantly, and Juliana rushed to explain.

"Of course we cared—"

But Dee wasn't listening. His eyes had gone wide with realization. "It wasn't the first time one of us died," he said in a small voice."Was it?"

There was no answer, and the android's voice began to rise again. "I see. So. You were lying. What does that mean for us, then?" He laughed a laugh Juliana had never heard from him before. "What's the prognosis, doctors? Are we going to die, too?"

"I do not want to die!" wailed B4.

"Oy gevalt... NOBODY IS GOING TO DIE!" hollered Noonien.

Juliana's voice was soft and urgent.

"Boys, listen to me, now. We isolated the problem and corrected it. Didn't we, Noonien? You're safe. You're both safe now. I promise."

Bee blinked once, twice, and then went blithely back to playing with his chess pieces. He liked the pretty sound they made when he jangled them in his hands. He couldn't find one of the kings, though. He started searching for it under the sofa.

Dee bounced on the balls of his feet, watching as his father backed off haltingly, looking anywhere but at him, and then headed back to the lab with his coffee. Eventually Dee sat back down, cross-legged. He absently combed the pale dust from Bee's crushed king into a neat pile. He seemed to be watching his brother play, but his eyes scanned back and forth with an intense, inward gaze that unsettled Juliana. Once, just before bed, she caught him staring at her, his face unreadable and inhumanly still. They locked eyes for a long moment. She looked away first.

Strike two.

_o\O/o_

Noonien's hand turned to a fist in E4's hair. Roughly, he yanked the android's head to the side. With a deft touch to the neck he released the cervical portal and peeled it wide open. His fingertips found the hidden cranial bypass panel and performed a complex series of commands.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, an old voice told him this was a bad idea.

_o\O/o_

"Checkmate."

At first Noonien thought Eli hadn't heard him. The old man's eyes had wandered away from the three-tiered gameboard, coming to rest on the pale, dull face of F3. This wasn't unusual; in the six weeks since their latest failure, Eli had moved like a man in a dream much of the time. Noonien had taken over the chores: meals, computer maintenance, watering Eli's damned finicky houseplants. As the weeks dragged on and Eli made no attempt to return to his work table, Noonien took his mentor's place there, too.

Not daring to carry on where they'd left off, he began experimenting with ever and ever more intricate detailing. He developed a better polymer for casting synthetic veins. After measuring and cutting the latest batch he began fitting them over metacarpal tendons. His own hand was big enough to serve as a reference, now.

Eli's scratchy voice at his shoulder made him jump.

"That's some beautiful work, Nu."

The old man took the skinless synthetic hand and held it up, rotating it in the light.

"This is what it always comes down to. Minutiae. Window dressing. We fail where it really counts, so we compensate by obsessing over trivial… meaningless…" The old man began blubbering with laughter as he spoke. "Maybe... maybe we're not real... real scientists, after all! Maybe we should have been... should have been artists — artists! — instead!"

Eli threw back his head and guffawed.

"Maybe we sh-should be in Florence right now, you and I, or Dellaquan Quattro, or wherever the hell... hammering marble by day, g-getting drunk and... and screwing bella donnas by night!"

Abruptly, Eli's laughter died. He turned and stalked toward the inoperative android, pushing the chessboard out of his way and snatching an ocular speculum off a nearby table. He wedged the tool roughly into the right eye socket and dialed it up until the sclera was fully exposed. With an expert thrust of his thumb Eli popped the eyeball out into his palm, then moved on to the left side.

"No sense wasting a perfectly good set of baby blues," he said blandly, and proceeded to strip the inert body of reusable components.

Noonien stooped to pick up the spilled chess pieces, and suddenly he was sure Eli had heard his "checkmate," after all. It was the first and last time he ever beat the old man; after that, they never played again.

_o\O/o_

Juliana refused to be in the room for E4's activation. Noonien didn't press her. There was no reason to; Juliana's soft heart would bring her around. As a precaution, however, he'd buried subliminal images of his wife in the android's subfiles. Even if E4's initial contact with her was minimal, he should still — in theory — imprint on her to some degree. He would want to be near her; his eyes would seek out hers whenever they in the same room. Noonien knew his wife. Eventually, Juliana would respond.

He didn't tell her this, of course. But it was for the best; how was E4 to be properly socialized, his dysfunctions corrected, if his own mother shunned him?

Still, Noonien himself had to squelch a twinge of nerves as he reached under the updated android and flipped the switch. The yellow eyes popped open and E4 yelped, squinting, his body trying to curl in on itself. Noonien shifted backward and the android's head snapped to the side to look at him. E4 stared at him for a minute, then his eyes fell closed again. He sighed tiredly, and rolled over to face the wall.

Noonien curbed the irrational impulse to switch him right back off again. Instead, he told himself this new behavior was a good sign. It was certainly different. And it wasn't as if things could get any worse.

But they did. Rapidly.

Until one day E4 took an over-charged bipolar torch to B4's skull and split his cranial circuitry right down to the spine. Then he tossed the tool aside, turned on his heel and coolly walked out the front door.

Noonien and Juliana almost cracked heads in their rush to Bee's side. The fallen android's jaw was working and his knees pedaled unevenly, screeching his feet against the tiles and jerking him in a stunted belly-crawl across the floor. Juliana flew to the lab for the repair kit as Noonien shouted at him to hold still. He cradled B4's head, trying to prevent further neural ruptures, his hands growing slick with leaking lubricant.

In the minute it took Juliana to return from the lab, B4 had subsided into random twitching. As she dropped to her knees his remaining diode lights flickered, and before she could even open the kit they blinked out, one by one.

Strike three.

_o\O/o_

"You're changing the facial template?"

Noonien's voice was muffled by a ham sandwich. He was perched on a stool, watching Eli work.

"Yup." The old man tossed a sly smile over his shoulder. "Some of the body specs, too."

"How come?"

"Well, by the time I came along, my old man had settled on 35 as a good starting age. He thought it struck the best balance; old enough to command respect, young enough to project strength and vitality. A man in his prime." Eli adjusted the overhead light a fraction. "But I've decided to break with tradition. A boy should look like a boy, no? Don't want to rob him of a childhood. Seventeen's a great age." His smile widened, his eyes warming to that sea-blue shade. "Besides, I'd like him to look more like you."

Noonien wasn't sure what to say, so he took another big bite of sandwich.

Eight days later it was over; J3 had set a record for fastest time to total neural collapse. Eli went on repolorizing pathways long after the fight was lost. His bright white hair dripped with sweat and his knees trembled but his fingers ghosted smoothly over J3's exposed relays, their touch as light and quick as ever.

At last Noonien reached for those old hands, quieting them with his own. Eli snarled and stood, gripping Noonien by the shoulders. He shoved him away but caught him at the last second and froze, his arms locked at the elbows, holding the boy as far away as possible without letting him go. Before Noonien could blink the old man yanked him forward again, crushing him to his chest so tight Noonien could feel Eli's heart thundering against his ribs. The abacus in the back of his mind counted the heartbeats, nagged by discrepancies of pressure and rhythm.

Eli released him so suddenly that Noonien stumbled.

"I'm going to bed," he said, and left the room without a glance.

Noonien went about powering down the lab equipment. It wasn't until he turned off the last light that it occurred to him Eli's erratic heartbeat warranted concern — not annoyance.

When they began work again, Eli went back to the older body molds. To Noonien's surprise he also made drastic changes in pigmentation. Darker hair, strange eyes — animal's eyes — and skin pale as death. He wondered if it had something to do with the old man's heart.

_o\O/o_

Unwilling to let go of Bee's damaged head, Noonien told Juliana how to activate E4's homing signal. He prayed it worked — and that nobody got in the android's way when he about-faced and marched back home.

Then she joined him on the floor, and they waited for Bee's cranium to cool.

"My arms are asleep," Noonien grimaced, sweating at the hairline from sitting still for too long. "You'll have to apply the sealant."

Painstakingly, Juliana bathed every sheared circuit with a protective layer of aqueous sealant. When it was safe to move him, she activated a anti-grav sled underneath him. Noonien fell backward with a grunt, cautiously unrolling his spine against the floor, panting. He flexed his numb fingers, waving her ahead. She took B4 to the lab and laid him out on the adjustment table. The pale, limp hand was still warm in hers when Noonien joined them. He began cutting off the android's shirt but Juliana stopped him.

"That's his favorite," she said.

Noonien watched dazedly as she unbuttoned the soft blue cloth and began gently pulling the slack arms out of the sleeves.

It was then that E4 trudged into the room, all stiff limbs and dead eyes. For a blinding second Noonien thought the spatters of mud on his clothing and face were human blood. His sweat turned cold as seawater against his skin, and he doubled over at the waist.

Juliana rubbed small circles on his back as he struggled to catch his breath.

"He's just dirty," she said. "He's just dirty."

Noonien nodded, swallowing down bile.

Juliana had expected to feel rage, loathing, terror at the sight of E4's face. Instead she felt... nothing. He looked so unlike himself; it had been a long time since one of their androids had looked like a machine, and nothing more. She guided him — it — into the workchair and shut it down. Then she returned to B4's side and continued undressing him, folding his clothes into a neat pile.

When he had stopped trembling Noonien returned to her side and began checking each vital system to confirm total shutdown. Juliana followed him as he went, dismantling the android piece by piece. Then Noonien passed each part under a sonic cleanser and fitted them into the molded storage shelves.

Juliana put her hand on the closet door, but didn't shut it.

"He may be repairable," he told her.

"Goodnight, Noonien," she said.

_o\O/o_

Eli lay with his back to Noonien. He hadn't been out of bed in three days now, his breathing wet and labored, his wrinkled skin cold and clammy even in the dry desert air. Noonien was nineteen.

"Nu?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where's my fucking gelato?"

The boy smiled.

"Strawberry, or whiskey cream?"

"Now there's a stupid question."

The old man pushed himself up on trembling, fleshless arms. He grumped when Noonien held the spoon to his mouth and took it out of the boy's hand. He struggled through two shaky bites on his own, then collapsed and surrendered the bowl. Noonien fed him slowly, but after only a few spoonfuls the clouds rolled over Eli's watery eyes again. Noonien went to dispose of the half-eaten ice cream.

He heard the old man coughing weakly behind his back.

"Noonien?"

"I'm here."

Eli gripped him urgently by the wrist.

"It's up to you now, boy. You hear me? I always thought it would be me. I thought having you was just a precaution... I was so sure that one day, finally, I'd pull it off. We got so close, you and I. Didn't we? So close. Oh God, I wanted to be first. I thought I'd be the one. And maybe I would have been, if it hadn't been for her. See, I knew what I was talking about when I told you never to fall in love. It hurts, Nu. It was all so long ago, and it still hurts..."

The old man slept. Later, Noonien prodded him awake and offered soup. Eli reached up for it but caught hold of the boy's arm again, instead. Drops of hot broth fell onto the blankets. The old voice was rough, and breathless with pain.

"Listen to me. You weren't just a precaution. I promise. It was just... I was so lonely. You've been a good friend. I'm proud of you, Arik Noonien. My little A4. And I believe in you. You can do it. You can make it all worth it — will you do that for me? Will you do that for us?"

Eli started to weep, and released Noonien's sleeve.

"Oh please God, please don't let it all be for nothing... oh God, please... please..."

Noonien put the soup in a warming pattern and let the old man cry. Then, when he was too tired to protest, Noonien fed him.

The old man was fitful that night. When he finally quieted, just before sunrise, Noonien fell hard into sleep. When he awoke, it was past noon and Eli was staring at him from the next bed, his eyes sharp and clear. He smirked.

"Good morning."

They ate breakfast, the old man chomping with gusto. As they finished, without looking at him, Eli covered Noonien's hand with his own.

"I meant it when I said you could do it. You can. You will. You're the one. I can feel it." He snorted a wry laugh and met Noonien's eyes.

"Not that that means jack shit, apparently. My old man Medhavi said the same thing to me, right before he assumed room temperature. I made it a good few years longer than he did, but I always knew this damn disease would get me in the end." He pushed his cleaned plate away and settled back against the pillows. "I hoped for a cure, of course, but I've never had much faith in doctors. And turns out I was right."

With that, Eli rolled over and fell asleep for good.

_o\O/o_

When Noonien Soong designed a cranial unit that could function independently of a body, it had been with the very best intentions. He thought the feature might come in handy someday — that it might even make the difference between life and death for one of his creations.

So it was a shame that the first time he used it, it was to no such purpose.

After opening E4's cervical portal and initiating cranial bypass, Noonien hesitated. It had been three days since B4's death, and he hadn't once left the lab. Juliana hadn't bothered him; sometimes he watched her blinking blue dot move from room to room on his locator screen. Twice it had approached the lab door and stopped, unmoving, for several seconds before slipping away again. All alone, Noonien didn't research, or sketch, or calculate, or build. And he didn't sleep much, either.

He read. Vulcan poetry, Klingon opera, Bajoran scripture. Amenamope, Rushdie, Angelou, Lu Xun. Vasya, Potok, Homer, Brontë, Consort Ban. Orion lovebooks, Bolian fables, Chandran mythology.

Now he opened Bee's storage closet, dragged the workchair around to face it, and activated E4's head.

"Look at him. My God, how could you do that to him?"

"We-ell," said E4's head, giving Noonien a condescending look of false concern, "I took your BP torch and raised the setting to maximum—"

"Don't look at me," Noonien ground out. "Look at him." He was fully prepared to immobilize the android's eye muscles and force him to look at his brother, but E4 flicked his gaze carelessly over B4's ruined face, studying it without a flinch.

"Hmm. Looks like I missed his occipital relays."

Noonien slumped against the shelves, pressing a fist against his forehead. "I don't understand. I've tried and I've tried and I've tried. What do you want from me?" Noonien stood with a snarl and slammed his fist into the hard metal of the storage unit. B4's head wobbled on the shelf. He brought his bruised knuckles to his mouth, the pain fueling his anger. "How can you be this way? Why did you turn out so wrong?"

E4 sighed. "You talk as if we're so different," he said reasonably. "You wanted me to be like you, didn't you? Gave me your needs, your moods, your passions. Your ambition." He smiled and the usual sneer crept back into his voice. "The only real difference is that I have the brains and the fucking balls to get what I want. That," he spat, indicating B4 with his eyes, "was a mercy killing. And spare me the grieving daddy shtick. I saw how you looked at him, sometimes — how you shooed him out of the room when Tom Handy visited. He was an embarrassment, wasn't he?" His voice lowered conspiratorially. "Don't tell me you never thought about doing it, yourself."

Noonien closed his mouth and swallowed, shaking his head.

"I would never — I'm not a murderer."

"Aren't you?"

It was getting hard to breathe. Noonien squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head more forcefully.

"No."

"Hmm. Maybe not — yet. But soon. Any minute now, in fact. Because I'm dead meat. So to speak. Aren't I? That's what you woke me up to tell me, isn't it?" He grinned. "No second chance for this broken machine." His voice screeched up an octave. "Off with his head!"

"Second chance," Noonien whispered. "Second chance? All those 'brains', and still the alphabet presents a challenge, E?"

E4 mirrored his father's sneer.

"Oh, I know my letters. And I can count, too. A4."

"How did y—"

E4 raised his voice over Noonien's. "Three sets of shoulders you've stood on to make it this far. Only, whooops! Looks like you're just as much a failure as your daddy and his daddies before him. Because that's what I am, aren't I, Often Wrong? A failed fucking experiment—"

He saw Noonien's hand reaching for the micro-driver and his face began contorting helplessly, as if trying to squirm away from the approaching fingers.

"—well, you can't — I won't ever — because you — fuck you, fuck you—!"

"Goodbye, boy."

"Goodbye? I doubt it, old man. Better make it au revio—"

The yellow eyes opaqued again and Soong turned his back on the deactivated android. He took a long look at B4. He brushed some scorched hair back into place and then gently closed him behind the closet door.

I'll try to fix you, Bee — I promise I will. There's something I need to do first, but I'll come back to you, just as soon as there's time...

He walked over to the east wall, where a massive bookshelf spanned the width and height of the room. The ladder's wheels squeaked as he pulled himself over to the far left corner. On the top shelf, behind The Tempest, was a knothole. He held his thumb to it until it chirped and a narrow panel swished open, revealing an encryption pad set into the thick cement wall. He keyed in the access code, then hesitated. Quickly, he checked his pocket locator to verify Juliana was still in their bedroom. Only then did he unlock the panel. This wasn't the only secret he had from his wife — not by a long shot — but it was by far the deepest.

A hiss of cold air escaped as the narrow containment box rolled out between the books, extending a couple hand-spans beyond the shelves before clicking to a stop on its casters. Inside, the double row of little glass capsules tinkled musically. Noonien released an insulation clamp and held one pale yellow vial up to the light.

The blastocyst inside was invisible, of course, but in his mind's eye Noonien peered through the suspension fluid, past the trophectoderm layer and into the heart of clustered cells, each containing a nucleus in which a double helix hung frozen, beautiful — waiting.

A5. The seed of the next generation. The next desperate grasp at greatness.

The next me.

He closed his fist around the cold glass and leaned his head against his books. Perhaps it was time. He had decades left in him, he knew that, but he couldn't go on like this. He was played out. A fresh perspective was needed — fresh eyes, fresh mind, fresh blood.

It would be so easy: barely the work of a day to locate a suitable surrogate. A week, maybe two, to negotiate a contract and arrange for her travel to Omicron Theta. He could perform the procedure himself. So easy. Flesh and blood. Something that was guaranteed to work, for once. So easy.

Easy? Who said anything about easy? I taught you better than that, boy.

His shaking hand tightened dangerously around the delicate glass. He knew that voice as well as his own. It had been with him all his life, and for the first time in his life he hated it.

Suddenly a new image blew through his mind like a warm sea breeze. A lovely picture of his young wife, smiling. Rounded and glowing, and smiling at him. A surge of longing took his breath away and he coughed a dry sob against the aging spines of his books. But he dismissed the image quickly; she would never agree to it — nor should she. No. That would only complicate matters. And yet... what if...

New life. Truly new: small, helpless, human — and half Juliana. Wasn't that the heart of what she had wanted for so long? A true collaboration. She was always pushing him to listen to her more, include her more, love her more. She didn't understand; he had already sacrificed the pace and purity of his work simply by sharing it with her — simply by marrying her. But that wasn't enough; it was never enough. Though she'd stopped reproaching him in words, he could still see the hurt in her eyes when he failed to give her enough signs and tokens and words of love. As if he constantly needed to prove that he loved her. Wouldn't this show her, once and for all, that he did?

I warned you about this, Nu. This ruins everything, sooner or later. It isn't worth it. It's never worth it.

"Shut up," he said to the air, and began grinning so wide it hurt.

It was time. Time to turn the tide. Time to lay the old dream, the old men, to rest. There were other dreams to be dreamed — dreams that weren't impossible, dreams that would be his own. And hers. Yes. He would go to Juliana. She should just be stirring into wakefulness now. He would slip into their bed, pull her close... she loved waking up with his arms around her...

Perhaps they could begin today.

No, no, no. It would all be for nothing. Don't you see? For nothing!

Noonien nestled the yellow vial among its brothers again, and sent them all back into their hiding place.

"It's all right," he told them as he accessed the temperature controls. "At least you'll die warm."

You're forgetting, A4. You owe me. You owe us.

"No," said A4. "I don't."

He depressurized the tiny chamber. He was watching the temperature slowly tick upward when the idea struck him. His eyes darted wildly back and forth.

A balance. What if he could strike a balance? Ability without ambition. Complexity without personality. No ego, no endless needs needs needs. Compliant. Steady. Safe. A means of collecting data, nothing more. Rather boring, actually, but oh well. Noonien would watch, and test, and record results — and then he would use the information to fix — to perfect — the android who had failed. The android he had failed.

Yes. Maybe he'd been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it's not strike-three and you're out. Maybe it's ball-four and you walk — and maybe the bases are loaded.

His fingers flew to dial the temperature back down. They trembled as he slipped The Tempest back into place.

"I'm sorry," he said.

He wasn't sure to whom, or for what.

Then he shuffled down the ladder and left the lab.

_o\O/o_

"You're going to try again."

It wasn't a question.

"We can't give up on him, Juliana."

"I can."

He didn't answer. She sighed and surprised him by pulling his arms tighter around her waist. He took the cue and kissed the back of her head.

"Who will it be, next time?" she whispered. "Me?" She threaded his hands with her fingers and tilted her face slightly, brushing his nose with her neck. "You?"

"This time will be different. You'll see. I can save him." A familiar spark had crept into his whisper. "See, I have an idea—"

Her head sank back into the pillow.

"Stop. I don't want to hear it. I won't fight you, Noonien; you'll do what you want. As always. But I do have one piece of advice for you."

He pulled her even closer, his lips nuzzling her ear.

"I'm listening."

"This time, for God's sake, give him a name."

_o\O/o_

_o\O/o_

. . .

. . .

. . .

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Yikes. The more I write the Soong family story, the sadder and more twisted it gets. Sorry about that. Or... you're welcome?

The title is taken from the indispensable "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

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"A man's reach should exceed his grasp" is a quote from the poem "Andrea del Sarto" by Robert Browning. Usually quoted in full, the famous sentence reads: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?".

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Medhavi: Hindi name meaning Wisdom. However, in Indian mythology Medhavi was the son of a famous sage who had struck a bargain with the gods that his son Medhavi would live as long as a certain mountain stood. Made arrogant by his supposed immortality, Medhavi angered Dhanushaksha, who transformed into a wild buffalo and smashed the mountain to pieces. Immediately Medhavi fell down dead.

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PLEASE review.