#he will obliterate narek with words

[my-timing-is-digital]

His daughter’s smile was, irrefutably, one of the most aesthetic phenomena he had ever perceived in his lifetime; her smile far surpassed the beauteous nebulae and exquisite worlds he had visited by, at least, several thousand lightyears — metaphorically speaking, of course. But he had never witnessed anyone smiling up to him in the manner she did; she was beaming, appreciative, grateful of the recognition he had distributed — an accolade solely directed to her address, clearly an unconventional occurrence. The curvature of her lips as she welcomed the felicitous compliment and the scintillation in her bright eyes instantaneously erased any incertitudes regarding whether or not he could abide by his self-established criteria of what constituted a good parent; he was thwacked by the notion, by the confidence that he would do surprisingly well — perhaps he should cease underestimating himself...

More synthetic lifeforms? Twins? His positronic brain almost seemed to reel in anarchy as its processing capabilities quadrupled at this brand new divulgence. Millions of queries formulated within less than a nanosecond, all fighting their way to the foreground of his consciousness; his synthetic tongue burnt red-hot with questions while his subroutines bid him to govern his insatiable inquisitiveness, his unassailable enthusiasm to attain additional information. More androids like him? like her?! His days of contemplating his existence and how to preserve the continuation of his kind had finally reached a cessation — he was no longer a solitary android, he had a family, was a singular unit in a society of multitudinous sentient artificial beings!

His chartreuse eyes phosphoresced with awe, with eagerness to introduce himself to others of his kind. However, the transition of her word choice, the modulation of her inflection, caused his suppressed ecstasy to totter to a loitering pace, almost stationary, as he listened, studiously.

The devastating news she disclosed arrived with more force than he had anticipated. Her twin sister, his other daughter, a facsimile of Soji, had been killed. But why? For what purpose? He failed to conserve the perpetuation of his facial expression of emulated effervescence. The announcement perforated the integrity of the questions he had sculpted in his positronic brain. Evocations of Lal and her deactivation instantaneously responded to the gravitational pull ushering the aforementioned recollections to fulgurate like a fever dream before his eyes. It felt like his tactile sensors were registering an inexplicable force swallowing him up, as if the ground had lost cohesion, spiraling down an abyss; a free fall, like what transpired to the saucer section of the Enterprise-D prior to its imminent obliteration; endless tumbling, no forces available to counteract the attraction the class M planet exercised on the saucer, no invisible wire pulling them back up into the cold embrace of space — and there was no emergency protocol he could have employed to circumvent it. They were powerless, compelled to watch their venerated starship plummet to its annihilation. And, in this exact moment, standing opposite Soji, his eyes locked with hers, digesting the news that threatened to clog his circuitry, he felt powerless once more... If only he had been there to guarantee Dahj’s physical integrity, to protect them both and keep them safe...

However, before he could insert words of sympathy, his condolences, she bashed him with another brick of reality pivoting around to the mortality, the fragility of mankind. The Captain... One of his dearest friends... His mind was inundated with information, and he required a moment to orchestrate and diminish the menagerie that presently undermined the efficiency of his primary systems.

‘I find myself incapable of producing perspicuous sentences,’ he eventually stated truthfully, a silent undercurrent of embarrassment cowered in the depths of his apologetic voice. ‘There are too many variables I do not yet comprehend...’ he trailed off, a ruminative frown rippled his forehead. ‘I am sorry I was not there to protect Dahj, and you. We could try to rebuild her, upload her consciousness into a new synthetic body, like you did me.’

His eyes darted to the stasis chamber he had emerged from several minutes ago.

‘The Captain,’ he said promptly with recalibrated determination, releasing his daughter from his secure embrace, and commenced the computation of his itinerary to what appeared to be the exit of the laboratory. ‘I must see him,’ he said, setting off into the direction of the door, but became stationary 3.6 metres into his impulsively initiated expedition. ‘Soji. Please, bring me to him.’

Soji nearly collapses back into tears as he expresses pride in her, as he smiles at her-- He doesn't have any idea, not yet, just how much she needed to hear that. It carries more weight than it should, for a whole host of purely emotional reasons, but it helps bridge a few gaps in her fractured psyche. She keeps it together, thankfully, and can't help but smile as he glances out the window.

"It is," Soji answers and she is about to agree--but-- She stills as considerations of the world outside this office come back to her. Not even the grand, impossible kind of considerations, just the local, the imminent--

"I would love to go for a walk," she starts, honestly, because there's really nothing she would like more. "But…I think I should tell you a bit more first." She should start with Picard. The reason she knew the transfer had been repaired, the reason she tried to wake him up, the reason she'd been cursing the bright weather only a short time ago--she can't quite manage it--but she can come around to it.

"There are…just so many synths here," Soji starts with a tone of bright wonder and delight, because she does delight in the lot of them. They're family, albeit removed from her, and she treasures them. But this--it's both the happiest and saddest subject she has to inform him about. "They're wonderful, and curious, and they can be a lot--they'll be so happy to see you," she assures him and has to take a deep breath. "They…we…are all constructed in pairs. It's part of the process to build our neural nets. I don't understand it, it's too complicated for lay people, but…almost everyone here has a twin."

Her smile falters a bit but she catches it before it collapses.

"So, rather than you finding out while we're walking, I--I had a sister too. Dahj. She was killed." Saying her name out loud sets off an ache in Soji's chest, but she carries on. She's been so overwhelmed with everything, it will be an age before she can begin to unpack her grief about Dahj. Right now, she's just numb to it, removed, like it happened to someone else.

"Jean Luc Picard tried to save her, but he couldn't," she continues. "He saved me…twice in the last few days, and--"

She has to take another deep breath and this one feels heavy as she lets it out.

"He died." Those words fall like a stone and Soji lets them clatter to the floor. "The protocol I used to wake you up, they're using it now to wake him up. Or to try to wake him up in a new, synthetic body. Agnes was pretty sure it would work but I just…I haven't been able to check. When we leave, we're going to go straight past them and the bodies--I don't want you to be surprised by a sight like that." For all she knows, Picard is awake and having tea with Agnes right now. It's entirely possible but Soji's fresh out of optimism.