The BLTS Archive- Two Out Of Three...
by Quoth (qtheraven@geocities.com)

---

Usual Boring Disclaimer TM-- I wouldn't even dream of claiming these
characters as my own. I'm making no money on this. Paramount owns
everything pertaining to Star Trek.

Feedback of all types (except flames) welcome.

---
"I want you, I need you,
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you,
Now don't feel sad,
'Cause two out of three ain't bad."

Meat Loaf, "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad"
---

It was late on a weekend night, and the huge building was almost
completely dark and silent. Even the most dedicated scientists were
taking a break from their research at the Daystrom Institute. The
building was completely devoid of life, except for one man.

Maddox scowled as he turned his back to the diagrams on the screen in
front of him. No, he couldn't see anything that would indicate any
kind of behavioural malfunction. Whatever the problem was, he wouldn't
find it here. Swearing under his breath, he raked a hand through his
dark hair. No matter what what he looked at, there was no indication
of anything that could cause this kind of abnormality.

Sighing, he stood up and strolled into his lab. There, lying
unconscious on the biobed, was the source of his current trouble. He
recalled the time six years ago when he had first tried to get an
android on his disassembly table. Though he had been denied then,
three and a half years later he had suddenly been presented with
another, identical android by the Daystrom Institute and given a
seemingly simple task: Find out what had caused the behavioural
malfunctions, then fix the problem and proceed to conduct all
necessary experiments on the repaired neural net.

The problem with that was simple; after the first six months of study,
Maddox still couldn't find anything wrong with the physical
construction of the positronic brain. The problem had to be in the
programming. And the Daystrom Institute insisted he try to examine the
programming while the neural net was inactive, rather than simply
activate it and apply standard behavioural tests. They had him running
tests that took days to get a tentative set of results, let alone
anything conclusive, and they were beginning to hint that if *he* felt
himself unable to find the results they needed...  Maddox snorted.
What could happen if the android was conscious? Nothing. It couldn't
fake its way out of the Institute-- the building was too heavily
guarded. And the threat of disassembly should keep its behaviour
acceptable, even if it was reluctantly so.

Suddenly, Maddox made his decision. To hell with them. There was no
way he could make any progress to speak of while the unit was
inactive, and he wasn't losing his job just because they couldn't
accept the reality of the situation. Smartly, he stepped forward and
found the switch on the back, then quickly leaped back and activated
the forcefield on the door. No one could leave this room now unless
they knew the code, and only Maddox knew it. He calmly watched as the
unit regained consciousness and snapped to its feet.

"Data, I swear you're going to regret..." and the voice trailed off as
golden eyes took in the surroundings. "Who the hell are you?" came a
demand.

Maddox raised his eyebrows. Interesting. This one was obviously not
programmed with a courtesy program as Data was. Or maybe the program
was just faulty.

"I'm Doctor Maddox. I'm the one in charge of your case. From a
cybernetics perspective, you've been a most interesting study." He
deliberately omitted the words "difficult" and "frustrating".

"STUDY CASE?! I'm not your pet project! Let me go!" yelled Lore. He
couldn't believe this. This was beyond bad luck. He was under the
control of some wacky cyberneticist AGAIN!! Worse, this one was
apparently up himself and didn't seem to give one about his feelings
in the matter. At least Often Wrong had-- usually-- told him what he
would do before he did it. Who knew what this moron had done while he
had been under? Quickly, he ran a self-diagnostic, and was relieved to
see that, except for the insertion of an inactive homing beacon,
nothing major had been altered from his last moments of
conscioussness. Except, of course, the fact that he was no longer
practically broken in two where the disruptor had hit him. In
retrospect, he should've expected that Data wouldn't just stand there
and let him fry Data's circuits, but the last thing he'd expected was
for Data to fry his in return!

He glanced around quickly and saw that the door had a key code lock.
That meant he couldn't unlock the door's forcefield without the pass
code. And he knew that this slimy weasel must have it.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Maddox. "You have to stay here
until your programming has been altered, and then tests have to be run
to see if your neural net can be replicated. And don't think that you
can escape. I've implanted a homing beacon in your brain that will
automatically set off the security systems in this building if
detected outside this lab."

Lore fumed silently. Obviously, losing his temper would get him
nowhere fast. "Okay," he said as calmly as he could manage. "Look, I
really don't want to spend a long time in here, okay? Why don't you
just let me go, and I'll give you the help you need." He quickly
crossed his fingers behind his back.

Maddox smirked. Did this unit think he was stupid? "Of course," he
lied smoothly, "I would love to release you, but I'm afraid my
superiors just won't allow it."

Lore seethed. This pathetic excuse for a human was thwarting him.
Worse, *mocking* him, laughing to himself as he outwardly pretended to
be friendly, and thinking that Lore didn't realise it. Well, he'd
learn better soon enough, Lore would make sure of that...

"Well, then maybe I can help you interpret the test results. Oft-- I
mean, Doctor Soong gave me extensive, detailed information on all my
systems. Perhaps if you tell me what you need to know, I can help you
and then you can leave me alone."

Maddox paused. It was true that Noonien Soong would know how his
creation would operate, and it seemed likely enough that he had placed
a lot of necessary information into the unit's memory, if only for the
purpose of self-diagnostics.

Carefully he said, "Perhaps you can assist me. I need to run several
behavioural tests. If you perform these tests to the best of you
ability and stay obedient, you'll be permitted to stay active while
further study is done."

Lore considered that. He was being given a chance to stay activated,
at least. It would be good enough for now.
"Very well. What do you need me to do?"

"The first test I need to administer is one of self-control. I need to
determine the strength and stability of that section of your personal
programming. I'll be randomly stimulating different programs on your
emotion engram. You must do your best to avoid reacting, no matter
what. The points at which you fail to do so each time will be the
information I need to make some tentative guesses at the malfunction
in your programming." He deliberately spoke sharply, already testing
the unit's control.

Lore gritted his teeth. Soon, soon...

The sound of footfalls interrupted the both of them. Maddox, suddenly
alarmed, glanced toward the door. Had one of his colleagues surmised
his intention to activate the android?

A long, thin shadow appeared on the corridor floor and suddenly turned
to reveal, not one of his dimwitted, nosey-parker excuses for
assisants and colleagues, but a mirror image of the android that now
stood in front of him. Data, in his always-impeccable Starfleet
uniform. Maddox groaned. Data was going to throw a huge spanner in the
works here, he could just tell.

Data stopped dead in the middle of the doorway and frowned. "So
Technician Taaleq was correct. You have indeed taken a drastic step
unauthorized by either the Daystrom Institute or myself."

Taaleq! Maddox cursed inwardly. That overcautious air-brained moron!
He'd have the idiot's head on a platter for this, as his last act
before the Institute "invited" him to take an early retirement.

"Commander," he said coldly. "I was under the impression that you were
helping with the salvage of the Enterprise's saucer section on
Veridian Three."

"I was, until I got a mesage from Technician Taaleq expresing his
concern that you were going to do something stupid." Data sounded
annoyed. He must have installed the emotion chip, Maddox thought. This
irritated him. Data should have asked him of the advisability of
incorporating such a chip into his neural net before he did it.

"Oh, really, brother? Well, if it was so stupid, why have I left him
still standing there unhurt after I've been active and unrestrained?"
Lore asked as sarcastically as he could manage.

"Probably because you have not yet found a way to get away with doing
anything else."

Maddox groaned. Forget the spanner in the works, Data was throwing the
whole tool kit in. From the subject's body language, it was clear that
he was becoming more uncooperative by the second.

*He?* Maddox thought. *When did I start thinking of Lore as a he?* He
pondered that for a moment. Finally he realised that it had been when
Data had stepped in the door. He had been forced to think, grudgingly,
of Data as a he when he had discovered, among other things, that Data
had been intimate with a fellow crew member. That he had managed the
sex act was not what Bruce had found surprising; what was was the fact
that Data had recognised the intimacy of such an act, still keeping a
hologram of the woman in question, who Maddox had later discovered had
died.

And this android in the plain, drab Institute coverall was so like and
yet so unlike the one in the uniform...

He came back to reality to find the two glaring and trading insults:
spiteful from Lore, self-righteous from Data, and childish from both.
"ENOUGH!" he shouted. Totally without any more patience, he turned to
Data. "Data, I am going to proceed with these tests, despite the
protests of the Institute. I cannot get the information I need any
other way. If you want to help, fine, but otherwise get yourself lost.
Lore, you'd damn well better behave yourself or I'll have you in
smaller pieces than scrap metal before you can blink. And both of you
SHUT UP!"

Both of them stared at him in surprise, their argument temporarily
forgotten. Then Data spoke up. "I am going to stay here and supervise
these tests." His tone of voice brooked no disagreement.
Maddox sighed. Oh, well. At least Data would be able to keep Lore
under physical restraint if need be. "All right, Data, key in your
Starfleet clearance code and get in here."

Lore craned his neck as his brother tapped on the keyboard, but he
could not see the code from the other side of the door frame. *Damn.*
Still, there was always another time.

Data entered and quickly hit the automatic field reactivation. The
forcefield hissed back up, a barrier between them and the real world.
Data, always wary, moved immediately over to within restraining
distance of Lore. Maddox nodded.

"I have entered an additional code into the forcefield generator lock.
No one will be able to leave this room without giving this code in
addition to their personal code."

Maddox sighed. "That was unnecessary, Commander; there is already a
security beacon within his neural net. He can't escape."

"What do you intend to do?"

"I have designed a wave that will choose and activate at random one of
Lore's emotional programs. This tricorder has been modified to send
out the pulse, and control the intensity of each emotion. He needs to
keep his self-control as long as he can, while I increase the
intensity and note the level at which he fails. Once I have that
information, I might be able to tell where his self-control programs
have inbuilt failures." Lore scowled blackly but did not comment.

Maddox did not feel like prolonging this any further, so he said
brusquely, "Very well. The testing shall begin." He hit a series of
keys on his tricorder, randomly selecting and triggering an emotional
program. Then he watched clinically as Lore gasped and doubled over,
beginning to retch. *Hmm. Nausea. Not your typical android emotion. A
physical response to the emotion of intense revulsion, perhaps?
Interesting implications--* then he turned at an unexpected sound,
only to find Data, too, helplessly retching and gagging. Surprised,
Maddox hit the abort button on his tricorder, and watched as both
androids slowly returned to normal.

"What the hell was that all about?" he demanded.

"Apparently, the wave you have designed to activate Lore's emotional
engram has a similar effect on my emotion chip," Data said weakly,
still feeling awful.

Bruce considered this. Although it was clear that Data would not be
able to function as Lore's restrainer if he was affected by the wave
as deeply as Lore was, he could still be useful. It would certainly
help to be able to observe the reactions of both androids to the wave.
Apparently, the fact that Lore's emotion engram was inbuilt into his
net while Data's chip was an outside addition made no difference. That
could be useful in devising a way to make Lore more pliant, like Data.

He made his decision and addressed Lore. "All right. I'm going to
continue this experiment. I need this information and I assume Data is
going to want to stay here to make sure one of us doesn't damage the
other."

Data winced. Lore caught the look. "What is it, brother?" he snapped,
feeling irritated and embarrassed at his earlier display of
helplessness. "Can't you take what I'm expected to take?"

Data glared. "I am perfectly able to keep control of myself, Lore. And
what is more, I am going to stay here and make sure that you keep
control of yourself."

*Not likely,* thought Maddox. Data's limited experience with emotion
would make it more difficult for him to control himself than for Lore.
Still, he needed the comparison...

"Prepare yourselves. I'm starting again."

He keyed in the code for "random response" and watched as they both
stiffened. Their faces turned to stone as they fought to keep control,
battled not to fail in front of each other.

"What's this emotion?" he asked quickly.

"I would name it 'anxiety'" whispered Data.

"That's it, all right," muttered Lore. Both of them looked miserable,
but neither lost control. This meant that up till this point, the
integrity of Lore's programming was as strong as Data's. Bruce nodded
and amplified the intensity of the wave. Lore bit his lip and clenched
his fists. Data took a sharp breath and closed his eyes, but still
neither of them broke. Bruce shrugged and amplified it again.

Lore gasped and gave in, started to pace the floor. Data clenched his
fists for a few moments, trying to hold out, but lost the fight after
10.34 seconds and joined his brother in pointless pacing. Bruce
nodded, and noted the discrepancy on his computer terminal, before
selecting a different frequency. Data and Lore both stopped pacing and
simply looked at each other. Without warning they both burst into
peals of laughter.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess. Amusement?"

Data only nodded, unable to speak. Maddox decided to see if time let
the emotion fade; even if the wave was on continuous send, the effect
might still fade. Soon they were both near hysterical, unable to stop,
then they calmed slightly, still laughing, but softer. After there was
no further reduction in their hilarity, Maddox realised that a slight
reduction was all that would occur. Reassured that his invention was
not a failure, he switched to a third frequency.

He heard a sudden, unexpected sound, and looked away to check no-one
was watching him at the door, before he recalled that everyone was
gone for the weekend. When he turned back, there was no need to ask
what emotion they were feeling; it was plain to see that they were
both inarticulate with rage. Lore shouted incoherently and swore in
several languages-- Bruce couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at his
repetoire. Data, meanwhile, took his temper out on the wall. Though he
couldn't dent the solid duranium, he almost damaged his synthskin with
the sheer friction and force of the impacts. Suddenly, Lore swung
round on Maddox, cursed him and raced toward him, murderous rage in
his eyes which Maddox himself had placed there. Data was still too
occupied with the wall to bother restraining Lore, and Bruce hurriedly
changed the frequency, hoping for a more peaceful emotion.

Lore stopped as if he had been shot and cringed back, and Data whirled
from the wall he had been facing, eyes wide with panic. They were
obviously afraid. Bruce frowned. So far, once they had lost control on
the first emotion, they had failed to control any of the others. This
time, though, they seemed reasonably calm-- or were they just frozen
with fear? He needed to check.

He tried to make himself look as nonthreatening as possible, and
advanced slowly on Lore, whose legs gave way beneath him as he fell to
the ground in sheer terror. Data, too, collapsed and cringed in
distress. Both of them held up their arms, as if to ward off a blow.
Bruce frowned, and hit the tricorder key to decrease the intensity of
the wave.

Nothing happened. The androids still crouched on the floor in helpless
fear. Maddox was worried. Had the tricorder failed? He backed away
from the two cringing men on the floor and attempted another change in
frequency. It took three tries before the wave responded. There was
definately something wrong within the tricorder, but at least it had
worked. Their faces lost the terrified look, but the look which
supplanted it was not one Bruce could instantly identify. He puzzled
over it for a minute. Lore was not moving, but was simply staring at
Maddox with a singlemindedness that made Maddox uncomfortable.

"Turn this frequency off, Doctor Maddox." He turned in surprise-- it
was the first time Data had spoken since the anxious wave. Data, too,
was staring at him with a strange intensity.

"Turn it off, NOW!" he whispered urgently.

And now Lore was rising to his feet, slowly but surely, his intense
gaze still locked on Maddox. He took a step toward Maddox, and then
another.

"Lore, NO," shouted Data as he pushed himself up from the floor and
ran toward Lore, who was moving toward Bruce faster now. Maddox lost
his nerve and ran toward the only real cover in the room-- the
computer console. He was frantically trying to do something, anything
to the tricorder. No good-- it was jammed. Whatever this emotion was,
they'd be stuck on it till he could figure out a way to fix them.
Suddenly he realised that his brilliant experiment wasn't so brilliant
after all.

Data managed to catch hold of Lore before Bruce ducked behind the
console, where he desperately pounded the abort sequence on the
tricorder. It did no good at all. Groaning, he looked up at what was
happening. He hoped like crazy Data could control both himself and
Lore. Data had hold of Lore's arm, and Lore was whirling on him
fiercely. Bruce winced and ducked, not wanting to see the carnage he
fully expected would occur. He'd wanted to dissassemble Data years
ago, but he didn't really like the idea of watching Lore do it. After
a few tense moments of relative quiet as opposed to the tearing,
smashing noises he was waiting for, he looked up again, expecting to
see anything except what he actually saw.

The two brothers were standing almost silent on the middle of the
room, locked in a passionate kiss that seemed to become more heated by
the second. Maddox couldn't believe his eyes. *Lust,* an analytical
section in the back of his brain told him. *You just triggered the
emotion of lust.* Each seemed totally oblivious to their past
disagreements or the questionable morality of their current actions
with their brother.

*With the wave as strong as it is, they probably don't even realise
where they are or who they're doing this with. They're both just
catching hold of the closest humanoid, which happens to be each other.

Oh, wonderful. Now how do I fix this?*

They were running their hands over each other now, and Maddox banged
the tricorder against the computer in a useless and frustrated attempt
to get it working again. *Once they come back to their senses, Data
will half-kill me for this, unless Lore gets to me first, in which
case I won't have to worry about Data.*

Finally giving up the tricorder as a bad job, he looked for something
to smash it with, stop the wave at all costs; and glanced at the
brothers, who were by now beginning to undress each other. He suddenly
realised the true severity of the situation. He couldn't find anything
to destroy the tricorder with, and the two brothers wouldn't tire,
they would simply continue, and keep on going until the wave was
somehow deactivated. Frantically trying to find something heavy enough
to crush the tricorder with, he saw that they were both naked already.

In that state, the intensity of the arousal he had inadvertantly
stimulated in them was quite obvious.   The thought of his superiors
coming back tomorrow to find him stuck in the lab with two
nymphomaniac androids still going at it with each other was all he
needed to spur him into desparate action. Unable to leave the lab
without Data's door code, and failing to find a weapon inside the lab
to use for smashing the tricorder-- *you made sure Lore wouldn't have
any weapons, remember? Well, he's not thinking about escaping now!* he
ran full tilt at them and threw himself between them, shouting "All
right, listen you two, THAT'S ENOUGH!!"

In the one second the two of them spent simply staring at him, Bruce
realised what he'd just done. He'd thrown himself in between two
androids who were each as strong as ten men and were both too turned
on to even think rationally, much less listen to him or control
themselves. As two pairs of golden eyes regarded him and two pairs of
golden hands reached out, one thought stuck in his head.

*I am positive I must have done at least one thing more stupid than
this at some stage in my life, but I certainly cannot recall it right
now.*

Then he stiffened as two pairs of skillful hands began to slowly but
firmly stroke him, touching him everywhere. Lore's mouth-- at least,
he thought it was Lore-- captured his and claimed it in a deep kiss,
while Data's mouth found the sensitive skin on his neck. The
analytical section of his mind wondered, *Without their clothes, how
can I still be sure I know who is who?* And the rest of his mind
promptly answered, *Oh, that's right Bruce, THAT is the part to worry
about, you idiot!* They still held him in grasps of velvet steel,
gently but insistantly forcing this on him. Not out of cruelty or
revenge, but of a desparate need whose intensity drowned out all other
considerations for them. For a moment Bruce pitied them-- after all,
it wasn't their fault they were in this condition. Then he thought
about would they would most likely do to him in their desparate
unthinking hunger, and started feeling sorry for himself instead.

A pair of golden fingers gently slid under the collar of his uniform
and snaked along his back and shoulders, searching for the closure on
his uniform. Bruce suddenly realised that they fully intended to take
him right there. He tensed and tried to tear himself away, but he
couldn't move more than a centimetre.

*Oh, hell...*

Beginning to panic, he tried to relax. If he could just get them to
transfer their attentions to each other again, he might be able to
switch them off while they weren't watching and then he could figure
out what to do about the tricorder.

He caught hold of one of Data's golden hands and gently placed it on
Lore's shoulder. Data simply tightened the hand's hold on Lore, while
not altering his attentions to Maddox one iota.

*Damn.*

Now Lore's hands were sliding down to Bruce's hips, and the human
found his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

*You're just nervous and worried. It's perfectly natural, considering
you are probably going to get screwed half to death by these two. It's
nothing surprising.

Damn, and now I'm feeling hot. Just what I needed; the environmental
controls are messing up! They must be-- there's no other explanation.
Wait a minute. Why in hell am I worried about the environmental
systems at a time like this?*

Data's other hand found the closure on the back of his unform and
released it. Maddox's uniform began to slip off his torso. Quickly he
grasped at it to pull it back up, but Lore had already started to pull
it down.

Idiotically, the thought occured to him *My mother always warned me
that inconvenient things like this would only happen on the days I
didn't wear underwear.*

As soon as the uniform was past his hips, Lore's hand was on him,
while Data was stroking his buttocks. Lore's hand was, not just warm,
but surprisingly hot, and Bruce tried to concentrate on anything else
but how soft and real it felt. Dammit, he was only interested in
women-- Rachel was his current lady. She'd be furious if even a hint
of this came to her ears. This was *not* the sort of thing he went
for... it wasn't.

It wasn't...

Both of them caught hold of one of his hands and pressed it against
their hardness. He tried to pull his hands away, but they caught them
and gently but firmly guided them back. Bruce began to panic in
earnest. Taking a deep breath, he thought *Okay, maybe if I do this
they'll slow down a little.* He started to run his hands up and down
them. Unfortunately, this only caused them to further tighten their
grip on him. *Damn,* he thought, *I'd better stop that and try
something else. A back rub, perhaps? Pretend to massage them, and
slowly move my hands to their switches without them realizing that my
hands are--*

Suddenly, Bruce realizd that his hands were still unconsciously
pleasuring the androids, despite his brain's command to stop. Quickly
he froze his hands, shaking.

*What the hell am I doing?*

Data's arousal was now pressing hard against his hip, while Lore's was
pressing strongly against his own--

*Wait a minute; I'm hard? That can't be right, I can't be wanting
this, this is crazy, oh damn you two robots and damn me why didn't I
check that damn tricorder more thouroughly and I wish they'd just do
it...

To finish it, get it over and done with that's all I meant, I don't
want this I can't want this. It's just that I don't want to prolong
this any further than I can help and I just want it...

Just want it all over, can't cope with the thought of it going on for
long, it would be torture I'd scream for release-- I mean, for them to
release me, let me go...

Let go...*

The androids were kissing each other now, even though they were still
pressing against tanned human skin, leaning over his shoulder and
crushing his body hotly between them as their tongues flickered
sensually in each other's mouths, lips pressed together a few
centimetres from his ear. The soft moans of desire were all it took to
dissolve Bruce's already crumbling resistance.

Lore started to slowly slide to his knees in front of Bruce, trailing
his tongue and fingertips along the human's torso as he went. Data
walked around the front to take Bruce's mouth with his own. Once on
his knees, Lore didn't waste time, he simply took all of Bruce in his
mouth at once. Maddox gasped, noticing how soft and velvet and *real*
it felt, even as Data stroked his chest and gently teased the nipples
into tightness with his fingers.

Just as Maddox felt he was about to explode in delicious relief, Lore
moved his mouth away. He cried out in shock and dismay and tried to
pull Lore's head back to his manhood, but Lore was simply too strong
for him to move. Data caught hold of his hands before he could bring
them down to give himself release, elicting another agonised cry from
Bruce. Silently turning his back toward the human, Data placed
Maddox's hands on his shoulders and knelt down. Finally understanding,
Bruce gripped Data's shoulder tightly with one hand while carefully
guiding himself into the slender man in front of him with the other.
*Careful, don't hurt him* he thought, before he remembered that it was
impossible for him to physically injure Data.

After easing himself in so that he was completely enveloped inside
Data, he started to stroke in and out, first slowly, then with
increasing abandon as he savoured the feel of this new experience.
Data let out a soft moan of pleasure, and placed a golden hand on
Bruce's hips, making sure he didn't stop. But Bruce had no intention
of stopping. He was so enthralled in the sheer joy and discovery of a
previously unsuspected sensual aspect of both himself and the Soong
brothers that he barely noticed the shadow behind him until he felt
hands wrapping around his waist, and hard arousal pressed against his
backside. He tensed for a moment, instinctively trying to avoid the
coming invasion, then consciously willed himself to relax. And as Lore
entered him, a strange cry escaped his throat as he realised with
wonder that he liked the feeling of being taken as much as that of
taking.

Soon Maddox did not know whether to thrust his hips forwards or
backwards as the ministrations of the brothers sent him nearly crazy
with need for release. His right hand reached forward, seemingly of
its own accord, and started to pleasure Data's manhood. His left
reached behind him and started to massage Lore's slim butt, and the
room was filled with low moans of desire and pleasure from three
voices. Finally, the evidence of Data's pleasure poured out into
Bruce's hand, and that was all the further excitement the human
needed. Every muscle in his torso spasming with ecstacy, he finally
found relief in one of the most intense climaxes of his life. The
spasms of Maddox's canal were too much for Lore, and he, too, came
deep within the human. Worn out by a long day and a great deal of
physical exertion, Maddox toppled to his side and fell instantly
asleep. This bothered the androids not at all, who thanks to Maddox's
lust wave were already hard again. They simply began again with each
other, sliding away from the body of the sleeping human. They took
each other in their hands and started to stroke, trying instinctively
to bring each other relief from the desparate physical hunger.

When Maddox finally awoke, it took him a moment to recall why he was
lying naked on the floor of his lab. Then he remembered, and sharply
looked around to find the two brothers *still* passionately having
sex. Shaking his head with a mixture of envy and disbelief, he turned
his attention to the tricorder. Opening its access panel, he saw that
there was a feedback loop which had started, apparently, when he had
heightened the frequency to get them to react during anxiety. It had
jammed its own intensity logarithms in there, and started to block the
new emotion codes, finally shuddering to a halt and trapping the
brothers in one particular emotion. And the tricorder was also
reinforcing the code into their brains with the continuous wave. In
other words, if he didn't switch them off before he stopped the
tricorder, and if he didn't do it soon, the imprint of this emotion
code on their neural nets would be more or less permanent, and they'd
never stop. No matter what.

Wincing, he carefully stepped up to them. They seemed completely
oblivious to his presence. As, he recalled, they had been previously,
before he pulled his incredibly stupid "I am the boss here and I order
you to stop" act and jumped right into the situation. Taking a deep
breath, he sidled cautiously up behind one-- he'd lost track of who
was who when he'd fallen asleep-- and quickly flicked the switch.
Instantly, that android collapsed unconscious to the floor. Maddox
stared for a moment, stunned at the fact that tricorder wave was even
more effective then he'd originally thought-- the unconsious android
was *still* aroused-- and that second was almost his undoing. The
other android simply stepped over his brother's insensate form and
caught hold of Maddox. Maddox tensed, but tried to keep calm as the
android's mouth found his, doing his best *not* to recall how much
he'd enjoyed it before. Slowly stroking his hands over the android's
back, he found the off switch and hit it quickly before he could be
tempted to continue.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he quickly got dressed as he reviewed his
options. There was nothing he could use to destroy the tricorder
except the computer console, and it was welded to the floor-- wait.
Maybe he didn't have to *crush* the tricorder, after all. Quickly he
wrenched a cover of the console, exposing wires and crackling
electricity from the console's power frame. Exposing the tricorder's
electrical innards, he backed off, took careful aim and threw the
tricorder at the raw electrical energy. It hit straight and true, and
the tricorder exploded from the power overload in a massive display of
flashing crackles and hisses. Maddox sighed in relief, and stepped
back to the androids. He was pleased to note that they were no longer
excited-- there was obviously no permanent loop engraved on their
neural nets. The thought of being universally known as the man who
took two perfectly intelligent androids, one of whom was a prominent
member of Starfleet, and turned them into brainless nymphomaniacs was
not one he had relished.

Reaching towards one's activation switch, he paused. There was no real
way of telling who was who in this condition. He'd just have to
activate one of them and hope like crazy whoever it was would listen
to him. Flicking the switch, he jumped back as the android quickly
roused. Maddox watched as the android recall the events of the past
hours, eyes flickering to his body and noticing his nakedness. Then he
sighed. "Doctor Maddox, I think your invention needs significant
alteration."

"Not anymore it doesn't. What it needs now is a miracle." And Maddox
showed him the charred, fused remains of his still-hissing invention.
Seeing the android nod and pick up the discarded gold-and-black
Starfleet uniform, he asked quickly, "By the way, who do you have a
holofigurine of and why?"

"What? Oh," and the android smiled ruefully. "I have a hologram of my
deceased crewmate Natasha Yar, Doctor. I keep it because we shared an
intimacy that was very special to me."

Maddox relaxed. This was undoubtedly Data. "Uh, look," he said
quickly, seeing that Data was about to speak.

Together they chorussed "I'm sorry."

"Huh?" asked Maddox, confused. "*You're* sorry?"

"Yes. You were attempting to prevent us from doing something very
foolish and humiliating, and instead we drew you into it. I assure you
that had we been able to stop ourselves, we would have."

"Wasn't your fault. I should have run more tests on the silly thing
before I tried it on such a delicate thing as an emotion engram or
chip."

Data sighed as he donned his uniform. "What will happen to my brother
now?"

Maddox shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't supposed to activate him at
all. Only you and I know I did, but if Taaleq sent you that means he
at least suspects. I could be in a lot of trouble for this, and if I'm
taken off your brother's case I can assure you he'll never be woken
again."

Data pondered that in troubled silence for a moment, then asked, "If I
were to say that I found your method to be effective and I approved it
and offered my assistance, would that change your superior's minds?"

Maddox was surprised "You'd do that? Yes, it'd help. Chances are I'd
be given official permission to reactivate him someday." Seeing Data
still looked miserable and uncomfortable, he thought about how he'd
feel if someone, accidently or not, injected a major dose of an
aphrodisiac into him and set him and his brother Brian at each other.
Used and violated, most likely. He said awkwardly, "Look, I'm really
sorry I let that happen. I honestly had no idea what that frequency
was when I triggered it, and once it was on, it got stuck."

Data sighed again. "Do not concern yourself overly, Doctor Maddox. I
am naturally... uneasy with my actions, but I am also slightly
comforted as well."

"Comforted?"

"If my brother is never again reactivated, then at least I know that
his last memories of me are more pleasant than his previous ones."

Madox raised his brows. He'd never heard the exact details of the
circumstances under which Data had dissassembled Lore, and he was
naturally curious, but something in Data's eyes told him it wasn't his
place to ask.

"I see," he said, as Data expediantly dressed his brother and lifted
him back onto the biobed. Then, as Data entered in the code to unlock
the door, Bruce said "Data? I- uh," and he looked at his feet. "I...
want to thank you. For showing me a part of me I didn't know was
there."

Data nodded, and they left, leaving the still body of the eldest
brother deserted and alone.

When Maddox reached his living quarters, he found a message from
Rachel, wanting to know why he hadn't called her yesterday. And why he
hadn't sent her flowers for their six-week anniversary. She also added
a few bad-tempered comments about his parents and his performance in
bed. Bruce sat back and watched the message impassively, thinking
about all he had learned about himself last night. Smiling, Bruce
reached for the "Record Message" button and gleefully told Rachel to
go to hell.

---

The End