Immortal Coil - Jeffrey Lang [48]
“I considered that. The suits give off a unique energy signature, which would have shown up in the full-spectrum sweep the Institute’s security team conducted when they first arrived on the scene. It did not.”
“So we’ve yet to come up with anything to support the idea that someone else was involved in the incident.”
“Unfortunately, that is true,” Data said, “and I must confess, I am beginning to doubt my ‘instincts.’ “
“Why?” McAdams asked.
“Because we have not yet been able to advance one plausible theory for why this incident occurred.”
“I can think of several,” McAdams said. “A personal vendetta against one of the project members, an espionage mission gone awry, technological sabotage, maybe even terrorism.”
“I have considered these possibilities as well,” Data said. “None of them explains why Maddox wrote out my name at the scene.”
“Maybe it wasn’t your name,” McAdams speculated. “Maybe it meant to mean something else. ‘Data’ meant information a long time before you came along.”
“True, but given my … uneasy history with Commander Maddox within the context of his AI research, and his apparent condition when he wrote the word in his own blood, he must have been trying to convey something to whoever found him in the simplest, most expedient way possible.”
“All right, let’s look at that, then. Why would Maddox write your name?”
“The simplest answer is that he meant to implicate me in the incident.”
“But you weren’t there.”
“True. I was on my way to Atrea IV to retrieve my mother’s remains when this incident occurred.”
“Can you prove that?”
“The shuttlecraft’s records, the record of my time spent on Atrea IV, as well as Atrean eyewitnesses and my own memories, will verify that I traveled directly to Atrea IV after leaving the Enterprise. At the exact time of the incident, it would have been impossible for me to be anywhere near Galor IV.”
“That’s all right, I’ve already obtained most of that exculpatory evidence,” Rhea said with a slight smile. “One of the first things I did, in fact. I’m convinced—and I suspect, so is everyone else, or you would have been detained immediately after you beamed down to the DIT—that you can be ruled out as a suspect here.” McAdams started pacing the room. “But Maddox must have written your name for a reason, and the most obvious one would be that he thought you were there. So what if someone were impersonating you?”
“Can you ascribe a motive?”
“Again, to implicate you. Maybe our hypothetical vendetta wasn’t against the project scientists at all. Maybe it was an elaborate plot to discredit you.”
“Given the circumstances, I believe ‘elaborate’ would be an understatement. There would have been less problematical and more effective ways for an imposter to discredit me, if that were the goal.”
“Agreed,” said McAdams, and her pacing suddenly stopped before the cases holding the inert androids. She looked at Data. “What about Lore, then?”
Data hesitated. “As I explained earlier, that is not possible. Lore is dead.”
“Data, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but this investigation demands that we challenge any assumptions. So I have to ask… . Are you sure about that?”
Data felt an unpleasant surge of activity in his emotion chip. He stared at her for several seconds before he replied, and it was a struggle to keep his voice even. “Yes, Rhea, I am. I deactivated Lore permanently. He will not be coming back.”
McAdams went to him, concerned. “Data, I’m sorry. I realize that must be an old wound for you, and I don’t mean to reopen it, but stranger things have been known to happen.”
“Not this time,” Data said. “After Lore was deactivated, I brought him to the EnterpriseD and disconnected his positronic brain to ensure that something like what you are suggesting would never happen. I kept it in a vault in my old lab, isolated from his body, and designed the vault to self-destruct in the event it was ever tampered with.”
“What happened?”
“The EnterpriseD crashed on Veridian III. Lore’s body was undamaged, but the vault containing his brain