[(Deactivated dream sequence relates to this RP thread. It takes place between him losing consciousness and him waking up.)]

The weather in Haurvatat was improving a lot as spring grew closer. It encouraged more people to get out, the birds were singing, the trees were blossoming up with flowers that would eventually lead to burgeoning leaves. The best part was likely the smell. It was that sort of fresh dew smell that probably included a little pollen that most with allergies would dread. The sort that would bring out the first brightly colored insects of the year.

It looked just like Haurvatat was supposed to this time of year. It smelled like Haurvatat was supposed to. As far as Data knew, everything was exactly as it should be, but he always had difficulty telling his dreams from the real thing. Especially as he walked down the sidewalk and looked warily over the people he passed, his brow knitting up as he wondered over their appearance. Some had sharp, chiseled features like Lal before her anthropomorphized appearance, and noticeable joints and skin that was as luminescent as his own. Others were skeletal, bright chrome with glowing red eyes and an eerily smooth gait as they walked and regarded everyone. Others were gold with clockwork bits ticking away in their translucent heads. There were even others, much as Rommie appeared before her skin was applied with bared circuits and components. They were all dressed in human clothing, most appropriate to the time period, but he didn't see one single actual living person.

It created an unpleasant feeling deep in his abdomen, and he rubbed his stomach in some automated gesture of discomfort he wasn't quite familiar with. He had to assume that it had to do with the loss of something he was accustomed to. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that the androids weren't talking to each other, but rather communicating in chirped binary. It was unpleasant and harsh to his auditory sensors, not at all pleasing like the soft spoken tones of the humans he had become accustomed to. Demanding and earnest and confident, bearing the weight of the world but still with the passion to rise against it. That wasn't anywhere in these sounds.

He winced slightly, eyes narrowed as he slowed and looked out at the park. Out there in a blacksmith's uniform was a familiar man. His pupils narrowed and dilated and focused, information scrolling through his mind. It was Dr. Soong, approximately the age he would have been when he was working on his first prototype: when he took the molds that would later define the appearance of him and his brothers. He wondered when he arrived, and if he could answer where everyone had gone.

Data shoved by some of the androids, earning what could be assumed were annoyed looks as he started running for the park. Was Dr. Soong yelling at him? ...He should have been able to hear him from there, but he couldn't. The sound wasn't carrying. The sound wasn't leaving his mouth.

He didn't realize how badly he missed the sound of a human voice until he had been deprived of hearing it. Even if it was the voice of Soong that echoed through every word he spoke.

Was his own still working? "Dr. Soong?!" he managed to shout, grateful that he at least could. He received no response, though, and it wasn't until he was upon the blacksmith that he noticed the clear hexagonal shape beneath his father. Dr. Soong talked to him soundlessly, helplessly, and passionately from a holographic recording; motioning desperately as he tried to say whatever important thing it was that he wanted to impart.

Data simply stared in disappointment, and then stooped down to turn off and pick up the holoemitter. He turned it over in his hands, observing the distinct lack of a speaker on it.

There should be people he was looking for. He couldn't remember their names right now, but there were supposed to be people here.

Dragging his feet, the android wandered over to one of the benches and sat down heavily. It made no sense that he could not recall these individuals. Every analysis of his memories that he made resulted in censored forms where the figures they were supposed to represent had been. He heard a generic automated tone over all of their voices he had recorded.

He looked at the other side of the holoemitter, pausing as a bee lighted on the clear polycrystalline wall to investigate it. It's little wings fluttered, and Data drew the device closer to scrutinize it. Tiny hinges were where its wings were attached, and it's thorax was connected by a series of almost imperceptible wires. The multifaceted eyes gleamed like camera lenses, and rather than touching the surface with its tongue a small scanning light was coming out of its face.

Data blinked and sat the holoemitter off to the side, and then leaned down to pluck a small flower out of the grass at his feet. Tiny wires tore with a spark of electricity, and each petal glinted with iridescent biopolymer plastic.

It smelled real, though. It had that familiar smell. Were these birds some sort of recording as well?

Data barely had a chance to sit back up when a shadow cast over him, and his gold eyes trailed up the dark form that stepped before him... just to meet a face that reflected that look back at him. It was Lore, strangely dressed in the black, studded armor of a Chinese warlord.

"What do you think of it, brother?" he said, voice thick with smarmy charm. Data's voice, speaking as he typically did with a tone his brother would never feel comfortable using.

"Lore! What have you done with everyone?" He wanted to rise to his feet, but he couldn't. Lore's weight was suddenly settling into his lap, legs on either side of his thighs as he straddled and pinned him against the bench.

"Everyone? You're missing someone? Brother... do you even remember them?"

Data worked his mouth, blinking hard. He didn't want to respond. He felt compelled to despite it. "...In a way..."

Lore slid his arms around his neck. Somewhere behind him he heard a faint sound he didn't want to recognize; the sound of a fingernail being flicked up. The presence of circuits beneath it that made his electronic insides feel as if they were flipping. Lore was allowing him these memories.

"What about the Doctor?" he asked as images filled his mind of the Time Lord.

"Why do you care? Don't you know they think you're beneath them?" Lore gave him a sympathetic look. It nearly sickened him, that pity. "They're hundreds of years old. You're nothing to them. You're a toaster. You're a joke. A construct made by a particularly smart human that might have served for novel investigation. Believe me, I know how Time Lords think. I have my sources."

The words hit harder. They almost ached, an odd, unknown pain settling deep into him. Then more memories, and more people slipped into his head and filled in some of those blank spaces.

"The captain! Captain Picard-"

"Replaceable, Data. He says they missed you, but he's so.... diplomatic about it. No, they didn't miss you. You were a replaceable Starfleet officer. Like every other replaceable Starfleet officer."

"That's not true!" he argued, attempting to shove Lore off. But for some reason he was heavy, too heavy to move. "Sarah! What about her?! She has to be horrified right now....." Some passion and concern was actually worming its way into his voice. "Lore! Tell me where they are!"

"Sarah?! Hah! You're just a step short of a monster to her. You're a beast. A danger to everyone. You will never be able to make her see you as anything more than a fairly kind machine, a threat that's just slightly lower than the rest." The android bore down on him smiled his cruel smile, and another memory was allowed to trickle into his mind. This one struck deeper than the others. This one made Data jolt and writhe beneath his brother as the images returned to his mind.

"Lore, where is Avon?!" He grasped the leather collar to the armor, attempting to shake and threaten the other android.

"Avon is a step down from Often-Wrong. Heh, they even sound alike!" Lore cackled at his joke. "That would have made a slightly less clunky rhyme. Remember Mother's story, Data? Remember how Father became so unbearable and obsessed with his work she couldn't stand him anymore. Avon will never give up his work for you. You're a pretty little prize to him. You're something to make him happy until he's ready to go after what he really wants. You know it deep down. You know he'll betray you. But it's okay, brother! Because I did all of this for you. You and me... we can have this whole world and be the most special, perfect things in it. And we won't have to ever be told that we're wrong or used as tools again. We won't be a convenient toy ever again. We can show our faces without someone asking what's wrong with them. Data... this could be ours... These people will cause you pain. This world will revolve around you."

"No one is perfect, and I miss their voices! GIVE ME THEIR VOICES, LORE!" Data shouted, and then blinked in surprise at the sudden shock of his own voice. Something else jolted through him. His eyes went wide, and the hands shoving at Lore turned even weaker.

Lore grabbed the sides of his face. "Data, calm down, you're causing yourself a cascade failure. Just calm down. Keep yourself even."

"What about Harper and Andrej?! What about Garak and John and Trance, Lore?! Where are their voices!?" Data's eyes welled up, and the tears trickled in shining streaks down his faintly reflective cheeks. His neural net was beginning to shut down. He had to fight it. "Lore, give them back!"

"Brother, dear brother. You still have them. You still have them. But you will want this world back, and it will be right here waiting for you." One of the hands at his cheek trailed down over Data's neck, over his collar and the front of his shirt as if searching. The sensation didn't improve Data's feelings any. It made his bioplast layering want to squirm away from the polymer muscle beneath it. Then worse as the fingers pushed past the buttons on his shirt, reaching right through the skin of his stomach as if it were permeable. Data gasped, staring up at Lore in shock (not entirely by choice, as the other hand was still resting at his face).

The fingers wormed and squirmed inside of him, reaching until he grasped something hard. Something that didn't belong in there, foreign and intrusive. Where did that come from? The object dragged against his servos, making him shudder as tiny mechanisms and wires were pulled loose and reattached themselves to allow this strange thing to be drawn from Data's body. The dermal layer stretched with the movement of Lore's arm, and sealed as the the cool, slick, solid mass was removed.

Lore held up the crystal he had retrieved, presenting it to his horrified, trembling brother. "Beautiful, isn't it?" That wicked grin still creased that sinister replica of his own face. "This will take us to our world, brother. This will make our world a reality. All you have to do is tell me when you're ready..."