- Lt. Commander Data: I have often wished to be human. I study people carefully, in order to more closely approximate human behavior.
- Timothy: Why? We're stronger and smarter than humans. We can do more than they can.
- Lt. Commander Data: But I cannot take pride in my abilities. I cannot take pleasure in my accomplishments.
- Timothy: But... we never have to feel bad either.
- Lt. Commander Data: I would gladly risk feeling bad at times, if it also meant that I could... taste my dessert.
- Counselor Deanna Troi: [in Ten Forward] So, what would you like?
- Timothy: Androids do not need to eat or drink.
- [he sees a waiter with a tray filled with sundaes pass by]
- Timothy: However, we sometimes like to taste things. A Tamarin frost, please.
- [Data is trying to dress Timothy's hair, who keeps wiggling his head]
- Lt. Commander Data: Timothy, your head movements are counterproductive. Can you be still?
- Timothy: But you do it.
- Lt. Commander Data: [puzzled] The servo-mechanisms in my neck are designed to approximate human movements. I did not realize the effect was so distracting.
- [Data and Troi are watching Timothy playing with other children]
- Lt. Commander Data: He laughed!
- Counselor Deanna Troi: Yes. It's nice to see, isn't it?
- Lt. Commander Data: It is certainly not consistent with his android persona.
- Counselor Deanna Troi: I'd say he's beginning the process of letting go of that fantasy.
- Lt. Commander Data: Hm. Then my work with him is done.
- Counselor Deanna Troi: No, I... I don't think it is, Data. A laugh is one step in the right direction. We need to help him take a few more steps.
- Lt. Commander Data: Hello, Timothy.
- Timothy: Hi, Data. How are you?
- Lt. Commander Data: I am operating within established parameters. How are you?
- Timothy: I miss my parents. But... I'm okay.
- Counselor Deanna Troi: How're you feeling?
- Timothy: I am functioning within established parameters.
- Counselor Deanna Troi: [amused] "Established parameters"? You sound like Data.
- Timothy: I am an android.
- Counselor Deanna Troi: The best thing we can do right now is let Timothy take us where he wants to go. We should support the process and even encourage it.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Data, I would like you to make Timothy the best android he can possibly be.
- [last lines]
- Timothy: Can we still do things together? Even if I'm not really an android?
- Lt. Commander Data: I have many human friends. I would be pleased to count you among them.
- Timothy: That would be...
- [he takes on an 'androidish' expression]
- Timothy: ...acceptable.
- [smiles]
- Counselor Deanna Troi: [referring to Timothy] His world is gone, Data. We're gonna have to help him build a new one.
- Lt. Commander Data: I have often wondered what it must be like to have one's... mouth water in anticipation of the arrival of a confection. Or to feel the pleasure I have observed in humans as they consume it.
- Capt. Jean-Luc Picard: [to Data] Data, I would like you to make Timothy the best android he could possibly be.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: [to Georgi] Geordi, as a child, did you ever experienced a traumatic event?
- Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge: You wondering about Timothy?
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: Yes.
- Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge: I was caught in a fire once. I have must been... I don't know, five I guess. It was before I got the first Visor... It was only a couple of minutes until my parents found me and pulled me out. And nobody got hurt, but let me tell you... it was one of the longest couple of minutes of my life. It was a while after that before I could let my parents get out of ear shot. It was like... I absolutely needed to know that they were there, you know?
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: Timothy no longer has that kind of support.
- Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge: [sadly acknowledging] Yeah.
- [Timothy has been found pinned beneath a fallen beam on the Vico. After a failed attempt to beam him aboard, Data decides to free Timothy by lifting the debris off of him]
- Timothy: Are you going to lift that?
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: Yes. Then I will take you to the corridor.. We will transfer back to the Enterprise from there. Do you understand?
- Timothy: How can you pick up something so heavy?
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: I am an android. My strength is many times that of a human.
- [pause]
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: It is going to be... okay.
- [after coming to the conclusion that Timothy is not being fully honest about the Vico's destruction, Captain Picard has the boy taken into his ready room, with Counselor Troi and Lt. Commander Data present, for questioning]
- Capt. Jean-Luc Picard: Timothy, can you tell us what happened to your ship?
- Timothy: [firmly] I did tell you!
- Counselor Deanna Troi: Tell us again,
- Timothy: We were attacked.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: That is very unlikely, our investigation concludes that...
- Timothy: [interrupting; shouting] We were attacked, we were attacked!
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: [conciliating] Timothy... Androids do not lie.
- [pause]
- Timothy: It... It was... me.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: Please, explain.
- Timothy: [his voice breaking] It was me... I did it. I killed them all.
- [Data and Timothy are painting with acrylics when Timothy yawns sleepily]
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: Perhaps you should return to your quarters.
- Timothy: I'm fine. The servo-mechanisms in my mouth are designed to approximate human movements.
- [Data thinks for a moment, then opens his mouth, practicing yawning movements]
- Timothy: That is not bad.
- Lt. Cmdr. Data: [stops what he was doing] Thank you.
- Capt. Jean-Luc Picard: [to Geordi; about Timothy; looking at a map of the Vico, the destroyed science vessel] The boy was found here.
- Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge: Mm-hm, In the hallway outside the computer core. His mother was the ship's systems engineer. Second away team found her body here, inside the core.
- Capt. Jean-Luc Picard: And his father?
- Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge: Ship's second officer. He was most likely on the bridge when it was exposed to space.
- Capt. Jean-Luc Picard: [grimly] Most likely.
- [Data is brushing Timothy's hair to look like his own. Timothy starts to open up a little]
- Timothy: Data... what's the scariest thing that ever happened to you?
- Lt. Commander Data: Fear is not a quality that I possess.
- Timothy: Because it's an emotion?
- Lt. Commander Data: Correct.
- Timothy: But wha-what if you had a nightmare?
- Lt. Commander Data: I never have a nightmare. I do not require sleep.
- [Data stops mid brush and crouches down to a seated Timothy's eye level. There is what strangely looks like concern in his eyes as he watches the boy carefully]
- Lt. Commander Data: Timothy... Are you having disturbing dreams?
- Timothy: [Timothy hesitates before assuming the android persona] I... do not require sleep.
- Timothy: [the Enterprise is experiencing giant shock waves that are gradually getting more violent; Timothy starts remembering the Vico's final moments from listening to the converstation between Riker, Picard and Worf on the Bridge to La Forge in Engineering] Warp Power to the Shields... They said that too, Data. I'm positive!
- Lt. Commander Data: [the Enterprise is being compounded by increasingly more powerful shockwaves. With Timothy by his side, Data has discovered something unusual in his research from the science aft] Sir, Drop the sheids!
- Cmdr. William Riker: That's suicide, Data!
- Lt. Commander Data: Captain. Drop the shields.
- [Captain Picard looks at Data and sees that the android is dead serious]
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Make it so!
- [Worf drops the shields. The shock wave passes over the ship gently and calmly]
- [first lines]
- Capt. Jean-Luc Picard: [voiceover] Captain's log, stardate 45397.3. Two days ago, Starbase 514 lost contact with the research vessel Vico, which was sent to explore the interior of a black cluster. We are en route to investigate,