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You Can't Fight a Tidal Wave	By : madradena Category: Star Trek > The Next Generation Views: 1693 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own ST:TNG nor Dreamland, nor the characters from either. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Data sat at his computer that night trying hard to occupy his thoughts to keep his unpleasant memories from creeping back into his mind. He analysed his logs of the last two months in order to find a correlation between the workload on his system and the frequency of the images appearing in his mind and found some valuable data. If 72 percent of his working memory capacity and about the same amount of processor time was effectively in use, there was no room for any other conscious process to start or for a background process to come to front. If however, this number was lower than 50 percent which was still not even in the vicinity of his everyday workload, an occasional image or other kind of memory would appear in his mind. If the load was even lower, below 30 percent, he would find himself in that strange feedback-loop-like state, where everything would remind him of the events that transpired in Engineering two months before. He also found that by occupying his mind in this way, the emotions he experienced remained at only a subtle level, there were no high peaks in their potency. And this effect was just as gratifying as the diversion of his thoughts.
In order to reach the 72 percent workload, he needed to run multiple processes preferably using a highly complicated set of variables. To meet the requirement of such a high load, he found that the combination of dancing, singing and acting he was to perform at the holodeck was almost solely the only activity that could achieve the desired effect. He was now attempting to simulate the effect by simultaneously doing several things at a time. He was listening to a variety of music written in the so called "classic" style that was used in the first half of the 20th century. Although he found the term "classic" as slightly misleading, because he could find no correlation between Frank Sinatra and Bach. He was also downloading and indexing databanks about the genre "film noir", which Doctor Crusher indicated to be one of the genres "Dreamland" could be associated to. At the same time, he was reading about diets dedicated to cats in need of losing weight.
Spot appeared at his feet after a while and softly meowing to him, she started to climb up into his lap.
"Spot. You know that I do not appreciate it when you climb onto my desk." he told her on a soft voice, though he wanted to sound reprimanding "You know that, do you not." he told her while picking her up onto his lap. Spot immediately climbed onto the surface of the desk and positioned herself comfortably in the middle of the console. "Spot, do not be bad, please..." he told her again trying to sound reproachful.
About half a year ago, he noticed that Spot did not jump higher than the bed. She then picked up the habit to first climb onto his lap and then from there onto the desk. After consulting with Doctor Crusher, it became clear that the excessive weight and Spot's age had put a stress on the cat's delicate joints and bones making her unable to jump up to higher places. The thought made his heart sink, and he just patted the cat's soft fur. Spot put her head into his palm and started to purr as he stroked her gently. "Alright. You are not a bad cat. Even if you climb on my desk." he whispered. He started to feel a catch in his throat "I wish you could climb up on your own."
Before he could lose himself in sadness any more, the door chime sounded. Blinking back the tears that suddenly came to his eyes, he called out:
"Come in, please."
The door opened and Doctor Crusher stepped in: "Hi, Data!" she greeted him smiling.
He stood up politely and went around his console to step up to her: "Doctor Crusher. Good evening!"
She laughed out loud at this: "Evening? Data, it's 5 AM! It's morning!"
"Oh." he quickly checked his internal chronometer. She was right. "You are correct!" an amused small smile appeared on his lips "I seem to have... lost track of time!" he replied slowly with childlike wonder on his face.
Beverly saw that it was a bigger thing than it would seem to a human: "It has never happened before?" she asked curious.
Data looked into her eyes, and she was glad to see the same glint that he used to have before when he found something intriguing... "No, Doctor. Ever since my emotion-chip has been installed, I tried to perceive time the way humans do. I expected it could generate the same illusions that humans normally associate with time, for instance, when humans perceive time to fly by when they engage in activities they enjoy, or when time creeps by sluggishly, when they feel bored. But until now... it has never happened. It may be related to my attempt at occupying my mind."
Beverly also noted that some of his babbling had also returned - but this time, she didn't mind it at all. "Occupying your mind, hmm, I can hear that." she told him on a slightly disapproving voice indicating the jumble of music that was still playing.
Data started to explain "I am conducting research on the musical styles of the first half of the 20th century." then slowly realized that the expression on her face was not of someone who enjoyed what she heard "Would you like me to turn it off?"
"Well, it would be nice, if we could cut back on Irwin Berlin a little, maybe Sinatra can stay." she replied chuckling.
"Which one of the Sinatra albums would you rather prefer?"
"There are more of them playing right now?" Beverly looked at him with wide eyes, then she tried to somehow differentiate anything from the turmoil of singing voices, but failed altogether.
"Yes. Frankly Sentimental, In the Wee Small Hours and Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back - although the latter two are from the second half of the century, after listening to most of his early albums, I came to the conclusion that it might prove useful, if I listened to his later works also."
"Okay, Data, I see, but lets just pause it for a little while, okay?" she asked finally looking at him pleading.
"Yes, Doctor. Computer, pause all music, please!" he commanded and all of a sudden they were left in silence.
Beverly felt her ears were ringing. After blinking for a moment as if to clear her head, she finally looked at him with a glad expression on her face "I'm happy to see that you found something you liked in our play."
Data felt he could not answer to this. He had yet to decide whether he indeed liked anything in the play or it was rather only the benefit of his mind being occupied by it that seemed appealing to him.
"Now, let me see how is the big girl today!" she smiled again and looked over at Spot where she was taking a nap still on the desk. She walked up to the desk, took out the tricorder she had brought and ran a scan on the sleeping cat "Hmm... I have to praise you, she has not gained weight in the last two days. You managed to say no to her after all."
He walked back to the desk too and lay a gentle hand on his cat: "It is not easy. But for her benefit, I do." he replied, and Beverly was surprised that his voice was barely above a whisper.
She looked at him for a moment longer and felt her heart sink seeing his wistful expression. She put her tricorder away and touched his arm lightly: "Data." she called softly and he looked stunned first at her hand then at her face at the touch "She will live a long, healthy life. We just have to help her lose that weight. And we are on the right track. In every diet, it's always the first step that's difficult. You know, since she has nine lives, she may as well outlive even you!" she told him trying hard to cheer him up.
Data looked at her confused at first then found the necessary reference and smiled gratefully: "I do not believe in superstitions, Doctor, but I appreciate your effort at lifting my mood. In all honesty, indeed, I am very worried about her."
"Don't be! She is not sick. Just a little fat... I-I mean, overweight. She will lose it in no time." she told him encouragingly.
"Thank you, Doctor." he replied, and as it became the custom in the last few days, he thought she would say goodbye and leave for her breakfast with the Captain. But this time, she lingered on. It was obvious that something was on her mind, but she seemed a little uncomfortable about bringing it up. "Is there anything I can help you with, Doctor?" he asked finally.
"Ah...well." she started seemingly reluctantly "No, it's not something that you can help with. It's just, I would like to tell you something."
"Yes, Doctor."
"Look. Since things have taken a different turn yesterday than I have expected... I want to ask you... are you okay with what we have decided on? Because if you don't want to play with Emma, I want you to know that you do not have to..." she saw that he just looked at her confused waiting for her to go on so she did "Because I know that she is difficult and ...and as far as I could see, you don't really like her. When I ...when I asked Jean-Luc to talk you into playing in Dreamland, I did it because I thought that it would be fun, and you could enjoy yourself with all the singing and tap-dancing... I came to see that you don't really like the role, but... but actually, I would give it some time, maybe later you would get to like Him. However, now that I had to team you up with Emma, that is a big change in the settings. ... So as much as I would hate to lose you from this play, what I want to say is that the last thing I want to do is to force you to play a role that you don't like with somebody whom you hate. That would never be my intention. If you don't want to do this, I let you go, Data."
Here was his chance, he realized. He could get out of this, and nobody would think anything - at least, his emotion-chip seemed not to generate any feelings of necessity in participating as it did when the Captain indirectly ordered him to play the part. Now, he could walk away, and everybody would understand. Lieutenant Jones WAS very difficult after all. Lieutenant Barclay and Gomez were witnesses for that as well, and even Doctor Crusher, her only friend admitted that.
"No, Doctor Crusher." he heard his voice suddenly, and they both stood there surprised by his answer.
"Really? Are you sure you would be okay?"
"I..." he took a moment longer to reply, then he cocked his head to one side and told her: "I find Lieutenant Jones challenging. Both in the acting profession and personality-wise. I am inclined to stand up to both of these challenges."
Beverly smiled relieved "I'm glad, Data. Well, see you in the afternoon then!" she waved cheerfully and left.
Standing up to both challenges. It WAS true. It was also true that he did not want to give up the only activity that would put enough workload on his system to divert his mind. He also wished to study her personality, though the sudden attraction he had felt twice triggered by her nearness was baffling, he also decided that probably taking his sexuality program offline while being with her would solve the issue and would allow him to form an objective view of her. The diagnostics he had run on both his chip and the sexuality program returned no errors, so this was the only option he felt he had until he gained more information about her.
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You Can't Fight a Tidal Wave