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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.

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After finishing his Alpha shift, Lieutenant Commander Data went to his quarters to feed Spot. The cat hungrily munched her food while her owner - or more precisely, the person she let tend to her as Data often felt to be - pat her back. He looked around his small bedroom bemusedly, he did not feel like doing anything. Anything!
He started to go through all the things he could do to kill the time until he had to go back to his Gamma Shift at 2200 hours: he could practise some violin - what for? He hadn't felt like taking part in a concert since... oh, no, don't go there... He shook his head. Didn't matter how long! He could also paint something. But what should it be? He reached the last phase in his painting learning curve of all the styles ever invented just before... Oh, no, just stop it! He shook his head again and went on listing his options. Geordi invited him to meet him at Ten Forward this evening - as he did every day ever since... He shook his head again now very frustrated as he arrived at the same thought for the third time in just about 0.68 seconds - just the time he considered...
"Meow..." he heard from in front of him and looked down to meet Spot's golden eyes with a pair of his own.
"You think I should not shake my head every time I think about something unpleasant or I would get dizzy. But I can assure you, my friend, you need not to worry because it is not possible for me to feel dizzy. Not even with the emotion-chip. Being dizzy is rather a sensation then an emotion... Although I did actually experience the sensation of dizziness over eight years ago during the polywater intoxication incident..." then he stopped suddenly as he realized just when exactly was the last time he recalled that actual memory. He stood up abruptly "As if I was actually caught in a feedback loop!" he whispered to himself.
As he looked at Spot again, the cat sat next to her now empty bowl and looked up at him again. Data raised his forefinger as he started to explain to Spot what he thought had just happened while he activated two backup processors in his positronic net to run a diagnostic check on his mnemonic system to make sure that he was not experiencing a feedback loop. "You know, Spot, the occurrence that transpired just now between you and me is a very common phenomenon between pets and their owners. It is called projection. You look at me, and I project an emotion, an expression to your face, and it gives me the impression that you actually think what I think you think... Whereas you probably only attempt to express that you are still hungry." he added with a hint of bemusement.
He picked up the empty bowl and went to the replicator unit with it. Spot followed him and tried all means available to a cat to get him to give her some more food. But Data just shook his head this time in denial "No, Spot! Doctor Crusher told us that you may not eat more than once a day. You already gained a weight that is utterly unhealthy for a cat your age and kind. No. I said no! And that is my last word! ...Alright, alright but just quarter of a portion. Not more than that... Alright half a portion but that is really my last word, Spot! No more blackmail!" Blackmail... Spot had not been the only female using blackmail as a means to get what she wanted from him these days... Data sighed and filling Spot's bowl - with a full portion - once again left his cat alone to get out of his quarters, hoping in vain to get away also from his dark thoughts.
Still he did not feel like joining Geordi in Ten Forward. He sighed again. Maybe he just should deactivate his emotion-chip. The only emotion he got from it these days was bemusement anyway. It was no help with coping with whatever happened to him during the time he was held captive by the Borg. However, he also knew that turning it off would just delay the unpleasant feelings which would come back with multiplied force once he activated the chip again. No. Bemusement was better than feeling utterly helpless or desperate - just the way he usually felt whenever he tried to use his dream program nowadays. The chip stays activated, he decided, and I go and have a walk.
He went to the holodeck and activated the forest pattern that was one of the most popular among humans. He hoped it would somehow work for him too and would clear his mind. The terrain was quite difficult - or would have been, had he been a human - but he was definitely not a human with or without the emotion-chip he had coveted so much before. So he walked about in the rainforest with an effortless grace. He arrived at a large tree, where he used to practise whistling so many times. He practised for so many years that he almost nailed it. Almost! And just as he was about to achieve perfection, he finally had the chip installed and he managed to do whistling just as flawlessly as most other things. When he realized that the chip gave him this ability as well and not only emotions or memories, the realization filled him with a strange anti-climactic feeling. As if he had been reading a very long book, for a very long time, and then suddenly jumping to the very end without reading the last part of the story leading up to that end.
Indeed the chip gave him many a fascinating feeling and experience. However it also allowed some unpleasant boundaries to be formed around his way of thinking. Taking the supposed feedback loop, he had been previously experiencing, for an instance. The diagnostic ran to the end and provided no results on a malfunction. This has not been the first time he had experienced that his internal resources were consumed by one particular thought process for a lengthened period of time. If he was human, it could be said that he was preoccupied. It seemed that the chip allowed him to experience this particular weakness of the human way of thinking. While intriguing as it was, it was also very limiting. And Data was not used to the fact that he was not able to completely control his thought processes.
He checked his internal chronometer and decided to finish the program half an hour before he was due on the Bridge again, so he could have time to change into a new uniform. Although he did not require the specific cleansing rituals humans often engaged in, like taking showers and (therefore) changing clothes, he nevertheless did at least the changing clothes part. The reason behind it was that he noticed that his crew mates regularly changed their outfits even if it only meant changing from one set of uniform into another. He kept up with the habit even as it dawned on him quite early - as early as in the Academy - that humans did this because they had the ability to sweat, and most of them did not approve of the smell accompanying the phenomenon. He often wondered whether his crew mates realized that he could actually smell them all the same whether they changed or not, only the intensity changed to a certain degree.
However now he actually needed a change of clothes as the humid air of the rainforest and his climbing around among trees and roots left his clothes wet and dirty. He stopped at a patch of grass.
"Computer!" he called and it answered him with a chirp awaiting his commands "Save and exit program."
"Program saved." answered the computer and the nature around him disappeared leaving him in the dark room of the holodeck with its grid-patterned black walls. The walls seemed to lean over him suddenly, leaving him feeling very tiny and helpless, just as he did when he...
After saying good night to Beverly, Emma was just not able to fall asleep. She had never been a good sleeper, but if she had to sleep at a new place, it was just a real nightmare - not that sleeping comfortably didn't result in nightmares at times too. She decided to take a walk, and as she was walking on a corridor, where she realized she had no idea how to get back to her quarters, she decided that she might as well check this so called holodeck out. It should not be more difficult to find than her quarters. And actually after some wandering about, a turbolift took her to a corridor which led her to her destination. She had no idea whatsoever on what exactly she should have expected, but what actually greeted her left her utterly disappointed.
She stepped into holodeck Three and found herself in a small room with black walls and a grid pattern in yellow all around her.
"Ah come ooon! Gimme a break!" she groaned "This? This should be the big deal?" she turned around as the door of the holodeck closed behind her "Oh, great! Just great! I had myself locked up in my worst nightmare: inside a maths notebook! The one thing I need is a pen to use it as all maths notebooks should be used: playing tick-tack-toe!" she growled.
"Computer! Create a pen please!" she heard a man calling behind her suddenly and jumped at least two meters backwards.
"Ssssssshhhiiiit!" she put her hand on her heart still wanting to jump out of her chest and tried to take as many breaths as she could without knocking herself out with hyper-ventilation.
"Please specify parameters: color, thickness, size..." the computer went on, while Emma looked straight into the eyes of Data stepping out from the farthest corner of the room.
"Why the hell did you hide in here? You some kind of psycho looking for girls to kill with giving them a fright?!" she demanded then wiped the sweat off her face "Man, you scared me shitless!"
"I apologize. I did not mean to scare you. It was actually you who entered an already occupied holodeck. It is customary to check the state of the holodeck before entering on the panel next to the door." Data told her matter of factly, while walking up to her slowly.
Emma frowned at this: "Next time, when I am out of your little chamber of maths-horror, I will definitely check all of the damned panels I meet."
Data seemed to be thinking for a moment and slowly arrived at the conclusion that this was a sarcastic comment. However before he could ask her why exactly she felt she needed to use sarcasm in response to a factual statement, the computer chimed in again.
"Please specify parameters."
Data looked at Emma and as she did not seem to react, he supposed she needed some help with interpreting what the computer required from her: "You need to specify certain parameters in order that the computer can replicate the pen that you would like to have. What purpose do you need a pen for?" actually he was genuinely interested now.
Emma's scare turned into confusion as she raised her eyebrows in suspicion at this, and after a moment her shoulders as well: "Well... okay. I need a pen that fits into my hand and has a color that is visible on these walls and ...and can be washed from the walls as well..."
In a moment, the computer replicated a thick felt-tip pen in golden color right in front of her boots. "Ohmygod!" Emma blurted as she jumped behind Data in one motion. In the next instant, she realized she must have seemed really stupid. Of course, she had seen replication happening before: on the Station 505, food was replicated this way, and in her time with the Fleet before ending up on the colony... But on her planet there was no such thing as a replicator unit, and she was absolutely not used to the sight of objects appearing out of thinair.
Data watched her reactions curiously. She did not seem to be familiar with this very basic technology - yet she was here on the Enterprise in a Starfleet uniform. He quickly went through the administrative files on transfers of officers and found her name in 0.032 seconds. Emma Jones nee Stern, species: human, current rank: Lieutenant, Medical Officer, date of birth: Sep 7 2330, year of graduation: 2354, height: 1.72 meters, eye color: green, hair color: brown, last station: colony Epsilon Four, marital status: married.
Emma realizing how clumsy and silly she must have seemed, held her chin up high and went back to fetch the pen as if nothing was more natural then getting scared from a replicated pen. Then looked at Data and told him offhandedly: "What are you standing there for, psycho-guy? Fetch a pen for yourself!" she smiled at him challengingly.
Data blinked for a moment not being sure which part of her sentence should he check first for stylistic analysis - he never really talked to anybody who spoke just the same way she did - then ordered for the computer to replicate a similar pen but in a different color. The computer produced a pen in silver.
"Okay. So you are with X, I am with O. You start. First 3-by-3 grid, then we go up to 10-by-10, if I see that you are good enough!" she told him with a slight smirk.
Data looked at her seemingly sceptically, while he searched for any kind of activity fitting in the given rules and the name tick-tack-toe. Then looked up with a slight smile when he found the ancient Earth game in his archived databanks of... well, ancient Earth games. "Ah, Tic-tac-toe (also known as Noughts and crosses or Xs and Os) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game. - I suppose instead of paper and pencils you would like to use the walls or the floor of the holodeck and the pens the computer just replicated. Quite innovative!" he commented delightfully.
Emma blinked at him for a few moments then nodded with a patient expression: "Yes. Glad you arrived, my dear." she sneered slightly, and then suddenly a thought struck her "You don't play tick-tack-toe, now do you? Here in space, you have other means of entertainment. You don't need to fall back on such simple things to kill time." she breathed then sighed thoughtfully as the realization slowly dawned on her. She shrugged apologetically "I'm sorry." she tried to smile this time apologetically.
Data frowned at her: "For what exactly? You did not offend me. Or your sarcastic remarks could be referred to as a means of offence?"
Emma winced now regretting her usual ways: "Well, some people ARE sensitive to it..." then looked at him now getting real confused by his reactions.
"Did you do it out of malice?" Data asked and this time Emma felt she was hit by the innocence he displayed.
She gaped at him for a moment longer then shrugged: "I did it out of being a bitch with people I'm not acquainted or reacquainted with. Most of the time." as she saw that Data looked quite confused at this she added "But then again, you are not from around either, are you?" and she couldn't stop a delightful smile creeping into her face.
"To what exactly do you refer by 'around'?" Data asked ever-serious.
Emma waved it away then pointed to the wall next to her with her thumb: "Never mind! It's your turn, Mr. X! Game on!"
Half of the wall and the floor was covered with O's and X's by the time Data had to go - they needed to replicate chairs at the end to be able to reach parts of the grid higher up on the wall. After beating her in the one game she thought she was really good at on a grid pattern, he escorted her to the nearest turbolift which could take her home, without her having to know where exactly that home was on the still maze-like ship.
Then he changed into a new uniform super-quickly to get on the Bridge just in time for his shift to start. He found it however fairly intriguing that his unusual play-mate presented him with enough language-puzzles of sarcasm and what she called colonial-dialect that could keep his mind from going back to its feedback-loop for over an hour and ten minutes. But not more than that... And in the monotonous duty of the night-shift, he found his thoughts drifting back into a dark chamber, where horror was far worse than simple maths. And he again was thankful for simple bemusement over anything else his most-coveted chip had to offer that night...
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You Can't Fight a Tidal Wave