The Complication

The Void

Author's Note: Thank you for you continuing support on this story.

As a reminder, in this series there's about a year between Encounter At Farpoint and The Naked Now. I wanted to establish stronger relationship bonds between the crew before this story began.

Shoutout to my collaborator, Geri AKA Lady_Lore. Tasha's statement during their session with Deanna was drawn from her Missing Scenes retelling of The Naked Now.

*Majel Barrett voice* And now, the conclusion of Hollow Pursuits ... 

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The next morning, Data was lying in bed experiencing a strange dream. In recent months, his rest programme had occasionally initiated dream sequences. Often these featured scenes from literature or theatre that he was familiar with.

Occasionally, they were more mundane – like his shifts on the Bridge, walking through the corridors of the Enterprise, or playing his violin in Ten Forward.

Presently, his rest programme was running a dream programme that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. However, Data would label it as 'unusual.' 

In his dream, Data was crawling through the Jefferies tubes. He was not certain of which Jefferies tube or what his purpose there was. Data only knew that he needed to keep moving down the tube.

He turned at a junction and climbed up the ladder into one of the subsystem tubes.

As he continued on, Data felt like the tunnel was growing smaller. His spatial recognition sensors registered a drop in the width of the tunnel that seemed to increase with each passing metre.

As Data crawled through one of the bulkheads, he realised the bulkhead ahead of him was sealed. He wasn't sure how, but Data knew that he could not open it.

He began to crawl backwards to try and find another way around when the bulkhead behind him sealed.

Data paused as he began to theorise how he could escape.

The walls of the Jefferies tubes were beginning to close in around him. There was a power failure, and the lighting went out.

To Data, the experience was all too familiar – just like his time in the box that had contained him during his imprisonment under Bruce Maddox.

Data closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing.

The walls of a Jefferies tube could not simply collapse in on themselves. He could theorise no possible explanation for such a phenomenon other than it being some kind of false perception of reality.

But Data knew he was not supposed to be susceptible to such misperceptions.

He could feel the walls creeping closer. They were pressed against his shoulders now, constricting his body and putting pressure on his skeletal construction. It was a force too strong to resist.

People are prisoners Data, machines are property. He could hear Bruce Maddox say.

He was back in the box in Maddox's lab listening to Maddox discuss how he would take Data apart piece by piece if necessary should he opt to resist.

A moment before his duranium alloy skeleton was about to be crushed under the pressure, Data bolted awake and sat up in bed.

His artificial breathing programme was in overdrive as his system attempted to return itself to normal parameters.

As his optical receptors adjusted to the dark, Data scanned the room. He was in Tasha's bedroom and the walls of the room were in their precise positions – nothing was moving or closing in on him.