Author's Note: Eee! Ok! Here we are. The meaty chapter. Thank you for all your support. I am *super* behind on responding to comments & DMs right now. (My own fault because I couldn't say no on a project!) Thank you for your patience as I work to get caught up.
As a reminder, Ira Graves is suffering from a disease that impacts the frontal lobe of his brain. He is not thinking clearly.
If you find yourself needing a bit of a fluffy palate cleanser, please consider checking out Lady_Lore's new DaTasha piece, A Little Interruption.
Just in time for Valentine's, it's a fluffy look at the art of balancing parenthood & romance. It is set in the same universe as The Complication and focuses on Data & Tasha's attempts to find some alone time in the midst of raising a toddler (Shinebug).
Be warned – it contains one of the sweetest little spoilers for the entire series!
-X-
By 10:00 hours the next day, Ira Graves was feeling wholly confident in his new scheme. He had memorised all the senior officers, the layout of the ship, the responsibilities of his Bridge posting, and the specifications of Data's body.
After their early morning rendezvous, Kareen had permitted Ira to walk her back to her guest quarters. He'd been hoping for more but recognised it would take time.
And he had all the time in the world.
There had been a chime at the door around 07:15. Using the computer, Ira had learned it was the Security Chief, Natasha Yar.
He did not answer.
To Ira's dismay, she had left a package along with a message. It included a thermos of tea, a breakfast muffin, a pill of sorts, and a reminder to take his 'nutrient supplement.'
Graves realised this must be the supplement Data's records had referenced.
There was nothing stating the Security Chief disrupted them, nor could he fathom any reason why it would be restricted. The supplement itself contained no dangerous or controlled substances.
Unless this is all part of the prejudice Data experienced? Graves considered.
In any case, he didn't have long to endure.
-X-
If there was one thing Data feared more than anything – it was a cage.
Data had no idea how he got back to the Enterprise. He was having great difficulty in accessing his basic functions – most notably portions of his memory and his internal chronometer.
Most alarmingly, he had no physical control of his body.
Each attempt to conduct a complete system diagnostic resulted in an unknown error. Data felt as if he were fighting against some force for control of himself.
He could see his fingers moving, using the computer at his workstation to look up information about the ship and the senior officers. He could hear that someone was at the door.
But he had no ability to respond.
In fact, Data felt like he was screaming into a void.
And with each passing second, he grew concerned that this was no error. Rather, he feared it was some malevolent force intent on harming the Enterprise.
Or the Federation. Data thought.
Whatever had caused a surge to his system had left a memory gap.
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The Complication
Fanfiction"Am I the 'complication'?" Data asked. Following the events on Ligon II, Data struggles to reconcile the discrepancies between Tasha's verbal and nonverbal communication. Furthermore, his attempts to better understand what's happening lead to him fr...
