Hi everyone! Sorry I've been so long with this, but I really haven't been at all well. Stupid migraines! :P See, my doctor tried to put me on this new migraine medication and after just a day at the lowest dose it made me ridiculously, frighteningly sick. Like an idiot, I kept taking the nasty stuff for another couple days thinking maybe I just had to force my way through or something, but it got bad. Like, so bad my parents got rid of the pills. So, now I'm off the stupid medication and back to the useless old over-the-counter stuff but I'm way behind on all my New Year goals and guess what - I got a migraine! GAAH! Anyway, I can see the screen today and I've been writing and writing and this chapter's been growing and growing and growing! LOL! I'm almost at the end, but it's getting so long I think I'm going to post half of it now and take a break for dinner, then come back re-charged to tackle the rest. Hope you don't mind I'm splitting up the conclusion! Stay tuned for the end of Skin Deep: Part II, and a special preview for Skin Deep: Part III, coming soon to a computer screen near you! Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this next part. Please let me know what you think! :D
Chapter Thirty-Six: CONCLUSION, Part 1
The sound of happy laughter could be heard well outside the Klingon woman's dome. Silarra checked her timekeeper, then straightened her shoulders and set her disguised face in a patently Klingon scowl.
The door slid open and the android stepped out into the warming wind, his amber eyes still bright from laughing.
"Welcome home!" he exclaimed, racing across the sand to greet her as if he were a child himself. "The girls and I have everything prepared for our morning meal together! All we are missing is you. Kurak-oy..." His smile warmed and he leaned in close, reaching for her hand.
She slapped his hand away, but before his smile could drop too far, she grabbed his arm and pulled him roughly out of the wind and into the shadowed part of the dome, away from any doors or windows.
The android chuckled, seeming befuddled, but clearly willing to follow her lead.
"I missed you," he confessed and leaned against the prefab dome's rounded metal exterior, ducking his head a little to meet her eyes as he raised a hand to gently smooth his fingers through 'Kurak's' long wavy hair. "I hope you will be pleased by my efforts to meet the challenge you set. I know the children found this morning's culinary adventure most enjoyable. In fact," he said, grinning happily, "we had 'fun'!"
Silarra regarded him, her lips stretching in a cold sneer. The android blinked and cocked his head like a curious bird.
"Kurak?" He cupped her hands between his. "My darling, you have not yet said a word to me. Is there something wrong?"
"'My darling'," she snorted and pulled away from his touch. "You really are a fool. Haven't you figured it out by now?"
"Figured what out?" Data blinked again, his warm expression fading into a concerned frown. "I do not understand. Has something happened to upset you?"
Silarra snorted, then shoved him hard against the wall in an echo of the move she'd used outside the Klingon's lab. The android's eyes widened in alarmed confusion, but he responded quickly enough when she pressed a fierce, devouring kiss against his lips. His amber eyes closed, his arms rose to embrace her, gently at first, then with rising, genuine passion until—
"Wait!" he gasped and pulled his head back. "No, please, stop. I—"
He shook his head and stepped away, pressing both hands to his temples.
"I apologize. I do not know what is wrong. The images from my nightmare… Why would they...now...? I don't…"
Silarra couldn't help it. A bubble of laughter rose up inside her and she released a scornful cackle.
Data stared at her, his mouth just slightly open. She could almost hear the strange mental click that made his head twitch, leaving his face so drained of color it almost seemed gray.
"You are not Kurak," he realized, then rushed at her, his android speed actually frightening the Suliban chameleon as he pinned her arm against the dome wall. "Who are you," he demanded fiercely. "Where is Kurak! Speak to me!"
"You want me to talk?" she sneered, infuriated by the way she'd let him surprise her. "Process this, then, android. There is no Kurak."
"That is a lie. Whatever game you are attempting to play here, I don't find it amusing," Data said coldly. "Tell me the truth. Reveal your identity and the purpose of this attempted deception. Now!"
"I'm telling you, fool," she hissed, glaring into his unsettlingly convincing human features as she gathered her confidence around her like a protective mantel. "The Klingon scientist, Kurak, was killed before you and your Federation friends even arrived at this compound. Vaporized in her lab by that Nausicaan – fffsshhtt! – just like poor Dr. Baker." She laughed again, watching his expression pinch, his eyes flick back and forth in disbelieving horror. "Once she was gone, I slipped in to take her place. That's all there is to it."
"No," he asserted. "No, what you say cannot be possible. Dr. Crusher treated Kurak's wounds. She would have known if—"
"My holographic guises have fooled experts and computer systems alike across three quadrants. I am very good at what I do." She smirked, stroking his cheek with her free hand. "As you yourself can attest, I'm sure. Data-oy…"
"Stop it!" he exclaimed, shaking away from her touch. "Stop lying! Tell me what you've done with Kurak. If she's been harmed in any way—"
"How hard must I hit to force this fact through your thick, metal skull," Silarra snarled. "You never got to know the real, living Kurak, Data. The horseback race to the ruins? The night you thought you shared together?" She leaned in close and deactivated her holographic guise, pressing her greenish, pebbled cheek to his ear as she whispered, "It never happened, Data. You were with me all along."
"Gah!" the android cried, leaping back and rubbing his ear as though her words had literally burned him. "It is not true," he insisted angrily. "It is not possible! Whoever - whatever you are, whatever your mission here... You will not get away with this."
"Oh, really," she said. "What if I were to tell you that I already have? And, it's all thanks to you. Data-oy."
"Do not," he warned, his expression turning dangerous. "You will explain the meaning of that statement. What is it that you want from me!"
Silarra tilted her head back and laughed, only adding to his angry confusion.
"Oh, you are a fool!" she chortled. "I've never known such a naive and bumbling idiot! Can you really be so stupid?" She smirked at him. "Well. Perhaps you are too dense to realize the the facts, Commander. But, the truth is, I hold your reputation, your entire career, right here, in my hand. In other words," she said, "reveal me, Data, and you reveal yourself."
The android wrinkled his forehead.
"What is this?" he demanded. "What are you trying to say? I do not understand—"
"You think I don't know about that article?" She smirked at his startled expression. "You think I would approach you like this, unaware of how the Federation you claim to serve has come to view, and fear, their android anomaly? The 'unstable' android who traded in his mechanical calm for the 'instability' of emotions. So untrustworthy. So immature." She laughed. "When I think how willingly you allowed yourself to be led by your emotions. How eager you were to engage in a relationship with a supposed colleague! How you let yourself - your entire mission here - be compromised by a spy you failed to detect...!"
"That is not...!" Data covered his mouth and swallowed, a look of cold horror quickly crawling across his bloodless face. "No... Oh, god...!"
"I still can't believe how easy it was!" Silarra crowed, advancing now as he began to back away. "Getting you to notice me. Getting you to fall…and so deeply. It took hardly any work at all." She smirked. "I guess a little Klingon opera really can go a long way."
"No. No!" He shook his head, almost stumbling in the loose sand, but she kept talking, kept sauntering nearer, nearer...
"You didn't tell anyone about the aria we shared, did you," she said. "So, how could I know of our dance if I wasn't there? Hmm? How could I know how much you yearned for that connection; how desperate you were to feel… So desperate, that you ignored the warnings from your dream program. You kept your true feelings from your colleagues, talked yourself into believing in me, in us. And you never caught on to the truth, did you, Data. Never allowed yourself to acknowledge even the smallest clue that you were being led on, duped, manipulated!" She scoffed. "No, you saw only what you wanted to see, heard only what I wanted you to hear, just like any fool who lacks the experience, the maturity, to see into the hearts of other beings."
The android flinched as if he'd been hit. Silarra straightened and placed her hands on her hips, her cold eyes gleaming as she stepped in for the killing blow.
"You want to know what I saw last night, android?" she whispered tauntingly, staring straight into his wide, amber eyes. "A pathetic, gullible toy. A computer program with a human face. You're more of a mannequin than a man. I can think of no living woman who would willingly give her love to a mechanical thing like you."
"Why would you do this," the android whispered, his voice cracking with hurt and anger. "Why…"
"I have a job to complete," she said simply. "And you were in my way."
She smiled, watching as he choked and gasped, losing his fight to hide the shattering impact of her words…to keep the tears from falling down his tortured face…
"Consider me your Knight of the Mirrors, Don Quixote," she said slyly and pressed her hand against his shoulder. "Forcing you to see yourself as the rest of the galaxy sees you: the fool of an android that deluded itself into believing an 'emotion chip' and an upgraded 'skin' might actually transform it into a Terran man!"
She laughed, watching his hunched form shimmer and fade as her transporter beam took hold.
"Oh!" she gasped, holding her side. "Oh, that worked better than I'd hoped! And now..." She reestablished her 'Kurak' guise and strode back to the dome's sliding door. "To collect the Boss-man's missing Skins..."
Data felt the tingle of materialization fade, the beam's momentary paralysis lift, and he reflexively scanned his new surroundings.
A cave, the calm, computer-part of his brain reported. He was in a cave, facing out toward the desert sun. The faint, faded scent of hay and horses filled the air, and there was a dull electrical hum…
That was as far as he could process. His pulse still throbbed in his throat; there was a roaring in his brain that threatened to overwhelm his thoughts, his senses…
Data took a sharp, hitching breath and swallowed, hard. He felt numb, shaky, like a character from an ancient cartoon who'd just felt a tightrope snap beneath his feet. As long as he stared ahead, straight ahead without breathing, without blinking, he could stay suspended, floating, right where he was. But if he should look down…
"A Suliban," he said, his voice a strained, unfamiliar sound. "A Suliban intruder has infiltrated the compound. I must warn the others. I must inform the Captain…"
The small scabs on his palm no longer stung, but they made his skin feel pulled and tight as he slapped his hand to his chest.
There was no communicator there. He had neglected to transfer it to the new shirt Kurak had replicated for him when he'd changed his clothes the night before. At the time…it just hadn't seemed important...
The blank roaring in his mind grew louder, his staring eyes leaking tears that dripped from his nose, his jaw. He knew he had a duty to leave this place, but he couldn't bring himself to move, to think. The calm space where he floated seemed so precarious.
Her words were lies. Designed to cut and manipulate. I knew...I felt that they were falsehoods. Yet, I doubted my progra - my...intuition. I listened to her. And I failed to act. I failed to prevent this. Why...why did I not act...?
The dull hum suggested an energy field, his computer mind prompted from that calm place behind the haze. Perhaps placed there to prevent his exit. With a sharp, jerky motion, he reached out a hand—
The jolt of a force field shot up his fingers and he spun away with a gasp, clutching his stinging fist to his chest.
That's when he saw the cave's back wall.
"My mural," he whispered, reaching out to press his trembling hand against one of the dozens of outlined hand prints he had painted there back at the beginning of their trip…before he'd been kidnapped…before he'd tried on his new skin… Above him, an image of frozen movement…four powerful horses bursting through a sea of reaching hands… To the side, he saw his signature in alphanumeric code, the dedication he'd written to his daughter: To my beloved Lal…
And below that, the Suliban had placed a small mirror.
Consider me your Knight of the Mirrors, Don Quixote, her mocking voice echoed through his mind. Forcing you to see yourself as the rest of the galaxy sees you...
Data stared at the reflection he cast in the glass. At the composite features he'd so carefully chosen. He'd told Geordi... He'd hoped to build a new identity; a stronger, more perceptive, more emotionally mature persona he and his superior officers could be proud of. Someone confident, a leader the Federation, and its media, might trust. Someone who wouldn't feel so alone…
Data stared down at the scars on his hand. Touching several access points, he pulled off the sensitive, synthetic covering, flexed his metallic fingers, watched the little diagnostic lights blink and glow in the dimness...
The Suliban was right about one thing, something dark and cold whispered inside him. His 'upgrade' was a farce, a lie. He wasn't a man, he was a positronic computer housed in a humanoid form. Attempting to think or act otherwise would be as nonsensical as an aircraft believing itself to be a bird.
The roaring blank enveloped his mind…and with it, the sense that he was falling. Bending toward the cave's cold floor, the android folded in on himself, his back and shoulders rocking, his mouth gaped wide in an agonized cry that only sounded when he finally drew in a trembling breath.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"It's no good, Howard. This isn't working."
Deanna Troi leaned her shoulder against the corridor wall and rubbed her tired eyes. "There has to be a way through this damned force field. If we can just get to the cockpit controls, I— Ooh!"
She winced, her neck and shoulders tensing as an agonizing surge of emotion smashed against her Betazoid senses.
"Mistress Troi?" Howard said, clomping awkwardly toward her. "Mistress Troi, I am here to serve. How may I serve you?"
"It's…it's Data," she gasped in alarm, clutching her hair with her fingers as she waited for the rushing wave to pass. She took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth, straightening slowly as her muscles began to relax. "Something's wrong, Howard. Something is very wrong."
"What's wrong with Data?" a harsh voice demanded. "Where the hell are we?"
Troi turned to see Kurak standing in the doorway, the dim light making her hard eyes gleam. Soft groans came from the darkened room behind her, and Freja Anders stumbled out to stand by the Klingon's side, her eyes blurred and her long blonde hair sticking out from her braid in all directions.
"You're awake!" the Betazoid said in relief. "I wasn't sure the replicated stimulant would work. Do you need anything for your head? I know, when I woke up here, I had a terrible headache."
"It is of no consequence, Counselor," Kurak said gruffly. "Just answer my questions. Where are we, and what has happened to Commander Data?"
Troi regarded her, sensing something far stronger than simple concern for a colleague driving the Klingon's fierce demeanor. Knowing better than to comment, she said, "We seem to be in a civilian craft. My best guess would be, we're locked in orbit around Nineveh IV. The cockpit controls are just ahead, but there's a force field blocking the way. As for Data…" She shook her head, struggling to sift through the powerful impressions that were still swimming and surging through her mind. "I'm afraid he may have been hurt. I'm not sure how, or by whom. But something is going on, down on the surface. Something sinister, I'm certain of it."
"What of the children?" Kurak demanded. "Data was with them when I left home this morning. Can your Betazoid senses tell if they are all right?"
Troi strained and stretched but, ultimately, had to shake her head 'no'.
"I'm sorry," she said in frustration. "If we could just get to those controls—!"
Kurak snorted and strode past her, giving the shimmering energy field a sharp thwap with her fist.
"Go on, see to Freja," she grunted as Troi reached out to the moaning human. "I will handle this."
"Thank you, Kurak," she said, and hurried to replicate a painkiller for Freja's headache and a glass of water for each of them.
"I am Howard," Howard said, ambling up to the Klingon in his cheery way. "How may I be of service?"
Kurak regarded the robot, then reached for the detached arm he'd been holding in his remaining hand. The robot gave it to her willingly, watching with wide, glowing eyes as she pulled back the silvery-green 'skin' to reveal the basic metal and wire 'skeleton' underneath. Muttering to herself, the Klingon scientist removed several components from the wrist and forearm, then carefully inspected the wall's edge, where the force field was projected.
"Howard," she said. "How's your internal shielding? Is your body's framework made of non-conductive materials, like your Master Data?"
"I am designed to be easily transportable, for my Master's convenience," the robot reported, his even-toned voice sounding oddly like a sales pitch. "As such, I am constructed of lightweight materials: silicon, aluminum alloys, and durable plastics with a flexible, stain-proof silicone sheath tinted a fashionable—"
"Enough!" the Klingon snapped, grabbing his functional hand and pressing the components she'd scavenged into his palm. "Take these and jam one into each of the two small nodes over there." She pointed them out on the wall, right at the threshold between the corridor and the living space beyond. "You will receive a powerful shock, but you must press them in and not let go until the field shorts out. Do you understand my instructions, Howard?"
"I understand, Mistress Kurak. I am Howard, your helpful Home Domestic Droid. I am here to serve."
"Then stop talking and do as I say!" she ordered.
The robot obligingly stepped up to the wall. It took some careful manipulation to jam both nodes with only one workable hand, but Howard managed it.
Then, came the shock. Arcs of electricity shot out from the walls to coil and snap around the robot's metallic-green form. Howard's body trembled and shook against the blinding, crackling onslaught; a strange, whining cry seemed to escape from his throat. But he followed his orders. He didn't let go, even as his metallic skin began to melt, filling the corridor with an acrid stench…
Kurak winced, but would not allow herself to look away. If this was to the be the robot's end, she intended to make sure his actions would be remembered as an honorable sacrifice – machine or not.
The fierce overload lasted only a handful of seconds before dying down with a soft, electrical sigh. The force field gone, Kurak strode past Howard's trembling, smoking form into the shabby living space.
"Computer! Lights!" she ordered.
Nothing happened.
"Probably operates on voice recognition," she grumbled. But the cockpit controls still glowed so she headed over there – until the distinct, tinkling hum of a transporter beam made her pause and turn around.
"Kahlestra!"
"Mother!" Kahlestra exclaimed, her eyes wide with frightened disorientation. "But, you were just—"
A second beam materialized and Ishta stumbled, off-balance beside her, her nails dark with someone else's blood.
"I said it was an imposter!" the Orion snarled, pointing toward Kurak. "That's your mother, there! Now, where is Data!"
"I don't know. I don't see him! Where are we?" Kahlestra asked, staring around the dim, cluttered space. "Mother, what's going on? There was an intruder - a woman who looked just like you, and she— Kahless! – what happened to Howard? Is he OK?"
Troi and Dr. Anders came rushing out of the bedroom before Kurak had a chance to explain.
"Kay! Ishta!" Freja exclaimed, opening her arms to give the reluctant girls a hug. "So, whoever this shape-changer is who is behind this kidnapping is targeting the children too. It must be over that energy source. Melinda warned us, but we didn't…" She sighed and shook her head, her long braid still a wild, rumpled mess behind her. "How could we possibly think our small discovery could mean so much? She was right after all. We should have been more careful with our data from the start. And now…"
"Now, we're here," Troi said. "And the intruder or intruders, whoever this may be, is down at the compound, probably posing as one of us. Freja, Kay, Ishta – I want you to look around in here. Try to learn anything you can about our identity-stealing 'host'. Kurak, let's you and I see if we can contact the surface and find a way back to the site before it's too late!"
"But Data—!" Ishta insisted.
"We will look for Data once we've found our way out of here," Kurak said, clenching her scarred hand into a tight fist. "If I should find our 'intruder' has harmed him in any way, I will personally see to it they regret they ever came to this world."
The Conclusion, Part 2 - Coming Soon! :D