DISCLAIMER:The ideas and words are mine, the characters are not... But we do spend a lot of time together...

Castles in the air

Geordi La Forge sat by himself in his quarters when the door chime rang. He was too distracted to listen, though, and he just sat there, spinning a small wooden sculpture between his fingers. It was a piece of the stern of the latest model ship he'd been building, a 17th century swedish warship called Vasa. The wooden model lay on a small table nearby, half finished, and although Geordi seemed to be looking at it, his thoughts were someplace else.

Geordi had hesitated before going to doctor Pulasky for his VISOR's upgrades. Not because he had foreseen what the doctor would have said - he could never have predicted that - but because it had become something he and doctor Crusher did together, a small tradition of sorts, and it felt strange to bring someone else into it.

Every now and again Geordi had ideas for small upgrades and improvements to his VISOR. An adjustment that would broaden the specter of EM radiation perceived by the visor. A realignment that could improve his perception of color. Geordi was, after all, an engineer, and those ideas were often inspired by something he'd encounter in one of the ship's missions, something he'd come across on a technical manual, or one of the small repairs his superior officer's had put him up to. Actually, he had had these ideas since before joining the Enterprise. After all, his vision depended on a mechanical gadget, and mechanical devices were something he understood well. But he had never really implemented any of those upgrades before joining this crew.

It had something to do with that time when Commander Riker was given the power of the Q. For about a minute, Geordi could see in shallow, dim, beautiful human ways. It'd been overwhelming, but he chose to have his VISOR back on, to be the way that he was. He did not regret that decision, it was the right thing to do at the time, but since he had, in fact, embraced the VISOR as a part of him, he might as well do something to improve it. Specially because, every now and again, the captain seem to trust his vision more than the ship's sensors, and ordered Geordi to assess the situation by looking out of a window. Improving the VISOR was a way to increase his value as an asset to this crew. He was one more of the pieces that made it unique. Other ships could't count on the empathic abilities of a half-betazoid counsellor, or the superior strength and intellectual power of an android science officer. Just like that, other captains didn't have the privilege of ordering one of their engineers to look out of a window and expect to get more data than the ship's sensors could have provided.

Be that as it may, it was still something that made him nervous, altering the VISOR. What if he made a mistake? That's why he went to Doctor Crusher for the first time. He wanted to run the schematics of his upgrades by her, to make sure that they wouldn't overload his nervous system. And the doctor was excited to be a part of it. As it turned out she had an interest in cybernetics, and while the computer ran diagnostics in the VISOR, she had Geordi talk her through the concepts behind the upgrades. She even offered a couple of suggestions to improve upon his design, and asked him to return in a week for monitoring.

Soon it would become something of a small tradition for the two of them. Geordi would drop by sickbay for a new upgrade of for monitoring one of the old ones and the two of them would talk. They replicated some sandwiches and orange juice, and talked about cybernetics. First, their conversations were mostly about the VISOR. Soon they started discussing artificial organs, medical nano-robots, talks on the most recent conferences on cybernetic technology and all sorts of other situations in which their fields of study intermingled. They talked about Data, Geordi explaining the engineering involved in his construction and Beverly casting light over the physiological processes in which his internal systems had been mirrored.

At first, bringing his upgrades to doctor Pulasky seemed just wrong. She had not been a board for more than a few weeks, but the entire senior staff knew she was nothing like Doctor Crusher at all. Oh he was sure she was competent in her job, but Doctor Crusher had been a friend. Pulasky seemed colder, harsher and more arrogant than Beverly could ever have been. And yet, it seemed irresponsible to implement modifications on his VISOR without checking with the ship's medical officer first.

As it turned out he should have trusted his instincts. As soon as he arrived on sickbay the new doctor made him sit on a bio bed and brought her scanners. She didn't even ask anything about the upgrades he'd mentioned, it was as if she wasn't interested at all, and considering her attitude towards technology, towards Data, he should not have been surprised. Before long she was presenting options for him to get rid of the visor altogether. Optical implants. Optical nerve replacement. She wasn't interested in helping Geordi to make the Visor better, she wanted the device gone. "That's a lot to think about", Geordi remembered saying.

It had been a lot to think about, in fact, it had been all he could think about for several days. The doctor said she could restore his normal sight. It had been nearly a year since that incident with Q, nearly a year since he saw Tasha the way everybody else saw her, and when he removed his VISOR at night he wasn't even sure he could remember it anymore. And according to doctor Pulasky, he could have it back. No more VISOR, no more pain, no more wondering what beauty looks like. It was something he had dreamed about since he was a little boy.

Oh there were risks. There were risks in every operation of course, but if this one didn't work there would be no going back to the VISOR. He would be truly blind. But the risks were minimal. The doctor said she had done it before. That was promising. Besides, he had volunteered for far more dangerous assignments since the beginning of his service to star fleet. What was he afraid of?

So he talked himself into it. He would hate to think of himself as a coward. When he walked to sickbay earlier that day, his decision was made, he would go through with the operation, he was certain. And then the doctor showed him the details of the procedure.

"Wait a minute there, doctor," Geordi asked, pointing at the diagrams of an optical nerve displayed in the screen of the sickbay computer. "What are these?"

"These are mechanical compounds. Although biological ones would be superior there are still some biochemical structures that are too complex for the replicator to reproduce." The doctor's belief that biology was superior to technology was evident in each and every one of her words.

"Yes, but —" Geordi continued, too absorbed by his analysis to read in between the lines. He touched the screen of the computer with two fingers, increasing magnification over those mechanical compounds, and with a double click he opened up some tables with details on their composition. "But doctor, these compounds, they're sensitive to warp emissions. What would happen if they were exposed to the fluctuations of the warp engine during a tactical alert?"

"Oh they would damage the nerve replacement, for sure."

"But doctor, I am needed in engineering during that kind of emergency, I would be of very little help if I went blind whenever someone fires a shot at the nacelles."

"You don't understand, lieutenant" Doctor Pulasky started. "I am not talking about some temporary damage here. If this replacement is exposed to these damaging irradiations, your nervous system will have been too overloaded for me to try again, and certainly too saturated for the interface with the VISOR to be reinstalled. In other words, the blindness would be permanent."

"But —" Geordi wasn't sure he understood. "That doesn't make sense, do you suggest I excuse myself from engineering whenever there's a red alert on?"

"Not just when there's a red alert, lieutenant." The doctor said, taking a seat behind her desk. "You see, although the continuous energy emissions of the warp engine are harmless to the human body, they are very detrimental to these metallic compounds. Even small fluctuations would be enough to trigger a cascade failure on the nerve implant."

"Even small fluctuations? Doctor, there are minor fluctuations on the warp core all day long! Can't you use some different components? Change to some material that's not sensitive to warp emissions?"

"Other materials have been tested before but they all failed. I told you commander, I can offer you choices, not guarantees."

"It doesn't feel like you're offering me a choice here, doctor."

"I am offering you a chance to get rid of this VISOR, a device that puts you through a considerable amount of continuous pain. I would call that a choice."

"You're saying that just being in the engine room would make me go blind!" Geordi said, exasperated. "I'm an engineer! How do you expect me to avoid warp emissions? How do you expect me to work if I can't see?"

"I understand that it's not possible for the engineer of a starship to avoid the engine room, —"

"Then what?"

There was a sizable pause before the doctor continued.

"Some would say that a different career is an acceptable compromise in exchange for normal sight."

Geordi couldn't believe his ears and when he spoke again his voice was raised a octave:

"I am the chief engineer of the Enterprise!"

"I am sorry, lieutenant. I told you, I can offer —"

"Choices." Geordi finished her sentence for her, lowering his voice again. "Yeah. Never mind, doctor." He said, before turning his back to leave.

Geordi had not just talked himself into accepting that nerve replacement. He had started to dream about what life was going to be like without the visor. What would it be like to actually see a tree, a cup of coffee, a woman… His own reflection on the mirror… For a while, all those things seemed to be within his reach. Why would the doctor allow him such false hopes?

It took a second ring of the door chime to awake Geordi from his musings.

"Come," he said, tired.

"Geordi," Data started, stepping through the door. "May I come in?"

"Sure, Data."

"I brought the lion sculpture for the head of the ship." The android said, showing the small wooden sculpture in his right hand. Geordi had built a model of the USS Victory as a gift for his former commanding officer a few weeks ago, and that got him interested in his old hobby again. So he decided to build another one. And Data offered his help. The android was intrigued by Geordi's saying that "the whole point of doing something like that was to do it by hand". And Geordi put him in charge of carving the sculptures for the head of the ship.

"Thanks, data." Geordi said, and then he pointed at the model. "Why don't you put it on the ship?"

"Huh." Data acknowledged, and the servomechanisms of his neck turned his head to the side in a characteristic twitch. "Thank you, Geordi," he said, kneeling down in front of the short table and using the glue to attach his lion to the head of the model. "The painting is true to the original colors according to the most recent data from the reconstruction and restoration project. In addition, I did carve the lion by hand, as you suggested, and you will be pleased to know that the margin of error in relation to the scale is of only 0.0000001 milimeters." He said, pressing the lion against the ship one more time to make sure it was fixed and admiring the model for a few seconds. "Humm." Data looked at Geordi with the corner of his eye, "I can see that some of the cannons are slightly off-scale. I could assist you in making this model more precise."

"Sure, Data."

Data looked at Geordi. He was still kneeling down in front of the table so he simply sat on the floor facing the engineer. It was something a child might do, to sit on the floor like that, and although Geordi had never seen data do something like that, the gesture looked incredibly natural. It was something a child might do, to just sit on the floor, unceremoniously like that. Knowing Data, he was probably experimenting with a new subroutine, probably inspired by behaviors he'd encountered on some old Earth novel or something like that.

"Geordi, I did not mean to criticize your model." The android said carefully. "It is incredibly accurate for something done 'by hand'" he added.

"Uhum" Geordi mumbled in return. His mind wasn't really on the conversation, but Data didn't pick up on that. He was puzzled.

"I did not mean to offend you."

"Offend? Oh, the ship! No, Data, I am not offended, of course not."

Data seemed unsure.

"You do not seem happy."

"Yeah. It's got nothing to do with you, Data. It's just something the doctor said…"

"Yes. Our new doctor does seem to have a way with words."

"You could say that." Geordi said, straighten his back a little. "Who gives her the right, Data? Who gives her the right to talk to you like she does? What gives her the right to think she's better than you?.

"As doctor Pulasky stated in several occasions, she believes that the fact that I am an android, a machine, gives her that right."

"Well, she's wrong Data. And I don't care what she thinks. She's not better than you! Man, that woman! I wish doctor Crusher didn't have to go."

"So do I Geordi." Data said, gazing at the model ship again. "I don't think Doctor Pulasky will want to be there with you when the time comes for my annual physical. I don't think she would see the need for a physician there since I am just a machine."

"Well, we don't need her, Data, I'll run your physical." Geordi said, watching his friend for a moment. In truth there was probably no need for Data to be submitted to annual physicals like the other officers. After all, he was constantly running self diagnostics anyway. But startfleet regulations demanded that all personal reported for annual physical exams and the regulations set no distinction between officers who were artificial life forms. Be that as it may, in the past, Doctor Crusher had joined the engineering team for Data's physical. Doctor Crusher's input had been valuable, given her understanding of the physiological processes in which Data's internal mechanisms had been mirrored. Still, Geordi could probably do okay on his own.

"It is not that I doubt your ability as an engineer, Geordi." Data reassured him. "It is just that having a doctor there made me feel more… human." He said simply, and looked down.

Geordi's anger at doctor Pulasky was refueled.

"Well, who does she think she is, anyway? ever since she got on board she's brought nothing but trouble. That whole business with Moriarty on the Holodeck would never have happened if it wasn't for her! She's not better than you, Data. She's the ship's Chief Medical Officer, she has orders to run physicals on every officer, including you! If she ever dismisses you in front of me she'll get an earful, Data. I won't let her disrespect you like that again. And if she tries to dismiss you, you just talk to me, Data, okay?"

It took Data a few seconds to answer.

"I will not let the Doctor say whatever she said that made you sad either, Geordi."

That made Geordi smile. He looked at Data, sitting on the floor in front of him, and for some reason, he didn't feel so bad anymore.

"Thanks, Data." Geordi said, handling the sculpture in his hands to Data so the android could attach it to the model ship.

Author's note:At some point during the second season of TNG (episode 5, loud as a whisper) Doctor Pulasky brings up the fact that she can restore Geordi's sight. And that plot was forgotten. This is an attempt to explain why Geordi still had his VISOR after that... There's a few more influences that added to this story, I'll write about them on LJ. Reviews are appreciated.

LLAP