Seeking out the lost memories
He knows there's a way in.
Data isn't lost. Data is never lost. Not if he can get near it. He's read mission-critical information from smears of ash. Saved lives with the true intelligence gleaned from the death scream of an enemy operative who wouldn't talk.
His own memories are here, or at least enough of a trace to bring them back. He sees the jagged edges where they've been torn away. No details, only empty shapes. Who did this? Who would be so brutal with the psyche of an enemy or an ally? This was done with neither care nor discretion.
He shaves and throws away all his clocks. He takes megadoses of B vitamins and floods his cannabinoid receptors with an alphabetical laundry list of synthetic indole compounds from his drug glands, some of which he knows he is inventing on the spot. He sits like this in his dingy room until he notices a five o'clock shadow on his face. He flushes his synapses, has his kidneys convert the drug metabolites back into B vitamins, empties about a liter of green piss into the toilet. He knows there's no way that the halfway house is going to be testing his urine for compounds he just invented but it pleases him to be meticulous and tidy. Unlike whichever dead bastards did this to his mind.
He shaves and goes back to his cot. A sudden shock of realization hits him. He feels the back of his head with his fingertips, probing for the Neural 27 port that he had forgotten.
