Work Text:
“We have reports coming in this hour indicating the complete destruction of the Mars Defence Perimeter. The United Earth Observatory on Luna reports no major damage apparent to the Borg Cube, which remains on course for Earth and is expected to enter orbit within the next hour. In Paris, President Amitra urged calm and swore that evacuation measures were proceeding as quickly as possible—”
“Turn that fucking thing off!”
Agnes gaped. She’d never heard her mother swear before, not even once; now, she honestly looked like she was about to kick the comms unit through the window.
Krista Jurati evidently noticed her daughter’s shock. “Sorry,” she muttered. She collapsed onto the couch behind her, running her hands frantically back and forth through her hair. “I’m so sorry, Agnes. I’m sorry for everything.”
Agnes paused. “It—it’s no big deal, honestly. I was barely listening to it—”
“I’m sorry you were born.”
The words were like a slap in the face.
Agnes tried to formulate a response, but any words died in her throat. Her eyes filled with tears.
“I didn’t mean that,” Krista said, staring off into space. She ran her hands over her face. “I’m sorry you had to be alive for this.”
She chuckled bitterly, looking up at her daughter. “Happy fucking New Year, eh? Welcome to the glorious year 2367! Well, I guess someone had to be alive at the end of the world!”
“Is—this the end of the world?”
Krista chuckled again, rising to her feet. “You know, I think it’s about time you had your first drink, don’t you?”
“Mum, I’m only nine—”
“Live a little, Agnes! God only knows you haven’t got much time!” She leaned in towards the replicator at the end of the room. “Two vodka martinis. None of that synthehol shit!” After a pause, she added: “And ten ccs of tetrodotoxin.”
“You have requested a restricted substance,” the computer chirped in reply. “Unable to comply.”
“Useless bucket of bolts—”
“Mum, I really don’t want a drink—”
“Agnes,” Krista said, already fetching her engineering multitool off of Agnes’s father’s bookcase. She knelt to look at her daughter. “You’re a sweet little girl, you know that?”
Agnes could only stare silently as her mother looked into her eyes, tears running down her face.
“I don’t want to frighten you. I don’t. But…do you think that the Borg care that you’re a sweet little girl?”
When her daughter failed to respond, she pressed on: “Do you know what they did to that gallant Starfleet captain? Picard?”
Agnes shook her head.
“Well,” Krista laughed, not even a little bit kindly. “They drilled into his skull, see. Right here—” she placed her hand tightly against the side of Agnes’s face to illustrate, switching on the multitool with her other hand and letting her hear its mechanical whine. “And then they wired a computer right into his brain, see? Right in there; and they used it to pour themselves into him. Made him one of them. Made him into a walking, talking meat puppet with no thoughts or feelings of his own, see? And when they get here, do you know what they’ll do? They’ll do the exact same thing to you. And to me. And to your father. And to Mr. Sakeyo at the school, and to all of your friends, and to everyone you’ve ever met!”
She straightened up abruptly and looked away. Agnes could feel warm liquid trickling down her leg. “So, you will drink with me,” Krista said. “And you will enjoy it; or at least you’ll like it a hell of a lot more than the alternative. Now—come on. You’re good with computers, Agnes. Help me bypass these stupid—”
Agnes bolted for the door. She didn’t know who this stranger she’d suddenly found in her living room was, but it wasn’t her mother—at least, not like she’d ever seen her before.
“Agnes, come back!” Krista shouted. “Agnes, please, I don’t want to die alone—”
The door to their apartment slid shut behind her, cutting off her plea. Agnes ran through the hallway, fighting down a panic. She didn’t know where she was going, but surely anywhere was better than there. Outside then? They said on the news that it was chaos out there. She could scarcely believe it—the streets of Toronto, dangerous! There hadn’t even been a murder on Earth within her lifetime! Maybe it really was the end of the world—
The roof. The caretaker, Mx. Luhansky, had let her up there once to see their pigeons. She still knew the way.
Agnes charged to the stairwell, ignoring her neighbours Miss Shraash and Mr. Boyd, who seemed to have found their own way to pass the minutes before doomsday. She took the stairs two at a time and slammed the door behind her.
*
Agnes emerged into the freezing night air and collapsed into a gasping heap, terrified and ashamed of herself. Her mother had claimed that she wasn’t trying to scare her. Just imagine if she had been trying…
From far below, she could hear voices raised. Some of them were arguing; some of them were singing raucously, or just screaming out passages of text. She’d never seen the city like this before.
She covered her ears with her hands and screwed her eyes shut, huddling against the wall as the tears ran freely down her face. How long before the Borg got here? she wondered. Would they bother beaming down? Or would they just scoop the cities of the Earth up into orbit, one by one? Did they have a list of when to assimilate each one? Where was Toronto on the list?
And above all…would it hurt?
Stupid! Of course, it will hurt! Didn’t you hear mum? They drill into your skull!
But it couldn’t hurt forever, could it? The Borgs couldn’t be running around in agony all of the time, or they’d never get anything done! And it would be pretty difficult to install a computer in your brain if you kept squirming around.
Probably they just switch off the parts of your brain that make you feel pain. That’s how Agnes would do it if she were the Borg. Switch off those parts, and the parts that make you care when they cut off your arm and pull out your eye and turn you into a machine…
What would that be like?
Agnes thought about it as she shivered in the snow. She liked machines. Computer science was her best class at school, and she was thinking of being a cyberneticist when she grew up. Hell, she liked machines better than she liked most people! Machines were never mean to you; they never tried to frighten you, or make you drink poison. But to become one, to be turned into one, to become just another node in the Borg’s neural net…what would that be like?
She tried to imagine being part of a mind spanning half the galaxy; looking out on the Universe with a trillion pairs of eyes. Would she still be afraid then? She doubted it. She imagined the Borg somehow reaching into her and taking away her fear; her pain…
Her loneliness…
Agnes suddenly became aware of a change in the quality of noise coming up from the street. It sounded more frightened; panicked, even. In spite of the cold wind lashing her face, she forced open one of her eyes and stood upright. It took her a moment to find what everyone was reacting to, but when she did, her heart skipped a beat:
A cube had just emerged above the eastern horizon. The Borg Ship.
At this distance, it appeared only a fraction of the size of the full moon, and none of the detail was visible on its surface. Even so, its shape was obvious, as one of its square faces gleamed in light from the sun far below the horizon. From this perspective, it looked like nothing so much as a single crystal of pyrite suspended against a black velvet background.
Very much to Agnes’s surprise, she wasn’t frightened by the sight. Fear had been drawn out of her, just as surely as if the Borg were already reaching into her soul. In fact, it seemed…almost beautiful. Were the Borg making her feel this? Surely, they must be. Agnes should be afraid! Everyone else was afraid!
And yet…
She felt her hand rising up through the cold air, as if reaching towards it. Were the Borg forcing her to do that too? If they were, why weren’t they doing the same to everyone else? Why were they all still running around and panicking like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off? Why hadn’t the Borg made them stop? That’s what she would do if she were—
A flash erupted silently in the sky and, for a fraction of a second, it was as bright as day. And then the Borg Ship was gone.
Agnes felt her arm fall heavily to her side. Gone. Just like that.
She was barely aware of the cheer rising up from the streets below. Maybe the Borg had somehow stolen her fear away in the seconds before their ship blew up, but if so, they hadn’t bothered to replace it with anything. And so, feeling nothing but emptiness, she could only just stand there in the cold.
Alone.
After a few minutes, she heard voices behind her on the roof.
“Agnes?”
Agnes turned to see her father, framed against the doorway, with the caretaker, Mx. Luhansky, standing behind him. She could only find it in herself to stare at them blankly.
“It’s over,” her dad said simply. “We won!”
"Come inside, Agnes,” said Luhansky. “You’ll freeze to death out here!”
“Your mum says she’s very sorry…”
Agnes said nothing. She felt nothing, except for her father’s hand taking her own. “Please—”
She let them lead her inside. In a few hours, it would be morning, and Agnes would go on living for at least another day.