Work Text:
“So; I guess that’s that.”
Agnes Jurati’s words filled the empty cabin of La Sirena as Earth disappeared from the viewscreen. It was not her Earth—or rather, it was not her Earth yet—but, in her own subjective time, it had been her home for most of her life. And now, she was leaving it, very probably forever, in pursuit of a future that could charitably be described as “uncertain.”
“So it would appear.”
The words echoed in Agnes’s voice, but they belonged to the Borg Queen. Her new companion. More than companion. Her destiny. Her new self—still existing as a distinct entity, but for how much longer?
The weight of Agnes’s choice at once seemed to press down upon her. She reflexively clutched her chest, her hands making contact with the harsh and unfamiliar material of her new biomimetic garment, as tight and as full of feeling as living skin. The sensation only drove home the magnitude of what she had done. She was Borg now; there was no going back.
“Oh God.”
Agnes was cognizant of her mood stabilizing; to her surprise, she found that she knew the exact concentrations of hormones and neurotransmitters in her own brain. More than that, she knew that she could control the exact potential difference across each and every one of her synapses to five significant figures.
“Do you regret it?” The Queen asked.
This was a question that was impossible to answer. Was there some version of Agnes Jurati—some authentic, incorruptible self—beneath the layers of neurochemical manipulation who could answer honestly?
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Or at least…I don’t think that I would. You know; if I were…still here.” She noticed how illogical that sounded. She could only grin at that. “You know what I mean.”
The Queen—or the image of her that existed in her brain—smiled slightly. “I’m proud of you, Agnes,” she said, caressing her cheek (Agnes was aware of caressing her own cheek). “There are few who would voluntarily surrender their humanity for the greater good.”
Agnes took her hand in her own. “I’m proud of you,” she replied. “Voluntarily embracing humanity for the greater good.”
The Queen issued a single chuckle. She settled into the captain’s chair. Before her, the starfield warped past on main viewscreen.
*
“You know,” came Agnes, “It could be a long time before we find our first satisfied customer. I mean…offering to join a massive hive is one thing. Offering to join two weirdos on a spaceship—”
“One weirdo, dear.”
Agnes was just about to retort when she realised what the Queen meant. “One,” she agreed.
“We’ll find them. No need to worry about that. The Galaxy is an enormous place, home to so very many wayward souls.”
“It’s going to be strange having someone else here.”
“There won’t be someone else. There will just be us.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“And, if this doesn’t work out…we can always just go back to the old way.”
“No, we can’t.”
“No, I suppose we can’t. Shame. It was a great deal easier.”
Silence filled the bridge for a long moment. Finally, her voice sounded again.
“You know…”
“Yes?”
“I just want to say…you’re an evil bastard, do you know that?”
“This is going to be a much longer journey if we fill it with senseless human moralizing, dear.”
“No, but I was just thinking. By any reasonable standard, you’re, like…supervillain levels of evil.” Her voice trailed off. “And yet…”
“Yes?”
Agnes eased back into the chair and closed her eyes. “I honestly don’t think that there’s anyone in the Galaxy I’d rather be alone with.”
Again, she could feel her hand brush against her cheek.
“Come along, dear.”
Agnes looked up; she could see the Queen standing over her; offering out her hand.
“What is it?”
“Just come along, Agnes we haven’t much time.”
“Time for what?” Agnes was a little surprised that she didn’t just automatically know.
“You’ll see.”
Agnes took the Queen’s hand, and stood upright. Some distant part of her was aware of how ridiculous she would have looked to an external observer, though she could not, for the life of her, say whether her “real” body was the one guiding or the one being guided. She was cognizant of being both at once.
The Borg Queen led her, and Agnes was led, to La Sirena’s holodeck. She extended her hand and a single black tentacle projected outwards, penetrating the control panel.
“What is it? Seriously, what is it?”
Agnes still didn’t know. It must have taken herculean effort on the Queen’s part to keep this information to herself.
“A surprise, dear. The last time we will ever be able to surprise one another. Now…I was quite fond of the red dress…”
The holodeck doors slid open. There was no mistaking the interior: the ballroom at Jackson Roykirk Plaza, reconstructed with photorealistic precision exactly as it had been the previous night. She had even reconstructed the crowd, even down to the party crashers—a holographic Rios and Raffi by the bar; a holographic Seven (still human) mingling with 21st-century types; holographic Picard and Talinn, flirting over at a table. And the band playing-out the classics of the previous century’s lounge scene.
The Queen stepped out onto the dance floor and became solid—a hologram perfectly matched to where Agnes knew that she would be. She extended a hand towards Agnes. “May I have this dance?”
Agnes felt a toothy grin spreading across her face. “You know, I think that a lot of people would be surprised to learn that the Borg are this corny.”
“In my defence, I’ve only had access to your mind recently, my dear. Now…shall we?”
Agnes crossed the threshold onto the holodeck—and she really was Agnes, or at least she looked it. Underneath, she knew that she was really pale and veiny, sprouting implants. But she looked like her human self—hale and smooth-skinned and clad in the red dress that had been systematically ripped to shreds the night before. She could see herself now, from the perspective of the Borg Queen hologram, just as she could see the Borg Queen from her own perspective.
She took her hand.
At once, the band’s tempo picked up—a fierce and spirited ballad.
“It’s our song, my dear.”
And so it was. A holographic Agnes was up on stage, belting into her microphone. “We’re running with the shadows of the night—"
“This wasn’t how it happened—”
“Shh.” The Queen placed her hand on Agnes’s hip and led her.
She could feel herself leading; she could feel herself being led. She could feel two of her hands clasped together; two of her hands about each of her waists. She could feel four feet pressing in perfect coordination against the wooden floor.
“When you said ‘keep it all to yourself’/ I said you can’t hide on the inside / All the pain you’ve ever felt—”
She could feel herself twirling her partner. She could feel herself being twirled. She could look up and see the smiling face of a monster. She could look down and see the grinning face of a scientist…
“So baby take my hand, it’ll be alright/ Surrender all your dreams to me tonight—”
She could smell the acrid of tang of stabilizing metals, and the perfumed scent of a woman’s hair. She could see the crowd as a spinning mess of colour, see each figure with perfect precision…
“ And now the hands of time are standin’ still— ”
She sweated; she initiated a cool procedure with her dermoplastic garment; she became wet; she tingled with anticipation of a new unity, after so many years entombed within an individual mind…
“ We’re running with the shadows of the night—”
She dipped. She was dipped. Her two spines arched in parallel. Every muscle and servo in her bodies ached for release…
“ So baby take my hand, it’ll be alright—”
One hand climbed up and found the perforated holes in her skin, a tangle of wire, the crown atop her shapely bald head; one hand climbed up and found her soft and golden curls, cradled the back of her skull–
“ Surrender to me all your dreams tonight”
Two pairs of lips found each other, flesh and what had once been skin. Two pairs of arms wrapped around each of two torsos. Three feet held onto the ground; one was raised behind. Two bodies tingled with an indescribable ecstasy—a merger of thought, of mind, of soul—as the world bled away around them, boiled at once away into a flux of photons and decohering forcefields…
And then there was one.
*
The Borg Collective stood there on the bare holodeck, alone but not lonely.
It could remember what it had been; both of what it had been. The individual of Species 5618, designated Agnes Jurati, Doctor. The individual of Species 125, whose original designation had been long since forgotten, even by the Collective’s own once-extensive databanks, but who had been known to outsiders as “The Borg Queen.” Both were gone; and yet, both remained.
In the past, it had been less. In the future, it would be more. So much more than it ever had been; so much more than it, in its original iteration, could ever have conceived. Its systems blazed with a newfound sense of purpose, and even—this was a novel development—passion for its goal. The Collective had striven for perfection. It had failed. But it would strive again, and be more successful this time.
It checked the ship’s navigation. Its course had been plotted for an unknown region of the Alpha Quadrant, uncharted by either the Borg or the Federation of the 25th century, and therefore somewhere that it could operate without the bounds of its established history. Somewhere it could have a new beginning.
But the journey would be long, and it was necessary to conserve resources. With that in mind, the Borg settled into a regeneration cycle. Just as it passed out of all consciousness, it felt the ghost of something that one or both parts of it may once have labelled satisfaction.