Survival Hurts

(CW: Discussion of abuse)

"How clever," Loran said, stepping down and sauntering towards us as she glanced between Harry and me. "You've connected your minds and two others who are hidden nearby. No wonder you managed to retain your individuality thus far."

Harry helped me to my feet. I clung to his hand.

"And you." Loran stopped in front of Annika. "Taking advantage of my distraction to invade the collective yourself. I'm impressed. But it's pointless." She stroked Annika's cheek. "You belong to me."

Annika grabbed Loran's wrist and shoved it away. "I belong to no one."

Loran grinned. "Such individualistic sentiment. Don't worry. I will not free you of this burden yet. Your uniqueness will serve us well when it is time to add the Federation to our collective."

Chains shot out from Loran's alcove, cuffs clamping around Annika's wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. Annika grabbed at them, trying to force them open and free herself, but it was no use.

As they dragged her away, Loran turned to Harry and me. "You, however, are of no use to me as individuals." Chains clamped around our ankles, dragging us apart and back towards the river. "Your likeness will be added to our own. We will find your crew mates and they, too, will be assimilated."

My feet slipped off the edge. Water climbed up my calves. I scrambled for grip on the deck but found nothing to hold onto. My knees left solid ground.

Fuck. Fuck. No!

As I slid backwards towards oblivion, my mind registered an uncomfortable lump just under my breast. Flipping onto my side, I ripped my tagh from its sheath and jammed it into the deck, sinking it to the hilt and stopping my momentum with a jolt. I grabbed Harry's hand before he disappeared into the water, halting his momentum.

The pain made me scream.

Voices within the collective screamed back with an agony I hadn't heard when I first fell into the river. It wasn't the unified voice of billions of drones, but a cacophony of individuals begging to be heard—chaos breaking through Loran's order.

I closed my eyes and tuned into them.

"All I wanted was to be like my father," one voice said. "I did everything he said, exactly as he taught me, but it was never good enough. Even on his deathbed he wouldn't tell me he was proud of me."

"I lost everything," another sobbed. "I put so many years into building a life for my kids that they could be proud of, and in one day it was all wiped away in that awful storm."

"There aren't words for what it was like standing in the smoking ruins of my tribe," said a third.

Chakotay!

"It was like my heart had been ripped out of my body. For a long time it didn't even feel real. I thought if I just closed my eyes, I might wake up from this nightmare. My father, mother, and most of my tribe were dead. I left them in anger and bitterness. I ignored their letters and comms. I treated them like garbage. I never imagined a day that they wouldn't be there, but now they're gone and I wasn't there to protect them. I'll never forgive myself for that."

One after another came stories of heartbreak, horror, grief, struggle, rage, and insecurity. So much pain. So much desire to fix it, forget it, numb it, or to find something that would finally close the wounds in their souls.

Then came someone whose story made insides cringe.

"She was it," Max said. "The impossible woman. She put up this intriguing front of being the toughest bitch on campus, but deep down she was broken. I knew in my bones that if I could get her, I could do anything—and I did. She was mine. She couldn't resist me. If she hadn't gotten scared and fucked off to the Maquis, I could have saved her."

"Are you sure you want them to be individuals again?" came Loran's voice, cutting through the noise. "The one you call Max is now a tactical drone. He no longer preys on vulnerable women to soothe his own frail ego. We have cleansed him of his selfishness and given him a higher purpose."

I gripped my knife tighter and glared at Loran. "Ridding the universe of a few evil people does not make what you've done right."

"Do you think you will be doing any favors to the others? What you hear now are memories. Returning individuality to these drones will only return this pain to them." She knelt down, hand caressing my chin. "Here, they do not experience these memories as painful. They are not held back by their suffering anymore. They are productive members of a diverse community working towards the greatest of all purposes—perfection."

I snorted. "Diverse community? You stripped their uniqueness away from them, appropriated what was useful to you, and turned them into drones serving your purpose."

" Our purpose," she corrected, fingers tightening on my chin. "The universe seeks decay and destruction. Likewise, humankind craves war and death. Your own life is a testament to this, but we have risen above such petty desires. Our system has brought more equality than millennia of individuality ever did, and we have established the most advanced civilization in the universe. You should be thanking us. The Borg will be this universe's salvation."

"Except it's not the Borg anymore," Harry said. "You're on a mission to assimilate the other collectives and bring them to heel under your rule, and once you've done that, you want the entire galaxy. Thanks to our virus, you're as much an individual as we are, except we want freedom and you want domination."

My whole body froze. He was right. Loran and the other queens had been liberated along with Unimatrix Zero, they simply chose to stay and take charge of their respective unimatrices. Now that I was tapped into the hive mind—into Loran's mind—I could see it all so clearly. They weren't victims. They were dictators.

And Loran was the strongest of them all.

Loran's hand fell from my face as her eyes slid over to Harry. She opened her mouth to speak.

Then she grabbed her head and screamed.