=/\=
After playing tag with other children for a while, Annika's hands and feet began to feel funny, and the ground seemed to go all spongy under her feet. She didn't know exactly when she disappeared, but she must have, because for a very few seconds, she was aware of the mask over her face and the water all around her, which told her she was not where she had been.
The voices came back, so many, so many, whispering all sorts of things. Electrons and Protons. Circuitry. The elements. The composition of nebulas and speeding light. Electronic components. Species Classifications. Genetics. Nuclear Physics. How to construct a plasma energy shield. Repairing mechanicals. Omega particles. Perfection. Obey. Comply. Relevant. Irrelevant. Resistance is futile.
Knowledge blasted through her brain while she floated inside the chamber, but one thing she no longer had knowledge of was Unimatrix Zero. No trace of the place remained in her consciousness. And yet, whenever the voices died down in her head, and the stream of facts and procedures and memories from the rest of the Collective paused, as if her mind needed the time to sort through everything so that she could recall it efficiently if she should ever need it, Annika woke up in the green grassy glade and looked for Mama and Papa.
The first time she came back to Unimatrix Zero, Mama was there, too. They wandered a very long way through the forests and among the little settlements along the bay looking for Papa, until Mama left her. They didn't find him, but when her mother began to disappear, Annika wasn't afraid. They knew what was happening, and Mama had enough time to say, "Love you, Annika," just before she faded away. Annika ran to find Pennia, but she must have already awakened, too, because she wasn't around either. Instead, Annika went to the cloth tent where the children liked to gather and found Axum. She didn't need him to comfort her this time. She was sure she'd find Mama waiting for her in the grassy glade the next time Annika came to Unimatrix Zero.
Except Mama never did come back. As often as Annika returned to the glade, she never found her mother again. Mama was gone, just as completely as Papa was. Axum and Pennia helped her search for them at first. Some of the older children from the shelter and many of the other adults looked for them, too, but one by one, everyone else stopped looking. Annika heard whispers that something must have happened to Erin.
Whenever Annika visited after that, everyone was very kind to her, especially Pennia and Axum, but she wasn't Mama. None of them were.
Once, after Pennia had disappeared, Annika decided to be brave. She went to Axum and asked him, "Why can't we find my mother anymore?"
Axum sighed deeply and looked towards the shelters where the adults usually gathered. He shook his head when he saw Pennia wasn't there. None of the others who usually took young Annika under their wing were around either. His brown eyes looked very sad as he finally said, "Disappearing from Unimatrix Zero usually means one thing: death. Borg drones die when their cube is destroyed in some way, or when their bodies fly out into space without any protection. Sometimes after assimilation, a drone won't do well and their nanoprobes won't heal them after their Borg appliances are installed. They don't survive assimilation. Another way someone doesn't return is when a drone is disconnected from the Collective but remains alive. It doesn't happen very often, although every now and then it does. Disconnection and death usually happen at the same time. So, if her drone body was still alive, your mother should have found her way back to Unimatrix Zero the very next time she regenerated." He paused before he asked, "You know what dying means, don't you, Annika?"
"I had a pet sheraba once. He lived with us on The Raven for a year, but then he got sick, and Mama couldn't cure him. He wouldn't eat, and then he closed all four of his eyes and stopped breathing. Mama said he'd died. When I asked her when he would wake up, she said he never would. His spirit was in sheraba heaven, and we had to recycle his body so his atoms could turn into something else - maybe even another sheraba. Papa put his little body in his carry case and sent it into a star as we flew by."
Axum's lips almost smiled, but his eyes were still sad. "Yes, you know what dying means, then. But you know, when someone is assimilated, their memories remain behind in the Hive mind even after they die. Your mother's memories should still be part of the Collective. You can try to listen for her."
"I don't hear the voices when I'm in Unimatrix Zero, Axum."
"I don't either, but maybe sometime you'll remember to listen for her memories anyway. Your father's, too, even if you don't remember Unimatrix Zero."
When this regeneration cycle ended, and Annika's body was fading away, she tried to hold on to what Axum had told her, to listen for her parents. She didn't remember what Axum told her when she woke up, but the image of her mother suddenly came into her mind, and she listened for her.
Just before the voices and facts pushed themselves into her mind again, she thought she heard the remnants of her mother's essence, buried deep within the Hive mind. It was so faint, the other voices quickly drowned it out. Then, as always, she ceased to be Annika. She was only a neonatal drone who had no name and no number to call her own.
She had nothing to call her own, not even herself. She was of the Collective. That was all.
=/\=
