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Stardate 54684.7 Personal Log Entry, Cadet Icheb
Since we have returned from Quarra, Seven's behavior has perplexed me. She spends a great many hours of off-duty time on the holodeck. When I ask her what she is doing, or if I offer to join her in a program, she has been unwilling to let me come with her or share any information about her activities. While I have respected her privacy and tried not to press her too vigorously for an explanation, it seems very strange she is so unwilling to tell me what she is doing, especially since she does not seem to fully benefit from her time there. She seems more distant and distracted after she leaves the holodeck than she was before entering it.
This is very different from how I feel when I experience a program with Tom, B'Elanna, Harry, or Naomi. The only negative about leaving a program and returning to my regular duties is that I always wish the activity could have continued longer. That is one reason I usually go there with a friend. We can pool our holodeck credits and prolong our experience. My friends say this is perfectly normal. Tom told me one day that since I study hard and take my duties very seriously, I should unwind every now and then. "You need to spend some time having fun, Icheb," he said. "A young guy like you can learn about life that way. It doesn't all come from computer programs and books."
B'Elanna feels the same way. She pointed out that in this area of space, we haven't found many opportunities to take a shore leave safely. Quarra may have been a break from our normal routine, but it created stress, instead of relieving it, once we found out how we'd been abducted and deceived by the people who knew how we got there and exploited us. (I'm glad the director of my day care center, Varin Leothos, wasn't one of them. In fact, before we left Quarra, I found out Director Leothos was also an alien abductee who hadn't any idea she didn't come to Quarra voluntarily until after Chakotay alerted Inspector Yerid's team about what had happened to Voyager's crew.)
To get back to my point about utilizing holodeck programs, I remembered today that Lieutenant Reginald Barclay has a history of holodeck addiction, which has sometimes interfered with his duties. Despite this, he is a very capable officer who, among other accomplishments, developed the Pathfinder communication system, which enables us to maintain contact with the Alpha Quadrant. I investigated the condition in the Starfleet database. This is what I discovered:
"Holodeck addiction (often contracted as holodiction) is a psychological condition in which a person becomes so consumed by engaging in holographic simulations that the real world becomes unimportant. While many individuals become entranced by the holodeck when first exposed to its imagery, only a very small proportion continue to abuse the technology for long periods of time. Those who do, who become nonfunctional in their everyday lives, often have underlying psychological issues which must be treated before the holodiction itself can be dealt with successfully. (See also: delusional thinking; schizophrenia; low self-esteem; fantasizing; withdrawal from social discourse)"
I was relieved to read this definition in the database. Seven is not schizophrenic or delusional. B'Elanna has often complained about her "superior Borg attitude," which is incompatible with a person with low self-esteem. Seven isn't the most sociable person on this ship, but I understand that. This is something the Borg instilled in both of us which we must learn to overcome. She cannot be considered an abuser of the technology - far from it. In all her time on Voyager, she's never used her entire allotment of holodeck hours. According to Tom and B'Elanna, the captain often has encouraged her to take some time and learn to "play." Captain Janeway feels she would benefit from allowing her imagination to run free in order to enhance her creativity. Fantasizing is a necessary aspect of creativity. Perhaps that is all she is doing, and I am wrong to worry so much about it. Despite the many hours she's been spending in the holodeck recently, Seven still has almost a thousand hours of holodeck time due to her.
But I still can't understand why, when I've mentioned I wouldn't mind accompanying her to one of her programs, she continues to sidestep the question and utilizes them completely on her own. I am afraid one of the reasons she escapes to the holodecks is because she has reconsidered her offer to adopt me and is reluctant to inform me of this decision. She isn't that much older than me, even though she seems so much more mature. Perhaps I need to let her know that if she decides she doesn't wish to complete the court process, I would understand. It would make me very sad if she didn't choose to continue the process, however. She is the only family I have left.
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When he finished dictating his log entry, Icheb was at loose ends. Again. He found it very strange to spend so many evenings in "Borg Central" by himself, even when Seven was not assigned to a duty shift in Astrometrics. When he'd mentioned this to Harry Kim a few days ago, Harry told Icheb that separating from parental figures and socializing with his own friends was part of growing up. He considered adding this comment to his log, but then left his entry as is. He decided he'd covered the subject adequately through Tom's comments.
Icheb now often chose to spend extra time in Engineering, where he was always welcome when he volunteered to help the staff. Although it would be a few months before B'Elanna delivered her baby, everyone was aware of the need to be able to function as independently as possible while she was on "maternity leave." Tom said he doubted she'd be able to stay away completely, of course. He often joked she'd be down there, "supervising" her staff, with their baby on her hip. It was good for Icheb to work there, however, since Joe Carey always had some project or other for Icheb to complete. Icheb felt his understanding of Federation engineering, and how the Borg technologies Seven and Ensign Kim had adapted to enhance Voyager's capabilities interacted with it, had been greatly enlarged by his lessons with Joe.
Still, Icheb missed having the chance to converse with Seven about their daily experiences. They'd shared so many of them previously. Now he wanted to discuss what it was like for her when she was the "efficiency monitor" on Quarra. Icheb still had much to learn about living as an individual. Now that his days as a functional Borg formed only a small portion of his history, he felt Seven was the only person who could fully comprehend his personal journey. It was something they both had experienced.
He spent a lot of time with Naomi, of course, not only since he acted as one of her tutors, but also just because she was the only other "kid" on board he could socialize with. Aimee was just a toddler. He spent time with her, too, naturally. He often joined Naomi when she babysat Aimee. They enjoyed seeing her begin to develop a personality of her own. While Aimee's vocabulary was still extremely limited, they could see her starting to understand concepts like "up" and "down" and "behind" as they played Hide and Seek and Peek-a-Boo games with her.
Naomi called Aimee a "baby scientist." It was fun to watch Aimee stare seriously at her toys falling when she knocked them over the edge of the table. "She's experimenting. Just like Sir Isaac Newton, she's discovering gravity!" once Naomi informed him; and he realized it was true, in a way. Every child must "discover gravity," as well as other scientific principles, by observing their world and testing hypotheses of their own with little "experiments" like these, even if their vocabulary was still insufficient to express to anyone else what conclusions they'd reached.
Ever since Quarra, Icheb had felt very protective of Aimee. He still thought of her as his little sister. In a sense, that's what she was. To him she would always be Six of Six, as well as Aimee Gilmore, even though she would find becoming an individual a much easier transition than the rest of their "Collective." She'd essentially begun the process on the day she was born. He doubted Aimee would remember being Borg. Only her remaining implants, only a couple of which actually showed on the surface of her body, marked her connection to the Borg.
Icheb and Naomi often talked about his "missing Borg siblings," since Naomi had never completely gotten over losing her friend Mezoti, any more than Icheb had. He still considered Mezoti his "true" sister. They often speculated on whether Azan and Rebi had ever learned to include Mezoti within their tight relationship. Although Icheb always assured Naomi that, by now, Mezoti was surely happy in her family life, at times he worried she might still be excluded by the twins. The last time they'd spoken together over subspace, Mezoti SAID she was happy with the Wysanti, but when Icheb reviewed the few letters he'd received before Voyager was too far away to communicate with her, he noticed they were filled mainly with references to her studies. Other than Mazani and Arebi, the only person she spoke about consistently was her school teacher. She'd never identified a school friend by name, and Azan and Rebi were mentioned only briefly, in passing.
He might not be able to communicate through a cortical node anymore, but Icheb knew Mezoti very well from the time they still could. What she hadn't said disturbed him greatly. It wasn't something he could speak about with Naomi, either. For that, he needed the reassurance only Seven could provide him.
And she was never around.
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