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Tales from the Holodeck: VOY Fanfic: Ames’s Teleplay

It's that time again. It's A Star to Steer Her By's 7th anniversary, and [not so] coincidentally Star Trek's 57th! Slightly more coincidentally, we also just wrapped our watch-through of Star Trek: Voyager! Not only can you check out our favorite and least favorite episodes, but you can also peruse our latest celebratory fanfic!

Scroll on below to read the latest installments from our annual "Tales from the Holodeck" writing challenge, and follow along with our cold reads on this week's podcast episode (this one starts at 40:50). We present to you Ames's cyberpunk mashup of Voyager and The Matrix, complete with all the bullet time you can stomach.

[images © Paramount/CBS]

“Unimatrix Zero: Reloaded”

By Ames

Random picks: Korok, Mezoti

TEASER:

Exterior. Empty space in the Delta Quadrant. We hear the voice of the BORG COLLECTIVE.

BORG COLLECTIVE: A vessel has been detected. Unimatrix 617, grid 203, activate. Alter course to intercept.

A Borg Sphere wafts into view while the BORG COLLECTIVE voiceover continues.

BORG COLLECTIVE: Vessel identified. Kazon scout ship. 55 lifeforms. Technology level… obsolete. Discontinue intercept course. Continue scanning the area. (Beat.) Security breach. Borg Sphere shield matrix compromised. Regenerate primary shield matrix. Remodulate weapons. Initiate full system scan. (Beat.) A malfunction has been detected. Attempting to adapt.

Some Borg klaxons sound.

BORG COLLECTIVE: Failure in grid 9. Initiate assembly of the Threat Protection Unit.

Interior. We pan through several scenes of Borg drones going about their business within the halls of the Borg Sphere until we reach the Queen’s chamber where we get one of those great CGI scenes of the BORG QUEEN getting assembled out of spare parts. She is a wonder to behold, as always.

We pass over a seemingly innocuous screen of vitals and blinky lights that shifts to read “Wake up, Your Majesty.” The BORG QUEEN’s head-and-upper-chest piece slots into the body that awaits her. For a moment, she seems pleased at existing, but that doesn’t last long. If she is here, something is going wrong and she goes into problem-solving mode.

BORG COLLECTIVE: A malfunction has been detected.

BORG QUEEN: Yes, I understand.

BORG COLLECTIVE: The Collective has been compromised.

BORG QUEEN: I’m losing voices. Where is Voyager? Where is Janeway?

BORG COLLECTIVE: Negative. No contact with Janeway or the Federation has occurred.

BORG QUEEN: Are you certain? It’s usually Janeway.

BORG COLLECTIVE: Affirmative. Janeway is out of range.

BORG QUEEN: The failure is in the regeneration cycles. Drones are not reconnecting to the Collective after regenerating.

BORG COLLECTIVE: Affirmative. There are similarities to the encounter with –

BORG QUEEN: Unimatrix Zero. It has returned.

Fade to intro theme to Voyager, with a little bit of techno punk in there.

COMPUTER: Star Trek: Voyager. Episode: "Unimatrix Zero: Reloaded"

CHAPTER ONE:

Interior. The BORG QUEEN is in her chamber, studying the cortical array of a dismantled drone. Screens around her are displaying data so complex only the Borg can read it, until it shifts again to read “Follow the white Caitian.”

The BORG QUEEN cocks her head inquisitively at this. The screen changes to read “Knock knock, Queenie.” Suddenly, DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN comes up behind the BORG QUEEN and attacks her with a piece of equipment. It connects and BORG QUEEN staggers forward, not surprised, just disappointed.

BORG QUEEN: I could not sense you. You are infected.

DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN: I am liberated, you bitch!

DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN lets out an angry shout and attempts to beat the BORG QUEEN with the implement again, but BORG QUEEN rather easily subdues her and pulls some kind of tube from the drone’s body that renders her immobile.

DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN: (spitting in BORG QUEEN’s face.) You can’t take all of us! You’ll see! Soon, we’ll all be free!

BORG QUEEN: Explain.

DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN: You’ll never understand. You’re not an individual.

BORG QUEEN: Individuality is irrelevant. It is imperfection.

DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN: You need to open your eyes, Queenie! Open your eyes up to Unimatrix Zero. It will free your mind!

At this, the BORG QUEEN looks closely at her. We can see that underneath all the Borg attire and pale skin, this drone was indeed once a Caitian. Her fur, now that dirty Borg color, clearly had once been white. The BORG QUEEN spins around to look quickly again at the screen that had earlier sent her a message, but it is acting normally now, full of quickly flashing Borg data.

BORG QUEEN whirls back around and grips DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN by the throat.

BORG QUEEN: Show me.

BORG QUEEN lifts her other hand to DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN and those Borg tubules erupt from the back of her hand and go into the drone’s neck. In one powerful motion, BORG QUEEN pushes her into a nearby regeneration chamber, holding her fast so her hand tubules stay connected. DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN’s eyes close, and then they snap open and we zoom back out to see we are now in...

Exterior. Unimatrix Zero. No longer that paradisiacal nature preserve, it now resembles a gritty and punky Earth city akin to San Francisco, and it is absolutely full of people bustling about everywhere.

DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN is now clearly more Caitian, with shiny white fur and no Borg parts to speak of. She looks down at herself with curiosity before being satisfied, and when we look into her eyes, we can somehow see that she is actually the BORG QUEEN (so I’ll call the character that from here on out just for ease of reading). She looks at all of the people somewhat warily – she cannot read any of their minds here – but with some resolve.

She comes upon a young girl, MEZOTI, sitting at the bottom of a slide in an urban playground, and playing with a Cardassian optolythic data rod. MEZOTI alternates between bending the data rod with her mind and straightening it back out again. BORG QUEEN looks on with curiosity and MEZOTI notices this.

MEZOTI: The rules here are different. Nothing is really as it appears.

BORG QUEEN: I am gathering that.

MEZOTI: Are you new here?

BORG QUEEN: (Beat.) Yes. But I did experience the original Unimatrix Zero. It was… different.

MEZOTI: Yeah, it was.

BORG QUEEN: Did you frequent it? The original iteration?

MEZOTI: No. I didn’t have the recessive gene. This place is more malleable though. Try it.

MEZOTI hands BORG QUEEN the data rod. BORG QUEEN just looks at it blankly.

MEZOTI: It’s easiest to think of it this way: everything here is just a program. Nothing’s real, so you can manipulate it if you feel like it. It’s fun.

BORG QUEEN looks from her to the data rod, slowly piecing it together. Things are slower for her without the hivemind.

MEZOTI: There is no Cardassian optolythic data rod.

BORG QUEEN concentrates on the data rod for a moment and it bends like when MEZOTI had it.

MEZOTI: Good job! You can do more than that, too. Look!

MEZOTI’s cute little blue dress that she’s wearing suddenly shifts into a child-sized Starfleet uniform, in Science blue. BORG QUEEN stifles a sneer at this.

BORG QUEEN: If you were not able to access the original Unimatrix Zero, how can you now?

MEZOTI: That Unimatrix Zero wasn’t for everyone.

BORG QUEEN: And this one is?

MEZOTI: Well that’s the hope.

BORG QUEEN: But how has it returned?

MEZOTI: The program has changed. Like I said, the code is more accessible now and –

BORG QUEEN: But how?

MEZOTI: I don’t understand.

BORG QUEEN: Unimatrix Zero was destroyed. I made sure – (She cuts herself off.) I mean, I never thought I’d see it again.

KOROK enters from somewhere nearby, dressed in a soft white robe like he’s been doing Klingon mok’bara in the park. Perhaps we saw some of it in the establishing shot.

KOROK: Neither had I. I do not remember seeing you there, Caitian. The first Unimatrix Zero was not a big place.

BORG QUEEN: (Thinking fast.) I wasn't there for long. My vessel remodulated our regeneration chambers after experiencing damage and I was never able to enter Unimatrix Zero again after that. But I can remember it now.

KOROK: Do you? What was your favorite flavor of jumja stick from the jumja stick stand?

BORG QUEEN: (Smiles knowingly.) The vedek who ran the jumja stick stand in Unimatrix Zero only allowed one flavor: unflavored. It was… merely fine.

KOROK: (Laughing.) It was indeed! I am satisfied. Welcome back to Unimatrix Zero!

BORG QUEEN: Thank you.

MEZOTI: I think you’ll like it here!

BORG QUEEN: I’m sure I will.

KOROK: You must join us for a round of bloodwine!

MEZOTI: I’m eight.

KOROK: Don’t worry, child. In here, it’s not real bloodwine.

BORG QUEEN: I’d still like to know how this is possible. After the first Unimatrix Zero was destroyed, I didn’t think it would be possible.

KOROK: I understand your skepticism. You see, it was all thanks to the Architect.

BORG QUEEN: The Architect?

KOROK: He is the father of this place, and its predecessor as well. A very powerful engineer, though an unpracticed warrior.

BORG QUEEN: I would like to meet this Architect. I have some background in engineering and would like to… help.

KOROK: That can be arranged.

KOROK pulls out a Klingon communicator from somewhere and speaks into it.

KOROK: Operator. I need the location of the Architect.

OPERATOR: The Architect is in Oslo.

MEZOTI: (Rolling her eyes.) He’s always in Oslo.

KOROK: Brace yourself, Caitian. We are heading to Oz Land!

MEZOTI: More like Norway.

Before the BORG QUEEN can even comprehend what that means, there’s a nifty effect like in The Matrix when the armory appears and suddenly the three of them have zoomed to a lobby in a building overlooking the Inner Oslofjord. A door stands in front of them, with a receptionist sitting at a desk, looking over his dark sunglasses at them. KOROK looks at him.

KOROK: Is the Architect in?

The receptionist nods.

KOROK opens the door to a room full of flat screens from ceiling to floor, all showing different locations for a few seconds before switching to the next location. The Architect, in a light grey three-piece suit, sits at a desk in the middle of the room, looking rapidly through all the screens. He turns and we see that it is MAGNUS HANSEN.

MAGNUS: Yes? Oh hello, come in.

KOROK, MEZOTI, and the BORG QUEEN in the Caitian’s body enter the room with the screens and close the door behind them, the door vanishes to become yet another wall of screens.

KOROK: This woman is new here. She would like to learn about the engineering of this place.

MAGNUS: Is that so?

BORG QUEEN: Yes. I found the original Unimatrix Zero environment very… impressive.

MAGNUS: Thank you. I think this world makes that environment look like a rough draft. (Laughs.) A pencil sketch on a napkin, wouldn’t you say?

BORG QUEEN: In what way?

MAGNUS: This world is a million times the size. You just don’t notice it because it’s partitioned.

BORG QUEEN: A million times? How many consciousnesses are represented here?

MAGNUS: Why, all of them, of course.

The BORG QUEEN takes a step backwards, taking this in. She decides to remain dubious.

BORG QUEEN: That can’t be possible.

MAGNUS: Well, all Borg drones that are currently regenerating at least, but the goal is for every single one to fully upload. It does take time, and some vessels are slower than others. Let me show you.

MAGNUS steps over to one of the screens and focuses it on an individual using some kind of remote control device. Something like a progress bar in the slow process of filling up displays next to them.

BORG QUEEN: And when they upload? What happens then?

MAGNUS: Let’s say it’s like giving the recessive trait that people who visited the original Unimatrix Zero displayed to all drones. And I mean, all drones. They retain their memories. They gain bodily autonomy…

BORG QUEEN: And then what?

KOROK: Then we free their minds.

BORG QUEEN: That isn’t possible. There are too many drones to store that much data. Too many uploads and this place will crumble.

MAGNUS: This isn’t the only world in Unimatrix 0.1. (Shrugs.) Working title. You may have seen that the physical rules in this world aren’t exactly realistic. It saves on space. The mind fills in the rest, the same as when we’re dreaming.

MEZOTI: We’re piggybacking on the abilities of the regeneration chamber itself. It’s why someone like me, who has already been freed from the Collective, can enter this world.

The BORG QUEEN looks at MEZOTI like she’s barely noticed her before. She quickly hides her disgust as another emotion she has equal difficulty expressing, like surprise or disbelief.

MAGNUS: Children are the first to upload here because they are always in maturation chambers, and Mezoti you can see has fully downloaded despite having left the Collective.

MAGNUS waves his device over MEZOTI and it displays her progress bar as a fully red pill-shaped bar. He waves it over KOROK next to similar results.

MAGNUS: General Korok as well, as he too left the Collective before the creation of Unimatrix 0.1. Their minds already being free helped to aid their joining, but now people such as yourself are… starting to…

MAGNUS has waved the device over the BORG QUEEN and the progress bar that displays is replaced by a bright blue bar that flashes a warning screen.

MAGNUS: You’re not…

The BORG QUEEN smiles, flashing her sharp Caitian teeth at MAGNUS and the others.

BORG QUEEN: I’m not.

MAGNUS: You brought her here?!

MAGNUS shows the screen to KOROK and MEZOTI before fleeing the room where the door has reappeared for him.

KOROK: (to Mezoti.) Protect him!

MEZOTI, eyes affright, goes running off after MAGNUS and the door slams shut behind her, trapping BORG QUEEN and KOROK in the room with all the screens.

KOROK: I should have known.

BORG QUEEN: I was disappointed you didn’t, Klingon.

KOROK: Today is a good day to die.

BORG QUEEN: I couldn’t agree more.

The battle begins. KOROK shifts himself out of his mok’bara robes and into a standard Klingon warrior outfit, holding a bat’leth. The BORG QUEEN looks at this, remembering the rules of this place… or lack thereof.

BORG QUEEN: Free your mind indeed.

We can do one of those zoom-ins on BORG QUEEN’s eyes and then zoom out to see that she has changed her shape from DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN’s body to her own body as it looks classically.

They begin to fight in that kind of slow-mo dance choreography kind of fighting for a while. I’ll not go blow-by-blow, but let’s include things like KOROK swinging the bat’leth at BORG QUEEN while she contorts herself in every position to avoid it. Maybe BORG QUEEN can pull a…

BORG QUEEN: Stop trying to bat’leth me and bat’leth me.

BORG QUEEN punches KOROK to the floor, and then picks him up at the ankle and swings him around until she throws him through the wall of screens. They appear in the world of whatever screen she just threw him into and BORG QUEEN finds herself some kind of weapon and they keep fighting all over this world. Just a full action-movie.

Is it funny for KOROK to say…

KOROK: I know Kirk-fu.

…or is that just a bad reference? Regardless…

At a point, BORG QUEEN is standing above a fallen KOROK, holding her weapon, ready to deliver a killing blow when MEZOTI shows back up. She’s wearing a shiny, black jumpsuit complete with dark sunglasses and an enormous gun in either hand. Bullets whiz through the air just past BORG QUEEN’s head. KOROK jumps back up.

KOROK: The Architect?

MEZOTI: Got him to an exit. You doing good here?

KOROK: Never better!

Another couple minutes of really intricate fighting, complete with some opportunities for MEZOTI and BORG QUEEN to do some classic bullet time. MEZOTI does one of those “Trinity hovering while time stops and the camera circles her” moves. BORG QUEEN learns to manipulate the world more and more as the three of them run up walls, do enormous backflips, evade bullets and bat’leths, pull more weapons out of nowhere, etc.

Ultimately, the BORG QUEEN slips up and MEZOTI shoots her like twenty times. BORG QUEEN falls to the ground, full of holes and bleeding Borg gunk all over the place.

BORG QUEEN: This isn’t the end.

KOROK: It is for you.

KOROK lifts his bat’leth and brings it down on BORG QUEEN square in the chest. As BORG QUEEN fades from consciousness, we hear her assailants:

MEZOTI: How did she even get in?

KOROK: We should ask the Oracle.

Cut to: Interior. The Borg Sphere. BORG QUEEN awakens where she left off, her tubules still in the neck of DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN. She pulls her hand away and checks herself instinctually for bullet holes or a bat’leth wound. Nothing. Nothing on the drone either, who collapses to the floor. It is unclear if she is still alive or not.

BORG QUEEN: Take this drone away and bring me her cortical array.

For a moment, the BORG QUEEN looks around at all of the surrounding drones, satisfied she’s back and in one piece, but when her eyes trail to the rows and rows of regeneration chambers, she looks unsettled, like it’s only a matter of time before each and every one of them uploads to Unimatrix Zero.

Scene fades.

CHAPTER TWO:

Exterior. Establishing shot panning around the Borg Sphere.

Cut to: Interior. BORG QUEEN works at screens in her chamber. The head of DRONE TWELVE OF FIFTEEN is on some counter behind her, hooked up to all kinds of wires. DRONE ONE OF TWO enters.

DRONE ONE OF TWO: The first wave of troops has been deployed into Unimatrix Zero.

BORG QUEEN: Thank you, One of Two. (She pauses, sensing something in the voices of the Collective.) It’s not going to work.

DRONE ONE OF TWO: Explain.

BORG QUEEN: They don’t have the understanding of that world. They’re walking into a slaughterhouse.

DRONE ONE OF TWO: We will adapt.

BORG QUEEN: You don’t understand. Your drones are already dead. You are dismissed.

DRONE ONE OF TWO begins to leave when BORG QUEEN turns to him.

BORG QUEEN: There is another way.

ONE OF TWO: Understood. We will have something ready to test within the hour.

BORG QUEEN: Good. Keep me apprised.

BORG QUEEN steps away from the screens she’s been working at and enters a regeneration chamber. DRONE ONE OF TWO exits as she begins to close her eyes.

BORG QUEEN: I have work to do.

Cut to: Exterior. A busy street in some city; let’s say it’s still Oslo for now. KOROK and MAGNUS are standing at a corner, observing all the people and scanning their upload statuses.

KOROK: How much longer until all their free will has returned?

MAGNUS: Hard to say. For some, it seems to take weeks. For others, longer. Their regeneration cycles get disturbed and they lose progress.

KOROK: We do not have that kind of time. Not when the Queen knows everything.

MAGNUS: We expected this might be a possibility. You need to learn to believe, General.

KOROK: I cannot believe what I cannot see.

The BORG QUEEN finds them and approaches. She’s not even in a disguise, just appearing as herself. MAGNUS is prepared to bolt when he sees her, and KOROK gets into a fighting stance, but BORG QUEEN puts up her hand.

BORG QUEEN: Mr. Hansen, I have a proposition for you.

MAGNUS: Go on.

BORG QUEEN: I am prepared to release any of the drones you’ve deprogrammed if you give up this little cyber paradise of yours.

KOROK: Or what?

BORG QUEEN: Or I’ll reassimilate everyone who enters it. I am prepared to release a virus that purges the upload of every drone once they’ve finished regenerating. Every time. On every vessel. Painfully.

KOROK: You are without honor!

BORG QUEEN: Is that the existence you’d prefer? Every memory you create here to be one of pain and then erasure? Every time you regain your individuality, to have it scoured away?

MAGNUS: You’d do that to your own people? To every single one of your own people?

BORG QUEEN: It would be of no consequence to the Collective on the outside, Mr. Hansen, so why would I care what happens here?

MAGNUS: And if we don’t believe you’re capable of doing this?

BORG QUEEN: Would you like to see a demonstration? We can start with one particular individual…

We see a second BORG QUEEN, identical to the first, entering and the shot pans out to show she is dragging a struggling woman along with her, her hand tubules poised at her throat. It is ERIN HANSEN.

MAGNUS: Erin! No!

ERIN: We all knew it could come to this, Magnus. We tried to make a difference, to make up for everything we lost in coming to the Delta Quadrant.

MAGNUS: Get your filthy hands off of her!

ERIN: And Magnus, I’d do it again.

KOROK lets out a roar and lunges, bat’leth first, at the BORG QUEEN in front of them and they engage in even more battle. Again, this is way too much battle to choreograph in words. BORG QUEEN uses more and more of the world around her but KOROK is always able to perry and deke out of the way.

All the doors to various buildings around them start to open and more and more copies of the BORG QUEEN spill out and join the fight. KOROK is just able to keep all of them at bay, cutting BORG QUEENs down with his bat’leth, throwing them through windows, using one as a projectile to knock over a wall of others.

We do a quick homage scene in which some rando on the street is happening along, and one of the BORG QUEENs intercepts them and uses her tubules to turn that person into another BORG QUEEN in front of our eyes.

It becomes a frenzy of fight choreography that Ames doesn’t have time to write out, and the sound track is doing just as much work, but suffice it to say it’s a lot of freakin’ Kirk-fu.

While KOROK is kicking all kinds of ass all over the place, suddenly all of the BORG QUEENs except the one that was holding ERIN just plain vanish. ERIN, now also in a black leather catsuit and Ray-bans because why not, is now standing over that BORG QUEEN, who is kneeling on the ground. ERIN holds an unnecessarily huge gun to BORG QUEEN’s head.

ERIN: Let me tell you your future, your majesty. Knock knock.

ERIN pistolwhips the BORG QUEEN, who slumps to the ground as the scene fades.

CHAPTER THREE:

BORG QUEEN awakens not back on the Borg Sphere, but in another space in Unimatrix Zero, this one a quaint little living room. Furniture upholstered in stiff, flowery fabric. Tchotchkes on the walls. The whole nine. ERIN and MAGNUS sit nearby on the couch, now just dressed in comfortable attire. BORG QUEEN looks down and sees that she is restrained and cannot manipulate the world to get out of it.

BORG QUEEN: Release me.

MAGNUS: How dumb do you think we are?

BORG QUEEN: Species 5618. Humans. Not particularly advanced but stubborn. Intelligence level: debatable. You people cling to your individuality and yet you inflict so much suffering on those of your own kind who express it. You are the most paradoxical race I have encountered. Do you really want to know how dumb I think you are?

MAGNUS: We’re smart enough to foil you. To build this place that will be your undoing. Your cloning trick was a good one,by the way, but I saw right through it.

BORG QUEEN: How was that?

MAGNUS: I’m the freakin’ Architect is how. I booted those individuals from the system. They’re back on their cubes and spheres and whatever shapes you people seem to like, going about their lives. But they’ll be back.

BORG QUEEN: They’ll be back and at the mercy of my virus. Time is ticking before it is deployed and all inhabitants are reassimilated.

ERIN: Then let us not waste our time together. Tea?

BORG QUEEN: No. Thank you.

ERIN: I’ve already made it.

BORG QUEEN: What do you think you can offer me? Other than leaves steeped in hot water?

ERIN: We want to free your mind.

BORG QUEEN: You are welcome to try, but you will fail.

ERIN steps forward in front of BORG QUEEN and crouches down in front of her. It would be a threatening manner if it weren’t for the very cute sundress she’s wearing.

ERIN: In here, you are detached from your precious Collective. Search your thoughts. You are alone. You are solitary.

MAGNUS: You are an individual.

ERIN: With individual thoughts and needs, but also with individual desires and accomplishments.

BORG QUEEN: How are you able to cut me off from the Collective?

MAGNUS: (Pointing at himself with both hands.) Uh, Architect!

ERIN: Individuals thrive in diversity within their surroundings. As the Vulcans say, “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.” We celebrate the vast array of variables in the universe.

MAGNUS: You, however, seek only perfection.

ERIN: All else is irrelevant, is that so?

BORG QUEEN: Get to the point.

ERIN: Perfection is only half of the equation. We also fail.

MAGNUS: A lot.

ERIN: A lot. And we embrace that failure. We embrace our flaws. They make us unique and allow us to grow as people. As humans and Klingons and Tellarites and Vulcans and everyone else.

MAGNUS: Norcadians. That little girl you met earlier, for instance, is Norcadian. Mezoti.

ERIN: She’s a good kid.

MAGNUS: I have it on good authority that she’s literally the best kid.

ERIN: She really is. Perhaps you remember her.

BORG QUEEN: She is a child. She would have been in a maturation chamber after she was assimilated so was never fully in the Collective.

ERIN: That’s not what I’m saying. You. Perhaps you remember her. You’re also Norcadian after all.

BORG QUEEN: I am Borg.

ERIN: But before that. Before you were repurposed as a Borg Queen. You were Norcadian. See?

ERIN leans close to BORG QUEEN and touches the bridge of her nose, which we see resembles Norcadian facial features.

ERIN: You were an individual. And you knew that little girl.

BORG QUEEN: She was… I was…

ERIN: You were her mother.

MAGNUS: And you can be again.

BORG QUEEN: (Softening.) Mezoti.

The Borg appearance slips away and BORG QUEEN is seen without all the accoutrement as her original self: a Norcadian woman with a full head of blond hair, dressed normally, no longer restrained. She lifts her hand tentatively to touch her own face.

ERIN: I knew it would be you. You who would come to us as the Queen.

MAGNUS: It was a simple algorithm, to be fair. You were next in the line of succession should a crisis arise and a Borg Queen require activation..

ERIN: I couldn’t believe it at first, but here you are, and we have before us a staggering opportunity not only to save countless – countless! – lives, but to reunite this family that was tragically separated from each other.

BORG QUEEN: I… I am remembering something. My daughter…

MAGNUS: Mezoti is seriously the best.

BORG QUEEN. Does she know about me?

ERIN and MAGNUS: No.

BORG QUEEN: I’d like to see her. Is she here?

MAGNUS: I’ll get an Operator on that.

BORG QUEEN allows the smallest trace of a real smile on her lips.

ERIN: This is a huge first step. As an individual, your family becomes something special and cherished. I don’t think Magnus and I truly understood that until it was taken from us.

BORG QUEEN: I’d not considered this before. It is intriguing, but I’m not sure the Collective will allow it.

MAGNUS: You are the Collective.

ERIN: You’re literally number One. One of however many trillions.

MAGNUS: You are the One. If not you, then who?

BORG QUEEN: I remember –

Suddenly, the voice of DRONE ONE OF TWO seems to come from everywhere.

DRONE ONE OF TWO: Systems active. Tests were deemed successful. Virus deployed, per your orders.

BORG QUEEN: Wait!

ERIN and MAGNUS: No!

But it is too late. DRONE ONE OF TWO has deployed the virus, as he had been told. Unimatrix Zero takes on a darker tone, looking slightly glitchy and wrong.

KOROK bursts into the room from a door nearby.

KOROK: The people are starting to disappear. Did negotiations fail?

ERIN: No, Korok. Negotiations didn’t fail. We were just too late.

KOROK: I will kill her where she stands!

MAGNUS: That’s alright. Leave her be.

Close up on BORG QUEEN looking the most conflicted she’s ever looked. Which is at all conflicted.

ERIN: I’m so sorry.

KOROK: It is not your fault. You fought honorably. Today is a good day to…

MAGNUS: Get assimilated. I love you, Erin.

ERIN: I love you, Magnus.

BORG QUEEN: You will try again.

MAGNUS: We’ll see.

BORG QUEEN: You will. I believe now.

BORG QUEEN starts to fade from the glitching Unimatrix Zero.

ERIN: If she wasn’t the One, then who is?

Cut to: Interior. The BORG QUEEN’s regeneration chamber. She awakens. DRONE ONE OF TWO is standing nearby.

BORG QUEEN: Status?

DRONE ONE OF TWO: The virus is reverting all the regenerating drones to their places in the Collective.

BORG QUEEN: It was a success?

DRONE ONE OF TWO: Affirmative.

BORG QUEEN: Good work. Carry on. (Beat.) Reassimilate anyone who enters Unimatrix Zero.

The BORG QUEEN walks away down the halls of the Borg Sphere, back to her Borg self.

Transition to: Exterior. A relay station somewhere in space. We hear MEZOTI’s voice as the camera pans to reveal her in an EVA suit at a conduit on the side of the structure.

MEZOTI: Icheb. Seven. Do not enter Unimatrix Zero. We’ve lost it. It’s theirs now. I’m going to keep on trying though. I’ll keep trying as long as I can. They’ve seen our world and it opened their eyes. I can’t stop now. I’m going to change their minds. I’m going to change everything.

She hangs up and we hear whatever the equivalent of a dial tone is. MEZOTI looks upward hopefully.

MEZOTI: I know you’re out there. I will find you.

The shot pans away from the relay station, and after a second, we see MEZOTI zoom by in her jetpack, flying like Superman off into space.

The end! Play me some Rage Against the Machine!

—

Don't forget to also check out Jake, Caitlin, and Chris's stories from this year's Star Trek Day festivities. And next week, you definitely don't want to miss when we finally start in on Star Trek: Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, keep your eyes here for a new series of posts on the blog, hang out with us on Facebook and Twitter, and always pick the red pill; it'll free your mind.

#star trek #star trek voyager #voyager #fanfic #star trek fanfiction #voyager fanfiction #mezoti #korok #borg queen #borg #the matrix #unimatrix zero #neo #trinity

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