The First Rule of xB Club is...

Posted on Sun Oct 24th, 2021 @ 12:03am by Lieutenant Myne Redal & Lieutenant Commander Rin
Edited on on Thu Dec 23rd, 2021 @ 2:37pm

Mission: Season 5: Episode 3: CAPETOWN
Location: Arcadia Lounge
Timeline: MD1 1800
2088 words - 4.2 OF Standard Post Measure

//ON//

After finishing her shift, Myne waited no time to go to Arcadia. Usually, the number of people around here felt intimidating enough, but this was her first time not coming to the lounge alone. Which was great, she was making friends and that made her happy. In a way, she had not felt in a long time.

Smiling to herself, trusty PaDD in hand, she got a Ferengi soft drink and occupied a small, two-person table closer to a corner. The fun part was that she was wearing her 'Super Garrett' t-shirt, since she was in casual clothes. And while waiting, Myne actually put on a new episode of Super Garrett, well, she started working on a new episode to be more accurate.

Rin, still in uniform, scanned the unfamiliar room as she entered. After acquiring a fruity drink at the bar, she approached Redal's table. Pulling out a chair, she was half into it before stopping and staring at the t-shirt.

"What. Is. That?!?"

Her smile widened as she raised her eyes from the PaDD and started to chuckle. "Why, it is Super Garrett of course! The best superhero of all times! Based on our dear Captain Garrett Lovejoy!! The Captain himself let me continue to make this a thing and it is catching on! The theme songs are amazing and I am even making a Earth like cartoon!!" The chattering box that is the Trill turns her trusty modified PaDD to show Rin the ongoing Super Garrett cartoon she is working on. Justice League Superman from centuries ago, modified to fit Super Garrett instead.

One could practically see Rin's brain sputter.

"I...have questions."

She puzzled over where to start.

"Nope. Too many questions."

She takes a seat and sips her drink. "But...the Captain is ok with this?"

Giggling at Rin's reaction, Myne nodded fervently. "Yes yes! He caught me while working on an episode after my chief tossed me out of Ops for pulling a secret double shift. Thought he would hit me, but apparently Starfleet captains don't do that. Really weird. He even sang along and encouraged me to keep going at it."

Taking a sip from her own drink she leaned in conspiratorially. "He even approved me establishing a Super Garrett fan club. Even told me he wants me to be the morale officer of the ship. Which is crazy!! Right?"

"You're making this up."

"Noooope. You can ask him about it!!" Myne chuckled again and raised three fingers up. "I swear on the Rules of Aquistion and the Grand Magus himself."

"I'm pretty sure that's not an actual Ferengi gesture, and there's no chance in hell I'm asking the Captain about this or even admitting to knowing of it's existence."

She took a sip of her drink. "So.....and I'm fearing the answer here....what do you do when you're not turning senior officers into superheroes?"

"Well, it may not be a gesture, but it works! Also Ferengi culture is very flexible you know. Plus, I swear I am not lying. Haven't lied in several decades, lost the taste for it." Myne says a bit nervously, leaning back and taking another sip from her drink.

She looked a bit uncomfortable and her smile reflected that. "I sleep or work really. Or tinker with my PaDD to improve it. Super Garrett is kind of my only current, non work activity." Myne said ashamed and looked at Rin. "How about you? What do you do with your free time? Those look like the big B's implants. Must be fun to be in your mind."

"The...Big B....? And this would make my mind fun how?"

"You know, the groB?!" Myne asked looking carefully at Rin. "Like, do you still have many folks in your mind? Or lines of code running in there? If you do, can I take a look at your code?"

Rin 's brows knit, a gesture accentuated by the implant above her left eyebrow. Her lips press together while her entire face tightens.

"I am aware of what you meant. What I don't understand is why you want to say it in code. If we say Borg three times does one show up?"

She rose to her feet, hands planted on the table. "No, there's no code running through my head and no, you couldn't see if there was, because I'm a person and not a sideshow. There are no voices, and if there were, you better be running, because there are no xBs on this ship. And are you quite sure you want to know what goes through my mind? Honestly, I'm kind of curious what you think you would find."

"Gaaah!" Myne raised her hands and waved them in front of Rin's face. "Don't say the name out loud!!" Rin might have hit the nail on the head with the saying Borg three times part. Looking up at Rin as she got up and stared down at her, Myne blushed and turned her gaze away.

"I was just curious you know. I am sorry Rin, I didn't mean to upset you. Of course, you are a person, I think. Like, you scare the crap out of me, sorry. What I wanted to say is that the Borg terrify me to my core, so I just want to get to know you to..." Myne trailed off for a moment, making herself smaller and smaller in her chair.

"To try and understand that fear. I really want to get to know what goes through your mind, how it was for you before and after. Because my mind is always full, and noisy and it never stops and I can't quiet it down no matter how hard I try. I am sorry, please forgive me Rin." After that long-winded little speech, Myne leaned forward and bowed deeply towards Rin as she apologized again.

Rin stood straight again, holding up her index finger as a silent request for a moment to think. "Give me a minute," she said quietly, then walked off.

A few minutes later, she reappeared. Her face was less tense, her movements less rigid. She offers both hands, one human, one...mostly human... for Redal to hold if she is willing.

"You joke when you're uncomfortable, don't you?" she asked quietly.

As Rin walked off Myne let her forehead drop to the table. "Not the first time this happens." She said to herself in a quiet tone, berating herself in her mind. Until Rin returned and Myne had to pretend she had something in her eye as an excuse to whipe the stray particle of dust that clearly had her eyes irritated.

Ashamed to look up at Rin, Myne focused on the strange hand, reaching out to hold them. Her hands were shaking slightly and her eyes and mind analyzing Rin's strange hand with rapt fascination. Finally looking into the former Borg's eyes, she nodded slowly. "Yeah, I talk a lot too. I am not, good with people. Thank you, for coming back."

Rin gave Redal's hands what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

"I understand your fear. And I now understand why you said what you did," she said quietly. "I am not them. I escaped the Collective 17 years ago. I've been with Starfleet for the last 7. I can tell you about these last 17 years as an xB. I have no memory of my time before assimilation. I only know what I have been told. As for the time in-between...if you ask a question, I will consider answering, but I find most people regret asking. So, what would you ask me?"

Myne's hands relax as she feels the squeeze and she listens carefully to every word. "I am glad that... you are you." Biting her lower lip to gather her thoughts once more she continued. "How did it feel like in your head... to be part of the Collective? And after you were not anymore, how did it feel then? How did you cope with the change?"

*Well, this is the fastest I've gotten these questions,* Rin thought. Not even 24 hours into her new assignment. And now she had to decide how honest she would be.

But Redal had been willing to leave herself vulnerable with that apology. And she was willing to ask after having been warned of the answers. Redal, for all her weirdness, was still a Starfleet officer, so perhaps it was not Rin's place to second-guess Redal's strength in dealing with answers.

"People describe xBs leaving the Collective as being like waking up from a nightmare. It's a romantic fiction. What you wake up to is the nightmare. You separate from the entirety of which you were a part. You have no purpose for being. No direction. You are overwhelmed with feelings which are alien to you. A lot of drones go mad from the experience."

Her own fingers tighhened around Rin's hands as she spoke, Myne retaining a timid look. "So you felt comforted in sharing your mind with others? Do you... long for it?" The Trill asked, still looking Rin in the eyes. "I kinda get, feeling overwhelmed like that."

"Comfort is not something Borg understand. The hive mind simply was. And then, suddenly, it was not. So, at the beginning, yes, there were times I longed to belong again. But that hasn't been for a very long time. Assimilation is death of the self. When you have no sense of being, there's nothing to lose. But I am Rin, and I will never have reason to give that up. Wishing for assimilation is a wish to die, and I've already died once."

She paused, scrutinizing Redal's face in an attempt to understand what she was feeling. "Have you lost people to the Collective?"

"That sounds terrifying, the death of self. Yet, familiar, in a way." Bringing Rin's hands together to cup the both with her own hands, Myne nodded slowly, looking down. "Yes, a wife and a son. Before I joined Starfleet speaking vengeance. Don't worry, teaching at the Academy tempered that."

*Surely Redal was too young to have a son,* Rin thought. *Unless he was a child when....oh, damnit.*

"You're joined." Rin said. It was a statement rather than a question as the pieces came together. She dropped her head. "You're older than you look. I've made assumptions."

In Rin's defense, Redal had been acting like a teenager in Intelligence. But an assumption is an assumption.

When Redal mentioned her mind was full, Rin recalled, she might have meant hearing the symbiote, as opposed to it just being full of nonsense. And when she was asking about her experiences in the Collective, she was asking about what her wife and son might have experienced.

*Damnit,* Rin thought. This is why she didn't talk to strangers. Then again, Rin had warned Redal, and Redal had asked regardless.

"Where did you lose them?"

A timid smile formed on the Trill's face and she nodded. "Yeah, I am joined. It the wife and son of my previous host. And you made a very good assumption."

Still holding Rin's hands, Myne again focused on the strange one, again fascinated with it. "A no name, worthless colony. She always wanted to move away to somewhere remote. So... you mean to say that..." Myne paused for a moment. "They are still alive and happy? Where you... happy back then?"

"I cannot know if they are alive, and Borg don't understand the concept of happy. They don't understand the concept of sad, either. And it's best I leave it at that."

"Thank you for what you have shared. It could not have been easy. Honestly, I have nights when I am aware I am not even thirty yet, but I have lived nine other full lifetimes. Those days are hard, my mind filled with so many emotions and memories I know are not... mine." She sighed and offered Rin a thankful smile.

"This has been strangely...cathartic. Thank you. I think...I think I am glad I met you today."

"It has been very comforting to me too. Rin... mind if we stay and talk a bit more? Any topic you wish." Myne asked timidly before looking up at the former Borg. "And, do you mind if... I think of you as a friend?"

"I...would like to think of us as friends. Now....Super Garrett?"

//OFF//

Lieutenant Rin
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Elysium

Lieutenant JG Myne Redal
Assistant Chief Operations Officer
USS Elysium