“Resistance detected,” the Borg supervisor said, the volume of its voice swelling in an uncanny crescendo of voices. “Activating Supervisor 341 adjunct 2 of Store 551 of 600. Stand by for direct interaction.”
The trio didn’t kick in the door to the vinculum (aka Manager’s Office) but they also didn’t knock. Apparently, these two possibilities carried equal weight in the world of the Borg Collective. The drone behind the incongruously large desk that dominated the room leapt up from his seat as Helvetica, Boots, and Rocky-Road entered the room with such alacrity that it almost seemed as if he’d left his suit behind in the chair as he advanced.
No, Helvetica realized suddenly, he did leave his suit behind in the chair.
The abomination standing before them looked less like a man and more like a collection of man-parts assembled haphazardly in the silhouette of a man-shape held together by a loose collection of cables and unattached green-glowing-lights. Helvetica wasn’t quite sure how the supervisor managed to remain standing because it seemed as if the being was a hollow effigy of what the Borg thought a supervisor might look like.
Upon seeing this (and the suit still resting in the chair like a lazy observer), Helvetica decided that perhaps some sort of diplomacy might work better than guns blazing. At least that’s what the dialogue boxes that instantly popped up seemed to direct her to do. With only two things to say, “Hello,” and “Goodbye,” Helvetica decided to go with the former.
“I assume you are management,” she said.
“We all have to pull together as a team, be sure to keep working even after I go home,” the Borg supervisor said in a thirty-two voice choir that attempted to occupy every octave. “Employees who maintain a good record will receive a voucher to wear ‘casual’ attire on the last Friday of the month.”
“I’m not sssure talking is going to work,” Boots hissed.
The supervisor shuddered menacingly as it turned to look at Boots—who, in spite of his tremendous height, still stood about a head shorter.
“We’re not employees,” Helvetica said. “I would like you to stop attacking our ship. You know, the one outside the window with the green tractor beam attached to it.”
She gestured to an actual window that took up most of the left wall. The USS Oxford had seen better days, its saucer section had several breaches in the upper decks, force-fields shimmered over large rents in the hull with shimmering static. One of the nacelles had collapsed and a blue glow was leaking out into space in frilly clouds. The Borg sphere had attached itself to the Oxford via a glimmering cone of very green gravitons.
“Unassimilated employees must sign waivers that terminate safety obligations of the Collective,” the Borg supervisor grated in two dissonant voices. “Resistance is futile, you will run the cash register and keep the surrounding area clutter free.”
“Again: Not employees,” Helvetica said. “Why do I get the feeling this thing is just repeating from a script?”
“I don’t think it’s listening,” Rocky-Road said, she had been looking at her tricorder the entire time. “It seems to be repeating platitudes designed to…perhaps placate other drones?”
“Return to work,” the Borg supervisors said. The green lights floating inside its cabled scaffold increased in brightness as it spoke. “Employees who do not make production deadlines will be written up and subject to disciplinary action. Multiple actions will result in termination of contract.”
The author Helvetica writes the Helvetica Voyage, Helvetica Venture, and Hellvetica Chronicles for Vox Ex Machina and proudly supports the works of Kyt Dotson, whose writing includes Mill Avenue Vexations (a gothic webserial featuring cab driver Vex Harrow), Black Hat Magick, and Helljammer and invites you to check out the novel, The Specter in the Spectacles by Kyt Dotson.
Recent Comments