“I want to say something and you can’t be mad at me,” Jeovanni said.  

He stopped pacing only long enough to express himself.  As soon as he spat those words out in a mumbled rush, he resumed his impromptu patrol.  In his dress uniform, with his arms cross over his chest, Jeovanni stalked the narrow aisle between the row of toilet stalls and the long countertop of sinks in the restroom.  Once he reached the wall, he spun on his heel, and walked the same length back.  Practically since the day of his birth, in Suraya Bay on Risa, Jeovanni had never been one to sit still.

Annikafiore had pulled the exit door’s control panel off the wall and she was prodding at the workings within.  She looked back over her shoulder and Jeovanni was able to catch her gaze.

“Three of our teammates were spontaneously assimilated into Borg.  In the bathroom.  And they locked us in here,” Annikafiore said.  

She narrowed her eyes at Jeovanni when she said, “It’s not about you today.  I won’t be mad at you.“

Suitably chided for disassociating into his own internal world, Jeovanni perched himself on the edge of the countertop.  His posture shrank in on himself, diffidently.  He angled his chin in Annikafiore’s direction and then he winced.

“Can you still hear it?” he asked quietly.  “The screaming in the auditorium?”

“No,” she answered.  Even in her reply, Annikafiore kept her gaze inside the open control panel.  She tugged out an ODN cable and plugged it into another port.

“Have you ever heard of slow-acting nanoprobes?” Jeovanni asked.  The words came out slowly and tentatively.  He didn’t really want to know the answer, even when he asked the question.

“No,” Annikafiore answered.

“Then what happened?” Jeovanni asked in exasperation.  “How were they assimilated into Borg drones by washing their hands?  Nanoprobes in the water?!?”

“I don’t know,” Annikafiore answered flatly, offering him little attention.  She plugged another cable into another port, causing sparks to lash out at her from the open panel.  Annikafiore jumped back, landing on her knees.  The Elaysian grunted and grasped her thighs, right over the exo-support frame, sewn into her dress uniform, which was aiding her mobility.  Despite the panel’s overreaction, the doors leading out of the restroom remained sealed.  Without getting up, Annikafiore tilted her head back.  Staring at the overhead, she sighed.

“…Why am I going to be mad?” Annikafiore asked.

Jeovanni smiled sheepishly at her even though she wasn’t looking at him.

“Because near-death experiences inspire me?” Jeovanni admitted.  “This is our new angle on the project.  This.  The team we have revisiting our modes of assessment, we need to clear their schedules.  They need to reach for a new understanding of: Does Starfleet deserve the Borg?  If you think about it, the Borg, what?  They destroyed a few dozen starships?  And then Starfleet wiped out their public transit system and unleashed a paralysing pandemic across their entire civilisation.  Does that sound like a proportional response to you?”

Jeovanni shrugged.  “Maybe we deserve this,” he said softly.  He swept a hand at the fused door.  “…Whatever this is.“

Shaking her head at him, Annikafiore said, “What about our research into the value of the prime directive?  We’re too close to–“

“Forget the prime directive.  That debate is tired,” Jeovanni said.  “If the Borg are assimilating Avalon, this is a live issue.  I designed the We Are Starfleet project to philosophically critique if Starfleet is serving its purpose.  What greater critique is there than Borg retribution?  With the right hook, we could sweet-talk an admiral into giving us a practical philosophy institute!”

“If,” Annikafiore said ominously.  “If there’s still a Starfleet.  If Starfleet is still who we are.”

Neither of them said anything right away.  The last thing their assimilated team-mates had said to them before locking them in the restroom had been: ‘We are Borg.  Starfleet is Borg.’

Jeovanni cleared his throat finally.

“Want a hand with the door?” he asked.

“Only one?” she taunted back.

Raising an eyebrow, Jeovanni promised that phrase he’d been taught since birth, “All that is ours is yours.”