the borg have a plan 2: tonight, we viking

we decide to dress as vikings for the current expedition. hatboy wears an overlarge helmet, with a bent rhinoceros horn on one side and a chickenfoot on the other. he says the rhino horn is for luck. we’re both wrapped in slippy bearskins and our leather boots are scuffed and revolting.

seven says we stink.

we tell her that stinky is the whole point of being a viking. we tell her we’re not going to wash for the duration of the expedition.

she orders the drones to somehow make the cube move faster.

we offer to lend her a bearskin, but she’s not interested. we try to get her to wear a viking hat, or at least a cute little seal pelt.

she tells me that, one day, when i least expect it, when everything is coming up creepy, and the frogs in my attic are croaking nicely, when the revolving doors fail to hit my back on the way out, and when i finally think i’ve tasted the perfect taco, she’s going to do something extremely horrible to me.

i tell her, “horrible is irrelevent.”

she says, “tell that to species 9675.”