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When the U.S.S. Voyager encounters
a Borg vessel's debris field, sensors also detect a Borg neural
interlink frequency. Meanwhile, Seven of Nine hears voices in
her head that cause her to change personalities. One minute she
is a Klingon hunting for food, and the next she is a little girl
wanting to play a game. No one realizes what is happening until
Seven, acting as a Klingon, attacks Torres. She is contained in
a forcefield but becomes a little girl again. When she suddenly
begins speaking Klingon and turns on Tuvok, the Vulcan is forced
to stun her with a phaser.
Once in sickbay, Seven's
cortical inhibitor is suppressed so she will not react to the
voices. The Doctor discovers that Seven's implants are storing
new neural patterns of species the Borg assimilated. After
arriving at the debris field, the crew finds the source of the
interlink frequency — a vinculum. A processing device that
interconnects the minds of drones, it is sending a damaged
signal to Seven and must be taken off-line. After Janeway agrees
to beam it aboard so it can be disabled, Seven finds an alien
organism inside that attacks technology by creating a virus.
Seven determines that Species 6339 carried the virus in their
bodies and spread it to the Borg cube when assimilated. After
her inhibitor begins failing, Seven experiences even more new
personalities and must be sedated. Torres and Tuvok target the
vinculum's transneural matrix with a dampening field, but it
only adapts to the technology and returns to full power. At that
point, Seven's own neural pattern is erased.
When Janeway locates a Species 6339 vessel, their leader demands
she return the vinculum. They unleashed the virus to spread to
all cubes, and they want to return it to the debris field so the
Borg will retrieve it. Janeway refuses to do so until Seven has
been cured, so Voyager comes under fire from the alien vessel.
Meanwhile, Seven's cerebral cortex is under incredible strain,
and the Doctor fears that he may never be able to retrieve her
neural pattern. Tuvok decides to engage in a Vulcan mind-meld to
isolate her true self and guide it to the surface.
As Tuvok enters Seven's chaotic mind, he struggles to find her
among the sea of screaming people. He glimpses her being
restrained by Klingons and other aliens, but he can't reach her.
In Engineering, Torres remodulates the dampening field and
finally manages to disable the vinculum. Once it is beamed out
to space, the alien vessel ceases its attack. All of the other
neural patterns in Seven's mind become dormant, and she and
Tuvok return safely from their mind-meld. |
