Chapter 3 Mattie
MATTIE
"Dave said that their mothers didn't love them," Dimitri said. "When the eight minds merged, they shared all their childhood memories, and across all eight, there wasn't a single memory of being loved."
"That's…" She shook her head. "I suppose I can understand why.
Those poor women were violated and forced to carry children they didn't want.
Motherhood is instinctive, though, and it's not the children's fault that they were born under such circumstances.
I don't think I could hate a child of mine regardless of how he was fathered. "
Dimitri's eyes softened, and he leaned over to kiss her cheek.
"Not everyone is like you, Mattie. You were raised right.
These people are raised on hate and sacrifice.
That's what they are taught from birth, and they don't have access to the outside world to learn anything different.
It's very easy to brainwash people that way. "
"I guess." Mattie sighed. "So, Dave has never seen love, they have never experienced it, and never even witnessed it. That's so sad."
"Not until us." Dimitri took her good hand. "He said that watching us together is the most fascinating thing the collective consciousness has ever encountered. He called it a phenomenon. He seems to think that knowing love is the only reason for living."
That was so incredibly touching that tears prickled the back of her eyes. "They are right, you know. Love is the engine that moves the world."
Dimitri arched a brow. "Not money?"
"Money, or rather the resources it represents, is critical for survival for most people and the means to accumulate power and prestige for some, but it's not a good enough reason for living.
We live to love and be loved. Dave observed and cataloged our love, analyzed it in his hive mind, and reached the right conclusion. Is that why they protected me?"
"That's a big part of it. If something happened to me or you, they'd lose access to the only example of love they've ever had the chance to study. They said that we were the window into something they couldn't experience themselves."
The way Dave had phrased it meant that they never expected to experience it without an intermediary.
"That's sad," she said.
"It is." Dimitri took a breath. "It gets more complicated. Dave wants to leave the island."
Mattie sat up straighter, ignoring the protest from her elbows and knees. "He wants to escape?"
"The Eight have the capabilities to pull this off. He can compel the guards, manipulate the monitoring systems, arrange transportation, and whatever else is needed, and they are offering to take us with them, you, me, and Petrov."
The words sent a flutter of excitement through her chest.
Escape. Real escape, not Dimitri's half-baked paraglider scheme with nearly nonexistent chances of success, but something that was practically guaranteed to succeed. Dave could make it happen. If anyone could get them off this rock, it was the Eight.
"That's incredible," she breathed. "When? How soon can—"
"There's a catch."
Of course there was. There was always a catch.
"In exchange for helping us escape, Dave wants to merge minds with me."
Mattie stared at him, uncomprehending. "What do you mean? How can he merge minds with you?"
"He wants to temporarily extend his collective consciousness to include me. Connect to my mind the way his eight bodies are connected to each other. So he can feel what I feel. Experience my emotions from the inside."
"He wants to feel love?"
"Yes."
"How?" she asked. "How is that even going to work?
You can't do the mind manipulation thing that the other immortals can do, so you don't have the existing pathways to accommodate a merge.
" She wasn't a scientist, but even she knew that immortals having those capabilities was how Dave's mind merge was possible.
"How would Dave create a mental link with you? "
Dimitri blinked. "I don't know."
"Did you ask them?"
Dimitri shook his head.
"How could you not ask the most basic question? You are a scientist, Dimitri."
"I was a little overwhelmed by the proposal. I figured I needed to decide whether I was willing to do it before getting into the mechanics of how."
"The how matters, Dimitri." She shifted on the bed, tucking her legs under her and leaning forward.
"The how might be the most important part.
Dave probably doesn't even know how his eight minds merged in the first place.
It's not like Zhao left them a manual. The merge happened as a side effect of the enhancement process, right? It wasn't planned."
"That's correct."
"So, Dave can't explain the mechanism because he doesn't understand it himself.
He just knows that eight minds became one, but he doesn't know the specific conditions that made that possible, which means he can't guarantee that he can replicate the process with a ninth mind in a controlled, and most importantly, temporary way. "
Dimitri gave her that look he got when she said something that he should have thought of himself.
"You're right," he said. "I should have clarified that."
"And here's the thing." She chewed on her lower lip. "If Dave doesn't know how the merge works, he also doesn't know for certain whether it can be reversed. What if you connect and then you can't disconnect? What if it's permanent?"
"That possibility occurred to me, too."
"Then why didn't you ask him?"
"Because I needed to talk to you first. Before anything else."
That softened her, but only a little. "Okay. Fair enough. But we need answers to these questions before you can make any kind of decision."
Dimitri nodded. "You seem more concerned about the mechanics than about the privacy implications."
"What do you mean by that?"
"If I merge with Dave, he'll have access to my emotional state. Everything I feel. Including us." He gestured between them. "Everything I feel about you. About us. That's not just my privacy, Mattie. It's yours too."
She considered this for approximately two seconds. "That's the least of my concerns."
"Really?" He looked genuinely surprised.
"Because I thought you'd be horrified by the idea of Dave being present when we make love.
I mean, not physically in the room while we are doing it, but they'll be in my head, experiencing everything that I'm experiencing.
That's even worse than standing around the bed and watching us. "
"That's kind of kinky."
Dimitri's mouth fell open. "That's not the reaction I was expecting."
"What, did you think I'd faint? Clutch my pearls?" She grinned, thinking of the absurdity of what they were discussing. "I didn't peg you for a prude."
"And I didn't peg you for an exhibitionist."
"I'm not. But if it's for educational purposes…" She shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. "Think of it as a science experiment. Dave gets to experience human love through a direct neural link. Very cutting-edge research."
Dimitri shook his head, but he was smiling, and some of the tension in his shoulders eased. "You're unbelievable."
"I know." She reached for his hand with her good one and squeezed it. "The privacy thing is awkward, sure, and I'm not sure how we will navigate it, but it's not dangerous. What's dangerous is the mind merge and all the unknowns."
His smile faded. "You're right."
"Even if everything works smoothly, what happens if once Dave gets a taste of it he doesn't want to let go? What if experiencing love through you becomes addictive for him? What if he refuses to sever the connection even if it's technically possible?"
Dimitri was quiet for a moment. "There's another concern I haven't mentioned."
"What?"
"What if the merge changes me? What if connecting to a collective consciousness of eight minds alters my own mind in ways that can't be undone?" He paused, squared his shoulders, and said with a perfectly straight face, "We are Borg."
Mattie laughed. "Did you watch Star Trek in Russia?"
"Resistance is futile," he said in the same monotone voice.
"Stop it." But she was still laughing, and the absurdity of referencing a Star Trek joke, while discussing the real possibility of being absorbed into a hive mind, made the situation feel momentarily less terrifying. "It's not funny."
"No?" He arched a brow. "I think it is. In a macabre sort of way."
The laughter died, and the seriousness of the matter settled back over them.
Mattie tightened her grip on his hand. "We don't have to decide anything tonight."
"I know."
"We need more information. A lot more. And we need to think about it carefully, not just because Dave is our only realistic chance of getting off this island."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, we also need to think about what happens if you say no." She met his eyes. "Dave might not take it well."
"He said that if I refuse, they stay on the island because they would have no reason to leave, and if they stay, we all stay."
"That's what he said. But what he meant might be different. Dave has compulsion abilities, Dimitri. If he decides that the merge is happening, whether you agree or not—"
"I'm resistant to his compulsion, and he would need my cooperation. A forced merge wouldn't give him what he wants. You can't experience love through someone who's been coerced. The emotion would be contaminated by fear and resentment."
"Unless Dave doesn't understand that distinction. He's never felt love. He might not know the difference between genuine emotion and what fear produces."
"That's possible." Dimitri let go of her hand and stood up. "I desperately need a shower. We can talk more when I get out."
"Okay."
He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Do you want to get in with me?"
Normally, she would have said yes, but she was too tired to go through the process of wrapping her hand and getting undressed and everything else. Tomorrow morning, she might have the energy for it.
"Not tonight. Tomorrow."
He nodded, walked over to the bathroom, and a moment later, she heard the water running.
Mattie lay back and stared at the ceiling.
Dave's proposal was extraordinary. The escape was everything they'd been desperate for. It was a real chance at freedom, backed by someone who actually had the power to make it happen.
But the price.
Letting Dave into Dimitri's mind, letting a hive consciousness experience their most intimate moments, their most private feelings. And the real, terrifying risk was that Dimitri might not come back from it unchanged.
We are Borg.
She almost smiled, but it died before it reached her lips.
Her thoughts drifted back to what Dimitri had told her about the Dormant enclosure. The women. The breeding. The daughters who grew up to replace their mothers in the same cycle of violation and captivity.
When the fire had destroyed her family's home and killed both her parents, she'd survived because she'd been sleeping on the second floor of the house and had been rescued by a firefighter.
For years afterward, the guilt had been crushing.
Why had she lived when they hadn't? What was the point of surviving if surviving meant living with the knowledge that she was here and they were gone?
What had saved her, not healed her because that wound would never fully heal, but what kept her from drowning in despair was the conviction that she'd been spared for a reason.
That someday, she would save others. It was naive, even grandiose, but it had given her purpose when purpose was the only thing standing between her and despair.
And then life had taken a dark turn, and she'd ended up trafficked to an island run by immortal warriors. She couldn't save herself, let alone anyone else.
But now there was a glimmer of hope, offered by the most unlikely ally, and maybe it was a sign from the universe that it was her turn to pay it forward.
What if she could help those women in the Dormant enclosure?
Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, were living a nightmare, born into it and possibly not even knowing that there was something better out there.
They needed to be told that women were not inferior, and that they had agency just as much as men, or more.
Women were scientists and physicians, artists and teachers, and they contributed to the world in thousands of ways.
Breeding was not their only purpose. Serving men was not their only purpose.
Slavery and misery were not the lot assigned to them by a hateful god.
Could she help them?
The thought was absurd on the face of it. She was just a human with a broken hand and scarred legs, who was trapped on an island controlled by thousands of immortal warriors. She couldn't save herself without Dave's help, let alone hundreds of captive women.
But Dave was powerful. Dave could compel minds, manipulate systems, neutralize threats, and Dave wanted to be her friend. Dave's price for escape was the mind merge. What if Mattie's price for the mind merge was the women?
What if she made it part of the deal?
Help us escape, and free the Dormants.
It was a wild idea. Probably impossible. Dave wanted off the island with Dimitri and Petrov in order to maintain his drug supply. Adding hundreds of women to the equation was most likely too big a mission even for the Eight.
But Dave had said he wanted to understand love.
Real love. And what was love if not caring about people beyond yourself?
If Dave truly wanted to understand it, maybe the lesson started with compassion.
With sacrifice. With doing something not because it served his interests but because it was the right thing to do.
The Eight were young, so perhaps their mothers were still alive. Maybe that was the motivation she could feed him? The chance of connecting with their mothers outside of this hellhole and maybe experiencing love firsthand instead of as voyeurs?
How many women were they talking about? She had no idea. She didn't even know where the Dormant enclosure was, what it looked like, or how it was guarded.
She didn't know anything, really. Just that those women existed, and now that she knew of their suffering, she would never be able to forget it and ignore it.
The shower was shut off. A few minutes later, Dimitri emerged from the bathroom in shorts and a T-shirt, toweling his hair. He looked at her and paused.
"You're supposed to be sleeping."
"I'm thinking."
"About Dave?"
"About the Dormant women."
He lowered the towel. "What about them?"
"I don't know yet," she said. "But I have a feeling that they're going to be important."
Dimitri studied her for a moment, then came to his bed and lay down, pulling the blanket up to his waist. Their beds were still pushed apart since her injury, and the gap between them felt both necessary and cruel.
Hopefully, it wouldn't stay there for long.