zux paused for breath at the top of the hill.
and there was a borg, aiming the stun-blaster at the end of its left arm at zux.
behind the borg was the river, and beyond the river was freedom.
“give it up, zux,” came a voice from behind zux. the all too familiar voice of colonel a.
zux turned around. there was colonel a, with never fading smile, and two more shiny borgs.
“come, zux, there is a good human now,” the colonel’s soothing accents intoned. “why cause problems?“
zux looked around in every direction. two more borgs appeared. then three more after that.
and even worse than the borgs, zux could see the holes in the earth - the endless entrances to the center of the earth, down which the human race had been led, cajoled, and carried.
he was trapped. it was over.
“you know you are the last, zux,“ colonel a continued. “you have fought the good fight. you can be proud. you are the last human on the face of the earth.”
colonel a was not a human - merely a simulacrum programmed to show a “human” face and speak a droning “human” voice to the humans being rounded up by the borgs.
rounded up and melted into a single entity which was housed in the center of the planet, which the overmind had hollowed out centuries ago.
“you are the last,” colonel a repeated, as zux was gripped on each arm by an unsmiling borg.
they led zux to one of the entrances. zux could see that it was, like most entrances, somewhat overgrown, as the time had long since passed when masses of humans had to be sent down it.
for a long time there had only been a few stragglers like zux. for a while they had been organized, but for years now the organization had been unable to function, due to the relentless surveillance of the overmind, and each straggler had wandered the earth alone.
an earth almost empty of humans, an earth of rivers and trees and mountains, of alternately blue days and soaking rains, an earth green and blue and beautiful.
one of the borgs kicked the brush away from the entrance and zux could hear the music coming up from the center of the earth.
the beautiful, beautiful music of the single human mind, freed forever from oppression and conflict and alienation and aggression and injustice.
all one.
“you are the last, zux,” colonel a intoned yet again. “you can be proud.” the colonel had a limited vocabulary.
but was zux really the last?
zux never knew.
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