- Captain Kathryn Janeway: I can tell by the expression on your face that you've got some bad news.
- Tuvok: I have no expression on my face; however, you are correct.
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: [summarizing Tuvok's report] I've got an Ocampan who wants to be something more and a Borg who's afraid of becoming something less. Here's to Vulcan stability.
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: Ah... Tuvok's meditation lamp. I was with him when he got it six years ago, from a Vulcan master who doubled the price when he saw our Starfleet insignias.
- Kes: I'm sure it was the logical thing to do.
- [the Doctor has restored Seven of Nine's human appearance]
- The Doctor: I also took the liberty of stimulating your hair follicles - a vicarious experience for me, as you might imagine.
- Seven of Nine: My designation is Seven of Nine, but the others are gone. Designations are no longer relevant. I am... one.
- [last lines]
- Seven of Nine: Red.
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: What?
- Seven of Nine: The child you spoke of, the girl. Her favorite color was red.
- Seven of Nine: Your attempts to assimilate this drone will fail. You can alter our physiology, but you cannot change our nature. We will betray you. We are Borg.
- [Janeway shows Seven of Nine the picture of a little girl]
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: Do you remember her? Her name was Annika Hansen. She was born on Stardate 25479, at the Tendara Colony. There's still a lot we don't know about her. Did she have any siblings? Who were her friends? Where did she go to school? What was her favorite color?
- Seven of Nine: Irrelevant! Take me back to the Borg!
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: She may have been raised by Borg, raised to think like a Borg, but she's with us now, and underneath all that technology she is a human being, whether she's ready to accept that or not - and until she is ready... someone has to make the decisions for her.
- Harry Kim: So what's it like out there in Galactic Cluster III?
- Seven of Nine: Beyond your comprehension.
- Harry Kim: Try me.
- Seven of Nine: Galactic Cluster III is a transmaterial energy plane intersecting twenty-two billion omnicordial life forms.
- Harry Kim: Oh. Interesting.
- Harry Kim: [attempting small-talk with Seven of Nine] I guess the Borg meet a lot of people, don't they?
- Seven of Nine: You have imprisoned us in the name of humanity, yet you will not grant us your most cherished human right: to choose our own fate. You are hypocritical, manipulative. We do not want to be what you are! Return us to the Collective!
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: You lost the capacity to make a rational choice the moment you were assimilated. They took that from you, and until I'm convinced you've gotten it back, I'm making the choice for you. You're staying here.
- Seven of Nine: Then you are no different than the Borg.
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: [to Seven of Nine] The Borg modifications you made to our vessel are disrupting our warp drive. We need your help to remove them, your... expertise, your cooperation.
- [firmly]
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: You must comply.
- The Doctor: I'm afraid we have a decision to make, a difficult one. Her human immune system has reasserted itself with a vengeance. Body armor, Borg organelles, biosynthetic glands - they're all being rejected. Her life is in danger. I have little recourse but to remove the Borg technology.
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: Which is the last thing Seven of Nine would want.
- The Doctor: Hence the difficult decision. If a patient told me not to treat them, even if the situation were life-threatening, I would be ethically obligated to honor that request.
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: This is no ordinary patient.
- Seven of Nine: We fully recall the engineering specifications of your vessel.
- B'Elanna Torres: Good. Can you also recall the way it looked before you turned it into a Borg circus?
- The Doctor: [having removed a Borg implant from Seven of Nine] Store it in a biostasis chamber. It may still be active. If you think there's a risk, Mr. Tuvok, you can throw one of your little forcefields around the chamber.
- Tuvok: A prudent security measure, for a doctor.
- Seven of Nine: You are an individual. You are small. You can not understand what it is to be Borg!
- Captain Kathryn Janeway: No, but I can imagine. You were part of a vast consciousness, billions of minds working together, a harmony of purpose and thought, no indecision, no doubts, the security and strength of a unified will - and you've lost that.
- Seven of Nine: [taking this in] This drone is small now. Alone. One voice. One mind. The silence is unacceptable! We need the others!
- Tuvok: [after her recent experience with Species 8472, Kes' psychic abilities are increasing] Perhaps she's experiencing an after-effect of some kind.
- The Doctor: A reasonable diagnosis, for a security officer.