Chapter Text
When Jake listened to the RDA speech about a fresh start, his mind was moving slow as molasses. He was watching the box with his brother, his other half in many aspects, slide as easily as anything into the furnace.
He heard words like contract and genome, and he processed the words absently, as the box began to catch fire, as a body began to burn; because that’s all Tommy was to them. A body. A number, and investment, a name. They were thinking of lost profit, and revenue, and filling open positions, cutting corners, and making the most of a hitch in the plans they had constructed. They didn’t care about the numbness he felt, watching the fire, the ash, and smoke. They didn’t care about how later, in the privacy of his shitty apartment, he would grieve for something they could never understand, they cared about the profit margin.
He heard lies fall from their greedy lips.
So many lies.
‘Make a difference’ they said. They said that when he joined the Marines, as well, and look how that turned out.
But there was something there, he thought as he watched his baby brother, who always hated being called that, turn from flesh and bone to ash. A new chance. A new life. Potential for change, for something new. Since he lost the use of his legs, he had been listless on this dying planet. The opportunity to go to another... that was something.
Tommy had helped him so much when he got back from Venezuala. He had helped Jake recover, get his affairs together, deal with recovery, rehab, find an apartment, and, recently, been trying to help him find a job that could accommodate a paraplegic. And his final gift on this hellish planet was the ultimate opportunity.
The world around them, it used to be kind. It still is, in the dark corners where it can fester on occasion like a mold to be snuffed out when noticed. He sees every day that the strong prey on the weak. He’s seeing it now. But it wasn’t always like that. Humans didn’t get to this point by being cruel and cold to one another. That had developed slowly, like cancer. Jake had always hated school, cut classes when he felt like it, joined the military when the opportunity presented itself, but the only thing that stuck on his mind, the idea, the concept that made him jump in front of his fellow soldier to take what would have been a lethal bullet, was this:
A story of a neanderthal, during the discussion of prehistoric development, who was obviously born with defects; an atrophied arm, potential blindness, deafness, lived to a reasonable age, for the time. Not because he was strong, but because his fellow man cared for him and provided.
It caught Jake’s attention, the brief line in the textbook it was, because it was not a concept he had seen before, not in his lifetime. Sure, family may take care of family, but even people had limits, surely. It must have been annoying to have deadweight, he had thought, and he realized if he had led this clan of neanderthals, with this mentality, this person would have died early, as a baby, as a child, and the thought had made his stomach churn.
It's why, as Tommy turned to science, and university, Jake had always been the outgoing one. He tried to be friendly, he turned to environments of togetherness, the dynamics of the military had called to that, that sense of brotherhood. That neanderthal didn’t survive because his society was advanced, that neanderthal survived because his society was kind, and cared for him, they cared for one another.
He could never believe in that concept on earth, practice it without being chewed up and spit out. There was nowhere on this dying planet that he could go where it would be something that would benefit himself or others.
They wanted to use him, again and again and again, if he was right about exactly what they wanted out of him… but if he played his cards right, maybe finally… he won’t be the one getting played . A planet, full of life, full of greenery. He knew of Pandora, from his brother's conversations, what he learned in school. He knew it was vast and open, and though life was brutal there, the natives thrived. Jake knew they must be tough to survive there, but in such a harsh environment, they must also be kind, to their planet, and to one another. He had mentioned that only once, to Tommy during their conversations, and Tommy had mused about it for a minute, and said that they even feel sorry for the violent beasts they kill in self-defense.
So, he takes the offer, because if the humans on Pandora survive on this strong over the weak philosophy that’s driving their planet into ruin… he can cut and run into the endless dangerous forest and live or die on his own terms. And if not, well, he can stick around to live there too. He signs the file they hand him then and there, in the crematorium. He hands the files back and they leave. (He’s not putting money on it though.)
He watches his brother burn for the full hour and a half. He waits as they process what’s left, and he rolls out of the facility with his brother's ashes in a plain black urn. And a plan.
(Moments after locking his door behind him, an urn in his lap, he breaks apart at the fucking seams. He cries like he’s dying, his face and eyes burn, breathing is a miserable chore that he can’t convince himself to do half the time, and his nails dig into the metal of the urn he clutches like it’s his lifeline.
His brain is on fire, he can’t see, he can’t breathe, and Tommy is dead. Wonderful, stupid, lovable, nerdy Tommy is ashes in his arms. Tears trail down his face and soak the top of the urn, he can’t feel where his body is, he doesn’t understand, he can’t understand why, he wants to die, he feels like he’s dying--
Tommy bled out in an alley with two stab wounds to the abdomen.
Tommy was alive and smiling at Jake over a video-call just yesterday.
Tommy was found with an empty wallet two feet from his body.
Tommy was so excited to be going to Pandora he brought it up every time he spoke to Jake.
Tommy, Tommy, Tommy--
Jail wails like a dying animal, as twenty five years of sharing a face with another person he loved more than himself comes to an end. He wants Tommy to be alive, he wants Tommy to be here right now, hugging him like he did when Jake’s bitter tears about his paralysis forced him into a battle with his own mind, he wants Tommy to be making shit jokes and offering a terrible German beer to Jake, he wants to go hiking with his brother again, he wants to share another birthday with him, he wants, he wants--
He wants Tommy to be alive. He wants his goddamn brother back.
He wants Tommy to go to Pandora, even if he wouldn’t see him for over fifteen years. He wants to be older than Tommy by a decade when he comes back. He wants to make fun of Tommy for the rest of their lives for being the eldest, he wants to irritate the fuck out of his little brother for the rest of time, and he wants Tommy to research the plants he’s been obsessed with for a decade.
He doesn’t want an urn full of ashes, he doesn’t want to be crying so hard he can’t breathe, he doesn’t want the fucking avatar, he doesn’t fucking want any of it, he mostly wants to kill himself.
Why did Tommy have to die? Why did he have to die a week before living his dream? Why did Jake have to be here? Why can’t he fucking breathe ?
Tommy was always so full of life. He lit up when he spoke about the things he loved, he was bright and lovable and dumb as rocks while being the smartest person Jake knows.
Jake is never going to see him again. He’s never going to have dinner over at his house again, he never going to a bar with Tommy again, he’s never going to hear his laughter again, or hear him curse at computers, or whine about having to exercise.
Jake doesn’t understand. How can Tommy be dead?
He’s alive. He was alive just hours ago. How can he be ashes in Jake’s arms?
Jake’s heart and mind have been ripped from his body, he’s a living wound, a barely conscious animal tethered to reality by the metal under his hands.
He’s half a soul in a broken body.)
He goes through the motions. He only has a week to make it work. He fills out paperwork, he goes to the training sessions or simply skips them, he reads books on Pandora with laser focus, barely sleeping, downloads book after book, resource after resource, to take in tablets with him, to have access to all the material he can’t memorize, he says the right things to the right people…
He’s perpetually exhausted, and there’s a numb place in his chest.
He looks at Tommy’s urn on his desk before he goes to sleep each night, when he decides he’s too close to passing out. Tommy’s affairs on Earth were pretty much already settled, so he didn’t have to do much there. He has to clean up his own shit, though, do something with his stuff, with his apartment… he has to pack.
The night before he’s set to leave, he’s pretty much trashed his apartment with his efforts to get everything he can’t live without into a single duffle bag. Photos, tablets, a few pieces of clothes, a handful of books, stuff like that.
He stares at Tommy’s urn. He taps the top. “Don’t worry, you’re comin’ too. Worked your ass off, might as well make it there. In spirit, at least. I… I’ll bury you in the-- the most beautiful spot I can find. Promise.”
He puts Tommy in their mother's decorative spice box. It was made by their grandfather, carved from maple wood for his sewing supplies. Had a false bottom for handing spare cash, so it had a lock too. Handed down to their mother, and now it was Jakes. Tommy’s ashes were in a clear plastic bag, within the urn, which he would have hated, so Jake found a clean white tea towel, wrapped the ashes in it, folding it over the ashes, securing it with some twine, and then doing it a second time with another, to make sure it was all secure, and square shaped to fit very neatly in the box.
Tommy’s ashes fit well enough, once the false bottom was removed, and he locked the box, putting the key on his dog tags.
There was ash on his fingertips. He didn’t wash it off. He went to bed, woke up, and in the morning, went directly to the facility that would take him to the secure ascension site, his bag was handed off, and he got in the pod as instructed, someone taking his wheelchair away to be secured.
With the ashes of his brother on his hands, he takes his last breath on earth as the cryopod closes around him.
He dreams, or perhaps he thinks he dreams, of his brother, of ash stained hands.
He opens his eyes again feeling like he’d had a fifth of tequila and gotten an asskicking.
He takes a breath and looks around the pod, noting the water droplets floating in the air, the absent throb of the headache an afterthought as he focuses on waking up. His pod is rolled out from the chamber and he blinks at sudden bright lights, peering around.
A med tech floats over to him and checks his pulse, reactions.
“Are we there?” he rasps, feeling silly as soon as he says it. He knows it’s supposed to feel like no time has passed, but it still feels unreal . He still feels the sleepless week of cramming, the punch of grief of a death that happened six years ago… Or is it five? He doesn’t understand this stupid gravity, speed of light, and time is shorter outside of the ship bullshit.
“We're there, Sunshine,” the guy says, and pats his shoulder, almost absently, like bedside manner kicking in at the last second as he already glances at the next person to check. “We’re there.”
From there, Jake is allowed to float in the zero-grav, to get to the locker with ‘Sully T.’ marked on it to collect some of his things as he reviews his thoughts. He looks at the sign with his brother's name on it and hopes his brother wouldn’t mind his messy, half-assed plan that might get him killed or arrested if he fucks it up.
He focuses, takes a steeling breath. He has to know, first, what he’s walking into. He knows the RDA is going to be focused on mining unobtanium, he doubts he is going to find anything but greed there, already mining a planet they were never meant to live on of its resources, but Jake was supposed to be helping the science program. He has a job to do first, observations to make. Then he can make a decision, and make a plan.
On the surface, he finds what he’s expecting.
He heard, from his fellow soldiers, “Special Case” and “Hot-Rod.”
He thinks of the neanderthal and knows that if they were still banging rocks together he would be left to get mauled to death by a bear, or starved, left to die. As expected.
But the potential he was after never lied in the military here, he knew that, and the proof was all around him, so he followed instructions, listened to who he was supposed to, and rolled to his mission debrief with all the other soldiers. The brotherhood and camaraderie he had in the Marines, well… they fought for freedom, or what they thought as freedom, for the lies the government handed them on silver platters, but here? Hired guns, and nothing more.
He noticed a truck coming and slowed so he wasn’t crushed, noticing the arrows embedded deep in the wheels suddenly. Each arrow was pretty much as long as the human body.
He doubts he’ll make friends with the natives. Even if they practice the compassion he wants to see in the world, it may not extend to him. Not that he blames them. He’ll need to consider that in his plans. Making his own corner of the world; he’ll likely be seen as no better than the other humans, even if he defects. So, even if they don’t extend compassion to him, he should offer apologies, and efforts, if it ever comes to that. To work for his permission to reside unharmed. He’s sure he can think of something they may appreciate.
He continued on, mulling on arrows and aliens.
Inside, he makes his way to the mess and watches Colonel Quaritch’s speech in silence.
“You are not in Kansas anymore…” the man says, as he strides down the aisle. “You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day. If there is a hell, you might want to go there for some R&R after a tour on Pandora. Out there, beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for Jujubes. We have an indigenous population of humanoids called the Na'vi. They're fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin that'll stop your heart in one minute. And they have bones reinforced with naturally occurring carbon fiber. They are very hard to kill. As head of security, it is my job to keep you alive.” He looks around somberly. “I will not succeed. Not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need to cultivate a strong mental attitude. You've got to obey the rules. Pandora rules. Rule number one…”
Jake mulls over his words as he listens. He wonders if anybody else is wondering why they’re killing the Na’vi on their own planet, on their own soil, for their own resources. If they’re even making the connection. Is it any wonder why the Na’vi are trying to kill them all when they came here uninvited, ripped a hole open in the soil, took stone and mineral from the land, and sent it off planet for money? No amount would ever be enough. They would bulldoze the entire planet looking for every scrap before moving on the next, and the next, and the next.
And nothing would ever get better on Earth. The population would grow, unless something started to kill everybody, like the toxic air, or a disease… The energy crisis would always be an issue. There was no way to go back to any renewable sources at this point, too much infrastructure built on unobtanium, on what’s left of the coal and gas supply, on things that could never be grown or sustained. No large scale change, because it's not profitable.
He was tired of the same storyline, the same lies, the same blindness.
Not only that, Quaritch didn’t breathe a word about having your fellow soldiers back. You were strong, alone, or you were dead. He didn’t want that anymore. He didn’t want to have to be strong to survive.
But he had to know there was no hope in staying on the base before he started making true plans. More than he already had, that is. He absently rolled to the area he was directed to, one of the bio-labs, when he heard a voice call his name.
“Jake! Excuse me. Jake!” Jake glanced around, and found a tall lanky man with golden brown hair and eyes. “You're Jake, right? Tom's brother. Wow! You look just like him.”
Jake nodded absently, trying to find his conversation skills and pushing past the lump in his throat at the mention of his twin.
“Sorry, I'm Norm. Spellman. I went through avatar training with him.”
“Right,” he said softly. “Yeah, uh, he-- mentioned your name a few times.”
Norm glanced around and pointed to the door marked with the room number Jake was trying to find. “Right here, the bio-lab. We're gonna spend a lot of time up here. Hey! How you doing? Norm, avatar driver.” He quickly introduced to the nearest scientist that looked their way, she nodded in confirmation, going back to the screens she was working on.
“Link... Here's the link room right here,” Norm said, trying to give him the layout, but he was distracted by the tubs, with the Avatars in the. “This is where we're connecting to the avatar…”
He looked at the first, the one that looked a hell of a lot like Norm, unsurprisingly. They mixed Na’vi and human DNA to make them. Still, his eyes, his face structure, it was fascinating to see.
“Damn! They got big,” was all he could say. He had seen them before they were fully shipped out, just tiny little things, just about the same size as a watermelon. Which, granted, is large for a human baby, but for a Na’vi? A being twice as tall as a human? Seemed about right.
Which was useful. Size mattered, at least… at least in this case. He wouldn't be running into the forest to survive on his own, of course. He would die alone. But with the avatar, he could set up facilities, manage to figure out ways to travel and sustain himself. That was always the plan, to steal his brother's avatar and use it to thrive.
“Yeah, they fully mature on the flight out. The proprioceptive sims seem to work really well,” Norm noted as Jake absently thought of… movement. Of walking .
Dr. Patel replied, “Yeah, they've got great muscle tone. It'll take us a few hours to get them decanted, but you guys can take them out tomorrow.” He glanced at Jake and motioned. “There's yours.”
Jake turned, and slowly rolled over to the second tank, looking at the avatar as it slowly shifted in the tank, facing him more. He swallowed as he stared at the face. “Hey, Tom,” he said softly, putting a hand on the glass. At the same time, his other hand goes to where he knows Tommy’s ashes are in his bag, feeling the hard wood through the material.
Norm sort of claps him on the shoulder. “It may have been made for him, but this is your avatar now, Jake.”
And honestly, it hurt to hear that. It wasn’t. It never would be. This body may be controlled by him, but it would always be Tommy’s body. His final piece of living flesh, taking care of Jake’s crippled ass. DNA was never, never exact. Just… close enough .
He kept his hand against the glass and wondered if this was his own fucked up way to protect the little piece of Tommy from the alternative: if he had said no, he wasn’t interested, this last living piece of his brother would have died with him.
As they settled in, his bag was left in his quarters, and after introduction to the lab, he was encouraged to start a video-log. It felt stupid and unnatural, so he pretty much repeated the basics; what avatars were, why he was picked…
“...And the concept is that every driver is matched to his own avatar, so that their nervous systems are in tune, or something. Which is why they offered me the gig, because I can link with Tommy's avatar… which is insanely expensive… And all that matters is cost, right?” fell from his lips, and he winced, cleared his throat, turned to the scientists behind him. “Is this right? I just say whatever to the video log?”
“Yeah, we gotta get in the habit of documenting everything. You know, what we see, what we feel. It's all part of the science,” Norm said.
“And good science is good observation.”
“Plus it'll help to keep you sane for the next six years.”
Doubt it. “All right. Well…” He sighed, stared at the camera, and then glanced back at them. “Are video logs private? Or…?”
“Sort of,” Norm said. “I guess you only have access to it for a while, with your security codes, but RDA can access them when they need to, and they’re reviewed at the end of your rotation. For science.”
“Okay… interesting,” he said. “Well… anyway. Here I am. On another planet.”
They are led into the link room after Norm gets his first log done as well. Jake glances around, noticing the coffin like pods starting back at him.
“Grace Augustine is a legend. She's the head of the Avatar Program. She wrote the book, I mean, literally wrote the book on Pandoran botany.”
“I know,” Jake agreed because he had read it, more or less, to get an idea of the flora of the planet he could use, its effects, its locations… It wasn’t the best survival manual, overall, but it helped. He may not be an expert like her, but with everything he read and reviewed, he could keep up enough with the basic names of plants, animals, how the flora and fauna interacted…
“Well, that's 'cause she likes plants better than people,” Patel mentioned and Jake winced. “Here she is, Cinderella back from the ball. Grace, I'd like you to meet Norm Spellman and Jake Sully.”
The older woman barely even glanced at Jake, she looked at Norm first. “Norm. I hear good things about you. How's your Na'vi?”
Jake watched as they spoke to each other, noting the interaction, the dismissive way Augustine immediately treated him, the way the scientists bustled about.
“Grace? This is Jake Sully,” Patel tried again.
Jake offered his hand, may as well be polite. “Ma'am.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know who you are, and I don't need you. I need your brother. You know, the PhD who trained for three years for this mission?” she retorted, crossing her arms.
A hot strike of anger shot through him, and he couldn’t help the bitter way he said, “Yeah, happened to meet the guy once or twice,” Jake said icily. “Weird, how twins work. I know he was supposed to come here, he would never shut up about it. But, he died. I know it's a big inconvenience for everyone.”
Fact is, she didn’t want Tommy, she wanted the PhD student, she wanted his skills, his use, she wanted results. There was no moment of sorrow in her eyes, no regret, no compassion, no kind words, not even an ‘I'm sorry to hear that’ just, “How much lab training have you had?”
Like the life that faded was now an afterthought, in place of judging Jake’s worth. So Jake, already making a decision simply to spite her, spoke. “I dissected a frog once,” he sneered mockingly.
He’s had some lab training, admittedly not much more than that. But Tommy would always ask Jake to come to observe his projects, look at his homework, he knew the general idea, if not the specifics. He’d even invited Jake to sit in on his classes when he was at Uni, when Jake was on leave. To fuck with the professor, of course. Jake would sit there for attendence’s sake during lectures and demonstrations while Tommy was being a fucking nerd and studying for an exam that would be in his next class and then tell him about it later and provide some shitty notes and phone-filmed recordings. It was fun to fuck around like that. Never got caught.
“You see? You see? I mean, they're just pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain. I'm going to Selfridge.”
“No, Grace, I don't think that's a good idea,” Patel tried.
“No, man, this is such bullshit! I'm gonna kick his corporate butt. He has no business sticking his nose in my department,” she announced.
“And say what ?” Jake said frankly. “Tommy died . You were either getting nobody and blowing a few mil on the Avatar, or you were getting me.”
She huffed, clearly not liking the logic, and stormed out anyway.
Jake watched her go, and started mentally going over the numbers, the resources he’d need, the time table he’d be looking at. His chest felt hot and achy, and he wanted to throw something at her as she walked away. He scarcely resisted the urge.
Patel sighed, turned to him, “Here tomorrow, 0800. Try and use big words.” And he left Jake sitting there, internally fuming at too many things, all at once.
He went back to his room. Nobody stopped him.
His room was basically a small box, with a footlocker, a cot, and a small desk. He set Tommy’s box in the center of the desk, pretty much shoved the rest of his bag in the foot locker to deal with later.
“You made it, man. Congrats,” he said to the box, patting the top. “I’ll find you a nice spot. Just like I said.”
He hears a knock on his door and turns to face it. “Yeah?”
“It’s Norm.”
“It’s unlocked,” he replies, and Norm comes in, glancing around briefly.
“You, uh, unpacking?”
“Sort of,” he allows, and shuffles Tommy’s box out of the immediate light. “What’s up?”
“Just-- going to the mess. You wanna come with me?”
Jake hummed. “Nah. Jetlag,” he joked. “Maybe-- maybe I’ll grab something later. Thanks though.”
Norm nodded, glanced at the box again, and then left.
Jake watches the door close and swipes a hand over his mouth. He turns and pulls his tablet from his bag, starting to work.
At 0800, as ordered, he showed up with Norm for their first link. He had started going over the more recent information the RDA had on the landscape, plants, and animals around last night, as it was more accurate than the books he had read on Earth. He was tired, but he figured his human body would be shut in a link chamber all day, maybe it would get some rest.
“So, how much link time have you logged?” Dr. Augustine asked as they made their way to the pods.
“About 520 hours,” Norm said.
She nodded, somewhat impressed. “That's good. You're in there,” she motioned to the first. “You're here,” she motioned for Jake to go to the second. “How much have you logged?”
“Zip. But I read a manual.”
“...Tell me you're joking.”
“My brother died a week before we shipped out,” he said, and looked up to stare right into her eyes. “I dare you to find me time in the week before I was sent here where I possibly could have gotten any kind of ‘link time’ in between getting all my shit in order to leave. Go on, I’ll wait.”
They stared at each other for well over a minute before she glanced away.
“Anyway, it was a very comprehensive manual,” he said. Jake poked his finger into the thick gel bottom of the pod, noting the elasticity. He had actually read the manual; he wanted to know if it was possible to make the system portable. Answer? Not really, and not having a coffin to lay in made with the best material possible was hazardous to the driver, being exposed to physical harm during link, and could lead to nasty bed sores. The gel he’s poking is scientifically proven to greatly reduce the risk of bedsores from frequent use. “Why, you gonna quiz me?” he asked. He hauled himself out of his chair and grabbed his legs to adjust them. Grace seemed irritated at how slow it was going and made to help him. He always, always hated when someone moved his numb legs. It felt almost itchy, weird to see the touch and motion but not feel it.
He shoved her hands away. “Don’t. Touch. Me ,” he damn near hisses, low and harsh, bristling. She backed off. Trying not to fume, he adjusted as desired, getting his legs into a natural position.
“So you just figured you'd come out here, to the most hostile environment known to man, with no training of any kind, and see how it went? What was going through your head?” Grace asked, and he glanced back at her.
“Oh, now you want to know?” he asks. “Am I worth the time to talk to now?”
She did not reply.
He lay down and she helped him secure all the glowing bells and whistles as he tried to watch. He vaguely remembered the name of the devices, from the manual, but he was too interested in watching the setup to recall them.
“Keep your arms in, hands in, head down.” she put her hand on his forehead and pushed him back into a lying position. He tried again, she repeated the motion. “Down. Just relax and let your mind go blank. That shouldn't be hard for you,” she added, as she started to close him in.
“You can kiss the darkest part of my lily white ass ,” he said, but the case closed and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes and settling in.
Expectedly, the Avatar was a dream come true. The feeling of… feeling was something he forgot, in some ways. He was too busy with himself, the body, Tommy’s body, to hear what the doctors were saying, and he ended up causing a bit of commotion in his effort to just… feel the body, to move, to… go outside.
Despite his dislike of her, Grace and the others showed the new Avatars the ropes, did the exercises that tested the link, showed them the limits of the new bodies, fed them, and got them into bed.
Waking up in his real body made the world feel… an inch off in every direction. But at least it felt familiar.
He went through the motions again, saying the right things, doing the right things… When he wasn’t busy, he was doing research. He went to link, he went through the motions, he exited, and as soon as he was dismissed, he was back in his small room reading off a tablet well into the night. They had a lot of new data and information on these servers, so he could get a more accurate idea of what was beyond the gates.
Two days after his first link, he was introduced to his new tasks, as the guard of the ‘science sorties’ as Trudy the pilot called them. He was shown the airship hangar, heard the danger of the banshees, the ikran, as the Na’vi called them, and was eventually shuffled over to the Colonel.
“You wanted to see me, Colonel?” he asked, watching as the man exercised on his bench press.
“This low gravity'll make you soft,” he said, setting up the rack and sitting up. “You get soft, Pandora will shit you out dead with zero warning.”
Right, of course. Dog eat dog world, and all. He suppressed a tired sigh, waiting.
“I pulled your record, Corporal. Venezuela, that was some mean bush. Nothing like that here, though. You got some heart, kid, showing up in this neighborhood.”
He considered what to say, what the man would like to hear, watching the man start his preparations to pilot his mech. “I figured it's just another hellhole.”
“I was First Recon myself. A few years ahead of you. Well, maybe more than a few,” he joked. “Three tours of Nigeria, not a scratch. I come out here? Day one.” he motioned to the mean looking scratch on the side of his head. “Think I felt like a shavetail louie? Yeah. They could fix me up, if I rotated back. Yeah, and make me pretty again. But you know what? I kind of like it. It reminds me every day what's waiting out there.”
Fair enough.
“The Avatar Program is a bad joke. Bunch of limp-dick science majors.” Jake narrowed his eyes slightly but held his tongue. Jake knew that this man would have hated Tommy the same way he hated the others, and it rubbed him the wrong way. “However, it does present an opportunity both timely and unique.” he paused to get clearance from a nearby tech. “A recon gyrene in an avatar body. That's a potent mix. Give me the goosebumps. Such a Marine could provide the intel I need, right on the ground. Right in the hostiles' camp.”
Jake looked up at him, schooled his expression. Of course. Every turn, it was how to be of use. It was an interesting tactic, to use their own curiosity and trust against them, but it could spell the end of his Avatar if he fucked it up.
“Look, Sully. I want you to learn these savages from the inside. I want you to gain their trust. I need to know how to force their cooperation or hammer them hard if they won't.”
He debated this for a second, mulling over the words. If he was too close to the soldiers in this case, he’d have a bitch of a time getting out from under their thumb. But maybe that’s not quite what this man was looking for. “Am I still with Augustine?”
“On paper. Yeah, you walk like one of her science pukes, you quack like one, but you report to me. Can you do that for me, son?”
“I can give it a go,” was all he said. Take the focus off him for now. He didn’t intend to stay long enough to be able to report anything.
“Well, all right, then,” he said, and with his suit prepped, he started to walk off. “Son, I take care of my own. You get me what I need, I'll see to it you get your legs back when you rotate home. Your real legs.”
Jake had several years to deal with his new situation. He had mandatory therapy, and therapy that Tommy hounded him back into, he had a lot of shit baggage with everything that happened in his few years as a Marine, but he had come to accept his disability. It wasn’t fun, and if he had the opportunity to get to the top of that waitlist, he would have accepted in a second, but the minute he accepted Tommy’s contract, he knew that walking just wasn’t in his future outside of the Avatar, so hearing that? It just sounded like ruining lives for his own gain, and he had enough survivor's guilt for one lifetime, thank you.
He had to make plans, and sooner rather than later.
He spent most of his free time reading logs, mission debriefs, survival guides of sorts, trying to figure out a way out and away. He had to get the avatar and himself out of RNA reach, and hopefully far enough from the Na’vi that they don’t care about him. He’ll need resources to use; food, water, access to renewable sources of each. He needed a safe, oxygen environment to breathe, his own link chamber.
What he had, while he was creating his plan, was this: there were mobile link stations. Most of them were within RNA reach, but a few had been ‘lost.’ Basically, far into Na’vi territory, where humans were no longer allowed, there were dozens of habitats with supplies already out there, and they could be moved with a single Samson ship.
All he had to do was steal a Samson, grab the link shack, and move it to a location the humans would never find it, and then ditch the ship in case they tried to track it. There were several areas he could go to scramble the signal, and when he read the manual and information books on the Samsons, he found where the black box was. He could remove it pretty easily. That bought him a lot of time, a lot of mobility.
The issue was, in most scenarios, he’d have to have the Avatar and himself awake at the same time to manage it. It’s part of the reason why he wondered if he could be mobile while in link, like carrying his own human body while he got away.
He needed to think more, see what opportunities presented themselves.
He went through the motions, did his fake-ass video-logs, and did the avatar training. Sometimes he just stared at the camera, struggling for more words that he simply didn’t have.
He watched and observed, fiddling with his tail or braid more than not. He just never knew what to do with this body. He was required to basically exercise with the others, to get used to the body, it was also meant to build camaraderie. But his heart just wasn’t in it. Most of the time he just helped out with the little farm they had, examining the plants, the soil, the little insects that settled on them.
Grace seemed nicer in her Avatar, every time. It was almost like they were two different people, and he could never wrap his head around it.
“Didn’t take you for a plant guy,” she notes as he picks weeds from the ground.
He shrugged. “Tommy never shut up about plants, figured there must be something to it. Um. Aren’t these plants supposed to grow taller than this? They get up to three meters, right? So why are these small?”
“We’re not really sure, it’s possible the soil nutrients just… aren’t preferable.”
His ears twitch at the answer, pressing back. Then he says, “I bet they’re sad.”
“Sad? That’s the official answer?” she asks dryly.
“Yup,” he decides. “Cause they can’t talk to their buddies.”
She gives him an incredulous look.
“In the wild- the root systems are more interconnected than this. Can’t talk to their buddies,” he says. “Can’t get extra nitrogen from the tree’s roots or anything.”
“You know about NPK transfer?”
“A bit. Like I said, Tommy never shut up about this place.”
But outside of link? Sometimes she barely even looked at Jake. Like a completely different personality. Luckily, they didn’t cross paths much outside of link, but he had to see her at work often enough.
He was doing a lot of planning and thinking, so of course he considered the Na’vi. He needed to avoid them, or be able to talk his way through some kind of truce. The only resource they he could provide to them of any use was information.
He had lots of data, scans and physical stuff like that, downloaded in large batches onto his tablets, but he needs a little more.
He goes to Quaritch.
“Sully, there you are. Haven’t seen you around, been busy with the science geeks?”
“A bit,” he replied as he rolled toward the mess hall table Quaritch was at. “Been trying to get a feel for them, really. But I was thinking about that offer you gave me, and wanted to know a little more so I can plan what to do with the natives a little more efficiently.”
“Got your head in the game, I like to see that, son,” the man said, with a grin. “Takin’ initiative. Alright, let's go up and talk to Selfridge. He’ll give you the rundown of what the goal is and you tell us what you think.”
“Yes, sir.”
After Quaritch ditched his tray, they went up the elevator to command, where Quaritch flagged down the most corporate looking motherfucker in the whole station. His entire existence was dripping with corporate slime, so much so that Jake genuinely worried about how oily his handshake would be.
“Sully, good to have you,” Selfridge said, and his eyes had the same gleam as the suits that got Jake to sign into Tommy’s contract.
“Thanks,” he said. “Good to be here.”
“Sully wants to see what the goal is, so he can decide how to approach the natives,” Quaritch explains.
“Fantastic! Alright, over here,” he said. “Let's go! You! Can you... Can somebody just... Sector 12.” he says, motioning to the holo-table in the middle of the room as Jake approaches it. “Perfect!”
Hometree, the Omaticaya’s home base, appears on the table.
“This is the Na’vi’s village, big tree, big whoop. What we need is for you to find out what the blue monkeys want. We tried medicine, education, roads, but no. They just like their mud and sticks. And that wouldn't bother me, it's just that they're… Their damn village happens to be resting on the richest unobtanium deposit within 200 klicks in any direction.”
He moved to the screen, and it shifts upward to show him a big glowing cluster of minerals under the massive tree.
“I mean, look at all that cheddar!” The man laughs, and Jake hears greed under it all. It would be impossible not to, with that awful laugh.
“That’s a big damn tree. You got the firepower to deal with that? It might be useless to try if you can’t even clear the tree out,” Jake says slowly.
“Oh, we got the firepower,” Selfridge says with a grin.
“Pretty sure, at least,” Quaritch said. “We’d prefer to know the internal structure of the thing, if there’s any support we don’t know about. If we miscalculate we might have to turn back and do a second wind. We can take it out, yeah, but we’re trying to conserve resources so accuracy matters.”
Jake nods.
“Look, killing the indigenous looks bad, but there's one thing that shareholders hate more than bad press, and that's a bad quarterly statement. I didn't make up the rules. So just find me a carrot that'll get them to move, otherwise it's gonna have to be all stick. Okay?”
Jake literally hates this guy more than anything right now. He’s 100% willing to kill people to, what, meet a quota? “Right…” Jake said slowly. “How long?”
“You got about three months. That's when the 'dozers get there.”
Jake chews on the inside of his cheek. “How many people?”
“Roughly 500,” Quaritch says. “By our estimate.”
Jake whistles. “We got anything on ‘em?”
“Not particularly,” Quaritch said. “They haven’t really let us come close enough for any recon like that. That’ll be your job.”
“Right,” Jake said, and stared at the glowing tree in the image. He can almost hear Tommy chattering away happily about these trees, their size, their function, the way they grow and develop… “Looks old.”
“Twenty thousand years, by our count,” Quaritch mentioned.
“Damn,” Jake said and tried to not pointedly stare Selfridge in the eyes as he said, “Older than the pyramids . Can you imagine having a landmark that old?”
Selfridge's eyes flicker for a second, almost like guilt, but it’s gone just as fast. “Just a tree,” he scoffs. “It’s not any kind of marvel of engineering or some shit. And there are tons of other old trees for them to live in.”
Jake nods as expected. “Can I have the scans for this? Full route details and everything?”
“Sure,” Quaritch said. “Think it’ll help?”
“Be good to be able to keep track of everything,” Jake allowed, and they uploaded the files to his tablet when he offered it. He went back to his room and kept working.
For the next few days, he continued to pull long hours looking at documents about the link sites available to him, should he get a good time to cut and run, and was making a list of potential campsites when he heard a knock at his door. He’s tired and a little burnt out, but he’s making good progress with what he wants, so he sighs and looks over.
“Come in,” he reluctantly allowed and watched as Grace opened the door to peer in.
“Jesus, you unpack at all?” she asks, glancing at the little he had done with the space so far, the tidiness. He was packed to leave in an instant. All his shit was pretty much just in his bag, in his footlocker.
“I like a clean living space,” he says stiffly. “Is there something you need?”
“We’re going out tomorrow,” she said. “Selfridge wants you as escort, so we’ve got you as escort. I just want to make sure, ahead of time, you’re not going to be a trigger happy idiot and shoot at anything that so much as moves. Can you do that for me?”
“I dunno, that’s a tall order,” he says sarcastically. “Can you do me a favor and not bitch at me every second of the day for just existing?”
She scowls at him. “You can understand why I might be a little upset that instead of two highly praised and regarded researchers in their fields, I got one promising PhD student and some empty-headed soldier I have to babysit.”
“Oh, is the problem just that you only have one smart guy to talk to?” he asked, and pulled Tommy off his desk, putting the box on his lap and rolling over. “Well, how about you take Tommy ,” he said, shoving the box into her hands as she blinks in surprise. “And go brainstorm a new way to be an asshole to me tomorrow? I’m sure he’ll give you some great tips. Just bring him home by curfew.”
She went white, and stared down at the box in her hands. “Is this…”
“His ashes,” he said. “Figured he put three years into trying to get here, he might as well get to come.”
She was just kind of frozen, wide eyed.
He was abruptly furious at her stupid fucking expression. So he snatched the box from her hands. “Stop fucking complaining about not getting a fucking PhD student like you even fucking care when I lost my fucking brother. He’s been dead for two weeks you fridged fucking bitch !” he snarled, his voice too fucking loud, his anger too fucking real. He could see people stopping in the background, heads turning to listen to the sound of his anger. He could see shocked blinking from a tech, a gaping expression from a pair of soldiers, and he watched Augustine flinch back a bit.
And he slammed the door loud enough to rattle.
He spent longer than he’d like to admit just sitting there clutching the box so hard his hands hurt, breathing and trying not to cry. It felt wrong to put Tommy in her hands, with everything she had said since he arrived. Every dismissive word, every cruel barb, his stomach was rolling with nausea, and his eyes burned, his lungs ached. He pressed the box to his chest with one hand and put his head in the other, feeling hot salty tears rolling down his wrist despite himself.
“Sorry, sorry,” he gasped. “That was stupid. Sorry, Tommy. Sorry .”