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ratherastory) wrote2011-07-11 02:33 pm
ratherastory) wrote2011-07-11 02:33 pm
Entry tags:
Part Ia —Opening the Box
[Master Post]
Prologue
Part I –Opening the Box
The Sky People always come out late in the mornings. Ìla'rey knows, of course, that they aren't late risers, that they simply come out late because of the many preparations they have to make in order just to survive here in the forest. They come tramping out of their large ugly buildings with all their heavy gear, their loud, noisy trucks, their shouting soldiers. Ìla'rey and his friends have taken to creeping out and watching them, often when they should be hunting, or helping the elders in Home Tree, but it's so much more fun to watch all the new reasons the humans, as they call themselves, find to scurry about in what looks like utter confusion. Perhaps they have reasons of their own, but whatever those reasons might be remains a mystery to Ìla'rey.
The human-occupied area looks to Ìla'rey like a giant scar in the side of the mountain where they began digging when he was only a child. The trees have all been stripped away, the ferns have died, all the animals have long since fled from the noise and smells. It's disgusting and fascinating all at once, and he's been sneaking away from home for as long as he can remember to spy on them, to figure out why it is they do what they do. Ìla'rey spent five interminable years in what the humans call 'school,' learning to speak the language of their majority, which still seems largely unpronounceable to him. They speak using their throats, a harsh, guttural language, and Ìla'rey still resents his parents for forcing him to learn it. Still, it has turned out to have its uses, like today. He and his friend Tsu'tey are perched in one of the trees on the edge of the mining area, all but completely hidden by the dense foliage. The other young warriors with them have found different vantage points along the tree line and it’s only because he knows they’re there that Ìla’rey can even see them. Otherwise, they would be invisible to the naked eye.
Tsu'tey clears his throat. "Ìla'rey, are you sure we should be here? You were supposed to stay in Home Tree today. Won't your mother be angry that you have run off to spy on the sky people again?" Ever the dutiful son, Tsu’tey, Ìla'rey thinks.
"Let her be angry. I promise I will be responsible and take my responsibilities as future tsahik tomorrow."
Tsu'tey punches his shoulder. "You shouldn't joke about that. It will be difficult enough as it is without your making light of it."
"Yes, I know, I should have been born female. What's done is done, and I'm still hoping my parents will have a girl before the end, so I don't have to do it."
"Your parents won't have any more children, you know that."
"Look, there is their Colonel," he says, pointing to where a human with thick scars from an altercation with an ikran, which the humans call banshee, is strutting before the ranks of soldiers, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"What's he saying?" Tsu'tey wants to know. He speaks a little of the language, but hasn't mastered it as well as Ìla'rey, not enough to be able to decipher the shouting at such a distance.
Ìla'rey smirks. "He is lecturing them on the dangers of the forest. They are frightened of everything here, these sky people. They think everything wants to kill them."
Tsu’tey purses his lips. "They are very small. They look like prey. They should not be surprised when the animals try to feed upon them."
In the clearing the little Colonel is still bellowing at his soldiers. Ìla'rey, however, is watching two banshees perched on a nearby outcropping. It’s not mating season, but sometimes the meikran become mates out of more than necessity. Ìla'rey’s mother once told him that they are the only ones of the flying animals who truly understand the meaning of love, which is why the Omaticaya are able to form tsaheylu, the bond, with them. Right now, though, that is not what is uppermost in Ìla'rey’s mind. He turns to Tsu'tey and grins, nodding his head in the direction of the obvious opening, and his friend looks horrified.
"Ìla'rey, you can’t!"
"Of course I can! Just watch me."
He jumps to his feet, unslinging his bow from his shoulder and pulling an arrow from his quiver. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the other young warriors following suit. It’s been a game among them for years, ever since the sky people landed, to use their large machines as target practice. The huge wheels are perfect for it, just soft and yielding enough that arrows embed beautifully in them and stay there, the multi-coloured fletching beautiful as it goes round and round. Today, though, Ìla'rey has one other trick in mind for the sky people. He lifts a hand to his mouth, emits a high-pitched shriek that has Tsu’tey wincing at his side, not because of the sound, but because he knows exactly what will follow.
The meikran surge into the air at the noise, spreading great wings and emitting their own answering shriek, then swoop down toward the tightly-arranged group of soldiers. On the ground, chaos erupts among the humans. There are a few screams from the newest arrivals —they always scare the easiest— and they scatter like insects before a stiff wind, confused and disorientated, buffeted from all sides. Ìla'rey feels his gorge rise when he sees the loud-mouthed Colonel bring up his gleaming metal weapon and take aim at the nearest ikran, obviously meaning to slay it. Butchers, these humans, he thinks disgustedly. Before the humans landed the Omaticaya had never seen guns, and at first the small metallic things had seems ridiculous and puny, but they quickly learned just how deadly the weapons could be. They were useless against most of the bigger animals in the forest, but enough bullets could kill a man, or seriously wound an ikran if it caught one of its wings.
Ìla'rey lets out another yell, more acute this time, and there's a rush of air above his head as Zeizei, his own ikran, comes to perch nearby in a great flapping of wings. In one smooth, practised move, he swings himself up onto her back, forming the bond effortlessly and directing her right into the path of the terrible guns. It's child's play to draw his bow and knock the weapon out of the Colonel's hands, though he is careful not to draw blood—outright conflict with the humans has been forbidden by the tsahik until further notice—and the meikran rise up into the air, still shrieking irritably, and soar into the sky toward the horizon. With a whoop of triumph Ìla'rey brings Zeizei around and sends another volley of arrows at the armoured trucks, watching with satisfaction as the tips bury themselves into the artificial surfaces. All around the other young warriors, Tsu'tey and his friends, are doing much the same, yelling and yipping and shouting as they let loose with volley after volley, safe on the backs of their meikran, well out of reach of the humans' bullets. On Ìla'rey's signal, though, they rise up into the air to make their escape, still cheering and hollering. Ìla'rey exchanges a delighted grin with Tsu'tey.
"Your parents will skin you alive for this!" Tsu'tey yells above the boom of leathery wings beating against the air.
"It was well worth it!" he yells back, then digs his heels into Zeizei's sides and speeds off back into the jungle, away from the Sky People and all their problems.
There's already a small line-up of people all trying to get to the boarding area of the ship, where the shuttles are docked and waiting to take all the newest arrivals down to the moon's surface. Jensen recovers the pack containing his few belongings from the storage locker he was assigned. He snags a protein bar and a shake from a nearby dispenser, and once he's no longer light-headed from hunger and thirst, he makes his way to the much-smaller area of the ship that's been equipped with artificial gravity so he can change out of the standard-issue cotton scrubs he's spent the last five years and change sleeping in. All things considered, he feels pretty clean. There's a system for that, of course, but he hadn't bothered to listen to the lengthy explanations at the time, figuring he'd be unconscious anyway, and now he kind of regrets the fact that he doesn't know any of it. Maybe he'll look it up later, if there's time.
Tommy would have eaten all this up like it was chocolate pudding, he thinks, and suddenly there's a stabbing pain in his chest so sharp that for a moment he's convinced he's having some sort of heart attack. He muffles his gasp by turning away toward the nearest bulkhead and shoving his knuckles into his mouth, forces himself to take a breath before he freaks out completely. Tommy's been dead for six years, but it only feels like a few months, and the idea that there's nothing left even of the ashes... He closes his eyes, concentrates on breathing, on not freaking out in front of a couple dozen mercenaries, because he's going to live with these people for at least the next five years, and he's already starting at a disadvantage.
He shoves the scrubs into the chute provided for that purpose—he figures they're going to get cleaned or maybe incinerated for all he knows—and tries not to blush when a white-clad tech comes through the doors with the lightweight wheelchair he's going to be using for the next five years. He shakes off someone's well-meaning attempt to help him, swings himself into the chair, and pulls his pack into his lap in order to wheel himself aboard the shuttle. The shuttle —named the Valkyrie, which he assumes is supposed to be symbolic or something— feels surprisingly similar to the army transports he's used all his life: cramped, overly hot, and not smelling too great, and it feels a lot like coming home. He smiles to himself, leans back and keeps his hands firmly wrapped around the straps provided for stability throughout the trip to the moon's surface. The Valkyrie shudders as the thrusters cut out and the vectoring nozzles adjust to bring the shuttle into a slow hover over the ground. They come to a jolting stop with a hiss of moving hydraulics, and the crew chief comes striding out of the cockpit.
"Exopacks on!" he barks, then glares at all of them until he's satisfied his orders are being followed. "Remember, people, you lose your mask, you’re unconscious in two minutes, and after five minutes you’re dead. Let’s nobody be dead today; it looks bad on my report." He spares a glare specifically for Jensen, who's still trying to sort out the elastic straps on his mask. "Exopacks on, let's go!"
Jensen manages not to fumble his gear, gets his rebreather mask on just as the cargo ramp is released. All the other passengers—soldiers to a man—are up and waiting, thumbs hooked into the straps of their packs, apprehension written all over their faces. In about fifteen seconds they're going to set foot on an alien planet (okay, moon, technically, but still alien) for the very first time. In fifteen seconds, it's all about to become real. They move out ahead of him, the crew chief's voice, muffled by his own mask, loud in their ears.
"Go directly the base! Do not stop under any circumstances, do you hear? Proceed directly to the base! Go straight inside!"
It's trickier than Jensen had thought it would be to manoeuvre his wheelchair along the rough ground, and the others quickly outstrip him. The ground here is paved, but it's been used hard and broken up by the passage of dozens of heavy machines, and the going is rough for the thin wheels of his chair. He's forced to come to a halt almost immediately as a huge tractor rumbles past on wheels taller than a truck. The tractor itself is more like a tank, taller than most of the houses Jensen's ever seen, the wheels caked in mud. He blinks when he catches sight of what looks like huge arrows sticking out of the rear tire, fletched with blue, red and green feathers, like they were plucked from some sort of gigantic parrot.
A second later and he's forced to jerk out of the way as some jerk in an ampsuit nearly tramples him, complete with shouted insult from its driver. The things are huge, four times the size of an ordinary human, little more than giant metal frames with a small cockpit, built so that a man can stand inside them and fit his arms and legs into a specially-designed harness that allows him to use the suit as though it's simply an extension of his own body. It takes an incredible amount of fine-motor control to drive an ampsuit, and the drivers are just about as cocky as Air Force pilots about their status. Of course, they conveniently ignore the fact that drivers can't see what's directly under them at all, their view blocked by the floor of their cockpit, making them extremely dangerous to innocent bystanders. Jensen rolls his eyes, shoves his chair forward and nearly runs into two soldiers, one with the insignia of a corporal and a name tag that reads 'Wainfleet,' the other nothing but a private. The corporal sneers at him.
"Would you look at that? Meals on wheels."
The private joins in, sniggering, and Jensen immediately pegs them as cronies. One probably just got promoted, and is letting the other guy hang onto his coattails. "I seen plenty of guys leave here in a wheelchair, never seen one arrive in one before."
"That is just wrong," the corporal shakes his head. "At least he ain't gonna last long around these parts. Something'll eat him before long."
He ignores them as best he can, and pushes past them until he reaches the entrance to the base, which thankfully has been equipped with a ramp, though more as a way of getting supplies in and out easily rather than as an attempt to keep things handicapped-accessible. Jensen has no idea how easy or difficult it's going to be to move around inside the base itself, but he's dealt with stuff like this before, and at worst it'll just be an inconvenience he'll try to work around, the way he does with everything else that's gone wrong in his life.
It's a lot like going to basic training, or like any of the other dozen of deployments Jensen has been on. Before he's gotten much farther than the door he's directed peremptorily to the commissary. It's located inconveniently for Jensen down several sets of very busy corridors, made even trickier to navigate by multiple sharp turns and slightly confusing signs. Nothing about this place, it seems, is going to be easy.
He parks himself quietly at the back of the room as a tall man in well-worn fatigues paces in front of his audience of slightly awed-looking Marines and intimidated-looking science nerds and confused-looking civilians. He keeps the giant bay window to his back, and behind him helicopters rise up into the sky and disappear past the giant fence that surrounds the compound, over the horizon. Jensen knows nothing about Colonel Miles Quaritch save that he's the head of security for the Colony, which he's already heard nicknamed Hell's Gate by several of the soldiers who've been here long enough to earn the right to call it anything they damned well please. The Colonel is a handsome man by most standards, square-jawed and bright-eyed, his close-cropped hair faded from blond to silver by the years, except where his scalp has been etched by long parallel scars, no doubt the result of an attack by some local animal. His arms, deeply tanned and muscled, are decorated by a multitude of criss-crossing scars, and his eyes, a steely grey, seem to bore right through Jensen as he takes up his spot as unobtrusively as he can.
"You are not in Kansas anymore," the Colonel is saying, in a voice that clearly used to belong to a drill sergeant. "You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day. Out beyond that fence," he points in a dramatic gesture toward the big bay window, "every living thing that crawls, flies or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubees."
The room goes very still at that, and Jensen resists the sudden urge to snort. It's not the first time he's had different thoughts from a superior officer, and he knows better than to voice them aloud. Not unless he wants to find himself doing push-ups for the rest of eternity, regardless of whether he's still enlisted, and regardless of the fact that he's in a wheelchair. Quaritch, oblivious to his train of thought, is still pontificating.
"We have an indigenous population of humanoids here called the Na’vi. They’re fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin which can stop your heart in one minute. And they have bones reinforced with naturally-occurring carbon fibre. They are very hard to kill. We operate—we live—at a constant threat condition yellow."
That's not exactly reassuring. Jensen's only read up a little bit on the Na'vi—and that was six years ago, even if it feels a little fresher in his mind than that—and none of what he read has prepared him for that. The book he read made them sound like they were sort of like tree-hugging hippie savages, or whatever. In tune with nature and all that crap. It went on and on about social hierarchies and spiritual leaders and used spellings he couldn't wrap his mind around, and all throughout that time he'd been undergoing physical therapy and getting what felt like hundreds of inoculations and signing dozens upon dozens of legal forms and waivers. In short, the last few months before he got put into cryo seem like a distant blur now, and he doesn't remember a damned thing about neurotoxins or unkillable giant aliens.
"As head of security, it’s my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed," Quaritch pauses for effect, taking the time to look each new recruit in the eye before moving on. "Not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need a strong mental attitude, you need to follow the rules, Pandora rules..."
Jensen allows himself a small smile at that. There's really nothing like an old-fashioned safety briefing to put your mind at ease, he thinks, and make you feel right at home.
It doesn't take Jensen long to unload his pack in the very cramped quarters he's been assigned. There's barely enough room for him to turn his wheelchair around, but at least it's on the same level as the lab, which means he won't have to negotiate too many ramps or any of the elevators, all of which have buttons that seem to be out of his reach. The bed is at the same level as his chair, which simplifies things considerably, and the walls are entirely unadorned.
"Should have brought a spider plant," he says aloud, just to hear his own voice. It sounds muffled in the close quarters, as though the walls are dampening down the sound.
Maybe he can get one of the local plants to grow in here, although given the radically different atmosphere, he isn't sure that could ever happen. For that matter, he's never kept a potted plant in his life, and doesn't know why he suddenly felt the desire for one. He snorts and shakes his head at his own weird train of thought, and begins sorting through his pack. He unpacks his clothes into the tiny wall unit, stores his toiletries by the sink, and decides to ignore the small computer provided for his personal use in favour of seeking out food and a shower, not necessarily in that order. Fifteen minutes finds him still damp from his shower and navigating his way along the crowded corridors toward the commissary, when a voice sounds out behind him.
"Hey! Um, hello! Hi!" The voice belongs to a tall, gangly, geeky-looking guy with a goatee and a haircut that looks like it was accomplished using a bowl and blunt kitchen scissors. "You're Jensen, right? Jensen Ackles?" He looms over Jensen, all smiles and nervous energy, and thrusts out his hand for him to shake. "I'm Norm Spellman. I was in the avatar training program with your brother, Tom. Wow, you look just like him."
Jensen squints a little dubiously at him, but shakes his hand anyway. "Uh, yeah. Good to meet you?" He turns it into a question.
Norm smacks his forehead. "I mean, duh, of course your look like him. I mean, the whole identical twin thing is the reason you're here right? Um, God, I'm making a mess of this. I'm really sorry about your brother. We weren't close friends or anything, but he was a really great guy. Fantastic sense of humour. Everybody loved him. It was a huge shock when he died."
"Yeah, I'll bet," Jensen manages. "A shock. Sure."
"Um, anyway. Have you seen the lab yet?"
"No, not yet. I was kind of hoping for food."
Norm's face lights up. "Oh, man! No, you should totally come see the lab! I was just heading there myself, and I can't wait to see how it's all set up. I mean, I saw the blueprints and all that during the training, but it's nothing like seeing it in person, you know? Live and in technicolour!" he enthuses, and Jensen can't help but smile in response.
"Yeah, okay. I had a protein bar earlier, so I guess I won't starve."
"Awesome. I want to hear everything about your brother than he never told us himself."
Jensen just manages to bite back the bitter retort that's on the tip of his tongue. Instead he nods noncommittally and wheels himself toward the lab in Norm's wake.
The last time he and Tommy spoke, they argued about his plans to go to Pandora. It wasn't the first time, either, but somehow it felt more real, now that the deadline was looming. Tommy came to visit him in the hospital, and, yeah, maybe Jensen sort of picked a fight with him, because he was chained to a hospital bed again, prey to an opportunistic infection that was trying to eat away what was left of his spine, and he was frustrated and mad and in pain, and Tommy was a really convenient target.
"So you're just going to up and waltz away to another planet?"
Tommy snorted and rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't exactly call it 'waltzing,' Jenny." He used the childhood taunt deliberately. "I've spent three years training for this, or weren't you listening? No, wait, never mind, I actually know the answer to that question already. You never listen to anything I tell you, because you're not interested in anyone but yourself."
The accusation all but took his breath away. "I.. you...you think I'm selfish?"
Tommy shrugged. "If the shoe fits."
"Fuck you!" he spat. "I'm not the one who ran off when the family needed me. I've been there every step of the goddamned way. Where the hell have you been? Off in your ivory tower with your scientist friends, living off grants. You think you're better than me just because you have a degree?"
"I never said that!"
"You don't need to! Don't think I don't know you, I can see it in your face. Don't forget, that degree didn't come for free, Tom."
Tommy's face closed off. "I'm paying you back, every cent."
"And every cent of that is going back to the farm. Just like every other cent I make that I don't use for food or clothes."
"Or women or alcohol."
"Oh, so I shouldn't have anything at all, is that it? Be a good soldier, keep my head down and wait to die from some random bullet? Oh, hey," he'd looked down at himself, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone, "looks like it's too late for that. But don't worry, bro. If this keeps up, you won't have to pay me back anymore, and the benefits will just go directly to Mom and Dad."
"Jensen..." Tommy's expression turned pained, and for a second Jensen felt bad, laying that on him. It wasn't Tommy's fault he'd been on the wrong end of a land mine that some poor kid in his squad had stepped on. The kid was long gone, and Jensen might as well be.
"Never mind." He shifted uncomfortably in the bed, winced as the wound in his back twinged. Of course, Tommy noticed right off.
"You need something for the pain?"
"It's fine."
"I can call someone, if you want."
"I said, it's fine!"
"Fine," Tommy held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "I don't get why you're so dead-set against my going. This is a fantastic opportunity for me, Jensen. I get to be at the cutting edge of my field, and the pay is fantastic. I'll be able to pay you back, and maybe get Mom and Dad out...I thought you'd be happy about this," he says, letting his hands drop, and Jensen sighed, because this was exactly how his brother had always been. All ideals and no sense of reality.
"You're leaving for another planet, Tommy. One that it takes five years to get to. It means that the next time I see you will be in fifteen years. We won't celebrate our thirtieth birthdays together, or our fortieth...Fuck, I don't want to get all sentimental or whatever, that's not what this is about. I just... why do you want to get away so badly?"
"I'm not leaving you, Jensen," his brother said, and his tone was gentle, his expression suddenly too understanding, and Jensen really wanted to throw something at him, except there was nothing in here except his pitcher of water, and he'd be wanting that in a minute.
"I don't want your fucking pity," he snapped. "You've always been itching to get away from us, from me. I guess I'm a hell of an embarrassment, huh? This dumb military hick who's got your face, what would you ever tell those nice scientist friends of yours?"
"You're a jerk," Tommy said, but there was no heat behind his words, just the same sad, resigned expression on his face that he always got when he was about to bail on them all. "You know that's not true."
"Tell me you're not doing this to get away."
"It's not what you think!"
Tommy's face pleaded with him to understand, but this was one time too many, and suddenly Jensen was just tired. His back was on fire, the sensation stopping abruptly where his spinal cord had been severed by shrapnel, and he leaned back against his pillows, closed his eyes.
"Jensen?"
"I'm sick of this. You want to go, fine, it's not like I'm going to stop you. You've never listened to me before, why start now? Just go, already, and let the rest of us get on with our lives."
"I...do you need me to call someone?"
"I just need you to stop doing this to me and go!"
Tommy bit his lip, gripping the rail at the foot of Jensen's hospital bed. "Okay. Okay, Jensen, you win. I'm going to go, but I'm going to come back. I'll come back next week when you're not in pain and hating yourself and the entire universe because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'll come back, and we'll talk again, and maybe then you'll figure out a way to be happy for me."
Jensen didn't answer, kept his eyes closed, and by the time he opened them again, Tommy had gone. He'd half-expected to find him still there, waiting, because his brother was nothing if not stubborn, but sometimes even Tommy managed to surprise him. He'd spent the following week waiting for him to show up, submitting with increasing impatience to each test, to each treatment, until eventually they landed on an antibiotic cocktail that did the trick and then unceremoniously packed him back off to the rehab centre where he was meant to go through his 'transition' back to normal life.
He'd spent another week waiting, working on increasing the number of sit-ups and crunches he could do ―pitifully few, compared to before, but better than none, which was the number he'd started out with when he was first wounded—and deliberately didn't call Tommy because he wasn't going to be the one to call, for once. He was always the one who caved first, some kind of older-brother instinct kicking in, trying to protect Tommy and make him feel better and loved and cherished. So he'd waited, and there was no news, nothing. Not a peep, not even a missed call, not a damned text message, and eventually he figured maybe Tommy had decided to cut ties with the family once and for all, the way he'd threatened to a thousand times before and the way Jensen never truly believed he would. Never believed he'd leave him.
But Tommy had been murdered in a back alley, and all Jensen knows is that the last thing he ever said to his brother was to get the hell out of his life, and that's not something he'll ever be able to take back, to unsay, or even counteract with better, kinder words. By the time they found his body it was hard to tell how many days he'd spent there, lying in a pool of his own blood. And for the first time, Jensen knew what it was like to be really alone in the world.
Unlike Norm, Jensen never even saw so much as a pencil drawing of the lab before he left Earth, and he has no idea what to expect. The lab turns out to be a lot more crowded than he imagined it would be, filled with gleaming instruments that look, at least to Jensen's untrained eye, to be top-of-the-line. They gleam in the artificial light as they beep and chirp quietly to themselves. A good fifty percent of the lab is actually a separate room with a door labelled "Link Room" off to one side. A quick glance inside reveals rows of identical-looking psionic link units, which look to Jensen a whole lot like what the offspring of a coffin and an MRI might resemble, all impersonal-looking plastic. He doesn't get much more than a quick look, however, before he and Norm are approached by a cheerful-looking Indian man with a neatly-trimmed beard and eyes that twinkle merrily.
"You two must be our new avatar drivers. It's great that you made it! I'm Doctor Max Cullimore, but I insist that you call me Max, since we're going to be spending every single day together for the foreseeable future." He shakes Jensen's hand with even more enthusiasm than Norm did, which is quite the feat, Jensen thinks, as he returns the handshake.
"Nice to meet you."
"Norm Spellman," Norm beams at Max and pumps his hand up and down between both of his. Jensen wonders if, between the two of them, they might not get stuck in some sort of handshaking feedback loop from which they'll never escape, doomed to greet each other for all eternity, but eventually one of them must let go, because they do separate.
"You're in luck," Max tells them, turning away and fussing with a clipboard. "We've just finished unloading the amnio tanks. Do you want to take a look at your Avatars?"
"Absolutely!" Norm is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Jensen saw the amnio tanks containing all the avatars before he left Earth, but his eyes widen now as he approaches the two that just got unloaded. "Damn, they got big!" he exclaims, watching the figure floating in the amniotic fluid through the thick Plexiglas.
He remembers the avatar as nothing but a large floating blue baby-like thing, its head much bigger than the rest of it, tiny hands curled into fists, the umbilical cord linking it to whatever was feeding it looking ridiculously oversized. The cord is still there, but it looks much more, well, normal-sized now. Except for the fact that the body itself is twice Jensen's size, that is.
"Why are they blue?" he asks. He's always wanted to know.
"I'm afraid I don't really have a good answer. As far as we can tell, there's no significant evolutionary reason for it. A lot of the creatures on Pandora have blue colouring of various shades, so it might have something to do with the quality of the light, or a gradual process that came from consuming the local flora, which also contains a lot of blue. Or maybe the flora is blue due to the light too. Honestly, we're still studying it."
"Huh."
"Pretty cool, aren't they?" Norm looks like a kid in a candy store. "Why don't you take a look at yours?"
Jensen nods vaguely, jerks his wheelchair around, moves into position next to the tank where his own avatar is floating. From this vantage point he can see the soles of its feet, the broad expanse of its shoulders and back, the impressive curve of its tail. The tail is a new one on him. Sure, he knew about the tail, saw it in the book he read, but the tail was nothing more than a nub the last time he saw it in embryo, as it were. He has to fight the urge to reach out and press his palm to the Plexiglas, feels his eyes open in utter astonishment when the huge figure turns slowly in the vat of amniotic fluid to face him, and he finds himself staring at his brother's sleeping face.
"It looks just like him," he murmurs.
Norm cuffs him lightly on the shoulder. "No, dumbass. He," he stresses the word lightly, "looks just like you. It's your avatar now, Jensen."
"Huh."
Max makes a move to pull on Jensen's wheelchair, then stops mid-air when Jensen glares at him. "Sorry," he stammers. "I thought you might want to start your first video log, get a feel for what it's like," he gestures at a table equipped with a computer, camera and built-in microphone. "I took the liberty of logging you in under your account, but you'll be able to access it from any point in the station, if you want, and remotely too, if necessary. We have a couple of field units for when we stay out overnight, and a few permanent stations outside the compound as well. Go ahead."
Jensen raises an eyebrow. "What, now? I haven't even done anything yet."
"Just give it a shot. Think of it as a practice run. Say anything you want."
"He rolls his eyes, but switches on the recording device. "Okay, uh. Testing...I feel stupid. What am I even supposed to say?" he tries to look at the camera, to keep his features schooled. "Uh, okay. So, this is Jensen Ackles, hi," he gives the camera a little wave, immediately feels stupid. "And this is going to be my video log, I guess, since I'm an avatar driver. I mean, I will be a driver. It sounds weird saying that, because it's not like it's a car or something, it's a body, and I'll just be transferring my mind, or my consciousness, or whatever. Originally it wasn't even meant to be me. The idea is every driver is attached to its own avatar so their nervous systems are in tune. Or something. Which is why they offered me this gig, because I can link with Tommy’s avatar, which was insanely expensive." He looks back over his shoulder. "Am I even doing this right?"
Max waves his hand in a 'carry-on' motion. "You're doing great!"
Norm grins at him, looking up from where he's been studying what look like incomprehensible readouts at a console. "Yeah. You just need to get in the habit of documenting everything—what you see, what you feel—it’s all part of the science. Good science starts with good observation."
Jensen snorts and turns back to the camera. "So here I am, doing science. Tommy would bust a gut laughing at me if he knew."
"Okay, why don't you log off for now?" Max suggests. "Come and meet your boss for the next six years."
One of the link units is beeping shrilly—or rather, the monitor next to it is beeping—when Max leads Jensen and Norm head into the link room. A moment later it whooshes open in a hiss of well-maintained hydraulics, and the first thing Jensen hears is a woman's voice, loud and harsh in the otherwise quiet room.
"Where's my goddamned cigarette?"
The voice belongs to a woman who looks to be in her mid-fifties, with wavy ginger hair that's only just beginning to turn grey in places. She's striking, Jensen thinks, and was probably a real beauty twenty years ago—is still beautiful, if he's honest with himself. Her eyes have a spark about them that suggests intelligence and quick-wittedness, although right now her face is screwed into an expression of extreme annoyance. She cranes her neck, working out the kinks of what was obviously a long session inside the link unit, her clothing wrinkled from lying in the same position for an extended period of time.
"People!" she barks, snapping her fingers. "What is wrong with this picture?"
Jensen looks on in amusement as one of the techs hurries up like someone lit a fire under her ass and hands the woman an already-lit cigarette along with a fresh lab coat. Apparently being in one of the units does nothing to help with cravings. He wonders if the craving only hits when you wake up, or if you spend the entire time during the link itching for a smoke. It's not like he's going to find out: smoking is not one of the many vices he indulged in when he was deployed. Cigarettes are too damned expensive, and he needed every spare penny anyway.
"Grace Augustine is a legend," Norm tells him in a stage whisper, as though Jensen hasn't already been briefed on her. "She's the head of the Avatar Program, and she wrote the book—I mean literally wrote the book—on Pandoran botany."
"That's probably because she likes plants better than people." Max beams at her like she's the second coming, raises his voice in false joviality. "There she is, Cinderella back from the ball! Grace, I'd like you to meet Norm Spellman and Jen―"
Grace hops nimbly to her feet, interrupting Max. "Norm, I've heard good things about you," she says, not sparing Jensen a glance. "How's your Na'vi?"
Norm looks like a schoolboy who just got praised on the head for bringing the teacher an apple. He puts his hands together in what looks like a salute, and gabbles something in what Jensen assumes to be Na'vi. Not that he's ever heard the language before. Grace seems pleased enough, and answers in the same incomprehensible gibberish, whereupon Norm gets an expression that's halfway pleased and halfway embarrassed, and Jensen guesses that, whatever test she just gave him, he passed, but maybe with a 'B.'
Max clears his throat. "Grace, this is Jensen Ackles."
Jensen's mama brought him up to mind his manners around ladies, so he extends his hand politely. "Ma'am, it's―"
"Yeah, I know who you are," she interrupts. Jensen's beginning to think it's a habit with her. "And let me tell you something: I don't need you. I don't need you, I need your brother. You know, the PhD who trained for three years for this?"
As if Jensen doesn't know. He ignores the twisting feeling in his gut. "Yeah, well, he's dead. I know it's a big inconvenience for you all, but you'll just have to make do with me."
She glares, although he thinks he may have made her flinch just a little bit. "How much lab training have you had?"
Oh, it's going to be like that, is it? Jensen matches her look for look. "I dissected a frog once, back in high school bio."
She rolls her eyes, turns to Max, and lifts her hands in a gesture of resigned exasperation. "You see? You see? I mean, they're just pissing on us without even doing the courtesy of calling it rain. Where the hell is Selfridge?"
"I don't know that he's―"
"Well, get him down here! Tell him there's an emergency, that all his precious ore is about to spontaneously evaporate due to the release of an unknown gas, that ought to get his attention. I don't care what you tell him, just make sure he gets here!"
Three minutes later a thin little bureaucrat with a wispy moustache and shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows strolls in, holding a golf club over one shoulder. Parker Selfridge looks like the kind of guy people like to call a 'go-getter,' Jensen thinks, all expensive suit and even more expensive hair product, with a spring in his step and a gleam in his eye.
"Grace," he says, and Jensen finds even his voice grating, high and nasal. "I'm assuming that there's a good reason I'm being dragged away from one of my best scores ever?"
Grace takes a drag off what looks like her third cigarette, not that Jensen was keeping count, then jabs the hand holding it at Selfridge's chest. "Parker, I used to think it was benign neglect, but now I see you’re intentionally screwing us."
Selfridge rolls his eyes, swings his golf club onto his other shoulder in a gesture that's at once suggestive of impatience and indifference. It looks calculated, even to Jensen, and he's not exactly in the habit of analysing other people's body language.
"Grace, you know how I enjoy our talks," he says blandly, and Jensen gets the impression he's repeating her name just to get on her nerves. It looks like it's working. Unfortunately for Jensen, he's right at ground zero.
Grace's cigarette turns accusingly in his direction. "I need a research assistant, not some jarhead dropout."
Jensen glares at the side of her head, not that she notices. Fuck her and her sanctimonious bullshit.
"As far as I'm concerned, we got lucky with him," Selfridge says, the picture of cool and collected.
"What?"
"Think about it," Selfridge turns an overly-white smile in Jensen's direction, the first time he's so much as acknowledged his presence. Jensen is still sure he's only doing it to piss Grace off some more, and it takes all he has not to roll his eyes. "We were lucky your guy had a twin brother, and lucky that Private Ackles here wasn’t an oral hygienist or something, am I right? A Marine we can use. I’m assigning him to your team as security escort."
Grace snorts. "The last thing I need is another trigger-happy asshole making things hard for us."
"You know, I'm right here," Jensen starts, but Max puts a warning hand on his arm.
"I really wouldn't get in the middle of that," he says, keeping his voice low. "Just let them argue it out. It won't actually change anything about what you're doing here."
"Isn't that the whole point of your little puppet show?" Selfridge is saying. "You walk like the big blue monkeys, you talk like the big blue monkeys, and eventually you all become one big blue monkey family, right? Pave the way for us to, well, pave the way. As far as I can tell, your song-and-dance and tree-hugging crap hasn't helped us advance worth a damn. Relations with the indigenous peoples are worse than ever."
"Maybe if you leashed your rabid bulldog―"
"Colonel Quaritch is just doing his job. It's his mandate to protect our people―"
"Protect your damned mining operation, you mean!"
"The two aren't mutually exclusive."
"Maybe if you stopped using machine guns on the Na'vi they'd be more inclined to negotiate!"
"We tried negotiating before, and look where that got us. We've offered them education and infrastructure and roads, but it turns out they really like their dirt. Just remember, Dr. Augustine," Selfridge emphasizes her title ironically, "the mining operation is the goal here. Panderium's your little miracle ore, isn't it? It's what's letting all those scientific colleagues of yours back home start the clean-up that's suppose to save humanity," Selfridge crooks the index and middle fingers of both hands in an exaggerated motion of 'air quotes' as he speaks. "More importantly, the stuff sells for twenty million a kilo, and it's what pays for your little science project, capisce?" he twirls the golf club in order to point it at her meaningfully. "So use what you've got, and get me some results."
"Parker, you can't―"
"Okay, that's all the time I have to waste today. This conversation is over."
And with more assurance than Jensen has seen anyone else demonstrate in the face of the formidable Grace Augustine, Selfridge turns on his heel and saunters back in the direction of his office, leaving her sputtering in his wake. With a muttered oath and one last glare in his direction, Grace stalks off the other way. Max gives Jensen a rueful smile.
"Here, tomorrow. Oh eight hundred. Try to use big words."
"Got it," Jensen manages not to roll his eyes with a superhuman effort and, not for the first time, tries to remember exactly when he made the singular error in judgement that brought him halfway across the galaxy to a place where no one really wants him anyway.
"We're sorry for your loss." Suit Number One says, and he shrugs.
"Yeah, well. So am I."
Two men in suits whose name Jensen never bothered to learn attended Tommy's funeral, the company for which they worked apparently willing to fork over enough money for them to attend, which Jensen only found all the more galling since his own parents hadn't been able to scrounge up enough funds to pay even for the travel costs to come see their son be cremated.
"The work our company does is the key to unlocking a better future for our world," Suit Number One continues, as though Jensen isn't trying to sit there and mourn his brother. "Your brother thought so, too. In fact, he was convinced of it, which is why he agreed to sign on for what is essentially an extraordinarily dangerous mission, even though he was a civilian."
Jensen's head jerks up at the term. "Civilian? I thought he was going was a scientific expedition. Who else would you send except civilians?"
Suit Number One smiles, and Jensen is reminded of nothing quite so much as a shark. He tries not to tilt his head in an attempt to see if the man has two extra rows of teeth behind the very white, very even ones he's displaying right now.
"Oh, it is a scientific expedition, but not exactly in the way you might understand these things. We've been established on Pandora for quite a few years, now: the first ships went out ten years ago, which means we've been settled there for five, with numerous trips back and forth. And, of course, we do have communication relays between here and there. It's not quite as direct as text messaging, but we find it does the trick."
Jensen scowls. "Yeah, okay. Let's pretend I'm a dumb foot soldier, and you spell it out for me?"
Suit Number One shrugs, the predatory smile fading into slightly indifference. "The vast majority of the personnel who get sent to Pandora are military. Many of them former Marines, like yourself, although in their case we generally seek out ones who are ―forgive me― physically fit. They provide security for what few civilians we have on staff: scientists, mostly, and a few administrators, because what large-scale operation has ever successfully run without a few administrators to keep the wheels turning?"
Jensen rolls his eyes to convey his opinion of paper-pushers. "So why exactly do you need me, again? I'm not a scientist, not even close, but it can't be for my military background that you want me. In case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty much broken these days. Useless." He doesn't mean to sound so bitter.
The man smiles again, and it's only slightly less creepy when he keeps his lips together. "Would you indulge me a moment? What do you know about Pandora?"
Jensen shrugs. "In a nutshell? Squat. It's a planet, it's far away, and the company has been working on some top-secret project there for God knows how long ―ten years, if what you're saying is true. There are reports of sentient life there, if the TV is to be believed on that topic, and I don't see why not. Aliens who are twice as big as us and live in sort of primitive agricultural communities. Oh, and they're blue, which no one seems to be able to decide if it's cool or really creepy."
"The company doesn't have an opinion one way or the other."
"No, of course not. So, I indulged you, now it's your turn."
"You're right, of course, about the sentient life. The biology of it all isn't my field of expertise, but life on Pandora appears to have followed two very distinct lines of evolution, which is nothing that our xenobiologists have ever seen."
"Okay, so they're weirder than the other aliens we've met. I thought our policy was to steer clear of aliens, anyway?"
"It is the policy of all the various governments of those countries capable of space travel, yes. The company has no such policy, of course. We're situated off-shore, as it were, in the legal sense."
"So you're screwing around with the aliens."
"Not as such, no." For the first time Suit Number One shows a hint of impatience, and Jensen can't help but feel a surge of pride at having ruffled the man's calm. "The company has discovered some valuable natural resources on Pandora, which makes it necessary for us to interact to a certain degree with the indigenous population. We are endeavouring, of course, to honour the spirit of governmental policies, by interfering as little as possible with their everyday lives. The best way to do this, we've discovered, is to try and integrate with them entirely."
Jensen feels his face screw up in confusion. "Okay, you lost me. My brother was a xenoanthropologist. What on earth could I possibly do to help you with whatever he was going to do? I mean, from the sound of it you wanted him to go in there and help you communicate or interact or whatever without screwing up your Prime Directive."
"I'm not being clear. The atmosphere on Pandora is entirely toxic to humans. Breathe in the air, and you'll be dead within minutes. Most of our personnel have to wear the same kind of breathing masks that we wear here on Earth, with some alterations, of course. But a few were chosen specifically to be what we call avatar drivers."
"Avatar drivers?" Jensen leans forward, intrigued in spite of himself. "As in, Avatars like those failed cloning experiments from twenty years back? The ones they told us about in our social studies classes as a cautionary tale against playing God?"
The shark-smile makes a comeback. "The very same. Except this time, we've succeeded, and then some."
Jensen feels his eyes widen, and a reluctant smile spreads over his features as he begins to understand the implications of what they're asking of him. "Tommy was going to be an avatar driver. You modified the cloned bodies so they could survive on the planet's surface, and my brother was going to be your point of contact. Like a negotiator. Am I close?"
"You, Mr. Ackles, are right on the money."
"And you want me to take his place."
"That's right. The clones are tailored specifically to the genetic makeup of the original consciousness. They won't work for anyone else, and, to be blunt, they are an astronomical expense for the company. There are fewer than a dozen Avatars in existence, not including the one currently in embryo that was designed for your brother. While you lack your brother's skill set, you do share his genetic make-up, and as such, the company is hopeful that they can recoup some of their loss if you agree to take the job."
"And why would I want to do that?"
"Let me put it to you this way: you are in a position wherein you wield more leverage now than you will probably ever wield in your entire life from here on out. The company wants you, Mr. Ackles, and they are willing to do a great deal in order to secure your services. That means that they are prepared to pay considerably more than they were originally going to pay your brother."
Jensen glances down at his legs. The way he's sitting, they look like any other pair of legs, even if they're slanted in a way that that most people wouldn't sit, and maybe they're slightly skinnier than average. Otherwise, they could be any pair of legs at all. The only difference, of course, is that they don't work, and they won't ever work again. Not without a whole lot of money to invest into medical procedures –money that he doesn't have. Even if he did have the money he'd feel obligated to send it home anyway. His parents need it more than he does.
"The signing bonus will be more than enough for the surgery," Suit Number One remarks mildly, "and the salary is excellent. There is danger pay, of course, and the company is happy to transfer the funds automatically to anyone you designate. In the event of your death —and there is a possibility of that, I will not hide it from you— then your beneficiary would receive a sizeable settlement. In short, it's to your advantage to sign on."
Jensen rubs a hand over his mouth. "I'll think about it. You got a card?"
But they both know, even as he tucks the tiny rectangle into his shirt pocket, that his decision has already been made.
Part Ib
Prologue
Part I –Opening the Box
The Sky People always come out late in the mornings. Ìla'rey knows, of course, that they aren't late risers, that they simply come out late because of the many preparations they have to make in order just to survive here in the forest. They come tramping out of their large ugly buildings with all their heavy gear, their loud, noisy trucks, their shouting soldiers. Ìla'rey and his friends have taken to creeping out and watching them, often when they should be hunting, or helping the elders in Home Tree, but it's so much more fun to watch all the new reasons the humans, as they call themselves, find to scurry about in what looks like utter confusion. Perhaps they have reasons of their own, but whatever those reasons might be remains a mystery to Ìla'rey.
The human-occupied area looks to Ìla'rey like a giant scar in the side of the mountain where they began digging when he was only a child. The trees have all been stripped away, the ferns have died, all the animals have long since fled from the noise and smells. It's disgusting and fascinating all at once, and he's been sneaking away from home for as long as he can remember to spy on them, to figure out why it is they do what they do. Ìla'rey spent five interminable years in what the humans call 'school,' learning to speak the language of their majority, which still seems largely unpronounceable to him. They speak using their throats, a harsh, guttural language, and Ìla'rey still resents his parents for forcing him to learn it. Still, it has turned out to have its uses, like today. He and his friend Tsu'tey are perched in one of the trees on the edge of the mining area, all but completely hidden by the dense foliage. The other young warriors with them have found different vantage points along the tree line and it’s only because he knows they’re there that Ìla’rey can even see them. Otherwise, they would be invisible to the naked eye.
Tsu'tey clears his throat. "Ìla'rey, are you sure we should be here? You were supposed to stay in Home Tree today. Won't your mother be angry that you have run off to spy on the sky people again?" Ever the dutiful son, Tsu’tey, Ìla'rey thinks.
"Let her be angry. I promise I will be responsible and take my responsibilities as future tsahik tomorrow."
Tsu'tey punches his shoulder. "You shouldn't joke about that. It will be difficult enough as it is without your making light of it."
"Yes, I know, I should have been born female. What's done is done, and I'm still hoping my parents will have a girl before the end, so I don't have to do it."
"Your parents won't have any more children, you know that."
"Look, there is their Colonel," he says, pointing to where a human with thick scars from an altercation with an ikran, which the humans call banshee, is strutting before the ranks of soldiers, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"What's he saying?" Tsu'tey wants to know. He speaks a little of the language, but hasn't mastered it as well as Ìla'rey, not enough to be able to decipher the shouting at such a distance.
Ìla'rey smirks. "He is lecturing them on the dangers of the forest. They are frightened of everything here, these sky people. They think everything wants to kill them."
Tsu’tey purses his lips. "They are very small. They look like prey. They should not be surprised when the animals try to feed upon them."
In the clearing the little Colonel is still bellowing at his soldiers. Ìla'rey, however, is watching two banshees perched on a nearby outcropping. It’s not mating season, but sometimes the meikran become mates out of more than necessity. Ìla'rey’s mother once told him that they are the only ones of the flying animals who truly understand the meaning of love, which is why the Omaticaya are able to form tsaheylu, the bond, with them. Right now, though, that is not what is uppermost in Ìla'rey’s mind. He turns to Tsu'tey and grins, nodding his head in the direction of the obvious opening, and his friend looks horrified.
"Ìla'rey, you can’t!"
"Of course I can! Just watch me."
He jumps to his feet, unslinging his bow from his shoulder and pulling an arrow from his quiver. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the other young warriors following suit. It’s been a game among them for years, ever since the sky people landed, to use their large machines as target practice. The huge wheels are perfect for it, just soft and yielding enough that arrows embed beautifully in them and stay there, the multi-coloured fletching beautiful as it goes round and round. Today, though, Ìla'rey has one other trick in mind for the sky people. He lifts a hand to his mouth, emits a high-pitched shriek that has Tsu’tey wincing at his side, not because of the sound, but because he knows exactly what will follow.
The meikran surge into the air at the noise, spreading great wings and emitting their own answering shriek, then swoop down toward the tightly-arranged group of soldiers. On the ground, chaos erupts among the humans. There are a few screams from the newest arrivals —they always scare the easiest— and they scatter like insects before a stiff wind, confused and disorientated, buffeted from all sides. Ìla'rey feels his gorge rise when he sees the loud-mouthed Colonel bring up his gleaming metal weapon and take aim at the nearest ikran, obviously meaning to slay it. Butchers, these humans, he thinks disgustedly. Before the humans landed the Omaticaya had never seen guns, and at first the small metallic things had seems ridiculous and puny, but they quickly learned just how deadly the weapons could be. They were useless against most of the bigger animals in the forest, but enough bullets could kill a man, or seriously wound an ikran if it caught one of its wings.
Ìla'rey lets out another yell, more acute this time, and there's a rush of air above his head as Zeizei, his own ikran, comes to perch nearby in a great flapping of wings. In one smooth, practised move, he swings himself up onto her back, forming the bond effortlessly and directing her right into the path of the terrible guns. It's child's play to draw his bow and knock the weapon out of the Colonel's hands, though he is careful not to draw blood—outright conflict with the humans has been forbidden by the tsahik until further notice—and the meikran rise up into the air, still shrieking irritably, and soar into the sky toward the horizon. With a whoop of triumph Ìla'rey brings Zeizei around and sends another volley of arrows at the armoured trucks, watching with satisfaction as the tips bury themselves into the artificial surfaces. All around the other young warriors, Tsu'tey and his friends, are doing much the same, yelling and yipping and shouting as they let loose with volley after volley, safe on the backs of their meikran, well out of reach of the humans' bullets. On Ìla'rey's signal, though, they rise up into the air to make their escape, still cheering and hollering. Ìla'rey exchanges a delighted grin with Tsu'tey.
"Your parents will skin you alive for this!" Tsu'tey yells above the boom of leathery wings beating against the air.
"It was well worth it!" he yells back, then digs his heels into Zeizei's sides and speeds off back into the jungle, away from the Sky People and all their problems.
There's already a small line-up of people all trying to get to the boarding area of the ship, where the shuttles are docked and waiting to take all the newest arrivals down to the moon's surface. Jensen recovers the pack containing his few belongings from the storage locker he was assigned. He snags a protein bar and a shake from a nearby dispenser, and once he's no longer light-headed from hunger and thirst, he makes his way to the much-smaller area of the ship that's been equipped with artificial gravity so he can change out of the standard-issue cotton scrubs he's spent the last five years and change sleeping in. All things considered, he feels pretty clean. There's a system for that, of course, but he hadn't bothered to listen to the lengthy explanations at the time, figuring he'd be unconscious anyway, and now he kind of regrets the fact that he doesn't know any of it. Maybe he'll look it up later, if there's time.
Tommy would have eaten all this up like it was chocolate pudding, he thinks, and suddenly there's a stabbing pain in his chest so sharp that for a moment he's convinced he's having some sort of heart attack. He muffles his gasp by turning away toward the nearest bulkhead and shoving his knuckles into his mouth, forces himself to take a breath before he freaks out completely. Tommy's been dead for six years, but it only feels like a few months, and the idea that there's nothing left even of the ashes... He closes his eyes, concentrates on breathing, on not freaking out in front of a couple dozen mercenaries, because he's going to live with these people for at least the next five years, and he's already starting at a disadvantage.
He shoves the scrubs into the chute provided for that purpose—he figures they're going to get cleaned or maybe incinerated for all he knows—and tries not to blush when a white-clad tech comes through the doors with the lightweight wheelchair he's going to be using for the next five years. He shakes off someone's well-meaning attempt to help him, swings himself into the chair, and pulls his pack into his lap in order to wheel himself aboard the shuttle. The shuttle —named the Valkyrie, which he assumes is supposed to be symbolic or something— feels surprisingly similar to the army transports he's used all his life: cramped, overly hot, and not smelling too great, and it feels a lot like coming home. He smiles to himself, leans back and keeps his hands firmly wrapped around the straps provided for stability throughout the trip to the moon's surface. The Valkyrie shudders as the thrusters cut out and the vectoring nozzles adjust to bring the shuttle into a slow hover over the ground. They come to a jolting stop with a hiss of moving hydraulics, and the crew chief comes striding out of the cockpit.
"Exopacks on!" he barks, then glares at all of them until he's satisfied his orders are being followed. "Remember, people, you lose your mask, you’re unconscious in two minutes, and after five minutes you’re dead. Let’s nobody be dead today; it looks bad on my report." He spares a glare specifically for Jensen, who's still trying to sort out the elastic straps on his mask. "Exopacks on, let's go!"
Jensen manages not to fumble his gear, gets his rebreather mask on just as the cargo ramp is released. All the other passengers—soldiers to a man—are up and waiting, thumbs hooked into the straps of their packs, apprehension written all over their faces. In about fifteen seconds they're going to set foot on an alien planet (okay, moon, technically, but still alien) for the very first time. In fifteen seconds, it's all about to become real. They move out ahead of him, the crew chief's voice, muffled by his own mask, loud in their ears.
"Go directly the base! Do not stop under any circumstances, do you hear? Proceed directly to the base! Go straight inside!"
It's trickier than Jensen had thought it would be to manoeuvre his wheelchair along the rough ground, and the others quickly outstrip him. The ground here is paved, but it's been used hard and broken up by the passage of dozens of heavy machines, and the going is rough for the thin wheels of his chair. He's forced to come to a halt almost immediately as a huge tractor rumbles past on wheels taller than a truck. The tractor itself is more like a tank, taller than most of the houses Jensen's ever seen, the wheels caked in mud. He blinks when he catches sight of what looks like huge arrows sticking out of the rear tire, fletched with blue, red and green feathers, like they were plucked from some sort of gigantic parrot.
A second later and he's forced to jerk out of the way as some jerk in an ampsuit nearly tramples him, complete with shouted insult from its driver. The things are huge, four times the size of an ordinary human, little more than giant metal frames with a small cockpit, built so that a man can stand inside them and fit his arms and legs into a specially-designed harness that allows him to use the suit as though it's simply an extension of his own body. It takes an incredible amount of fine-motor control to drive an ampsuit, and the drivers are just about as cocky as Air Force pilots about their status. Of course, they conveniently ignore the fact that drivers can't see what's directly under them at all, their view blocked by the floor of their cockpit, making them extremely dangerous to innocent bystanders. Jensen rolls his eyes, shoves his chair forward and nearly runs into two soldiers, one with the insignia of a corporal and a name tag that reads 'Wainfleet,' the other nothing but a private. The corporal sneers at him.
"Would you look at that? Meals on wheels."
The private joins in, sniggering, and Jensen immediately pegs them as cronies. One probably just got promoted, and is letting the other guy hang onto his coattails. "I seen plenty of guys leave here in a wheelchair, never seen one arrive in one before."
"That is just wrong," the corporal shakes his head. "At least he ain't gonna last long around these parts. Something'll eat him before long."
He ignores them as best he can, and pushes past them until he reaches the entrance to the base, which thankfully has been equipped with a ramp, though more as a way of getting supplies in and out easily rather than as an attempt to keep things handicapped-accessible. Jensen has no idea how easy or difficult it's going to be to move around inside the base itself, but he's dealt with stuff like this before, and at worst it'll just be an inconvenience he'll try to work around, the way he does with everything else that's gone wrong in his life.
It's a lot like going to basic training, or like any of the other dozen of deployments Jensen has been on. Before he's gotten much farther than the door he's directed peremptorily to the commissary. It's located inconveniently for Jensen down several sets of very busy corridors, made even trickier to navigate by multiple sharp turns and slightly confusing signs. Nothing about this place, it seems, is going to be easy.
He parks himself quietly at the back of the room as a tall man in well-worn fatigues paces in front of his audience of slightly awed-looking Marines and intimidated-looking science nerds and confused-looking civilians. He keeps the giant bay window to his back, and behind him helicopters rise up into the sky and disappear past the giant fence that surrounds the compound, over the horizon. Jensen knows nothing about Colonel Miles Quaritch save that he's the head of security for the Colony, which he's already heard nicknamed Hell's Gate by several of the soldiers who've been here long enough to earn the right to call it anything they damned well please. The Colonel is a handsome man by most standards, square-jawed and bright-eyed, his close-cropped hair faded from blond to silver by the years, except where his scalp has been etched by long parallel scars, no doubt the result of an attack by some local animal. His arms, deeply tanned and muscled, are decorated by a multitude of criss-crossing scars, and his eyes, a steely grey, seem to bore right through Jensen as he takes up his spot as unobtrusively as he can.
"You are not in Kansas anymore," the Colonel is saying, in a voice that clearly used to belong to a drill sergeant. "You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day. Out beyond that fence," he points in a dramatic gesture toward the big bay window, "every living thing that crawls, flies or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubees."
The room goes very still at that, and Jensen resists the sudden urge to snort. It's not the first time he's had different thoughts from a superior officer, and he knows better than to voice them aloud. Not unless he wants to find himself doing push-ups for the rest of eternity, regardless of whether he's still enlisted, and regardless of the fact that he's in a wheelchair. Quaritch, oblivious to his train of thought, is still pontificating.
"We have an indigenous population of humanoids here called the Na’vi. They’re fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin which can stop your heart in one minute. And they have bones reinforced with naturally-occurring carbon fibre. They are very hard to kill. We operate—we live—at a constant threat condition yellow."
That's not exactly reassuring. Jensen's only read up a little bit on the Na'vi—and that was six years ago, even if it feels a little fresher in his mind than that—and none of what he read has prepared him for that. The book he read made them sound like they were sort of like tree-hugging hippie savages, or whatever. In tune with nature and all that crap. It went on and on about social hierarchies and spiritual leaders and used spellings he couldn't wrap his mind around, and all throughout that time he'd been undergoing physical therapy and getting what felt like hundreds of inoculations and signing dozens upon dozens of legal forms and waivers. In short, the last few months before he got put into cryo seem like a distant blur now, and he doesn't remember a damned thing about neurotoxins or unkillable giant aliens.
"As head of security, it’s my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed," Quaritch pauses for effect, taking the time to look each new recruit in the eye before moving on. "Not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need a strong mental attitude, you need to follow the rules, Pandora rules..."
Jensen allows himself a small smile at that. There's really nothing like an old-fashioned safety briefing to put your mind at ease, he thinks, and make you feel right at home.
It doesn't take Jensen long to unload his pack in the very cramped quarters he's been assigned. There's barely enough room for him to turn his wheelchair around, but at least it's on the same level as the lab, which means he won't have to negotiate too many ramps or any of the elevators, all of which have buttons that seem to be out of his reach. The bed is at the same level as his chair, which simplifies things considerably, and the walls are entirely unadorned.
"Should have brought a spider plant," he says aloud, just to hear his own voice. It sounds muffled in the close quarters, as though the walls are dampening down the sound.
Maybe he can get one of the local plants to grow in here, although given the radically different atmosphere, he isn't sure that could ever happen. For that matter, he's never kept a potted plant in his life, and doesn't know why he suddenly felt the desire for one. He snorts and shakes his head at his own weird train of thought, and begins sorting through his pack. He unpacks his clothes into the tiny wall unit, stores his toiletries by the sink, and decides to ignore the small computer provided for his personal use in favour of seeking out food and a shower, not necessarily in that order. Fifteen minutes finds him still damp from his shower and navigating his way along the crowded corridors toward the commissary, when a voice sounds out behind him.
"Hey! Um, hello! Hi!" The voice belongs to a tall, gangly, geeky-looking guy with a goatee and a haircut that looks like it was accomplished using a bowl and blunt kitchen scissors. "You're Jensen, right? Jensen Ackles?" He looms over Jensen, all smiles and nervous energy, and thrusts out his hand for him to shake. "I'm Norm Spellman. I was in the avatar training program with your brother, Tom. Wow, you look just like him."
Jensen squints a little dubiously at him, but shakes his hand anyway. "Uh, yeah. Good to meet you?" He turns it into a question.
Norm smacks his forehead. "I mean, duh, of course your look like him. I mean, the whole identical twin thing is the reason you're here right? Um, God, I'm making a mess of this. I'm really sorry about your brother. We weren't close friends or anything, but he was a really great guy. Fantastic sense of humour. Everybody loved him. It was a huge shock when he died."
"Yeah, I'll bet," Jensen manages. "A shock. Sure."
"Um, anyway. Have you seen the lab yet?"
"No, not yet. I was kind of hoping for food."
Norm's face lights up. "Oh, man! No, you should totally come see the lab! I was just heading there myself, and I can't wait to see how it's all set up. I mean, I saw the blueprints and all that during the training, but it's nothing like seeing it in person, you know? Live and in technicolour!" he enthuses, and Jensen can't help but smile in response.
"Yeah, okay. I had a protein bar earlier, so I guess I won't starve."
"Awesome. I want to hear everything about your brother than he never told us himself."
Jensen just manages to bite back the bitter retort that's on the tip of his tongue. Instead he nods noncommittally and wheels himself toward the lab in Norm's wake.
The last time he and Tommy spoke, they argued about his plans to go to Pandora. It wasn't the first time, either, but somehow it felt more real, now that the deadline was looming. Tommy came to visit him in the hospital, and, yeah, maybe Jensen sort of picked a fight with him, because he was chained to a hospital bed again, prey to an opportunistic infection that was trying to eat away what was left of his spine, and he was frustrated and mad and in pain, and Tommy was a really convenient target.
"So you're just going to up and waltz away to another planet?"
Tommy snorted and rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't exactly call it 'waltzing,' Jenny." He used the childhood taunt deliberately. "I've spent three years training for this, or weren't you listening? No, wait, never mind, I actually know the answer to that question already. You never listen to anything I tell you, because you're not interested in anyone but yourself."
The accusation all but took his breath away. "I.. you...you think I'm selfish?"
Tommy shrugged. "If the shoe fits."
"Fuck you!" he spat. "I'm not the one who ran off when the family needed me. I've been there every step of the goddamned way. Where the hell have you been? Off in your ivory tower with your scientist friends, living off grants. You think you're better than me just because you have a degree?"
"I never said that!"
"You don't need to! Don't think I don't know you, I can see it in your face. Don't forget, that degree didn't come for free, Tom."
Tommy's face closed off. "I'm paying you back, every cent."
"And every cent of that is going back to the farm. Just like every other cent I make that I don't use for food or clothes."
"Or women or alcohol."
"Oh, so I shouldn't have anything at all, is that it? Be a good soldier, keep my head down and wait to die from some random bullet? Oh, hey," he'd looked down at himself, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone, "looks like it's too late for that. But don't worry, bro. If this keeps up, you won't have to pay me back anymore, and the benefits will just go directly to Mom and Dad."
"Jensen..." Tommy's expression turned pained, and for a second Jensen felt bad, laying that on him. It wasn't Tommy's fault he'd been on the wrong end of a land mine that some poor kid in his squad had stepped on. The kid was long gone, and Jensen might as well be.
"Never mind." He shifted uncomfortably in the bed, winced as the wound in his back twinged. Of course, Tommy noticed right off.
"You need something for the pain?"
"It's fine."
"I can call someone, if you want."
"I said, it's fine!"
"Fine," Tommy held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "I don't get why you're so dead-set against my going. This is a fantastic opportunity for me, Jensen. I get to be at the cutting edge of my field, and the pay is fantastic. I'll be able to pay you back, and maybe get Mom and Dad out...I thought you'd be happy about this," he says, letting his hands drop, and Jensen sighed, because this was exactly how his brother had always been. All ideals and no sense of reality.
"You're leaving for another planet, Tommy. One that it takes five years to get to. It means that the next time I see you will be in fifteen years. We won't celebrate our thirtieth birthdays together, or our fortieth...Fuck, I don't want to get all sentimental or whatever, that's not what this is about. I just... why do you want to get away so badly?"
"I'm not leaving you, Jensen," his brother said, and his tone was gentle, his expression suddenly too understanding, and Jensen really wanted to throw something at him, except there was nothing in here except his pitcher of water, and he'd be wanting that in a minute.
"I don't want your fucking pity," he snapped. "You've always been itching to get away from us, from me. I guess I'm a hell of an embarrassment, huh? This dumb military hick who's got your face, what would you ever tell those nice scientist friends of yours?"
"You're a jerk," Tommy said, but there was no heat behind his words, just the same sad, resigned expression on his face that he always got when he was about to bail on them all. "You know that's not true."
"Tell me you're not doing this to get away."
"It's not what you think!"
Tommy's face pleaded with him to understand, but this was one time too many, and suddenly Jensen was just tired. His back was on fire, the sensation stopping abruptly where his spinal cord had been severed by shrapnel, and he leaned back against his pillows, closed his eyes.
"Jensen?"
"I'm sick of this. You want to go, fine, it's not like I'm going to stop you. You've never listened to me before, why start now? Just go, already, and let the rest of us get on with our lives."
"I...do you need me to call someone?"
"I just need you to stop doing this to me and go!"
Tommy bit his lip, gripping the rail at the foot of Jensen's hospital bed. "Okay. Okay, Jensen, you win. I'm going to go, but I'm going to come back. I'll come back next week when you're not in pain and hating yourself and the entire universe because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'll come back, and we'll talk again, and maybe then you'll figure out a way to be happy for me."
Jensen didn't answer, kept his eyes closed, and by the time he opened them again, Tommy had gone. He'd half-expected to find him still there, waiting, because his brother was nothing if not stubborn, but sometimes even Tommy managed to surprise him. He'd spent the following week waiting for him to show up, submitting with increasing impatience to each test, to each treatment, until eventually they landed on an antibiotic cocktail that did the trick and then unceremoniously packed him back off to the rehab centre where he was meant to go through his 'transition' back to normal life.
He'd spent another week waiting, working on increasing the number of sit-ups and crunches he could do ―pitifully few, compared to before, but better than none, which was the number he'd started out with when he was first wounded—and deliberately didn't call Tommy because he wasn't going to be the one to call, for once. He was always the one who caved first, some kind of older-brother instinct kicking in, trying to protect Tommy and make him feel better and loved and cherished. So he'd waited, and there was no news, nothing. Not a peep, not even a missed call, not a damned text message, and eventually he figured maybe Tommy had decided to cut ties with the family once and for all, the way he'd threatened to a thousand times before and the way Jensen never truly believed he would. Never believed he'd leave him.
But Tommy had been murdered in a back alley, and all Jensen knows is that the last thing he ever said to his brother was to get the hell out of his life, and that's not something he'll ever be able to take back, to unsay, or even counteract with better, kinder words. By the time they found his body it was hard to tell how many days he'd spent there, lying in a pool of his own blood. And for the first time, Jensen knew what it was like to be really alone in the world.
Unlike Norm, Jensen never even saw so much as a pencil drawing of the lab before he left Earth, and he has no idea what to expect. The lab turns out to be a lot more crowded than he imagined it would be, filled with gleaming instruments that look, at least to Jensen's untrained eye, to be top-of-the-line. They gleam in the artificial light as they beep and chirp quietly to themselves. A good fifty percent of the lab is actually a separate room with a door labelled "Link Room" off to one side. A quick glance inside reveals rows of identical-looking psionic link units, which look to Jensen a whole lot like what the offspring of a coffin and an MRI might resemble, all impersonal-looking plastic. He doesn't get much more than a quick look, however, before he and Norm are approached by a cheerful-looking Indian man with a neatly-trimmed beard and eyes that twinkle merrily.
"You two must be our new avatar drivers. It's great that you made it! I'm Doctor Max Cullimore, but I insist that you call me Max, since we're going to be spending every single day together for the foreseeable future." He shakes Jensen's hand with even more enthusiasm than Norm did, which is quite the feat, Jensen thinks, as he returns the handshake.
"Nice to meet you."
"Norm Spellman," Norm beams at Max and pumps his hand up and down between both of his. Jensen wonders if, between the two of them, they might not get stuck in some sort of handshaking feedback loop from which they'll never escape, doomed to greet each other for all eternity, but eventually one of them must let go, because they do separate.
"You're in luck," Max tells them, turning away and fussing with a clipboard. "We've just finished unloading the amnio tanks. Do you want to take a look at your Avatars?"
"Absolutely!" Norm is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Jensen saw the amnio tanks containing all the avatars before he left Earth, but his eyes widen now as he approaches the two that just got unloaded. "Damn, they got big!" he exclaims, watching the figure floating in the amniotic fluid through the thick Plexiglas.
He remembers the avatar as nothing but a large floating blue baby-like thing, its head much bigger than the rest of it, tiny hands curled into fists, the umbilical cord linking it to whatever was feeding it looking ridiculously oversized. The cord is still there, but it looks much more, well, normal-sized now. Except for the fact that the body itself is twice Jensen's size, that is.
"Why are they blue?" he asks. He's always wanted to know.
"I'm afraid I don't really have a good answer. As far as we can tell, there's no significant evolutionary reason for it. A lot of the creatures on Pandora have blue colouring of various shades, so it might have something to do with the quality of the light, or a gradual process that came from consuming the local flora, which also contains a lot of blue. Or maybe the flora is blue due to the light too. Honestly, we're still studying it."
"Huh."
"Pretty cool, aren't they?" Norm looks like a kid in a candy store. "Why don't you take a look at yours?"
Jensen nods vaguely, jerks his wheelchair around, moves into position next to the tank where his own avatar is floating. From this vantage point he can see the soles of its feet, the broad expanse of its shoulders and back, the impressive curve of its tail. The tail is a new one on him. Sure, he knew about the tail, saw it in the book he read, but the tail was nothing more than a nub the last time he saw it in embryo, as it were. He has to fight the urge to reach out and press his palm to the Plexiglas, feels his eyes open in utter astonishment when the huge figure turns slowly in the vat of amniotic fluid to face him, and he finds himself staring at his brother's sleeping face.
"It looks just like him," he murmurs.
Norm cuffs him lightly on the shoulder. "No, dumbass. He," he stresses the word lightly, "looks just like you. It's your avatar now, Jensen."
"Huh."
Max makes a move to pull on Jensen's wheelchair, then stops mid-air when Jensen glares at him. "Sorry," he stammers. "I thought you might want to start your first video log, get a feel for what it's like," he gestures at a table equipped with a computer, camera and built-in microphone. "I took the liberty of logging you in under your account, but you'll be able to access it from any point in the station, if you want, and remotely too, if necessary. We have a couple of field units for when we stay out overnight, and a few permanent stations outside the compound as well. Go ahead."
Jensen raises an eyebrow. "What, now? I haven't even done anything yet."
"Just give it a shot. Think of it as a practice run. Say anything you want."
"He rolls his eyes, but switches on the recording device. "Okay, uh. Testing...I feel stupid. What am I even supposed to say?" he tries to look at the camera, to keep his features schooled. "Uh, okay. So, this is Jensen Ackles, hi," he gives the camera a little wave, immediately feels stupid. "And this is going to be my video log, I guess, since I'm an avatar driver. I mean, I will be a driver. It sounds weird saying that, because it's not like it's a car or something, it's a body, and I'll just be transferring my mind, or my consciousness, or whatever. Originally it wasn't even meant to be me. The idea is every driver is attached to its own avatar so their nervous systems are in tune. Or something. Which is why they offered me this gig, because I can link with Tommy’s avatar, which was insanely expensive." He looks back over his shoulder. "Am I even doing this right?"
Max waves his hand in a 'carry-on' motion. "You're doing great!"
Norm grins at him, looking up from where he's been studying what look like incomprehensible readouts at a console. "Yeah. You just need to get in the habit of documenting everything—what you see, what you feel—it’s all part of the science. Good science starts with good observation."
Jensen snorts and turns back to the camera. "So here I am, doing science. Tommy would bust a gut laughing at me if he knew."
"Okay, why don't you log off for now?" Max suggests. "Come and meet your boss for the next six years."
One of the link units is beeping shrilly—or rather, the monitor next to it is beeping—when Max leads Jensen and Norm head into the link room. A moment later it whooshes open in a hiss of well-maintained hydraulics, and the first thing Jensen hears is a woman's voice, loud and harsh in the otherwise quiet room.
"Where's my goddamned cigarette?"
The voice belongs to a woman who looks to be in her mid-fifties, with wavy ginger hair that's only just beginning to turn grey in places. She's striking, Jensen thinks, and was probably a real beauty twenty years ago—is still beautiful, if he's honest with himself. Her eyes have a spark about them that suggests intelligence and quick-wittedness, although right now her face is screwed into an expression of extreme annoyance. She cranes her neck, working out the kinks of what was obviously a long session inside the link unit, her clothing wrinkled from lying in the same position for an extended period of time.
"People!" she barks, snapping her fingers. "What is wrong with this picture?"
Jensen looks on in amusement as one of the techs hurries up like someone lit a fire under her ass and hands the woman an already-lit cigarette along with a fresh lab coat. Apparently being in one of the units does nothing to help with cravings. He wonders if the craving only hits when you wake up, or if you spend the entire time during the link itching for a smoke. It's not like he's going to find out: smoking is not one of the many vices he indulged in when he was deployed. Cigarettes are too damned expensive, and he needed every spare penny anyway.
"Grace Augustine is a legend," Norm tells him in a stage whisper, as though Jensen hasn't already been briefed on her. "She's the head of the Avatar Program, and she wrote the book—I mean literally wrote the book—on Pandoran botany."
"That's probably because she likes plants better than people." Max beams at her like she's the second coming, raises his voice in false joviality. "There she is, Cinderella back from the ball! Grace, I'd like you to meet Norm Spellman and Jen―"
Grace hops nimbly to her feet, interrupting Max. "Norm, I've heard good things about you," she says, not sparing Jensen a glance. "How's your Na'vi?"
Norm looks like a schoolboy who just got praised on the head for bringing the teacher an apple. He puts his hands together in what looks like a salute, and gabbles something in what Jensen assumes to be Na'vi. Not that he's ever heard the language before. Grace seems pleased enough, and answers in the same incomprehensible gibberish, whereupon Norm gets an expression that's halfway pleased and halfway embarrassed, and Jensen guesses that, whatever test she just gave him, he passed, but maybe with a 'B.'
Max clears his throat. "Grace, this is Jensen Ackles."
Jensen's mama brought him up to mind his manners around ladies, so he extends his hand politely. "Ma'am, it's―"
"Yeah, I know who you are," she interrupts. Jensen's beginning to think it's a habit with her. "And let me tell you something: I don't need you. I don't need you, I need your brother. You know, the PhD who trained for three years for this?"
As if Jensen doesn't know. He ignores the twisting feeling in his gut. "Yeah, well, he's dead. I know it's a big inconvenience for you all, but you'll just have to make do with me."
She glares, although he thinks he may have made her flinch just a little bit. "How much lab training have you had?"
Oh, it's going to be like that, is it? Jensen matches her look for look. "I dissected a frog once, back in high school bio."
She rolls her eyes, turns to Max, and lifts her hands in a gesture of resigned exasperation. "You see? You see? I mean, they're just pissing on us without even doing the courtesy of calling it rain. Where the hell is Selfridge?"
"I don't know that he's―"
"Well, get him down here! Tell him there's an emergency, that all his precious ore is about to spontaneously evaporate due to the release of an unknown gas, that ought to get his attention. I don't care what you tell him, just make sure he gets here!"
Three minutes later a thin little bureaucrat with a wispy moustache and shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows strolls in, holding a golf club over one shoulder. Parker Selfridge looks like the kind of guy people like to call a 'go-getter,' Jensen thinks, all expensive suit and even more expensive hair product, with a spring in his step and a gleam in his eye.
"Grace," he says, and Jensen finds even his voice grating, high and nasal. "I'm assuming that there's a good reason I'm being dragged away from one of my best scores ever?"
Grace takes a drag off what looks like her third cigarette, not that Jensen was keeping count, then jabs the hand holding it at Selfridge's chest. "Parker, I used to think it was benign neglect, but now I see you’re intentionally screwing us."
Selfridge rolls his eyes, swings his golf club onto his other shoulder in a gesture that's at once suggestive of impatience and indifference. It looks calculated, even to Jensen, and he's not exactly in the habit of analysing other people's body language.
"Grace, you know how I enjoy our talks," he says blandly, and Jensen gets the impression he's repeating her name just to get on her nerves. It looks like it's working. Unfortunately for Jensen, he's right at ground zero.
Grace's cigarette turns accusingly in his direction. "I need a research assistant, not some jarhead dropout."
Jensen glares at the side of her head, not that she notices. Fuck her and her sanctimonious bullshit.
"As far as I'm concerned, we got lucky with him," Selfridge says, the picture of cool and collected.
"What?"
"Think about it," Selfridge turns an overly-white smile in Jensen's direction, the first time he's so much as acknowledged his presence. Jensen is still sure he's only doing it to piss Grace off some more, and it takes all he has not to roll his eyes. "We were lucky your guy had a twin brother, and lucky that Private Ackles here wasn’t an oral hygienist or something, am I right? A Marine we can use. I’m assigning him to your team as security escort."
Grace snorts. "The last thing I need is another trigger-happy asshole making things hard for us."
"You know, I'm right here," Jensen starts, but Max puts a warning hand on his arm.
"I really wouldn't get in the middle of that," he says, keeping his voice low. "Just let them argue it out. It won't actually change anything about what you're doing here."
"Isn't that the whole point of your little puppet show?" Selfridge is saying. "You walk like the big blue monkeys, you talk like the big blue monkeys, and eventually you all become one big blue monkey family, right? Pave the way for us to, well, pave the way. As far as I can tell, your song-and-dance and tree-hugging crap hasn't helped us advance worth a damn. Relations with the indigenous peoples are worse than ever."
"Maybe if you leashed your rabid bulldog―"
"Colonel Quaritch is just doing his job. It's his mandate to protect our people―"
"Protect your damned mining operation, you mean!"
"The two aren't mutually exclusive."
"Maybe if you stopped using machine guns on the Na'vi they'd be more inclined to negotiate!"
"We tried negotiating before, and look where that got us. We've offered them education and infrastructure and roads, but it turns out they really like their dirt. Just remember, Dr. Augustine," Selfridge emphasizes her title ironically, "the mining operation is the goal here. Panderium's your little miracle ore, isn't it? It's what's letting all those scientific colleagues of yours back home start the clean-up that's suppose to save humanity," Selfridge crooks the index and middle fingers of both hands in an exaggerated motion of 'air quotes' as he speaks. "More importantly, the stuff sells for twenty million a kilo, and it's what pays for your little science project, capisce?" he twirls the golf club in order to point it at her meaningfully. "So use what you've got, and get me some results."
"Parker, you can't―"
"Okay, that's all the time I have to waste today. This conversation is over."
And with more assurance than Jensen has seen anyone else demonstrate in the face of the formidable Grace Augustine, Selfridge turns on his heel and saunters back in the direction of his office, leaving her sputtering in his wake. With a muttered oath and one last glare in his direction, Grace stalks off the other way. Max gives Jensen a rueful smile.
"Here, tomorrow. Oh eight hundred. Try to use big words."
"Got it," Jensen manages not to roll his eyes with a superhuman effort and, not for the first time, tries to remember exactly when he made the singular error in judgement that brought him halfway across the galaxy to a place where no one really wants him anyway.
"We're sorry for your loss." Suit Number One says, and he shrugs.
"Yeah, well. So am I."
Two men in suits whose name Jensen never bothered to learn attended Tommy's funeral, the company for which they worked apparently willing to fork over enough money for them to attend, which Jensen only found all the more galling since his own parents hadn't been able to scrounge up enough funds to pay even for the travel costs to come see their son be cremated.
"The work our company does is the key to unlocking a better future for our world," Suit Number One continues, as though Jensen isn't trying to sit there and mourn his brother. "Your brother thought so, too. In fact, he was convinced of it, which is why he agreed to sign on for what is essentially an extraordinarily dangerous mission, even though he was a civilian."
Jensen's head jerks up at the term. "Civilian? I thought he was going was a scientific expedition. Who else would you send except civilians?"
Suit Number One smiles, and Jensen is reminded of nothing quite so much as a shark. He tries not to tilt his head in an attempt to see if the man has two extra rows of teeth behind the very white, very even ones he's displaying right now.
"Oh, it is a scientific expedition, but not exactly in the way you might understand these things. We've been established on Pandora for quite a few years, now: the first ships went out ten years ago, which means we've been settled there for five, with numerous trips back and forth. And, of course, we do have communication relays between here and there. It's not quite as direct as text messaging, but we find it does the trick."
Jensen scowls. "Yeah, okay. Let's pretend I'm a dumb foot soldier, and you spell it out for me?"
Suit Number One shrugs, the predatory smile fading into slightly indifference. "The vast majority of the personnel who get sent to Pandora are military. Many of them former Marines, like yourself, although in their case we generally seek out ones who are ―forgive me― physically fit. They provide security for what few civilians we have on staff: scientists, mostly, and a few administrators, because what large-scale operation has ever successfully run without a few administrators to keep the wheels turning?"
Jensen rolls his eyes to convey his opinion of paper-pushers. "So why exactly do you need me, again? I'm not a scientist, not even close, but it can't be for my military background that you want me. In case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty much broken these days. Useless." He doesn't mean to sound so bitter.
The man smiles again, and it's only slightly less creepy when he keeps his lips together. "Would you indulge me a moment? What do you know about Pandora?"
Jensen shrugs. "In a nutshell? Squat. It's a planet, it's far away, and the company has been working on some top-secret project there for God knows how long ―ten years, if what you're saying is true. There are reports of sentient life there, if the TV is to be believed on that topic, and I don't see why not. Aliens who are twice as big as us and live in sort of primitive agricultural communities. Oh, and they're blue, which no one seems to be able to decide if it's cool or really creepy."
"The company doesn't have an opinion one way or the other."
"No, of course not. So, I indulged you, now it's your turn."
"You're right, of course, about the sentient life. The biology of it all isn't my field of expertise, but life on Pandora appears to have followed two very distinct lines of evolution, which is nothing that our xenobiologists have ever seen."
"Okay, so they're weirder than the other aliens we've met. I thought our policy was to steer clear of aliens, anyway?"
"It is the policy of all the various governments of those countries capable of space travel, yes. The company has no such policy, of course. We're situated off-shore, as it were, in the legal sense."
"So you're screwing around with the aliens."
"Not as such, no." For the first time Suit Number One shows a hint of impatience, and Jensen can't help but feel a surge of pride at having ruffled the man's calm. "The company has discovered some valuable natural resources on Pandora, which makes it necessary for us to interact to a certain degree with the indigenous population. We are endeavouring, of course, to honour the spirit of governmental policies, by interfering as little as possible with their everyday lives. The best way to do this, we've discovered, is to try and integrate with them entirely."
Jensen feels his face screw up in confusion. "Okay, you lost me. My brother was a xenoanthropologist. What on earth could I possibly do to help you with whatever he was going to do? I mean, from the sound of it you wanted him to go in there and help you communicate or interact or whatever without screwing up your Prime Directive."
"I'm not being clear. The atmosphere on Pandora is entirely toxic to humans. Breathe in the air, and you'll be dead within minutes. Most of our personnel have to wear the same kind of breathing masks that we wear here on Earth, with some alterations, of course. But a few were chosen specifically to be what we call avatar drivers."
"Avatar drivers?" Jensen leans forward, intrigued in spite of himself. "As in, Avatars like those failed cloning experiments from twenty years back? The ones they told us about in our social studies classes as a cautionary tale against playing God?"
The shark-smile makes a comeback. "The very same. Except this time, we've succeeded, and then some."
Jensen feels his eyes widen, and a reluctant smile spreads over his features as he begins to understand the implications of what they're asking of him. "Tommy was going to be an avatar driver. You modified the cloned bodies so they could survive on the planet's surface, and my brother was going to be your point of contact. Like a negotiator. Am I close?"
"You, Mr. Ackles, are right on the money."
"And you want me to take his place."
"That's right. The clones are tailored specifically to the genetic makeup of the original consciousness. They won't work for anyone else, and, to be blunt, they are an astronomical expense for the company. There are fewer than a dozen Avatars in existence, not including the one currently in embryo that was designed for your brother. While you lack your brother's skill set, you do share his genetic make-up, and as such, the company is hopeful that they can recoup some of their loss if you agree to take the job."
"And why would I want to do that?"
"Let me put it to you this way: you are in a position wherein you wield more leverage now than you will probably ever wield in your entire life from here on out. The company wants you, Mr. Ackles, and they are willing to do a great deal in order to secure your services. That means that they are prepared to pay considerably more than they were originally going to pay your brother."
Jensen glances down at his legs. The way he's sitting, they look like any other pair of legs, even if they're slanted in a way that that most people wouldn't sit, and maybe they're slightly skinnier than average. Otherwise, they could be any pair of legs at all. The only difference, of course, is that they don't work, and they won't ever work again. Not without a whole lot of money to invest into medical procedures –money that he doesn't have. Even if he did have the money he'd feel obligated to send it home anyway. His parents need it more than he does.
"The signing bonus will be more than enough for the surgery," Suit Number One remarks mildly, "and the salary is excellent. There is danger pay, of course, and the company is happy to transfer the funds automatically to anyone you designate. In the event of your death —and there is a possibility of that, I will not hide it from you— then your beneficiary would receive a sizeable settlement. In short, it's to your advantage to sign on."
Jensen rubs a hand over his mouth. "I'll think about it. You got a card?"
But they both know, even as he tucks the tiny rectangle into his shirt pocket, that his decision has already been made.
Part Ib