((-- I don't own Avatar, if I did I'd be rich. Not making a penny off this. --))
- This is my first fanfic of any sort. I guess I just like this movie so much it made me finally creep out of the shadows and actually put something out there. Any reviews are more than welcome. If people want this to continue, it will, as I've got an entire story arc in my head. There'll be more action/romance/other sweet stuff that people are into later on. Hope you enjoy it. -
It's easy – nay natural for one to deny guilt. For some reason we humans are genetically wired to avoid responsibility for any result seen as negative. Praise – yeah. Promotions – damned right we'll accept those. We'll strive for them. Lie, cheat, beg, borrow and steal for them even. Maybe this stems from our animal nature. We are a social creature, but not a pack one. Even with technologies so far advanced that we develop delusions of godlike grandeur, we still find ways to make life a struggle for ourselves.
We try to outdo each other. This tendency takes different forms for different people, but only a liar would ever deny that little rush he feels at victory. Admission of mistakes is admission of defeat. Defeat is weakness. There is no room for the weak – at least not at the top. Very few people figure out that this isn't strictly true. Sometimes owning up to and righting your wrongs is the biggest thing you can do as a human being.
The man in the high backed chair had yet to learn that lesson. He was not alone. At some point in their lives it touches the thoughts of most people. Just as surely, its true meaning hovers around the edges of their consciousness and is ultimately lost on them. He had suffered a defeat today. It was a personal defeat, but it was so much more. It was the defeat of an entire system; a way of thinking and doing things. It was the defeat of one race by another, of profiteering by idealism, and of desire by necessity. It was Parker Selfridge's defeat and it was the reason that a man who had been blind to so many truths had taken one small step towards their realization. It was a heavy price to pay for such scant and basic wisdom.
The others had gone into cryo. They say you don't dream in that cold steel box. Parker didn't want to take the chance. Fuck!!! – it was a mental outburst, not audible to anybody but himself, but it might as well have been a throat-parching scream for the effect it had on him. It was cathartic. "Fuck!!!" This time it was loud and clear. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!!!" The last one was the kicker. He emphasized it by pounding a fist on his desk. He'd half expected to recoil in pain, forgetting that even the rotating command module's artificial gravity was substandard. He took a deep breath, and ran a hand through his slowly-receding mane of dark, well groomed hair. He let his hands go wild. They transformed the neatly gelled coif into a disheveled mess. He took another deep breath, belatedly realizing that his throat ached from screaming.
The former Pandora regional head of the RDA leaned back in his chair, the dependable old thing creaking mournfully as if it felt and empathized with his stress…as if that were possible. There was no doubt in Parker's mind that he would lose his job. It might not be done right away – the RDA would assess the situation upon his hush hush arrival and take a few days of official press silence to decide what to do. Then the corporation would either put as positive a spin as they could on this disaster and have him assure the press with a well rehearsed story, or they would throw him under the machine. In the first scenario he would be quietly transferred to some dead end post and let go before long. In the latter, the company would publicly distance themselves from his actions and crucify him in the press.
The kids loved the Na'vi. The delusional idiots loved them too. Every dumb grunt who wanted to escape his mundane existence loved those goddamned bloody savages. He wouldn't be overly surprised if they put him on trial for war crimes or something of that ilk. The sheer hopelessness of his situation threatened to overwhelm the once-carefree executive. It was just like when he'd been back in high school and had gotten a bad report card, but magnified a hundred times over. He'd dawdled his entire way home, knowing all too well the folded paper time bomb he carried in his backpack – knowing all to well in his gut what would happen once he tried to casually walk in the side door. It was like a weight pressing down on him, like bad food sitting in his stomach. He couldn't escape what he knew was coming.
Parker marshaled his thoughts. He hadn't worked this far up the corporate ladder by letting his emotions get the better of him. He decided to accept that he had fucked up royally, to assess how it had happened, and to try to find a way out from under the thousand ton hammer hovering over his head. Instantly, twenty-twenty hindsight painted his most obvious errors in stark relief. He'd let that fucking G.I. Joe, General Patton wannabe Quartrich off his leash. In retrospect it was easy to see that the man wasn't exactly stable. He'd seemed a bit too eager to use the 'stick' as opposed to the 'carrot' on the natives. His eyes had glinted with a dark sort of anticipation when Parker had agreed to allow the use of force on the Na'vi clan that had been blocking their dozers. "I'll keep casualties to a minimum" had been spoken as if it was a bother he might decide to consider.
That tied in with Parker's second mistake. He'd never been good when he let his emotions rule him. Something about that godforsaken jungle had brought out the worst in Parker Selfridge. He'd acted out of impulse, out of anger, out of spite as well. He'd ordered and allowed things done that the more rational part of his psyche insisted were wrong. He'd waffled on decisions and hadn't analyzed situations objectively. It was done now, he had to make sure it never happened again. He shivered involuntarily at the thought of what his future held in store, but pushed those disconcerting images towards the back of his mind.
Those flea-bitten savages. Holy Shit how he hated them. They weren't really central to the problem however. There were always people trying to stop development from happening. Always protestors in the way. They were people, Parker realized – just exceptionally stupid ones. People like that need smart people to lead them. That was part and parcel with his third and final monumental fuck up; the Avatar program. What had the RDA been thinking; permitting, much less funding a program that allowed a bunch of wishy-washy, left wing, bleeding heart intellectuals to interact with the natives in the hopes of finding a diplomatic solution? It was a recipe for betrayal, the perfect method of giving those brainless blue monkeys the sort of insight and leadership they had lacked. Mind you, he hadn't expected someone like Sully to be the spearhead, but Parker had been wrong before.
It was all a big fucked up mess, and it drove him to the sort of profanity he normally avoided. Parker got up and began pacing as he thought. He hated being pushed – actually having to work hard on something when he'd rather be relaxing, but he usually did his best work under pressure. As much as he hated the goddamned Na'vi and all those idiotic egghead traitors who'd helped them, he had come to believe that they would never truly give up. Not only would fighting them look bad, it would cost money and achieve very little. The regional head also didn't want any more blood on his hands. He might not have personally given two shits about the natives but that basic moral part of him left over from kindergarten lessons and Saturday morning cartoons was still uncomfortable with killing other things that could walk and talk.
The more Parker thought, the more he understood that he would have to make an immediate break with the RDA. His family was wealthy and very influential in politics and he knew he could court public opinion if he jumped ship right away. People always seemed to have this desire to paint the large corporations as evil, and he could use that to his advantage. As much as the prospect of creating a hurricane frightened him, it appealed to the competitive sense in the young executive. Fuck the RDA. He wouldn't go down quietly and see his career; his hopes and dreams of power end with a whimper and disgrace. A plan began forming in his mind, it would involve doing a few things he personally found distasteful, but they were better than the alternatives of being a shamed and reviled corporate monster or a washed up and beaten former big shot whom everybody looked upon as a failure and a disappointment.
The scientist types, not truly cognizant of what actually made the world go round, had optimistically forced the ISV Venture Star to haul a veritable menagerie of their samples and research back to Earth. Parker couldn't be bothered to interpret most of their verbal diarrhea, but from what he had gathered, the stuff in cargo cell number five was the exact kind of junk that the almost dormant green movement would go crazy over. He would revive it. What did he have to lose? He might even end up doing something people would actually decide to appreciate for once.
The seeds were there – literally as well. All they needed was a bit of water. There was work to be done, preparations to be made, people to be bought off or shut up. When the Venture Star landed he would emerge a 'reformed' man. He would walk like a duck, quack like a duck and give passionate speeches on all the incredible things he had learned while on Pandora. He would sell green to the corporations with their own lingo – his lingo really. He didn't actually care if it succeeded in its stated goal, but he, Parker Selfridge would spearhead the second Green Revolution.
The humid jungle air hummed with life, the slumbering forest awakening to the first golden rays of sunlight as it did every morning. Some things never changed. A pair of pointed blue ears twitched as if in response. Then they went still again. A true Na'vi Jake Sully may have become, but he still slept like death itself. As he slept, the former 'dreamwalker' dreamed.
He ran through the trees, crashing through the bushes with little regard for stealth and safety. There was only fun…and wonder. These trees were not the great stalwarts of Pandora however, but their smaller, more humble cousins on Earth.
In the way that dreams present a casually accepted version of reality that often makes little sense except to the dreamer himself, this particular reverie mixed and mingled images from both of Jake's lives. He was a child, this he knew, and he was Na'vi. Yet his body was covered in clothes, his feet ensconced in shoes, and his appearance was unmistakably human. There were other voices in the forest.
He recognized another boy, just like him – it was Tom, his brother. There was another child, and his mind casually labeled her as Neytiri. The three of them were playing a game of tag among the foliage, far more grand and unscathed than should have existed on earth.
He didn't know how long this continued, but the next thing he knew the scene had shifted. They were still playing, though half-heartedly now, basking more in each other's company. It was growing dark and they were in an open field. A sense somewhere between wonder and foreboding overtook Jake. A part of his mind knew this to be a dream, and usually 'dark' meant 'bad' in these sorts of situations.
His companions were gone, he couldn't find them. The boy searched wildly until he sighted Neytiri. She was as he knew her, but some cartoon-like younger version. Strangely, she did not tower over Jake as she should have. He then noticed that Tom was nearby, gazing up at the stars in wonder. When he spoke, his voice was that of an Omaticaya that Jake could not quite place. "The Sky People!" he exclaimed, "They are here!"
An immense steel construct descended from the skies, yet it was not ugly in its vastness or artificial nature. Instead, it was oddly beautiful. The wind whipped the grasses of the field into a frenzy, yet he felt not even the slightest hint of it on his own skin. He should have, because clothes no longer covered the majority of his tall, blue-skinned form.
With a final 'whoosh' the vast starship set down upon the ground and a boarding ramp descended. People began filing out of the ship, gazing around curiously at this new world. Belatedly, Jake noticed that they were not human. They were Na'vi.
His head spun as Neytiri ran towards them, arms outstretched in friendly greeting. His eyes turned away from that scene. Somehow he knew she would be safe among her own people. He saw a group of humans mingling with the visitors. One among them stood out. He was a small, well dressed man with a businesslike disposition. He was shaking hands and making jokes with the Na'vi. Jake knew that little weasel, and he tried to shout a warning, but the still-cooling jets of the spacecraft drowned out his words. The human was Parker Selfridge, and Jake ran towards him with a renewed sense of urgency.