Well, to all who asked for it, here it is! I know it's been a long time coming, but what can I say, I think I had this planned the whole time. A year ago, I posted Second Skin, and now, here I am posting the sequel. Whoever thought I would do that?
Anyway, here's the deal. For the first couple of chapters, we're going to be doing a little reconnaissance, going back to see what might've happened when our crew that left Pandora got back to Earth. Of course, we all (most of us anyway) wish something like this might've happened.
We will definitely be getting back to Jake. I want to introduce you to the other characters who will play a part in the story later on, and I'm still pinning down our plot, so the update might be spaced apart for the first little while.
This is also going to be slightly different from the other story in a really obvious way once you pick on it, so for that purpose it will be rated M all the way through, for language and probably violence and other stuff.
And if you've clicked on this at random, you will need to read Second Skin. I know I hate to say it, but it's true.
Now, after a long Note up here, those of you ready need to go on and get reading.
See you at the bottom!
Feeble Excuses . . .
6 ½ years after leaving Pandora
RDA Executive Administrator Hannah Davenport was not happy with the latest reports from refinery plants all over the world. And she knew exactly who to blame. So when Parker Selfridge strolled into her office after a six-month lay-over from his stay on the moon Pandora, she showed him no mercy.
"So let me get this straight," she said, her icy blue eyes scrutinizing him as she sat across her desk from him. Her dark blond hair was neatly pulled from her face into a tight bun, and her casual beige dress suit belied her demeanor. "You were charged with one of the most important operations this planet has seen, and you allowed an indigenous species to drive you off the surface of an unrefined, savage moon without any resistance?"
Parker actually balked at her. "No, I did not allow anything," he bellowed. "As I believe I stated in my report, one of our infiltrators turned on us. He rallied the natives in a full-out war against us, and we were overwhelmed. Quite frankly, we were lucky to get out alive."
"And yet you left behind almost twenty members of your science team," she commented cooly. "Why?"
He blushed deep red. "Apparently, they were chosen to stay," he said softly.
"By whom?" she demanded.
"The infiltrator who turned on us," Parker stated. "He turned them on us as well."
Davenport smiled knowingly. "Oh, yes. Mr. Jacob Sully. Amazing how a wheelchair-bound former marine could undermine an operation that has been going on for years in just a few months."
Parker said nothing as she rose from her desk and moved around to be in front of him.
"I guess it's good for you that yours wasn't the only plant we had on Pandora," she said smoothly. "And those plants are a little further down than yours was."
He scoffed. "What do you mean, like underwater?"
She folded her arms over her chest. "That's exactly right, Mr. Selfridge."
"I never knew about any subterranean operations," he argued. "They told me mine was the only one of the surface."
She smiled. "That's exactly right, Mr. Selfridge."
"How was that even funded?" he asked incredulously. "And why wasn't I ever told?"
She inhaled deeply. "For the same reason you were never made aware of any of our other colonies: Miles Quaritch," she said simply. "I understand he was killed in your confrontation with the locals."
Parker bowed his head. "He was, yes."
"Good," she said, moving back to her chair and sitting down to switch on the monitor of her computer.
"Good?" he repeated with a nervous laugh. "How is that good? He was the best security officer we ever had."
"And he was responsible for how many deaths?" she asked. "I was under the impression that less than half your people survived to come back. Was that wrong?"
"No," he admitted. "But that doesn't make the death of a decorated officer in the military a good thing. I mean, he was a forceful son of a bitch, but he kept us safe." Parker paused, and then added, "Most of the time."
"Miles Quaritch was a sledgehammer," she said simply. "He was sent there because we had short notice to get a replacement. But we've had six years to find a decent replacement for him, and I think she'll do a much better job than him."
"She?" Parker repeated.
The door to her office opened, and Parker turned to see a cinnamon-colored young woman about five-seven with brown eyes and black hair dressed in green digital camouflage step into the office as if called on cue.
"Mr. Parker Selfridge," Davenport said. "I'd like you to meet Major Connie Sullivan, the new head of security on the new mining project we will be launching in 24 months."
"A woman," Parker gasped, watching Major Sullivan enter the room and stop behind the chair beside him. "Are you serious? Colonel Quaritch could barely keep up with that base. How in the hell?"
Administrator Davenport barely blinked. "Like I said, Mr. Selfridge. Miles Quaritch was a sledgehammer. And you never use a blunt object to do anything that requires a high-precision tool. Major Sullivan," she said, even though the woman's face remained blank. "What is your objective on this mission?"
Barely taking a deep breath, the woman spoke. "To secure Hell's Gate mining colony and ensure safety of all retained personnel. To begin refinery of site two, previously occupied by Na'vi population with intention of making contact with former Hell's Gate resident Jacob Sully. To secure live experiment Alpha 072848 and return to Earth within three-month lay-over."
"Do we use deadly force, Major Sullivan?" Davenport asked her.
"No, ma'am."
"Do we disrupt the local population scouting for new sites to mine?"
"No, ma'am," Sullivan replied blankly.
"And how do we deal with the local population when they do become hostile?"
"Gas rounds and long-range tranquilizers. Short range tasers for face-to-face confrontations. Adult men first, then adult women. Elderly and children are avoided at all costs."
"Okay, wait just a minute," Parker bellowed. "None of that crap is going to work. These savages are volatile, predatory animals," he exclaimed. "You can't hit them with gas and tasers. It's like hitting an elephant with a dart gun. You'll end up pissing them off and sending more of their crazy idiots in your direction. We had to use force with these things, or they wouldn't have done anything we asked them. After what Sully did, how do you expect those blue monkeys to trust you?"
"Well, Mr. Selfridge," Davenport said. "This is what we like to call a new approach. And you'll be happy to know that you won't be returning to Pandora. Nor will any of the military or mining personnel who came back with you. We've been able to hire new personnel who should be able to secure the old site and the new one without anymore blood shed."
Parker scoffed lifting his eyes to Major Sullivan's again. "And exactly how do you plan on doing that? And where did you get the resources or the man power? After that debacle."
Davenport grinned, jotting notes over an electronic pad. "That debacle was your fault, Mr. Selfridge," she said simply. "And it cost this company a lot of money. I'm sure you understand our concerns with holding to the old tactics employed by Miles Quaritch. I'm also sure you can understand our need to change those tactics."
"It's not about understanding," Parker argued. "It's about knowing. And I know this won't work."
"Like you knew Mr. Sully would help you before he defected?" she asked.
"Okay, then, I'll take responsibility for that," he conceded. "Like I could have predicted the son of a bitch adopting those savages as his new family in less than three months."
"Well, he wasn't the first person you approached, was he?" she hedged. "As I understand it, you approached an avatar driver by the name of Warren Watson a year and a half before Mr. Sully arrived on base. What happened there?"
Parker scoffed. "He refused to help us," he griped.
"A smart move," she commented, her eyes averting to the opposite end of the room with a wide grin still over her face.
Parker turned slowly, seeing the face of a man he'd been hoping to never see again.
There at the back of the room stood General William Watson, Warren Watson's father.
Even though he wasn't really sure why he felt the need, Parker bowed his head, allowing the General closer before he spoke. "General Watson," he said softly. "Please allow me to apologize for what happened to your son. I swear I never wanted anything to happen to him."
"Not anything you could have prevented, isn't that right, Mr. Selfridge?" the General interjected, causing Parker to look up. "If he'd done as you asked, I'm sure he'd be standing here with you, wouldn't he?"
"Excuse me?" Parker asked.
The General looked at Davenport. "The security footage was conclusive, wasn't it?" he asked.
She nodded. "Almost completely," she said.
"What are you talking about?" Parker asked her.
"My son isn't dead, Mr. Selfridge. Despite your security guard's efforts to get rid of him. We've seen the footage. We've been watching it for a few years. And all of our analysts agreed he was still alive when he was put into stasis. So I don't really need you to apologize. But the uncomfortable look on your face is satisfactory enough." Then the General looked at Sullivan. "Did he say something along the lines of how screwed we are?" he asked her.
The blank expression on her face cracked slightly as she lifted an eyebrow slightly and smirked. "Yes."
"Well, I'm not worried," Watson said, moving around to the desk and sitting down. "I'm not going to Pandora to overrule an aggressive hunter-gatherer species with a former Marine leading them. I just want my son back. So I'm going to need Mr. Selfridge here debriefed as quickly as possible. Our Communications Tech is going to need all the info he has in that over-sized brain of his."
Parker moved around to the chair beside Watson. "Your Communications Tech," he repeated, looking up at Sullivan. "Who's that?"
"Don't worry, Parker," Davenport told him. "You don't know him, so you won't be able to influence him." She paused, grinning herself. "But he might look a little familiar."
Parker scoffed, thinking mentally of any of the people who'd been here when he'd left a hell of a long time before, but he couldn't honestly think of anyone who look familiar to him without him knowing them. "Is this some weird payback thing?" he asked nervously. "Because if that's all it is, then I think I'll just be on my way to the briefing chamber three floors down. I don't have time for games, Administrator."
Davenport stood up, moving around to Sullivan's side and whispering so only the Major heard her before the stone-faced woman left the room quietly. Then she sat back against her desk again. "What do you know about Cloning, Parker?" she asked, an intensely serious look on her face.
He looked at Watson, futilely hoping for a bit of a clue, but when he didn't get one, he looked at Davenport. "I know what cloning is," he told her, "but I don't know much about the mechanics of it. Why is that important?"
"You know how the avatars were made though, right?"
Again he looked at Watson. Then he bowed his head. "I do." He paused. "I mean, basically." He laughed softly. "I'm not a scientist or an engineer. Again, why is that important?"
"You know that when all the avatar drivers were selected, they were examined extensively to ensure their physical and mental health," she went on. Parker nodded. "And you know that Corporal Jacob Sully wasn't properly prepared mentally for his trip to Pandora?"
"I know," he admitted.
"And this didn't strike you as being unwise?" the General interrupted.
Parker looked at him. "I'm not sorry I approved him," he insisted. "He had military background, and I wasn't going to waste a twenty million dollar piece of equipment just because the guy it was being grown for got killed on the street. I had to look at the bottom dollar here, and it was a piss of a waste. So I approved him to take his brother's place. And he accepted." He looked at Davenport. "And I'm going to ask you again. Why is it important for me to know any of this?"
She shrugged. "I never said it was important for you to know any of it. I only wanted to prepare you," she told him, lifting her eyes to the doors of her office a third time.
"Prepare me for what?" he asked, looking back at the door to see Sullivan returning with a tall, dark-haired, very familiar-looking man also dressed in green digital camouflage with the typical marine crew-cut hair style. Parker would remember this face anywhere, especially because it felt like only six months had passed since he'd seen it — leaving the tarmac of the base on Pandora. Of course, the face had been slightly different as it had stared down at him from a nine-and-a-half foot tall body donned in native attire. Parker stood up to face the man as he and Sullivan moved further into the office. "What the hell is this?" he asked, stepping in front of the man and immediately feeling angry despite the man's bewildered expression.
"Parker, this is Jason Sully," Davenport announced. "He's going to be the mission Communications Technician. And as you can see, he bears a striking resemblance to Jacob Sully and his brother Tom. There's a distinctive reason for that. Can you guess what that reason would be?"
He looked at her, scoffing again even as he smiled confusingly. There was no way on Earth anything like this was supposed to be possible. He planted both hands on his waist, looking at the man in front of him. "This is for real, isn't it?" he whispered. "You really fuckin' did it, didn't you? Why in the hell?" he asked turning to Davenport.
"You asked us how we were going to get Mr. Sully to trust us," she reminded him. "And this is our plan. Starting now, I'm going to need our Mr. Sully to know everything you know. So he's going to take you to the debriefing chamber to get you set up. After you're finished, we'll have a detail take you back to the hotel."
Parker did nothing to hide his discomfort as the man in front of him gestured to the door, indicating for Parker to go ahead of him. He looked back at Davenport, seeing her nod again before he turned and moved to the door to leave the room.
Davenport watched him leave, and when his escort raised his eyebrows at her, all she did was nod.
Parker glanced back at his escort several times during the trip they took three floors down to the briefing wing of the main building. It was different from how Parker remembered, but he'd expected that. A lot happened in 18 years, and even though Parker was barely in his late thirties, the building he was walking through looked twice as old as the time it felt like he'd been gone. The walls were all painted a different color and appeared to be yellowing on the edges from oxidation, and the floors were tiled a different pattern that made Parker feel like he was walking the plank on a pirate ship about to be tossed over the side and fed to sharks.
Even the elevator lifts were different, but it didn't surprise Parker. Nothing usually surprised him. But here lately, things seemed to be popping out at him around every corner. First all that crazy mess at the colony, and now this — this clone of Sully walking around like he neither knew nor cared about what had really happened or why. Did he even know he was clone? Would the company make him and not tell him the truth about his origins? How was something like this even supposed to be possible? And in the six years it had taken Parker to get back to Earth? It didn't make sense for this thing to be any older than that.
"Is this going to take long?" he asked suddenly, again glancing at his escort.
The stone-faced man said nothing as the elevator doors opened, allowing them both onto the briefing wing. He stepped onto the floor, and Parker reluctantly followed him, looking in his blank clue eyes and trying to see some kind of recognition. But there was none.
The man gestured to the corridor, obviously indicating for Parker to go ahead of him, and against his better judgement, Parker did just that, looking around as the barren walls and windowless doors eased past his gait. He knew about where to go, and when he went too far, his escort stopped him, opening a door without a word and again gesturing into the room silently.
The silence unnerved Parker, making him wonder if this guy was on remote control, unable to speak or take command from anyone except a guy behind a computer. It wasn't like many of the guards in the building to be stoic or impersonal with their co-workers, and Parker was technically still an employee with RDA. Just because he'd yet to receive his severance pay didn't mean he was gonna get the cold shoulder — even from a clone.
"Do you even know what you're doing?" he asked his escort as he was led into the room where the electronic and psychological equipment for his debriefing was set up unceremoniously.
Still, the man said nothing, moving to the small holographic display and initializing the few recording apparatuses hanging over the small chair in the middle of the room.
Parker had been expecting this part, especially after six months in lay-over. He'd been brought up to speed on all the new debriefing procedures that had all but eliminated the employee's ability to keep certain things from the people debriefing him. But he wasn't worried. From his perspective, those blue monkeys were the bad guys, and his brain scans would say nothing different. It didn't matter how many times Grace had argued with him about their intelligence. It didn't make a difference how much he hadn't really wanted to fight the damn things. All that mattered to Parker was the fact that he'd tried to be nice — as nice as a man in his position possibly could be, and all he'd gotten back for his trouble was a kick in the ass from a self-righteous, indignant traitor.
Parker's escort gestured to the chair silently, completing the initialization process as he pulled out a small pack of sterile EEG nodes and moved to where Parker was sitting down uncomfortably. This probably wouldn't be so intimidating if a pretty nurse was standing there assuring him and talking to him, but all this guy could do was stare at him and say nothing. It was extremely frustrating, especially when the guy started attaching the nodes to Parker's forehead and the back of his neck. He knew this wasn't supposed to be painful, but it was apparently still in its infancy so it was apparently normal for the nodes to transmit small currents of electricity through Parker's skin. Still, he wasn't expecting it was be hot or feel like there was a two-ton brick on his forehead.
"If I promise not to lie, can we do this the old-fashioned way?" he quipped with a laugh, looking up at his escort hopefully but getting nothing back. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, allowing the guy to finish. "Right," he whispered. "Relax. This won't hurt. It's just a debriefing."
Once all the nodes were in place, Parker's escort moved back to the display, punching keys and then tapping the screen in a slow rhythm less than a minute before the recording apparatuses lowered into place only a few centimeters from Parker's face. Immediately, he could feel the heat increase all over his face, and the bright lights forced him to close his eyes. A distinct ringing in his ears indicated the nodes were transmitting and recording his brain activity and memory patterns to the computer — wherever the hell it was being kept. From what Parker had read in the specs for this things, it was only supposed to take a few minutes since it was easier for the computer to make a rather accurate image of the brain along with all the information it encoded than it was for a group of old, money-hungry overbearing executives to sit him in a room and ask him a series of questions to get the answers they wanted.
But Parker sat there for more than five minutes, and when he tried to look around, the chair he was sitting in immediately extended the neck restraints so he had to look up into the lights. He blinked quickly, disoriented and nauseous as he gripped the arm rests in his hands.
"Is this really supposed to make me feel like I'm gonna throw up half my stomach?" he bellowed, to which he got no answer.
The tips of his fingers began to tingle, and then he couldn't feel his hands, attempting futilely to clench his fists. The room, small and white as it was, began to spin uncontrollably, and Parker had to hold onto his chair tighter. He had no choice. If he didn't, he felt like he was going to fall into the whirlpool directly underneath his chair, and he was pretty sure that was going to be unpleasant.
His pulse increased slowly as he sat there, until he could feel and hear his heart racing beneath his ribcage. His breathing increased then, and panic began to set in. This was really taking too long, and it didn't look or feel like the guy who'd brought him down here was aware of his situation. Parker tried to speak again but found that his mouth was completely dry, and his tongue felt twice as big as it had been before sitting down. The edges of his vision began to go dark, and he realized he was blacking out. Good thing he was already sitting down.
It was funny — he hadn't read in any of the specs about something like this happening, and he thought for a second that he'd been set up for this. He'd obviously screwed up an intensely important mission for the company, and he didn't really have a very good excuse except that he'd been doing what his head of security had told him to do. But surely his employers wouldn't do this to him. Most of what had happened had been out of his control. Right?
Parker fought the urge to close his eyes for as long as he could, the sensation of passing out too perfect and timely for him to miss as he let go of his consciousness, huffing softly and falling headlong into the darkness.
Administrator Davenport was sitting patiently at her desk when the holographic display flickered to life with the face of her Communications Tech, and she gave him her full attention.
"Well?" she asked.
"He's down," Jason reported. "Now what?"
"How are his brain scans?"
"The computer's still recording, but he's in the green."
He transmitted the output on Parker's nodes, allowing her to see what she needed before she spoke.
"Did he suspect you of any foul play?" she asked, pressing a few buttons on her display.
"I don't think so. But he kept lookin' at me funny. Like I was supposed to know him or somethin'. Kinda creeped me out, to tell you the truth."
"Well, you look very familiar to him, and that's normal. You should get used to it for the time being. How long do you think it will be before we get a complete scan?"
He paused over his own set of controls, sliding his fingers over the display and then getting his own beeps from the computer. "Probably a few days. What am I supposed to do with him in the meantime? I got training I gotta complete. I'm not a babysitter, Hannah."
She smiled, seeing most of Parker's vitals near a low cognitive state and thinking about how long it would take him to get used to one of the penal-cryo chambers in Alaska — or what was left of Alaska. "Stay with him for a few more hours," she told Jason. "Make sure the cocktail is working before you turn him over to another tech. It's almost 1300 hours now. You can leave around 1700 hours, understood?"
The look of annoyance in Jason's eyes was expected, but he nodded, shutting off his display before Davenport pulled Parker's brain scans up to full screen. Even though she'd only been hearing about the debacle that had been Hell's Gate for about six years, Davenport had been studying scenarios like this one since she'd been a lowly assistant on the ground floor of the main building of the company. And now that she was being given an opportunity to fix this mess, she wasn't going to screw it up by using old methods and outdated tactics to get the job done.
Davenport knew all about the bottom line. She'd made a point of keeping an eye on the bottom line for the last twelve years since she'd made it to the office she was now occupying. She'd gone through two marriages and her daughter hardly ever saw her, but it was mostly worth it. She was one of only a few people in the company who still believed they had to do something to save their world. It wasn't something she normally discussed with other members of the board at their weekly meetings, but she was sure most people who knew her knew how she felt about sending hundreds of people to an alien moon almost five light-years away to mine a mineral most people believed was actually doing the saving. The sadness of it was the fact that this mineral was worse than oil and coal and any other natural resource the Human race had squandered decades earlier. It was just a short term solution, but she knew how much it meant to have the mineral in reserves in case things like this crazy mess Parker Selfridge had allowed to happen actually took place. She hadn't gotten to this office by being a green-thumbed, hippie child willing to throw her life away for the sake of some ant hills in what was left of the desert in Africa. She had gotten this office because she knew when to make deals and when not to. And you never, ever made deals with a man who had let the situation in front of him get completely out of control.
For that, Parker Selfridge wouldn't be seeing the light of day for a very long time, if ever again. But the important thing now was to get her team ready for its trip. That meant she needed as much raw data from Parker's brain scans as possible, and that way, her team would know what not to do when they made it to Pandora. Of course, having a clone of the man leading this band of aliens probably wasn't going to help them, since it was going to be like a slap in the face. But it wouldn't hurt either. At this point, it was the only thing that had actually gone right in the last six years.
The moment Davenport got a status report from the lay-over team assigned in collecting every shred of information off the shuttle that had come back from Pandora, she made her way to the retrieval bay. She still had a lot of work to do.
So? Anyone surprised? Upset? A clone of Jake Sully? Or Tom Sully? And did Parker deserve what he got? You tell me.
Also, the M rating is obviously for language right now. Other things might come into play later, but for right now, there you go.
The next chapter will probably be up in another week. I'm trying to get a few of them written and edited before posting, so hopefully all will go well.
Until next time!
