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Chapter 2: Infiltration
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Max Patel was used to getting visitors. Ever since they had booted the RDA off Pandora, the Na'vi had converted Hell's Gate into a kind of fort, just in case the Sky People ever returned with the intention of taking back Pandora. In addition to housing a slowly growing stockpile of weaponry, the base also served as a training camp for those Na'vi willing to use Sky People equipment in battle. It wasn't unusual for a Na'vi warrior, or even a small group of them, to show up at the gate and enroll in one of Mack and Abel's week-long training sessions.
"Can I help you?" the curly-haired scientist inquired, his voice sounding muffled through his exopack.
The blue woman at the gate met his eyes with a look of desperation. "Please, I must speak with whomever runs this base! There is a great enemy coming, a terrible evil! We must prepare!"
Max's brow furrowed as he opened the gate, letting the strange woman in. "What enemy? We haven't detected any incoming ships. Do you mean one of the other clans?"
The woman shook her head, her bone necklace rattling softly. "No! This enemy does not come from the sky. It comes from time itself – from a past that is not our past, a world that should not have been. Please, who is in charge? I must speak with them at once!"
"Whoa, hold on! Jake … I mean, Olo'eyktan is back at Kalutrel, and he's probably asleep by now. I'm in charge of the people here at Hell's Gate, but you should really talk with him about this."
The woman nodded. "I will do this. Hell's Gate … it has a talking machine, yes? One that can let me talk to Olo'eyktan from here, without making the journey to Kalutrel?"
Max nodded. "Yeah, we can use the radio. I can bring a transmitter out to you; just give me a few minutes."
"There is no time to lose! I will enter with you. I must speak with Olo'eyktan at once!"
"Uh, but, the air inside…."
"I can breathe it; I will explain later. Please, I must go in with you and speak with Jake immediately! Skynet is coming!"
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Meanwhile, back at Hometree, Jake found himself staring at the mysterious Marcus Wright. Now clad in a leftover RDA uniform, he looked somewhat less ridiculous. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by ten-foot-tall Omaticaya, he still looked pathetically small.
God, he looks just like Tommy. Or like I did, back when I was human. "Now, would you mind explaining just who you are, and what you're doing here?"
The human nodded. "Okay. First, what year is this?"
"Twenty-one-fifty-six. Why?"
Marcus let out a sigh, scratching his head. "Well, because I just came from 2033."
"You mean you got put in cryo a hundred years ago?"
"No, I mean … look, have you ever heard of something called Skynet?"
"What is it, some kind of news network?"
Marcus leaned back, sighing again. "Ooookay. Um … shit. Hell, even I don't get exactly how all of this works."
Beside Jake, Neytiri leaned forward. Though Jake had left his Sky People body a year ago, she could still remember what he had looked like – in the lab trailer where she had saved his life the third time, and in the days before he had passed through the Eye of Eywa. There was something unsettling about this man who looked exactly as her mate once had … but who spoke with a strange Sky People accent, and could breathe without a mask. The ten-foot-tall woman fixed the not-Jake with an intense stare. "Explain. Where are you from, and what are you doing here?"
Marcus nodded, then looked down at the ground in thought. "All right. I'm from Earth. And like I said, I came here from 2033. But obviously, my twenty-first century was a whole lot different from the one in this timeline. I mean, you said you'd never even heard of Skynet?"
"No, I haven't," Jake replied. "What is that, anyway?"
"Well, in my timeline, Skynet is a network of machines. Robots. Made for the military. About … well, sometime in the early twenty-first century, Skynet decided to kill off the human race and take over." Marcus sighed, remembering the images he had seen of Judgment Day. "It launched just about every damn nuke on the planet, killed somewhere around six billion people, and started sending out Terminators and HK's to finish off the rest of us."
"Wait, you're saying this happened a hundred years ago? That's crazy! If I'd read in my history book, 'robots nearly killed off mankind,' I think I'd remember it."
Marcus shook his head. "I know, I know. Like I said, that was in my timeline." The scruffy, short-haired human looked around him, at the alien jungle and giant natives. "Obviously, things are a bit different in yours."
"Whoa, hold on," a skinny blue man said, stepping forward. "You mean you're from a parallel universe?"
"Um, well, yeah, kind of…."
Jake looked over at him. "Norm, please tell me this is making sense to you, because I'm getting a migraine here."
The lanky blue giant looked thoughtfully at Marcus, who noticed the star-shaped bullet wound on the blue man's chest. "Jake, I think he's saying he's from a kind of parallel world. In our twenty-first century, the only big changes were global warming, and the extinction of most life on Earth because of pollution. We didn't build this Skynet thing, so humans just kept doing our usual bit, using up Earth's resources until we had to start mining other planets to survive."
Marcus nodded slowly, taking in Norm's alternate-history lesson. "Yeah, okay. And in mine, Skynet started a war with humanity, and we're in the middle of a nuclear winter."
Neytiri raised a hand. "So. This Sky Man is from a different Earth? Where the Sky People were defeated a hundred years ago? And where this Sky Net hunts them?"
"Kind of sounds that way, yeah," Jake said.
"Well then," Neytiri replied, "we must call out to this other Earth and ask for the Sky Net's help."
Marcus's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "What? I just told you, the Machines are trying to kill us!"
"So I have heard." Neytiri crossed her arms over her chest, giving the Sky Man a frosty gaze. "When the Sky People came here, to our world, you killed many of our people. Men and women, healthy and sick, young and old – you did not care. You destroyed our home. You offered us worthless toys in exchange for our land, and when we refused to accept this, you made war against us."
She looked over at her mate. "My Jake, I know that you were once one of them. But if this Sky Net has such power, and the Sky People are so afraid of it, then perhaps it can help us to defend ourselves when they return."
"No! No! Bad idea!" Marcus said, jumping to his feet. "The Machines don't help anyone. They just destroy anything in their way. They killed most of the people on Earth, then bulldozed everything to build their factories. Skynet is like a computer virus – unless you kill it, it just keeps spreading, putting up mines and factories to build more Terminators."
Jake leaned back thoughtfully. "Neytiri," he said quietly in Na'vi, "I think this Sky Man has a point. From what he says, Skynet is powerful, but it's much too destructive to be our ally. I know what nuclear weapons do; they don't just kill warriors, they kill everyone. Old people, children, trees, animals … everything. Do you want that kind of power unleashed here? And if they hunt Sky People, why would these Machines want to be friends with the People?"
"Perhaps he only says the Sky Net is evil because it is his enemy?" Neytiri looked back at Marcus. "How can we know if what you say is true?" she demanded. "Perhaps this Sky Net is not so bad as you say. Or perhaps this story of other Earths and lines of time is all a lie, and you are sent by the RDA."
The man frowned, looking thoughtful. Then he said, "Do you have anything metal? Like a bar, or a pipe?"
"I'm not giving you a weapon," Jake said firmly.
Marcus gave a frustrated groan. "No! For God's sake, I'm not your enemy! I don't know what these RDA people did to you – hell, I don't even know what it stands for! – but whoever they are, or whatever they did, it has nothing to do with me! I'm here to stop Skynet from taking over this world the way it nearly took over mine. I'm here to help you, dammit!"
Jake looked straight into the strange man's eyes. Marcus just stared right back, their eyes locked on each other. Then the blue man realized that there was something strange about the human's pupils. "Wait a minute … your eyes …."
Marcus sighed, then nodded. "Yeah, I know. With those big peepers of yours, you can see the glow, can't you?"
Jake just leaned forward, trying to understand what he was seeing. While Marcus's eyes looked normal on the outside, a dim red light could be seen coming from within. There was something unnatural about it – it wasn't the reflective shine of cat or viperwolf eyes, but an actual glow. In daylight, Jake doubted that even a Na'vi could have seen it, but it was definitely there. And yet the rest of each eye – the little blood vessels, the whites, the sky-blue irises – looked perfectly real.
Marcus nodded. "They're artificial. Skynet tech."
Jake shook his head. "They can't be. Not even the RDA can make fake eyes that look that real."
"Well then, I guess Skynet is even more advanced than they are. That, and I'll bet it's had more practice making human-looking Machines. They put a lot of their crap into me, before I broke free and joined the Resistance." Reflexively, he closed his left hand into a fist, as though to reassure himself that there was still skin on it.
Jack leaned back, trying to absorb this revelation. A cyborg? But he looks human! There aren't even any scars on him from the surgeries. Not even the RDA's best doctors are that good.
Suddenly, a low buzzing sound came from Jake's bandolier. As leader of the Omaticaya, Jake always kept a mic and earpieces in his hunting gear, just in case the Hell's Gate satellites picked up an incoming ship. Slipping the earpieces on, he hit the transmitter button. "Sully here. Is everything all right?"
"Jake, it's Max. I've got a woman here saying she needs to talk to you. She says some kind of RDA machine's running loose in the jungle. Something called Skynet, I think …."
Jake felt a cold lump in the pit of his stomach. "Put her on."
"Olo'eyktan!" exclaimed a frantic, feminine voice from the other end. "You are in danger! There is a terrible evil that seeks to destroy you!"
"Skynet," Jake replied gravely. "I know. I'm talking with a … strange man called Marcus. He says Skynet comes from another world. How do you know about this?"
There was a loud gasp from the other end. "Jake, Marcus Wright is not a Sky Man! He is a demon! A Machine, clothed in human skin! And just as I was sent by the People to stop him, this Marcus Wright was sent by Skynet!"
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Is Marcus really a Machine spy (again)? Who is the mysterious Na'vi woman? And how did they both wind up on Pandora?
For answers, please respond and review, and prepare for the revelations to come!
~Q42~
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