Chapter Two: Introductions
Jake sits on a bench in the cafeteria within Hell's Gate; it's the newcomer's debriefing, and their being conducted by none other than Colonel Miles Quaritch: the head of security. Quaritch's features are rugged and aged by war, only the scars on his head, which run from scalp to jaw down one side of his face stick out. On one hip he carries a very large pistol.
"You are not in Kansas any more..." said Quaritch, "... You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day".
Jake studies the colonel; to be honest he studied everything he could about Pandora. If he was going to carry his brothers' dream he needed to be prepared and thanks to his Specter status within the armed forces he received Intel on every man, woman, and creature on the planet. So far Jake hasn't liked what his heard about the RDA or Quaritch.
Colonel Quaritch raises his hand and points out the window, toward the dark tree line.
"Out beyond that fence every living thing that crawls, flies or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes". Quaritch's words are meant to instill fear and so far it works.
The room gets very quiet.
"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. We operate - we live - at a constant threat condition yellow".
Jake looks at the terrified faces of miners, machine operators, engineers, and geologists as they take that in.
"As head of security, it's my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed …. not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need a strong mental attitude; you need to follow procedure..."
'Nothing like an old-school safety brief to put your mind at ease' thought Jake as he listed to Quaritch finish.
-Break
Moving calmly and quietly through the corridors of Hell's Gate Jake tried to put his mind at ease. People are roaming in both directions, looking for rooms, lugging duffels and cases.
'This is for you Tom; hopefully I can be some good'
"Hey, you're Jake right? Tom's brother? You look just like him".
An eager young man, staggering under an over packed duffel, runs to catch up to Jake. Jake looks at the man with a slight glare; he's sizing the kid up, if he knew Tom he might be harmless but better to be safe than sorry.
"Sorry, I'm Norm Spellman; I went through avatar training with him" said the young man eagerly.
Norm offered his hand and Jake shock it; Jake can tell just by his actions than Norm is probably just like Tom: an eager kid with a dream.
"He was a great guy, funny too. It was a big shock to all of us and … and I miss him, he was the only friend I had in training".
"Yeah, I miss him too but if Tom was your friend I'll be your friend all the same"
"Obviously you look like him. I mean, if you weren't genetically identical, you wouldn't be taking over his avatar" said Norm with a friendly smile.
"That's why I'm here Norm, carrying my brother's dream".
"So, you want to go check it out?" Norm was hesitant.
"Let's go" said Jake with a smile.
Jake and Norm enter a place called the BIO-LAB a large lab complex with many adjoining rooms. Jake could see why his brother wanted to come here; to a Xenoanthropologist, or any other scientist this place is heaven.
"Norm is out here to drive one of these remotely controlled bodies called avatars. They're grown from human DNA mixed with DNA from the natives here"
A scientist is supervising the uncrating of two containers. The nearer has the
sides removed, revealing to Jake and Norm a large tank. Norm stops to stare, and Jake moves past him as if drawn by some unseen force, toward another tank. There is a figure floating languidly inside, which looks like a man. A very large, very blue, man.
Jake studies the body: Blood circulates through a synthetic umbilical in the abdomen. As the figure turns in the amniotic fluid, Jake sees that it has a lemur-like tail. The skin is cyan-blue, and it has long black hair.
"Damn, they got big" said Jake.
"Yeah, they matured on the trip out" said Norm as he turned towards another person, "So the proprioceptive stims worked pretty well"
"Yeah, they've got great muscle tone. Give us a few hours; you guys can take them for a spin. By the way I'm Max, Max Patel".
Jake shakes the man's hand but is distracted by his avatar. Its sleeping face turns toward him, and the features are feline ears and a long feral snout, definitely Jake's.
"It looks like him" said Jake.
"No, it looks like you. This is your avatar now, Jake" said Norm with a friendly smile.
-Break
"The idea is, every driver is matched to his own avatar", Jake is facing a camera, talking directly to the lens, "so their nervous systems are in tune. This is why they offered me Tommy's place, because I can link with Tommy's avatar, which was insanely
expensive". Jake looked of to the side at Norm, "Is this right? I just say whatever in these video logs?"
"Yeah. You just need to get in the habit of documenting everything: what you see, what you feel its all part of the science. Good science starts with good observation". Jake would have argued but he knew Norm was right.
"Right" Jake turns back to the camera, "I've never been in a lab before and this isn't my field of expertise but I hope I can do something useful for the people here"
"Log off. It's time to meet your boss for the next five years" said Max.
Max leads Jake and Norm through the short corridor to the Link Room which contains a dozen Psionic Link Units as Max called them, which look like coffins crossed over with MRI scanners.
"Grace Augustine is a legend. She's the head of the Avatar Program, and she wrote the book, I mean literally wrote the book on Pandoran botany" said Norm, his tone a mixture of respect and awe.
"That's because she likes plants better than people" said Max in a whisper.
Doctor Grace Augustine sits up in her link, stretching and cracking her neck after a long session. From what Jakes read and seen from her file she's fifty, with a strong face and fiercely intelligent eyes.
"Who's got my goddamn cigarette?" yelled grace.
A technician scurried over to bring it to her, already lit: Around here they jump when Grace barks. Grace stands up and walks over to Max, scowling, as Jake, Norm and Max approach.
"And here she is, Cinderella back from the ball. Grace, I'd like you to meet Norm Spellman and Ja-". Before he can finish, Max is interrupted.
"Norm. I hear good things about you. How's your Na'vi?" said Grace: her intense eyes focused on Norm.
"May the All Mother smile upon our first meeting" responded Norm in a strange language.
'Glad I took those classes' thought Jake, 'I can't speak Na'vi but I can well enough understand it'.
Grace nods approvingly, taking a drag on her cigarette, "Not bad. You sound a little formal" responded Grace in Na'vi
"There is still much to learn" answered Norm still in Na'vi.
Jake waits while they ignore him, chattering in fluent Na'vi, it's not polite to interrupt no matter how disrespectful the host may be.
"Uh, Grace, this is Jake S-" said Max yet again not finishing.
Grace turned to Jake, "Yeah, yeah, I know who you are, and I don't need you. I need your brother". She turned to Max, "You know the PhD who trained three years for this mission".
"He's dead. I know it's a big inconvenience to everyone" said Jake angrily.
"How much lab training have you had? Ever run a gas chromatograph?"
"No to the second but I've logged in three-hundred hours of training before coming here" said Jake confidently.
"Any actual lab work at all?" asked Grace.
"High school chemistry. But I ditched" said Jake with a straight face.
"You see? You see? They're pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain" she began to walk away, "I'm going to Selfridge".
"Grace, that's not a good idea" said Max.
Sadly she was already out the door and clomping down the corridor. Max turned to Jake with a pained look.
"Here, tomorrow, oh eight hundred. Try to use big words".
-Break
Within Hell's Gate lies the human base central control; It looks like an air-traffic control tower, with lots of screens and bay windows showing the whole complex. Parker Selfridge takes a ball from a newly opened case of golf balls and sets it on the floor. Selfridge is young, charismatic, focused and some would say ruthless.
He assumes the stance and lines up his putt, toward a practice cup across the control room floor. He glances up as Grace strides toward him.
"Parker, I used to think it was benign neglect, but now I see you're intentionally screwing us" said Grace her anger controlled and sharp.
"Grace, You know I enjoy our little talks" said Parker with a smile.
"I need a research assistant, not some jarhead dropout". Grace was reaching her limit with the man. Selfridge merely looks down and hits the ball. Grace kicked the practice cup aside, and the ball rolls past. Selfridge looks at her with a sigh.
"Actually, we got lucky with him" said Parker.
"Lucky? How is this in any way lucky?"
As Selfridge saunters over to retrieve the ball he looked at Grace.
"Well, lucky your guy had a twin brother, and lucky the brother wasn't an oral hygienist or something. Jake Sully is a Specter, Grace: he is part of America's most elite, he is undoubtedly better than Quaritch. I'm assigning him to your team as security escort".
"The last thing I need is another trigger happy asshole out there!" said Grace outraged.
"One he doesn't need a gun to kill anything, his a god damned Specter and two you're supposed to be winning the hearts and minds of the natives. Isn't that the whole point of your little puppet show? If you look like them, if you talk like them, they'll trust you?"
Selfridge walks to his office, behind a glass wall nearby and Grace follows.
"But after how many years? Relations with the indigenous are only getting worse".
"That tends to happen when you use machine guns on them"
On Selfridge's desk is a magnetic base, and hovering in mid-air, in the invisible field, is a lump of metallic rock. Pure Unobtoniun. He grabs it and holds it up between his thumb and forefinger, in front of Grace's eyes.
"This is why we're here. Unobtoniun. Because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo. No other reason. This is what pays for the party. And it's what pays for your science. Comprendo?"
Parker placed the rock back in the magnetic field, tacking one last look at the valuable mineral.
"Those savages are threatening our whole operation. We're on the brink of war and you're supposed to be finding a diplomatic solution. So use what you've got and get me some results". Parker's words were serious and Grace knew them to be true.
-Break
A new day has come upon Hell's Gate and to be honest it hasn't made Jake fell any better; today is the fist day he and Norm will link with their avatar's and hopefully nothing will go terribly wrong but terribly well.
Jake glances through a pressurized window; he standing in the Link room ready to do what he came here to do. In the adjoining chamber, the ambient room, Jake see's his avatar lying on a gurney, breathing slowly in Pandoran air. Norms Avatar is on a second gurney. Both are attended by med techs in Exopacks.
Jake turns his attention to Norm who is settling into his Link unit, donning what he was told are biometric sensors with skilled practice.
"How much link time have you logged?" asked Grace as she looked at Norm.
"Five hundred and twenty hours" answered Norm proudly.
Grace turned and looked pointedly at Jake.
"Three-hundred or so" answered Jake, hopping his practice would appease her.
"Good at least you're not doing it with some practice".
Grace opens the hood of Jake's link unit. Cautiously Jake settles within his link unit and places the biometric sensors over himself.
"So you just figured you'd come out here to the most hostile environment known to man, with little to almost no training, and see how it went? What was going through your head?"
Jake meets her eyes with a defiant glare, "For Tommy, this was his dream to try to do something worth while. I know I can't replace him doc but at least I can make sure that guys like Norm come out of this place in one piece".
Grace looked at Jake reading him to see if he was truthful, "That's an admirable goal Jarhead; maybe you Specters aren't like the grunts around here".
Jake began to settle into the warm fluid gel packs lining the link unit. It was to enfolding him. Grace stood over him adjusting his biometric sensors, and then she began to lower the top of the unit.
"Relax and let your mind go blank. That shouldn't be hard for you". Jake couldn't help but grin at her words.
"Kiss my-" Jakes comeback was muffled by the closing of his link unit.
"Initiate link" said Max from the center of the link room.
The link technicians began to touch some controls and read monitors all around them: the room was abuzz with activity. Max looked at a large monitor which displayed a digital 3D display of Jake's brain: regions of activity flow with complex shifting colors.
"That's a gorgeous brain" said Max, "Nice activity".
"Go figure" said Grace as she walked away from Max, "Alright, I'm going in".
"Phase-lock at forty percent", said a technician, "He's in transition".
Max watches a display showing the avatar's nervous system aligning with Jake's: two ghostly networks of light merging together.
"That's it. Find your way home" said Max.
Inside the link unit Jakes eyes move under the lids, like a dreamer in sleep, inside Jakes mind everything looks like a radiant streamer that merges into a pulsing tunnel of light. To Jake this is a moment of sheer euphoria.
Inside the ambient room Jakes eyes open to see two out of focus images: two blurry faces look down at him while being framed by Exopacks.
"He's in" said Max from the within the link room.
"Phase-lock ninety nine percent. The link is stable" said a tech calmly.
Blinking, Jake slowly sits up on the gurney. He looks down at his avatar body, touching his chest with one hand. This body feel's strange but powerful, everything feels sharper and more intense.
"Take it slow, Jake. We need to check your motor control. Try touching your fingertips together-". Jake hears Max's voice over an intercom and tries to focus on what he says.
Jake looks at his legs. He eases them off the gurney his blue feet touch the concrete floor, taking his weight. Jake stands, feeling the strength in his legs. Jake studies his new body and touches his hands together; everything is similar yet so new.
Looking down at the med techs, Jake realizes that they seem the size of children next to his eleven feet tall frame. He sees something like a blue tentacle curl across his arm and he looks behind him in alarm only to look upon his tale. As he turns to see it, the tail sweeps instruments off a table with a crash.
"Easy, Jake, I need you to sit down". Said of the two med techs.
"Sorry, it's kind of weird having a tail" said Jake apologetically.
"Its okay" said Max through the intercom, "Everything reads normal. We'll get you some close and out for some exercise".
-Break
Jake blinks in the morning sun; he is still in his avatar. Max and the tech's gave him his clothes which he had specially commissioned by the requisitions office at Specters headquarters at earth: if he was going to be huge and blue he'd do it in style. He looks around the avatar training area it's a living and training area. Nearby, a couple of avatars are playing one-on-one basketball game in front of a non-regulation height basketball net. Others go about their daily activities around the compound.
Jake flexes his legs and takes a few steps and breaks into a run. He's testing his new body: seeing what he can and can't do. He runs into the compound garden, and stops amid neatly tended rows of alien plants. He looks down at the warm soil and the plants around him. Then inhales deeply reveling in the alien smells of earth, plants, and the nearby forest. A man could get used to something this beautiful.
"Hey Specter!"
Jake turns at the familiar voice to see a statuesque female avatar walking toward him. It's Grace and to be honest she is magnificent, with panther thighs, flat muscular stomach and a dazzling smile. She is wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
"Grace?" asked Jake to make sure.
"Well who'd you expect, numbnuts? Think fast!" she tossed him a piece of Pandoran fruit, which he caught easily.
"Motor control is looking good" said Grace.
Jake bites into the fruit, the juice running down his chin, "A guy could get used to this" said Jake with his mouthful.
"Hey, Jake" said Norm with a smile. Norm's outfit is identical to jakes: a tight form fitting black shirt, black pants with various holsters, black combat boots, and a large chest protector.
"Thanks for the clothes Jake" said Norm.
"No prob. If I'm going to be large and blue I'm gonna look good and be practical. The pants are meant to carry guns for protection, the chest plate to stop arrows or bullets from hitting, and the color black to blend in and hide in dark places".
"All this for an outfit" said Grace as she looked at Jake and Norm.
"If you don't plan you plan to fail" said Jake with a shrug.
-End Chapter Two