Time was passing like molasses in winter. Have you ever noticed when you're anticipating something big, time slows down? I wasn't even excited about going to Pandora, heck, I was scared about it. I had a guaranteed job that paid out the wazu, and all of a sudden, part of me wanted to be unemployed again. Every day was the same. It felt like all the days were rolling into one long day and night. It just never ended.
I tried to go back to my normal routine, but I just couldn't. I could barely eat to keep myself alive. Not that any other time was much better, mind you. All I could think about was Pandora. Pandora. Pandora. In my wildest dreams, I never figured I'd be going there. And I had to keep it a secret from everyone, according to the suits. They didn't want a repeat of what happened to Tommy. I wasn't close enough to anyone for this to be a big problem, especially after Tommy died. I was the only one left in my family. And I was almost dead, anyway, from that stupid war.
The entire time I was waiting, I had that fluttering feeling in the pit of my stomach. It just wouldn't go away. I was going to worry myself sick before I could ship out. The RDA certainly didn't want that to happen, especially when there was no replacement for me.
Two days (I think) after I had written my hand down to a stub, I was watching the news while eating chicken-flavored algae. The newscaster was droning on about some kind of recall with a filter that had been selling really well for exopacks. I wondered if it was the same filter that had been advertised the night I signed up for the Avatar program.
"…You can either call this number or go to the website listed at the bottom of your screen to have the filter replaced. Just provide the serial number and a new filter will be shipped to you at no charge." The newscaster stopped as someone else walked in behind the table and gave her a sheet of paper and whispered in her ear. I saw her mouth form a perfect "O." This wasn't good.
"Um…" she started. "Oh, God," she mumbled. "It appears terrorists have bombed both the trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific tunnels. There has been no word on how many casualties have occurred." Exactly as she finished that sentence, a ticker with a black background and red letters stated the exact same thing at the bottom of the screen.
"God…" I mumbled. I looked down at my half-finished algae and couldn't take another bite. I wheeled over to the trash can by my sink and scraped the rest of the algae out of my bowl and placed it in the sink. Oh, man, those terrorists were getting really good at smuggling bombs into tight areas. The security at each station was unbelievably tight. You had to get to the station about two hours early, because security officials inspected everything by hand. Sure, we had x-ray machines, just like at airports. But everything was turned over, rummaged through and examined for any kind of hazard. And to sneak two bombs at the same time onto the trains? I couldn't begin to think about what kind of production that would take.
I turned off the wall and slithered into bed. I pulled the cover over myself, but couldn't sleep a wink that night. I went from excited about a job to hoping it would be cancelled and then to the when-the-hell-can-I-get-off-this-planet attitude.
My phone rang three days after the ocean tunnels got bombed. I fumbled it around before answering. "Hello?"
"Hello, Mr. Sully," the voice on the other line began. "My name's Justin Cox. I recently saw that you had submitted an application to work as a receptionist in our offices. I'd like to schedule an interview with you in two weeks. When is the best time for you?"
Oh, crap. What was I supposed to say to him? I couldn't tell him I was going to Pandora; I needed to follow the suits' orders. I thought up a lie on the spot. "I appreciate the offer, Mr. Cox," I began, "but I already landed a job somewhere else. Thanks for your interest, though."
"Oh, not a problem. Where will you be working?"
"Pan…um, sorry, Target," I stammered. Trying to avoid saying "Pandora" was going to be a lot harder than I wanted it to be.
"Very good, sir. Thank you for your time, and have a good afternoon."
"You too." I hung up the phone. Put it down on my bed. I thought for a moment, picked it back up and wheeled over to my kitchen table. I realized going to Pandora wasn't gonna be a weekend flight. I'd be gone for at least a decade, like Tommy had said.
On the table was a card from one of the suits. I dialed his number and listened to the rings, hoping he would pick up. One ring, no answer. Two rings, still no answer. I started tapping the edge of the card impatiently on the table. This was Murphy's Law in action: When you really need to call someone, they won't answer. The ringing stopped. I expected an automated message to play.
"This is Mike," the voice on the other line said. I waited for any other words to come my way, thinking I was about to leave a message. After a brief moment, the voice asked, "Hello?"
"Mike, this is Jake Sully," I said. I sighed in relief.
"Is there a problem?" he asked.
"Yeah, how long will I be away from Earth?"
"Um, about eighteen years or so. Why?" I had my answer about the length of time: definitely not a weekend.
"How do I let my apartment manager know about this?"
"We've already got most of that type of paperwork handled for you. However, send me an email with contact information for your manager, and we'll get it taken care of for you." This guy was almost a step ahead of me. Apparently, he was used to this type of work.
"Okay, thanks. I think that's all I needed."
"All right, see you in five days."
"Bye." I hung up without listening for his goodbye. I wheeled over to my computer and found my manager's contact information in my address book. I emailed the info to Mike, knowing he'd help with this ordeal. I was so glad I didn't have to deal with this kind of stuff. I'd be coming back to Earth eventually, and I would like to have a place to live.
Within two hours, my phone rang again. It was my landlord.
"Jake, you need to come to the clubhouse to sign a waiver for your upcoming job."
"Okay, I'll be right over. Thanks." I hung up the phone and wheeled over to the clubhouse.
Just like she had said, there was a waiver sitting on her desk, waiting for me. "Here you go, Jake, just sign this, and you'll be on your way."
I briefly glanced at her and said, "Okay." I pretended to read the two pages over, but I got no information out of the waiver at all. I scrawled my name at the bottom of the second page and gave it back to her.
"So where are you headed?" she asked innocently.
I wanted to magically disappear, but that would have looked suspicious. "Um," I stammered, my mind racing to find an excuse. "I'll be starting work in…Chile."
"Isn't that where you were fighting about a year ago?"
I may not have been smart, but I knew South America wasn't one single country. "No, that was Venezuela." Just saying that word brought back horrible memories. My stomach lurched. Before it got too bad, I eased myself out of her office, saying, "Thanks, I'll see you later."
"Okay, have a good time!" she said cheerily.
"Uh-huh," I mumbled back. I just wanted to make sure that everything was in order before I shipped out to Pandora. But I got more than I bargained for.
As I reentered my apartment, a realization shot through me. Tommy was an anthropologist. I guessed that anthropology meant that he would have been trying to establish contact with the Na'vi, like the suits and that paper had said. In all likelihood, I'd be doing the exact same thing, but with no training whatsoever. This mission would be pointless! I'd be killed right as I neared their home, because the waiver said they were against human contact. But who could I convince about this? It all spiraled back to the common scum problem, where the RDA wouldn't even come close to listening to me, even if I was right.
I rushed to the manual that I had gotten through without remembering a word and tore it open. The table of contents was first. I traced down the list of sections with my finger, whispering the titles to myself: "Pandora, page 3. The Na'vi, page 7. Na'vi Language, page 10. The Avatar Program, page 14. Hell's Gate, page 20." Wait. Hell's Gate? I wondered why people decided to name the compound on Pandora "Hell's Gate" instead of something more inviting. I also wondered why I didn't pick that up the first time around. I guessed the Avatar Program section had the info that I was looking for, so I flipped to page 14. After a few page turns, I found the section on the jobs that I would be doing on Pandora. The top of the page had the jobs listed in bullet points:
- Establish contact with the Na'vi
- Cultural exchange with Na'vi
- Study of flora and fauna on Pandora
Great, I thought. My mind began coming up with ways that I could "miss out" on the scheduled departure to Pandora, but nothing was anywhere near feasible. The RDA was about to waste millions of dollars…on me.
I had the news on tonight, listening to an engineer break down the ocean tunnel bombings in excruciating detail while I ate a bowl of beef-flavored algae. Yeah, it was way worse than I could have imagined. How does eighteen-thousand-three-hundred-four casualties sound to you? No survivors.
"…So the bombers each waited for the trains to pass each other before detonating the bombs. They had smuggled them into the stations through an elaborate routine involving approximately six exchanges and sleight-of-hand techniques. For security purposes at other transportation locales, we cannot disclose the methods used. Suffice it to say, however, that the techniques were the same at both Los Angeles and London. The bombs were remote-sensored and each went off, blowing a hole in the ocean tunnels about the size of a basketball." As the engineer spoke, a diagram of how the explosions took place unfolded on the screen, showing a mock explosion and blue arrows signifying water rushing into the tunnels. "The tubes were vacuum sealed, which made travel between the two destination cities quicker than normal. When the holes opened in the walls, water rushed in, further weakening the structure of the tunnels. The area around the hole began to sag, and about five hundred yards on either side collapsed and sank to the bottom of the ocean floor. This started a domino effect, because as the first sections collapsed, the support next to it couldn't hold the weight and collapsed too. The cascade progressed all the way to the stations."
The engineer paused and sighed before continuing. "As water rushed up the tunnels, it turned to steam, boiling because of the lower pressure inside the tubes. Within minutes, all four of the stations in Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York and London were essentially destroyed, killing anyone nearby instantly due to the force of the water shooting through the tunnels."
"Could there have been any survivors?" one of the reporters asked.
"Not likely," the engineer shook his head. "The tubes were vacuum sealed to help speed travel. There was no way out. Designing an emergency exit wouldn't have helped because of the force of the water rushing into the tunnels. The trains were destroyed within seconds. The water reached the stations within minutes, travelling faster than sound. If any alarms went off after the tunnels were destroyed, people didn't have enough time to clear the boarding areas. Basically, they'd have to get back above ground to avoid being killed by the explosions."
"What is the status of the tunnels now? Can they be repaired?"
"I don't think so," the engineer said. "The weight of all that water collapsed the tunnels all the way to the stations. They'd have to be rebuilt from scratch, and I'm not sure if we have enough Unobtanium. Another problem to consider is security. How are we going to tighten security so that nothing like this can happen again? We could exhaustively train each of the security employees, but seeing how creative these terrorists were, we don't think rebuilding the tunnels will be happening soon."
"So what is TSA doing to stop bombings like this from happening again?"
"Several things. What stands out to us the most is that security past the checkpoints was lax, which led to several failsafes being ignored or turned off. Take the detectors on the trains, for example. Those detectors look for certain materials which correspond to bomb structures. I mean, you can't just walk into a train with a sack of gunpowder and hope to blow it up. Destroying a section of the wall outside of the train took at least a few C-4s if not something stronger. And C-4s have an external structure which can easily be identified or detected."
"Well, we'd like to thank Jayson Hasth from an RDA engineering team for joining us today," the reporter said to the camera. Jayson nodded. "We'll be back after this word from our sponsors." The wall went blank for an instant, and a commercial started. God, I couldn't wait to get the hell off of this planet.
The night before the suits were supposed to arrive, I started packing. I only had one suitcase, so I needed to make the packing work. Eighteen years on one pair of pants, or worse, would not be very fun. I started with the essentials. Boxers, bathroom necessities and t-shirts. I took ten of each of the pairs of boxers and t-shirts. While I was puzzling over what else to put in, I flipped on the wall in my living room, knowing the news was on.
"…and the day after tomorrow marks the launch date for the next shipment of goods and personnel to Pandora. The launch will take place in Cape Canaveral, Florida, but if you can't make it to watch the lift off, you can stream live video directly to your TVs at five o'clock local time. We wish our friends only the best of luck on their assignments." I smiled a little, knowing I was going to be on that shuttle in Florida. I thought that was kind of the anchorwoman to wish me luck. I wished I could shake her hand, even though she had no idea that I was going to Pandora.
I wheeled back toward my suitcase while the TV was still droning on. I packed five pairs of shorts and five pairs of pants, hoping that would suffice. After working in the clothing, I wondered if I would need anything else. Maybe electronics. I packed my CD player and wheeled over to my collection of CDs. I wasn't sure if I would have access to a music library on Pandora. Probably, but I wanted to play it safe. I had a small stack of CDs in one corner of my apartment. As I was leafing through them, the fourth one from the top caught my eyes. It was an autographed CD with a worn cover and faded picture. Wildflower by Keiko Matsui. My favorite CD. Tommy had bought the CD in an auction some years back while we were in high school. For me. I never got tired of listening to Keiko's music. It was always very calming to me. And Tommy was the only person in existence who knew Wildflower was my favorite CD. That was one of our little secrets. To this day, I still have no idea why we kept it a secret, but we did. Like we were part of some exclusive club, or something like that.
I grinned from ear-to-ear as I wheeled over to my computer. Opened my music library and clicked on the playlist entitled "Keiko Matsui." One hundred eighteen songs, all by one artist. Clicked shuffle. When listening to music, I always liked the songs to be out of order for some reason. I cranked the volume all the way up as the first song "Overture for the City" announced itself with a massive trumpet blast. I relaxed for the first time in nine-and-a-half days, not caring if my neighbors were bothered by the sound. I continued packing while listening to my favorite music.
