They Do Grieve

Four vials of nectar. That was what the team was able to extract from the pods Lucas and Russ gathered. Nora, Max and Norm were staring at them as they sat on a lab table. None of them had to say it, but all were thinking the same thing: that it took a lot of pods to produce just a little bit of nectar.

"Let's not waste any more time. Let's give the doses to the sick avatars now," Nora said. "It'll give us a chance to see if it works, and how quick recovery might be."

"We've got to save some for Jake, just in case," Norm said, shamelessly stating the obvious.

"Yes, of course."

"I'll go get the avatars ready," Max said.

Norm and Nora headed down to the ambient room where the three ill avatars were being cared for. They put on exomasks and entered the room. Two other med techs were already waiting, ready to assist if needed.

"What's the latest you can tell us," Norm asked.

"Vitals on this one aren't good," said a tech.

"Their names?" Nora asked.

"This one is Sumyr's," Norm pointed to the sickest avatar. It was comatose and breathing was shallow. "That one is Anthony's, and that one is Lisa's."

Nora stepped close to Lisa's and examined the avatar closely. Then she went to Anthony's. She looked the avatar up one side then down the other. Last was Sumyr's. Nora studied the stats. It had been comatose the longest. Nora got near the avatar's eyes and lifted one of the lids. Its eye was turning opaque.

"Norm, look."

"That's a bad sign," Norm said. "I'm pretty sure this one doesn't have long. We can't have Sumyr risk it. Things could go bad if her avatar is this close to dying and she's in the unit."

"Then we give Anthony and Lisa the doses first. They have a better chance at recovering," Nora said.

Max was standing at the window overlooking the ambient room. Sumyr, Anthony and Lisa were with him. They had arrived just in time to hear Nora make the decision about who would receive the doses. When Sumyr heard her, she let out a cry. "No! You can't do that!"

Nora looked up, completely unaware they were watching. "Dammit, Norm."

"She'll be ok," he said. "There's a program in place to handle the grief people feel if they lose their avatar. I'm quite familiar with it. There's lots of support around here, especially as of late."

Sumyr was escorted away. Meanwhile, Max supervised Anthony and Lisa as they entered the links. It wasn't long before the two stirred in their avatars. Lisa moaned. The pain was unbearable. A tear fell from one of her closed eyes.

Nora gently placed a hand on her forehead. "Try to swallow the nectar, Lisa."

Norm tilted her head up while Nora carefully placed the vial to her mouth and poured the liquid in.

Anthony was next. He was balling his hands into fists to suppress the pain. When Nora finished administering the antiviral nectar, she asked Max, "Now, give me an educated guess, judging on what you've seen so far, how well do you think these two avatars' are going to be able to handle the antiviral."

"As long as their GI tract hasn't been compromised, the nectar should absorb into their system quickly," he answered. "The virus was immediately disarmed in the lab test, so then it's just hoping they have the ability to recover from any internal damage the virus may have caused."

"I'm confident this nectar is the answer to solving this," Nora said. "Let's just hope these two are not past the point of no return."

As she said that, monitors on Sumyr's avatar sounded alarms. Norm and the med techs hurried to her side.

"She's lost her vitals," a tech said.

"And she's stopped breathing," Norm added.

Though they worked feverishly to try to reverse the inevitable, it all seemed to happen in slow motion. Max shouted out instructions from the other side of the window. Norm did everything he could. But after a few minutes, the avatar was pronounced dead. Sumyr reappeared after hearing all the commotion. Realizing what happened, she collapsed into the arms of Max.

Nora couldn't take her eyes off the lifeless avatar. The state of things here on Pandora incensed her. This incredible technology these avatars represented, created, designed and fostered by some of the best scientists ever to live, was carelessly being destroyed. In addition, the investments in both time and money by the RDA, quite ironically, were being wasted at the hands of one of their own: Parker Selfridge.