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A/N – Below is the first part of chapter one of "The Enemy of My Enemy," the continuation of, "The Endeavors of Art." I am providing this update principally to notify all who have this story on their alert lists to the continuation, rather than risk an account ban by sending scores of PMs to the subscribers.
Jake's warriors had performed well above his expectations. They had achieved total surprise over the SecOps soldiers at Hell's Gate, and in the short battle had annihilate all but a few; and those survivors had been taken prisoner by Norm and the former avatar team.
In the years leading up to the Resource Development Administration's return to Pandora, Norm made sure the Omaticaya were supplied with a respectable arsenal of human weaponry. The losses they had sustained half a generation earlier in the battle against the army of long-dead Colonel Quaritch had convinced the Na'vi people that, in their next engagement, they needed more than traditional weapons and the hope of Eywa's intervention if they were going to survive.
What had surprised Jake, however, was that RDA had not come back to Pandora with an armada of ships. They had sent one man with a team of specialists. Abe Scheller – "The Irritating One," as Neytiri had named him after their first encounter – had been given the job of pacifying the Na'vi in order to pave the way for RDA's second attempt to exploit Pandora's natural riches.
To do accomplish his mission, he outwardly promised peace with the Na'vi – and, in some cases, appeared to make bona fide attempts to achieve it. Yet all the while he sowed mistrust and discord among Norm and his colleagues in order to break the flow of information getting back to Jake.
On top of that, he sent a former, skilled Special Forces soldier to infiltrate the Omaticaya through a new kind of avatar. The new avatar had its driver's consciousness was downloaded, thus requiring no external support. That infiltrator, Devon Angler, had nearly succeeded in putting an end to Jake's reign as olo'eyktan, had he not made the mistake of becoming too deeply involved in his assumed identity.
Devon attempted to secure the unquestioned trust of the people by mating with a beloved acolyte, Mehi'a. When they formed their tsaheylu, however, she saw him as he really was – and he killed her for that. Unfortunately for him, she was able to give her consciousness up to Eywa before she died, allowing others to discover Devon's deception.
He was hunted down and executed, his body discarded in the jungle for the animals to feast upon.
Abe and the rest of his team might have likewise been executed, had Norm not intervened and insisted that human justice prevail. Their crime, he argued, was to have chosen the wrong side of the fight for Earth's preservation.
Jake had done all he could to try and forget about Earth, everything he could do to submit himself to Eywa and live among the people as one of them; but the fact remained that he was born a human. He had been one of the Sky People. Back in that life, he had been just as ready to help RDA to in order to satisfy his own needs. The people had given him the chance to atone for the pain his deceptions had brought down on them, and he was unable to take that opportunity away from Abe and his people.
Whether or not they had made the most of that opportunity was still up in the air. Jake had spared their lives only after Abe had agreed to keep RDA's mercenaries contained, and it was a bargain which had infuriated Parker Selfridge. Abe had brought him out of his exile in order to give him the chance to correct the mistakes he had made during his tenure as Hell's Gate's administrator. Instead, he managed to notify RDA's leadership about Abe's deal with Jake, and in so doing put into motion the second great massacre of humans on Pandora.
Parker, along with a number of defectors from Abe's team, had paid a heavy price for his decision. In his attempt to escape the slaughter, he was shot out of the sky by a contingent of warriors at Neytiri's command; and when he emerged only slightly wounded from the wreckage, she made sure that the last thing to pass through his mind was her arrow.
In addition to ordering an assault on the people, RDA's leadership disowned Abe. However, if they had assumed that he would simply return to Earth and submit to their punishment – which assumed that they had not arranged for a more expedient form of termination – they were wrong.
In the months that he had been on Pandora, Abe had demonstrated to Jake an uncanny ability to think several steps ahead of his opponents – even though Jake had to concede that, for many people, it was not difficult to think far ahead of him. But as he stood amidst the carnage of the day's battle with Norm and Neytiri, who was in fact sitting, given her advanced stage of pregnancy, Abe managed to surprise him once again by demonstrating just how much thought he had already given to the consequences of betraying his former bosses.
Abe went on at length, and in detail, with his plans for exacting revenge on RDA. Jake was as taken aback by the scope of Abe's planning as much as he was by how calm Abe appeared in describing it. Unlike too many people who would smile in awe of their own genius as they laid out their master plans, or who, like Norm, would become increasingly uncomfortable with the stench of death that had begun to settle over the base, Abe plodded along like a teacher giving a lesson to a class, and a boring teacher at that.
The plan he described was as intricate as it was dangerous, leading Jake to conclude at the end of the demonstration, "You're insane."
After going so long without a hint of emotion, Abe grinned and replied, "Thank you."
"No, that wasn't a compliment," Jake emphasized. "I mean that you obviously went crazy in that holding cell. You're one-hundred percent bonkers."
Abe's grin faded. "Do you or do you not agree that the only way to ensure the safety of this place is to get rid of RDA at its source?"
"Of course I do, but you would need an army to do it – and they practically control the Army!"
"Jake's right," Norm said. "You can't just walk in and take down the largest quasi-government on Earth."
"Yet that didn't stop you and Jake's brother from trying," Abe replied.
Shortly before the battle against Quaritch, Norm had detailed for Jake the plans he had made with Tom, whose death was the reason for Jake being on Pandora in the first place. They had intended to use their positions in the avatar program to gather evidence of RDA's atrocities to be used as evidence in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately, that plan literally failed to leave Earth, but Jake saw to it that Tom's intentions were fulfilled.
"Yeah, and it wouldn't have worked out, now would it have?"
Abe described for them moments earlier how similar plots had been hatched and foiled several times in RDA's history. If Norm and Tom had carried on as planned, it likely would have been Abe, in his former role as RDA's dreaded Chief of Asset Management and Information Security, who would have taken them down – if not agents of the many world governments who conspired with RDA to sustain its monopoly on Pandora.
"No, it wouldn't," Abe said casually.
"So why will it be any different this time around?" Jake asked.
"Because while RDA has plenty of experience dealing with disgruntled employees, it's not accustomed to having senior executives come back from the dead."
Jake frowned and said, "That's not all that convincing."
"The Trojans didn't see the horse coming," Abe replied. "The British didn't see Washington bearing down on Trenton, New York didn't see the planes, and nobody saw Turkey's march on Iran. Surprise attacks have a very nasty way of being effective."
"Nine-Eleven's debatable," Norm said. Jake and Abe exchanged a stunned look before turning to Norm, silently asking for him to provide further explanation. "What?" he said, scoffing. "You guys think we've been told everything?"
Abe sighed, shook his head, and then continued on his original point. "Nobody knows RDA's weaknesses better than I do. Short of Chairman Savage finding Jesus, RDA isn't going to give up. The fight has to be brought to them."
"Why should we trust you to do it?" Neytiri asked, making no attempt to mask the hostility of her question. "You have not said you care for the people, only for yourself."
Abe took a deep breath, crossed his arms and replied, "Honestly, Neytiri, I don't care much for the Na'vi." He nodded towards a group of Jake's warriors who were occupying themselves by divesting the SecOps corpses of their more precious, worldly possessions. "I haven't been given a whole lot of reasons to."
Norm snorted and said, "You were the one who came down here with your encyclopedic knowledge of Native Americans. Welcome to Little Bighorn, Custer."
"What you see is because of your deceptions," Neytiri continued. "If you had taken a different path, perhaps you would see the people for who they are, not who you imagine."
"The road less traveled doesn't exist," he said. Neytiri, like Jake, did not get the reference, and Abe did not take the time to explain it. He only sighed and said, "You can trust me because it benefits both of us to have RDA come crashing down, even if our reasons are different."
"I am not convinced," she replied.
"That's why I've offered one of you to come with me to make sure the job gets done."
Jake let out a short laugh and said, "I'm definitely not going back to Earth, if for no other reason than because I'm not leaving my child."
"I figured as much," Abe replied. "I meant 'you' as in 'you, Na'vi.'"
"The people will not go," Neytiri said. "It is you Sky People who travel between worlds, but our love for Eywa, and Eywa's love for us, will keep us here."
"How were you planning to get one of them to Earth anyway?" Norm asked. He added with a crooked smile, "I mean, I'm sure you have it all planned out, of course."
"The chances of successfully transferring Devon's consciousness to his avatar body and back with our equipment were one in sixteen," Abe replied. "Our ship's cryobay has one Na'vi-prepared chamber."
Neytiri protested again. "This is not our way," she said. "Too many of the people have sacrificed themselves in the fight to save our world. We will not send one to die for yours."
"Our worlds are linked, now," Abe said. "If you want to ensure the safety of this world, one of you has to come back to ours to testify about what's happened here."
"We have tons of evidence already," Norm replied. "We don't need to bring one of the Na'vi back to prove any of this."
Abe chuckled. "A moment ago you were ready to sell us on the false flag of Nine-Eleven, and now you're willing to buy that all of RDA's skeptics will readily convince themselves that one of their executives went rogue and, of his own accord, staged an attack to dismantle their Pandora operations? Who's to say all your evidence isn't manufactured like the rest of RDA's propaganda?"
"Who's to say that the Na'vi you bring back isn't just an actor in an avatar's body?" Norm replied pointedly. "Maybe you've just found another Special Forces guy who knows how to play the part."
Abe did not respond right away, slowly nodding his head while he digested Norm's argument. Eventually he said, "That could well be the case, but somehow I think even the deepest skeptics will know the real thing when they see it."
Neytiri still did not look convinced, but Jake was starting to understand the point – uncomfortable though he was with it. The people could not possibly conceive of a place like Earth, and overwhelmingly would not want anything to do with it if given the choice. However, there was always the chance of a too curious minority.
Jake sighed after he thought about Abe's suggestion. He looked at Neytiri and said, "We should let the people decide this."
Her eyes went wide at his suggestion. "You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "It is a sacrifice for no good."
"If someone is willing to sacrifice in order to guarantee that the people live in peace, we shouldn't deny them the chance because we think it's suicidal."
Neytiri shook her head. "They won't go," she said.
"Then T'ngyute will just have to come up with another plan," he replied. "We won't force the people to accept this, but we should give them the choice."
"It's getting late," Abe said. "I'll leave it to you guys to figure out who, if anybody, will come back with me." He looked at Norm and said, "In the meantime, the Kansas City Shuffle needs a body."
A/N – Once again, this is the last update for "The Endeavors of Art." Please adjust your story alerts accordingly, hopefully to add, "The Enemy of My Enemy!"