Jake opens his eyes yet again, everything is quiet, he immediately goes to check on Neytiri, who's not there, she has been moved; he looks on to the other vision panel, he sees the man outside holding the exopack which was brought along from the ocean station, and some other objects which he can't immediately distinguish. The man floats over to the side of Jake's containment tank, he opens a small hatch with a small decompression chamber, and he inserts the exomask and the other objects into it. Jake hears the man talking to him on a loudspeaker, he tells him: "Please put those on, strap the belt across your waist and put on the mask, also put in the cuffs in your arms facing forward".
Jake opens the small chamber, he sees the equipment, the belt seems to be some sort of monitoring device. He puts on the mask, the belt, and the cuffs. The man outside asks: "Are you ready?" Jake answers "yes", he sees his containment tank been decompressed from Pandoran air. The man once again in the speaker says: "I'm going to let you out, don't try anything or the belt you're wearing will put you out immediately, please come out carefully, I'll help you". The double hatch is open, the man floats in front of Jake, he instructs him to get out, Jake can barely push himself with his feet, the man helps him navigate his way in weightlessness.
Jake now sees the man up close, he is convinced to know who the man is, he thinks that perhaps they met at some point during the time Jake was recruited, but he doubts, he feels they met much before that. Jake asks the man: "Where's Neytiri?" the man responds: "She's okay, you will see her soon, we're running some test". "What kind of test?" Jake asks, the man responds: "You'll find out soon, don't worry, she's okay". Jake looks on to the man and feels trusted that he is not lying.
The man escorts Jake through a series of chambers connecting the different portions of the ISV, these portions Jake had not seen before when he first traveled to Pandora on board the Venture Star. As they cross along, Jake passes by some of the crew men, who look at him with some apprehension. At the end of a chamber, Jake sees a series of rotating cylinders with some sort of round glass tube. They approach it, they cross through a spinning hatch; the man grabs onto the cylinders and starts spinning with them perpendicularly to the longitude of the ISV bay, he then grabs Jake, they both now spin along with the rotating cylinders. The hatch closes behind them, as they grab on they now become part of the spinning motion, Jake now senses that the ISV bay across the hatch is the one spinning instead of him, in weightlessness, there's no up or down, it's all perception.
The man instructs Jake to get on the glass tube as he helps him, Jake can barely fit into it due to his size, it is not designed for 10 foot tall creatures. Jake asks the man: "Where will this take me?" The man responds: "As you begin moving, you will slowly begin to feel heavy, don't worry, it's normal". Jake asks once again: "Where am I going?" The man responds: "The CEO will now see you; he wants to talk to you". Just as the man is ready to close off the cylinder, Jake tells him: "I know you, I've seen you before, are you part of the Avatar program?" The man, with a somewhat giggling and sarcastic tone answers: "oh no!" Jake wants to continue asking him questions but the man shuts the cylinder and sends Jake into a tunnel. The cylinder, which resembles an elevator, begins moving, Jake passes through what seems to be many chambers, suddenly as the man described, Jake starts feeling heaviness, the chambers now feel more like stories.
Jake has now entered the artificial gravity ring of the ISV. Crossing through its levels, he spots a few near lifeless avatars in their amnio-tanks, most likely those that were scheduled to arrive to join the now obsolete Avatar program. Jake then arrives at the last level, one of the shuttle pilots is there to greet him. The cylinder door opens, the shuttle pilot, who is carrying his taser gun, helps him exit. Jake can now walk, though his body feels extremely heavy. The pilot, who Jake realizes also plays a security role onboard the ISV, tells him to walk to the end of the chamber and sit down wherever he could, since there are no chairs designed for him. Jake walks along and finds a spot on the floor where he can sit, he feels agitated and heavy; the artificial gravitational pull is adjusted for the gravity of Earth, which is more than in Pandora.
The chamber resembles a lab and living quarters, with some features that seem to be for entertainment of the crew. Jake sees around him again monitors everywhere with all the cameras showing the old sick man he saw from the ISV bay; everything he saw from his containment tank, views of the man's catheters, of his face, his diagrams showing heart pulse and other things. Jake is curious of where the images come from, the man looks like he is confined to some small chamber in weightlessness; Jake wonders, is he onboard the ISV?
Jake looks toward the end of the room where there is a man, with his back towards him, who is jogging on a treadmill inside a small room. The man finishes and dries up with a towel. From the distance, the man looks young; he has soft dark hair, a little long on the back, and great physique. The man exits the room, he is wearing a tank top shirt, tight silky bicycle pants to his knees, and jogging shoes; he's sweaty and very agitated from his jog. He walks towards Jake, as he gets closer, Jake realizes the man has a striking resemblance to Quaritch, the Colonel. Jake can't believe his eyes, as the man now stands in front of him, his eyes are an exact replica of the Colonel's eyes, but much younger. The man has great looks and personality, a sort of young "stud" almost. Jake's immediate thought is: is he the Colonel's son? who perhaps came looking for him in revenge? Jake can't stop staring at the man's eyes; he feels that once again he stands in front of the Colonel, ready to confront him.
The young man speaks: "Mr. Sully! finally I get the pleasure to meet you personally" the man does not introduce himself, he continues: "After spending so much of my money on this Avatar program you may find it hard to believe, but this is the first time I get to see the hardware -the avatar- … all I ever got to see from home was just little fetuses on a fluid jar ready to get shipped out -laughs-… amazing, Dr. Augustine wasn't kidding, you are nothing short of beautiful and astonishing, the images don't do you justice".
Jake stays quiet; he senses the man is somewhat arrogant; he is still puzzled about his strong resemblance to Quaritch. The man now sits in front of Jake, as he continues speaking: "I noticed you were severely bruised when you got here, who did that to you?" Jake thinks his thoughts carefully, he looks straight into the man's eyes and responds in some defiance: "I thought maybe you knew" The man quickly responds back: "No I don't, and I would sure like to know, that's RDA property you're carrying -he points with his lips towards Jake's body-, and very expensive to make, on top of the fact that I had to pull so many strings just to get this program running…Do you know how many stakeholders in the company I had to bribe? struggling to convince them to put their investment on what most people in the Alliance thought was a useless dead end deal…-the man quickly turns serious-…. you have no idea how much it's cost me Jake…..you have no idea how much you have cost me".
There's brief silence, the man's tone of voice now turns sinister and somewhat angry: "Jake, do you realize the true implications of what you have done?...you know that up until now, every scheduled ISV has returned home with a cargo….so far, everyone's happy!...the next scheduled ISV, the Venture Star, will arrive there in just a few weeks…it will arrive with a near empty hull and unusually overcrowded, with a very disappointed and angry crew….. and they will all be talking about you…..and when that happens, all hell will break loose!... and I'm going to have an awful lot explaining to do".
The man pauses again, his tone becoming yet more sinister as he continues: "Worst of all Jake, when all the big stakeholders and partnering CEO's find out it was because of some ex-marine in a wheelchair, some "jarhead" who so happens to be in this "Avatar" program, a program they were convinced was useless to begin with, that's when I'm really getting fried!".
The man looks at Jake angry; who feels the Colonel's eyes once again confronting him. After a brief moment, Jake, who is now curious and yet more defiant, asks: "Then why did you do it? Why did you invest so much if everyone thought it was all worthless?" The man gathers his thoughts, he looks at Jake and answers in a soft tone: "Dr. Augustine came up to me once, a long time ago, to tell me about this "Avatar" idea, she had prepared a business plan and everything, she showed it to me, I looked at it…she told me how it could help production out here, since once the natives trusted us, theoretically -he raises his hands and fingertips-, maybe they could work for us, nice cutback in production cost, a nice return on the investment…..it caught my eye quickly…..everything looked great, but when I looked at the price tag I almost had a seizure!….. I told her I would think about it, back then the Alliance already had a well defined corporate structure, many companies had already joined, it was very bureaucratic, too many signatures".
Jake now listens on with much curiosity, the man's story sounds awkward yet interesting, especially when he talks about Grace. The man continues: "I made her think it wasn't really up to me, which was not true, I could get the write offs I needed, no matter what the cost, that's what I'm good at…... but I just didn't really see the point of it, I mean….training people for years, growing these creatures in a tank, getting a correct genetic configuration, which is the most expensive part, just so you know, this things are not perfect -referring to the avatars-… Grace was very persistent though, I could tell there was a personal interest at stake, other than just a hefty paycheck….she was on my ass nearly every day, asking me hey! have you thought about it? hey! I have some new numbers, I think we can cut some corners here and there….. she was desperate to convince me….I was like "yeahh", okay, we'll talk about it….some day…soon….. it got to the point where I had to stop taking her calls….. I felt terrible, since we had been great friends for a long time …..but she just wouldn't give up, poor soul".
The young man's face turns somewhat sad as he continues: "Then one day everything changed, strange things began happening to me….. Sudden muscle spasms and unexplainable trembling…strange stuttering…weakening…I mysteriously began losing some of my most basic acquired motor skills….I saw many doctors.. I traveled the whole planet looking for answers…..but no one could explain it… until one day….finally….someone got to the bottom of it…..I was then diagnosed with the rarest of all neurological syndromes …for which there was no cure… and no known treatment….my life was shattered… I was told I could live for long but that I would slowly progress into total paralysis, until reaching zero proprioception… a "vegetable", a slow and painful death." Jake carefully listens as the young man continues his story, his tone of voice ever more saddened: "Worst of all, this strange rare condition, much to my fortune, or lack thereof, would hit my brain last….. I would have to slowly and painfully bare it all…until some bacterial infection would finally decide to mercifully finish the job on me, whenever it felt like".
Jake is very intrigued, he now begins to stare at the monitors showing the old sick man, as the young man continues: "One day finally, I realized that maybe, I didn't really need to live like that, and that maybe there were some options, I thought what if? …so I called Grace, we talked about it… I told her she could have the funding and that we would implement her program, in exchange for one thing; the Alliance would own all the technology that was developed, everything!, from the embryos to the jars, the amnio-tanks, the bodies, everything, all the link hardware, all the knowledge, everything is mine…..this is mine -he points at Jake's body-".
On a sudden spur of wisdom Jake finally solves the puzzle; Jake now realizes that this man, who refers to Grace as a good long time friend, in fact looks like he could be her son, plus, there's the mystery of Miles Quatrich's eyes and his striking resemblance; and then there is the sick man on the monitors, wrapped in some sort of life support container, which also now appears to be a psionic link unit. Jake looks at the man while breathing hard and in shocking amazement, he laughs in wonder and tells him: "You're an avatar!" The man giggles as he replies to Jake sounding intrigued: "I honestly thought you had figured that out by now!"