A/N: Hey readers! I'm still disappointed with the lack of reviews. On the last chapter I got one review. ONE! Come on guys keep those reviews coming. Don't just add it to your alerts or favourites give me some feedback on what you think. Please... anyway enjoy. Oh I forgot to mention that I have set up a blog for Entering's official sequel Avatar: The Final Stand. For anything that is interested the link is on my profile if you want to look at it.
Chapter Twenty-nine: Selfridge's Warning
Parker Selfridge had become a changed man since he and his fellow RDA personnel had been kicked off Pandora by Sully and his Na'vi friends. Selfridge had shown remorse but it hadn't been enough to keep him on the planet with the remaining loyal scientists. He now had another reason to be remorseful towards his previous actions: The return of Miles Quaritch from the grave after being brought down by the warrior princess of a wife of Sully's. All Selfridge wanted was help the Na'vi and their human allies in bring peace to the planet. Quaritch's resurrection had given Selfridge another reason to rebel against his organisation.
"Sir, can I talk to you for a second?" asked Quaritch after ambushing his boss in the briefing room.
"What is it?" Selfridge said allowing a sigh to escape his lips. He just hoped that Quaritch hadn't heard it.
"I have come up with a plan that the blue monkeys will never suspect," There was a hint of evil in his tone that didn't feel right to Selfridge.
"What might that be?" Selfridge said turning around to face him, sluggishly.
"We give them a sneak attack they won't see coming," Quaritch smirked evilly sending chills down Selfridge's spine.
"Can you tell me later? I have something I need to do,"
"Sure," Quaritch said without much of a second thought.
Parker walked out of the room, simply ignoring the stares that came his way from the people that he passed. He headed for his makeshift office and logged into his computer terminal. He couldn't believe what he was about to do. He was going to make contact with one of the surviving members of the original Avatar Team to warn them of Quaritch's plan.
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Rebecca Sully sat at her laptop looking through her photos and other memories while Norm sat on her bed feeding Lorraine for her. Her video message window was flashing, activating it, she was shocked to find the face of Parker Selfridge on her screen.
"Norm, put Lorraine to bed," she called over her shoulder. Norm got up and did exactly what he had been told to do. Bec turned back to the screen and accepted the call.
"What, Selfridge?" she spat.
"Oh thank god! Rebecca, is anyone else there?" Selfridge asked.
"Just Norm. Why? We won't give you any information that's for sure, Bec grunted, her arms followed against her chest
"I don't want information, Rebecca," Selfridge told her as gently as he could without completely freaking out.
"Selfridge? Why the hell would you be contacting us after what you did? Jake had every right to kick you off the planet," Norm huffed coming back into the room.
"You're right Spellman, Sully had every right to kick me and my people off the planet. We're just greedy bastards that..." He was cut off by an angered Bec
"Watch it! That's my brother you were talking about," Bec hissed.
"Bec," Norm warned her making her fall silent.
"We have a problem or rather you have a problem coming your way," Selfridge told them darkly. Bec and Norm looked at each other.
"And what might that be?" Norm asked shifting his eyes from Bec to the screen containing Selfridge's face.
"Quaritch is coming back to kill Jake and the Na'vi," Bec and Norm looked at each other, their faces going pale. Jake had told them about Quaritch's resurrection but never in their wildest dreams had they suspected this. "You need to tell him ASAP," Selfridge's voice was now full of panic.
It scared Bec and Norm but if Selfridge was in fact telling the truth then they were totally screwed when it came to defences. They had no plan no nothing. Jake was still working on it. Bec knew only too well that if Jake stressed out too much then it would have an impact on Neytiri and the babies too so it was best not to rush him.
"Don't you believe me?" Selfridge asked.
"No, we don't know what to believe at the moment. Jake is stressed as it is. With you dicks coming back, his wife pregnant-" Norm blabbed.
"Norm!" Bec yelped throwing a hand across his mouth to shut him up.
"What?" Selfridge chuckled. "Sully got his girlfriend pregnant? I never knew he had it in him," Selfridge stopped laughing when he caught sight of the disgusted expression on Bec's face. "Don't worry, he's secret is safe with me,"
"How do we know you can be trusted?" Bec asked.
"Rebecca, I know I might appear to be the most selfish person but I can keep a secret exactly one this big," Selfridge to her. Bec was far from impressed. She suspected that once they had stopped talking, he would probably tell Quaritch so that he could use the information to his advance to get to Jake and kill him.
"You are pretty selfish. You allowed my sister-in-law to almost die at the RDA's hand and it almost destroyed my brother. You made him confess his crime of being your pitiful spy and it devastated Neytiri. She was heartbroken knowing that the man she had fallen in love with had been forced to hide his true intentions from her," Bec let fly with all the crimes that Selfridge had committed against her brother and sister-in-law.
"You're right, it was a really stupid thing to do but I was scared for my life. Quaritch threatened me so I had to do what he said. I didn't want to, really," Selfridge said trying to make Bec and Norm forgive him but he wasn't going stay hopeful. He had hurt and lied and he knew that he deserved everything he got thrown at him.
"Alright, I need to get this video to Jake and Neytiri to let them know what's going on. This could be the breakthrough Jake has been waiting for," Bec said releasing her hand from over Norm's wandering mouth. Selfridge nodded before logging off.
Norm and Bec sat in disbelief as they made Selfridge's warning soak into their brains. Quaritch's attack would be devastating on the Na'vi but since their human allies had been given inside information then it might be as bad as first thought. Bec pulled Jake's tablet that he had used to record logs while in the field out from the top drawer of her desk and plugged it into the side of her computer and quickly downloaded the video call from Selfridge onto the device. Quickly putting it back into its pouch, Bec hurried down the hall and towards her allocated link bed.
"Link me in Grace," Bec instructed. Grace didn't have time to ask what she was about to do but she did what she was meant to do anyway.
"Launching," Grace said as she linked Bec to her Avatar.
Seconds later, Bec sat up in her cot in the Safe House Norm stood next to her bed also linked in with Jake's tablet in his hands.
"Right, let's get down there before we really regret trusting Selfridge," Bec said as Norm handed her the tablet. Together, the pair hurried as quickly as they could down to the tree where their two friends lived.
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Jake sat with Neytiri in his lap just after breakfast when they heard the panicked calls of Bec and Norm coming towards the tree. Neytiri pulled herself out of her mate's lap so that Jake could get to his feet to pull her up. Jake pulled her halfway up before rushing to his best friend and little sister.
"What's wrong?" he asked as Neytiri managed to steady herself and went over to him and their friends.
"We have a massive problem!" Norm yelled as he stumbled through the over growing plants that had overgrown on the main pathway.
"We can see that, what's wrong?" Jake asked again.
"See for yourself," Bec said handing him the tablet.
"How did you-" Jake started to say before stopping himself and grabbing his tablet from his sister's outstretched hand. Activating the video, he wasn't at all surprised at see the face of Selfridge staring back at him. He watched the video but stopped it when it came to part involving Norm's accidental spill of Neytiri's pregnancy. "You told him?" Jake retorted. He was about to drop the tablet at his feet and step forward to punch Norm square in the face when he felt Neytiri pull o his arm to stop him doing what he was going to regret do later.
"Easy," his mate whispered. It was enough to calm him down but it wasn't enough to shallow the anger completely.
"Norm, you really are an idiot! Quaritch will use this information to his fucking advantage now!" Jake fumed.
Bec and Norm weren't game enough to argue with him at this moment. It was clear to them now that the stress of having to take care of heavily pregnant Neytiri, training the remaining warriors and making battle plans to win them the upcoming war had really gotten to him. They hated seeing him like this but some people took stress better than others and this was clearly one guy that didn't take to stress well.
"It was an accident!" Norm protested. Bec grabbed his arm and pulled him away from Jake.
"Bull-" Jake was immediately cut off by his sister.
"Shut up for a moment Jakey. Just finish watching the video and say something," Bec told him. He immediately obeyed. Neytiri watched in amazement as Jake immediately resumed playing the video. She had never seen anything like it. A warning video.
Why couldn't they have this when we were being attacked the first time? She thought.
Jake watched the video in shocked awe. Why would Selfridge be warning them when he had orchestrated the last attack with Quaritch as the ring leader? Had he changed sides to the Na'vi or what? He had no idea on what to believe anymore. The video ended and Jake looked up with a dazed expression. Neytiri tightened her grip on his arm. She was just as confused as he was.
"What now?" she asked in a low voice.
"I don't know," Bec replied before Jake could.
The friends sat in front of the fire unable to say or do anything. Neytiri sat at Jake's side with his arms wrapped around her not wanting to let her go. Norm sat scrawling with a twig in the dirt in front of him while Bec stared into the fire unable to clear her mind of Selfridge's message. His voice had been cut up as if he was scared of what Quaritch would do to him if he found out what he was doing. He would be ousted as a traitor for telling the enemy of their plan.
"This is so bad," Jake said causing his mate, sister and best friend to look up. "What if Selfridge was only bluffing? He could use the whole 'Neytiri's pregnant' thing as an excuse to get back on the planet,"
"That's a good point but I think Selfridge's words were pretty much genuine," Norm said. Jake ad Bec frowned at him causing him to expand on his explanation. "What I mean is, is that you heard his tone. He was pretty caught up by the whole idea and I remember something Max told me. He said that he listened in on Quaritch and Selfridge's discussion just before they brought old Hometree down and Selfridge was pretty much relucent to go with it,"
Jake nodded. "There's something I still don't get, when he told me to link and that I had an hour to tell the Na'vi of my 'true intentions' or the axe would come down on Neytiri if I didn't. If he was relucent then why did he threaten me with Neytiri's death?"
Neytiri, who had been listening to the entire to the whole conversation, listened with eager interest. "Dunno," said Norm. "Maybe he was just trying to act tough but deep down he really was scared,"
"Whatever the reason, Grace isn't happy," Bec said looking down at her phone. She had her Instant Messenger open and by the looks of it, she was fair from happy that Selfridge had decided to defend the Na'vi after all.
"What's she saying? Jake asked with eager interest.
"She's saying, 'What an idiot. What a fucking idiot! After all we have done for him he ignored us about Hometree and it's just know that he realises what he's doing is completely wrong'" Bec read out.
"Wow, I've never seen her that pissed before and she's not even drinking," Jake said in mock surprise only to receive an elbowing from Neytiri.
"She's actually trying to give up smoking and drinking since her near-death experience has given her a good wake-up call," Bec explained.
"Well, good. Looks like my advice really paid off," Jake grinned, almost forgetting the situation with Selfridge.
"What did you tell her?" Neytiri asked, her voice muffled from Jake's shoulder.
"I said to her 'get rid of this shit than she could lecture me' I meant the ciggie. I took it from her mouth and stubbed it. I honestly thought she had ignored me but clearly not,"
"I wouldn't rub it in," Bec cautioned.
Jake smiled. The group of friends fell silent again and it wasn't until an hour to sundown that Bec and Norm decided to go back to Hell's Gate. "We had better head back. I know Grace will probably have our heads if aren't there before she closes the gates for the night," Bec said getting to her feet with Norm following not far behind.
"See ya," Jake said as his sister waved to him on her way out pulling Norm with her. He had just realised that Neytiri had only spoken twice during the day and wanted to know why. "You ok?" he asked.
"Yes, I'm fine," Neytiri answered.
"Really? You didn't talk much when Bec and Norm were here," said Jake.
Neytiri shrugged. "I just like listening. It is more of a human conversation," she said with a smile.
"True, but I would like it if you became more involved that's all," Jake said with a sigh as he settled himself down and pulling Neytiri into his lap.
"I already feel involved. I am still learning your culture as you are still learning mine," Neytiri replied looking up at her mate with a smile.
Jake smiled before leaning down to quickly kiss her before she rested her head on his shoulder.
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The occupants of Hell's Gate sat on the tables in the mess hall as Bec and Norm stood out front explaining the current situation. Everyone, including Grace was shocked by Selfridge's s sudden change in attitude.
"Now what are we going to do?" Louise asked.
"We might as well take Selfridge's warning into account. I think Jake has really taken this into account so I suggest we follow his lead," Norm said with caution. Many of his co-workers agreed. There some people that were somewhat relucent to agree to his request. Jake wasn't the only one hurt by Selfridge's scheming. There others that had been promised one thing but had received another thing that was completely horrible.
"He lied to us!" yelled Connor from the back of the room.
"That might be so but he can give us information that can help us fight the RDA SecOps and Quaritch," Bec said encouragingly. There were murmurs amongst the small crowd of people. It was like them saying Voldemort but in a real life situation that wasn't based around a magical universe.
More murmurs erupted from the small crowd. Bec and Norm looked at each other expectantly. They had expected this from the word go. If they were to give their co-workers information on the upcoming war they needed to be told of Quaritch's resurrection. They had been shocked at this information and they had been terrified of him returning to the planet they had all come to love. Some had spent nearly 10 to 20 years on the planet studying the various plants, animals and other specialities that the forests and other areas of the planet provided and they weren't going to back down without a good fight.
"We fight til the death people!" Norm and Bec cried raising their firsts in the air.
"Yeah!" yelled Max raising his fist in the air.
"Yeah!" cried Carly and Connor.
Soon, everyone had their fists in the air chanting. They would have done Jake and Neytiri proud.
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