Avatar is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

The hunting party had come back later than expected yesterday, and so Jake was helping to carve and preserve the take in time for the night's celebration. About the time that he had finished skinning a hexapede, a male approached him. "Olo'eyktan, you need to come out to the fields," the warrior said. "It's about your son."

Jake's heart skipped a beat. "Is he hurt?"

"Not him," the warrior replied with a shake of his head. "Follow me."

He laid down the tools, stood, and hurriedly followed the warrior outside. Things appeared normal – small groups of people going about their business, either in idle chatter, crafts, or weapons training – until they approached a gathering of children with a handful of adults milling about. When the people saw Jake approach, they gave him modest, deferential bows, and stood aside. At the heart of the circle, a woman was trying to give comfort to Eytukan. When Eytukan saw Jake, he stood up and ran over to hug his leg.

Jake knelt down and held his son to his chest, letting him cry into his shoulder. He looked at the woman who a moment before had been holding him and asked, "What happened here?"

"I don't know," she said with a shrug. She indicated the other adults and continued, "We were going out to harvest seeds for tonight when we heard a scream from the children here. We came over, and one of them was lying on the ground, bloodied, and your son was very upset."

He looked around for one of the older children and, meeting eyes with a boy, asked, "What doesn't she know?"

The boy shifted weight on his feet, hesitating to respond, and then said, "We were going to play Hunters and Demons. Ximok and I were making the teams, and we were going to put Eytukan with the demons. He didn't want to be with the demons. So he and Ximok fought, and Eytukan hit him with a rock."

Hunters and Demons, the new name given to a long-time children's game that was, from what Jake had seen, an aggressive, team-based version of Tag. When Jake was under Neytiri's tutelage, she had called the game Thanators and Hammerheads. In order for a team to win, the members of the other team had to be felled, which was accomplished by tackling and pinning a member of the opposing team to the count of four. If the teams were large enough, and the players skilled enough, the game could last from sunrise to sunset; and given its aggressive nature, it was not uncommon for children to walk away with vicious cuts and bruises.

However, for one child to clobber another with a stone during the course of the game, much less outside of it, was a rare and all together separate issue. Jake's eyes went wide at the boy's report. He loosened his embrace on his son, holding him away at less than an arm's length, and asked, "Is that true?"

Eytukan wiped his eyes and was trying to get a hold of his breathing, but before he could respond, his friend, Jake, the first-born of the clan leader's one-time rivals, stepped out from the group and spoke up. "Ximok and Fpäi were taunting him, Olo'eyktan! They said he had to be with the demons because he was born from demons."

"That's not what we said!" the boy, Fpäi, who had given Jake the first report of the incident, shouted back.

"Yes you did!" Eytukan, finding a measure of control, countered. "You said more, too."

Jake reached out and turned his son's head back towards him. "Forgetting what he said, did you hit Ximok with a rock?"

His son's friend walked over and handed Jake a large stone, larger than his son would be able to form a full fist around. However, the exposed side had a significant amount of blood on it. "He was just standing up to them," the child said. "I would have done the same thing if he called my mother a demon."

Jake felt a flash of anger in him. Certainly if any adult were to call Neytiri a demon, he would find it difficult to have a restrained response; but for a child, his son, to get so violent was unsettling. Jake sighed, placed the stone on the ground, and replied, "You would have been wrong to do it, too."

He stood, picking up Eytukan, and asked the children, "Do you still want to play your game?" Most of them nodded. "Then let me divide the teams." With his free arm, he made a wide arc over the half of the group that included his son's friend and declared, "You are the hunters." His hand swept over the other half and, with a hard eye towards Fpäi, said, "You are the demons."

Fpäi frowned, but he knew better than to voice opposition to what Jake had effectively made an official proclamation as clan leader.

Jake figured the wounded child had been carried inside so his wounds could be treated, and so he took Eytukan to see the results of his actions. Eytukan meekly protested, "But he said it about mother."

"We'll talk about that shortly," Jake replied.

His suspicions were accurate. Not too far inside Hometree, Ximok was being tended to by an experienced healer while his family stood over him. Jake knew the child's parents in passing, although he was most familiar with their eldest daughter, Kalhang, who stood out as one of the clan's most capable young hunters. When they saw Jake approach, they began to stand in deference to him, but he stopped them with a wave of his hand.

He set Eytukan on the ground and then sat beside Ximok. "How is he?"

"He'll be fine," the healer said. "It was a deep cut, but not too serious. I can't see the bone." The healer turned Ximok's head so Jake could see the wound, and it gave Jake reason to be concerned with the healer's medical opinion. Jake knew, though, that for a wound to be "serious" in the eyes of a healer, it would have to prevent one from either hunting or mating; however, this wound was not as easily dismissed as the healer sounded. The gash went from the boy's temple to just above his upper lip. Even with the best treatment, it was going to become a prominent, lifelong scar.

Ximok's mother looked up and said, "Olo'eyktan, he told us what he said to upset your son." She shook her head, continuing, "I don't know where he would have gotten the idea to say such things. Hakxé and I loved Neytiri as a sister." The father, Hakxé, nodded in agreement with his mate.

"Thank you," Jake replied, "but this was too much." He looked over at Eytukan and said, "I promise that he'll be punished, and I will compensate you." Eytukan looked surprised, if not further hurt, but did not protest.

"Ximok, too," Hakxé said. "He shouldn't be using those words carelessly."

Jake let out a short laugh. "I think he's been punished enough, don't you?"

Hakxé shook his head and replied, "Your son retaliated for an offense, but it's the parents' place to punish."

Jake was inclined to disagree. He remembered vividly the cases where either he or Tom would get into fights – either with each other or other children – and would come out worse for the wear. His mother or father, whoever was the first parent to see the wounds, would often just patch up the wounds and say, "Let that be a lesson to you." If it was his mother, the lesson would have been to not get into the situation again; however, if it was his father, the lesson would have been to be stronger the next time.

His opinions notwithstanding, he decided not to push the issue further. Jake stood – and could not prevent Ximok's family from standing with him – and said, "I'm sorry we had to see each other like this." They nodded. He put a hand on the daughter's shoulder. "Kalhang did well in the last hunt. When we hand out the meat tonight, your family can have first choice for cuts of meat." It was a genuine gesture of appreciation for her efforts, but he also hoped that, given the circumstances, it might not sour relations between them.

They thanked him, and then he took Eytukan back to their hammock. He looked his son in the eyes and asked, "Do you want to tell me why you thought it was appropriate to hurt him like that?"

"I told him to stop," Eytukan replied. "I said I'd hurt him if he didn't, and he didn't."

Jake had a flashback to his service in Venezuela and briefings on the rules of engagement for dealing with hostile civilians.

"Was he holding a weapon?"

"No."

"So then why did you use one?"

Eytukan paused, and then replied, "Because I was angry." He seemed to anticipate Jake's next question. "They always put me with the demons! They knew you were a dreamwalker before I did."

Jake stepped around the association between dreamwalkers and demons to continue his lecture. "But they still let you play with them, right?" Eytukan nodded. "Do you think they will next time?" Eytukan looked away from him, as though he were searching for an answer.

Jake turned him so he was looking into his eyes and said, "There are some times when it's okay to use force, and times when it's not. When it comes to games, it's not okay to use force.

"If they put you on a team you don't want to be on, the best thing to do is to be the best player so that they will want you on their team the next time you play. Do you understand?"

"Yes, father."

Jake put his hands on his son's cheeks and said, "I know it hurts to be called names. When I came to the clan, they said all kinds of things about me. You just have to ignore them and show that you're a better person."

"But they were calling you and mother demons, too," he said, perhaps hoping to stave off the coming punishment.

"Those are just words. You heard Ximok's mother, right? She still respects your mother because of how she acted. That's how the people will see you, too – by how you behave."

"That still doesn't make him right," Eytukan replied, pouting.

"It doesn't make you right, either." Jake took a deep breath before handing down his punishment. "You can't have any utu mauti until Ximok's cut has healed, and you are also to be up here as soon as the sun is a hand's width above the setting horizon."

Eytukan looked pained, but he knew better than to resist. He nodded slowly and replied, "Yes, father."

Jake leaned forward and kissed his forehead. He then picked up his son and said, "We still have a lot of meat to cut for tonight. Would you like to help?" Eytukan nodded more enthusiastically, eliciting a smile from Jake. "All right, then let's go."

Who was that fucking alien to think that he could pass judgment on his parenting? Natalie had made the point very clearly that she had become an adult in his absence. Was it not proof enough that he cared about her that he had asked Tseyo if she had spoken with him?

If Abe were not so certain about the outcome, he would have gladly turned in his seat to take a shot at Tseyo.

But while Tseyo had been looking down his still-intact nose at Abe for his failings as a father, sentries for the Soldiers of Gaia posted along the highway had picked up Abe's minivan. While a car pulled out from a side road to slow down the traffic behind them, a trio of motorcyclists sped down the highway to catch up.

Abe might have noticed this sooner had he not been carried away by his anger, but it was not until the minivan was a moment away from being overtaken that he saw the play unfolding. "All right, here we go," he said.

Norm, who appeared to have been similarly distracted, gauged the unfolding situation and said, "But we're not at Modesto."

"We weren't going to Modesto," Abe said. "That was just a cover location in case someone was listening in. The highway was always the meeting spot – that's why we detoured."

The motorcycle on the driver's side of the van pulled up to Abe's window, while the third motorcycle raced to be in front of the minivan. When the motorcycle along the car's driver's side had successfully matched the car's speed – not too difficult, Abe noted, given that the automated highway network forced it to stay at a constant speed – a helmetless woman riding on the motorcycle's backseat rapped the butt of her pistol on Abe's window.

Once she had his attention, she indicated for him to roll the window down. When Abe went for the button to lower the window, Norm, surprised, asked, "What are you doing?!"

"If she wanted to shoot me, she could have done it through the glass," Abe replied. "Just relax, Norm."

He scoffed and asked, "What are you, an expert in armed hijackings, too?"

"Well, there was this one time I went to Pandora, and some strung-out hippie boarded my shuttle and forcibly disembarked me and my driver. I think I handled that situation pretty well."

Norm just shook his head and went back to paying attention to the motorcycle on his side of the car.

The woman tapped on the window again, more forcefully this time, and Abe quickly lowered the window. Once the glass was down, the woman leaned in, pointed at the motorcycle ahead of them, and commanded, "Follow him – and don't do anything stupid."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Abe replied, having to raise his voice to compensate for the airstream whipping past the window. "But I can't get the car off autopilot."

"It's a bitch, ain't it?" Again, she pointed at the lead motorcyclist. "He's going to take care of that."

Almost on cue, the lead motorcyclist pulled what looked like a radar gun from his holster and turned to point it at Abe. A second later, the minivan's electronics seemed to short out, but recovered quickly. Once they were back online, the built-in navigator said, "Manual drive engaged. Please drive safely."

"Finally!" Abe exclaimed as he enthusiastically grabbed the wheel and put his feet on the pedals. "I feel normal again."

"Normal for you is very disturbing," Norm said.

Less than a minute later, the motorcyclist indicated an upcoming side road, and Abe acknowledged him by putting on his turn signal. The motorcycle on Norm's side fell into a trailing position to allow for the turn; and not long after they were on the side road, the car which had been holding up traffic to allow for the capture sped up to join the convoy.

Two miles down the poorly-kept road – twice Tseyo complained when his head hit the ceiling following encounters with potholes; once by Abe's inability to maneuver around it, the second time because he aimed for it – the Soldiers guided Abe into an abandoned farming complex, and from there into a barn that was occupied by more of their compatriots. They could have been wearing uniforms for the way they stood on guard, weapons in hand, but were instead dressed as any other person. For whatever reason, that was more unsettling to Abe than if they had all been wearing uniforms.

When Abe killed the engine, he looked at Norm and said, "Again, just stay calm." He nodded back to Tseyo and said, "Make sure he stays calm, too."

"Easier said than done."

"Make it happen."

The woman approached the minivan, gun pointed at Abe, and commanded, "You – just you – get out of the car." Abe casually stepped out of the vehicle, at which point he was brusquely grabbed by two of the Soldiers and forced to put his hands behind his head. She then turned her gun to Norm and commanded him out of the car, where he was put in the same position. She nodded to Abe and said, "Help my friends search your trunk."

"My keys are in my pocket, I need…" he was interrupted when one of his two captors reached into Abe's pocket and took the keys out for him. They made him keep his hands behind his head as they led him to the rear of the vehicle, where they tossed the keys to a third person. Just before she pressed the button to open the rear door, Abe said, "Try not to freak out."

Abe felt a gun barrel press against the small of his back. "Keep your mouth shut until we tell you otherwise," one of his guards said. "Open the door."

The third Soldier pushed the button on the keypad, and the rear door slowly opened. It did not have to be fully opened, however, before Tseyo was visible to them; and each of the guards made a unique, vulgar exclamation at the sight of him. They stepped away from the minivan, and one of the males said, "Kel – Uh, Commander, you need to be here. Like, now."

The woman who had commanded Abe and Norm from the vehicle stepped around and, like the others, was surprised to see Tseyo. After a moment of hesitation, she turned to the others and said, "Get him out of there." When they did not comply immediately, she barked, "Now! Let's go!"

It took some coaxing, but Tseyo crawled out from the trunk, warily eyeing the guns, and was led with Abe to Norm's side, drawing expressions of disbelief from the rest of the gathered Soldiers. They moved in to get a closer look at Tseyo, but their commander waved them off. "Stay at your posts," she ordered. When they obeyed, she looked up at Tseyo and said, "I'm not going to break my neck to talk to you, and I sure as hell don't need your crotch in my face. Get on your knees."

He gave her a confused look, and then casually shrugged his shoulders. Norm intervened. "He doesn't speak English."

She snapped in Norm's direction, and his personal guard pushed him with the butt of his gun. "What, did you get a Chinese avatar driver or something?"

"He's not an avatar," Norm said, again receiving a push from his guard.

"Yeah, I believe that," the commander said. "A couple of RDA goons just happen to be carting around a real, live Na'vi."

"Commander, hit it with E-M-P," a Soldier said.

She turned and asked, "Did I ask for your opinion, Sergeant?"

"I was in RDA's research program, Commander," he continued. "The way an avatar body links to a human driver is with biomechanical receptors that are engineered into the brain at the fetal stage. They get their energy from the body, but they're still machines. A strong enough – or close enough – blast of E-M-P would be enough to disrupt the link. If you hit him with a pulse and he drops dead, you'll know for sure."

The commander turned away from her subordinate to look at Norm. "Are you supposed to be his mother?"

"I was his teacher on Pandora."

She scoffed and shook her head. "Fine, I'll play along with your bullshit for another couple of minutes. Tell him to get on his knees." Norm did as she told, and Tseyo got onto his knees. She walked towards one of three full-sized, windowless vans that were parked in the barn, from which she drew what looked like an oversized rifle.

"You have one more chance to come clean," she said to Abe as she calibrated the gun. "If he drops, the two of you are going to join him." She called out, "The rest of you, turn off any electronics you've got."

Abe replied simply, "You won't be disappointed."

Seconds later, she leveled the rifle at Tseyo and called out, "Are we ready?" Over the chorus of responses, Abe heard a hushed exchange between Norm and Tseyo, who promptly turned off his exopack.

Abe looked over to see that Tseyo's expression was less than stoic, but he did not appear to be on the brink of panic. When the commander pulled the trigger, Abe had been expecting something from a science fiction movie – rays of intense blue light spewing forth from the barrel while sparks emanated from every conceivable electric device as they shorted out. Instead, the rifle let out a high pitched whine, and then promptly turned off with an anti-climactic click. The barn's overhead lights soon followed, although their loss was barely noticeable against the natural light of the morning sun. Abe could only hope that the minivan was not fried.

Tseyo remained upright on his knees.

"I'll be damned," the commander said as she lowered the rifle. "All right, people, load up your gear and let's head out." She looked at the guards who continued to stand watch over him, Norm, and Tseyo, and said, "Search them and then load them up. Leave their car here."

"Torch the site?" one of the guards asked.

"Later," she said. "Just move."

While the rest of the Soldiers stripped the barn of any incriminating evidence, the guards which had been keeping watch over them did not hesitate to give him and Norm thorough body searches. As they prepared to load them into the vans, the commander asked with a nod towards Tseyo, "Did you get him, too?"

"Blue?" one of the guards asked. She nodded. "Commander, he's basically naked. I can practically see…"

"He's with them," she said, interrupting him. "That means we don't trust him. He could be their mule. So check his pack and his package, and then load them up."

The guard sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

"All right, kid, you're newest here," an older guard said. "Time to earn your place."

The young guard went wide-eyed. "Fuck you, man," he replied. "I'm not touching him. I mean, look at him. He looks pissed off enough without me feeling him up."

"Soldier, I'm ordering you to search him," the superior said. He looked at Norm and said, "You! Tell the alien what's coming so we can get this over with."

He looked at Tseyo and said, "That person putting down his gun is going to search you for weapons." Tseyo nodded cautiously, and then Norm added, "He's going to take off your exopack, and then feel over your loincloth."

It was only the morning, and Tseyo had already put up with a lot on this trip outside of Abe's basement. He had been loaded into a car that was barely big enough to carry him lying down, he had a tiff with Abe, and only moments ago had a gun pointed at his head. So far, he had dealt with these things with a commendable resolve and few apparent reservations.

This, however, crossed his line. Tseyo quickly got to his feet and backed away, his tail swishing about furiously. "No, he's not," he said.

"See! Even he doesn't want to do this," the young guard protested. "Can we just go?"

"Tseyo, just let them do it. It will be over quickly."

He took off the exopack and tossed it to the ground. "If they want that, they can take it," he said. "But they'll keep their hands off of me. I won't be humiliated."

Norm took a breath and tried again. "Tseyo, we need these people to trust us, so we have to do what they say – just for now."

"That isn't trust," Tseyo replied. "Tell them I don't have weapons."

"Sergeant, we don't have time for you to play with the alien!" the commander shouted from one of the vans. "Get him searched. Now!"

"Yes, Commander!" he called back. He leveled his gun at Tseyo, followed soon thereafter by the others, and said to Norm, "Either he cooperates, or he's dead; and if he's the real deal, then that means he's come too far to want to die in some shit barn. Get him to cooperate."

Abe, who until now had been watching the scene with a measure of amusement, chimed in, "Calm him down, Norm."

"Tseyo, think of your people," Norm said. "They'll suffer more indecencies than this if we fail."

A tense moment passed, but then Tseyo hissed, spit on the ground, and got back on his knees. His tail was steadier, but still bobbed about in a kind of nervous apprehension. "Tell them to make it quick."

Norm looked at the guard and nodded. "Be fast," he said.

While one guard stepped forward to check the exopack, the young guard cautiously approached Tseyo. Tseyo leaned towards him, leading with his right shoulder, and pointed at his armband. "Take too long, and I'll add your teeth to this."

The young guard likely did not understand his words, but he certainly understood the gesture. He looked back at his superior and said, "He's wearing human bones, man! This is messed up."

"Get it done, Soldier," the superior responded dispassionately. "We're waiting."

"Nobody told me saving the Earth would mean groping an alien," the guard said. He took a deep breath, looked at Tseyo, and said, "All right, man, just be cool. This'll be over in a second." However, several seconds passed before the guard turned to Norm and asked, "Like, what should 'normal' feel like? You know, how am I going to know—?"

"Soldier, use your judgment!" his superior barked. "You have five seconds."

"All right! All right!" The guard took another deep breath, counted down from three, and then made a quick search of Tseyo's cloth. He pulled away almost as quickly – though not fast enough to prevent Tseyo from hissing at him – with both his hands raised. "He's clean!" he proclaimed as he took several quick steps backwards towards his gun. "Just, fuck, he's clean."

The guard who was inspecting the exopack, who had paused his examination in order to watch the spectacle unfold, then declared the pack to be weapons-free. He cautiously handed it back to Tseyo, who grabbed and donned it quickly. He scowled, stood up, and said, "That was disgusting."

Without knowing it, the young Soldier echoed the same sentiment to his colleagues – albeit with far more vulgar terms.

"But it was quick," Norm replied to Tseyo, "and now we can get on with the meeting."

Tseyo shook his head and said, "You people have very strange customs."

The superior guard pointed at Abe and said, "Put him in van two." He then pointed at Norm and Tseyo, "They go in van three. Bag 'em—." He hesitated on the last order, and then clarified, "Not the alien."

A second later, Norm was shrouded in darkness and not-too-delicately helped into the back of a van. He heard Tseyo board behind him, and then the doors shut. Norm could easily sense that there were more people in the van than just the two of them, and one of them said, "So freaky – his skin's glowing!"

"That's what they do when it gets dark," an older person responded with a snort at the van's engine revved up. "Download a book, kid."

"What are you guys doing with a Na'vi, anyway?" yet another person asked when they began to move.

"Trying to show we're serious about whatever it is Abe is going to ask your boss."

The person scoffed and said, "All it shows is that you RDA pigs are treating the Na'vi like your playthings. He lived in paradise, yet you brought him here to make yourselves look better. Pathetic, man."

"Hey, I'm not with RDA, all right?" Norm shot back. "I'm the guy who stopped the mining—," he had to stop to think, "—eighteen years ago. You don't sound like you were even born then."

The kid's brilliant retort was, "Whatever."

Some time into the ride, Norm could not say how long, Tseyo asked with measureable anxiety in his voice, "Are you okay, teacher?"

"I'm fine, Tseyo. How are you?"

"They won't stop staring at me," he replied. "It's making me very nervous."

"They don't mean anything by it. They've just never seen one of your people."

"But they're all carrying weapons. You said we weren't going to fight today."

"We're not, Tseyo. They have the guns because they're nervous."

Tseyo was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Nervousness gives way to fear, and everybody knows what happens when fearful Sky People have weapons."

"They won't hurt you, Tseyo, I promise." Though he knew Tseyo could not see him, he grinned anyway and said, "They're just as likely to grab for your loincloth again."

Tseyo hissed and responded, "Don't joke about that. The next Sky Person who reaches for me in that way will lose his hand. They can kill me, but I won't tolerate it again."

"I don't think you'll have to worry about that," he said with a chuckle.

They were quiet for the rest of the drive, which, when his ears popped, Norm could tell had taken them into the mountains. When the van came to a stop, he was as forcibly disembarked from the van as he had been loaded onto it; and from the way the heat radiated on his hood, he guessed it was either late in the morning or early in the afternoon. He noted the gravel-like texture of the ground as they walked – he presumed under armed guard – which in a short time gave way to a more firm stone. The radiant heat vanished from the hood, and each footfall was accompanied by an echo; and from an aside between two guards about whether or not Tseyo would "fit," Norm deduced that they had entered a tunnel.

Norm walked on for several minutes until he was forced onto his knees. The hood was peeled away, and once he was able to open his eyes in the harsh, halogen-based light, he saw that he was seated in an alcove between Abe and Tseyo. The walls were covered in news clippings with phrases circled – often erratically – and lines of thread connecting distant articles. Parsing the articles, they all had to do with environmental degradation; but the way certain phrases were highlighted and connected to each other made it seem to Norm as though whoever put together this archive was intent on unveiling deeper conspiracies.

He let out a short laugh and said to Abe, "And you think I'm paranoid for knowing the government was responsible for Nine-Eleven."

Abe might have responded had someone with a young, raspy voice, not said from behind them, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." Norm tried to turn to see who was there, but the cold barrel of a gun pressed against his cheek to encourage him to keep his head facing forward. "And then sometimes you're not paranoid at all," the man continued. "Sometimes you're enlightened enough to know that they will be after you as soon as they know you know what it is that you know."

Norm had a moment of enlightenment: This meeting was going to be very strange, indeed.

His concentration broke when a woman asked from behind the lights, "You've got to have a pair of giant balls to have wanted to come here."

"I assume you're talking to me," Abe replied.

"I'm sure as shit not talking to the Na'vi – although I'm guessing he has a giant pair naturally." She was quiet for a while before adding, "He's really the real thing, isn't he?"

"Yes he is," he said flatly, whatever pride he had in being the first person to bring an alien being to Earth having long vanished.

"How'd you sucker him into coming to our pleasant little wasteland?"

"He volunteered, if you can believe it."

"Not really."

"You're the new Wizard of Oz?" Abe asked.

"Thanks to you, yes. After you and the other fascists gutted our leadership just before you fucked off to space, I got everyone back in order."

"You're welcome."

She scoffed. "To be totally honest, Abe, I was just going to shoot you. It was going to make for a great scapecast – maybe our best ever. Another guaranteed viral hit." Abe had a sickening thought of millions of people downloading his execution in the virtualscape, pausing the moment that his head burst into fragments and walking around to find the best angle.

He took a breath and asked, "So what's stopping you?"

"We checked out your friend, and he seems on the up-and-up," she replied, "so it'd be a shame to have to shoot him, too. And then, of course, what the fuck would we do with the Na'vi?" She chuckled and said, "I gotta hand it to you, Abe, I did not see him coming."

"I'm kind of hoping Chairman Savage will say the same thing."

The woman was quiet for a while, and then she said, "About that, Abe. Pablo didn't exactly have the details of what it is you're trying to do, so I'm going to need you to spell your scheme out for me before I make a decision on this."

"When you say I gutted your leadership, I assume you're talking about the fallout from the price fixing investigation," Abe started.

"Yeah," she replied contemptuously. "That's what I mean."

"My team found corroborating evidence on Pandora. They were supposed to destroy it, but they didn't do a very good job. I still have the original documents…"

"The ones you've convinced everybody are fake," she interrupted.

"Somehow I think they'll accept my mea culpa when the time comes," he said. "Anyway, they're locked up in RDA's archives. But once RDA figures out that's what I'm after, I'm confident they'll do a more thorough job of destroying them than my team did, which is why I need to get in there soon."

"So just hack it," the woman said with a snort. "Why go through the hoops of RDA's site security? Even we've never tried to hit it. Pretty fucking crazy, if you ask me."

If one more person calls me crazy…

"Because the archives lock up at any sign of a hack. Hell, they lock up if the new guy in AMIS' front office forgets his password three times in a row. And given that the whole system is designed by veterans of our various cyberwars, it's pretty hard to fool the system. So unless you have a full team who you can guarantee is able to penetrate military-grade cybersecurity without leaving any fingerprints, please set up the introduction."

She grumbled. "Yeah, can't say that I do. But how're you even going to get in the front door? You know you're on RDA's shit-est of shit lists."

"Someone on the inside is going to lock up the employee database that drives the identity recognition software. The back-up protocol, then, is for the guards to manually check IDs against faces and drivers' licenses – and this same person provided me a current badge to forge."

"You're in the fake ID business?" she asked with no small amount of disbelief.

"You don't come up through the ranks of AMIS without learning something about forged documentation," he replied. "I'm no master craftsman, but it should pass by a guard who probably hasn't seen a real driver's license since training and has been overwhelmed all morning by manual in-processing."

"Well, it's your head if you're wrong, not mine. So what do your friend and the Na'vi have to do with all of this?"

"Norm and his people have been…"

"'His people?'"

"Trust me, ours is a very temporary partnership." Abe waited for Norm to chime in. When he did not, Abe took a breath and continued, "Norm and the other researchers on Pandora kept an extensive cataloguing of RDA's treatment of the Na'vi, and they've put together a package to be released to the media at the same time I release my data. However, since Norm is, technically, an RDA employee, and since I have something of a credibility gap, Tseyo is here to provide a more robust, first-hand account of his tribe's suffering."

"And at the end of all of this, you just expect piggy Napoleon to roll over and surrender?"

"We're not going to give him much of a choice."

The woman was quiet for a while, and then she said, "Okay, so you asked for a van and a flashmob. The van is obvious, but what do you need the rank-and-file for?"

"Once word goes out to the complex's security teams that there's a Na'vi on the loose and headed for the executive level, it's just a matter of time before the tower is saturated with guards," Abe replied. "We need them to be distracted, or at least have a portion of their resources diverted."

"Much as I appreciate them," she said with a quiet laugh, "the rank-and-file are mostly bored teenagers. They're great for spreading our message across the Net and Scape, but SecOps isn't going to get worked up over them."

"Get enough of them together, and security will pay attention."

She sighed, it sounded more in disbelief than exasperation, and said, "You want, what?, thousands of kids to show up on a Monday morning – tomorrow morning, I'll emphasize – to potentially get their heads bashed in by some fascists? I could call them all personally and probably not make that happen."

"Then what about the Soldiers?"

"The Soldiery isn't a giant noisemaker," she said tersely. "I'll risk some unknown kid getting caught up on Big Brother's CCTV facial recognition database in order to make a point, but not my soldiers."

Abe sighed. "When do you think you could organize some action among the rank-and-file?"

"Of the kind you need?" She paused for an agonizingly long time. "A couple of days."

"No," Abe said, shaking his head. "No, it has to happen tomorrow."

"Hey, in case you've forgotten, you came to us. So now you're on our schedule."

Abe was insistent. "Every Monday morning, Chairman Savage gathers RDA's senior leadership together for a weekly meeting. If they're not all there when this thing hits, they'll have plenty of chances to run off to any one of their backup locations to put together a counterattack."

"So this is a decapitation strike?"

"Not in the classic sense," he said. "I don't intend to go in there guns blazing. But this is guaranteed to cause a crisis in leadership, and there's a very rigid command structure among the executives. If they aren't contained, Savage's successor will be quick to step up, marshal RDA's resources, and fight back – more likely with guns blazing."

"So wait a week," she said casually.

Abe let out a harsh laugh. "Not to be too egotistical about it, but I have a feeling that I'm on top of tomorrow's meeting agenda. I understand my successor isn't up to my quality, but he wouldn't have my job at all if he couldn't get someone to find me in a week's time."

She went quiet again, long enough for some of his pain to subside, and then let out a long sigh. "Fuck. All right, let's get the group commanders together and see what's available," she said, plainly speaking to others nearby. "Get the pigs back to their pen."

They shared a single van for the ride back to the barn, which resulted in Abe being pressed up against Tseyo. Neither of them were even remotely happy about it, but there wasn't any changing the guards' minds. Like most of the ride up to the base, they were quiet on the ride back.

Once back at the barn, the Soldiers sped away. Before they transferred to the van, Abe said, "Chances are they left someone behind to bug the car, so hold on a minute." Abe got in the van first and, after it started, typed out a command on the console. The car's engine cut out, then Abe restarted it. "Okay, we're good."

"What was that?" Norm asked.

"I assumed – rightfully – that Krysta had anti-bugging protections installed," he replied, "so hopefully I've knocked out whatever they would have put on the car. Hop in."

Once they were back on the highway, Abe asked, "What does he think?"

"Who? Tseyo?" Abe nodded. Norm looked over at their Na'vi companion. Much of the time he had been on Earth, even when he was trying to be stoic, Tseyo had about him a kind of juvenile curiosity. Now, however, he had a faraway stare. Norm moved down the bench to sit beside him, though he was, as earlier, seated with outstretched legs on the van's floor.

Norm put a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of his trance. Unlike before, Norm did not give him the opportunity to dodge his question. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know, teacher," he said with a shake of his head. "There's just too much I don't understand about your world – about T'ngyute's plans. I am very confused."

"I can understand that," Norm replied. "A lot doesn't make sense to me, too. T'ngyute wants to know what you're thinking, though."

Tseyo raised his brow. "He does?" Norm nodded. "Why?" Norm shrugged. Tseyo was quiet for a moment and said, "I don't know if those people want to help, or if they just want to hurt T'ngyute."

"They want to hurt the ones T'ngyute used to belong to, who sent him to attack your people."

"You were blinded by the light," he replied, "and so could not see how the woman looked at him. I could see her past it. She very much wanted to hurt him, like a warrior ready to hunt a person who'd wounded a loved one." Tseyo took a deep breath and said, "We shouldn't trust them."

Norm nodded and patted his shoulder. "I know," he said. "If we do, though, try not to think too hard about it. Okay?" Tseyo nodded.

He looked over at Abe, who still appeared lost in his own thoughts, and said, "Tseyo doesn't trust them."

Abe frowned and rubbed his eyes, at times pinching the bridge of his nose. "Well, there's the Free People of the United States, up in Nevada and Idaho."

He offered a nervous laugh in response. Abe was too well versed in fringe organizations for Norm's liking, and Norm was happy to not know whether that was due to his line of work or an undisclosed hobby of his. However, he also knew Abe was committed to seeing his mission through to completion, which meant Norm had no doubts that he would be willing to go to whatever lengths he thought were necessary to make it happen.

"I'm serious," Abe insisted, heightening Norm's uneasiness. "They were founded by a former Congressman, and their core belief is that RDA teamed up with other corporations to take over the government. So, they declared war 'on behalf of the true Republic.' I'm sure they'd view this as their patriotic duty."

He had no intention to side with secessionists, but he also could not help mutter, "They have a point."

"Norm—," Abe replied, his voice trailing off in exasperation.

"I mean, RDA is a single-source provider for the military," he said more boldly, "Bold Election Systems has a monopoly on voting machines, and politicians' campaigns have been bought by corporate America for two-hundred years easily."

Abe looked like he was ready to engage on the topic, but he restrained himself. "Do you honestly believe that this is a good time to get on this topic?"

"Fine," Norm replied. "We'll just sit here quietly."

"Thank you."

As time dragged on in silence, the shock of the morning's events began to wear off. When it did, it allowed Norm to focus his mind on the most disquieting of all the revelations: the far-too-casual way Abe and the Soldiers' leader had talked about trading lives for their cause.

Abe had told them in no uncertain terms that they would be removed from Pandora when the full force of RDA followed behind him. From there, Norm had assumed that they would all be jailed from their actions, regardless of Abe's promises to the contrary – indeed, reinforced by his threat to frame them for fabricated crimes.

Abe had managed to temper Norm's suspicions earlier that morning, but they flooded back and warred within Norm's mind.

"I want to ask you something," Norm replied. "About your original plan on Pandora."

"Okay," Abe said, his brow raised and tone elevated with piqued interest. "Fire away."

"If everything had gone according to your plans, what was going to happen to me and my friends?"

"You were going to be on the first ISV home," he said casually. "RDA would have forced you to disavow any knowledge of any war or other mistreatment of the Na'vi by RDA, given you 'back pay' as hush money, and then sent you on your merry way as humanity's first surviving space castaways." He grinned and continued, "You probably could have made some additional money by selling Hollywood the rights to your story."

Norm did his best to detect any sign of dishonesty in his answer, whether in his tone or in his body language. Unsuccessful, at least to his satisfaction, he pressed, "Are you sure about that?"

He shrugged. "I think it'd make for a good movie."

"Not that."

Abe turned his head slightly, his brow furrowed, and then he appeared to have a revelation. "Norm, I wasn't going to have you killed, okay?"

"How do I know that?" Norm asked, his anger beginning to come to the surface. "I mean, you were talking casually with a terrorist about making people 'disappear' like it was any other day at the office, and you expect me to take at face value that you didn't have it in for me?" He snorted and said, "I may not lord it over everybody, but I do have a couple of doctorates under my belt, Abe. I'm not an idiot."

"Doctor Spellman," he began, letting the formality linger for a moment before continuing, "I'm in the business of making problems go away. Yes, there have been times when some of my agents, based on my orders, got in situations that resulted in people's deaths." At that, he gave a brief, pointed look towards Tseyo. He then continued to Norm, "But in the whole of my career, I never once ordered someone to be killed." He added, ticking each instance off on his fingers, "Subverted, discredited, shuttered, imprisoned – yes, yes, yes, and yes, and sometimes all of the above. But never killed."

Norm just shook his head and turned away.

Abe persisted. "Tomorrow, hopefully, you're going to be front-and-center on the world stage. Everybody on Earth is going to know you're not dead, and having you killed after the fact would be really bad PR, okay? You should be looking forward to starting over, not wondering if I'm going to have you killed."

Norm was incredulous. "Abe, I've been gone for twenty-four years! How am I – How are any of us just pick up and start over?"

"I'm going to guess that you socked some money away before leaving," Abe replied. "And, obviously, I'm going to make sure you're compensated. I'm sure you'll land on your feet."

Abe's apparent lack of compassion was infuriating. When this was all over, Abe would have his palatial house and nuclear family to hold on to, whereas Norm was looking at fifteen minutes of fame which, if it did not exhaust him, would be followed by a meager existence. Even if he spent the rest of his life with Amy, their common sacrifices would hardly have been worth it.

For all that Norm wanted to say that the sum of his actions had been a great act of selflessness, the people of Earth had long ago stopped rewarding selflessness for its own sake. Yes, he wanted to assure the Na'vi's safety. Yes, he wanted to pull Earth back from the brink of suicide. But also, yes, he wanted a fucking reward for having done it all!

Abe picked up on his frustration and continued, almost yelling, "What is it that you want me to do, Norm? Huh? Call up Tom, have him invent a time machine, and go back to before you fucked all of us?"

"Oh, so this is my fault?"

"You're goddamned right it is! If you and Jake had left well enough alone, I could have spent the last eleven years here raising my daughter, and you could have been living comfortably off of your back pay by now."

"There is nothing 'well enough' on Pandora or on Earth," Norm said. "I was doing the right thing."

"So you can either be righteous or you can shut your mouth and live it up at the end of the world," Abe replied.

Norm was about to shout back when he felt Tseyo grab his arm. "Teacher, you need to take the same advice you've been giving me since I came here. Be calm."

"Tseyo, I'm fine," he tried to say convincingly.

"Teacher…"

Norm decided that it was going to be more trouble than would be worth it to try and convince Tseyo that he was fine. Instead, he took a deep breath, put a hand on top of Tseyo's and said, "Thank you."

Tseyo squeezed his arm and then returned to the back of the van. Norm gave Abe a sideways glance to see if he wanted to continue the argument, but Abe responded by ever-so-slightly shaking his head before turning to look out his window. Norm did the same, trying to drown out his thoughts less by focusing on the barren landscape and more on the very faint sound of Tseyo humming ancient songs.