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

Abe was up before Krysta; by the quiet in the house, it seemed he was up before everyone. When he stepped out of bed for the bathroom, he did manage to rouse Vertex from his slumber at the foot of their bed. Abe leaned down to give him a quick scratch behind the ears, to Vertex's apparent approval, before continuing on with his routine.

He showered, shaved away the five-o-clock shadow which he had let linger since Sunday evening, and carefully groomed his hair, trimming and plucking as necessary. In assuming the role of a confident, senior executive, no detail was too small.

When it came time for his suit, however, he encountered his first disappointment. Abe had only brought casual business clothes with him to Pandora – nothing that he would not be able to clean and press on his own, such was the case with the white shirt he donned. He had not paid too much attention while his shirts and slacks became loose around his chest and waist; but when he tried one of the tailored suits he had left behind, he realized just how much weight he had lost in the course of his odyssey.

The black Italian suit's woolen pants needed someone with another four inches on his waistline to fit properly, and the jacket felt a size too large around his chest. The suit's ill fit bothered him, but there was certainly nothing which could be done about it at this point, short of pulling his belt tight. He tied the matching gold and black striped tie in a perfect double Windsor knot, and then sat on his side of the bed to brush his leather shoes off before slipping into them. Abe was relieved when they fit properly.

To complete the look, he withdrew a gold, mechanical watch from the nightstand drawer. It was one of Krysta's earliest anniversary presents to him. In an age of digital and holographic devices, it was damned near impossible to find mechanical watches. Abe had yet to find a replica amongst the few retailers who carried such devices, which was one reason he assumed she bought it – not so much for the novelty or aesthetic appeal, but to keep him guessing.

After he clasped the watch to his wrist, Abe took a breath and looked over at Krysta, who was still fast asleep. He decided she did not need to be woken up, not yet, and quietly made his way downstairs. He was surprised to see Amy dressed and in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee. "You're up early," he commented.

"Likewise," she said with a grin. "Nice suit."

He shrugged, again feeling the space in the jacket. "Not the best fit," he said as he went for the coffee machine, "but I don't have a tailor on call."

"I'm sure you'll live."

"Here's hoping, right?" he offered with a short laugh. "Is anybody else up?"

"Norm is, but he's with Tseyo. I thought I heard the shower running when Norm opened the door, so Natalie might be up, too."

Abe nodded. "We can give them a few more minutes." He stirred two packets of artificial sugar into the imitation coffee, forgoing packets of dehydrated cream powder, and then sat at the kitchen's island to quietly drink the hot, aromatic brew. Amy sat across from him with her own mug and a few slices of toast.

Norm came upstairs with Tseyo a little while later, the latter of whose body painting took Abe aback. Tseyo's head had also been completely painted, but those designs were somewhat obscured by the exopack mask. He wore. "He's just wearing it until Bay Point," Norm said. "It wouldn't be great if he became lightheaded in the middle of the mission."

"No, it wouldn't," Abe said flatly as he continued to process Tseyo's body art. Despite Abe's insistence that his team undertake this mission without weapons, he saw the dagger on Tseyo's belt, which was accompanied by a small bag and what looked like an oversized dart blower. Abe was inclined to raise the issue, but he doubted it that he would succeed in convincing Tseyo to give up the weaponry.

He took the last sip of his coffee and then proceeded back upstairs to wake the others, sharing an awkward moment when he found Luke and Dawn in near-total undress in the same bed. Before going back downstairs, he went to his study and gathered his essential tools for the mission – his forged identification, the template for his Soldier accompanier, and his work tablet – into his leather suitcase. Abe also gathered earpiece communicators that he and Norm had purchased when they went into town. He performed a quick coordinating check to ensure they were operating on the same frequency, and then dropped them into his pocket.

The rest of the team assembled for a light breakfast, but few were eating, and fewer speaking. Norm and Dawn were talking to Tseyo in his native language, and Abe assumed about his body art.

Abe checked the time – a quarter past four – and then addressed the team. "We're going to get going. Myself, Colonel Hall, and Luke will take 'Miss Adams' in her car, while Norm, Tseyo, Dawn, and Doctor Cook take the minivan. Does that work?" They nodded. "Then I'll meet you all in the garage. Colonel, Luke, I'll trust you can escort Miss Adams from the laundry room."

While the group made their way to the vehicles – "Bethany"'s rental car having been requisitioned the prior evening – Abe headed back upstairs for a final time. Krysta was still sleeping when he delicately sat on her side of the bed. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze to wake her. She turned over as she opened her eyes, and he smiled at her. "Hey, beautiful," he said.

Krysta reached up and touched his cheek. "This is it, huh?" she replied. He nodded, and she sat up to embrace him. Abe held her close, making small circles on the soft skin of her shoulders with his thumbs. Though Krysta had years earlier been forced to give up the fragrant, luxury perfumes which he remembered her for, her skin and hair still smelled sweet to him. They shared a long kiss, and then she said, "Make sure you see Natalie before you go."

"You know I will." She nodded and, after another kiss, settled back into the bed.

He made his way down to the basement. The hammock which had been strung up along the rest of the room on Tseyo's was once more been tied into a kind of satchel, containing the rest of Tseyo's few belongings. Against his effort to remain calm and demonstrate confidence, he was not entirely sure he shared Tseyo's optimism about being able to come back to collect his belongings. His stomach tensed.

He sighed and rapped a knuckle on Natalie's doorframe to see if Amy's suspicion had been correct. Sure enough, he heard a faint, "Come in."

When he entered the room, Natalie was sitting up in bed. Natalie smiled at him and said, "Hi, Daddy."

The door to her bathroom was open, and the showerhead dripping. Abe also noticed splotches of paint on the floor and walls; and while he recoiled at the thought of Tseyo having been in her room, he assumed it was better that he had done his artwork in there rather than on the carpet in the main room.

He ignored those details for the moment, smiling back at her as he sat on the edge of the bed and rested a hand on her knee. "Hey, Sweetie," he replied. "I'm going, now."

"I know," she said, placing a hand over his.

Abe took a deep breath and said, "I'm sure this isn't how you pictured me coming home, because this isn't how I wanted to come home. But I promise that, after today, you're going to be the only thing on my mind, okay?" She nodded, and he leaned forward to kiss her brow. "I'm so proud of you."

Natalie leaned forward to wrap her arms around him, and he did not hesitate to respond. It only took a few moments before he felt her begin to shudder in his arms, and he felt the warmth of tears against his skin. "Please come home, Daddy," she said. "I've missed you so much."

"I will," he replied. "I promise."

They held each other for a while longer, and then he kissed her cheek – unable to ignore the salt-like taste – and then let her go. He stood to leave, when Natalie reached out and took his hand. "Keep Tseyo safe, too," she said.

Abe gave her hand a squeeze and nodded. "We need him," he replied with a slight grin. "He'll be all right."

Natalie nodded, and then slowly settled back into her bed, releasing his hand. "Goodbye, Daddy."

"Bye, Sweetie."

He closed her door behind him, and then quickly made his way to the garage. Both cars were already started, and Abe got into the shotgun seat of the rental car. Amy sat in the driver's seat, while Luke – his lower lip swollen – kept Bethany under guard in the backseat. Abe's car took the lead of the small caravan, and they followed the same route as two days ago.

The only conversation they had was when Abe said to Bethany, "I hope you've already figured out it's in your best interests to keep your mouth shut."

"And why's that?"

"Because I think the only people they could possibly hate more than RDA's executives are its contractors," he replied. "They'll probably just force me to hand over one of my legitimate people, but they'll certainly kill you out of hand." Abe shrugged and added, "I could be wrong, but it strikes me as an unnecessary risk to try it out."

They were quiet for the rest of the way.

Despite the early hour, there was a steady, light stream of traffic headed towards San Francisco – the laborers who would be preparing office buildings for the white collared professionals, truckers carrying goods to markets, merchants getting a head start on opening their stores.

In the direction they were heading, however, traffic was almost non-existent. As such, it was not hard to figure the identity of the motorcyclist who raced up along their side several miles outside Modesto. Unlike before, it was not a small gang of armed escorts – just the lone biker. Abe looked over to Amy and said, "Be prepared to start driving."

She nodded and gripped the wheel just in time for the car's computer to announce, "Manual drive engaged. Please drive safely."

They followed the motorcyclist down the same poorly maintained road to the Soldiers' commandeered barn, and Abe was not surprised to see a slightly larger contingent of Soldiers than there had been when Abe was first brought here. They did not, however, seem as hostile.

Abe and his team were still deliberately commanded out of their vehicles at gunpoint; but when Tseyo emerged, a number of Soldiers broke out in applause to the apparent surprise of the Na'vi warrior, if not also Abe.

Their commander, however, was quick to put an end to their homage. "Shut up!" a large man shouted. "We're on an operation. Keep your shit together." He approached Abe and said, "Deal's a deal, Scheller. Who are you exchanging?"

Abe looked over at Bethany and said, "Her."

"Why her?"

"Why not?" Abe retorted as Luke walked her forward. "The deal was one of my people for one of yours. I wasn't asked to justify it."

"If you want our support…" the man began to growl.

Abe cut him off. "If you want to take down RDA today, then accept her."

The man looked about ready to hit Abe, but he relented. "She looks pissed," he commented.

"Yeah, well, none of us are particularly happy about this."

"No shit?" He sighed. "All right, fine." He turned and snapped his fingers, and a young woman emerged from a parked, large delivery van. She was dressed in a business suit, unlike her uniformed and dressed-down colleagues. "This is our operative, Ashley. If she thinks you're trying to fuck us over, you're dead."

If the commander had hoped to be intimidating, he only served to make Abe angrier. "I hope she doesn't have a weapon," Abe said tersely. "That'd going to make it difficult to get through the first layer of security."

"I can take care of myself without a gun, Scheller," Ashley said.

"We'll see," he replied. He pulled out the semi-complete forgery RDA badge from his leather case and said, "Since none of you told me what this person was going to look like, I haven't completed her badge. So unless you have a workshop nearby…"

Ashley interrupted Abe's line of thought when she casually pulled back her suit jacket to reveal a perfect RDA badge attached to her belt. "You're not the only one who can make RDA knock-offs," she said.

Abe paused to examine the badge's quality before he put away his own forgery. "Good to know." He nodded at the van and asked, "Is this ours?"

The Soldiers' commander nodded. "Short of a small truck, it should hold your people well enough."

Abe turned to Dawn and said, "Get its specs, and put it in RDA's delivery logs."

"Got it, Boss," Dawn said as she carried her own tablet over to the van and prepared a delivery form. In the meantime, at the commander's indication, Soldiers stepped forward and escorted Bethany back to other waiting vehicles.

"When Ashley gives us the word that your operation is complete," the commander said, "we'll talk about the next exchange."

"Keep her alive," Abe said flatly. "I'm not big into double-crosses."

"Neither are we," the commander replied. "Don't screw us, and we won't screw you."

When Dawn came back from the van, Abe huddled the group together. He gave each a communicator, while placing one in his ear. "All right, here's the chain-of-command. Norm is in charge of the infiltration team. Amy is his backup. Dawn's running control for all of us." He looked at Norm and said, "Wait here until you get the word from either me or Dawn."

"How long will that be?" he asked as he put in the earpiece.

"Seven's my guess," Abe replied. "It'll take about an hour and a half for me to get to Sacramento, then maybe a bit of a wait for the first high-speed. Once I'm onboard the train, I'll tell you to start moving."

"And if we don't hear from you?"

Abe took a breath. "If you haven't heard from me by nine-o-clock, get out of here," he said. "Get as far away as you can." He nodded at Dawn and said, "Is the virus ready?"

"Ready."

"Launch it when you get back to my house." He looked around the team. "Are we good?" They nodded. "Let's roll."

The Soldiers broke at the same time as the team. Dawn drove the minivan back to his house, while the rest of the team gathered in the delivery van. Once he and Ashley entered the rental car, she asked him, "Want to explain why we're going to Sacramento and not straight to RDA?"

"Because we want to enter Bay Point from the employee train entrance with hundreds of others," Abe replied. "Hoping our virus does its job, the guards there will be too overwhelmed from the manual checks to notice the imperfections on our badges."

She scoffed. "Maybe your badge is imperfect," she said. "You'd better not blow it for all of us."

Abe chose not to respond. He programmed the car's route to Sacramento, requested the news station, and settled in for a tense drive.

She had tried to go to sleep after her father's farewell in the hopes that doing so would help dull the impact his leaving had on her. It was wishful thinking at best. Natalie stayed awake until her alarm went off at its usual hour, and then she remained in bed for a while after. Vertex, her warm-bodied alarm clock, hurried downstairs not long after the alarm sounded and did his best to rouse her.

Natalie was not only kept in her bed by a deep fear for her father's well-being, but the ramifications of her rendezvous with Tseyo. When they first met – rather, when he simply emerged as a part of her life – she was happy to find that she was able to settle into a friendship with the object of her childhood affections. What had surprised her was how quickly she felt that happiness turn into more serious emotions.

Natalie had hoped that their idle conversation and proximity would settle any deeper longings. When that only served to inflame passion, she had hoped being adventurous might ultimately rid her of further desires. However, it wasn't until she was in the shower on the other side of their tryst that she realized how unprepared she had been for Tseyo to reciprocate her overtures. A cascade of thoughts and emotions had followed, and she was almost glad when Tseyo had given her a farewell.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Vertex's whimpers, and so she set them aside and coerced herself out of bed in order to tend to his needs. Even he seemed eager to try and reestablish some normalcy.

Max was in the kitchen, standing beside the microwave, when she went upstairs to put Vertex outside. "Good morning, Doctor," she said.

He smiled and nodded at her. "Good morning, Natalie." The microwave beeped, and he opened the door to withdraw a freezer pastry. "You know, despite all the fresh food on Pandora, I still love these."

"They can be addictive," she said as Vertex rushed past her and out the open door. Natalie eyed the still-broken kitchen window, and she felt a pang of guilt for having been so naïve to have let the enemy into the house. Natalie was sure that it must have been a stroke of luck that ultimately allowed her to be captured. "So, what are you going to do with the others gone?"

"Once I know that they've accomplished their part of the mission, I'm going to release Grace's field notes to the public," he said. "And then I'm getting the hell out of Dodge."

"You think it's going to be bad?"

"I know I don't want to be here to find out," he replied. "But really, I just want to go home and see what's left of the family."

"You're married?"

Max shook his head and bit into the microwaved breakfast. "Parents and siblings," he said with his mouth full. "They usually don't let people with spouses and kids go to Pandora." She raised an eyebrow at him and, a moment later, Max swallowed and said, "Sorry."

Natalie just shrugged. "Where's home?"

"Rockville, Maryland," he said before he ate the rest of the pastry. "Know it?" She shook her head. "It's outside Washington, D.C."

Vertex barked at the door, and Natalie let him back inside. She was filling his food dish when Dawn came in from the garage. Natalie raised her brow in curiosity and asked, "What are you doing back here?"

"Running control," she said as she set up a pseudo-workstation on the dining table. "So far, so good – but then, we've only just started."

Max left the kitchen with a slight nod – and a second pastry precariously held between his teeth – and Natalie sat beside Dawn. "Honestly, what's the chance that this succeeds?"

Without looking up from her work, Dawn replied, "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told your dad, 'It's too late to worry about that.' You've just got to go with it."

"Knowing my dad—," she had to pause to consider the statement. "Well, from what I can tell, he's at least prepared for things to go wrong. I want to be, too. So, how prepared should I be?"

Dawn did not answer immediately as she flew through a multitude of windows on her tablet, most of which displayed a programming language which Natalie could not even begin to comprehend. Eventually she said solemnly, "You may want to get a bag together."

Her stomach lurched. "A bag?"

"Keep it to essentials. Something you could easily carry on and off a train or plane, like you were going away for a weekend." Dawn added after taking another moment to concentrate on her work. "You probably want your passport, too."

"Where is this weekend getaway?"

Dawn sighed and looked up at her. "Natalie, I get that you're nervous, but getting into the weeds won't help. Sitting around and waiting to launch an emergency plan will only ratchet up your stress. Your dad made arrangements. Leave it at that."

"I don't know that I couldn't be any more stressed than I am right now," she replied. "Daddy's kept me in the dark on so much, I barely know what I'm supposed to be worried about."

"I'm pretty sure your dad kept you in the dark because he didn't want you to worry about the details," Dawn said. "I don't disagree."

"So I'm just supposed to sit here and do—?"

"Start making your bug-out bag," she replied. Dawn held up a hand and said, "I'm not saying you're going to need it, but even preparing it might put your mind at ease."

"I doubt it," she said with a short laugh.

Dawn frowned and returned to the work on her tablet. A few moments of silence passed before Natalie got up the will to walk away from the table and go about preparing for her escape. However, when she stood up, Dawn asked, "So, did you make it through the night?"

It took Natalie a moment to recall the conversation she had with Dawn the night before, and then her stomach turned. She looked up to the second floor hallway to be sure her mother was not hovering nearby, and then Natalie said, "No. I think I made a mistake."

"How so?" Natalie was about to answer, but Dawn stopped her by holding up a hand. She then pressed on the earpiece she wore and said, "I'm here, Boss." Natalie strained herself to try and hear her father's voice on the other side, but there was no chance of it. The seemingly one-sided conversation continued. "It's doing its thing, and no signs we've been had. Where are you? This early, huh? Hold on. It looks like you could make the six-forty, but I'd guess the seven-o-clock. Roger that, Boss – ten minutes."

Dawn took her hand away from the earpiece and turned to look at Natalie. "What kind of mistake?"

The morning sky was a dull grey ahead of the sunrise. Despite this early hour, outside and half a mile below James Savage's window, San Francisco was coming to life. The RDA chief executive officer, and chairman of its board of directors, stood in front of a wall with an array of screens, each serving as a window to a specific set of information.

There were screens for national news, world stock markets, employee workstream data, and real-time budget tracking. There was a screen that synthesized the most important developments of all the others, and then an applet to consolidate the information on that screen. In among all of this information, there was a screen dedicated to daily reports filed by the heads of RDA's divisions. Chairman Savage flipped quickly through these reports in search for the only one he was concerned with reading: the report from his chief of Asset Management and Information Security.

Upon finding the document, he stopped to parse out every detail. It was not difficult to do – there were few details. The chairman grumbled and pulled up the responsible executive's profile on his screen, and then pushed a button to call his office. Less than a second later, Franklin Ashworth was on his screen – still tying his tie. "Good morning, Mister Chairman. What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me why your Daily is so light," he said. "Your investigator has been on this for a couple of days, and we have as much information as when we started." He did not need to spell out which case he was referring to. There was only one priority for him.

"I didn't get a field report last night," the executive replied. "I've been trying for the last few hours to get one, but the asset has been unreachable."

"Seems to raise a red flag, don't you think?"

"Yes, sir," he said. "If I can't get a report by nine, we'll go to our next option."

Savage raised an eyebrow. "You didn't tell me you had a backup plan."

"SecOps has a strike team on standby to raid his home," Franklin replied. "I also have the ear of a sympathetic judge. California Highway Patrol has to be the one to get a search warrant and accompany us, but we'll be able to take the lead on the raid and seal evidence under the Economic Protection Act."

"Is it an issue to bring in local police?" he asked.

Franklin shook his head. "We've had a representative on their warrant enforcement and service team for a while. They know when and when not to poke around too much."

"Why didn't you do this first?"

"Because sending in a SWAT team to a high-class gated community is an incredibly public event," the executive said. "Too many questions to handle without a plan. I'm meeting with Janet later this morning to work the spin."

"And if Abe isn't there?"

"He's there," Franklin replied flatly. "I have no doubts about it. I'm sure whatever loose ends exist are also there. One giant package."

Savage took a breath and said, "All right, to hell with your asset. It hasn't been much of an asset anyway, just a waste of time. Go with the strike team – unless you have a good reason to wait."

Franklin seemed to hesitate. "Well, sir, I just want to say again that if we go this route, we're very likely going to miss the chance to learn what got him worked up in the first place. That would be a lingering risk."

"Whatever got him to turn traitor is up on Pandora," Savage replied sternly. "And it won't be long before we have that planet taken care of. We're not playing around anymore, Franklin. No holds barred. We're getting our arms around this situation once and for all."

"Yes, sir."

"Anything else?"

"Did you have a chance to look over last night's security report?"

"Not yet."

"Soldiers of Gaia put out a scapecast yesterday, a call to arms against us," Franklin said. "The feedback was pretty strong."

Savage snorted, "The soggies are always railing against RDA. What's the issue this time?"

Franklin chuckled. "I tried to listen to all of it, but it was practically incoherent – mostly language that only Soldiers would understand. There was no issue in particular, I think they just want to let us know that they're still alive."

"There's nothing new about that," the chairman replied. An alphabet soup's worth of national and international organizations were hunting down the Soldiers' leadership following a wave of terrorist acts in the last decade. Nobody in their right minds could doubt that the Soldiers were anything but alive. "Why's it in the security report?"

"Their call to arms involves a demonstration outside the compound," Franklin replied. "Based on the feedback they got in the virtualscape, we're estimating a crowd of a few hundred. Since the Soldiers' demonstrations almost always turn ugly. SFPD will have a presence to watch the crowd, but we're going to back them up with our own security."

"When are they starting?"

"They're already outside or checkpoints, harassing our employees as they come in." He reached off-screen and, with a crooked grin, held up a shirt and tie with fresh-looking coffee stains. "I can already report one arrest for disorderly conduct," he said.

Savage chuckled and asked, "You didn't take a company car in this morning?"

"I was here late and went out to get a cup of coffee, since the cafeteria won't open for another fifteen minutes." He shook his head and said with a short laugh, "To make the morning even better, facial recognition isn't working, so the guards have to make all the ID checks manually. CySec is checking to see if the outage is connected with the demonstration, but nothing so far."

The chairman had a renewed appreciation for his penthouse on the compound's property. "Well, it sounds like you've got a great start to a busy day. Call me when the strike team is launched – interrupt whatever I'm doing. I want to come down and monitor it myself."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

"No. See you later." He disconnected the call and returned to reviewing the day's agenda. Except for his expectation to be interrupted for the raid on Abe's base of operations, he did not find anything outside of the routine.

"We'll have it under control soon," he muttered to himself. "I'll be goddamned if this gets the better of me."