Chapter 3

AN: I am sorry this update was a little late. Not feeling well really cramps a writer's style. However, I am feeling better so here we are. I would like thank EVERYONE who reviewed, alerted, and favorited this story. Again, you all rock my world. Thank you for your kind words and support.

This chapter will be longer than the previous two as I was really interested in exploring the process of waking up in a new body. I hope I did it justice and that you all enjoy the experience as much as I think Naomi will…

I can remember my mother teaching me to spell my first name. She patiently had me learn the letters and their sounds. I remember being so proud to show her my first successful attempt at writing my name on my own without her help. And, I remember that she never got the chance to teach me my last name. So, when the Child Services people came to see me in the hospital after the explosion, I was only able to write my first name for them. I remember writing it over and over, as though by repeating this action that my mother had so lovingly taught me, I could keep her alive some how. I can also remember my last name, the one my mother gave me as the only reminder of a father I never met. The Child Services people did not know this last name and as I could not hear their questions, hear my own response, or spell it out, they gave me a new last name. But, I have always identified myself with my true last name, at least inside my own mind. It was this name that brought me to Pandora in the first place. My skills in anthropology and gesticulative ethnography were only the means with which to get here.

"They look like coffins."

Joshua stood on the opposite side of a link pod from Naomi looking down at the white capsule. Naomi simply nodded and tried to give him a reassuring smile. The link pods did indeed strongly resemble coffins, at least when they were closed. Naomi ran her hands along the smooth surface, not quite believing what she was about to do. Slight vibrations in the floor made her look up just as Dr. Patel, Norm, and Patricia made their way over to the two avatar drivers.

Patricia carried two display charts and looked possibly more excited than either Joshua or Naomi. She had come to Pandora as a neural specialist to assist in the avatar program. The two women had bonded a little over what passed as breakfast in the mess hall. Patricia had filled Naomi in on why she was there while Naomi taught Patricia a few signs. Patricia could now sign "hello," "goodbye," and "bathroom" with proficiency.

She signed "hello" now with her free hand as she came to stand in front of the link pod with the two men beside her. Naomi nodded and returned the greeting as Norm opened his mouth to speak.

"This will be your first link up with your real avatars. I know you logged many hundreds of simulation hours between the two of you, so there should be no real problem with the motor responsiveness. There will be differences between the simulated avatar experience and the real thing. Believe me." Norm waggled his eyebrows up and down as he graced them with a mischievous smile. Turning to face her directly, Norm placed his hand on Naomi's shoulder in a conspiratorial way leaning in so she could clearly see what he was saying.

"Naomi, you will notice this difference in a much greater way than Joshua here or almost anyone that has done this before." Norm's smile softened and seemed to grow wistful. "There have been a few before you that found freedom with their avatars that their human bodies could not afford. The simulator could not give this experience justice for you, as it could not simulate hearing for your human ears. Just relax and enjoy the experience, ok?"

Norm gave Naomi a pat on the shoulder as he turned to open the link pod and start the warm up sequence for the machinery. Dr. Patel had taken Joshua to the next pod over and was giving the young man a pep talk as he did the same preparations for Joshua's link pod that Norm was doing for Naomi's.

Patricia stood between the two pods practically bouncing up and down like a little girl about to see a very cool show. Her smile was as wide as her face would allow, white teeth gleaming. Dr. Patel joined her again, the prep done on the pods. Naomi watched as he kindly told Patricia to breathe and relax, putting a stabilizing hand on her elbow to slow the bouncing.

Naomi wondered why she herself didn't seem to be as obviously excited about all this. She took a moment as Norm was finishing up with her pod to explore this and realized that she still did not or could not imagine what the next few hours would be like. Yes, she had done over two hundred hours in the simulator, but as Norm had said, the real experience would be completely different than any computer could concoct.

Norm turned to her, finally finished with the warm up sequence on the pod and patted the glowing green bio gel that made up the bed inside the pod. This was the same as the simulator, so there was no surprise for Naomi at the springy cold feeling. She poked at it anyway, just to see the absorption of energy. The gel acted as both a buffer for movement and a stabilizer for the sleeping human form inside. The human body automatically locks all muscle movement during sleep to prevent injury, but there is inevitable twitching. As the avatar driver would be in deep REM, the gel allowed the skin to breathe and protected the fragile human form. Unfelt by the driver, it also was programmed to ripple slightly in timed intervals to encourage continued blood flow through the limbs. In real sleep, a human moves around to allow this blood flow. Here, it was the work of machines.

Naomi looked up to see Joshua already sitting in his pod, allowing Patricia to attach the diodes to his head. These diodes were only used on the first link up to ensure connectivity and monitor brain function. After this first test run, the link between avatar and human should be strong and stable, the diodes hopefully not needed.

Hefting herself easily up onto the gel bed, Naomi settled herself in the human shaped hole. She aligned her legs and arms with the gel shape and laid her head back on the cushioned gel headrest. Norm settled the wire net over her chest and checked the diodes attached to her forehead. Nodding to himself that everything was as it should be, Norm looked down at Naomi, uttering the obligatory phrase he himself had heard many times before, "Just try to let your mind go blank. Sweat dreams."

As the lid descended and the inside of the pod was plunged into an eerie green darkness, Naomi closed her eyes against the soft glow. The gel had mild smell of plastic and sweat, almost like a karate studio floor, but less unpleasant. She thought of those lucky individuals that had used this pod before her and as she let her mind focus on those vague thoughts, she slipped into REM sleep.

The tunnel of pulsating light was expected from the simulator. That didn't mean that it wasn't breathtakingly beautiful and surreal at the same time. Naomi was not aware of feeling really anything except excitement and awe as she traveled, seemingly at high speed, through this worm hole of consciousness. The light grew in intensity, nearing a painful point, if she had eyes to see it with. And, just as the light grew to its peek, it vanished and she was left in darkness.

The first thing that Naomi became aware of was her own breathing. It wasn't just her lungs moving air in and out, expanding and collapsing to do so. It wasn't the feeling of her chest rising and falling or the muscles and sinews pulling on her ribs as this natural body movement took place. It was the sound of her own breath passing through her nasal cavities, escaping into the atmosphere and then being sucked back in. Naomi listening to the whistling whoosh as she drew another breath in and let yet another out.

She could feel a warm wetness around her closed eyes that slid down her cheek and she realized that she was crying. The wonder of being able to hear her own body functions, the mysteries of breathing, were perhaps the most beautiful thing she had ever experienced. Naomi had never been particularly spiritual, anthropology ruling most of her adult life, but this, right now, was what she imagined being close to God would be like.

Taking another breath in, Naomi let herself hear more. Underneath the swish of air was the deep reverberating thump of her own heartbeat. If she concentrated hard enough, she could feel the blood flow through the arteries and veins in time with the thumping in her ears.

A gloved finger touched her face where the wetness of her tears had streaked on the skin. "Naomi, are you alright? Can you open your eyes for us?" Naomi did as requested. She looked up into the somewhat small looking mask covered face hovering above her and blinked as her eyes got used to the light in the room. She felt a bubbling rumble roil up from somewhere inside of her and heard the explosive release of air and noise as she realized two things; she was laughing and that she had understood the spoken request with her ears and brain working in perfect unison. New tears clouded her vision for a moment and streamed down her cheeks, running on the slant of her face and into her ears. The warmth of the wet tears fading as they reached the ears, pooling in coldness.

Naomi didn't care. It was like every emotion was trying to squeeze itself out all at once. She just let the tears roll and the laughter continue, it was all she could manage to do as her brain came to terms with her body's ability to hear.

Eventually, Naomi became aware of that same gloved hand rubbing her arm in comfort. She sniffled and reached to wipe the moisture away from her face and her ears. She stopped suddenly though as a large blue thing swayed into focus. Disjointedly, Naomi realized it was her own arm. Amazed at this new discovery, she flexed the fingers and moved the joints, starting with the wrist. Once satisfied that that it indeed was attached to her and seemed to be in working order, she completed the task which she had started out doing and wiped her hand across her face.

The masked doctor leaned over her again, reached out, and snapped loudly on her left then right side. Naomi flinched, as the sound was jarring and loud. The man smiled at her, and then looked up at someone else saying, "auditory responses are within normal parameters and forelimb muscular dexterity seems to be where it should be."

Naomi contented herself to just stare up at the man, amazed that she was still reading his lips even while she could hear what he was saying. She found herself memorizing the sounds that matched the movement of the lips.

The man looked down again and cocked his head in confusion, obviously not understanding why Naomi was moving her own lips in funny shapes, as she tried to imagine what sound those shapes would make.

"Can you sit up for me?" The doctor reached out his hands, one he held out for Naomi to grab and the other he tucked behind her back to help her shift to a vertical position.

Naomi felt the muscles in her abdomen flex and contract as she sat up on the gurney. Once in this position she was able to look around her. She noticed the window to the science lab where Patricia and Dr. Patel stood with display charts in hand. They were nodding to each other and looking expectantly down into the avatar medical bay. Patricia caught sight of Naomi's gaze and waved cheerfully down at her.

Naomi smiled up at the two scientists, feeling her lips slide across her teeth. She opened her mouth a little and let her tongue run along them as well, feeling the unfamiliar elongated canines on the top and the matching groves on the bottom that allowed the mouth to close smoothly. She shook her head as she thought of the computer simulation exercises she had endured and how they had not even come close to the very real feeling of this body and the environment around her.

"Ok Naomi, can you swing your legs around now and touch them to the floor?"

Again, Naomi responded as requested and marveled in the feeling of muscle and bone moving smoothly to glide her long blue legs over the side of the gurney. Her blue feet were bare and as she set them on the smooth tiled floor of the medical bay, she felt the coolness of the ground on her soles. Staring down at these newfound appendages, she wiggled her toes and giggled again at all the new sensations permeating her existence, not the least of which was the ability to hear and understand the words of the doctor.

That same gloved hand gently grabbed her chin and lifted her face to meet the doctor's. It was sort of funny that this grown man was as tall standing up as Naomi was sitting. She noticed how small those hands now looked and how fragile this little doctor appeared to be. He shown a light in her eyes quickly, checking the iris' response to stimulus. Apparently happy with the results he nodded to himself and typed something in to the display screen next to the gurney.

Naomi calmly allowed the man to continue his physical examination of her as he shined light into her ears to check for any abnormalities there. She was amused to note that she had to bend over slightly to allow the doctor to do this. He then moved on to reflex response as he knocked his little plastic hammer against her knees. Naomi watched in fascination as her leg flung up and out as the doctor hit the pressure point just below the kneecap.

She allowed him to systematically bend all her joints starting with the pinky finger on her right hand, moving across to her elbow and shoulder and next, to the other side of her body. As he was doing this, Naomi tried to focus on different sounds around her, expanding her attention outwards from her own breathing. There was her heartbeat again, but louder was a sort of high pitched humming. She cocked her head to see if she could pinpoint where it was coming from without looking away from what the doctor was doing with her left elbow.

Naomi felt the minute muscles that manipulated ear movement shift as the cat-like ears of the avatar turned to find the noise. As the doctor started bending her left thumb, she realized the high pitch humming was really coming from two places. One was all around her at chest level and the other was above her. She first looked around and saw the machinery of the medical bay. Some of the humming, the softer part of the noise seemed to be coming from those machines. Looking up, Naomi realized that the other part of the high-pitched noise was coming from the light fixtures. She was surprised to realize that she did not entirely enjoy these noises. It was not that she didn't enjoy hearing them, but the noises themselves somehow felt a little wrong to her. Perhaps, she reasoned, it was just because she was new to hearing these things.

"Ok, Naomi. Here comes the big test. I want you to try and stand up now."

Naomi's attention shifted swiftly back to the little doctor. He looked at her and held his arms out for her to steady herself with. She wrapped her much larger fingers around his forearms and shifted her own wait slowly forward. It was sort of like trying to stand up after being knocked in the head too hard. You weren't certain if your legs would remember your weight or how to balance.

As she stood up, Naomi had a moment of vertigo, as everything in the room seems to shrink away from her. The doctor, who had appeared small before, now looked almost cartoonishly little. The machinery looked like it was built for a doll. Only the gurney behind her looked proper sized. Naomi blinked a few times, willing the dizziness to recede. This part of the avatar experience had been covered in the simulations thoroughly, so Naomi knew it was just a matter of letting her mind adjust to the change in vertical circumstances.

When the feeling of being off balance faded, Naomi looked down at the doctor, somewhat surprised to find him still there until she realized that she had him by the arms in what looked like a painfully tight grip. Before she even knew what she was doing she heard a low but pleasant sounding voice say, "Sorry."

The doctor rubbed his arms briskly for a second before looking up and replying, "That's alright. Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you didn't topple like a tree."

Naomi blinked down at him wondering whom he was talking to. Then her eyebrows raised up in astonishment as she realized that the voice she had heard had been her own. She had spoken the apology for hurting the doctor without even thinking about it. It had just flowed from her brain to her mouth and out into the world in anatomical precision. She had just spoken without having to think where her tongue needed to go, without positioning her lips just so and concentrating on the movement of her vocal cords. It had just slipped out so naturally that she was taken aback by the ease of it all.

She found herself getting dizzy again as this new revelation was just a little too much to handle on top of everything else. Naomi plopped back down on the gurney as new tears started flowing down her cheeks and the laughter rumbled back up. She was laughing so hard and loud that the sounds shifted and she began sobbing. The poor doctor couldn't do anything for her but pat her on the back and use his sleeve to help wipe some the tears away. Every time Naomi would start to calm down, she would realize that the sounds she heard were coming from her own body, her own throat and lungs, and the laughing/sobbing/crying would start anew.

Determined to join her fellow avatars at some point in the day, Naomi finally managed to get a handle on her emotions. Besides, she reasoned with her self, she still had an entire world of sounds outside this room to discover. She consciously slowed her breathing and was able to blink aside the last of the tears. Experimentally, she opened her mouth and tried to speak again.

"Sorry. This is the first time I am hearing my own voice since I was four and a half."

The doctor nodded kindly and patted her on the shoulder. He smiled as he positioned himself in front of her again, arms reached out for support like before. Naomi felt the emotion bubble up again as she pronounced this sentence, again marveling at the seamless connection between brain, mouth, and ears, but she determinedly stamped it down as she again grasped the doctor's arms. This second time, she was only dizzy for a few moments before the body's equilibrium kicked in.

"Ok, Naomi, I am going to let go now. I want you to stand there until you are sure of your balance, and then you are going to walk to me." The doctor moved a little away from her, going to stand next to the other gurney that Joshua had been on. She looked around the little room as she realized the other avatar was no longer there. He must have finished his examination a while ago and been released out into the avatar paddock with his doctor in tow. Naomi was alone in the medical bay with her own doctor. Even Dr. Patel and Patricia had left the observation window up above. Naomi wondered briefly how long it had been since she had woken up. To her, it felt like a lifetime of new discoveries and emotional outbursts. Looking at the doctor, who patiently waited for her, she felt sorry that she had taken his time like this when Naomi was sure he had other things he needed to do.

Determined to let him get to his other duties without any more delays, Naomi wobbled her way over to him. Walking was interesting. Her mind was used to the movement of her human body, not this lanky avatar. As she reached him, the doctor smiled and backed up to the door that Naomi had not noticed was there. She smiled and worked her way towards him again. This time she wobbled slightly less on her long legs, allowing the natural flow of body movement to take over her rational thinking brain.

"Good, Naomi. Remember to allow your mind and body to work together. Don't think about what you have to do too much before you do it, and you should be just fine." The doctor reached behind him, unlocking the door and moving in to the hallway, all the while forcing Naomi to walk to keep up with him. She grew more confident in her motions as she stopped trying to consciously control her muscles. She peeked behind her as they reached the end of another long corridor and giggled at the blue tail seemingly poking out of her rear end. Distractedly, she watched the tail bounce along as she moved forward. Naomi noticed how it perfectly counterbalanced her forward and side motions. She made a mental note to test out how well the thing performed in the open.

The doctor led her to what looked like a locker room. He waved her inside and told her he would wait outside while she changed. Naomi walked into the room, noting the elongated lockers with names on them. It reminded her of waking up only a few days ago on the Niagara Star Explorer. Had that really only been a few days ago? Logically it must have, but right now, it felt like a lifetime ago.

Again, Naomi noticed that Joshua must have already been through here and was gone. She sighed as she found her locker. Her name was neatly stenciled on the metal surface. Upon opening the thing, she found a khaki field outfit made to fit the avatar. It even had a convenient hole in the rear for her tail. Getting the clothing on was a challenge, as she had not yet mastered the movements and coordination of the avatar. After managing to struggle into the clothes properly, Naomi went to the bathroom, located off to the side of the locker room. Another set of challenges later and she had relieved herself without much incident. Walking up to the sink and washing her hands, Naomi took an opportunity to look in the mirror.

It was like wearing a mask for Halloween and looking in the mirror. She didn't recognize the face staring back at her. It was blue and big and funny shaped. She smiled at the mirror and watched as her reflection slid its lips and mimicked her movements. Naomi wiggled her ears and nodded her head up and down, just to make sure this was really herself she was looking at.

Drying her hands on her pants, she walked back out to the locker room, again feeling the strange sense of emotional rawness and a slip on reality. The doctor was where he said he would be as Naomi pushed the door open. He looked her up and down, nodded to himself that she looked all right and led the way down yet another hallway. The door at the end of this one, however, was much thicker than the others.

Reaching it, the doctor turned to Naomi. He smiled up at her with a twitching of his eyebrows. "Now you may go out and play with the rest of the kitties." He opened the latch on the door, swinging it outwards into the bright sunlight. Naomi gazed in wonder at the vivid colors that awaited her. The warm fragrant air drifted to her nose. And, the sounds of people laughing, far away animals honking, and machinery running reached her ears. She stepped out onto the soft surface of the planet. Behind her, the hallway seemed dark and dreary compared to the bright wonderfulness of the world Naomi found herself in. She closed her eyes and lifted her head to feel the warmth of the real air on her face and the gentle breeze that ruffled her clothing. It was as though she had never known what a natural wind felt like, never smelled growing things, never sensed the awesomeness of life around her before now.

As she kept her eyes closed, Naomi allowed her ears to discover the world, hearing the buzz of flying things and wind rustling the leaves of the plants near by. If she focused in she could hear her own breathing again, and softer, her heartbeat thumping steadily in her chest. But under all of this, Naomi heard a barely audible hum. This was not the high-pitched uncomfortable buzzing of machinery like in the medical bay. This was deeper. She was not even sure it was a noise, but she could just feel it on the peripheral of her hearing, the low vibrations, thrumming somewhere deep in her consciousness. They seemed to emanate from both inside Naomi and all around her all at the same time. It was as though the entire world vibrated on a sub-frequency as energy flowed over, around, and through it.

Naomi opened her eyes in amazement. The doctor, who had been watching her for any negative physical reactions now laughed quietly. He looked out over the paddock and back up at Naomi. Smiling, he waved his hand, indicating the bright light and lush vegetation of this world.

"Welcome to the real Pandora."