And here is the second chapter, thank you all so much for all the amazing reviews it really warms my heart! For this chapter I had to do lot of research, fortunately there is AvatarWiki to help me with most of my Alien anatomical needs. Of course some of it is fudged to fit in with the mpreg.
Thank you all so much for reading!
Chapter 2: My Other body
After the safety talk Jake followed everyone else out of the mess-hall, he tried to figure out the signs leading people to their workstations. Jake himself was lost; he couldn't follow the other troops to where they went, since he didn't belong there anymore. Which meant that currently he was lost. A sigh left him as he tightened his grip on the alloy of his wheel. He made sure that his duffle bag was placed securely on his knees before simply deciding to follow the most geekiest-looking people, hoping they would take him to the right place.
"Hey!" called a voice.
Jake stopped and turned to see who had called him, just a lanky guy with dark brown hair, although the patchy goatee he sported was lighter. The man wore a wide happy smile on his face that made his dark green eyes twinkle. He wore a plain greyish shirt with a dark brown vest over the top and dark shorts.
"Hey, you're Jake, right?" he said enthusiastically, shouldering his pack while reaching his right hand out to shake. "Tom's brother? You look a lot like him."
Jake couldn't help but stare up at the tall guy apprehensively, which he seemed to notice and instantly tried to correct himself. "Sorry, my name is Norm Spellman, I went through Avatar training with him."
The veteran nodded and took Norm's hand into his own to shake.
"He was a great guy… funny . It was a big shock to all of us," he said, giving a remorseful look.
"Yeah…" Jake nodded, taking his hand out of the shake and pushed himself forwards, while Norm followed him.
"And duh! - obviously you look like him. I mean, if you weren't genetically identical, you wouldn't be taking over his avatar," said Norm nervously.
"That's what I'm here for."
"Well, do you want to go see it?"
Jake looked up confused. "See what?" he asked.
"Your Avatar of course!"
Jake was curious what these Avatars actually looked like, Tom never really talked about it properly but he always seemed excited when he talked about the program. Even the mission brief he had to read wasn't that thorough and actually quiet vague on the details. It would be exciting to finally find what an 'Avatar' actually was.
"Sure, that would be great."
"C'mon, follow me," said Norm with a grin.
The brunette pushed himself forwards, winding through the busy hallways with Norm. There were too many people around which was difficult for him to make through. They found themselves in front of the closed doors to the Bio-Lab. Norm swiped in his badge so that the electronic doors swished open to reveal inside. It was a huge room, with the main console set out in the centre of the complex with many adjoining rooms. Norm led him down the ramp towards a set of scientists who were supervising the uncrating of two shipping containers.
"Hello Doctor Patel," Norm called out.
"Ah Norm, it's good to see you, did you have a good trip, and I already told you to call me Max, " then he looked down finally noticing Jake. Surprise seemed to filter through his eyes before he gave him an awkward smile. "You must be Jake Sully, I'm sorry to hear what happened to your brother."
"It's fine, it wasn't something that could be predicted," he replied.
There was a point of awkward silence which was disturbed by a loud hissing as the hydraulics locks of the crates unlocked and the shipping containers opened. The nearest had its side removed to show a ceiling-high acrylic tank, an amino tank, and the creature that was floating inside, a very, very large creature.
"Damn, they're big," Jake couldn't help but exclaim.
Norm couldn't help but chuckle. "They mature on the trip out," he then turned to Max. "So that the proprioceptive sims worked pretty well."
"Yeah, they've got great muscle tone. Give us a day or two then you guys can take them for a spin," replied Max.
Jake wanting to get a better look pushed himself forward towards the tank, wheeling around to the side to look through the glass at the bluish amino liquid.
It was a blue man with almost feline features, its skin cyanide blue, a pair of cat-like ears sprouting from its head, and what looked like pale blue stripes coming down the side of his face and flowing down the rest of his shoulders to curl around its stomach. Its nose was long, shaped almost snout-like, reminding him more and more of an animal. Blood circulated through a synthetic umbilical cord that is attached to its abdomen. As the creature floated in the fluid it revealed a lemur-like tail, that gave unconscious twitches, its long fingers curling together like babies in the womb. Long black hairs came down from its head, braided strands drifting gracefully like seaweed in the water.
Jake remembered reading what these Avatars were, remotely controlled bodies grown from human DNA mixed with DNA of the natives. But he had never seen the pictures of the Avatars before, this was the first time. The avatar turned in the water and Jake was taken aback by how much the face… the face…
"It looks like Tom," he couldn't help but whisper.
"No," Norm spoke up. "It looks like you. This is your Avatar now, Jake."
For some reason the comment stung. His brother was dead, and now he was the replacement. Nonetheless Jake was mesmerized by the creature in the tank, even if he wasn't the one who was meant to ride it.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
It would be thought that after almost six years of cryo sleep you wouldn't feel tired, but Jake did. Maybe it was just him trying to get used to this new place, the compound of Hell's Gate was something familiar. The military regime was something he was used to. Yet when he looked through the reinforced windows he saw a different world… well he was on an Alien planet, but that wasn't it. Maybe it was the culture shock.
This was after all the first time where he had gone off planet. That might have been the reason why he felt the way he did. Especially here where suddenly he wasn't a marine anymore but part of the geek troupe, the scientists. His brother would have loved it here, Tom couldn't stop talking about this place when he was enlisted. It was a bitter thought.
Yet even though he was tired he couldn't sleep. So he decided to go back to the Bio-Lab to have a look at the tank, and his Avatar. He had gotten his own id card now and swiped himself to get inside. As soon as he got in he was met by shouting, a red-haired woman was drawing up a storm shouting at the staff as she strides out of the 'Link room'.
"What is wrong with you all, I asked for the delay glitch to be fixed yesterday. Why am I still having problems with reaction time?" she snapped, although from the reactions of the other staff members it was a sight they have seen before, and weren't scared at all.
She continued to snap at everyone before demanding a cigarette, which one of the younger women brought her. Then she turned her gaze on him, and he was taken aback by how furious she looked. She strode up the ramp and came to a stop right in front of him, hand on her hips, exuding her authority and anger.
"You the replacement?" it wasn't much of a question, more of a statement.
"Er…"
"God!" she went off in a huff. "I needed the scientist with the PhD and 3 years training, not a fucking gun-toting gorilla!"
Now Jake didn't appreciate the comment at all. "Yeah well you got me instead, I know it's a big inconvenience for everyone," he replied with just the same amount of force .
She paused then gave him a glance. She tsked and turned away to go back to the main console, bringing up some figure before transferring it to her portable holo display, before she turned to look at him again. Scrutinizing him from head to toe.
"How much experience do you have on a simulator?"
"None."
Her face contorted in distaste. "Great , ever run a gas chromatograph?"
"No."
"Lab work?" she asked, her voice filled with disbelief.
"High school chemistry, but I ditched."
She looked just about ready to explode. "We are meant to go on a field a mission tomorrow and they got us someone who knows nothing!"
"I read the mission reports."
"Mission reports are bias and full of shit!" she snapped slamming her holo display on the metal desk. "Max, get this bozo a crash course on Pandorian xenology, I want him fully prepped and ready for tomorrow. I'm gonna go talk to Selfridge."
She shoved past him and through the automatic door to get to the upper levels. Jake watched her go before turning to look at the sympathetic yet bemused Max. He nodded towards Jake and motioned him to follow; the brunette pushed himself, turning his chair so that he could follow the scientist in the opposite direction, away from the angry woman. Maz grabbed a few folders from a shelf, probably filled with research that he would have to go through and learn.
"Who is she?"
"Huh? Oh, her name is Grace Augustine, she's a legend. She's the head of the Avatar Program and practically wrote the book, no literally wrote the book, on Pandorian botany!"
Jake couldn't help but chuckle, Max seemed to have a touch of hero worship on the scientist. the man continued telling him extracts of the book, but he wasn't really listening. He led Jake into a mostly empty room that was mostly dominated by a large vid screen. Max put the screen on before opening the folder to take out a small usb. He inserted it into the side of the screen; suddenly the screen flashed to show off a blue humanoid creature, looking much like the Avatars. A male and female version. Expect their faces were more animal-like than the Avatar's, their eyes bigger, no eyebrows and long braided hair on their head. They were both thin, although the male obviously more toned; what he was curious about was that they seemed to have no outer features. As if they were wearing a blue bodysuit, their torso's extremely thin, and with no body hair as well.
"We'll start with the basics that appear on both genders, okay?" Max stated as he put the lights off.
"Sure, let's get started."
"These are the humanoid indigenous creatures that live on Pandora, we call them the Na'vi. Although they would probably kill you if you called them by that name, they see it as an insult, a bastardisation of their culture.
"On Pandora there're several tribes, each with their own unique beliefs and ways of living, but they all tie themselves around their goddess Eywa."
"Eeew-ya?"
"No, no, it's more like aey-wahh. We'll have to book a language session as well but we won't have time for that 's continue; the tribe that Dr. Augustine has association with call themselves Omatikaya, or Omaticaya in English, which means the Blue Flute Clan. The tribe lives in the forest, and their leader is called the Eytukan. Keeping up so far?"
Jake couldn't help but snort, "Yeah."
"Good, and then there is Mo'at their spiritual leader, remember Eywa? Well supposedly she has a direct connection with their deity, and can even speak to her through visions."
"Really? I find that hard to believe…" he muttered. She probably drugged herself like one of those oracles from ancient Greece.
"The indigenous stand at around 3 meters tall, we believe that this is due to the denser Pandorian atmosphere. They have smooth skin that is cyan in colour, accentuated with slightly darker cyan stripes; this is a form of camouflage and helps them to blend in with their environment.
"What's interesting also is that they have bioluminescent markings all along the skin which flows with the path of the circulatory or nervous system, Dr. Augustine thinks that they're a form of identification and can even display moods. As you noticed their eyes are large, and almost cat-like; it's an aid to help them see in the dark, don't worry your Avatar has the same general attributes."
"Wait, does that mean they bleed blue or something?" Jake asked.
"No, their blood is as red as ours. Now the Na'vi live longer than the average human, about 30% longer, although they mature more rapidly. The first time we visited them they called us 'children'. Grace wasn't happy with that at all, being called a child is never fun," Max said, moving along the slides.
"I can imagine," she didn't seem like the type who liked getting undermined.
"Movin' on, their skeletons are reinforced with naturally occurring Carbon fibre, meaning that it's light yet very strong. This mean that they are very agile and Grace has even observed them jumping from treetops like monkeys, and they're four times stronger than the average human. Their tail is used for balance, but it can be moved like any other appendage, yet it often also expresses emotions. The average male mass is around 162 kg, but about 0.8g lighter because of the gravity, females are obviously lighter. They have four fingers, and that includes the opposable thumbs, yet the Avatars you'll be using have the normal 5 fingers. But what is most interesting is that the Na'vi also have opposable toes, again like our primate relatives.
"You also might have noticed the hair, the Na'vi have a large amount of it braided around a natural queue that protrudes from the base of their skull and is connected to the brainstem. Dr. Augustine mentions that they can use the queue's as a form of communication, building bonds, and it also plays a large part in their mating rituals, although she isn't completely sure how it works. Only that queues are tightly packed with nerves and so very sensitive."
Through each explanation the pictures displayed changed, zooming in on each prominent parts high-lighted and labeled. Jake felt like his head was pounding with all this new information, but the way Max was looking at him he felt like there was more to this than what he first thought.
"There's more to this, isn't there?" he asked.
Max looked slightly uncomfortable; he fidgeted before turning away from Jake. "Well er, biology wise there're male and female, but recently there have been, how do I say this… a third sex?"
"Third sex?"
"A form of hermaphroditesation among the male species to be exact, the Omaticaya clan said that in the past 50 years there have been fewer females being born overall. Eywa their goddess corrected that by giving young males the 'gift' of birth," he finished.
The brunette looked at him in disbelief. He may not know a lot about biology, but he was starting to get some sort of idea of what the scientist was talking about. "Are you actually telling me that the males can get pregnant?" he asked, then he frowned. "Wait...why are you telling me this?"
"When we made Tom's- I mean your Avatar, we found that your gene allowed for the RNA to appear. Your Avatar is a hermaphrodite."
If Jake wasn't a hardened soldier, he would have fainted.
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