XVII: Wings for Yawne (VI)
Jake slowly came around; his vision became the correct colors again instead of looking at an old TV hit by a magnet, his tongue tasted heavy in his mouth, and he could have sworn he had ran ten miles. The first thing Jake did when he was able to sit up was make sure the white powder was gone. It was thankfully, though his didn't know how. In answer Norm and Max were standing outside the glass as a few people in biosuits stood back watching him nervously; it was like waking up in his Avatar for the first time all over again. Jake tried to clear the fuzzy headache from his temples and smiled at everyone. "Whoa, Deajavu."
Instant smiles followed and many relieved looks, Norm spoke over the intercom. "Hey buddy, glad o have you back, how are you feeling?"
Jake pondered the question a moment, checking in on himself. "The back of my head is still throbbing, I've got a headache and feel like I've been hit by a freight train, but other than that I'm pretty good." In response the doctors lined up a needle for him, and Jake watched as Norm and Max discussed something on the other side. "What'd I miss?"
Norm turned back, "Yeah Jake, we have some bad news…"
"Oh man, what hit me and how many continues do I have left?" Yawne cupped his eyes on the second table.
…
The rundown wasn't something Jake wanted to hear. His face dropped with every word and then hardened into stone. He'd knew it was coming of course, he knew it all to well; but he had at least thought, hoped, there would be a five year respite. Now it was upon him, he didn't want to imagine the loss of lives that were coming. If the RDA were already taking out weapon supplies… they weren't far from trying to annihilate the Na'vi on Pandora. Why they hadn't completely leveled the facility was obvious; the base represented an investment, expensive equipment and further, all the data the teams had uncovered since the RDA left. It was valuable Intel. Jake rubbed his temples, trying to take stock of what happened and what needed to happen. He hadn't known all the personnel who stayed behind personally, there was a lot of vouching from Max and a bit from Norm, but he was glad Sun had been one of them.
She was efficient, her soldier training allowing her to pick up the slack where others were clueless. She wasn't military per say, just a mechanic, but she had military training. Jake knew that really didn't make sense, but he didn't question it, not when she had all but been saving their bacon for the last half hour. The fact she had a team of Na'vi who trusted her spoke even more highly of her abilities. But now that Jake was awake, he needed to know everything. Jake finally lifted his head. "And you're saying, he can now cause some kind of psychic feedback stimuli?" Jake asked, clearly intending for the abstract concept to be put into words someone who only 'dissected a frog once' would understand.
Norm didn't seem to really notice, "Okay it's kind of up in the air right now, we've been too busy testing the anti-venom and getting everything back on its feet to really uh, delve into it. But my brain scan showed activity that was generated by events that didn't happen physically." Jake gave Norm an endearing look. Norm closed his eyes and nodded, "Yeah okay, we think he can make you think something is happening when it isn't. But it seems to be strongest when there is skin to skin contact, we think it has to do with a- alright… a… suggestion chemical of some kind, or something." Norm finally gave up, throwing his hands in the air.
Max smiled taking over, "So far no one has been hurt, but this constant sedating hasn't made him any easier to talk to."
Jake sighed through his teeth, looking through the glass at the stranger. "…and you say Neytiri went back to home tree to see if it was attacked?" Norm and Max nodded. Jake crossed his arms. "Well… I guess he'll have to wait, I'm going to go check in with Sun and her team, then see what's happening with the Na'vi." Jake turned looking across the faces listening anxiously and found Yawne leaning on a console. Jake had to admit it was only odd seeing a more-than-half-naked nearly-ten-foot-tall blue-cat-man sitting against a wall when it was Yawne and his slightly off skin pattern. Jake became keenly aware of his own partial nudity, loincloth hiked to the unforgiving places. "Yawne." Jake called to him. Yawne lifted his head, still a bit groggy – as Jake was but Jake didn't show it- from the Strangers venom. "I want you to stick around here, see if you can help calm this guy down or draw him out of his shell, or whatever; I don't know, I don't have the experience dealing with head handicaps." Jake said it nonchalantly, and Yawne took no offense. He only nodded, slowly rising and coming to their position.
"We have psychologists around here somewhere." Max grinned.
"Yeah, but I don't think after Norm, this guy wants to see to many humans or Avatars. Yawne doesn't look like an Avatar and he has more experience with mind stuff then anyone I know. Trust me, if anyone can pull someone back, it's the Love Doctor." Jake grinned, unable to help himself.
Yawne was actually taken back by the high praise, rubbing the back of his head shyly. "Aw, shucks." he said half heartedly, though his tone was more genuine then intended.
Jake grinned again, "I'll take a set with me so we can stay in contact. When sun gets the comm. links and scans up, we'll see what we're dealing with." Jake looked to Norm, then Max, and the others one by one- making sure they understood their roles and what was happening, and also allowing for any questions. No one made to ask anything else, so Jake nodded once and then turned to try and locate this 'Ms. Sun.' He had a few questions for her about the base, their capabilities and their ability to respond to orbital attack. He blamed himself for the lack in proper defense planning… he'd known all along the humans would come back with a vengeance and he also knew now that the gauntlet had been thrown, there would be no easy peace ever again. Jake's footsteps hovered on the breach of a war… Hell's Gate was the new Pearl Harbor, and Jake knew Eywa had no means to breach her own orbit. No Ikran could bridge that gap, no thanator leap it; they were on their own this time and now the far killers would do their bloody work, with only Jake and his handful of scientists to stop them.
…
Norm, Max, and pretty much everyone else stood looking through the glass at the Stranger, and then turned to look at Yawne expectantly. Yawne watched with a sad kind of determined frown; minutes eked by. The science teams still working on the scans and genetics of the Stranger continued their work, but every now and again looked at the three, sometimes four, figures standing by the glass. Yawne stood in silent observation, Max stood waiting and allowing Yawne to make up his mind, and Norm fidgeted and generally sat awkwardly waiting for something to happen. The Stranger laid on the table, still feeling the effects of the sedation and lulling his head back and fourth. Yawne didn't move a single muscle the entire time he stared at the Stranger, Max only just rolled his neck and rubbed out a few stiff spots from his arm, while Norm held off from tapping on the table. "We're pretty brutal aren't we?" Yawne said suddenly causing Norm to jump.
"Wha?" he responded, nearly knocking over a long cold cup of coffee.
"Free him, cut him up, lock him up, drug him up… we haven't once tried to establish communications and even the natives have returned and abandoned him to the place he obviously hates most. Like, taking a cat to the vet and leaving him over night after neutering him. His whole world has changed and it doesn't look like it will get any better, plus he can't cope with the new reality of his body because we keep him drugged out of his skull." Yawne shrugged to himself and dropped his arms. "Yeah, we're pretty damn brutal."
Max and Norm exchanged impressed looks. "So okay, we stop sedating him. What happens?" Max added.
"Well, first well have to let him wake up a bit, see where he goes from there. He could be totally coherent if given the chance, or all our inhumanity may have driven him over the precipice of our own folly." Yawne responded neutrally.
Norm looked skeptical, "You just made that up."
"Yeah, did the Orson Wells voice give it away?" Yawne grinned.
Max's face lit up and he turned back to the glass as Norm rolled his eyes, "Well the non-sedation is easy enough, we haven't dosed him since we extracted the anti-venom about twenty minutes ago so he should be coming around."
Norm sat up a little straighter, "That's probably why he moving so much right now, if the dosage was correct for his body type he should be pretty lucid now, but don't ask me what happens next. I'm not going in there again."
Yawne didn't mock Norm for his caution, nor did Max, but Yawne did begin rubbing his chin. He remained in this studious pose for a while yet, while Norm and Max again waited for any kind of order of action. "Has he said anything at all?" Yawne asked abruptly again.
Max shook his head, "Aside from the first few words you heard him say when we brought him around that first time, its all been somewhat hallucinatory fever talk. James said he heard him whisper 'sits in my room' but when he stooped over to listen he could have sworn he said 'no words will sooth him, no prayer remove him'."
Yawne raised his eyebrow. "Why is that familiar?"
"It's Poe. You know, that Raven poem? Nevermore!" Norm squawked.
Yawne squinted, "ohhhh yeaaah… Poe eh? So he's reciting dark poetry? That at least tells us what he's thinking."
Max shrugged, "Actually he kind of sang it."
Yawne and Norm looked at him, "Sang?" Norm said shakily.
Max shrugged, "That's what James said, I guess if you can sing when you're drunk you can sing when you're feverish."
"No I mean, he thought he heard him singing? Because, I think…" Norm pointed, then shrugged and looked down. "Well I thought I heard him sing too, but it wasn't Poe."
Max looked interested, "You never said."
"Yeah, I thought I was just hearing things, and I also thought my flesh was burning remember? One seemed more important than the other." he shrugged meekly.
"Do you remember what he said?" Max prompted.
Norm sighed and thought back, trying to ignore the sensation of his skin crawling at the memory. "'So light his way like an apparition', or something like that." Norm mused, "Oh and 'He had me crying out.'"
Yawne lifted an eyebrow, "Now that sounds familiar too."
Max shrugged, "Nothing I've heard, Robert Frost maybe?"
Norm turned to his console, "Well if the camera system still works we should have it recorded I guess." Yawne and Max leaned in. Norm did indeed find the log for the room and rewound it, then fast forwarded it as he saw himself crawling back hurriedly from the Strangers grasp. Again, he couldn't shake the odd feeling… Norm halted the playback and then zoomed in on the Stranger. "Here is it, I think, but he mumbled it so it's probably real quiet."
Norm underestimated the sensitivity of the microphones in the security systems and cranked the volume up markedly whereby pushing play elicited a very loud voice which startled pretty much everyone in the lab, "So light… in his way… like an apparition he had me crying out…" Several voices leaped into a chorus of 'whoa's and yelps of pain, especially Yawne who danced away holding his ears flat on his head. Norm quickly over compensated by turning the volume all the way down. Everyone turned to look at them.
Norm laid his head into the crook of his arm and held up a hand, "My fault! Sorry! Sorry."
"W-ow." Yawne worked his jaw.
Max wriggled his pinky finger in his ear, "Well at least now we know for certain he was singing to himself."
"You know the song?" Norm winced.
"No, but the tone was certainly measured." Max added sucking air through his teeth in pain.
"I know that song." Yawne said coming back to them, Norm and Max looked up at him. "At least, I did."
"So…?" Max prompted.
"Old earth rock music. Preeeeety dark stuff. Real popular after the industrial institution, back when they first discovered Pandora and everyone was going apey because we learned we weren't alone in the universe. Retro stuff like it came back into swing dark and heavy." Yawne put his hands on his hips, "Poe, dark rock… someone isn't very happy."
"So should we play some calming grateful dead?" Max smiled.
"See the dead aren't touring, and it wasn't all in my head." Yawne answered in a sing song way. "HA! I still know some of the lyrics! It might just work. Maybe." he snapped his fingers.
Norm looked at him absently, "What might? Piping in retro music?"
"No, no, establishing a dialogue… through lyrics!" Yawne said excitedly.
"That's pretty out there." Max added with a half smile, "Far out."
Yawne turned to him, "No it makes perfect sense, we know what he's thinking right now, so if we drawn from that, it should drawn him out with it. You know, draw his attention and focus to what's happening instead of what's going on in his head. It's got to be an obvious coping mechanism, channeling through music, going to a happy place where the time and place wasn't a danger to him. The music was just one of the reminders and probably an anchor to that memory which he's probably replaying over and over in his head to keep from facing the reality of his situation." Yawne laid down expertly to Norm and Max's blank looks, "Or maybe he just really likes to sing." Yawne narrowed his eyes, "Either way."
"Either way what?" Norm said distantly.
"I'm going to go in there and ask!" Yawne set his hands to hips like a super hero.
"What?" Norm jumped up, "No, man you can't. It really isn't safe, you don't know what he can do to your head." Yawne shrugged only his shoulders. Norm stood up, "I'm serious. When this guy looks into your eyes he can do things to you, and when he touches you there is a physio-chemical response, he does things to your mind." Norm spoke in a low voice, but his fear was readily apparent.
Yawne actually heeded the warning, but he still looked at Norm resignedly. "I appreciate the concern, I really do, and I won't touch him- but somebody has to try and talk to him eventually and if isn't me it'll probably be Jake. I'd rather have it happen to me. But more importantly, I think Jake was right in leave it in my hands."
"Why you man? Because you've suffered and lived through a slew of punishment? Come on, this is your mind I'm talking about, not a broken bone or flesh wound!" Norm's voice was slowly rising, even he was slightly surprised by the worry for Yawne's safety. "Maybe it was because your around more than Jake, or maybe because you're a nerd like me who only does what he can without any kind of real training, or maybe it was because my own failure to 'rise to the occasion' hit me deeper than I know- whatever it is, I don't want you to face the risk until we at least know more!"
Max and Yawne were taken aback by the sudden speech, but Yawne reached out a hand wider than Norm's head and engulfed his shoulder. "The RDA have attacked us, Norm." Norm and Max stood silent this simple statement; as if the reality of the war looming on the horizon hadn't yet sunk in because of the distraction of the Stranger.
"There isn't time for being careful, we can't face a problem on two fronts, we can't leave this guy locked up and we have to know if he is a part of this attack. Jake needs to know, the people need to know, and we need to know. Right now, I'm in the best position to do something about it; not because I'm braver than anyone else here, not because I'm stronger or more likely to live through whatever happens, but because I've been there." Yawne turned back to the glass. "I've been down that road, now I'm back… he's sitting on square one, trying to pick himself up, where I started from. Don't you see? This guy's been in the ground probably as long as I've been on Pandora. He was buried, like I was, and unearthed again in a wholly new body he can barely understand- but he doesn't have Peyral, Jake, or Neytiri to help him adjust. He doesn't have an entire people behind him, welcoming him for his sacrifice; and sacrifice he's made. There has to be a reason he was jettisoned through space carrying a designer virus to wipe out the RDA and save the Na'vi. "
Yawne turned back to Norm, still speechless, and smiled. "We are both lost children on this world, but Eywa did not choose this one. She probably hasn't even touched him. There is no gentle guiding force trying to safeguard him, no place for him to fit in like a much needed puzzle piece. He won't be leading the Na'vi against the RDA and bridging the gap between two entirely different cultures, he won't be guiding the whole of Pandora against an alien threat, he's a distraction- a nuisance- he's in the way and wasting our time, he is a burden. We would be better of killing him instead of trying to deal with the danger he represents, it would be best for all if he just disappeared. But he won't. He lives, he exists and we have no responsibility to help or guide him…which is exactly why we must. He is a human being, a human problem, not a Na'vi problem. The milk of human Kindness Norm, it's only humane." Yawne patted Norm on the back.
Norm and Max were as floored by this second speech as nearly everyone else in the room. Yawne's boundless compassion and his identity, despite his appearance, had reminded them all- even as the cultural lines blurred- what it meant to be a sentient race trying to live through life to the best of its abilities, regardless of skin color, origin, or even species. "Existential." Max offered like a coin dropped into a bucket.
"Gesundnheit." Yawne responded.