Encounter of The Third Kind — Chapter VI

F.O.B. Ticonderoga — Night

As the hammock swayed gently in the cool breeze, Asher with wide-eyes, gazed upon the kaleidoscopic landscape of the Pandoran jungle. Everywhere he looked, there was something new, something exotic, something marvelous. He almost forgot that there was another body waiting for him when a sense of regret invaded and poked its urgency from behind his brain, reminding him that he had to go back. He almost wanted to ask himself if he really wanted to. But the longer he contemplated on a decision, the more he understood that he needed to return. Afterall, there were reports to write, a mouth to feed, and a real bed to sleep in.

He took one final look around and remembered how the jungle didn't look like this from the concrete grounds of Hell's Gate. Back then, the jungle looked like a tangled mass of terrifying green. And he heard the stories: Massive animals with jaws so wide, they could devour you whole. Ten-foot-tall blue natives, armed with poisoned-tipped arrows that could stop your heart in a matter of seconds. An overgrown forest that runs on infinitely, that anyone who is lost for more than a few minutes, would most certainly find themselves dead by tomorrow.

On the other hand, why hadn't anyone told him this place was… beautiful? Well… Wade kinda did, but he was referring to the Na'vi and so far, Asher hadn't encountered any to produce a positive opinion about them. No matter, Asher was already hating himself for admitting that he kinda liked it here.

"All right, I really need to get out of here." Asher told himself. He knew he needed to wake up and like all dreams, this one had to end prematurely. With one final yawn and a whispered prayer for sleep, he closed his eyes.

Transfers of this nature hardly lasted more than five seconds. Though a driver will admit that they never experience any time differentiation between bodies, it did take time to return back to their original body.

To them, it was no different than falling asleep one moment and waking up the next, only to be aware that eight hours had flown by. Of course, the engineers who improved the technology over the years took immense pride that so few drivers have become aware of the transfer itself.

For those few who have become aware of the transfer, they often feel an unsettling sensation of time slowing down despite the brief duration of the process.

Others have said that the transfer was like a warm inviting place, like finding a comfortable bed and slowly dozing off.

No matter which way the transfer occurred, and no matter how oddly specific the transfer felt. It was always the same.

Even as the link transfer slowed the descent of Asher's conscious mind, drifting him towards the epicenter of dreamscapes and grey conscious matter, and where his human body now waited at the other end, Asher couldn't quite grasp at what was happening to him when he suddenly became aware the transfer. Only that he knew something was inside the transfer-tunnel with him.

Blinking from the far corner of the wormhole was a scintillant sphere. As a lighthouse on the precipice of the coastline flashes a warning to ships in a storm, it too blinked, and waned, then blinked again; yearning for his attention.

What is this?

There was no physical form of his existence that was able to touch it, and Asher had no desire within him to do so. Unexpectedly, the sphere sensed his antagonizing desire to avoid it. As if in a response, the driver and the towing conscious mind that followed him were pulled along by an overwhelming magnetized force created by this strange sphere of light.

Instead of feeling life or that of death, Asher sensed a cool river of billowing ambience, a kind of watery sanctuary that filled his mind of both worlds: That of the avatar and of the human.

Something was wrong. He shouldn't be experiencing both at the same time.

A circumvolute of volitions swirled around the detritus of personalities, each clashing for domination of the mind, a mind that now found itself slowly submerging beneath the waterfall of disintegrating consciousness. Asher later described the experience to Danielle and Wade as being stuck underwater and holding your breath in a reckless hope that it will be all over. After a while, your lungs start to burn the longer you remain underwater until the painful suffocation sends you swimming for the surface, eager to find air—eager to escape. Only instead of feeling as though he was drowning, Asher was beginning to feel a kind of strangeness within this light, this… world. He wanted to stay. To see what happens when you hold your breath a little longer.

But now he was beginning to sink. Further. Deeper. Until there was nothing but static and void. Then, like a supernova in the darkest reaches of the universe, it ruptured.

The EEG signal lines dropped too fast for Wade to have spotted it on the monitor screen, and in equal speed, to have alerted Danielle of a possible network malfunction when they heard the link-unit alarm shrill of a breach.

"Oh shit!" Wade cried.

Asher exploded out of the link-unit with such ferocity that he made Wade leap back, frightful that something might be happening to the link-unit.

Unsure of where he was, Asher gripped the edge of the bed and looked around. He saw Wade first but behind the fever dream of Asher's hallucination, he was simply another tree among the green foliage of the Pandoran jungle.

He then looked into Danielle's direction. Like a predator seeking its prey, Danielle froze, expecting somehow that Asher was going to leap out at any moment and attack her. But rather than even acknowledge her, he blinked. Because behind his vision, she was not there.

Wade whispered cautiously, "Danny—"

And then they saw Asher lean over the edge of the link-unit and spill over like a slab a meat hitting a butcher's floor.

His erratic haste to depart from the link-unit sent Danielle scrambling to her feet, frantic to save him from his fall. But she was too late.

"Asher!" Danielle cried out.

Her voice failed to register in his mind.

Groaning on the floor, the disjointed thud was a metaphysical paralyzation for Asher. He still believed he was back in the avatar, on the jungle floor and that something was after him. He turned around and saw it approaching him from beyond the shadowy weald. He had to get out. To escape. He started to crawl on his belly; a futility of his efforts to leave this world.

Without another moment's hesitation to inflict her ability to do her job, she rushed to his side, dropped to her knees, and reached out to help him off the floor. Her left hand only got so close to his face before she felt the full contact of his kick against her chest.

Coughing out a grunt, she fell back. Tumbling to the floor, she lost her bearings, but only briefly. It took a moment, maybe more, to collect herself again before sitting back up. Feeling dazed but unfazed, she glanced across the room and observed that he had become feral in his delusion.

"Don't come near me!" Asher shouted angrily.

And then it dawned on her: Psionic delirium.

"Wade! He has psionic delirium!"

Wade stopped himself from approaching Asher when he heard the terrible twisted words: psionic delirium. That shouldn't be possible. In nearly forty years, only two other drivers had been inflicted by such a frightening problem. One resulted in a driver's death, and another was forced into retirement for her own health. In that split moment in deciding what to do next, Wade became fearful for Asher's life.

Asher's muscles, shocked from the interruption, trembled throughout his legs as he tried to push himself off the icy tiles. He only had about several seconds of standing when the knee of his right leg, bruised from the fall, gave out from underneath him, sending him cratering to the floor.

"Get him up, get him up!" Waded shouted to Danielle.

Danielle crouched over by Asher's feet and leaned out to grab his ankles.

A thankful decision Asher made before going in was to wear shorts, though his shorts exposed his poor taste in fashion, it also exposed his bare legs to Danielle's seeking hands of which the pair ensnared around his ankles, successfully stopping the thrashing legs from hitting her further.

Looking back down, Asher remained unsure of who or what it was that was after his legs. And thanks to the network interruption, his vision oscillated between the colors of the jungle and that of the bunker. They were beginning to blend together and exacerbate the delusion further.

"We need to bring him to his cot!" Wade shouted.

Asher remained locked behind the terrifying visions of the forest while those who surrounded him began to lift him off the ground.

Wade groused at the weight. Even under the Pandoran gravity, Asher shouldn't be this heavy. By his estimation, Asher had to be pulling ninety-nine kilos. At least he wasn't all muscle which leant into Wade's favor, but not entirely.

"Damn, he's heavy." Wade said. He knew bringing him to the cot was going to be a struggle, especially since Danielle was trying her best to keep his ankles tied together.

The canopies of the forest peeled away to the brilliant daylight of the twin suns. They were tinted-orange orbs, like oranges dangling from a branch, covered by a surrounding aura of purple expulsion of light. They felt so close to him, as though he could reach out and pluck one out from the blue sky of the world.

Unbeknownst to the man whose face was positioned upward to the ceiling, his eyes were caught in the glare of the florescent light as they moved him through the small corridor of the bunker.

Directed by a curious urge of his hand, he attempted to reach out and touch one of the suns but immediately retracted the arm after seeing how blue the skin was. His mind screamed in reprisal: Who… who am I?

Asher undulated against their hold and in doing so, loosened Danielle's restraint of him. She snarled in rebuke as his momentum caused her to drop his legs to the floor. Was he seriously going to fight her all the way to the cot? She rolled the sleeves of the lab coat and aimed for his ankles once more.

Glancing back down to his feet, Asher swore the earth below him was caving in. But no. It was the creature… it was back!

Jerking his feet up, Asher was prepared to strike the creature in the face. But Danielle knew better. Seeing the impending contact, she snatched the flying feet intended for her face and cuffed her hands around his ankles. Denying him of that probability, she then pressed both ankles together and brought them underneath her arms. But it wasn't going to last long. Looking back up to Wade, she gave a face that read impatience because at the moment, Danielle could feel Asher's gathering strength to strike her in the jaw.

"Almost there," Wade said.

The two, at last, hauled him into the next room where they laid him over the bed.

After trying to touch the suns for some time, Asher's fingers continued to grope at nothing until the depleted strength of his muscles caused his hands to fall to his heaving chest.

"Okay, Wade. Stay here. I'm going to find the kalipexim drug and get him out of this mess." Danielle instructed, her own panic conspiring to work against her as she hurried out of the room, leaving Wade to watch over Asher.

Wade thought the worst was over, but the relief and with it, his conservative estimate that Asher was going to pull through, was instantly vaporized when the avatar driver began convulsing on the cot. His mind was slipping.

"Shit! He's going into code red!" Wade cursed aloud as he knelt beside the cot and pulled out a light pen from his breast coat pocket. "Hold on buddy, I'm right here!"

Danielle overheard Wade's cry and responded: "Okay! Okay! I'm looking for it!"

With Asher shaking uncontrollably, Wade struggled to pull back his eyelids. He cursed again and began rummaging various pockets on his lab coat, desperately searching for a solution.

Danielle's eyes bounced between the monitors as she struggled to remember where Wade stashed the medical supplies. She vaguely recalled him mentioning that he stored them with other supplies in the ambient room, suggesting they needed the space in the link room for other monitors and computers.

What a stupid ass idea!

Shaking her head, she sprinted towards to the door at the far end of the rectangular link room. She yanked back the handle twice, but it remained sealed.

"Argh! Wade!" She cried.

Reaching inside her coat, she followed the lanyard down until she felt the familiar plastic security card hanging at the end. She swiped it across the security pad. The green light above the door gave a solid green light. While not in use, the ambient room was filled with oxygen, allowing Danielle to search around the room without suffocating from the carbon dioxide that was used to keep the avatar alive.

Against the wall to her left was the pyramid stack of cardboard boxes, each labelled in black marker with titles to describe what box contained what inside.

Browsing along the row of boxes, she found one that read: 'Medical supplies'. Reaching up to the box, she grabbed at it and brought it over the floor. With both hands, she turned the box over until the flaps of the cardboard expelled an assortment of syringes, bottles, and other smaller boxes.

Kneeling beside the supplies, she moved with methodical precision, her fingers becoming frantic with each passing second as she sorted through the drugs. She picked up each syringe one by one and quickly scanned the label.

Some of them, she read, were not intended for human use, while others were not for what she needed.

Wade patted down his remaining pockets and found nothing. He knew he wouldn't find anything in his coat pockets, but he thought at the very least, he kept something around to help Asher.

The convulsing stopped. Panicking, Wade looked over his shoulder and yelled, "Danny! We're losing him!"

She didn't hear him. The door was closed but she found what she was looking for.

Holding the syringe against the light, she read the small, printed label: "Kalipexim."

The drug she held between her fingers was created after several drivers suffered link interruption during the early years of the Program. When an interruption occurred, there was roughly a fifty-percent chance that the driver could go into a coma, followed by brain swelling and potential death.

If not for kalipexim, quite a few notable drivers might have died. Though, one did. It turns out that the driver who did die from a link interruption suffered from what they now call, psionic delirium. A link-interruption that also induces confusion for the driver, making them believe they were still in the avatar.

It was an understatement to say that Danielle was in a hurry. Not only did she jump to her feet, but practically broke the hinges on the door of the ambient room as she sprinted across the link-room, turned down the corridor and slid on her feet into the small living space where Asher laid on the cot.

Wade stepped back as he watched Danielle kneel beside the bed to deliver the life-saving drug for Asher. With practice precision, she plucked the plastic needle protector with her lips, she spat it out, knelt beside Asher and plunged the needle into his arm. The ravenous shaking almost caused her to miss his arm and struck his neck, but she managed to administer the drug in time.

Asher didn't stop convulsing until three minutes after Danielle injected him with kalipexim.

Sighing, she sat on the floor beside Asher's cot and stared off into the distance, processing the past ten minutes. She started to shake her head when the realization of losing Asher conflicted the guilt she had growing inside of her.

At the feet-end of the cot, Wade stood with his arms crossed and an expression of sickening disgust for himself. He should've known better. He was trained to spot these types of errors in the transfer. Now, he didn't know whether he was going to pull through or not.

"Damnit… it's my fault." He finally said.

"No it's not," Danielle breathed. "It just happened."

"Things don't just happen, Danny. I should've paid closer attention to the monitors, to—"

"—do you know what even happened to have caused this?"

He thought about it for a moment then said, "My guess? The network connection from the backpack suffered a nano-second hiccup, interrupting the connection just enough to pull him out of the transfer. I mean, Rayan is absolutely lucky that the transfer was at the tail end. Otherwise, we might be looking at a vegetable."

"Did the monitors pick it up?"

"No."

"No?"

"These things… they can happen too quickly for monitors to pick up."

"Can it happen again?"

"I mean," he started to say something when a look of his betrayed his thoughts. "The backpack is experimental. Of course it can happen again."

She exhaled the annoyance from her nose. She should've known this could very likely happen again. Collecting herself, she asked, "How come we didn't see this before?"

"Truthfully?" Wade said, his gaze falling over Asher. A part of him felt responsible for having caused this. Despite all the measures he put in place to prevent this, it still happened and now there was a likelihood of it happening again, potentially exposing Asher to serious irreversible damage. "The backpack was too new to have it tested out in the field. Until now."

Her jaw tightened; she knew the backpack was new, but it did not explain what caused the interruption.

"Do you know why it happened?"

"I have to review the information that the computer collected. There might have been something leading up to the interruption."

"If it happens again?"

"That is a risk."

"Risk?" She climbed to her feet, turned to face Wade, and said, "I don't like this man but if we lose him…" she stopped her tongue from revealing more of her feelings. Altering her words, she continued. "…the Na'vi may very well be finished!"

"I understand that."

"Do you, Wade?"

He inhaled the air of the bunker, the tension of her words simmered over him. He knew from only looking at her that she went through a terrifying moment of nearly losing an avatar driver under her watch. No one in the Program liked losing their drivers. That included Wade, who, despite having been on Pandora only six months, and Rayan Asher being his driver, he still didn't like the idea of losing him. But he slightly raised an eyebrow at the admittance of not caring for him. He wanted to explore further on this feeling but some ethereal part of his mind told him not to pursue it.

Finally nodding, he said, "I do. But—Danny, there is nothing we can do. We knew the limitations of the backpack and the risk was always there. We already told Rayan this. So, in the morning, it will be up to him to decide if he wishes to continue this or not."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay. Okay. Sorry… I'll uh, I'll watch over him. To make sure he's doing fine. I'll let you know when he wakes up."

"Okay Danny. I'll be in the next room if you need me."

"Thank you Wade."

Danielle waited for him to leave. When she heard the fading clip-clop of his shoes echoing from the other room, she stood up. Without proper equipment (or a proper room like they had back at Hell's Gate) to check his vitals, Danielle was forced to use a more primitive method of checking his pulse. Pinching his wrist around her fingers, she felt a pulse. Then, glancing to her watch, she counted. His heart rate sat between 90 and 120 beats per minute.

"Good. He's stable." She murmured.

She temporarily left him to grab a chair from the main living room. and brought it over to sit down beside Asher with. He still appeared sickly but not as pale before. Much of the sweat had evaporated by this point and he seemed to stir somewhat. From what she remembered of the driver who had psionic delirium, death was not immediate. Roughly thirty-days, she was told, before the man passed.

The second driver who had psionic delirium, was saved by the drug. She was forced to retire but she didn't die either. In the event that Asher felt worse, they might be forced to call this mission off. However, as strong as her guilt was, she wasn't going to let him.

Hallelujah Mountains (Iknimaya) — Morning

"I'm telling you; dad is not going to like that an uniltìrantokx is snooping around here. We need to capture it and bring it to High Camp." Lo'ak advised from his perched position on the tree limb.

Crouching on the other side of the tree was his older brother, Neteyam, who, after hearing that ridiculous proposition, said, "No. That is a terrible idea, brother."

Lo'ak snorted, not understanding why Neteyam was so cautious all of a sudden when the dreamwalker was… how did dad say it? 'Outside' of the body. "It's not a terrible idea!" Lo'ak countered. "Look at it. It's asleep. I have bolas in my pouch. We'll tie its arms, its legs and drag its ass back to High Camp."

Neteyam hissed, "Lo'ak! Father will be angry with the both of us if we bring it home."

"It's already looking for us! The best thing to do and dad will back me up on this, is capture it and bring it back home. It cannot defeat the best warriors among our People!"

Neteyam peeked from around the circumference of the tree with flattened ears and a gaze that stared in repulsion of Lo'ak's insanity. "Do you not hear yourself? You want us to bring it back to our home? That is your plan? Has your mind gone lekye'ung?"

Lo'ak, under the shadow of the tree, nodded.

Widening his eyes in shock at the given answer, Neteyam shook his head. Of course there was no way for him to agree to that idea. Not without risking everyone at High Camp. And if father and mother learned that they brought a demon back home, he was for certain going to lose his tail over it.

"No… no we will not," said Neteyam. "I have a better idea. Follow me."

Lo'ak watch behind a miffed gaze as Neteyam made his way down from the tree limb. Despite still believing that his own idea was better, Lo'ak decided to agree with Neteyam. After all, he thought, it might be worth seeing this idea of Neteyam's turn into a good laugh for everyone to hear back home.

Neteyam's idea involved something that Jake had referred to as "reconnaissance."

A Marine's most lethal asset is his mind. The words of his father echoed. Jake's eldest son believed that weapons were the most lethal thing in the world. Bows. Spears. Blades. Guns. But the mind? It made sense to him. Of course! Ever since that revelation, he saw the world differently. Brute strength and a poison-tipped arrow were nice, but the mind was a powerful tool that managed to get him and his siblings out of many troubles and without a scratch. And with this new unpredictable trouble that crossed their way, Neteyam had to use everything he learned to keep himself, his brother, and his People alive from the dreamwalker.

Signaling to Lo'ak to stay low, Neteyam guided him through the labyrinth of trees until they arrived in close proximity to the avatar. Behind the bush's leaves, Aurelian eyes watched in silent intrigue on whether the avatar was still present in the body or that it was merely dead. Though the latter, Neteyam believed, was highly unlikely.

They understood from Uncle Norm and the other dreamwalkers that they had to 'connect' to the body in order for the body to be alive somehow. Something that neither Neteyam, Lo'ak, or anyone of his siblings understood the concept of. Even when Norm tried to explain it, their minds could not wrap around it. But now, as the brothers sat crouching behind the bush, their minds, along with Uncle Norm's words that reverberated from the past, mingled together with a sense of newfound understanding: The vrrtep was not present among the living, but the body was alive.

Neteyam prostrated himself below the bush leaves, rubbing his chest with mud to diminish the scent of his presence from the demon's senses. He didn't want to be detected by the highly sensitive nose of the avatar, believing that its physiology must work in the same way as the Na'vi.

To surround your enemy, have a friend go around them, this is called a pincer maneuver.

Lo'ak watched as his brother render himself onto a strange position. He was about to ask what he was planning to do when Neteyam turned over and signaled to his younger brother to walk around the camp.

If the demon woke up, Lo'ak and Neteyam would have him surrounded from both sides of the camp, and with both having bows, there was no way for the avatar to fight back, not unless it was willing to test their skills in combat.

Nodding, Lo'ak and his bow started to encircle around the camp in slow but uniform motion. Heel-to-toe was that of his father's teaching. It gave freedom to pivot in a moment of duress, allowing Lo'ak to snap his bow and aim with steady measured grace in all directions of his body. He also made sure to avoid the twigs on the jungle floor, lest he desired to arouse suspicion from the demon whose otherworldly spirit resided elsewhere. A spell of strength governed the muscles of his legs, by first towing his torso towards the ground while his back flattened beneath the downward curve of a plant leaf. The tail of his body curled by his thigh, then releasing to balance the other leg when the neurons fired to contract the calf muscles inward.

Lo'ak conducted himself with the expertise of his mother but also something of his own experience; of his own thinking that he believed related him to that of syaksyuk. He straightened up to bypass a pair of flanking plants, their leaves teasing both his back and stomach before arriving to the other end of the camp.

Seeing his younger brother going around the camp without ever alerting his presence to the demon made Neteyam proud of his brother. Being the arguably taller, older, and wiser brother of the two, Neteyam never allowed himself to lose sight of his sibling or of his sisters for that matter. He knew that his father, the mighty Toruk Makto, entrusted in his eldest son to look over them and as such, the thankless task was carried out with honor and respect to their family. However, in this very moment, Neteyam was starting to question his own sanity in placing Lo'ak in such a precarious position when the glint of the rifle winked at him from the dreamwalker's position.

Oh no…

Some days ago, their father held a secret meeting with their mother, Neytiri, about food shortages. They did not want to spread fear among the Omatikaya and Tipani, and in doing so, left all of High Camp in perfect oblivion. Except for Amanti whom Neteyam later learned was also aware of the problem. Not even their children who were aware of such a shortage when they were enjoying a bountiful supper that evening.

And on that cool night, whose amiable winds flowed through Neteyam's hair, he overheard their nightly presence together within the family tent. His father's disquiet voice lured Neteyam's inquisitive ears, curious a to why he was suddenly getting irritated with his mother. Although he did not intend to eavesdrop, his worry for the clan led him out from the shadows and towards the animal-hide tent near the edge of High Camp. As he strained to understand his father's alien language, Neteyam did not realize how close he leaned to the tent until the unpleasant shift of gravity threatened to expose him to his father. Fortunately, Lo'ak emerged from the same friendly shadows to save Neteyam from potential damnation by both parents.

'Bro? Y'know mom and dad like their priv—'

'Ssshh,' Neteyam hushed his younger brother, and leaned back towards the tent, his footing more sure on the outcropping of rocks. He strained to understand the alien language, as Jake spoke of the Sky People and their violent plans. They were targeting hunting parties beyond Ayram Alusìng, thus reducing their ability to hunt and scavenge for food.

It seemed, according to their Marine dad, that the RDA took up a tactic that he referred to in Sky People-language as a 'siege'. The purpose behind this siege was to deny the Omatikaya and Tipani food sources, which included setting up patrols throughout the surrounding regions and attacking hunting parties when they lingered too close to these patrols.

This left their People with only one place to find food: Iknimaya.

And because Iknimaya was now a hunting ground for both the Tipani and Omatikaya, the food was increasingly becoming scarce as animals fled to find refuge away from the ever-growing and ever-hungry population at High Camp. After hearing this discussion, Neteyam, with Lo'ak insistence sought their father's blessing the following morning to hunt and find food.

As usual, Jake was hesitant to let his boys go hunting when he feared a likely attack from the RDA. Their mother too deemed hunts as off limits for anyone in her family except Jake and herself. She offered a substitute job (but to Neteyam, it was an embarrassment for him) by helping her weave, like how she had done with Tuktirey.

'Besides', she told him, 'the Omatikaya warriors are already aiding the hunter's to find food. They do not need you Neteyam.'

'Are we the lazy sons to Toruk Makto?' Neteyam asked of his mother.

Her quick lip and stabbing eyes told him no. How dare he say they were lazy?

And yet he not only felt lazy, but useless.

'Father, please. We can help the People find food. Mother trained us to be the best hunters and I believe with Lo'ak beside me, that we can do much more than sit around here, doing nothing.' Neteyam begged.

Neytiri hissed at her eldest. Weaving was not doing nothing!

Jake, with his eyes of a father and furrowed lines crossing his forehead of a concern parent, finally relented and gave them permission. When he shared with Neytiri of his decision, she attacked him. Not physically of course, but in with acerbic words that reminded him of his fatherly duties to his family.

Using his calm, reassuring voice, Jake settled her boiling emotions down enough to share with his belief of why he allowed them to go.

'Because if they did not,' he argued, 'then I'm going to feel responsible for stunting their growth as men of the family.'

Despite Jake's reasoning, Neytiri remained unconvinced and argued that her boys were not men and never would be if they died out there.

Jake disagreed and ever since that day, Neytiri and Jake were at odds with one another in how their sons were to be used within the clan. Such became the stresses of life in the floating mountains.

Regardless of how either felt about the issue, Jake knew they simply lacked options. He taught his boys well enough to fend for themselves and as far as Jake understood it, the RDA were unable to penetrate the Hallelujah Mountains, which rescinded some of the dread he had for his boys joining on the hunting parties. Jake also made a point to Neytiri that Lo'ak had gained his banshee last month, sufficing his point that they were growing men. Keeping them grounded, Jake believed, would generate unnecessary hate towards him. A hate that he once shared with his own father in a time's past from a world that rarely entered his thoughts.

Neytiri understood with great reluctance in her eyes. She knew, like Jake, that her boys in time, would become men of the clan and as men, their responsibility for protecting the People and their families were to be shared in equal measure, just as it was shared with Jake and Neytiri.

Though, like any parent, their feeling of concern for their boys never waned. A feeling that unnecessarily placed them in a position with blind spots that lacked the prescient foresight of what might happen or not.

To keep control of what they can do, Jake ordered Omatikaya scouts to watch over the hunting party that his sons were involved in.

Across the camp, Lo'ak shared with Neteyam a hand signal that asked what they should do next. Reading the signal, Neteyam, from behind the bush, used his hand to tell him he was going to approach the demon and that Lo'ak needs to cover him.

Lo'ak readied his bow but stayed in place as Neteyam slipped out from behind a plant.

The blue body of the teen was smeared with brown alluvium from the jungle floor, making him appear abstracted against the surrounding green wall of the forest as he made small, incremental movements toward the avatar. Neteyam was careful as always, ensuring that his steps were light and quiet over the grass.

Neither brothers knew if the avatar was ever going to wake up from his slumber but as Neteyam consumed the space that separated the two, he felt confident that there was no need for worry.

Seeing that the avatar had not been awoken by Neteyam, Lo'ak with the biting need to protect his brother, started to make his own way towards his brother's position. A steady gait of silent even motion propelled his walk until he stood beside his brother.

"Lo'ak!" Neteyam whispered, his hiss causing the tail of the teenager to whip about in agitation. "You should have stayed where you were!"

Lo'ak shook his head. If the demon is to wake, then let it be now, but something about being this close to the demon attracted his attention. "Bro, look at it. It's… weird." Lo'ak said, his finger pointing to numerous features of the avatar's face.

"Stop it!"

"Stop what? We're practically arguing, and it hasn't heard us. Maybe it is both dumb and deaf?" He said with a finger pointing to his ear.

He was right. Neteyam did notice how unresponsive the demon was. Leaning over it, he dared against his own father's desire and everything he had learned up to this point, to not touch anything he shouldn't have. But he was going to do just that.

Ears straightening, Lo'ak watched as his oldest brother reared a finger down and over the face of the demon. The tip prodded the cheek and Lo'ak readied his bow for anything. But there was nothing.

"What the…"

"Is it dead?" Lo'ak asked.

Neteyam shook his head. "It is warm but, it is not here. Not in this body."

Lo'ak was next. He brought his own finger and touched the face of the avatar. The foreign contact induced the avatar to twitch in response.

"Ha!" Lo'ak cried. "It's alive but…" his face became one of disappointment. "Also dead as a rock."

Lo'ak continued touching the avatar until Neteyam swatted his hand. "That is enough."

"C'mon, one more time!"

"No."

"One more!" Lo'ak insisted and this time he yanked on the pointy ear of the avatar. Stunned by the rebellious action, Neteyam, stiff with muscle and air, faced his brother with burning irritation and expressed behind his gaze that he wanted to wrestle Lo'ak to the ground and beat him.

Seeing this, Lo'ak relented and breathed, "Okay… sorry."

Sighing, Neteyam felt tired of having to reprimand his brother for everything. When was he going to grow up and listen to authority for once? Neteyam only wanted the best out of his younger brother, but this incessant need to disobey even the slightest of instructions made Neteyam worry for him.

Neteyam bent down, trying to find markings on the avatar when Lo'ak said, "So bro. What do you think it's doing here all by itself?"

"I do not know. It smells of them."

Lo'ak squinted at his brother. Of course it was the Sky People.

Neteyam grabbed at the arm, moving it enough to find a patch on the vest and read the text out loud: "Eeh… Err… Dee… Awe."

Lo'ak laughed. "Are you trying to speak like them?"

"No!" Neteyam retorted. "The marking," he said, pointing to a patch that was pentagonal with Sky People lettering that he remembered his father teaching him some of. In his mind, Neteyam read it as: RDA AVTR. AVTR being Avatar or the Avatar Program. Uncle Norm had many lab equipment and badges that shared a similar logo and font-type.

"It belongs to Uncle Norm and the other dreamwalkers." Neteyam stated.

"With a rifle!" Lo'ak cried, his own finger thrusting into the direction of the weapon firmly situated between the knees and arms of the avatar. "Why does it need a gun?"

Neteyam looked at him, a half-unbelief expression surfacing to meet Lo'ak as he said, "Uncle Norm has a rifle. As does the other dreamwalkers."

"Yes. To protect the People and themselves. This is not protection. This is a warrior. I am telling you for the fifth time, bro, we need to tie it up now and bring it to dad!"

Was Lo'ak finally making sense? Neteyam was not sure, but the rifle did explain the need to protect itself from the dangers of the forest. However, the real purpose of this random dreamwalker appearing in the forest was unclear. Neteyam needed to know more about the demon's intentions before agreeing to Lo'ak's urgent desire to bring it back to High Camp.

"Not yet."

Lo'ak flung his face to the sky, his hands catching his cheeks as he mouthed skxawng.

"Let us see where he goes first. But we will remove his need for this weapon."

Tail flicking, Lo'ak looked back down, his curiosity now piqued from Neteyam's suggestion. "How?" He asked. "If we take his weapon, he might get really pissed."

"Do not worry, brother. We will only take the magazines but leave his rifle here. Then, we will see how it responds."

"That is crazy! But… but you might have an idea here. A first of many." Lo'ak said, flashing a grin to Neteyam.

Neteyam playfully struck his brother's arm with a fist before turning to the dreamwalker. Its vest was woven with pockets of black magazines, similar to what their dad used.

One by one, Neteyam removed the magazine boxes and gave them to Lo'ak. The final magazine was inside the weapon. That required some finesse but eventually his long fingers pushed down on the magazine release button, freeing the magazine from the well.

"Do you have all of them?" Lo'ak questioned. Neteyam nodded.

"Let us leave before it wakes up."

Soon, the brothers disappeared back into the forest and with them, their evidential proof of the dreamwalker's existence. And as much as they would have loved to return to High Camp, Neteyam and Lo'ak opted to watch and observe how the demon reacted to its missing magazine.

Unfortunately to them, the banshee scouts found the brothers before they could scatter into the wind. It seemed the Tipani hunting party alerted to the scouts of the missing brothers sometime after the second sun had faded behind the gas giant.

"Aiiyyee!" Came the shriek.

Tails lashing behind them, the brothers stopped running through the forest to exchange a look of trouble before staring up above.

"Oh great." Whispered Neteyam.

"Dad is not going to like what we've just done," said Lo'ak.

Neteyam chuckled and pointed out all the magazines that Lo'ak was carrying in his loincloth. "Dad is not going to like what you have done, brother."

Lo'ak looked down then back to Neteyam. "What do you mean?"

Neteyam started to run off into the distance, laughing. Lo'ak was seen following right after him, yelling: "Hey, don't leave me with these!"

The last sound made by the brothers was the sound of clattering plastic chasing after Lo'ak.