The cold halls of the ISV Jules Verne rang with the cries of re-dying soldiers. From the shrieks of a woman being disembowelled by a banshee to a man's cry for help as he's ripped apart by viperwolves, each wail was indistinguishable from the rest but all peerless in their tragedy. SciOp personnel scrambled to stay on top of each reviving case. With no intel as to how they died, it was any man's guess how they would react upon waking. One had to be strapped down before he could claw out his eyes, trying to remove the incisors "lodged" in his corneas. It took eight men to do so and cost several broken bones—their bones.

These were no ordinary soldiers returning, and the latest one being revived was someone no one wanted to oversee, especially after witnessing their colleagues hauled away on stretchers. They had joked about how this was the last guy they ever thought would be "born again," but he wasn't being born again—he was being ripped mercilessly out of the one thing he deserved for making the ultimate sacrifice. Yet, Hell deemed itself too good for him and spat him back onto the mortal plane without ceremony.

His chest swelled but took in no air; his mouth gaped but tasted nothing. In his case, the risk was losing their man to asphyxiation right out of the starting gate. They rushed over with the carbon dioxide he needed, but the moment they set mask to mouth, he hurled it away. His memory recognized the taste and knew what breathing it would mean for him. His fingers darted frantically for his chest to grab something that wasn't there, clawing his skin raw, trying to dig it out. Though he couldn't breathe, he still screamed all the same, voiceless cries of unknowable pain. The observing scientists knew panic mode usually lasted for about ten seconds until the sobering reality finally kicked in.

Quaritch saw his blue hand.

It hovered motionless over his face before, one by one, a finger curled as he registered the digits as his. Disoriented and confused, the colonel struggled to lift his hulking body off the patient table. He wobbled to his feet, but his mind spun, and he stumbled hard against a wall. He fell down the icy metal onto the equally cold floor. The incessant whine in his ears grew louder, and the white lights above stung his eyes. He couldn't understand what was happening or where he was, only that his mind was exploding from sensory overload. Then his lungs heaved, and his senses began to calm. The whine in his ears clarified into the numerous voices demanding him to take it easy.

"Where…am…I…?"

The white goblins—for that is how the science operatives looked to him, dressed in their cellophane scrubs—swarmed around him, poking and prodding him for any sign of damage.

"What's going on?" he further demanded, authority returning to his tone.

"Colonel Miles Quaritch? How do you feel?"

"Why am I in an avatar?"

"You've just linked to your body. You might be experiencing some light-headedness and/or nausea. Can you stand okay? Try returning to the table."

The colonel ignored their entreaties and scanned his surroundings, wisps of his new black hair dangling before his face. He was in a freezing, desolate room with grey walls and grey floors, all dead to his touch. He felt cold, trapped and helpless, like an infant left to die on the hospital floor—he hated the sensation. Discovering the door, Quaritch tore off the strange wires taped to his scalp and plodded towards it. It burst open with one push from his colossal arm, but he couldn't make it three steps before black dots swarmed his eyes, and he fell against another wall. This one housed a window, and Quaritch found himself staring back at his reflection as he came to. It was an unfamiliar blue face with ridiculously large yellow eyes, but what stunned him more was the view beyond the glass. It wasn't a landscape teeming with life…

But cold, dead space.

For a long moment, his eyes focused on the vast emptiness before him, that endless expanse of nothingness. No warmth, no sound, no light—nothing but that space in between worlds, rare oases of life so far apart from one another, they might as well not exist. Quaritch had no poetic thoughts staring into the abyss; he actually felt nothing, thought nothing, as if his mind drifted so far into the void that he lost connection with his form, and it stood frozen against the window with mouth agape.

"Quaritch?"

The voice was familiar and called him out of his trance.

"Selfridge?"

Standing further down the hall, with a breathing visor over his face, was the shirt and tie combo he knew so well: the administrator in charge of Hell's Gate, Parker Selfridge. Quaritch already towered over him, but in that body, he was Goliath looking down at David. Only this David wasn't backed by a Greater Power, or any of his own, for that matter.

"Christ, you're a tall drink of water," Selfridge mumbled, a bit taken aback by the colonel's new size.

Before Quaritch could assault him with questions, he was startled by a harrowing cry that echoed into the hall before fading into nothing—another soldier had been "born."

"What the hell?" Quaritch gaped, pivoting around.

Selfridge winced when he saw how inadequate the hospital gown was and whispered to one of the operatives who wandered into the hall to please "get some pants on him or something." He then turned to the Marine. "After you change, come see me, and I'll fill you in on everything."

Quaritch would have followed after him if not for the distraction of another unsettling cry.

In the privacy of the cabin that was shown to him, Quaritch took a moment to reflect on what little he remembered. He had no explanation for why he was where he was, in the body he was in, only that he had been woken out of a deep sleep, and all his vivid dreams turned vague upon waking. Trying to collect the fireflies of his memories with his bare hands, he pieced together an outline of a dream. He remembered Pandora; he remembered a battle; but, above all, he remembered dying. Quaritch reached for where the arrows had pierced him and rubbed the uninjured spot. How did they rescue him in time? He asked himself. His old body—where was it? What state was it in? He had to be linking from somewhere, somehow, but knew the damage he took was fatal. There was also the question as to why it happened. It wasn't just a battle; there was a name—a figure at the centre of it all—but who? He couldn't wait to squeeze the answers out of Selfridge's pointed, little head.

Stripping the pathetic hospital gown, he took a moment to get a feel for his new form. He was covered in dark stripes resembling tongues of flame, licking his entire body. The face in the mirror was freakish with its leonine fangs, ears, and nostrils. Yet, despite this, aspects of his old image shone through—when he was a young man. The body was a clone, after all, that genetically underwent the Na'vi treatment, and what a treatment too. Hundreds of tiny bioluminescent dots covered his skin that twinkled like stars in the night.

Great, he thought to himself irritably. I'm coated in glitter.

He donned his tank and felt a bump under the back of his shirt. He reached behind him and drew out the long braid, having forgotten all about the Na'vi queue. Flipping aside the tufts of hair that sheathed the neural tendrils, he watched the barbs curl outward like a baby's fingers trying to make contact with its mother. He knew the Na'vi used this extension of their nervous system to link to their mounts, but that was the extent of his knowledge, as he never cared to learn more.

Quaritch flipped the braid over his shoulder and had to tuck several long hairs behind his ear, which didn't help his sense of virility. He vowed to get his crew cut as soon as possible and would've had that queue whacked, too, if he could.

The other open slot in his army pants confused the hell out of him until he realized it was for the new addition dancing about behind his legs. He understood that the avatar had many physical advantages; it was tougher, stronger and faster than Hercules himself, but in his mind, all that ferocity was stymied by its several "adorable" features. And no matter how much it was lauded by scientists as an evolutionary advantage, the tail would always be just plain stupid.

After rolling his eyes, he finished getting dressed. It felt good to him, being back in his old clothes, albeit ones resized to fit his new frame; it was something he recognized. He told himself that he was only linking, and even if it looked like a pincushion, he could eventually go back to his old body; however, there was an undercurrent of dread that told him this wouldn't be the case.

Selfridge stood before an immense hologram of Pandora that rotated over a concave metal bowl in the centre of the room. The area was alive with activity as crewmen of the flagship vessel oversaw fleet operations. Parker was largely ignored as he stood around pretending he had a purpose of similar importance. He dragged his finger across another sleek surface when the reason for his presence walked in.

It only took the colonel seconds to lock in on the little man and begin marching over, but the moment he unhinged his lips, Quaritch found himself struggling to breathe.

"Your breather," Selfridge instructed, pointing to the apparatus that hung from Quaritch's neck. "Take a few sips from it."

He did so and instantly felt better.

"Your body needs more carbon dioxide than us, so you'll have to suck that back every few minutes. Didn't anyone tell you that yet?"

"No one's told me much of anything," he fired back.

Parker's lips tightened as the Marine glared down at him. "Right. As you may have guessed, your mind has been transferred into that of a chimaera—a recombinant."

His brow raised. "'Recombinant'? I thought these things were called avatars."

Parker's hands ducked under his armpits. "How much do you remember?"

"I remember dying," he replied flatly.

"That's because you did. August 23rd, 2154. You were killed in action fighting that treacherous sack of s***, Jake Sully."

Sully. The name hit the gong inside his mind and rang out, stirring every sleeping memory awake. All at once, it came back to him. The kid who arrived on Pandora in a wheelchair: a Marine who paid a high price in the line of duty. When he saw him roll in on that chair, Quaritch set out to dig up everything he could on him; it spoke to the old warrior's soul to see a fellow brother aid their cause despite a disability, holding true to the adage "once a Marine, always a Marine." He was impressed with Sully and trusted him with a high-stakes reconnaissance mission that proved fatal—fatal for himself and, if he guessed rightly, nearly one hundred other lives. Sully had sold them out for a giant blue filly. To add insult to injury, it was that screeching banshee of his that had plugged him.

"I remember now…" Quaritch growled.

"Good. Saves me time from explaining everything."

"Where's my body?"

"Somewhere back on Pandora." He shrugged. "After the battle, Sully had us packed up and shipped out. We didn't have time to collect your remains."

Quaritch paused. "You weren't able?"

Parker looked up at him with a twinge of fear; he could no longer delay the inevitable. "You want to know how you're linking?"

"That'd be nice…" Quaritch hummed ominously, his lip curling upward to show his fangs. Selfridge gulped, then scratched his brow, trying to think of how he would word this. As he hesitated, Quaritch stepped forward and loomed over Parker's trembling frame. "This isn't a temporary address, is it!" The murder in his tone sent Parker's heart racing, and he broke into a cold sweat. His eyes darted around the room, hoping one of the many crew members would come to his rescue. Instead, they watched the interaction with amusement.

"Now, look, I know it's a bit of a shock, but would you rather you were dead?"

Quaritch immediately grabbed Selfridge by the collar and hoisted him high. For the crew watching, things were getting good. The former administrator of Hell's Gate pleaded with the Marine to set him down.

"You mean to tell me I'm permanently stuck this way!"

"Q-Q-Quaritch, wait! Wait, wait, wait. Listen! There are many advantages to your new body."

"Like what? Tripping on my own tail as I get out of the shower? Using my fangs to pop open a quick beer? Great advantages, Selfridge, not to mention the retractable dick! Howbout looking like a goddamn Christmas tree? Why, with these glowing freckles, I look prettier than ever!" He stopped for a breath. "You know, I never realized just how stupid these bastards looked till now."

The man could do nothing as the giant shook him with each line. Eventually, his anger subsided, and he set Parker down. "How did you get me in this body if I died?"

Back on his feet and ignoring the giggles he heard in the background, Parker smoothed out his shirt, trying to recall the explanation he was working on before Quaritch showed up. "That was no easy task. It wouldn't even have been possible if not for some forward planning. That morning, before the ships set out—you remember? We called you aside?"

Quaritch recalled being woken out of his sleep and told to go with some men to the ninth level of Hell's Gate. Up to that point, he didn't know there was a ninth level. He was then asked to hand-pick eleven of his best men, who were soon brought into the lab. From there, they were ordered to rest in link beds. At the time, he was told they were merely backing up his memories for the endeavour of making better soldiers or something. He didn't understand what was happening, only that he blacked out inside the chamber and woke up on a gurney with wires taped to his head like an experiment in some cheap science fiction movie.

"We weren't backing up your memories," Parker sighed. "It was a hard transfer."

"What do you mean?"

Selfridge signalled to an operator standing by, and the hologram of Pandora transformed into a brain or a facsimile of one, which looked like a clump of phosphorescent roots crudely tied together.

"Project PMTR. Permanent Mind Transfer Research—since declassified, now with you walking about. Back then, it was kept under wraps. The shareholders weren't keen on this kind of research leaking back to Earth and disrupting the public's perception of death. You know how religious radicals can be—'playing God,' 'dealing with the Devil'—that sort of thing."

"Selfridge, if you don't get to the point, I'm going to have to get mean again."

"Right, right. So, the shareholders put in the funding for several projects on Hell's Gate that wouldn't necessarily 'fly' back home. They wanted the money the unobtanium brought in, but some were more concerned there wasn't going to be a future to spend it—'Preserve the human spirit' was their motto. My job was overseeing the mining operations and let the ones in charge of these projects to just 'do their thing' and not ask questions."

"What did I just say?" Quaritch warned, getting increasingly annoyed.

"I know, let me explain," he pleaded. "One of these projects was focused on how to preserve a human mind. Remember Dr. Augustine?—what she said about the Na'vi uploading and downloading memories into trees?—'connections to the hundredth connections-whatever'?"

Quaritch tried to follow the man's blathering as best he could and nodded, not that he understood; he just wanted him to get on with it.

"She was right, and we know she was right, but we couldn't let her know that, as it was her research that this project was benefiting from. Project PMTR operated on the science that a mind could be preserved using the neural-like root system that Pandora creates—transferring a person's consciousness into an artificially made…'plant brain.'"

"Plant brain?"

"Plant brain. I forget what they called it—some Latin word or something. These brains were meant for the shareholders—twelve, to be exact. The permanent transfer worked on several species of Pandoran animals. The problem was, there was no way of knowing if it'd work on a human, with our species being more complex and not native to the world and all. It couldn't be tested, as no one volunteered to be turned into a vegetable. Go figure. But that's how the transfer would work. The mind would go into the artificial brain while the body went brain-dead."

The Marine finally started to understand where he was going with this. "Are you trying to tell me that during the battle, I wasn't actually in my body?" he droned incredulously.

"Pretty much. You were operating it via the psionic link—just like Sully with his avatar. Only in this case, your avatar was your human body."

The Marine's mouth hung agape. "My mind was in a jar!"

"Tank, actually."

"Selfridge, I didn't think it was possible to screw a man this effectively! I'm almost impressed!"

"The battle was something no one saw coming!" Selfridge argued. "We didn't have time to test the project in a controlled environment. We knew you guys would most likely die, so—"

"So you used us as a bunch of guinea pigs?"

"To preserve your lives!"

"Was this your idea?" he barked.

"I thought it'd be a good opportunity to—"

"To impress your shareholders and say, 'Hey, look! You can put a brain on ice, stow it in the freezer, and save it for a rainy day!' Which is what you seemed to have done with yours!"

"It worked, didn't it?"

Quaritch backed down. Parker was right in that at least—he was kept alive; he just wasn't sure if this body was a better alternative than a plant brain floating in a tank. To think that the company he worked for could delay his passing into the afterlife—if there was one—to call him back whenever they fancied was a thought that disgusted him to no end. Not even suicide could protect you from their incessant greed. He sighed, his eyes falling to the floor along with his spirit. "Guess this means I'll never see Earth again…"

Selfridge winced. "About that…"