112 112. Back on Pandora

Parker Selfridge was having a very bad week, or more precisely a very bad time in general that had kept on spiraling downward since the moment he had been evicted from Pandora more than a decade ago.

A time that for him was only a few months at best with the Cryo Hibernation as such he didn't have the time to cool off and process it all, how his life had crumbled before his eyes while he stood powerlessly to the side and could smile and nod dumbly at everything while seething inside.

For Selfridge's more personal aspect aside from touching his pride, this entire ordeal was a nightmare that kept on getting worse and worse.

There were several causes for the present time, the first was barely an hour after his awakening, the hypothesis of an alien presence outside of the scope of Pandora's natural biosphere was confirmed by huge artifacts of unknown purpose, nevertheless material but their placement in some of the most powerful magnetic fields of the moon at equidistant from the others was a clear sign those three towers weren't here to be pretty.

This led to the logical conclusion that whatever this alien presence calling himself Liam Cram was, he was at least one severely more advanced than humanity in many domains if not in everything. After that came the educated guess that this being could be but a fraction of a possible space-faring civilization with this technological level of unknown range and all the danger that comes with it.

It wasn't a movie with the alien being excessively mentally retarded and humanity somehow being their only weakness and winning because the plot wanted it so. It very much wasn't and Selfridge could say at that point he was relieved all understood this.

The second, and proof that they had no fighting chance was that every system onboard had been thoroughly hacked, ney modified at every level to be then taken over to an absolute degree by this alien. Their spaceship and every bit of technology using a form of computing became something that wasn't theirs anymore.

As such this situation became critical mere seconds after the discovery of this new alien life, luckily it was only this and the alien individual controlling the fleet of ISV Venture Star didn't seem explicitly malicious. It was more akin to someone seeing and tolerating an interesting wild animal in their backyard.

With that in mind, it didn't change that he could have had the idea to turn off the life support systems… Or worse, it was simply terrifying as everything from the best to the worst was equally possible to happen and human nature made it so the negative always came first and stood out.

But it didn't change how utterly powerless he and for that matter everyone else was even if most were unaware of it, space had never been so terrifying, you can't run, can't scream and your death is inevitable and no one would know if the alien deemed it so. Vegetables on a chopping board that was what they were.

No one would know back on Earth as well, faking voice and image had been in vogue for close to two centuries and beyond, and an alien with advanced technology being foreign to these concepts was a ludicrous notion at best. Frankly, they were as good as dead if they did something that would displease this 'Liam Cram' even a tiny bit, the tension was very high.

They couldn't even flee on the mechanical part of things even if they weren't hacked, the motors for the ISV Venture Star to begin their acceleration or deceleration ran on matter-antimatter explosion and it generated an immense amount of heat that needed to cooldown for being used safely again and this process took months and it hadn't finished to cooldown.

Humanity was spacefaring but only truly in the range of a single star system, the Sol System, beyond, and it became… Complicated without a more effective method of interstellar travel.

Then there was the third point and why he was feeling utterly terrified and wanted to just fall unconscious and never wake up, or just die, he had been chosen to be the diplomat of the expeditionary mission. Without his consent evidently, not that he had any right to refuse as it was in his contract.

But by all means it was a logical choice, one he would have encouraged if that wasn't him being thrown at the wolves, and hypocritical as it was, it was human nature. He had been chosen for good reason, he was the most familiar with Pandora and the ones that remained at Hell's Gate and also… Disposable yet still loyal. It was a strange situation he made himself fall into.

One good thing if that could be considered as such is that he was the de facto leader of the expedition on terrain, it didn't change he was unwell and wanted to go anywhere else though.

And he wasn't a lone case of being deeply affected by being in this mission, the civilians who volunteered and then were chosen for their background, competence, and mind after severe testing were for the most part calmer but not less stressed.

But also far, far more determined, it wasn't about them, it wasn't truly to begin with as the test got rid of the most selfish kinds but this was far greater than they ever imagined in both scales and importance. Climate crisis, pollution, overpopulation, and war are all background noise barely worth a second of their attention in comparison.

'Then there are the augmented SecOps… Automaton of flesh and augment.', he thought, gazing briefly at one of the six tall black armored figures standing around him like statues, their helmets turning the task to identify them impossible.

Frances gave him the authority over this little squad to a large degree, they were his personal guards in a way but truthfully more here to be pretty and reassure him than anything since he doubted they were exempt from having been hacked. One of the greatest defects of cybernetic implants, what possesses codes and is connected can be hacked no matter what.

And finally the third type of passenger present, the squad of Recombinant, like the SecOps had control over them but it was quite different. It wasn't through loyalty but by the fact he could kill them with a press of a button that would detonate a charge of oxygen in their central nexus.

Though none knew that to this extent and would follow his words more out of willingness, the off button wasn't the only thing to stop them, they were pure GMOs and there was a lot of method to control such creatures by manipulating their genes and also memories pasted from the Soul Drives.

'I hope Quaritch 2.0 and his squad of psychic shitheads don't fuck it all up.', he thought, feeling the shaking of the space shuttle reentry in the atmosphere, 'Why did Charles nevertheless Marcus even want these barbaric animals here? Or it wasn't either of them… Who cares, it's past the point of second-guessing it won't be like I would have the time to regret it if it turns to shit.'

Minutes flew by as the shuttle descended, and at some point, the pilots lost control of the vehicle but their panic was short-lived since it was within the protocol and so the vehicle controlled by an unknown force landed in the Airfield of a very bizarre place that was marked as Hell's Gate on the map.

"We have landed, follow your given instruction, I repeat follow your given instruction no matter what. This is a mission of utmost importance and our success will affect the fate of everything we hold dear.", Selfridge said through his microphone before walking toward the exit, an Exo Pack already over his face for him to breathe the air toxic to humans of the moon.

Stopping meters before a grey featureless metal wall he sighed deeply, his tense expression softened to an amiable smile and his taut body relaxed into a posture of control and calm but neither of arrogance nor laziness. A stark contrast to him a second ago that had the ones close blink in confusion.

"Open.", he asked Motherboard, and half a second later the click of metal locks opening was heard with the air pressurizing, and the slipped metal wall he was in front of revealed to be but a rampant that slowly opened downward for him to walk on.

And that is exactly what he did, walking out first and before all without any guard, body armor, or weapon, only a nice sky blue three-piece suit and his immense distress hidden by a carefully crafted mask of lies.

A mask that broke in but a second as he walked down the ramp and a humanoid creature that manifested in front of him in a flash of silvery light, a being that was equal in size to Na'vi and of exact appearance to the hologram from the day of his awakening. One he could never forget.

Dark brown hair and beard neatly breaded with multiple points that looked like pearls, a golden tan on a masculine face, and two silvery iris that seemed to see far beyond the realm of mortal. This was the eyes of the man captured in video thirteen years ago, the relation had been drawn already that the two were but now he was convinced this was the same creature.

"Welcome back to Pandora Parker Selfridge, I hope your stay will be pleasant. I'm Liam Cram the one that had contacted your little crew and led your company away from my mate.", the human-like alien said amused in a deep baritone voice coming from everywhere at once like the echoes of the winds in a cave his iris for the briefest of moment turning to two fiery balls of silver.

'Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.', were the current thoughts repeating in Selfridge's mind like a broken record, as his face paled, eyes dilated, heartbeat increased, his body was screaming at him with instinct he never knew he had that this THING was a higher existence as little as it made sense to him.

This didn't go unnoticed and the SecOps flinched, the hands on their weapons tightening as if a fight was imminent, the creature calling himself Liam only smiled, it was inhumanly wide and very amused as if he had been told the funniest of jokes.

"Adorable, all of you, truly. Though weapons, firearms in particular without the merit and necessary credence are forbidden under my authority. What I'm about to do next might tickle for a few seconds.", Liam said, silvery eyes bright like two miniature suns as he snapped his finger and from both of his palms string of tiny silvery hexagonal flakes flew and commented to each of the stunned SecOps chests before any could react.

The tendril of Argent Sea exploded outward like cocoons swallowing them whole, then the second after six smaller figures of varying sex and ages stood in confusion and horror as their armor and weapons were recycled and turned into regular clothes and Exo Pack for them to breathe.

"Wha-", Quaritch behind couldn't finish that he and his squad became the next target of the silvery tide, the thread of metal particles flew through the space shuttle and hit all of them simultaneously.

The Recombinants didn't accept it, some screamed, some fought back, some did both and more but it was useless for everything from firearms to blades and even blunt weapons were turned to air in the most literal senses of the words.

Many of the civilians were not spared either, as it had a mind of its own the tendrils split and targeted everything even remotely considerable to be a weapon. For them, however, the weapons were simply taken and in exchange, colored and animal-shaped candies were given. But for some odd reason that was deeply disturbing and unsettling was that the candies of each person were their respective favorite color, flavor, and animal.

Panic exploded everywhere, and it only grew as the tendrils shifted and moved, grasping everyone and everything from hurting each other in a complex net of flowing metal, then each felt a soft prickling sensation at their nape like a needle injecting a vaccine in their bloodstream.

The Argent Sea at the molecular level evolved and multiplied in their body, passing through cells and grasping proteins to tinker with them, changing the brain chemistry of everyone to forcefully calm them down bringing rationality back. However, it wasn't the only thing that was being done to them.

'Innocent you may be but that is a necessity for you to go through. Humans cannot live the way they did for the past millennia, they advance too fast for their biology and mentality to keep up.', the Homo Deus spoke internally, not lying to himself about what he was doing was far from the best interest of anyone right here.

His mind was on the species as a whole and how it operated then the individual, not even his loved ones.

He needed to build an artificial environment and then create the creatures to live within to get to something as close to perfection as possible. It was exactly how Eywa proceeded and why the biosphere of the moon was odd and many things didn't make sense from a purely scientific point of view, it was his mate's garden and she took care of the way she saw fit.

Evolution was present but only the way it needed to be.

Balance, prosperity, and stability at such scales for such a long period of time can only be attained artificially and with strict restrictions on what is and isn't forbidden. But that's something no mortals could ever hope to do, good things neither Liam nor Eywa were in this case for their current position, that is, everything is mortal depending on the point of view.

"Wh-what did you do?", Selfridge asked terrified right after he had been stung at his nape by the Argent Sea, his body covered in sweat out of instinctual dread he felt being in such a proximity to this… God, yes god that was the only explanation for what things were done, it wasn't simply technology.

"Altered a few hormones so that you stay relatively tame. Oh and there won't be a need for diplomacy, your fate is sealed and calculated.", Liam said, snapping his finger causing space to distort with a clack of the air a four-legged creature of metal appeared, but the Enforcer wasn't of any importance compared to the three people that had been brought.

"Are you alright Parker? You seem a bit sickly, unwell dare I say even if you didn't age one bit, has life been good to you, dear old friend?", a tall Avatar woman said with a sneer bunching forward to be able to stare in his eyes with her amber almond-shaped one, her voice, and face ones that Selfridge recognized instantly.

"Grace Augustine…", he mumbled like an idiot. He was out of his depth and couldn't process a lot of things if Grace didn't know who this man was she would have almost felt pity but sadly for him, she knew and he was one of the worst humans alive, the fact he thought of himself as not one of the worst not gaining any good point on her.

"Ding ding ding! We have a winner!", Grace said with fake joy and surprise, but her focus instantly snapped to one of the Recombinants slowly walking out and she hissed with her ears shifting down in for her a rare show of aggression, "Quaritch…"

"Grace, it's not him. Your emotions are wasted on a dead man, and is he even worth your energy? If this clone messes up then he is all yours but right now… It's not ideal.", Max said softly to his friend which worked somewhat as the Avatar's body language shifted to something less aggressive but still alert.

"What… Ho-how are you…", Selfridge mumbled gazing at the man he showed having his neck blasted off, there were major differences such as athleticism, lack of glasses, and the glow on his chest but other than that this man was the same as Max Patel.

"It's him, here magic and technology are but one, and the same.", Katherine he recognized said, now a woman in her early fifties with graying red hair, her face lacking however any kind of visible aging and her voice sharp, and energetic.

There was also a realization that none of the two humans were wearing any kind of life-support device to breathe and live but with everything else that was a minor concern if one at all.

"Now that the reunion is over let's dig into the main course.", Liam said, interrupting his thoughts with a soft but loud clap of his hand.

*

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