30. Facetime

Day 142

Liam had been more active than usual since he got his hand on the drone, it was a very important moment for him, one unplanned like many things here but he wasn't the worst at improvising. 

He didn't know how he could be this way, stoic and composed in the face of everything but he didn't complain, quite the opposite. Having a panic attack or worse a mental breakdown was a death sentence.

There was no sight of flying vehicles or drones from either himself or his four tetrapterons which prompted him to believe it wasn't the military part of the human organization, it was official he existed and dozens of searching teams would have come and found him immediately. 

Satellites were present, he knew because he could see them with his naked eyes in the sky. They looked like little metal shiny dots among the stars and constellations and these shiny dots from humanity that can do space travel won't have any problem scanning a little patch of grass in its every minute detail.

Either way, it was to his immense relief as even if it was the good guy part of the organization he wasn't going to be a good little alien and let himself be taken and manhandled to be studied like a lab rat or worse. Evidently learning more about this body was a must but that equal letting himself be violated.

In the first place he reckoned a baby had more chance of winning a first fight against an adult than an adult against him in the same circumstance. 

He didn't know much about fighting, he is a cook transformed super human polymath engineer but he still knew weight played a pivotal role as anyone with two brain cells would. He was stronger than he looked, a scary thought as he knew he didn't look like the weakest of guys in the first place and he was also way heavier. 

On average he used half of his inventory even if half of the said weight was negated the rest of the weight didn't vanish, it was equally distributed all over his body. He punched hard and fast technique or not, it wasn't rocket science, a more apt example would be warping technology.

Taking the drone apart and modifying its core component was a walk in the park, parts of it were quite advanced like the microchips that were its computer which didn't hold any data but the base programming of the machine that had the command of sending every data it got constantly. 

The integrated lithium battery connected to internal extremely effective solar panels that could be folded in and out was also fascinating if infective but had the merit of being mostly heat free. 

But it was clear as the day it was made being cheap and easy to produce in mind. Anyway, most of this didn't matter as what interested him was the radio transmitter and everything related to it, the frequency of the radio signal used was the most important aspect. 

The rest of the drone was worthless outside of being recyclable and it also gave him ideas to do similar devices. However, not this type of big ugly clunky piece of tinfoil serves as a drone.

He got the name of the company Resource Development Administration as well or RDA for short from several of the components as well. A name that didn't scream danger at all.

He also didn't fiddle with the drone without a minimum of precautions, precautions that in big part consisted of a copper box that itself was in a bigger copper box all of it 20 meters underground. 

It's the deepest part of his base, all of these precautions were just to be sure if it were to send signals while he did tests none would slip out thereby putting a red flag to where he was.

"The signal should be strong and clear enough here.", Liam mumbled while lighting the modified remains of the drone. The drone had a camera and a microphone; what it lacked was a screen and a speaker, he essentially transformed a military scouting drone into a phone.

He was sitting on a smooth stone, his back facing the void of a cliff that led straight toward the sea a hundred meters down where jagged rocks were gently washed by the calm wave of the sea. It was a picturesque place, something abundant on this moon.  

This place wasn't chosen because of this view, well partially because but mostly because it's high, far from his base, and there wasn't any pandorium/unobtanium in the ground. 

This was an important detail, it didn't take much of a genius to realize that the super metal capable of strange partially breaking regular laws of physics with its magnetic feats, might disturb radio waves to an unknown degree.

He was wearing comfortable clothes made of interwoven plant fiber threads and treated leather. A plain brown pair of pants and a grey short-sleeved shirt that was half open and overall didn't hide much of his developed musculature, not that it was easy to do unless he wore extremely baggy clothes. 

And why would he? Every bit of joy, even if slightly narcissistic in origin, was to be taken in this beautifully dangerous hell hole of a moon.

He also wore fingerless gloves that extended into bandages put in a way that his implant was hidden. Maybe not the most useful act as again it will be discovered, Tsu'mong, Eywa, and the two kids and their clan knew of it. But it cost nothing to hide it and avoided potential questions.

No armor of any kind as well, it was completely unneeded, ridiculous at best with the only purpose being to be intimidating, something stupid to do through a video call. And his current best armor was almost done and something that didn't need to be disclosed until necessary as well.

Other than that he slightly trimmed his beard for something less caveman-ish and braided his shoulder-length hair into a Viking-style braid, nothing differing much from how he usually was but a little more care was put in as if he was going to a job interview or video calls he got familiar with during a certain pandemic.

He still looked 'wild' but that was more on how his facial features were, let's say not the softest as far as he could tell, but still better than looking like a caveman that didn't know basic hygiene.

Liam with a deep feeling of trepidation pushed a button of the 'drone transformed phone' turning it on.

No connection to his implant was made, he didn't know what machines they have, and his distinct signal from his implant, even if technically not in the electromagnetic spectrum, might still be traceable by them. 

It's not because their drones and helicopters were far too old-fashioned for a space-faring species that everything will be the same. No chance was taken.

And there was no way for him to turn his implant off unless he killed himself anyway. 

Placing the 'phone' on a tripod he shifted the camera for it to face him, his attention switched to a small blocky screen attached to the side and waited for it to turn from a blank grey screen to a low-quality live video of whoever he was going to talk to if the device on the other side let it happen. 

Liam waited, his eyes progressively going over Gladius barely three dozen meters behind the camera point of view and he smiled amusedly. The young murder chicken of doom was doing basic arithmetic in the form of a puzzle to get to a fruit paste seasoned with an obscene amount of iron powder.

And he waited some more, Occiden landed right in front of him with what looked like a coconut but with long spines in its claw, then the three others arrived, waiting. 

Blinking he understood what the four tetrapterons wanted and grabbed the dry fruit by the stem he placed it on the ground and put pressure on the top with his thumb the result where instant as it split into five clean pieces filled with a deep blue flesh that smelled like raw acacia honey.

A few minutes later a green light blinked over the 'phone', signifying a connection was established and Liam who was hunched over scratching the back of Orien's head noticed that but he waited a bit more to be sure it wasn't an error.

'Fucking finally, I knew it would be long but it was nearly five hours. Did they miss my message?', he thought, eyes slightly narrowing, heart beating increasingly faster, his sudden shift in mood not going unnoticed by any of his tames.

Gladius in the middle of a mid-day sunbath woke up and the tetrapterons tensed up. 

Grabbing the red cap over the camera lens that blocked every visual input he spoke in English, his voice deep and composed, "Greeting to whoever may be listening to me, I'm Liam Cram and I would like for you to connect a camera, and microphone for us to communicate with more ease. I modified your drone to do so."

After those words, he took the red cap off and didn't have to wait much longer for the screen to come to life and the ecstatic face of an auburn-haired fair-skinned middle-aged woman with a Na'vi-like necklace and behind her was the face of a visibly scared chubby brown-skinned man.

'She seems familiar… Wasn't she an important character? And one of the good ones… I think. And I don't recall this guy.', Liam thought frowning slightly as he vaguely remembered her appearance, a feeling of relief at this washed over him as it confirmed his earlier guesses and both didn't seem the military leader kind either. He didn't let his guard down, however.

"I can't hear you. Your microphone isn't connected, or on, or you are muted.", he said blankly, not hiding his amusement, the woman was excitedly moving her lips which meant she was speaking but suddenly stopped at his words, embarrassed she nearly face palmed herself. The one behind did however fully facepalm.

Instantly the tense mood from the other side of the screen deflated, not planned by Liam but a positive outcome nonetheless. 

Clearly even in the future facetime calls were seemingly still too arduous of a task to do without any hitches, at least they weren't any filter here.

"Greetings to you as well, I'm immensely glad to finally be able to communicate with you. I'm Grace Augustine, a xenobotanist and the man behind me is Max Patel, a psychoneurologist… Who or what are you? How are you here? Are there any others like you? How did you manage to train tetrapterons?", the newly named Grace Augustine asked, bombarding him with questions in a way a child in a candy store would but all said calmly with seriousness.

A strange sight from someone who was a scientist, likely a high-placed one at that, and slightly perturbed as he felt like a new interesting subject that needed to be studied, which in all honesty he was but that didn't equal to him like that, or letting it happen on their terms. He needed to remind himself to be diplomatic.

"Calm down Dr. Grace Augustine,", he said, stopping himself from adding a 'the fuck' before the down and continuing on with an even voice that didn't accept no as an answer he proposed spreading his arms slightly, "As for your questions, I suppose we could trade information and depending on what you and I have to give exchange should be possible. Does this seem fair to you? This offer also extends to Dr. Max Patel."

It was the same way he treated Tsu'mong, if cordial, an exchange of knowledge. But since it was humans and not some naive Na'vi here, not hate toward Tsu'mong but it was the truth in this aspect. He perfectly knew how suspicious he sounded. 

For all he knew she thought of him as an alien, which he again technically was and he wasn't even far from the truth either. She didn't have much other possibility other than him spontaneously appearing in this universe, something that she evidently didn't think of.

There was a long silence, where Liam supposed they muted the microphone as he couldn't hear them, then the sound came back Grace spoke again this composed, "I excuse myself for my earlier behavior… My friend and I accept your proposal."

"Good to hear that we are on the same pages, glad to be able to communicate with sane and reasonable, lets first place some ground rules, no action in any way done to harm me or what is mine, no telling others of my existence unless given my accord, no lying and other such commodity civilized individuals won't do to one another.", Liam started right after, nothing outrageous. 

As long as you didn't mess with him or did something he didn't like he was overall a pretty chill dude.

"Fair enough, Mister Cram, always a pleasure to have someone rational and reasonable in these fucking insane world… ", she said not so eloquently.

"And no one but us too of the RDA knows of your existence. We don't want chaos or endless violence born out of greed about your existence… We want to communicate with you in a peaceful manner and simply learn.", she continued, sounding confident in her statements Liam felt she was truthful in all of them but her truth wasn't the absolute truth.

'I held doubt on the RDA part with only you two being in the know about me…', Liam internally remarked but he knew it was mostly his paranoia speaking but he still listened to it. 

If there were others they weren't high placed and likely from the helicopter that was carrying an unconscious great austrapede but better being aware of the possibility than not.

"I can work with that, and you can drop the mister.", Liam said, an almost roguish smile forming, he was greatly pleased and even more relieved with the turn of events. Bad luck and gambling sometimes brought positive results.

Well maybe not rejoice after all, 'Don't sell the skin till you have caught the bear', his grandfather would have said but from this little conversation, it seemed good.

*

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