47. Virus

It has been a bit more than fourteen hours since Liam woke up from his second meeting with Eywa, a very impactful evenement as when it happened he could feel the deity in a way… in a fundamentally different way, there was a sort of connection, a tie, a bond, that was born between both.

Waking up after what he just experienced with his heart hammering powerfully in his ribcage and his body covered in root in an almost sensual way was bizarre, though not as unpleasant as one might think. At least it was a very 'positive' result.

One of if not the best possible outcomes, but again when you have a reasonable individual anchored in reality with similar interests things tend to go very smoothly.

It was a weak connection though, it was more of a general awareness, similar to when he is below the ground facing the Tree of Soul but everywhere.

As such it was unlike the ones with his tames, not as deep or powerful, he couldn't communicate through it, at least not with direct words, he could feel how she felt in various ways but that was very blurry and he supposed she could do so as well. It was a two-way street, both equal.

He wasn't sure how to feel about this, but he was instinctively aware, even when he was 'asleep' that it wasn't a threat to his well-being and that he could cut it off, but that he didn't exactly know how.

It invaded his privacy in a way none could but again he did this to himself and he wasn't much better in that aspect as he could do so to her as well, there was no reason to be outraged.

And he was sure the All-Mother must possess empathic abilities in the first place, be they psychic in origin or from 'regular' senses such as the capacity to detect various hormones in the air or read magnetic fields and the likes.

He always was a bit of an open book to her, that much he could deduce, everything on this moon was an extension of herself, at least it equalized things out.

He didn't hide it from the Olangi, he couldn't even if he wanted the Tsahìk having immediately noticed a change, a shift in how he was, but what he got other than shock, marvel and disbelief wasn't of much help.

It never had happened before, though this wasn't something new with him involved in it. He was an anomaly in many ways, events never recorded in history were to be expected.

Though the mention of having managed to get the All-Mother direct help gave a sense of euphoria. It muddled the primal rage they had when they learned the Tree of Voices was cut down as if it were a vulgar bush, it wasn't where their ancestor reposed but it was all the same.

The Tsahìk and tsakarem and a few others had already sensed something went wrong but they didn't think of something like this.

'Still, Max didn't have to die… It's unpleasant.', Liam thought with a deep frown, anger with a hint of sadness hidden within his eyes, information from Max's smartwatch in his mind, he was aware of his last heartbeat and knew at what exact nanosecond his heartbeat for the last time, his death both was and wasn't in vain.

Max's death could have been easily avoided, prevented in so many ways, he didn't have to die but hyper-focusing on the past wasn't going to help. The one to blame was the one who shot and only the one who shot, going to blame others or himself was pointlessness in its perfect form.

He was friends with Max, nothing exceptional, but Max was one of his only human contacts. He knew the man quite well, and saying it didn't hurt would be lying, the fact someone after, a bald man under the name of Lyle saw, took the smartwatch as some kind of trophy didn't help. It simply angered him.

Thought the smartwatch was perfectly working and thus Lyle Wainfleet as someone quite high placed and close to the head of the SecOps let him spy on them since Grace, while alive, wasn't responding it let him know Hometree was already set ablaze.

And that Grace and Jake were there, in their Avatars he supposed, and had helped in evacuating most of the Na'vi, it was sad but that was life.

'At least thank you, Max. Now I'm fully in… They are all fucked, they can't even begin to understand how much. And the rest managed or were given the chance to escape…', he smirked slightly.

He could understand why they could escape, they weren't considered enemies, in the sense they weren't considered a real threat or a threat at all for that matter. No matter the point of view, though, it was still a very stupid decision to let them go.

You don't play with food unless you want to be turned into food yourself. He was very grateful for the absolute idiocy of the one who made this decision.

It was Quaritch the one who let them go, someone Grace had not painted in the best of light. The war veteran was a sadistic trigger-happy psychotic sociopath piece of what worse humanity could give birth to. A rabid dog who until recently, was on a leash.

And comparing a rabid dog to him was insulting the dog.

He didn't receive further messages from Grace after the one that said they were coming back to Hell's Gate a day ago but he could hear everything from her smartwatch, from when she was threatened to be shot, her horrified scream, and where they were going up to when she entered a zone with magnetic disturbance.

As for what Max did, Liam could have not needed his help but it would have led to several problems and limitations, he was immensely grateful for Max's sacrifice even if he would have preferred for it to not happen.

Or that Max did this earlier, but convincing someone when you can be considered a being that for all intent and purpose could be a genocidal maniac who you will give access to what would help him enact said genocide was hard. Hard but not impossible.

He only needed the right time to strike as a subsystem of Overseer was now well hidden within the main system of Hell's Gate, rapidly spreading, mimicking, and slowly eating every 'primitive' line of codes by a copy of the same but altered code for it to stay hidden until deemed necessary.

A virtual cancer, a cancer under his control. You don't make a disease you aren't immune to and in perfect control of after all, or you don't make it sentient and have a sense of self either for that matter.

However as information of what was in direct connection to the main system came he learned that the vehicles used were in total independent of said system, it was by their designs for the pilots to be fully autonomous, other than messing with the communication system and some minor unimportant function he couldn't do much to them.

No means to simply turn off their entire army, but still very useful in many, many cases. It wasn't as useful as he had hoped for in a hypothetical best-case scenario, but it was confirmed as the best-case scenario for a reason.

It made sense, the pandorium messed up a lot with technology and so to have the computer and other important components like the motor and life support of a vehicle not clearly separated was a potential loss of human life and machinery and as such a great loss in profit.

And those machines were made for war in the first place, one thirty years in the future of his time. As such, digital war at that time would have extensively progressed and was by all accounts just as much of a threat, if not more.

Technology is humanity's greatest strength and weakness.

Having a way around such attacks was to be expected. Either way, it was a problem he had prepared for, and why an army with the capacity to destroy them was a must.

{Liam are you alright?}, Tutee next to him asked as she finished pouring the explosive concoction within a fist-sized, by Na'vi standard, ceramic recipient.

{No. I'm going to speak with Akwey and Marali, you can consider that the war has officially begun.}, he said those words calmly, almost mechanically while his pupil stopped acting weird and the metal bit in his left wrist glowing brightly was the telltale of him using his technology via mystical ways.

This didn't surprise her, she was anxiously anticipating when he would announce just that, she could already feel and see it from everyone's behavior.

The Olangi clan members were preparing their steeds, sharpening their blades, tending to their bows, taking provisions, and more.

Liam walked away, Gladius napping not far away woke, yawned, stood up, and followed him, each of the giant bird's footsteps terrifying anyone close enough due to the way it moved its massive claws.

There was work to do.

At the same time a few hundred kilometers north of the Olangi camp position, it has been several hours since the Samson 16 with the traitors of the RDA had landed at Site 26 within the Hallelujah mountains.

Grace woke up, hair in chaos, face fatigued, and two trails of moisture down her eyes, she pushed the door open and stood up from her Link Unit. Her eyes trailed toward the one of Jake, she frowned, he wasn't waking up, and forcing him awake wasn't an option and even a necessity.

"Fuck not the time to think about this. It was obvious he would have deviated from the plan.", Grace mumbled and drank a glass of water, the plan in her head was to wait while the life shack was getting attached to Trudy's Samson 16 Jake would try to evacuate the Omatikaya and after waking up to their human bodies, then their Avatars would be dragged away by the Na'vi clan and she then would inform them of who the Lost Child was, Liam Cram.

It wasn't going to happen the way she preferred but untimely, it didn't matter. Walking toward a holographic screen she fiddled with it, a connection was made between it and her smartwatch and she downloaded all the data she had about the individual known as the Lost Child, aka Liam Cram.

She positioned them in a way that would be obvious for Jake, in front of his wheelchair, a picture of Liam's face with his bright and unnerving silver eyes at the forefront.

This broke several of the rules set between them but at this point, she was quite sure the man wouldn't care and she didn't care either, failing meant death in both cases.

She needed to tell them, and they needed his help and he will as well considering the RDA possesses everything.

She put on her exopack on her face and exited the life shack, the double door creating a vacuuming zone between the inside from the outside, keeping the two air separated.

"Where is Jake? Is everything all right?", Norm who's finished checking if the chain was for the sixth time asked as he saw her rapidly walk out alone

"Still driving, and no… Hometree was destroyed but we managed to evacuate most of the clan, the Olo'eyktan didn't survive. And we need to go, now. We don't have the luxury to wait ten more hours for him to wake up.", she said hurriedly, ignoring her assistant's question as she climbed up the helicopter.

"But…"

"He will be fine, Norm, this is simply moving the life shack from point A to B. It can still work. The waking up process will be a bit rocky if in flight…", Trudy trailed off, arriving behind and placing her hand on his shoulder, a reassuring smile at the end that hid stress, sadness, and nervousness.

A few minutes and several final checks later with the three climbs in the aircraft the two rotor blades started to spin, the loud sound of their respective engines and the winds they made scaring the smaller wildlife as the machine with the equivalent of a small house in weight attached to it took to the air.

"So… Where are we going exactly?", Trudy asked Grace who promptly gave her the exact coordinate, an area located 56 kilometers (~34.8 mi) away from a Tree of Souls within the same floating mountain they were in, an area where the magnetic interference was weaker.

Two hours passed in almost complete silence in the helicopter shuttle, the atmosphere was heavy.

The death of Max was still a shock for everyone, Grace being the most affected as she knew him for more than a third of her life. Suddenly losing him put her in a strange state of rage and anguish, she didn't even know who the murderer was.

As for Norm, it was different, he didn't know Max for a long time but that short time let him build a friendship. However what was on his mind in preparation was the moment of the gunshot, how Max's strength suddenly vanished and he slipped from his grasp.

He didn't sign up for this but there was no turning back now, not that he would if he could. He gazed through the heavily reinforced glasses at a superelevated area within the forest, it was a beautiful place, a lake next to it leading to an enchanting waterfall full of colorful fauna and flora waiting to be discovered.

Trudy was the most stable of the three, she was a soldier for a short time but still one. She was the less familiar with Max of the three as he was more of an acquaintance to her, she was still pissed off and greatly saddened by his sudden and brutal death.

That aside, this didn't interfere with her capacity. She controlled her baby down, the Samson, hovering twenty meters (~65.6ft) above the soft patch of tall grass as they were blown away by the wind she moved down slowly and paid great attention to the parameter tied to the cables.

She then pressed a button and the hold of the magnetic cable disappeared from the life shack and they began to be reeled back, she nodded pleased. It was perfectly placed from the view of the various cameras around her baby.

"Lady and gentleman, we have arrived at our destination.", she said, trying to break the gloomy atmosphere and it had some success with Norm, earning a snort of amusement from the scientist.

Grace stood up, and as she did her watch suddenly vibrated, her eyes widened in shock and a deep voice distorted by the interference full of confidence resonated.

"Greetings Grace, Dr. Norm Spellman, and Miss Trudy Chacòn. Finally, I'm able to contact you. I'm pleased that you decided to move to one area less affected by the Meissner Effect. My name is Liam Cram and I would like to form an alliance with you against a common enemy."

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