Chapter 5

Left.

Right.

Duck.

Roll.

Climb.

Take aim.

Shoot.

Repeat.

Harry had stepped up his training regiment, taking some tips from Jake Sully on how to better survive on Pandora.

His body was getting stronger. The blue muscles on his arms and legs rippled under his loose clothing, a sign that his hard work was paying off. Pure muscles however, were not enough.

He had to gain skills.

How to light fires, hunt food, move through the jungle, make shelter and use a variety of weapons. His pistol had been little use in his confrontation with the Thanator and so he needed to become familiar and effective with larger, more powerful weapons that could put down the hardy wildlife of Pandora.

It had been several weeks since the attack, but it still filled his mind. He had given everything to be here. To have a second chance at life. He was not going to give that up. For anyone or anything. The scars from the beast now where white lines marring his arm. They had the technology to fix them of course, however he found himself agreeing with the irritating Colonel. They were reminders that Pandora deserved his respect.

He was getting ready for another run of the course he had been creating for himself when a friendly voice called out. "Hey! Harry, I've been looking for you."

"Sorry man. I've been training so much I must have missed our lunch."

Jake Sully smiled at his friend. At least he was putting away all that scientific nonsense and starting to act like a proper recruit. He had been shocked by the lack of training the Avatar drivers took in their new form. Grace had given them new bodies but neglected to train them to survive the riggers of Pandora's jungle. All the protests and suggestions for more than the mandatory survival training which included little more than how to light a fire was rejected. Jake was sure there were boy scouts with more survival training than these billion-dollar Avatars.

They stood in comfortable silence for a while, looking at the base and beyond into the green ocean of endless forests.

The marine eventually broke the silence. "You know you never did explain how you came to be stuck in an Avatar's body."

"Hah! There's not much to tell."

"I disagree. You wouldn't believe the amount of base gossip about you. The Avatar that's not quite an Avatar."

"And what are they saying?"

"They know you don't have a human body to go back into. Why is anyone's guess. But what they're sure of is you must have been rich. As in megacorp rich."

"Really?... and what do you think?"

"That you came here for a second chance. An opportunity to re-make yourself."

Harry smiled at his friend. "I suppose." He paused and then finally relented. It wasn't like the story was classified. He was sure enough when news came with the next supply ship, it would all be public anyway.

"I was dying. A rare disease that even the best medicine, the best doctors couldn't fix. So I took a gamble."

"The Avatar project?"

Harry nodded. "I read an article about how drivers such as yourself create these secondary bodies to explore Pandora and interact with the natives. After that, the technology to transfer to my consciousness permanently was the easy part."

"And why here? That couldn't have been cheap, and I don't see the RDA giving Avatars to just anyone."

"I guess the rumours are right. I was… wealthy." Jake took that in for a moment before broaching a topic he knew that hundreds on the base had wanted to find out.

"You know there's talk you brought enough supplies to start your own colony."

Harry let out a good chuckle. "Hardly. I brought a few essentials with me, it's still mostly in orbit but when the loading is complete, I can call it down to help me find a quiet corner of this planet to call my own."

Jake just shook his head. The wealth and privilege of his friend had gone far beyond his wildest dream. They were from the same planet but completely different worlds.

"If you were that rich, how come I don't recognise your name."

"Well, I suppose our introduction was a little rushed. The whole bare-ass incident."

"Yeah yeah."

"Let me try again. Nice to meet you. I was formally called Harry. Harry More."

"More" Jake said the word slowly as if tasting it. "More… as in More Corp?" Jake couldn't help but drop his jaw as his eyes went wide with realisation.

"I was never very involved in the business side. More of the scientist behind the scenes. But I suppose the vanity of naming the company after myself is something even I couldn't escape from."

Jake pestered Harry with questions for the next hour, not willing to leave out any detail, about his previous life and how he ended up here.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Later that day, when the sun had passed over the horizon and the night crept in, Harry stood in his lab staring at the screen, daring it to correct his pronunciation again.

"Beep! Incorrect. Please try again." The computer bleated out in its unfeeling tone.

"Fuck!" Harry could help but swear. He had trying to learn the Navi language for the last month. Every night he would spend several hours repeating the phrases over and over but his progress seemed minuscular. He started to have regrets of asking Katy to build to programme for him, perhaps it would have been better to invent some sort of universal translator. That would have saved him many headaches!

"Beep! Inc…" The computer started to say again.

"Stop" He commanded. "Repeat the phase"

"Beep! Oel ngati kameie" (I see you)

Harry took a deep breath and tried to match the tone of the recoding. "Oel ngate Camera"

"Beep! Incorrect. Please try again."

Again and again.

Harry echoed the machine until he finally heard the "Ping! Correct!" that meant he had gotten close enough. He had learned most of the common names for objects and animals and could comfortably point to something and say what it is in Navi, however sentences were beyond him. The Navi grammatical structure made his days of trying to learn Latin seem downright logical.

-------------------------------------

Harry had changed his research approach due to lacking the freedom to go on research teams. Somehow being on a team where two security forces get eaten is seen as something of a black mark when it comes to accompanying other research teams. Instead, he focused on wildlife that existed in the base, although that was severely limited.

He had also taken to exploring the immediate area around the base. Despite the great roads carved through the forest canopy, there was still a diversity of life all around. He was able to pull lots of samples from plants and animals in the local area to enrich his growing database.

The security forces had started to hate him. They frequently had to purge the area of animals, it was one of the sources of the base's meat supply, however Harry had been pinching their hunted prizes in the name of 'research'. On the bright side, at least they hadn't shot him. Not yet anyway.

Harry found himself on one of his mid-morning hikes to a hill just on the edge of the base. He tucked his equipment securely into his backpack before leaping upwards into the tree.

He scrambled up, not particularly gracefully. Tree climbing was not a skill common on earth where wildlife and all-natural areas were on the verge of extinction.

Putting his arms out for balance he shuffled along a branch. The nearby tree branches reached out as if to greet him. With a great leap, the blue form landed on the tree with surprising ease. His tail straightened out to counterbalance his motion.

"I suppose the obstacle course was helpful after all." He couldn't wait to back to Willow and Jake and rub it in their smug faces. He had seen videos of the natives and the ease at which to move through the jungle had invited a fit of jealousy that Harry didn't know he possessed. That's why he was out here trying to jump from tree to tree to prove he wasn't any lesser.

If they could do it, so could he. Or at least that was what he thought.

With his confidence building, he quickly ran along the thick branch and leapt again.

Landed.

With barely a pause, he took off again, this time for a much wider gap. Using all his leg muscles, arching his back to swing his arms, he lunged into the open air.

He soared through the air and couldn't help but let a smile form on his face.

Now he understood. This was living. He could feel his heart thrum with joy. He felt alive. He felt at home.

Harry arced his body on instinct and landed squarely on the new moss-covered tree. He straightened up to decide his next jump. Suddenly, he slipped.

The moss under his Avatar issues shoes slipped on the moist moss and he went over the side of the branch. Harry's arms failed about uselessly trying to find a hold but grasped nothing in the open air he found himself in.

A scream escaped from his throat. Not very manly, but long-ingrained habits died hard.

He was able to flip himself around in the air just in time to be slapped in the face by a giant leaf. It bent under his weight but couldn't hold him.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Harry fell from leaf to leaf. Each time getting slapped over and over again. Luckily all the collisions at least took the brunt of the fall.

When harry finally hit the ground, it was with a dull Thud! He lay on the ground for a moment. Not caring about the risk of being on the canopy floor, trying to catch his breath.

He was winded but alive.

"Maybe I need a bit more practice" Harry muttered to himself. He suddenly didn't quite feel confident to share this experience with his friends just yet. Perhaps when he more practiced.

He looked up at the trees and forced his tired body to move.

Time to try again.

-------------------------------------------------

The next day, Harry leaned on a fence on top of the base fence. A steaming cup of what passed for coffee in his hands. It was a dangerous and wild world. He thought to himself. But I love it.

Jake and Norm were going on the first excursion today. They were led by the most experienced Avatar driver, Grace herself. Harry couldn't help a twinge of jealousy that Jake, a marine was given higher priority for the science mission than himself.

He sighed. Such was the way of the world. He looked back toward the base where a rotorcraft was taking flight.

He could recognise Jake's form even from this distance, holding a door gun in all his military garb. At least that will make him happy.

As they flew over, he raised his mug in a silent salute.

He hoped that whatever they found, it was at least less exciting than his travels beyond the base.