Chapter Text
An emotion Quaritch couldn’t quite pinpoint swells within him upon entering the courtyard. Hundreds of humans, maskless and breathing Pandoran air as if it had been the way God had made them. They're uniformed in bright, unnatural, sanitized white, making them easy targets should they escape. A wave of stares turned in unison to gaze up at him and his subordinate Recoms, before all falling directly to the hissing stomps of the Chief Correctional Officer Marwood, a massive and sleek mechanical automaton, one that stood eye to eye with both Na’vi and Recom.
“I trust that you’ve all acclimated well since waking.” Marwood’s voice fed out through the commlink embedded in the region where a face would have been on anyone living. While Quaritch had never met Marwood or his superiors in the flesh (nor would anyone ever again) this mechanical form seemed more natural to his disposition.
“The units I call out for, step forward."
Per Marwood, the numbers made it easier to not get attached. A precaution needed for others, and not for Marwood, as he had reminded them. Quaritch quelled the next rise of something he did not have the time to process as heads began to walk forward and stand in a single file line. Corporal Wainfleet shifted from one foot to the other, lifting his shades to squint at the lot of them. And Quaritch knew why; the kind of primal hunger they had all found themselves with as Recoms was unnaturally high and all but Quaritch had given into it since waking several months ago. Some far more than others.
Still, in order to make it happen between these Recom bodies and humans, additional equipment to ensure neither party suffocated was required. To have that hunger sated with just the presence of bodies and no other interference… It was an appealing thought.
But, while there was no risk of accidental life being made with the standard Terran human, Quaritch and his team had been warned. The territory with this lot was largely uncharted and given the findings of the field studies both on Earth and here on Pandora, that risk was returned; meaning that life could find a way to grow between these hybridized bodies.
These people, these humans, were a kind of genetic aberration. The same bioengineering that had spearheaded RDA’s research by creating both Avatar and Recombinant. But these are, or were, humans. The genetic augmentations had been on them as they stood present. No CNS capturing, no identity imprintation. Marwood’s direct superior, of whom had not been formally named, had not given the impression that he tolerated many questions, but Quaritch had asked one: how had they survived?
Many hadn’t.
So far, the survival rate was 40%. It was preliminary. These were among the first humans to undergo the editing, and it was expected that future generations would see a much more marginal rate of failure. Still, a success rate of 40% had told Quaritch that this sector of RDA had power, more than he could have imagined for himself and other stations, and this had been including his past role as Chief of Security. You didn’t just kill off 60% of a group and consider it a success unless it was dire straits or the one manning the testing was bereft of all sanity.
Quaritch remembered, some fifteen years prior, overhearing how the Na’vi found the hybrids unsettling and unnatural. The excuse had been that their features did not quite align; something just seemed off. And while he had undergone an extreme morphological change himself, seeing these fragile pink, beige, and brown faces staring up at him with pupils blown incomprehensibly wide from increased use of both O and CO2 in their smaller bodies, he could see why. They are uncanny yet… magnetic compared to the human guards that stalked between them, wearing exopacks and carrying ARs. Quaritch finds he can't stop leering.
“616.” Marwood droned.
You step forward. By human standards, you were bodacious, one of the largest females in the room. The only others that stood taller were Zdinarsk and Walker. You had the build of both a warrior but more often a mother. Still, to Quaritch, and the rest of his team, you are diminutive. A little more than half his size; it’s what reminded him of his entitlement. He knew what he was owed when it came to the fairer sex, and Quaritch let his gaze drop to take in the whole of you. He liked what he saw; your hips were wider than the waists of most Na’vi, your shoulders not much smaller. He could work with that.
That little psychic intuition that humans possess alert you to the fixed stare, and your eyes find his. Upon your mutual awareness, there's a long moment in which you return his gaze with a much darker look. Both Wainfleet and Prager notice and share silent glances between one another. Quaritch pays neither of them mind and instead offers a half smirk to you, tipping his head in acknowledgement. An informal greeting, his tail whipping behind him for a moment before he stilled it.
“How many times have they tried?” Quaritch knew that absence without leave wasn’t the right term. These here were prisoners. Regardless, considering them within ranks made it easier, as much as Quaritch resented giving it to Marwood.
“234 has attempted twice, 478 six, and 616 has attempted eleven.” Marwood said while lifting the barrel of an arm, a cyan holopad extending from it. Quaritch gave the holopad a cursory glance before turning to look at the lot of them, assessing them as a group entirely. None of them were trained like he and his men were. Either now or before. They were all soft in a way. The kind of people soldiers like he and his men both ridiculed and went home to. They weren’t a lost cause, however. Quaritch had been shown how the In Vivo editing had improved their baselines. With the right drilling, some of them might even be a threat. His gaze falls to you. Within a few strides, he towers above the group of twelve being outfitted with the equipment needed to gain the metal.
“It’s gotta be either stupidity or gumption that has you three trying to scatter.” Quaritch says, placing his fingers loosely along the grip of his Z-33R. 234 and 478 eye him warily. The other nine cower. You, 616, ignore his barb entirely and instead focus on the pack being strapped to your back.
“You, 616,” Quaritch calls out your number, and you finally look his way again while being jerked into the gear by the associate SciOps. “You gonna give us trouble out there?”
You both eye one another for a long while again, enough to make the other In Vivo shift uneasily and for Quaritch to gesture impatiently, “Well?”
“Depends on my mood,” you say before turning away to finish outfitting.