Chapter Text
Stripes woke earlier than usual. Whether it was the abnormally rank smell of the new processing plant across town or the electrical buzz of the new turbines on the shield wall, she couldn’t tell, but there was no getting back to sleep now. She tiptoed around the kitchen, hoping not to disturb the feather-light sleep of the Recom squad before she had a chance to get some fresh air.
in a lot of ways it was nice having them around. She felt less self conscious with all the giant bodies surrounding her. like being shielded from the sun by the trees. Less empty and exposed.
But the drawbacks still existed.
She hated having to be so quiet. Back when she was the only one she’d had this part of the barracks to herself. No one came in because what was the point when you’d have to climb the sofa like a mountain and stand on a chair to see over the table? There were also the issues of people swiping things she left in the fridge, bumping into her in the hallway, getting rowdy while she was sleeping- the only thing that didn’t go away was the name calling. Once the Blue Boys realized she wasn’t a Recombinant it was game over, and they became just like all the other assholes in the RDA SecOps, except bigger and louder.
At the mouth of the building, she let her hand rest on her hip, rib cage nearly splitting from the volume of air she took in. her lips curled back in a grimace, the flehmen response, as Marisol had explained; and the taste that touched the roof of her mouth was dusty and metallic. salty from the ocean and warm from the steam of her coffee.
Her hand trailed across the wall that separated her Playpen from the rest of the barracks. big, colorful blobs she’d branded across them as a child with spray paints lifted from Bridgehead’s early construction. The world was a lot smaller back then, and she regretted how long it took her to realize she preferred it that way. She spotted a can in the overgrown weeds that creeped through the cement cracks and gave it an experimental shake, delighted to find that there was still some left.
Hell yeah.
She let loose on the brick, signing her name in big, cursive letters and throwing the can clear over the wall when she was done. Another deep inhale, a moment dedicated to appreciating the paint fumes, turned into a gasp when she heard a voice yell something along the lines of what the shit?
She sprinted away, knowing whoever it was wouldn’t be able to catch up in time to punish her. Her run led her into the Boom Room where they kept the Blue team’s gear, and without missing a beat she unhooked an oversized rifle that obviously belonged to Quaritch, bringing it all the way back to the kitchen to fix another cup of coffee. The mug she left outside would probably die a slow death, but that was okay. The RDA kept the place stocked now that the real assets had arrived-
“Morning Stripes,” a playful voice called from the end of the sofa.
“Morning, Sol.” She called back. Stripes liked Marisol. They fell into an easy friendship almost instantly, something Stripes could only blame on the fact that Sol was not a soldier.
Stripes took care to keep the rifle out of view when she went to sit on the coffee table, no matter that the woman couldn’t see her. From this angle Stripes watched as pictures of the jungle were uploaded, notes added to the margins of each page. She recognized some but figured they could talk about the rest after dinner like they always did. Sol taught her all about the local flora and sea life, the habits and scientific names of everything. Stuff that the constantly rotating stream of strangers who took turns babysitting her never bothered to mention and probably didn’t know to begin with. Her favorites were the trees, and the superweb of data they carried. Sol explained how there used to be a tree with more memories than they could record in a million lifetimes.
She also said that the military had blown it to bits the day she died. The look on her face had been sad as she told the story. Stripes tried to be sad too, but she couldn’t. It didn’t mean anything to her. She didn’t care about the natives or the deity or whatever, and the fact that the Recombinant sitting in front of her wasn’t even the same person who went down in the war made it all the more difficult to empathize.
“You shouldn’t be touching those outside of the shooting range.” Sol’s throat cleared, breaking Stripes’ train of thought.
always a stickler for the rules. If Sol had lived on a half acre of concrete all her life, she’d be more understanding and less of a pain in Stripes’ ass. “Touching what?” She asked sweetly.
Marisol said nothing as she stood, just sipped her coffee with a cocked brow and pointed at the girl’s chest. “I may not be good at much but I’m good at knowing what the rules are.”
“I know the rules too, I just don’t follow them.”
The woman hummed, gesturing for her to follow while guzzling the last of her coffee and taking the new cup Stripes made for herself. “Put the gun down, my little non-conformist, and I’ll tell you a story,”
“Is it the one about the cat who bit the hand that fed her?” Her eyes rolled, hand grasping at the edge of the mug Sol stole, only for her to hold it out of reach.
Sol’s brows went up, a look of mock surprise taking her features that made the hair on the back of Stripes’ neck prickle. Here we fucking go. “Oh so I’ve told you that one?”
She felt a groan in her chest that didn’t quite make it into existence, knowing if she copped an attitude, sol would just double down and tell an even longer version of the story to annoy her. It was like that, the same thing each time with tedious details changed to fit whatever narrative Marisol wanted. But the ending was always the same; BOOM, dead cat, BAM, dead cat, SMASH, dead cat. Stripes didn’t bother asking her friend not to tell it again. That shit never worked. “Only every day since you came back from the dead.”
“Then you should remember that the cat’s owner eventually put her down; You know, because you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, that’s the whole premise of the story. when you break the rules in someone else’s world, you die .” The woman chugged Stripes’ coffee, ignoring her protests entirely. “And you are very much in someone else’s world.”
Stripes looked down at her feet, standard issue combat boots custom made in her size, scuffed from all the brick kicking and running and general fuckery of her daily life. She was just as tired of wearing them as she was of seeing camo and khaki day in and day out. It didn’t occur to her until Project Phoenix blessed her with Marisol Corona that she even considered a life outside the city as possible. The mountains and the jungle and the sea, that she could only see in photos and handwriting, were calling to her, she could feel it. All it would take is a helping hand. One strong push to get her over those walls and- “What if I don’t wanna be in someone else’s world anymore.” She mumbled.
“We talked about this.”
“If you just told me where to go I could-“
“No.” Sol scolded. “Absolutely not, now get to the quad before Wainfleet drags you there by the ear, he woke up before you got back.”
and just like that, the day was ruined.
Stripes signed in and pushed the clipboard aside for the first task of the day. A random standard-issue weapon was always laid out, rotating so many times that they weren’t new anymore. today she tinkered with the pieces of a Crye rifle until they fit together like a puzzle, taking it apart and reassembling it again with ease.
She brought it with her, this time following the RuLeS, and scanned the yard for Lyle. Normally he could be found by the dummies they used for target practice but her head tilted in confusion when she didn’t find him there. Her search brought her back inside, through the squeaky linoleum halls of the Training Block and into the only room where something was actually happening.
The gym floor was covered in mats today, and while it would have been fun to watch the Recom team wrestle- the only times the Gym was ever used- none of them seemed to be awake yet, and so a sick feeling settled in her chest when Wainfleet met eyes with her from his position at the punching bags.
“Yo, Stripey,” he said after a long gulp of water. “We’re doing hand to hand today.”
Her heart dropped into her stomach. Please don’t make me. Please don’t make me- “Can we skip today? I had a big breakfast-“
His head shook and he pointed to the mat “Get into position,”
A compromise. A distraction. Anything to get out of this. Anything. “Can I practice with Toby?”
“Quentin’s busy. Paws up.” His fist went up in front of his face, which sat nearly two feet above her own, even hunched over to spar.
When she didn’t move, he ripped the rifle from her grip, tossing it to the floor like a discarded security blanket.
She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to be here. She should have stayed asleep- “Please, Lyle, I don’t wanna-“ there was no time to finish pleading before his fist cracked against the side of her head.
Her body flew back, tail bending beneath her definitely not the most painful part of being hit by Lyle Wainfleet.
“Pick yourself up kid,” he goaded, his own tail twitching fast in excitement. “Come on!”
She imagined herself back in her Playpen with Tenoch, learning about Nouns and Verbs. A simpler time than the hell she lived in now. Tenoch had been paid well. She was only following orders, but Tenoch was hers . And Tenoch would never hurt her. Stripes imagined the old lady moving somewhere quiet once she was finished on Pandora. Her grandkids, all grown up by the time she got back, could inherit some of the money she made teaching Stripes grammar and math. They could spend time together in her retirement, watching the birds outside the windows of the little blue house Tenoch described, and she could die knowing she’d lived a damn fine life.
Stripes cried on graduation day. The day they took her finger paints and toys away and shoved a gun in her hands. Not even so much as a goodbye from Tenoch.
Suddenly she was back in the present.
“I hate you!” She screamed from the floor, mouth opening in a hard hiss.
“I didn’t ask, now get up,”
All of his hits landed, each harder than the last, each growing less sympathetic as she yelled and cursed at him. His instruction was sound, but there was no time to implement it, zero transition between teaching and mindlessly beating the shit out of her.
she hated him. She hated herself.
she wished she was dead.
Stripes wandered around the barracks with a dead eyed expression and two pieces of gauze shoved up her nose. Courtesy of Wainfleet’s lack of tact and medical training.
He’d sent her off after target practice with a sip of water and a pat on the back, saying something like it’s nothing personal, or whatever, and the sentiment fell on deaf ears.
It sure as shit on a biscuit felt personal.
Her feet ambled to a stop in the Playpen, the sight of her name, now dry and permanently at home on the wall, making her head jerk in the opposite direction. Instead she looked off to the side, where finger paintings of her own face still clung to the brick. One brown eye and one blue. Further down the neon pink silhouette of Tenoch’s tiny hand was stamped next to hers. Even then her fingers had been three times longer, and grew so fast they had to roll the paint onto her palm instead of dipping it into the little tray every year after that.
The back of Stripes’ hand went up to wipe the tears she didn’t even realize had been pooling at her chin.
It was explained to her early on that she was going to be a soldier. Pounded into her head that it would be a privilege to man a gunship or die in combat against the Omatikaya. In the beginning it was nothing but war atrocities and propaganda, but over time the idea seemed to become less and less important to the upper division. The arrival of the Recombinants meant that she had been all but forgotten.
She didn’t know if she was sadder that no one wanted her or that she wanted to be wanted by the RDA so badly in the first place.
Her body turned towards the electrified gate of her playpen.
She didn’t know if life was worth living at all anymore.
She sat at the kitchenette counter for the rest of the day, watching the Recombinants walk around. She growled when they passed and hissed when they bumped into her. No one was spared, not even the Queen Bee himself.
“Who pissed in your cereal?” Quaritch griped, swatting her over the head as a punishment.
Stripes snarled. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten into it with the colonel, the half-moon scars of her bite mark still visible on his forearm. It surprised her to find he was nowhere near as aggressive as Wainfleet, even hesitating to hurt her while pulling her off of him. A mark against him, in her opinion. Now she knew she could get away with more at his expense. “Fuck off!”
“Listen kid-“ his ears flattened, tail going taut. He jerked when an arm looped in his and pulled him away and the voice of an angel cooed in his ear.
“Thanks Miles,” Sol winked “I can take it from here.”
“Thanks Miles,” Stripes mocked when the man left. She’d had to sit through enough Sex Ed. classes after hitting puberty to know those two probably did it in the gym while everyone was asleep.
“You’re tap dancing on some thin ice, kid,” Toby said through a mouthful of Mac n’ cheese. Where the hell had he been earlier when she needed him? “Like wafer thin,”
“Tobes, you’re not helping!” A vein popped out of Sol’s forehead and she pinched the bridge of her nose after herding her brother through the hallway. The rest of the Blue Boys already having gone to bed.
This part of the day, at the cusp of eclipse, when all the new bodies were settling down for rest, was a favorite for Stripes. The mornings were their own kind of peaceful, a dewy and productive spot in the cosmos- but right now, when the machines had all been left at their stations and no one had fallen asleep yet; when it was too dark not to have the lights on, and the hum of the fiberglass panels above her were the only sound in the whole city,
was the only time when she felt like she could be.
“you okay?” Sol pointed to the strips of gauze and Stripes immediately went to pull them out.
“My nose is broken,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the trail of snot that came out with each pad.
Sol seemed to consider this, head rolling back and forth playfully. “How do you know that?”
“I just know,”
“Let’s see.” The woman’s thumbs pressed against her face, moving positions every few seconds to test the whole area, “Take a deep breath through your nose, in, out, in, out. there, does this hurt?”
“Yes.” Stripes whined. Of course it hurt, she was bleeding .
“You didn’t flinch though,” sol grinned “is it tender here?”
Stripes couldn’t help but feel like this was going to be another variation of the dead cat story, but she answered anyway, sighing irritably. “…No,”
“It’s not broken.” She asserted, ruffling her hair and letting her hand trail across Stripes’ braid. “Investigate before you jump to conclusions, it saves lives.”
Oh thank god, Stripes praised, knowing that skipping one of Sol’s lessons was a once in a lifetime opportunity. She had enough fuel for an existential crisis without adding more crap on top of it today.
Sol went about making herself comfortable at the edge of the sofa, throwing her boots into her young friend’s lap “Wainfleet is a dick, huh,”
Stripes gasped, taking note of another bruise she’d have to watch for the next week and mumbling a few curses. “I’m glad he’s dead.”
They shared a laugh. It was hilarious. A massive cosmic joke with twelve assholes at the center and to not take advantage of the serotonin would have been a waste. Stripes went to tuck herself under Sol’s arm, only to meet resistance and an uneasy silence before the explanation “We’re not doing that today,” Sol said with a sad smile “Set your alarm for two-thirty and come meet me at the Playpen gate.”
“That’s in like five hours.”
“Do it or I won’t give you your birthday present you little shit.” Sol scolded
“I’m not going to lie, I completely forgot.” She laughed nervously. Her hand tapped at her knee, counting the fingers on hers, three, and then on Sol’s, Four, over and over to distract herself from the feelings. She didn’t want to think about that anymore. Or ever, for that matter. “I haven’t celebrated since Tenoch left.”
There was that sad smile again. Reserved only for the cutting of wise old trees and the destruction of celestial deities. “Well this year you’re getting something good, now go to sleep.”
Stripes dutifully made her way back to her room, taking a moment to look back at Sol, whose head rested in her hands.
If the normally joyful Recombinant was stressing this much, it was probably going to be one hell of a gift.
Stripes woke to the gentle click of her alarm, which was set to exactly twenty minutes before she was supposed to meet Marisol. This way she could take her time rolling off the bed and onto the floor. Dragging her storage bin out from under the frame, and pulling on her pants while still laying down.
She didn’t even bother to buckle her belt until she was in the bathroom, toothbrush in her mouth, with the realization that anyone could walk in for a piss and see her standard-issued underwear. The toothpaste was cinnamon flavored, not spearmint like she was used to and a quick turn of the tube revealed it belonged to Zhang. Another drawback of having roommates, she supposed, and the perfect time to test out her gag reflex apparently.
In the fridge was a carton of eggs, a pudding cup and an apple.
The apple, of course, was the only thing she left there, sucking the pudding straight from its plastic container and tossing it on the counter once empty. The eggs were special. Those were cannon fodder for the curly lines of her handwriting on the yard wall. The Playpen never felt so suffocating and she wasted no time emptying the eggs on it as if they were bombshells that could blast a hole in the brick and erase the whole event of her confirming that this would be her coffin.
She checked her watch. Five minutes, and no Sol.
She tore up the weeds that grew along the cement cracks.
Four minutes and no Sol.
She grabbed yesterday’s forgotten coffee mug from the brush, dumping the black sludge out and pulling at the lip on both sides to see if she was half as strong as Mansk, who constantly broke the communal glassware just from how hard his grip was.
Two minutes, no Sol.
“Fuck this, I’m going back to bed,” she growled. It was one thing that Sol wanted her up this early, but a whole different deal that-
The creak of metal brought her to a halt. The sound was so eerily unfamiliar that she couldn’t bring herself to turn. It was obvious what it was. The gate had been opened before, but never while she was out, and most certainly not right in front of her. If she moved, what would happen?
“Yo Birthday Girl.” Sol’s voice played softly on the breeze, a smile apparent in her tone. “You comin’ or what?”
Marisol Corona and Toby Quentin were thick as thieves after coaxing Stripes through the Playpen gate. They pulled her forward and pushed her back, shoved her head down and shushed all of her questions. No one was up, save for a few straggling linemen that seemed not to even notice the three of them creeping around in the shadows.
There was a lot of looking around and heavy coordination between the images on Sol’s holo pad, angles of the ceilings and walls they were passing through, and the direction they took to get wherever they were going.
she’d left her room still groggy, hoping to get back to sleep for a few more hours after the surprise. The fact that it wouldn’t happen became obvious the moment they cleared not only the Playpen wall but the entrance to the housing facility. Her knees locked up and her heart began to flutter. This was wrong. It wasn’t allowed. She wasn’t allowed to leave the barracks.
Stripes had never been so scared to break a rule in her entire life.
Dead cat, dead cat, dead cat.
“Come on, babe,” Sol beckoned. The way her eyes shifted skittishly back and forth did nothing to quell the rising anxiety in stripes’ chest but she crept forward anyway and let Sol rub circles in her back. “It’s safe, I promise,”
She breathed deeply. She liked Sol. She trusted Sol. Sol was safe. Like Tenoch . “Where are we going?” She begged.
“Just up ahead,” Toby’s tone was clipped which didn’t help.
Neither did the breeze on her bare shoulders or the deterioration of the area they were walking into. It was obvious where the maintenance crew had stopped caring, vines and weeds creeping out from cracks in the walls like the ones taking over her yard. Soon it was all around them, the jungle rolling over everything in sight.
“This is an old facility,” explained Toby, who jogged ahead, motioning for them to finally stand up straight. “I helped design it before Hell’s Gate went belly-up.”
“The blueprints in Archive One show they followed it down to the bare bones so I was able to get a signal block on some of the cameras and jimmy the skylight open for a smooth takeoff.” The man rattled off some unintelligible engineering jargon but all that fell straight through the jittery paws of the monkey in her skull until one thing was left for her to ponder.
Stripes cupped her elbows, prompting Toby to shrug off his jacket and toss it at her. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she wasn’t cold. “Takeoff?” She breathed as hands came up to her arms, pulling them through the sleeves and adjusting the collar for her.
Sol hugged her around the shoulders, kissing her cheek as they entered a large room, empty except for a rusty old Scorpion. “Happy birthday.”
Toby entered it through the hatch and began to fiddle with the controls, bringing it online by the glow that illuminated the pilot’s seat.
“I don’t understand.” she let her hand reach out to touch it anyway, mouth ajar in awe. the thing was Frankensteined together with screws and panels from different aircraft. The finishing touches were the patches of duct tape and array of blue stripes… The paint was still tacky to the touch and fuming so hard it made stripes dizzy but she didn’t move an inch back. Didn’t take her palm off it, and refused to look anywhere else but the serial number etched into the side.
101415.
After a few minutes of listening to Toby in the cockpit and Sol tapping at her Holo-pad, fear suddenly made way for something else. Stripes let her hands fall away from the metal and fly to her temples. “you want me to drive this thing?”
Sol handed a small object to Toby through the hatch but neither of them bothered to look up at Stripes. Was this really just another fucking Tuesday to them? “I thought the context clues would have been enough to answer that,”
The taste of chocolate pudding and cinnamon toothpaste in her mouth became overwhelming. The blood in her veins was one degree too warm. “I don’t think I can do this,” she nearly heaved.
“What happened to ‘ I don’t wanna live in someone else’s world!’ ?” Sol put on a high pitched voice, joking like she always did. She wasn’t acting differently than she normally would- no nervous tics or anxious tells making themselves apparent.
Why isn’t she panicking? “No, I mean I can’t pilot an aircraft, Sol!” What the hell is going on?
“That’s what the chip is for, dingdong,” Toby called from somewhere in the copter, metal scraping against metal and the whirring sound of technology growing louder in its depths. “the joys of autopilot,”
Despite the new information, this whole thing was so far out of her depth that she was already drowning. Was it really happening?
No. Absolutely not. Sol said that, didn’t she? Did I imagine the whole thing?
Toby leaped out of the scorpion with a booklet, showing it to her before reaching back in to place it on the seat. “I tried to find you a manual for this model but all I could get my hands on was the new one. It’ll tell you how to land safely but you’re fucked if this thing goes down in the boonies.”
The deeper down the rabbit hole she went, the more she drew back on what she knew about Sol. The breakdown tactic had worked in the past and they were slowly chipping away at her resolve by not answering her questions, she could feel it. mental exhaustion waning into acceptance. “I’ll just call you to come fix it,” she joked weakly.
All the air in the room turned into lead at the switch in his expression. Lead in her lungs and her bones and heart. This wasn’t the Toby who would let her win a wrestling match. Not the Toby who gave her books to read and movies to watch. This was someone else entirely. “No, Stripes,” he said carefully “You’re on your own and if you get caught, we didn’t do this, you get me? You did it alone with no help from anyone.”
Oh it was real. It was tangible, physical, visceral, that she was truly about to take off in this flying monstrosity and there was no changing her mind about it now. “Didn’t see shit; don’t know shit.” She swore, throat going dry.
She had asked for this. She wanted this.
Didn’t she?
“‘Atta girl.” The real Toby reached into his pocket and pulled out a bible, tattered and small in his hand. As if her agreement had sealed away whatever demon had come out and resurrected her friend in its place. “you remember Psalm twenty-five fifteen?”
Stripes took it from him, pressing it to her forehead with a groan. Nothing could possibly make this moment worse. “Tobes I told you i only read it because I was bored, I don’t believe in-“
Sol shushed her, pulling her closer to huddle into Toby’s little circle. “I don’t either, just do the thing,”
“Psalm twenty-five fifteen through twenty,” he insisted, roughly shoving both their heads into a bow and closing his eyes.
“Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
Relieve the troubles of my heart
and free me from my anguish.
Look on my affliction and my distress
and take away all my sins.
See how numerous are my enemies
and how fiercely they hate me,
Guard my life and rescue me;
do not let me be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.
May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope, Lord, is in you.”
None of them moved a muscle when the psalm was completed. Foreheads pressed together, nothing in view but their shoes and the fine layer of dirt that covered the ground.
Leaves passed through the gaps between them, the artificial wind from the propellers and engines of Stripes’ scorpion making dust devils of the debris all around them.
For once Stripes wished there were cameras, if only to scroll back once this moment was over and watch it forever.
“I’ll give you guys a minute,” he finally said, breaking the shield of safety theyd built with their bodies and walking away to look over the aircraft one last time.
Sol’s voice cracked at first that she had to clear her throat a few times before getting it clear enough to speak. “The display on this bad boy is down so Tobes linked it with my Holo-pad. Guard it with your life,” she looked as if a piece of her soul was leaving her body as she handed the thing over.
“Yes ma’am,”
“after today these dickheads wont be your friends anymore, you know that right?” Sol fiddled with the end of her braid, looking awkward and uncomfortable with nothing in her hands.
Stripes considered this
Friend was a strong word for what the military force was to her. There weren’t many kind words said to her between the name calling and the artillery training but she wouldn’t bring any of that up with Marisol now. Not when there was something more important hanging in the air. “What about us?”
“We’ll always be friends.” She said, incredulous, as if it was crazy the girl would even ask. “No matter what.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Sol’s sharp teeth flashed and they both laughed at the irony, tears welling up and spilling over both of their faces, dripping everywhere as they embraced.
Stripes knew it was okay to cry, having missed this chance with the last person she had been close to, Tenoch disappearing into the night and fading away with the slow march of time. She knew this was a happy moment. She just didn’t understand why it had to hurt so much.
Marisol kissed her forehead, wiping at both of their faces again. “be brave. Be brave and strong for me okay?”
“I will,”
At 0400 the sky was dark and eclipse was at its peak. Toby and Sol prepared her for the possibility that the animals and trees would make the conscious decision to murder her, but so far that didn’t seem to be at issue. It didn’t take long for her to move out of her seat to avoid looking at the passing objects though, the idea of losing power and exploding into a million little blue pieces against a cliff or tree at the forefront of her worries.
Stripes instead distracted herself with the exploration of the craft. The Scorpion was more spacious from the outside. From the inside it was a thirty square foot straight-jacket packed to the brim with whatever crap Sol and Toby could throw together on short notice.
She emptied the Duffel they gave her with extreme prejudice, deciding what to keep and what was garbage. it was a handful of MREs, water, a utility knife, a rifle and a first aid kit that contained an unopened bottle of gin that she ultimately decided to keep. Beyond that there was a puzzle she put together quickly and discarded, a flashlight with a finicky solar panel and a book of matches. But she was so terrified of the idea of burning down the forest, trauma from the first time she tried cooking for herself, that she kicked it away with her foot.
Initially Toby’s bible was listed as the latter, placed to the side, though her first inclination was to toss it over her shoulder. After all of three minutes of debate, and a dozen sidelong glances she relented, shoving it back into the bag.
Toby had carried this thing around since he was a baby, so Sol said. He went to his church thing every seven days with that weathered old book in his lap so Sol said. The only thing she knew for sure was that it had followed him through death.
She didn’t see the appeal. It was old and too small for his ridiculously wide hands, the addition of a fourth finger doing nothing to help that situation, fragile pages ripping with the slightest pull.
Sol’s Holo-pad was a far easier decision. It had everything on it, a compilation of all her research down to the scientific name of the algae that grew on their water pipes. In its codex there were some things Stripes recognized, little animals who would breech the city shield and crawl across her Playpen wall, and some things she didn’t realize existed at all. Giant monsters with razor blades for teeth and hammers for heads.
The notes in Sol’s margins for a lot of them were vague but distressing- fuck around and find out. Kill on sight. Tsaheylu with this organism can cause loss of hearing.
She pulled her braid from behind her back, touching the tendrils of her Queue, which she knew from Sol’s lessons was called a tswin . There were shorthand translations for Na’vi words she had no hope of pronouncing, that Marisol probably spoke perfectly. She missed her already, the metal walls of the Scorpion growing colder and darker by the minute.
A deeper dive into Sol’s notes revealed the instructions she’d left for Stripes, though it wasn’t much to go on and still left a million unanswered questions. Mainly, how did Sol expect her to make this request in the first place? The woman had a tendency of overestimating her but this took the cake. Her Na’vi language skills bordered on non-existent and that presented a whole new set of challenges her two dingus friends probably hadn’t even considered.
Stripes slumped against the wall with a groan. She was being ungrateful, she knew. There were worse positions to be in. For one, she could be dead. That was the anchor she held onto for the next few hours. The life she wanted to die over yesterday was miles behind her,
and Pandora lay ahead.
The rhythm of Neteyam’s heart was off. He could feel it skipping every other beat and despite Lo’ak’s feigned calmness he knew his brother felt the same. It had taken some convincing on mother’s part, a quiet look at their father in public and some loud arguing in private, to get here. The point where they could finally be men and fill their roles as warriors.
Only, the job they were actually assigned wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.
He watched his parents flying up ahead, listening to the chatter between them through his comm link, and sighed. Spotters. The first son of Toruk Makto, a lookout.
“At least we got to come this time,” Lo’ak offered, a deep shrug making his neck disappear.
That was looking at the ravine half full, and why not? Neteyam supposed this was enough to start with. Full of frustration and anxiety, but proving they could follow orders was the first step toward what they really wanted.
Kiri would insist that blood and battle were bad for the heart but she didn’t understand. It donned on him that she might not ever know how tall the shadows he lived under truly loomed. She would never need to fight or prove her value like he would. How could she, being praised all day by grandmother and doted on by father must have left her spine a bit weak.
That was unfair, he scolded himself. She was only ever trying to help and resenting her wouldn’t get him anywhere.
If he really wanted someone to blame-
“I see the train,” Lo’ak called, a wide grin lifting his mouth.
Neteyam’s head shook and he smiled back “looks like it’s show time,”
When the sun began to peak and the landscape became visible through the mist, Stripes leaped into the Pilot’s chair so fast the weight of her body broke the back adjuster. The seat would be in a permanent laying position now, but it didn’t matter. Her pupils blew wide, and her heart became too big for her chest as she took in the sight below her.
There was color as far as the eye could see. Green instead of grey. Pinks and purples instead of khaki. She thought she knew what it would feel like- exciting, motivating- but this was something else entirely. The jungle was primordial, completely untouched by man, making its own walls out of the trunks of ancient trees and shields from the giant leaves of their canopy.
All at once she became aware of how enormous the world really was and that she was so small that no matter what she did or where she went, she would always be just a microscopic piece of it.
Her body trembled, hands shakily going to wipe a river of tears away for the second time that day, and she took the time to steady her choppy breathing to push out the only thing she realized she forgot to say before her scorpion lifted off the ground. “Thanks, guys.”
she could imagine Sol, tucked into the corner of the sofa, staring up at the ceiling with nothing to do.
That had been Stripes just yesterday. She hadn’t even been off the ship yet and still, turning around and spending another second in the barracks, walking in circles around the barren yard that used to house her jungle-gym and her blocks and crayons, sounded like the worst torture imaginable. This has to work, she promised herself. She was never going back. Not ever.
Although,
the assertion faded away and the determination turned into confusion when train tracks became visible beneath her.
No matter how far Stripes flipped through the data on the Holo pad, the rabbit hole never seemed to end. Though any vague descriptions she typed it seemed she could pull up the scientific names and photos and relationships of any plant or animal in the goddamn universe.
Unfortunately there was nothing in it that would tell her where the metal railing would lead. Her leg bounced and her tail twitched and she spent her brain power wondering how long she’d have to look at them before the craft automatically pulled up and away, taking her deeper into the forest and past the danger the tracks represented.
If Sol hadn’t been so obsessed with plants, she may have added something that could answer the question of where they went or what they were for.
It frustrated stripes most that she never once questioned what was outside the walls of Bridgehead. It was just wilderness, wasn’t it? No, the existence of a train disproved that, opening up a whole new world where nothing was sacred and no one was safe. There could have been a hundred RDA bases on Pandora and she would never know, because she never bothered to ask and therefore didn’t know anything about anything.
Her whole entire being had been consumed by get out, get free, survive, that she never stopped to think about…everything else.
The one thing Sol did have the foresight to add was music and even then, there wasn’t much of that. A handful of tunes Stripes thought were cheesy, though her ears pricked up at one she recognized from her first days with the Recom Squad.
Eleven months ago they landed at the base, skins smelling of saline and plastic, and carrying crates of new equipment. It was all frivolous shit, but Stripes quickly warmed up to Toby’s vintage movies on a big new flatscreen and Fike’s sound system blaring on the weekends.
This song was her favorite, and she wasted no time selecting the album cover and blasting it as loud as the little piece of hardware would play it.
The pad was small enough that it fit in her back pocket so that’s where it made it’s home, squished between the ripped leather of a cushion and her bony buttcheek while she searched through the storage compartment for a map. The hope was that after she had a clear idea of where she was, she could alter the destination a bit before landing.
She pulled out paper after paper, scanning each quickly and letting them fall to the floor around her boots. She hummed and tapped her toe to the beat of her song, growing less bored and anxious with the new objective to fulfill. It wasn’t until she reached back down for another handful of papers to leaf through that she saw it.
It began as the butt of the train, MagLev mechanism severed and collapsed onto the track,
The sound of propellers and yelling from all directions,
The smell of smoke,
The train tracks turned into a battlefield, the sky freckled with aircraft and animals flying in all directions,
A Na’vi on the back of a banshee,
The tip of an arrow aiming right for her.
Stripes kicked off the control panel, rolling backwards off the flat back of the seat and getting stuck upside down.
She heard the arrow blast through the windshield, a shower of glittering shards falling around her,
It ripped through the middle of the seat, and the tip of it stopped when it hit the metal floor, nearly going through her hand.
The Holo-pad announced the maneuver Autopilot took to avoid three organisms flying overhead and jerked right, dislodging her from under the flat seat and throwing her against the side hatch, which slid open a foot and jammed.
She only had a split second to be thankful that her plane was such a piece of shit before autopilot jerked again and brought her face to face with another Scorpion.
Her hands flew to the controls, elbow bending awkwardly around the long shaft of the arrow to reach them, the song still playing from her pocket,
There was no time to consider the ramifications of unloading. Not a single second between when her eyes locked onto the gunship and when her finger hit the trigger.
Manual weapons operation activated:
Autopilot disengaged
“SHIT.”
~Ba-da-bum-bum-bum~
And another one gone,
And another one gone,
Another one bites the dust!
Jake’s head tipped as the strange scorpion accelerated. As expected, Neytiri’s shot had taken it down, but not before it rushed the one in front of it, firing the bulk of it’s ammunition and swerving to avoid the people below instead of dropping on the spot like it should have.
It was aerosol painted with blue lines, probably to blend it in, a shoddy attempt at camouflage. though he couldn’t say for sure if it had worked, it sure as hell wasn’t a bad idea on the part of the pilot.
One more turn to avoid hitting a tree, and it skid across the forest floor, losing its propellers, it’s tail and it’s door.
He let his mate know he was heading in through his com link and she gave a nod, following him down.
In mob fashion, the Omatikaya gathered not far from where the blue scorpion had landed, the bulk of them waving around weapons claimed from the heist. He wasn’t sure what to expect as he waded through the crowd, letting out an irritated groan when the backs of two familiar heads came into view.
“What are you two doing on the ground?” He seethed.
“We saw what happened,”
“The plane went down and-“
“I don’t wanna hear your excuses,” his head shook. He looked up again to catch a glimpse of the commotion. “you had orders, now get back on-“
A shot pierced the air, clean and echoing, and he forgot his sons for a moment in favor of jogging to move between the threat and the people.
She was dressed in military gear. Combat boots, a bomber jacket, a dog tag around her neck. She waved a rifle in the air as a warning.
“Come and I kill.” She hissed in broken Na’vi with a hard accent.
a light went on and he switched easily between Languages, hoping they could find some common ground that way. “You speak English?”
Her expression softened, fear flashing in her eyes before hardening back into anger. She was just a kid.
He paused a moment to take a closer look at her. One eye was a bright blue. The other a dark brown. Three fingers. Her face and hands were bruised to hell but aside from that there was nothing; features so seamlessly Na’vi that she could have otherwise passed for a native.
His shoulders relaxed when he realized her finger didn’t rest on her trigger, meaning she wasn’t planning to shoot, or, at least, that she didn’t want to. Good. If he didn’t have to kill her, a girl who didn’t look any older than his own kids, he preferred not to.
He looked around as if to cement the notion and ordered Mawey. He told everyone to take what they could back to camp, because that had been the plan all along. because it would be easier to chill her out with less people around. And, if only a little, it worked.
She nodded stiffly, lowering the muzzle of her rifle by half an inch.
“Cool,” his hands went up, feet inching closer. “can we talk for a minute?” If he could just get her to-
she fixed the gun at him again the moment he stepped too far and his palms went up in surrender.
“Okay,” Jake relented, taking a step back again and blowing out an irritated breath when he stepped on Lo’ak’s foot. “fair.” He said through his teeth, promising himself to give the boy hell later.
“You’re Jake Sully.” The girl muttered, more to herself than to him.
“You know me?”
She set the rifle down finally and pulled a holo pad from her back pocket. a photo of his human face played across the screen, then a blurry shot of him on an Ikran. Whatever images he assumed the SecOps could scrounge up after Hometree.
“I don’t know what they’ve added to my file since I fell out with the RDA,” He considered the situation for what it was. A girl, too young to have been around in those days, who clearly had some kind of loyalty to the military. A rogue aircraft shooting at the RDA. A mag full of bullets but no holes in his body. If she had beef, it certainly wasn’t with him. “But I’m not a bad guy. you can trust me.”
She knew he wasn’t a bad guy, or, at least, assumed that everything Sol said about him had some truth to it.
After a quick scan of the area, eyes flitting from him, to the three faces around him, to the pack of blue bodies scattering into the distance, Stripes considered the situation for what it was.
The word of someone she trusted with her life. A grown man making an attempt to appear non-threatening. a low tone, an outstretched hand, and a heartfelt promise. He’d sent his army away, and away they went.
If he had beef it certainly wasn’t with her.
But that didn’t make the stimulation of what had just happened any less distressing. Her body ached, and her mind was tired. She didn’t want to be here talking to him. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say or stand or sit or breathe. She wanted a magical pause button, so she could stop time to collapse and pick back up when she was less exhausted. Less excited.
Less scared.
She wanted to cuddle up to Sol and talk about plants and animals and eat pudding. She wanted to go home.
“I wanna help you, I do, but I need you to help me first okay,”
Stripes looked down at her feet, and back up at him, hands twisting around the strap of her rifle. Uturu. Ask for Uturu. Sol’s voice grated her like gravel on a kneecap. She almost wanted to yell out loud that the woman wasn’t helping. That she didn’t want to live with natives, that she’d rather go back to Bridgehead and get her ass whooped and never see the light of day again than accept help from some random fucking guy in the woods. She didn’t need him. She didn’t need anyone. “I don’t need your help,”
“I think you do.” He chuckled, “You look like you need all the help you can get.”
Going by the readjustment of her rifle, and how irritated the look that spread over her face became, apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. “Woah, okay, what about, ah,” Jake gestured to her hands, which each had three fingers, shouldering Lo’ak to move behind him, and thanking Eywa that Neteyam had the sense to hang back with his mother. “I’m guessing you were born, not grown.”
“I didn’t come from a test tube,” she snarled “my mom is…”
“Is she Na’vi?” He pressed, recieving a tense nod, “she still around?”
“There’s an RDA base on the coast. She left me at the perimeter when I was born.” she pointed to her eyes as if to emphasize the point. “…She didn’t want me.”
He decided to throw out that line of questioning, seeing her posture tense and her hands twitch. “What’s your name?”
Her tail flicked back and forth. “They call me Stripes…”
Stripes. Like an office pet. They may as well have named her Sparky. “Did you come from a community? Were there homes, kids, a school?”
“I was kept in the military barracks ,” that was the turning point he was looking for. Her whole body wilted a bit, voice going softer, hair falling in her face “it was just me…”
Another winding staircase he’d have to climb later. There were so many questions running through his head that he had to let one of them fall out of his mouth before it gave him a headache. “How the hell did you get out of there?”
“I stole a decommissioned scorpion.” Her eyes shifted nervously before adding “Alone. By myself.”
he couldnt help the laugh that escaped him. The fact that she’d escaped the RDA, survived Neytiri’s arrow, gunned down an airship and still had the legs to stand there and threaten to fight everyone was at least worthy of praise. “Kick-ass.”
The wheels in her head turned while he waited, listening to the breaths of his family, the hiss of his Ikran. He’d learned enough while raising five kids to know that sometimes they needed a little space. Time to think. And that’s what he gave her.
“I’m supposed to ask you for Uturu.” She said.
At this, he looked to Neytiri. He knew what she would say, that it was up to him, and she trusted him to make the right call, but it was too big of an ask. Too great a responsibility for him to just throw some kid on top of their already mounting list of worries.
His mate’s head tilted left, tilted right, and then nodded.
It was all the reassurance he needed to know that Yes was the right decision.
Jake grinned back at the girl, who looked confused. With enough time she’d learn. “I dunno, Stripes. that sounds an awful lot like I’d be helping you with something.” He teased, fully expecting her to laugh and go along.
Stripes went dead-eyed, like a fish, throwing her hands up in the air, and to his surprise, walking off in the opposite direction. “Fine, screw you,” she called over her shoulder “and screw your goddamn lizard too!”
What just happened?
Jake blew a sigh from deep in his belly and clapped his hands, turning to face his family. “wasn’t expecting that,”
“What now?” Lo’ak asked, finally moving to give his father some room.
It was easy for him to come to a solution, seeing that the day had been, more or less, a success. The boys had stayed out of trouble, followed orders, and proven they could be helpful in the field. One more task for the day would be a piece of cake. “Think you two can turn her around?”
His sons shared a look of surprise, but Neteyam was the first to step up to the plate, albeit hesitantly. “We can try, Sir,”
“Get to it then,” he nodded, hauling himself back onto his Ikran, Neytiri close behind him.
“What if she won’t come?”
“She’s got to.” He explained, the memory of his own first night crystal clear in his mind. “she won’t make it past eclipse.”
He left them with a nod, taking their promise that they wouldn’t let him down as serious as a heart attack. There was no way they could botch this one.
Was there?
Stalking a Na’vi was much less exciting than real hunting, Neteyam found. Especially when she wasn’t making any effort to hide. He wracked his brain trying to think of a motive for her just taking off and came up with nothing.
Yelling had been pointless, walking away had been pointless, them following her was pointless, and Lo’ak reminded him so every chance he got.
He prided himself on his ability to keep calm with his siblings. They needed him to be the level headed one, and that’s what he tried to be- but if Lo’ak wasn’t getting on his last nerve. His head dipped, eyes closing until he found his center and calmed down a bit. There were a thousand other things he’d rather be doing right now, and listening to his brother’s constant complaining didn’t make that list any shorter.
At last Lo’ak let his Ikran hop to a lower branch when they saw her trip, struggle to stand and go limp on the ground “are you done being crazy yet?” Lo’ak called.
“go away and let me die,” she threw her arm over her face dramatically.
Neteyam smirked. She was strong-willed, he’d give her that. There was still no point to why she was playing this game, and no ending in sight if they didn’t do something about it soon.
He could see from this angle that her foot was stuck in a hole and thought of the best way to free her from it, sifting though the details in his head from would it work to would she let him, when his brother met his eye
“We can just say she got eaten.”
His tongue clicked “We said we’d try,”
“We did,”
“No, Lo’ak-“
“We tried, this was trying,”
Neteyam shushed him with a look, passing him completely to dismount onto the root where she was stuck.
She struggled a bit when she realized how close he was coming and he stopped, taking a step back and holding out a palm to calm her like his father had.
“Hey,” he gestured to her leg with one hand, wary of the way her mismatched eyes followed him. She sat up and pulled at her pant leg, giving him permission, and he continued speaking as he twisted her foot to let her loose. “if you want Uturu, you have it. Our dad sent us to get you.” He dusted the bits of bark and soil off himself when he was done,
“The Jake Sully is your dad?” She pulled her legs close to her body, scooting backwards a few feet to get away from him and standing. There were twigs in her hair, dust all over her, but she did nothing to clean herself off, just straightened the strap of her weapon and kept talking as if nothing was out of place.
“I’m Neteyam te Suli Tsyeyk’itan,” Neteyam offered, standing to the side so that Lo’ak could dismount next to him.
Her nose scrunched up, eyes flicking to the left and right, making it obvious she didn’t understand. “Right, whatever that means,” her tone was suspicious, but becoming playful in a way that he didn’t trust. Like the wrong answer would get him slapped. “and how do you guys know im not a spy. I could just be asking for sanctuary so I can gather information and bring it back to the RDA.”
He appreciated the way her hands laced in front of her, making it easier to move about without the threat of getting shot hanging over him. He admitted to himself that would make this whole thing less boring, but it would also drag it on for longer, and he didn’t have that kind of time, nor did he think he had the patience left in him.
“Well?” His eyes rolled, but he waited, prompting for an answer when she said nothing. “Are you a spy?”
Her lips pursed, eyes narrowed as if she didn’t want to admit she’d lost the game.“…no.”
He let a long breath leave him. She looked ridiculous with her hair a mess and dirt all over her face, but he said nothing. She must have been hurting badly from the crash, black and purple bruises trailing all the way down from the side of her face down beyond her neckline. something grandmother could surely help with. “Mystery solved,” he offered a hand, hoping she’d stop whatever this was and just take it. “let’s go.”
The girl’s-Stripes, was it?- ears flattened, “I’m not getting on that thing,”
Lo’ak’s mumbling in the background almost got to him- like I said, bro, we should leave her- and this time Neteyam was heavily considering it.
They could go home now and sing a song for dad about how they lost her, how palulukan chased her down and swallowed her whole to sell the story, but he dug as deep inside himself as he could and pulled out the first thing that came to mind.
Bring her back before eclipse, that was the only thing their father had asked.
He never said how.
He never said she had to like it.
“Fine,” his hands went up, head tipping, lips pursing as he made Tsaheylu with his Ikran, thankful that Lo’ak seemed to take the hint and mounted again as well. “You win.”
He waited a moment, placing his foot down for a wide stance- a solid grip.
In his side view he could see her look up to watch the other animal take off, and there was his chance.
Neteyam reached out and grabbed a fistful of her jacket, throwing her off balance faster than she could flinch away.
One of her legs slid off the tree root, knocking her foreward,
His free arm went around her backside, shoulder pushing into her waist.
It took all of five seconds to throw her across his saddle, flailing and screaming, and take flight after his brother.
Oh yeah. Today had been a very good day.