The Scientist's Daughter | Neteyam x Reader

Chapter 17: Pissing Off the RDA

I slammed open the link to see Quaritch standing over me, pissed off.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?!" I yelled.

"You crossed a line," he spoke coldly as he grabbed my hair, pulling me out of the link.

*Back at the hometree*

Sylwanin stood over Y/n's unconscious body, pulling out her knife and grabbing Y/n by the hair, ready to slit her throat.

"This is a demon in a false body. It should not live," she cried out.

She placed the knife against Y/n's throat, ready to cut, but she was stopped by an angry Neteyam. He lunged at her and knocked her off of Y/n's body. She rolled over and looked to see Neteyam was now crouched over Y/n, holding his knife up and hissing at her.

Sylwanin stood up, breathing heavily, and backed away from him. She pushed her way through the crowd, calling to the other hunters to get ready to move.

*Back to the Ops Center*

Quaritch and his men dragged Grace, Norm and I back to the ops center. They were absolutely furious. I hadn't really spoken to this man but anything that I had heard about him wasn't good.

They sat each of us down in chairs in front of one of the monitors.

"You sit there and watch," Quaritch hissed.

I glared at him and turned my face back to the screen to watch the video. The video was from one of the dozers that attacked the forest earlier. It happened to be the one that I had struck with the rock.

In the video, you can see my angered face moments before I used the rock to smash the camera into pieces and the video cuts out. They rewinded the video once more and paused it on my snarling face.

I turned around and saw Grace and Norm were looked between the screen and myself. Selfridge and Quaritch were watching disapprovingly.

"Care to explain this?" Quaritch questioned.

"You were destroying something that is important to the people," I stated.

"And you destroyed something that was important to us. You don't get to make those kinds of calls. You have no authority whatsoever."

"Who do you think you are? Destroying an entire home that's so important to the animals and the people of this area. All because you want money in your pocket."

Quaritch stepped closer and crouched down to my level. Our eyes met and I could see there was nothing but hate.

Grace stepped forward and spoke to break the tension.

"Parker, listen, there may still be time to-"

Before she was able to finish, Quaritch quickly turned around and interrupted her.

"Shut your fucking hole!" He yelled.

I quickly stood up from my chair and moved over to him. Before I could speak my mind, Norm grabbed my arm and pulled me back to prevent any more tension. I was now standing between him and Grace.

"Or what, Ranger Rick? You gonna shoot me?" She said, matching his energy.

"I can do that," he responded, sarcastically.

"There's so much ego radiating off of this man it's ridiculous," I mumbled.

"Can we just take this down a couple notches, please?" Selfridge spoke.

"If you what to keep your people alive, you need to listen to her," I said to Quaritch as I pointed at Grace.

I looked at Grace and nodded for her to continue speaking.

"This is bad, Parker. Those trees were sacred to the Omaticaya in a way you can't imagine," She stated to Selfridge.

It's true. The look on Neteyam's face was heartbreaking. It was like he was watching a loved one pass away right in front of him.

"You throw a stick in the air around her and it falls on some sacred fern," he responded.

"I'm not talking about pagan voodoo here. I'm talking about something real and measurable in the biology of the forest."

"Which is what exactly?" He said, frustrated.

Grace let out a loud sigh and began to rub her temples. She turned around and faced Norm and I.

"I can't do this. How am I supposed to reduce years of work to a sound bite for the illiterate," she said, annoyed.

"Just tell him what you know from your heart," I said, kindly.

She sighed once more and then turned back to Selfridge.

"Alright, look I don't have the answers yet, I'm just now starting to even frame the questions. What we think we know is that there's some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora," she spoke passionately.

"That's a lot I'm guessing," he responded.

"That's more connections than the human brain. You get it? It's a network, a global network. And the Na'vi can access it. They can upload and download data, memories, at sites like the one you destroyed."

Norm and I stared at her, proud that she was able to talk so passionately about this. This was something that she's been studying for years and her finally being able to speak about it was amazing. They stared at each other for a moment before Selfridge started to laugh his ass off. Moment ruined.

"What the hell have you people been smoking out there? They're just. Goddamn. Trees." He stated. Everyone around him joined in on the laughing fest. They were treating this like some sort of joke.

"You need to wake up, Parker. The wealth of this world isn't in the ground, it's all around us. The Na'vi know that, and they're fighting to defend it. If you want to share this world with them, you need to understand them," Grace spoke in her stern voice again. "Parker, we have to talk, like rational people."

"Well, I'd cherish that, but unfortunately you're out of here on the next shuttle. All of you. I'm shutting down the Avatar Program, effective now," he said as he turned around and walked out of the room.

A look of disbelief was spread across each of our faces. We were speechless.

*Hey guys! I'm so sorry I haven't published a chapter in a while. I meant to finish this book during my vacation but I kept getting called into work. Plus, on Saturday, I went and got a tattoo. It was way bigger than intended but I love it. It wasn't painful at all. Now that I'm back in school, I'm going to try to crank through this book so you can finish it and I can start the next one. I hope you all have a lovely day and I love you all.*