Avatar: The New World

Chapter 5: The Only One

Nari

Nari was sitting in the back of a dark van. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and a heavy helmet covered her head and face so she couldn't see anything. Part of her was curious about where she was being taken, but they had trained her well. She wasn't supposed to ask questions, she was supposed to do what she was told.
She felt a hand on her knee. It was a strong, firm hand. There was no way it was the doctor's hand. Her touch was soft, almost compassionate even. This was the hand of Corporate Security. It didn't matter which officer, they were all the same. They treated her like a dog, they told her she should get used to her new life in captivity. Sometimes they even touched her, but the doctor always put a stop to it. One time a man tried to reach down her shirt and the doctor was so angry she had the man beaten right there in front of Nari. It seemed to her that the doctor had orchestrated the whole thing in order to win her trust but that didn't seem likely. The doctor was good, she only wanted to help Nari get better. Security was a different story altogether. She could remember the day they took her. She was working and one of her callers had yelled at her. The next thing she knew her desk was on fire.

She told her supervisor she didn't know what happened. Maybe her work station over heated or short circuited. When her supervisor refused to believe her, Nari pushed and pushed, denying any blame for the incident. Corporate Security arrived then and she was taken to the doctor. The doctor was nice at the time, she talked about stress management and even tried to help Nari remember how the incident started. That was when the doctor's desk lit on fire and Nari was sure that it was just another case of an overheated work station. "Maybe they're faulty," she said, "we should issue a recall."
The doctor didn't listen, nobody listened. She spent weeks after that sequestered in a tiny cell. Every once in awhile the doctor would come and smile and give her some food. It wasn't terrible. The food was okay and her cell was nearly bigger than her entire apartment, but then the tests started. Needles and machines and fire. So much fire. They burned her repeatedly. They demanded that she control the flames and she tried, God did she try, but she couldn't. Nobody could control fire, it was wild and savage and it didn't take orders but still they made her try. It wasn't until they brought in her mother that she actually accomplished what they were asking.

"All you have to do is light the candles," The Security officer said. He was holding a gun to Nari's mother's head and she was crying, begging to be let go. "If you don't, I'll have to shoot."

She lit the candles then, but it didn't stop there. The officer's uniform caught fire. He screamed and screamed. He fell to the floor and rolled but Nari refused to let the fire go out until he stopped moving.

"What are you?" Her mother had asked. Those words still haunted Nari and the look on her mother's face would stay with her forever. Wet glistening cheeks. Red, panicked eyes. She wouldn't let Nari touch her, or even get close.

From that day forward the doctor took complete control over Nari's Corporate Plan. She rarely ever saw anyone from Security, only the doctor and her medical officers. It wasn't long before she acclimated to her new prison. It was softer than the old one, and the food was even better. She had no idea what was truly going on, she didn't realize how complex the conditioning process was. She became accustomed to her life in a box, and even accepted the restraints every time she was taken out of the facility. They helped her feel safe out in the world, which was big and bright and full of things that could burn.

The van started to slow down and one of her guards said to the other, "You need to move that hand if you wanna keep it. If Whynn sees that she'll be pissed."

The hand on Nari's leg was reluctantly pulled away and she felt a little safer. Not just because she wasn't being touched anymore, the sound of the doctor's name soothed her. They stopped and the back door of the van opened. "Nari, thank God you're finally here. You're the only one who can help."