【 CHAPTER TWELVE 】
SHE'D taken to using a respirator years ago. With a daily report on the air quality that never dipped under the literal label of bad, Ruth had found herself purchasing a oxygen mask to wear anytime she left she and her grandpa's tiny apartment to venture the dirty streets of what was now Denver, Colorado. A city she'd grown up seeing old photos of with not even a fraction of the towering buildings, the mountains in the distance that were once visible now covered in the same infrastructure she lived in. Now a city of architecture and technology, same as the rest of the world.
A dying world.
The apartment they called home was a pitiful thing, hardly large enough for one person, let alone two, with a poor excuse of a bedroom that of which she'd forced her grandpa to take. She'd slept soundly on the couch the last eighteen years of her life knowing he lied in a bed every night, right where his ventilator could reach him at his bedside. She'd give him the shirt off her back if it meant he was better off.
It was an average evening she had after getting off work from her entry-level laboratory job, the precious time she had to herself after taking care of grandpa and her school work before crashing for the night. Everything she did was a priority, just sometimes shuffled. She'd hardly had time to breath in who knows how long.
Slumped on her bed-couch and scrolling through the slew of emails filling her phone she had regarding her homework assignments and random school news, a singular title caught her eye.
"[R.D.A] RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION: JOB OPPORTUNITY
Good evening Miss Carson! My name is Teresa Hart, Head of Recruiting and Staffing at the Resource Development Administration. I am pleased to make your acquaintance!
I am reaching out to you in regard to a work study that may peek your interests. By way of one of your kindly professors, I received a letter of recommendation for your consideration in a program of the 'top secret' nature, that of which I cannot disclose within this insecure line and without the implementation of multiple NDA's. With your academic trek record taken into account, and extensive test scores, I believe you would be suitable for our program! It would provide substantial financial compensation as well as the opportunity for employment.
If you would like to hear more information regarding this program, please reply directly to this message and we will arrange a call at your earliest convenience.
Best Regards,
Teresa Hart, M.S
Department of Recruitment and Staffing
R.D.A"
Two words stood out to the young woman, words that might change everything for the better. From where she now sat perched on the edge of the old couch, her green eyes shifted towards and focused on the closed door of her grandfather's room, where she had just recently put him to bed after the measly dinner she'd managed to whip together for the two of them.
The VA hadn't done shit for him, the man that had served well over twenty-five years in the Army and had the scars and wounds to show for it. Yet, they lived in tiny apartment hardly a tier above a storage unit and that was being generous. His deteriorating health to boot.
He'd been the only one there to take care of her from a very early age, when her mother, his daughter, fell victim to her own demons by way of an overdose. She didn't know her father.
Her grandpa had seen to it that she was clothed, fed, had an education. He'd been the only significance person in her life, and now he was falling victim to lung disease that the government couldn't give a damn to treat. They were too poor afford efficient medical care, that was reserved for those that had the money. She was a college kid working a full time job just to keep their utilities and water from terminating, grandpa's service pension mysteriously disappearing one day years ago. The claim for it went no where.
The only reasonable thing to do was to reply to the lady's email. The substantial compensation could see to it that she could arrange the proper treatment for him, could feed them better food and perhaps move them out of the dangerous neighborhood they called home.
She could make everything better. She could take care of grandpa, like he deserved. She had the power to do it with this opportunity. Maybe she could fast-track through her schooling, get that job, and then move grandpa into a house in the high class area of town where she could arrange for a caretaker to help him throughout the day until she got home. They could eat better food and finally replace many things in their home that were worse for wear. Things could get better.
Hitting the reply button, she began to type.
ANXIOUS, Ruth followed closely behind Jake as they made their way back to the Olo'eyktan and Tsahik, the only two that could make the clan move if the warning was heeded. They maneuvered down the spiral of tree growth that lead down from the second level of the tree after having been moved upon collapse it had seemed. As she trailed behind Jake, she steadied her breath while trying to ground herself, trying to convince herself that they could do it.
Her heart was pounding something fierce, almost in line with her steps. With a warning from Trudy that gunships were being prepped to leave Hell's Gate for an assault on Hometree, a new slew of issues were presented before the original ones had even time to settle. Along with the impending attack, the shock of Neytiri and Jake's 'elopement' had seemed to only stir things for worse. Between the approaching attack and the ruined arrangement for the future clan leaders, there was plenty that was wrong.
Back at Hell's Gate were they narrowly able to convince Parker (with his ever unsympathetic attitude) to let them try and convince the clan of the dangers that were coming. Ruth had gone back and forth between threatening and begging him, the need to save Tsu'tey and the clan driving her angry urgency. At many points had she considered solutions that involved some very dangerous behavior, some of which could have ended her thrown into the brig with no opportunity to convince the clan to leave. A nearby coffee cup had almost slammed into the side of Parker's head if she had followed through with the intrusive thought.
The really fucked up part of all that was going wrong was that she had finally found some happiness outside of the work she'd dedicated herself to since she was a teenager, finding someone who resonated with her in way she never seen before. She hadn't had anyone close to her like this, the last person that could even come close would be her grandpa, god rest his soul, and perhaps Grace.
Once Parker reluctantly conceded to she, Jake, Norm, Grace's pertinent request, they were given one hour to convince the clan to evacuate before perishing under the firepower the humans would soon unleash on their home. The notion of the fact was hard to grasp in the first place. With the knowledge of what kind of technology was at the disposal of Parker and Miles, Ruth could hardly consider what was to come in the next forty-eight hours.
She was enraged under the surface to be given such a minuscule amount of time for something that didn't actually have a deadline; Parker could have easily called off the gunships and given them any amount of time to sort out issues, the arbitrary timeline but a work of his impatience. The argument made against the point that Ruth had was that it had been Jake's responsibility to sort it out in the three months they'd been with the clan. And that he'd wasted it.
The matter of the fact was that Parker, and Miles respectively, didn't give two shits about the destruction they were going to bring onto the Na'vi. They cared about appeasing the shareholders back on earth, those that profited off of all of the devastation brought to this moon in the name of numbers. They cared about money. The apathy the RDA had shown toward this moon was despicable at best.
Ruth knew the Omaticaya likely wouldn't budge, but some part of her prayed to any divine power that would listen that they just might. That they might listen to her and Jake and the warning they had to bring. It would make the difference between their survival and devastation. She only lamented the time they'd spent living double lives had been within her awareness of the truly fucked up mission Jake had agreed to do.
If they were unable to convince to move, what had her work on the moon surmised to? The people she'd come to love, the world she felt at home and alive in, all for nothing?
"Mo'at, Eytukan," Ruth beseeched urgently to the Tsahik and Olo'eyktan, earning their attention to she and Jake. Their expressions were hard to read at first when they landed on Ruth, but their glances toward Jake spoke enough words on their own. They were no more receptive than they had been before.
"You have to leave," Jake said immediately after her, the urgency evident in his tone. "The skypeople are coming. Now." His index finger jutted toward the ground for emphasis.
"We won't leave," Tsu'tey spat from where he lurked by the totem of Toruk, nursing a bruised cheek. Ruth tried to give him a look that said please just listen with all the sway she had with her significant other, but he was too angry. Too grief stricken.
"Please," Jake begged, clenching his teeth. "Listen to me. I was sent here to learn your ways, to become one of the people," His tone ached with shame with every word that left his lips. "With me was sent a warning. I learned your ways so that you may one day believe it." He looked between the clan leader and Tsahik, before looking to Neytiri. "They are going to destroy Hometree and anyone who refuses to leave."
"What are you saying, Jake?" Neytiri uttered, eyes wide. "You knew this would happen?" Her eyes then shifted to Ruth as Jake made the effort to try and explain, Neytiri immediately unreceptive. "Ruth?"
"No— No, this was all me," Jake tried to say, somewhat placing himself between Ruth and Neytiri. To protect her from a truth she had no part in. He stepped forward, trying to console Neytiri with an embrace but was met with her hands beginning to push his away, her expression becoming anguished with betrayal. His words came quick and panicked. "Everything changed. Before, it was just orders. Then I fell in love with the forest, with you. With you—,"
"I trusted you," she uttered, her voice shaky with betrayal as she swatted his hands away, Jake continuing to make the effort to calm her with words and touch. "I trusted you!" She yelled, a few indistinct curses in Na'vi leaving her lips before she shoved her hands against his chest, hard and hateful.
"You will never be one of the people!"
"We tried to stop them," Ruth urged, her turn now to try and convince her friend they weren't their enemies as Neytiri now sobbed behind them in her mother's arms, the Tsahik shooting daggers in their direction. "We fought for the people."
Jake had hidden the truth from her, had deceived the clan. He could have told her of the orders he'd been given, they could have collaborated on a solution. Grace and the others could have helped. But he didn't. And now, the people would suffer for it.
"Ruth and I, we tried to stop them—," Jake tried to desperately reason with Neytiri again, all manner of panic in his cracking voice. Ruth hadn't seen such seriousness from the marine.
A sudden spark of rage hit Ruth, her eyes, like daggers, landing on Jake. "This all could have been avoided," she spat, tail thrashing. His defeated expression was enough to make her quickly snap out of it.
"Bind them," Eytukan muttered in disgust to Tsu'tey.
Immediately, Ruth eyes darted to where Tsu'tey stood, all anger directed towards Jake evaporating. Tsu'tey's expression changed from his own disgust to still at the command, his eyes lingering on his superior a moment longer than usual as his anger and grief was replaced with conflict over the order he'd just been given. He only hesitated a moment before reluctantly making his way over and taking her wrists, beginning to secure them together after being handed bindings. She pulled back from his grip, slightly bumping into a struggling Jake behind her.
"Tsu'tey," she uttered slightly above a whisper. The world around her seemed to move painfully slow. Her voice cracked as she mumbled, "Please."
Tsu'tey would not meet her gaze, his downcast eyes remaining focused on his efforts to keep her wrists bound. He was following the orders of the Olo'eyktan, of his clan leader. Refusal would have only made everything worse than it had already was. Despite the feeling of betrayal that had overcome her, she tried hard to remind herself of everything that had been cultivated between them, the connection and growing love for one another.
The tighter the bindings grew, the more difficult it was to hold onto to composure.
Eytukan called for a defensive maneuver against the gunships that would be there very soon, the clan responding with cheers and raised bows. The shove onto her knees as the people rallied with war cries made her grimace, eyes closing as she could only endure it.
EVEN while tied up, Ruth and Jake continued to relentlessly demand the clan flee. No one heeded their warnings, instead forcing their gaze away with pinned back ears and hisses of contempt. Once the gunships arrived, everything was over, and the scientist wasn't sure how ruthless her least favorite person was going to be but she wouldn't put it anywhere below destructive. The impending carnage terrified her.
Ruth had assumed hopelessness, the anticipation of the carnage to come weighing on her heart. At some point, the thought of her avatar perishing in the cross fire crossed her mind, making matters even worse.
The clan seemed to preen for the arrival of the humans, bows at the ready as they remained scattered across the open area along the bank of the river they faced.
The anticipation was harder to bear the longer it festered, Ruth calling out to Tsu'tey as often as she could all while trying to fight against the painfully tight restraints holding her wrists. Her heart ached over the visible effort he made not to look her way, instead standing dutifully at the side of Eytukan. Her cries for him saw to him being sent off, the exasperated huff of the Olo'eyktan the obvious sign of his contempt.
Neytiri's sympathy and attention was no easier to gain, her eyes remaining cast to the fern covered ground and a slight sneer on her features. The years they'd known each had seemingly wasted away within a few moments, all lost at the truth of Jake's failure.
The distant rumble of propeller blades solidified their doom. Years around and on the airfield at Hell's Gate made the sound of Scorpions and Samsons familiar enough to her, even from the distance.
Soon enough, they made their appearance around the distant bend of the river sending the surrounding vegetation into a wild, wind induced frenzy from the force. The river too fluttered out under the propellers force in violent ripples.
With just a glance, she could tell there were easily two dozen coming their way. Including the massive C-21, the Dragon. It alone brought enough fire power to decimate the lower pillars of Hometree, meaning Miles was providing a message with his show of force.
"Bastard,"Ruth spat to herself amid the raucous around them.
The introduction of new wind tousled around the loose strands of her hair, the plants below them blowing every which way.
The shouted orders of Eytukan could hardly be heard amidst the dozens of aircraft that now lined up along the river's bank, but once Ruth saw Tsu'tey take off with a small party of warriors toward Hometree, heart heart lurched to her throat.
"No, No!" she howled to no avail, earning the attention of Jake at her side. They had no idea of the destruction that was about to be unleashed on the tree. "They're gonna blow everything up!"
"They won't flee," Jake yelled in defeat over the sound of aircraft. Ready and waiting for a single order.
To murder.
Before Ruth even had the opportunity to say anything back to Jake, canisters were launched from the main gunship toward the colossal tree. Once Ruth caught sight of the green smoke beginning the billow from its base, chaos erupted.
Arrows were launched at the clan leaders command, many aiming true but not nearly strong enough to pierce several inches of glass.
Ruth grimaced, the rough rope around her wrists only seeming to dig deeper. Some part of her felt responsible for all of this.
Soon, the clan would suffer and die regardless.
Author's note:
If you're a Coloradan, don't come at me about Denver, I know it's a shit hole, but bare with me considering this is the avatar universe and all of earth is a shit hole x10 😭
🤣
Also if this chapter feels half baked please lmk. I feel like it is. If you for some reason get updates in your notifs for this chapter its because im going back and editing lol