CHAPTER ONE | WAKE IN BLUE
#SYNOPSIS. Death was never the end for him
A low hum buzzed in the back of his skull. His eyelids flickered open, heavy like they’d been glued shut. Blurry shapes hovered above him, white suits and glossy masks with fogged-up visors. His ears rang, the sound like muffled shouting underwater. His throat felt dry. Foreign.
The voice was male, filtered through a rebreather mask. Too far away to pin down. A bright light flashed across his face, making his pupils contract. He flinched, groaned.
“Pupil reflex is good,” someone muttered.
“Stay still,” said a woman, more gently, the corners of her eyes crinkling behind the clear faceplate, “You’re okay, just breathe. You're safe “
He stirred, his muscles sluggish, heavy—wrong. Something itched under his skin. Too tight. Too loose. Too different. His hearing sharpened just enough to catch the sounds of monitors and breathing tubes. A heartbeat that wasn’t just his own thumped in the room.
“Get that out of his face “
The voice was deeper. Unmasked. Closer.
The flashlight vanished. The humans stepped back as a tall shadow crossed into view—too large. Too tall. Blue.
“Colonel?” the Na’vi asked, looming over him, “ Can you hear me?”
A hand, pressed against his chest. The touch was meant to be grounding. It wasn’t. It felt wrong—like being touched by the enemy.
His fists moved before his thoughts caught up. He roared—a sound raw and animalistic—and slammed his knuckles into the Na’vi’s face, sending the soldier staggering back. Alarms flared behind his eyes. He surged upward, every instinct telling him he was under attack.
He stood too fast, too unsteady. His balance tilted, feet unfamiliar. Snarling, teeth bared, he lunged at the next shadow. He yanked the dangling overhead light and hurled it at the nearest shape. A tray of instruments scattered across the floor. A monitor crashed. Someone shouted.
Another blue figure tried to subdue him. He met them with a punch straight to the jaw, then reeled to the side, panting, nostrils flaring.
Four of them now. Tall, lean, fast—like predators circling a wounded animal. He hissed, curling into a defensive stance, baring his teeth.
The voices were warped, familiar yet not. But he wasn’t listening. All he saw were enemies.
Two grabbed his arms. A third wrapped a muscular forearm around his neck from behind, locking him in place. He thrashed, snarled, bit at the air, claws flexing, fangs flashing. It took all of them to hold him.
A voice—warm, amused, laced with pain.
The Na’vi in front of him had a split lip, blood dribbling down his nose, but he was smiling. Recognition filtered through the haze.
“It’s Corporal Wainfleet! “
His breath caught. His ears twitched.
Lyle nodded, “Yes sir — and Z-Dog” he tilted his chin toward the female Recom holding his right side, “ and Spike—“ The one restraining him with a bicep hooked tight around his neck offered a hesitant smile. He blinked—was it surprise or pure disbelief?
His soldiers were blue now.
The fight drained from his limbs, slowly. “Alright, let me go” he said, voice hoarse. “I’m all right.” They hesitated, then loosened their grip.
His hands—blue, not the warm tan color he remembered. Human shape on alien skin. Muscled arms, unfamiliar in strength. He turned them over slowly, blinking.
Thick fingers. Wide palms. Faint veins beneath skin the color of cobalt. Bioluminescent freckles scattered across his knuckles like embers from a dying fire. He turned them over in the light. Flexed them.
They were strong, big, military. But not his.
He stood there in stunned silence, baffled by how blue he was. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t what he remembered.
Slowly, he rose to his feet, eyes fixed ahead. Past Lyle. Past the others. Toward the tall glass wall. Without a word, he brushed Lyle aside and made his way forward, footsteps unsteady but certain.
He stopped inches from the panel, lifting a hand to touch the cold surface. His palm flattened against the glass.
Mouth parting, he dragged his tongue along his teeth, pausing when it met a sharp canine. He touched it. Sharp. Predatory. Not human.
A Na’vi stared back at him. Golden eyes. High cheekbones. Fangs glinting in the reflection. Familiar—but not. It was him, and yet it wasn’t.
His ears gave an involuntary twitch. His tail flicked behind him, reacting on its own.
He stared for a long beat.
“Well,” he muttered, voice low and dry, “ain’t this a bitch”
He was floating. Weightless.
Hands grasped a metal bar overhead, his grip the only thing anchoring him in the softly humming chamber. Everything around him moved in slow, fluid arcs—equipment, personnel, stray cords—and he could hear his own breath inside the recom unit's chamber, too loud, too human.
Then the screen flickered to life.
The face that appeared was older. Scarred. Human. A man wearing an RDA military shirt, sweat glistening on his brow as organized chaos bustled behind him. People were running back and forth in the corridor beyond—urgent, driven.
The man on the screen smiled. It was familiar, cruel.
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet,” he began, voice a dry drawl with gravel behind it, “Your’re Colonel Miles Quaritch. Only younger, taller, bluer… and not nearly as good looking”
He smirked, as if he knew exactly how jarring it would be. And it was. Seeing your own face, older, human,— or who he used to be. Smirking at him like the punchline of a joke he hadn't heard yet.
“In two hours I fly a mission against a Na’vi stronghold,” he said, glancing off-camera as someone rushed past.
“The powers that be thought it prudent I record this backup, just in case. And if you’re watching it—well…” He gave a small shrug, “ It means I got my ticket punched “
Beside him in the present, Lyle Wainfleet floated into view, grasping a bar to stabilize himself as he watched. The silence between them was heavy.
Back in the recording, Quaritch’s expression twisted as he called out, “Hey, Parker… just what the hell am I supposed to say now?”
A man stepped briskly into view—Parker Selfridge, looking flustered and irritable, holding a small capsule in his hand.
“Just remind him how it works,” Selfridge said, adjusting the video screen to get a clearer view of the object, “This here? This holds all your memories. Personality, instincts. We send it back to Earth—where, as we speak, you’re growing in a nice warm lab. Once ready, we imprint it on your new recombinant body.”
Quaritch cut him off, “ Am I doing this or are you?”
Selfridge slapped him on the back and walked out of frame, “ Just hurry it up.”
Quaritch faced the camera again, more serious this time.
“The idea was to get the best of us—hell, the worst of us, the meanest sons of bitches this planet ever saw—into recombinant bodies. Like Corporal Wainfleet over there”
The feed cut to a human Wainfleet stepping out of a pod, cocky as ever. He struck a flexed pose. In real-time, the recom Wainfleet watching the video let out a low, “Hoo-rah”
Quaritch's voice picked up again
“And your humble narrator. That’s you, kid. You're a recom now—loaded with my memories and my charm. What you won’t remember is my death… because it hasn’t happened yet. And I’ll be damned if it will.”
There was laughter in the background. Z-Dog, probably. Even across time, his presence carried through.
“But if it has… and you’re watching this… then you’ll want the same thing I do. Payback.”
The image leaned in slightly. The camera zoomed just enough to make his eyes the center of focus. Cold. Focused.
“Jake Sully will be at the top of that list. He might of punched my ticket. But that ain’t all he did. If you’re really any clone of mine, you'll understand. There’s a separate mission waiting for you. One you’ll handle alone.”
He paused, as if letting the weight of it settle.
“You’re going to retrieve our favorite scientist.”
He didn’t say your name. He didn’t need to. The silence afterward was heavy with implication.
“The poor thing must’ve been led astray by those traitorous blue monkeys. Details’ll be in a secured folder. For your eyes only”
Quaritch straightened, brushing a hand along his chest before speaking one last time.
“Remember, kid—a Marine can’t be defeated. You can kill us, but we’ll just regroup in hell”
The screen cut to black. The chamber returned to silence, only the hum of the recom pod and the quiet breathing of the soldiers around him.
Colonel Quaritch released the bar and let himself float freely, watching his reflection in the darkened screen—blue-skinned, younger, alien.