Chapter Text
The corridor spat them out into machinery.
Not the clean, bright arteries of the medical wing—the back end. Service passage. Cooler air, rougher walls, pipes sweating faint condensation. Every sound echoed wrong: boots and bare feet, metal ringing, the thin wail of alarms bleeding through layers of concrete like an animal trapped under floors.
Jake moved like he could see the building’s bones.
Onsu and two Metkayina hunters flowed ahead, low and fast, taking angles without words. Lo’ak stayed tight to Jake’s flank, blade still in hand, eyes scanning corners like he’d decided there was no such thing as “clear” anymore. Neytiri hung back just enough to turn pursuit into consequence; every time the corridor behind them coughed up a shout or a shadow, her bow answered. Tsyeru and Kalek were creating distractions on the other end of the compound.
Spider rode in Jake’s arms, limp in a way that was not sleep.
His head lolled against Jake’s shoulder. His mouth hung slightly open. Every so often his chest tried for a breath and came back with a shallow, reluctant pull—as if his body was negotiating with the air instead of taking it.
The world arrived in pieces.
A harsh light strip overhead.
A drip of water somewhere.
The smell of antiseptic giving way to damp metal.
Jake’s heartbeat, steady and violent against Spider’s cheek.
And underneath all of it, the quiet, stubborn presence in his ribs—warmth that flared when the building shifted, then pulled in tight again. Clinging, braced, like something small and furious trying to keep its hold when the ground kept moving.
A junction opened ahead.
Onsu lifted one hand for them to stop. The Metkayina hunters split without hesitation, one taking the left alcove, the other dropping into the shadow of a maintenance bay. Lo’ak’s tail snapped once, tension telegraphing down his spine.
Jake didn’t stop. He adjusted Spider higher, forearm locked under Spider’s thighs, other arm across his back and ribs like a harness. The way he carried him wasn’t gentle. It was absolute.
A drone’s rotors whined somewhere overhead, searching for which they could not find.
Jake angled them under a pipe run and into a gap between stacked storage crates, then across open floor before the machine could find line of sight. Neytiri crossed last, silent as a blade sliding back into its sheath.
A door ahead pulsed amber.
Locked.
Lo’ak surged past Jake without thinking. He drove his knife into the access seam and leveraged hard. The panel shrieked. The lock resisted, then gave with a snap that vibrated through the wall.
Onsu was already through, spear up.
Beyond: another narrow corridor, darker. Air colder. A faint, stale taste that suggested this route didn’t get used unless it had to.
Behind them, the building roared again—gunfire, distant, chaotic. It sounded less like a coordinated response and more like people crashing into each other in panic.
Good, Jake thought, and kept moving.
---
They reached the waste uplink chute the way you reach a lifeboat: with your teeth clenched and your hands already bleeding.
A vertical shaft dropped away behind a grated hatch. Damp air rose up from it, carrying the sour tang of old runoff and metal. A ladder ran down into darkness; below, faint green emergency strips marked the descent.
Onsu went first, disappearing into the shaft with the ease of someone who’d climbed cliffs his whole life. The hunters followed. Jake stepped up to the hatch, peered down once, then shifted Spider’s weight.
Lo’ak’s hands came up immediately. Not asking. Just there.
“I’ve got him,” Lo’ak breathed.
Jake’s eyes flicked to him. A decision made in a blink.
“Support his head,” Jake said. “Don’t let him fold.”
Lo’ak nodded, jaw tight. He took Spider’s upper body carefully—one forearm behind Spider’s shoulders, the other steadying his head so it wouldn’t snap back. Spider’s throat made a wet little click as he was moved. His eyelids fluttered once. Nothing focused.
Neytiri watched, still, eyes flat and bright.
Jake dropped into the shaft with one hand on the ladder, the other gripping Spider’s belt and hip to keep him from swinging. Metal rungs bit into Jake’s palms. They descended fast—controlled speed, no wasted motion.
Halfway down, Spider’s breath hitched.
Lo’ak felt it immediately. His whole body went rigid for a second.
“Dad—” he started, voice cracking on the word.
Jake didn’t look up. “Keep him upright,” he ordered. “Talk to him.”
Lo’ak leaned in close to Spider’s ear, words coming out rougher than usual, urgent. “Spider. Hey. Stay with us, bro. You hear me? Don’t—don’t you do that.”
The only response was Spider’s mouth twitching and that would have to be enough for now.
Down below, the tunnel widened into a concrete channel that sloped away toward the ravine side of the facility. Old drainage route. Forgotten by anyone who trusted walls more than terrain.
They hit the floor and moved immediately.
Onsu took point. Hunters behind him. Jake and Lo’ak in the center with Spider. Neytiri pulling up the rear.
The tunnel ran low and narrow at first, then widened enough for them to break into a sprint.
At the first access grate, Onsu stopped, listened.
Above: wind.
Far-off rotor noise—higher outside.
He pried the grate open.
Cold air spilled down into the tunnel, salted and alive. It hit Spider like a cue his body didn’t know how to follow anymore.
His chest tried for a deeper rise and couldn’t finish it.
Under his sternum, the living interface inside him flared—sharp irritation, then a hungry pull—as if it recognized the outside and wanted it and still couldn’t quite reach for it without cost.
Lo’ak hauled Spider up and climbed first, Spider’s weight awkward and slippery in the damp. Jake followed, palms scraping rock and metal. The hunters flowed out behind them.
They emerged onto the ravine side—steep cliff, wet stone, a shelf of rock half-hidden by hanging vines and thin mist. Above, the facility’s outer wall rose like a blunt knife. No easy door. No obvious path. Just the drop, the wind, and the fact that someone had always assumed nobody would come this way.
Jake took Spider fully back in his arms, as gentle as he could cradling the kid against his chest. Neytiri tilted her head, listening. Her breath stayed quiet but her gaze flickered to Spider.
A drone swept past the ravine lip above and didn’t angle down. It kept searching the obvious routes.
Jake’s gaze snapped outward to the ridge line beyond the ravine.
A low green blink answered him from shadow.
Samson. Waiting.
---
The helicopter sat tucked into a scar of terrain where rock broke the wind and tree cover hid the silhouette. It wasn’t parked; it hovered low, rotors feathered, sound minimized by distance. A small miracle of restraint for an RDA machine.
Mansk held it there like it weighed nothing.
Inside the open side door, a dim red light glowed. A figure leaned out, scanning the ravine with a hand braced on the frame.
Kiri.
She saw them and went still for half a second—like her brain refused to accept the shape of Spider’s body in Jake’s arms—then motion snapped back into her limbs.
“Here!” she called, voice sharp enough to cut wind.
Norm’s more controlled voice came right behind her. “Jake, bring him in on your left! Max is ready.”
Max’s head appeared behind them, human mask already sealed, exopack hose tucked tight so it wouldn’t snag. His eyes were narrowed in that familiar medical focus that meant he’d shoved everything else into a locked drawer until the patient was stable.
Onsu whistled once—low.
Two shapes moved out of the ravine’s far shadow like they’d been cut from it.
Tsyeru and Kalek.
They came in fast and quiet, wet hair braided tight, spears in hand, chests rising hard from the sprint. The Metkayina hunters peeled away as planned. Onsu met Jake’s eyes once.
“You have him,” Onsu said.
Jake nodded. “Go.”
The hunters slid down toward the water path that would lead back to the reef, ilu waiting out of sight. They vanished into mist like they’d never been there.
Jake turned and sprinted the last stretch over wet rock toward the Samson’s shadowed pocket, Lo’ak and Neytiri flanking. Neytiri’s ikran, Sa’ata, was tethered to an outcrop nearby, wings folded tight, eyes bright and furious. Sa’ata watched Spider with that unsettling animal intelligence that always felt like judgment.
Kiri scrambled down from the Samson’s doorway, feet splashing through shallow runoff. She met Jake halfway.
Her hands reached for Spider and stopped—hovering.
Because he looked wrong. Too pale. Too slack. Too quiet. Spider was never quiet.
His blue marks—those streaks and stripes he wore like armor—were faded and washed out, smeared thin by sweat and grime and whatever rough handling happened inside those halls. For a second, Kiri stared at his face like she’d lost her bearings.
Like if he didn’t look like himself, the world had permission to keep him.
Her throat bobbed. She swallowed hard and forced her hands to move.
Jake didn’t slow. His voice stayed tight, tactical. “They dosed him—fentanyl,” he said. “Respirations were dropping when we cut him loose.”
Norm heard as he landed behind Kiri—big blue avatar body making the rock shelf look too small. He took one look at Spider’s face and the slack pull of his breathing, and something in his eyes tightened fast and silent.
“Okay,” Norm said, and the word was steady because he made it steady. “Max—ready. Kiri, help me get him up moving him too much.”
Kiri slid an arm under Spider’s shoulders. He was dead weight with occasional twitches of reflex. The contact hit her like a shock. She didn’t let her voice shake.
“Spider,” she said low, close to his ear. “I’m here. You hear me? I’m here.”
Spider’s eyelids fluttered. A faint crease formed between his brows like he was trying to find her voice through water.
Norm took Spider’s torso and braced him against his own chest. Max guided legs and hips into the cabin. Kiri supported Spider’s head and shoulders, keeping his jaw from slumping too far.
Lo’ak hovered at the door, knife still in hand, eyes scanning the ridge line like he wanted to fight the whole moon if it would buy Spider one more minute.
Jake snapped at him. “You and your mom—now.”
Lo’ak’s jaw clenched. He looked at Spider once—raw, guilty, furious—then pivoted.
Neytiri didn’t look back. She would face what comes next when they were safe. She vaulted onto Sa’ata with fluid certainty. Lo’ak swung up behind her and gripped the harness.
Sa’ata launched off the rock face in one powerful shove—two wingbeats and they were a dark shape cutting toward High Camp, faster than any rotorcraft could match.
Jake climbed into the Samson after Spider without wasting a breath.
Mansk didn’t ask questions. He didn’t need to.
The moment Jake slammed the door and gave the signal, Mansk pulled them up and out, banking hard enough that loose straps snapped and gear clattered.
The cabin smelled like dirt, antiseptic, and fear.
Spider was laid semi-reclined on the bench, body angled so his tongue wouldn’t fall back if his reflexes slipped. Max clipped a pulse ox to Spider’s finger and strapped the compact monitor to the bench rail.
Digits flickered with the aircraft’s vibration.
HR 126
SpO₂ 93
RR 10
Norm knelt at Spider’s head like a guard and a family member all at once. His voice stayed clipped—professional first. “Jaw position. Chin up.”
Kiri hovered close, braced against a bulkhead strap, one hand on Spider’s shoulder like she could keep him here by contact alone.
Max’s eyes flicked to the monitor, then to Spider’s mouth and the shallow rise of his chest. “Opioid effect,” he said, already reaching. “I’ve got naloxone.”
Max drew up a small dose—hands steady, movements quick. Norm held Spider’s head in neutral, keeping the airway open, watching for the tiny signs that meant the next minute could tip.
Kiri’s mouth moved without sound.
Prayer.
Not loud. Not performative. The kind you say when there isn’t anything else left to bargain with.
Eywa… please.
Spider’s lashes trembled. His eyes cracked open a sliver—awareness leaking through.
His gaze slid across Norm’s face like it was trying to match an old map to a moving target.
Norm leaned in a fraction, voice lower. “Hey. Stay with us. You’re here.”
Kiri’s thumb pressed lightly at Spider’s shoulder—anchor point. “Spider,” she said again, a whisper. “It’s me.” His gaze drifted to Kiri and held, blinking slowly.
Max pushed the naloxone then pulled a compact mask from the med kit.
Not a full human O₂ rig—something smaller, mobile. He connected it to a canister of mixed gas. The kind they used at High Camp for short support in sealed human spaces for the Na'vi: not pure oxygen, not full Pandora—an in-between that didn’t shock the body.
Max sealed the mask to Spider’s face.
There…a shift in the numbers and the effort.
Spider’s chest rose a little more fully on the next breath. His brow furrowed. A faint grimace tugged at his mouth as sensation sharpened around the edges.
Digits climbed and steadied.
SpO₂ 95
RR 12
Max exhaled once—controlled. “Better.”
Norm’s hand, careful and deliberate, rested at Spider’s hairline to keep him oriented, to keep him from falling away inside himself.
Spider’s fingers twitched weakly, trying to find something to grab. They brushed Norm’s forearm, then slid off like his body didn’t have the strength to hold its own intention.
Norm didn’t flinch. He pretended it didn’t hit him. His hand stayed where it was.
Kiri’s prayer kept going, lips barely moving. Her eyes were fixed on Spider’s face like if she watched hard enough, she could keep the light in him from dimming.
Jake loomed close enough that his shadow cut across Spider’s cheek. Rage sat in his jaw like a stone he couldn’t spit out.
Spider’s eyelids drooped again.
Too heavy.
Too soon.
His mouth opened like he meant to speak and nothing came out but a small, wet sound behind the mask that didn’t quite become a cough.
Digits wavered with the movement, then held.
HR 132
SpO₂ 94
RR 11
“Okay,” Norm said, voice steady. “Stay in it. Just—stay in it.”
Spider tried.
He really tried.
But the drug sat on him like waterlogged cloth. His body wanted to fold. His brain kept slipping sideways, losing edges.
The world broke into fragments:
Rotor thrum.
Metal vibration under his spine.
Kiri’s voice—close, close.
Jake’s grip earlier—hard, sure.
Norm’s hand at his head like a line he could hold.
And under his sternum, that living interface felt…worked over. Not pain exactly. More like a thing that had been forced to clamp, forced to yield, forced to recalibrate too many times in too short a span. It kept pushing, trying to make breathing happen like a reflex again, and Spider’s own body kept lagging behind it.
Like they were out of sync.
Stop… a thought surfaced, smeared and slow. Not a request to anyone else. A request to his own muscles. I’m trying.
Another breath came—small, but there.
Then another.
And then—despite the better numbers, despite the hands on him, despite the voices—his eyelids sank with decision his body made without asking his mind.
I can’t hold it.
The last clear thing he felt was Kiri’s hand tightening on his shoulder and the steady pressure of Norm’s palm at his hairline, holding him in the world by the smallest, most stubborn points.
Then Spider passed out. A quiet surrender of awareness while the body kept doing the bare minimum.
Kiri made a sound in her throat and swallowed it down so hard it looked like it hurt. Her prayer turned sharper, desperate but still quiet.
Great Mother please...please.
Norm didn’t panic. He checked what mattered with his eyes and hands, quick and practiced.
Digits continued to scroll.
HR 128
SpO₂ 93
RR 11
“Keep him positioned,” Norm said. “Max. increase the flow on the mask.”
Max nodded, turning the knob on the tank. He glanced once toward Jake. “He’s not crashing yet,” he said, factual. “But he’s running on fumes.”
Jake’s gaze didn’t move off Spider’s face. “Then we get home faster.”
Spider's family continued to keep him tethered as they barreled towards their safe zone. Each minute that passed was spent watching numbers or the chest of the boy in their charge.
Mansk’s voice crackled over the intercom, calm as a metronome. “Ridge line in two. Going low after. Hang on.”
Jake keyed his mic once. “Copy.”
The Samson dropped lower. Outside the small windows the world became streaks of dark rock and dusk—early evening flattening the light into something harder, cooler. High Camp’s perimeter resolved ahead—structures tucked into cliff and foliage, hardened after too many wars, but alive with people who belonged there.
Kiri leaned closer to Spider, forehead nearly touching his. She didn’t care that he couldn’t hear. She spoke anyway because it mattered.
“You’re with us,” she whispered. “You’re safe. You’re not alone.”
The Samson swung into the landing pocket with practiced precision, rotors clipping the air close enough that the sound felt like it shook bone.
When they touched down, it wasn’t gentle.
It was fast.
The side door slid open and Pandora’s damp night air rushed in—thick with stone and wet leaves and the kind of air that didn’t taste like plastic.
Norm and Max moved in sync, lifting Spider together. Kiri climbed out with them, hand still on Spider’s shoulder like she couldn’t let go without something breaking.
Spider’s head lolled against Norm’s shoulder.
His eyes didn’t open this time.
But his chest still rose, small and stubborn. And the thing under his sternum held to its work like it had decided it didn’t get to quit either.
They moved toward the med bay, an enclosed, reinforced space built into High Camp’s structure where lives were saved.
Jake walked beside them, silent, protective.
Kiri’s prayer didn’t stop.
And Spider, held between all of them, made it across the pad on numbers that were still his. Home enough to fight for the next minute.
And the minute after that.