Avatar Page #4

GRACE:

The last thing I need is another trigger

happy a**hole out there!

SELFRIDGE:

Look, you're supposed to be winning the

hearts and minds of the natives. Isn't

that the whole point of your little

puppet show? If you look like them, if

you talk like them, they'll trust you?

Selfridge crosses to his office, behind a glass wall nearby.

Grace follows.

SELFRIDGE:

But after -- how many years? -- relations

with the indigenous are only getting

worse.

GRACE:

That tends to happen when you use machine

guns on them.

On Selfridge's desk is a magnetic base, and hovering in mid-

air, in the invisible field, is a lump of METALLIC ROCK.

Pure UNOBTANIUM. He grabs it and holds it up between thumb

and forefinger, in front of Grace's eyes.

SELFRIDGE:

This is why we're here. Unobtanium.

Because this little gray rock sells for

twenty million a kilo. No other reason.

This is what pays for the party. And

it's what pays for your science.

Comprendo?

He places it back in the magnetic field.

SELFRIDGE:

Those savages are threatening our whole

operation. We're on the brink of war and

you're supposed to be finding a

diplomatic solution. So use what you've

got and get me some results.

CUT TO:

17.

INT. LINK ROOM - DAY

NEXT MORNING, GRACE, NORM and JAKE approach their link units.

Jake glances through a PRESSURE WINDOW. In an adjoining

chamber (the AMBIENT ROOM) JAKE'S AVATAR lies on a gurney,

breathing slowly in PANDORAN AIR. NORM'S AVATAR is on a

second gurney. Both are attended by med techs in exo-masks.

Norm slips into his LINK CHAIR, expertly donning biometric

sensors.

GRACE:

How much link time have you logged?

NORM:

Five hundred and twenty hours.

Grace looks pointedly at Jake.

JAKE:

Like -- an hour.

GRACE:

Tell me you're joking.

Grace opens the hood of Jake's link unit. Jake starts

hauling himself across from his wheelchair. She reaches to

help him but --

JAKE:

Don't! I got this.

Grace steps back, hands raised. He drags himself into the

unit.

GRACE:

So you just figured you'd come out here

to the most hostile environment known to

man, with no training of any kind, and

see how it went? What was going through

your head?

He meets her eyes with a defiant glare.

JAKE:

Maybe I was just tired of doctors telling

me what I couldn't do.

Grace watches him laboriously pull his inert legs into the

link chair by hand.

18.

Jake settles into the warm fluid gel packs lining the unit.

It seems to enfold him. Grace adjusts his biometric sensors,

then lowers the UPPER CLAMSHELL --

GRACE:

Relax and let your mind go blank. That

shouldn't be hard for you.

JAKE:

Kiss the darkest part of my lily white --

But the SLAMMING HOOD muffles the rest.

MAX:

Initiate link.

The LINK TECH touches some controls.

ON A LARGE MONITOR a 3D SCAN of Jake's brain appears.

Regions of activity flow with complex shifting colors.

MAX:

That's a gorgeous brain. Nice activity.

GRACE:

Go figure.

(walking away)

Alright, I'm going in.

TECH:

Phase-lock at forty percent. He's in

transition.

Max watches a display showing the avatar's nervous system

aligning with Jake's -- two ghostly networks of light

merging.

MAX:

That's it. Find your way home.

ECU JAKE, inside the link unit. His eyes move under the

lids, like a dreamer in REM sleep as --

INSIDE JAKE'S MIND -- radiant streamers coalesce into a

pulsing TUNNEL OF LIGHT and --

THE SCREEN FLARES WHITE -- ZZZWHAP! -- resolving into an

overexposed, out-of-focus image -- two BLURRY FACES wearing

masks, looking down.

ECU JAKE'S AVATAR -- two very intense eyes FILL FRAME, the

pupils contracting. Golden irises pulse with life.

19.

MAX:

He's in.

TECH:

Phase-lock ninety nine percent. The link

is stable.

Blinking, Jake slowly sits up on the gurney. He looks down

at his AVATAR BODY, touching his chest with one hand.

MAX:

Take it slow, Jake. We need to check

your motor control. Try touching your

fingertips together --

But Jake isn't listening. He's staring at his legs. He

eases them off the gurney and --

HIS BLUE FEET touch the concrete floor, taking his weight.

JAKE STANDS, feeling the strength in his legs. His

expression is child-like with wonder.

HIS POV -- looking down at the med techs, who seem the size

of children next to his 9' tall frame.

He sees something like a blue tentacle curl across his arm

and he JERKS AROUND in alarm. HIS TAIL.

As he turns to see it, the tail sweeps instruments off a

table with a crash. Jake laughs and grins at Max.

MED TECH:

Easy, Jake, I need you to sit down --

But Jake takes a step, then another. The wires to the bio-

monitors pull taut, and he yanks them off his chest.

MAX:

Jake! Wait, we have to run some tests --

But Jake pushes past the protesting med techs, toward the

door and --

EXT. AVATAR COMPOUND - DAY

Jake emerges, blinking in the morning sun. He finds himself

in the AVATAR COMPOUND -- a living and training area.

Nearby, a couple of AVATARS are playing one-on-one in front

of a (non-regulation height) basketball net. Others go about

their daily activities around the compound.

20.

Jake flexes his legs -- JUMPS -- and lands a little

unsteadily, but his expression is joyful.

He takes a few steps and breaks into a RUN. People are

calling to him, somehwere, but he doesn't hear them -- he's

running. RUNNING!

He finds himself in the COMPOUND GARDEN, and stops amid

neatly tended rows of ALIEN PLANTS. He looks down, wiggling

his toes in the warm soil. Then inhales deeply -- revelling

in the alien smells -- earth, plants, the nearby forest. He

looks at his bare footprint in the soil of an alien world.

GRACE (O.S.)

Hey Marine!

Jake turns at the familiar voice to see --

A statuesque FEMALE AVATAR walking toward him. AVATAR GRACE

is magnificent, with panther thighs, flat muscular stomach

and firm athlete's breasts. She wears shorts and a T-shirt.

In human years she would be about 35.

JAKE:

Grace?

GRACE:

Well who'd you expect, numbnuts? Think

fast!

She throws him a piece of Pandoran fruit, which he catches.

GRACE:

Motor control is looking good.

Jake bites into the fruit, the juice running down his chin.

NORM (O.S.)

Hey, check it out.

Jake turns to see NORM'S AVATAR posing like a bodybuilder --

chest shot, back shot, bi's.

NORM:

I am a living god.

CUT TO:

EXT. MINE PIT - DAY

A WIDE SHOT of the terraced crater of the UNOBTANIUM MINE. A

quiet beat, then --

21.

K-WHOOOOM! The entire face of one terrace is blown skyward

in a chain of EXPLOSIONS. The "shot" blasts hundreds of tons

of rock loose.

LONG LENS ANGLES of enormous WHEEL-LOADERS shovelling up ore-

rich rock and dropping it into DUMP TRUCKS.

EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY

A wall of steel FILLS FRAME. The DOZER BLADE crushes

everything in its path, reducing trees to kindling.

WIDER, showing the CLEAR-CUTTING operation near the mine, as

a road is cut through the jungle. Remotely operated DOZERS

three stories tall rip into the tree-line.

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