Vendetta.

[tm20]

“I want to help.” he said, with his eyes tightly closed. Noticing the absence of a blade deep in his neck, he opened his eyes slowly to face Tak. This sounded like bull**** to Tak but he stopped to listen to any last words Alan had to say.

“I know this may seem.... hard to believe, but I see your point.” said Alan. It didn’t sound convincing at all, more like an excuse not to kill him.
“Oh do you? Right before I’m about to kill you, what a coincidence.”
“I can help you. I can get you weapons from the base. I can find out what’s going on, I can be an insider. You can use my help.” Tak listened to what he said, but “weapons” stood out from the rest of the words. Now Tak was seeing Alan’s point. He could be useful after all. He asked Alan to continue explaining.

“Oh really? And exactly how are you going to do that genius? And what the **** are you going to do if you get caught?”
“I don’t know, but... two people are better than one.”
Seeing that Alan was emotionally unstable gave Tak the idea that he could easily be manipulated and could be of some help. Lowering the knife, he slowly eased his grip off Alan and stood in silence.
“Let’s go. And don’t try anything stupid or I WILL ****ing kill you.” said Tak. He waited for Alan to go in front and he followed him back to the shacks.

Back at the shacks, Dr. Eileen was explaining to the others what was going on.
“They just went for a walk. Alan said he wanted to see more of the forest so Tak took him on a tour.” she said with a normal voice. She was very good at lying. She could have told them the truth but that probably would have unsettled them. However the others were still curious as to why Tak had searched through the desks. Dr. Eileen once again told them a load of crap.
“He was looking for his guitar pick, he said he left it somewhere on his desk. I guess he decided to go for a walk since he couldn’t play his guitar. He’s actually really good. You guys should listen to him sometime.”

They then heard the sound of the door opening. Tak and Alan had returned from their “walk”. Surprised to see Alan alive, Dr. Eileen knew there had been a change of plan. She walked with Alan back to the others and along the way began to talk about the “walk” through the forest.
“So how was it? Very beautiful isn’t it?”
“Eeehhhh, yeah. I saw many interesting things.”
The other scientists began to ask him questions about his first proper tour of the forest. Back at the link, Tak woke up and got out. He walked to his desk and sat down in front of it.

Alpha Centuri A decided to call it a day and it was now night. As usual, Tak separated himself from the rest of the group and went to his bed to read magazines, play his guitar or draw in his sketch book. But this time Alan also decided to have some alone time. He was outside the shacks, sitting on the stairs and looking up at the sky. Polyphemus cast a beam of light which shined through the opening in the forest canopy. Still in disarray over his decision, Alan stared at the gas giant that looked down on to him from above. He then heard the door open and turned around to see Dr. Eileen smiling at him.

“What are you doing out here?” she said as she sat down next to him. Alan looked down from the sky to the ground as he sighed.
“I’m so lost...... I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“Is this something to do with what happened earlier today? You still haven’t told me what happened.”
“Well, you probably know already. You looked surprised to see me still alive.”
“Heehe, yeah that I will admit. No but really, what’s wrong?”
There was a moment of silence before Alan continued to speak.
“I don’t know who I am. I came here as a soldier, and then I noticed myself changing. Feeling some sort of connection with the natural world. And now I’m caught in between. Well, it’s nothing new. I felt like this during school. That’s why I joined the army, because I never knew what I wanted to be. It was ok I guess, but I didn’t last long.”
“What happened?”
“I was relieved of my duty for disobeying orders. My commander thought it would be better to leave one of his men to die but I thought differently.”

There was another moment of silence. Then Alan started to sniff. His eyes were beginning to fill with tears. “What am I doing?!” he said, as the decay of his composure forced out more tears. Dr. Eileen held onto his shoulder and tried to calm him down. She then faced Alan and spoke to him.
“Hey, come on. Hey, hey hey, come on. Don’t feel bad. We all feel like this sometimes. I did when I was in highschool. My mother wanted me to become a lawyer or a doctor while my dad told me I should do whatever I wanted to. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do at the start either. But I found it, it took a while but I eventually found it.”

Alan held back the tears and looked at Dr. Eileen. She had a special ability of making people around her feel at ease. She continued.
“You ‘re still finding out what you want to be. You maybe a soldier, but your job isn’t everything. I know you love this place, I’ve seen it many times before. You were asking me all those questions about my research not too long ago, remember?”

Dr. Eileen’s attempts at trying to convince him that he was one of her kind, one who “sees”, and not one of them, those who don’t “see”, hadn’t quite worked. Alan took a deep breath and held it. He took off his exopack to wipe the tears from his face and put it back on. Dr. Eileen then stood up. “Come on, let’s go for a walk” she said. Alan stood up as well and followed her down the stairs. Dr. Eileen led the way through the bioluminescent night life. Alan followed closely as he stared at the life that surrounded him. This was nothing like what he had seen during the day time. Alan still wasn’t sure why he was been taken on this walk, but his love for Pandora was now set in concrete. The two didn’t walk too far away from the shacks as Pandora at night was dangerous. After 15 minutes of walking, they headed back to the shacks.
“Thanks for that, I don’t know why but I feel a lot better now.” said Alan with a slight smile on his face. Dr. Eileen returned the smile and the two walked back to the other scientists.

Meanwhile, Tak had been letting out his misanthropic feelings onto paper with pencil. He was drawing humans ripping each other apart as their insides spewed out of their bodies. Disturbing, yet so true. A perfect picture which represented the human race in the 22nd century. Killing each other for their own selfish reasons. It was amazing what Tak could do with just a pencil and paper. All those years staying locked up in his room lead to the development of such a high level of artistic expression. After completing his drawing, he closed his sketch book and headed to the bathroom for a shower and to brush his teeth. Still being able to hear the conversation of the others, he went to the door which separated the two connected shacks and closed it. He then got into his bed and went to sleep.

The next morning Tak woke up early. He had his morning shower to fully wake him up and then got dressed and ate breakfast before continuing with his work. Surprised to see him awake this early, the others commented on his efforts to wake up earlier than usual. Dr. Eileen realized that he hadn’t been out to do field work in a while so she decided to let one of the unlucky scientists stay behind so Tak could go instead. The others decided again with a game of scissors, paper, rock as to who would miss out. This time it was Dr. Dale and Dr. Isaac. As they finally decided who would go, Alan showed his eagerness to get outside.