𐌄𐌋𐌙𐌉𐌍Ᏽ Ꮤ𐌉𐌕𐋅 𐌕𐋅𐌄 𐌍𐌌𐌀𐌕𐌉𐌊𐌀𐌙𐌀 (Aᕓ𐌀𐌕𐌀𐌓𐋄𐌍𐌂𐌔)

\\ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟚𝟛//

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Just minutes later, Jake slams open his link breathing heavily, amped from the fight, furious it was interrupted. Jake looks around, seeing Grace in handcuffs and Nate held face-down on the floor by two of Guaritch's men.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?!" Jake turns to Quaritch who is standing over him and his link.

"You crossed a line," Quaritch states calmly before punching him hard enough to knock him out.

Jake flops back, and Nate growls, writhing furiously in the marine's grips.

"You son of a bitch!" Nate screamed.

The troopers yank him up and pull Jake out of his link, zip-tying their wrists.

Later, in the ops center, Quaritch stands showing Jake's avatar face on the dozer camera, as he pounds a rock into the lens. The shot freezes on Jake's animalistic snarl. Jake sits, bruised and bleeding, watching himself on the monitor. Grace, Nate, and Norm stand nearby, rubbing their wrists where the zip ties bite in. Selfridge and Quaritch watch with disdain.

"You let me down, son."

"So what... You find yourself some local tail and completely forget what team you play for?" Quaritch mocks and Jake meets his gaze with a defiant glare.

"Parker, listen, there may still be time to salvage the situation~" Grace began.

"Shut your pie hole!" Quaritch snapped.

Grace is momentarily stunned by Quaritch's fury. But she meets it with her own intensity, not backing down an inch.

"Or what, Ranger Rick? You gonna shoot me?" Grace taunted.

"I can do that," Quaritch nodded.

'You need to muzzle your dog!" Grace spits at Selfridge.

"Can we just take this down a couple of notches, please?" Selfridge exclaims.

"You say you want to keep your people alive." Jake pipes in, making Quaritch look at him.

"You start by listening to her." Jake nods to Grace to continue.

"Those trees were sacred to the Omaticaya in a way you can't imagine."

"Oooooh, you know what... You throw a stick in the air around here it falls on some sacred fern for Christ's sake~" Selfridge starts to laugh.

"I'm not talking about some... pagan voodoo here, I'm talking about something real and measurable in the biology of the forest." Grace mutters.

"Which is what exactly?" Selfridge replays frustrated, placing his hands on his hips.

Grace's nerve fails. A rush of conflicting emotions, the need to act, to do something, colliding with her scientific rigor.

"I can't do this. How am I supposed to reduce years of work to a sound bite for the illiterate?" Grace huffs turning to face Nate.

"Just tell him what you know in your heart." Nate answers.

She turns to Parker, steeling herself.

"Alright, look, I don't have the answers yet, I'm just now starting to even frame the questions. What we think we know, is that there's some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora~" Grace speaks.