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67. Meritocracy
🕑 Added 2023-08-02 19:03:56 +0000 UTCWithin the confines of a high-tech glass house in the Avatar Compound close to the Scimod two women were wearing less cumbersome and better designs of the RDA exopacks.
Those new models designed by Liam had a bulletproof visor, were lightweight, capable of shifting depending on the wearer's physiology, keeping a stable air pressure, filtering out breathable air out of the most commonly found non-solid substance such as water and Pandora's atmosphere, but also recycling it, they tracked both the position and basic bodily function such as the heart pulse and body temperature and had the basic function of a phone all the while having virtually infinite energy as long as hydrogen was at disposition.
Not forgetting the most important part of all, drinking food, various drinks and medicine safely was possible via specialized valves letting a straw leading to the mouth open from below the mask. And all could be remotely monitored and controlled.
Those two women were working on both native flora and highly genetically engineered ones from Earth. The fair-skinned one with almost pitch-black hair was Bibi Levson, a young xenobotanist who had arrived from the very last ISV Venture Star.
She was taking samples of a Xenopoales Salmortis, or Goat Horn that was growing in a specialized plantation rack; this plant was brought here by her idol, Dr. Grace Augustine, though those weren't discovered by the Avatar.
By her current works and tasks, she was to study the native flora first on a surface level to see which had potential use for human consumption and what could they be used for, the goal was focused on the community as a whole.
This was by Liam's edict which where around two very basic and all-encompassing rules that were to be respected to avoid his judgment being brought down;
The First was, actions done with malice or inaction against such shall not be tolerated and will be judged.
And the Second was, actions done against or inaction for the betterment and progress of the community shall not be tolerated and be judged.
The First Rule protected the individual and the Second Rule the group, but they were vague and it was on purpose. It wasn't a set of rules to follow to the T but more of a way of life, a philosophy.
For example, a two-year-old toddler, a pregnant woman, or a wounded man recuperating would not be held to the same standard as a perfectly healthy adult, this is further separated by age, hierarchical position, knowledge, and experience.
The two rules always were adapted for each individual but never changed in their consistency.
But it was a philosophy warped around the view of the one single individual that possessed all the powers, reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, expert, and informational. One that was unbiased and did not care for what others might think unless it held value.
They were sheep, Hell's Gate, a pasture where they could only live, and Liam was their Shepherd who both protected and dictated them. And this metaphor was terrifyingly true as many like Bibi understood how accurate it was.
But it was far from being as bad as it sounded, yes he was a dictator by the strict definition of the term and didn't shy from that fact being quite blunt about it if not by words but by actions as he had absolute power over everything remotely connected to technology.
He was no tyrant even if plenty saw him as exactly this as they were unable to differentiate between unfeeling logic and cruelty. That's how she saw it.
He understood that happy and healthy people were productive people, particularly in the long term, and that it brought, if not loyalty, a sense of dependency. He understood how humans worked, and how truly animal they were, it was the eternal carrot and stick method that was used.
A method that proved time and time again to be effective and here it didn't do any different even more so with such a diligent dictator.
But it also built laziness and complacency and he understood this very well so everyone able to work had to work for a set amount of time, achieve a certain goal, and fill a certain quota.
Those were established by either him, non-sapient AI so virtually still him, or higher ranked individuals like Katherine Hale who herself wasn't immune to such standards, in fact, they were much higher and risked far harsher punishment from Liam.
Failing to do so with no justifiable reasons would mean infringing on the Second Rule ending with the punishment of doing more work in their given free time with the ones that were missed, to bland nutrition bars instead of regular food for a period of time, and even temporary privation of entertainment media. The punishment increases or lessens depending on what the fault was.
In all cases, it gave a social stigma, their data and faults were for all to see on the large holoscreen in Hell's Kitchen.
As such doing the opposite by going beyond gave advantages such as more free time, and being considered a more valuable member of the community, something shown too on the same screen.
The scoreboard showing who was ranked compared to who by different factors on it only helped in building a healthy competition for the one who wanted, as it was evidently intended to do. As healthy as possible that is because the principle of a competition was as double-edged as it could get, bringing both the best and worst.
Cheating was an impossibility not for the fault of a few now still struggling to crawl out the lower spectrum of the board and the same for others who undermined their colleague.
But those in the end weren't abandoned to spiral downwards indefinitely, it wasn't a fatality but actions had consequences. And to climb the ladder doing your job as diligently you could wasn't the only method, bringing divertissement or good ideas were such other means to go up.
This led some individuals like Dr. Edmund Langforsd, an old man with graying blond hair, and a psionicologist to jump from the 20th place to the 6th as he directly asked Liam for the resources and manpower to build a school for both humans and Na'vi all the while proposing himself to be one of the teachers, it was a redo of the school the RDA so easily destroyed now under the name of the Community School.
This is how the base worked so smoothly for the last year and how nothing had fallen into chaos in the two two-and-a-half years since the RDA had been evicted from Pandora.
Was this the best solution to make their little community of traitors against humanity thrive? Bibi Levson didn't know but it seemed to work like a well-oiled machine and it was infinitely better than back in her home country.
At least she could speak freely without risking losing a piece of her body in retaliation or simply walking in the wrong place or being sold as some kind of pet to some twisted ultra-rich individual.
She was safe, they were safe with a stable supply of healthy foods, drinkable water, warm beds, and roofs above their head. No hunger, thirst, illness, or fear of being maimed and then killed.
Compared to most of humanity they were pampered to the extreme but this wasn't free, it had a cost if admittedly cheap one of being useful. And at the end, they were completely free to do as they pleased but again freedom had a very hefty price, didn't come without heavy baggage, and had many consequences.
This means that with how the base operated for an individual like her, a workaholic and a passion for her job, led her to be high on the scoreboard averaging between the top ten and twenty.
She dreamed of doing this exact job since she was a kid, studying and working on Pandora's flora with Grace and it was going past and beyond her expectations.
The Goat Horn plants here for example were fascinating, they used a mechanism similar to osmosis but instead of water molecules being interchanged to maintain a balance within the cells, it was sodium chloride, salt directly manipulated by a complex chain of enzymes and multiple specialized organelles.
For all intent and purpose the plant should be dead, they looked dead from the outside and at first glance from the inside as well but it was the exact opposite. It was as if they were in a cryptobiosis-like state while still perfectly active and living.
She would have believed if she was more gullible and someone said they were engineered life forms she would have believed them in a heartbeat but she wasn't.
How the plants did this wasn't truly understood as of now but these various processes led to the formation of razor-sharp pure salt crystals upon its two corkscrew-shaped leaves that absorb only a fraction of the light spectrum for the plant's bizarre photosynthesis.
The entire plant, both the simple shoot system outside and the complex root system larger than most trees. They were like a mushroom cap and its mycelium in repartition.
Both parts were edible and were rich in various essential minerals making them better for the human body than the sea salt that was used, particularly here where the lower gravity had various negative effects on the body and they were a nice complement.
The plant in its natural state was obviously not to be consumed under any conditions unless internal laceration was the end goal with a sprinkling of salt poisoning.
"Hey, I have been wondering and this might be overstepping my bounds and out of the blue but why does Mister Cram seem to have a particular interest in one of your sons?", she suddenly said to the other woman.
The woman in question was middle-aged with dirty blond hair and she was Mary McCosker, she was her colleague, a friend, and one of the three agricultural technicians of the base remaining. Her domain of specialization being in GMOs made her an important member.
"No, it's not a problem… I can see why… Many want to ask but few actually possess the ball to do so. It's not like I bite or something. I'm a bitch but not to that extent.", Mary said offhandedly, her attention shifting from the solanum chimera made from three separate plants, potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants to the young xenobotanist.
Her words weren't lies per se but they were mostly false all the same. She was ill-tempered at times and wasn't the most self retrospective individual there was
Speaking of such a sensitive subject that wasn't so much of a thought in her mind until fairly recently after her husband brought it up to her tended to annoy and anger her. It was a very confusing situation and she didn't know what to do.
"You got it wrong, it's the opposite. Miles is obsessed with the genetically engineered freak for some reason… Sorry slipped a bit here.", she spat with dismay turned to frustration, the word describing Liam while not false led to a small frown appearing over Bibi's face before it disappeared as the apology.
'It's hard not to with that body of his.', Bibi snarked internally, quite a drastic shift from her earlier mood, to say Liam wasn't attractive to her in many aspects at least physically would be lying.
Alas that dream of a potential relationship or a fling with him was crushed to dust, burned to ash, and rendered to nothingness long ago.
He wasn't dense or blind to advance and social cues like this he just didn't care and was very blunt about the fact he wasn't interested.
A fact not unique to her as she wasn't a lone case to be interested in him, he had the body of a Greek god after all, but not the temperament as a brick wall would have more interest in her than him in that department. However, that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the sight.
Shaking the thoughts away the xenobotanist refocused on the present and pressed further, "But that's not the full story, right? Kids are pretty random and illogical but still, it seems to bother you greatly. There is more."
"I don't know if I should say it because he always listens but argh if I didn't appreciate you. At worst nothing happens and I trust you can keep your mouth shut… You know who killed the Colonel?", Mary relinquished and began explaining.
"Yes, it's not some kind of top secret information… Mister Cram killed hundreds, Quaritch within.", Bibi said she didn't really follow where this was going but a few possibilities of where this was going entered her mind.
"That's true and it's my point, never have you asked yourself who were the biological parents of Miles within those killed?", the blond-haired woman asked, leading her friend to the answer.
"Now that you point that out, aside from the biological mother Paz Socorro that I recall died by those bats… I don't know about the fath-Oh, oh shit!", Bibi almost screamed as the realization of who the toddler's biological father was clicked in her head.
"Indeed 'oh shit', Liam killed Quaritch, Miles' biological father. You didn't miss the mark by much earlier, he is protecting him. It's why nobody except a very few that you are now a part of knew who the biological father is and with this protection came interest maybe by some kind of twisted sense of guilt us mortals can't understand. He feels responsible for Miles and this led to this...", Mary let out her eyes reddening slightly at the end but they disappeared rapidly. It hurt but there wasn't much to do but bite the bullet.
The child never really connected to them be it either with her, or her husband. The only exception to that connection was their biological son but here it wasn't that different, the two were close but not brothers.
The fact she made the distinction didn't help either, she saw him more as a nephew than a son but it still hurt yet it was her and her husband's responsibility to take care of the orphaned boy and they will do so with the best of their capabilities.
"Speak of the Devil and he shall appear.", Mary said her eye narrowing as the one main individual they were talking about could be seen walking with long strides toward them, he was a 2.16 meter (~7ft1) tall man of pure muscles yet perfectly proportioned, and his silver eyes were locked onto them.
On his shoulders resided three beings, the one on his left was a sleepy two-year-old boy with shoulder-length dark blond hair and an exopack on his face using the head of the man as a pillow, if the mask wasn't there drool would drench the dark brown braids while on the man's right shoulder was an Avatar girl looking not much older than the human boy and she was dreamily petting a large green tetrapteron with an eerily human face of annoyance, its wings were open as if to avoid the sleeping girl and sleepy boy from falling.
The three-meter and a-half (~11ft5) tall glass door of the glasshouse slid open and the silver-eyed man walked to them only stopping one meter in front of the two women their biometrics constantly sent to his implant.
"Here, the little guy escaped your quarter but he couldn't escape the cameras and as I was already watching over Grace's daughter I exhausted him for you. Your daily quota has been met, you can go and the same is for you Dr. Levson.", Liam said calmly with an amused smile.
Crouching down he picked the boy up from his shoulder with extreme care in his large calloused hand as any fraction of his true strength being used would lead to a snapping of the spine or crushing the ribcage.
Human bones for him were fragile, his strength having slowly increased as he grew and worked out through the three years only amplifying this point. And toddler bones were almost as if he was handling fresh snow and trying to keep it in the same shape.
He was no Superman that could throw cars in outer spaces but he needed to tread carefully with weaker beings if he didn't want to harm or kill them.
"Noooo… I wanna stay with Daddy…", Miles mumbled in his sleep while he was being slipped from the post-human hands to the ones of Mary who almost snatched the boy as soon as a solid hold was given.
'Did he just call me that?', Liam's mind slowed to a crawl for a millisecond before it was back to normal and he stood up the recording from the toddler's blue exopack being repeated.
At least nobody else heard Miles but that was just the incoherent babble of a toddler that didn't mean much. But with the earlier discussion, the two women had and the general situation Liam wasn't blind to what was potentially happening but he was stumped on what to do or not to do.
Or he was putting too much emphasis on the random words of a toddler. Letting time pass for Miles or as he liked to call him Spider due to his tendency to climb like one to grow up seemed to be the only wise choice here.
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The highest is the same as the second highest and I'm working on for those two to have three to four chap in advance on Beta.
Can’t wait for your next chapter. This is very interesting it is indeed worth the three dollars. If I was to buy the highest tier how many more chapters from this one would their be?
