The recovery was a slow descent into madness. For three weeks, Mark was confined to the sterile, white-walled infirmary of Hell's Gate. To the medical staff, he was a model patient—his vitals were stable, and his wound was closing with a speed that left the nurses murmuring about "youthful resilience."
To Mark, however, those three weeks were an endurance test of a different kind.
The Fifty-Seven Percent:
Every morning, he woke up to the same glowing cyan progress bar burned into the corner of his vision. It moved with the glacial pace of a deep-space upload, a constant reminder that he was no longer entirely the master of his own mind.
[SYNCHRONIZATION IN PROGRESS...]
[CURRENT STATUS: 57.14%]
The "Shadow" had become a permanent resident. At fifty-seven percent, the world was no longer just matter; it was data. He would stare at the ceiling panels and see the airflow vectors from the ventilation system. He would look at the IV drip and see the precise chemical composition of the saline.
Even the sounds had changed. He could hear the high-frequency whine of the base's power grid and the rhythmic, mechanical heartbeat of the heavy loaders outside. It was a sensory overload that never slept, a persistent hum that vibrated in his teeth.
He had spent his recovery sketching frantically in a new notebook, his hand moving with a precision that bordered on the robotic. He wasn't just drawing ships anymore. He was drawing interfacing points—how a human nervous system, boosted by the System, could potentially override the control surfaces of an RDA Valkyrie.
The Summons:
By the twenty-first day, the gash on his thigh was nothing more than a thin, silver line. He was testing his range of motion, squatting and lunging in the small space of his ward, when the door hissed open.
Grace Augustine stood there, looking characteristically exhausted but with a sharp glint of excitement in her eyes. She didn't offer a greeting; she just looked at his leg.
"Walking without a limp, I see," she noted, crossing her arms. "The labs said you were ready, but I wanted to see it for myself. You've got a hell of a constitution, Turner."
"I feel fine, Grace," Mark said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Ready to get back to the Basin."
"Forget the Basin for today," she said, a small, knowing smirk playing on her lips. "I just got the word from the link-techs. Your biological signatures have stabilized, and your specific neural frequency is a match for the project."
Mark froze. He knew exactly what she was talking about.
"Your Avatar is out of the tank, Mark," she said, tilting her head toward the door. "It's time to see if that Oxford brain of yours can handle a ten-foot body. We're heading to the Link Room. Now."
The Digital Ghost:
As he followed Grace through the corridors of Hell's Gate, a wave of cold nausea washed over him. The System wasn't just observing anymore; it was reacting to the proximity of the Avatar labs.
[EXTERNAL BIO-LINK DETECTED]
[ANALYZING COMPATIBILITY...]
The cyan bar flickered violently, jumping from 57.2% to 57.8% in a matter of seconds. Mark staggered slightly, pressing a hand against the cold metal wall. His vision tunneled, the edges of his sight turning into a kaleidoscope of raw binary code and architectural wireframes.
He felt an overwhelming sense of unease. The System was halfway through rewriting his human brain—what would happen if he introduced a massive, foreign neural network into the mix right now? It felt like trying to install a high-performance engine into a car while it was still being built. The risk of a "neural feedback loop" wasn't just a theory anymore; it felt like a looming cliff.
"Everything okay?" Grace asked, pausing with her hand on the scanner. "You're shaking, Turner. If you're going to puke, do it now."
"I'm fine," Mark forced out. "Let's do it."
The Critical Failure:
He climbed into the sleek, coffin-like link-bed. As the technicians adjusted the sensors against his temples, the System let out a low-frequency hum that seemed to vibrate in his very soul.
[INITIATING REMOTE INTERFACE...]
[WARNING: HOST SYNC INCOMPLETE]
[PROCEEDING WITH CROSS-PLATFORM UPLOAD...]
"Going under in three... two... one..."
The moment the link engaged, Mark didn't feel the usual peaceful slide into darkness. Instead, he felt like he had been plugged into a high-voltage reactor. His vision exploded into a frantic storm of crimson error messages.
[FATAL ERROR: NEURAL MISMATCH]
[CONFLICT DETECTED: SYSTEM OVERLAY VS. AVATAR BRACHIAL PLEXUS]
[BUFFER OVERFLOW... ATTEMPTING EMERGENCY DUMP...]
Pain, sharper than any Thanator claw, tore through every nerve in his body. In the Link Room, the monitors began to scream. "His heart rate is spiking! 180... 210! Grace, his brainwaves are going off the charts!"
Mark's human body began to heave, his back arching off the gel-mat in a violent, tonic-clonic seizure. Simultaneously, thirty feet away in the secure vault, his Avatar began to thrash in its tank. The ten-foot blue hybrid bucked against its restraints, its eyes snapping open—not with the golden hue of a Na'vi, but with a terrifying, electric cyan glow.
"Abort the link! Pull him out!" Grace screamed, scrambling for the manual override.
But the machine wouldn't let go. The System had locked the gates. It was trying to force a 100% synchronization by using the Avatar's massive neural capacity as a bridge. Sparks showered from the link-bed's control panel as the hardware began to melt under the data load.
Mark was trapped in a screaming void between two worlds. He felt his human heart stuttering, unable to keep up with the electrical storms ravaging his brain. He felt the Avatar's lungs burning, its powerful heart straining against the overload.
[CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE]
[HOST VITALITY: 5%... 2%... 1%...]
With a final, sickening surge of power that blew out every light in the room, the noise stopped.
The monitors hissed into a flat, unwavering tone. Mark's human body went limp, his head lolling to the side as the seizure finally broke. In the tank, the Avatar slumped forward, its glowing eyes fading to black.
"Mark!" Grace lunged for the bed, her hands shaking as she checked for a pulse.
On the screen above them, the progress bar flickered one last time before the power died completely.
[FLATLINE DETECTED.]
[SYNC STATUS: UNKNOWN.]