The transition wasn't a fade-to-black. It was a violent, sensory shattering. One moment, Mark Turner was feeling the icy October rain of a city street and the blinding glare of truck headlights; the next, he was submerged in a void of absolute zero.
[LOCATION: ISV MANIFEST DESTINY - CRYO-BAY 4]
[STATUS: AWAKENING]
His eyes snapped open. For a terrifying ten seconds, he couldn't breathe. His lungs felt like they were coated in frozen glass, stiff and unresponsive. A mechanical hiss echoed in the cramped space as the cryo-pod's seal broke, and a thick cloud of white vapor spilled over his chest.
"Easy, Turner. Don't fight the tube. Let the vent do the work."
A rough hand gripped his shoulder, steadying him as the pod tilted upright. Mark coughed, a dry, rattling sound that burned his throat.
"Where..." Mark wheezed, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "Where am I?"
"Cryo-bay four, ISV Manifest Destiny," the med-tech answered, eyes glued to a diagnostic tablet. "You've been a popsicle for five years, eleven months, and twenty-two days. Try not to think too hard, your brain is still thawing."
Mark's vision began to clear. He looked at the industrial yellow markings on the floor, the low-gravity hum of the ventilation, and the rows of hundreds of white pods stretching into the gloom.
"Manifest Destiny..." Mark whispered. The name hit him like a physical blow. "Wait. No. This isn't right. I was... I was just in a theater. I was walking home. There was a truck..."
He gripped his chest, his fingers digging into his ribs. "The truck. It hit me. I felt the glass. I felt the metal. I died."
The med-tech stopped typing and looked at him, a flicker of pity crossing his face. "Cryo-sickness is a bitch, Doc. False memories, vivid dreams... it happens. You didn't die. You signed a contract with the RDA to be an expert in bio-structural engineering. You're very much alive, and unfortunately for you, you're officially on the clock."
"No, you don't understand," Mark said, his voice rising in panic as he looked at his hands—pale, five-fingered, and completely unscarred. "This is Avatar. This is a movie. You're... you're a character. This whole ship is from a movie."
The tech let out a short, dry laugh. "A movie? Man, I wish. If this was a movie, I'd be getting paid way more to babysit you eggheads. Look, Turner, you're suffering from 'Displacement Syndrome.' Just breathe. Look at the bulkheads. Feel the floor. Does this look like a movie to you?"
Mark looked around. The smell of ozone and recycled sweat was sharp. The vibration of the massive antimatter engines hummed in the very marrow of his bones. It was too detailed. Too gritty.
Suddenly, a deluge of "stored" memories from the other Mark Turner—the scientist who actually belonged here—slammed into his brain. He saw diplomas from Earth universities, blueprints for RDA modular housing, and dense files on Pandoran botany. He saw himself shaking hands with a corporate recruiter.
"I have two lives," Mark muttered, clutching his head as the vertigo intensified. "I remember the theater... and I remember the PhD. Both of them are me."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Doc," the tech said, unhooking the vitals monitor. "But keep the 'movie' talk to yourself once you get planetside. Colonel Quaritch isn't big on sci-fi fans. He likes people who follow orders."
Mark froze at the mention of the name. Quaritch. "He's down there?" Mark asked. "In Hell's Gate?"
"Commanding the whole damn show," the tech replied, tossing Mark a standard-issue jumpsuit. "Now get dressed. Shuttle leaves for the surface in two hours. You're assigned to the Augustine expedition. Try not to puke on the Valkyrie."
Mark gripped the jumpsuit, the fabric rough against his skin. He looked out a small, thick porthole at the end of the bay. Nestled against the massive, swirling gas giant Polyphemus was a glowing, emerald jewel of a moon.
He had died in a rainy city, and he had woken up in a story. But as the scientist's memories blended with his own obsession for shipbuilding, a new thought took hold. If he was in the movie, he knew exactly where the best "trash" was going to be hidden. He knew which ships would fall, and which battles would be lost.
"I'm not just a scientist," he whispered to the glass, his reflection staring back with eyes that had seen the future. "I'm a scavenger."
Arrival at Hell's Gate:
The trip down from orbit was a bone-rattling descent into a beautiful nightmare. Mark sat strapped into a jump seat in the belly of a Valkyrie shuttle.
The air inside the bay was thick with the smell of hydraulic fluid and the nervous sweat of soldiers. Mark closed his eyes. Every vibration of the shuttle reminded him of the truck that had killed him. He was terrified, but beneath the fear, a spark of his old life remained. He was a shipbuilder. He had spent his weekends on Earth obsessing over hull displacement and sail tension.
The bay doors finally hissed open at the airbase, and the world of Pandora rushed in.
The humidity hit him like a physical blow. It was a wet, heavy heat that smelled of sulfur, damp earth, and jet fuel. Mark fumbled with his exopack, pulling the mask over his face. The seal engaged with a soft hiss, and the filtered oxygen tasted metallic and sterile.
He stepped out onto the tarmac of Hell's Gate.
To his left, towering over the base like a metal god, was the C-21 Dragon Assault Ship.
Mark stopped dead in his tracks. In the theater, it looked big. In person, it was a mountain of predatory geometry. His shipbuilder's mind began to strip the vessel down automatically. He wasn't looking at the guns; he was looking at the ballistic ceramic plating and the high-torque rotor assemblies.
That's it, he thought, his heart racing. That's the armor for my ship.
"Hey! Turner! You planning on moving today, or are you waiting for the foliage to eat you?"
A woman in a grease-stained flight suit was leaning against the landing gear of a SA-2 Samson, waving him over with a lopsided smirk.
"I'm Trudy Chacon," she said as he approached.
Mark stared at her. She was real. She was standing five feet away from him, smelling of aviation kerosine and tobacco. She was a character he had just mourned in a cinema, and now she was his pilot.
"Mark Turner," he said, his voice trembling slightly.
"Nice to meet ya, Mark," she shouted over the rising whine of the Samson's rotors. "Welcome to the end of the world. Hope you brought your bug spray."
As the Samson lifted off, the industrial gray of Hell's Gate was swallowed by a sea of emerald and violet. Mark looked out the open door, watching the massive Medusoids drifting in the distant thermal updrafts like silent, bioluminescent clouds.
He didn't have a 'System' or a 'Cheat' like every other isekai. He didn't have a ship. But he had the most dangerous weapon on Pandora: he knew how the story ended.