They said you didn't dream in cryo.

Many of the things they said were true, or at least contained an element of truth. They didn't like to tell lies – at least outright lies. However, even they thought they were telling the whole truth when they said no-one dreamt in cryo.

It turned out they were wrong.

Sara had dreamt this dream many times since she had been loaded into the cryo chamber.

"She is almost totally unresponsive to any stimulus," said the doctor to the two men in suits. "I don't see why you would want to use her in your research."

The room the monitor displayed was stark, the padded walls and floor a pale green. A young woman was sitting backed into one corner of the room, her arms wrapped around her knees and her green eyes terribly blank.

One of the two men replied, "I think she will do very well as a test subject. Her DNA is almost perfectly matched to our requirements."

"Yes," replied the other. "No next of kin, a ward of the state, and no possibility of capricious lawsuits if the results are not optimal."

"We'll take her," said the first man in a suit.

"It's your funeral," commented the doctor. He nodded to the three orderlies standing by the door, adding, "I'll just be a moment while I fill out the paperwork."

The steel door into the padded cell crashed open, the orderlies advancing cautiously towards the young woman – with good reason. Only eight weeks ago, in one of her unpredictable outbursts of fury, she had injured two orderlies and almost killed a third.

They extended the restraint poles towards her, the memory plastic restraints closing smoothly around the column of her neck. "Sara, sweetheart," said one of the men softly. They had learnt through bitter experience that she did not like loud noises. "You have to come with us."

Sara made no outward sign of having heard the words, but nonetheless she stood up. This had been done many times before, and she knew what she was supposed to do. It was one of the rules that she stood up and was quiet when the men used the poles.

"Is she secure?" whispered the doctor, who had followed the men into the padded cell.

The lead orderly nodded, so the doctor slipped his hand out of his lab coat to reveal a small hypospray unit. "Sara, I am going to give you some medicine to make you a little sleepy," said the doctor.

Sara turned her head towards the medico, looking at his feet, nodded once, and held out her arm. She had learnt that people didn't like it if she stared into their eyes, so she didn't look directly at them anymore. The doctor approached her cautiously, watching her for any sudden movements, and quickly applied the hypospray against her forearm.

The dream always became a little blurry at that point. Sara wasn't sure why – it just was. She supposed it was one of the rules of the dream, just like it always faded into a little box that she occupied with two men in dark suits. The little box vibrated and hummed quietly. Somehow the noise was soothing, not like many noises that she heard.

She knew there were two men, because she counted them to make sure. It was important that she knew how many there were.

Dark Suit Man Number One commented, "It's a pity that so few have the right genetic material for the formation of an Avatar. The research needs more test subjects."

"Yes," replied Dark Suit Man Number Two. "If we are to continue mining on Pandora, we will need a viable work force. The death rates are too high – I mean the deaths from cancer, not from the wild animals, or the natives. If the media get hold of the data on returnees our stock price will end up in the shitter. Without a workforce able to tolerate local conditions, we are fucked."

"At least with the new flash cloning process we won't have to wait as long for results," said Dark Suit Man Number One. He pulled out his cell phone – yes, she remembered what cell phones were for. Her mother had always talked a lot to her cell phone. Dark Suit Man Number One rapidly thumbed out a message, clearly one of the many who disliked giving voice commands to their hardware. Sara was pleased about that – she didn't like people using voice commands.

The next part of the dream was mostly in another padded room – sky blue instead of being pale green. Nothing much else changed though, except for the people Sara saw. There were eighteen different orderlies, four ordinary doctors, one head doctor and the two men in dark suits. The head doctor made her do lots of tests. She liked the tests with numbers, and the ones with pictures as well. Sara didn't like the ones with writing though.

Yes, she knew how to read, but the tests with writing were just too boring, and her attention would wander off. The only bad thing she didn't like about the tests was the funny hat she had to wear. It was black, and fit very tight - so tight they shaved off all her hair.

She was in the room with the sky-blue paint for two hundred and eighty-two sleeps. Sara knew that, because she counted every sleep.

Sara liked the room with the sky-blue paint a lot more than the pale green room. The people she saw were much nicer to her, and gave her things to play with – two hundred and eighty-four wooden blocks, five dolls and sixteen toy cars. The wooden blocks had one thousand six hundred and ninety eight different pictures – two of the blocks were the same, otherwise there would have one thousand seven hundred and four different pictures. When she built things with her blocks, it was important that the right kind of pictures were touching, otherwise it wasn't right, and the two blocks the same had to be as far away from each other as possible. It was very important to get it right.

The last day she was there, one of the doctors – a pretty blonde woman – was talking to one of the other doctors. "What we are doing to her is criminal," whispered doctor number three, otherwise known as the pretty blonde doctor. There was something odd about her voice, about its texture, that Sara had never heard before. "Sara is so intelligent, and sweet."

Doctor number two – a tall thin man with dark hair and a scruffy beard – replied, "Shut up, Lissa. If they hear you, you will be in a world of pain."

"It's still not right," insisted doctor number three.

"You know as well as I do she would have been euthanized three months ago, if she had been left in state care," said doctor number two. "The Population Act is very clear that unless their families are prepared to provide financial support, people like Sara are put to sleep when they turn eighteen, and their organs harvested. RDA is doing her a favour by giving her a longer life. Who knows, she may actually survive the procedure."

"No-one else has," said doctor number three bitterly.

Sara was building a wall with her blocks as she listened to the two doctors. She knew they were talking about her, and she worried about the word 'euthanized'. Sara didn't know what it meant, but it sounded bad. Very bad.

Doctor number two walked over to Sara, making sure that he didn't stand too close. She didn't like people looming over her. It was clear that he had something to say, so she cocked her head to one side to signal that she was listening to him.

"Sara, sweetheart," he said. "We are going to do another type of test, where you go to sleep and have a dream. You are going to dream that you look different, very different. You are going to dream that you are blue and very tall."

To his shock, Sara spoke one of the few series of words that any of the RDA staff had ever heard her speak. "Is it euthanized?" she asked, apparently concentrating on her blocks.

"No," said doctor number two, shaken to his boots. "You're not going to be euthanized."

"Ok," she replied, her voice flat and expressionless. "I want some more blocks."

"Sure," he said.

"They have to be different," she said quietly. "It will be too difficult if they are like my blocks."

He wondered what was going to be difficult, but decided not to ask. "Ok, sweetheart," he repeated, "I'll make sure you get some more blocks."

Sara stood up and said, "I am ready to go now."

Doctor number two took her hand, and lead her out of the sky blue room along a corridor into another room. There were lots of things in this room, with many computer monitors, and people talking softly. At one end of the room was a long open box, almost like a bed with a lid, with a big doughnut shape around the end. The doctor told her to get into the box and stay very still, and not panic when the lid was closed.

Sara did as she was told, and waited. She wasn't concerned when the lid was closed – she liked being shut away from the world. It was much safer, and she didn't have to worry about loud noises and flickering lights that made her feel sick. Over the slight hum of the box she could hear someone calling out, "We have one hundred percent congruency!"

Her eyes flickered shut, and suddenly Sara found herself falling down a tunnel of light – no, not a tunnel, a kaleidoscope of light.

Her eyes were blurred, and she struggled to hold her eyelids open. Not only that, her brain felt odd. Odd in a good way, not a bad way.

The scene in front of her swam into focus, and she saw doctor number three – Lissa, that was her name – standing over her. Lissa was wearing some kind of clear mask over her face.

"Sara, can you hear me?" asked Lissa.

Then something really odd happened. Lissa clicked her fingers near Sara's ears – Sara felt her ears twitch and move, and she gasped with surprise. Her ears had never done that before.

"We have an auditory response," said Lissa, and shone a bright light into Sara's eyes, making her squint and turn her head away. "Pupil dilation nominal," added Lissa.

"I don't like bright lights," said Sara, making Lissa jump. "You know I don't," she added.

"Hi, Sara," said Lissa. "It looks like you have woken up in dreamland."

Sara sat up, and swung her legs off the bed, only to stop in amazement. Her legs were pale blue, with dark blue tiger stripes – and Lissa was tiny. She held up her hands in front of her face, and saw that she had ten fingers, not twelve. She counted them, just to make sure – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and ten. "I'm blue," said Sara. She did her usual quick conversion from the way she preferred to count, so that Lissa could understand, and added, "I have eight fingers."

"Yes, that is right," agreed Lissa. "You are blue, have eight fingers and are ten feet tall."

Sara cautiously stood up, towering over Lissa, and felt something behind her. Something extra. She turned to look and exclaimed, "I have a tail too." She felt something extra in her head, and wiggled it, surprised to see her tail lash from one side to another. It felt good.

Actually, that wasn't the only thing that felt good. She felt good. Her thoughts were crystal clear, the colours she saw were brilliant, and she could smell – everything. This was better than being awake. Everything felt right.

"Ok, Sara," said Lissa. "We are going to wake you up now. Lie back down on the gurney, and shut your eyes. You can come back here another time."

Reluctantly, Sara returned to the gurney, and did as she was told. She felt something tugging at the core of herself, pulling her away from where she was, and suddenly Sara made a decision. She was not going back. Very firmly, she said, "No!"

Sara felt something dig its claws into the core of her being, and she wrenched away from it, feeling a terrible tearing sensation. She heard Lissa cry out, "Sara!"

Everything turned black.

Lissa said, "Are you sure we lost her?"

"Yes," said doctor number two over the intercom. Sara remembered his name was Phred. "There is zero brain activity at this end, and her heart has stopped beating. She's gone."

"Fuck!" swore Lissa.

Sara could tell that Lissa was really angry. She didn't like it when people got angry, especially when they were angry with something she had done. Perhaps it was her fault that Lissa was angry, so Sara sat up and said, "I'm sorry, Lissa."

Lissa screamed and leapt back ten feet.