Blue World Order – Chapter 3: Honey

Jake’s feet landed with an impact that sent the dust and stones flying, but it didn’t stop his momentum. He hurtled down the mountain a breakneck speed. If it wasn’t for his parkour-like leaping and rolling through the trees, it would have been easy to think his was out of control, falling; but with each new change of direction, Jake Slater kept his feet.

A spray of stones flew high into the air and fell into the chasm below, but Jake didn’t follow. He changed angle with the aide of a tree trunk that anchored him as he swung – but still he didn’t slow. The prey he followed didn’t slow, so neither could he.

Gravity pulled him down the hill faster as he leapt, slid and rolled – never taking his eyes from his prize.

Then, it stopped, oblivious.

Like a batter sliding for the home plate, Jake Slater hit the breaks in a cloud of dust and bark. When it settled, he drew his knife. It was a slow, deliberate action. In front of him, crawling on a stump, was an orange and black insect that to Jake, meant more than just a good omen.

Finished with whatever task it was performing, the bee flew off; Headed, Jake hoped, for its hive. Again the insect dipped and danced through the trees. With sure, near silent feet, he stayed as close as possible. The honey bee might prove his salvation…for today anyway.

In a ballet of performance, Jake kept pace with the tiny insect as it zigged and zagged, only slowing when it drifted higher into the trees.

There.

The hive was buzzing with activity. It was high, too high for Jake to reach without a climb. So climb he must. He adjusted his knife so it hung loosely on his leg, and hoisted himself up the first branch.

It was the kind of activity he’d grown used to in the last two years… ever since he’d decided the cities were too dangerous, ever since the flash. Now, this wasteland was his home. The hills, plains and forest that lay beyond the packs of marauding, violent gangs. Heading ever southward, Jake had managed to avoid detection for more than a year. The isolation was his security blanket. He felt safe knowing that he could not be found. Must not be found. What he protected was too important.

Jake pulled himself up onto another branch – this one much smaller. He looked again at he hive and where it sat so far out from the trunk. At this height, the limbs may not support his weight. The thin branch that held the honey-filled hive certainly wouldn’t, but perhaps the branch above. It was uncharacteristically thick. He continued skywards, moving with a constant, steady determination. He knew that to extract the honey without upsetting the hive’s residents was a dangerous manoeuvre this far off the ground, his movements needed to be slow and gentle.

Another two meters. Jake reached for a limb with his hand. It snapped as he began to pull upon it with his weight. The drop was small, and his feet soon found support, but it was enough to send a jolt of adrenaline through his already tense body.

Slowly again, Jake lifted his boot onto another support, tested it, and applied his weight. It held. He was level with the hive now. Ten meters off the ground. He could already feel the gentle rocking of the tree in the wind. Scaling to this height close to the trunk had been the easy part. Now he had to travel outwards.

His two handed chin-up brought Jake onto the branch he would use as his carrier. He curled his hips and slowly raised his legs to wrap around the thin limb, so that he hung just above the branch that held the hive.

Slowly, deliberately, Jake started his hand-over-hand journey away from the safety of the think trunk, and out into the perilously thin outer limbs. Inch by inch, he moved closer to the hive. On cue, the limb bent under his weight, taking him just low enough to reach down, and gently extract the precious honey with his knife.

Finally, he reached the hive.

Jake took one hand from the branch and unclipped his long commando knife. He wiped the serrated blade on his once beige cargo pants, then stretched out. The colony came and went, oblivious to the large, pointed steel tip that had started to pry its way into the wall of their home. Jake did not want to damage any of the insects if he could help it; they were life, and all life had become precious to him. Now even more so because there was so little of it left. But nothing was as precious as what he was taking the honey for. Nothing as precious as what he had hidden.

Like one of the orang-utans Jake had once seen on a David Attenborough documentary, he pictured himself reaching down, performing his delicate operation at full stretch. In his mind, Attenborough’s narration commented on his technique:

‘The man, hanging precariously on the branch, pries open the hive… but then…’

It wasn’t the initial impact that caused the branch to break. It probably wasn’t even that something large and heavy slammed into the trunk of the tree, sending Jake’s branch flying backwards with a jolt. It was most likely the tension at the pinnacle of the backswing. It was just too much pressure for the tiny branch to bear. Jake managed to cling tight for the initial impact, but as the branch swung back towards the hive below, he had a mere instant to make his decision. As the branch broke, Jake shot out his knife-bearing fist in a lighting strike that punctured the wall of the hive completely, sending the bees into a crazed frenzy. Jake did this as he fell.

He hit branches and clumps of leaves on his way down that served to both break his fall and spin his body. Finally, he landed flat on his back. The wind was knocked out of him but his gas-mask stayed on. For a long moment, he did not move.

It was only a few seconds later that the bee hive suffered the same fate, slamming down less than a foot from Jake’s head, exploding into a thousand pieces. If Jake lacked the motivation to move before; the angry swarm that burst from the broken hive provided all the motivation he needed now. Still not quite able to take a breath, Jake pushed himself to his feet as the cloud of insects enveloped him.
He staggered back and forth, swatting with his hand before falling to his knees, searching the ground desperately for his knife.

The first of the stings pinched his leg and Jake growled. Sweeping his free hand in a wide arc to search for the knife, he kept his other hand clenched tight around the honey he’d managed to retain. He had heard, perhaps on one of those documentaries, that when a bee stung, it released a chemical into the air that the rest of the hive could detect. It was a chemical that signalled for them to attack. The swarm got the message.

As Jake’s fingers closed around the hilt of his blade, a second explosion renewed his motivation to move. Even above the deafening roar of the swarm enveloping his body, the crack of a rifle was unmistakable. The explosion of bark where the bullet hit was less than ten feet away.

Jake began running blindly, not bothering to holster his knife. Another CRACK! and another explosion. With the cloud of insects still all around him, it was impossible for Jake to either see where he was going, or know where the shot landed. It was a good ten stumbling steps before Jake was able to draw his first breath. It came just as he tripped and fell to the ground… but he had momentum now, and with a roll he was up again, beginning to get ahead of the thick mass of insects inflicting their retribution on the thief who had destroyed their home and stolen their honey.

Jake pumped his legs hard as a third shot rang out. He didn’t know if they were aimed at him, but he didn’t much care. With his speed up, Jake dared a glance down at his thigh to re-sheath his eight inch commando blade, not the easiest task whilst running. But in that moment, that didn’t seem to matter so much, as something changed. A growl, low and guttural bellowed from close behind him – and it became apparent that a swarm of angry bees was not the only thing chasing him.

Another shot.

An instant later Jake realised that he was no longer running on the uneven, rock strewn surface of moments ago. He wasn’t running on any surface at all.

He was falling.

Like a cat spinning to land on its feet at the last possible moment, Jake swivelled his body mid air and lashed out with his free hand. With his mask preventing any peripheral vision, his fingers stretched out blindly. When they snapped closed, it was around a protruding tree root. His arm wrenched straight and took the full force of his fall – stopping his downward motion and slamming him hard into the cliff wall.

The impact knocked the wind out of him again, but his fist stayed tight around his precious honey. Jake focussed on his breathing. The rasping sound came through the regulator with amplified volume. He focussed; he slowed.

So now, Jake Slater hung from a cliff. And not by two hands, just one. He clung desperately to a small clump of roots which in turn clung desperately to the lip of a ninety foot drop. The other hand hung as his side, balled up in a fist that held tightly to the precious honey.