The good news is that Jennifer will live. From what the doctors can tell the pink bee venom is less potent and slower working than traditional Earth bees’ venom. She’ll be in the hospital for a few days and may have scarring, but considering the alternative, the prognosis is good. Jennifer’s doctors remind us that we’ve been cleared to spend quarantine in our lab and usher us from the room. Gabriella, Isaac, Austin, and Cam plant themselves in the hallway – they’re not about to go anywhere. Ryan, Jake, and I snag chairs out of a nearby waiting room for them. The doctor huffs, but then looks the other way.
The three of us head over to Molly’s room. The doctors are keeping her overnight for observation. She stops pouting when Jake volunteers to stay with her.
Ryan and I aren’t in bad shape, but we still have too many stings for any close contact. Ryan tries to comfort me but his embrace makes me wince. He tries to hold my hands, but even that hurts. Eventually he settles for standing next to me.
I want to keep Molly company, but I can’t sit still. No matter how much we disliked Elliot, we lost a team member today. I think each and every one of us realizes the loss was completely unnecessary and avoidable. I throw an apologetic look at Molly and leave the room. I can’t relax knowing that Elliot’s body’s still out there. I track down the security officer that took our reports. He brushes me off as if he’s too busy to be bothered with my questions, but I recognize his actions as avoidance tactics. I demand to know what he’s not telling me. He finally admits he won’t send any of his security team out until he sees how well Jennifer recovers. When I try to argue he threatens to arrest me for interfering with an investigation. The red armband around his bicep is the only thing that distinguishes him from a regular soldier, I don’t know if he actually has the authority to arrest anyone, but I decide not to press my luck.
I have to do something. The idea of Elliot lying in the hive, rotting and slowly being picked apart by bees is unbearable. Before we had no choice but to leave him behind, but I won’t abandon his body to the bees. I swipe a couple of isolation suits and take off for my field lab.
“You’re in no shape for a rescue mission,” Ryan calls. I should have known he’d follow me.
“We both know this is a retrieval, not a rescue.” I slow down enough for him to catch up.
“You know what I mean.” He holds his sting-covered hand in front of my face. “We were lucky to get out of there the first time.”
I push his hand away and keep walking, “So I’m just supposed to sit around and moan about how sore I am while Elliot is still out there?”
Ryan spins in front of me, blocking my path. When I sidestep him, he grabs my arms and ignores my wince. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but I won’t have you risk your life climbing down that hole for a corpse.” His jaw locks and his nostrils flare. As much as I want to dismiss his behavior as overprotectiveness, this time he has valid concerns and I have the feeling he’s not going to back down.
“Fine,” I huff. “Then you need to figure out a way to get him without us entering the hive.”
He scrunches his forehead. “I think we should just let security do its job.” I want to tell him that’s not good enough when he snaps his fingers. “Have Andi and Jeremy finished their robots?”
I smile because I guess what he’s thinking, and the plan is brilliant. We rush back to the lab and radio Andi and Jeremy. They agree to help before we finish explaining what’s happened and what we need.
I’m annoyed at how long it takes them to show up, but then I see Andi had the foresight to bring along Dean and Gregg. She correctly assumed that our team’s soldiers are not in the best shape right now. But even if they were, I don’t want to work with Cam, not after he ran away from the hive and left the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Dean and Gregg I can trust, no matter what happens.
Ryan and I dress in the two isolation suits. We consider going back to the field hospital to steal more, but we’re unsure if they’ll work and the robots’ remote controls have a quarter mile radius, so we won’t need to get too close to the hive. Besides, Jake’s back at the hospital and if he gets wind of what we’re doing, he’ll want to come too. Right now, no one else knows that Andi, Jeremy, Gregg and Dean are at the field lab, and I plan to keep it that way. Ryan and I will be the ones to take the blame when we bring Elliot back.
The walk out to the hive is painfully silent. None of us know exactly what we’ll find, but like me, they’re probably imagining the worst. I anxiously watch the two robots approach the hill, and peer at their video monitors. The bees have calmed down since the attack. The only buzzing comes from the very top of the hill. We can’t see their exact activity but I assume they’re repairing the hive.
Andi’s robot has a drill mounted on its front. When the drilling begins, the bees rush out of the hill and swarm the robot. Our progress is slow. The bees block all the vents on the robot causing it to overheat, and periodically Andi’s forced to shut it down. Jeremy’s robot only has a small shovel for digging. I guess he ignored Andi’s advice, and unfortunately, that means his robot is not much help getting into the hive.
Eventually the robot’s drill pierces the hive’s thick earthen wall, and a light pink hue immediately drenches its camera lens. Apparently, pink bumblebees create pink honey. Fortunately, Andi and Jeremy’s robots are well designed, and a secondary, shielded camera emerges from each robot, restoring visibility. At first, we can’t see much in the hive’s dim light, but then Andi turns on the robots’ floodlights. The hive is huge, much larger than the initial hill indicated. One end of it leads into what must be an old, underground cave. It’s unlike any hive I’ve ever seen. Instead of honeycomb, large pink columns are scattered throughout the hill, leaving quite a bit of open space.
The cameras are small and take a while to locate Elliot. A part of me still hoped Elliot would be alive, but the camera image reinforces the futility of that hope. Unlike Jennifer, Elliot’s honey drenched body is barely swollen. The bees must have swarmed so quickly that the massive amounts of bee venom killed him before his body could respond to the individual stings. At least I can find comfort in knowing that we couldn’t have saved him.
Jeremy’s robot unfolds the tarp it dragged in and attempts to roll Elliot’s body on top. Unfortunately, the robot’s wheels can’t gain traction on the thick layer of honey coating the ground. Andi maneuvers her robot to Elliot’s side, but it quickly runs into the same problem. When her robot accidentally slams into Elliot’s body, he gasps.
“He’s alive!” I shout.
Andi grabs my sleeve. “Brett, no. It’s just gas escaping the body. It’s disturbing, but normal.”
I point at the monitor. “Then explain why his hand’s a fist now!” I yell. Everyone gathers around the monitor and debates if his hand was that way before or not. I take advantage of Andi’s loosened grip and make a mad dash toward the hive. I dive through the tunnel drilled by the robot, and bees immediately swarm me. Their stings can’t penetrate the suit or its helmet, but I’m blinded and overwhelmed by their numbers. Standing is difficult, never mind moving forward. I stumble sideways and crash into what feels like a wall, but it gives way and I fall into a pool of honey. As I scramble to brush off the bees, honey continues to pour down on me, making the whole process a sticky, impossible mess. Once I get up, I realize the bees aren’t attacking anymore. Elliot and I are both covered in honey. The bees must think we’re part of the hive. The bees’ mistake must be how Elliot survived.
“Brett!” Ryan crawls into the hive, but the swarm surrounds him and muffles his voice. He climbs to his feet, and wipes the bees from his visor. I take him by the arm and swing him against the nearest pillar of honey. He crashes through it and lands on the ground while honey oozes onto him. I yell at him to cover himself with honey, but realize my isolation suit’s radio is off and click it on. “Cover yourself in the honey and they won’t attack.”
I’m not sure if he hears me, because he’s too busy cursing. “Of all the reckless, harebrained moves, are you trying to get yourself killed?”
I ignore him and spread the honey instead. He must realize what I’m doing, because instead of fighting me, he helps. Once he’s safely covered, we reassure Andi and everyone else that we’re fine. For good measure, I walk over to the robot and wave into its camera lens. Andi takes her turn cursing me, and then demands we get Elliot and leave before the bees change their minds.
Before we move Elliot, I inspect his injuries. He has few visible stings, but there’s a nasty cut on the back of his head. He must have hit it when he fell. Nothing else seems broken. Ryan and I carry him to the entrance, but the tunnel is only large enough for one person at a time. We free the robots and after placing the tarp under Elliot, Jeremy’s robot drags him through the tunnel. Andi’s robot goes next, then me. Halfway through the tunnel, Andi’s robot snags a wheel on a root and lurches sideways as it frees the wheel. Just when it leaves the tunnel, dirt begins to rain down.
“Ryan, pull me back!” I scream. He yanks me into the hive as the tunnel completely collapses. We’re trapped. The dim light that trickles into the hive shows both worry and relief etched across Ryan’s face.
“Brett! Ryan!” Andi screams into the radio.
“Relax, we’re fine,” Ryan reassures her.
“Okay, stay put. I’ll have the robot drill a new hole,” she says, and then we hear the mechanical buzz of the drill. I look around the damaged hive. The wall has buckled where the hole collapsed, and the roof sags where the collapsed honey pillars once stood.
“I don’t think this is a good idea. You might bring down the entire hive.”
“We can’t leave you in there.” Andi sounds panicked, but she turns off the drill.
Too late.
As I stare at the wall, it ripples. I blink, thinking my eyes are playing tricks on me, but then a deep moan fills the cavern. I’m searching for the source when Ryan pulls me back and shoves me into the cave. He pins me against the wall and covers my head. The moan grows into a deafening roar, and my world goes black.
The dark is disorienting, but I understand what’s happened. Just as I feared, we collapsed the hive. I don’t hear many bees and worry they’ve fled the hive and are attacking my friends. “Andi, Jeremy, are you okay?” No one answers. “Dean, Gregg! Answer me!”
“We’re okay,” Dean pants. “We just had to put some extra distance between ourselves and the hive.”
“What about you and Ryan?” Andi’s alarmed voice fills my helmet.
“We’re fine,” Ryan says, and Andi hiccups in response.
“Have Dean and Gregg take Elliot to the field hospital.” I do my best to sound confident and calm. “The hive continues deeper into the hillside. We’re going to look for a second entrance. If we can’t find one, we’ll locate a more stable area to drill in. You and Jeremy can follow along and track us, okay?”
“How will you see? You ran in there empty handed. You don’t even have a flashlight.”
A bright light appears, blinding me. I shield my eyes. “Don’t worry we got that covered,” Ryan says and taps on my helmet light. “During quarantine I had a doctor that was quite fond of blinding me with this light,” he explains with a dry laugh.
Beyond our lights, the cave is dark and foreboding, but when a chunk of dirt hits my helmet, I’m convinced the cave is our only option. Ryan senses my hesitation and holds my hand. I take a deep breath, step inside, and immediately shield my eyes. The cave is suddenly a blaze of gold and pink as our lights bounce off every surface, blinding us. Ryan adjusts the angle of his light and does the same for mine. The cave floor is stone, but the sides and ceiling are covered in honeycomb. A shiny, gold, metallic substance caps the center of each individual honeycomb chamber.
“Look at this.” Ryan points at one of the chambers. A newborn bee chews at the gold cover until all of the material is gone. Then it climbs out and fans its wings. “It looks like a drone,” he says. “Why would one be hatching this time of year?”
I search and find another bee hatching. “I guess these bees stay in their hive year round.” I gaze at the endless columns of honey whose exteriors are crystallized, pink honey. A bee lands on one, and then crawls downward through a narrow opening to reach the liquid center.
“They certainly have enough food to last them through the winter,” I say.
The tunnel forks, and we veer to the right. It splits again, and again, we turn right. I realize the hive is an underground web of caves and tunnels. To keep track of our path we continue choosing the right fork, when the tunnels divides, but it feels like we’re moving further and further underground. When we lose radio communication with Andi and Jeremy, I know I’m right.
The silence of the caves amplifies every noise, causing us to whisper.
“Maybe we should go back,” Ryan suggests. “They could knock down the hill enough for us to get out.”
“Let’s keep that as a final option because that could kill the hive, or at least a large part of it.”
“Fine, but Andi might tear down the hill herself if we’re out of radio contact much longer,” he cautions.
Ryan has a point, so we pick up our pace.
An overpowering stench his us when we round the next corner. It’s a mix of sulfur, ammonia, and something rotting. I would have turned around, but up ahead the cave brightens. Hopeful the extra light is from an exit, we continue towards the smell and find a large round cavern. I’m not sure which is worse, the smell or the sight in front of me. A broken and bloody animal lies onto of a bed of jagged rocks as bees pick apart its flesh. The ground around the rocks is scattered with hay, crumbled rock and bones. I examine a shard of broken rock and discover, it’s not rock, but a mix of crystallized honey and what looks like ground up animal bone. Ryan and I watch some a group of bees that cover an old bone. They continually make trips back and forth to a broken rock spear in the center of the cavern.
The brighter light is from a hole in the ceiling far above us. Bees busily work to cover the hole with a new layer of grass and what I assume is honey. I’m intrigued and horrified by the bees’ ingenuity. At least the bees are a long way away from completing the hole, so Andi and Jeremy should be safe, but without radio contact, we have no way of marking the spot for the next person who happens along. Ryan and I edge along the cavern and continue down the cave’s tunnels.