Saturday, March 12, 2016

First It Was The Bees

“Hey Gramps,” the boy called on the intercom, “the boss is online for you and he sounds mad.”

Toby transferred the feed to his grandfather's workstation in the basement, then quickly ran down the stairs. Nearly out of breath and wishing his grandfather would upgrade the house with more modern conveniences, he made it just in time to see the old man slap the side of an antique VR unit.

“You and your damned drones,” the voice yelled even before the boss’s fat, mottled face flickered in the air. The marketing slogans that always flashed behind him were in bright yellow and black: “Artie’s Beebots, the Best in the Business! ATC, FCC, and FDA Approved!

“I’m sorry sir?” said Artie from his workbench, pushing the multi-magnifiers off his nose and up to his forehead. He gave a side glance to his grandson, motioning for the young boy to stay out of camera.

“Your drones just killed one of my Field Managers," the boss huffed.

The old man swallowed and shook his head. “No sir, that can’t happen. The failsafe - “

“- failed!” the fat man interrupted, “and now the Feds have the site locked up tight while they investigate.”

The boss shook a finger in the air, “I regret the day I optioned your invention. Do you know how much this is costing me? Millions, that’s how much. You’d better figure out what went wrong and fix it. A-sap.”

The fat man’s shimmering red face and wagging finger dissipated as he cut the feed. Artie blinked in disbelief as Toby punched up the news headline:
Killer Drones on the Loose! One dead from hundreds of Beebot stings. Field hands medivac'd to hospital for treatment of life-threatening injuries. Federal Agents swarm the area looking for clues, warning all workers at Budberry Farms to take shelter until the drones have been disintegrated. Delays in food production are expected to last for weeks. The world’s population depends on Budberry, and shortages will hit the shelves as early as tomorrow. Consumer prices skyrocket as stocks plummet. Stay tuned for more news at the top of the hour.

“My Beebots don’t have stings,” the old man grumbled. He sighed as he swiped the headlines away to view the company recordings, a scowl deepening as he did so. He shook his head and then picked up a pair of old-style controllers.

Toby watched as his grandfather flipped on the Beetbot radar and hundreds of yellow dots swirled in the room around them. Artie deftly moved his fingers and grabbed a DITA, a drone-in-the-air, using a maneuver the boy was still trying to master with his newer and much more nimble VR skin.

The screen shimmered as the DITA’s small eyes recorded its flight across the farm, but it was only seconds when the ground rose up and the image went dark. Artie locked on to several other DITAs and began maneuvering them into position for a wider field of view. Each DITA revealed a different angle of a rare scene of lush green farmland. One by one they went dark as each DITA was chased to the ground by Fedbots. Several fizzled in the air as their internals fried from a localized EMP.

Artie reached out to one last bot flying on the periphery and nudged it out from under the Fed’s radar, past the legal boundary. The scene turned brown and shimmered from the heat. The old man's fingers punched through the air as he switched from the required radio channel to a private signal that the FCC couldn’t trace.

The boy’s awe was replaced with angst as he watched his grandfather work the controllers. Everything his grandfather was doing would get the old man thrown in jail, and Toby worried that he himself would not be accepted into bio-engineering school. Worse, the boy just knew he'd have to hear a "see, I told you so," from his older brother who had left months ago in a huff, yelling something about their grandfather breaking a promise and being a sellout.

Artie held the DITA in place, swiveling the Beebot around in a slow circle as he searched the horizon. Then something smashed into the DITA and the camera died just before it sent out one last, faint beep.

The old man scrolled slowly through the frames of the video, then muttered a curse under his breath. He turned back to his workbench and flipped down his spectacles, adjusting the zoom and focus as he pulled the pedestal closer to peer at the tiny backside of the drone he’d been working on. He scratched at the gray stubble on his chin.

“There’s just no room for a stinger mechanism,” the old man said as he peered at the drone. He had used tweezers to detach the organic abdomen, and sliced it open to reveal the magnificent inner workings. Miniature gears, springs, magnets and copper coil, all encased in a thin gold lining.

He looked up at his grandson.

“We’re gonna hafta make a trip outside,” the old man said in a hushed voice. “I need to find out who's been modifying my design.”

At the police blockade, Toby stifled his surprise when his grandfather flashed his Budberry badge and then passed something to the guards, who motioned them through. The old man mumbled about everyone being hungry these days, and even the cops would look the other way for a basket of gee-mo.

The aircar skirted the edge of farmland, then turned away and passed over several barren hills. Artie finally brought the car to a stop and climbed out. He made his grandson put on a white cloth suit that was far too big for the boy, with netting that draped down from underneath a broad brimmed hat.

“Why do I have to wear all this stuff and you don't?” Toby said in exasperation, feeling as if he could barely move in the billowing cloth. Artie just shook his head, shouldering his tool bag and nudging the boy forward.

Their feet kicked up dust as they walked across the dry ground, towards a small hill that wasn’t quite as barren as the others they’d passed. Toby stopped and pointed.

“What are those things?”

Artie sighed. “Trees,” he said, and adjusted the netting under the boy’s hat, saddened by the look of confusion on his grandson’s face and wondering if the boy slept through history class.

The old man pulled a jar out of his bag and put it into the boy’s hands, “Don't drop this. Stay here until I call for you.”

Toby nodded, and Artie reached into the bag again and pulled out a rusted canister and a pack of cigarettes. Things his grandson had never seen and would never learn about in school.

The old man walked slowly up the hill to the first tree and spent several moments just staring at it. Toby's impatience was about to get the best of him when his grandfather waved him up, and then made him stop and wait again as Artie moved on. When his grandfather neared the top of the hill and the second tree, the old man halted several feet away and put down the canister.

Toby called out to him and the old man held up his hand to shush the boy. The sounds Artie heard brought an old memory of his own grandfather adjusting the netting around Artie’s young head, and grinning as thick nectar dripped from the frame he had lifted out of a white box, the honey bees buzzing all around them.

Artie pulled a cigarette from the pack and lit one end. He coughed, remembering a taste not so bitter as this, and put the glowing end to an alcohol soaked rag that was stuffed inside the canister. Thick smoke issued from the spout and he held it before him as he moved closer to the tree. He circled slowly around it, looking carefully up and down each branch until he found what he was looking for, something he knew simply couldn't exist.

He pulled a small net from his bag and listened as the bees' buzzing grew dull, then slowly swung the net and captured several of them. He pointed the smoke pot behind him as he walked back to the boy.

He took the jar from his grandson and shook the bees from the net, then quickly screwed on the lid. He shoved the jar in his bag and pushed his grandson towards the car, refusing to answer any of the boy’s questions the whole ride home.


“Who do you think made these, Grampa?” Toby sat watching the jar, fascinated by the things that buzzed frantically inside, and so closely resembled his grandfather's creations.

His grandfather remained silent for several minutes as he inspected one of the specimens, then pushed back from the table and took off his spectacles.

“Well I’ll be,” the old man said. The boy turned around to see Artie scratch his gray beard as he stared at the bee he had just sliced open.

“Whose maker's stamp is inside?" Toby moved closer to the workbench.

The old man shook his head and placed his spectacles on the boy's nose, holding the specimen with tweezers for his grandson to see. He pointed to the stinger that poked out the abdomen.

“There’s no gears or springs or anything," Toby said, "it’s all just goo inside."

“That’s right Toby," Artie said, pausing as he took a deep breath. "What we have here is a real bee.”

The boy's eyebrows arched up, and he turned back to the jar to watch the slowing flight of the things inside.

“These are real bees?”

“Uh-huh. Likely thousands of 'em living in that hive I found on the tree. I should go back and collect them all...” Artie’s voice drifted off in thought.

"What do you want them for?”

“Toby, I'd wager they're much better pollinators than anything I could ever build.” Artie wondered just how much biological history had gone extinct, like the honeybees his grandfather had tried to save so many decades ago.

“You gonna call the boss and tell him what we found?”

The old man shook his head at the boy’s back, whose attention was fixated on the few bees now lying upside down on the bottom of the jar, their little black legs wriggling in the air.

Artie wiped his eyes as a sorrow he had forgotten bubbled up again.

“No,” he whispered, “Let's not do that just yet.”

<word count: 1753>

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