Humility

by Magdalene Hornbeam

  - OK.

  - Silence, silence - shouted Ana with an unexpectedly high-pitched voice – I want to bet Mr. Vaykua that even such an experienced military man like Sir Frederick Thabo is not able to perform jumps and let alone we, all of us will be dead jumping from this board.

  - But I think we will all succeed! I'm willing to bet – in a humming sound and unclear answered the Asian guy and squinted his eyes.

  Most suddenly, the silent so far Negro in camouflage uniform with long pants and long sleeves raised his hand. All of the group fell silent and stared at him.

  - That’s the reason that I've come here. I will demonstrate how to make the jump to get the maximum number of points - one hundred. We first put the tasks to test, we calculate time and then we assign them to you.

  Laura started to exclaim, but Anna, who had approached her pinched her by the leg and pulled her. Then all watched the way Frederick hooked the rope to the ring hanging under the edge of the board, as just before he reached the edge, he lay down on it, then gently rose to two meters deep, attach the other hook from the thick rope belt, slowly stepped on the edge of the board, and swung hard and with vigor. When the board was in the lowest position he rebound strongly and the rising board threw him forward with the rope, he reached the tree and grabbed one of the lower branches. Then immediately he detached rope and climbed up. The thin crown of the tree showed how flexible and easy climbing could be. Mark Credo’s voice surprised them. He had climbed the stairs quietly, like a cat.

  - Now everyone should get down the stairs because everyone will come one by one and will perform the jump. Come on.

  - It seems easy, but will the girls succeed - Baz commented.

  The two girls were pale.

  - Who will be first? - Mark asked

  - I - crisply said Anne.

  - Who will be the last?

  - I - immediately include Dylan.

  - Well, next time we will make the order, but now you have a choice. Because you must be female, male, female, male, behind Anna there will stand Baz, after him Hyulaya, then stands Vaykua, but between him and Dylan - Laura.

  Anna almost whistled. Mark knew their names. She startled.

  - Anna, you can climb up, let me check the rope.

  - The rope was rolled up in a plastic bag.

  Anna started climbing up the concrete staircase. On the landing there was no one, there was no one on the tree as well, Federico’s rope was taken down from the board. She performed one by one precisely the movements, as she had watched in the demonstration. She barely managed to come off just a second ahead before the collision with the tree, then took the branch in front of her and as she was light, she immediately jumped on the lower branch and leaned into another. She looked around. A robotic mini-crane unhooked her rope from the board. The young woman started frantically climb upward to free the lower branches for the next. She felt she had a scratch and she was bleeding, but there was no time to waste. Out of the corner of his eye she saw that Baz didn’t bounce on time from the board and the rope detached from the board, but with his last efforts he reached the tree and grabbed one of the lower branches which broke. The boy was still able to hang with two feet on the next branch and the rope hung from his belt and stuck onto some bushes under the tree.

  - Baz, unfastened your rope from the belt, but try to pull it off, we may need it - Anna shouting from the high.

  He followed the advice, it was quite a torture for him, but he made it, he wrapped the rope as a necklace around his neck and began deftly climbing up. Hyulaya barely managed to catch on a thin branch, so Baz had to go down and pull her. Vaykua and Laura managed to jump, following the directions, and before each one that followed the robot crane was pulling the rope from the hook. At one time Laura started crying that her leg may have been broken because it hurt her, but Anna scolded her to shut up and endure.

  There came the last - Dylan. But it seems ring of the board was wrenching because during the jump, the rope slipped and Frank Dylan crashed into the tree trunk, then fell to the ground. All eyes stared down in horror if he had beaten himself up or died but they saw something else. A giant lion with yellow-brown mane was lying under the tree. When he had appeared and why hadn’t he roared - it was not clear.

  - No screaming! - Loudly, but calmly said Anne.

  - Baz, go down to hand the rope to Dylan.

  - First, let’s see if he is OK - the boy said in a strangled voice.

  - Throw the rope to me, I will come down the tree - said softly Vaykua - and keep quiet, not to tease the lion.

  The Asian man was sitting on a branch with his legs crossed, he freed his hands and grabbed the rope thrown to him, then holding it with one hand, started down with his legs, helping with the other one hand. His hands and feet were very broad with long fingers and he climbed as deftly as a monkey. Reaching the last stable lower branches, he whispered quietly:

  - Dylan, hold, here is the rope! - And he threw the one end.

  Dylan Frank rose slowly from the thick grass and hang the hook on the rope belt, took to the trunk, which was very smooth. But Vaykua had wrapped the other end around him, he hung down with two legs crossed with his head down and began to pull him. When Dylan grabbed the broken end of the bottom branch, his rescuer stood up, he dropped the rope and began to climb up. The man below would need no more help. The rope slipped and fell just next to the lion, which rose and began to play with him, just like every cat does.

  There came a helicopter noise and the noise of the propellers irritated the lion. The powerful animal let out a terrifying roar. All had climbed to the top of the tree and never looked down, just Anna waited for Dylan and told him in a French slang

  - Dylan, order Vaykua and girls to embark on the three rope ladders on one side and he should hold them around their waist. I'll get in, too, in the middle of the other rope ladder, and you both, with Baz, on the side. You have a great voice and you have spent your life as a mentor at school, takes the reins. The powerful voice of Dylan Frank echoed. They jumped on the rope ladders, they held to one another in threes, and flew over the jungle towards the tents.

  ***

  The afternoon task proved unexpectedly easy because Baz was able to catch fish in the river with bare hands and Vaykua knew which plants and fruits are edible.

  Chapter 12

  Black X 18 and Bell X18 stood dutifully in front of the principality, the superior Light XXX and tried to look completely relaxed and calm.

  - What is going on? Why did archangel Six Wings XX have to you send back to me? Report for your sensor 18!

  - Sudar, sensor 18 is in great danger and since it is a benchmark for the "Sensor-Philosophers" we decided again to ask you for help - said Black XX 18.

  - When you say that the object is in danger, you indirectly admit that you cannot handle the situation as a black guardian angel! The Golden mantle of educational Light XXX radiated, which had already happened but it again shocked them. From eternities they had not witnessed a change in its radiation, and since they guarded Anna, it was the second time they were witnessing such a miracle. The two guardian angels were already aware of how one person - sensor coming from a small, even insignificant state under the number 18 can be a special object of attention on behalf of the Six Wings archangel, their mentor, and now they hoped that once Light XXX himself, the only one of the rulers of the whole angelic host, who was in charge of the land met her in person, they could count on his help. They trusted in God's will, but they were willing to use every chance to protect their object from physical death.

  - Sudar - turned BellX18 to the commander of the angelic host, which was watching over the people on earth - we are aware who the resident with headquartered in London is, the so called "The iron one ", probably even an example for more important and ambitious project, but now we are convinced, as you are, that without Anna the project "Sensors - philosophers" would hardly have given satisfactory results.

  - All projects are important for the dev
elopment of the planet Earth. Yours is essential, but keep in mind that everything is interconnected, and I already did a lot for sensor 18. If she has studied the life of ants when you trained her while she was on Orange, she will make it!

  Now the guardian angels stayed silent and destabilized their radiation. The White darkened, and the Black turned grey. From time immemorial they worked on projects under the guidance of the golden angel, from the army of the rulers, and they knew that once something like this was said, they have to cope alone. Furthermore, they were not honored with favor and were subject to sanctions.

  - Sudar, we are waiting for our sentences and punishment- shall we appear in front of your archangel, or you will impose them on us? - BlackX18 barely spoke.

  - I will not punish you, what is more I intended to call you myself to instill at you prerogative "Contact". I have informed the Silver One.

  Light XXX called the Six Wings archangel the Silver One.

  - Lord to bestow you eternal grace, Sudar! – In a common voice the guardian angels exclaimed and then they shone in the brightest whites and shiny black.

  - This time they had not properly understood his reaction. He rewards them, rather than punish them, that they were never able to cope with the matter. Prerogative "Contact" was rarely input into angels. Now they could communicate with Anna as they did when she was just a mental body among them and when she was performing the "angelic testing."

  ***

  That evening Anna fell asleep quickly. She dreamed that Bell X18 leads her over the jungle. They reached an artificially smoothed meadow about half a hectare and five signs with the names of the participants in the reality format. Her name was not there. Behind these signs of an area of one square meter, the players stood upright, locked in cages with steel bars.

  She found herself on the lawn, among a herd of wild elephants. A large gray elephant walked menacingly toward her, but there was nowhere to escape. The enormous animal held her with its trunk, lifted her up and threw her to the ground. Then the heavy foot of the upset female elephant stepped upon her and Anna could hear only the crackle of her bones. After a moment, she turned into a bloody pulp, and the spirit flew up and met Bell X18.

  - Am I already dead, Bell? - She asked.

  - Not yet, Anna, this is a dream, but it will happen if you do not figure out how to save yourself. Personally, I can offer you dozens of options, but not a single one that can be sure. All of them have a small success rate.

  - Why are you helping me, you have no right to do this by directly warning?

  - This is not a direct warning, this is a dream, in the morning you may not remember it, it may seems unreal, you can interpret it in a different way.

  - Where's the black angel? He has certainly given up his caring about me.

  - He will try to help you through the day. We disagree how we can protect you.

  - Tell him not to worry. Sudar, the ruler, will protect me. I have confidence in him.

  Anna got startled. But she did not move. In the tent everybody was asleep. A shadow crept. She watched through her lashes, but little light was coming through the crack of canvas, which was hanging at the entrance, but no one could decide which one of their officers was a visitor. He came to her bed.

  - Anna, wake up! - He whispered very quietly, squatting next to the cot.

  It was Mark, she recognized him.

  - I am awake – she answered also in French - I do not want the cameras to detect me that you talk to me.

  - No, I'm on duty and I turned them off. Tomorrow, as you go down the path, go for five hundred meters and when you see rafflesia * on the right, stop for a while, you will find the narrow path of the pygmies, then look for a tree with a beehive. There is a saddle of vines, climb and hide in the crown. Whatever happens to you, do not go down, and do not say a thing. I'll help you if you're smart.

  - I got it.

  The young soldier came out, because there was no doubt that he is a soldier in the service. All three of them were well-trained military officers. That chicken with the thin neck and the large head - no. But the other German was pulling the strings here, and it seemed that a third one with a lot of money and power, located away from the dangerous jungle, was the real master. That oppressive feeling took over her, the same that struck her when her dying old mother decided to share that she’s been an adopted child that she and her father were not her biological parents. They lived in a small town, almost like a village. All people knew each other, half of them were relatives- from time immemorial. Anna could not understand how come none of the relatives and neighbors had not even hinted about it. As she inquired, she realized that all knew about it, but they loved her mother. She even asked a cousin of hers, after her mother's death and heard a pretty nasty response. In the sense that everyone was jealous because she was a stepdaughter, the most shrew and rebellious daughter, not biological, but she had received the best care. Anna was not interested who her biological parents were. They were just a natural phenomenon take for granted, but her existence she thought as a chance in the matrix of options. Later she talked to his father about why they had never told her, at least when she was twenty-five years of age, and he replied simply:

  - Your mother did not want, you know that I have listened to everything.

  - It is interesting that so many years no one even hinted me.

  - What is so interesting! You are our daughter and everybody knows it, the other things are details.

  - Did you have any idea why I had been abandoned?

  - Upon adoption they do not give any details about the child, this is by law. But you know what your mother was a wonderful woman, all trusted her. The nurse at the house said they had crashed, only you had survived. We took them a year and a half old. You could already talk.

  - How about grandparents, weren’t there any?

  - I guess that were no, because we both approached fifty years, almost the age of grandparents and they allowed us that you be adopted.

  - How can mom thought that I would start looking for other parents and not tell me!

  - She was afraid that you would feel sad for you real parents, who died very young. She wanted to save you that grief.

  - Yes, maybe its true reasons.

  Now Anna felt the same way. Why did Marc take the risk and come to her? It was not logical. But she was sure that he wanted to help her. Well, if he was fooling her .So … that with the elephants would have been staged and she was selected for the first victim. She could not sleep more. The White Angel thought that she would not remember her dream, but he was wrong. She had a memory for everything. And she remembered what happened during the coma in the French hospital. What was Dr. Ziyad doing? She thought of him very often. By origin, he was from the Algerian Berbers, but he hardly knew that. Actually, a true Frenchman he was. And yet - if ethnicity did not matter, which she was firmly convinced in, why so acutely she could felt the origin of people? As the whole life she felt how different she was from her mother and father. Why does she always think about Dr. Musa Ziyad? Why did she send the contract to him? Is it love? Why was there no love in her heart? But surely she felt Musa very close!

  ***

  In the morning, they lined up and they gave them camouflage outfits. Christian Mutwa read the newsletter with detailed instructions for the game, Frederick Thabo gave them the equipment and a machete, and a net to defend from the animals in the jungle and Mark Credo did not appear. This morning Anna was very quiet and even Vaykua asked her if she felt well. Dylan could barely walk, he was bruised from the fall yesterday. Laura was limping.

  - Everyone will be transported by a robotic forklift to the beginning of their path. The time shall be measured from the time you leave the forklift truck. You must cover the distance in less than an hour, to be assigned points. In a quick move and no unfortunate encounters with chimpanzees, leopards, snakes and other animals, each path should be walked for half an hour on foot.

  - Yes, but we're barefoot! - Said Lau
ra.

  - They will take you twenty points because you go into quarrel with me - said Christian with a cheerful tone, as if it were the most normal thing. - You must have patience because it is a remote terrain and electric forklifts move slowly. In no case should you jump from the truck before it has stopped. Vehicles are equipped with sensors, and in the savanna you do not know how they will choose the road. Only after you stopped the car and hear the message "Please start the race”. You go down and start walking on the paths. They are wide and comfortable for walking. The slope is very gentle, you will not slide too often, but be careful, because at that time it is wet and slippery. Your main goal is the lawn with the signs on which you can find you names written. Once again I remind you that if you don’t get on the special pedestals where the sensors are, you cannot be reported as completed the task and all the points are deducted. Today the mission is relatively light. Tough and light missions in the program come in turn, but there are always dangers. Here is the ecosystem with the greatest biodiversity in the world.

  - At that time arrived six forklift trucks with open compartments. By noon it was not raining, so they went up and everyone went in a different direction in the savanna. They entered the area with high vegetation and never see one another again.

  When the forklift truck began to make some turns, Anna realized that the goal was to slow her down. But she did not react. She sat quietly in the small electric car, she could not see any animals in the grass, which was strange. She had stolen a roll of bandage from the cabinet last night when Christian was taking ointments for Dylan. Now she wrapped her bare feet with a bandage, leaving the heel and toes free. It would help her in walking and climbing. The forklift truck took her out of grassy savannah after about an hour, but still about fifteen minutes she was transported to the forest. The path was really wide and comfortable. She had seen on the Internet that these were elephant paths. Immediately she took a quick step and was wrapped her machete with a bandage and it was hung on the waist. She wore only the net under his arm. She easily found the huge color of rafflesia, she pulled aside and found the small, almost hidden by bushes and ferns path of the pygmies. It was a beaten track and there were no leaves on it, so it was not slippery and young woman was walking with a smooth and rhythmic motion. She had to find the tree with the beehive. She looked round and looked up but she got tired and neck ached. The most interesting in terms of fauna in the rainforest is its floors and terraces. The trees are the highest. Suddenly he got startled. A dark brown animal, neither a donkey nor a doe appeared and stared at her. Its legs and its little head were white. Anna continued to walk, but the animal blocked the path. She looked around. And she saw a tree with hanging almost to the ground swing of dried vines. She stopped. In her heel there was a thorn, but she had no time to look and take it out. She found something like a round seat, made of dry ropes. She lay the net that she was carrying, sat in the improvised stretcher and began to climb up. The trunk of the tree was, maybe, half a meter in diameter, but relatively smooth and Anna couldn’t find anything to get a grip on. She blessed the Pygmies because as higher she went, as the peculiar swing of dried vines stretch according to its position and strengthened her. Well, she was so light. She was not be afraid that these natural ropes will not last. Shortly before reaching the crown of the tree she saw the hole that housed the beehive. The Pygmies had already removed the honey cakes, but there was still honey and wax. Anna ate. There was a danger to swallow a dead bee, but she did not care and she was careful. She felt a surge of strengths. Perhaps she was hanging thirty meters from the ground. She did not dare look down. She continued. She grab a branch and removed as she was in a liana chair. He leaned and stretched her feet on the branch. She was convinced that the thick leaves of the tree were hiding her completely. She was dizzy carried away and she was startled by some shrill screams. There was a trumpet of elephants. But lianas held her, and she rested on a large leaf, which was very tough. Soon the screams stopped and heard the sound of a helicopter blades. Then there was only the sound of the jungle. Mostly bird chirrup and twitter.