“Chirp.” Rachel stared into the large fenced in area where the noise came from.
“Trying to find them?” A woman in scrubs came in to the room. She introduced herself to Rachel as the head rehabilitator at the Nielson Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. “They’re the most majestic, gentle little creatures.”
“I can’t seem to spot one.”
“When we need to take one out for observation, it often takes up to an hour to spot the right one,” The woman walked away. “Good luck!”
“Wait!” Rachel called after her. “I never…”
She was gone. “I never got your name.”
Yipes! Now what do I do. Rachel put her long black hair up into a pony tail. It was her first day as an intern at the rehab center. So far she had cleaned a few tanks and cages, but not worked one-on-one with any animals at all. Or anybody else actually. They trust me because I can do this. She took the locks off the door. She opened the door just enough and slid her body through.
The cage was quite large. She had been told that the hummingbirds needed to have as close an environment as outside while rehabilitating. They were delicate creatures, their hearts pumping more than 1,000 times per minute. The cage was tall enough to stand in- the type that you would buy for a Rottweiler, but with small screen-door netting around it too. She was careful to walk to the center of the cage, where there was an opening for her feet. There were plans all around. There were mini-trees in buckets lining the edges and smaller red flowered plants more in the middle.
The hummingbirds were scared of people, the woman had told her, so they would all be hiding in the dense foliage of the trees. “Here little birdies.” Rachel called as if to a pet dog. “Where are you?”
Something swished past her ear that sounded like a hornet. Without thinking she batted her hand as if to wave away a fly. Wait… is that the noise they make? The sound was almost a hum but with a more metallic or bee-/like reverberating buzz to it. She crouched down to get a better angle. There was a hummingbird seemingly floating in the middle of the cage. Up it went to a branch, then over and down to a flower. It hovered there a moment and then backed up.
Rachel inhaled sharply. They actually did it! They actually can fly backwards. She had read all of this online and heard some of it during her vague introduction to the Nielson Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, but nothing had clicked until now. It’s just like she had said – what delightful, gentle little creatures they are!
The hummingbird chirped a few times. It wasn’t just any old bird call. Rachel tried it out. Suddenly the bird flew closer. And closer. It stopped and hovered just in front of her face.
“Eeep!” Rachel cried out. The bird was so close when she looked at it her eyes crossed. “I think we are done here.” Rachel started unlocking the door again once she saw the bird was at a safe distance.
She turned around one last time to check if she was clear from letting any out. When she turned around she was just in time to duck. Something whizzed past her face and brushed her hair aside. “Hey, this isn’t funny you guys.” She called out. No one was there though. No one is there at all, she remembered. The woman told her that she would be working alone today because she had some calls to make outside the office.
They trust me, and I can do this. She reassured herself. They had sent her in to collect a few fecal samples from the ground and foliage. The birds evidently did their business in the air or while they were sleeping. It’s sad, she thought, they would make such nice pets if you could potty train them.
Unlike what the woman had told her, the birds were paying close attention to Rachel. They kept their distance as she went around the cage picking up the half a centimeter sized droppings. She could see about five at one time, but she lost track after that. They didn’t like to hover in the same space for long. They were observing her, studying her it seemed.
Rachel had placed a sample in each of the cases which she had been given. “Okay, fellas, time for me to leave now.” She crooned.
It was almost like one of the hummingbirds shouted the rally cry. Each of the birds zoomed towards her with lightning speed. It was just a blur to her, but the humming grew louder and louder. There was a stab in her right leg. Something had pierced straight through the thick jeans and stabbed ferociously in and out.
Louder and louder. It was like they were coming from everywhere. It was like they were multiplying. Rachel covered her head and fumbled towards the door of the cage crashing through any flower pots in her way. There was another slice into her from under her jacket. She could feel blood beginning to ooze down her pant leg. The world had become nothing but humming and pain. Humming and pain! What happened to these gentle creatures? She dropped to the floor, pain washing over her as she blacked out.
“Good. That didn’t take too long,” came a cold voice from outside the cage. The voice belonged to the red haired woman. She was now wearing sunglasses. She snapped her fingers and the hummingbirds disappeared back into the trees. “Rest up, little ones. Your task is not yet complete.”
Twenty minutes later the woman appeared again. This time she did not come alone. “As you can see, gentlemen,” she continued. “My hummingbirds could take out a mole and disappear within seconds. I left this one alive because she will be useful in another part of my demonstration.”
The woman pointed to Rachel lying unconscious on the floor of the cage. “Once she wakes up we can continue.” The red haired woman had brought a group with her. Around twenty men now surrounded the cage each wearing typical business clothes.
“We sharpen each beak every day. They are strong enough to pierce through anything a typical steak knife would.” She whispered to the man who seemed to be in charge. “I’ve had steak cut by hummingbird before. Remarkable how just cutting it differently makes it taste so much better.”
“How do we know that we are the first to discover this technique?” The man in charge said in a deep voice.
“I cannot assure you that no one else has thought of it, but we have not shared the information with anyone.”
“You have no staff?”
“We are completely revolutionary. The first wildlife rehabilitation center to be completely staffed by robots.” The red haired woman smirked. “Surely you didn’t think we could train hummingbirds but not make robots?”
“Hey, do you question the fact the boss questioned you?” A man in a trench coat poked his briefcase in her direction. “The answer better be no.”
“Not at all,” She smiled stiffly. “Oh look! The subject is sitting up.”
With a snap of her fingers the hummingbirds were guided over to Rachel again. She passed out again, but this time sitting up. The woman made a hummingbird sound by pressing a little remote. The birds reacted by flying back to the dense foliage. A second later they had returned with strings in their long thin needle-like beaks. “As you can see,” the woman went on, “The hummingbirds aren’t just trained to kill your enemies without a trace of fingerprints, they are also trained to bring him back to you… alive.”
Five more tweets and the birds started weaving in and around each other centering in on Rachel’s unconscious body. Minutes later, the humming stopped and the birds were nowhere to be seen. But Rachel was bound- ankles, wrists and body.
“Enough chat,” came the deep voice. “We have a deal.”
“Good. Good,” smiled the woman behind her sunglasses. She pulled a lever and Rachel’s body disappeared into the floor. “We no longer need her. It makes me nervous to be around non-robotic humans who aren’t on our side.”
The men all laughed.
A man in a black suit poked the cage. “You are sure they would obey the same way in an unenclosed environment?” He said in a thick Russian accent.
“They are very easily trained and manipulated.”
No sound had come from the cage for a while, but, at that comment, a ferocious buzzing emanated from the inside of the cage. With their sharpened beaks they cut easily through the screen door netting around the cage. Their tiny bodies flitted through the bars easily. A shimmery black cloud of feathers and fury poured out and began to dive bomb the group. An hour later, the birds were at rest. And so were the bodies. Each was resting in their own pool of blood.