Why can’t they see me?
He let out a roar of rage and frustration. Of course they couldn’t see him – he could barely see himself in the near dark of the forest’s canopy. It would be impossible to make out anyone or anything from way up there, except, maybe, a fire or an area of flattened trees...
He paused, pondered for a moment. Were either of those things worth a try, in case it came back, or another one passed overhead? Could he try to start a fire – or fell some trees, somehow, to make himself more visible?No, no, don’t be so freaking dumb.He had no matches, no lighter – quitting smoking recently was another bad choice to add to the list, he thought wryly – and certainly nothing to chop down a giant tree with. Besides, setting a fire in a rainforest was about as sure a way to cause his own death as getting stuck here for ever.
What do I have, then?Was there anything in his possession that could help him?
Ben stopped pushing through the trees, stopping at a small gap in the foliage, where he crouched to the ground and started pulling things out of his rucksack. He was poorly equipped for this trip – practically, emotionally;in every way, let’s face it– but perhaps he’d missed something? His hands grabbed hold of whatever they could find: a magazine, some lip balm, his empty water bottle. They struck something slim, cylindrical and smooth.
My vape.
Ben plucked the e-cigarette out of his bag, lifted the tip to his lips, inhaled. Nothing came out; instead, the little blue light at the other end flashed at him: no charge left. Damn – now that he’d thought of the idea, he could really do with the hit of nicotine at the back of his throat.
Hang on a minute.This might be something he’d actually prepared for. Ben turned back to his bag, sifted through the inside, this time with purpose. He was looking for something: his portable charger – the battery pack worked with his phone, his tablet, his vape – pretty much anything, as long as he had the right cable. And he knew he did, because he’d packed a small pouch full of them, one of the perks of working for a tech company – whipping from meeting to meeting, briefcase in one hand and a Starbucks in the other, needing a fully charged phone wherever he went.
Digging the right cable out of the zip-up pouch, he plugged his vape into the charger and perched on a tree trunk – sweeping it, first, for snakes and spiders – and waited for its light to turn green. It wouldn’t take long.
As he waited, he carried on turning over his dwindling options in his mind.What else, what else?There had to be something else he could make use of. A way out of this mess. Staring at the charger in his hand, a flash of something shot through his mind, but it was fast, too fast – it had gone as quick as it came.
What was that; what was it?Something to do with the charger. How it worked on anything. How he had a cable for pretty much any kind of tech – any tablets, any phones...
‘Oh my God,’ he said aloud, as the realization hit him.
The satellite phone. He’d been the last one to try to turn it on, hadn’t he? They’d tried again only a couple of hours ago – and then he’d shoved it back in his bag.
That meant it was still in there now. He dug inside the bag again, one of the side pockets this time, rifled through it until his hands closed over the phone’s solid, hefty bulk.
Shit. A flash of guilt ran through him; he’d run away from the others and left them, still lost out here, without the only possible means of contact – and all along, he’d had a potential way of charging it up, making it work again.
But if I can get it working and call for help – then I can get everyone out of here.
He would be the one to come to their rescue; they’d understand then that he’d not meant any of them harm. That his reason for being here – for doing everything he’d done – was nothing to do with them.
Ben stood up, whipped the vape off the end of the charging cable, examined the satellite phone’s charging port, let out awhoopof delight. It needed a cable with a USB connector – and he had one of those.
He found the right connector, plugged one end into his charging pack, the other into the phone. There was a knot of excitement in his stomach, a growing sense of hope.
This was going to fix everything.
He shrugged back into his backpack, took a deep breath, checked out the direction of the sun and started walking, one eye on the phone as he went.
Now all he had to do was wait.
NAYA
The helicopter flew past. It had missed them.
‘Stop... wait! No!’ Her voice was becoming hoarse from all her futile screaming into the sky. But she couldn’t let it go yet – she couldn’t face it. It was unbearable, the idea that rescue had been so close by, and yet so far out of reach.
‘It’s gone, Naya,’ Scott called out from a few metres behind her. ‘They mustn’t have seen us down here... I can’t believe it.’
Neither could she. But it was true: it hadn’t spotted them, despite their screams and cries and waves. The forest must have been too dense to make them out through the canopy; the sound of the helicopter’s blades too thunderous for their voices to carry over it.
She stopped her frantic pacing, reached for a nearby tree trunk, brushed some brightly coloured beetles off its surface, then leaned her back against it and sobbed. She was too hot with her anorak on – it had been providing useful protection against the sharp branches as she walked, but she needed her skin to breathe now. She peeled it off and tied it around her waist, then let her body sink to the ground. She was devastated.To have her hopes raised and dashed like that – it was almost worse than never having hope in the first place.
Naya felt a hand on her shoulder, turned her face upwards to see Scott looking down at her, his eyes full of disappointment; of the despair she knew was mirrored in her own expression. They’d drifted away from Carly and Mira now; they were alone, with no one’s eyes on them. Without saying anything, she stood up and moved into his arms, aware that the top of her head didn’t even reach his shoulder. She let him hold her like this while she cried. After a long moment, she pulled back, looked up at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got your T-shirt all wet.’
