by Alex Irvine
But Blue Eyes would not stand by and let Ash be hurt. He too would defy Koba, standing with his friend.
Yet he never got the chance. When he reached the top of the stairs and turned out onto the balcony, Koba lifted Ash into the air and threw him out over the railing.
As much as he tried, Blue Eyes could not look away.
Shrieking in terror, Ash flailed in the empty space and fell. The other apes were silent. Koba, too, watched Ash fall, and smiled when Ash’s body hit the floor far below, landing with a wet crunch. Stunned, unable to know how to feel, Blue Eyes looked down at his friend. Ash had been hurt by humans, but had stood up for humans… because of Caesar. His death left an emptiness that could not be measured.
Blue Eyes had betrayed his father.
This was his fault.
He looked up at Koba, aching to fight him. But Koba was too strong.
“Caesar gone,” Koba said into the silence. He spoke to all the apes, but he looked at Blue Eyes. “Apes follow Koba now.”
Blue Eyes did not challenge Koba. He looked around him and saw that the other apes would not help him.
He was alone.
55
Malcolm drove over the bridge and saw smoke coming from the Colony. As they approached the checkpoint, a man with a rifle came out of the shack and flagged them down. Malcolm debated. They needed to know what was going on, how bad things were in the city, so they could make the right choice about what to do to help Caesar. The problem was that if things were very bad, they couldn’t be seen with an ape.
Behind the guard came a group of armed men. They looked ragged and exhausted.
“Don’t stop,” Ellie said.
She was right. Malcolm didn’t accelerate, but neither did he brake. He drove right through the checkpoint. As they passed the sentry, he waved wildly at them.
“What’re you doing?” he shouted. “You gotta turn around, it’s not safe! Hey!”
Malcolm ignored him, avoiding eye contact. If they recognized him, they would get word to Dreyfus if they could. If not, then it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting Caesar taken care of without exposing him to a bunch of panicking men with guns.
He glanced back at the chimpanzee, who seemed to be holding on, and then flinched as he heard a burst of gunfire from behind them. In the truck’s side mirror he saw the humans dodging into defensive positions at the checkpoint as a band of armed apes swung up onto the bridge from its underside.
“Oh my God,” Ellie said. She was turned around and could see the battle through the back window on the truck’s cap. Alexander was watching, too. The apes peppered the checkpoint with focused and disciplined fire, as if they’d been shown how to do it. It was an incredible sight. Malcolm hit the gas and got the hell out of there, racing off the bridge and down onto the Presidio Parkway.
“The hospital’s out,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of the area.”
“Where are we going to go?” Ellie asked. She was still looking back up at the bridge.
“I don’t know,” Malcolm responded. He had a thought as he saw Divisadero coming up, and dragged the truck into a too-fast right turn. “Maybe Pacific Heights.”
“Pacific Heights?”
“Nobody goes up there since the quake. There were gas leaks, fires…nothing to loot up there, either, unless you wanted to collect expensive furniture and contemporary art.”
“I see your class consciousness survived the Simian Flu,” Ellie said. One of the things Malcolm loved about her was the unpredictability of her sense of humor.
In the back of the truck, there was a dry gasp as Caesar tried to speak. They all heard it. Malcolm kept his eyes on the road. As they climbed into Pacific Heights, cracks in the road became chasms. He cut around onto side streets, looking for a place where they might be able to stop and do a emergency surgery on a chimp to stop the other chimps from killing all of their fellow humans.
Just another day in post-Simian Flu San Francisco.
“What?” Ellie asked. “What is it, Caesar?”
Caesar took a breath, then spoke, slowly and painfully. As he did, Malcolm started to see the outlines of a plan.
* * *
They had found nearly a hundred humans hiding in City Hall. Apes were now driving all of them across the plaza, where other humans stood under guard. The hunt was going well—Koba thought he had found most of them… and they had not killed any more than they had to.
He stood on a balcony outside the office for the city’s leader. At the edge of the balcony was a flag, torn to rags and flapping in the wind that also brought the smell of smoke from the human settlement. MAYOR was the word on the door. Maybe Koba was mayor now. He watched as the guards drove the humans in a single group, away to a place where they could be held and watched while he decided what to do with them.
It would be simple to kill them. Koba wanted to. But he thought it would be smarter to learn what they knew first, to use them so he could understand what they did in the city, and how they used the power that turned on the lights. Then, when he had learned everything they knew, that would be the time to kill them.
Behind him, the office door opened. Koba turned to see a group of his apes bringing in Rocket and Maurice. Maurice did not resist. He was not the kind of ape to fight, especially when he could not win. Rocket thrashed and raged in the grip of two other chimps. When he saw Koba, he snarled.
“You… kill… my son!”
Yes, Koba thought. He had. Rocket was stupid. He had challenged Caesar long ago, before the apes had been led to freedom. He had suffered at human hands like the rest. But when Caesar decided to make the apes weak by letting humans grow strong, Rocket had stayed loyal to him. Caesar’s weakness had killed many apes, Koba thought. Every ape who had died in fire, or from a human bullet, was Caesar’s fault.
So it was also Rocket’s fault.
Koba bared his teeth in a grin. He had learned a new word and wanted a use it.
“Your son…” he said. “A traitor. Like father.”
He nodded to the apes, who dragged Rocket and Maurice away. Rocket screeched all the way out of the building. Maurice never made a sound. Of the two of them, Koba thought Maurice was more of a threat. His patience made him dangerous. But neither of them would be a danger to him for long.
56
Malcolm drove slowly through the worst-hit parts of Pacific Heights, seeing house after house with leaning rooflines and spills of brick where their chimneys had been. Everything was overgrown with eucalyptus, wisteria, periwinkle… all of the invasive species that grew fast and didn’t care what other plants were around. There were also fruit trees and what looked like gardens gone wild, just as in the other abandoned areas of the city. Entire blocks had burned to the ground, too, in the aftermath of the earthquake. Those charred remains were almost completely obscured by overgrowth.
He was waiting for a signal from Caesar, who was watching out the side window in the back of the truck. The ape had levered himself onto his side, and he grunted with pain each time the truck bounced on the neighborhood’s ruined roads.
Even if they saw the house, Malcolm thought, they might never know it. It might have burned, or it might be so completely overgrown that Caesar wouldn’t recognize it. He was beginning to worry they would just drive around Pacific Heights until Caesar died of blood loss and shock. What would they do then?
Caesar pounded his fist on the window. Malcolm braked the truck to a halt—not too fast, for fear of jolting something loose inside Caesar.
“What? Is this it?”
Sinking back to the floor of the truck, Caesar nodded.
They got out of the truck and looked up and down the street. Humans clearly hadn’t been here in a long time, but there was no telling whether the trees hid a bunch of gun-toting apes. Malcolm popped the back of the truck open, and reached in to help Caesar out.
Before getting out Caesar paused, looking at one of the houses with an expression Malcolm almost wanted to call…
nostalgic?
The Victorian must have been a real beauty ten years before, like all of the houses in this part of town. This one had been designed with great care, and despite its age, it was in surprisingly good condition—it had to have been renovated. One of those renovations had finished the attic, which had a beautiful round window facing the street.
They got Caesar up the stone stairs and onto the porch, and Malcolm rattled the knob. The door was jammed, so he kicked it open, and they helped Caesar inside. The interior was dim, thanks to the vines that had crept up the walls and covered the windows. The plants had worked their way through the siding and into the interior, too. The walls were water-stained, and everything was covered in dust.
“Here,” Ellie said, brushing off a sofa. They eased Caesar down, and he lay back on the sofa, his eyes wide as he took in every detail of the house.
“Caesar, you okay?” Malcolm asked.
Caesar didn’t answer.
“Think it’s safe to stay here?” Ellie asked.
“Safe as anywhere else,” Malcolm said. The only real danger he could see was of an ape patrol finding the truck, but there was no reason for them to patrol up here.
Alexander, looking around the room, paused by a piano along the wall.
“Look,” he said. Malcolm and Ellie joined him and he pointed out a photo on the piano. In it, a young man and a chimpanzee posed against the unmistakable background of the redwoods at Muir Woods. Malcolm turned to Caesar.
“You used to live here?”
Caesar nodded. He was still looking around the house, and now Malcolm knew for certain that the expression on Caesar’s face, out in the truck, had indeed been nostalgia. Amazing, he thought. He’s about to die, maybe, and what he decides to do is go home.
Ellie was watching him with deep concern. She drew Malcolm with her into the kitchen, where she started opening drawers, looking for anything she might be able to use to treat Caesar’s wound. Alexander followed them in, and hovered in the doorway.
“He doesn’t look good,” she said quietly.
“We can’t let him die,” Malcolm responded. “He’s the only one who can stop this. The only one they’ll listen to.” If they would even listen to him at this point, Malcolm thought. From the look of things on the bridge, events had taken on a momentum of their own. It might well be too late for the truth to matter.
Ellie stopped searching the kitchen.
“What if he doesn’t make it? What do we do then?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We have to help him. What do you need?”
“I was hoping to get into that hospital. I have a small kit back at my place, but that’s—”
“I’ll go,” Malcolm said.
She looked at him, and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. Going out into the city, by himself, with apes shooting at humans, heading down into the teeth of the battle to find medical supplies that might or might not be there… The outcome was, to put it mildly, far from certain. Ellie didn’t like it, but she nodded. It was the only thing they could do. Malcolm turned to Alexander.
“Listen, pal,” he said. “I need you to—”
“I know,” Alexander said. “I’ll stay here and help Ellie. We’ll be okay.”
What a kid, Malcolm thought. Everything in his life turns upside down again, just when he’s getting his feet under him… and here he is reassuring me. It struck him then that once he walked out of this house, he might never see his son again. Or Ellie.
“I love you,” he said.
Alexander nodded. “I love you too.”
They embraced, and Malcolm thought God he’s getting big. Dad thoughts—they came all the time now, while he was watching his kid grow up. He looked over at Ellie, and he could see that she was scared, but like Alexander she was trying not to show it.
All she said was, “Be careful, okay?”
* * *
Koba waited until Grey came to the mayor’s office and reported that all the humans they’d found had been rounded up in one location. Together they went to the place Grey had chosen. It was a good place, a tunnel bored through a hill, with a fence across its mouth. Grey said they had blocked the other end of the tunnel, and on this end the fence was already there.
A gift from the humans, Koba thought. He knew they kept their sick apart. Probably they had put them here when the sickness came to the city. Now the humans were the sickness, and Koba was keeping them apart.
The area near the tunnel was covered in old signs and painted pictures. Many of them featured apes, or creatures that were part ape and part monster. Yes, Koba thought. He wanted the humans to think of the apes as monsters. Let them fear the apes while they lived. Let them understand what fear truly was.
He approached the fence. On the other side of it, hundreds of humans were pressed together. He could not see how many, because the crowd extended back into the darkness inside the tunnel. Koba climbed up on a car so they could all see him. The apes guarding the fence parted to clear the view.
“Humans,” Koba said, his message simple. “You will serve apes… or die.”
The apes hooted and stamped, waving their guns. Inside the fence, the humans looked to one another, scared and silent. They would want to know what it meant to serve apes, but Koba would not tell them yet. Let them live with their fear, inside a cage. Let them feel what it had been like for apes…
Until Caesar had freed them.
Koba pushed the thought away. Caesar had led when apes needed him. Now apes needed Koba. He turned his attention to his assembled troop.
“More humans out there,” he said. “Find them!”
Immediately the apes started to move out.
* * *
Blue Eyes moved with the mass of apes around him, and they began to break up into search parties. A gap opened up, and across the space outside the fence he saw a bus with a pair of armed apes standing at each door. He looked more closely and saw the hulking shape of a gorilla inside. Luca. Other apes, too. Rocket was there, staring out the window, emptied by the death of his son. Maurice was pressed in the back of the bus, and in the midst of Blue Eyes’ shock, the orangutan looked up.
He started to sign, keeping his hands tight against his belly so only Maurice would see.
I will—
But Maurice shook his head. He raised his hands and Blue Eyes saw they were bound together. Struggling with the bonds, Maurice signed back.
Protect yourself. Suddenly Blue Eyes realized eyes were upon him. He moved out with one of the search parties, not caring which one.
Apes together strong, he thought. Koba had led them for only a day, and already the old ways were dying. As he moved he started to ask himself whether he was Koba’s follower, or Caesar’s son. He knew he could not be both.
57
Malcolm moved as quickly as he could on foot, sticking to side streets wherever possible and coming down from Pacific Heights through Japantown and the Tenderloin, both of which were utterly deserted.
He got close to the Colony and began scouting, to make certain he knew what they were up against. Also, if he was going to get at Ellie’s medical kit, he had to figure out a safe way in. Crouching out of sight, he heard ape noises and looked up at the nearby rooftops and light poles, then crept forward. He got to a corner a short distance from the Colony, and peered around.
What he saw shocked him. The gated archway had collapsed, a tank was stalled against one of the fallen pillars and apes were moving freely in and out. There was no sign of living humans, but there were plenty of dead. They lay in heaps where the apes had put them, just outside the destroyed defensive works.
Dozens of people, mostly men but some women and children, too.
Where are the rest of them? The Colony had held more than a thousand people.
An ape patrol started out into the street, coming more or less in Malcolm’s direction. He ducked back out of sight and looked around for a quick to escape. He wouldn’t be able to do Caesar—o
r anyone else—any good if he let himself be caught.
It had been stupid to come here, but the hospital was too far for him to reach. He’d never get there and back before Caesar died, and if there weren’t any supplies there, it all would have been a waste of precious time. The sure bet was Ellie’s place inside the Colony, now overrun with apes.
Back down the block was the entrance to a BART station. Malcolm headed for it, trying to move fast, stay out of sight, and keep quiet all at the same time. He got to the entrance and opened the glass doors, careful to keep his hands from leaving visible smudges in the decade’s worth of dirt on the clear panels. He went down into darkness, following the wall when it got too dark to see, and moving by memory.
He followed a tunnel to a utility stairwell door. Once through, he saw a glow—a single light bulb at the bottom of the stairs still burned, surprising him. Good thing someone got the lights turned back on, he thought. Ha.
Further down there was a fire door that led into a construction zone. He was lucky. Though there was some smoke, no doubt from the fires above, it was exactly like he’d remembered. When the Simian Flu hit, BART had been in the middle of expanding this station so that it would connect to the lower levels of the new tower. The expansion had only gotten as far as tunneling and framing. The apes wouldn’t know about it unless they’d decided to explore the tower’s sub-basements, and Malcolm didn’t think that was likely. From what he knew about apes, they preferred going up to going down.
On the other hand, these weren’t ordinary apes. He was taking a big chance, maybe even bigger than going back to the ape village and risking Caesar’s wrath.
Hey, he thought. That worked out. Why not press my luck?
He stayed close to the wall, moving through the poorly lit space, skirting the edges of the pools of light cast by the few working bulbs. There was yellow construction tape everywhere, and abandoned equipment—concrete mixers, Bobcats, pallet jacks next to skids of cement bags and rolls of conduit. When he got to the wall on the far side, he found a door that—if he had it right—would open into the lower levels of the tower.