by Alex Irvine
Malcolm passed through and continued slowly, listening at every corner. He went through the tower’s sub-basements and up to the ground floor. He came up inside of the building, in total darkness. Moving by touch, he followed walls until he saw a glimmer of light ahead. He went toward it, and paused to listen. The only sound was his breathing, and he was trying to keep that quiet, too.
He opened a door and emerged into the back of one of the retail spaces the Colony had commandeered. It was trashed, and there was blood on the floor, but no sign of apes or humans. He skulked to the front of the shop, which the Colony had repurposed as a trading post. The shelves had been lined with all kinds of bric-a-brac, from needles and thread to glue and sunglasses. There had been medicines, hand-mixed by the Colony’s few doctors. Now everything was all scattered on the floor—there was nothing he could use.
When he got to the front of the shop, Malcolm had a clear view of the market area, straight up to the destroyed gate. Bullet holes pocked the storefronts, the floor, everything. Piles of rubble and trash covered the floor. Their home was gone. Now it was just a ruin like everything else.
But where were the humans?
As desperate as he was to know, that was a question to answer once they had saved Caesar’s life. So Malcolm cut across a corner of the market and headed up to Ellie’s apartment. It was on the third floor of a smaller building that faced the main tower, across a street that was contained entirely within the Colony. He slipped in and started stuffing everything that looked vaguely medical into a duffel bag.
When he’d been in her apartment maybe two minutes, he heard a crash from outside and went to the window. There was a pair of apes, forcing two women out of hiding and onto the street. He pressed his face to the glass. The apes were sweeping the Colony again. Three of them were just going into Ellie’s building, directly below him.
Malcolm stuffed a small first-aid kit into the duffel and headed for the door. When he came out into the hall, he hesitated. Left or right? There were stairs in both directions, equidistant from the apartment door.
Left, he decided, and headed for the stairwell. He let the door close softly behind him and started down the stairs, then heard apes below and turned to head back up. His feet scuffed a little, and the sound echoed down the stairwell, alerting the apes. They roared out an alert and Malcolm ran back up two floors of stairs without stopping. He paused to glance down, and saw them right on his trail.
So he kicked open the next door and rushed into a hallway that looked just like the one on Ellie’s floor… only here, everything was wrecked. The apes had been thorough, smashing out walls and ransacking the apartments. Darting into one of them, he ducked in and out of holes between apartments, trying to put as many twists and turns as he could between him and the pursuing apes.
They crashed into the hall behind him. He made a last turn, into the interior of one of the units about halfway down the hall. Just on the other side of the wall, the apes smashed and screeched as they ran past, trying to flush him out. It almost worked, but just as he had done in the forest, he managed to hold still while they stormed past. Their clamor began to diminish as they moved into another part of the floor. Maybe they were far enough now that he could make a break for the stairs.
He took a deep breath, let it out, then went to turn and retrace his steps—and nearly walked right into an armed ape, standing right behind him.
Malcolm’s heart stopped. He didn’t dare move. With a thud he was sure the ape could hear, his heart started beating again, and in that same moment he recognized the ape.
It was Blue Eyes.
He and Malcolm looked at each other, the chimp’s expression unreadable. Malcolm’s throat went dry, but he started to try to say something anyway. Before he could make a sound, Blue Eyes clamped a hand over his mouth.
Malcolm froze.
Outside an ape patrol went past, smashing anything within arm’s reach, still trying to flush him out.
Once they were gone, Blue Eyes lowered his hand. He had held Malcolm’s gaze the whole time, but now he looked away, and Malcolm thought he saw shame on the chimp’s face.
Take a chance, he thought. Why stop now? After all, Blue Eyes just saved your life, and if the look on his face is any clue, he’s not completely on board with Koba’s Gestapo tactics.
“Wait,” he whispered. “Your father.”
Blue Eyes froze. Then he turned, slowly, the barrel of his rifle coming up.
“He’s alive,” Malcolm said. “It’s true, I swear. I can take you to him.”
But only if you can get me out of here, he thought. Blue Eyes stared hard at him, the kind of stare you gave someone when you were trying to judge the truth of what they were saying. Liars broke under a stare like that.
Malcolm didn’t break.
* * *
He let Blue Eyes prod him out into the debris-strewn hall, where the rest of the patrol screeched in Malcolm’s face and feinted as if they were going to bite him. He looked down and ignored them. When they got tired of the game, Blue Eyes walked him down the stairs and then shoved him out onto the street, through the market, and out of the Colony. Malcolm saw other groups of apes leading human prisoners, some wounded or visibly beaten. But Blue Eyes kept up their ruse and held onto his duffel.
Ahead of them, he recognized another chimp, one of Koba’s pals. The lighter-colored one. He looked up from smashing something—Malcolm wasn’t sure what or why. When he saw Malcolm, he got a smile on his face.
I guess I’m a prize, Malcolm thought.
The gray chimp and Blue Eyes exchanged a look. The gray chimp looked as if he was about to come with them, and Malcolm had what was either a flash of insight or an episode of wishful thinking.
Blue Eyes has gotten himself into trouble, he thought. Koba’s buddies don’t trust him. The gray chimp stood and Malcolm staggered as Blue Eyes jammed the barrel of his rifle into his back, right where the rock had bruised his shoulder blade. Three times, Malcolm thought. What were the odds?
He let out a small groan of pain. The gray chimp hooted his approval, and Blue Eyes shoved Malcolm forward, marching him up the street. When they were around the corner from the Colony, Blue Eyes grunted. Malcolm looked back and saw him heading down a side street. He followed.
58
It was late morning by the time they got back to Pacific Heights. Malcolm went in first, and saw Caesar where he had been that morning, flat on his back on the sofa, his bandage bloody. Ellie and Alexander were nearby.
“Thank God,” Ellie said as she saw Malcolm. He held out the duffel bag and she took it, then stopped short as Blue Eyes came in, warily looking around like he still thought the whole thing might be a trap.
Caesar hooted softly from the sofa. Blue Eyes’ head snapped around at the sound, and he set his gun down to cross the room and kneel at his father’s side. The two apes touched foreheads, Blue Eyes’ face contorted in an expression that would have been accompanied by tears if apes could cry.
“Your mother… your brother,” Caesar said. “Safe?”
Blue Eyes nodded and signed something. Then he registered the bandage. He lifted it away and saw the bullet wound underneath. His body tensed and when he looked back at Malcolm, his anger seemed sudden and intense enough that Malcolm started to second-guess his decision to bring Blue Eyes here. Maybe he should have taken his chances trying to escape on his own.
“No,” Caesar said. He reached up to grasp Blue Eyes’ arm. Blue Eyes still glared at Malcolm, looking unnervingly like Koba. “Not humans,” Caesar went on, every word an effort. “Koba.”
Blue Eyes looked back down at his father, face blank with shock—and then the anger came flooding back in, only now it had a new focus. It was where it belonged, thought Malcolm. Maybe getting the truth out might still have a chance to do some good. Blue Eyes lowered his head, shamed and furious.
Ellie nudged Malcolm.
“We really need to do this now,” she said. “Caesar?” He nodded, and
she started to spread out the supplies from the duffel bag.
“Son,” Caesar said. Blue Eyes turned back to his father and saw him reaching out with an open hand. Blue Eyes pressed close to his father, gripping the extended hand in both of his. Ellie leaned over him and started cleaning the surface of the wound, clipping away the surrounding hair to give herself room to work. She looked up at Caesar.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He nodded again, holding tightly to his son.
* * *
When it was over, the three humans sat on the porch. Alexander was sketching, as he had been the entire time. Ellie and Malcolm sat on either side of him. Ellie looked exhausted. She hadn’t slept in… how long? Going on thirty-six hours, Malcolm estimated. They all needed some rest.
“How is he?” Alexander asked.
Ellie gave him an encouraging smile.
“We’ll see. He’s very strong.”
Twice during the surgery, Malcolm had thought they might lose him. They were working with inferior tools, no anesthetic, no sterile conditions, on a bullet nestled between a nicked artery and the upper lobe of Caesar’s lung. A lot could have gone wrong. Blue Eyes—to give credit where credit was due—had stayed through the whole procedure, not once flinching away as Ellie cut into his father’s body. Malcolm thought he would remember for the rest of his life—however long that turned out to be—the expression on the young ape’s face when Ellie reached into Caesar’s chest with a pair of kitchen tongs and extracted the bullet.
He’s just a kid, like Alexander.
As if he’d heard Malcolm thinking about him, Alexander leaned into his father. Malcolm mussed his hair, another one of those dad gestures that didn’t make much sense, but felt good. Ellie leaned in from the other side and Malcolm dropped his hand from Alexander’s head to rest on the back of her neck. Family, he thought. In the middle of all this, he still had his family.
* * *
Caesar stirred awake in the night, and saw Will’s living room. He thought for a moment he was young again, three years or five years old, with Will and his father somewhere in the house and ordinary human noises outside. Then he came a little more awake and that dream fell away. The wound in his chest hurt a great deal, but he could handle it. He would handle it, for the sake of his son, who was sitting near the couch.
Blue Eyes saw Caesar awake and came closer. There was a silent moment while the young ape watched him. Caesar wondered if he looked weak. He must. Death had been very close to him.
I’m so sorry, Blue Eyes signed. For everything. Caesar had a little trouble following the signs in the darkness, but he understood them. He also understood what Blue Eyes meant, where this feeling came from. There were many things he wanted to say in answer. He wanted to explain his anger, his harshness toward Blue Eyes, his fear as he saw his son fall under the spell of Koba’s unthinking hate.
Too many things to say.
Caesar raised his hands to sign, but he was too weak. His arms trembled and he lowered them back to his sides. He spoke in a strained whisper, saying only the most important thing.
“No. I am to blame.”
Even in the darkness he saw the surprise on Blue Eyes’ face.
But Koba betrayed you…
“I chose to trust him. Because he is ape.” Caesar looked away from Blue Eyes’ hands to his face. “Always thought… apes were better than humans.” He paused for breath. “But I see now… how much like them we are.”
Blue Eyes listened. Caesar realized how rare this was. His son had learned hard lessons in the past day. Something about him had changed. He had not told Caesar what it was, and Caesar would not ask. Apes had a right to their silence.
Thinking of his son’s pain strengthened Caesar. He spoke again, a little louder.
“Where is Koba now?”
He’s made the human tower his home, surrounded by the apes most loyal to him, Blue Eyes signed.
Caesar nodded. That was expected. Koba had taken the highest ground and made himself hard to reach.
“And those… who are not?”
Prisoners, Blue Eyes signed. Maurice, Rocket…
Fury rose within Caesar. Making prisoners of apes, for disloyalty? That was unworthy. Beneath them. Koba was a bully, a killer. Not a leader.
Blue Eyes kept signing.
The others only follow out of fear, he said. But once they see you are alive, they will turn from Koba.
“Not if I am weak,” Caesar said. “An ape always seeks… strongest branch.” He thought, turning over possibilities in his mind. “I must find a way… to stop him,” he said.
Blue Eyes started to sign again, then let his hands fall. He spoke aloud, something he almost never did. “What can I do? Something… I can do?”
Caesar felt a rush of pride. His son was learning. He had stood with ten toes over the edge of a plunge that took many back into animal savagery. Now he was stopping. Only a brave ape was capable of taking that step back. He watched his son for a long moment, several breaths dragging in and out. His wound hurt him terribly, but he had to be strong. For apes. Maybe for humans, too. He started to think of a plan, and nodded at his son.
Yes, there was something he could do.
59
Maurice sat in the stinking bus and waited to die. That was the only thing he could see Koba deciding to do. He would not free them without a pledge of loyalty. Maurice and Rocket had already refused to make such a pledge. The other apes in the bus had either done the same, or had been imprisoned because Koba suspected them.
He watched out the window that gave him a view of the tower over the human settlement. They had opened the bus windows to let out some of the heat, and the sound of gunfire had been coming from the top of the tower all day. Koba and his friends were shooting just for the pleasure of shooting, enjoying their power. Maurice had also seen apes pass by carrying a box of bottles he remembered from the weapon storehouse. Maurice was old, and had seen many of the bad sides of human behavior. He knew what happened when humans drank from those bottles.
He guessed that the same would happen to apes.
Koba was moving the rest of the humans into the pen. He wanted all of them captured before the female apes and children came down from the mountains.
Maurice watched the guards sign to each other, passing the word that they would arrive that evening. Some of them had already reached the far end of the orange bridge. Maurice thought it was strange that Koba—who hated humans so fiercely—was so quick to move apes into the human city. He preferred Caesar’s way. Humans could have their cities. Apes could have the mountains.
But Caesar was dead, and soon Maurice would be, too. He sighed.
A fresh group of human captives arrived, driven violently by apes into the tunnel. Some of the humans fought, and the apes took every chance to beat them violently until they were still. Then the bodies, living or not, were dragged in and left inside the fence. The guards locked the gates again, and Maurice looked away, disgusted. They were animals.
Something caught his attention on the rear window of the bus and he looked over at it. His eyes widened and he immediately looked back to the other prisoners to see if any of them had noticed. They had not. All of them sat, staring out the windows or sleeping, resigned to whatever Koba would do.
Maurice looked back at the window. There, drawn with a finger in the grime, was a circular sign. Caesar’s sign. He had seen Caesar draw it many times. Once he had asked him what it meant, and Caesar had explained that it reminded him of his home. Maurice had wanted to know more, but the sadness on Caesar’s face had stopped him from asking.
Now the sign was before him. It was a message. But from whom?
He nudged Rocket, who had barely moved all day. Rocket looked back, and the despair on his face was wiped away by surprise… then hope. They both searched out the windows, looking for some sign of who might have done this. Some of the other apes saw them looking, and they too started looking without knowing what it was
they were supposed to find.
Luca grunted. Maurice looked to him and saw him point at the mirror on the side of the bus. In the tall rectangle, Maurice saw a reflection of Blue Eyes. Astonished, he turned to look out the back window again, and then he spotted Blue Eyes’ hiding place. It was between two abandoned cars where the guards could not see him. Blue Eyes raised a finger to his lips.
Luca nodded.
Maurice nodded, too.
* * *
Caesar awoke again in darkness. He looked out through one of the vine-covered windows and saw from the stars it was still early in the night. He could not sleep. His wound throbbed, but he knew now that Ellie had saved his life. He would survive. His strength would return.
He hoped it would return soon enough.
With great effort he moved through the house, past the bedroom where Malcolm and Ellie were asleep, and the other room where Will’s father had once slept. Alexander was in Will’s father’s bed, mouth slack, a flashlight beam dimming as its battery ran out. In its beam Caesar saw the bright boxes of the picture books Malcolm’s son loved. Maurice had been interested in them, too. Caesar wondered if Maurice still lived, or if any of the apes on Koba’s prison bus still lived.
Quietly he pulled down the folding stairs that led up to the attic. He climbed them as a human would, not daring to test his muscles yet. In the attic he found everything, almost as it had been the last time he was there, ten winters before. His drawings. The puzzle of the figure Will called the Statue of Liberty, in a place called New York. Even the Lucas Tower puzzle Will had used to test his medicine that made apes smarter.
Caesar smiled over all of it, but sadly, thinking back to what had started his life on this path. Will’s father, lost in the fog of his old age, trying to drive the neighbor’s car. The neighbor threatening Will’s father, and Caesar coming to his defense. The only act of violence Caesar had ever committed on a human was biting the neighbor’s finger. The taste of blood had awakened something in him—an animal hunger.