by John Jakes
The stench of searing human flesh began to fill the oval chamber. The chimpanzee picked up a pen from the console. Experimentally, she wedged it into the switch. She lifted her hand away—and grinned as the column of fire continued to roar.
Chittering delightedly, the chimpanzees ran for the door.
In a dim, hexagonal chamber perched on the roof of the ape management tower, five men hunched over monitors and control boards. Through the smoked glass windows, the floodlit grounds surrounding the center looked peaceful. But the confusion of lights on the boards indicated hell breaking loose.
“This is Master Security,” one man yelled into a mike. “Come in, Reception Communications. I said come—”
He gave up, cursing the garble from the speaker in front of him. He heard glass breaking, apes gibbering, and most frightening of all, humans crying out in pain.
The men in the chamber had already activated sirens and klaxons in response to a sudden influx of alarm signals: the report of a murdered man in No Conditioning on nine; a suddenly aborted request for help from Training Reception on three. Now another cry went up inside the rooftop outpost.
“Where’s the supervisor? I’ve got sensors picking up a fire in Fire Conditioning.”
A shadowy figure shouldered up alongside. “Do they answer?”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t know what the hell’s happening, but we’d better not let all this prime flesh get burned up by accident.” The supervisor slapped a control, swiveled a gooseneck mike up close to his mouth: “Attention all handlers and keepers. Attention all handlers and keepers. This is Master Security. We have a possibility of a serious fire on six, as well as some kind of trouble in reception. We have fifty thousand dollars’ worth of apes in jeopardy if that fire spreads. So get them out of here—repeat, get them out of here, alive. Fire crews, report to six.”
He broke the connection, whipped his head around. “Did the sprinklers kick on?”
“Yes, but the sensors show they’re not doing much good. It’s spreading. There’s enough heat and flame in just one of those conditioning rooms to melt iron—”
“Then I’m not taking any chances.” He grabbed the mike again. “Attention. This is Master Security. We are triggering, repeat, triggering the over-ride to open all the cages in the building. Get those animals out to safety!”
His palm came down hard on the button that opened the remaining cages not yet unlocked from the communications center. Beyond the smoked glass windows, a rosy light was growing.
The supervisor kept his hand on the button longer than necessary, wondering in his confusion whether he had done the right thing—or unleashed some kind of holocaust.
FIFTEEN
In the sumptuously furnished office on the fifth floor, Dr. Chamberlain roused with a groan.
A single lamp on his desk lit the whiskey decanter and glass next to it. After the unnerving session in No Conditioning, the director of the center had retired to his private suite, poured himself three strong shots in a row, sprawled on his leather couch and closed his eyes.
Now a confusion of sounds had jerked him awake. He rubbed his eyes, identifying sirens and klaxons—the harbingers of real trouble at the Center.
Still less than sober, he staggered toward the office wall. He definitely smelled smoke . . .
Chamberlain began throwing switches under monitors set into the wall. One by one they lit, casting pale highlights on his strained face as he stared in absolute disbelief.
The below-ground communications center was a shambles; wreckage, fallen bodies everywhere.
Berserk apes poured through the corridors. One screen showed the apes dodging past doorways filled with flames.
But on other monitors he saw keepers and handlers actually urging apes from their cages. What was happening?
He turned up a couple of the audio controls, heard a dreadful din. Screaming. Gibbering. The crackle of fire. The crash of furniture. Monitor after monitor displayed unbelievable images.
A handler was trying to shackle the right wrist of a just-released orangutan. The ape suddenly raised his arm and brought the free end of the shackle whipping down to smash the handler’s face.
In the midst of blowing smoke, a keeper was desperately trying to subdue a chimp by injecting him with a hypodermic. The chimp twisted the keeper’s arm brutally. The hypodermic dropped into the chimp’s other hand. He rammed it needle-first into the keeper’s stomach.
On the first floor near the main lobby, a squad of security guards confronted a mob of apes that spilled from an elevator. One of the squad members dropped to his knee, aimed a tranquilizing gun at the nearest ape. He fired. The ape slumped. Other tranquilizing guns were leveled—but a chimpanzee sprang, seized the nearest squad member, and used him as a screen at the last second. The man took the deadening, dart in one arm sagging . . .
“Rebellion!” Chamberlain breathed. “Then in Christ’s name—” his glance flashed to monitors showing handlers still busy urging boisterous apes from their cages “—why are they letting out the rest?”
Chamberlain ran for the door. He recoiled at the smoke-filled hallway. The sirens and klaxons created almost unbearable noise. Covering his nose, he dashed for his personal elevator, concealed behind a plain, locked door at the end of the corridor. He did not know what was going on, but he intended to save himself at all costs; seek sanctuary via his limousine in the subbasement garage. Whatever the outcome of this inexplicable nightmare, he would be held responsible by Governor Breck. But he would face that lesser risk in preference to being incinerated.
He fumbled his key into the lock of the plain door. The key slipped, fell to the floor. With a moan, Dr. Chamberlain dropped to his knees. The smoke stung his eyes, he couldn’t find the key . . .!
While he was still scrambling for it, four gorillas appeared from the white billows, seized him and tore him to pieces.
The two-story command tower marked the farthest limit of the center’s grounds. From inside, the Perimeter Watch Commander stared at an almost incomprehensible sight.
The middle three or four floors of the central tower showed flames at every ruptured window. In the wash of sweeping searchlights automatically triggered by the alarm sirens, a mass of apes could be seen charging up the ramp from the underground reception area.
“Get through to the tower—Chamberlain—someone, goddam it!” the commander yelled.
Flipping switches on consoles nearby, his assistant cried back, “I’m trying. Nobody answers. Even Master Security seems to have been abandoned.”
Outside, on the tower’s railed balcony, three guards with tranquilizing rifles peered at the incredible spectacle. The commander kept issuing rapid orders. His assistant began summoning patrols from other points on the grounds.
Grabbing field glasses from a drawer, the commander ran outside.
Against the background of the mindless sirens and klaxons, a roar was rising in the night. It came from the seething mass of apes at ground level near the tower. Half-shackled apes. Burned apes. Bleeding apes—even some animals dragging handlers or keepers—human hostages! Gaping, the commander lowered the field glasses.
What looked to be virtually the entire ape population of the tower was breaking loose!
They milled at the head of the ramp from underground, waving shackles, bellowing, leaping up and down as the flashing searchlights swept back and forth. For a moment, the confusion continued. Then a segment of the ape mob broke away, its destination instantly apparent.
“My God, they’re heading this way!”
“They’re panicking, Commander,” said one of the men with a tranquilizing rifle.
The commander almost agreed—until he saw the tangle of apes rapidly becoming a ragged procession. Three and four abreast, they moved in the direction of the tower.
“Like hell they’re panicking,” the commander breathed. “They’re organized.”
He assumed his tower was the target of the marching apes. He ordered the g
uards to begin firing. As the searchlights scythed, the rifles went chuff. An ape dropped. Another. The rest kept coming.
The commander’s legs started to shake when he saw that the rebellious apes were not marching leaderless. In front of them, dodging the tranquilizing charges, was a large chimpanzee in a bloodstained green uniform. He walked upright, like a man.
Incredibly, the apes did not bother with the perimeter tower. They surged by it on both sides, the forefront of the column quickly gone into the darkness. From that darkness rose a savage, howling chorus of ape voices that blended into one vast bay of hate.
The shaken commander dashed back inside the tower.
“Send a priority alert! Those damn animals are heading for the city!”
Out in the darkness, the baying grew louder. The last of the long column of apes bypassed the tower, vanishing in pursuit of the one who led them.
Caesar led his band of gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans past the perimeter watch tower and on across the rolling parklands shrouded in darkness. The baying and gibbering of the animals excited him, as did the success of the escape.
Many apes had been left behind, of course—dead or injured, the luckless victims of battles with handlers, keepers, or guards who had realized, finally, what was happening; even though they didn’t know why it was happening. But thanks to a combination of swift action and human error, Caesar had managed to rally enough apes to form the nucleus of a small effective army, an army whose passage was announced by that incessant bloodthirsty howling.
As he tramped ahead of the rest, Caesar planned strategy. He knew that the unfamiliarity of trying to deal with an organized ape force would work against the humans. Still, that advantage could be offset by the superior numbers and armament of police and other paramilitary forces that could be mustered. Warnings were certainly being relayed to Governor Breck by now. Therefore . . .
His decision made, Caesar raised a hand, calling a halt to the march.
Around him lay dark, open grasslands. Caesar had deliberately chosen a route that would avoid the vehicular highways. A glow on the horizon showed the way to the city. It was toward this glow he pointed, as he squatted down and issued instructions to half a dozen apes chosen from the milling ranks.
He selected the six because they were unwounded and looked strong. His instructions would send them racing ahead, to infiltrate the city as best they could. Even if only one or two got through, it might be enough.
Caesar’s orders were explicit. The six were responsible for spreading the message that the hour of the rising had come.
A few moments after the six had gone, Caesar raised his hand and started the little army marching again. By his gait and bearing he tried to inspire them; to make them believe that he, personally, harbored no fear. His chin was high as he strode over grassy hillocks, the ovals of his eyes reflecting the steadily brightening glow of the city.
In the dim Command Post, there was frantic activity—and very little talking.
Governor Breck and his key assistants, including MacDonald, had been summoned to the Command Post not fifteen minutes after their arrival back in the city.
“Emergency curfew to go into effect immediately. Clear the streets,” Breck ordered.
One assistant broke from the group, ran to the far side of the post, pushed a communications operator aside, took the mike personally as Breck continued, “Order full mobilization of all security forces—police, militia, and reserve defense units.”
Another assistant nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“And cordon off every entrance to the city.”
Again the nod. “Are control methods to include the use of tear gas and sedation darts?”
Breck’s eyes moved briefly to MacDonald, standing silent at the rear of the group. The governor’s glance was almost accusing.
Then he snapped his attention back to the man who’d asked the question. “Yes, and there will be one additional control method,” he said. “If necessary, shoot to kill.”
All around the huge shopping plaza, many of the overhead lights were going out. Shop windows darkened too, as their owners hastily locked the doors and hurried away after the few pedestrians scattering for the escalators and walkways. The unseen loudspeaker repeated its strident announcement of curfew—as a panting, unclothed ape slipped furtively along a wall, darted down a passageway and into the rearmost of three washrooms.
The echo of the curfew announcement boomed across the virtually empty plaza. The door of the ape washroom opened again. The naked gorilla slipped out and melted into the darkness along the fronts of the emptied shops. On the paving stones, bloody footprints glistened.
In a narrow thoroughfare just off Civic Center Plaza, there was restless movement near the mouth of another washroom passage. Stretching from the door of the washroom almost to the street, a chain of apes passed containers forward and stacked them. The apes grunted softly, joyfully as they worked. The noises mingled with the sound of the sloshing kerosene.
Coming out of the rear cubicle dragging the refuse container, the elderly female chimpanzee abandoned her servile role of cleaning attendant for a more prideful one. Under the single dim fixture, she removed the container’s lid, began to distribute weapons to the excited, jostling apes packing the place wall to wall.
Knives and butcher’s carvers went to the orangutans and chimps. Gorillas received revolvers. When she tried to hand a steak knife to the chimpanzee busboy, he rejected it with a shake of his head, reached past her to claim his special choice of weapons.
The cleaver blade glared as brightly as his eyes.
Surrounded by his staff members, Jason Breck watched a tiny television screen set into the top of his priceless walnut desk. On the screen, a newscaster was saying, “—and a small mixed group of apes scheduled for intensive reconditioning has escaped from their quarters at Ape Management. Until they have been rounded up by the state security police, all citizens are requested to observe the curfew and remain indoors. A further announcement will be made as soon as recapture is—”
Jason Breck massaged his forehead as the announcer stopped, glancing off-screen. Someone handed a flimsy into the picture. The announcer scanned the bulletin, then confronted the camera lens again.
“Ape Management is in the hands of the apes. Many officials are either dead or held hostage. The main band of rioting apes is, at this very moment—”
The newscaster swallowed, as if unable to believe the copy on the flimsy. Breck slammed a palm on the gleaming desk.
“I’ll kill the bastard who leaked that from the Command Post.”
The announcer resumed: “—marching on the city. It’s rumored that the ape mob is under the command of a super intelligent chimpanzee who has—” another hesitation “—acquired the power of speech.”
The governor leaped to his feet. “Get out a retraction, MacDonald. And I mean quick. Tell them to announce that the talking ape has already been apprehended and put to death.”
Looking miserable, MacDonald hurried out of the room. Breck fumed as the announcer kept talking.
“—would suggest that the ape leader may be the child, thought to have been destroyed many years ago, of the two talking chimpanzees named Cornelius and Zira, who came to Earth claiming to be from outer space. If this proves true, the ape leader could constitute a threat to the future of the human race. Further background is coming on a report—” The announcer glanced sideways again. “Oh, we have that report ready now. Stay tuned as we switch to Network News Analysis for videotapes of—”
Jason Breck’s fisted hand hit the television control. The tiny screen blacked out. He whirled, shoved an assistant out of the way, stormed to the rail of the terrace overlooking the plaza. Deserted now. The pavement reflected the glow of distant lights left burning to afford visibility to the police snipers who would be taking up positions on similar terraces and parapets above the main public areas in the central city, as well as along major thoroughfares. Out in the empty b
oulevards, Breck detected the growl of engines; police and fire vehicles preparing for the coming onslaught.
An assistant interrupted the governor’s concentration. “Sir—” He whirled. “Command Post says the ape force is approaching the city limits near Alpha Boulevard.”
“Open the cordon. Let them through. Then close the cordon—and order all units into immediate action. We can kill them easier on the streets than in the suburbs.”
Over the shoulder of the retreating assistant, he spied MacDonald’s grave face again. Malice twisted the governor’s mouth.
“Mr. MacDonald, you’re privileged to be a witness to something absolutely unprecedented on this planet. Pitched battle between human beings and animals. Do you still think I am unduly suspicious? An alarmist? Mr. MacDonald—?”
The black man had turned away.
Allowing himself a humorless smile, Breck returned to the terrace. He stiffened at a new sound.
Apes.
Grunting, chittering—somewhere down in a dark street that ran off the right-hand side of the plaza.
His scalp crawled.
The sound seemed to intensify, more sibilant, more urgent. Distantly, gunfire crackled.
Kill them, he thought. Kill every last one of them.
He didn’t like that restless stirring in the dark at the edge of the plaza; he didn’t like the idea of apes abroad in this part of the city. No animals from the rioting band could have penetrated this far already . . .
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not sure it’s safe to watch from here. Tell the Command Post we’re coming back. We’ll use the underground tunnel.”
SIXTEEN
The boulevard stretched away black and empty into the distance. Many lights had been extinguished. All first floor offices and shops had likewise been darkened. Under the looming wall of a high rise, Caesar led the van of his little army, halting at each corner to look both ways before signaling the cross.
The apes were intimidated by the silence; by the dark, empty ways between the towering buildings. On the march, Caesar had passed the word that he had signaled for city-wide rebellion, but the apes following him saw no indication of it. Unless there were some sign of the rebellion to encourage them, some spark to ignite their momentarily forgotten hatred, Caesar knew his ape army might turn and scatter. The immense gamble might come to noth . . .