by Greg Keyes
“Come in,” Dreyfus said, after a pause. “We can use you on something else.”
“Dreyfus,” Phillips said. “We were here to do a job. It’s done. There’s no way I’m dragging my people into that plague-infested hell-hole.”
“It’s an order,” Dreyfus said.
“I don’t work for you,” Phillips replied. Then the line went dead. Dreyfus stared at it for a moment, then turned it off.
He looked at his monitor, at the reports flooding in. He had predicted panic. He hadn’t predicted this.
He reached for the phone and tried his home number. It was busy, just as it had been the last seven times he had tried it. So was Maddy’s cell.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Mr., ah—”
“Pinheiro, sir.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“You said you wanted to talk to the prisoner.”
Dreyfus nodded wearily. “Let’s go.”
* * *
The prisoner was young, clean-shaven. He had good teeth. Aside from the Greek letters tattooed on his forehead and the dirty urban camouflage he was wearing, he looked no different from any suburban kid. He sat in a small white room, staring, unperturbed, through the glass.
“What’s your name, son?” Dreyfus asked.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the boy said. “The first and the last. The beginning and the end.”
“Ah,” Dreyfus said. “You’re Jesus, then. How comforting.”
The boy just smiled.
“You were involved in firebombing the quarantines,” Dreyfus went on. “Men, women, children, burned alive. What possible justification could you have for that?”
The boy looked at him as if he was speaking gibberish.
“They were dead already,” he said. “You know that. Dead, and damned, as well. Don’t you get it, man? The disease, this virus—it’s not a curse. It’s a gift. It is cleansing the world of the impure. It is burning away the chaff. The miscreants, the misbegotten, the mi scegenate, the weak, all will be swept away. All who struggle against the purification will die and become as dust.”
“So you’re just helping out,” Dreyfus said.
“Look around you, man.” He swept one hand in a wide arc. “Look at these people. Two weeks ago, they thought they were civilized. They went to church, went to their book clubs, bought all the shit they were supposed to buy from the places they were supposed to buy it from. They thought they were good people, great people. Now look at ’em. Look what they’re capable of, how wasted they are on the inside. There was nothing in there, man.”
“So why not burn a few,” Dreyfus said.
“It’s our duty.”
“Right,” Dreyfus said, thumbing through a file folder. “Here’s somebody—Louisa Vega. She joined the army and became a field medic. Later she worked for aid organizations all over the world. In Africa, she nursed in a village that was essentially wiped out by Ebola. And she was in the Alameda Point quarantine when you assholes shot it all to hell and torched it. She wasn’t weak, and she wasn’t chaff, and she wasn’t ‘empty’ on the inside, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”
He stared directly at the prisoner.
“She was someone who dedicated her life to helping the sick. And she wasn’t the only person like that who you killed. Real people, who see their duty not as hiding behind masks and chucking firebombs, but working to hold something together, build something.”
The boy laughed.
“You think you’re going to hold this together?” he said.
“I know I’m going to try,” he said.
“Well, good for you,” the boy said. “When this is all over, and the select inherit our kingdom, I’ll think of you.”
“Oh, son—didn’t anyone tell you? You won’t be inheriting anything. Nobody comes in here without a screening. Why do you think you’re behind glass?”
For the first time, the boy looked uncertain.
“See, turns out you’re part of the chaff,” Dreyfus said.
“No,” the boy said. Then louder. “No!”
“Put him in quarantine,” Dreyfus said. As he left, the boy starting shrieking in earnest.
* * *
Back in his office, Dreyfus dialed home again, hoping against hope he would get through this time.
To his relief, the phone rang, and to his greater relief, Maddy answered.
“Maddy,” he said. “Thank God. Listen, I’ve sent a car for you and the kids. They should be there in half an hour.”
He was answered by a long pause.
“Edward has it,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Has it?” he said. “Has what?”
“The plague. The Simian Flu.”
A deep cold buried itself in Dreyfus’s chest.
“Maddy,” he said, “You don’t know that. You’re not a doctor—”
“He’s sneezing up blood,” she said. “Everyone knows the symptoms.”
His head was pulsing.
“You don’t know,” he said.
“I’m so scared,” Maddy said.
Dreyfus looked past his door at the confusion outside, at the boards showing riots and fires and armed conflicts. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He felt imbalanced, like a man on a high wire that was starting to shake.
“Maddy,” he said, “I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’m on my way now.”
“You can’t,” she said. “You’ll be exposed, too.”
“I’ll be there soon,” he said, and put the phone down. He picked up his jacket from the chair he had slung it over and put it on. He found Pinheiro.
“Have my car brought around,” he told the young man.
“Sir, it’s dangerous out there,” Pinheiro replied. “I don’t think—”
“Just do it, son,” Dreyfus said.
“Yes, Mayor Dreyfus, sir,” Pinheiro said.
“It’s just Dreyfus now,” he replied, softly, and left the office.
* * *
When Caesar lifted his face up for air, at first all he saw was fire. It danced in the branches above, it raged on the ground, some even hissed and sputtered in the river. But, looking around, he could also see the end of it. If they could make it a little farther, they would be with the rest of the troop.
Safe.
He pulled Cornelia up. Most of the others had already come up for air and were looking around, even Herman. The air, however, was not very good. It was thick with smoke, and at the same time seemed somehow thin.
“Come!” he roared, pulling Herman’s arm. “Come!”
They gathered themselves, then began shakily wading downstream. Burning branches began to fall all around them. The smoke grew thicker. Caesar saw another gorilla slump down, and understood that the smoke was making them all weak, taking their strength. That they weren’t going to make it. He exchanged a glance with Cornelia.
Sorry, he signed.
She shook her head.
No sorry, she said. Cornelia not sorry.
Then she stumbled and fell into the river.
Caesar dropped to a crouch, unable to support Herman anymore.
His eyes filled with tears from the stinging smoke.
Most of them will survive, he realized. Maybe the humans would think they were dead, burned up with the forest, and leave the others alone. Maybe if the humans found his body, it would be enough.
He thought he was hearing things as first, sounds in his head as the smoke put him to sleep. But then he heard a hoot, and another, and splashing in the river. Through blurred vision he saw shadowy figures helping Cornelia to her feet, dragging Herman downstream, and as the last of his consciousness faded, he felt a shoulder come up under his.
Caesar is the smartest, he remembered Cornelia saying. Still, should listen to others, take help from others. Caesar alone strong. Caesar with apes, stronger. Apes together, strong.
Then he passed into darkness.
* * *
The lights went out again,
just as Talia finished closing up a ten-year-old boy. She worked by candlelight—a precaution they had taken a few hours before. She knew this would be her last session. She was working with an IV in her own arm, just to keep her on her feet a little longer.
She heard someone scream, and then an abrupt burst of rifle fire.
“Get down,” McWilliams hollered, drawing a pistol from beneath his surgical gown.
Talia saw the men as they came in through the door. They had on masks and were carrying rifles. As she threw her body across her patient, she heard McWilliams’ pistol roar, and then the stutter of rapid rifle fire. She felt three hard thumps in her back and side. She wished she could see her father one more time, have one more dinner with him. Tell him it was all right.
* * *
Across town, David woke abruptly from fevered dreams. His heart wasn’t beating right, and he didn’t know where he was. He could barely even move, but he managed to tilt his head a little, and in the darkness he saw the glowing numbers of a digital clock.
It was four, he realized. He would have laughed, but he didn’t have time.
* * *
Caesar awoke, feeling clean, cool air in his abused lungs. Someone dribbled water on his face.
He lay there a moment, letting the last of the dizziness pass. He did not smell smoke anymore. He opened his eyes and found an ape squatting by him, concern writ large on his ravaged face, in his single good eye.
“Koba,” Caesar croaked.
Koba nodded. His fur was singed in places. He was bleeding. But he was alive.
Caesar stood up, feeling shaky.
Koba brought himself back, Koba said. Brought two others, only. Koba is sorry if he failed.
Caesar regarded the other ape for a moment, then stepped forward and embraced him. For a moment, the bonobo was rigid, unyielding.
“Koba did good,” Caesar said. “Good.”
At that, Koba finally relaxed, and hesitantly returned the embrace.
Caesar pulled away from him.
You are my brother, he told Koba. We are all of us family.
EPILOGUE
That night, Caesar climbed to the top of the tallest tree he could find. He looked out over the woods, at the conflagration that was still sending clouds of sparks whirling into the sky. While he was unconscious, Maurice, Koba, and Rocket had taken the troop against the wind until they thought they were far enough away to be safe.
Although it was still a terrible sight to behold, the fire looked as if it was beginning to diminish. As if the trees were winning.
And his scouts told him the humans were all gone, or leaving the woods. It felt like the apes had won, or at least gained a reprieve.
Beyond the burning woods, Caesar could see the city, the place that had once been his home. There were fewer steady lights than ever, but there was a new light—an orange, flickering glow, cousin to the flames that had nearly killed him.
Like the woods, the city was on fire.
He wondered what that could mean.
And, as he wondered, Cornelia quietly climbed up beside him and began to comb through his fur.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It’s been a great honor and great fun to play in this playground, so thanks to 20th Century Fox for the invitation and all of the support, advice, and feedback I received while doing so. Thanks especially to Josh Izzo and Lauran Winarski for finding answers so quickly and efficiently when I had questions—and I had questions often.
On the Titan side of things I would like to thank Steve Saffel for quick and skillful editing. I would also like to acknowledge the hard work and contributions of Nick Landau, Vivian Chrung, Katy Wild, Cath Trechman, Alice Nightingale, Tim Whale, Jenny Boyce, Katharine Carroll, and Ella Bowman.
Thanks also to Dafna Pleban and BOOM comics for helping coordinate this enterprise. Finally, many thanks to Warren Roberts and Terri Hunnicutt for letting me tap their years of experience with great apes. Any mistakes herein are mine, not theirs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Gregory Keyes was born in 1963, in Meridian Mississippi to Nancy Joyce Ridout and John Howard Keyes. His mother was an artist, and his father worked in college administration. When he was seven, his family spent a year living in Many Farms, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation, where many of the ideas and interests which led Greg to become a writer and informed his work were formed.
Greg received a BA in Anthropology from Mississippi State University, and worked briefly as a contract archaeologist. In 1987 he married Dorothy Lanelle Webb (Nell) and the two moved to Athens, Georgia, where Nell pursued a degree in art while Greg ironed newspapers for a living. During this time, Greg produced several unpublished manuscripts before writing The Waterborn, his first published novel, followed by a string of original and licensed books over the following decade and a half.
Greg earned a Masters in Anthropology from the University of Georgia and completed the coursework and proposal for a PhD, which thus far remains ABD. He moved to Seattle, where Nell earned her BFA from the University of Washington, following which they moved to Savannah, Georgia. In 2005 the couple had a son, Archer, and in 2008 a daughter, Nellah. Greg continues to live with his family in Savannah, where he enjoys writing, cooking, fencing, and raising his children.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm is his twentieth published novel.