Title: In Thade We Trust 15/?

Author: veiledndarkness

Warning: The usual disclaimer, not my property, just playing with the characters. Takes place shortly after the end of Planet of the Apes (2001).

Summary: In the darkest parts of the human mind lies the ability to be needlessly cruel and inhuman, a baser nature that separates us from the
animals.

XX

"Escaped? Escaped! Tell how in the name of Thade that the human managed to escape?"

Riva darted nervous looks to the enraged scientist before him, his throat clenched. "I...I, he, y-you see, Sir..."

Calder slammed his palm down on the table at his side. "Riva, I will throw you to the oceans if you do not stop this pathetic babbling and start answering me!"

"Y-Yes, Sir," Riva squeaked, trembling with fear. "Leo....he was f-fussing about in the cage..."

"Do not call it by that name!"

Riva lifted his head, frowning. "I...The human was agitated, so I-I approached him to give him a full dosage of sedation," he lied, his heart pounding painfully against his ribcage. "When I attempted to sedate him, he attacked me and stole the keys to the cage."

"Idiot," Calder spat and fisted his hand, slamming it once more on the desk. "So help you if we do not recover the human, Riva. The human is not to be trusted! He cannot be allowed to escape the facility grounds."

He whipped around to face the guards behind him. "I want a full team sent out; every available member is to be on patrol. No excessive force is to be used, is this unclear? I need the damned fool human alive, he's not nearly as important dead as he is alive."

One gorilla shook his head. "No, Sir," he said. "I'll warn the others." He nodded to the other guards, leading them out.

Riva sucked in a breath. He couldn't recall the last time he'd been so infuriated. "Sir, Leo is by no means unintelligent."

Calder advanced towards him, his dark eyes glittering with anger. "He is a human, a dangerous, stupid, foolhardy one at that. You have developed an attachment to him in so short a time. You should be ashamed of yourself!"

"The only thing that shames me is how long I've assisted you!" Riva shouted, shoving his chair back forcefully. "And as for now, you'll require a new assistant. I quit!" He stormed past Calder, shaking all over.

"Throw your future away, Riva and I'll see that you never work in the medicals again, I swear it!"

"I'll take that chance," Riva muttered as he stepped out of the room, the sudden blare of alarms startling him. "Leo..." he whispered, "Thade, please..."

He turned and ran down the hallway, past several armed guards and other scientists that emerged from the rooms at the sound of the alarms, unnoticed in the uproar of confusion that followed. Riva darted through the throngs of chimps and workers, his small frame able to slip between the gaps easily. With a hiss, he slid his pass card through the slot, opening the door to a set of stairs.

Riva went up the stairs two at a time, panting. He reached the top stairs and swiped his card again, yanking the door open before it could slide all the way. A hum filled the air, above the alarms. Riva wiped the sweat from his brow with his arm. He stared up at the row of machines before him, fear curling in small tendrils through his stomach.

The door swooshed shut behind him, closing him in with the machines, ones that he'd heard about, ones that everyone in the facility knew of. Riva bit his bottom lip and approached the first machine, looking the large metal box over carefully. Each machine controlled part of the floors, everything from the doors to the elevators to the fences.

Above each button or lever was a neatly written label for it. "First floor elevators, no," Riva murmured, scanning each selection, running one wiry finger along the panels for each until he came to the right one. Fences.

Riva hesitated, his finger hovering over the button. If he pressed, and the knowledge came up that it had been him...He let out a shaky breath and pressed the button before he could change his mind.

The light went out on the machines as the electricity drained away from the fences, the ones that surrounded the entire premises. Riva moved to the next machine, turning switches off as he went, turning the grids off in certain areas, ones that he prayed feverishly that Leo had headed towards.

He reached the last machine and paused, eyeing it. He frowned and stepped closer to the machine. The labels on it were yellowing with age, the script written on it barely legible. "What in the...." he whispered.

Underground-Level 1 Grid.

Another was listed underneath that. Underground-Level 1 Grate.

Riva gasped. "Underground...Dr. Naira...he had to have known..." he traced the buttons and pressed each of the underground ones. He thought fleetingly of the rumors he'd heard as a young one, tunnels that ran underneath the city, connected by the slaves and shivered. Dr. Naira had taken Leo into the tunnels, he was certain of that.

Riva crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself closely. He turned away from the machines, at once proud and terrified of what he'd done.

X

"...I've never considered how the Nazcan lines came to be," Naira stumbled a bit. "Oh my...watch your step," he called over his shoulder, Leo and Ari shuffling along behind him. "There are large gaps in the history books, whole sections of time that simply don't exist. Of course the debates are endless, but one consensus is that the writers were unsure of the history. Perhaps something was lost in the early translations."

"Or maybe Thade didn't know what the Nazcan lines were," Leo muttered under his breath. "They were created a long time before Thade ever got here, I can tell you that much."

Ari brushed strands of hair back from her face, flecks of dirt covering her fingers. She grimaced and wiped her hands along her sweater. "There's more than lines, there's drawings as well. Animals and birds and..."

"And a big Martian astronaut right?"

"Yes..."

Leo hunched over more. "I swear this tunnel is gettin' smaller by the minute," he grumbled. "The astronaut, yeah that one is kinda odd, don'tcha think? We're talking thousands of years ago. They didn't have the technology to look down from above, so how did they know what to make and how to make sure it was visible from high up, right? And why a spaceman?"

"I believe that they had a prophecy," Naira cut in. "The Nazcan's prophesized that beings would visit early ape kind."

"Looks like they should have added a chimp with a Napoleon complex to those lines..."

"Leo, really," Ari bit back a laugh, her shoulders shaking. "The things you say..."

"Guessing you don't know who Napoleon was," Leo stretched his arms out and brushed his fingertips along the top of the tunnel. "Did he get wiped from the books as well?"

Dr. Naira sighed. "Most human history was erased by the looks of it, Leo. I'm starting to think that Thade had the stories re-written with us in place of the original beings. He...I believe this was his revenge as you said."

"So...you're tellin' me that Thade went and had human history re-written with chimps?" Leo laughed wildly. "Fucking hell, that guy was something else. I bet he had an easy time taking over. No one would have had a damned clue on how to face a genetically mutated chimp."

"The history that is complete, it would have started from after he landed," Ari nodded.

"So 1860 or so then," Leo dropped his arms back down. "He got here just in time for the Civil War. And I bet any money, he interfered with that."

"The Civil War…?" Ari echoed. "What...do you mean the great battles over the humans and ape kind?"

Leo nodded. "You could say that."

Naira shook the illumination stick. "Damned things...We must hurry, we don't have much longer before they'll up the electric charges on the grids," he said, moving faster down the tunnel.

"Oh this keeps gettin' better."

"Leo hush, I know where I'm going. It shouldn't be too much further."

Ari touched a hand to Leo's shoulder urgently. "The war...the great battles, for you, what were they?"

"Mainly over slavery, you see, Abraham Lincoln didn't believe in slavery, he was opposed to it. When he was elected to office, some of the Southern states secessionists got awfully pissed and formed a new nation called the 'Confederate States of America'. They ended up going to war, both sides. Lasted for years," Leo squinted over Naira's side, the light from his stick waning far too much for his liking.

"And Thade had a hand in this?" Ari whispered excitedly.

Leo frowned. "He had to have. Otherwise it would be Abraham on the statue instead of Thade. I'm thinkin' he landed during one of the battles or something. Think about how guys from the 1860's would have reacted to see a pod land and a big chimp pop out with...with a ray gun or something."

"A...What?"

"Funny how you guys are on the same level as my world but there's stuff missing." Leo rubbed at his face, weary and cold. "For you it was battles, huh? He had it written that the Civil War was nothin' but a battle to free the apes."

"That's where the legends come into play," Naira said. "You, Leo, you were part of the prophecy, it's fascinating how it all connects, don't you think?"

"Oh yeah, completely, but hey while we're looking over all this fascinating shit, do you think we could focus on my somehow getting the hell off this planet?" Leo snapped.

Naira glared at him over his shoulder. "Enough Boy," he growled. "Now is not the time for that attitude of yours. And this is fascinating and terribly important. If you're connected to the prophecy, then the answers lie ahead of us."

"Right on," was Leo's deadpan response, "Lead the way, Doc."

"How much did Riva tell you about the legends?"

Leo sighed deeply. "You…Fine. He said there were two races that fought over the Earth humans and apes and that Thade showed up and saved the day for the apes. Apparently there was something about a human who would be sent to destroy Thade, but that never panned out."

"He must have been terribly concerned that your path would meet his someday," Ari nodded.

Naira paused in his tracks, his eyes suddenly wide. "Thade….Thade would have left markings, it would have been instructed by him to detail in case one of his own should need to flee Leo," he mumbled, distracted. "The statue, the markings were chiseled into the statue! His descendants, sworn to defeat Leo, should he ever make his way to this time, the markings would tell them where to go!"

Leo bumped into him and grunted. "…So, who chiseled them?"

"Someone close to him, someone he entrusted the knowledge of. Someone who would understand the Nazcan lines that they used. If I were to realign the designs…" Naira trailed off, whispering to himself.

Ari huffed and waved her hand in front of Naira. "Again…Good Thade, you're easily distracted."

Leo chuckled and pushed forward, one finger tugging at the collar around his neck. "Any chance we can get the shock collar offa me any time soon?"

"Hm? Oh, oh yes," Naira nodded. He reached to Leo's neck, undoing the clasp lock to it. He pocketed the collar absently and stared off into the darkness of the tunnel.

Leo rubbed his sore throat, wincing. "Damned thing… Alright, tell me what's goin' on with the lines."

Naira crouched down to the dirt ground and trailed one finger over the loose dirt. He sketched, drawing a series of lines with quick jerks of his finger. "If the lines were realigned to point from Peru to…I don't believe my own eyes," he whispered, awed.

Ari crouched as well, her breath catching. "They, they point to…here."

"What?" Leo clasped a hand to his throat, rubbing at the chafed skin. "What?"

"Washington, they point straight here if re-aligned, the runways point to…here," Naira clasped a hand over his mouth. He rubbed one finger along the lines he'd drawn. "You see how the line switches? They…they used the Nazcan lines, they must have, there's no…this cannot be a coincidence, Leo."

Ari exhaled sharply and stood up, holding her illumination stick over the lines. "How far do they point? Could they…the monument, past there?"

"I doubt it's exact in that matter, but if I say yes, I don't believe that I could be wrong on this," Naira looked away, his mouth clamped shut. He seemed to be wavering, shoulders tensed.

"Doc…You uh…hey, you ok?" Leo hesitated before leaning down and resting a tentative hand to Naira's shoulder.

Naira nodded. "Leo…I'm so very sorry," he murmured, swiping his hand through the dirt, erasing the lines. "I've…I've made many mistakes…"

"Aw, shit," Leo patted his shoulder awkwardly. "Don't do that, Doc. Just….just help me get outta here in one piece. Please?"

"Naira, please," Ari rested her fingers over Leo's, no flinch from him then. "We can still do this, we need to. And…I think we were all mistaken in certain ways. But right now we need to keep moving."

Naira nodded once. "Yes, give me a moment, would you?"

Ari stepped back and looked to Leo, excitement and fear gleaming in her eyes. "I believe I have an idea as to where the lines extend past the monument."

"Yeah…" Leo found his gaze wandering down to Naira, his throat tight with many emotions. "Yeah, I think I have an idea too.

XX