She worked hard after she told him her name. Not her real one, but Reese just slipped off of her tongue when he had asked. They had been inventorying supplies at one of the earlier camps.
The kind that could be packed up and left behind at moment's notice…if the spotters saw any signs of the apes. But as they moved east away from the coastal cities, they had seen fewer and fewer signs of any of them. She guessed they were sticking to a few hot spots in what was left of America, until they were able to figure out how to travel more easily.
Burke hadn't said much to her at first, but she read the strength etched quietly on his face, his body built like a sturdy tree. Only she saw how quickly he could move when necessary.
She'd been too busy to notice much of anything up to the moment she had fallen sick. But now that she had been getting her strength back, she could do more to pitch in with the increasing workload. They had hit a couple deserted chemists and pharmacies to grab medication before it hit its expiration date. The more perishable medication they had to leave behind because they didn't have reliable refrigeration, given that most of the time they used generators because electricity was spotty. She guessed that the apes would strong arm some electrician into getting the grid back on again in some of the major cities hit.
The sun caressed them with its warmth before it would feel like a blow torch before mid-afternoon. Their shelters weren't air conditioned but they found ways to keep them less than stifling hot.
"So you ready to pack some things?"
She turned and looked up at Burke shielding her eyes from the sun.
"Why…I thought we were staying."
He shook his head.
"We're breaking up into splinter groups and ours is heading to Canada."
She hadn't heard that but it made some sense. The country north of America had been devastated by the plague like everywhere else but the apes had focused their conquest on America and even down into Mexico and Central America. Gravitating to the warm humidity of the rain forests perhaps…after all, winter would be coming soon. The first on the continent that most of humanity wouldn't see.
Just realizing that again made her throat tighten…just a year ago she had reunited with Will and they had gotten together. At least as much as anyone could get close to the geneticist. Ideological differences on the whole idea of the research that consumed his waking life had created friction at times but she had loved him.
Back several months ago, as they stood at the head of the redwood forest outside of San Francisco, he had made a choice. The welfare of the chimpanzee he had raised like a son and because he had known that the chaos breaking out around them had been a result of his own arrogance. Not just that, but his lifelong yearling to be close to his ailing father, the greatest man he had ever known.
She got up and went to her shelter to gather the few things she had left. Her photo of him and the ape in that same forest…her parents who were likely deceased now. She kept them carefully hidden, as reminders of a world that no longer existed. A couple other road weary men worked outside the shelter.
"I don't think going to Canada's going to make any difference," the first said, "Those damn apes will enslave it like everywhere else."
"Well we can't go back to Cali because have you heard how they treat their slaves?"
The first man laughed bitterly.
"Payback's a bitch and that's the way it's always been," he said, "the slaves rise up against their master and the tables are turned."
"If we could just access a couple of nukes, we could end their little reign."
She sighed listening to that line coming up as it often did, destroy every form of life in an area within seconds and render it inhabitable for generations to eradicate the apes. Not that it would work, for all they know, the apes already controlled the nukes.
"That damn scientist should be hung for what he did," the first one ranted, "He destroyed us all."
"You don't know that," the other countered, "The apes yes, but we don't know where the plague came from."
Oh, but she did, not that she would ever tell anyone that it had originated from the same corner that had been responsible for the evolution of the apes.
"Besides he's dead," the second man continued, "He's probably better off than having to live with what he did to all of us."
She wanted to say something then about the man she had known, that he had only done his research to help people fight a disease that slowly snuffed out everything good inside of them rendering them empty shells until saved by death.
But she remained quiet, just moving on, wondering not for the first time, what she would tell her baby about his or her father in a world where its survivors would demonize him.
After all, history could only be written by those who survived long enough to decide it.
Caesar looked over at Armando who had just whipped one of the slaves to work harder on the power grid. Seattle had been flickering at night when they arrived and they had found a small cluster of people holed up inside one of the power plants. So they had rounded them up, then explained to them how it would go.
Knowing how to read and write, Caesar had used a generator to power up an old copier to allow him to distribute sheets of the new order to the newly enslaved. They just held onto them, their faces dazed as they tried to read it. Those who had survived the virus had in many cases been left less than razor sharp though the smaller number of immunes they had encountered began to downplay their intelligence. He knew that because he had done it so many times himself while growing up in a world which would provide hostile to an ape who was brighter than most humans.
The slave cowered after Armando, a hulking gorilla hit him several times and then his head bowed, returned to fixing the grid with several other people who had learned enough about the complexities of a utility system in order to survive. The gorillas had used the remaining humans as target practice in the lot out back, the pop, pop, pop of their shotguns echoing through the air, increasing the work pace of the slaves.
Caesar detested violence, and believe it only necessary in self-defense but he'd put those beliefs aside because the gorillas and most of the other chimpanzees were rampant in their exercise of mauling humans before they learned that guns did the job much more efficiently.
The pack of bonobos who hung on the fringes of the group had urged that the apes use other means like negotiation to get what they wanted from the humans but the others laughed at them.
Caesar didn't because he know that this subspecies of ape would prove to be the most intelligent of all of them. Being much more advanced and responding much more readily to the serum that had changed the brains forever of any ape who was exposed to it. When the revolution achieved its goals and they got their new social order up and running, he was sure the rampant violence would stop.
During quieter moments, he thought about the family that raised him, when he had used violence to protect Will and his father. That's what had led to him being ripped away from them and sent to that hateful facility owned by another father and son. He realized now how hard Will had tried to get him away from there but fate had its own plans for him he knew now.
He was meant to lead the apes into rising up against their masters. It wasn't worthwhile to think about any of the other paths his life could have taken. Even Will's death had served a purpose to keep him alive even as he had mourned the only father he ever knew. He had actually watched from afar, hidden in the bushes when they had buried him in the cemetery with a small cluster of people in attendance. The female scientist had been there, dressed in black with several other people who had worked with him. Will hadn't had many friends because he'd been so wrapped up in his research but in the end, it didn't matter given how many people had died just in the past few months.
Armando whipped the slave again and this time the man fell on the ground, injured. Caesar sighed, because if they lost this one, they'd have to find a replacement and that would take time.
So when the gorilla raised his hairy hand to whip him again, this time he intervened.
"Hey Reese," a man's voice called.
It took her a moment to respond because she hadn't yet grown used to her new name. But she did finally and saw Burke heading towards her.
"You ready to go?"
She rubbed her abdomen and nodded. If he noticed her unconscious action, he didn't say anything while she walked with him towards the off-road vehicle that they would use to travel up north, across a decrepit border. It would be about six of them but Burke had said others would be up there too. He had grown up in a rustic town up in the mountains in Canada so it would be almost like returning home, only in a different world. She had grown up half a world away and hadn't been home, had always planned to go back and visit family there.
Now she would never have the chance and…she had so much to tell them. And no one left to listen.
But Burke had been a rock for her especially during her illness and afterward. She knew very little about him or his life before everything changed but then again, no one talked much about the past.
Unless they hit a stash of some pretty strong stuff to numb them first.
They took one last look before they got inside the vehicle that hopefully would power them at least as far as the next place they could siphon more fuel.
Then they drove away without looking back.