He practiced his speaking skills every morning but it proved to be a laborious process, but somehow if he was going to turn to the visual media for progress reports on the revolution, he'd have to keep practicing.

Signing worked until then but his sentence structure remained fragmented. But the other apes were still further behind than he had evolved. He had learned to sign from humans including the one who raised him, but speech he had picked up from watching those around him. He found old recordings that he'd listen to including some found at a building filled with books called a library. Will had gone there to get him books to read, first those with many pictures and then with words. Large sized ones at first but they had gotten smaller.

The female scientist had marveled at the speed of his learning but it had come naturally to him although it wasn't until later that he understood why when Will had tried to explain his origins to him including the truth about his mother. Will hadn't known it at the time but that had sparked the seed of the future revolution when Caesar learned there was something out there vaster than the cramped attic where he had spent his formative years living. He walked over to the place in his office where he stored the things he carried with him including the only piece he had of his past with the humans.

But it hadn't been meant for him. He sighed as he remembered what he had been asked in a man's dying breath. The frenetic pace of building a new society to improve on the decaying one had taken all of his energy and Alisa had fretted at night when they were alone, that he'd given himself to it and hadn't left any of himself for her.

He tried to explain but when he started to sign, she'd just shake her head and walk away, saying that the bonobos she had run into that day had told her they needed to find different ways to communicate. He had heard enough about that subspecies already that eschewed warfare but now that it was winding down, they wanted a bigger piece of the pie when it came to making decisions about the future.

Some footsteps interrupted him.

He looked up and saw Armando coming in carrying his whip.

"Need apes more…"

"Why?"

"Human bad escape caught punish."

"He dead?"

Caesar knew he had to ask. Armando's expression gave him his answer. He sighed knowing that at this rate, there wouldn't be enough slaves to do the clearing out of the dead bodies so that the air would smell crisp and clean again like in the forest. Some squad of apes down in what had been Texas had set up a television station but hadn't yet been able to broad cast anything, a messenger told them. Communication was still painfully slow but if they could master speech…they might be able to get the ham radios back online. Mendel an orangutan who had joined them several weeks ago turned out to be an expert on them learning from having lived with a man who had been a buff.

Caesar needed his help. He needed more slaves and not beaten to death for not working fast enough. Maybe these bonobos would help them come up with ways to get more work out of the weakened humans without raising the body count.

Something to think about anyway…but so many thoughts clouded his mind these days, decisions that had to be made. Many on the spot, Alisa fretted about the effect it had on him but there was no other alternative.

The revolution needed a leader and since he had started it, he had been assumed it. Nothing to do but work in and out each day and night to move them forward. Most of the world had been left to them after the plague had claimed most of humanity.

They would do much better than the landlords who had left it to them. He'd make sure of that.

She woke up inside her tent that they had set up just outside of a town that still remained cloaked in the stench of its dead. They had made it as far as a decrepit 7-11 before they felt nausea overwhelm them. She had vomited not knowing whether it had been morning sickness or the noxious odor. But they had gotten canned baked beans and crackers to eat that night over a low fire, in a meadow that revealed an explosion of rabbits. Burke and a couple of the men had made short work of two of them adding them to the meal.

After spending her days traveling or working to forage for food or supplies they needed, including gasoline to siphon for their vehicles, she fell in her sleeping bag inside her tent or the occasional real bed exhausted. But sleeping proved difficult because her mind remained so filled with her old life She pushed it away just like everyone else did so she could survive each day and not do what they all wanted to do which was to curl up in a ball and just wait for eventual death. They watched each other closely for any signs of despair etched so deeply it would drive them to take matters in their own hand. Earlier on, she had awaken to gunshots and had found that their traveling party had just grown smaller. She couldn't blame them, everything they had known in their lives, their families, their homes, had been erased and the survivors were left to wander around to make sense of a world drastically changed. She felt despair deeply in her marrow some mornings from the time she awakened. She ached for what she had lost, her family that she had always meant to visit but had been too busy with work, the city which had become her home and the man who she missed so much even when she saw him in her dreams.

She'd waken up with dried tears on her face and she knew she wasn't the only one. But they had all learned how to hold in their grief because one second away from focusing on survival would be their last. She had her chance when the flu had seized her and she knew it had nearly taken her life. Vestiges of memories where she had been at a crossroads with her on one side, and her family and Will on the other, she had wanted so badly to take that first step towards those who she had lost.

But she had chosen life instead or something inside of her had made that choice for her. And that had been the baby growing inside of her. She had to somehow navigate this strange and frightening world for him or her. She saved her nights for missing the old world and focused her days on building a new one from the ashes.

The apes had been building their own civilization. The remaining humans had to claim their stake of what they had lost. But for now, they had to do it quietly, under the radar of the apes. Those who hadn't done so were either dead or enslaved at their hands.

Caesar led the revolution, she knew that. He'd done it back on the bridge in old San Francisco and he did it still because he had been a leader in training all the time she had known him. And the humans who raised him had given him those skills he needed without even knowing.

Will had given his life for him and a part of her hated him for that. He could have survived if he hadn't gone running in the forest to find Caesar and he had been killed by his own kind.

"Hey you up yet?"

She looked up to see Burke's head ducked in her tent. She smiled up at him, pulling her sleeping bag closer to her.

"Yeah…I guess it's time to get started, get on the road again."

"I'll get you some breakfast."

And like that, he left her. She furrowed her brows at his attitude towards her. He'd taken care of her when she'd been sick and since she had been recovering, getting stronger every day he had done the same. She knew him to be a strong man handling most of the leadership with her help and she had discovered he could do about anything except talk about his past.

But then with few things left to cherish, the past had become something to hold close and protect for most people. Her past with those who had shaped it including the ape who had led the conquest of humanity…though mankind had destroyed itself. By setting loose the killer virus that had nearly wiped it out.

She got up and slipped onto some clothes, coated with dust and travel. They hadn't been able to do laundry for a while or even find new clothing to wear. She looked down at her abdomen and knew that soon enough she'd need to find clothes that would fit. Maybe one of these dead towns would have a store which sold maternity wear.

Burke didn't know about her pregnancy nor did anyone else. She worried that if they did, they might vote to leave her because a pregnant woman would only slow them down over time. No, she'd work harder to do more than keep up, she'd do more than anyone else. She needed to do so for her baby, to do whatever she needed to ensure its survival.

Perhaps the first of the next generation and hopefully not the last one…she thought as she sat down to eat next to Burke who watched her plate to make sure she emptied it. He chided her often enough that the quality of the food might not be the best, but they needed whatever scraps they could find to mix together to give their bodies the fuel to do the work of survival. He told her that where they were heading up in Canada there would be farms running wild with fruits and vegetables that would need tending for harvest.

She looked forward to eating fresh fruits and vegetables again, remembering how sometimes she would drag Will away from his research and they would head on down to one and explore the stalls. His father had taken him and his brother there when they'd been growing up but then he had gotten sick with dementia.

Burke passed the canned beans and rabbit dish to her and she remembered what he had told them so she helped herself to another serving. He smiled and returned to his own food.

He was so different than Will had been the opposite really. They hadn't gotten off on the right foot when they first met but he'd helped her through her illness when she knew others had wanted to leave her to die like the others.

But now that she was feeling better, she'd do the work that she'd missed and after they struggled their way across the border, they'd build a new life away from the old one until they could figure out what to do to survive in this crazy world.

No sign of the apes had emerged yet on their journey and she hoped it would stay that way. She wanted to get as far away from them as possible.

But sometimes she remembered back to Caesar and wondered if he remembered the humans who had been his family and friends.