When Caesar slept in his leafy bed, he dreamt of the revolution that he had led. He had set up a cozy nest for himself up in a grove of trees in a park bordering Seattle because he didn't miss sleeping in a normal bed.
Hanging onto tree branches high off the ground and listening to the calls of the birds settling on the branches around him felt more natural.
Felt more like home even though he'd never been there.
Alisa shared his home with him as they had become a couple of sorts, in ways that were recognized by nature. Humans had their rituals for when they coupled up and apes, well they had theirs too. The Bonobos had tried to preach the importance of partnering up with one mate at a time while maintaining close ties with others and that made sense to Caesar who had grown quite attached to Alisa.
She didn't remind him at all of Cornelia which kept him away from the painful memories remembering her had given him. At night, they snuggled together and looked up at the starry skies which looked different than the ones he remembered back in San Francisco. A carpet of them across the sky as far as anyone could see, and more often than not at least a sliver of the moon. Will's father before decline into dementia had taught him about the moon and the stars and had given him books filled with pictures which had captivated him, to learn about that the world he and others like him now ruled wasn't alone in the universe.
Maybe elsewhere other apes had emerged through the evolutionary process to seize their own destinies and rise up to the top of the chain. But he knew that the apes themselves hadn't done it alone. If mankind hadn't timed its own extinction with the revolution he sparked with a single battle, they might not have achieved as much as they did.
The plague wherever it came from had greatly decimated their rivals and only pockets of them remained, groups of stragglers that would be captured and enslaved, forced to live in cages when they weren't working. Just as they had treated the apes for so many years.
He felt Alisa snuggle closer to him and he remembered how Armando had tried to sign to him today that there would be delays in rebuilding the electric grid and he realized that he had to find better ways to communicate. Body language and signing communicated a lot but it'd be harder to do that over the vast landscape now waiting for them to remold into their civilization.
Tonight before they went to bed, Alisa had signed to him "baby" and he'd looked at her not understanding until she signed "our" afterward and he felt a well inside of him of what that meant. That he too might be a father just like Will had tried to be that to him and he'd been a son to his own father.
Caesar didn't know how to be a father; he had so much to figure out about running a society through replacing one species with another. Mankind had left plenty of technology that they had to learn to use through books or other means. Then find the slaves to rebuild.
After all, that had worked for mankind and most of its societies which were built by using the labor of others. But it made Caesar feel uneasy at times because he hadn't wanted a violent revolution even though the carnage they had left behind in some of the battles had belied that. Only in the beginning, he told himself and then their fighting would be more than just killing but many of the others he led hadn't felt that way.
Some of them enjoyed killing those who exploited them and then when that was done, anyone who reminded them of those who had been cruel.
Caesar had known kindness and love in his life and even if those who provided it hadn't been perfect, they had shown him another way to live. But it hadn't been apes that had killed Will, it had been his own kind because he had taken the firepower meant for the ape who led the revolution.
He stroked Alisa thinking again about what she'd signed to him and even though he had initially shook his head no to her question, he might think about it some more. In order for them to succeed, they needed to reproduce their own kind and he did want to have a family of apes to do more than just replace the human one he'd lost.
She looked up as he washed up as best he could, hoping that the vodka they'd found would sterilize his skin just enough to do what needed to be done. He had rolled up his sleeves and after using the alcohol, he returned to where the young man writhed on the table.
"Burke, the infection's even worse," she said, "We've got to do something."
He looked over at her anxious face, where she stood waiting to assist him.
"It's gangrene," he said, "If we don't get rid of it, he's going to die."
She sighed and then she responded without hesitation.
"Then we'll have to amputate," she said, "and quickly…there's not much time."
He pursed his lips.
"Go pour some of that vodka on your hands and we'll get started," he said, "but I got to warn you, I'm just a medic."
She looked at him unflinchingly.
"I'm just a vet."
He chuckled harshly getting the irony of it all. But there weren't any doctors in their group yet and they couldn't wait to find one to save this man's life. His leg looked hideously infected; the original wound just a small jagged scratch that had been pretty much ignored until it got infected. But they'd learned since to make sure that all wounds were treated promptly because they were always running low on antibiotics and other medications.
She went to wash her hands with soap and warm water before taking what was left in the Vodka bottle and rinsing her hands with it. Damn, she didn't know how they were going to do this exactly. They had found some old manual, a physician's book which showed crude drawings of amputating limbs but it probably was more complicated in reality.
But whether they could handle it or not, the leg had to come off today, just below the knee. So after preparing herself and saying a short prayer, she went back to the table to assist Burke.
She collapsed two hours later on the grassy area outside what now served as the medical clinic. The man had survived the surgery and after his stump had been treated with medications and a crude IV set up, he had drifted into slumber or unconsciousness they weren't sure which yet. Even without the gangrene now, his survival wasn't guaranteed but at least he had a chance.
Burke sighed as he sat next to her, his legs sprawled out, his clothing splattered with blood just like hers. They'd cleaned up afterward the best they could but their clothes would be a loss. No big deal since there was plenty to wear in most sizes. She longed for a shower and they'd set up one once they sorted out the plumbing system, but the daily usage of water was limited based on what could be drawn from the nearby lake.
"That was close…"
She nodded, understanding that so well. Burke looked exhausted and like he needed some sleep. So did she, but she still felt wired from the surgery to be able to even close her eyes. But she couldn't take her eyes off of him because he'd been brilliant even when he felt lost in the middle of the procedure and needed to check the manual again. His medical training that he received had helped him but she'd learned since she'd known him that he could a lot of things. He had all these skills that she'd seen put to work and she had no idea beyond some mention of his military service where he'd received them.
He looked over at her.
"Nice work…not bad for a vet."
She smiled at him.
"I don't take it personally."
He narrowed his eyes.
"Why did you do it," he said, "What kind of animals did you treat?"
She realized she had never told him or anyone else.
"Different kinds…but some of them were primates."
His brows lifted.
"You mean like apes?"
She looked at him a long moment weighing her answer but she knew she didn't want to keep it hidden from him.
"Yes…chimpanzees mostly."
He sighed.
"Did you treat any of the ones involved in that uprising?"
She furrowed her brow and then pulled her hair out of her pony tail to run her fingers through it.
"Am I making you nervous?"
She shook her head suddenly, though he did do that.
"No…I'm not afraid to answer."
He frowned at that response but he looked receptive so she continued.
"I did treat apes that probably gotten smarter from the virus," she said, "but most of them weren't exposed yet."
"Except…"
She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
"One of them…a male chimpanzee…"
He noticed her unease and he just looked at her in a way that unnerved her but she knew he didn't mean any harm. Not like some of the others if they found out the truth about her and she couldn't risk that. Not with her baby depending on her.
"That wasn't too hard was it?"
She blinked at him in surprise.
"No…I guess not," she said, "I just don't think others would be so receptive if they knew."
He nodded to her relief as if he understood her concern. Then again, maybe the hostility towards the scientists whose actions changed the balance of order in the world by others here was just so hard to miss.
"I'm not going to pass that info along," he said, "We need your medical training especially until we run into a caravan of doctors."
She smiled at that and brushed her hair back. She did trust him to keep her secret because he had saved her life after all and had refused to leave her behind to die.
"You hungry," he asked her, "I think there's something cooking in the mess."
She did an inventory check and her stomach felt hospitable to some food so she nodded and got up to go with him to the mess. She looked at him sideways as they walked together, because he was nice to look at after all. Much different than most of the men who'd surrounded her in an environment where they outnumbered her gender, ten to one.
A world that no longer existed to her replaced by one where everything had changed.