He found her asleep later in an area off of the medical clinic where Ruth had been working with the young doctor, Glen who was poring over some blood samples under a microscope.
They looked up when Burke entered the clinic and Ruth smiled at him.
"She's asleep over there," she said, "please don't disturb her. She worked a couple of hours with us processing some samples."
Burke furrowed his brows.
"What you working on?"
Glen gestured over to him and let him look through the microscope. Burke looked through it and saw some oval objects that looked like capsules.
"What are they?"
They're a marker that came up with some blood samples of some plague victims," Glen said, "The virus killed its victims so fast it finally burned out but it went through a lot of populations first."
Burke scratched his head.
"Yeah one day people thought they had a bad cold," he said, "by the end of the day they were bleeding out through every orifice like hemorrhagic fever."
Glen nodded.
"Yes we think the virus is related to Ebola in Africa near Zaire but how it wound up in our country, that's a mystery."
Burke sighed.
"No it's not, it's called science playing god," he said, "that virus was part of some medical experiment or bio weapons program. They were doing all kinds of experiments before this one got loose."
"Well it originated in the western coast of the United States but given how connected the world is through its aviation network it spread in a matter of weeks."
Burke remembered the blurbs he'd caught on the fly on the radio about how it all seemed so localized at first, then it was contained and then cities were on lockdown and then it had broken quarantine.
He suspected the government either had been so overwhelmed by the virility of its own creation or it had played down the seriousness to avoid a panic overwhelming the cities' infrastructures.
Panic had broken out everywhere anyway but most people were dead before they could take it very far.
"So most that got infected had no hope," Burke said, "they were doomed from the time of infection."
Glen adjusted his microscope and put another slide beneath it.
"Yes, about 90% or more of the world's population," he said, "That's just a guess but then there was a smaller number of people who got infected and survived but not without permanent damage."
Burke had seen those individuals a lot in the past couple of months. They were still alive and could perform most functions but they'd lost their sharpness, some of their cognition just enough to be noticeable.
But then there were others like himself who hadn't gotten sick at all and Glen and Ruth, what about them?
"I didn't get sick…and what about you two," he said, "You look healthy to me."
Ruth sighed.
"I don't know why I didn't get it," she said, "I tended many people who were sick including most of the people in my neighborhood."
Glen shrugged.
"There's a lot we still don't know," he said, "I checked our blood for markers and nothing came up…except those who were sick and recovered more or less have anti-bodies but it's not clear whether or not they're out of the woods…or us for that matter."
Burke frowned.
"But I thought you said the virus burned itself out."
"Maybe it's still lingering in some of the bodies," he said, "The Spanish Flu was discovered in some bodies of those who died from it in the early 20th century."
"God, we really did get ourselves in a mess here," he said, "I wonder how much longer we have before we're wiped out."
Ruth looked at Glen.
"We don't know that and there were some interesting things found," she said, "Glen show him."
The doctor nodded and directed him to a microscope.
"Here was a sample I took today," he said, "See the diamond looking particles next to the intact red blood cells?"
Burke looked at them and nodded.
"What are they?"
"I don't know," Glen said, "First time I've seen them but the sample came from someone who didn't get sick."
"Are they part of the immune system?"
Glen shrugged.
"Maybe…they might not be part of hers."
Burke looked up and frowned.
"So they came from someplace else, some other source?"
"Possibly," Glen said, "I might have to ask this subject more questions to figure out what made her different."
"Her?"
"Yes, the blood came from that young woman who was with you," Glen said, "The pregnant one."
Burke looked over where she slept, unaware of the discussion taking place and he just shook his head.
Maurice had returned after they dealt with the horses and signed to Caesar that they needed to decide whether or not to send their scouts on horseback.
Caesar had been practicing his rudimentary speaking skills in front of a mirror and looked at Maurice who no longer looked surprised when he used speech.
"Horses ready go?"
Maurice signed back.
"Need practice riding"
Caesar figured as much. He had taught himself how to ride horses just by watching how the humans rode them while they attacked the apes on the bridge. How hard could it be? But he knew he had to be patient. The scouting would be important and they had thought of going east to some place called Boise…on a map. He didn't know why that would be a good place but he'd been eager to explore some of their new territory.
"Go tell practice"
Maurice left him again and Caesar wondered if he could lead one of those scouting missions. He'd been the de facto leader though that one ape Kobas had challenged him on several occasions.
He didn't know what motivated the ape who had been one of Will's test subjects in the lab years past the time of Caesar's mother. Huge for a chimpanzee and wily even before he had received the serum he had a murderous streak inside him that belied even the way he'd been treated in the laboratory. Caesar knew that most of the apes had been given a different serum than he did, what he had stolen from Will's home while he'd been sleeping.
Did it make them act differently? He didn't know but he knew that he had to find a way to deal with Kobas and the impressive muscle he'd put on display. The gorillas had laughed at him at first until he sparred with a couple of them and knocked them flat.
Most of the time he kept his distance from everyone else unless he wanted something….but he could be trying to build his own alliances while Caesar wasn't there to watch him.
He wondered if humans had struggled with the same doubts about the intentions of those who fought alongside them. That was the part of creating a new society that he didn't much like.
Then Armando came rushing in to tell him that Kobas had grabbed hold of one of the horses to go riding towards the zoo.
Where they'd been keeping some of the humans.
Caesar sighed, knowing that the remaining humans weren't worth any empathy given that only a handful had ever been kind to him and he'd watched as one of them had been mowed down in front of him by his own kind.
With that, what was left of any affinity he had for the species his kind had replaced, was gone.
But at the same time, he didn't want a society founded on indiscriminate slaughter so he went to find a horse to cut off Kobas at the pass.
Burke sat in a chair looking out the window into the rain that had started falling an hour earlier. Ruth and Glen had settled in for the night and another woman, Lara had been watching over the handful of patients.
Reese had been asleep but now she stirred in her sleep and he knew she wasn't here, she was back in her past.
He'd been where he'd came from in his own sleep more than once. It hadn't been all nightmares of those final weeks but some happy times intertwined just enough to leave him bittersweet. He's already lost everything he had before he'd even heard of genetically enhanced apes or a plague and given how much time he had spent in chaotic war zones, the fact that a war had come home to him didn't make much difference.
Not that he hadn't done everything he could to fight the tide of the virus when it arrived in his backyard but by then, it couldn't be stopped…not that it could have ever been stopped once it had escaped.
He heard her call a name and she knew it was the scientist but he turned around to see her sitting up in the cot.
"What…"
"I came looking for you," he said, "Just to make sure you were all right."
She relaxed and rubbed her forehead.
"I'm fine…I went to the clinic and helped them for a while."
"They told me," He said, "They also said to let you sleep."
She sat cross legged on the bed, watching him.
"I guess I was pretty tired," she said, "but I feel better."
He sat down next to her in a chair.
"I'm sorry what I said earlier," he said, "I had no right…"
She shrugged.
"You had every right," she said, "I know how angry everyone is with what he did…but he quit just before what happened on the bridge. Jacobs, his boss wanted him to push a protocol he knew was dangerous."
"The virus…"
She looked uncertain.
"I don't know. One of his assistants got exposed to a test product and he wasn't quarantined, just sent home. Later, they found that he died but before then…he must have exposed a lot of people."
"That's how plagues start," he said, "and this one became a pandemic within 72 hours."
She sighed.
"Everyone around me just got horribly sick," she said, "Like a virus you'd see in the jungles of Africa, not in downtown San Francisco."
"I know I treated dozens myself," he said, "but the time for stopping it had long past."
She looked sad to him then.
"I know if Will knew that it was going to kill people he would have ordered the testing to be stopped immediately."
Burke just shook his head.
"But he still created it," he said, "If it didn't exist, there would be nothing to stop."
"I know…and if he were alive now, I don't know what he'd think, or what he'd do," she said, "He'd already felt guilty about what happened with Caesar…this…"
Burke digested that and he knew that the woman in front of him had loved deeply and lost just as he had and the one she loved had been as flawed as anyone else.
Except that he had also engineered the destruction of the world.
"The best of intentions meets the worst of executions."
She looked up at surprise when hearing that and she didn't look like she'd argue against it.
"So you had a lot to deal with after the apes took over the Golden Gate Bridge?"
She chuckled then without mirth.
"Yeah well, I had to go on without him and try not to hate my own kind for what they did to him," she said, "I'm not sure what happened but he was shot to death, not maimed by the apes."
Burke had his own theories and felt sure she did as well. Will had to make a choice in those woods and his decision had been Caesar.
"The city fell apart at the seams soon after so many people became ill," she said, "I left the house I shared with him to tend to those I worked with at the zoo but no matter what I did, they all died. Soon I was the only one left."
She'd run into Burke several weeks after that and they had made it to this point, not sure what would come next.
He moved to sit next to her on the cot. She glanced at him sideways.
"So now that I know some of your back story," he said, "How about you telling me your real name?"
Her brows furrowed but he just waited patiently.
"Okay…I will," she said, "It's Caroline."