Caesar had grabbed a palomino gelding and had taken off at a gallop down Seattle's deserted streets towards the zoo. He didn't know how much time he had to get there before Kobas started on in the humans that had been caged there. Right behind him was Armando who signed something about how he was glad to be a gorilla not a chimp. Caesar just shook his head and directed him to ride with him.

Armando got on the horse after two failed attempts and took off down the street holding onto the animal for dear life. He hadn't trusted them, wanting to invest more time trying to figure out how to use the abandoned cars. But Caesar knew that right now it might be easier to use horses given how many streets in the centre had been cluttered by cars that appeared to have been abandoned while in gridlock traffic as residents tried to flee the city to outrun the plague on their heels.

Some of the cars still had the remains of people in some cases families inside of them, rotting quickly in the humidity of the city to shriveled up flesh and bones. Caesar noticed some of them bent over the steering wheels and knew that while his kind had benefited from the demise of humanity, it must not repeat its mistakes.

And the dying culture had been steeped heavily on the commission of violence. Once outside Will's household, all Caesar had seen was violence, against him and the apes but humans didn't appear to have any solidarity among themselves. But he knew that he had the capacity for violence inside of them, discovering that when he had attacked the next door neighbor who had harassed Will's father.

He'd become more familiar with that side of himself since.

Caesar continued riding, urging the horse on faster until they reached the gates of the zoo. He looked behind him to make sure Armando hadn't fallen off his horse before going inside. Trash and broken kiosks littered the front of the zoo and many of the animals had either escaped or had perished from starvation.

But some of them still lived including the big cats, lions, tigers and jaguars. Caesar knew that Kobas had been thinking about using the humans to feed them, but the humans were housed in an exhibit cage on the other side from the felines.

Some commotion came from up ahead. He saw that a giraffe had been released from its pen and a couple of zebras. Some younger chimpanzees that had been liberated from the zoo had tried to climb on the zebras but were getting bucked off.

He looked ahead and saw Kobas and two other chimpanzees leading two humans including the little girl from the stable towards the direction of the big cats' habitats. He rushed up to stand in his path.

Kobas glared at him, already in challenge, his hands gripping the arm of the young girl. Caesar made himself taller back and his eyes bore into those of the other ape.

"Where go humans?"

Kobas let go of the girl who just stood there dazed and signed back.

"Tiger hungry go feed"

Kobas hadn't embraced signing like the other apes had done once Maurice and a couple others including a female gorilla taught the others. But he knew how to communicate and if he said he was going to feed the humans to the tiger, he intended to do it.

Caesar signed back.

"No feed go back."

Kobas didn't like that order and became more agitated. Caesar wondered if he was going to have to fight him again. The other chimpanzee was larger, more aggressive and Caesar sensed that he'd developed differently than the rest of them. Something about him…a malice that lived behind his good eye that always waited.

But he had a more immediate problem. What Kobas intended to do right now. He had to stop him if only to maintain control of their group.

"Tiger go feed"

Kobas then grabbed the girl and another human again and he and the other chimpanzees headed towards the tiger's cage. Caesar looked at Armando and knew he had to work fast.

So he scampered up a leafy tree and swung on a couple branches over Kobas before dropping down on top of him.

Kobas grunted and twisted his body but released the humans. He then bared his teeth at Caesar and tried to grab him. But Caesar deftly moved out of the way of his hands and then leapt on top of Kobas and they went rolling on the ground, a flurry of furry bodies while the other apes watched.

They knew better than to get involved in this fight, one that had begun the first day that the two chimpanzees had met. They had been able to put aside their rivalry when they both have a common adversary but now that the humans had taken themselves out of the equation, they only had each other to fight for the role of the leader of the new civilization.

Kobas had the brawn because Caesar was wirier in build but quick on his feet. He had more time to develop fitness then an ape like Kobas who had spent so much time caged.

They grappled across the ground, knocking over some trash receptacles and crashing into bushes. Caesar got on top of the larger ape and pinned him to the ground, baring his teeth near him and Kobas glared back at him.

They remained locked in combat until finally Kobas looked away and shrugged off Caesar who got off of him.

Before he stood tall and signed to the defeated ape

"Return humans cages."

That done, he went forward to tackle the next challenge of creating a new civilization that had already picked up traits of the one that birthed it.

Caroline packed up her bag filled with medical supplies to take back to their own camp. She felt better having met up with Ruth, Glen and the others and they would prove to be good allies in their own struggle to regroup and figure out what to do next in a world that had turned upside down so quickly.

Ruth had asked her questions about her background because of what had been found in her blood but she couldn't provide much in the way of answers. She'd been born in India but had done time studying chimpanzees in Africa while working on her thesis before going to get her vet's degree in England. She had then worked a series of research jobs in the United States and Europe before landing her position at a zoo in San Francisco.

Nothing unique that she could think of to explain why she'd not gotten sick from the plague but she did promise to return for future examination and studies in the future. She knew like the others that if they could figure out why some were immune to it, and others partially immune, they might figure out a way to combat it if it ever returned in a different form.

It couldn't hold its lethality for long before ensuring its own instinction. It would have to dial down its virility to survive at some point. But it had nearly succeeded in rending humans extinct.

Burke came in to check on her progress.

"Ready to go…if we start now, we'll make it before nightfall."

She nodded and went to pick up her backpack. The trail would be much easier to follow back to their campsite. Burke had been on the radio and everything was in order there except that more gasoline storage tanks had been located a few miles away.

"You get enough to eat?"

"Yes…I had some powdered eggs and crackers," she said, "and I packed some energy bars with the water."

He nodded satisfied and she tried not to smile. Burke had his rough edges but he'd looked out after her whether she liked it or not. She didn't know why because she didn't know much about him, though she wondered if he had a family once. But then they all did. She had her parents, a sister and she had Will.

He had lost a brother and then his father, never really had mentioned his mother. Caroline figured she hadn't been around during most of his life. Maybe that's why he had related to Caesar who had lost his mother just after his own birth. If it hadn't been for Will, Caesar would have died along with his mother and the rest of the test apes.

Saving his father had driven the rest of his life and Caesar had been his outlet. She had arrived late in that dynamic but she'd had her role to play as well.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," Burke said, "about your past."

She sighed.

"I hate living a lie…and if it were just me I don't think I'd care," she said, "This is for my baby."

Even though that didn't make much sense because she didn't even know if her baby would survive being born in a world which had taken major steps backwards in medical care and with a virus that could attack it as soon as it drew breath.

No way of knowing whether her immunity would be passed along. She had no way of knowing whether Will would have survived the plague given that he died in its earliest days. When they'd been rushing around San Francisco pursuing the army of apes, the virus had began its deadly spread, one victim at a time.

"It's going to be a difficult life for a child," he said, "without reminding everyone of its father when they see him."

She shot a look at him but then realized that for most survivors, Will represented the end of their world.

"Isn't that what you are reminded of when you look at me?"

Burke looked at her and then shook his head.

"Come on, let's get going so we can get back."

She followed him out of the dwelling realizing he hadn't expounded on his answer.

They had walked through the forest, the one where they had let Caesar run off ahead to climb the trees. The sunlight had filtered through the canopy of trees enough to temper the morning chill.

By then, they had been going out a while and she had been helping him a lot with Caesar though he hadn't told her the truth about his origins yet. He didn't know how she'd react to his experimentation on Caesar's mother not to mention his own father. She hadn't known that until she found his journals after his death. He had injected his father with the original benign virus and it had reversed his Alzheimer's disease. But after a couple years, his body had apparently fought off the virus.

Not that the miraculous results he'd achieved had lasted long before his father slid back into dementia again.

The journals had noted his disappointments as clinical notations, when she realized that the toll had been more emotional. There were hints that he'd been working on a newer, more powerful virus but had concerns about it, after seeing how quickly it replicated in early tests. Yet he'd tested it on at least one chimpanzee, Chimp nine.

"Look at him. He looks like he's really free," Will had said, "and not as restless as he had been lately."

"He's not meant to live inside an attic," she said, "He's growing up and that'll mean bigger and stronger, probably more aggressive."

Will didn't seem like he'd believe that day would come when he'd be too much for him to handle.

But it'd come sooner than even both of them had realized.