Two months later…

Caesar sat in a tree overseeing the city of Seattle which looked much livelier than it had when they first arrived. More apes, all species represented had congregated there from the neighboring areas of Spokane and even from Portland.

That crew had informed them that restoring operations in that town had proven to be more difficult than anticipated. A large fire had been started on one section of the city to probably burn bodies and by then, the fire department had pretty much shut down forever. So a third of the city had burned down before a rain storm blew in to dampen the flames.

The apes had pretty much spent the rest of the time near the harbor trying to figure out how to work the boats. They had seen maps of the big neighboring ocean and of the islands off of the coast. Some very far away, but if they could find ways to reach them, their civilization could go global. So much remained unknown to them. Caesar had told them that there were many places on this planet where apes lived including the birthplaces of their species. Similar revolutions must have taken place on other continents and if they could create better channels of communication and travel, then they could better determine their numbers.

Humanity had once numbered itself in the billions. But they'd seen quickly enough what one virus could do and Caesar knew what had killed them off. After San Francisco had gone dark and quiet, he and a small cadre of gorillas had gone down to explore the ruins of what had been a vibrant city filled with thousands of people only weeks earlier. He'd stopped by Will's house but no one had been there. He walked through the familiar rooms which looked eerily undisturbed.

Will had died in front of him in the forest but he'd left the female vet behind. Did she return after she'd been freed by the armed men? If so, he saw no signs of her here though in the room that had been an office, he saw stacks of files on top of the desk, with a computer that no longer worked.

Then he saw another pile of journals, sprawled on the floor. They had belonged to Will and flipping through one of them, Caesar had known it had been the research he had done.

On both him and his own father, the man who had helped raise him. The woman had been kind to him but had come along later.

He had examined the journals a moment and then took leave of the house joining the other apes outside as they continued onto the company that had done the research. That facility had burned out and been destroyed, its insides trashed by them when he and others had gone to liberate the apes caged there.

That's where he found the last frantic notations about the virus, 113. It hadn't been the one his own mother had been given but had come later, not long before it had somehow been released.

It had made his job much easier but he'd seen the rotting bodies, littered everywhere including inside the homes where most had died.

Armando had looked at him as they stood inside the abandoned laboratory where a few men in white lab coats lay sprawled on the floor.

They had left not long after that, and the city would soon be a relic of their past.

Now in Seattle, he knew that it would be time soon for him to lead a scouting party out east. They were blocked by the vast ocean until they could master ways to cross what appeared to be endless. If it hadn't been for maps, they would have thought the ocean spanned the rest of the earth.

No doubt they would encounter wandering bands of humans picking their way through what had once been home. But they'd meet their own kind as well doing what they had done in Seattle, trying to build a new society. Alisa had insisted on going with him but he'd tried to sign to her that it was too dangerous.

She wouldn't be deterred, signing back that where Caesar go, she go.

Armando walked up to him signing that the gorillas felt they needed to find more weapons. They'd accumulated guns and explosives but they needed weapons more powerful.

Caesar signed why. Humans dead or dying…numbers small. But Ursa, one that had arrived not too long ago led the mantra that the only good human was a dead human. Caesar knew there was a story behind that but he also knew they needed them as a labor force, to do the work and fill the gaps in technology that they had mastered at one time.

Maurice and a couple of orangutans had been teaching themselves to read very quickly and were looking at books on government and law and politics, wanting to find a system of government that would fit their needs.

Caesar remained content to let them do that…if they came up with the perfect answer, it'd be one less thing for him to worry about. But keeping them all united would be challenge enough.

Caroline rubbed her abdomen just out of habit, as she looked over the research that Ruth and Glen had been engaged in recently. She had traveled over with Burke and a couple others to trade supplies and to hold more strategic sessions. Her pregnancy had just barely started to show and she had to upgrade her wardrobe to fit but otherwise the morning sickness and fatigue had passed and she started to feel pretty good.

Glen told her that the middle trimester would be the easiest so she intended to make the most of it not that she could afford to not pull her weight. Burke had meant it when he said he wouldn't tell her secret to the others but she just felt that she had to work even harder to prove herself anyway. Burke had to rein her in more than once and she hadn't minded it nearly as much as she acted. It made her feel a little less alone and overwhelmed. After all, the baby certainly hadn't been planned, it just happened not long before everything changed.

The last night of normality she would ever know and the last night of Will's life, she'd guessed. She'd been on the pill but there'd been a couple of days that last week when she'd forgotten. Just enough to cause it to fail but she hadn't known that when she'd said goodbye to him for what she thought would just be a while. But if she hadn't lost him to the army, she might have lost him to the plague anyway.

Glen looked up from his microscope.

"I don't know where you got those antibodies if that's what they even are."

He'd taken another blood sample from her during her prenatal exam. The baby of course seemed to be doing very well. She was due an ultrasound but they hadn't located much in the way of medical equipment.

"Maybe when I worked in Africa studying that chimp colony but what about Burke," she said, "He's immune and Ruth…"

Ruth nodded.

"It's all academic anyway at this point unless the virus mutates again."

"Maybe it'll be less virulent. Too little too late."

"Maybe," Ruth said, "but it could come back and hit everyone else."

"Maybe the apes," Burke said, from the doorway, "Even the playing field a little bit."

Caroline looked at him and smiled. She got up and walked over to him, folding her arms.

"So how did the repair go," she said, "Back online yet?"

"Yeah but the new frequency we picked up," he said, "It's sporadic, no way to tell where that broadcast came from."

The settlement had picked up a beacon signal from somewhere in the eastern seaboard of the United States. But then the radio had blown a transistor which needed to be repaired.

"They could be apes," she said, "Maybe they're using our technology."

He shrugged.

"Could be…but we should see if we can pick up that frequency again."

She nodded and she touched his arm.

"Hey I'm heading to get something to eat," she said, "Want to join me?"

He smiled and put his arm around her shoulder.

"Come on, let's go."

They headed to the mess where they found some apples that had been picked from a nearby orchard which had been overgrown by the time they found it. A rice dish with some legumes had also been prepared and smelled quite good. They had tried to focus on picking or growing their own food though they did use canned as well although in a year that wouldn't be an option anymore. At some point, they would have to find a way to feed themselves again. But people at the different settlements had started learning how to grow food all over again.

Caroline had tried to help others find ways to tend chickens to raise for eggs and meat. Some of them also went hunting. Since their numbers had dwindled so much, the best they could hope for was to find a place to hide and hole up from the apes until they could figure out what to do to do just more than survive.

She hadn't been the only pregnant woman as two others had gotten that way after the plague hit. They had the fathers there to more or less help them but Caroline hadn't had that.

And she missed it. She didn't know how Will would have handled an unexpected pregnancy; the entire time she knew him he'd been raising Caesar who he considered his son. She liked to think he might have been happy about it.

Thomas, a member of their own party walked over to them after she and Burke sat at a table.

"You going to that meeting tonight?"

Burke looked up.

"What meeting?"

Thomas sighed as he sat down across from Caroline.

"A scouting group found a small encampment of apes not far from here."

Burke frowned.

"I thought they weren't in this area."

"It's a very small group," Thomas said, "but not small enough. A few of the men are arming up and going to take them on."

Caroline frowned.

"But if they're not doing anything…"

Thomas's eyes looked at her in disdain.

"What are you some bleeding heart," he said, "These apes are wiping us all out."

She shook her head.

"No Thomas, we did that to ourselves."

Thomas looked over at Burke.

"Will you help us?"

Burke sipped his coffee.

"If there's more of them, you might get more than you bargained for," he said, "Maybe you should just watch them for a while longer to make sure you know what you're dealing with."

Thomas shook his head.

"Maybe we should just kill them and take our chances."

Caroline just sighed.

"No…you can't and I'm not a bleeding heart," she said, "I've seen what they can do and Burke's right."

"It's not because I don't want to do it myself," Burke said, "This is our planet but there's a time and a place."

Caroline watched him and knew what he was saying but she didn't want violence, after seeing what could happen.

"Don't do it Thomas."

But she knew she hadn't reached him and as soon as he finished eating, he and the other guys were going to go do some killing. She turned to Burke.

"They don't know what they're doing," she said, "This hatred. This whole idea of supremacy, that's what ended us."

Burke watched with her as Thomas left and moved on to talk to other young men, at another table. The animation of the discussion told them what they were planning.

Then Caroline decided to do something.