Caesar sat and watched the bonobos make a presentation to him, Maurice, Armando and several of the newly arrived chimpanzees. He knew he had to watch them including their leader, a female named Kara. Unlike the other apes, males didn't lead the colonies as they were called.

For the bonobos, their leaders were their females. Kara stood small in stature next to the other apes. After all, Caesar remembered that the bonobos were once referred to as pygmy chimpanzees.

But he knew they were smarter. One major step on the evolutionary ladder ahead of even the chimpanzees. It still wasn't known if the serum that made them all smart had been some form of equalizer meaning that it put all apes on an even playing field, cognitively.

In reality in the old world, they hadn't been all the same with each primate species occupying its own strata on the intelligence scale with chimpanzees and gorillas being near the top, below the bonobos. But Caesar had noticed that the orangutans like Maurice had appeared just as intelligent. Caesar had to correct the older orangutan when he had signed that apes were dump. Hardly, Caesar signed back and then he showed him why.

He had enjoyed a special camaraderie with Maurice because originally in the so-called sanctuary they had been the only two who knew sign language. That led to some interesting conversations and the first time that Caesar had been able to communicate through language with another apes. Will had taught him signing but besides him he hadn't much opportunity to use it.

The bonobos had picked it up rapidly including Kara but they had their own ways of communicating and some of them made the chimpanzees look tame. Whereas Caesar had been able to focus his amorous attentions on Alisa for the most part, Kara had numerous males hanging around her and the way they interacted each other could make a chimp feel inadequate. Alisa had shaken her head in disapproval as Kara moved from one male to the next exchanging more than just affection.

Caesar found that many questions about what humans called sex had been answered through books until he met up with his own kind. Watching humans engage in that behavior didn't serve as useful models. Will only had one girlfriend the entire time that Caesar grew up with him and she had moved in with him.

Modeling his own behavior after Will's wouldn't work even though he felt great affection for Alisa who shared his home with him. Still, when he'd seen Lucia and the newly arrived Moira who had once been in a circus, he had felt stirrings towards them as well.

Kara captured his attention with a squeal when one of the male bonobos embraced her. He still didn't understand neither it nor their philosophy of live and let live. They hadn't been involved in any of the fighting while watching on the sidelines but now they came out urging negotiations with the dwindling groups of humans.

Nicodemus another orangutan urged that the humans needed to be studied to find out why their brains differed from apes, what made them so violent towards each other.

"Need live brain."

Caesar saw his sign and shook his head vigorously. There would be no experimentation unless it was on the dead corpses. He despised what had been done to the apes by humans but there was no need to repeat that odious behavior. Kara swung over to Nicodemus and studied him carefully, touching him which made him shrink back. Caesar couldn't blame him, he found Kara and her band very strange but he found himself liking her.

Occasionally they'd swing up the trees outside Seattle together and sit on branches signing to each other. Caesar was practicing his speech but kept it mostly to himself though Alisa heard him talk.

"You not kill?"

She had signed that to him when they were 20 feet above the ground and he shook his head.

"Why?"

"Human kind baby"

She scratched her head at that.

"When?"

"I baby grow I leave. Go cage."

She nodded clearly understanding what a cage was but she'd never had been raised in a home with humans but a colony of bonobos living in a huge enclosure being studied by human scientists who had banded them and routinely evaluated them. No invasive surgery or other treatment, for the most part they were left to their own devices to educate and on occasion impress their human watchers.

No need to leave because food, water and shelter were there and each other but Kara grew bored so she figured a way to escape and then later return without the humans being none the wiser. Caesar could relate to that having done the same.

When the humans died off or left, Kara had already known the way out so she led the others after they woke up one day, with a clarity they had lacked the previous days. Even though most of the chimpanzees wished they could kick the bonobos to the curb, Caesar knew he had to build an alliance with them.

He thought about selecting Kara to join his exploratory party but didn't know how that would go over with the others. But of all of them maybe she would understand why he needed to go on that journey.

"Go find human."

Kara's question made him fall silent. He had made his peace with Will before he had died. That chapter of his old life had closed and he had a new family. He and Alisa would have babies soon enough starting their own family line in the new world.

But then he remembered the promise.

Caroline had woken up the next morning and felt better. She had held the cold pack on her face until she could no longer stand it. Thomas and Denny had shrunk back in the background of work detail on some generators and she knew that Burke's warning had sunk in at least for now.

But she had gone out early in the morning moving deftly through the forest to find the encampment. She recognized it immediately as nests in low branches near the ground, much lower than you'd expect to find with chimpanzees. There were four of them, three adults and a child. Two females and one male. She remained hidden watching them stir, as the sunlight broke through the trees and the air grew warmer. Her years in the field in Africa had taught her how to blend in with the background and observe.

The smaller ape, like a human toddler stayed close to the females while the male kept close watch over them, sniffing the air. Caroline wondered if he detected her and then he signaled to one of the females who signed to the others. Caroline picked up that it had been about finding food. But she knew if they were signing apes, they must have come from a laboratory setting or they were taught to sign by other apes who might be nearby in similar camps.

She watched them fascinated despite herself. Apes had been able to learn rudimentary sign language skills even before the serum. Chimpanzees and gorillas in particular associated with different research institutions.

When she met Will while treating Caesar, he'd signed to the young ape and she'd been impressed with his vocabulary. She'd liked the scientist on sight, moved by his devoted care to Caesar but sensing a deeply complicated man beneath his affectionate surface.

She'd had no idea at first how right she'd been about him.

And she hadn't known how intellectually advanced Caesar had been until several years later though looking back she should have known, even if she hadn't guessed the reasons.

Watching the chimpanzees interact reminded her of that time that she'd tried to forge relationships with Will and Caesar, the latter feeling the role shift more keenly than his human father. But she'd fallen in love with the scientist and he with her and that part of it had come naturally enough.

Signing, she left the apes and headed back to the encampment to pack up for the trip back with Burke. He waited for her in the dwelling where they'd staked out some space on the floor to sleep. He making sure she was comfortable before they fell asleep, retreating to their own memories.

"We'll take back some more of the penicillin," he said, "That stuff's going to be getting even scarcer."

She nodded.

"Yeah but it's the other antibiotics that worry me more," she said, "The ones needed for germs resistant to other types."

He packed them in his bag.

"At some point we're going to have to go to the labs and see if we can get the recipes," he said, "Maybe someone among us can produce something close to them."

Caroline knew that'd be difficult. It'd be much similar to research the origins of most of these medications back to the plant or fungi that had produced their basic elements.

"When winter comes and there are more things like pneumonia and bronchitis, we'll need them."

"We'll have to take each day at a time, that's all we can do while planning for the future."

Summer would be ending soon and where they were; autumn could cool down quite a bit and in the summer, snow. They' have to really start preparing to do what was necessary to live. But the defeatism which had plagued their groups in the earliest days and weeks had shifted gradually to if not hope about the future, at least resolve to keep the species from dying out completely. At some point that would mean having babies, to begin creating the next generation out of the ashes of the old one.

She had already gotten started and she knew when she felt the baby kick not long from now it'd feel more real to her. Maybe that's where she'd find her hope.

"At least more of us are starting to believe it might not be the end of us."

He looked over at her and she had zipped up her bag to prepare to slip over her shoulders as they readied to head on back. She realized that months ago, she had planned to fly back to her home country and visit family. Relatives she hadn't seen in years had planned to host a family reunion including a large party and Will had planned to go there to meet her family.

They'd been talking about cementing their relationship.

But all that had ended the day the virus had escaped from its confines in the lab where

Will had worked.

Time had changed their lives so quickly in ways no one could anticipate. Would it reward them with more of the same?

Ruth met them at the pathway leading away from the encampment and embraced Caroline goodbye. As she and Burke walked away, she noticed Denny watching them leave too, which made her wonder if the chimpanzees would be safe.

"I don't trust him."

Burke didn't argue with that as they started walking.

"There's nothing we can do about it," he said, "It's their affair."

"I understand that but if Denny's not careful he would restart the war."

Burke and she walked side by side when the path widened.

"They'd wipe us out right now," he said, "Six months, a year might be a different story but now we're too damn vulnerable."

She shook her head.

"I don't want a war Burke," she said, "I just want a place to live and remember what it's like to be human again."

"We've got to find a safe place and they're might not be any corner left that we won't have to fight to keep."

Caroline couldn't answer that because she knew it to be true unless the apes left sections of the world unconquered. But surviving took a lot of the fight out of her, that and being stripped of everyone she'd known.

But that only turned out to be partly true.

The weathered man climbed out of the chamber where he and others had been holed up after the viral outbreak went global. He had started it, he knew it along with the scientists who'd created it but mercifully after a month, there hadn't been anyone alive to spread that news.

Yes, there'd been new blurbs about suspicions raised about the origins of the lethal virus. Scientists sitting on panels in front of cameras saying that something so virulent, so merciless in its onslaught had to be an entirely new virus or an older one that had undergone a major mutation inside a patient zero or even its host.

But in the background speculation grew that the virus had actually been manmade. Will and Franklin had ran tests on Virus 113 to push the cure into a more progressive direction, not long after Will's father had died in his sleep after most of his mind had been eroded by Alzheimer's. But 113 while promising in early trials had a few surprises waiting for them.

Its increased rate of mutability concerned Will and the other scientists but they had still moved forward with it. He had been pressured by his bosses to increase funding support of 113.

When they discovered Franklin had died, it had clearly been the virus but everyone had been running around chasing after the super amped apes that had broken out of labs and zoos in the city. He'd started spreading the virus around quickly and then naturally it hadn't remained confined to the city.

But he and the others in the corporation had remained mum the entire time even though they knew they had created the deadly cure that had no cure. One of the younger scientists, a colleague of Will's had threatened to go public and one of the guards that patrolled their facility, had shot him in the head, from behind before he could leave the room.

No, there was no way that they would let the rest of the world know their secret even when it became clear the remaining population had more pressing concerns. Still, in one broadcast, their lab had been named as the source of the virus and a small band of vigilantes, several with blood drying on their clothes showed up to take shots at the facility which looked deserted.

Most of the scientists had started dying too and wanted to go home to their families but weren't allowed to leave. He had gotten very ill himself, feeling the malaise, the symptoms of a severe cold or flu. His head ached like it'd split open like a melon and he felt as if he were on fire.

Then the bleeding began but in his case, he never got that far. His fever broke but he didn't fully recover his sharpness. He felt as if his cognitive skills, his intellect had dulled, and his energy levels flagged. He felt less human and what had been easy before became more of a struggle.

Now he spent his days watching a deserted San Francisco as the population died off, except for when some apes had broken into the lab and rustled around while he and the others had hid underground not knowing how many they'd have to fight.

After that it had fallen quiet as he and the few that remained struggled through a mind fog to get through each day.

Jacobs sat waiting for nightfall thinking how quickly it had all gone to hell. But a couple scientists worked with 113 using rudimentary equipment, in hopes that if it mutated again, it'd wipe out the apes as well before they relegated mankind to the extinction list.

It'd take serious odds to do that but one could only try and hope. As a member of a dying species, it was better to like a poem he learned in college, rage, rage against the dying of the light.