Kara looked over at Caesar as he showed her the progress they had made with redeveloping Seattle into their own city. She kept signing questions which he answered deftly before they moved forward.
"More apes come?"
He nodded, sighing that Maurice had greeted a new band of gibbons from a research colony north of Sacramento, which had made great time but then when it came to speed of travel no one could beat the smaller apes. But they didn't get much respect from the more advanced species being deemed inferior in intelligence. Caesar didn't explain that though that might have been the case in the past, the smart serum had more than made up for any lag. Sparky, the lead gibbon had picked up signing rapidly though his hands flew so quickly even Caesar had trouble keeping up with his expression. They'd be recruited to work as messengers because Caesar had his eye on taking his scouting group to what had once been called Chicago or Minneapolis even.
Kara definitely wanted to go with him. She had conferred with her group and said the bonobos were definitely in on any exploratory travels. The other chimpanzees wanted to give them a smack down for even suggesting their inclusion but Caesar had signed, enough no fight.
He didn't know what to do with the fact that his own kind, the chimpanzees resented their closest cousins. They were stronger, more aggressive and he knew that they could make short work of the bonobos if they fought them.
At least on a playing field that favored physical prowess but bring more cognitive abilities into the fray and the bonobos would swing circles around them. But Caesar didn't want that battle to ever take place, he needed them both to work together. Their natural feeling of superiority aside, the bonobos were willing to work with anyone as long as negotiation including the more…sexual sides of it were woven into the process.
The gorillas had been doing searches for weapon stockpiles and soon found another trove of assault rifles. Humans had been very much enamored of their firepower Caesar had discovered. The gorillas had taken the guns out into an alley behind some stores and practiced on human corpses sprawled there, pretty much decomposed. Caesar knew that Ursa had been very interested in using live humans as targets for practice but he put a quick stop to that kind of thinking.
"Why violence" had been a question that Kara had asked him often and he had no answer. He didn't feel the same level of rage that many of the other apes felt towards their former masters. If he hadn't grown up with people who cared for him and loved him like Will, it might have been very different.
He'd been very resentful of Will for putting him in the sanctuary but when the scientist had told him it was his fault for everything that happened, Caesar had realized that Will had done what he had to do.
And when Will had stepped in front of him to take the bullets meant to rid the revolution of its leader, he realized the depth of love his human father had towards him. He'd sacrificed his own life, his own happiness and had made the most difficult of choices to pick Caesar over his own kind.
No doubt the humans had their own feelings about what one of them had done, but it left Caesar with some hope that compassion still existed in a few of them. Will had been naïve though in his belief that he could bring safety to the apes when the military had been on his tail and he hadn't even known it.
But the apes did
He couldn't explain all this to Kara anymore than the rest.
"Violence work no"
Kara's signing wasn't lost on him and he didn't know how to respond. Sometimes violence was necessary for self defense as it would be to conquer. The apes had inherited the land because of mankind's arrogance and foolishness, and it would be theirs.
But so far enslaving the humans had been enough because the plague had taken any feelings of resistance out of its survivors. It did something to those it didn't kill.
Armando came up to him and told him that the gorillas had reported finding more weapons in an abandoned police station. You could never have enough guns, were their motto.
Caesar had yet to find his own.
He had led a revolution that had sped along faster on its own weight than he had believed but now what? He had been behind the curve when it came to recreating societies. How hard could it be, when mankind left its technology behind? All they had to do was learn how to use it.
Seattle would soon see light again, because the humans fix the power grid, that would be all the inspiration the growing masses would need to know they were well on their way.
Jacobs conferred with the other men in the chamber. Yes, it was possible that 113 could mutate and turn back to kill simian species but they could wait a milieu or longer for that to happen. It could combine and swap DNA with a more benign simian virus if it were like the flu. But what it was, was only the second hemorrhagic fever virus to become airborne after the virulent strain of Ebola that breached its containment in a research laboratory in Reston. Primates had been infected but the few humans who had contracted it didn't get sick they merely showed antibodies evidencing exposure. Most Americans, hell most of the world didn't know that they'd been given a reprieve from exposure to an airborne virus with traits similar to Ebola Zaire which had a 90% fatality rate.
He'd read the book, Red Zone that detailed the little known near brush with disaster that mankind had involving a virus that had arrived with some monkeys rather than been designed by scientists.
This time, there hadn't been a reprieve, a moment where after the icy cold terror rushed through them at what they nearly faced, followed by a sigh of relief. The virus had been airborne, it had escaped and it had been fatal to humans.
Since the outbreak, Jacobs had spent all his time confined to the laboratory, watching his colleagues die and realizing that the ones who'd gone home before the deaths started piling up would never return to their work stations. The place had been burned out and trashed inside when some of Caesar's army had come to break out the apes that lived in the facility.
But a core section of it had remained intact and there Jacobs and his surviving colleagues had lived, breathing the stench of dead and dying as it settled over the quiet city. He'd read old journals, old newspapers, about the break in peace talks in Ireland, the discovery of prehistoric remains of an earlier species of hominid in central Africa and the speculation about why a space craft and its crew of four had disappeared while orbiting Mars.
Taylor, the name of the commander had been and Jacobs remembered seeing him on television being interviewed on the Today show before the ill-fated flight. But then just as well, they all likely were killed in some undiscovered accident because there remained no earth left to welcome them home.
Jacobs also kept a secret stash of scotch to drink at night so he could sleep, but he dreamt of the apes that had been lined up around the levels above him as he'd walked into the cafeteria. They'd looked large and menacing before they swooped down to the ground level in one wave of movement.
Will and him fighting over the testing of the latest serum, the lethal virus that now likely circled the earth on the trade winds seeking out every human in every hidden corner to kill off. At least there was no one left alive who know for sure where it had been born, any history that remained to be told wouldn't finger his company and himself as the catalysts of mankind's extinction.
Another scientist, his face lined with exhaustion walked up to him.
"We found some more canisters of 113," he said, "but we don't have any equipment to engineer any mutations."
Jacobs folded his arms.
"We need to find some way to turn it against simians before they completely take over."
The scientist, a guy named Webb sighed.
"Not going to be easy or even possible," he said, "We had to send a crew out to get some gasoline for the generators. We don't know how long we can even stay in San Francisco."
Jacobs felt the urgency rise within him.
"Then we must hurry and get to work then."
Webb just looked at his former boss like he'd lost his mind.
"Look I think we need to pack up some things and head to the mountains," he said, "I heard on the shortwave that there's a group up there holed up."
Jacobs shook his head.
"The apes will find them soon enough and slaughter them. We need to stay here."
Webb threw up his hands.
"You can stay here in this rotting city," he said, "We're leaving. We took a vote."
Jacobs considered letting them all bail out of their responsibilities but then he thought otherwise and reached behind him beneath his desk.
He pulled out a gun and pointed it at Webb.
"I say that we're all staying here," he said, "We've got too much work to do yet."
The firepower in his hand didn't leave much room for argument.
They walked in the park not long after Caesar had been sent away, and it hadn't been the same as when they'd all been together. Will had felt a piece of himself had been ripped away even as he told himself that they'd done what was best for him. Caesar had grown larger and stronger and had the aggressive and volatile behavioral patterns of an adult chimpanzee.
Caroline had warned him that this would happen when he grew up. The first day that she had met Will and Caesar. But he hadn't really listened because in his mind, he still saw the chimpanzee as young and affectionate towards him and his father. But as Caesar grew up physically, emotionally he became more confused and estranged. Will had asked Caroline if he'd done the right thing when he had told Caesar he was his father.
"You were his father," she had answered, "You raised him from the time he was a baby. He'd be dead if it weren't for you."
Will had squeezed his arm tighter around her waist but had sighed as well.
"But he asks so many questions now," he said, "I tried to answer them by taking him to where he was born and tell him about his mother."
Bright Eyes, the female chimpanzee who had been executed as a failed experiment when all she wanted to do was protect her baby. She had grown smart enough from the serum to understand the need to keep him hidden from the humans.
"You'll be a good father someday Will."
He looked at her then because they had idly discussed having children, even getting married but they'd both been so busy with their careers and the drama surrounding them. Will had been too focused on Caesar's welfare to think about his own future but they did love each other.
"I hope so."
She stopped and looked at him.
"I know it's hard but you really did the best you could do for him."
He nodded but hadn't seemed so sure.
"I'm not sure I was even a good son."
She heard the wistfulness in his voice knowing that he'd felt that most of his life he'd been overlooked by his own father who spent more time with his older brother. The one who had been a music prodigy like his father and not more scientifically bent like Will.
But his brother, John had died and he'd survived and maybe there was a certain unfairness to that. He'd spent most of the rest of his life making up for that. Including through his research on the disease that ultimately took his father away emotionally and then through death as well.
She'd wrapped her arms around his waist and looked at him.
"He loved you…even when he no longer knew you."
"If only the drug had worked…well it did but his own body built up resistance," he said, "Maybe it just needs to be amped up."
She had felt uneasiness fill her, not knowing what he had said. He glanced at her then and then he smiled.
"You're right," he said, "I knew he loved me and he loved Caesar. I just wish we could have had more time…"
She woke up then in the bed she'd been sleeping in at the cabin. Darkness met her, the only sound a branch tapping a window from a wind that had kicked up after they'd returned from the other encampment.
God, she must have been dreaming again because just a moment ago, she'd seen Will and he's looked so real walking with her in the park. They'd been trying to move on with their lives after taking Caesar to the sanctuary and filling the empty hole left in their lives by his departure.
She sighed, getting up to get some water from the kitchen. The pump to the well had been fixed so the water ran again, and after draining the copper and rust sediments out of the piping, it ran clear again.
Burke sat up, reading some papers, a lantern next to him. He looked up at her as she entered the living room with her glass of water.
"You're supposed to be sleeping."
She narrowed her eyes.
"So are you…do you even sleep?"
He smiled at her.
"Occasionally, but I've been spending time going over some maps."
She sat down beside him on the couch, putting her glass down on the table in front of them.
"What are they?"
"Tunnels underneath the ground," he said, "Quite a network of them actually…not sure what they were used for after they were built."
She had no idea either but if they were useful now, that's what mattered.
"They safe you think?"
"I don't know," he said, "I'd like to explore them and see. They'd be awfully useful if we ever did have any run ins with the apes."
She nodded.
"Yeah and we could store supplies in them as well."
He sighed.
"With that group of apes living near Ruth's group, definitely something we have to think about and plan for, the day more of them arrive."
Yeah, there was no getting around that issue and they were woefully unprepared to face them. Their numbers too few, and too many of the people had been weakened by the virus.
"Okay then we start exploring them tomorrow."
His brows arched.
"We…I thought I'd get a group of men."
She folded her arms.
"You have anything against women going with you?"
He looked her over.
"Pregnant women…it's too risky."
She shook her head.
"Life's too damn risky for a pregnant woman in case you haven't noticed."
He couldn't argue with that because for her and her baby, so much about their futures remained uncertain. But he remained resolute.
"No need to make it more dangerous."
She sighed in exasperation.
"What is it with you men," she said, "Will tried to keep me from going with him to the damn Golden Gate Bridge and he was the one running around like crazy dodging bullets."
He shook his head.
"Must have been something," he said, "That's where it began. They should have just blown up the damn bridge to stop them."
She heard the anger in his voice but if it hadn't been for the deadly virus, the apes' revolution probably wouldn't have succeeded.
"Then I and my baby would be dead," she said, "because we were there. Even if I didn't know I was pregnant."
That gave him pause and his face softened.
"Burke…we can't blame the apes for taking advantage of what we did to ourselves," she said, "What Will and those other scientists created and how their success became more important than the rest of us. All we can do is survive it."
She watched him react to her words, and at first he did so by touch. He brushed his fingers against her neck, his face becoming pensive.
"We will do just that."
She nodded.
"Okay so let's take a look at those maps."
He closed the documents back up on the table and looked back at her.
"No, now it's time to sleep," he said, "So we have the energy we need to face this all over again in the morning."
She nodded and then she did something she didn't expect. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek before heading back to her own bedroom.
"See you in the morning then."
As she headed back to bed, she didn't fear the return of her dreams.