The lab was quiet as it was normally; the loss of the two human subjects and most of the hunting crew made it impossible to get new specimens. Claudia climbed the stairs to the empty pen, the sun bright in the sky. She looked up to where she could see the window of her husband's office. She saw it was shut and turned her attention back to the cage in front of her.
She wrung her hands nervously as she thought of her son. He was such a sweet boy with a bright future ahead for him, what on earth went so wrong that he would take the humans away?
She knew Gareth had spoken to Julius, but the results of that conversation hadn't yet been passed to her. Gareth just wasn't himself, they were usually very open with each other, for one because their problems usually could be resolved in a minute and two, they were on the same clearance level for most things with the council. So this secretive husband of hers just didn't make sense.
She thought about the old orangutan, she didn't dislike him, even if he was a little odd. He'd contributed much to their scientific findings especially in the medical area. It was the only reason she let her son near him. She wondered now if she'd made a mistake, but the only way to find out was to see what he'd told Gareth.
She turned and began moving very quickly towards the main city council building. She crossed through the streets and climbed the steep stairs, hiking up her long tunic in the process. The heavy doors opened smoothly and she looked around, scanning for the building's security guards. There was one on the far side of the great gathering room where the entrance to the justice chambers was, looking as though he was dozing.
Thanking her good luck, she slipped quietly around the hall to the passage that led down to the confinement cells. Another guard stood at his post, looking bored.
"I need to see Julius," Claudia said authoritatively, "I have a few scientific questions that I need to discuss with him for this case."
The gorilla guard tilted his head scrutinizing her for a moment. She felt her palms begin to sweat, she wasn't sure why, this wasn't doing anything wrong, nor even was she lying. After the moment passed, the gorilla nodded, turning and leading her down the line of cells and stopping in front of one.
He pulled out a key and unlocked it, letting her enter.
"You have ten minutes," he said gruffly before shutting the door once more.
Claudia turned and faced Julius who had a concerned and puzzled expression.
"I know my husband came to see you last night," she said, keeping her tone polite but firm.
The orangutan sighed softly. Meeting Claudia's gaze, he nodded.
"He's not himself," she continued her tone growing stern, "What did you say to him?"
"How much do you want to know?" He asked.
"Everything from the beginning," she said.
—
The cave had kept the little caravan hidden as the city apes searched the rocky hills for any sign of them. By noon, they'd given up, returning to the comfort of their rocky valley home. Just to be safe, Brutus, Jayda, Franklin, and the child waited a few more hours before venturing out into the edge of the wilderness. Their delay kept them from going too far however and soon they had to make camp in the foothills of the shrubby landscape.
Franklin had set up some sticks in boxes ranging in sizes and was challenging the child to throw small stones into them. At first she didn't understand the game, but after a few tries she began to grow in enthusiasm. She toddled excitedly to find more stones.
"Do you think we can teach her to talk?" Franklin wondered aloud, watching her closely.
When she returned with a small armful of rocks in her tiny hands. He got the child's attention and spoke to her slowly and clearly, gesturing to himself, "Franklin, Fraaanklin."
The girl looked blankly at him and then grinned, turning and throwing the entire collection of stones into the field of boxes, missing half of them. She laughed until she realized she no longer had any rocks so she toddled away to search through the grass for more stones.
"Is that a human thing or a child thing?" Franklin asked, bewildered.
"I could be a child thing, she doesn't seem to be any more than three or four years old," Jayda said.
Brutus looked up from sorting the orange fruit they'd gathered from an orchard outside the city. The girl came back and threw another armful of rocks into the boxes before going back to get some more.
"Is this what you were like?" Franklin directed the question to Jayda.
She watched the girl for a while, seeming to think deeply about the answer.
"Yes and no. I had my parents when I was about her age, but then the apes came, and it was just my father and me for years. The herd I was with didn't last very long after that."
Brutus looked at his feet, but the child seemed to tire of the game, and she toddled over to sit in Brutus's lap, snuggling into the thick fur covering his chest and shoulder.
"Aww, Brutus, I thought I was getting to be the favorite," Franklin grinned jokingly but looked disappointed when he turned away.
Brutus carefully distributed the fruit to the others before handing one to the girl. She turned it over in her tiny hands before sinking her teeth into the skin. She drew back quickly, sputtering at the bitter taste.
"Here, you need to peel it," Brutus said, taking the fruit and using the tiny teeth marks to start peeling the skin.
The girl watched in fascination before grabbing the now-peeled fruit and taking another bite. Sweet juice poured down her chin, and she smiled, finishing it quickly and licking her palms. Brutus grimaced at the sticky juice dripping into the fur on his leg.
"Broodis," a little voice spoke.
All three of them froze and looked at the girl who now had her tiny, pudgy hands outstretched for another fruit.
"Yes— yes that's right!" Brutus said excitedly, "Brutus."
"Broodis," she said more insistently, opening and closing her hand toward him.
He picked up his own fruit and peeled it; she took it with a wide smile and quickly devoured it. She licked her hands, but her face was still covered with sticky residue.
Franklin, noticing Brutus's discomfort, already finished with his fruit, beckoned to the girl, "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."
She stood and toddled over to hold Franklin's hand as they went down by the stream. Brutus looked back at the bag with the other fruits but thought better of it. He turned back to see Jayda holding out half of her own peeled fruit towards him.
"Thanks," he took it and finished it quickly.
Jayda looked to where Franklin was scooping water and washing the girl's face, and Brutus followed her eye.
"Have I been living a lie this whole time? Can all humans talk?"
She turned toward him and let out a breath.
"If it makes you feel better, I didn't know she could. Humans I've been around normally don't."
Brutus nodded and went back to staring at Franklin and the girl.
"Do you know how humans lost their ability to speak in the first place?"
She shook her head and then asked, "Did you get to ask your mother anything before we left?"
Brutus looked surprised, then remembered that she could understand them the whole time. It was easy to forget when she seemed so different after starting to talk.
"She said that humans had the vocal capabilities, it was something in the brain that prevents it," He answered, continuing to watch Franklin and the girl.
Jayda stewed on that thought for a while. The sun was beginning to set and the woods grew even darker.
"Maybe something took the first human's speech, but their children just never learned how," she theorized.
Brutus thought about what his father told him before, humans lost their speech about the time apes gained theirs. There seemed to be a connection with those facts. He didn't think it would be a conscious thing for humans to teach their children silence, but rather something involuntary.
Franklin was leading the child back with her clutching to his hairy hand. The tiny fingers could barely wrap around the ape's strong digits. In the girl's other hand was grasping the stem of a small flower with white petals and a yellow center.
"What'd you find?" Brutus asked the girl, making her positively beam at him and show it off proudly.
"She found a daisy," Franklin mused.
The girl let go of his hand and toddled over to show him. The ape outstretched his hand and the child put the flower into his palm, watching his reaction intensely. Brutus admired it a moment before taking the stem and putting the daisy behind the girl's ear. It contrasted brightly against the child's wild and fiery locks.
"Maybe we should call her Daisy," Jayda said. "It feels odd for her not to have a name."
The apes looked at each other for a split second before looking back at the child.
"I agree," Brutus said, and Franklin nodded his approval.
The newly christened Daisy noticed all of them staring, and she toddled back to her favorite spot, which was Brutus's lap. She leaned into his fur and buried her face in it.
—
The woods in this area were wholly different from the soft green that most of the group were used to. The rocky ground was dry and dusty and the trees were shorter and tougher. The night sounds meant they slept uneasily, even when they did set up a watch. The morning dawned and the group was up and ready sooner than they'd ever had been before, even Brutus wasn't so impossible to wake.
Driven by memories that had lay long dormant, Jayda led them into a canyon that most beings would miss even if they stood on top of it. She had flashes of pictures of walking hand in hand with her parents as they were going somewhere away from here. The red walls were almost twenty to thirty feet above their heads, and the crevice twisted and turned in the earth like a snake or a vine climbing a rough tree.
Daisy was being carried on Brutus's back, limp and asleep. Franklin couldn't stop staring in awe at the beautiful colors on the walls of the hidden path or the tough little scrubs that stubbornly grew despite the poor ground and little sunlight. But soon, their awe turned to fear as a new shape appeared in the canyon wall. it was too square to be natural and too orange to be rock, and Jayda silently concluded that it was made by humans.
The heavy metal door was eaten away by rust and corrosion, and Jayda had no problem kicking it down. It crumpled inward and revealed a dark hallway beyond that seemed comparatively sterile to the outside. She exchanged looks with Brutus and Franklin before stepping inside.
Flickering fluorescent lights led the way through the cement tunnel. Pipes and exposed wiring could be seen every few feet and some water leaked down the walls.
"I remember this place," Jayda said in a low voice.
True, the memories were faded, but she did recall a time long ago when she had both her mother and father at her side. She remembered heading out, but as a child back then she didn't know why. She felt Brutus' eyes on her, but didn't dare look around to see his expression.
"An ape lives here?" Franklin asked, having missed Jayda's confession.
"Maybe," Jayda muttered.
They continued down the tunnel, the musty smell growing more potent around them.
Almost there, Jayda thought.
The tunnel suddenly opened to a set of steps leading upwards. They climbed the stairs until they came to a wall with a single heavy door that was once dark blue. She tried the handle and it broke off in her hands. She pushed against it until the hinges creaked and the cement wall around the frame crumbled. The door fell in with a loud clang and a cloud of dust erupted, filling the tunnel.
The two humans and two apes coughed and sputtered until the dust died down and they could breathe again.
"If there's anyone inside, they know we're here now," Brutus said ominously.
They tried to file in, but then a sob made three of them look around. Daisy was clinging to Brutus and shaking her head, simultaneously wiping tears and snot into his fur.
"Hey, it's alright," Brutus said, patting her head.
He tried to pick her up and carry her in, but she fussed even more and tried to wriggle out of his arms. He looked from Jayda to Franklin before the young ape stepped forward, reaching for the child. Daisy disliked this idea and clung to Brutus more fiercely, starting to cry.
"Alright then, we'll stay out here, calm down," he sighed, looking at Franklin and Jayda again.
Franklin looked apologetic, but Jayda spoke, "Franklin, you should stay with Brutus."
The young ape whipped around in shock.
"I am not!" He scowled. "What if something happens to you?"
"Then fate finally got who it wanted," She said flatly. "I can't risk something happening to you too. Ziro would've killed me."
At the mention of his brother's name, Franklin's frown deepened. He looked back at Brutus who wore a matching scowl, the tension was so strong that even Daisy had quieted down and was merely whimpering at the dark opening.
"It would be a pretty sorry sacrifice for the person he wanted to protect," Brutus said. "It was for all of us, not just his brother."
"I know that!" Jayda snapped, "But it's not just for him, alright?"
She gripped the strap of her bag and looked to the ground, "You're the first people I've ever been able to talk to, and I care what happens to you. I've had it with people getting hurt because of me."
Brutus was taken aback, but still it didn't feel right to let her go alone. He let Daisy down and directed her towards Franklin. She toddled fussily towards him, grabbing hold of the young ape's fur and began to pull him back towards the exit.
"I'm not-" the young ape began to protest.
"Someone needs to watch her, and maybe you'll get a chance to be her favorite," Brutus said, smiling in a way that didn't meet his eyes.
"Brutus-" Franklin started to argue.
Brutus shot him a look, warning him not to argue. At the look and Daisy's insistence, Franklin gave in and followed the toddler into the sunlight.
Jayda frowned. "he needs-"
Brutus cut her off, "He'll be fine. We, on the other hand, don't know what we'll find in there."
—
The hallway beyond the door was dusty and unkempt, with evidence of human presence in the past littered the way with papers, packages, and even a few pieces of clothing. Brutus furrowed his brows at a piece of paper with a child's drawing on it. The colors faded, but what was clearly visible was the crude shape of an ape with a menacing scowl.
Jayda caught sight of the paper and glanced at Brutus, She chose not to say anything. Their ears were straining to hear the slightest sign of life in the tunnel. They moved on, passing a door to the right that had a strange sign hanging by a corner.
Quarantine: Do Not Enter
Jayda tried to peek inside a thin widow high up on the door, but the glass was so dirty that she couldn't see through it. Brutus found another door with the same sign, but it too was shut and the glass was cloudy. He shivered and backed away.
"What happened here?" He whispered.
Jayda jumped at his voice and met his gaze. She struggled to form the right words, "I think there was something that had to do with apes, maybe they were at war."
Brutus looked back at the sign. "But why would they need to be quarantined?"
Jayda shook her head and continued down the hallway, checking the latches of doors.
Who's there?
Jayda jumped at the whisper and turned to Brutus. "Did you say something?"
He shook his head, and a strange shiver ran up her back. The exposed feeling of being watched began creeping over their skin, and Jayda noticed the fur standing on the back of Brutus's neck.
They froze, listening for any sign of life, but all was quiet. After a minute, they continued forward, one door stood slightly ajar further down and Jayda felt a leap in her chest— whether from fear or excitement, she didn't know.
They crept closer, Brutus raising his spear and reaching for the handle. He gripped it and pulled carefully, exposing the dimness within. A gasp echoed through the darkness and froze the ape in his place. Then he quickly shut the door without letting go of the knob.
Jayda looked at Brutus, and they seemed to ask the same question: Did you make that sound?
Brutus turned and opened the door again, listening.
"Who's there?" A deep voice spoke from the darkness.
Brutus stiffened; he could see a shape moving at the end of the long room.
"We don't mean any harm," he said, his voice shaking.
The cocking of a gun made the fur on the back of his neck stand up and a tall, very tall figure was rising from its place. This wasn't an ape. Brutus's mind went blank, and he mouthed wordlessly.
"Brutus, what'd you fi-" Jayda looked into the room before catching sight of the figure in the corner.
"Who are you?" She asked while entering the room, her voice stiff but remained calm, "where's everyone else?"
"Gone." The man's figure drew closer, but his weapon was still raised, "dead or dumb."
Jayda's face showed no expression, but her voice broke as she spoke, "I'm sorry."
"Who are you? How did you find this place? And with this…?" His voice trailed off, but the man gestured to Brutus.
"I'm Jayda, and this is my friend," she said sternly.
Brutus shot a glance at Jayda and a smile flashed over her face for half a second. the man's eyes suddenly widened in shock.
"J-Jayda?" He said in almost a whisper.
The man moved closer, the gun falling limply to his side.
"I can't believe it," he gasped, tears forming in his eyes.
Brutus stared at Jayda, and her expression was extreme confusion.
"Do I know you?"
The man attempted to pull himself together as he explained, "I should have guessed you wouldn't remember; you were so young back then. But… how do I say this?"
He brushed the long, dark hair out of his face and fully exposed two icy blue eyes just like Jayda's, gleaming from his gaunt face.
"I'm your older brother, My name is Evan."