Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (18 page)

“I’ve been shot, Talia,” he sobbed. “I don’t know where else to go.”

“Shit.” A pause. Then the door clicked. “Get in,” she said. “Wait for me in the foyer.”

She was down a few minutes later, wearing flannel pajamas and slippers. She had a tote bag with her.

“David?” she said, kneeling beside him.

“Thanks, Talia,” he murmured as she examined his wound.

“Damn,” she said.

“Is it that bad?”

“It could be a lot worse,” she replied. “You’ve made it this far. Let’s get you upstairs.”

She helped him to the elevator and up to her apartment. She had gotten a new couch since he had last seen it, and moved things around. It looked like she still lived alone, though.

She moved him to the bathroom and pulled his shirt off.

“How did this happen?” she asked, as she examined the wound more closely.

“I met a source in Delores Park,” he said. “Somebody shot her, then shot me. Then someone shot him…
Ow!
”

“That’s a lot of shooting,” she observed.

“Some old guy walking his dog just happened to have a gun, or I’d be dead.”

“I think probably everyone who owns a piece is carrying it right now,” she told him. “I’ve seen more gunshot wounds in the last few days than in my entire career.” She looked over at him. He’d forgotten what beautiful, dark eyes she had.

“I think it just went through the ribs,” she said. “I don’t think it nicked your intestines. If they were perforated, that would be bad. Still, there’s enough tissue damage that some of it might go necrotic.”

“How bad is that?” he asked. “Can you fix it?”

“I can sew it up,” she said. “Stop the bleeding. But you need antibiotics, which I don’t have here.” She caught his gaze and held it. “I don’t have any anesthetic, either.”

“How about vodka?” he asked.

“You know me that well, anyway,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

* * *

David woke up, head throbbing, and realized that between the pain and the vodka he had made it all the way through the operation. He was lying on Talia’s bed. She had cleaned and sewn him up in the tub, and so she had stripped him down. He was still naked.

She lay about a foot away. She had changed pajamas.

He contemplated the fact that he had never seen Talia in pajamas. Lingerie, yes. T-shirt, yes. Birthday suit, check. Never pajamas. He didn’t even know she owned any. And they had seen each other for the better part of a year. It had been good, really good, but then things had gotten busy for both of them, and they hung out less and less. Nowadays he never saw her in the bars and restaurants where they used to go. He guessed that she was either too busy at work, or had hooked up with a different crowd.

Fortunately for him, she hadn’t moved to a different apartment.

She stirred, and her eyes flickered open.

“Well,” she said, smiling. “You finally stayed the night. How about that.”

“I never stayed over?” he said, trying to remember. “That was stupid of me.”

“No, that was just you,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hammered while someone worked a needle into and out of my skin.”

She touched his cheek, and for just an instant he thought it was a gesture of affection.

“You’re warm,” she said. “I should check your temperature. And you need to hydrate.”

She brought him orange juice, and found that his temperature was just over a hundred.

“I go back on shift this afternoon,” she said. “But I’ll try to get you some antibiotics before that.”

She looked so tired. “You should rest,” he said.

“I got a few hours of sleep,” she said. “It’ll do. Hey, I’m young, right?”

“It’s bad out there, isn’t it?” he asked. She nodded.

“And getting worse,” she said. “Half the staff are down with it.”

“Don’t go back,” he said. “Just don’t go back.”

She gave him another weary little smile.

“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” she told him. “But too many have already taken a walk. Somebody has to try.” She patted his arm. “I’ll be back. Hopefully with antibiotics.” She rose, went to her closet, and selected a pair of scrubs.

“Talia,” he asked. “Why did we stop hanging out?”

She looked down then, frowning a little.

“I liked you,” she said. “A lot.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I liked you, too.”

She drew her gaze up to meet his.

“I was tired of liking you,” she replied. Then she left the room. A little while later, he heard the front door open and close.

He lay there for a moment, then gingerly levered himself up. He went into the living room, got the satchel, and brought it back to the bed. Inside were an ultralight laptop and several file folders. He switched on the laptop and waited for it to boot up as he flipped through the files.

“Holy shit,” he said, after a moment. He found his cell phone, but he didn’t have any service, so he picked up Talia’s landline and called his editor.

“Sage,” he said, when he got hold of her. “Flynn here.”

“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded. “I have an assignment for you.”

“I’ve already got a story,” he said. “You’re going to want to leave some space on page one. And if you’ve got anybody inside the mayor’s office, I’m going to need to get a couple of things vetted.”

“You’re going to have to give me a taste,” she said.

* * *

When he was done, there was silence on the line for four, five, six heartbeats.

“You’re sure about this?”

“I’ve got original Gen Sys documents,” he said. “Paper and ink. With signatures. I just want to see if we can get corroborating information from House’s office.”

“I think I can swing that,” she said. “Are you at your place?”

“No,” he said. “Somebody actually tried to kill me, if you can believe it.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. He shot my source, and he shot me. Then someone shot him—it gets complicated.”

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you safe?” “Yeah. You can reach me at this number. Do
not
give it to anyone else.”

“Don’t you need medical attention?” “I’ve got the best I’m likely to get,” he said. “Just get that stuff for me.”

“I’ll get back to you,” she said. “Go, write. You’ve got six hours.”

One of Rocket’s scouts dropped down from the higher branches. Caesar saw that he was agitated.

What?

Humans
, the scout said.
That way, coming this way. Many.

Caesar frowned in frustration. He’d hoped the trick with the white rectangles would have kept them busy for a longer time. But here they were again, the very next day. Would they ever give up?

He was starting to believe they wouldn’t.

Show me
, Caesar signed. He motioned for the rest of his band to follow.

He chased the chimp through the treetops. The scout’s name was Jojo, and when Caesar caught a flash of his face, he saw that the agitation had been replaced by pure joy. Until they freed him, he hand never been outside. At first he had been terrified, but now he had embraced his new existence, his life as it should always have been. A lot of the apes were like this. It was as if they were waking up from a long sleep.

For some, a sleep that had begun at birth.

Eventually Jojo slowed and, down through the trees, Caesar could see the humans. It was hard to count accurately through the leaves, but Jojo was right—there was a lot of them, mostly with guns, moving in the general direction of the troop. Furthermore, they were walking side by side, spread out in a long line. This would make it easier for them to find what they were looking for.

He turned to Jojo.

Return to Rocket
, he said.
Tell him I’m leading them to the sunset side of the mountain. Tell Rocket to go to Maurice, have him move the troop up the valley to the sunrise side.

He glanced back down at the humans, passing beneath him. Then he glanced at Koba, and saw how taut his muscles were, every inch of him a threat.

Koba
, he signed.
Stay high in the trees, follow, warn us of flying things
.

Koba stared at him for a moment, then acknowledged.

As Caesar turned back to his band, one of the humans looked up, and their gazes locked.

He had known many human expressions: kindness, love, fear, anger. He had seen meanness in the eyes of Dodge, his “caregiver” back at the shelter.

The gaze of this man was made of something he had never seen, and could hardly understand. But it felt very, very dangerous.

Then other heads turned toward him.

Follow me
, he signed. Then he flung himself from limb to limb, down, toward the forest floor. He heard the humans shout as they caught sight of him and his band, and he began the chase. A glance back showed them following.

He felt a prickling on his exposed back, and expected them to start shooting at any moment, but for some reason they did not. That made things a little easier, since the trick was to keep them following, and avoid getting killed.

* * *

When Koba reached the top of the trees, he glanced around, but didn’t see anything in the air. He did see the city where the humans dwelt—where he had dwelt, where his mother had died, and he had been tortured.

Why had Caesar put him in the high canopy? The other chimps in the band had better eyesight. After all, he only had one eye. He would be more useful down there, where he could fight.

But it was good up there, so near the sky. He reached for it, but it was still too far away. How far could it be?

Koba shook his gaze from the heavens and refocused on his job. From this vantage point he could see what transpired below, but he was starting to realize something. There weren’t as many humans as he had thought chasing Caesar’s band. It looked like only eight or nine, at most.

He was trying to figure out what that meant when the unmistakable sound of the flying cages reached his ears. He scanned the sky, and saw the source of the sound. They were in the distance, not moving toward Caesar at all.

They were flying toward the troop.

* * *

Suddenly there was a crashing in the tree branches above. Caesar looked up as Koba came hurtling down. He was trying to swing and gesture at the same time. He kept pointing up, so finally Caesar peeled off from the band and followed him. They reached the treetops, and from there he saw the helicopters.

Most not chase you
, Koba signed.

And Caesar suddenly understood. This time
he
had been
tricked. The helicopters were moving toward the troop.

Koba, find Rocket. Bring him to the troop
, he commanded. Then he turned and raced back the way he had come. As he whipped over the heads of the humans this time, they started firing at him, but within seconds he was beyond their sight, swinging as fast as he could, hoping he wasn’t too late.

* * *

The ape was gone, rushing off through the trees, but the fierce intelligence of his gaze remained with Malakai. It was like nothing he had ever seen in an ape.

He remembered the first gorilla had had ever seen, when he was with his uncle. There had been something there—an awareness, something on the level of a child, but caged in an outsized body. He had recognized a cousin, but knew it was a distant one.

When his uncle had shot it, the gorilla looked confused. It kept touching the hole and making pitiful noises. He asked his uncle to shoot it again, to make the sounds stop.

“I’ve already killed it,” his uncle said. “He just doesn’t know he’s dead yet. Bullets are expensive.”

He was right, and the gorilla soon died. They butchered it while the rest of its family looked on. None of the apes really seemed to know what had happened.

The thing that had just looked down at him was not like that. The fierce intelligence, the will and purpose, were all there. And they were far from childlike.

That was him
, he thought.
The leader
.

“They went for it,” Corbin said.

Clancy was just staring at the apes as they quickly receded from view.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen one, since we started this whole thing,” she said. “A live one, I mean. I was starting
to doubt they really existed.” She turned to Malakai. “Did you see…?”

He nodded.

“It’s amazing. I wish I could just study this… this…
whatever
is happening. It could change everything we know about apes. About ourselves.”

“Whatever,” Corbin said dismissively. “Which way?”

“Where’s the capture team?” Clancy asked.

“We call them in when we find the herd,” he said.

“This way,” Malakai said. “Quickly.”

He heard the choppers in the distance.

Suddenly a group of chimps went racing off in front of them, screeching at the tops of their lungs. A couple of the men shot at them with their tranq guns, but he didn’t think they hit any of their targets.

“Ignore them!” Malakai said. “They’re just trying to distract us. Push on.”

“The choppers think they have them spotted,” Corbin said, holding one hand up to an earpiece. “But they want visual confirmation from the ground.”

The apes in the trees buzzed at them again, but this time no one fired.

“There are signs everywhere,” Malakai muttered, looking around, seeing the remains of nests, the scuffed areas. “They were here, not long ago. A lot of them.”

“They’re on the move again.”

“Yes,” Malakai said, “but this time there are too many for them to hide their movements.”

* * *

The helicopters were already there when Caesar arrived, yet they weren’t doing anything, as far as he could see.

Maurice had the troop in motion, but some still were not moving very quickly. Caesar was raging at himself for
letting his own tricks be used against him, and terrified that more apes would be killed. What’s more, it was abundantly clear that the men on foot would find the troop this time, and soon.

With a shiver, he realized that he didn’t have a choice. He had misled the humans as much as he could. After the battle on the bridge, he hadn’t wanted to fight again. He just wanted to be left alone. But that wasn’t going to be possible.