Maurice’s eyes widened in surprise. He cannot speak either…?
Caesar tried to make sense of this new mystery. He turned to Rocket for assistance.
“Help me get him up.”
The other chimp reached down toward the soldier, but with an unexpected burst of strength, considering the bullet in his back, he yanked his leg free from Caesar’s grasp and scrambled backward across the snow, desperate to get away from the apes. Wild eyes darted back and forth, seeing escape, as Caesar moved toward him cautiously, trying not to spook him.
But it was no use. Rolling onto his knees, the man sprang to his feet and sprinted into the snowy woods. Caesar considered chasing after him, but what would be the point? The mute human obviously held no answers.
Only more questions.
The apes watched as the human vanished into the trees, where he would no doubt succumb to the gunshot wound before long. Maurice’s puzzled gaze drifted from the girl to the woods and back again. He signed in confusion:
What is wrong with them?
“I don’t know,” Caesar admitted.
11
Afternoon found all four apes high in treetops, trying to pick up the soldiers’ trail. Each of them had climbed a different tree in hopes of spotting the convoy. The lofty vantage point offered Caesar an impressive view of the colossal mountain range stretching out endlessly around them, but the trail had gone cold in more ways than one.
Where could they have gone? Maurice signed.
“Winter said they were heading to a border,” Caesar said.
Yes, Luca signed, but which way is that?
Caesar wished he knew.
Far below the girl sat atop Maurice’s horse, craning her neck all the way back to see the apes in their perches. Growing bored, she looked down to play with her doll, rocking it back and forth in her tiny arms.
Neither she nor Caesar noticed as a furtive figure crept from the woods behind the girl. A well-worn green parka, complete with a fur-lined hood, concealed the figure’s identity. Scuffed snow boots made little sound as the figure snuck up behind one of the unattended horses and quietly rummaged through a saddlebag. His breath misted before his lips as he fumbled to extract a flashlight from the bag, only to clumsily drop it into the snow at his feet.
He froze, looking around to see if anyone had heard the flashlight hit the snow, but the girl on the other horse remained focused on her doll, oblivious to the stranger’s presence. Growing bolder, he dug deeper into the bag and was rewarded by the discovery of a shotgun. He grabbed the barrel of the gun, but his greedy haste provoked the horse, who snorted loudly in protest, alerting Caesar, who looked down to see the stranger rooting through the apes’ supplies.
Who?
Caesar hooted to inform the others, and Luca, seeing the intruder, let out a spine-chilling roar. Startled, the girl finally looked up from her doll, as the figure, realizing he’d been seen, leapt onto the back of the surprised horse and galloped away with their supplies.
After him, Caesar signed, but his companions needed no urging. The apes scrambled down from the trees, swinging from branch to branch, until they reached the remaining horses, which they hurriedly mounted, with Rocket forced to share Luca’s steed. Wasting no time, they set out in pursuit of the stranger in the green parka, who veered from the trail into the snowy woods, his horse’s hooves throwing up clouds of white powder.
No, Caesar thought. You’re not getting away that easily.
Caesar and his posse chased after him, weaving through the tall evergreens and leaping over ravines and logs while striving to keep their elusive quarry in sight, even as he darted in and out of view. Caesar knew that if they lost sight of Green Coat, as he’d started thinking of the nameless thief, for more than a minute or so, they’d never be able to find him again. The High Sierras offered many places to hide.
The apes began to gain on Green Coat, despite his headlong flight. Breaking from the woods, he rode at full tilt up a vast snow-covered slope that stretched high into the mountains. The apes burst from the forest after him, charging up a stark white incline that dwarfed them all. Toppled cables and half-buried metal gondolas informed Caesar that humans had once skied upon this slope; he’d never witnessed that peculiar pastime with his own eyes, but had learned of it while being raised by humans back in the city.
Leading the chase, Caesar pressed his horse to greater speed as the gap between the apes and Green Coat steadily closed. Frustrated by the chase, Caesar hoped that they could at least pry some valuable information from the thief to make up for their trouble. Or would this human prove just as incommunicative as every other human they’d encountered on this quest so far?
He’d better be able to speak, Caesar thought, for his sake.
A flash of gunfire sparked from the fugitive’s shotgun, alerting Caesar and the others to danger. They ducked, but the blast missed them by a wide margin, ricocheting instead off one of the fallen gondolas with a metallic ching.
Two more shots rang out, both going wildly astray. Clouds of snow and ice erupted where the blasts hit the slope, nowhere near the apes or the horses. Either the thief was just trying to scare them or he was a truly terrible marksman.
Caesar decided he could live with either explanation, even as Green Coat disappeared over the crest of the slope. Staying in pursuit, the apes followed him to the top of the slope, where they came upon an unexpected sight.
A large, rambling ski lodge was built into the rocky mountainside. Time, neglect, and the elements had taken their toll on the looming multi-story structure, but it had clearly been quite impressive in its day, when there were still humans enough to seek winter sports and diversions. Sturdy timber walls, reinforced with stone and mortar, still stood, more or less. Assorted outbuildings surrounded the central lodge, while a skeletal ski-lift tower could be glimpsed a short distance away. An intact flight of steps led up to the lodge’s wide front porch. Tall frosted windows concealed what lay beyond the front door. A faded sign in front of the structure identified it as “The Inn at Deer Creek,” a name that meant nothing to Caesar. The stolen horse, now riderless, wandered idly through the pristine white grounds before the once-majestic hotel, which was clearly yet another decrepit relic of the past.
Caesar signaled the others to proceed cautiously as the apes dismounted and approached the buildings, their rifles drawn. They had only taken a few steps, however, before Green Coat bolted from behind one of the adjacent outbuildings and dashed through the front entrance of the central lodge. An ornate glass door, which had somehow survived the collapse of civilization, slammed behind him.
The other apes looked to Caesar. He nodded silently and raised his rifle higher as he led Rocket and Luca up the front steps and through the front door, while Maurice and the girl waited outside, pressing their faces against the frosty door pane. They had come this far already, Caesar decided, and he had no desire to leave an armed stalker unaccounted for; they needed to find out who this was—and what must be done about him.
Entering the hotel, the armed apes gaped at the resort’s once-opulent lobby, which time and the elements had transformed. Every inch of the cavernous space, from the sweeping staircases to the tattered furnishings, had been glazed by crystalline layers of ice. Snow swirled in the air, drifting down through a large gap in the ceiling. Icicles hung like stalactites from the broken rafters and landings, as well as from a rustic chandelier constructed from antlers. Plunging sheets of ice, resembling frozen waterfalls, reminded Caesar of his former fortress. His breath misted before him as he contemplated the frozen lobby, which was eerily beautiful in a way, despite the heaps of fallen timbers and debris scattered everywhere.
He spotted boot prints on the floor. Signaling his companions to stay back, he followed the tracks across the lobby to the shadowy depths of a large stone fireplace built into one wall, beneath an immense stone chimney. He silently pointed out the prints to the other apes, as the party converged on the empty hearth, which was deep
and dark enough to conceal whoever might be hiding inside it.
They paused before the opening. Canned food, firewood, and other supplies were heaped to one side of the hearth, while a thick layer of ash suggested that the fireplace had recently been used. Caesar cocked his rifle loudly and leveled it at the fireplace. Rocket and Luca did the same. Still aiming to avoid killing the thief if possible, Caesar hoped that Green Coat got the message.
You have one chance to cooperate, he thought. Choose wisely.
The stolen shotgun was tossed out of the hearth, landing with a thud at the ape’s feet. Caesar nodded with satisfaction; perhaps Green Coat—whoever he was—was not suicidal after all.
Then a pilfered pair of binoculars came sliding out of the hearth as well, along with Luca’s compass. The startled apes exchanged looks; who knew the thief’s greedy fingers had been so busy?
Rocket swiftly retrieved the shotgun, and the apes waited expectantly, their weapons raised, as Green Coat slowly emerged from the hearth, making no sudden or aggressive moves. His head hung remorsefully, still hidden by the hood of the parka. Raising his gloved hands in surrender, he looked up at his captors, revealing the nervous, apologetic face of… an ape.
An adult male chimpanzee, in fact, although Caesar saw at once that Green Coat was not exactly an impressive specimen of their breed. Small and timid-looking, he was at least a foot shorter than either Caesar or Rocket. His small, rounded head boasted more skin than hair, with only a pitiful scruff of beard, while his ears were oversized even by chimp standards. His scrawny frame was practically lost in the battered parka, which appeared to be a few sizes too large for him.
He grinned sheepishly at the other apes and pointed to his chest.
“Bad ape,” he grunted haltingly. “Bad ape.”
Caesar was not entirely sure what to make of the odd little chimp, whom he didn’t recognize as one of the apes he had liberated from the city years ago, but it was hard to regard him as a threat. Rocket slowly lowered his gun.
Who are you? he signed.
The ape tilted his head in confusion, as though he didn’t comprehend the question. He did not reply.
Where are you from? Luca asked.
The chimp peered at the gorilla’s gestures with a baffled expression.
I don’t think he understands, Luca signed to the others.
Caesar was getting that impression, which flummoxed him to a degree. He had grown so accustomed to all apes knowing sign language that it felt strange to encounter one who did not.
I don’t recognize him, Rocket signed, confirming Caesar’s own conclusion. He’s not one of us.
So where had he come from, if not from the ape colony in the redwoods? Caesar examined the chimp for a moment before speaking to him.
“Are you… alone here?”
The chimp looked uneasily from face to face, so that it was unclear at first if he understood Caesar’s words any better than he had the signing, but then he looked back at Caesar and nodded.
A solitary ape, living alone in the mountains? Caesar was trying to imagine how that could have come to pass when a creaking noise behind him caused all heads to turn toward the lobby’s main entrance, where Maurice and the girl could be seen standing in the open doorway. They peered uncertainly at Caesar, his companions, and their peculiar new acquaintance. The girl, Caesar observed, was shivering badly from the cold. Her threadbare clothing was ill-suited to this altitude and climate. It bothered him, vaguely, that he had not given this much thought until now.
Green Coat noticed the girl, too. He started to lower his hands, causing Rocket to raise his rifle suspiciously, but the “bad ape” simply removed his parka and held it out before him as he called to the girl.
“Cold…?”
Caesar watched with interest, along with the other apes. When the girl did not respond to the chimp’s invitation, remaining huddled against Maurice, Bad Ape looked to Caesar instead. Holding out the ratty coat, he pointed at the trembling human child.
“Cold.”
Caesar could not deny that. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepted the parka on the girl’s behalf.
12
A toasty fire crackled in the hearth, combating the cold invading the lobby from outside. Accepting the hospitality of the Bad Ape, who seemed to have no other name, Caesar and his party warmed themselves before the flames. The chimp’s parka now enveloped the girl, who was no longer shivering. Her wide eyes took in an impressive hoard of scavenged supplies lying in heaps around the fireplace. Dry goods, canned foods, and a treasure trove of miscellaneous tools and relics suggested how the ape had managed to survive on his own for so long.
Bad Ape beamed as he stoked the fire for his new guests.
“I see girl,” he explained. “Think you… human. But you… apes. Like me!”
Understandably excited to be in the company of his own kind, he grinned at Caesar and the others, until he noticed the girl picking up a shiny silver trinket from his hoard. Looking on, Caesar identified the item as an old car emblem. Polished silver chrome spelled out the name of a forgotten automobile brand:
Nova.
Bad Ape gently retrieved the emblem from the girl, kindly shaking his head as he returned it to the pile. Caesar glanced around at the frozen remains of the ski lodge. The dilapidated ruins looked barely habitable, at least by human standards. Apes, on the other hand, were less spoiled by the creature comforts humans had grown dependent on.
“You… live here?” he asked.
Bad Ape nodded rapidly. “Long time. Long, long time.”
A thought seemed to strike him and he scurried away from the fire to rummage through a nest of old blankets and cushions nearby. He returned bearing a small stuffed animal fashioned to resemble a scaly green crocodile. He handed the plush toy to Caesar and sighed wistfully.
“Home. Old home.”
Puzzled, Caesar inspected the toy. Turning it over, he found a partial answer embroidered on the belly of the crocodile:
World Famous Sierra Zoo.
He looked up at Bad Ape. “Are there more like you? More apes… from zoo?”
Many of his own people had come from the San Francisco Zoo, where Caesar had liberated them in the early hours of his revolution against the humans. He had always known that there must have been other zoos throughout the world, but there had been no way to know what had become of the apes in those zoos. He and his followers had been too busy struggling to survive and stay safe from the humans.
“Dead,” Bad Ape answered, shaking his head. “All dead. Long time.”
As in twelve years, Caesar guessed.
“Humans get sick,” Bad Ape continued solemnly. “Apes get smart.”
Caesar nodded in understanding. He feared he knew what had happened next.
“Then humans kill apes. But not me…” His grin returned as he boasted of his survival. “Not me. I run.”
Caesar’s estimation of the other chimp rose. To have escaped the vengeful humans, and to have survived so long on his own, was an impressive accomplishment that suggested that there was more to Bad Ape than met the eye.
“You learned to speak…?”
“Listened to humans.” His face contorted with mock fury as he mimicked an angry human, shaking his finger at empty air. “‘Bad ape! Bad ape!’”
His act broke off as he noticed that the girl had reclaimed the gleaming Chevy Nova emblem from his junk pile. He reached out and took it from her again.
“No… no touch.”
The girl gazed longingly at the precious trinket as he set it down. He watched over it for a moment, then seemed to remember something else and rushed away without explanation, leaving Caesar and the other apes bemused and perplexed by their excitable host.
Amazing, Maurice signed. Always thought we were the only ones. Wonder if there are others out there somewhere? Others like us?
Caesar had deliberately exposed the apes in his colony to the virus that elevated their intelligence, but perh
aps the virus, spreading through the human population, had affected other apes as well? It was a staggering idea to contemplate. For all Caesar knew, there could be intelligent apes all over the planet by now.
“Here! Eat! Eat!” Bad Ape came bounding back into their midst, energetically handing out brown plastic packages that Caesar recognized as vacuum-packed military food rations. “New friends! Special day!”
He tore the top off one of the scavenged packs and started gobbling down the dehydrated meal inside. He gestured eagerly for the other apes to do the same.
Caesar looked over the pack in his hand. Human soldiers called them MREs, he knew, short for Meals, Ready to Eat; he and his apes had confiscated similar packages over the years, although they generally preferred to hunt and forage for their own food in the forest. This particular pack supposedly contained a “bean and rice burrito” and bore an official military seal:
U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY: CA STATE BORDER
QUARANTINE DETENTION AND RELOCATION CENTER.
The word “border” leaped out at him.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
Bad Ape glanced at him in confusion. Caesar held up the package and indicated the label. The other chimp looked away, made uneasy by the query.
“Bad place,” he said in a hushed tone. “Very bad. I find… long time ago. After zoo. Looking for food. Find human zoo. Zoo for sick.”
Quarantine, Caesar realized, engrossed in the ape’s tale. It was a detention center for those infected with the virus.
“Big walls,” Bad Ape said. “Big walls. Sick humans try climb. Bad humans kill. Then get sick too. All dead now.” The chimp shuddered at the memory. “All dead.”
By now, Maurice and the other apes were also listening intently to Bad Ape’s haunting story. Caesar’s imagination all too readily filled in the blanks.
“Bad humans?” he echoed. “Soldiers?”
Bad Ape nodded, clearly recognizing the word. “Soldiers.”
The possible significance of the chimp’s tale was apparent to Caesar and his companions. They exchanged meaningful looks as they absorbed what they had just heard. Rocket signed to the others: