Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (7 page)

“Well,” Dreyfus said, “if I win, that won’t be the case, I can promise you that.”

“I look forward to it,” Ngyun said. “And by the way, if I was in your shoes, I would back off on the whole Hamil thing. You and I both know he was a dufus, but he was a chief of police—albeit not ours—and he died trying to defend San Francisco. Sort of.”

“I thought his chopper crashed just after takeoff.”

“Yeah,” Ngyun said. “That’s the story they put out. But I’ve heard something different.”

Dreyfus leaned forward, one eyebrow rising.

“Oh, yes? Tell me more.”

“A couple of witnesses early on claimed the chopper was at the bridge, and that it was brought down by a gorilla.”

“What witnesses?” Dreyfus asked.

“Well, that’s the thing—no one is claiming it, not anymore. We can’t turn up a single reliable witness.”

“That makes no sense,” Dreyfus said. “It would make him look more like a hero, not less. House could probably use that to his own advantage.”

“Yeah,” Ngyun agreed. “At this point it’s just a rumor.” He stood and held out a hand. “Good seeing you,” he said. “But I’ve got to go—I’ve got another meeting.”

Dreyfus stood up and walked around his desk to shake hands.

“Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome. And good luck.”

* * *

“This virus is the biggest unknown in the race,” Adam Patel said. It was an hour later, and they were having gin and tonics in Dreyfus’s office. Patel was his aide, an intensely competent man with clipped black hair and an English West Country accent.

“This could be House’s 9/11, his Hurricane Sandy,” Patel continued. “If he handles it well, his numbers could jump through the roof. Or it could sink him. Either way, since you don’t currently hold public office, you’re kind of out that equation. There isn’t much you can do to seem mayoral. You can’t benefit from it much, but you also won’t be burned by it.”

“I’m not inclined to think of thousands of people dying as ‘benefiting’ me,” Dreyfus replied, dryly.

“You know what I mean.”

“I guess.” He paused, then continued. “Is what that kid said true? About the survival rate?”

“Yeah,” Patel admitted. “Worldwide, there’s about fifty dead, ten here in San Francisco. But so far every single person diagnosed with this thing has died. Young, old, male, female, black, white, Latino, Asian.”

“Sure, but the only people who get diagnosed are
the ones who get so sick they seek help, or pass out or whatever, right? So the sample may be skewed. There might be plenty of people it hardly affects at all.”

“Maybe,” Patel said. “But the crazies on TV—the pundits, the preachers, the conspiracy theorists—they’ve got this now, and they’re going nuts with it.”

“Yeah. I’m afraid there will be a panic,” Dreyfus said. “If the only thing I can do is what I just did—try to stand in the way of that, publicly—then maybe that’s what I should do.”

“You did just fine today.”

“No, I mean it’s time to get me on some of these shows. I want to be out front on this.”

“Too risky,” Patel said. “I don’t advise it.” But Dreyfus shook his head.

“There’s going to be a panic,” he said. “People will remember me as a voice of reason. And if I’m wrong, and this all goes away—people won’t remember I had anything to say about it at all.

“Call the shows. Get me booked. Now.”

“Okay, boss,” Patel relented. “Whatever you say.”

“Another thing. I want a private investigation of this whole Monkeygate thing. I want to know why people on the force, guys who used to trust me, are so skittish of talking about this whole thing. Even Troy is sitting on something—I know when that sonofabitch is lying to me. And now this business about Hamil… Something stinks here, and it smells like a cover-up. I want to know what House is hiding, because I promise you, if we find out what it is, we can take him apart. I feel it in my gut.”

Koba laid the chimp onto the dew-damp leaves and stepped away.

He didn’t like things that looked alive but were not. He peered around the clearing instead, watching Caesar and the others. It had taken two of them to carry the dead orangutan. Caesar had borne the other chimp—the one that had died in the night.

He said that putting the bodies here—far across the woods from where the main troop was hiding—would mislead the humans, make them look in the wrong place. It made sense to Koba.

He watched Caesar study the fallen chimp for a moment, then squat and gently close its eyes.

A sort of shock ran through Koba, then. It felt like it started in the back of his skull, and he had a sudden, vivid image of someone doing the same thing—a human hand closing an ape’s eyes.

He shook his head, but it didn’t help. Sometimes when he slept he saw this, and he felt as if he was falling. But he had never thought about what it might have meant. Yet now the feelings were intensified. He remembered
those eyes open, gazing at him.

And more…

* * *

Koba is small, and watching his mother make hand language with Mary. They live in a big room with a metal grating on one wall. Everything else is white. Koba is playing with one of his toys, a stuffed one that looks like a kitten. He has played with a real kitten before, and wants a real one, but this is what they gave him.

Mary is asking Koba’s mother what she would like to do today. Mother answers that she would like to go outside. Koba is excited about this because he likes going outside. Mary says they can go outside after Koba plays with the buttons a little bit, and maybe does some letters.

So Koba goes over to the buttons. Mary asks Koba to find peanut. He finds the right symbol and presses it. She tells him he has done well. She asks for him to find “blue” and then “red,” which he also does. Meanwhile his mother plays their private game with him, making the hand signs for these same things. After he is done, Mary gives him a cookie, and then directs him to the letters.

Koba is less certain about the letters. He knows they stand for things, but it’s not like the buttons. Mary puts four letters together. They look familiar in that order, but he can’t remember exactly what they mean.

Mary tells him.

“This is K-O-B-A,” she says. “It’s your name. Koba. Now let’s do mine.”

She makes M-A-R-Y with the letters. He notices one is the same as in Koba. He isn’t sure what this is supposed to mean.

Mary is pleased, though. She gives him another cookie, and then they go outside. Koba feels the wind ruffle his fur
and climbs around on the tree. He loves the tree, to swing on it and jump from limb to limb.

After a while he goes down and plays with his mother.

“Tickle me,” he signs to her, so she does, and he is happy. He presses himself against her, then runs back over to the tree, feeling his arms stretch out and grow warm. The sun is warm, too.

He finds a thing crawling on the tree. It is about the size of his smallest finger and is covered with black fuzz.

Mary sees him studying the thing and comes over.

“Caterpillar,” she says. “Fuzzy caterpillar.”

Koba plays with the caterpillar. He tries to sign to it, but it doesn’t answer. He puts it back on the tree and watches curiously as it crawls away. Then he returns to playing.

After a while Mary tells them it is time to go back inside. Koba doesn’t want to go. He wants to play more outside. Mary calls Kuo to bring the leash. Kuo comes and tries to put the leash on Koba, but Koba jumps back.

“Naughty Koba,” Kuo says, laughing, and tries to put the leash on again. Koba jumps back again. He likes this game. He and Kuo play this game all the time.

“Hey, Koba, what’s that over there?” Kuo says, pointing. Koba knows what will happen—this is how the game always ends. He pretends to look, and the leash goes over his head. He submits and goes with Kuo.

Inside, Kuo gives him a hug and tells Koba he will miss him. Koba wonders why, because Kuo is usually there at night.

But tonight a new person comes. His name is Roger.

* * *

The next day, lots of people come to see Koba’s mother talk to Mary with her hands, and then watch Koba press the buttons. They laugh when he is asked to find “peanut”
and he presses it several times because he likes peanuts. He likes it when they laugh.

Then something strange happens. They put something else in the room with Mother and him. It is big and fuzzy and black.

Mother does the hand talk, but it just looks at her. Koba tries to talk to it to, but it doesn’t even look at his hands. It just walks away.

“Do you know what that is, Koba?” Mary asks. “Can you tell us what that is?”

Koba looks uncertainly at the thing, and then at his buttons. Finally he starts pressing them. Furry. Snake. Bug.

Mary laughs.

“Are you trying to call her a fuzzy black caterpillar?”

Koba presses the button that means “yes.”

Everyone laughs.

“He doesn’t know it’s a chimp?” someone asked.

“No, because Wanda—that’s her name—can’t sign,” Mary says. “Washoe, one of the first language apes, called the first chimps he ever met ‘big black bugs’ because they couldn’t do sign. Chantak, an orangutan, called non-signing orangs ‘red hairy dogs.’ Koba thinks of himself as a person, and people talk. If something can’t talk, it’s not a person, so Koba thinks it must be something else.”

Koba wonders what Mary is talking about. He doesn’t know what the word ‘chimp’ means.

He points at the new thing.

Big black caterpillar
, he signs.

Big black caterpillar
, his mother signs back in agreement.

* * *

That night Koba has trouble sleeping. The big caterpillar is still in their room, and it scares him. But his mother
tickles him and tells him he is beautiful, like a banana or a red flower or a kitten, and he finally goes to sleep.

The next day Mary lets them go outside again. Everything is a little bit wet, which Koba likes. It makes everything smell different. It never smells this way inside, even when they wash the cages. He thinks maybe it is the sky he is smelling, which today is big and blue. He tries to reach out and touch it, but it is higher than the top of the cage.

The big black caterpillar just goes to the top of the tree and sits there.

When Mary says to come in, Koba doesn’t want to. He wants Kuo to play the game with him. But instead of Kuo, Roger comes out. He tries to put the leash on Koba, but Koba jumps back. He tries again, but Koba jumps back again. Then Roger starts yelling words Koba doesn’t know, and it scares Koba. He wonders what he has done wrong, why Roger is yelling at him, why he doesn’t end the game. He finally gets so frightened he submits, and Roger puts the leash on him. Then he yanks it so hard it hurts Koba’s neck. Koba is so startled he yanks back, then, and in a flash of anger, jumps at Roger.

He doesn’t intend to hit him—and he doesn’t—but Roger stumbles back and falls down. He yells some more.

Mary takes the leash.

“You don’t have to be so rough,” she tells Roger.

“He’s just a dumb animal,” Roger tells her.

Koba wonders what a dumb animal is.

* * *

That night, Roger yells more words Koba doesn’t know. He has a sack in one hand, and a bottle in the other. He is drinking something that smells bad from the bottle. He hits the cage with his fist, and the big black caterpillar starts screaming.

Roger gets the leash. He comes into the cage with the leash and the bag, and walks over to him. The bag is long and looks heavy, like there’s something in it.

“You’re so smart,” Robert tells him, “then learn this lesson. See this? Leash. When I show you this, you let me put it on.”

Koba stares at the leash, not sure what he is supposed to do. He is scared—the big caterpillar is still screaming, and it disturbs him.

When Roger moves forward, he cowers back.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Roger says, and he swings the bag at him. When it hits Koba, it knocks all of the wind out of him, and he can’t breathe. Lights seem to flash in his eyes.

Koba good, Koba good
, he signs desperately, but Roger swings the bag again. Koba can smell what’s in it now—oranges.

This time Roger misses Koba, because Mother jumps at him. She bites his hand.

Roger screams, and then he hits Mother with the bag. He hits her again, and again, until she backs into the corner, pulling Koba with her. He hides behind her.

Roger finally backs out of the room and closes the door.

“Stupid animals,” he says. He takes a drink from his bottle and then goes somewhere else.

Koba nuzzles up to his mother. He grooms her fur. She puts her arms around him.

Tickle
, he signs.

So she tickles him until he falls asleep.

* * *

When he wakes up, Mother is very stiff. He can’t make her arms move. Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t seem to see him. She is cold.

Mother see Koba
, he signs, but she doesn’t answer.
He tries to make her fingers sign, but they are hard and won’t move.

Later, Mary comes in and tries to sign to Mother. Then she comes in the cage and touches her. She starts making strange noises, and water comes out of her face. Koba nestles up with Mother again, scared, but not sure of what. Mary puts her hand on Mother’s face and when she moves it again, Mother’s eyes are closed.

She is asleep.

Mary takes him outside, but Mother won’t go. He plays, at first worried about Mother, but then he becomes occupied witch watching the clouds, which are moving slowly but making interesting shapes. Some of them look like some of his buttons.

When Mary calls him in, he doesn’t want to play his game—he wants to see Mother. She should be acting right again by now.

But when he goes in, Mother is not there. Just the big caterpillar.

Mother
, he signs to Mary.
Koba want Mother
.

“She’s gone, baby,” Mary says. “I’m sorry.”

* * *

The next day, Koba doesn’t want to play the game with the buttons. When he goes outside, he looks for Mother, but she isn’t out there. He wonders where she is.

A few days pass like this. Each day, Mary tries less and less to make him play with the buttons or talk with his hands. Finally, one day she picks him up. He likes it, because without Mother, there is no one to touch him.