Greg Keyes - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - Firestorm

She nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I figured that. I couldn’t get you out even if I tried. Best go let them find you a bed.”

She imagined lying among the dying, waiting for the end. It wasn’t an appealing thought.

“Can I stay and work?” she asked. “I have some time, we both know that. The symptoms just started presenting. And I’ll be careful. I’m always careful.”

“I’ve seen enough of your work to know that,” he said. “But careful sometimes isn’t good enough.” He looked back at the waiting room. “On the other hand, most of them don’t have a chance in hell without you anyway. Slim is better than none.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go scrub.”

When she got back to the waiting room, the only coffee that remained was instant, and as she poured the wretched stuff she realized she would never taste good coffee again. She wished that she had savored the last cup more. She wished she had gotten around to buying a grinder and some beans for the café.

Her reverie was cut short by a loud, dull, whump outside. The lights flickered and went out, and everyone began screaming. After a moment, the generators cut in and the lights came back.

Talia heard the staccato chatter of gunfire, and more screams. Through the glass doors of the emergency room, she could see a bright orange-yellow glow.

“What is it?” she asked McWilliams.

“I think we’re under attack,” he said.

“Attack?” The light seemed to go funny, as it did whenever there was an earthquake. Attack? Who would be attacking a hospital? And why? All of it seemed suddenly completely unreal, like a bad dream. She would wake up from it, and she wouldn’t really be sick, and none of this would be happening.

A guardsman burst in and exchanged salutes with McWilliams.

“What’s going on corporal?” he demanded.

“They threw firebombs into the quarantine, sir,” he said. His eyes seemed glazed by the same disbelief that Talia felt. “And into the back door. And we’ve sighted snipers with their rifles focused on the entrances. We’re not sure how many, but they shot Cain and nearly got Rodrigues.”

“Who are ‘they’?” McWilliams barked.

“I don’t know sir,” the corporal replied. “They didn’t exactly identify themselves.”

McWilliams absorbed that for a millisecond, and then turned to Talia.

“Get anybody in here who knows anything about burns,” he told her. “Do it now.”

“We have a burns unit,” Talia said. “I can see if anyone is there.”

She was hurrying down the hall, trying to think who might be available, when she met two men with a gurney. One it lay a man in a hazmat suit that had mostly burned off of him, and he himself had extensive burns—but not so extensive that she couldn’t see his face.

It was the young guardsman to whom she had given the antibiotics.

As she watched him go past, the feeling of unreality faded. The ground was under her again. This was a nightmare, and there was no waking up from it.

“I’m sorry, David,” she whispered, and continued on toward the burns unit. She could still hear the faint reports of gunfire outside.

David realized he’d just been staring at the page—maybe for a minute, maybe for longer. He took another drink of water and tried to get his focus back. His side throbbed, and pain radiated out from it to touch him everywhere. It felt, in fact, as if he was a hand puppet on a zombie’s hand.

He looked at the clock, and tried to do a little math.

Talia had been gone a long time. Four hours?

Most likely she had reached the hospital, and been drafted for an emergency situation. There probably wasn’t anything to worry about.

He took his own temperature and saw that it had climbed to a hundred and four, which explained some things—like the morbid zombie-hand analogy. He went to Talia’s medicine cabinet and found some aspirin. He took four and then went back to the laptop. Despite the way he was feeling, the story was taking shape.

Sage called an hour later with the corroboration he needed.

“You sound bad,” she said.

“A little fever,” he explained.

“Just send me what you’ve got, and get to a doctor,” she said.

“Right,” he muttered. “So someone else can get my byline.”

“You’ll get your byline, you flinking idiot. Get to a doctor!”

“I’m at the doctor’s right now,” he said. “Now let me finish the damn thing.”

He hung up before she could say anything else.

Caesar sat alone in the topmost branch of a redwood, staring out at the city. In the west, the sun was melting into the sea, and beyond the bridge, lights began coming on.

It seemed to him that there were fewer lights than there once had been, that the city was darker. Once again he wondered what Will was doing. Was Will sick with the disease? He hoped not. He could picture Will and Caroline in the kitchen, talking about what they had done that day. He longed to be there again, to be a part of that, part of a family. But it had never been entirely real. When they went places, Will took him on a leash, like a pet. Caesar knew what a pet was, and he knew that was the best thing an ape could hope for in the human world.

The worst—well, there were members of his troop who knew all too much about that. Apes who had been raised with nothing like a family, nothing like love, who had experienced only pain, degradation, and isolation.

And many of them… weren’t right. They were damaged inside, didn’t know exactly how to act, and maybe they never would. And all of this running, the threat of being captured or killed, the hunger—none of it was helping. But if he could find a place where they could be left alone, he knew things would get better. If some apes were broken, their children would not be. They would grow up with apes, as apes, in the trees where they belonged.

If…

He heard a faint rustling, and to his surprise he saw that Cornelia was approaching. Just seeing her made him feel tired, and he wondered what she had come to complain about this time, what things she thought he was doing wrong.

She approached with deference. Not enough, he thought, but more than she had ever shown before.

Caesar watches the city , she signed.

He nodded.

What are you looking for?

When he didn’t answer, she moved closer.

It will be dark soon , she observed.

He shrugged, and waited for her to say something worth a reply. For a moment he thought she would just leave, but was astonished when she reached over and began picking twigs out his fur. He flinched at first, but then he let her continue. It felt good, relaxing, like when Will and Caroline had brushed him or stroked him.

She started on his back, working around to his side, slowly, methodically.

You’re a mess , she said.

No time to groom , he signed back. Always running.

You did well today , she said.

He jerked away, trying to read her expression. Was she mocking him?

But her expression seemed sincere.

I made a mistake today , he said. Might have lost many.

Didn’t , she pointed out.

Maybe soon, though , he said. I was too confident. Stupid. She pulled at a twig, a little too hard, and it stung.

Not stupid , she said. Apes are free because of Caesar. Apes are together. Worth dying for.

She continued to groom him in silence for a few moments.

Caesar is the smartest , she added. Still, should listen to others, take help from others. Caesar alone strong. Caesar with apes, stronger. Apes together, strong.