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

Clancy was studying him, eyes still wide.

“You asked if I was a bad man,” he said. “Now you know.”

“I am so sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

“No,” she said. “I mean I’m so sorry I asked. I’m going back to my room now.”

But then there was the sudden noise of a door opening at the other end of the building.

“Oh, God,” Clancy said. “Is this it?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Hold my hand,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t want to die alone,” she said.

We all die alone , he thought, but he resisted saying it. Instead he took her hand as they waited.

The man who came in, however, wasn’t one of the Anvil mercenaries—it was a San Francisco policeman in SWAT gear with a respirator pulled over his face.

“Oh, thank God,” she said.

Malakai had no such reaction. A uniform did not signify safety. Usually, in his experience, it was quite the opposite. He waited for the man to raise his weapon, for the muzzle flash that would be the last thing he saw.

But the officer studied them for a moment.

“If you folks would come with me,” he said, “there are some people who want to talk to you.”

They were separated. Malakai was taken to a makeshift shower and scrubbed down by two men wearing hazmat suits. Then he was given a clean orange jumpsuit that reminded him of prison garb.

When he saw Clancy again, her face was pink and she was similarly dressed. She looked scared again. Trumann Phillips’s office was a very different place than when last Malakai had been in it. For one thing, Phillips wasn’t there. In his place was a man he had seen on television, a former chief of police. Dreyfus was his name, he remembered. It was thought he would run for mayor.

“I’m sorry for the institutional orange,” Dreyfus said, when they were brought in. “It’s the only thing we had on hand. Your own clothes are being cleaned and sterilized, and we’ll have them back to you soon.” He folded his hands in front of him.

“I need to make this quick,” he said. “There’s a lot to do, and not much time to do it in. Could you please tell me your names?”

“My name is Malakai Youmans,” Malakai said, nodding.

“I’m Clancy Stoppard,” Clancy said. “We met once at a fundraiser for the zoo, Chief Dreyfus.”

“It’s actually Mayor Dreyfus now,” he said. “I’ll have one of my aides bring you up to speed. So you two are the experts they brought in to help them find the apes.”

“That is correct,” Malakai said.

“Good,” Dreyfus said. “So, for now, let me briefly explain that Anvil, the company that hired you, is under investigation for a number of illegal activities. Mr. Phillips is under arrest—we caught him trying to leave by helicopter. The rest of the crew here has been detained. That the two of you were being kept under lock and key suggests to me that Mr. Phillips might not have had your best interests in mind, at this point.”

“I surmised that, sir,” Malakai told him.

“What I need from you two is to know exactly what we’re dealing with here. In terms of the apes.”

Clancy glanced at Malakai before beginning, as if she wanted his approval… or complicity. He nodded again, and she turned to face the mayor.

“They’re smart,” she said. “They’re organized.”

“How many would you estimate?”

“Two hundred,” Malakai said. “Minimum. It could be more.”

“Have you had direct contact with them?” Dreyfus asked.

Taking turns, Clancy and Malakai gave a brief description of their encounter. Dreyfus took all of it in without expression.

“Now I want to ask you both this,” he said. “Are they dangerous?”

“I think they just want to be left alone,” Clancy said. “Even when we provoked them, even when one of them was shot, they never tried to hurt us.” Malakai heard the pleading in her voice as she went on. “They probably won’t survive the winter. Apes are native to the tropics. I don’t think there’s enough here for them to eat.”

“They’ve raided groceries already, right?” the mayor said. “Maybe when winter comes, as you say, they’ll become more aggressive. More desperate.”

“They deserve a chance.”

“Mr. Youmans?”

He felt Clancy’s gaze burning at him.

“I agree with her,” he said. “They probably will die in the winter. If they come into town to loot, shoot them then. Otherwise, I would not waste more man-hours on this.”

Dreyfus stared at them incredulously.

“You guys have really been completely out of the loop, haven’t you?” he said. “You have no idea what things are like back there, back in the city.”

“We heard something about an outbreak of some kind,” Clancy said. “But we haven’t been allowed to have television or the Internet or anything.”

“Well, suffice to say, a few hundred apes coming into town to raid for food might be a lot more trouble than you think by the time winter gets here.”

“But think of the scientific value,” Clancy said. “What’s happening here is amazing. Apes of different species, forming some sort of social group. What we could learn from this—”

“I’ll consider everything you’ve said,” Dreyfus said, cutting her off. But he didn’t say anything more. The conversation was clearly over.

“Are we free to go?” Malakai asked.

“Since you were in close contact with the apes, you’ll need to be held here in quarantine for a few days. You’ve been isolated out here—so far no one has shown up positive. If you didn’t catch it from the apes, you’re probably clean. If you don’t show any signs of the disease, then you can do as you please. Although once you understand the situation, I highly doubt you’ll want to go out.”

“We’ve missed a lot, it appears,” Malakai said.

Clancy was watching the news with a look of utter shock on her young face.

“Welcome to ‘C’ Hut,” Corbin said, popping open a beer and flopping into a chair.

It was the first time they had been in “C” hut, the building that had served as an entertainment center for the mercenaries. It contained two pool tables, some videogame consoles, and a large television. There was also a fridge that appeared to contain mostly beer.

The bulk of the mercenaries seemed to be here, including Corbin and his team. Like Clancy and Malakai, they were all now dressed in prison orange. The big difference was that the people now patrolling the compound were San Francisco PD, and the police were the only ones armed.

“What’s happening?” Clancy said, staring at the television, her voice trembling.

Corbin picked up a remote and turned up the volume.

“…rioters looting pharmacies, leaving ten dead and fifteen wounded. But our top story tonight comes from Alameda Point, where the site of the former Naval Air Station has been set up as a quarantine and treatment facility, one of many throughout the Bay Area.

“At around two in the morning, large sections of the tent city were set ablaze by masked individuals armed with improvised bombs filled with homemade napalm. So far the casualty count is uncertain, but is thought to be upwards of five hundred dead and hundreds more with severe burns. The crowded condition of the camp worsened a situation that would have been devastating under any circumstances.

“Police haven’t announced any suspects, but graffiti outside of the compound features the juxtaposed Greek letters Alpha and Omega. These same symbols were found two days ago near the site of a mass shooting at a clinic in Chinatown. A similar and perhaps related napalm attack was carried out about an hour ago at a quarantine facility maintained at a local hospital. The name and location of that facility is being withheld as police fight to get control of the situation.”