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

Koba .

He rolls to his feet.

Do you know sign? the man is asking. It feels like his mother’s arms going around him.

Koba know sign , he answers.

“I told you!” the man exclaims to the other man.

I am not big caterpillar , Koba signs.

The man looks puzzled.

What is big caterpillar? he asks.

Koba gestures at the thing in the cage beside him, then to all of the other cages.

The man laughs.

“What is it?” the other man asks.

“He thinks the other chimps are caterpillars,” he says.

“Or maybe he’s signing gibberish,” the second man tells him.

“No,” the first man says. “It’s classic. We definitely have a language ape on our hands.”

“That’s wonderful if it is true,” the second man says. “But God, he’s an ugly fellow.”

Koba isn’t sure what to do. He knows they are talking about him. So he does a “smile.” He “dances.”

“See?” the first man says. “I checked his records. He was on the TV show, Monkey of the House .”

“I’m afraid I never heard of it,” the second man says. “I’ve got better things to do than watch television.”

“It was canceled after the first season,” the first man says.

Koba , the man signs. Can you do your numbers?

Eager to please him, Koba starts counting. He gets to three and realizes he doesn’t remember the next number. He becomes agitated. What if the man becomes angry with him, and stops signing? He cannot bear the thought. He beats against the cage frantically.

It’s okay , the man signs. Maybe you forgot. The man makes soothing sounds. Koba feels the panic retreating. And then he remembers. He smiles. He tries to dance.

Four , he signs, and keeps going until the man stops him at twenty-five.

Know sign , Koba said. Not big caterpillar.

“He’s remembering fast,” the first man says.

“Good,” the second man replies. “We can use him then. Get him ready.”

“Koba,” the first man says. “My name is Amol. This is Mr. Jacobs. Would you like to work with us for a little while?” Koba isn’t sure of what he is saying, but the way he speaks reminds Koba of Mary.

Koba like sign , he replies.

Good , Amol tells him. We’ll do lots of sign .

“This had better pay off, Amol,” Jacobs says, and he walks away.

They bring one the beds they tie him to, and a man pulls out one of the ugly things that hit him and make him sleep.

He looks up at the man who knows sign.

Koba not big caterpillar , he signs, desperately. Koba good. No hurt.

I know , the man says. Koba smart chimp. Knows sign. We go do sign together .

Not hurt Koba again?

We sign , the human said.

He turns to the other man.

“You don’t need the tranq gun,” he says. “Koba will be good.”

“It’s your funeral, Doc,” the fellow says. He steps back, but he keeps the thing—the “gun”?—out.

Reluctantly, Koba climbs onto the table, and they strap him down. He wants to keep signing. He wants to talk. Instead they give him a shot, and he falls asleep.

When he wakes, he can’t move. Something hurts at the bottom of the back of his head, and it feels like his back is burning all the way down. The pain is so terrible he can’t think.

Koba did good , Amol tells him.

A few days later, it still hurts, but not as much. He can move again, but something is attached to his head and to his back. Black cables come from behind him and plug into machines with lights and pictures of nothing.

Amol comes back.

Now we sign , Amol says. He holds up a blue card.

What color is this? he asks.

Blue , Koba says.

And this ?

Yellow .

It goes on like that. Amol just keeps asking questions, and Koba tries to answer them. The screens make pretty colors and weird pictures. Sometimes he sees letters, too, and numbers.

After a while, Mr. Jacobs comes.

“How is this going?” Mr. Jacobs asks. Koba does not like the way Mr. Jacobs looks at him.

“Very well, Mr. Jacobs,” Amol says. “I think he’s an ideal candidate.”

“Good. Continue, then. I would like to see your results at week’s end.”

“Yes, sir.”

Amol asks a few more questions, then he gets a shot needle and goes around behind Koba.

“This will sting just a little,” he says.

Whatever was in the back of his skull suddenly seems to come alive with pain. Koba shrieks.

What? What? Koba asks.

The man leans forward.

Study Koba in here , he says, tapping Koba’s head. Maybe help people one day .

Help Koba , he signs. Help Koba.

It’s going to be okay , the man says. Be like a game .

Amol brings him a button board. It’s not exactly like the one Mary gave him, but he likes it. He likes it so much that he hardly notices the injections, and the stuff on his back that keeps him from moving right. He wants to show Amol all of his tricks, because Amol seems to be becoming more and more disturbed. He pays less attention to Koba and more to the funny colors and patterns that appear on his rectangles.

He is agitated.

It is another day, and the men come to take Koba from his cage. They do not shoot him. He goes willingly on the little bed.

But they do not take him to where his button board is, to the room where he signs. Instead they take him to the place where pain lives.

Amol is there, though, so he isn’t as scared.

“We’re all done, Koba,” he says. “We can take all of this stuff off of you now.”

Koba good , he signs. Koba sign with Amol .

Amol watches him as he gets the shot. Koba goes to sleep.

Koba wakes in his cage, on the cold floor. He feels sick, as he always does when they make him sleep.

The weight is off of his back, but it hurts again—he can feel the now-familiar tightness of the strings they push through his skin to hold him together after they cut him up. The pain is worth it, though, to have the weight off. He looks forward to Amol’s next visit, so they can talk without the weight and the injections. He looks forward to using his button board again.

The lights cycle on and off once, but Amol does not come. Another cycle passes, and still no Amol. Koba loses count of the cycles. He signs to the people who feed him, telling them he wants Amol, but they ignore him as before.

Jacobs comes one day. He squats down and looks hard at Koba.

Koba want to sign Amol , Koba tells him. Hurt Koba so Koba can talk , he pleads. Hurt Koba so Koba can talk. Hurt Koba so Koba can talk…

Jacobs does not sign. He looks angry.

“You stupid, ugly monkey,” he says. “If you had any idea what you and that idiot Amol have cost me… By God, I wish I could put you down myself. If I were still in charge, I would.”

He hits the cage with his hand, so hard that Koba jumps back. Jacobs keeps looking at him.

Then Koba notices something. Jacobs has something hanging around his neck. It has a rectangle on it. On the rectangle there are some letters. He remembers letters from the place with his mother. He thinks it means something, but he can’t think what.

Jacobs makes a noise in the back of his throat. Then he leaves.

More light, more dark, light-dark, light-dark blurring together, faster and faster and yet so slow.