Alex Irvine - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

“Whoa, take it easy,” McVeigh said, mostly because he didn’t want the chimp to drink all their damn whiskey, but also because he was feeling a little bad for the guy. Ape or no, he seemed like a harmless goofball. He reached to take the bottle back and the chimp let him have it right back. Something happened in his eye, a shift in the set of the muscles or something… and all that whiskey came right back out of the chimp’s mouth, in a spit-take blast right into their faces.

“Ah, shit!” McVeigh cried, wiping the booze from his eyes. He heard Terry crack up and was about to ask him what he thought was so damn funny about having a chimp spit liquor in your face. Shit, wasn’t that how the Simian Flu had gotten started, from chimps sneezing on people? Terry’s sense of humor was pretty damn weird, when you took a minute to think about it.

Then Terry stopped laughing, and McVeigh blinked the rest of the whiskey from his eyes, and there was the chimp, holding an AK47 in his hands like he knew how to use it. His teeth were bared and McVeigh thought, That’s what he looks like when he really smiles.

The whole thing, the dancing, the grimaces, the somersaults. It was a game. It was a sucker play, and he and Terry had fallen for it.

“Come on, man,” McVeigh said. “We were just kidding around with you. You hungry? We can find—”

The barrel of the gun came up.

He’s not going to pull the trigger , McVeigh thought. No. He’s not—

The apes had worked like dogs, clearing debris from the part of the access tunnel that had collapsed. Now a couple of them were looking down from the access hatch, one of them holding onto the rope that hung down and looped around Malcolm’s waist. He’d done it to make Ellie feel better about the possibility of him surviving another tunnel collapse, and it had the side effect of making him think constantly that the tunnel might be about to collapse.

He needed to get this done and get the hell back up into the late-afternoon sunshine. If it was still late afternoon.

Pretty soon Caesar was going to come kick them out.

“Okay,” Malcolm said. He was tired enough that he’d started talking to himself. “Almost got it. Let me…” He broke off because he needed all his breath to twist a rusty flywheel. It had been sitting in one place for long enough that it really didn’t feel like moving. One of the apes could have done it must more easily, but this was the last thing. They’d rewired, they’d cleaned, and they’d cleared debris and replaced components. Now they had to see if the turbines would do their turbine thing. As he cranked the flywheel, that would create static electricity, and the turbines would take it from there, and the lights would come on in San Francisco.

He pushed, and the flywheel turned. He kept cranking it. The apes looked down from the hatch. Malcolm figured they were probably signing at each other about how weak he was. That was fine. He’d have the last laugh.

It was working.

He couldn’t believe it. There was without question a thrumming beginning to come from the turbines. And if there was a thrumming coming from the turbines, they would be making electricity.

Malcolm cranked harder. The flywheel loosened up and its momentum started to take over. The humming started to get louder. If he could get it cranking fast enough, enough power would return on a loop from the turbines that the flywheel would turn itself. But how would he know? He was stuck down here in the tunnel.

He kept cranking, listening to the turbine hum and praying—really praying, the kind of prayer that only the non-religious can make—that it was really going to work.

“Alexander! Kemp!” he shouted. “Is it working?” He didn’t know whether his voice would carry over the grind of the flywheel and the rising hum. His arms were like wet noodles, but he kept cranking.

Then he heard Ellie screaming from the powerhouse. He let go of the flywheel and scrambled to the base of the ladder. She was calling his name. He couldn’t tell whether it was fear or elation pitching her voice so high until he saw her face in the hatch opening.

“Malcolm!” she said.

“What?” he panted. “What’s happening?”

“You better get up here and see.”

As he scrambled up the ladder, he paused just long enough to get another look at the flywheel. It spun along without his help, and it didn’t seem to be slowing down.

He climbed fast, hearing a growing commotion above.

They could see it from the catwalk, a glow in the trees. But it wasn’t until they got down to the bottom of the canyon, along the overgrown road that petered out somewhere in the resurgent forest, that they really knew what they were looking at. The orange ball of the gas station, the numbers glowing a warm indigo against the vivid orange.

Malcolm and Ellie got there with Alexander, Foster, and Kemp just as the clop of hooves announced the arrival of Caesar, Maurice, Rocket, and their group. All of them looked up at the orange globe, stunned. Ellie squeezed Malcolm’s hand.

“You did it, Dad,” Alexander said. Malcolm couldn’t tell whether he was amazed at the sight of the globe, or surprised that his dad had pulled it off. Maybe both.

“We all did it,” he said. As he spoke, he looked at Caesar and added, “Apes, too. We couldn’t have gotten it done without you.”

There was a loud pop, startling all of them…and then music started to play. It was an old song, a classic-rock chestnut that had been old when Malcolm was a kid. A wave of nostalgia hit him so hard that it brought tears to his eyes. There had been a world with music everywhere, and light when you wanted light, and hot water, and enough to eat…

All of that seemed to come through the old speakers set under the awning of the wrecked gas station, as a long-dead singer sang a song nobody had heard in ten years. Maybe this was where it started all over again. Maybe this was where they could begin to believe that the Simian Flu wasn’t the end of humanity, but a hard and necessary corrective.

We can do better this time , Malcolm thought. That’s what second chances are for.

Caesar dismounted and walked over to Malcolm.

“Can’t believe it worked,” Malcolm said. A thought occurred to him. “Up here at least. We won’t know about the city until we’re back.”

Caesar considered this. He started back toward his horse, gesturing for the humans to follow.

“Come,” he said.

Koba’s plan took shape as they rode back into the mountains. He could not face Caesar directly. The apes had not come to his aid when he faced Caesar at the dam. and they would not do so now. So he would give them another enemy.

They slowed as they rode up the path leading to the humans’ trucks, and dismounted. Silence , Koba signed. Grey and Stone nodded. They tied the horses far enough away from the trucks that their sounds would not reach the human. Then they crept to the edge of the clearing and looked. They smelled smoke, and Koba had another idea to add to his plan. He considered it and decided it would work. In fact, it would make everything that much easier.

When he heard the music, he froze. It took a little while for him to understand what was happening, and where it was coming from. Then Stone pointed, and Koba spotted the glow of the orange ball through the trees. He bared his teeth. The human, Malcolm, had done it. He had brought the lights back.

All the more reason to strike now , Koba thought. With lights, the humans would spread out again. They would find the apes, and with their building full of guns they would shoot until there were no more apes.