Alex Irvine: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

“They’re not what you think they are. They want the same thing we do,” Malcolm said. “To survive. They don’t want a war.”

Then Dreyfus started to get angry.

“What? Are you out of your—where the hell have you been?” he spluttered, almost overbalancing the crate as he leaned forward and jabbed a finger in Malcolm’s direction. “Those animals attacked us!”

“Only because they thought we attacked them,” Malcolm said. Dreyfus was a rational man, a smart man, but he didn’t like apes, and he thought he had good reason not to like them. It was going to be an uphill struggle convincing him. But Malcolm kept talking. It had worked with Caesar, it would work with Dreyfus.

Or they’d all end up dead.

“They think he’s dead, but he’s up there right now—this fighting can stop, we can finish what we started, everything we’ve been working for.” He would have gone on, but he could tell from the expression on Dreyfus’s face that he was hung up on something Malcolm had said.

Malcolm paused. Dreyfus blinked, catching up.

“Wait,” he said. “Who? Who’s up there?”

Ten stories from Koba’s perch at the top of the skyscraper, Caesar saw Grey look down. The face disappeared, and Caesar kept climbing until Grey and Koba’s other closest loyalists came climbing down to meet him.

Blue Eyes, right behind Caesar, called out to him and Caesar slowed, planting his feet on a beam and awaiting their arrival. Caesar was grateful for the brief rest. He did not see Stone, and wondered what had happened to him as Koba’s loyalists dropped onto the beams around him.

Each of them in turn looked stunned to see Caesar alive. They hesitated, wavered—then Grey raised his gun and pointed it at him. The sight brought back Caesar’s memory of Koba’s bullet, tearing into him, stealing his breath and the strength of his legs, dropping him down the rocky slope through the trees. He would have died had it not been for humans.

Now he stared at Grey as around him first a dozen, then a hundred, then a hundred more apes flooded up onto the beams. They surrounded Caesar. Grey looked at them—Luca, Rocket, Maurice, Blue Eyes, all the rest—and he looked uncertain. The other Koba loyalists, unnerved by the return of so many apes to Caesar, raised their own guns.

Caesar peered at him and did not waver, but he breathed deeply, wondering which would be his last breath before Grey pulled the trigger.

At his side, Maurice grunted. Maurice! The last ape Caesar would have expected. The orangutan stared hard at Grey and signed.

Koba’s fight… Not yours.

If Maurice could be roused to action, Caesar thought, Koba had no chance. He kept his gaze steady on Grey, who looked at Maurice for a long time. Almost long enough that Caesar thought he might yet fire. Then, slowly, Grey lowered the barrel of his gun. Koba’s other loyalists did the same.

And so , Caesar thought, the king stands alone . He thought of the chessboard, and of Malcolm sitting in Caesar’s old room where Will once sat. He stared at Grey until Grey looked away. Then Caesar called to his apes, and resumed his climb.

A minute later he was on the top level of beams, whipped by the chill wind from the harbor. It hummed around the cables that were hanging from the end of the crane, swinging the hook and ball back and forth.

Caesar got his feet onto the highest beam and looked up at Koba, who sat alone on a girder that reached up. It was higher than the distance from the ground to the top of Caesar’s tree. He was looking at Caesar, and then he looked around as the rest of the apes swarmed up over the edges of the building and massed around an open area left at the base of the spire. Koba shifted, a bottle in his hand. Slung over his back was his gun, and crossing in the other direction was the strap of his harpoon.

He looked back at Caesar, and Caesar smiled up at this king, alone in the kingdom he had never really had. He could see Koba’s shock that Caesar was still alive. Would he be smart, or would he fight?

Leaving his weapons behind, Koba dropped down the girder, using one hand and both feet. He got to the grid of beams and looked at the assembled apes. Grey was nowhere to be seen. Koba leered and looked Caesar up and down. He knew Caesar better than any ape, and he could tell Caesar was weak.

“Caesar has no place here,” he said. “Apes follow Koba now.”

“Follow Koba to war,” Caesar growled.

Koba made a sweeping gesture to the surrounding apes, the bottle sloshing in his hand.

“Apes win war! Apes together STRONG!” He did a pantomime of a kooky-chimp act, mocking as he repeated Caesar’s own words to the assembled apes. Then he looked back to him and added, “Caesar weak.”

Caesar looked at the bottle in Koba’s hand and made sure that the assembled apes all saw him looking at it.

“Koba…weaker,” he said.

At that, Koba snapped. With a roar he charged at Caesar, who leaped at him, meeting him in mid-air with a bone-jarring thump. They slammed down to the nearest beam. Around them, the assembled apes started to hoot and screech. Below that noise was a rhythm, a chant, wordless but powerful. The apes saw their once and future leaders, and they chanted to give strength to the ape who deserved to win.

Caesar and Koba grappled and bit, kicked and swung, leaped and punched across the grid of beams with a drop of three hundred feet below them. Caesar took the measure of his opponent. He was strong and he was fueled by his hatred… but he was also drunk. Caesar was strong and he was fueled by belief… but he was also torn by a bullet. Every time he swung from the arm on his wounded side, he felt something tear a little inside him. This could not be a long fight. He would not survive it if it lasted.

Then , Caesar thought, I must end it quickly.

“Okay, Malcolm,” Dreyfus said. “I don’t know what happened to you up there. What got into your head.”

“I know how it sounds,” Malcolm said.

“Do you?” Dreyfus shouted. “I don’t think you do.” He stepped down from the crate and took a step toward Malcolm, who took a step back. “You think stopping me will even matter?” Dreyfus said. “They’re coming! We made contact! A military base up north. They’re already on their way.”

Malcolm couldn’t believe this, but it fit with Werner’s offhand comments from before. Other humans , he thought. We aren’t alone—

Dreyfus charged him, taking advantage of Malcolm’s surprise. He slapped the gun out of Malcolm’s hand and knocked him over backward, jamming a forearm down on his throat. Dreyfus had been a soldier. Malcolm was an architect. He’d inadvertently started a fight he couldn’t finish, and he knew it.

But he tried anyway, thrashing around and getting lucky when he drove a knee up and landed it squarely in Dreyfus’s gut. Dreyfus gagged and Malcolm sprawled across the floor after the gun. He got it, spun around… and saw Dreyfus getting to his feet, covered with concrete dust and holding the detonator tuned to the wires leading to God only knew how many bricks of C-4.

“Don’t,” Malcolm said.

Werner had heard the scuffle and come running just in time to see the standoff.

“Dreyfus, what’re you doing?” he said. Malcolm could see him trying to figure out the situation, and deciding that Malcolm was trying to stop Dreyfus from blowing them all to hell. Malcolm hoped Werner didn’t ask himself too many questions about how he had ended up with Finney’s gun.

Dreyfus looked at Werner, and back to Malcolm.

“I’m saving what’s left of the human race,” he said.