Alex Irvine - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

He realized something then. Koba hungered for guns and liquor. He hungered for power. He desired revenge. He had turned on the most sacred law of the apes, betraying Caesar and using human weapons like a coward. Even now he smirked, dangling over the hole that dropped all the way down into the underground floors of the tower.

He turned his face back to Koba, his face grave.

“You are not ape,” he said.

Koba’s expression changed. One moment he wore the taunting leer of someone waiting for an enemy to realize his defeat. The next he was the schemer, realizing that his schemes had fatally undermined, not his enemy, but himself.

Caesar let him go.

Koba roared, his last act in life to scream out the rage and hate that had driven him to acts that no ape could forgive. His body grew smaller and smaller, then disappeared into the darkness below.

Caesar closed his eyes. It was a hard thing he had done. Once he and Koba had been brothers. They had fought together, saved each other’s lives… but he who won this battle was he who thought of only one thing. Caesar thought only of the laws of the apes, which existed to keep them unified and strong in a world that had tried to eradicate them. Around him was silence, save for the wind humming through the naked steel.

The apes mourned Koba, as they should, Caesar thought. As he did. Then he heard a hopeful hoot from nearby. He located the ape making the noise and saw him looking away and down, toward the street. Stiff and aching, the wound in his chest bleeding again, he pulled himself up and loped across the beams, joined by other apes curious to see what could interrupt so solemn an occasion.

Coming over the hill and down toward the Colony was a throng of apes, moving in small groups but all together. The females and children had arrived. They were too far away for Caesar to recognize any individuals, but the sight of them filled him with a restored sense of purpose. He had done what needed to be done. Now was the time to begin rebuilding what Koba had tried to destroy.

Ignoring the pain radiating from his wounds, Caesar raised his arms and gestured for the rest to follow him. He dropped over the edge of the steel frame and began the long climb down to reunite with Cornelia. Blue Eyes cut through the crowd to climb with him.

Together , Caesar thought. Apes together strong.

They reached the courtyard at the base of the skyscraper, on the other side from the wreckage of the Colony gate. Some apes ran north to meet their families and guide the group in. Caesar waited. He did not have the strength to run, and even if he had it was more fitting for him to stay where he was. The leader of apes could not run around like an adolescent.

He rested and thought about what he had done. He had broken the law that ape shall not kill ape… but he had done it to save other apes. How many were dead because of Koba? Their village burned, the humans made into enemies, and deep divisions created within the troop… all those were Koba’s fault. He had acted like the worst of the humans, making himself unfit for apes. Caesar had done the only thing he could, cutting out the disease to keep the body whole.

Several apes near the closest doors into the building started to screech and grunt. Caesar turned to see what they were doing, and saw yet another unexpected thing, here at the end of a succession of days that had brought one unexpected thing after another.

Malcolm, dirty and battered—blood smeared across his nose and dried in a trickle that ran down the side of his jaw—emerged from the building. The apes surrounded him, baring fangs and screeching. He did not react. Caesar admired his calm. It was one of the human qualities he admired.

“Leave him,” Caesar said over the commotion. He crossed the stone plaza and saw on closer inspection that Malcolm was deeply anxious about something other than his immediate safety. “What happened?” he asked, pointing down. He knew there had been an explosion, and it looked like Malcolm had been a little too close to it.

“Dreyfus tried to bring down the tower,” Malcolm said. “I tried to stop him.” Regarding the hundreds of apes around them, he added, “I guess it worked. This building is built pretty tough. They have to be around here.”

“It worked,” Caesar said.

“What about Koba?” Malcolm asked.

“Koba is gone,” Caesar said. He offered no details, and Malcolm didn’t ask for any.

“Listen,” Malcolm said. “You’re not safe here.” Caesar frowned in confusion. Koba was gone, the humans were scattered and now knew that the apes were under Caesar’s control again… “They made contact,” Malcolm continued. “There are others coming for you. Soldiers. You need to leave while you still can. All of you.”

Leave , Caesar thought. Where? Back into the mountains, where they had almost died in their first months? Where the remains of their village still smoked at the edge of the canyon? Leave, while soldiers landed and the humans saw what apes had done.

“No,” he said. It was too late to run. If there were other humans, no place on earth would be far enough away. Not when soldiers saw that a battle had already been fought.

“Yes,” Malcolm said, his voice low and urgent. “Caesar, you have to—”

“Nowhere left to run,” Caesar said. He looked up the tower, all the way to the top, where he and Koba had finally settled their differences. “Thought fight would end here,” he said sadly, and looked back to Malcolm. This human had risked his own life for Caesar’s, more than once. It pained Caesar to do what he was about to do, but he could see no other choice. “It is you who must go. I am sorry… my friend.”

Malcolm looked as if he might say something. Caesar waited. Malcolm had convinced him to change his mind several times. Perhaps he could do it again. But then Malcolm nodded.

“I’m sorry too,” he said.

They looked at each other, human and ape, knowing they were being torn apart, not by choice, but by events neither of them could control. Caesar stepped back, then turned and walked slowly down the stone steps into the large plaza beyond. A sea of apes, hundreds and hundreds, bowed and supplicated as he waded through them. He felt their renewed strength, and felt also the burden of what he would have to tell them. But not just yet. Let them be strong together for a little while, let them enjoy the reunion with the females and the children. He picked Cornelia out of the crowd, the baby clinging to her. Blue Eyes had already found her. The four apes came together and embraced. Together. Strong.

In the midst of this moment Caesar looked back toward the base of the skyscraper. Malcolm was gone.

It was just daybreak when they got to the bridge.

“Careful here,” the captain said. “No telling what kind of debris is in the channel.” He looked at an old chart. The water under the middle of the bridge was sixty fathoms at its deepest point, and the ship only drew six fully loaded. Now it was drawing maybe four. Should be plenty of clearance, but the captain knew better than to assume anything, after all the things he’d seen.

Next to him, the navigator was muttering a continuous stream of minor corrections, his instructions sent down to the engine room. The ship was a dinosaur, without any advanced electronics. They practically had to communicate with cans and string. But they got it done. The most advanced tech they had was the radio setup, and the captain glanced over to see one of his men coming onto the bridge.

“Still nothing on the radio,” the man said. “Last contact was ten hours ago.”

The captain considered this. The contact was confirmed. There were people in San Francisco. And judging by the tone of their communications, they were in trouble. They’d come all this way, so they might as well get a look at the city and see what kind of shape it was in. Surviving groups of humans were few and far between. If they could help these people, they would.