Alex Irvine: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Now it was Blue Eyes’s turn to laugh as Ash charged through the shallows after his quarry. Blue Eyes saw it go past him. He slapped the water, trying to catch it, but missed, still laughing. Ash bounded along the rocky riverbed. Blue Eyes followed, splashing him on purpose. The fish was gone, he knew. They would never catch it now.

Ash headed for a rocky overhang on the inside of a river bend, as if the fish might hide there. Blue Eyes caught his eye as they stomped through the water.

You’re supposed to hold it by the gills , he signed. He laughed harder as Ash splashed him, then shoved him out into the water.

Blue Eyes tripped over a rock and fell. He sprang back up and went after his friend, who had splashed around the rock, and then stopped short. Blue Eyes swatted at the water again, but Ash didn’t move. Blue Eyes called out to him and churned his way over.

Then he, too, froze.

From where they were standing next to the rock, shallow rapids spread out into the middle of the river just downstream, with the deeper, quiet water at the outside of the bend on the other side. The overhung rock formations created another slow-moving eddy, with a sloping open bank.

On that bank, squatting with his hands in the water to fill some kind of container, was a human.

Blue Eyes had never seen a live human. He’d seen a dead one, once, on the road that crossed the river. He had been very young and only remembered being surprised that the corpse had so little hair. And he had seen pictures, had heard stories, and this definitely was a human. Male, skin the color of wet sand, a little patch of fur the color of a young chimp’s. Blue Eyes did not know how to read humans’ faces, but if he had seen this expression on an ape, he would have thought the ape was scared.

Very scared.

The human stood up, his round bottle dropping onto the bank and spilling its contents. He took a step back and grabbed at something on his belt. It was dark and made of metal. He held it in both hands, his arms straight. A small hole in the tip of the metal thing was pointed right at Blue Eyes and Ash. Blue Eyes felt like he knew what the metal thing was, but it took a moment for his mind to start working again after the shock of seeing a human, alive, almost within shouting distance of the ape village.

Gun , he thought. That was the word. He remembered the sign, a wiggle of the thumb with a finger pointed out.

The sound of the gunshot was the loudest thing Blue Eyes had ever heard.

Caesar heard the gunshot and was racing toward the village gate before the echoes had died away down the canyon. He gestured as he ran, signaling his apes to arm themselves and follow, but he did not wait for them. He ran. The sound had come from the river below. The canyon broadened into the wide valley where they had hunted elk the day before.

Blue Eyes and Ash had gone fishing down there.

His mind raced faster than his legs and arms. Just last night he and Maurice had talked about the humans. Now this morning, there was a gunshot. Some of the apes believed that dreams could see what would happen. Some of them believed that certain apes could do the same. Caesar believed none of it, but still… Last night he had wondered if the humans were gone. This morning he had heard a gunshot.

Only a human would have a gun.

He skirted the edge of the canyon, following a steep path and using the trees where the aerial passage was faster. Behind him, he heard the rush and rustle of his troop. Most of them knew the sound of gunshots, from the day they gained their freedom. Even those who did not—the youngest Caesar would allow to fight—could see how their elders were reacting. They hurtled through the trees and along the path as if they were going to battle.

Caesar was first to reach the barren ridge above the river’s edge, between the meadow where they had caught the elk and the wider, slower water downriver, where an old bridge crossed not far from the gas station. He halted on the ridge, looking down the slope as the rest of the apes gathered on either side of him. Koba, as always, was close by his side.

At the edge of the water, across the river, Ash lay against the sloping face of a rock. Blue Eyes crouched over him, protecting him. Both of them were looking at the human, who stood a short distance away on the same bank, his gun still pointed at the two young apes.

Crashing sounds came from the trees beyond the bank, and more humans spilled from the forest. Caesar counted them. Altogether there were five grown males, one female, one young male. Several of them carried guns. The first human pointed up in Caesar’s direction and the humans stared in shock at the massed apes on the ridge.

Yes , Caesar thought. If you are not gone, it is good that you should fear us.

Koba, too, was surveying the scene. Rocket, on Caesar’s other side from Koba, saw that Ash was wounded. He started to scream with rage and anguish, and signed furiously.

Humans shot Ash!

Caesar nodded, holding out an arm to keep Rocket from charging down and across the river. They did not want killing here. He watched the humans react to Rocket’s sounds. One of the males pushed the young male behind him. A father, Caesar thought. So the humans had children still.

Hold, Rocket , Caesar signed.

I will kill them , Rocket answered. He bared his teeth at the humans and screamed again, shaking his spear.

Hold , Caesar repeated, with more emphasis. He looked back to the humans, focusing on the one who had protected the young male. That was the one to whom he would need to speak.

Everything was different now. If apes were not alone, Caesar would have to decide whether human and ape would both live, or whether there would be killing.

He held the gaze of the male human.

Your move , he thought.

Leave it to Carver , Malcolm was thinking. He goes to the river to fill his canteen, next thing you know we’re looking up the ridge at a million pissed-off apes with spears.

He couldn’t believe it. Everyone in San Francisco had heard the stories about the cover-up, right before the Simian Flu had scythed through humanity and left the survivors scrabbling in the ruins. But this? An organized group of apes, with weapons they had to have created themselves, rallying to defend two others. Yet not just charging down to kill them. Malcolm’s head spun at the implications of it.

He stepped forward, both hands out in front of him, making sure to keep Alex behind him. The apes had stopped at the top of the ridge, but one of them was still making a hell of a racket, and spears could start flying at any moment.

Malcolm saw the one in the center of the group, his face streaked with red paint of some kind. The others looked to him. He was the one who had stopped the screaming chimp from coming after them. He must be the leader. And he was looking right at Malcolm, as if he recognized his human counterpart.

Okay , Malcolm thought. Chief to chief. Let’s talk.

“We don’t… we don’t mean any harm,” he called, loud enough for his voice to carry over the sound of the river, but not so loud—he hoped—that he sounded threatening.

Ellie spoke just behind him, her voice a terrified whisper.

“Malcolm, what are you doing?”

“They’re apes,” Carver said, louder than Ellie. He was waving his gun around, from the two apes in the shallows near them to the dozens on the ridge. “You think they understand what you’re saying?”

Idiot , Malcolm thought. “They look like just apes to you?” he responded quietly.

They sure didn’t to him. All of them stood looking down on the group of humans with what could only be intelligence. They were assessing the situation, waiting for orders. Next to the one Malcolm took to be the leader, an older chimp—with graying fur and a dead eye—looked at Malcolm with an expression of hate. Not animal, predatory hunger. Not the anger an animal felt toward a rival. Hate. It— He? Malcolm thought—was also staring at their guns.