Don’t know, he replied, instead. But this might be good.
How? Caesar wondered.
If enough of them die, maybe they will forget about us. That would be a very good thing.
12
Malakai understood long before they found the tracking devices what had happened, but he also knew Corbin wouldn’t believe him, so he let the whole thing play out. He was pretty sure Clancy had figured it all out, too.
They found the tags in the back of a truck parked in front of a restaurant in the small town of Stinson Beach. Corbin swore colorfully for what seemed like a long time.
“They fricking hosed us,” he said. “Smoked us like a cheap cigar!”
“Maybe we should try again,” Flores said. “Use smaller transmitters. I’ve seen some smaller than a dime.”
“If you did, it was in a movie,” Corbin snapped. “The ones we used are the smallest they make.”
“That’s not even the point, really,” Clancy said. “That point is, they figured out what we were up to, and used our plan against us.”
“Well then, expert,” Corbin said, turning to Malakai, “what next?”
“Drive back to that place you stopped,” he responded. “The bottom of that trail.”
“Right, that makes sense,” the mercenary agreed grudgingly. “Let’s get moving, then!”
They made the drive in silence. When they reached the spot he had suggested, Malakai got out, carefully observing the ground. It didn’t take him long to find the tracks.
“Well, do you know where they’ve gone?” Corbin demanded, hovering over him as he crouched close to the ground.
“Not ‘they’,” Malakai said, after a moment. “Him.”
“What do you mean?” Corbin asked.
“There was only one of them. ‘They’ didn’t figure out what we were trying to do. He did. Or she, perhaps.”
“No need to be politically correct,” Clancy said. “Apes have their gender roles pretty well mapped out.”
“Yes, but we aren’t dealing with apes here,” Malakai said.
“The tracks are human?” Corbin said.
“No,” Malakai said. “It’s the spoor of a chimpanzee. But the mind attached to the foot that made that track is not the mind of an ape. Up until now I’ve believed that the apes had a human leader, despite your assurances to the contrary. I no longer believe that.”
“Couldn’t it have been trained to do this?” Corbin asked. “Haven’t apes been used in robberies or whatever?”
“Sure they have,” Clancy said. “In those movies Flores has been been watching, the ones with the tiny tracking devices.” That earned her a nasty look, but she didn’t seem to care.
“Imagine the sequence of events,” she went on. “He recognized the camera, inferred what it was there for, and then disabled it.”
“You said that wasn’t a big deal.”
“That alone, no. But then he figured out—or at least guessed—what the tracking devices were, and why they were there. He then systematically searched the fruit until he found not one, not a few, but all of the devices. Then he used them to draw us away so the rest of his troop could take the fruit. I’ll guarantee you there isn’t a single piece remaining where you left it. He must have known there was a road over here, with cars on it.
“It’s just too much,” she concluded.
“What are you saying?”
“Malakai is right. At least one of these apes is smart—really smart. Maybe he’s a mutation, the next step in chimpanzee evolution. Or maybe he was deliberately altered in a lab. Chimps are ninety-nine percent genetically the same as us, so maybe someone spliced in the last one percent.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“But this is good news,” Malakai said, before Corbin could erupt again.
“How’s that?” Corbin asked.
“For one thing, I actually have a better concept now of where they really are,” he replied. “And it gives me an idea.”
Koba is at the place where they do their tricks and make the little pictures, but they haven’t done anything. People seem upset, and some have water leaking from their eyes. He knows now that they call it crying.
He remembers Mary crying because his mother wouldn’t move, and it makes him feel anxious. He tries not to fidget, because Tommy will punish him if he does. But Tommy isn’t really paying attention to him. He’s speaking loudly to a man who is speaking loudly back. Koba feels as if any minute one will challenge the other, and that makes him feel even more distressed. But finally the men stop yelling at each other.
Tommy comes over and takes his leash then, and Milo’s.
“It was a stupid show anyway,” Tommy says. Then he takes them home.
Tommy drinks a lot of his burning juice and talks on the phone much of the time. He also sleeps a lot, and does not remember to feed Koba and Milo. Koba grows hungry, and anxious again. When he sees Tommy, he “smiles” and “talks.” He signs “food.” Tommy says something he doesn’t understand, and walks away.
One day he finally takes Koba out of his cage and holds out his leash. He leaves Milo in his cage. Milo points to his mouth, then to Koba.
That frightens Koba, and something about the way Tommy is acting scares him, too. So when Tommy comes close with the leash, Koba jumps back.
“Don’t you even,” Tommy shouts. He pulls out the stick, but Koba is more scared of having his mouth stuck together than he is of the stick. He has been hit by the stick so many times he almost isn’t scared of it anymore.
But this time Tommy smacks him on the side of the head, and Koba doesn’t even know what is happening. Then he understands that Tommy is hitting him again, and again, and again, and he suddenly knows that Tommy isn’t going to stop.
Koba feels something break in him, something hot, like the stuff Tommy made him drink. It wants out of him, and the only way it can get out is through his hands, his feet, and his teeth. He jumps at Tommy, knocks him hard against the cage, and then slams him to the ground and starts hitting him. It feels good.
Tommy covers his head and face with his hands and howls, submitting to him. Koba suddenly feels powerful, in control, and it is a feeling he likes.
His head starts to clear a little. Tommy has submitted. Things will be different now. He steps back from Tommy.
Tommy lifts his head and stares at Koba. He still looks docile, frightened.
Then he screams. He pulls something out of his pocket and slashes at Koba. Koba feels something slice from his eyebrow through his eye and into his cheek. Everything goes black in that eye. With his other eye he sees blood, and it seems to be everywhere. He sees Tommy grab the leash and put it around his throat. Koba is trying to keep the blood from coming out of his face while Tommy ties him to the cage, in such a way that if he doesn’t keep his feet under him he starts choking.
Then Tommy starts hitting him with the stick again, and before long Koba doesn’t know anything at all.
It is later, and Koba is back in his cage. He hurts so much he can’t focus on anything else. The cut across his eye hurts terribly, but now he can see a little bit through it, even if things aren’t quite in focus.
Tommy comes by and looks closely at him. He has one of his smoking sticks in his mouth.
Koba tries to look submissive.
Koba good, he signs. Koba do tricks.
Tommy laughs then, but it sounds awful.
“You’re too goddamn ugly now, anyway,” he says. “Now one wants to see you do funny little goddamn monkey things. Maybe if a part in a horror movie comes up, though.”