Big black caterpillar, he signs.
Big black caterpillar, his mother signs back in agreement.
That night Koba has trouble sleeping. The big caterpillar is still in their room, and it scares him. But his mother tickles him and tells him he is beautiful, like a banana or a red flower or a kitten, and he finally goes to sleep.
The next day Mary lets them go outside again. Everything is a little bit wet, which Koba likes. It makes everything smell different. It never smells this way inside, even when they wash the cages. He thinks maybe it is the sky he is smelling, which today is big and blue. He tries to reach out and touch it, but it is higher than the top of the cage.
The big black caterpillar just goes to the top of the tree and sits there.
When Mary says to come in, Koba doesn’t want to. He wants Kuo to play the game with him. But instead of Kuo, Roger comes out. He tries to put the leash on Koba, but Koba jumps back. He tries again, but Koba jumps back again. Then Roger starts yelling words Koba doesn’t know, and it scares Koba. He wonders what he has done wrong, why Roger is yelling at him, why he doesn’t end the game. He finally gets so frightened he submits, and Roger puts the leash on him. Then he yanks it so hard it hurts Koba’s neck. Koba is so startled he yanks back, then, and in a flash of anger, jumps at Roger.
He doesn’t intend to hit him—and he doesn’t—but Roger stumbles back and falls down. He yells some more.
Mary takes the leash.
“You don’t have to be so rough,” she tells Roger.
“He’s just a dumb animal,” Roger tells her.
Koba wonders what a dumb animal is.
That night, Roger yells more words Koba doesn’t know. He has a sack in one hand, and a bottle in the other. He is drinking something that smells bad from the bottle. He hits the cage with his fist, and the big black caterpillar starts screaming.
Roger gets the leash. He comes into the cage with the leash and the bag, and walks over to him. The bag is long and looks heavy, like there’s something in it.
“You’re so smart,” Robert tells him, “then learn this lesson. See this? Leash. When I show you this, you let me put it on.”
Koba stares at the leash, not sure what he is supposed to do. He is scared—the big caterpillar is still screaming, and it disturbs him.
When Roger moves forward, he cowers back.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Roger says, and he swings the bag at him. When it hits Koba, it knocks all of the wind out of him, and he can’t breathe. Lights seem to flash in his eyes.
Koba good, Koba good, he signs desperately, but Roger swings the bag again. Koba can smell what’s in it now—oranges.
This time Roger misses Koba, because Mother jumps at him. She bites his hand.
Roger screams, and then he hits Mother with the bag. He hits her again, and again, until she backs into the corner, pulling Koba with her. He hides behind her.
Roger finally backs out of the room and closes the door.
“Stupid animals,” he says. He takes a drink from his bottle and then goes somewhere else.
Koba nuzzles up to his mother. He grooms her fur. She puts her arms around him.
Tickle, he signs.
So she tickles him until he falls asleep.
When he wakes up, Mother is very stiff. He can’t make her arms move. Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t seem to see him. She is cold.
Mother see Koba, he signs, but she doesn’t answer. He tries to make her fingers sign, but they are hard and won’t move.
Later, Mary comes in and tries to sign to Mother. Then she comes in the cage and touches her. She starts making strange noises, and water comes out of her face. Koba nestles up with Mother again, scared, but not sure of what. Mary puts her hand on Mother’s face and when she moves it again, Mother’s eyes are closed.
She is asleep.
Mary takes him outside, but Mother won’t go. He plays, at first worried about Mother, but then he becomes occupied witch watching the clouds, which are moving slowly but making interesting shapes. Some of them look like some of his buttons.
When Mary calls him in, he doesn’t want to play his game—he wants to see Mother. She should be acting right again by now.
But when he goes in, Mother is not there. Just the big caterpillar.
Mother, he signs to Mary. Koba want Mother.
“She’s gone, baby,” Mary says. “I’m sorry.”
The next day, Koba doesn’t want to play the game with the buttons. When he goes outside, he looks for Mother, but she isn’t out there. He wonders where she is.
A few days pass like this. Each day, Mary tries less and less to make him play with the buttons or talk with his hands. Finally, one day she picks him up. He likes it, because without Mother, there is no one to touch him.
“You’re getting so big,” Mary tells him. Then she makes a windy sound.
“Koba,” she says, “I know you won’t understand all of this, but our program funding has been cut. It’s complicated, but you won’t be living here anymore. I won’t get to see you anymore.”
Mother, Koba signs.
Mary shakes her head.
“You’re going to a nice place with nice people,” she says. “You’ll be okay.”
And the next day a man comes and put a leash on him. He puts him in a little cage in a thing that moves, and they go to another place. It takes a long time, and Koba cannot even stand up in the cage. He gets sick from moving. He gets scared and bored and unhappy.
Koba blinked, and stared at the dead apes, at the eyes Caesar had just closed, and then he understood. His mother had been dead. Roger had killed her, somehow, with his bag of oranges.
Something nudged him, and Koba started. It was Caesar.
Koba, he said. Go back to Maurice. Be on guard there.
For a moment, Koba felt a flash of anger. Guard the wounded? He wanted to be with Caesar. He wanted to hunt, to fool the humans, to fight them again if need be.
And he wanted to protect Caesar.
But he also wanted to please Caesar, and that meant doing what he said. So he gave submission and reluctantly went up the nearest tree. But he paused and looked back as Caesar and his band went off in the other direction.
Caesar had divided the troop into three smaller bands. One was with Maurice. It was the largest and included the wounded, the infants, and wild apes who knew how to find food. They were staying mostly in one place. The second group was with Rocket—they were to draw humans away from Maurice and his band, to hunt small animals, and to find human food where they could.
The third group was led by Caesar himself, and would do much the same as Rocket’s bunch. When Caesar had asked Koba to help carry the bodies, he had hoped he would remain a part of Caesar’s band.
But it seemed Caesar didn’t really trust him. No one ever had, he realized. Until now, that had not bothered him. But he wanted Caesar to trust him, and he wasn’t even sure why. It would mean something, he thought—but he couldn’t think what it would mean exactly.
When she got to work, Talia still had a little bit of a glow from her father’s grudging pseudo-approval. But the reality of the situation soon overwhelmed that.
The CDC had been quietly trying to prepare the public for what could be a serious epidemic, rolling out ads on how to best avoid the disease, and what to do and where to go if symptoms manifested. Local and national news caught on a little before things were ready, and this was the result…