Chapter Text
Three centuries after a catastrophic virus decimated human intelligence, turning the survivors into primal shadows of their former selves, the world has irrevocably changed. The ALZ virus, originally intended to combat Alzheimer's disease, not only ravaged humanity but inadvertently gave rise to a new dominant species: intelligent apes.
Near the ruins of what was once Los Angeles, Noa, a valiant chimpanzee of the Eagle clan, has just thwarted a power-hungry bonobo, Proximus Caesar, from enslaving his people. Guided by the teachings of a certain orangutan, Raka, who revered the nearly forgotten, peace-loving chimp Caesar, Noa believes in a world where apes and humans can coexist peacefully. However, during his quest, he encounters Mae, a human who defies his expectations. Mae, immune to the virus and possessing the ability to speak, challenges Noa's perceptions of humans as mere animals.
Together, Noa and Mae manage to prevent Proximus Caesar from seizing a cache of potent human technology by flooding an old bunker. In the process, Mae secures a crucial computer drive that enables her underground human community to reconnect with distant survivors, bridging isolated pockets of humanity; she also manages to betray Noa and his clan by leaving them to fend for themselves.
As Mae's group in Los Angeles prepares to merge with new allies from Fort Wayne, Indiana, tensions escalate. Unaware of Mae's bond with Noa, a small but well-armed scouting party from Fort Wayne comes across the Eagle Clan’s village on their way to Los Angeles to meet up with Mae’s people.
Far more adept on their own home turf, the scouting party is caught by the apes, rounded up, and held hostage. Their weapons are confiscated. Mae is called in when the scouting party never reports to the underground bunker where the rest of the intelligent humans in her group seek refuge. Caught between her origins and her convictions, Mae faces the ultimate choice during the tense encounter: stand with her human kin or protect Noa, the ape she has come to admire.
This story explores the fragile hope for reconciliation in a world torn apart by fear and prejudice. Can Noa and Mae forge a path toward peace, or will the shadows of old wars darken the future dreamed of by the legendary Caesar?
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In the dense shadows cast by the towering trees that skirt the Eagle clan's village, the air was thick with tension and the faint scent of smoke from distant fires. The setting sun bled red over the horizon, casting long shadows across the rough-hewn faces of the Eagle clan and their new captives. Five ALZ-immune humans from Fort Wayne sat bound and rigid, their eyes darting nervously as they listened to the low, ominous murmurs of the assembled apes.
Noa moved deliberately among the captives, his demeanor stern yet marked by an inherent fairness. Each human he approached met his gaze with a mix of defiance and fear, but none spoke. They clung to their silence like a shield, even under the weight of Noa's penetrating stare.
"No purpose here can be good if it starts with secrets," Noa stated, his voice resonating with a calm authority as he paused before a younger man whose jaw was stubbornly set.
The chants from the simian crowd grew louder, a discordant mix of anger and fear, with proposals of banishment or worse. They remembered what happened with Proximus Caesar, the obsession with human technology and worldly knowledge, and want none of it. Noa raised a hand, called for silence, but the restlessness was palpable, a living thing that fed on uncertainty and fear.
At the perimeter of the village, a human woman keeps a low profile in the brush. She had followed a single flare that burst bright in the sky to this location. It was a habitual thing, to bypass this region when doing her rounds in the forest. Immunity to the Simian Flu had bequeathed her the role of tracker, hunter, and scout after her initial mission was completed. Brown hair, blue eyes like the sky, Mae can only watch the scene unfold with a pounding heart. Worry lines were etched deeply into her brow, and her hand reached up to clutch at something around her neck - Raka's pendant - the symbol of peace promoted by an ape named Caesar long ago.
Noa gave her that pendant. For an inopportune moment, Mae was lost in reverie.
Without warning, a strong hand gripped her shoulder, yanked her from the shadows. Mae stumbled forward, dragged into the open. Her breath caught as she was thrown unceremoniously to the ground before Noa and his human captives. Dust and small stones bit into her palms as she caught herself, and a small grunt escaped her lips.
The sudden appearance of the human - a known and not particularly fondly remembered human - amongst them drew shocked gasps and murmurs.
Noa’s eyes widened in recognition, then narrowed in a complex tumult of emotion. The last time they parted, it was with a promise of peace, and yet here she was, thrown at his feet, disrupting the fragile balance he had fought to maintain.
Mae’s chest heaved as she pushed herself up slightly, her voice raspy but resolute as she met Noa's gaze. A single word hung between them, charged with layers of meaning, a plea, a greeting, a reminder of shared dreams and bitter realities.
"Noa."
In that moment, the world narrowed to the space between them. Noa stood motionless, the voices around him faded into a distant hum. His heart fought a fierce battle within, torn between his duty to his clan and the undeniable pull he felt towards this woman who embodied both the past they shared and the future they might still forge. He can see Caesar’s pendant, an encircled diamond, as it swung from Mae’s neck wildly.
She still had it.
It is a symbol of ideals that suddenly seem so distant in the face of palpable tension and looming conflict.
The standoff stretched out, every breath, every silent plea, every hope and fear suspended in the dusty air of the dying day.
“Noa,” Mae tried again, defeated. She pulled herself up to stand on shaky, coltish legs. The Eagle Clan scout that initially seized her did not reach for her again as Noa lifted one hand to stay him.
Noa closed his eyes, as if in contemplation.
“What are you doing here?” he finally asked, as he reopened his eyes and shuttered his gaze.
Mae’s lips thinned out into a seamless line, and she cut a gaze over to the trussed-up humans attached to poles in the center of the village.
Noa nodded, once. He did not need much more than that as he added, “They approached our borders. We do not yet know their intention.”
The five Fort Wayne humans, still tied tight, share deliberate looks of fear between themselves. There is clear intelligence writ into their faces. They are not gagged, much to the chagrin of some of the villagers, as Noa would not have it. Still, they are oddly quiet. A few cast curious looks at Mae, no recognition in their eyes. The only woman in the group chewed her lower lip in frustration. Her blonde hair is cut short in a severe bob.
“Let them go, Noa.” Mae stated boldly, taking a step forward. Two other apes, positioned parallel to her, moved to intercept her advance towards the hero of the Eagle Clan. Once again, Noa lifted his calloused palm and gritted his sharp canines.
“Follow,” he told her, indicating something or someplace to the left with a sharp jerk of his head.
There is a short murmur of indignation from the gathered villagers, save for a small group which consisted of Soona, Anaya, and Noa’s mother. They appeared stuck in a shallower tumult of emotion. Noa’s mother took a step forward, unsure, but Soona placed her palm on the female ape’s furry shawl-covered shoulder and stopped her.
Mae’s eyes followed Noa, capturing his unique profile in a blink, and then dipped her head and hesitated. It is always that hesitation, caught between following an ape and leaving her kind behind, but with a reluctant glance at the captives she turned to follow.
He led her to a towering edifice of wood and natural materials that might be described as a tree house. Far above them, hawks circled in the sky, their soaring shadows blotting out the last rays of the sun. They landed at the top of the tower, a dizzying height, and screeched down at her.
Noa ascended a small ramp and stepped past a woven flap of material.
Mae did the same after taking a moment to peer backwards over her shoulder to ascertain the serious faces of a few apes herding her to the entrance.
Once inside, the darkness enveloped her, and the woman became hyper-aware of a dual pair of reflective eyes that watched her in the darkness of the interior.
“You came back,” he said, voice rough with something like emotion.
“Not by choice,” she quipped, and then stepped sideways away from the shaft of light thrown down by the door.
“Why?” It’s a simple question for a complex answer, and she wasn’t ready to answer it.
“I saw a distress signal in the sky,” she replied easily, eyes skating over the shadows and shapes in the interior of the newly rebuilt tower. “I had to see for myself. It looked like a human flare.”
“A flare?” he questioned; voice flat.
“It’s a human thing,” she sighed.
She heard him padding closer to her, his eerie eyes backlit by whatever reflective photo-sensitive cells nocturnal animals possessed. More of his face came into detail. After he stood about a few feet away, he stopped.
Mae froze.
“You have ... it,” he informed her quietly.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
A hand reached out, seemingly disembodied in black space, and she felt the immediate lift of the small weight at her neck.
“Do you ... still believe .. in what it stands for?”
Her answer is the same as before, the same empty mantra. “I-I don’t know, Noa.”
A huff, a sigh. The weight on the back of the cord returned and he stepped back.
“Let them go,” Mae demanded, again.
He did not reply, not right away, but he did give her a long look. It was hard for her to discern in the dim dark, but it might be a soft rebuke. “I have to know … why they are … here.”
Mae’s mind shut down, because she wasn’t ready, or can’t tell him that. Her group of survivors had been expecting the Fort Wayne scouting party for months now. The underground bunker housing her people was the last of its kind for hundreds of miles. They had not come across any other intelligent humans in that time, so this must be the group they awaited. Mae was not an idiot; she had seen the sentry apes rifling through a small stockpile of guns on the ground when she was roughly manhandled to the ground.
She trusted Noa situationally, sure, but did she trust him with this?
There might have been a flash of hurt on his face but the dim interior concealed it well. “They belong with me,” is all she could muster.
“Tell the truth,” he parried back. There was a frustrated edge to his voice, nearly a growl.
“I am telling the truth,” she quipped stubbornly.
“Mae,” he refuted quietly, moving so fast that he is suddenly in her space again, too much and too soon. She gasped, caught off guard. His fingers found Raka’s necklace again, still around her neck. He was staring hard at it.
“Tell … me.”
Her tongue is nothing but a slug in her mouth, unable to form words. Noa had never been this close before, taking up her space, her attention, her very being. Caught between one moment and the next, she shook her head in utter disbelief. She could see his features more clearly, the craggy brow, the dark-light eyes, the slight downturn of his mouth beneath an inhuman nose. For a second, he gripped the pendant around her neck tightly, as if he wanted to hold it for some length of time, and then released it yet again to step past her.
Their shoulders brushed, and Mae forgot to breathe.
His voice carried over from somewhere behind her, close to the entrance. “If you will … not speak … they will.” A rustle of fabric against fur, and he was gone.
Within the crude tower, Mae let out the breath she held in a slow whoosh.
Noa.