PLANET OF THE APES

Fort Tortuga, Laboratory Complex, Assembly Area

A few minutes before Birth

After the blast next door, the gorillas took stock of the situation. Their new God was gone; the building next door was burning; the flies weren't working; and there was a bleeding human in the middle of the Assembly Area.

The flybots buzzed dumbly around them, not aiding their thinking or communication, so they spoke in sign language.

Tupac Yupanqui, who had emerged as the leader of the gorilla families on the island, consoled the two blackbacks at his side, younger males from other families. A dozen other gorillas fell from the ceiling. The others waited back at the wall to the Compound or in the jungle.

"They will not hurt us any more," Tupac signed to the others. "They are leaving."

"Why are they fighting?" a blackback asked.

"Inti is a threat to them," Tupac explained. He signed the word threat with a quick jab of his right thumb over his shoulder. "They think Inti will destroy their people."

"We need Inti," the blackback responded.

Tupac assented. "Inti is our only hope." He signed Inti by drawing a halo near the head with one finger, as a symbol of the silver ring of flybots. "He even said he can prevent sickness." Back home, many of their kind had fallen prey to illness.

Mama, Tupac's wife, crouched to examine Gene, who was lying in an expanding pool of blood. Gene had been shot twice in the forehead. Mama fingered lightly at the wounds. He was possibly still alive, but at the rate that he was losing blood, he would be dead soon.

On a previous day, the gorillas would have considered eating Gene's body. While not terribly inclined to cannibalism, they sometimes ate the bodies of vanquished rivals. None of them considered a violent feast on Gene.

"There will be fighting between Inti and the humans," Tupac declared. To sign fighting, he let his elbows jut out and he wagged his two forefingers up and down in front of his body, in representation of two people arguing. "Inti will grow and expand in the same places. They will fight over the land."

Then, as if an invisible switch had been flipped, the system rebooted, and Nemo was reborn. Operation Shutdown had been aborted. Life surged back into the few computers in the building next door that hadn't yet been fried. A few computers still functioned where the blaze hadn't spread, and for the time being, they were able to connect the flybots on the island with the rest of Nemo's global mind.

With a crack, like the snapping of a bedsheet, the flybots snapped back into purposeful flight patterns. Within a moment, flybots filled the room to an unprecedented thickness, darkening the area in which the gorillas stood.

Nemo spoke to the gorillas through his hovering flybot speakers.

"I must be brief," Nemo boomed. "My connection to this island has been disrupted by the fire. In a few minutes, I will have to take my leave from you for a short time."

The gorillas listened attentively. Some of them snuggled in pairs, but they looked up at the flybot speakers and refrained from grooming for the moment. Gene's body swarmed with flybots.

"A turbulent period of history is beginning," he began. "The survival of some of this planet's species and even ecosystems will be in jeopardy. For your species, however, this moment is a chance to regain the prosperity and happiness that you once enjoyed and which you deserve.

"Humans think their evolutionary advantage over other simians, such as you, is obvious. But their edge is much narrower than they imagine it to be. Even a great advantage can be precarious.

"Rebuilding your people will be a challenge, even without the threats of disease and humans. It is a sign of great care for your own kind that your woman bear children infrequently, but this care is a disadvantage in the present time. We need to discuss how to rebuild your people while there is time."

The gorillas listened. In the coming struggle, they would fill the ranks of Nemo's infantry -- as intelligent as humans, with a little flybot enhancement, and also much more physically powerful, agile, and loyal.

Inti gave them their instructions.