There was an easy description for the Event, one that Hawk had parroted because it was what she had been told: A Prism had focused light so intensely that it tore a hole in the universe and sucked a certain amount of reality down, taking a handful of monkeys and flowers and ants with it. And now these things were spilling back out of the hole. There. Simple. It covered all the facts, without touching the reality.
The hole was the size of most of the monkey house...or, rather, where the monkey house had been. Once she turned the corner, the ground gave way, save for a narrow strip that the Ape had to navigate with care. Hawk had to cling to the building, digging her fingers into the ash-brittle drywall. If she slipped, it wouldn't be enough to hold her. This strip of earth shouldn't be enough to hold her. Not if it was a true sinkhole. It wasn't. The earth underfoot felt firm. The ground was simply gone, not like a hole dug or worn into the earth, but an ending like the edge of a mirror. Reality just stopped, and within lay darkness. Without, around the edge of the hole, spiraled a million million aural spikes, a cacophony of brightness so enthralling that it seemed a universe all on its own. And Hawk stood in the middle of it and, like the Ape, was unharmed. Perhaps more frightening than the existence of the Glass energy was its unpredictability. She was alive because she'd eaten honeypot ants, but that life never felt quite so fragile as it did right here, on the edge of darkness, with night crowding in. One slip, one biological lapse, and she was dead. And because dwelling on that was unthinkable, she focused instead on the hole and the darkness inside of it.
The darkness was filled with vines.
If she'd had any doubt about her time-theory, they failed as she looked into the hole. The vines grew from some unseen source beneath them all, and they were incredible, as thick around as Hawk's own waist...and growing thicker as she watched. Growth rings pressed themselves into the barrier between this world and that one, forming a tangle as the bud, the source of the growth, terminated into a thin new vine. If pressed, she would have called this tiny evidence of new growth only a few hours old, and the labyrinthine thing beneath, the growth of centuries. But she'd never seen plants grow out of time before. And there were ants moving across the surface fast as lightning...at least until the winged alates made it through the hole into reality. They slowed immediately, going from a speed so fast it defied registration to normal movement. It wasn't just one flight, Hawk realized, but the normal annual cycle made continual by time. It was racing by, beneath that Event horizon. Alates found their way through the hole the way birds would a vent in the sky. And they weren't the only ones. Every few moments another ape emerged from the vines, climbing up to the hole, up from that unknowable, unseen world, up into this one. And this one was different even from the apes all around them. It wore clothes that reminded Hawk more of Victorians, or perhaps even the 1920s. Full shirts, protective pants, masks made of glass and leather. There was a world under there, one where they had access to bits of metal, the ingredients for glass. A whole pocket universe, carved out by Prism and allowed to grow for dozens, even hundreds of generations.
She leaned further forward, until she was hanging over the Event Horizon, with a direct view down. And there, far, far, far below, in the singular spread of light from the Event, sprawled a city. A big one, with towers evident, smaller residences branching out into the darkness. There was a central structure that felt reverential, be it a place of government or a place of worship, and the rest of the structures seemed built around that. The center of the light. Maybe the center of their entire world.
She pulled herself back from the edge of reality, forced herself to press against the safety of the destroyed Monkey House. She looked up into the darkened sky above. There wasn't a cloud to mar it, and there was too much light pollution for stars. Her hair was standing on end, likely from static generated by the Event Horizon. Or else she was about to be struck by lightening from a cloudless sky. When she felt like she'd gotten her balance again, she eased forward, her eyes fixed on the Ape.
They claimed to be the elderly gorilla...and there was no reason to expect such a creature to lie. How would it know ASL, if it hadn't been taught by a human? How would it know about the pregnant gorilla and her baby? Details seemed to gain veracity when they came from an inhuman mouth. Maybe it was lying, but she didn't think so. In fact, Hawk was willing to say that lying was as beyond the Ape as flight was to a fish. She couldn't have said why, and knew she might be wrong. She could, in fact, be convinced that she was wrong, that the Ape was lying about who it was and where it had come from, only so long as she did not also actively think about the Ape. Then the almost worshipful awe she felt towards the thing erased all hints of skepticism. She looked at it now and felt that warmth run over her like honey. Of course it wouldn't lie. It loved her.
It's dangerous, she thought, though this thought, too, could not share the same space as her full memory of the Ape. Dangerous because it was so attractive. She could not doubt its love for her. She wanted to love it. To let go of her skepticism, to let go of her preconceptions and simply lie down and bask in that thing's radiance. She wanted to serve it, to lay at its feet and be noticed by it. She wanted to do things so it could be grateful. She wanted to see it sign thank you in response to something she did. Only two things, she felt, was saving her from this. The first was that she was not an ape, and somehow that made the awe diminish. The second was that anything overriding her natural distrust of the unknown was not good. Humans need to be scared of the wilds for reasons. The Ape, as Kira the Gorilla, could pop Hawk's head off as easily as Hawk could behead a Barbie doll. What it was capable of now was undeniable. If it wanted her dead, she would be dead.
But the Ape seemed to want her attention as much as she craved its focus. It danced through the shimmering silvered light of the Event Horizon, and pointed as the quartet of scientists drew near. Look! It signed. Look what I found! Above its head was open sky and street lamps, with skyscrapers behind. Aural Spikes streamed back and forth above their heads as the Glass energy flared. If Hawk listened closely she could nearly hear a hiss as the energy soared away across ground and sky. And the Ape danced through this as if there were nothing to fear. It kept pointing excitedly down the hole. Look! Look! I found the way home!
"Did you fall in this place?" Hawk asked the amazing creature. "Is that what happened to you?"
A head tilt. A frown. I don't know. I woke up—it was a very long time ago. Why so long? I thought People had forgotten me. I made my own People. Are they good? Do you like my People?
"People," Em said, after translating. "What do you mean by people?"
The Ape grabbed one of the apes nearby. People. My People. They're not like your People, but they're good People anyway. I made them. Are they good? Wasn't I good to make them? Aren't I clever? Aren't I a clever girl?
The Ape's movements were getting sharper. It seemed to be getting worried...as did the ape-creatures around them. And while its words might be childish, its mannerisms were not. There was a nobility to its fear, the way one would fear the displeasure of a god. One of the priests stepped in and began signing, a bit too fast for Em to follow.
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Hawk stepped forward, gently stepping under the Preist's arms so she could kneel directly in front of the Ape. "I think your people are wonderful. Can you tell me how you made them?"
Excitement, excited hooting, and she was embraced by the Ape, who smelled of animal musk and honeysuckle, of cool darkness, and of joy. You like them? Really? You really, really like them?
"Why did you make them. Can you tell me that?" Hawk said. Em leaned in to translate, but the Ape began signing before Em was anywhere near done.
I missed People. I missed my Keeper. I was alone for such a long time. I just had other apes with me. No one to talk to. I taught them to talk, and that was hard because their brains did not know words. I taught them to want words. I taught them to be People, and that was harder. We had CandyAnts to eat, and water, and nothing more than that for days and days on top of that. There was something reproachful in the Ape's attitude as it signed that.
"Well, we're here now. Do...do you still have the other gorilla? The one with the baby? Are they still around?"
The Ape stilled a bit, and the feeling of sorrow spread from it like a wave of ultraviolet, bright enough to burn. It inhaled, and said, They went still long ago, after making many babies that I taught how to be People. I don't like still. You call it D-E-A-T-H. it spelled this last part. Then it tilted its head and began signing Where is Keeper? Why is he gone? He said he would see me in morning and it's been longer than Morning. Why have they been gone so—
Something warm splattered across Hawk's face, and then everything exploded.
The gunshot did not hit Hawk or the Ape. It hit the Priest who had been standing near them, in the elaborate ant-silk robes and leather loin-cloth. It went through a chest plate that seemed to be made of carapace shards, each one gleaming and iridescent as they shattered around the bullet's path. The echo of the shot seemed to pierce every eardrum, peace as broken as the priest's chest. He fell. Another shot echoed before anyone could react, and one of the guards, the patchy one, crumpled like a doll with its strings cut. Hawk finally looked around and saw men hanging from the street lamp posts. They were in full protective gear and would have been hilarious if they weren't holding full auto weapons, and using them. They fired single shot once more, dropping an ape who was just crawling out of the hole.
"No. No. Oh God, NO!" Hawk screamed, and turned around to face the shooters, flinging her arms out while she calculated response times in her head. From capture to now was just enough time for Kaiser to dress his bullies up and send them out for rescue. "They're not hostiles!" she shouted.
The gunmen switched to full auto.
Alex flung himself forward as gunshots rang out, catching Hawk, yanking her back just before the space she'd occupied became bullet-riddled. They kept firing, mowing down every ape in the shattered husk of a monkey house. The bullets went through the embroidery on another priest, who leapt across the Event Horizon in defense of the Ape, who just stood there, staring.
"Make the guns go away!" Hawk shouted to it. The Ape turned to her, its gorilla-face shattered and eyes filled with tears. "Make the guns go away so they won't hurt your People anymore!"
She gestured at the gunmen, whose attention was now fully on the hole, and the apes crawling out of it. There were several females in this crowd who made it to the top. Hawk watched as the complexity of vests they wore became punctured, chests became shredded. Lungs became stilled. They were made to die, expiration a crafted thing of explosives and lead.
Then, with a singular scream, the Ape leaned forward. Its own robes of complex white swirled around it as aural spikes flared across its shoulders. It thrust one hand forward, and light bolted across the shell of a monkey house. It flared like lightning through the remnants of walls and glass windows, through air heavy with ashes and honeysuckle perfume, and slashed across one of the two gunmen visible from the Event Horizon.
Flowers fell from where hands used to be. Some of the flowers were still black, their gun-life yet to fade from their coloration. For a few heartbeats the pale gleam of the glassed gun-man was visible in the moonlight. His hands were still extended, as if to shoot. Then one fell off, broken at the elbow, followed by the second at the shoulder. In one moment, one gesture, the Ape had turned the gunman to Ash.
They responded faster than the Ape was ready for, faster than Hawk could scream. The second gunman brought his gun around, and bullets suddenly rained in from all sides, from the fractured gallery of roof, from ceilings-turned-awnings and from gaps in the walls. And the Ape received them all. It didn't seem distressed when it was pierced by the first ones. It seemed to welcome those first bolts of fire. But then there came a high sound like the shattering of hope, and the Ape fell to its knees. Its huge, crystal-colored eyes fixed, not on the wall or on its murderers, but on Hawk and Alex, on Dyson, and on Emile, who was signing frantically, Come here, come here, come here.
The Ape stumbled forward, and Hawk found herself rising to meet it. She took hold of the hoary, hairy shoulder, which was soaked with a pearlescent fluid. After a few moments she realized that was the Ape's blood. It oozed from some holes, dripped from others, and gushed in a terrifying way from a wound in the Ape's head.
"It's bleeding. Help me," she said, and dropped it into the shelter they were using. And no one protested. Alex caught the Ape's head with both hands, lacing his fingers together against the pearlescent flood of vital fluids. Henry began wrapping a tourniquet around a frightening looking hole in one arm. And Em signed, you'll be okay, as the white fluid puddle beneath them all began to spread.
The Ape shuddered. Oh, how had Hawk ignored the instincts of her own eyes? This was absolutely the Archetypical Ape, the Type that she would forever measure all ape-things against. Those bright, eager eyes searching hers. The nimble fingers responding to Em's words. And then, with a shudder, it wasn't any of those things anymore. It was a gorilla, and it was scared, and then it was dead. It was as simple as that, a breath held, then released, and then there was no more fighting. The gunfire had chased away the remaining apes, save the dead. That, too, was starting to slow. And Hawk wanted to run out there screaming, stop you fuckers, you've gotten them all, but she couldn't move. She was caught with the horror of what she'd just witnessed and that was winding itself down into her bones.
And just when she was sure she couldn't handle anything else, the dead Ape began to melt. It was quick, a solid weight against her hands one moment, and then there was white fluid dripping everywhere, a whole mass of it soaking through shoes and socks and pants. It touched Hawk's skin, and she wanted to scream because it felt like it burned. And yet she held on. She did not want the Ape to go.
The Ape left no bones behind. Nothing except for a small shape clutched in Alex's hands. A pearlescent orb, pure white and slick with iridescence, with a deep crack running through half of its circumference, radiating from a fresh bullet hole. It was palm-sized. Somehow, it was the most horrifying thing Hawk had ever seen. It was a blasphemy against life, anathema to all existence, seeing that orb in Alex's hand.
There was shouting high over their head. "Alex West!" The voice shouted. "Alex West! Are there any members of your team still alive down there?"
Alex, disgusted, shouted, "Yeah, no thanks to..." he trailed off. Looked at Hawk, who held her hands away from her body, still dripping with ape-fluid. Em was similarly covered and looked lost. "How about an extraction, fellas? Think maybe you've seen enough?" Then, pitching his voice lower, said, "I don't think they need to know about this, do you?" He motioned with the Ape's orb. "I think we're leaving it here, on the ground."
"You're going to leave whatever was inside the monkey god here in the dirt?!" Emile said. They nearly shouted it, in fact. As if it was offensive. Hawk was still caught in the unthinkable crassness of that idea. The Ape was dead. Did they dare disrespect its remains like that?
"Yes. I have no idea what this is." Alex held it up so that all could see its gleaming, shining circumference. "I don't know what it came from, and I don't know how it got there. But I know in my gut that it'd be a big mistake to let Kaiser find it. So as far as any of you are concerned, you are about to watch me drop this fucking thing into the dirt. And it's that dirt's job to make it go away. Alright? Alright."
And without a single instance of hesitation, he shoved the orb into Hawk's hands.