The Aegis Solution

by John David Krygelski

  A smile crinkled the corners of the Chief of Staff's eyes. "I see you've met my sister."

  "Mildred Pierce is your sister?"

  "Yes, she is." He turned and said, "Thank you, Sweezea. You may return to your post."

  "Yes, sir."

  Sweezea reached into a pocket on his vest and extracted the clip from Elias' Beretta, handing it to Pierce. He then turned to Elias. "It's good to meet you, sir."

  Elias shook his hand. "What did I tell you about the ‘sir' stuff? It's a pleasure meeting you."

  Elias' escort turned and left the office, closing the door.

  "Please have a seat," Pierce invited, making a show of placing the loaded clip on the edge of the desk near Elias, and lowering himself back into the leather seat. Elias took one of the two offered chairs.

  "If you don't mind my asking, how did it come to be that you and your sister run two of the enclaves here in Aegis?"

  The man's smile returned as he leaned back in his chair. "I don't mind at all. I'm sure it's a bit curious. Mildred and I arrived together. Back then, there were no enclaves, as you put it."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "Coming up on eight years now. The people here hadn't split into distinct communities yet."

  "Really!"

  Seeing surprise at this on Elias' face, he added, "Oh, the seeds for the eventual segregation, as some might say, were already present. But at that time the size of Aegis allowed for a reasonable amount of buffer space for everyone, so the friction between people with very different viewpoints, philosophies, lifestyles, et cetera, was manageable.

  "However, as the population continued to grow at a rapid pace, maintaining anything resembling a peaceful coexistence became more and more difficult."

  "Sounds a lot like out there," Elias commented, pointing his thumb in a vague direction over his shoulder to indicate the outside world.

  "Precisely," Pierce agreed. "As long as there was open space, unclaimed territory, then people who felt that they didn't fit in could always strike out and establish a new community."

  "Or country."

  "Or country. You're right. But to continue…even though we were scattered about this facility, we were beginning to clump into groups. The groups were rather fluid at first, in both membership and location."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Some people have a tough time deciding where they fit."

  Elias nodded. "That's for sure."

  "Right. They might wish to indulge themselves in an unrestrained, hedonistic lifestyle for a time, then awaken one morning feeling guilty and make up their minds that they need structure, an externally imposed discipline to compensate for the absence of that trait in their character. They would migrate from group A to group B.

  "Others might initially embrace the construct of a well-defined, regulated environment, only to suddenly rebel and want to cut loose, as it were. They, then, suddenly would switch from group B to Group A."

  "I imagine there was quite of bit of that going on."

  "There was. That is why I described that period as fluid."

  "What you've depicted so far doesn't sound unreasonable or unworkable. What happened to force the creation of the barriers?"

  "Borders."

  "Yes. I suppose they would be."

  "Of course they are borders. What else would you call them?"

  Elias shrugged. "So what happened?"

  "As I mentioned, the burgeoning population happened. Previously, individuals could carry on as they wished, hurting no one, and away from the watchful eyes of those who might disapprove of their choices."

  "You said ‘hurting no one.' There wasn't any crime?"

  "No, there was, but surprisingly little back then. You'd be amazed how much of a difference it makes to a social group if there is no money involved. Most of what did occur could fairly be dropped into the category of ‘crimes of passion.' Handling those issues as they arose was not particularly challenging."

  "And what happened? What was the trigger?"

  Pierce leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "I guess we reached a tipping point. There was no warning. Actually, that's not true. In retrospect there were plenty of clues. There was a breakdown in communication. It was initially subtle but eventually obvious."

  What do you mean by a ‘breakdown in communication'?"

  "People stopped talking to each other. I mean, really talking. One day individuals or small groups were able to sit down, discuss things, and come up with a reasonable compromise and, seemingly, the next day they couldn't. Every discussion, every organized meeting quickly degenerated into screaming and name-calling."

  "That sounds like the outside, too."

  Pierce did not acknowledge Elias' comment. "Then one night, some couple, I don't even know who they were, were having sex" – the note of disgust in Pierce's voice was unmistakable – "out in the open…in a corridor instead of in one of their rooms. A woman named Beth Havlichek came upon them while walking with two of her friends, and made a comment about how they should take it to someplace private."

  Elias saw the Chief of Staff squeeze his eyes shut, as if trying to block out an image. "They killed her!"

  "What?"

  "They beat her to death, both of them, right in front of her friends."

  "Her two friends returned to the gathering they had just left and described the incident, painting an especially vivid picture of the pleasure, almost glee, that the couple displayed as they murdered Beth.

  "The seven people they told stampeded immediately from the room and ran to the scene, to find that the couple had resumed their activity, right next to Beth's body."

  "Good God!"

  Pierce opened his eyes and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. "The small, angry mob descended upon the couple and killed them."

  Pierce paused, giving Elias an opportunity for a comment. None came, and he resumed, "Then it began. It spread like a wildfire through Aegis. Those who associated themselves with the couple retaliated in kind. The other side, so to speak, struck back. And for the following twenty hours, the halls of Aegis were filled with mayhem, bloodshed, and death."

  "Who put a stop to it?"

  "No one! No one could, I guess. But other than some feeble, half-hearted attempts, no one tried. I, myself, have been filled with shame since that day for cowering in a hiding place instead of doing something…anything."

  "Don't beat yourself up. There isn't much anyone can do when something like that happens."

  A weak smile played across his lips as Pierce muttered, "Thanks. But to answer your question, I think everyone merely got tired of the rampage."

  "It burned itself out."

  "Right. And the bottom line was that, after twenty hours of hell, approximately sixty percent of the population was dead, more than three thousand people."

  Pierce paused and Elias said nothing. The silence hung heavily in the room.

  Shifting his gaze down to the desk, his voice a flat monotone, Pierce continued, "Cleanup parties were organized. The wounded were treated as best we could. The dead were gathered up, using those gray plastic rolling bins that construction crews use to haul material, and taken to the trash compactor."

  Pierce hesitated for a moment, looking up at Elias, and said, "You know what was the most surreal aspect of the cleanup?"

  Elias did not answer, waiting.

  "The crews, who self-organized to do the work, contained members from both sides of the conflict, working side by side. No one mentioned anything. I'm certain it was because no one wanted to trigger another flare-up. But watching it…participating in it…knowing the folks right next to me had committed horrendous deeds...was almost more than I could bear."

  "I can't even imagine what that was like," Elias responded quietly.

  "After the cleanup…after all the bodies were gone and the damage was repaired, discussions to segregate just happened. There was no doubt that it was necessary or appropriate. Madison was cre
ated, as were Walden and ZooCity.

  "And to address your initial question, I guess I was selected to run Madison for the same reason Mildred was chosen for Walden. Neither of us had participated in the rampage."

  "I'm sure there's more to the choice than simply that."

  Pierce shrugged. "Perhaps. On the outside I had been a politician, a mayor. Mildred had been a city manager. We both had training and experience overseeing a populated entity. But I am certain that the first criterion was primary in most people's minds as they voted."

  "So each enclave was set up with its own set of rules?"

  Pierce nodded. "Its own set of rules. Its own bylaws. In reality, its own personality."

  "I'm guessing Madison was modeled after the Constitution."

  "The Constitution," Pierce acknowledged, "as well as some of the papers of our Founding Fathers and, of course, the Bible."

  "And Walden?" Elias asked.

  A sudden snort came out of Pierce. "I'm not sure exactly what Walden was based upon. My sister and I were always at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. From the time we were young teens, she was always ‘out there.' I suppose you could say she's a utopian."

  "Really?" Elias reacted with a note of surprise in his voice. He had already formed his own opinions about Walden but had decided to play along.

  "I don't know how else to capture it in a single label. During our youth, we debated constantly. I had, very early on, become entranced with the beauty of not only the logic of our founding documents, but the wisdom. And by that, I mean the grasp that Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and the others had on the realities of human nature. They wanted to create a system where the individual could flourish, but at the same time recognized our frailties and faults, and knew that safeguards – checks and balances – needed to be in place, if the nation was to survive.

  "My sister resented the checks, the limits, placed upon the individual and believed that people, given the chance, would self-regulate; that morals and ethics would somehow spontaneously spring into the very fabric of the social consciousness; that they would come from within each person; that there was no need for having them imposed from without; and that, in fact, imposing them created, by the very act of imposition, a de facto oppression that withered the soul of the individual."

  "Nice thought."

  "Exactly!" Pierce almost shouted. "That was what I said to her time and time again. I always told her that what she described would be wonderful, would be a society which was idyllic, except for one problem…."

  "People."

  "Right. Maybe, at some point in the distant future, people will be able to handle that kind of structure, but we aren't there yet."

  "Didn't she see that obstacle with her own eyes at the time the massacre erupted in Aegis?"

  Pierce became subdued. "I would have thought so. But she didn't. She rationalized it. She was absolutely certain that the outbreak was caused by intolerance. If only Beth Havlichek had looked the other way as she encountered the couple having sex in the corridor, if only she had accepted that sex is a natural act, not something to be disgusted by, and not judged the couple, the fuse on the powder keg wouldn't have been lit."

  Elias shook his head. "So the problem your sister had with the first incident wasn't that the couple killed Havlichek; it was that she made a disapproving comment?"

  "Right, if you can believe it."

  "The brief period of time I spent in Walden, I didn't see anyone in flagrante delicto in the hallways."

  With a sound that could only be described as "harrumph," Pierce confided, "You were lucky. I've visited Walden on more than one occasion since the segregation occurred, and I've seen more than I cared to see."

  "What about ZooCity? Do they have a defining set of principles?"

  "You could say that," he answered sarcastically, "if you are inclined to define the absence of such as a defining set."

  "Isn't that what Walden is all about, though?"

  Once again leaning back in his chair, this time causing a loud creak, Pierce elaborated, "You have made the same point I've tried to convey countless times to my sister. There is a distinction between the two, but it is, in my opinion, a subtle one. I think that ZooCity is a logical extension of the Walden philosophy – the same concepts and ideals, only taken to an extreme. ZooCity types definitely do not want to be encumbered with rules, limitation, a rigid set of ethics; in that, they are similar to the Waldens. The difference lies in what they are willing and capable of doing to outsiders and even to each other. Even murder is as casual an act to them as swatting a fly would be to you and me."

  "I witnessed that during my encounter with them."

  "Is that so? What happened?"

  "When I was first confronted by the group, I grabbed one of the members as a hostage, hoping they would back off and let me pass. Their response was to simply shoot him. They killed their own man."

  Disdain etched itself across Pierce's face at Elias' description of events. "Precisely. That is quite typical of their actions, from what I've heard."

  Elias decided to steer the conversation back to the topic he cared most about. "If I may ask an unrelated question?"

  "Of course. What is it?"

  "Have you, or your people, come across a man by the name of Stone, Eric Stone?"

  "Stone?" Pierce turned to a large, old-fashioned Rolodex on his desk and spun the wheel around until he located the "S" tab. "Don't recall that name. When would he have arrived?"

  "Several weeks ago."

  Searching the correct section, Pierce thumbed through several of the cards. "I have a few citizens with the name Stone, but no Eric. Nor do I recall a gentleman by that name passing through. Friend of yours?"

  Elias kept his tone casual. "More of an acquaintance, actually. He had told me he was checking in at Aegis a while back. To be honest, Eric doing it first sort of helped me to decide. And I don't really know anyone else in here."

  Flipping closed the lid of the Rolodex, Pierce returned his attention to Elias. "Anything else you wanted to ask?"

  For a moment, Elias almost asked about Kreitzmann but thought better of it. Inquiring about one person would probably appear normal; two might give Pierce pause. "No. That was it."

  Pierce folded his hands together on the desk. "You'll be pleased to know that we don't engage in the same newcomer filtering that my sister does at Walden. So long as you understand that we have rules and you have no problem abiding by them, you are welcome to stay. You are, of course, expected to contribute to the community, in whatever way you can."

  "Thank you, Mr. Pierce. That's good to know. I'll be honest with you, though. I'm not sure where I want to end up within Aegis."

  A genuine look of surprise filled the Chief of Staff's face. "I see. So you are planning on returning to Walden?"

  "No. I'm afraid not. Your sister has made it clear to me that I am not what they are looking for."

  "Then where? Surely not ZooCity!"

  "No," Elias chuckled. "I think I would prefer that my first experience with them would also be my last."

  "I repeat, then where are you planning on going?"

  "There are no other enclaves within Aegis?"

  Pierce shook his head rather forcefully. "Essentially, no. Just the three. There are some small pockets of people who live on the fringes of our communities. From what I understand, there are also some loners, who don't wish to be a part of any group. Other than that, we are the only games in town, in a manner of speaking."

  Shrugging, Elias explained, "I guess I'll poke around a little. I do want to try to find Eric. If I don't have any luck, I'm sure I'll be back."

  Pierce stood up and Elias followed his cue. "As I said, Mr. Charon, you are more than welcome to stay. From our brief chat I believe that you are the type of person who would fit in quite nicely here. Since you have decided to leave, consider it an open invitation."

  Elias shook the man's hand. "Thank you very much. It was a pleasure meeting you
, and you are right – Madison is probably the best spot for me."

  Picking up the clip for the Beretta and dropping it into his pocket, Pierce said, "I'll walk you back to the checkpoint."

  "Thank you."

  They exited the room and retraced the route Elias had taken several minutes earlier. As they walked, Elias asked, "What do you think is next for Aegis?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, the steps so far have been logical. At first there was so much room that individuals were able to live the way they wanted. And then, as people started bumping into each other, conflicts began, until the incident you described which prompted the creation of the enclaves."

  "I suppose you're right. It's all been inevitable. I remember reading, before I came to Aegis, about the changes that occur in primates, like chimps, when they are brought in from the wild and caged in groups. The behavior described in that article is strikingly similar to what has happened here. The brutality, the savagery, the wantonness of the acts in many ways have mirrored what I read. But to answer your question, ever since that horrible day of the rampage, it seems that I have only reacted. Everything I've done since then has been a response to that day. And that includes creating Madison. I haven't mentally looked forward. I'm curious – what do you think is in store for us, Mr. Charon?"

  Based upon what he had been told and witnessed thus far, Elias had a very clear image of the coming events, but he answered, "I have no idea. I was wondering what you thought."

  For a moment, it appeared as if Pierce did not believe him. "Time will tell, I suppose."

  They continued walking, and nothing more was said until they arrived at the checkpoint. Pierce extended his hand. "I hope that you return to us, Mr. Charon. It was a pleasure."

  "Mine, as well, sir. I'm sure I'll be back."

  Reaching into his pocket, Pierce pulled out the clip and handed it Elias. "I hope you won't be needing this. Good luck."

  Elias took it from him and dropped it into his own pocket. "Thank you."

  Pierce turned and walked away. Elias entered the zig-zag barricade and, after the third turn, saw Sweezea.

  "You're leavin' us, huh?"

  "Yep. I might be back."

  Sweezea grabbed Elias' suitcase from the corner where it was stowed, and turned to join him as he walked. "Why are you going? You don't like Madison?"