The Aegis Solution

by John David Krygelski

  The three men fell into silence, all staring at her. She was perched on the edge of the cushion, leaning forward, her eyes wide, her breathing ragged, her fists clenched, her entire body so tight it might have been a coiled spring.

  In a soft and gentle voice, Wilson spoke to her. "Tillie…I have known you almost since the day I arrived. I have counted you as my friend. In that time not a day has passed in which we did not spend time together. Throughout much of it, you have been my lifeline, my thread of optimism, a stabilizing force when I might have wandered too far from the realm of hope."

  His words had an effect on her, as the tension gradually seeped out of her body. Her fists slowly unclenched.

  "You have been the only friend I have had in this unnatural habitat. And you have been the only friend I have needed."

  She turned her eyes to look at him. A hint of a smile curled her mouth.

  "I must say that the Tillie sitting before me is not the same person who wielded the shovel as we planted my trees and bushes. It is not the same person who sat with me for hours as we laughed, cried, and shared our thoughts; not the same person who gave me my only reason to look forward to each day in this self-imposed prison."

  A single tear welled in the corner of her eye and spilled down her cheek.

  "Mathilda, please tell me what is wrong."

  As Wilson spoke, more tears had joined the first in a trek down the sides of her face. In the course of less than a minute, the hard, angry countenance of the woman evaporated, replaced by the fragile, vulnerable face of a younger girl.

  Speaking to Wilson as if they were the only two in the room, Tillie, her voice muted and breaking, said, "This isn't what I wanted, what I hoped for when I put up the sign."

  Wilson smiled at her reassuringly. "I know. It is not what I hoped for, either."

  "It's almost like I made things worse."

  "No, no, Tillie. What is happening around us now was all in motion long before you put pen to cardboard."

  She tilted her head slightly to the side, a move which seemed to accentuate her sudden vulnerability. Elias and Stone watched silently.

  "I know that, Wilson. But I thought the cavalry would come charging in, or at least Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwartzenegger, not Andy Griffith and Don Knotts."

  Elias took a breath to speak but was stopped by Wilson who lifted a single finger, never moving his eyes away from Tillie. "I believe that sometimes people might actually pleasantly surprise you."

  She shook her head. "I don't think so, Wilson. I mean, look! Everything that's happened since Elias has arrived I've done, not him. And when we were on your front porch, it was you who had planned for an attack and prepared the things that saved us. If we were relying on them, we'd both be dead or in one of Kreitzmann's cages by now."

  "You need to trust, Tillie...trust in your judgment. You need to be willing to give people a chance."

  "I can't!"

  Wilson hesitated, sensing that he was entering some forbidden territory, one that over the years he had verbally stumbled close to and always quickly backed away. He knew that this time, now, he must plunge ahead. "Why, Tillie? Why can't you?"

  She was biting her bottom lip, no longer looking at Wilson. Her gaze and her mind had traveled to another place and another time. Almost a minute passed before she spoke, her voice even more subdued than before, her tone flat and emotionless. "It has to be me. I can't count on anyone else."

  "You still haven't told me why."

  Wilson could see the muscles in her jaw flex repetitively. Her eyes now darted, unable to fix upon one location. "Because if I do, someone dies."

  "Tillie?" Wilson spoke her name and waited for her eyes to connect with his. His patience was soon rewarded, and he continued, "This is why you are in Aegis, isn't it?"

  Staring at him, she unsteadily jerked her head up and down to indicate that he was correct.

  As soothingly as he could muster, Wilson asked, "What happened?"

  Her voice suddenly sounded as if it came from someone years younger. "I don't…I don't want to say."

  "I've never asked you before, Tillie. I've always known not to. But I think perhaps it is time."

  Her head began swaying side to side, a nonverbal denial of the cascading thoughts within her mind. The motion intensified, almost as if she were trying to shake out the images or memories. Wilson waited.

  The swaying reluctantly ceased. She said nothing for such a long time that Wilson was about to coax her, when suddenly she began.

  "I was sixteen. Almost sixteen. My mother had told me that I couldn't date until my birthday. I thought I knew better. I always did. I was secretly seeing a boy named Jason from the school I used to go to.

  "My dad was dead. He had been for about three years. Right after he died…I mean right after, my mother started dating. A lot of guys. A regular parade through our house. I hated her for what she was doing. I thought that she was glad he was gone, that now she felt free. And probably since I hated her for dating so soon after Dad died, she started hating me, too.

  "It wasn't long before one of the guys...she wasn't even sure which one...got her pregnant. It didn't matter, since all she did was pick the one she wanted to believe it was and told him he was going to be a father. She might as well have said that a meteor was coming and was going to hit our town; he split so fast it was nuts!"

  The men listened to her story, transfixed. Although her voice, to this point, had been flat, inflections and emotions began to creep in.

  "She had the kid. I don't know if it was the whole Catholic thing or what it was, but she didn't have an abortion. So there I was, almost sixteen years old, with an eleven-month-old baby brother named Maxwell."

  She made a nervous, stuttering sound intended to be a giggle.

  "Goofy name, huh? I refused to call him Max. I thought that sounded like a dog's name. Anyway, I loved Maxwell from the moment I saw that wrinkly little guy come out of her. Yep, that's right. I was at the delivery, standing right where the father was supposed to be.

  "It's a good thing I did love him, because she sure as hell didn't. Well, at least I thought I did."

  There was a momentary pause in her monologue before she went on. "The second she was over the birth deal, she was back out on the town. I think she lost the extra weight in about a month. Oh, she would breeze in and out making a big show of fawning over Maxwell, saying ‘Mommy this' and ‘Mommy that,' but I was the mother. There were only two times that she would really hold him and spend any time with him – when her girlfriends were over and they were carrying on about how cute her baby was, and when she breast-fed. And I think the only reason she kept breast-feeding was that it made her boobs bigger for the guys.

  "The rest of the time it was all me. I got up at all hours of the night, every time he cried or was sick. I loaded him in the stroller and we went for walks. I dropped out of school so I could take care of him. I don't think she even noticed I was out of school. I took him to the doctor. I did everything."

  Tillie paused, her eyes closed as if she were trying to block out an image. As she began speaking again, her voice was so soft that the three men had to strain to hear her words. "I wanted to take a real shower. That was it. That was all it was. Just a shower. I always kept Maxwell with me. Every minute of every day. He was never out of my sight. I even took him in the bathroom with me every time I went to the toilet. One evening, as usual, my mother was out on a date, and Jason had come over to hang out with me. We were going to watch a movie and eat some popcorn while we stayed home with Maxwell. Fun date for an almost sixteen-year-old, huh? Anyway, before we started the movie, I picked up my brother and asked Jason to carry the little playpen into the bathroom. I was going to take a shower, and that was what I always did. Maxwell would be in the playpen right outside the shower stall.

  "I couldn't ever take a long shower. As soon as I closed the glass door and the little guy couldn't see me, he would start to fuss. So I would always rush. Jason knew this and su
ggested that I leave Maxwell with him so that I could take my time. The thought of a long, leisurely shower, the first one I would have had in almost a year, sounded wonderful. But I wasn't sure. I argued, but Jason promised me over and over again that he would watch Maxwell."

  Elias, sensing the direction her story was going, began to tense.

  "He convinced me that it would be fine. I started to put my brother in the playpen in the living room, but Jason said he wanted to play with him, so I handed Maxwell to Jason and went to take my self-indulgent shower. My God, it felt great. There was a little voice in my head telling me that I should hurry up and get out, but it felt wonderful. I stayed in there for almost half an hour. Then I toweled off, blow-dried my hair, got dressed, and even put on a little makeup for my date with Jason.

  "I came out, and Jason was sitting on the couch, talking on his cell phone to some friend of his! Maxwell wasn't on the couch with him. He wasn't in the playpen. I freaked. Jason dropped the phone, and we both started running around looking for Maxwell. But we couldn't find him anywhere. I was going totally crazy. Screaming at Jason. Calling him every name in the book. He just kept apologizing and giving me some crap about how he was only on the phone for a minute before I came out. Later on, afterward…I checked his call history. He lied to me. He had been on that damn call for almost the entire time I was out of the room.

  "Maxwell was quite the crawler and could have gone anywhere. We checked the whole house twice. All the outside doors were closed and locked. It was one of my habits. I locked them after Jason arrived. We looked under the beds. We called my brother's name a hundred times. Nothing. I was totally panicked and didn't know what to do. I went into the kitchen to call 9-1-1. As I was dialing, I looked down at the bottom of the back door and saw the doggie door. I had never given it a thought while we were looking for Maxwell. We hadn't put it in. We never had a dog. It was there when Mom and Dad bought the house, and I had forgotten about it completely.

  "I dropped the phone, screamed for Jason, and ran out back."

  Tillie's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her mouth twisted into a grimace. "Did I mention before that we had a swimming pool?"

  "Oh, Tillie," Wilson murmured.

  Talking slowly, almost trance-like, Tillie continued, "I must have finished dialing 9-1-1 before I dropped the phone, because the police showed up within a couple of minutes. One of them had EMT training and took Maxwell away from me and tried to revive him while the paramedics were on their way. But it…it was too late."

  She fell into silence, vividly reliving the scene she had spent the last sixteen years running away from. Her shoulders began to heave, and a series of racking sobs burst from her. Elias was the first to move and sat on the sofa next to her. As soon as she felt his arm on her shoulder, she twisted toward him and threw her arms around his neck, the sobbing intensifying.

  They sat holding each other for minutes, neither speaking. The crying gradually ebbed off to a gentle weeping, which diminished to a muted series of sniffles. Lifting her head from his shoulder, Tillie looked up at Elias, her eyes bright red. "Well, now you know the answer to both of your questions – why I'm here and why I don't trust anyone else."

  Elias struggled to find something to say. He wanted to tell her that he was not Jason, that she could count on him. He wanted to promise her that he would make sure everything turned out all right. It was a combination of her very rawness and her abject vulnerability, as well as his own lack of certainty that he would be able to keep such a promise, which stopped him. All he could think of to say, he said. "Tillie, I'm so sorry."

  From across the room, as if reading Elias' mind, Wilson again spoke soothingly. "Jason is not in this room. So much time has passed since then, Tillie; you are older now and you must learn to trust your insights. You have already had some time to get to know Elias, haven't you? I'm not saying that any of us are the heroes from some blockbuster movie. In fact, as of this moment, I have no idea who will prevail. I don't believe that we could hazard a guess in that regard. But, Tillie, the effort will be made, and you must trust in that. And if I am wrong, if I have so grossly misjudged the situation, then I am a bigger fool than I thought."

  Tillie swayed back, away from Elias, dragged the sleeve of her shirt across her face, and sniffed. She looked at Wilson, lingering on his face for a moment, before she glanced briefly at Stone, who had moved to the front edge of the bed, and finally returned her eyes to Elias, quietly asking him, "Promise something?"

  "I will. What is it?"

  "Promise me that you'll at least try to be Bruce Willis. Just till this thing is over."

  He smiled at her and nodded. "I promise, as long as I don't have to shave my head or sing."

  "He's bald?"

  A subdued laugh came from Elias. "You have been out of touch for a while, haven't you?"

  She smiled back. "Deal."

  

  They had agreed that this might be their last opportunity to get some rest before facing the ordeal ahead. The sun had gone down long ago and the florescent lights had come on, so the battery and electrical system seemed to be functioning. Since Stone had been resting in his quarters before they rescued him, he offered to stand watch as the others slept.

  Tillie, exhausted from the day, as well as from her emotional outpouring, crawled into her bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Wilson, maintaining his unruffled composure, propped his feet on the coffee table and tilted his head back, commencing a sonorous symphony of snores within minutes.

  Elias was having trouble clearing his mind enough to take the much-needed nap. Stone walked quietly to where Elias stood and cautioned him, "If you don't catch at least some sleep, you're gonna be worthless later."

  Elias, answering softly to not disturb Tillie or Wilson, replied, "I know. But there are a couple of things that don't fit. They're driving me crazy."

  "Only a couple? You're doing better than I am, then."

  "I'm serious, Eric. Why did they, whoever they are, want me in here alive? Tillie's right. Normally, I would just disappear. It doesn't make any sense."

  "Insufficient data at this time."

  Elias spun his head and looked at Stone. "What?"

  "I'm saying that we don't know enough to answer that question. That's part of what we need to sort out after we get some rest."

  Elias stared at him for a minute before he reached up and rubbed his eyes. "I guess you're right. A little unconsciousness would be a good idea."

  "Yeah, it would."

  "Keep your eyes open."

  "Not to worry."

  Since Wilson was supine in the wing-back chair and Tillie had crashed on the bed, Elias moved to the sofa and lay down. He saw Stone position himself off to the side of the main area so that he could watch both entrances. Satisfied, Elias lowered his eyelids. Within five minutes Stone heard the steady, rhythmic pattern of snores coming from Elias.

  He sat patiently and waited an additional five minutes before silently easing off the stool where he was perched, and carefully walking away. It took him the better part of twenty minutes to reach Elias' cache. Wasting no time, he picked up the large backpack loaded with the firebombs and started to leave.

  "Put them down, Eric."

  The voice came from the darkened passageway ahead, and Stone froze, recognizing Elias' voice.

  In slow motion, ensuring that both of his hands were visible throughout the procedure, Stone unslung the bulky pack from around his arms and shoulders, and eased it to the floor.

  Elias stepped forward, and Stone could see that he was pointing the AK-47 directly at his chest.

  "Talk."

  "How'd you figure it out, Elias?"

  Elias shrugged, the barrel of the rifle did not waver. "When you and Tillie returned, I asked her to describe the procedure you used to test the Incendergel. Pretty clever, actually. A rookie wouldn't know that the gel needs pressure, fuel, and ignition to go off. The fuel was present. You only introduced ignition."

 
"You wouldn't have asked her if you weren't already suspicious."

  "You're right. I was. To tell you the truth, old friend, I was a lot more than just suspicious."

  As he detected the tone in Elias' voice, understanding dawned on Stone. "I see. They told me you were getting close. I assume you found out."

  Elias was staring at him dispassionately, and did not answer.

  "So I guess you didn't come in here to rescue me."

  "I came in here to kill you."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Entering not his administrator password, but the password assigned to Dr. Bonillas, which one of the Accelerants had obtained for him, his hand quickly manipulated the track ball, moving the cursor around the modules on the interface where all of the department heads uploaded their summaries of notes and reports. It took less than a minute to find Bonillas' designated subdirectory.

  "She must have just filed it," he muttered aloud, smiling. With a few more clicks he was done; his only delay was as he decided whether to copy the files or move them, opting for the latter.

  "Got it!" he said to himself as he slipped the flash drive into his pocket. The lab was deserted at this time of night, for which he was grateful. Shutting down the computer, he crossed the large room to the exit, switching off the lights before he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

  "Doctor Boehn! What are you doing here so late?"

  Boehn whirled around to see Rudy Kreitzmann standing five feet from him, a quizzical look on his face.

  

  "Manager Pierce?"

  Mildred Pierce, who was sitting at her desk in near darkness, the only illumination coming from a candle flickering beside her elbow, turned to see that Will Rogan was standing at the door to her office.

  "Come in, Will, please. Have a seat. Would you care for a glass of this dreadful wine?"

  "We have wine? I thought the supply drops didn't include any recently."

  "One of our people tried to make some."

  She took a sip and crinkled her nose in disgust. "It is vile."