Risking another look of disapproval from her old friend, Tillie added, "And the Petri dish on the left, the one labeled ‘Walden,' is full of nothing but an almost dead crust."
Wilson pursed his lips. "Crudely put, but that is essentially the case."
"What about ZooCity? That colony is now wiped out by Kreitzmann. But prior to that happening, how was it faring?" Elias addressed Wilson.
"It, too, was on the decline."
"From suicides?"
"Not at all. Again, you must remember that Aegis hastens the progress of the social experiment. ZooCity attracted the bored, the hedonistic, the disenfranchised, and the nihilistic. The appeal of gangs out there is the perceived, fallacious concept that the underprivileged in society exist as a result of a deliberate and calculated oppression. One of the inescapable realities of human nature is that when you oppress people, they will band together. That coalition has taken many forms throughout our history. In some cases the result has been the overthrow of the government which has been oppressing them, as was the case with the French Revolution. In America's past, workers were grossly abused. They banded together and formed labor unions. The ensuing shift of power between the worker and the employer caused all of the most egregious offenses against the workers to be corrected or eliminated. There have obviously been moments in history when the natural urge to self-organize has been beneficial to the oppressed, when oppression has been ameliorated somewhat.
"Sadly, as is the case with most things, natural human tendencies are quickly identified by the less than scrupulous, and exploited for less than noble causes. There are those who relish the power they accrue from the formation of a group. In the case of the labor unions, there is no longer any oppression of the workers. Society has evolved and the abhorrent labor practices of the past do not exist, nor would they re-emerge should the unions cease to exist.
"If we were to compare the creation of labor unions to the public revolt in France, the revolution was accomplished and the oppressors were removed and killed. The people who joined forces for a cause succeeded in their goal, and there was no longer a need for the extemporaneous coalition. Yet, in the case of the labor unions, the construct has become self-perpetuating and institutionalized. They must now manufacture straw-man oppressors from whole cloth to justify their continued existence and indeed, in some cases, have become the oppressor themselves in their relentless quest for power and wealth.
"In the case of inner-city gangs, there are influential neighborhood figures, community organizers, local and national politicians, popular entertainment figures, and a variety of others who benefit from the existence of gangs. Whether they are the senators seeking funds for their states or the corner drug dealers interested in growing their customer bases and distribution networks, there are legions of parasites who live off the strife and tragedy which accompanies the gang structure in the urban community. They must, on a daily basis, sustain the lie that these youths are being oppressed, for the purpose of maintaining their power base.
"That is the underlying reason for the tremendous peer pressure felt by an urban youth to dress in a certain way, walk with an affected style, talk in a manner which is unintelligible to others, and at all times exhibit an air of hostility. If the lie is that the larger community hates you, will not employ you, and will never embrace you as a peer, it is crucial to create a persona which makes these messages a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the young man in the neighborhood emulates his peers and is greeted with unfriendly glares, harassing police, and rejections from potential employers, that message is reinforced. The young man's commitment to the group is cemented.
"Why else would these same fraternities turn so viciously on a member who dares to trim his hair, dons the garb of a suburban businessman, speaks the King's English, and adopts a positive attitude, all so that he may obtain a job? Because they don't want their members to discover the truth.
"It was the very uniqueness of Aegis, this surreal facsimile of a culture, that made it impossible to maintain the illusion of oppression. How can you claim to be oppressed when all of the lodging within these walls is identical and, other than those already occupied, available for all, when the food and clothing dropped from the sky are more than the residents require and are freely shared?"
"That would be difficult."
"It was. All of it was compounded by the absence of currency. There could be no, even fabricated, claim of oppression since none existed."
"Also, in Aegis, there was no power structure that benefited from the illusion."
"Essentially true, Elias. There were a few entrants who had been leaders in their old gangs and missed the power that went with that position. They became the core of ZooCity. Internecine rivalries were the rule during that period, with minor skirmishes until the end, as they vied with each other for the position of top dog. But there was no manipulation from above…from the aforementioned community organizers, politicians, and celebrities.
"However, they soon discovered that the underlying impetus which provided a steady stream of recruits was absent. Instead of claiming to fight what they could portray as a noble and just crusade against the oppressive establishment, they were unable to disguise the fact that they were organized, indeed existed, for the sole purpose of robbing, beating, raping, and killing the newcomers to Aegis.
"They found that these goals attracted a significantly smaller following than the former, appealing only to the sociopaths among them. A great many entrants, having come from a similar environment out there, enthusiastically joined the habitants of ZooCity, only to quickly migrate to either Walden or Madison, once they saw the true raison d'état."
"So other than the occasional gangster newbie," Tillie stated, "they dwindled down to a hard-core collection of thugs. And the ones who still had souls when they arrived here split so fast your head would spin. And like Wilson said, a lot of them went to Walden to get away from the punks. You have to admit that Walden would look pretty good after that – enlightened, peace-loving, tolerant, all that stuff. It didn't take them long to hightail it out of Walden and zoom over to Madison. That's where they are now, for the most part."
"We've been dancing around the issue regarding Madison and Walden," Elias broached the subject. "Would you describe the two enclaves as microcosms of the political right and left, or Republican and Democrat…conservative and liberal?"
"Yes!"
"No!"
Tillie and Wilson had answered simultaneously. Tillie was the first to expound. "Walden is a collection of liberal pukes. Their whole thing is ‘if it feels good, do it.' They see Walden, and Aegis as a whole, as a commune. All they preach is tolerance, but they are the most intolerant bunch I've ever seen, when it comes to someone or something they disagree with. They are smug, self-righteous, proscriptive, and sanctimonious, and they believe that they know what is best for everyone. They have actually tried, more than once, to intercept the food drops and remove any item they find offensive because it isn't organic or it might cause obesity or whatever, before it is distributed to the rest of the residents.
"And they can't stand anyone who might rise above the others. Conservatives believe that if you fertilize and water the garden, things will grow – things of all shapes, heights, sizes, and colors, things that will look pretty, things that will bear fruit, things that will produce vegetables, things that are destined to be eaten by the farm animals so they can grow. And you can't always predict what might sprout next.
"Liberals are like the lawn mower that comes along and lops off any plant that excels and tries to grow higher than the others. They are like the spray that kills anything other than the designated and acceptable form of life.
"No wonder the newbies who came to Aegis to avoid killing themselves went ahead and did it anyway after a dose of that stuff!"
By the end of her diatribe, she had worked herself into a frenzy, her voice bouncing off the surrounding concrete walls, reinforcing her passion.
"Ti
llie, I never cease to be entertained by your tirades," Wilson remarked, chuckling.
"Well, it's all true!"
"I take it that you don't agree with her," Elias commented to Wilson.
"It isn't that I don't agree with our exuberant friend; in many ways I do. When I responded in the negative to your question, I was being more literal."
"How so?"
"You asked if Madison and Walden were microcosms of the political right and left, or perhaps the Republicans and Democrats."
"Yes."
"Since Mathilda launched us, emphatically, in this direction, let's begin with Walden. I believe that if you took a poll of the residents, present and past, you would indeed find that almost all of them would describe themselves as Democrats; however, I have never perceived that political party to be as ideologically monolithic as others might. Their current socioeconomic bent is certainly not consistent with the firmly held beliefs of prominent Democrats from the not too distant past."
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
"Precisely."
"But that speech was from half a century ago."
"It was. And it has taken that half century for the now dominant voices to wrest control of the party from the others. But that does not mean that those who believe in that concept, or in a strong military or a thriving business community, do not still consider themselves to be Democrats. It is only that their voices have been drowned out by the others. And I believe that they are waiting for their party to return to them.
"With regard to the residents of Madison, I would venture a guess that they, too, would admit they were registered as Republicans prior to entering this facility. But the very same uniqueness and purity of this environment, which precipitated the other changes we discussed earlier, have caused an awakening or realization of some fundamental truths within them. If they were to leave Aegis tomorrow, they would be as offended by the dominant voices within that party as, I believe, Thomas Jefferson or James Madison would be if they were to return to America today."
"So you're saying that they most reflect the beliefs of the Tea Party?"
"That entity is a phenomenon which arose subsequent to my departure from society. I have discussed the Tea Party with some of the new entrants but don't know nearly enough about it to say. I get the impression that it is still in its embryonic stages and only time will tell what it may become. And labels, although convenient, are generally misleading more than helpful."
"Yeah," Tillie interrupted. "They don't allow you to drone on for hours."
Wilson smiled at her and continued, "I do have a tendency to do that. Unfortunately, most of the things I ponder are not easily distilled into bullet statements."
"It's a good thing we have all the time in the world," Tillie huffed.
Shaking his head in amusement, Wilson continued once again, "I believe that the folks at Madison have benefited from the mental clarity afforded by the absence of media, currency, and all of the myriad distractions which are an integral part of the society out there. And as a result, they have formulated a philosophical foundation that rewards excellence, effectively discourages disruptive behavior, holds each person accountable for his or her actions, offers opportunity to all who sincerely seek it, and, most important, recognizes the realities of human nature.
"And the last is the fatal shortcoming of Walden. For Walden, in all of its practices, policies, and procedures, conducts itself on the basis of how we should be, rather than how we truly are."
"I have a question for you, Elias."
"What is it, Tillie?"
"What kind of spook are you?"
Hesitating for a moment, Elias asked, "What do you mean?"
"Patriot, pragmatist, or mercenary?"
Elias swung his eyes between Wilson and Tillie. Both of them were waiting for his answer. "For almost all of my life I was a patriot. Hard core. Down to the bottom of my soul. But lately" – Elias stopped and shifted his gaze to the darkness beyond his two companions – "something has changed. Now, I'm not so sure."
"That's reasonable enough, considering someone within your own government ordered the killing of your wife."
"I'm sure that's a part of it, Wilson. But I've had a lot of time to think about things since then, and since I left the agency. I still love my country. I truly do. I would give my life defending its principles and ideals. Yet now…it is as if America isn't America anymore. It has changed. And not for the better."
"A very good friend of mine, during the time I was on the outside," Wilson began, in an effort to help Elias explain his thoughts, "spent his entire life in the same town. When he was born, it had a population of slightly more than one hundred thousand people. The day he passed away, the number had grown to almost two million. In the latter years of his life, he confessed to me many times that his attachment to this community had become irrational, that it was no longer the city he knew or remembered. The newcomers from all over the country had changed it drastically. The old businesses had gone away. The old neighborhoods were no longer recognizable. The politics of the city had transmogrified from a just right-of-center, moderate mentality to what he forlornly characterized as ‘a knee-jerk, left-wing lunacy.' In one of our final conversations, he told me that what he now loved was the memory of the town, not the reality."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Donovan Killeen sat at the computer terminal, reading the log as Kreitzmann looked over his shoulder.
"As you can see, Mr. Killeen, the files belonging to Doctor Bonillas have been taken."
"And you think they were taken by Doctor Boehn?"
"What other explanation is possible?"
"According to the log file, it was Doctor Bonillas' password that was used. She could have changed her mind about something in her report and decided to remove the files while she rewrote it."
Kreitzmann's lips compressed into a tight grin. "I have no doubt that the perpetrator intended for us to come to that conclusion. And we would have, if I hadn't arrived when I did. According to the tracking logs, the files were tampered with just one or two minutes before I walked in the door. The only person here at that time was Doctor Boehn. If Bonillas had been here, I could not have missed her."
Killeen swiveled the chair around and looked at Kreitzmann. "What would you like me to do?"
Kreitzmann, still angry from his accidental discovery, snapped, "I would like you to confine Doctor Boehn to the security offices. I would like you to question him. I would like you to commence a full audit of all of our research to determine what else, if anything, has been taken or copied. And I would like you to seize Doctor Boehn's computer and search his quarters. Aegis being isolated as it is, whatever he may have gathered is probably still there."
The young man stood up from the chair and faced Kreitzmann. "You want me to do all of that based upon this one circumstantial issue? That seems a bit harsh."
Kreitzmann's eyes widened at Killeen's comments. "One circumstantial issue? Mr. Killeen, you were selected to oversee our security. There is no doubt in my mind that we have been breached and that the culprit is within our midst. Your performance relating to Elias Charon's visit was less than stellar. You need to decide how to best handle this latest development, or I will choose a replacement for you from our staff. Is that clear?"
Rather than becoming cowed, as Kreitzmann expected from the young security chief, Killeen smiled at him. "Oh, quite clear, Doctor," he responded, his eyes drifting to somewhere over the scientist's shoulder. Kreitzmann was not certain but thought that he detected a slight nod from Killeen.
"Then I insist that you get on with…."
One moment Rudy Kreitzmann was speaking; the next he lay unconscious on the floor.
Syndi pulled her car into her assigned parking space and got out, glancing at the empty stall beside her car, and wondered why Yolanda was not at work yet.
"Where's Yolanda this morning?" she asked the uni
formed guard at the entrance as she signed in, checking the sheet for her friend's signature.
The guard shrugged. "Haven't seen her yet."
There was no point in asking him any other questions, so she continued on to the lab area, where she found Bonnie Schwartz sitting at a desk and staring intently at her monitor.
"Have you heard from Yolanda?" she asked Schwartz, who looked up and smiled in greeting.
"No, she hasn't called in." She typed a few keystrokes and added, "No email from her either."
"That's strange. She always beats me to work, especially now, as close to finishing as we are."
Bonnie shook her head. "You both pulled a long shift yesterday. Maybe she's still sleeping."
The explanation did not ring true for Syndi. With a sigh, she proceeded through the two-stage air-lock entrance to the lab, donning her sterile gown at the final room before entering. She was the first of the team to arrive this morning and immediately took a seat at her station. The white cotton towel she had left in her work area the night before was partially hanging down the front lip of the counter.
Syndi pursed her lips for only a moment, as she recalled placing it neatly beside her work space last night.
"I guess I was more tired than I thought," she said aloud and picked up the towel, folding it twice, and setting it off to the side.
Next she turned on her work station and, while waiting for it to boot up, lifted up the sterile gown so she could reach her pocket. Syndi pulled out her cell phone before she remembered that there was no service inside the lab. Tucking the phone back into her pocket, she hit the speaker button on the desk phone, dialed for an outside line, and called Yolanda. After five rings, it went to voice mail. Syndi hung up without leaving a message, assuming that Yolanda must be on her way.
Taking a moment to rub her temples in an attempt to sidetrack the advance of an incipient headache, she tucked her hands into the manipulator gloves and opened the capped vial she had been working with the night before.
The Aegis Solution Page 30