The Aegis Solution

by John David Krygelski

  "I'm sure. With an epidemic spreading, the land lines and cells would be flooded with calls."

  "What happened in the tunnel?"

  Elias explained what he and Tillie had encountered. Then he handed his rifle to Leah. "Where's Faulk?"

  "In the utility room. After the call, we handcuffed him to a standpipe in there. I wanted us to be able to talk where he wouldn't overhear anything."

  "So he doesn't know yet?"

  "No."

  Elias began walking to the utility room. "I'll be happy to break the news to him. Just before I kill the bastard for his part in this."

  Wilson suddenly spoke up. "Elias, wait!"

  He paused in mid-step and began to turn toward Wilson, when they all heard a screeching, tearing cacophony from the still-obstructed exit. Elias snatched his rifle back from Leah, and they all took positions around the open door, watching the tangled jumble of steel and aluminum shudder and shake. The almost earsplitting sounds of buckling metal and shattering glass ceased momentarily, and they could hear the rumble and roar of an engine revving. After the brief pause, a new tumult commenced, and a portion of the obstruction visible to them was suddenly ripped away, revealing the dark sky outside Aegis.

  Elias saw the yellow-painted bucket of a backhoe, dragging the debris away from the door and piling it several feet away. At the moment the obstruction was removed, the unceasing wind whipped through the opening, substantially colder now than the last time Elias had been exposed to it. The bucket returned for another pass, this time clearing the area outside the door completely. A corner of his mind was amazed by the serendipitous timing of the exit being cleared.

  Stepping to the doorway, the AK-47 poised, Elias stared at the cab of the backhoe as the operator switched off the engine. Halogen work lights, mounted on either side of the cab, made it impossible to see who was working the levers.

  As the rumble of the diesel died, Elias shouted, "Turn off those lights or I'll shoot them out."

  The operator took only a second to comply. Although the lights were now extinguished, Elias' eyes had to adjust to the darkness. He could vaguely see a figure jump down from the cab and he heard a voice say, "Don't shoot. Please."

  Elias looked over his shoulder and saw that Sweezea was the closest to the door, his rifle poised. "Cover me."

  Sweezea nodded and stepped through the doorway and off to the side.

  Elias trod carefully through the field of smaller, sharp pieces of the former barrier, as he shivered from the almost arctic blast, and moved around the front of the backhoe over to the side where the man waited. He remembered that he still carried his flashlight and pulled it out, shining it on the man's face.

  "Who are you and what are you doing?"

  The man from the backhoe was middle-aged and appeared fit. He raised his hands above his head and answered, "My name's Clements…Matt Clements. I'm the guy who…."

  "MATTHIAS!"

  The shout came from Tillie, who had been standing in the doorway. The flashlight in his eyes, Clements could not see her as she ran around Elias and up to him, skidding to a stop inches away. Only a moment passed before recognition dawned. "Mathilda! My God, how are you?"

  Elias lowered his rifle.

  "Do you know him?"

  She was still staring at the face of her old friend. "Yes! I do. Matt is the guy I told you about. He's the one who built Aegis. He's the one who told me where the plans were."

  She reached out and grabbed both of his arms. "God, it's good to see you. Why are you here?"

  "Why don't we go inside," Elias suggested, eyeing the surrounding desert warily and eager to return to the warmth of the building.

  "Sure. Let me get my wife and daughter."

  "You brought your family? Cool!" Tillie exclaimed.

  Clements pulled a flashlight out of his back pocket. Stepping away from the side of the backhoe, he flashed the light three times. A moment later a pair of headlights, from a vehicle parked in the desert, returned the signal, and they all heard an engine rev.

  Feeling a light tap on his shoulder as he watched the truck drive toward them, Elias turned and saw Leah standing next to him. "This far to the west," she spoke softly, close to his ear, "they couldn't be infected yet, could they?"

  The thought had already occurred to Elias. "I doubt it. I don't see how, unless one of Faulk's people heard about the outbreak in D.C., panicked, and released a supply. But we don't even know where that would be. I don't know what difference it makes, anyway. It's only a matter of time."

  "That's true."

  The truck had pulled up next to the backhoe, and a woman in her late forties climbed out from the driver's side. The passenger door opened and a younger woman, approximately Tillie's age, got out. The two of them were staring warily at Elias and Sweezea, who were both still holding their automatic rifles.

  "Come on, let's get inside," Tillie shouted. Caught up in the moment, she sounded happy, as if she were inviting everyone in for a party.

  The group moved through the door, and Elias paused to pull it closed. He noticed that the light on the keypad changed from green to red, and realized that the door was now locked.

  As Leah shepherded them to the far end of the hall, away from the hearing range of Faulk, Matt Clements introduced his wife, Lisa, and his daughter, Samantha, who wanted everyone to call her Sam. Tillie performed the introductions for her group. "All right, Matthias, I'll ask again. Why are you here? Not that I'm not glad to see you."

  "It's kind of weird, actually. I've been the contractor working on the staging area in front of Aegis."

  "You've been right outside and I didn't know it?"

  Clements smiled. "I've wondered about you more than once, Mathilda. Anyway, this wind has played havoc on the project. At first it blew the safety tunnel over, at the entrance. But lately it's been snapping the struts which are…were holding up the tilt-up panels we had already erected. I've had to send home most of the crews working out here, because it simply wasn't safe. Been coming out by myself, using the heavy equipment to push aside the panels and other debris, just to keep the entrance clear and safe.

  "Sam happened to come to visit us this morning. A surprise visit, really. And I told her that I had to make a trip out here today to check things out. She insisted she wanted to see Aegis, and talked her mother into coming along. I guess she got a little more than she bargained for. When we arrived after lunch, I noticed that all of the marshals were gone and that the tilt-up panels around the entrance had fallen like dominoes. Up until today I hadn't been worried about the panels because they were so close to Aegis I thought they were out of the direct wind. But they collapsed right against the front of the building. The entrance is completely blocked, and I think that the turnstile is crushed."

  "It is," Hutson supplied.

  "So there is no way in," Wilson commented.

  "Right."

  "Fascinating."

  Clements gave an odd look to Wilson. "I tried to clear the entrance with the equipment I have out here, but it was useless. I need something a lot bigger, like a track hoe, to even make a dent in it. While I was working on it, Lisa and Sam were in the truck, running the heater, listening to the radio, and waiting for me."

  "They were getting a radio signal?" Leah asked.

  "My truck has satellite radio, and if you stay back from Aegis a quarter mile or so, it works. I was just getting ready to call it quits, when they heard about the outbreak in Washington, D.C. They drove closer to get me and we listened to it together. At first we were thinking that we should hightail it home. Almost did."

  Clements paused, his tone becoming somber. "But there was something about what was happening…the way it was happening…reading between the lines of the coverage…that changed our minds. People were dying too fast. First, it was the paramedics and cops at the scene of that house. Next, they started dying at Walter Reed. My God, at one point the news station had a reporter at the hospital and he was making live reports, and then t
hey announced that they had lost touch with him."

  Tillie gasped.

  "We sat in the truck and listened all afternoon. The news stations weren't able to get a statement from the government. It couldn't have been scarier if it had been some staged Hollywood production. Within only a few hours, the network announced that it had lost touch with its Washington, D.C. bureau."

  "Only a few hours?" Sweezea asked, incredulous.

  Clements slowly nodded, his words choked off.

  His wife, Lisa, her voice flat and subdued, continued, "It has started to hit more cities – Boston, New York, others. People in D.C. heard about it and started running away, getting on flights and trains, taking off in their cars. But they were unknowingly helping to spread it. The shorter flights made it somewhere. The longer flights, from what we heard, crashed. I guess the flight crews got too sick to fly the planes."

  Swallowing loudly, Clements took up the narrative. "That's when we decided that we needed to get into Aegis. We thought…it's an outpost...it's isolated...maybe we'd be okay. With the entrance closed, I didn't know how else to get inside. Then I remembered the blocked-out opening on this side of the complex that we had in-filled at the end of the project. I knew where it was and I knew that I could break it open with the backhoe. We came around to the back, and I saw all of the solar panels piled up where it was, so I started to clear them out of the way. I never knew that a door had been installed."

  Tillie, visibly shaken by the description of events around the country, put her hand on Clements' shoulder. "I'm sorry, Matthias, for all of the trouble you went through. But it looks like you wasted your time. Aegis won't be safe, either."

  His face showing his fear, Clements asked, "Why not? I thought…I mean, we figured that with the entrance destroyed, no one who is infected can get inside. It would be as though the whole world is quarantined and we would be protected."

  "The pathogen is airborne. That's how it spreads."

  He absorbed her words. As they registered, Clements seemed to shrink, to collapse into himself. Shuffling, he moved to Lisa and Sam, putting his arms around both of them. Over the shoulder of his wife, he murmured, "So it's just a matter of time?"

  Before Tillie or the any of the others could respond, Wilson spoke. "Actually, I don't believe so."

  All of them turned to face him. Leah was the first to ask, "Wilson, what do you mean?"

  In their previous conversations, Elias had opportunities to witness the outward manifestations of Wilson's mind at work. He saw them now, as Wilson explained.

  "After all of this time, all of our pondering and discussions, it finally makes sense. The pieces to the puzzle fit perfectly – the creation of Aegis, the evolution of the society within these walls, the pathogen itself, the failed vaccine, today's destruction of the entrance, even the bats and snakes Elias and Tillie encountered in the tunnel. And the most critical element, the incessant, anomalous wind."

  Elias felt an electrifying tingle in his spine as the beginnings of an understanding crystallized in his mind. The thought was almost too extreme to voice. "You can't mean…?"

  "I do, indeed. It is the only possible explanation."

  "What?" Tillie practically shouted. "What's the explanation?"

  Wilson turned his eyes to his oldest friend in Aegis. "Tillie, do you recall our many discussions on the naming of this place?"

  She nodded. "It never made any sense."

  "Quite right. It was a topic which fascinated us and occupied many hours of our time. Why would this edifice, which was built to house those who had declared themselves and their lives a failure, be called Aegis? Aegis, in Greek, Egyptian, and other mythologies, means protector or shield. How does that apply to a compound for the suicidal? We never did find a satisfying answer to that question, did we?"

  "No, we didn't."

  "After all, was the intent to protect the suicidal from society, or society from the suicidal?"

  "You're right. It never really fit."

  "No. It did not. However, it most certainly fits now."

  Tillie, who had spent hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours in conversation with Wilson, and knew his approach to solving a problem and explaining its solution, remained silent. Waiting.

  "Is there anyone else here who knows the etymology of the original Greek word for Aegis?"

  Wilson, falling into his professorial role, paused for an answer. When none came, he continued, "The Greek word , literally translated, means violent wind."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "Wilson," Elias uttered in partial disbelief, "do you realize what you are saying?"

  "I can't believe it," Hutson murmured under his breath.

  Sam, spoke for the first time since the introductions. "What is it? What is he saying?"

  Tillie was staring at Wilson, wide-eyed, her expression lost midway between excitement and fear. "You can't mean…?"

  His eyes still upon her, Wilson stated, "It must be so."

  Lisa began to speak, when Wilson held up his hand, stopping her. "We are under the aegis of something or, dare I say, someone. But this facility is not merely a convenient refuge, a bunker within which to hide. Far from it. At the moment Neve Walker's finger, almost a decade and a half ago, pulled the trigger and ended her life, a unique series of events was put into motion, events which included her violent death and the ensuing emotional outcry from the President and First Lady, as well as from the people of the entire world. For it was that outcry, and the discussions following, which caused Aegis to be built."

  All of them were listening, spellbound.

  "The creation of this structure…this fortress…was only the first element. At some point in time, I am presuming after Neve Walker's fateful day, the doomsday microbe and its vaccine were first conceived as a perverted solution to the world's woes. No doubt a lone man or woman, distressed and overwhelmed with the currents and tides of human events, with what that person saw as the inevitable destination for all of us, came to the conclusion that something drastic, something momentous must be done.

  "We will probably never know who that person was. Not that it matters. Whoever it was, it was a well-placed individual – educated, very intelligent, highly respected by the top people in governments and major institutions all over the planet. He or she saw the same things happening all around that we have seen, that we have discussed ad nauseam in a futile attempt to understand and change the course of mankind."

  "That person could be you," Elias remarked, a hint of irony in voice.

  Wilson hesitated for a moment, and a brief chuckle came forth. "I must admit, I can understand the thought processes of this person. I had come to the same conclusion wholly on my own, with regard to the direful terminus of our path. I failed to find a viable solution to our problems – a method, technique, or proposal which might nudge the hand on the tiller and cause mankind's ship to change course away from the rocks lying dead-ahead. Mister Faulk was correct; it was my own failure to conjure an accomplishable solution which caused me to forsake humanity and sequester myself within this place."

  Tillie opened her mouth to say something, but paused as Wilson continued."I have realized, during the time I have had to ponder these things, that I failed because of who I am. Be it the randomness of genetics, the vagaries of upbringing, or the serendipitous influences of my environment, I could never have allowed myself to bring out into the light of conscious contemplation the option which has been thrust upon us by this amorphous group who have plotted our demise.

  "How frustrating it must be…or will be…if an opportunity to know all of the facts presents itself to the progenitor of this solution before he or she dies. For, as he – and let me use the male pronoun for the sake of convenience – first conceived of and developed the plan in his own mind, met and persuaded, cajoled, and convinced those persons necessary to carry out the plot and join the group of designated survivors to begin the new world, he must have believed that he was the invisible hand, guiding and determinin
g the fate of all of mankind. Little did he know that he was nothing but a pawn. He must have held firmly to the belief that he was, with his own mind and his own will, drafting the pages of future history. It never would have occurred to him that he was merely an actor playing his role in a script."

  Leah, mesmerized by his narrative, asked, "Then who actually was calling the shots?"

  Wilson shifted his gaze to her. "Ah, that is the question, as it has always been. And just as it has always been the case throughout the history of man, we are forced to examine the facts at hand and draw our own conclusions. What we know, when viewed in this light, can lead us down a startling path. It is only when all of the facts are laid out on the table, side by side, that two inescapable patterns emerge. The first is the age-old relentless destruction of man by man.

  "Let's begin, shall we, with the foundation of Aegis? It is a fact that poor, troubled Neve Walker took her own life. Thousands do every year. But none share the happenstance of being the only child of the most powerful man on Earth, a man who, due to his religious upbringing, believed that she had committed a cardinal sin and was irrevocably destined to spend an eternity in hell. And none of the nearly countless others, who die by their own hand, have a father with the wherewithal to build Aegis as a way to save others from the same fate.

  "It is also a fact that somewhere on Earth a man, as I described a moment ago, no doubt weary and disturbed by the daily, inexorable signs that our species was disintegrating, and following a pernicious path, was presented with the possible solution: a microbe, a pathogen so deadly that no one on Earth could survive it. Coupled with the presentation of this pathogen was the antidote, the vaccine – an inoculation, or perhaps a pill – which could be administered to those of his choosing. To that man, this must have seemed like providence. It would have been as if he, and those he believed should survive, were on a sinking ship and there, before him, was offered a lifeboat, a lifeboat known only to him, a salvation which was exclusively his to dispense. The prospect would have been intoxicating.