Tillie had slid her chair a foot or so away and was tilting it back to the point of teetering. Her running shoes were plopped on the table. Her hands were laced behind her head as she leaned back, staring at the ceiling. Without bothering to look down, she asked, "Do you think all of us were picked?"
She had voiced the same question Elias had been pondering since the reality of their situation had become clear to him. He shared another question he had come to earlier. "If all of this is being guided by an intelligence greater than we are, why in the world would He pick me?"
Still staring at the acoustic tiles above her, Tillie responded, "I know! Why me, too? I don't deserve it. I'm nasty, surly, rude, judgmental. I hate most people…hell, I mean heck, I've killed people. That can't exactly be the ideal specimen for starting a new world."
"Tillie," he said softly, "what happened with your brother was an accident. You didn't kill…."
"I don't mean that. I'm talking about Eric. When he had his gun on you, Elias, and he was going to pull the trigger, I took the head shot. I could've hit him in the shoulder, the leg…but I didn't."
Leah turned in her chair to face Tillie. Gently, she reached out and touched her arm. "Do you believe in reincarnation?"
Tillie, reacting to the contact, twisted her head around to look at Leah. "Yeah, I think I do. Why?"
"One of the basic tenets of the philosophy is that we keep coming back here until we've learned our lessons. Whether there's a God, or whether all of the minds on Earth are interconnected, like the cells in our head, to form a giant brain, whatever has staged this series of impossible events to create this outcome, I think, is a lot more interested in whether we've learned the right lessons, than whether we ever made the mistakes in the first place."
Tillie dropped her feet loudly to the floor and spun to face Leah. "You think?"
"Of course I do. Who is less likely to do a bad thing…someone who did it before and had to suffer through the horrible consequences of it, or someone who has never experienced that?"
She turned to her husband. "And this applies to you, too. In your life, in the positions you've held, you've seen it all. You have witnessed the results of almost every action a person can take. You've watched individuals, as well as entire countries, make mistakes, and many times it's been up to you to clean up the mess afterward. Who better to know what choices to avoid than you?"
Elias thought back over his life and his career. Her words made sense.
"Elias, baby, in the coming months and years ahead, you are going to be a big part of it, an integral cog in the process that forms this reborn society. There will be hundreds of times you will be in some meeting, listening as someone proposes an idea which, to that person, is a brand-new concept, but to you will be déjà vu all over again. It's going to be your job to make certain we avoid as many of those pitfalls, the ones which will lead us to disaster, as possible. In a sense, it'll be as if we are all going to be on a safari and you are the guide. You'll be the one who knows where the bad places are that we need to avoid."
"What you're saying makes sense as far as Elias is concerned, but what do I have to offer? I'm just broken. I'm not going to help anybody make the right decisions."
Before Leah could respond to Tillie, Elias said, "You're right."
His wife whirled around to stare at him, shocked. Tillie, stunned by his bluntness, had nothing to say as he continued, "You're an angry, bitter fool with nothing to offer anyone."
"Elias!" Leah exclaimed.
But he was not finished. "Your brother died and you decided that it was your fault, which, by the way, it was. You couldn't handle it, so you split. You ran away to Aegis. But you found out that Aegis was just another community…just another society…just like the one you ran away from, only smaller. So, instead of trying to fit in, you did what you do best; you hid in the ductwork, like a rat."
Tillie was staring at Elias, her face frozen.
"What a bitter irony this must now be for you. The society, which you thought you weren't good enough to live in, is dying. And the place where you came to hide, to commit a metaphorical suicide because you didn't have the guts to do it for real, has turned out to be the Ark. You keep trying to punish yourself, and God or fate, or whatever, keeps cheating you out of the punishment you know you deserve. Tillie, you were a worthless screw-up when you first came in here and you're still a worthless screw-up!"
Her hand flashed forward, slapping him hard across the face.
"How dare you call me that? I saved your ass! If it hadn't been for me, everybody in this place would be…."
She stopped. The furor on her face dissolved, softened. A single tear welled up at the corner of her eye.
"Dead?" Elias finished the sentence for her.
The tear broke loose and trailed down her cheek as she moved her head in a single nod. A second tear followed, then a third, until the dam burst and she was racked with sobs. She flew out of her chair, and throwing her arms around Elias, she broke down, holding him tightly. He put his arms around her, and Leah placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Hey!" someone shouted from the doorway before he noticed the scene that was being played out. "Oh, sorry."
Elias was able to turn his head enough to see that it was Crabill. "What is it, Jay?"
"We've…the radio's working. Uh, you should probably come and hear this."
Elias nodded. "We'll be right there."
Crabill left and Tillie loosened her grip on Elias, backing away and letting him go. Her eyes a bright red, her nose running, she dragged her sleeve across her face and sniffled loudly. After a few swallows, she said, "We should go listen."
"Anytime you're ready."
With another loud sniff, she stood up. "I'm ready. We can go."
Elias and Leah stood, and as they all walked toward the door, Tillie stopped abruptly. "I know you're expecting a ‘thank you' or some other soppy thing…."
Elias began to deny that he was, when he was interrupted.
"But I'm gonna kick your butt for that." She finished the threat with a weak smile.
He broke into a relieved grin. "Better bring your lunch."
A twelve-volt power supply and some speakers had been located. The makeshift radio was on a small folding table which had been placed atop the elevated platform Pierce and Wilson had spoken from earlier. The group, scattered throughout the hall, edged forward, closer to the radio, many of the people sitting down on the floor at the base of the platform.
Crabill scanned the channels looking for a station. Finding one, he turned the volume up, moved to the edge of the platform, and sat down.
"…that is all we know at this time. We have been completely unable to contact any authorities for a report or an update on the epidemic. Broadcast stations in our nation's capital are off the air. Cellular systems are so overwhelmed with people attempting calls that it has proved useless to try them. We have made repeated attempts to contact our sister station in Washington, D.C. using land lines. When we were able to get through, there was no answer other than voice mail.
"There has also been no contact with other major cities, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Charlotte…the list is growing by the minute. We have not heard anything from Atlanta, the home city of the Center for Disease Control.
"Some functionality still remains on the Internet, and we have been able to receive word that martial law has been declared by the governors of all states not yet affected by the epidemic, or pandemic, I guess. We have also been able to find out from the Internet that cases have been reported overseas. Illness, fatalities, and widespread panic are reported in France, England, Germany, and the rest of Europe. At this time, the Middle East, Asia, South America, and Australia have not reported any outbreaks of the epidemic."
Elias looked around the room and watched the faces of the crowd. Everyone was listening silently, and he was certain that each was thinking about friends, family, and acquaintances on t
he outside, visualizing the horror that was spreading like a wildfire around the country and the entire Earth. He knew that all of them must be as dumbstruck as he, trying to comprehend the magnitude of the events.
The gathering continued their vigil into the night, with more arriving from other parts of Aegis. Everyone listened. No one spoke. At one point, Milton Pierce, helped by two others, brought food and drinks, distributing them individually, rather than placing the meal on a table, buffet-style, as he would have only hours ago. The rationing had begun.
Fours hours after the radio had been turned on, the station, which they had learned was based in Denver, abruptly went off the air with no explanation. Crabill jumped up and quickly found another station which was still broadcasting from South Dakota, and they continued listening as the news broadcasters, sounding more exhausted, more hopeless, and more terrified as the night went on, provided a litany of locations where the pathogen had struck.
When the final populated continent fell victim, Elias turned to Leah. "I don't think I can stand listening to this anymore."
She nodded and they both stood up, careful to not step on the strangers around them, many of whom were now lying down on the floor, loath to return to their quarters, craving the presence of others. Some of them were huddled against their neighbors. Some were curled up in almost fetal positions. Leah espied Tillie several feet away, lying on her side, sound asleep. Pierce had dimmed the lighting in the hall hours ago, so they were not able to locate Wilson, Sweezea, Lisa, or the others from their original group. The only other person they recognized was Crabill, now sitting on the platform near the radio, his back against the leg of the folding table, his eyes drooping from fatigue.
"Where do you want to go?" Leah asked in a whisper.
Elias surveyed the room filled with strangers, realizing that very soon he would know each and every one of them intimately.
"I need to get outside" was all he said, as he walked to the heap of clothing Pierce had piled against the wall near one of the exits, as a resource for the volunteers who were working on the roof. He grabbed two heavy parkas and some thick gloves and, with Leah following, left the meeting room which had become a site for a wake.
Twenty minutes later they were standing on the roof of Aegis, buffeted by the frigid winds and surrounded by the shaking and rattling heaps of debris. The salvage crews had cleared a passable trail from the hatch to the perimeter wall, which was where they now stood, clutching each other and staring off into semidarkness. To the left, in the direction of the now collapsed entrance, they could barely see, in the moonlit night, that the people outside the wall had pulled several of the abandoned vehicles into a tight semicircle as a windbreak.
Elias had heard earlier that the first supply of food, water, warm clothing, and blankets had been dropped, accompanied by a message from Pierce, explaining that he would continue to supply them outside until he was satisfied that they were not infected. Although Elias could not tell in the darkness, he guessed they were now all huddled inside the vehicles for warmth, most likely running the engines so the heaters would function. The rooftop around them was dark. The volunteer crews had quit for the night.
He felt Leah pressing hard against him, holding him tightly.
Looking at her profile in the moonlight, Elias was, once again, overwhelmed at his fortune in being reunited with her. In all of the thousands of hours since he first received the news of her demise, he had never thought for a moment that this would be possible. And yet, despite the almost mind-numbing series of events which had to happen to bring them together, they were.
She sensed his gaze and turned to him. Their eyes connected and they kissed, the cowls of the parkas forming a fur-lined tunnel around their faces. It was a consuming and passionate kiss, both of them trying to convey, with the contact, the intensity of their love for the other; both celebrating the fact that they were alive and with each other, right then, at that moment. Somehow, despite the fact that the entire world had been turned upside down, with all of the billions of pieces crashing into a jumbled heap, they were standing side by side, looking out over it all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Wilson told all of us today that we each need to start keeping a journal. He said that someday, way in the future, people are going to want to know what it was like for us in Aegis. I think it's stupid and I told him that. But he wouldn't give up until I said I would do it. So here it is, all of you grandchildren of the grandchildren of the grandchildren of the grandchildren of the people who are in Aegis today, Mathilda's journal.
I woke up a few hours ago. I was sleeping on the floor in the big hall, where all of us listened to the radio last night. There was some station on – I don't know from where. A lot of people were still glued to it, but I couldn't stand listening, so I left and came back here, to my pad in the ductwork. Besides, Pierce and his sister were handing out rations and I've got my own stash.
Here I am, back at the pad again. Ate two bites from the sandwich I made and felt bad. So I packed up all my food and took it to Pierce to add to the communal food store. Dumb, huh?
It's later now. Hunted down Matthias today because we haven't really had a chance to talk since, well, you know. But he was busy up on the roof working with the other guys on the solar panels. Then I went looking for Wilson. But he was tied up with Pierce, having some kind of meeting.
Couldn't find Elias and Leah. They probably have a lot of catching up to do. After two years, I would think so. Sweezea, Hutson, and Crabill were all busy gathering up weapons. Right now they are only asking people for them. They'd better not start just taking them, at least mine.
This journal is ridiculous. I don't have anything to say. And I don't feel like reading right now. Maybe I'll go up on the roof and help those guys.
DAY 2
Didn't get back to writing this last night. I was so tired that I just crashed. Got up this morning and grabbed my ration and wolfed it down in like two minutes. If that's all the food I'm going to get for breakfast, I'm going to starve.
Bad news at breakfast. The supply drop to the poor people outside was still sitting where we dropped it, unopened. And nobody could see any people around. They might still be inside the cars and trucks out there, but it seems like they would have gotten out to grab the stuff. I hope they're okay.
I started marking my calendar. There are two "X" marks now. Who knows how many to go?
DAY 6
I apologize to all of you twenty-second-century folks who might be reading this, but I haven't had a chance to write a word in the journal for days. Sweezea was put in charge of our army. Everybody calls it the security team, but I like "army" better. I had a chance to talk to him on Day 2, and he asked me if I wanted to be on the team. Me! How cool is that? Today, flopped in my pad with every bone in my body hurting, I'm not sure it was such a dandy idea. He's gone nuts. Has us training all the time. And when we're not training, we're doing workouts. And when we're not doing either of those, he has us studying! Studying? Well, overall, it's not bad, so I'll hang in there. I am running circles around most of the guys on the team. Ha!
A bunch has happened since the last time I wrote in this thing. Let me see if I can remember it all. Wilson was real excited because one of the last-day newbies, actually two of them, if you want to count the blond, are meteorologists. One was on a TV station, the blond of course, before she came into Aegis. But the guy was the local head of the national weather office. They've been huddling up with Wilson, trying to figure out exactly how this downdraft works.
Milton Pierce seems to be doing a great job. He takes it so seriously. I thought he'd lost his mind, asking the Aegis people to vote in his sister as his second-in-command. I even had a chance to talk to him about it for a little bit. He said that she would be a good balance for him. Whatever that means! We'll see, I guess.
Elias and Leah are so cool together. They are never more than about five feet apart, and every time I look at him, he's staring at her wi
th a sappy grin on his face. Other than that, he kind of bounces all over the place. One day he works with us on security. The next day he's on the roof with Matthias, helping the crew. He did get real jazzed the other day. It seems he was walking down one of the hallways and ran into two brothers he knew from the outside. He only told me that they were the Barton brothers and he met them on his trip here. He didn't tell me why they were here.
They've gotten three sections of the panels hooked up, so we are getting a trickle of electricity back into the batteries. They say it isn't enough yet, but it helps. I guess the wind has died down a little. Wilson said it got worse so that it was strong enough to knock down the entrance, and now it has eased off to the level needed to keep the bug away. This is all so strange. I don't know if I'm ready to really think about it yet.
I have been thinking a lot about how we all feel inside Aegis, and it is bizarre. Before the "event," as everybody calls it – I think they are all afraid to call it what it was – we were stuck in here, anyway. We weren't supposed to leave. Ever. And we had no communication with the outside world. Nothing's changed, not even a little bit. Well, that's not true. We did have incoming communication for a day or two, until the last station went off the air. Other than that, everything is the same as it was.
But, in all of our heads, everything has changed. I'm not just talking about the newbies, who aren't used to Aegis. I'm talking about the other people who have been here a long time, like me. They are all acting differently now. It's hard to describe.
Wilson says that before the event we were all in purgatory, killing time and waiting for the end. But now, he says, we are all in a womb, waiting for our lives to begin. Makes sense. I just wish I knew how long the pregnancy was going to last.
And that's part of the deal. Before, none of us ever paid any attention to the days. It didn't matter because we weren't ever getting out. But now, it has only been six days and everybody's getting a little stir-crazy. Sweezea tells me that's why we need the security team. We don't know if anyone's gonna freak out and we need to be ready.
The Aegis Solution Page 43