Elias grinned at him. "Can't say. Haven't been here long enough to decide. I'm looking for a friend and I understand from Mr. Pierce that he isn't here."
They finished the serpentine route and emerged, passing Crabill who was stationed directly behind the entrance, peering through one of the view slots in the wall.
To Crabill, Sweezea said, "I'm going to walk with the doc for a ways."
"Don't make a run for it," Crabill joked. "You'll be in my cross-hairs."
Sweezea laughed, and they continued out into the corridor.
After they were out of hearing range, Sweezea asked, "Who's your friend? Maybe I've seen him."
"Stone, Eric Stone."
Shaking his head, Sweezea answered, "Don't know the name, but a lot of people who come here use something different. What does he look like?"
Elias described Stone and watched as the soldier processed the information in his mind. After a brief pause, Sweezea concluded, "Afraid not. If he came through here, it wasn't on my watch."
They stopped walking at the first crossing, and Elias changed the subject. "I was wondering about something; maybe you could explain it?"
"Shoot."
"I didn't expect much chatter in ZooCity, but Pierce's sister interviewed me at Walden and I had a fairly good little talk with the Chief, and neither one of them asked me the one question I thought I would get asked in here."
"What's that?"
"Why I came to Aegis."
"You won't. It's kind of an unwritten rule. We don't ask each other or the newbies."
"Why's that?"
Sweezea leaned against the wall in a nonchalant pose. "We just don't. If you want a better explanation, you'd better get your ass back inside and ask the Chief. I'm just a dumb grunt."
Elias grinned broadly. "Save your moron act for the other guys. Do you have a first name, Sweezea? Mine's Elias."
"I do. Tim."
Instinctively, they shook hands with each other to formalize the introduction.
"Tim, as I said, can the ‘I'm just a dumb grunt' act. I know better."
Sweezea looked away from Elias for a moment, leaned his head back against the wall, and either composed his thoughts or decided how much of his opinion to share with Charon before speaking.
"There are two reasons, really. The first one is that people are going to lie to you, anyway. Remember, we have no way of checking on anyone or anything from the outside. Somebody could walk through the front door and tell us he was a brain surgeon, a movie producer, or the head of the CIA, and we would have no way of knowing.
"That's the weird thing about Aegis. People who come in here feel like it is their chance to be who or what they always wanted to be. Usually, the real reason for checking in is tied to who or what they were. So…they lie to maintain their story."
"What's the second reason?"
"Privacy. Most guys are ashamed of whatever they did or whoever they were, whatever it was that brought them here. This is a chance for them to start with a clean slate. Why ruin it for them by making them tell us the truth or forcing them to lie to us? Both options are bad deals for them, because then either they haven't escaped what they did, or they are starting out their new chance with a big, fat lie that they'll have to maintain for the rest of their lives. We decided that everybody who joins us should at least be allowed to have a little dignity."
"You said ‘most guys.' Do you mean guys, or are you talking about both genders?"
Sweezea laughed. "It's a good thing nobody else is around for this conversation. No, I meant guys. Women, most of them, want to talk about whatever the mess was that they made before they came here. They want to talk about it constantly and to anybody who will listen. Now that you mention it, that's probably a good third reason why we don't ask. If they finally do stop talking about it, we don't want to start them up again."
Smiling, Elias shook his head. Another thought crossing his mind, he remarked, "I imagine you get a lot of guys who tell you they were in the service, when they never served a day."
Tim nodded. "Oh, yeah, especially Special Forces."
"I would guess that particular line of crap doesn't last too long."
Sweezea laughed again. "Maybe about two minutes. I had one newbie tell me he was a SEAL, so I handed him my rifle and asked him to break it down. The only thing that broke down was him! Turns out he was an insurance salesman."
"That would have been fun to watch."
Pausing, Sweezea said, "Should have been, but it wasn't. It was sad. He just bit off more than he could chew with his new identity."
"Tim, as long as we're talking, I do have one more thing to ask."
"Shoot."
"There is another guy...came in here a few weeks ago. His name is Rudy Kreitzmann."
"Rudy Kreitzmann is in here?"
"You know who he is?"
"Hell, yes. I haven't been in here that long. While I was outside, I read the news. Are you kidding me? He came to Aegis?"
Elias nodded. "That's the word. I don't know for sure. That's why I'm asking."
"Why would he come here? Did what he was doing finally get to him?"
"I doubt it. I think he came here because he had nowhere else to run."
Sweezea shook his head. "Can't help you. I hadn't heard he was here. Why are you looking for him?"
Deciding to keep his answers vague, Elias only replied, "I have a score to settle with him."
"From what I heard about him, you and about a thousand other guys."
"So you haven't heard any rumors about him, or some new arrival who might be doing some strange things?"
His eyes suddenly widening, Sweezea asked, "You think he might be up to the same stuff in Aegis?"
Elias shrugged and said nothing.
"Man, if he is, I'll hunt him down and cure him myself."
"Cure him?"
"Oh yeah, cure him. I hear he has an acute case of lead deficiency."
Elias chuckled.
"But to answer your question, no, I haven't heard anyth…wait a sec. There is something."
"What's that?"
"I'm not sure this would have anything to do with Kreitzmann. But it's weird. We picked up a new addition to Madison a couple of weeks ago from ZooCity."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it happens. Urban newbies check in, see that there's a gang in here and, at first, they feel right at home and join up. Then, after a little while, they figure out it was that crap they were running away from, so they come to Madison or go to Walden. Anyway, this guy arrives and tells us the damnedest story about a man who arrived about three months back. I'm not sure about the time, but it was close to that. Anyway, he arrived with two other men…."
Feeling vindicated in his suspicions, Elias flashed back to the video of Kreitzmann's entrance and the two men who walked through the turnstile after him.
"Apparently, they watch the entrance for each new arrival, but they don't make their move until the first intersection. Our new guy told us that he was part of a group who jumped the three of them, or at least tried to."
"What happened?"
"I guess the guy telling the story was the one designated to provide cover, so he was twenty or thirty yards back. Five ZooCity thugs made their move – when, according to our friend, the two men who arrived with the stranger just turned into a blur." Sweezea held up his hands and exclaimed, "I know this sounds nuts!"
"No, it doesn't sound crazy at all. I've seen it myself."
Elias' comment got Sweezea's attention. "You what?"
"You asked me how I got past them, and I exaggerated a little. It seems I'm as guilty as the others who come in…wanting to make myself look better. The gangbangers had the drop on me. I was dead meat, but suddenly there was a blur, something, I don't know what. A few seconds later the ZooCity toughs were either on the floor or hightailing it."
"Dead?"
"Uh-huh."
"Yeah, that's what the newbie told us. All of his group were dead. Necks
broken. I don't know if this had anything to do with Kreitzmann, but the timing was right and it was strange enough. At first we thought the guy was feeding us a line of crap, but since then, some other people have seen similar things happen. Now you. I guess it must be true. Man, that's a little scary."
"It was."
"But how would this tie in with Kreitzmann?"
"I don't know," Elias answered honestly.
The two were silent for a minute or so, both lost in their own thoughts, until Sweezea finally asked, "If it does, you are going against him with only a sidearm?"
His moment of honesty passed, and Elias said, "Yes."
Standing away from the wall where he had been leaning, Sweezea unslung the automatic rifle from his shoulder and handed it to Elias. "AK-47. Not the latest gear. Not the best, either. I don't know what good it'll do against whatever those things are, but here, take it."
The gesture surprised Elias. "That's nice, man. It really is, and I appreciate it. But aren't you going to need it?"
Sweezea simply shrugged. "We've got a decent stockpile. I can spare it."
"Why me? We just met."
A grin spread slowly across his new friend's face as he explained, "I spent two tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, walking down dusty side streets and waiting for some sniper to put one in between my eyes. You get locals coming up to you all the time. Big smiles on their faces. Arms out, offering gifts for saving their country. Sometimes they mean it, and one of them really is trying to hand you some trinket his wife made. Other times they have C-4 taped to their chests underneath all those robes, and if you let them get close enough…BOOM! Either you get pretty good at reading their eyes, or you become a pink cloud on that little street."
"That works, huh?"
"I'm here, aren't I? Anyway, I found out the same skill serves me well stateside."
Grinning back at Sweezea, Elias said, "So when you look in my eyes, you think I'm one of the harmless guys with a trinket for you?"
Suddenly turning serious, Sweezea replied, "No, you're anything but harmless. And maybe I'm making a big mistake, but I don't think so. I think you and I are on the same side. So do you want the extra hardware or not?"
Elias reached out and took the rifle, slipping his arm through the loop and swinging it around to ride on his back.
Opening one of the pockets on his fatigues, Sweezea pulled out a handful of magazines. "You're gonna need these."
Elias took the ammunition and put it away. "You think so?"
With a tight nod of his head, Sweezea cautioned, "I don't know what good it'll do against the blurs, but there are some other targets out there. Aegis is not Club Med."
They both fell into silence again until it became awkward. Breaking it, Elias stuck out his hand and said, "It was a pleasure meeting you, sir."
Sweezea returned the handshake. "Sir, the pleasure was all mine. Hope you find your guy."
Elias picked up his suitcase and turned away. As he walked, he heard Sweezea shout, "Doc!"
He paused and looked back.
"If you need anything, you know where to find me."
Resisting the urge to reply, Elias gave Sweezea a curt wave and resumed his walk.
CHAPTER FOUR
The silence of Aegis embraced Elias as he made his way down the corridor. He divided his mind into two processing units: one focused on his surroundings, vigilant and alert for another attack; the other sorting through what he had learned at Madison and Walden, and from what he witnessed at ZooCity.
His question to Milton Pierce has been exploratory. Elias already had a clear idea of what was in store for the residents of Aegis in the near future. In his opinion, the progression was inevitable.
Instead, he turned his thoughts to the probable fate of Eric Stone. He might have been jumped by the punks shortly after entry and had not been as fortunate as Elias. Apparently, he had not made it to Walden or Madison or, if he had, was immersed in one of those enclaves anonymously. Elias doubted that. There would not have been any reason for Stone to operate that way. And if he had quietly melded into one of the two groups, why had he not contacted Faulk, and why had he not shown up at the extraction?
The likely explanation, he knew, was that Stone either had died soon after his arrival, or was being held by someone. And if he was being held, it was probably by a group other than the ZooCity gang. Stone, Elias knew, was too good to be held captive by amateurs.
Elias was satisfied with his progress thus far. Although he had not yet located either Kreitzmann or Stone, he had filled in several blanks in his mind as to the social structure of Aegis, mentally colored-in the sections controlled by Walden and Madison, and assessed their defenses; and a fairly clear sense of the timing of their decline was emerging. The next step was to locate and secure his base.
Finally recovered from his previous terror, Zack was standing his corner, as he had been instructed to do by BQ. His swagger back, his attitude having returned to him after the interlude with the "streaker," as they had begun to call the bizarre apparitions, he was again cocky and confident. The hallway he guarded was the only entrance to ZooCity.
Since the incident, he had neither seen nor heard anything out of the ordinary. There had been no newbies through the turnstiles, no disenfranchised loners wandering the corridors of Aegis. It was a quiet time, and he was lounging against the wall, his back to the direction of ingress.
It was so quiet that he should have heard the approach of anyone, especially anyone near him, which explained his surprise as he suddenly felt a light tap on his shoulder. Startled, he whirled to see the stranger who was standing alone, directly behind him.
"Who the f…?"
The stranger held up a single finger, intended to silence Zack. For some reason it worked. The man was somewhat shorter, white, clean shaven, with a severe, conservative haircut, resembling the style Zack had seen in old shows on TV Land. He was wearing a gray suit, white shirt, and highly polished dress shoes. Zack remembered that his old man had a pair just like them that he only wore to church. He called them wing-tips.
"Do you have a leader?" the stranger asked.
"What?"
With the tolerant expression one would get when talking to a small child, the man explained, "A boss, a captain. From whom do you take your orders?"
Zack's first impulse was not to give the man an answer, to spout off. Instead, he found himself saying, "BQ."
"Will you take me to him?" Although phrased as a question, it was clear that it was not.
Gathering self-confidence, Zack asked, "What for?"
A smile spread across the stranger's face. "I think I have an offer for him that he will want to take."
Deep in his mind, he knew there was something he should do or something he should say, rather than acquiescing to this man. "Okay," Zack said, and turned to escort the stranger into ZooCity.
Elias made a show of meandering through the maze of primary and secondary corridors. In his mind, he was following the route which he had developed during the train ride as he had studied the layout of Aegis, his intent being to appear as if he had no purpose and no destination in mind. The circuitous route was only partially necessary, but Elias wanted to make certain he had not picked up any curious, hidden escorts in his travels. He deliberately walked past his intended goal, a service door, and proceeded to the first intersection beyond, casually turning the corner.
He quickly lay on the floor, his head oriented back toward the way he had entered, and waited several seconds. Listening and hearing nothing, he slowly edged forward and peered around the corner at floor level. The hallway was empty and silent.
Suitcase in hand, he returned to the service door and opened it. It was one of many electrical service rooms scattered throughout the facility, and he heard the humming of a bank of step-down transformers lined up against one wall. Elias went all the way in and closed the door. The heat generated by the transformers made the room unco
mfortable, and he noticed that he had already begun to sweat.
He made his way to the far end of the room, to the steel ladder affixed to the wall. Still toting his suitcase, and with the AK-47 given to him by Sweezea flapping painfully against his back, he climbed the ladder to the ceiling until he came to the awkward part. Elias had to wedge the suitcase between his body and the ladder to free one hand. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys, found the right one, and inserted it into the lock on the ceiling hatch above his head. The master key worked, and he pushed the lid open, immediately shoving the suitcase and rifle through the hatch onto the deck above, before climbing through it himself.
The deck of this level was bare concrete, as were the walls; the structure had been built using tilt-up panels for all of the primary and load-bearing walls. This part of the complex was lit with ceiling-mounted LED fixtures, which provided a dim but sufficient amount of light. He was in what was referred to on the plans as a raceway, part of an interconnected series of passages through which the pipes, or conduit, ran, supplying electricity to all parts of Aegis. The raceways were built to accommodate someone who was there for servicing and repair purposes, albeit not comfortably. He knew from the plans that there were several junctions, where a confluence of the shiny pipes came together from different locations. These junctions were more spacious, and it was one of them that Elias intended to call home during the duration of his stay in Aegis.
Once again he slung the rifle over his shoulder and picked up his suitcase. Relying upon his sense of direction and memorization of the layout from the "E" pages of the plans, he began walking through the passage. The rifle began slapping loudly against the adjacent wall-mounted conduits, creating a sound like the ringing of a bell which reverberated through the piping with each step. He paused to pull the rifle off his shoulder, deciding to carry it with his free hand.
Elias only had to travel approximately three hundred yards before the first junction. From this larger area, the raceways branched off in four directions. The conduits he had walked beside joined with others, some adding to the array of pipes, others merging into pipes of the next size up in diameter. This was not his intended destination, so he turned a corner and continued.
The Aegis Solution Page 9
