The Aegis Solution

by John David Krygelski

  He passed three more junction rooms, once turning to his left, once continuing straight ahead, and once turning to his right, while pausing frequently to listen for the sounds of anyone who might be following him. He finally arrived at the spot which had been predetermined to serve as his base. This particular junction was no larger than the others, but like any other real estate, the appeal it held was its location. It was the most centrally located junction within Aegis, and provided Elias with above-ceiling access to Walden, Madison, and the portion of the complex that he guessed would be ZooCity. From here he could maneuver above each of them and, with the right gear, observe and listen. He still had no idea where Kreitzmann might have settled, but the network of raceways would provide him with access to all areas.

  There had been no litter, no markings of any type along his route, so he was hopeful that he had this labyrinth to himself.

  Elias leaned the rifle against a wall and set down the suitcase, opening it. Beneath the clothing and toiletries, which had been rummaged through by Crabill, was the smartphone, his lifeline to the outside world. He was certain that Crabill thought nothing of the fact that he had brought a phone inside, even though they were useless in Aegis. People were creatures of habit, and Elias assumed that most of the new arrivals would do the same thing.

  He left the phone in the suitcase for now, and removed one other item. It appeared to be a charging base for an electric toothbrush; in fact, it was something else entirely. Tucking it into his shirt pocket, Elias looked around and located a wall-mounted steel ladder which extended up to the ceiling. This time he retrieved the master key before climbing and, reaching the top, unlocked the hatch, swinging it up and open. He was at the roof of Aegis, and the wind was still fierce. It snatched the hatch from his grip and slammed it open as far as it would go. Fortunately, the spring hinges were beefy enough to not snap from the impact, and the lid remained open. The wind, traveling almost parallel to the face of the now vertical hatch, whipped over the open access, and the Bernoulli effect pulled at Elias, dragging air out of the junction room beneath him at an almost gale force and causing a low-frequency sound like a person blowing over the top of a pop bottle.

  Concerned that someone might hear the sound or notice the sudden change in air pressure, he scrambled through the opening and, using all of his body weight, pushed the hatch closed. The wind was so forceful that it nearly caused him to lose his balance and fall onto one of the thousands of solar panels mounted to the roof.

  Keeping his feet well apart to help him maintain an upright posture, Elias, in the dimming light of the evening, searched around the bases of the solar panels until he found a weatherproof electrical outlet. The outlets had been placed regularly around the roof system for the use of tradesmen during the construction of Aegis and also to be used by anyone who might perform repairs. Since no outside contractors would ever be allowed inside or on the roof once Aegis opened, Elias guessed that the assumption made by the designers of the building had been that eventually a qualified tradesman would check in and might need to plug in his tools.

  Shaking his head at yet another of the idiocies of Aegis, he pulled the device from his pocket and plugged it in, careful to orient the top of it away from his eyes. Now came the hard part. He had to find a way to secure the relatively light base so that the wind would not blow it over. Setting it down, he searched the adjacent area, quickly finding that the contractor who had installed the solar panels had left several pieces of steel angle behind. It was a gauge heavy enough to serve as a lintel in masonry work; obviously, they had been concerned about the sometimes violent desert wind, when designing the support structures. He hefted two of the six-foot-long pieces and carried them back to the spot where he had left the device.

  Shivering from the cold, Elias first placed the plastic base in the small open area next to the outlet. He set one of the two angles next to it so that it rested upon the power cord, further securing it. Then he positioned the second piece of steel on the other side of the base in order to wedge it firmly between the two.

  Stepping back, he checked out the installation, satisfied that it was probably the best he could do with the materials at hand. After taking one last, long look around the vast flat roof, Elias lifted the hatch, more carefully this time so that the wind would not rip it from his grip, and climbed down the ladder, struggling to pull the lid closed behind himself. He locked it and continued down, grateful for the warmth.

  The air turbulence, caused by the opening of the roof hatch, had stirred up the dust, and Elias coughed several times, his throat and lungs stung by the acrid powder. He sat on the floor next to the suitcase and pulled out the smartphone and, with his thumb, slid out the mini-keyboard. Quickly, he typed his first message to Faulk, which would be compressed and transmitted automatically in about two hours. His descriptions of Madison, Walden, and the members of the group who resided in ZooCity were brief, but he supplied more lengthy details about the blurred intervention. He also reported that there was, as yet, no sign of Rudy Kreitzmann. After informing Faulk that the beacon was in place on the roof, Elias read the message once over for errors, saved it, and closed the phone.

  Leaning back against the wall, he removed two PayDays and a can of Ensure from the suitcase and ate his dinner. Although he was certain there was something else he could yet do this evening, Elias did not move, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to relax. Within minutes, he was asleep.

  Whoever it was who had followed him during his journey through the raceway maze was a very patient person. At no point did the stranger get close enough to be heard or seen. Now, as the stuttering sounds of Elias' snores echoed through the concrete passageways, the figure waited. Fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, and finally two hours passed before the stranger very slowly and carefully moved forward, not making even the slightest sound – until this wraith stood over Elias, taking in all of the details of his face and the visible contents of his suitcase, paying special attention to the automatic rifle leaning against the wall next to his sleeping figure.

  Having learned all that could be learned from this visit, the figure receded into the passageway without making a sound. Because the phone was programmed to perform its function silently and without the screen lighting, the watcher had been completely unaware that Elias' message was sent and a message downloaded during the fleeting observation.

  

  The stealth helicopter, using the laser homing beacon generated by the base Elias had set up on the roof, hovered above Aegis. On command, the sergeant activated the winch and lowered the package toward the clear area adjacent to the roof hatch. He maintained a running stream of instructions to the pilot, who did a masterful job of flying in the buffeting winds and compensating for the wild swinging of the package at the end of the line. Deciding that gently placing it on the roof in these conditions would be impossible, the sergeant stopped the winch from unspooling when the package swung only a few feet above the nearby solar panels, and waited. After feeling that he had a good sense of the timing of the swings, he hit the clutch on the winch, abruptly dropping the load. He grinned to himself at his accuracy as he saw that it landed squarely where he intended, less than three feet from the laser beacon.

  Triggering the line release, he spoke into his headset mouthpiece. "It's down. Let's go."

  The pilot wasted no time increasing the elevation of the craft, and they canted forward and sped away.

  

  Erin Stephenson glanced at the Caller ID on her phone, and seeing who was calling her direct line, quickly lifted the handset. "Hello, Rusty."

  "Erin, how are you?"

  "Busy, overworked, behind schedule, and ready to strangle Len for allowing his wife to have her baby now, instead of on his day off. I'm doing my own shows and his today. What's up?"

  The meteorologist-on-duty chuckled. "That's the life of a big TV star. Quit complaining."

  "Yeah, right."

  "Anyway, I checked out the anemo
meters. Even sent a tech out to make sure. They're fine."

  This was the last answer Erin expected. "Can't be, Rusty. You've seen the surface ob."

  There was a brief pause. When he spoke, all of the former levity was missing from his voice. "I have. I know."

  "Then what's the explanation?"

  She listened to another pause, visualizing Rusty sitting at his console, staring at the map. Finally, he admitted, "Erin, I don't know."

  She turned on her swivel chair and, using her free hand, clicked on the surface observation map fed to her computer from the National Weather Service. She had to zoom out from the default location of the Tucson area, select the desert region to the west, and zoom in. As she read the numbers, she gasped. "It's worse."

  "Yep. It sure is."

  "Rusty…."

  "I know, Erin. I know."

  "It's…what I'm looking at, from everything I learned…."

  His voice was flat as he finished her sentence – "Impossible."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Elias had awakened at around 3:00 a.m., his neck and back stiff from his sleeping position against the wall. Shaking it off as much as he could, he climbed the ladder and found the delivery. The materials sent had been specifically packed into a box which would fit through the hatch. A twenty-foot length of rope had been left attached, which he used to lower the parcel through the opening and down to the floor, fighting the winds through the entire process.

  Now equipped with the surveillance gear he needed, as well as other materials dictated by the assignment, Elias spent the next three hours roaming the raceways of Aegis, completing various installations, and positioning microscopic cameras and microphones in what he had designated from his brief visits as key areas in Walden and Madison. The electrical raceways and conduits had provided an ideal environment for this work, taking him directly above any room in the complex and providing him with several penetrations where he could piggyback his devices. He had also found the section of Aegis used as a home by the ZooCity dwellers and had positioned monitoring equipment there, choosing the spots as best he could from the available vantage points.

  Elias then returned to his base and set up the laptop provided in the drop. Since all radio frequencies were jammed at Aegis, his method for monitoring all of the surveillance devices was elegantly simple and utilized the miles of interconnected conduit in the raceways. The devices sent their data via an FM signal which was transmitted through the conduits themselves. He screwed a conductive clamp to one of the pipes closest to the laptop. The clamp had a wire soldered to it with a converter and a USB plug at the end of the wire. He plugged it into the port of the laptop and opened the monitoring program. After a minute or two of searching and identifying all of the feeds, the program displayed a menu with each microphone or camera listed by number. Elias reached into his pocket, pulled out the sheet of paper he had used to jot down the locations of all of the devices, and edited the feed menu so that it displayed each microphone or camera by location.

  Clicking on one of the ZooCity feeds, he heard nothing but silence. The camera associated with this location showed an empty room. He continued clicking from location to location until his ears were rewarded with the sounds of several excited voices shouting at once. Checking the video, he saw one of the young men put his fingers to his mouth and whistle loudly. They all stopped talking. Once silence was established, the whistler, who seemed to be the leader, contended, "We don't have no choice."

  One of the others spoke up, his voice confrontational. "I don't like it, BQ. Those dudes are bad."

  "You're right. They're bad. Okay. But we hook up with 'em or we die. Which one you want?"

  There was no answer.

  After a brief pause, as all of the group fell silent, the punk who had expressed his dislike for the situation asked, "So what they want us to do?"

  The one they called BQ answered, "It ain't nothin'. They want us to do the same thing we been doin'. They want us to grab newbies right when they come in. Except instead of doin' what we used to do, they want us to deliver 'em to them."

  "And what do we get out of it?" one of the others asked.

  It was difficult to tell from the wide-angle view on the laptop but it looked to Elias as if BQ smiled and said, "Mostly, we get to live. There be some other good things, too. They be makin' some crystal and some blow over there. We get some of that. We get some booty. You know, the ones they don't want."

  "This ain't right! I like it the way it's been. We had our own game. Now we gotta play theirs?"

  It appeared from the video feed that BQ glared at the talker. "We play their game or we be dead."

  The talker did not look as if he agreed, but failed to respond.

  Elias listened to the entire discussion, trying to glean additional insights. Other than what he learned at the beginning, very little came out of what he heard. As the group broke up and scattered, he rocked back on his heels and thought about this new information. His guess was that it was Kreitzmann, or one of his people, who had contacted this group with the intent of putting them to work for him. That was obvious. What was not obvious was why he needed the ZooCity culprits. The other point mentioned which disturbed Elias was the offering of a supply of methamphetamines and cocaine. The effect of distributing deadly drugs of that nature in an environment like this one, already stressed due to the pre-existing mental state of the entrants and the bizarre nature of the institution itself, would have wildly unpredictable results. The obvious question was how Kreitzmann was able to produce drugs while having no access to an outside supply of the materials needed.

  The one other fact Elias took away from listening to the discussion was the abject fear visible even in the grainy image of their faces and audible in their voices. This was a group, whose whole social structure was based upon their bravado and generally macho attitude, talking about their own demise as an inevitable consequence of noncooperation. At least from the moment he began to monitor them, there was not even a hint of their opposing or resisting the overture, not a hint of defiance. In Elias' mind, that could only mean one thing. Whoever had proffered the deal to the gangsters in ZooCity, and he assumed it must have been Kreitzmann, must be the same party connected to the deadly show he witnessed upon his arrival: the blur.

  He clicked on the configuration menu of the monitoring program and set it up so that the laptop would record the video and audio feeds from all of the sources on a voice- or motion-activated basis, for his periodic review. Next, using another USB cable, he connected the smartphone to the laptop and downloaded the message which was received at the same time his message was uploaded in the flash transmission.

  Within moments, the text message from Faulk's office was displayed. Since this message was transmitted to him essentially at the same time as his went out, there was nothing in it referencing his comments or questions. That would have to come tomorrow. All it contained was a list of the drop shipment, a statement telling Elias that they did not yet have any luck identifying the two men who had accompanied Kreitzmann into the facility, and a comment from Faulk that he was glad Elias had made it inside and was able to check in on schedule.

  His next several minutes were occupied opening one of the MREs from the drop and eating a tasteless meal, washed down by a bottle of energy drink. Still stiff and sore from his sleeping position, Elias stood and did some stretching exercises before once again striking out.

  "At least tonight I'll sleep more comfortably," he said aloud, unpacking the flattened and compressed air mattress included in the shipment. With all of his self-assigned tasks completed, Elias typed a final command into the laptop and a password screen appeared, locking out anyone who might come across his base camp; then he returned to the access ladder.

  By now it was late morning. The section of Aegis into which he emerged was still quiet and unoccupied. He wanted to explore the areas and pockets of the complex not occupied by Walden, Madison, or ZooCity. Given the vast scope of Aegis, he had pl
aced his cameras and microphones in the locations he had already identified this morning, or in the case of ZooCity, guessed. But Elias still had no idea where Kreitzmann was set up, and felt that the corridors and hallways would better serve his purpose of exploring, rather than the electrical service-ways above.

  Although Aegis had no windows around the perimeter, there was a large center courtyard and, scattered about the layout, several smaller atria to provide the residents with access to fresh air and sunlight. The hallways adjacent to these interior open areas were built with ample windows to allow the sunlight to come in and to provide views.

  Recollecting that the plans for Aegis had called for rather lush landscaping with automatic irrigation systems in each of these areas, Elias noted that the first two he passed were barren and dusty. Over the years, either there had been a malfunction in the irrigation system, which none of the residents were able or willing to repair, or the plantings and hardware had been cannibalized.

  The condition of the previous two atria contributed to his surprise as he arrived at the third. From the window where he paused, Elias could see no farther than three feet past the glass. The atrium was bursting with life. Trees, ferns, broad-leaf plants, and vines were tangled together, creating the impression of a jungle, rather than the landscaped, open-air commons area which was originally intended.

  His curiosity piqued, he followed the hallway to the first door, finding it not only locked but barred on the outside. Now, even more curious, Elias continued following the hallway, turning a corner when he reached an edge, and circled the unlikely jungle. The second door he encountered was secured in the same manner as the first. Turning the next corner, Elias discovered that the door on the third side was also bolted and barred. In his mind, he planned to simply break one of the windows if the fourth door was inaccessible.