The Aegis Solution

by John David Krygelski

  "His plan was set in motion. Men and women of his choosing would be invited to participate. If you think about it, who could possibly refuse the offer to survive after the destruction of the species? I am certain the minutiae of generating the list of survivors would have taken substantial time to complete and would have been fraught with drama and betrayal. Any such action, which by its very nature bestows power, would be. Men or women, offered the vaccine, would have it left to them to determine whether their spouses, their children, their children's spouses would be added to the list, or whether they would take advantage of the impending cataclysm to resolve their own petty disputes. It is indeed a rare individual who would not be corrupted by this opportunity to decide who lives and who dies."

  The picture, painted by Wilson to his small audience, held them in thrall. No one dared speak.

  "The two facts we have thus far discussed, the creation of Aegis and the development of the microbe and vaccine, would appear to be unrelated and proceeding on independent courses. Most likely, those involved in the doomsday plot never gave this institution a thought.

  "To return to Aegis now, we have observed and pondered the evolution of the societal microcosm within these walls for some time. At its inception, Aegis appeared to be utilized primarily for its stated purpose. The vast majority of the entrants were those who chose coming to this place rather than consummating the act of suicide. It was at said time, when nearly all of the residents were of this inclination, that the so-called riot occurred, an ugly and base visceral manifestation of the mental state of the group.

  "However, over the past few years, we have noticed a change. Fewer and fewer of the new arrivals were of this nihilistic nature. More and more of them were, as I was, refugees from a society gone awry, either eager to hide from the outside world or inclined to create a better society in Aegis. Many of us, including some who stand here with me now" – he glanced meaningfully at Sweezea, Crabill, and Hutson – "shared the vision of mankind held by the perpetrators of the doomsday plot, without sharing a desire for the horrendous solution."

  The three men nodded slightly, indicating their agreement with Wilson's assessment.

  "As the newer arrivals became the predominant population of Aegis, something strange began to take shape. The suicidal segment seemed to require a progressively more subtle trigger. Their number rapidly diminished by their own hand, leaving the newer occupants free to construct a more viable system.

  "Yet, this natural course of events was not sufficient in and of itself. The anti-social and the sociopaths in ZooCity showed no inclination to move out of the way on their own. Intervention was needed, and intervention was provided in the form of one of Mister Faulk's lieutenants, Doctor Boehn, a petty and shallow man, someone ripe to fall victim to the power granted to him by the impending calamity. His initial and transitory urge was to utilize the habitants of ZooCity as foot soldiers and procurers. I suspect, however, that this utilitarian exploitation was a convenient mechanism to justify the act of eradicating them. His action in doing so was either part of the script of man's seemingly idiopathic destruction of man, or an incredible, and I use that term literally, coincidence. I am certain that he would have seen it as ironic that he inadvertently increased the safety inside Aegis."

  "Wilson," Elias interrupted, "are you saying that Boehn was manipulated into killing off all of the ZooCity residents? And, if so, by whom?"

  Wilson smiled at Elias. "Manipulated? That implies the presence of a person. I would opt to say guided by the inevitable script I mentioned; however, the answer to that question, once the facts are all presented, is for you to decide."

  "Present away!" Tillie urged.

  "And so I shall. We believed that Mister Faulk possessed a viable vaccine. Our ignorance of the truth would have propelled us outward, beyond the walls of Aegis. Had we obtained the vaccine from his vehicle and administered it to ourselves, we would have traveled away from Aegis and met our deaths. Yet, as we tried to leave, we found that the exit at the end of this hallway was made to be unusable by the falling debris from the roof. I ask you, Mr. Clements, as you circled the perimeter of Aegis, were the shattered remnants of the solar panels heaped everywhere along the wall, or only in the proximity of the exit door?"

  His voice hushed, Clements answered, "Just the exit."

  "Another coincidence? Then there is the secret subterranean exit, of which only Tillie was aware. It was, by coincidence, rendered useless by bats and snakes, even though it had been easily accessible on her last exploratory venture."

  Wilson stopped for a moment and surveyed the faces of his friends. Their minds, in various stages, were absorbing his message, as he could see expressions both awed and confounded.

  "Mister Faulk's presence itself is peculiar. Why, in this eleventh hour of the plan in which he was immersed, did he feel a need to visit Aegis? And yet, if he had not, we would not have discovered the reality of what is transpiring outside these walls. We would have overpowered Boehn and his men, and we would have left to meet our certain fates.

  "The arrival of Mister Faulk also necessitated the switching off of the communications blanket, which has enshrouded this facility, as he did not want to be out of touch with his superiors and underlings on this final day of their plan. The end result of this coincidence is that we now have access to the news of what is happening out there.

  "And at the time when the microbe is multiplying and spreading around the globe, as is the news of this unspeakable event, there are those already infected, or soon to be, who will decide that Aegis might be a suitable place to run, as did Mister Clements and his family. It must be yet another coincidence that the entrance to Aegis, only in the past few hours, has been destroyed, preventing anyone, who might carry the disease, from entering and infecting those of us on the inside. And even that fact, that event, has yet another coincidence wrapped within. The ostensibly chaotic wind, the downdraft centered on Aegis, is not quite powerful enough to bring down Aegis itself. But, on the day of the infectious release, after years of steadily gaining momentum, it happens to reach the force needed to bring down the new concrete walls Mr. Clements had erected at the entrance."

  Clements leaned forward. "Yes. If you think about it that way, it was incredible that the government decided to add the new entrance structure when it did. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a convenient arrangement of tilt-up panels close to the entrance, only temporarily braced and not tied in and finished, providing the weaker link for the wind to knock down."

  Wilson nodded to indicate his concurrence. "And your decision to erect those specific panels first."

  "That's spooky," responded Clements. "I could have started anywhere. There was no real reason to begin adjacent to the entrance. And we were able to erect just a few before the wind intensified, preventing us from standing the perpendicular panels which would have tied them together, making the new structure almost as strong as Aegis."

  Tillie spoke. "Wilson, this is all amazing. But you still haven't explained why you think we are safe from the pathogen."

  "Let us review the facts at hand about that. According to Mister Faulk, the microbe is susceptible to extreme heat and cold. Not only can it survive in our atmosphere, it thrives, as long as the temperature range is moderate. This precludes the possibility that the airborne malignancy will be truly one hundred percent effective across the globe. It would be my guess that the occupants of the outposts and scientific stations on Antarctica and the Arctic will survive the spreading terror. I am certain that there are other pockets, the beneficiaries of climatic flukes or extremes, which will also provide a survivable habitat for man in the coming days, weeks, or months. There is one other place, other than the poles, where the temperature of the air is always frigid, a place where the microbe cannot multiply, cannot even survive…and that is our upper atmosphere."

  "The wind!" Elias almost shouted, the final piece of the puzzle falling in place for him.

  Wilson awarded Elias wi
th a smile and continued, "Precisely. For a very long time now, we have been witnesses to an unexplainable phenomenon. Beginning as a gentle breeze, steadily building and intensifying, the wind has buffeted Aegis – but not a conventional wind, not a predictable by-product of some mundane regional weather pattern. Aegis has been the epicenter of an impossible vertical draft, coming down to us from directly above and then blowing outward in all directions. There is only one place where this downdraft could originate and that is the upper atmosphere, an environment which, because of the coldness of the layer, is deadly to the microbe. And that fact, this impossible wind from above blowing outward upon its arrival at Aegis, pushing away and holding at bay the airborne pathogens before they can reach us, is the answer to your question. We are safe from the microbe because we are being kept safe from it, as we have been at every incremental step along the way; hence, the second script, the second pattern.

  "As outrageous as it may seem, as contrary to what you know or believe, I cannot see an alternative explanation other than the obvious…Aegis is an Ark."

  

  Elias and Leah sat on the floor in the hallway, both still trying to grasp the magnitude of Wilson's words. It had been decided that it was necessary to secure Aegis and, therefore, the door; but Tillie had suggested that Matt's satellite radio could come in handy, at least for a while. Sweezea, unable to obtain from Faulk the code for the keypad on the exit, shot off the lock. Crabill, a mechanic, volunteered to remove the radio, and Clements was outside helping him as Sweezea stood watch at the rear of the truck. Hutson and Tillie had gone into the utility room to clear some of the shelves for the purpose of breaking down the modular steel units. They planned to use the vertical steel angles from the units as braces for the exit door once it was closed. Lisa and Sam were helping.

  Wilson was standing alone in the open doorway, staring off into the distance. Elias thought that he was probably imagining the chaos rapidly spreading throughout the world.

  "Elias, do you think he's right?"

  He turned to look at his wife. "I hope so. After all this time thinking you were gone and now having you back, I don't want to…."

  She kissed him, the contact fanning a fire which had never gone out over the last two years, but had remained smoldering in his heart. He reached up as they kissed and buried his fingers in her hair, pulling her closer. The veil around them, created by their intense love and passion, was pierced by the sound of a crash from the utility room.

  Elias jumped up and was running to the door, when Hutson, with a sheepish look on his face, poked his head out and assured him, "It's nothing. One of the storage units collapsed."

  "Anyone hurt?" Elias asked, coming to a stop.

  "Just Faulk. It fell right on him," he answered with a chuckle. "We're moving him to another spot."

  Flashing instantly on the years of training that he and Leah had received, Elias knew that Faulk had gone through the same training. "Mike, no! Wait!"

  Before Hutson could respond, they both heard a scream coming from behind him. He spun around into the utility room, with Elias arriving only seconds after. As Elias charged through the doorway, he ran into Hutson, who was frozen, his hands up. As they both tumbled to the floor, the roar of the shotgun filled the room, the buckshot slicing into the wall behind the spot where they had stood a moment before. Elias, disentangling himself from Hutson, rolled to the side and saw that Faulk was holding Lisa Clements with his left arm around her neck, while brandishing the shotgun with his right. In a smooth action following the shot, he performed a one-handed pump, filling the chamber with another round, and brought the barrel around, poking it harshly into Lisa's side.

  His eyes sweeping the rest of the room, Elias saw Tillie lying facedown on the floor next to a heap of parts and shelving brackets. Sam Clements was several feet away, a look of abject terror on her face, her back pressed against the far wall of the room.

  "DROP IT!" The shouted command came from the doorway. Elias saw Sweezea pointing his AK-47 directly at Faulk, using the door frame to shield as much of his body as possible. On the opposite side of the opening, Crabill had taken position, his rifle also pointing at Faulk. Clements was behind them, staring worriedly at his wife but displaying the good sense to remain quiet.

  Elias stood up, making certain that his hands were visible to Faulk the entire time. Hutson rose to his feet next to Elias, moving slowly to not spook Faulk.

  "Richard, it looks like a standoff," Elias stated flatly.

  Faulk did not have the wild-eyed look of a madman, but was calm and steady. Shoving the barrel of the shotgun another inch into Lisa's side, he ordered, "Tell your men to drop their weapons."

  "Not going to happen. They lower their weapons, you start pulling the trigger. And I'm not sure where you'd stop. Besides," Elias continued, recalling that Faulk knew nothing of what was happening in the outside world, "we're all going to die anyway, remember? We might as well take you with us."

  From Faulk's perspective, Elias' words made sense. He knew better than to negotiate with someone who had nothing to lose.

  "Very well. Tell them to back away from the doorway or step inside the room."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm leaving, and if you try to stop me, she goes. And even though your days are numbered anyway, I doubt that you or her husband would want to see her splattered all over the walls of this place."

  Leah, who was behind Sweezea and Crabill, standing off to the side and listening, said, "Elias, let him go."

  Deciding to maintain the charade for believability, Elias asked her, "What about the vaccines in his truck? We need them."

  Her disembodied voice answered, "Right after I cuffed him, I sent out Crabill. We've got them."

  Appreciating her quick thinking, Elias turned to Sweezea and Crabill and, with a jerk of his head, said, "You two move back down the hall that way, but keep him in your sights."

  He turned to Faulk. "Richard, after you."

  Faulk, holding Lisa as a shield, walked her to the open door. Sweezea and Crabill both slowly back-stepped toward the interior of Aegis and away from the exit, keeping their rifles trained on Faulk. Matt Clements had backed across the hallway, never taking his eyes off his wife. Once clear of the utility room, Faulk glanced quickly at the exit door and saw that it was clear and open. Still clutching Lisa and keeping the muzzle of the shotgun tucked into her side, he backed toward the exit, pausing when his feet bumped into the threshold.

  His face contorted, he snarled, "You know, Elias, I've been thinking. You have been a thorn in my side…no, a pain in my ass...for a long time. I know that even though you have the vaccines…even though you might live through the purge that's coming…we will come back for you and Leah…and the rest of your little group. We will come back and wipe all of you off the face of the Earth. But you know what? That's not good enough for me. I want to be there. I want to see it for myself. I want to be the one to make you draw your last miserable breath."

  He took another step back through the exit. The doorway was not wide enough to accommodate Faulk, Lisa, and the shotgun with its stock pointed out to his right. Still holding Lisa tightly, he pulled the shotgun out from her side and swung it around, aiming it at Elias. Before Elias could react, before Faulk's finger could pull the trigger, something swung down from outside the doorway, slamming into the top of the shotgun. The impact was enough to knock the weapon, unfired, out of his hands. Instantly, Lisa stomped down hard on Faulk's instep, causing him to release her. She ran inside and into her husband's arms.

  Staggering, Faulk recovered and took off at a full run. Elias was clearing the doorway when he heard Wilson shout, "ELIAS, DON'T! JUST LET HIM GO!"

  He skidded to a stop and watched Faulk's rapidly retreating figure following the wall toward the parking area. Standing in the shadows beside the door was Wilson, still holding the four-foot-long metal rod he had used to disarm Faulk. As Leah and the others came out, Elias commented, "Nice work, Wilson."

&n
bsp; "Damn," Leah exclaimed. "I wanted to shoot the bastard myself!"

  Wilson, dropping the bar, said, "No, you don't. At least I would hope not."

  Leah looked at him in the glow from the open door. "Why not?"

  His eyes fixed on the retreating figure moving quickly out of view, Wilson explained, "Because we may be the only ones left. If I am correct, if we have been saved for a new beginning, I would think that killing a man, unless in self-defense, is a trait we would all prefer to leave behind."

  "But…."

  Before she could continue, Wilson interrupted, "I understand, believe me. I am certain that every hour of every day for the last two years of your life was a living hell. I wouldn't be surprised if your thoughts, your fantasies of escape and what you would do to the man responsible for your pain and agony, were what sustained you during the worst of those times."

  He could barely make out a slight nod of her head, in agreement with his words.

  "But we are now faced with an opportunity not only to survive, but to be the fundamental building blocks of a new mankind. I know that it is too soon for any of us to yet grasp the overwhelming responsibility of that, but we soon shall. Until that day arrives, we must help each other to ensure that none of us do anything for which we will be later ashamed."

  Elias was staring into the distance. "Jay, did you and Matt finish removing the radio?"

  "We did," answered Crabill. "We heard the shot while we were on our way in with it."

  Elias was still looking off. "Then I suggest we get inside and close this door as soon as possible."

  "What's the rush?"

  "If Wilson is right about everything, about the script we are all playing out, then the timing of the destruction of the entrance is more than likely pivotal. With the news of the epidemic spreading, there are probably people by the front entrance already, trying to get inside Aegis. If they haven't begun looking for another way in, they will if they see Faulk coming from this side of the complex."