The Aegis Solution (13 page)

"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 uncomfortable, 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.

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.