John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

Elias noticed that the graffiti gradually diminished as he proceeded, until it was all but gone from the walls. Apparently, he was leaving the territory of the gang who had accosted him earlier. Although the attack and dialogue with the gang member had answered one or two of his questions about Aegis, his mind was swirling with the new ones prompted by what he had seen, especially the mysterious dark blur which had passed directly into his view, disarming the thug, breaking his neck, and disappearing without a trace.

As these thoughts entered his consciousness, he mentally chided himself for his florid descriptions, remembering how often, while he had been the occupant of Faulk’s office, he would call agents on the use of terms like “mysterious” or “disappearing” in their field reports. And yet, he thought, how else could he depict the intruder or, he should say, rescuer?

He had passed the center hub of the complex and was now walking down the opposite corridor, when he was not surprised to find that there was a blockade which had not been shown on the plans he had reviewed. Nearing it, he saw that it was constructed of salvaged concrete blocks. Obviously, since building materials were not a part of the regular supply deliveries to Aegis, the residents had improvised, demolishing a CMU wall somewhere in the complex and reusing the blocks. As he reached it, Elias noted that there was no door.

Although he had seen the miniature camera mounted high on the side wall of the corridor, Elias decided that since the obvious intent was concealment, he would pretend to be unaware of its presence. There was no point in acting like anything other than a normal entrant to Aegis.

Suddenly, a voice came from a hidden speaker above. “Are you alone?”

Elias nodded and answered, “I am.”

Fifteen feet above, a panel in the ceiling slid aside and a rope dropped down, dangling a few feet from Elias. The male voice on the speaker instructed, “Tie your suitcase to the rope.”

Aware that in a situation such as the one created within these walls, commodities would have a much greater value than money or gold, Elias asked, “How do I know that you won’t just take my stuff and leave me here?”

“You don’t,” the voice replied flatly. “You can always stay on that side and take your chances.”

With a shrug, Elias set down the suitcase and looped the nylon braid through the handle, tying a simple square knot. Before he finished this process, a rope ladder was dropped for him to use. Obviously, whether he would relinquish his suitcase had been some sort of a test. He had passed.

He scaled the rope ladder, following his suitcase up into the opening in the ceiling. At the top there were two men waiting. Both gripped his arms, helping him through. The moment his feet touched the plywood platform, the two strangers pulled up the ladder and slid the cover back over the opening. It fell onto the supporting lip with a solid thump.

One of the two men extended his hand and introduced himself. “I’m Will Rogan.” Elias shook his hand as he took measure of the man. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, with a slender build and thick, curly hair.

“And this is Ontewon Johnson.”

The other man could best be described as thick and muscular, his head shaved so closely that his black scalp shone in the dim light. The handshake Elias received from him was substantially more powerful, as he smiled and said, “Welcome to Aegis.”

The two turned, making it obvious that Elias was to follow them. Picking up his suitcase, he did, and found that at the end of the short platform, oriented just on the other side of the blockade, was not another opening with a rope ladder, but an actual set of stairs descending to the floor.

The courier from Fort Detrick stood at attention at Faulk’s desk, not showing the slightest hint of disapproval as the recipient of his delivery violated protocol by opening the pouch in his presence. The flash drive slid onto the desk blotter, and Faulk quickly snatched it up and inserted it into the USB port of his desktop computer. The embedded security program on the drive activated instantly and Faulk was prompted for his password, which he hastily typed. The security gateway instantly disappeared from the screen, replaced with a file list, which contained only one entry. Faulk double-clicked the file and a video clip ran. It was only twenty-eight seconds long.

After watching the video three times, Faulk signed for the delivery and handed the paperwork back to the courier. The man was not fully out of his office before Faulk had completed a phone call on his secure line.

“He’s in.”

“Zack, what the hell was that thing?” BQ shouted, the adrenaline coursing through his body and causing him to pace aimlessly.

“I don’t know,” the tall young man answered, his hand still shaking from their panicked run back to their home zone, or from the terror he still felt. “It musta been what Slate told us about before. One minute Jay-T was standing there with that dude, and the next minute he was on the floor dead! I never saw what hit him.”

“Me neither. All I saw was a streak.”

Ignoring the chairs and sofas strewn around the room, BQ dropped to sit on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. He pulled up his knees and rested his arms on them, trying to calm his breathing and slow down his thundering heart.

The young man called Zack dropped heavily onto one of the sofas, his head coming to rest on the upholstered arm while his feet remained on the floor. After a minute, he asked, “How are we gonna be able to keep doing business if that thing’s out there?”

“Doin’ business! What you talkin’ about? That’s the least of our worries! If that thing wants to come in here and take us out, it can. What we gonna do to stop it?”

Neither Elias nor the two men escorting him ever noticed the stranger crouched in the shadows above the ceiling line, in the jumbled and darkened mechanical space which surrounded the access platform. They never saw or felt the pair of eyes watching as Elias came up the rope ladder and went down the stairs on the other side of the barrier wall.

The unseen watcher remained motionless for several minutes after the three men departed, before finally retreating into the deeper shadows away from the area.

Throughout the brief walk down the moderately clean and well-maintained corridor, Elias was mildly surprised at the utter normalcy of the environment on this side of the blockade. He still was not sure what he expected inside this anomalous institution, but to his eyes and ears, it appeared as if he were walking the hallways of some ordinary complex in the outside world, rather than penetrating deeper into Aegis. There were others who passed him as he was being escorted, and they smiled at him and nodded a greeting.

Johnson and Rogan walked casually at his side, not conveying the sense that he was their prisoner, or even their charge, but simply that they were helping him find wherever he might be going.

“I am curious about one thing,” Elias addressed them both.

Rogan chuckled. “Only one thing. I would have thought you’d have lots of questions.”

“I do, I guess, but that is a pretty serious blockade back there.”

Rogan nodded as they walked. “It has to be. There are gangs in Aegis who want to expand their territory.”

“I get that,” Elias responded. “I ran into some of them on my way.”

Johnson faltered for a moment in his gait. “You did?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’re here to talk about it?”

Elias decided to keep the dark, fast-moving apparition to himself and answered, “I guess I got lucky. I outran them and was able to hide until they gave up. Anyway, you have the solid barrier blocking the corridor. I’m assuming you have a camera hidden somewhere near the wall.”