John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

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.

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.