John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

“Why didn’t you bring in psychics? Wouldn’t that have given you an adult who could provide you with insights into their progress?”

“We tried that,” Kreitzmann interjected. “I believe the field is filled with charlatans who pretend to possess the skill. Due to the, uhmm, unique issues associated with bringing people into Aegis, we were somewhat limited in our selection. Either way, they were no help at all.”

“I see.”

With a dismissive wave of the hand, Kreitzmann resumed, “Be that as it may, now that we are in Phase Two, we know that we were on the right track.”

“Why is that?”

Bonillas explained, “The Phase One subjects are now old enough to work with the newest additions to the clinical test. By reason of their age and relative maturity, we can now not only observe, we can question and evaluate.”

Elias raised a single eyebrow questioningly.

With a slight smile, Bonillas elaborated, “We have taken some of the most promising subjects from Phase One and taught them to speak. Now that they have developed the desired skill, they are learning to communicate with us using speech as a second language, as it were.”

“They are your interpreters?”

“Correct.”

“With their feedback we are able to determine that our experiment is working. We are succeeding in developing a group of telepaths.”

“Amazing!” Elias exclaimed, trying to sound genuinely enthusiastic. He turned his eyes away from Bonillas and looked through the glass. He now realized that on the other side were children, from infants up to the age of elementary school, who had probably never heard a spoken word. As he watched, he noticed that they were, in some ways, behaving normally. They were engaged in parallel playing, coloring, building with blocks, and the other activities so typical of children in this age group.

However, as he watched closely, he saw a young boy, perhaps five years old, who was sitting on the floor in one corner of the large room, assembling what appeared to be a bridge out of wooden building blocks. Elias watched him closely as the boy rummaged through the available pieces piled next to his project. After not finding what he sought, he glanced around the room, his eyes stopping at a location where another boy, slightly younger, was also working with blocks. Almost instantly, the younger boy picked up a long, green, flat board from his assortment of pieces and stood, walking the board to the first child and handing it to him. The entire process was completed without a word spoken.

“Astounding, isn’t it?” As Kreitzmann asked him the question, Elias realized that Bonillas and Kreitzmann had also been watching.

Elias nodded without answering.

“We see examples of that every day, and many of them much more complex and definitive than what you just observed.”

Elias remained silent, yet his mind whirled with images of kicking down the door which separated him from these children, gathering them up, and taking them out of Aegis, away from this laboratory and these people.

No sooner had the thought formed than one of the oldest girls in the lab, who had been idly playing with a dollhouse, suddenly jerked her head toward the glass, her eyes fixing directly on Elias, and an expression of extreme fear transforming her face. Despite the fact that the glass wall was a one-way mirror, the little girl continued to stare at Elias and raised her arm, pointing her finger directly at him.

Immediately, all of the other children in the lab turned to stare in his direction, their faces running the gamut from concerned to terrified.

“What happened?” Elias asked innocently. He turned away from the accusatory stares and saw that Kreitzmann was watching him closely.

“You must remember, these children are all telepaths with various levels of skill. What were you thinking a moment ago?”

This was all so new to Elias. He was accustomed to concealing his thoughts from normal people, but not a group who could literally read his mind.

Manufacturing an embarrassed grin, Elias concentrated on clearing his mind and said, “Honestly, the boldness of this research put me off for a moment. I was feeling sorry for these children. I’m afraid my mind wandered to a scenario where I would scoop them all up in my arms and take them out of here.”

“That is a normal reaction.” As Bonillas spoke, Elias noticed that Kreitzmann was still eyeing him skeptically.

“How we treat children in our world is so hard-wired into us that, at first, creating this environment for them seems harsh and cruel. But I think you saw from their reaction that the thought of being removed from here, and being thrust into the society outside, terrifies them.”

“I did see that.”

“And there are really two reasons for that terror, as far as we can tell. The first is that they are comfortable here. It is their home, and the world outside Aegis is a big unknown for them. Most children are frightened by the unknown.”

“And the second?”

Before she could answer, Kreitzmann interceded. “Would you want to live in a world where you could read everyone’s mind?”

Elias chuckled. “There would be some upside to it, but no, I don’t think I would.”

“Neither would they, at least not in a society where people, in the privacy of their own heads, feel free to be as harsh and cruel as they want.”

“Aren’t you creating a group of people who can never fit in?”

“Fit in? If you’re talking about fitting in with the despicable environment outside these walls, I suppose you’re right. But what I…we are creating is a new society. Once there are enough of them,” Kreitzmann posited while motioning toward the children in the other room, “they can have their own society, a society without the hateful, mean-spirited aspect of humanity that terrifies them. You see, Patrick, that’s really the point of all of this. So much of what we simply chalk off as human nature doesn’t have to be. It is only human nature due to the paths we’ve taken in the past. On a different path, a path where everyone knows what everyone else is thinking, the world would be a better place; we will have essentially shut down the festering incubator called ‘the privacy of our own thoughts,’ from which so many evil beliefs and deeds spring.

“I believe that human nature will naturally choose a better course than it has, if we merely remove a few of the self-imposed limitations. With those gone, then our own normal adaptability will cause us to evolve into a more enlightened race.”

There was nothing Elias could say and still maintain his cover, so he decided to focus on the details of the experiment. “But haven’t there been small children outside the Aegis environment who have been deprived of verbal input in the past, by accident? Did they develop telepathic skill?”

“We wouldn’t know,” Kreitzmann stated. “If it occurred, they were probably isolated, not in a group who were all going through the same thing. And if they did exhibit the skill, but it wasn’t reinforced as they aged, it would be abandoned or lost. The Phase One environment didn’t just deprive them of verbal communication, it also set an example that telepathic communication was probably occurring, an example which would not have been present in the outside environment.”

Elias’ interest was stirred. “Set an example?”

“Yes. Using the same technique we’ve successfully utilized in other experiments, we created the virtual reality I mentioned earlier. Although we couldn’t provide actual telepathic input to the children, we immersed them into interactions between others, actors really, who appeared to be communicating nonverbally. The subjects observed this example and came to the conclusion that it was the way to communicate. Their minds took it from there.”