John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

Stone’s eyes widened. “Code name Benjamin? Mossad?”

“One and the same. I heard from him, out of the blue.”

“What did he want?”

“I don’t know. There was a call from him on my voice mail. He didn’t leave any details, but said that it was urgent we speak.”

“Did you call him back?”

“I did, but I got his voice mail. We haven’t talked yet.”

“When did he call?”

Elias stared intently at his old friend and said, “The day before I heard from Faulk.”

Stone shook his head. “I don’t see the connection, not if Faulk sent me in here two and a half months ago as bait to trap you.”

“True. I only brought it up because it was so close to my hearing from him.”

The screen door swung open and Tillie came out of the shack, followed by Wilson.

“Tillie, Wilson tells me that you think we are about to receive the wrath of God here.”

She dropped her lanky frame into the chair nearest Elias. “Would you blame Him?”

“What’s this about?” Stone asked.

Elias pointed up toward the sky and answered, “This wind. When I got here, I thought it was probably normal for this part of the desert. According to our hosts, it isn’t.”

Stone glanced to the side, focusing on the mad gyrations of the foliage. “So?”

“I was one of the original group to enter Aegis, a first-dayer,” Tillie began. “I still remember that day clearly. It was hotter than hell, and they were keeping us under a tent to give us shelter from the sun. We were all hoping for at least a breeze — but nothing, not even a breath of wind.”

“I still don’t get it. Isn’t this a different time of year right now? Couldn’t that first day have a been a freak day? I remember years ago, when I was stationed at Edwards, it was windy all of the time, even the trees grew leaning in the same direction. But every once in a while there would be a still, calm day.”

Tillie let a lopsided smile curl the right side of her lips. “I wish that was all it was. When I first came inside this tomb, I couldn’t hear the wind. I picked out one of the empty apartments they had built for us and moved in. But I got stir-crazy pretty quickly and went up to the roof. That was within a couple of weeks of my arrival. By then it was already breezy.

“Going up to the roof became a once- or twice-a-day trip for me. Sometimes I’d spend hours up there. Wilson says that I was regretting my choice to come into Aegis, and that my urge to go on the roof was a symptom of my desire for freedom.”

“Was he right?” Elias asked.

She shrugged. “I think Wilson can’t help but analyze things. At times he gets a little carried away with himself.”

A soft snort came from the mathematician as she continued, “I noticed at the time that it was always breezy. Day, night…didn’t matter. It was steady. I know you’ve all heard the lesson about the frog in the pot of water. Like the frog, I didn’t notice that the wind was imperceptibly intensifying. It was so gradual I didn’t figure it out for the longest time — a year, maybe two. I happened to tune in one day and realized that it was quite a bit stronger than it had been the first few months I was here.”

“Weather patterns are changing,” Stone offered.

“Wouldn’t know. Remember, I haven’t had access to cable TV or the Internet since I got here. The news I did get was from newbies. They told me all about global warming, or I guess they call it ‘climate change’ now, since it isn’t really warming. I don’t know. But nobody had any explanation for this wind, especially the way it’s been the last year or two.”

“What do you mean?”

Tillie looked thoughtfully at Stone. “As fierce as it is right now is the way it is every day. It never lets up. Not for a minute. Not for a second. But that still isn’t the real kicker. I’m surprised it took me as long as it did to spot this. One night I was up on the roof and I was hanging out in my usual spot. I usually spent all of my time above the entrance so I could see newbies coming. I would drop messages to them, telling them not to come in. At first the gusts were so strong that the second I let the notes go, they would blow about a mile away, out into the desert. So I put them in bottles for a while. That helped at first. But pretty soon the winds got so powerful that, even if I carefully dropped the bottles close to the perimeter wall, the wind would catch them and toss them far out from the building, shattering them. All that did was scare the newbies. Then I tried wrapping the notes around chunks of concrete block, but the newbies thought I was trying to hit them. I eventually gave up on the whole idea of notes. They never did any good with the few people who read them, anyway.

“It was real late and I thought no one would be coming at that time of night, so I just started walking across the roof, making a beeline across the center of the complex, the wind in my face. You know that big open area in the middle of the complex?”

“Yes,” Elias answered, “the center courtyard.”

“After I got there, I circled halfway around it to the opposite side and kept walking. That’s when I noticed that the wind was now at my back even though I was still going in the same direction.”

Stone started to say something. Tillie held up her hand to silence him. “I know that winds shift all the time. I’m not basing all of this on my one experience. Since that night, I have made weekly checks. I’ve cut across the complex, as I did that night. I’ve walked the perimeter. You name it, I’ve walked it. The wind is blowing outward from Aegis toward every point on the compass, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. There aren’t any anemometers in the supply drops we get here, so I started rigging up crude wind-measuring devices, using ropes and weights. It is getting stronger every day.”

“That’s impossible,” Stone blurted. “The wind can’t just blow out in all directions without having come from somewhere.”

“Oh, it’s coming from somewhere, all right. It’s coming from….” She stopped and pointed her finger straight up.

Stone stared at her with open derision. “That’s crazy!”

Tillie lifted her shoulders, conveying with the uncomplicated gesture that she did not care if he believed her or not.

The door to the shack swung open and Zack slowly walked out, rubbing his eyes.

“Zack! You’re awake,” Tillie exclaimed loudly.

The young man muttered something incomprehensible and walked unsteadily to the table.

“You need a place to sit,” Wilson noticed, and quickly stood, going inside and returning a moment later with a straight-back chair.

Zack dropped heavily into it the moment Wilson placed it in the circle around the small table.

“How are you feeling?” Tillie asked.

“Would you like a sandwich?” Wilson offered at the same time.

Still vigorously rubbing his eyes and spreading his fingers to encompass his entire face, Zack’s answer was nearly muted. “Fine. Yes, please.”

Wilson re-entered the shack.

The others waited, giving Zack a chance to orient himself to consciousness and his surroundings. After a moment, his eyes fixed upon Stone. “Who’re you?”

“Eric Stone. I’m….”

“He’s a friend of mine,” Elias finished.

The exact moment that Zack remembered the events prior to his rescue became obvious to the three others around the table, as his face transformed from the normal fogginess of having recently awakened, to a taut, anxious manifestation of fear and apprehension. His eyes instantly began to dart around the perimeter, resting upon one location for only a moment before quickly moving to another.

Seeing the incipient panic, Tillie reached forward and placed her hand on his. “Zack….”