John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

She sat back in the dinette chair with a look of pride and satisfaction. “There was one thing I never could figure out, though.”

“What’s that?” Wilson inquired, amused.

“He told me where his blueprints were. These aren’t blue.”

Chuckling, Wilson explained, “It’s a throwback to the old method for reproducing plans. A French chemist discovered that ferro-gallate in gum is light sensitive. Light turns it blue. Basically, if you drew a sketch on a translucent material, then overlaid the sketch onto a sheet coated with the ferro-gallate and exposed it to light, the paper would turn blue, except for where the lines had been drawn. Later on, they began to use ammonium ferric citrate and potassium ferricyanide, but the process was essentially the same. The next generation were actually called whiteprints or bluelines because the paper was white and the lines were blue. In recent years, the industry switched to very large photocopy machines, which can print a copy on regular bond paper. That is what you are looking at now. But the original name remains.”

Tillie had stared at Wilson throughout the lecture, wide-eyed. “Cool, thanks!” she exclaimed at the end.

“Back to our issue,” Elias broke in. “We need to find a good hiding spot. Tillie set up housekeeping in the mechanical system. I used the electrical raceways and junctions. We took Eric through the storm system. So they are all compromised.”

“Do you think so?” Wilson pondered out loud. “Looking at these plans, it is clear that all three of those systems are elaborate. Couldn’t we just pick another spot in one of them? A place well removed from our previous locations?”

Elias responded thoughtfully, “Although we only occupied or traveled a small portion of each, if Eric communicated with his handler, they will all be checked. That’s what I would do. And with the Zippers doing the looking, they should be able to cover quite a bit of territory.”

“Why don’t we break up the ‘A’ pages and the ‘Civil’ pages and divvy them up instead of all three of us staring at the same sheet?”

“Excellent idea, Tillie,” Wilson agreed. “As proprietary as you are about them, I was afraid to suggest it.”

She made a rude sound with her lips. “C’mon guys, I’m not that bad. Am I?”

“Oh, no!”

“No! Not at all.”

She looked at them both and grinned. “Okay, maybe I’ve been a little testy. But we do have to work together, so let’s split them up.”

She carefully peeled back the blue binding paper on the stapled edge, and pried up the staples, one by one, with a fingernail. Removing all of them without tearing a sheet or cutting herself, she created three stacks. Elias took his pages and moved to a coffee table. Tillie, being the youngest and most limber of the three, sat cross-legged on the floor with her set, and Wilson stayed at the dinette.

The three worked quietly, the silence only broken with the occasional sound of a sheet being set aside. Nearly twenty minutes passed before Elias thumped the blueprint with his finger. “This may work.”

The two came to the coffee table and looked at the portion of the page where he pointed.

“There appears to be a primary water reservoir which is filled by the pumps. That one, I’m sure, is full right now. But, look, there are four reserve tanks. They only take on water if the primary is filled, and they take on the water sequentially.”

“In other words,” Wilson interjected, “the first reserve tank only has water in it if the primary tank is full. Then the second reserve only gets water if the first reserve fills to capacity.”

“And so on,” Elias completed the thought for him. “I think it might be worth a try to check out the last tank in the series. It is probably dry as a bone.”

“How do we get in the tank?” Tillie stopped herself. “Oh, never mind, I see it. There’s an access door.”

“Exactly. It’s actually called a hatch.”

“I think it’s worth a shot,” she decided.

The journey from ZooCity to the water tank took three-quarters of an hour, due to the loads all three carried, compounded by the circuitous route taken to avoid others.

“This thing looks like a vault,” Tillie observed, breathing as easily as if she had just finished a leisurely stroll.

Elias and Wilson, panting heavily, dropped their packs, duffel bags, and weapons, approaching her side as she examined the oval steel hatch set into a retaining ring.

“This is the clean-out access at the bottom of the tank. There is also another access hatch at the top that can be used when the reservoir is holding water. You’ll notice that this hatch swings inward. That wheel on it releases the dogs gripping the retaining ring, but if water is present on the other side, the pressure from the water pushes against the door, keeping it closed.”

Listening to Elias’ explanation, Tillie concluded, “So if we spin the wheel and try to open it, nothing will happen if the tank is full?”

“Right.”

“You’re sure?”

He grinned. “I am.”

“Then let’s do it.”

She stepped forward, gripped the wheel with both hands, and turned it. It moved easily, quickly accelerating to a blurred spin. When it slammed noisily to a stop and they could see that the hinged dogs were retracted from the retaining ring, she glanced once at Elias, said, “Here goes,” and put her shoulder to the hatch, which almost flew open, pulling her inside where she tumbled to the concrete floor.

“Ouch!” she shouted, her voice followed by a multitude of overlaid echoes from the inside walls of the dry tank.

“I think it’s dry,” Wilson proclaimed with a smirk, and high-stepped through the hatchway behind her. Elias followed, chuckling.

Within a few minutes they had quickly checked out the interior of the tank with their flashlights. Determining that it was clear, they brought in their packs and supplies, and closed the hatch behind themselves. The hatch had a matching wheel on the interior, and as the others toted the gear to the middle of the tank, Elias spun the wheel shut, putting his weight behind it to make it tight.

Returning to Wilson and Tillie, he told them, “After I catch my breath, I’ll go back out and find a long bar or something we can use to jam the wheel. That might cut down on unwanted visitors.”

“Just a sec.” Tillie motioned at him and pulled open her duffel bag, extracting a short pole with what appeared to be a wide bicycle seat at one end. She pressed a button and the seat came off. Then, pressing another, the pole extended and locked into position with a click. She tossed it to Elias.

“Will this work?”

Elias examined the device. “I think it will. It looks fairly sturdy. What is it?”

She grinned. “Something goofy one of the newbies brought in. It’s a pole seat that you can carry with you on camping trips. It’s uncomfortable as all get-out. I don’t even know why I brought it.”

Elias took the pole and walked back to the hatch. He jammed it through an opening between the spokes on the wheel at an angle so that if someone tried to open it from the outside, it would stop. Satisfied, he returned to the group to see that Tillie had unpacked collapsible chairs, which converted into sleeping cots, and had set them up next to the steel ladder that ascended to the hatch at the top of the storage tank. She had also unpacked a lantern, creating an island of light in the center of the cavernous tank. She was now assembling a small portable stove.

“Did you bring the s’mores?” Elias teased.

With a sly grin, Tillie pulled out packages of marshmallows and graham crackers. “Need to find the chocolate. I know it’s in here.”

“Mathilda, you amaze me,” Wilson said sincerely.