John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

“Should be only about forty yards that way,” Elias whispered.

As they moved forward, Wilson had come to the opening and pulled up the rope, quietly sliding the grille back in place, before returning to his post. The corridor was unnervingly quiet, almost as if this part of Aegis had already been deserted. Elias began to worry that he was too late.

Ahead, at the end of the hallway, he could see that a door had been installed, a door which, according to the plans, should not even exist since the hallway ended at the perimeter wall of the complex. There was a keypad attached just above the door handle. On either side of the hallway were closed doors, exactly as shown on the plan; on the right, the door entered into restrooms, and on the left, into a larger than normal utility room.

It was irrelevant that they did not know the code to the door; it was not their intent to escape. Carefully, Elias opened the utility-room door and peered inside. The room was connected to the network of solar tubing, and it was not necessary to turn a light on. Looking back at Tillie, he nodded and entered; she followed at once.

The room was filled with an assortment of what appeared to be spare parts for the plumbing, electrical, and mechanical systems of Aegis. Rows of freestanding shelving were filled with items segregated by category, including copper and galvanized pipes in various lengths, unions, couplers, and a variety of fixtures. In another section were junction boxes, rolls of wiring, and replacement switches and outlets, and in another were spare grilles and registers, thermostats, and barometric dampers. Standing in one corner of the room was a job-site gang box with the lid open. The box was filled with hammers, pry bars, and an assortment of power tools.

“So far, so good,” Tillie muttered, once the door was safely closed behind them, and immediately began to shed the various bags, packs, and other items she carried, arranging them neatly near the door for easy and quick access.

“This is perfect,” Elias noted, pointing at the closed door. “A peephole.”

“That should be fun — the two of us taking turns with one eye plastered to that thing for hours at a time.”

He permitted himself a soft chuckle.

After patiently waiting for nearly two hours, Wilson, having stationed himself in the three-way junction, was the first to hear them coming. Carefully, to ensure that he did not make a sound, he shifted slightly to one side in an effort to see who they were.

Leading the pack were two armed men, followed by a sizable group of people he identified as civilians from Kreitzmann’s lab. The assemblage seemed to be evenly split between lab-coated scientists or technicians and regular people who, Wilson assumed, must have been the subjects of many of the experiments. From his vantage point, he was unable to distinguish most of the faces of the group.

Next came a much larger contingent of armed guards. Wilson counted seven more. And finally, there were two men he did not recognize; but, based upon their position in the procession, they seemed to be directing this movement.

Having seen enough and wishing that the three of them had devised some sort of communication system, Wilson eased back from his viewport and made his way to the grille used earlier by Tillie and Elias. As he looked down at the passing heads below, he realized that his two friends had insisted on this position for him not because of any strategic or tactical reason, but merely to place the old man out of harm’s way.

“Someone’s coming!” Tillie hissed in a loud whisper.

Elias, who had been exploring the array of parts and supplies for something useful while Tillie took her turn as lookout, trotted over next to her. He noticed that he was still holding the five-foot length of galvanized pipe he had been examining. “What do you see?”

“Two guards carrying assault rifles. But this is weird.”

“Let me take a look.”

She moved aside to allow him to peer through the peephole. Despite the distortion caused by the fish-eye lens, Elias could see that there were several people milling around outside the door. They were not a part of the security team, but appeared to be test subjects and scientists.

As he watched, someone came into view from his right, someone he did recognize. In a voice so hushed that it was almost inaudible, he said, “It’s Boehn.”

“What is he doing?” Tillie whispered back at him, directly into his ear.

He did not answer her as he watched Boehn move past the crowd and approach the door. Clearly, he was the one who knew the code. At the fringe of his left field of vision, Elias could see Boehn punch numbers on the keypad. At the same time, he saw that at least four more men carrying assault rifles had moved into his view from the right.

“This doesn’t look good.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It isn’t Kreitzmann opening the door; it’s Boehn.”

This was bad news for them; their plan had been to grab Kreitzmann as he passed in front of their door, assuming that holding the leader would be sufficient leverage to direct any others, who might be with him, to back off.

“Crud!”

Since the exit was at the edge of his view, Elias could barely see that Boehn had opened it. However, instead of exiting from his view, Boehn backed away from the door and began shouting.

“Tillie, press your ear against the crack around the door. Maybe you can make out what they are shouting.”

She instantly did so and, with pauses to listen, relayed what she heard as Elias continued to watch the hallway through the peephole.

“I think he said the exit is blocked….I guess the panels from the roof tumbled off and are piled up in front of the exit….He’s telling some of the men to get some tools.”

“Tools?” Just as what Tillie had told him sank in, Elias saw two of the armed men hand their rifles to their colleague and begin walking straight at the utility room.

“They’re coming in here.”

Elias jumped back from the door, seeing that Tillie had jerked back to the side. Looking around, he saw that his rifle was several feet away. His first impulse was to draw the 9mm tucked behind, when he realized that he was still gripping the length of pipe from earlier.

There was no more time to think. The door to the utility room opened and the two men walked in. They did not have a moment to react before Elias swung the pipe, solidly connecting with the first man on the side of his head. An instant later, he thrust the pipe forward with all of his weight behind it, aiming for the row of cartilage between the second guard’s ribs. The man grabbed his chest, his eyes wide, and staggered to the side, allowing Elias to slam him with another blow, this one directed at his neck. The man dropped.

There was instant commotion outside in the hallway, as several of the civilians and more than one of the security team had witnessed the attack through the open door. One of the guards was already shouting for the people to clear a path as he brought his automatic weapon to bear on the opening into the utility room. Elias did not hesitate. He was stepping forward to slam the door, but Tillie beat him to it. The metal door crashed closed.

Elias, sweeping his eyes around the area, found a hard-plastic, collapsing sawhorse. He dropped the pipe and grabbed the sawhorse, sliding it under the door handle.

“That should slow them a bit. We need to move back.”

They both snatched up their weapons and retreated to the freestanding shelving. Fortunately, the first row was filled with steel plumbing parts and was parallel to the doorway, providing fairly good cover.

They had only turned in to the aisle a moment earlier, when the door was suddenly perforated with bullet holes as the security man outside emptied his clip into it, some of the rounds hitting one of the two unconscious guards on the floor, others shattering the sawhorse. Elias, choosing Wilson’s shotgun, had poked the barrel through the jumble of parts on the shelf and was able to get off a shot just as one of the men outside kicked the door open. The double-0 shot caught him squarely, and violently tossed him backward. He fell to the floor, motionless. None of the others in the hallway ventured in front of the open doorway.