John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

There was no thunderous crash, just the muted popping sound of a tear-gas canister. A second followed the first, and Elias could see that this one rolled against the side of the guard he had decked earlier. Tillie shelved the AK-47 and dashed around their barrier, picking up the second canister and tossing it back out the doorway. She then snatched up the first one and did the same.

Elias saw a third grenade fly into their room and could tell that this one was not tear gas. “TILLIE, TAKE COVER!”

She only had a few seconds to turn back toward her end of the barrier before the grenade exploded. Even through the earplugs, the sound was a horrendous assault. The simultaneous bright flash was easily neutralized by the heavily coated lens of the welder’s goggles. She returned to her position, rubbing her ears, and raised her weapon just as the first man came in, laying down suppression fire as he entered. None of his bullets came near the mark, striking the side wall of the room rather than hitting the barricade of metal in front of them. Elias was sure Tillie was about to fire, but stopped her with an abrupt hand gesture.

With a glance he could tell she understood. Within no more than three seconds, two more armed men followed the first one in, guns at the ready. When they were all the way inside, Elias triggered the shotgun at the closest one, blowing him against the door frame. Tillie immediately opened fire with her AK-47, dropping the other two, who had no benefit of cover and had obviously expected the two of them to be disabled by the blast.

No more attackers followed, and the ensuing silence, ruined only by the ringing in their ears, was eerie. After a moment, Elias shouted, “HOW MANY YOU GOT LEFT, BOEHN?”

Understanding the minds of the people outside the room was a very special skill Elias possessed. A static situation had been created. He and Tillie were in the room. The others were in the hall. There was a narrow kill-zone in front of the door. He was certain that this was the picture they all held in their minds as a reality, something they could count on.

With a gesture, he indicated that Tillie should swap weapons with him. She did, and he slapped in a fresh magazine, left the aisle, and ran out the door into the hall. He knew Boehn was to the left and was fairly sure that he was alone. All of the others, whatever security team he had remaining, would be to the right. As he cleared the doorway, he dropped to the floor and rolled once, coming to rest on his stomach, the AK-47 in firing position in front of him. There were three men in uniform conferring with one in a suit. None of them were pointing a weapon at the doorway, so certain had they been that no one would come out.

As one of the men saw Elias suddenly burst into the hallway, he attempted to bring his rifle to bear on him, but was cut down before he could complete the move. The others attempted to open fire but never had a chance, as Elias was less than ten yards from them and in a perfect firing position. The man in the suit, seeing nowhere to go and not carrying a gun, raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

Tillie had followed to the doorway and was aiming the shotgun at Boehn while sneaking quick peeks in Elias’ direction to make sure that he did not need her assistance.

Elias saw, standing dead-center and farther back in the hallway, one of those he knew was a Zipper. The man had obviously withdrawn to escape the effects of the tear-gas clouds still swirling around in the proximity of the utility room. Elias had no idea why the beige-suited character was holding his position, and he was torn as to whether to simply put a bullet into the man. Watching the Zipper, Elias could see that the speed demon’s eyes were looking past him, riveted on something or someone else, and determined that he was waiting for a signal from his boss.

Elias was about to twist around to tell Tillie to take Boehn into the utility room, when several things happened at once. The grille, which was directly over the Zipper, lifted, and something dropped. Before he completely took his eyes off the beige figure, he saw the change of expression on the Accelerant’s face and realized that Boehn had turned him loose. At the same moment, Elias pulled the trigger on his rifle, knowing that the stranger was too fast and would no longer be standing where he aimed.

Despite the behaviorally enhanced performance of the Zipper, the rules of physics still applied. The coefficient of friction between the stranger’s shoes and the tile floor required his initial acceleration to be relatively gradual. This fact, in the case of the Accelerant, caused two things to occur. The net, dropped by Wilson from above, ensnared him just long enough for Elias’ bullets to hit home. The last of Boehn’s rapid assassins dropped to the floor. And like everything else that he had done in his adult life, he died quickly.

Elias stood and walked to one of the dead security team, unhooking a pair of handcuffs from his belt and tossing them to Tillie, who was still guarding Boehn. She caught them one-handed and slapped one of the cuffs on Boehn’s wrist, then attached the other to a long steel strut which was part of the tangled mess outside the exit. Finishing this, she walked to where Elias was busy steadying the bottom of the rope so that Wilson could climb down from the plenum.

Elias looked up at their descending ally and remarked, “Quick thinking, my friend.”

Panting slightly, Wilson answered as he reached the floor, “You two exiled me to old-man heaven up there. I was glad to be able to contribute.”

As the three of them walked back to the group which had been left unattended by Boehn’s men, Tillie punched Elias on the arm and told him, “Between taking out two men with only a pipe, and then diving into the hallway and blasting the rest of them away, I’d say you’ve earned it.”

He stopped and looked at her. “Earned what?”

With a broad smile crinkling her freckled face, she answered, “Your new name. From now on, you are Bruce!”

“I think I’d prefer the….”

He stopped in mid-sentence, quickening his stride.

“Elias, what is it?”

He ignored Wilson’s question and plunged into the middle of the civilians. He recognized the mind-reading girl who had caused his close call during his meeting with Kreitzmann. He saw the Asian woman with the amazing verbal abilities. Apparently, Boehn had skimmed the crop of the behaviorally-modified, planning on taking the cream with him as he left. But it was none of Kreitzmann’s subjects who had his attention. A figure standing in the middle of the crowd, head bowed, blindfolded, and handcuffed, was his focus.

Breaking through to her, he grabbed her shoulders and, his voice breaking, gasped, “Leah!”

With the rest of the group released to return to their quarters, and Boehn’s two wounded men stabilized and handcuffed next to Killeen, Elias was sitting on the hallway floor with his back against the wall, next to his wife. Tillie had found the keys to the handcuffs in the pockets of one of the dead men and unshackled her. Elias had removed her blindfold. She sat nestled against him, with his arm draped over her shoulder.

Since finding her, he had not let her out of his reach or sight for a moment. He could not stop staring at her face as she slowly sipped from the canteen provided by Wilson, who hovered over them like a mother hen. She had been beaten badly, her face covered with old bruises and poorly healed cuts that should have been stitched. Her hair was matted to her head from the clotted blood.

“You look beautiful.”

She made a soft snorting sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh, but Elias could not be certain.

Capping the canteen, she placed it on the floor between her sprawled legs and turned to look at him. Her voice barely audible, she whimpered, “I missed you, Elias.”