John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

Wilson suddenly spoke up. “Elias, wait!”

He paused in mid-step and began to turn toward Wilson, when they all heard a screeching, tearing cacophony from the still-obstructed exit. Elias snatched his rifle back from Leah, and they all took positions around the open door, watching the tangled jumble of steel and aluminum shudder and shake. The almost earsplitting sounds of buckling metal and shattering glass ceased momentarily, and they could hear the rumble and roar of an engine revving. After the brief pause, a new tumult commenced, and a portion of the obstruction visible to them was suddenly ripped away, revealing the dark sky outside Aegis.

Elias saw the yellow-painted bucket of a backhoe, dragging the debris away from the door and piling it several feet away. At the moment the obstruction was removed, the unceasing wind whipped through the opening, substantially colder now than the last time Elias had been exposed to it. The bucket returned for another pass, this time clearing the area outside the door completely. A corner of his mind was amazed by the serendipitous timing of the exit being cleared.

Stepping to the doorway, the AK-47 poised, Elias stared at the cab of the backhoe as the operator switched off the engine. Halogen work lights, mounted on either side of the cab, made it impossible to see who was working the levers.

As the rumble of the diesel died, Elias shouted, “Turn off those lights or I’ll shoot them out.”

The operator took only a second to comply. Although the lights were now extinguished, Elias’ eyes had to adjust to the darkness. He could vaguely see a figure jump down from the cab and he heard a voice say, “Don’t shoot. Please.”

Elias looked over his shoulder and saw that Sweezea was the closest to the door, his rifle poised. “Cover me.”

Sweezea nodded and stepped through the doorway and off to the side.

Elias trod carefully through the field of smaller, sharp pieces of the former barrier, as he shivered from the almost arctic blast, and moved around the front of the backhoe over to the side where the man waited. He remembered that he still carried his flashlight and pulled it out, shining it on the man’s face.

“Who are you and what are you doing?”

The man from the backhoe was middle-aged and appeared fit. He raised his hands above his head and answered, “My name’s Clements…Matt Clements. I’m the guy who….”

“MATTHIAS!”

The shout came from Tillie, who had been standing in the doorway. The flashlight in his eyes, Clements could not see her as she ran around Elias and up to him, skidding to a stop inches away. Only a moment passed before recognition dawned. “Mathilda! My God, how are you?”

Elias lowered his rifle.

“Do you know him?”

She was still staring at the face of her old friend. “Yes! I do. Matt is the guy I told you about. He’s the one who built Aegis. He’s the one who told me where the plans were.”

She reached out and grabbed both of his arms. “God, it’s good to see you. Why are you here?”

“Why don’t we go inside,” Elias suggested, eyeing the surrounding desert warily and eager to return to the warmth of the building.

“Sure. Let me get my wife and daughter.”

“You brought your family? Cool!” Tillie exclaimed.

Clements pulled a flashlight out of his back pocket. Stepping away from the side of the backhoe, he flashed the light three times. A moment later a pair of headlights, from a vehicle parked in the desert, returned the signal, and they all heard an engine rev.

Feeling a light tap on his shoulder as he watched the truck drive toward them, Elias turned and saw Leah standing next to him. “This far to the west,” she spoke softly, close to his ear, “they couldn’t be infected yet, could they?”

The thought had already occurred to Elias. “I doubt it. I don’t see how, unless one of Faulk’s people heard about the outbreak in D.C., panicked, and released a supply. But we don’t even know where that would be. I don’t know what difference it makes, anyway. It’s only a matter of time.”

“That’s true.”

The truck had pulled up next to the backhoe, and a woman in her late forties climbed out from the driver’s side. The passenger door opened and a younger woman, approximately Tillie’s age, got out. The two of them were staring warily at Elias and Sweezea, who were both still holding their automatic rifles.

“Come on, let’s get inside,” Tillie shouted. Caught up in the moment, she sounded happy, as if she were inviting everyone in for a party.

The group moved through the door, and Elias paused to pull it closed. He noticed that the light on the keypad changed from green to red, and realized that the door was now locked.

As Leah shepherded them to the far end of the hall, away from the hearing range of Faulk, Matt Clements introduced his wife, Lisa, and his daughter, Samantha, who wanted everyone to call her Sam. Tillie performed the introductions for her group. “All right, Matthias, I’ll ask again. Why are you here? Not that I’m not glad to see you.”

“It’s kind of weird, actually. I’ve been the contractor working on the staging area in front of Aegis.”

“You’ve been right outside and I didn’t know it?”

Clements smiled. “I’ve wondered about you more than once, Mathilda. Anyway, this wind has played havoc on the project. At first it blew the safety tunnel over, at the entrance. But lately it’s been snapping the struts which are…were holding up the tilt-up panels we had already erected. I’ve had to send home most of the crews working out here, because it simply wasn’t safe. Been coming out by myself, using the heavy equipment to push aside the panels and other debris, just to keep the entrance clear and safe.

“Sam happened to come to visit us this morning. A surprise visit, really. And I told her that I had to make a trip out here today to check things out. She insisted she wanted to see Aegis, and talked her mother into coming along. I guess she got a little more than she bargained for. When we arrived after lunch, I noticed that all of the marshals were gone and that the tilt-up panels around the entrance had fallen like dominoes. Up until today I hadn’t been worried about the panels because they were so close to Aegis I thought they were out of the direct wind. But they collapsed right against the front of the building. The entrance is completely blocked, and I think that the turnstile is crushed.”

“It is,” Hutson supplied.

“So there is no way in,” Wilson commented.

“Right.”

“Fascinating.”

Clements gave an odd look to Wilson. “I tried to clear the entrance with the equipment I have out here, but it was useless. I need something a lot bigger, like a track hoe, to even make a dent in it. While I was working on it, Lisa and Sam were in the truck, running the heater, listening to the radio, and waiting for me.”

“They were getting a radio signal?” Leah asked.

“My truck has satellite radio, and if you stay back from Aegis a quarter mile or so, it works. I was just getting ready to call it quits, when they heard about the outbreak in Washington, D.C. They drove closer to get me and we listened to it together. At first we were thinking that we should hightail it home. Almost did.”

Clements paused, his tone becoming somber. “But there was something about what was happening…the way it was happening…reading between the lines of the coverage…that changed our minds. People were dying too fast. First, it was the paramedics and cops at the scene of that house. Next, they started dying at Walter Reed. My God, at one point the news station had a reporter at the hospital and he was making live reports, and then they announced that they had lost touch with him.”