John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

Tillie gasped.

“We sat in the truck and listened all afternoon. The news stations weren’t able to get a statement from the government. It couldn’t have been scarier if it had been some staged Hollywood production. Within only a few hours, the network announced that it had lost touch with its Washington, D.C. bureau.”

“Only a few hours?” Sweezea asked, incredulous.

Clements slowly nodded, his words choked off.

His wife, Lisa, her voice flat and subdued, continued, “It has started to hit more cities — Boston, New York, others. People in D.C. heard about it and started running away, getting on flights and trains, taking off in their cars. But they were unknowingly helping to spread it. The shorter flights made it somewhere. The longer flights, from what we heard, crashed. I guess the flight crews got too sick to fly the planes.”

Swallowing loudly, Clements took up the narrative. “That’s when we decided that we needed to get into Aegis. We thought…it’s an outpost…it’s isolated…maybe we’d be okay. With the entrance closed, I didn’t know how else to get inside. Then I remembered the blocked-out opening on this side of the complex that we had in-filled at the end of the project. I knew where it was and I knew that I could break it open with the backhoe. We came around to the back, and I saw all of the solar panels piled up where it was, so I started to clear them out of the way. I never knew that a door had been installed.”

Tillie, visibly shaken by the description of events around the country, put her hand on Clements’ shoulder. “I’m sorry, Matthias, for all of the trouble you went through. But it looks like you wasted your time. Aegis won’t be safe, either.”

His face showing his fear, Clements asked, “Why not? I thought…I mean, we figured that with the entrance destroyed, no one who is infected can get inside. It would be as though the whole world is quarantined and we would be protected.”

“The pathogen is airborne. That’s how it spreads.”

He absorbed her words. As they registered, Clements seemed to shrink, to collapse into himself. Shuffling, he moved to Lisa and Sam, putting his arms around both of them. Over the shoulder of his wife, he murmured, “So it’s just a matter of time?”

Before Tillie or the any of the others could respond, Wilson spoke. “Actually, I don’t believe so.”

All of them turned to face him. Leah was the first to ask, “Wilson, what do you mean?”

In their previous conversations, Elias had opportunities to witness the outward manifestations of Wilson’s mind at work. He saw them now, as Wilson explained.

“After all of this time, all of our pondering and discussions, it finally makes sense. The pieces to the puzzle fit perfectly — the creation of Aegis, the evolution of the society within these walls, the pathogen itself, the failed vaccine, today’s destruction of the entrance, even the bats and snakes Elias and Tillie encountered in the tunnel. And the most critical element, the incessant, anomalous wind.”

Elias felt an electrifying tingle in his spine as the beginnings of an understanding crystallized in his mind. The thought was almost too extreme to voice. “You can’t mean…?”

“I do, indeed. It is the only possible explanation.”

“What?” Tillie practically shouted. “What’s the explanation?”

Wilson turned his eyes to his oldest friend in Aegis. “Tillie, do you recall our many discussions on the naming of this place?”

She nodded. “It never made any sense.”

“Quite right. It was a topic which fascinated us and occupied many hours of our time. Why would this edifice, which was built to house those who had declared themselves and their lives a failure, be called Aegis? Aegis, in Greek, Egyptian, and other mythologies, means protector or shield. How does that apply to a compound for the suicidal? We never did find a satisfying answer to that question, did we?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“After all, was the intent to protect the suicidal from society, or society from the suicidal?”

“You’re right. It never really fit.”

“No. It did not. However, it most certainly fits now.”

Tillie, who had spent hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours in conversation with Wilson, and knew his approach to solving a problem and explaining its solution, remained silent. Waiting.

“Is there anyone else here who knows the etymology of the original Greek word for Aegis?”

Wilson, falling into his professorial role, paused for an answer. When none came, he continued, “The Greek word , literally translated, means violent wind.”

“Wilson,” Elias uttered in partial disbelief, “do you realize what you are saying?”

“I can’t believe it,” Hutson murmured under his breath.

Sam, spoke for the first time since the introductions. “What is it? What is he saying?”

Tillie was staring at Wilson, wide-eyed, her expression lost midway between excitement and fear. “You can’t mean…?”

His eyes still upon her, Wilson stated, “It must be so.”

Lisa began to speak, when Wilson held up his hand, stopping her. “We are under the aegis of something or, dare I say, someone. But this facility is not merely a convenient refuge, a bunker within which to hide. Far from it. At the moment Neve Walker’s finger, almost a decade and a half ago, pulled the trigger and ended her life, a unique series of events was put into motion, events which included her violent death and the ensuing emotional outcry from the President and First Lady, as well as from the people of the entire world. For it was that outcry, and the discussions following, which caused Aegis to be built.”

All of them were listening, spellbound.

“The creation of this structure…this fortress…was only the first element. At some point in time, I am presuming after Neve Walker’s fateful day, the doomsday microbe and its vaccine were first conceived as a perverted solution to the world’s woes. No doubt a lone man or woman, distressed and overwhelmed with the currents and tides of human events, with what that person saw as the inevitable destination for all of us, came to the conclusion that something drastic, something momentous must be done.

“We will probably never know who that person was. Not that it matters. Whoever it was, it was a well-placed individual — educated, very intelligent, highly respected by the top people in governments and major institutions all over the planet. He or she saw the same things happening all around that we have seen, that we have discussed ad nauseam in a futile attempt to understand and change the course of mankind.”

“That person could be you,” Elias remarked, a hint of irony in voice.

Wilson hesitated for a moment, and a brief chuckle came forth. “I must admit, I can understand the thought processes of this person. I had come to the same conclusion wholly on my own, with regard to the direful terminus of our path. I failed to find a viable solution to our problems — a method, technique, or proposal which might nudge the hand on the tiller and cause mankind’s ship to change course away from the rocks lying dead-ahead. Mister Faulk was correct; it was my own failure to conjure an accomplishable solution which caused me to forsake humanity and sequester myself within this place.”

Tillie opened her mouth to say something, but paused as Wilson continued."I have realized, during the time I have had to ponder these things, that I failed because of who I am. Be it the randomness of genetics, the vagaries of upbringing, or the serendipitous influences of my environment, I could never have allowed myself to bring out into the light of conscious contemplation the option which has been thrust upon us by this amorphous group who have plotted our demise.