The Aegis Solution (15 page)

His next several minutes were occupied opening one of the MREs from the drop and eating a
tasteless meal, washed down by a bottle of energy drink. Still stiff and sore from his sleeping position,
Elias stood and did some stretching exercises before once again striking out.

"At least tonight I'll sleep more comfortably," he said aloud, unpacking the flattened and
compressed air mattress included in the shipment. With all of his self-assigned tasks completed, Elias
typed a final command into the laptop and a password screen appeared, locking out anyone who might
come across his base camp; then he returned to the access ladder.

By now it was late morning. The section of Aegis into which he emerged was still quiet and
unoccupied. He wanted to explore the areas and pockets of the complex not occupied by Walden,
Madison, or ZooCity. Given the vast scope of Aegis, he had placed his cameras and microphones in the
locations he had already identified this morning, or in the case of ZooCity, guessed. But Elias still had
no idea where Kreitzmann was set up, and felt that the corridors and hallways would better serve his
purpose of exploring, rather than the electrical service-ways above.

Although Aegis had no windows around the perimeter, there was a large center courtyard and,
scattered about the layout, several smaller atria to provide the residents with access to fresh air and
sunlight. The hallways adjacent to these interior open areas were built with ample windows to allow the
sunlight to come in and to provide views.

Recollecting that the plans for Aegis had called for rather lush landscaping with automatic irrigation
systems in each of these areas, Elias noted that the first two he passed were barren and dusty. Over the
years, either there had been a malfunction in the irrigation system, which none of the residents were able
or willing to repair, or the plantings and hardware had been cannibalized.

The condition of the previous two atria contributed to his surprise as he arrived at the third. From
the window where he paused, Elias could see no farther than three feet past the glass. The atrium was
bursting with life. Trees, ferns, broad-leaf plants, and vines were tangled together, creating the
impression of a jungle, rather than the landscaped, open-air commons area which was originally
intended.

His curiosity piqued, he followed the hallway to the first door, finding it not only locked but barred
on the outside. Now, even more curious, Elias continued following the hallway, turning a corner when
he reached an edge, and circled the unlikely jungle. The second door he encountered was secured in the
same manner as the first. Turning the next corner, Elias discovered that the door on the third side was
also bolted and barred. In his mind, he planned to simply break one of the windows if the fourth door
was inaccessible.

It was not. The metal and glass storefront door swung out, instantly colliding with a large cowbell
which hung on a rope above the door, announcing his arrival loudly. Elias was immediately struck with
the powerful organic smells of a greenhouse. His hand instinctively sliding into his pocket, where he
again carried the 9mm, he momentarily regretted his earlier decision to leave behind the assault rifle
given to him by Sweezea.

Taking a step forward, he allowed the door to swing shut behind him, triggering another metallic
clatter from the bell. There was a path in front of him, albeit a narrow one, penetrating the dense
vegetation, and Elias slowly moved forward, leaving his sidearm in his pocket. So thick was the foliage
that it took no more than fifteen paces for the door he had entered to become obscured completely, as
was the entire perimeter wall around this jungle. The growth was so tall that he could not see the sky
above, only indirect sunlight as it filtered through the stalks and leaves of the canopy above his head.

It had been many years since Elias had trekked through a real jungle, but he still recalled the various
sounds caused by the sudden darting of animals through the underbrush, the whoops and cries of birds,
monkeys, and other creatures. That discordant symphony was absent here. Instead, his ears were filled
with the sound of the whipping wind, high overhead, as it twisted and twirled its way down into the
open area. The effect of the unceasing turbulence was to set all of the plants in motion. Elias was
surrounded by undulating branches and fronds, dragging and crashing against each other, generating
a low-frequency din which nearly drowned out the voice.

"Stop where you are!"

Elias halted.

"Take that right hand out of your pocket."

Complying, Elias pulled out his hand, empty, and let it hang loosely by his side.

"Where are you from?" the voice demanded firmly.

"Phoenix," Elias lied.

"That's not what I mean. You don't look like a ZooCity habitant. Are you from Madison or those
mush-heads at Walden?"

The voice was coming from Elias' right, but he could see no trace of the man hidden in the dense,
green wall.

Elias manufactured a touch of derision in his voice. "No way! I've met them both."

The stranger paused briefly before asking, "What do you want?" His tone was a little less hostile.

"I just got here," Elias explained. "I am trying to figure out where I want to plant myself."

Above the sounds of the wind, Elias heard a chuckle. "You think I'm that stupid?"

"What do you mean?"

"You come into a park that's been taken over by someone obviously obsessed with greenery, and
you think that if you employ subtle comments about wanting to ‘plant' yourself, I'm simply going to like
you?"

Elias grinned. "It was worth a try."

The stranger coming to a decision, the thick leaves of a philodendron to the right side parted, and
an older man, probably in his early seventies, emerged, carrying a shotgun, which was not pointed at
Elias.

"Aw, rats. I wouldn't mind a little chat, I guess."

The man extended his hand and introduced himself. "I'm Wilson."

"Elias Charon."

They shook hands.

"Let's go sit down. My knees hurt from crouching."

Wilson pointed down the path with the barrel of the 12 gauge and indicated, "That way."

Elias' smile broadened. "I see you're also not so stupid that you let me walk behind you."

"You got that right," Wilson responded with a wink. "Now follow the path. There's a shack
dead-ahead."

Surprised, Elias asked, "You built a shack here?"

"Uh-huh."

Intrigued, Elias turned and followed the path. Within forty yards he found an obviously handmade
structure, cobbled together from an assortment of salvaged building materials from the inside of Aegis.
He noticed that there was even a porch with two chairs, incongruous in these surroundings as they
appeared to have been pilfered from a conference room.

Elias stepped up onto the porch, followed by Wilson, who leaned the shotgun against the wall of
the shack and said, "You probably want a beer. Well, I don't have any. How about some tea?"

"Sounds good."

"Take a seat, Mr. Death. I'll be right back."

"Mr. Death?"

Wilson, who was already halfway through the front door, looked back and remarked, "You really
do think I'm a dolt, don't you?"

He turned without waiting for a response and went inside, leaving the door open. Elias noted that
Wilson had left the shotgun on the porch.

Sitting back in the vinyl chair, Elias stared in wonder at the dense foliage all around him. Not an
expert in horticulture, he was certain that many of the species were indigenous or adaptable to the dry
Arizona climate, but it seemed as if he were sitting on a cabin porch in the Ozarks rather than the
Sonoran desert. Over the wrawl of the wind, he could hear the occasional clatter made by Wilson
preparing the tea.

The setting of the shack, and the leafy palisade surrounding it, had a calming effect on Elias, despite
the wind, and he could understand why this strange man had created and protected this environment.

"Do you want milk or sugar?" Wilson yelled from inside.

"Sugar, please," Elias replied, raising his voice to be heard.

"I'd better put it in before I come out, or that wind will blow it away. How many spoons?"

"One."

Within a minute, he returned with two mugs, handing one to Elias, who noticed that his mug had
the phrase "Don't tread on me" above the familiar image of the coiled snake. Glancing over, he saw that
glazed on the stranger's mug was the American flag.

"So what brings you to hell?"

Taken slightly aback, Elias asked, "Hell?"

Wilson chuckled. "Hell, purgatory – what would you call it?"

"Aegis?"

Snorting with derision, Wilson came back, "Because you and everybody else call a pig a rose doesn't
mean I have to go along. Ever since man quit cowering in his cave, he's been trying to usurp the natural
way of things. All the science, all the technology, inventions, you name it…it's all been nothing but an
effort to say ‘I can do anything you can do better.' That's all this is. That idiot Walker building this place
because he was so broken up about his daughter – it was plainly meddling with yet another thing that
was already tried and true."

"What's that?"

"Killing yourself!" Wilson exclaimed as though Elias was a dunce for asking. "All the stuff we do
has a reason. It's all been fiddled with and tested and the bugs worked out of it for centuries, no,
millennia. That's the reason it's all still around. It works! But we can't stop ourselves from tampering
with it."

Elias could not help but be amused at the comments. "You're serious?"

"You bet I am. You want some examples?"

"Sure."

"Names!"

"Names?"

"Yeah, names. For hundreds, maybe thousands of generations, when people got married, they took
the husband's name. It wasn't perfect. Sometimes, some poor woman with a perfectly fine name like
Mary Jones married some guy stuck with a last name of....As my guest, maybe you could suggest what
might be a suitably embarrassing name."

"Boner!" Elias chuckled.

"What?"

"You heard me. It's a common name."

Wilson's face twisted in a grimace. "Very well. But I am using it in the classical sense of ‘blunder,'
as in the dictionary."

"As you wish," Elias consented, smirking at the old man's discomfort.

Wilson glared at Elias.

"Anyway, as I was saying, she married him, and became Mary Boner. I'm sure she wouldn't be
happy about that, and I'll bet their kids would all wish that they were little Joneses instead of little…you
know what I mean. But that was what society had figured out, and it worked. Yeah, I know it was
male-oriented, but don't get me started on that. Anyway, all of a sudden this generation, for the first time
in the history of the whole world, decided to change things – only because they cared about themselves
and didn't give a hoot about the rest. Self-centered little cusses!

"Now, they hyphenate. So now, Mary Jones gets married and becomes Mary Jones-Boner!"

"That's true. What's the problem with that?" Elias asked, playing along.

"The problem?" Wilson almost barked at Elias. "What do the kids get to call themselves? Are they
Johnnie and Susie Boner…or are they Johnnie and Susie Jones-Boner?"

Enjoying the process of following Wilson's train of thought, Elias said, "I think the norm is that
they would be Jones-Boner."

"You think! See, that's the problem. Suddenly we don't know. As long as civilization has been
around, we would have known exactly what little Johnnie and Susie would be called. There wouldn't be
any thought, any decision required. It was all worked out long before they were born, and if somebody
didn't like it, there wasn't anybody to get mad at; that was simply the way it was. But now, they pick.
And, initially, the parents decide; they're required to put something on the birth certificate. So they pick
Jones-Boner, and Susie grows up and decides she doesn't like Jones-Boner – she just likes Jones – and
then she's mad at her parents for the choice they made. But forget about that part for a minute."

"Okay," Elias said, grinning.

"Let's say that both of the little brats grow up and love the name exactly the way it is."

"Got it."

"What happens when Johnnie Jones-Boner falls in love and gets married to Wendy Kalinsky-Pratt?"
Wilson's voice was louder now and more animated as he reached the point of his soliloquy. "Why, I
guess they have to become Johnnie and Wendy Kalinsky-Pratt-Jones-Boner."

Elias burst out laughing.

"But wait, making one little change to how things have always been done makes it even more
complicated than that. There isn't any custom dictating which of the surnames goes first. So maybe they
are Johnnie and Wendy Kalinsky-Pratt-Jones-Boner, or maybe they are Johnnie and Wendy
Jones-Boner-Kalinsky-Pratt! So they get to decide, which is only right since it is all about them, right?"