The Aegis Solution (54 page)

"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."

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."

CHAPTER TWENTY

"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.

"How frustrating it must be…or will be…if an opportunity to know all of the facts presents itself
to the progenitor of this solution before he or she dies. For, as he – and let me use the male pronoun
for the sake of convenience – first conceived of and developed the plan in his own mind, met and
persuaded, cajoled, and convinced those persons necessary to carry out the plot and join the group of
designated survivors to begin the new world, he must have believed that he was the invisible hand,
guiding and determining the fate of all of mankind. Little did he know that he was nothing but a pawn.
He must have held firmly to the belief that he was, with his own mind and his own will, drafting the
pages of future history. It never would have occurred to him that he was merely an actor playing his role
in a script."

Leah, mesmerized by his narrative, asked, "Then who actually was calling the shots?"

Wilson shifted his gaze to her. "Ah, that is the question, as it has always been. And just as it has
always been the case throughout the history of man, we are forced to examine the facts at hand and
draw our own conclusions. What we know, when viewed in this light, can lead us down a startling path.
It is only when all of the facts are laid out on the table, side by side, that two inescapable patterns
emerge. The first is the age-old relentless destruction of man by man.

"Let's begin, shall we, with the foundation of Aegis? It is a fact that poor, troubled Neve Walker
took her own life. Thousands do every year. But none share the happenstance of being the only child
of the most powerful man on Earth, a man who, due to his religious upbringing, believed that she had
committed a cardinal sin and was irrevocably destined to spend an eternity in hell. And none of the
nearly countless others, who die by their own hand, have a father with the wherewithal to build Aegis
as a way to save others from the same fate.