The Aegis Solution (60 page)

He saw one of the figures – he guessed it was Crabill – turn around to face him, holding a rifle. The
other figure, whom he recognized as Tillie, was standing over the kneeling Sweezea. Crabill was now
shining his light in Elias' direction. Elias knew that his assault rifle would also be pointing at him.



"Here we go," Sweezea said affectionately, as if he were putting a bottle into a baby's mouth, when
he heard the unintelligible shouts.

Crabill spun, pointing his rifle.

"What the…!" Tillie exclaimed, startled, turning suddenly to face the noise. She could only see the
bouncing, bright light of a flashlight, obviously carried by someone running toward them from the
direction of the basin.

"Don't shoot!" Sweezea ordered. "They're coming from our side!" He turned back to the last bomb
and lifted the safety cover on the arming switch.

Tillie, alternating her eyes between what Sweezea was doing and the oncoming person, asked,
"Shouldn't we wait a second?"

Sweezea shrugged. "What for?"

His finger pressed the side of the switch, moving it toward the "arm" position, just as Elias got
close enough to see what he was doing. "TIM, DON'T."

It was too late. The toggle, already more than halfway across, was pulled the rest of the way by the
internal spring, with a quiet click.



Elias came to a clumsy halt. He could see the red light shining on the top of the charge. "Don't set
any more!"

Sweezea stood from his crouch next to the device and said, "We're done. That was the last."

Leah arrived, panting from her sprint behind Elias.

Tillie had a wry grin on her face.

Confusion clouded Elias' mind, and for a moment he was unable to speak. Sweezea bent down and
reached into his pack, which was resting on the concrete next to the last bomb. He pulled out a small,
green, flat rectangle and held it up. "You were worried about this?"

Elias took a step forward and saw that he was holding a small circuit board. The adrenalin-fueled
frenzy of the past minutes subsided slightly, allowing his mind to focus. "The timer."

A broad grin spreading across his face, Sweezea explained, "I'd love to take the credit for it, but
actually it was Tillie's idea to open up the units and check them out."

"I figured," she added, "that since Faulk supplied them, they might be bogus."

"We just found out…," Elias muttered, his voice fading out.

"That they were booby-trapped? No kidding. Big time." Sweezea tossed the board to Elias, who
bobbled it clumsily before catching it.

"As we rounded them up and were bringing the batch down here, Tillie told me the whole story.
I agreed with her that we'd better check them out before we used them. Whatever they had planned for
these babies to do had to be hidden in the primary, since it controls and detonates all the slaves, so I
opened it up. Right on top of the detonator was that" – he pointed at the circuit board Elias was holding
– "all wired in and ready to go. I disconnected the outputs and ran it through its program in diagnostic
mode. That's when I saw the overrides they had set up. Man, that dude really hated you. No matter what
time you entered for a delay, the second you armed the last slave, BOOM!"

"There's also a second override…," Leah said, still panting slightly from her dash through the
tunnel.

"Yep," Sweezea responded smugly. "If you didn't do a thing with them, they were all set to go off
at midnight tonight."

"Same time as the scheduled release of the bug," Leah noted.

Elias relaxed. "If you took out the circuit board, what are you using now to control the detonators?"

"I thought you spooks knew your ordnance better than that," Sweezea teased. "That flimsy little
wafer you're holding is the weakest part of the bomb. In field conditions, about a third of 'em crack at
the tiny little connections. Imagine jumping out of an airplane behind enemy lines, grabbing your
ordnance, which fell alongside you in a crate hanging under a parachute and crashed to the ground,
unpacking it, loading it up, toting it through heavy fire to the target, going to set it, and getting a blank
LED screen. The Army specs a backup board to be packed inside the primary. Four screws, and you
lift out the detonator. Underneath it, protected by bubble wrap and a waterproof, factory-sealed plastic
skin, is a nice, clean, and dry backup circuit board, all ready to plug in, program, and go."

Elias shook his head in amazement. "Tim, I don't know what to say."

Sweezea shrugged, still smiling. "A simple HOO-AH will do."

Elias gratefully walked to him and put his arm on the tall sergeant's shoulder. "HOO-AH!"



The five had withdrawn back to the basin and climbed the rope, with Leah having the most
difficulty, due to the injuries from her captivity and during the firefight. They had an additional fifteen
minutes by the time they had reached the upper ledge and decided to position themselves within a
drainage pipe at a right angle to the overflow. Although Incendergel devices did not create a massive
concussive wave, as did traditional explosives, a fireball would be generated and could possibly extend
to the basin, despite the distance.

They left one of the flashlights in the overflow tunnel, directed to cast its illumination toward the
basin, and silhouette any person who might have entered, managed to get past the snakes, and reached
the opening before the explosives detonated. Crabill and Sweezea kept watch on the lighted square,
checking their watches frequently.

"We've got one minute," Sweezea announced. "Pull back."

They had removed the rope after their exit. If anyone arrived at the basin end of the overflow
within the next sixty seconds, there would be no way to climb up. All of them had remained standing
during the wait, keeping their packs and gear in hand. When Sweezea gave the word, they all turned their
backs on the basin and began walking briskly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Returning to the gathering in the main hall, they found the people there subdued, many with dazed
expressions on their faces as they grappled with the reality of what was happening in the world outside
the walls of Aegis. Elias and Leah looked for Marilyn to thank her for bringing the message; within a
few minutes they saw her surrounded by a small group. She was talking earnestly to them, and it was
obvious by her body language, and that of those around her, that she was attempting to help them make
some sense of the news they had just recently received from Pierce and Wilson. She made eye contact
with Elias and raised an eyebrow questioningly. He gave her a thumbs-up to indicate that all was well.
She smiled and resumed her conversation.

Crabill saw two men working on the satellite radio he had removed from Clements' truck, and he
and Sweezea joined them to assist. Wilson was standing in the middle of the crowd, flanked by both
Milton and Mildred Pierce, answering questions. Elias talked briefly with Lisa and found out that Matt
had gone to the roof of Aegis after the meeting, with the intention of watching the effect of the bombs
on the outflow tunnel from above ground.

The door to the dining room, where they had met earlier, was open, and Elias wandered through
it, determined to sit down and rest after his frenzied dash. Leah and Tillie followed him and the three
dropped into chairs, exhausted.

Leah filled Tillie in on the discussions at the meeting after her sudden departure with Sweezea, and
she was relieved to hear that they were going to drop food, water, clothing, and blankets to those
outside the wall. Soon there was nothing more to say, and the three lapsed into silence. Through the
open doorway, they could hear snatches of comments and exchanges from the residents of Aegis, and
they were pleased that the tone, as well as the substance, of what they heard appeared to be serious,
inquisitive, sad, helpful, and all of the other reactions which would be appropriate for the situation. No
one was loud, irrational, panicked, belligerent, or confrontational, the reactions least needed at a time
such as this.

Tillie had slid her chair a foot or so away and was tilting it back to the point of teetering. Her
running shoes were plopped on the table. Her hands were laced behind her head as she leaned back,
staring at the ceiling. Without bothering to look down, she asked, "Do you think all of us were picked?"

She had voiced the same question Elias had been pondering since the reality of their situation had
become clear to him. He shared another question he had come to earlier. "If all of this is being guided
by an intelligence greater than we are, why in the world would He pick me?"

Still staring at the acoustic tiles above her, Tillie responded, "I know! Why me, too? I don't deserve
it. I'm nasty, surly, rude, judgmental. I hate most people…hell, I mean heck, I've killed people. That can't
exactly be the ideal specimen for starting a new world."

"Tillie," he said softly, "what happened with your brother was an accident. You didn't kill…."

"I don't mean that. I'm talking about Eric. When he had his gun on you, Elias, and he was going
to pull the trigger, I took the head shot. I could've hit him in the shoulder, the leg…but I didn't."

Leah turned in her chair to face Tillie. Gently, she reached out and touched her arm. "Do you
believe in reincarnation?"

Tillie, reacting to the contact, twisted her head around to look at Leah. "Yeah, I think I do. Why?"

"One of the basic tenets of the philosophy is that we keep coming back here until we've learned
our lessons. Whether there's a God, or whether all of the minds on Earth are interconnected, like the
cells in our head, to form a giant brain, whatever has staged this series of impossible events to create
this outcome, I think, is a lot more interested in whether we've learned the right lessons, than whether
we ever made the mistakes in the first place."

Tillie dropped her feet loudly to the floor and spun to face Leah. "You think?"

"Of course I do. Who is less likely to do a bad thing…someone who did it before and had to suffer
through the horrible consequences of it, or someone who has never experienced that?"

She turned to her husband. "And this applies to you, too. In your life, in the positions you've held,
you've seen it all. You have witnessed the results of almost every action a person can take. You've
watched individuals, as well as entire countries, make mistakes, and many times it's been up to you to
clean up the mess afterward. Who better to know what choices to avoid than you?"

Elias thought back over his life and his career. Her words made sense.

"Elias, baby, in the coming months and years ahead, you are going to be a big part of it, an integral
cog in the process that forms this reborn society. There will be hundreds of times you will be in some
meeting, listening as someone proposes an idea which, to that person, is a brand-new concept, but to
you will be déjà vu all over again. It's going to be your job to make certain we avoid as many of those
pitfalls, the ones which will lead us to disaster, as possible. In a sense, it'll be as if we are all going to be
on a safari and you are the guide. You'll be the one who knows where the bad places are that we need
to avoid."

"What you're saying makes sense as far as Elias is concerned, but what do I have to offer? I'm just
broken. I'm not going to help anybody make the right decisions."

Before Leah could respond to Tillie, Elias said, "You're right."

His wife whirled around to stare at him, shocked. Tillie, stunned by his bluntness, had nothing to
say as he continued, "You're an angry, bitter fool with nothing to offer anyone."

"Elias!" Leah exclaimed.

But he was not finished. "Your brother died and you decided that it was your fault, which, by the
way, it was. You couldn't handle it, so you split. You ran away to Aegis. But you found out that Aegis
was just another community…just another society…just like the one you ran away from, only smaller.
So, instead of trying to fit in, you did what you do best; you hid in the ductwork, like a rat."

Tillie was staring at Elias, her face frozen.

"What a bitter irony this must now be for you. The society, which you thought you weren't good
enough to live in, is dying. And the place where you came to hide, to commit a metaphorical suicide
because you didn't have the guts to do it for real, has turned out to be the Ark. You keep trying to
punish yourself, and God or fate, or whatever, keeps cheating you out of the punishment you know you
deserve. Tillie, you were a worthless screw-up when you first came in here and you're still a worthless
screw-up!"

Her hand flashed forward, slapping him hard across the face.

"How dare you call me that? I saved your ass! If it hadn't been for me, everybody in this place
would be…."

She stopped. The furor on her face dissolved, softened. A single tear welled up at the corner of her
eye.

"Dead?" Elias finished the sentence for her.