The Aegis Solution (62 page)

But, in all of our heads, everything has changed. I'm not just talking about the newbies, who aren't used to Aegis.
I'm talking about the other people who have been here a long time, like me. They are all acting differently now. It's hard
to describe.

Wilson says that before the event we were all in purgatory, killing time and waiting for the end. But now, he says,
we are all in a womb, waiting for our lives to begin. Makes sense. I just wish I knew how long the pregnancy was going
to last.

And that's part of the deal. Before, none of us ever paid any attention to the days. It didn't matter because we weren't
ever getting out. But now, it has only been six days and everybody's getting a little stir-crazy. Sweezea tells me that's why
we need the security team. We don't know if anyone's gonna freak out and we need to be ready.

Oh! I can't believe I didn't mention this first. Those poor people outside…I guess they didn't make it. Nobody ever
came out of the cars and trucks. Since we're so high up, when we look down from the roof, we can't really tell if any people
are in the vehicles, but where else would they be? Elias, Leah, Sam, and Lisa took it real hard. I think Wilson did, too.
But it's not easy to tell with him.

Gotta go. Need to take a couple of aspirins and hit the sack. Sweezea has a run planned for tomorrow where we have
to carry about a thousand pounds on our backs, so I need some rest.

Day 11

Milton Pierce finally had an opportunity to talk to all of the last-day newbies who flooded into Aegis right before the
entrance collapsed. I think he was expecting all of them to tell him they had a visitation or a dream or something that told
them to come to Aegis. It was weird. From what he told me, each of them had a different reason for coming. One guy said
he was watching the news and just became disgusted with the politics. He couldn't stand it anymore, so he came here.
Another one said that his business was failing and he was way deep in debt. So, instead of putting his family through losing
everything and filing bankruptcy, he brought his wife and kids here. In other words, if two hundred newbies came – there
were two hundred different reasons. As Wilson would say, another coincidence?

Matthias organized a painting party. Everyone in Aegis was invited. We painted over all the graffiti.

Day 15

Hello, future folks! I hope that the other people who are keeping journals are more conscientious about it than I am.
I'm sure that Wilson's journal goes on for pages about each day. Well, what he has to say is a lot more important than
my twitterings.

Anyway…you aren't going to believe this. Pierce, well, both Pierces actually, along with Wilson and Elias, decided
that we needed to have a governing body. A group of Aegisites. Oh, by the way, there isn't a Madison anymore. And you
probably know from reading your history books and other people's journals before mine, there already wasn't a Walden,
even before the event. Everyone here is part of one group. There really wasn't a formal meeting or anything on this. One
by one people started using the new name, coined by – guess who? You got it, me! I was calling us Aegisites on my own,
and it just got picked up by everyone else.

As I was saying, the Pierces, Wilson, and Elias thought we should have a governing body. I screwed up and called
it a committee and got one of those twenty-minute droning lectures from Pierce about how ineffective committees are. He calls
it a board of governors. Every person in Aegis voted. It was all by write-in votes. There weren't any nominees or candidates
and there wasn't any campaigning. We were called in, had it explained to us, and we voted, right then.

Guess who one of the new governors is? Me! The people here picked me! Is that cool, or what? They picked Wilson,
of course, and Elias and Leah, Matthias, Sweezea, and Hutson. Crabill came close, but didn't quite make it. I don't
think he wanted it, anyway.

We had our first meeting today. Appointed Pierce, Milton of course, as Chief of Staff. He likes that title.

I haven't mentioned Kreitzmann yet in this journal. He recovered just fine from his concussion and has been working
with the rest of his old staff, and the Aegisites, putting together educational and training programs. I think the event
changed him. We haven't had a chance to talk much, but he has told anyone who will listen to him how sorry he is for the
way that he did his research and experiments in the past. Especially the "using babies" part. I suppose he is trying to take
the best of what he learned before and apply it to this brave new world we're going to be starting. Some of it makes a lot
of sense. The mind readers are a little spooky but sure come in handy sometimes. Not much use for the fast-talkers, but
they are fitting in with our little society nicely. Seems they can slow it down if they want to. Not as slow as we talk, but
we can understand them. All the adult Zippers, or Accelerants, as Kreitzmann calls them, died during the time leading
up to the event. The younger ones are cool and also really come in handy. It's strange that Kreitzmann and his people and
his subjects were picked to be a part of the surviving party. Maybe it's up to us to figure out why and how they all fit in
if we leave here. I mean, when we leave here.

Oh, one more cool deal before I sign off for today. One of the Aegisites is a guy who studies the history and meaning
of names. I met him today at lunch. He told me I had an interesting name, considering what had happened and where I
was. I think it's embarrassing, so I'm not going to include it in this journal. He brought up the significance of Elias' first
and last names, but I already knew that. Then he told me something I didn't know, and it blew me away. I am assuming
that all of you future "history buffs" will be aware of the pre-event history of America. Otherwise, this won't make any
sense to you. Wilson's name, John Chapman, was the name of a famous guy in the past. And with what's happening now,
I think it's pretty profound. John Chapman was the real name of Johnny Appleseed.

Day 19

Had lunch with Kreitzmann. It wasn't my idea. I was sitting by myself and eating my rations when he plopped down
in the chair next to me. He obviously wanted to talk because all it took from me was asking how he was, and, boy, off he
went. At times he was almost like a born-again, explaining how much he now understands that he didn't before. Carrying
on about the event out there making him see the one thing that he had forgotten, in his zeal to do his research – the value
of a single human life. The rest of the talk was about how he was going to spend every waking minute trying to make things
right. Whatever that means. We'll see, I guess. But, man, has he changed. It's kinda cool, actually. It made me think about
what Leah said about how we were all picked because we've learned from our mistakes.

Day 31

I'm going to stop apologizing to you for the long gaps in my journal. You're probably getting tired of reading them,
anyway. I write when I can and if I feel I have something to say. I'm sure you understand.

The winds are unchanged. We have enough solar panels working now to keep the batteries charged, the pumps
running, and everything else working. We have all fallen into routines. Other than maintenance, there isn't much work
to do here. To keep everyone occupied, Wilson and Mildred Pierce – by the way, I've gotten to like her quite a bit – have
put together a formal program they call cross-training. They went through the entire population and found out what skills,
training, and even hobbies people had before coming here, and put together a list. Now we attend classes taught by the other
Aegisites so that we all learn about each other's knowledge and skills.

I'm enjoying it. One day it's woodworking, and the next it's psychology. Wilson thinks it's important that all of us
know as much as possible before we leave here. Makes sense to me. If there is only one person on Earth who knows how
to make a beautiful rabbeted-joint and something happens to him, that would be horrible.

Wilson, by the way, was carrying on today, as he so likes to do, about the coincidences in the list of knowledge and
skills we have here. He was amazed at how many of the essential ones made it into Aegis before the event. I wonder when
he's going to quit being so amazed and just accept what happened.

I moved out of the ductwork yesterday, and moved into one of the apartments. I thought it was about time I joined
the human race. Elias and Leah are my neighbors. I'm glad I did it.

Day 35

We ran out of coffee today. There are a lot of grumpy people in Aegis.

Day 40

It's morning. I'm staring at the calendar I started marking on Day 1. I just put the fortieth "X" on it. I am so
excited. Today will be the day. I'm sure of it. After all, Aegis is the Ark, and Noah and his group were able to leave after
forty days. So should we.

You're probably wondering why we are waiting for the winds to stop. Well, if you are reading this, that means we were
right and survived. If you're not, oh well. The board has had several meetings on this. We've also had open discussions with
the Aegisites. Wilson has spent what seems like a thousand hours meeting with the meteorologists, the doctors, the biologists,
and anyone else inside here who might have a fact he can use to fit into one of his mental jigsaw puzzles. We have all been
trying to decide how we will know when it is safe to leave. Since there isn't anybody out there we can ask, we don't know.

Wilson has created several scenarios – making assumptions on what kind of pathogen they used, or how the monsters
who created the bug would have made certain the world was safe for them to re-enter and resume their lives. The list seems
endless. At times he has become something of a recluse, trying to crunch the numbers…trying to find the pattern which will
give him the answer. I think the only thing all of his work has given him is a headache.

So, we decided that whoever or whatever saved us in the first place would let us know when it was safe to leave. And
the way we would be notified was when the winds stopped. And, as I said earlier, I know for a fact that they will stop
today. So there!

This experience inside Aegis for the last forty days has been awesome. I know that it has changed me. I think, for
the better. But I'm ready to get out of here now. That's odd, isn't it? For almost the whole time I was in Aegis before the
event, I knew how to get out through the overflow tunnel and I never wanted to leave. Not for a moment. But now…I am
itching to get out there. I'm so glad that today is going to be it.

Day 41

It's still windy.

Day 50

The mood has really changed in Aegis. I think that most of the people, whether they admitted it or not, believed that
we were going to be able to leave after forty days. At least it was a goal, a target. Now we have no idea how long we need
to wait. And that is quite a bit more difficult.

Not that there are any problems with the Aegisites. That hasn't been the case. There haven't been any issues, any
fights, not even any serious arguments. It feels, to everyone, as though we are all in this together, which we obviously are,
and we need to make the best of it.

I've made some new friends in the past month, like Keith, the man who studies people's names. He enjoys playing
chess, which I've never learned. He is teaching me, and so far, I like it. I've also become friends with Erin, the meteorologist
from TV. She just knocked on my door one night because she wanted to talk. I guess we clicked, since she didn't go back
to her apartment until after midnight.

Ever since the fortieth day came and went, I'm guessing that Wilson has become even more obsessed with figuring out
the pattern of the bug. Other than the board meetings, I never see him. I miss the talks we used to have on the porch of his
shack.

Day 63

Leah invited me to their apartment for dinner last night. Since we are all on rationing, I was a little surprised as I
walked in – they had a big spread of food on the table. I know that neither one of them would ever steal from the stockpile,
so I asked where they got it all. Elias told me that he and she had been planning to have me over for quite a while, and
they had been cutting back on how much of their rations they were eating, saving some up for the feast. Okay, I'll admit
to you future folks, it made me cry.

I have to tell you…we stuffed ourselves. It reminded me of how I used to feel as a kid after Thanksgiving dinner.

Afterward, the three of us sat around and talked. It was nice. The more I get to know Leah, the more I can see why
Elias loves her so much. It's almost as if they are connected. They even finish each other's sentences. I keep trying to see the
wispy little filament in the air between them, the line that ties them together. Last night, I think I caught a glimpse of it.

Even though most of the evening was just talk about pleasant things and fun things and silly things, at one point we
talked about getting out and how long it would be. With the solar panels working, we are pumping all of the groundwater
we need. The reservoirs are full. The rationing has been working about as well as Milton expected. We are around half
of the way through the supply of food, although the items like fresh fruit and vegetables are long gone. We ate them first
because, even with refrigerators, they would spoil pretty fast. So now we're down to the canned and frozen types. Elias told
me they had to do that during World War II on the submarines. They would eat like kings right after they left port for
a patrol, fresh fruits and vegetables with every meal, before that stuff went bad.