John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

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.

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.

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

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.

It’s still windy.

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.

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.