I spent the next week doing fairly normal stuff. I made visits to my regular clients, updating systems (and installing my stealth programs), installing new hardware and software, just the normal stuff.
I also wanted to get some more supplies for the cabin. I was a bit worried about the Problem. It looked like I would need to accelerate my stocking of the cabin. There was maybe only a couple of months until the Problem hit. I needed to be ready.
Every night when I got home from my trips to my clients, I started the program to check the incoming e-mail. The packet grabber programs were working just fine. The remailers were getting the messages. The second computer at the apartment was analyzing the delay packet headers, consolidating them, and forwarding them to my other anonymous account every three hours.
Data was coming in, the statistical analysis was showing some patterns, but they weren't definitive. It looked like it would need at least another 4 days to gather data.
So I spent two days getting some final supplies up to the cabin with the van. One of my big sources of supplies was Mountain Food Warehouse in Auburn. I'd put in a sales system for them about a year ago, because they were really expanding. It really helped them out. The system took care of incoming orders, shipping, inventory, billing, etc. It had taken about 2 months to get it all working right, and some minor semi-monthly tweaking to ensure that all was OK. I had a good bill for that system, but they were in a minor cash crunch due to their expansion, so I took some of cost of my services in their products. And they gave me wholesale pricing whenever I needed it. That saved quite a bit.
So I made a couple of trips to Mountain Food Warehouse for supplies. I used the big Ford truck with stake sides, and a large tarp to cover it up the boxes. I filled the truck six times with an assortment of food and supplies. They wondered a bit about it, so I told them a story about setting up my parents and brothers and sisters with a backup food supply. Of course, I was an only child, and my parents were both dead, but the story satisfied them. They were glad to get the discount on my big consulting bill. And I was glad to get the supply.
When I was done, the supplies that I picked up, when added to what I already had, gave me a two year supply of food for four people. I was only one people, and I didn't eat that much, so I had enough food to last me.
I also hit the food warehouse stores. I got the big bulk sizes of flour, sugar, salt, oil, etc. I got a big supply of batteries for flashlights and radios (I also picked up one of those crank-type radios). I went to some second-hand places for some oil lamps, got some large bottles of lamp oil, candles, matches (although I got a gross of Bic lighters), and other stuff. I knew that I would have to be self-sufficient for a long time once the Problem started.
I also went to the local Wal-Mart to pick up some supplies of clothing, work shoes, towels, first-aid, medicines, etc. I had a good supply of hand tools from when I built the cabin, extra nails, some wood, etc., stored in the garage at the cabin. And I had made a few trips to the army surplus stores for stuff like folding shovels, camouflage netting, ammunition boxes (they were good to keep things air-tight), hatchets, axes, etc.
The list of stuff that I had gathered together over the last year was quite extensive. It was all carefully stored at the cabin. The foodstuffs were in the basement storage area, kept at a pretty constant temperature year-round by the extra insulation in addition to being underground. Tools and hardware supplies were neatly arranged in the garage/shop area. Extra gas (with gas stabilizer) and spare parts for the motorcycle were in the garage also. (I don't think that I told you about the motorcycle yet; that comes later.) All was protected by the security measures I had built into the cabin and property. And the cabin was in a quite remote place, no neighbors to worry about.
I kept really busy those two weeks. And all that time, my programs were gathering data, mailing information, and analyzing patterns. The cabin was pretty well set up. And I had some good piles of data to analyze. It was time to do that.