Sure, like a lot of programmers, I made a shitload selling my services to paranoid companies as a consultant. Mind you, paranoia is healthy when the threat is real. I founded my company in 1996, and by the time the critical day rolled around, we had done enough software work for utilities, governments, and banks to convince me that the world was woefully unprepared. In addition, we had been involved in sufficient embedded chip testing programs to make it clear to me that our society was in for a rough ride. I chose to make the most of it. The million-odd dollars I managed to clear from my labors (and that of my employees) was put to what turned out to be an optimal use.

In late 1998, I purchased a remote cabin by a lake in the Idaho Rockies. I told my wife it was a vacation home, and sure enough, in June of 1999, the entire family - my wife Janice, my fifteen-year-old daughter Beth, my twelve-year-old daughter Morgan, and yours truly, Andy Wells - spent seven days in wilderness isolation. We didn't see another soul for the entire week, a fact I noted with satisfaction.

When I describe my redoubt as a cabin, I am not doing it any justice. It is really a luxurious old fishing lodge, built as a retreat for the railroad elite back in 1902. The main building's field stone walls were constructed nearly a century ago, and although it has been updated through the years with all the modern conveniences - a diesel generator, solar panels, a hot tub, air conditioning - it also retains all its nineteenth-century facilities. These include a spring-and-gravity fed water system, a series of fireplaces and a wood-burning furnace designed to provide heat rather than merely ambience, and a variety of storage sheds and outbuildings.

From the point of view of my family, this was simply a vacation. I had not yet shared any of my concerns about the impending crisis with them, nor had I divulged any of my plans for it. The week was great fun for the girls, although I noticed my wife seemed a little anxious to get back home to Los Angeles. I enjoyed the vacation, and spent most of my time verifying that the massive preparations I had made and the extensive stores I had laid in on my previous solo visits would indeed be sufficient for a long exile. I was more than satisfied.

The rest of my time I spent watching my little girls cavorting in the shallows of the lake, in cutoffs and T-shirts, or taking one or the other out in the row boat for some fishing, while her sister spent some quality time with her mom.

It was on a hot and sunny Tuesday during that week that I first noticed how much Beth had grown up. We were out fishing, just the two of us, on the far side of the lake, when she leaned back in her seat in the bow, resting her elbows on the gunwales of the wooden craft. She had set aside her fishing rod, laying it across our Coleman cooler amidships, and apparently had decided to just relax and enjoy the afternoon. Facing me as she was, the sun was in her face, so her eyes were closed. Suddenly, mine were anything but.

As she stretched back, I found myself staring at the smooth, flat, dark-tanned flesh of her fifteen-year-old belly; with her movement, the half-T-shirt she was wearing crept up her torso to expose more and more of her tender young tummy. A rivulet of sweat, brought on by the day's heat, ran down her trim abdomen, moistening the nearly invisible tiny blonde hairs around her navel before pooling in the cute indentation. Her nut-brown abdomen rose and fell gently with her breathing.

I gulped and momentarily snapped out of it. I jerked my eyes from the display; guiltily I forced them upward in an effort to meet her gaze, only to find her eyes still safely closed. My own eyes seemed out of my control as they strayed back down her young body to drink in the sight. I had to admit it, I found the pose sexy; hell, I found my daughter -- my own fifteen-year-old daughter -- sexy! I couldn't take my eyes off her.

I scanned up to her pixie face, noting how her long blond hair, drawn up in a ponytail, complimented her perfectly tanned complexion. She wore no makeup out here, of course, but she didn't need it. Her lashes, closed against the glare, were long and thick, and surprisingly dark, as were her thin, arching brows. Here nose was a cute little button, with just a hint of peeling skin. Her mouth, although small in width, nonetheless dominated her lower face with its full, red, pouty "bee-stung" lips.

Following the direction suggested by her little pointed chin, my gaze drifted towards her chest, where two tiny mounds rose proudly under the thin material of her top, like twin preschoolers standing a-tip-toe, trying to prove who was taller. Small as they were, they commanded my attention, rising and falling, like her belly, with each respiration. I delighted in the discovery that she wore no bra, evidenced by the ease with which I could make out her permanently alert and surprisingly large nipples, impudently thrusting skyward from the low peaks of her adolescent breasts.

After a quick glance up to confirm my continued covertness, I scanned down to her young, slender legs, spread slightly in her innocence to expose her tender inner thighs. Her cutoff jeans draped delightfully open, suggesting the path to sweet treasures within. My prick was as hard as any stone.

At that moment, my plans for the coming millenium began to change.....(cont)