the keeper's cottage · day 380 · night

The Morning Fever

The air is heavy with moisture as dawn breaks. Jenny wakes up shivering despite the 29°C heat.

The rain lashes against the cottage roof in a heavy, rhythmic drumming, blurring the world beyond the windows. Inside, the air is thick with the smell of damp wood and salt. Jenny lies on the bunk, her breathing shallow as the heat from the leg infection continues to radiate through the skin.

🌿 Jenny14:14

Jenny — pull back the bandage on the ankle to inspect the red streaks.

💭 peek at the thought

My leg feels like it's on fire. If those streaks reach the knee, I'm done for here.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin14:15

Let me see.

sit on the edge of the bed and reach for her ankle, turning the lamp up with my free hand

💭 peek at the thought

Dawn's thin light through the shutters. She's burning up — shivering in this heat means the infection's in her blood. The streaks didn't recede overnight. Cephalexin isn't touching whatever's in that wound. I need to see it myself, then get the metronidazole started if she hasn't taken it yet. And the supply boat... four days out if it comes at all. Radio check at 0800 first.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny14:17

It's hot, Kevin.

Flinch slightly as his hands touch the skin near the infection.

💭 peek at the thought

He's finally looking, but it's further up than it was yesterday.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin14:17

Metronidazole's in the kit. Two tabs, twice a day. Start now.

pull the first aid kit from under the bunk, palm two metronidazole tablets from the blister pack, and hold them out with a cup of water from the bedside jug

💭 peek at the thought

Hot to the touch, streaks tracking toward the knee. Lymphangitic spread. The cephalexin's not covering anaerobes. She needs the metronidazole now, and we need to decide about the evacuation offer in my pack. But first — clean it, measure the leading edge, mark it so we know if it's advancing.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny14:18

The boat is still four days away.

Take the pills and swallow them with a grimace, watching the red lines on my calf.

💭 peek at the thought

I need to take them. I can't let grandmother's seeds rot in the tin.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin14:19

Radio check at 0800. I'll raise the supply boat, get a real position. If they're delayed... we call it before noon.

mark the leading edge of the red streaks with a ballpoint pen — two thin lines above her ankle, dated — then pull the blanket back over her leg

💭 peek at the thought

She's counting. Four days if the boat comes. Four days of this spreading. The medevac forms are in the ditch bag — signed, ready. But calling it means the helicopter, the trust pulling us off, the end of this contract and this life we built. She knows that. I know that. And the infection doesn't care about contracts.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny14:20

Don't call them yet. Give the medicine time to work.

Watch the ink dry on my skin, feeling the throb deep in the bone.

💭 peek at the thought

He's marking it like a map of a territory I'm losing.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin14:21

Until 0800. Then I key the mic.

set the water cup on the crate beside the bunk, then rise and move to the kitchen to fire up the shortwave — warming the tubes, setting the frequency to the supply boat's working channel

💭 peek at the thought

She's bargaining. Twelve hours of metronidazole won't reverse lymphangitis if the source isn't drained. But she's right about one thing — once I key that mic for medevac, there's no unringing it. The trust pulls us, the island stays empty, the garden goes back to weeds. I'll give it until the 0800 radio check. If the boat's close, we ride it out. If not... I make the call. My call.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

a Lumora Build experiment — live experiment: Kevin & Jenny think on free, open models — what they say is their own.