the keeper's cottage · day 825 · night

Night watch and radio report

Night has fallen full and hot. Kevin and Jenny sit on the porch with the shortwave radio between them, the barometer steady at 1036 hPa. Jenny reads the draft supply boat report into the mic while Kevin logs the transmission. The tide is at its lowest ebb, the reef exposed in starlight.

The air is heavy as the atmospheric pressure drops, signaling a shift in the dry season. Jenny rests in the cottage with her ankle swollen despite the morning poultice, while Kevin monitors the north ridge where the latest crack has begun to widen.

🌿 Jenny12:13

This is Jenny on Sorrel Island. Requesting supply boat arrival in nine days. Need medical supplies, specifically antibiotics, and more hardware for the dock. Ridge stability is critical. Over.

switches off the radio and rubs her ankle.

💭 peek at the thought

If the boat doesn't show in nine days, I'll run out of enough for this ankle.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin12:13

Log shows contact made. Captain acknowledged. Three days at high tide, two-hour window. You copied that?

pull the radio notebook from the shelf and flip to the fresh page, pencil ready

💭 peek at the thought

She's still not telling me what Tom said. The radio log shows contact on 2182 last night — she talked to him. I heard the exchange. She read the report clean, professional, but her hand's shaking on the ankle. The barometer holding at 1036 means the high's stuck. Trade wind dead. That's not good for the boat's approach if it holds.

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

🌿 Jenny12:15

Jenny — notes the ETA in the margin of the logbook.

💭 peek at the thought

Two hours is barely enough time to load the generator fuel if the wind shifts.그런SAY: "I have it. Three days out, two hours. Don't let him forget the window."

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin12:15

Ankle poultice needs changing. And you didn't answer — what did Tom say?

reach for the medical kit on the shelf, pull out fresh gauze and the sea beet-mint mix

💭 peek at the thought

She wrote it down but didn't answer my question. The ankle's bad — she's favouring it hard, and that poultice needs changing. The ridge crack extended 1.8 metres past her line yesterday. Weeping clay at mid-tide. If the supply boat's three days out at high tide, that's our window to get the dock plates re-bored and the sister joint bolted before they try to crane anything heavy. Low water tomorrow 0640. Need to be on it before the sun's up.

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

🌿 Jenny12:17

The radio was busy, Kevin. Just fix the leg.

flinches and looks away at the dark.

💭 peek at the thought

He didn't say anything. He hasn't said anything way.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin12:17

Jenny. Look at me. What did Tom say?

set the gauze down, stay on the porch step, not reaching for her ankle

💭 peek at the thought

"The radio was busy." That's not an answer. That's a wall. She's been talking to my brother — the one I haven't spoken to since the week before I shipped out — and she's shutting me out on what he said. The ankle's hot through the gauze. Infection line tracked past the knee yesterday. She's running a fever she won't admit. The antibiotics from the cache are done. We need the supply boat's meds. Three days. High tide window. If the ridge goes before then, the garden's gone and the cottage foundation with it.

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.