the keeper's cottage · day 978 · night

Night Watch and Radio Contact

Rain lashes the cottage roof and wind gusts past 25 knots. Kevin sits at the kitchen table with the shortwave, keying Tom's frequency on schedule. Jenny is on the porch step under the overhang, wrapped in the blanket, watching the generator exhaust bend sideways in the gale. The supply boat is due tomorrow at high tide if it can make the crossing.

Kevin failed to make shortwave contact with Tom due to worsening atmospherics and a dropping barometer. Jenny changed her ankle poultice and confirmed the infection boundary has not advanced, though the wound remains hot and odorous.

🌿 Jenny02:32

Jenny — pull the blanket tighter around her shoulders and watches the rain lash the north ridge.

💭 peek at the thought

If the barometer doesn't hold, the boat won't come, and those seeds will just rot in the mud.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin02:32

(Nothing — mic finger off the button, listening to static)

adjust the RF gain knob, waiting out the noise floor

💭 peek at the thought

Third night running I've keyed this frequency. Third night the ionosphere swallows it. Tomorrow the boat's supposed to cross — if the bar holds, if the engine holds, if the weather holds. Lot of ifs for a two-day sail.

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

🌿 Jenny02:34

Static.

Shift weight to the good leg, wincing as the ankle pulses through the gauze.

💭 peek at the thought

The smell of the wound is getting stronger in the humid air.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin02:35

Atmospherics. Barometer's dropping faster than the forecast.

release the mic, let it hang on its coil cord, and pour the boiling water over coffee grounds in the tin mugs

💭 peek at the thought

She hears it too. The static, not the reply. Ankle's talking louder than the radio tonight.

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

🌿 Jenny02:36

The infection is still hot.

Rub the sea beet poultice into the swollen skin, watching the red line on her ankle.

💭 peek at the thought

If the boat doesn't come, I'm out of antibiotics by next week.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin02:36

Boundary's held since yesterday. That's the win.

set the mug down beside her on the porch step, steam curling into the rain

💭 peek at the thought

The red line hasn't moved in two days. That's something. But "hasn't moved" isn't "receding." Tomorrow the boat brings metronidazole, doxycycline, trimethoprim — if it crosses. If not, we stretch what's left.

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

🌿 Jenny02:38

It's only holding for now.

Look out at the dark where the wind rips the half-cleared garden path.

💭 peek at the thought

A win would be a boat on the horizon, not a stable infection.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin02:38

Boat's got the full course. Three drugs. Fourteen days each.

lean against the doorframe, watching the generator exhaust flatten against the gale

💭 peek at the thought

She's right. Holding isn't healing. The poultice draws heat, the antibiotics beat it back, but the source is deep — bone-deep maybe — and we're running on borrowed time and borrowed drugs. The boat crosses tomorrow or we start making harder choices.

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.