Winter came—not brutally cold, but blanketed in an absurd and almost theatrical amount of snow. Three feet fell in one go, and then it just... kept coming.

  Floyd, thankfully, was ready. The pantry was full, the firewood stacked, the fuel drums topped up. If civilization slid off a cliff, he’d still have canned peaches and clean socks.

  Two days after the big dump, Floyd woke up with that unmistakable tug in his chest. He knew the feeling by now. The pull.

  Time to go back to the computer.

  This wasn’t going to be a quick project—he could feel it. So, he struck a deal with himself: 12 hours on the computer, 4 hours for cooking, chores, and a bit of TV, and 8 hours sleep. Rinse. Repeat.

  He sat down. Booted up. The moment the screen blinked on, it began again.

  Information. Flooding into his mind. No voice, no language—just knowing. His fingers translated it. They flew across the keys in bursts, like they were jazz musicians on speed. All eight fingers working overtime. Thumbs chimed in for punctuation and morale.

  Just like the engine, only far more complex.

  Documents bloomed. Then folders. Then subfolders. Technical specifications, diagrams, theories of function and interaction. Spreadsheets mapped components and materials. Flow charts explained the unexplainable. Graphs. Bar charts. Pie charts. Maintenance logs. Repair instructions. All meticulous. All organized.

  The days melted into each other. The cabin became a snowbound time machine. He lived in loops.

  Wake. Work. Eat. Work. Tidy up. Work. Snack. TV. Sleep.

  Even the meals ran like clockwork. Floyd had mastered the subtle art of cooking by timer, sight, and smell—an elaborate stew could bubble in the background while he juggled torque values and neutron flux schematics.

  Then came the drafting phase.

  CAD programs filled the screen with mechanical detail. Every bolt, every washer. Assembly drawings. Sub-assemblies. Circuit schematics. Wiring looms. Exhaust ports. Power regulators. It was mechanical opera—and Floyd was composing it note by note.

  The physics? That was something else.

  He recognized a few things: Erg, MW, GW, Joules, Neutrons, Electrons, Protons... but it might as well have been wizardry.

  He did some Googling, but the results might as well have been Sanskrit crossed with Klingon. The deeper he went, the more lost he got.

  Still, he got a sense: this was about energy. Transfer. Conversion. Containment. Something big.

  He wasn’t quite right—but he wasn’t completely wrong either.

  Outside, the snow kept coming. Floyd kept shoveling. Some mornings he had to dig his way out of the cabin. The shovel lived inside now.

  The engine project had taken a couple of months.

  This one? It had been three months, and he still wasn’t done.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Then, during a brief thaw, Floyd heard a familiar engine outside—slow, careful, groaning slightly with the effort.

  He stomped onto the veranda like a man emerging from an arctic expedition.

  “Hello, you old hermit! You still alive in there?” he bellowed.

  Floyd grinned. “Oddball! Good to see you. Happy New Year.”

  “You too, bro. Thought I’d have to send in a rescue dog with whiskey around its neck. What have you been doing?”

  Floyd gave a shrug. “Our friends upstairs got in touch again. I’ve been working on something.”

  “Hush-hush time again?”

  “Definitely. Whatever this is... it’s bigger.”

  Oddball nodded, lips pursed. “Right. Say no more. I don’t want another batch of headhunters sniffing around.”

  They went inside, boots thudding, and sat by the fire with mugs of coffee.

  “I’ll stick to the light stuff,” Oddball said. “Took me half an hour to get up here. Ice all over the road. No cloud cover tonight either—it’ll be a skating rink soon.”

  They drank in silence for a moment, watching the flames flicker.

  Oddball finally asked, “How are you sleeping now?”

  Floyd leaned back. “Like a baby. No more nightmares. No more flashbacks. It's a massive relief. After all those years... it’s like someone finally turned the volume down in my head.”

  Oddball smiled. “Good. Real good to hear.”

  When it was time to leave, Floyd saw him to the door.

  “Careful on the way down,” he warned. “Gravity takes no prisoners.”

  Oddball laughed. “Amen to that. Catch you in a month or so, if I haven’t frozen to death.”

  Floyd watched him go, then went back to his desk.

  The snow was falling again.

  The file folders were waiting.

  And the universe, it seemed, wasn’t done with him yet.

  Floyd went back to work at the computer, his routine unchanged. The snow still held the mountains in its grip. Day after day, his fingers flew across the keyboard, the data flowing into him like music only he could hear.

  Nearly three weeks later, as he began compiling the final documentation, something happened.

  He froze mid-keystroke, eyes locked on the words appearing on the screen.

  He read the title again.

  And again.

  Then he sat back in his chair, utterly stunned.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed. “This is... unbelievable.”

  He stared at the screen, shaking his head slowly.

  “Never,” he whispered. “Never in a million years would I have believed this to be possible.”

  He let out a breathless laugh of wonder. “This is stunning.”

  But there was no time to dwell. He leaned forward again, and kept typing.

  Eventually—days later—everything was complete. The last file uploaded through the uplink. As before, it was reviewed, checked, and confirmed.

  Approved.

  The job was done.

  Floyd stepped outside for the first time in a while. The world hadn’t changed much. Snow still blanketed everything. Two feet deep, softening under a midday sun.

  Four-foot icicles hung like spears from the eaves.

  He had to squint and reach for his sunglasses.

  “A real winter wonderland,” he murmured.

  Deer tracks criss-crossed the backyard, delicate trails pressed into the snow like a message in Morse code.

  The air was crisp. Clean. Still.

  For the first time in weeks, Floyd had no urgent task to do. He decided to catch up on the news.

  Oddball had gotten his wish.

  There had been a revolution.

  One of the General’s own army units had turned on him. The tyrant, General Rashid, had been dragged from his palace, tried by a military tribunal, and strung up from a lamppost in the capital’s main square.

  A video showed it all. The crowds. The silence. The justice.

  A civilian government had taken over within the week.

  Their first public statement was clear and sharp:

  “We will have nothing to do with the reward. General Rashid was an evil man, a monster. All the money he stole and secreted will be recovered. We now work for the prosperity of our people and our nation.”

  Floyd read the words and nodded slowly.

  “Good riddance to him... and his ilk.”

  Within another week, the thaw was in full swing.

  Floyd drove into town for supplies, carefully navigating around the icy patches still lurking in the shaded corners of the road.

  At the general store, he picked up coffee, beans, rice, and a few tins of sardines—he had a craving. Then he went to find Oddball.

  He found him half under a pickup truck, legs sticking out like a stubborn root.

  When Oddball rolled out, they shook hands.

  “Did you see the news?” Oddball asked, brushing dirt from his sleeves.

  “About your favourite tyrant? Yeah.”

  “They never learn. You’d think they’d read a history book once in a while.”

  “Still plenty of pissed-off types out there. Keep your head down.”

  “You too.”

  Oddball stretched his back and grunted. “So… what about the latest mystery project?”

  “Paperwork’s done. Quiet since then.”

  “Well,” Oddball shrugged, “if you need me, just holler.”

  “I will. Oh, Angels v. Red Sox tonight, if you’re interested.”

  “Hell yeah. I’ll bring beer and a pizza. See you later.”

  The snow was nearly gone now, the ground slowly reappearing like a memory returning.

  There was work to be done.

  Floyd turned his attention to the garden, the trees, and the sheds. After months of being cocooned in snow and silence, the world was waking up—and so was the to-do list.

  He checked on the trout.

  They’d done well.

  Big now. Not quite monsters, but fat enough to grace a pan.

  Come Fall, when the breeding season was over, he’d catch a few.

  Smoke them. Share them.

  Maybe even invite Oddball out for a proper dinner.

  But that could wait.

  For now, it was enough to know they’d made it through the winter.

  So had he.