Ninety-Two Days Before the Ice

The House Across the Street

Ninety days.

Rhys woke before the alarm, in a bed wide enough for four, and for one frightened second he didn't know where he was. Then sunlight touched the penthouse ceiling, and the number pressed itself into his mind like a thumb on a bruise.

Ninety days.

He showered, dressed, and went down to the finest restaurant he could find. He ordered without glancing at the prices: prime steak, fresh seafood, warm pastries, the most expensive coffee in the house. When he finally set down his fork, warmth was spreading through his entire body.

Spending money on himself without guilt felt...

So damn good.

A television hung above the bar, muted, with captions crawling along the bottom. A solar physicist in a gray suit was smiling for the cameras.

"There has been some online chatter about unusual solar activity," the anchor said. "Should viewers be concerned?"

"Not at all," the physicist replied. "Our models show nothing out of the ordinary."

Rhys's hand went cold on his cup.

In his first life, he had watched this same broadcast, laughed along with the rest of the room, and ordered another coffee. Now, he looked at the man's easy smile and felt something colder than hatred. 

Sixty days from now, auroras would blaze over the equator. Thirty days out, the satellites would begin to die. After that, nobody could say they hadn't been warned.

And everybody would still be surprised.

He finished his coffee, left a tip large enough to make the waiter blink, and walked out.

* * *

The state lottery center smelled of fresh carpet and nervous money.

The moment the staff learned why he was there, their whole attitude changed. A senior employee escorted him into a private reception room, where his ticket went under an ultraviolet lamp, then a scanner, then a second scanner, while two officials murmured in low voices.

Then one of them stopped talking and the other picked up a phone.

"Mr. Darby," the first official said carefully, "would you mind waiting here for a moment?"

The door closed behind them.

Rhys sat very still. His heartbeat thudded in his ears. Had he misremembered one number? Had the first life's headline lied? Ten years of memory, and the one thing it had to get right was sitting in a stranger's hands.

Four minutes crawled by. Then the door opened, and both officials were smiling.

"Congratulations, Mr. Darby. The ticket is verified."

Rhys let out a breath he'd been holding for ten years.

Five hundred million dollars.

A hundred million vanished in taxes. Rhys also authorized a two-million-dollar charitable donation, enough to keep the press from sniffing around. When everything was settled, his account read three hundred and ninety-eight million.

He stared at the long string of digits. It sounded enormous, but it still wasn't enough. He needed it to grow.

When he stepped out, representatives from half a dozen banks were already waiting, pressing business cards into his hands and promising private-banking privileges. Rhys had no intention of parking his money in safe funds. In three months, the entire financial system would die, and every dollar left in an account would become worthless data on dead servers.

But he chose one bank anyway. Its nearest branch was a short walk from Maple Grove.

The manager, Yvonne Quinn, handled his transfer herself. She was a striking woman in her early thirties, in a fitted suit, with a smile that lingered a little too long whenever their eyes met.

When the paperwork was done, she leaned across the desk. "Mr. Darby, this must have been exhausting. Perhaps I could show you the city tonight? Somewhere quiet."

The invitation could not have been clearer. For a heartbeat he was tempted, but then he remembered the clock.

"No, thank you,” he replied and disappointment flickered across her face. "But let's exchange numbers. I'll need your help moving large sums over the next few months."

Her smile returned instantly, "Of course."

He hadn't exactly lied. Over the next two months he would use everything he remembered, every stock that was about to soar, to turn nearly four hundred million into two billion. 

Then, in the final month, he would pull every dollar out and convert it into food, medicine, fuel and steel, all of it locked inside the dimensional space.

But first, he needed a fortress.

He took a cab to Maple Grove and the estate directly opposite the Stowes' home. It was large, newly renovated, and beautifully lit. Rhys walked through it once, then went down to the basement and stood alone in the empty concrete space, picturing steel doors, a vault, a generator room, walls that could take a beast's charge.

In his first life he had built New Goshen out of salvage and desperation. This time he would build it with money and foresight.

He climbed back up and found the owner and the agent waiting by the door.

"I'll take it."

The agent blinked. "Would you like a second viewing, sir? Or time to negotiate?"

"No." He said flatly and took out his card. "One million as a deposit. Complete the transfer as fast as you can."

The agent looked ready to burst into tears of joy. She had braced herself for weeks of haggling. Instead, a man in plain clothes had bought one of the most expensive properties in Maple Grove after a single walkthrough!

The house would make an excellent shelter. Better still, it gave him a front-row seat to the Stowes' suffering when the ice arrived. The two estates were linked by Maple Grove's underground parking garage. He could visit them whenever he liked without ever stepping outside.

Did you really think I'd let you starve so easily? Every ounce of pain you gave me, you will taste yourselves.

By evening, the sale was the biggest story in Maple Grove. It traveled from doorstep to doorstep, growing stranger with every telling. Some said Rhys had inherited a fortune from a secret relative overseas. Others swore he'd cashed out old cryptocurrency. One imaginative neighbor insisted he had sold government secrets.

No one guessed the truth. How could they?

Mrs. Park, the self-appointed information broker of the neighborhood, heard the news before breakfast the next morning. When she learned that Rhys Darby had spent millions on the house across from the Stowes, her eyes lit up.

"What a wonderful son-in-law!" she cried. "The Stowes are so lucky!"

Eager to congratulate them, and even more eager to learn where the money had come from, she hurried across the street.

But the moment she stepped through their door, she stopped.

The entire Stowe family was in chaos.