Zachary managed to get back to his carriage then get his carriage back to the Winters estate with little more ill event than getting his shoes waterlogged from wading through then ankle-deep water in the underground car park again. Driving in to the estate he saw Mathias on the patio practising some form of martial art. Zachary gave him a curt wave and nod and drove on, allowing Mathias to continue his practise, and parked the carriage behind the garage this time, out of view. He took the items he needed out of the back of the carriage and carried them in to the workshop, where he took out his tools from his bag and resumed work.

While Zachary had gathered ample experience in jury-rigging mis-matched parts together during his year of post-apocalyptic survival engineering, this sonic weapon was not going to be as simple as sticking some wires together and welding one bit onto another. It needed to be robust, reliable, effective, and of presentable quality for he was doing this on contract after all. As such the daylight hours came to an end well before his project did and, while the shed had lights, it did not have heating and the bitter cold of the outside was now creeping inside with the sun unable to stop it any more. This made Zachary wish he still had his jacket. Cold was not the only thing getting at Zachary, though, as he became more acutely aware of the hunger pains in his belly. He hadn't eaten since breakfast. With the elements against him, Zachary was forced to retire from engineering for the night and finish tomorrow.

He crossed quickly from the shed into the side entrance, flitting through the snow flurries with the indirect dusk light hardly helping visibility. As soon as he entered, he was welcomed by warm air and the smell of freshly cooked food. He closed the door behind him promptly to keep the warm air from escaping into the cold wind outside, a key Warshiran etiquette. Inside the kitchen were three people, cooking and preparing food. They turned their heads to him when he entered, and one asked, in a polite manner, "Who are you?"

"Zachary Mason. I'm an engineer, hired this morning by Matthias Winters," Zachary replied.

This response seemed to satisfy the cooks. "Welcome to the clan, then. You're just in time for dinner. Head through there and you'll find the dining room. Food will be out in a minute."

Zachary thanked them and entered into the dining room. It was decadently furnished, with paintings on the walls, a richly-coloured table with matching chairs, plates, cutlery and glasses already set out on the table, and a fine carpet. There were also many people in this room, presumably also people Matthias had brought into his clan. Zachary joined the throng and introduced himself to a few people. It was not long before the door to the kitchen opened and in came the cooks with serving bowls and platters of food and jugs of water. Everyone moved to take a seat and once the food was placed they all gave themselves a helping of what they wanted. As Zachary got a serving for himself, he realised that he had not had a cooked meal like this for a long time. For months he had been living off stolen military aide rations with the occasional canned food item as he could find it. All the fresh food had either spoiled or been eaten in the first few weeks. Even a stockpile of food such as might be in the Winters mansion could not sustainably feed a large group like this for a year. With that in mind, Zachary closely inspected and analysed his food.

On his plate he had pasta with a tomato sauce and kidney beans, with a side of corn soup with shreds of chicken. On the table he could also see a bowl of fruit salad, made from diced and stewed pieces of fruit. It did not take him long to notice a pattern- these are all canned goods, save for the pasta itself which is stored dry. Tomato sauces are often canned or bottled. Kidney beans are a common canned good, as is corn and chicken soup. The shreds of chicken were like those found in cans, as no whole chicken pieces were present. The fruit in the fruit salad were not freshly cooked but instead tinned fruit. On the table there was no salad, no meat aside from the small amount of canned chicken, nothing requiring fresh, perishable ingredients, save for a few herbs used as seasoning which could have easily been grown in a small herb garden (he'd actually seen a few herb gardens which had started to grow wild out in Sovereign). Zachary concluded that the Winters were resourceful enough to have scavenging groups to collect large quantities and varieties of canned foods, strong enough to hold on to such a stockpile, and with skilled enough cooks to make the food appear fresher than it actually is. Any fresh food, and beverages other than water, that they do have would be in short supply, and thus only brought out on special occasions.

Zachary enjoyed his meal, and the company of the other people. After dinner he inquired as to where he would be sleeping and whether he could have a coat. He was shown to a dormitory, filled with beds and mats on the floor. It clearly had not been originally designed as a dormitory, but obviously the mansion lacked the number of bedrooms required to house as many people as it currently did, so they had to make do. The members of the household also found for him a spare coat, which he thanked them graciously for.

As the house settled down, Zachary went to bed along with most other people. While the mattress he had been sleeping on before was reasonably comfortable, he found that these beds were a lot cleaner. Another perk of living in a mansion with people playing specific roles rather than living as a hermit in a dusty underground grotto. And so he slept comfortably, more so than he had for a very long time.