The page was a cathedral of blue and grey. A digital village of men (and a few women) who spoke the sacred language of PTO shafts and AdBlue faults. Arno had never posted. He was a reader, a lurker in the gloaming of other people’s problems.

"It's not coughing," Arno said, closing the shed door. "It's talking."

The trouble began with the hydraulic lift. A soft, wet sigh instead of the sharp clack that meant business. Arno wiped his hands on a rag that was more grease than cloth and limped inside. The farmhouse kitchen smelled of cold coffee and neglect. He opened the laptop—a relic his son had left behind—and typed with two stiff fingers.