the winter of antarctica is a drawn-out nighttime, with the sun barely peeping above the horizon. it lasts from mid-february to late october, with the area around the geographical south pole having an average high temperature of -53 degrees celsius (-63 degrees fahrenheit). this area is a cold desert full of nothing but snow, so it gives little room for any proper infrastructure for transportation. all of these conditions happening in the antarctic winter make transport difficult; thus, no planes, boats, or any other form of transportation are available to link antarctica to the rest of the world during this time.
around fifty souls stay in the amundsen-scott base, within the vicinity of the geographical south pole. these souls have access to 13.5 hours of steady internet service at a time, only for emailing, light web browsing, video teleconferencing for work, and transmission of research data. personal-use contact using any video chat programs can only be done through a public kiosk; it is forbidden to use these video chat programs and mobile device interfaces for personal-use contact outside of this kiosk.
among these souls is freeze man, working in the amundsen-scott base for the first time to do meteorological studies around the area. not among these souls is ice man.
seven to eight months. freeze would wait for seven to eight months before he can see ice. and in those seven to eight months, all he can do is collect and clean the data of his research, in a place isolated from the rest of the world, where the outside is mostly pitch-dark and with temperatures in the negatives.