The sky was a bruised purple when the wind finally stopped.
Mikhail stood alone at the north end of the slab, his boots ankle-deep in wet gravel. A low mist curled off the concrete like breath after a long run. The last of the stormwater pooled at the trench edge, where a pump throbbed rhythmically, spitting runoff into a muddy ditch.
He didn't speak. Didn't move. Just watched.
Across the site, Lars checked the heat monitors while Kat rolled the plastic sheeting off the emergency lights. Erik trudged out of the shadows, dragging the last length of power cable over his shoulder. They didn't call him, didn't ask what came next. Everyone knew the moment was too thin to break with words.
Mikhail crouched down, pressing a palm to the slab. It radiated low warmth. No fractures. No warping. The pour had held.
His breath came out slowly.
They had done it.
From the edge of his vision, Lars approached, squinting into the first weak light of dawn. "Temp's holding steady across all zones. Slight dip in the west trench, but the heaters are compensating."
Mikhail nodded once. "Keep logs going until full cure."
Lars offered a tight-lipped smile. "We're ahead of schedule again."
Kat stepped up beside them, her hood down, rain-streaked hair clinging to her cheek. "The main road is passable now. Erik got the ditch pump cleared." She nudged Mikhail's elbow gently. "We made it."
He glanced at her, then back at the slab. "Barely."
"But we made it," she repeated.
He didn't smile. Not yet. Instead, his eyes swept the ridge above the quarry, the trees still heavy with water, the road slick and silent. A movement caught his eye. He raised a hand, stilling Lars mid-step.
"Someone's there," Mikhail murmured.
The treeline, about two hundred meters up, shifted again. It wasn't an animal. Too deliberate.
Kat followed his line of sight. "You think it's the same guy from before?"
"Maybe. Maybe someone else," Mikhail said. "But whoever they are, they were watching through the storm."
Lars looked at him. "You want to send someone up?"
"No," Mikhail said. "Let them watch. We're not hiding anything."
Still, he motioned toward the camera hub near the trailer. "Check footage from midnight to now. Look for movement on the western ridge. Angle the backup feed that way too. I want constant coverage for the next forty-eight hours."
"Already on it," Lars said, heading off.
Kat's hand lingered on Mikhail's shoulder a second longer before she followed.
Mikhail stayed, eyes fixed on the rise. The watcher hadn't moved since the last shift of shadow. He doubted they would now.
He turned back to the slab. Fine mist curled above the concrete, steam mingling with the dawn light. No cracks. No bubbling. No failed sections. The mix had been perfect, down to the gram.
Behind him, Erik lit a small fire in an old oil drum and called out, "Warmth's up, boss. Come thaw your soul."
Mikhail didn't answer right away. His fingers brushed the cured edge once more.
Then he stood. The site was quiet. Not because it was empty but because nothing had broken.
He walked slowly toward the fire, boots crunching on damp stone.
Kat handed him a metal mug half-filled with what might have once been coffee.
"Lars says all cams are clean," she said. "Except one."
Mikhail looked up.
"It glitched. Western angle. Right before you saw the guy."
He took a sip from the mug. "Then we start watching back."
He lowered the cup and let the steam rise between them as he turned toward Lars.
"Pull every still. I want a face."
Lars hunched beside the monitor rack inside the trailer, fingers flicking through hours of storm-soaked footage. Each flicker of light and motion from the treeline was paused, scrubbed, reversed. He zoomed in on every blur that might've been a shoulder, a coat, a face. But it was all too far, too low-res, too convenient.
Kat stood at the door, arms crossed tight over her jacket. "Anything yet?"
"Nothing clear," Lars muttered. "They stayed just outside IR range. Whoever it was knew exactly where not to stand."
Mikhail sat on the edge of a folding table, the back of his mug warming his palm. The bitter coffee had long gone cold, but he hadn't noticed. His mind was elsewhere—replaying the curve of the ridge, the exact angle of movement, the slight delay in camera switch. Someone had walked that trail before. They weren't improvising.
He looked up as Erik rapped twice on the side of the trailer.
"Come on out," Erik said. "The fire's going, and it's not garbage coffee this time. I boiled new water."
Mikhail gave a faint nod and stood.
Kat lingered a moment longer at Lars's side. "Keep going. There has to be a frame, just one where they slip."
Lars didn't look up. "They will."
Outside, the air was still cold but no longer biting. The fire Erik had coaxed to life crackled steady now, its warmth reaching into the damp edges of the pre-dawn. They'd stacked a few folding chairs and crates around the barrel, half out of comfort, half ceremony.
Kat joined them first, her cheeks pink from wind and tension. She sat close to the flame and leaned forward, palms splayed toward the heat.
"Feels like we've been awake a week," she muttered.
Mikhail stood behind them for a moment, watching his team gathered not as contractors or workers, but as people, drawn together by grit and firelight.
He stepped forward and sat beside Kat.
"I was going to yell at you last night," Erik said, handing him a new mug.
Mikhail raised an eyebrow.
"When the pump backed up and nearly flooded the trench," Erik continued. "Thought you'd lost it, trying to reroute both trucks without a guide."
Mikhail took a slow sip. "And now?"
Erik grinned. "Now I'm buying you lunch."
Kat smirked. "You won't be the only one."
The fire popped, sending up a small flare of sparks. Silence fell again, but this one was warm, not wary. It filled the space between them like a concrete setting firm into formwork, unspoken, but binding.
Mikhail looked at each of them in turn. Kat, whose quick instincts had flagged half the sabotage risks before they happened. Lars, still inside the trailer, doggedly parsing footage frame by frame. Erik, who cursed every storm and still hauled the weight of ten men. This team wasn't just functional, they were aligned. And it wasn't fear or authority that held them. It was trust.
"I was wrong about something," Mikhail said, voice low.
Kat tilted her head. "About what?"
He looked into the fire. "I thought I had to do this alone."
Kat nudged him lightly. "Don't get too sentimental. We still hate paperwork."
Erik raised his mug. "No more trench fires."
Mikhail smiled, tired, real. "To make it harder next time."
A sharp knock came from the trailer.
Lars's voice followed a second later, tight and urgent.
"Mikhail. You need to see this. Now."