جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 100

Chapter 93Derek’s POVThe call came while I was walking back from staging with mud drying on my cuffs. Mom’s name on the screen stopped me near the equipment shed. I answered on the second ring and leaned against the metal wall, out of the wind.“How is the program?” she asked.“Hard. Good. I’m useful, which helps. I’m eating. Sleeping more than I did at home.”“Good. The house is quiet. I’m not doing the talks over the phone. They can wait until you’re in the room.”“I wasn’t going to ask.”A pause stretched long enough that I heard the refrigerator hum on her end. “I’m glad you’re there, Derek. I mean that. Don’t spend the weeks rehearsing conversations with me. Do the work. The rest will still be here.”“I will.”“Go. Before I start sounding like I’m checking up on you.”She hung up without saying his name. I stood with the phone in my hand and the shed cold against my shoulder.The omission was clean and deliberate. It still left a mark not a wound exactly, more like a blank spa

Chapter 95Derek’s POVThe rain left the ground soft for two more days, then the schedule opened up again in uneven pieces. Near grids first. Reduced teams. No one was in a hurry to push the far section until the water table dropped. The pressure of the previous week eased without disappearing entirely. I noticed the difference most in my hands, less clenched, less raw and in the way the common room sounded at meals. People talked over each other again instead of around each other.I was on a quiet mid-morning intake when Priya stopped by my station with a clipboard and a pen tucked behind her ear.“Your block ends next week,” she said. Not a question. “Harrow wants final logs closed forty-eight hours before transport. Don’t leave me chasing your numbers.”“I won’t.”“Good.” She paused, then added, “If you want a field recommendation letter, ask before you vanish. He won’t chase you for it either.”“I’ll ask.”She nodded and moved on. I stood with the tray half-logged and the date s

Chapter 97Derek’s POVMonday of the final week started with a revised assignment sheet and less patience in the air. Priya posted it before breakfast: final verification runs on the mid and near grids, closure logs due by Friday, equipment return lists circulating by Thursday. My name was under verification lead for the mid-section not solo in name, but responsible for the sheet quality before it reached her desk.June read the board beside me and made a low sound.“She gave you the mid-section lead.”“Looks like it.”“That means if the numbers drift, she comes to you first.” June glanced at me. “Try not to enjoy the power. It makes people unbearable.”“I’ll suffer quietly.”“See that you do.”Malik arrived late to the board, coffee in hand, and squinted at the list. “I’m on near-grid support. If any

Chapter 99Derek’s POVThursday opened with a thin frost on the gravel and the particular quiet of a site already half-turned toward leaving. I woke before the alarm, packed the last of my personal gear into the bag by the door, and stood for a moment with my hand on the latch of the room I had stopped thinking of as temporary. Then I went to breakfast.Priya was already at the board with a pen and a short list. She glanced at me over it.“Closure draft tonight. Equipment returns by the end of the day. Don’t make me chase either.”“You won’t have to.”“I’ll hold you to that.”June slid a cup of coffee toward me when I sat down. It was still bad. She watched me drink it with the expression of someone conducting a scientific trial.“Last full workday,” she said. “Try not to become inspirational.”“No risk.”“Good. Inspirational people are exhausting.”Malik arrived late, dropped into the chair across from us, and announced that he had dreamt the coffee urn was sentient and vengeful.

Derek’s POVThe transport pulled away from the site while the light was still thin. Through the window the low buildings slid out of frame one by one, the lab, the staging shed with its dented door, the path that led toward the far section. I kept my forehead near the glass and watched until there was nothing left but fields and the road.My bag sat between my boots. June’s gloves were folded on top of the clothes inside. I had checked twice before zipping it. The gloves still held the shape of work. Everything else in the bag was just proof that six weeks had fit into something I could carry.The other passengers talked in low voices or slept. A woman across the aisle scrolled her phone. Someone near the front ate from a paper bag and tried not to make noise. I didn’t put in headphones. The hum of the engine and the occasional rattle of the frame were enough. For the first stretch I didn’t think about much except the way my shoulders felt without a pack on them and the fact that m