The test lane ended in a wall that belonged to nobody’s escape route.
Juno had insisted on that before bringing the prototype out. Beyond the marked zone, the existing containment crew maintained its own barrier and withdrawal road. A failure here would cost equipment and a controlled interval of work. It would not leave a bus full of people waiting for a theory to become a machine.
Eli stood behind the observer line with Tessa. His fatigue from the service-pocket rescue had not disappeared, and she had made sitting down part of the price of attending. He had the incident notebook open on his knees. He could record without touching the device.
Across the lane, Kellan adjusted the feet of the frame. The barrier looked like industrial equipment interrupted halfway through becoming something else: heavy brackets, fitted plates, a core inside a guarded casing. Juno had marked every borrowed part with its owner and every changed mounting point with a strip of paint.
An engineer from the zone staff checked the heat probes independently. She read each position aloud while Juno entered it on the sheet. Kellan moved a shield plate when one probe could not see the casing seam. Their first disagreement concerned a cable crossing the withdrawal line. The engineer refused to start until it was moved.
