Shin appeared at three o’clock with water for those working outside.

Moving through the groups with her usual quiet efficiency, she carried a water container in each hand.

Her stance was now steady, fully recovered from the cautious favoring of last week. She distributed water casually, and the men from both groups accepted it with brief thanks, all of them hot, working, and genuinely in need.

She paused next to Michael, handed him a container, and calmly observed the west face as it rose, taking in the view with steady eyes.

"It’s going to change how the building looks," she said.

"It already has," he said.

She glanced at the finished faces, then at the street beyond, and back at the building towering above the wall, with the watchtower visible at the roof edge. "It looks like somewhere real," she said softly. "Like something that was meant to be here."

Michael gazed at it—the wall, the gate, the building overhead, and the watchtower—all together in the deserted city, like a testament to what can be achieved with the right tools and enough time.

He hadn’t properly viewed it from outside since construction began, and seeing it from Shin’s perspective as a complete structure felt different than examining it panel by panel from close up.

"It is somewhere real," he said.

Shin looked at him with a warmth in her eyes that she neither concealed nor exaggerated, simply allowing it to be there naturally, as she did with most things.

"Yeah," she said. "It is."

She re-entered, he watched her leave, then briefly observed the building before returning to the west face.

[Bond Event — Seeing It Together: Shin. +1 Bond Point. Current BP: 5 — Shin.]

---

Damon approached him at the end of the day as the light was fading and most people had returned indoors.

He moved around the north corner, stopping a few meters from Michael to observe the finished faces.

Holding his coil chain in his hand, his eyes scanned the wall with the same interest he usually gave to most things.

"Good work today," Michael said.

"Your sequence is solid," Damon said. "It’s easy to follow and has logical progression." He paused. "My people work better with a logical progression."

Michael glanced at him. Damon was staring at the wall, his jaw slightly clenched, and his eyes showed that he had been pondering something for a while before deciding to speak.

"I think Gareth is planning something," Damon said. He spoke plainly and directly, without glancing at Michael, letting the words hang in the air between them.

Michael was quiet.

"I’m not exactly sure," Damon said. "He doesn’t share details unless he needs me to do something specific." He then looked at Michael, meeting his eyes directly for the first time in the conversation.

"But I recognize his tone when he’s in planning mode, and he’s been in that mode ever since Cole’s group came through the gate."

Michael gazed at him intently. "Why are you sharing this with me?"

Damon looked at the wall before replying, "Because this is real," he said plainly. "What you’re creating here is genuine, and I’ve been in enough situations to recognize the difference between something authentic and something that’s merely surviving and pretending to be more than it is." He paused. "I don’t want to find myself on the wrong side of something real."

They stood in the cooling afternoon air, with three sides of the building’s wall completed and the west face half-finished, as the city remained quiet around them.

"Damon," Michael said.

"Yeah."

"You’re not on the wrong side," Michael said.

Damon briefly looked at him, nodded once, then went inside. Michael remained outside alone, gazing at the wall, the building, and the city beyond, while thinking about Gareth.

He pulled up the pulse.

Room 607 had two signatures in it. Gareth and one other, close together, it seemed they were having a conversation of some sort.

Michael looked at it for a moment and then looked at the southeast signature still sitting exactly where it had been for three days.

"We’ll see" Micheal mumbled as he walked back inside.

---

Dr. Kang was at the workbench when he returned to the apartment, and she examined him thoroughly and directly—focusing on his shoulder first, then his hands, and finally his face.

"Shoulder," she said.

"It’s fine," he said.

"Sit down," she said.

He sat down. She approached the workbench, pressing on his shoulder three times. He kept a neutral expression through two presses but couldn’t fully hide his reaction on the third. She noticed this but chose not to comment.

"You’ve been using it as a primary arm," she said.

"I’ve been using it as an arm," he said.

"I told you it would take two days," she said. "It’s only been a day."

"The wall needed building," he said.

She looked at him with steady eyes, her hands still on his shoulder, and her jaw clenched in the characteristic way she adopted when she had made up her mind and was about to speak.

"You can’t build anything if you don’t properly recover that shoulder," she said. "Not because you’ll refuse to try, you will, but because some tasks need two working arms, and these tasks will arise before your shoulder is fully healed. You need to be prepared for them."

He looked at her. She returned his gaze with direct and clear eyes, not to make a point but because it was medically accurate and practically significant—two categories Dr. Kang emphasized.

"I’ll be careful tomorrow," he said.

"You’ll let someone else handle the heavy placements tomorrow," she said. "Cole’s group can manage without you directing every panel."

He opened his mouth.

"They can," she said simply. "You know they can."

He closed his mouth because she was right and arguing with Dr. Kang about things she was right about was an activity with a known outcome.

She rewrapped the shoulder with clean bandaging and stepped back and looked at it and then at him.

"Eat something," she said. "Real food, not a protein bar."

"We don’t have real food," he said.

"I made something from the ration components," she said. "It’s on the counter."

He looked at the kitchen counter, where a container emitting a hot, meal-like aroma sat, then turned his gaze back to her.

"When did you—" he started.

"This afternoon," she said, then returned to her workbench, picked up her clipboard, and resumed what she had been doing before he entered. He glanced at the container for a moment, then went to the kitchen to eat, and it was the best meal he’d had since the world ended.

[Bond Event — She Made Food: Dr. Kang. +1 Bond Point. Current BP: 3 — Dr. Kang.] 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

He sat on the floor in his usual spot, eating while observing his surroundings— the apartment’s infrastructure, the people gathered there, the wall outside that would be finished tomorrow, and the southeast area that was soon going to run out of patience.

He continued eating and planning, while outside, the city was dark and silent. The wall stood strong on three sides, waiting for its final side.

---

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