November 6, 2025 – 1600 Hours
Forward Agro-Zone One – San Jose, Central Luzon
The sky had turned gold by late afternoon, the kind of warm hue that once meant harvest season to generations long gone. Now, it cast long shadows across the trench lines, scaffold towers, and scattered machinery dotting the reclaimed farmland.
Work hadn't stopped. It wouldn't.
"Hold it steady—steady!" a crane operator yelled from the cockpit of a compact crawler crane. Its boom arm lifted a large water tank, swaying slightly in the breeze. Below it, two Overwatch engineers guided the cylinder into a circular metal cradle embedded in fresh concrete.
"Hydraulic locks engaged," one of them called. "Anchoring complete!"
To the north, another team worked on trench-digging. Not with power augers or excavators—they had those—but this section was too delicate. The old irrigation channels ran close to the surface, and one wrong cut could collapse the brittle cement structure buried below.
