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I. Beneath the Surface
The September sun bore down on the Gujarat testing site, turning the earth to dust and the air to heat shimmer. The half-assembled TBM had been wheeled forward into a specially dug trench, its shield lowered to face a wall of compacted soil prepared for the first ground interaction.
This was not a full-scale bore—just a controlled push. But for the engineers, it was monumental.
Arjun Rao stood on a scaffold, hands clasped behind his back. His eyes lingered on the soil wall. To the others, it was just dirt. To him, it was a threshold.
"Today," he said quietly, "the earth itself becomes negotiable."
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II. Powering On
The generators roared to life, cables buzzing with current. Lights flickered, not from shortage but from overabundance. The TBM's shield rotated with its smooth, steady hum, the same as during the sparks incident.
"Advance three meters," Arjun commanded.
The hydraulic rams hissed. The machine pushed forward, its cutting heads meeting resistance. Soil crumbled, then gave way—but not as expected.
Instead of collapsing in clumps, the earth peeled back in layered sheets, each fragment holding form before dissolving into dust. The engineers stared in silence, watching dirt behave as though it had forgotten how to be dirt.
"Sir…" one stammered. "The soil… it's yielding too cleanly."
Arjun only smiled faintly. Of course it is.
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III. The Villagers' Tremor
Ten kilometers away, in a small farming village, a group of elders sat under a banyan tree.
At first, it was only a shiver in the ground—like a bullock cart passing on a distant road. Then the tremor deepened, rattling pots on shelves, sending ripples across water vessels.
Women rushed outside. Children clung to their mothers. Goats bleated nervously.
Yet when one of the men dialed the district office, he was told no earthquake had been recorded anywhere in Gujarat. The seismographs were quiet.
"It came from beneath us," one old woman whispered. "But not from the earth."
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IV. Engineers in Denial
Back at the site, the senior engineer raised a hand. "Sir, we need to halt. The ground response is… unnatural. If word spreads, villagers will panic."
Arjun didn't look away from the soil wall. "The villagers will forget. Scientists will rationalize. And you…" He turned sharply, his gaze pinning the man in place. "…will continue."
The engineer fell silent.
Inside his chest, his heart beat fast. Not from fear of the machine—but from fear of its master.
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V. Side POV – The Farmer's Journal
That evening, a farmer named Raghunath Patel wrote in his notebook by lamplight. His handwriting was crude, but his words clear:
"Today the ground shook but no quake. My buffalo would not eat. Children say they heard a humming from the soil. My father told me, when the gods are angry, they send signs through the earth. But this was not god. This was something else."
He underlined the last line twice before closing the book.
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VI. Night Watch
On September 17th, the test ran again—this time at night. Arjun insisted on darkness.
The TBM's shield rotated, grinding into soil. Sparks reappeared, brighter than before, casting eerie orange light that danced across steel beams.
But now, the sparks didn't linger aimlessly. They aligned into straight lines, tracing glowing veins that stretched into the soil.
Workers gasped. Some crossed themselves, some whispered prayers.
Arjun only leaned forward, eyes locked on the glowing veins.
Yes… show me the pathways.
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VII. The Silence That Followed
By September 20th, the tests concluded. The TBM had advanced barely ten meters, yet the impact stretched far wider.
The villagers continued to whisper about tremors no one else could confirm. The engineers filed reports filled with half-truths and jargon. The workers muttered of sparks that behaved like spirits.
And Arjun Rao, alone in his quarters, sat at his desk with a map of India spread before him.
His pen hovered over Delhi. Then Mumbai. Then the Himalayan border.
The machine was still incomplete. Yet already, the earth had begun to answer him.