The text from Yusuf came through at four in the morning, Lagos time, which meant Zarina was awake to see it arrive in real time — she'd taken to sleeping badly this close to the panel, waking every few hours to check messages out of habit rather than necessity, the specific insomnia of someone whose entire life had compressed itself into a nine-day countdown.
Survey complete. Aquifer depth confirms Chinedu's original readings within two percent margin. Drilling can proceed as scheduled.
She read it twice, sitting up in the dark, and felt something in her chest unclench that had been clenched for three weeks without her fully registering how tightly. The interim survey had worked. Her own notes, built from eighteen months of pattern recognition and Chinedu's careful early fieldwork, had h
