The groan turned into a metallic shriek, followed by a thunderous snap. Mikhail ducked instinctively as the conveyor system's belt whipped loose and slammed against the wall, sending a cloud of rust and dust into the air.
"Scheiße!" Lars shouted, bolting forward with surprising speed for a man of his age. The screeching gears ground to a halt, the silence that followed somehow more ominous than the sound.
Mikhail coughed and waved away the dust. "Is anyone back there?" he called out.
"No one touches that part of the line," Lars grunted. "Too brittle. Too old." He crouched beside the cracked tension housing, then looked up at Mikhail with an accusatory squint. "Your dream just coughed up its first lung."
Mikhail knelt beside him, eyes scanning the torn belt, the stripped teeth on the main drive gear, and the half-rotted tension brace still dangling from its bolts. His stomach turned, but his voice stayed level. "How long was this running?"
"On and off since the Eighties. We swapped motors, not guts." Lars jabbed a wrench at the gearbox. "She's not built for hope. She's built for shortcuts."
Mikhail didn't answer. Instead, he pulled off his jacket, slung it on a pipe, and climbed the side ladder of the adjacent system to get a clearer view. The frame wobbled beneath his boots. At the top, he crouched low and inspected the line's alignment. "The crossbeam on Line 2 is still good," he called down. "If we can cannibalize that idler pulley and rethread the slack, we might get this one functional."
"'Might'?" Lars echoed, folding his arms. "You're betting the whole plant on duct tape and a prayer."
"No," Mikhail said. "I'm betting that if we fix what we can ourselves, it shows we're not waiting for someone else to come clean it up."
That earned a grunt, not quite agreement, but not dismissal either.
They worked under yellowed work lights and the buzz of dying ballasts. Lars passed up tools while Mikhail stabilized the cracked frame with makeshift weld clamps and bolted the scavenged pulley into place. His shirt clung to him, soaked with sweat. Each bolt was a negotiation. Every adjustment is a small vote of confidence.
After two hours, Lars hit the main switch. The belt stuttered then caught. It didn't purr, but it ran. A slow, angry rhythm. It will hold for now.
Mikhail climbed down, grease smudged along his cheek. Lars handed him a cloth.
"You're not the usual type," Lars said, watching him. "I've seen suits panic when a stapler jams."
"I wasn't born in a suit," Mikhail said simply.
Lars jerked his head toward the office. "Let's talk before this whole place shakes itself apart."
They entered the cramped, lamplit office, still smelling of rust and old coffee. Mikhail unrolled a large blueprint across the desk. The plant layout, equipment retrofit paths, and cash flow schedule were all neatly marked in red and black.
Lars glanced at it, then looked at him sidelong. "Alright, city man. Sell it to me. But no fantasies. Just numbers."
Mikhail picked up a pencil, tapped the production yield estimates, and began to speak.
The pencil scratched lightly as Mikhail wrote figures on the margin beside the yield estimate.
"Conservative production numbers, two shifts. Output should cover capital expenses by week twelve, provided we hit our limestone targets," he said, eyes steady across the table.
Lars leaned in, his thick fingers curling over the edge of the blueprint. "You expect me to sink machines, crew, and resources based solely on the hope your numbers aren't fantasy?"
"No hope. Just math," Mikhail replied. "Look." He drew a tight arc around the excavation zone. "Drainage is the weak point. You know that. So I've built in a reinforced trench budget here. We pay up front, nowhere to hide it later."
Lars grunted. "And what happens if a flood still shuts us down?"
Mikhail didn't blink. "We divert. It's built into the workflow. Three-day buffer before it touches production."
"You sound like a man who's been buried under a bad estimate before."
"I was," Mikhail admitted. "And I don't plan to repeat it."
The office light flickered above them. The fan hummed and whined, cycling stale air over the stack of permits beside Lars. He eyed them, then leaned back in his chair with a creak, arms folded across his chest.
"And if I walk?" he asked. "You gonna lay bricks yourself?"
"If you walk," Mikhail said, "you'll lose the only team that knows how to make this plant run without sinking into the same debt trap that buried it the first time. Your crews need our structure. Our plan needs your boots."
Lars stared at him, unblinking. Then reached for the edge of the blueprint. He turned it, scanning notes Mikhail had scribbled in sharp black ink. "You built this entire plan already."
Mikhail gave a single nod. "Everything except trust. That has to be earned tonight."
A long pause. Then Lars let out a dry laugh, one without warmth, but not without respect. "You're not an idiot. That's a relief."
He pulled a pad toward himself and scratched out a counter-offer in thick handwriting. "Fifty-fifty split. You get the books, I get the field. Material decisions are joint. You don't touch payroll, I don't touch procurement. Fair?"
Mikhail read it. He adjusted a line. "Contingency fund is shared."
Lars squinted. "Fine."
Mikhail extended his hand, firm and unflinching. Lars looked at it. After a beat, he clasped it, rough and dry.
"Try not to screw this up, DuPont," Lars muttered. "You might be too smart for your own good."
"Better than being blind," Mikhail replied.
As if summoned by the tension, the overhead light dimmed and blinked out. The fan stuttered to a halt.
The two men stood at once.
Lars grabbed the flashlight from the desk drawer. "That power line again?"
Mikhail stepped toward the window. Outside, the plant yard was dark—except for a flicker of orange near the generator shed.
Lars narrowed his eyes. "That's not a line failure."
Mikhail was already reaching for the door.
"Let's see what just lit up," he said, stepping into the dark.