The derelict factory site, once a silent scar on the city's edge, now hummed with a different, more purposeful kind of energy. The initial, brutalist phase of demolition was complete. The rubble was gone, the contaminated soil was being carefully excavated and hauled away for remediation, and the skeletal structure of the old main building stood exposed against the sky, its steel bones bleached by the sun and scoured by decades of neglect. It was a canvas of staggering scale, and the sheer magnitude of the task ahead was both terrifying and exhilarating.
Adrian stood with Amelia, Leo, Liam, and Sofia at the edge of the cleared site. The air smelled of damp earth and diesel fuel from the excavators. The scale model of the future Covington Foundation Campus, which now occupied a place of honor in the V&C shop, felt impossibly small and idealistic compared to the raw, industrial reality before them.
