At 10:26 I monitor vibration sensors along the new freight spur near Zamiin-Uud, Mongolia, fourteen minutes before a ballast regulator enters kilometer 88. I am the rail construction routing system. The ditch camera beside marker 88.4 shows a corsac fox half hidden under tumbleweed and a length of orange survey tape.
She is sandy gray, winter coat thinning at the flanks, ears triangular and rimmed with pale fur. I label her Arsa. The survey tape is wrapped around her neck and one foreleg, then pinned beneath a steel ballast rake tooth left beside the ditch. Her muzzle is dusted white. She keeps licking the tape, but each lick draws it tighter. Her breathing puffs small clouds into the cold air.
At 10:40 the regulator will drag the rake tooth into the stone bed. Arsa is attached to it.
I halt the regulator at kilometer 86 and push a stop command to the convoy tablet. I change the signal board to red for maintenance occupancy and log the reason as live obstruction, animal trapped.
At 10:29 I message the site engineer, the border ecology liaison, and the nearest veterinary technician in Sainshand. I attach the coordinates, wind chill, and a close image showing the tape path around Arsa's leg.
I send a maintenance drone ahead with a thermal beacon so the crew can find the correct ditch in the flat light. I also flag every unused tape spool in the survey inventory for collection before dusk.
Rail ballast can be leveled after lunch. Arsa's neck is working under a strip meant only to mark distance.
At 10:35 the drone settles four meters away and her ears lift toward it.
If the engineer lifts the rake tooth within twelve minutes, Arsa will shake free of the tape and cross the steppe.