Two Western men are sent to work far away from home, tasked with paving a road the length of a country. The country is dangerous and largely lawless, only just recovering from a devastating civil war, and the road will unite north and south. The road is Progress. The road is Hope. And, when it is completed, a great parade will march it end to end.

The two men follow a route from the outer villages to the capital, operating their high-tech road-building machine and bickering along the way. One man is highly experienced, reliable, focused, pausing only to sleep and eat the company-issued food. The other is chaotic, curious, forever joking with locals and breaking protocol. But when illness, corruption, and theft compromise their mission, the pair discover danger far greater than anything they had anticipated.