You just gathered your tools and left." "Yeah." "What were you thinking?" He took a moment with it. "I was thinking that you were going to feel bad about it later," he said. "Not because I thought you were a good person or a bad person. Just the report was already in the system. The truth was already documented and you were going to find it and you were going to feel exactly as bad as you should feel.
Were you angry? Yeah, he said, "But it was it was a specific kind of angry, not at you exactly. At the fact that it was possible, that somebody could walk into a room and decide that fast and be that wrong and have enough authority that nobody could stop it." He paused. I've seen that before, not directed at me. I've seen it directed at other people and I've watched what it did to them and I've thought for years that if it ever happened to me I would I don't know fight it more visibly.
He stopped. But when it actually happens you just pick up your tools because there's nothing else to do. Sloan said because there's nothing else to do. He agreed. And because Mia had school in 4 hours and I needed to go home and sleep.
She looked at her desk for a moment. I'll see you tomorrow. She said yeah. He said, "You will." Quote, "The hangar held approximately 200 people when it was full, which it had never been in Sloan's memory for any purpose other than a crisis or a very large delivery event. On the Friday morning she had scheduled, it came close to that." The main floor was crowded in the specific way of spaces that weren't designed for standing audiences.
People found positions near equipment and along the walls and in front of open bay doors, and the elevated walkways along the east side held a row of people who had come down from the upper level offices when the word had gone around that attendance was not technically mandatory, but was also not something people were choosing to miss. She had asked that the AR7 meridian be moved to the adjacent bay and that the space in front of the main floor be kept clear. She hadn't explained why. The team had done it without asking. She stood at the front of the room near the center bay without a podium or a microphone.
The hangar's acoustics were serviceable at full voice, and she didn't want anything between her and the room. Caleb was near the back, as she had predicted he would be. He'd come in through the side entrance and stationed himself at the edge of the crowd with his arms at his sides. Garrett, she noticed, was standing beside him, which she had not expected, and she was glad of it. She did not look at Caleb when she began.
She looked at the room. 7 months ago, she said, and the room adjusted to the sound of her voice and went still. I walked into this building at 7 in the morning and found a man asleep on that floor. She pointed at the concrete. A number of eyes followed her finger.