You have got to be joking. She said. Ms. Carter. Daniel started.
We need 5 minutes. You need to be unemployed is what you need both of you. Do you have any idea what kind of day I'm having? Do you have the faintest concept of what's happening in this building right now? A whistleblower complaint, Marcus said.
Evelyn went still. The room went very, very quiet. What did you say? She said softly. A safety complaint went to the government last night, Marcus said, and his voice was calm.
And it was the calm that reached her, the way his calm always reached her against her will. You can't cancel tomorrow's flight because canceling looks like guilt. You can't fail tomorrow's flight because failing ends everything. So, you're going to fly it, and you're praying nothing goes wrong. That's the box you're standing in right now.
Am I close? Evelyn Carter stared at the janitor in her doorway, and for the first time since she was a girl, she felt something she'd trained out of herself decades ago. She felt afraid. How do you know any of that? She whispered.
Because I've been listening for 3 weeks, Marcus said. And because I know what fear looks like on the face of someone who's used to winning. I've seen it in the mirror. He took a step into the room. Miss Carter, I'm not here to threaten you.
I'm not here to embarrass you. I'm here for one reason, and it's the same reason your engineer sent that complaint even though it might destroy him. That aircraft is going to fail tomorrow. Not might, will. And when it fails, it's not going to be an embarrassment.
It's going to be a funeral. My engineers, your engineers are looking for a broken part, Marcus said. There is no broken part. The problem isn't a part. The problem is the physics.