Then he sat back and rubbed his eyes. On the wall beside the table hung a single framed photograph half in shadow. A younger Marcus. Different eyes, harder, brighter. Standing in a flight suit in front of an aircraft with no markings, no insignia, nothing to say where it had been or what it had done.
He looked at it for a moment. Then he turned off the light and went to bed because in 5 hours the alarm would ring again and there was a floor that needed mopping. The days before the investor demonstration moved fast. Falcon Dynamics filled with tension you could taste. The building crawled with government liaisons and defense consultants and men in dark suits who never gave their names.
Everything came down to a single afternoon, the day Evelyn Carter would unveil the SR-9 to the people whose money would decide whether her empire lived or died. And through all of it, invisible as furniture, Marcus Bennett kept mopping, but he was watching. Always watching. He saw the chief test pilot, a decorated veteran named Ray Delgado, come out of a closed door meeting with his jaw tight and his face pale. He saw Delgado corner Evelyn in the corridor two days before the demonstration.
And because Marcus was crouched behind a service cart replacing a floor pad 20 feet away, he heard every word. I'm not flying it, Evelyn. Ray, I said I'm not flying it. Not until the vibration's solved. I've got 2,000 hours in experimental rotorcraft, and every one of them is screaming at me right now.
Something's wrong with that mast, and your people can't tell me what. My people are the best in the country. Then your best are missing it. Delgado's voice dropped. I have a wife, Evelyn.
I have kids. I'm not dying in your prototype so you can smile for investors. There was a long silence. Then Evelyn Carter said the words that told Marcus everything he needed to know about her. Then you're done here, Ray.
Clear out your locker. You're firing me for refusing to fly an unsafe aircraft. I'm firing you for losing your nerve two days before the most important demonstration of my life. I'll find another pilot who has one. Footsteps.
A door. Silence. And behind the service cart on his knees, Marcus Bennett closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. He knew that feeling. God, he knew it.