Heads turned. Russ's face went the color of ash. Cole, Russ hissed, stepping toward him. What did I just tell you about? Someone shouldn't fly that helicopter today, Ethan said louder now.
Because once the first word was out, the rest came like water through a broken dam. There's a crack in the tail rotor coupling. I saw it Tuesday. I told Petrov, "It hasn't been fixed." For a moment, nobody spoke.
The documentary crews camera slowly panned toward the man in the gray janitor's uniform standing awkwardly near a mop bucket, and Victoria Hayes turned her expression flickering between confusion and something colder. "I'm sorry," she said. "Who is this?" "He's custodial staff," Ms. Hayes. Russ stammered, already moving to physically insert himself between Ethan and the CEO.
I apologize. He has no business being near the No, Victoria said, holding up a hand. Something in her had shifted from irritation to a kind of dangerous curiosity. The look of a predator that had just noticed something interesting scurry across the floor. Let him finish.
You said there's a crack in the tail rotor. Yes, ma'am. Right at station 340 where the drive shaft meets. Yeah. And how?
Victoria interrupted her voice, sharpening into something the whole hangar could hear now. Would you know that? Are you an aerospace engineer, a licensed mechanic? Do you hold any certification whatsoever that qualifies you to evaluate a $40 million experimental aircraft? Ethan's jaw tightened.
No, ma'am. Then what exactly are you? The question hung in the air like smoke. I clean the hangar floors, Ethan said quietly. One laughter broke out, not everywhere, but enough.
A ripple of it from the investors, a smirk from Petrov standing near the tailboom. a barely suppressed snort from one of the junior engineers filming the moment on his phone for the internal Slack channel that would later, against every rule in the employee handbook, leak the video to the entire company by lunchtime. Victoria didn't laugh. Not yet. Instead, she walked toward him, heels clicking against the polished concrete until she was close enough that Ethan could smell her perfume. something expensive, floral, entirely out of place in a building that smelled permanently of jet fuel and machine grease. "Let me understand this," she said.
And now her voice carried pitched for the cameras for the investors, for every single person who'd stopped what they were doing to watch. a janitor. Someone who has never flown an aircraft, never built one, never studied aerodynamics a day in his life, is telling me in front of the Department of Defense, in front of six of my largest investors, that my chief engineers and my licensed FAA mechanics have somehow missed a fatal structural defect that he alone was able to spot with a mop in his hand. I'm not saying I'm smarter than anyone," Ethan said. And his voice for the first time didn't waver. "I'm saying I saw something.
I've seen it before. I know what metal fatigue looks like when it's about to fail." "Is that so?" Victoria's smile spread slow and sharp. The smile of someone who had just found the perfect way to end an embarrassing interruption and turn it into content.
She turned to the documentary crew, to the investors to the room. "You know what? I think we have a real opportunity here. A skeptic. Someone with the courage to stand up and question the science.
I respect that. I do. Ms. Hayes. Russ tried again. No.
No. Let the man speak his mind. She turned back to Ethan and something in her eyes glittered with an energy that felt less like respect and more like performance. Here's what I propose. If you are so certain, so absolutely certain that this aircraft is unsafe, why don't you prove it?
Ethan felt his stomach drop. Ma'am, fly it. A gasp rippled through the crowd. Somebody actually laughed out loud, a bark of disbelief. "I'm not a pilot," Ethan said.
"Of course you're not," Victoria said sweetly. And now she was performing fully playing to the room like a stage actress who'd found her spotlight. So you won't fly it because you can't because none of what you just said has anything to do with real expertise, real training, real engineering. It's fear dressed up as instinct. And I understand that machines like this are frightening if you don't understand them.
She turned back to the crowd, spreading her arms theatrically. But you know what? Let's make this interesting, Mr. Cole, Russ muttered, mortified. Ethan Cole, Mr. Cole, I'll make you a deal right here in front of everyone. Victoria's eyes glinted with something between mockery and showmanship.
The confidence of a woman who had never once in her life been proven wrong in a room she controlled. You fly this helicopter right now in front of all of us and prove your little theory about the tail rotor and if you're brave enough to actually get in that cockpit and take off. She paused for effect. The room held its breath. I'll marry you.
The hangar exploded into laughter. It wasn't gentle laughter. It was the kind that rolled through a crowd like a wave. Ugly and loud investors doubling over engineers slapping each other's backs. someone actually applauding with slow, sarcastic claps. The documentary camera swung wildly between Victoria's triumphant smile and Ethan's still unreadable face.
Petrov was laughing so hard he had to lean against the tailboom. The same tail boom with the crack nobody would listen about. "Oh, come on everybody," Victoria said, riding the wave milking it. "Don't be shy. I think that's a fair trade for a man with this much conviction.
Unless, of course, He's all talk. Someone shouted from the back and the laughter surged again. Russ grabbed Ethan's arm, his voice a desperate whisper. Cole apologized right now. Say you misspoke.
Say you're sorry. And maybe maybe you still have a job when this is over. Don't make this worse. Ethan looked at him. Then he looked past him at Victoria standing there in her cream blazer with her arms crossed and her smile stretched wide.