Victor Langston was the security guard assigned to the narrow opening between the kitchen service lane and the competition platform. He was broad-shouldered, wore a dark shirt that strained against his forearms, and had spent the morning repeating the same directions to delivery workers, camera assistants, and curious spectators. He had also spent years being looked through by people whose money was considered more important than his labor. On most days that experience made him patient with people who could not get past a rope; today the pressure of the crowd had worn the patience thin.
Russell approached without trying to slip around him. "Excuse me," he said. "Could I speak to someone supervising the engine test? I think I can help."
Victor glanced toward the dock. "If you're part of the competition, you need an accreditation badge."
"I'm not part of it. I deliver fish for Captain Reeves. But I've spent ten years working on marine engines with my grandfather, and I've heard something in the start attempts that deserves checking."
Victor looked at the young man's cracked boots and the faded shirt beneath the apron. His eyes paused there a moment too long. "Kid, there are teams from five universities standing twenty feet from you, and none of them has restarted it. What makes you think you've got something they don't?"
Russell could have answered with the names of engines he had repaired, the number of years he had worked beside Earl, or the technical exam score he had kept on his phone. He knew all those things might sound like inventions in the mouth of a fish delivery worker. Instead he said, "They've been checking the controller against itself. I think at least one of the signals going into it is wrong, and another problem is making the safety lockout real. I don't want to interfere. I want five minutes to confirm it."
Victor listened longer than he had intended. Russell did not have the restless confidence of a teenager who wanted attention. He spoke like someone who knew the difference between a suspicion and a diagnosis, and that distinction made Victor hesitate. After a moment he lifted his radio and described the request to the competition platform.
Thornton answered so loudly that nearby spectators turned. "The fish delivery kid? Absolutely not. We're not putting some dock worker inside an eighty-five-million-dollar yacht because he thinks he heard a funny noise. Get him out of the area."
Victor lowered the radio. "You heard him. I'm sorry."
Russell stared past him. A fresh attempt was beginning aboard the Sovereign, and the same irregular sequence traveled across the water. There was the impatient mechanical chirp, the uneven cycling, and the abrupt cutoff. He felt almost physically drawn toward it, the way he had been drawn to Earl's first test motor at eight years old.
"Just ask him to look at the older exhaust inspection notes," he said. "Or the high point of the secondary coolant loop. If I never go aboard, at least have somebody check those."