"Then we'd better start there," he said. "They know which parts of the operation are safe to challenge and which parts will cost them a career. I want an independent channel for them to tell us."
She paused. "And what do you want for yourself?"
He considered the question more carefully than he had expected to. A personal apology was welcome, but it would not undo the way an entire cabin had watched him be treated as a potential fraud. A large settlement might make a headline; a public confrontation might offer a moment of satisfaction. Neither would answer why Sarah's first assumption had survived every piece of evidence placed in front of her.
"I want to board an airplane next year without somebody having to know my biography before they respect the ticket," he said. "And I want that to be true for the person behind me, too."
Maria was quiet for a moment. Then she told him she would begin compiling the proper contacts. Marcus looked through the lounge window at aircraft moving toward takeoff and wondered how many of the people inside had endured small indignities that never became a recording. That thought stayed with him when Leonard called with the first legal assessment of the investment's governance rights.
The assessment was cautious. Chen Industries could request a board-level compliance review under the investment documents, seek corrective measures through the proper committees, vote its shares, and reconsider certain commercial relationships. It could not simply telephone a captain and revoke his pilot certificate, order union employees dismissed, or force securities transactions to occur because the internet expected instant consequences. The company could support independent accountability, but the work would have to survive scrutiny long after the camera crews were gone.
"That's what I want," Marcus told Leonard. "Something that will survive scrutiny."
He then asked for the oldest passenger-treatment reports Atlantic had provided during due diligence. They had been tucked into a risk appendix behind fuel hedging and maintenance costs, the sort of material directors often skimmed because it did not appear to determine the next quarter's financial results. Marcus had flagged those reports six months earlier. In the calm after Flight 447's departure, he was determined to read them again without accepting the earlier explanations merely because he had once wanted the investment to succeed. The first report Leonard sent had been prepared nearly a year before Marcus invested.
It described passenger complaints about premium-cabin reassignment, denied boarding, alleged discriminatory treatment, and unclear explanations for crew-requested removals. Some cases involved people of color, some involved passengers with disabilities, and others involved travelers whom employees had judged unlikely to be influential. The details were anonymized, but the language was strikingly repetitive: customer became argumentative, reassignment required for operational needs, safety concerns raised after refusal.