Carved into the cast-iron surface of the camshaft bearing cap in precise block letters were the characters EJV16 ORIGINAL. Below them, a date from 15 years earlier. And below the date, a serial number that matched the engine's original commissioning tag.
Earl Jackson's signature, hidden inside the machine he built in a place that would only be visible if someone removed the valve cover using his specific bolt sequence. A sequence that was not documented in any version of Grant's blueprints.
Because Grant had never known it existed.
The bay erupted. Not in laughter this time, in noise. Voices overlapping. Engineers talking over each other. Someone said, "Oh my God." Someone else said, "He signed it."
Derek stepped back from the engine and stared at Grant with his mouth open.
Hayes looked at the engraving for a long moment. He ran his thumb along the carved letters without touching them.
Then he straightened up and turned to face Grant Whitmore.
"Mr. Whitmore," Hayes said. "The original designer of this engine signed his work inside the machine with a date that predates your published blueprints by three weeks."
He paused.
"Would you like to explain how your name ended up on Earl Jackson's engine?"
Grant's face was white. Not red. White. The kind of white that comes when blood leaves a man's face entirely.
His mouth moved, but no words came.
Derek slowly put his phone down on the tool cart. He took a step away from Grant, then another. The other engineers followed.
One by one, the circle that had surrounded Avery an hour ago reformed. But now it surrounded Grant.
Avery stood beside the Titan. Her father's notebook was open in her hands, oil on her fingers.
She did not say a word. She did not need to.
The evidence was carved in iron.
It had been waiting there for 15 years. Patient as the man who left it.
She looked up at the ceiling of Bay 12. The same ceiling her father had stared at for 13 years while he mopped the floor beneath it.
"I hear you, Dad," she whispered.
Nobody heard her, but the Titan did.
Commander Hayes looked at Avery. "Can you fix it?"
Avery looked at the Titan. Fifteen years of silence. Fifteen years of dust and failed diagnostics and engineers who never understood what they were looking at. Fifteen years since the last person who loved this machine walked away with a mop in his hand.
"Yes, sir," she said. "I can fix it."