The brass plaque outside Bay 12 that bore his name had already been removed. The bolt holes sat empty, waiting.
He had spent 15 years standing on the shoulders of a man he destroyed. Now the ground beneath him was gone.
Derek Simmons faced consequences of his own making.
The live stream he started during Avery's public humiliation had been saved, downloaded, and shared before he could delete it. It showed Derek calling Avery a janitor's daughter playing engineer. It showed him laughing. It showed him pointing his camera at a young Black woman surrounded by men who did nothing to help her.
Hargrove's human resources department received 11 formal complaints within 48 hours. Three were from employees who had witnessed Derek's behavior over the years but had never spoken up.
The video gave them the evidence and the courage to come forward.
Derek was placed on unpaid administrative leave pending a workplace discrimination investigation.
The $40 million Navy contract was signed the following Monday. Commander Hayes personally oversaw the paperwork.
The contract specified that Avery Jackson would serve as lead technical consultant on the Titan V16 restoration program with full security clearance and compensation equivalent to a GS-13 federal pay grade.
The news spread the way these stories spread, not through press releases, but through people.
The live stream video that Derek had meant as mockery became something else entirely. Viewers watched a young Black woman stand silently while a room full of men laughed at her. Then they watched her fix the machine those men had declared dead.
Comments piled up by the thousands. Strangers typed through tears. The video reached two million views in three days, four million by the end of the week.
The headline in the Port Calloway Gazette was simple: JANITOR'S DAUGHTER SAVES $40 MILLION NAVY CONTRACT AFTER ENGINEERS GIVE UP.
The story was picked up by national outlets. People who had never heard of Hargrove Shipyard now knew two names: Avery Jackson and Earl Jackson.
For the first time in 15 years, someone was telling the truth about who built the Titan.
A petition circulated among Hargrove employees, not management, but the welders, machinists, and pipefitters who worked with their hands. They asked that the brass plaque outside Bay 12 be replaced with the correct name.
A clipboard passed from station to station, grease-stained fingers signing one after another. Every name in the yard within two days, including three signatures from engineers who had left.
Three months later, a new brass plaque was mounted outside Bay 12.
It read: TITAN V16 - DESIGNED BY EARL JACKSON, MASTER ENGINEER.
Below it, in smaller letters: RESTORED BY AVERY JACKSON.
Avery stood in front of it on a Tuesday morning, the same day of the week her father died. She wore a Hargrove engineering badge with her own name on it.
Her father's notebook sat in her desk drawer, ten feet from the engine that was running again.
She touched the plaque. The brass was warm from the morning sun.
"Machines don't lie, Dad," she whispered. "And neither did you."