"The secondary fuel rail. It's sitting about four degrees off true. That's why your pressure readings are inconsistent. And I think your ignition timing is swapped on cylinders nine through 12."
The bay went quiet. A welder on the catwalk above stopped his torch.
Grant took a step forward. His face was calm, but his neck had turned red.
"Let me make something perfectly clear. You are not an engineer. You are not a technician. You are not even an employee of this shipyard. You are the daughter of a man who cleaned toilets for a living, and you are standing in a restricted area making claims about a machine you have never touched."
"My father touched it," Avery said. "He built it."
Grant's jaw tightened. "Your father was a janitor. That is all he was. That is all anyone here remembers."
He turned to the security guard. "Escort her out. If she comes back, call the police."
Derek pulled out his phone and pointed it at Avery. "This is going to be good," he said loud enough for the engineers behind him to hear.
Laughter, not loud, but enough. The kind of laughter that tells you exactly where you stand.
One of the engineers in the back cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey, maybe she can unclog the toilet in the break room while she's here."
The laughter got louder.
Derek zoomed his camera in on Avery's face. "Make sure you get the tears," someone whispered behind him.
A technician near the tool rack shook his head but said nothing. He looked at his boots.
Everyone in that bay made a choice in that moment. Some chose cruelty. Some chose silence. Not one chose her.
Avery looked at the phone. She looked at the engineers holding their coffee cups. She looked at the Titan sitting cold and silent under the lights.
Fifteen years of silence. Fifteen years of her father swallowing his pride, mopping floors ten feet from the engine he created, watching men who stole his work fail to understand it.
She did not raise her voice. She did not argue. She picked up her cardboard box and walked toward the gate.
But that night, she came back.
Earl's old employee badge still worked. The night security system had never been updated. Avery slipped into Bay 12 at 2:00 in the morning with a flashlight and her father's notebook.
The bay was different in the dark. No voices. No laughter. Just the Titan and the low hum of the overhead ventilation.
She placed her palm flat on the engine block. The metal was cold, dead cold, but familiar. She had touched scale models of this engine since she was eight years old. Her father had built them from scrap parts in their garage, teaching her every system, every tolerance, every secret the Titan held.
She spent four hours with the engine. She checked the fuel rail alignment. She traced the ignition wiring harness. She opened the timing cover and examined the cam phasing mechanism.
Everything matched what she suspected. Everything matched what her father had written in his notebook 15 years ago.
Three critical errors. Three problems that every engineer had missed because they were all working from Grant's blueprints, the copies. The incomplete copies that were missing the details only the original designer would know.
At 6:00 in the morning, Avery left the bay.