And for the first time all week, the garage went genuinely quiet. Not the tense waiting silence of the last four days, but something closer to focus. The whole room settling into the rhythm of one boy's careful, patient hands.
Start her up, he said after several minutes. I need to see it happen while it's happening, not after. Marcus' stomach dropped. You want to run it while it's failing? That's the only way I'll know if I'm right.
Reaper, who drifted back closer against his own instructions, made a sound of pure disbelief. You want to burn through another 60 seconds of runtime on a theory? I want to burn through 60 seconds confirming a theory instead of guessing forever. Ethan said not unkindly, but firm enough that Reaper didn't push back a second time. Marcus looked at the bike for a long moment.
Eight years, three failed specialists, a $5.9 million reward sitting on the table because nobody, not one person had been able to explain why a perfect machine simply stopped every time after exactly 60 seconds. Do it, Marcus said. He climbed onto the Black Phantom himself because some part of him needed to feel it happen under his own hands one more time. Needed to be the one holding the throttle when the truth finally showed itself. Ethan knelt beside the engine thermal scanner.
In one hand, multimeter leads clipped to two points along the wiring harness he'd identified minutes earlier. "Whenever you're ready," Ethan said. Marcus hit the starter. The engine roared to life that same beautiful, healthy sound that had fooled everyone for four straight days into believing nothing was wrong. Ethan's eyes were locked on the thermal scanner's display, watching numbers climb, watching color shift.
Talk to me, Marcus called over the noise. What are you seeing? Temperatures climbing exactly where I thought it would. Ethan's voice was tight with concentration. 30 seconds in.
Watch the multimeter there. You see that small voltage drop? Nothing that would trip an alarm. I don't see anything wrong. That's the point.
Nothing looks wrong. 45 seconds. The crowd even pushed back 20 extra feet. had gone absolutely silent, straining to hear whatever was happening at the center of it all. Reaper's arms had uncrossed without him seeming to notice. Dutch had stopped breathing, or it felt that way.
"50 seconds," Ethan said, and something in his voice had changed. Not panic, but a kind of fierce, focused triumph, like a man watching a puzzle piece slide exactly where he knew it would. "55, here it comes." The engine died. clean, total, exactly the way it always had. For a moment, nobody moved.