His name was Grant Faulner, and he came with a reputation that preceded him chief engineer for one of the largest custom vehicle manufacturers on the West Coast. a man who'd been featured in three different magazines for solving mechanical problems that had stumped entire engineering teams. He shook Marcus' hand with the firm practice grip of someone who was used to being the smartest man in every room he entered. I heard about your situation, Grant said. I have to admit I was skeptical when I read the headline. A motorcycle that runs perfectly for exactly 60 seconds and then simply stops.
That's not how machines fail, Mr. Hail. Machines fail because of causes. Find the cause, fix the cause. That's what everyone's told me, Marcus said.
So far, nobody's found the cause. Nobody's had my equipment. Grant gestured toward the SUV where two assistants were already unloading a trailer full of a technology that made Victor Cole's hospital-grade case look like a child's toy. Give me until tomorrow evening. Marcus gave him the garage.
He gave him quiet. He gave him everything Grant Faulner asked for and watched for the second time in four days. A confident man's certainty slowly curdle into something closer to panic. By tomorrow evening, Grant Faulner was standing in the same spot Victor Cole had stood, using almost the exact same words, except his voice had none of the composure Victors had at least started with. "I don't understand this," Grant said, and there was something almost frightened in it.
"Now a man confronting the limits of everything he thought he knew. I have run every test, every single one. This motorcycle should not function according to any principle I have ever been trained on. And yet it functions for 60 seconds and then it simply refuses to continue. It's not damage.
It's not failure. It's like the machine is choosing to stop. Machines don't choose Grant, Marcus said more tired than angry now. I know that. Grant snapped and then caught himself exhaled, softened.
I know that. I'm sorry. I've been awake for 30 hours and I have never never encountered something I couldn't explain. Not once, not in 20 years.
He left that night without collecting a dollar and Marcus watched the tail lights of the SUV disappear down the road with a feeling that sat somewhere between despair and something worse. The creeping suspicion that maybe Reaper had been right all along. Maybe some things once broken simply stayed broken.
That night, Dutch found him sitting alone in the garage again, same as before, hand resting on the tank of a motorcycle that refused to give up its secret. "You should sleep," Dutch said. "I should fix my bike," Marcus. Dutch sat down on an overturned crate beside him. 30 years of friendship gave him the right to say what came next without softening it.