The left engine began to spool. The whine climbed steadily in pitch until it filled the hangar. Then the right engine joined, and the two sounds merged into one continuous, balanced roar.
The idle stabilized.
Smooth. Even. Synchronized.
No stutter. No micro-interruption. No eight-second cycle.
Every diagnostic screen turned green.
Thirty seconds passed, the point where the old instability usually became obvious. Nothing changed.
Sixty seconds.
Ninety seconds.
The point where every prior attempt had ended in shutdown came and went.
The engines held.
Two minutes. Three minutes. Five minutes.
Faith watched the nacelle instead of the screens. She listened.
Ten minutes passed, and both engines were still running flawlessly.
Neil removed his cap and pressed it to his face. His shoulders shook once before he turned away, unwilling to let the room see the emotion clearly.
Denise Campbell watched from behind a partition near the entrance. She had slipped into the hangar through a side door without announcing herself. Her hand covered her mouth, and her eyes were wet.
Dr. Sutter closed her notebook for the last time. She removed her glasses, set them on the console, and nodded once.
It was the nod of a woman who had spent three decades in propulsion science and still recognized brilliance when it stood in front of her wearing a secondhand jumpsuit.
Colleen Archer whispered into her recorder, "I got it."
Preston Caldwell stood alone in the middle of the hangar. He had not moved in ten minutes. His eyes remained fixed on the engine gauges, which stayed perfect.
The person responsible was the same twenty-two-year-old homeless Black woman he had publicly degraded days earlier.