Grant answered before Evan could.
“Final verification.”
He gestured casually toward Evan.
“Mid-level technician role. Slightly above market on compensation, but we inherited some inefficiencies.”
He smiled apologetically.
As though Evan were an old machine taking up floor space.
Evan heard every word.
He did not look up.
He finished tightening a fitting.
Recorded the reading.
Then wrote the date in his notebook.
Mara watched him.
“That’s it?”
“What?”
“He just called you an inefficiency in front of investors.”
“No.”
“He basically did.”
Evan closed the notebook.
“He said what he thinks.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t look mad.”
“I’m working.”
That was Evan’s method of anger.
He documented it and kept moving.
The first serious warning arrived in November.
A lot of 240 pressure sensors came through final calibration.
Automated testing cleared the first thirty units.
Evan tested number thirty-one.
It passed.
He ran it again under a higher thermal load.
The offset moved.
Small.
But wrong.
He tested another.
Same shift.
Another.
Same.
By lunch, Evan had isolated a thermal drift that appeared only under specific operating conditions.
The automated system was not catching it because Grant’s cost-reduction initiative had shortened the final validation cycle.
Evan documented the affected lot.
Brought the numbers to the Thursday production meeting.
Grant interrupted him before the third sentence.
“Did the automated system pass the lot?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we discussing it?”