"Mr. Richardson, this aircraft is being examined by experts who designed the systems you're asking about. You repair little radio boxes in a rented shop, I assume. That's respectable work, but it doesn't qualify you to walk in and contradict the people responsible for a ninety-million-dollar aircraft."
Caleb felt the familiar old humiliation, but not only humiliation. He felt the sadness that came whenever someone with genuine knowledge used it as an excuse to stop learning. His father had loved answering a question from anybody who asked it honestly, including the youngest apprentice or the oldest farmer who did not know the name of a component but knew what had happened when the machine failed.
"I'm not claiming to know more about the entire aircraft than everybody in this room," Caleb said. "I'm saying you can be brilliant about ninety-nine systems and still miss the one you're not looking at. When the status display says healthy and the machine doesn't perform, I start by asking whether the status display is telling the whole story."
Richard folded his arms. "And this remarkable insight comes from fixing radios?"
"It comes from reading what happened instead of asking the machine how it feels."
Somebody laughed under his breath. Noah did not. He was staring at Caleb because the idea had begun to make terrible sense. On the first morning, he had asked to examine the raw transitions. He remembered Richard saying there was no point once the installation had verified, that looking further would only waste the hours of the people working on the engine. Noah had gone to the fuel system because the instruction came from a man who had spent longer in aviation than Noah had been alive.
"Actually," Noah began, "I suggested something like that on day one."
Richard looked at him sharply. "Bennett, you are not helping."
"I'm not trying to cause trouble," Caleb said. "I'm delivering a component. You can ignore what I said and get back to work."
But a new voice cut through the room before he could move. "I don't want to ignore it."
Victoria Hayes had entered from the glass-walled offices overlooking the floor. Her hair was pinned back, her tailored navy suit was immaculate, and exhaustion had sharpened her face into something nearly severe. She walked past Richard without acknowledging him and stopped three feet from Caleb. From her office, she had heard most of the conversation through the hangar's monitoring system. She had also been watching Noah Bennett, the young engineer who was standing beside the stranger rather than hiding behind his supervisor.
"Say it again," she told Caleb. "What is the difference between the green screen and the record you want?"
He looked at her for a moment. He recognized her immediately from the business magazines on the airport reception desk. To him, she did not look like an icon or a villain. She looked like a woman who had spent eight nights wondering whether the next telephone call would take away something she could not replace.
"The green screen tells you what the system believes about itself," he said. "The raw record tells you what it actually did. Those are usually the same. Usually isn't always."