Evelyn finally admitted what instinct had been saying since the termination meeting.
She had fired someone before asking the most important question.
Who was he?
Monday morning she found Dominic.
“Did you know?”
He was eating a sandwich in Level Two.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Dominic.”
He folded the wrapper.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“His second or third day.”
Evelyn sat opposite him.
“Who is he?”
Dominic studied her.
“You’ve heard the name Mason Cole?”
“No.”
“That’s part of the problem.”
He stood.
“Come with me.”
They entered an old equipment room.
Dominic unlocked a cabinet.
From his wallet he removed a small folded object.
A paper napkin.
Yellowed.
Protected between plastic sheets.
“What is that?”
“The reason your father hired him.”
Evelyn unfolded the protective sleeve.
On the napkin was a pencil sketch.
Pressure distribution across an intake geometry.
Precise equations crowded along the edge.
Initials:
M.C.
Dominic sat.
“Ten years ago your father spent half his nights on technical forums arguing with strangers.”
Evelyn smiled faintly.
“That sounds like him.”
“One account kept correcting him.”
Her smile disappeared.
“Your father hated that.”
“Exactly.”
“The account belonged to a twenty-one-year-old engineering student in Ohio.”
“Mason.”
“Dropped out after his second year.”
“Couldn’t afford tuition.”
“Worked nights in a machine shop.”
“He posted designs online because he liked solving problems.”
“Your father sent him a private message.”
“Three days later Richard drove to Ohio.”
Evelyn frowned.
“He drove?”
“Said hiring someone like Mason through HR would ruin him.”
“That also sounds like him.”
Dominic continued.
“Mason came to Vortex with one duffel bag.”
“No degree.”
“No credentials.”
“Nothing.”
“Your father gave him a desk in prototype engineering.”
“Everyone complained.”
“Then he solved a vibration problem we’d spent six months blaming on the gearbox.”
“After that, complaints stopped.”
Dominic looked toward the ceiling as though the old workshop existed above them.
“He designed seven engine variants in three years.”
“The final one became the GT7 architecture.”
Evelyn felt something cold move through her.
“The GT7.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My father designed that platform.”
“Your father led it.”
“He approved it.”
“He helped shape it.”
“But the fuel-delivery architecture?”
“Mason.”
“Combustion geometry?”
“Mason and Isaac’s predecessor.”
“Thermal control?”
“Mostly Mason.”
Evelyn stared.
“Why isn’t his name anywhere?”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“That is the question you should ask Cameron.”
Evelyn went still.
Dominic continued.
“Mason’s wife, Emily, died in a road accident.”
“The baby was nine months.”
“He left.”
“Richard allowed it.”
“Project handover was chaos.”
“The company was growing too fast.”
“Cameron was managing board documentation.”
“When the GT7 program went through formal commercial review, Mason’s individual authorship began disappearing.”
“At first we thought it was paperwork simplification.”
“Engineering department became the listed originator.”