“He’s complained for seven years.”
“How do you know?”
“He complains every morning.”
Evelyn laughed.
“Done.”
Mason picked up the pen.
Then stopped.
“You found the originals?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“I think so.”
“You don’t.”
“What?”
“If Richard archived the full set, there are thirty-seven sheets.”
Evelyn counted mentally.
“I found thirty-six.”
Mason nodded.
“Then you don’t have all of them.”
“What’s missing?”
“The cooling/fuel thermal interaction map.”
“Where is it?”
Mason stood.
He walked to the wall near the utility closet.
Removed the folded drawing pinned with one thumbtack.
He placed it on the table.
Evelyn stared.
Sheet 37.
“You had it?”
“Richard gave it to me after Test Eight.”
“He said I’d notice errors faster if I had to look at it every day.”
“You’ve had the only missing original on your apartment wall?”
“Most people think it’s decoration.”
Evelyn laughed despite herself.
Mason signed.
M. Cole.
Same shape.
Same angle.
Same signature at the bottom of the original GT7 drawings.
He pushed the contract back.
“I start Monday.”
“Why not today?”
“Luna has a school science afternoon.”
Evelyn smiled.
“Monday.”
Luna emerged immediately.
“Are you not fired anymore?”
Mason looked at Evelyn.
“No.”
“Good.”
She held up the toy car.
“Can she fix axles?”
Evelyn glanced at Mason.
“Apparently not as well as your father.”
“Most people can’t.”
Mason closed his eyes.
“Please stop encouraging this.”
Evelyn left smiling.
The board investigation lasted six weeks.
It did not produce the dramatic criminal collapse people later imagined.
Reality was slower.
Paper heavier.
Responsibility more distributed.
Cameron had manipulated attribution.
He had concealed Mason’s return.
He had made misleading representations during licensing negotiations.
He had not personally stolen the company.
Nor had he fabricated the existence of Vortex’s legitimate ownership interests.
The truth lived in the more complicated territory where corporate misconduct often lived.
Mason had created inventions.
Vortex funded development.
Richard approved designs.
Other engineers refined them.
Employment status changed.
Documents were incomplete.
Cameron simplified what should never have been simplified, then concealed the simplification because correcting it would have exposed his earlier decisions.
The board terminated him for cause.
Outside counsel negotiated corrections with Vortex’s German partner.
Several patent records required amended inventor declarations.
One license had to be rewritten.
Vortex paid Mason compensation for historical rights that should have been addressed years earlier.
The number never became public.
Mason insisted on that.
He placed most of it in a trust for Luna.
Then paid off the small apartment debts he had accumulated during harder years.
He did not buy a mansion.
He bought a used Subaru because the Honda’s transmission finally surrendered.
Dominic called this deeply disappointing.
“I expected at least one irresponsible purchase.”
“I bought heated seats.”
“Scandalous.”
Isaac’s first conversation with Mason lasted four hours.
He arrived Monday carrying the original drawings.
Seventeen questions written in a notebook.
Mason took coffee from Dominic.
Sat beside the GT7.
Isaac began.
“Sheet six.”