“Why didn’t you stop me last night?”
Dominic smiled faintly.
“Would you have stopped?”
“No.”
“Then why waste the walk upstairs?”
They stood quietly.
Dominic’s smile disappeared.
“Cameron knows.”
Mason’s gaze sharpened.
“About last night?”
“Security feed.”
“About me?”
Dominic hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Mason did.
Deep down, perhaps he had known from the first week.
Cameron Reed had joined Vortex shortly before Mason left.
At the time he had been director of corporate strategy, a man with little mechanical background but extraordinary talent for converting other people’s ideas into executive language.
Richard tolerated him.
Mason did not.
The two had clashed repeatedly because Cameron wanted engineering projects documented around commercial value while Mason insisted technical uncertainty had to remain visible.
“You cannot sell certainty we don’t have,” Mason told him once.
Cameron responded, “Investors do not purchase uncertainty.”
Richard, overhearing, said:
“Then find better investors.”
Cameron never forgot humiliation.
Mason had not thought about that conversation in years.
At 7:30, Isaac entered Workshop One.
He saw the GT7 powered up for system verification.
For a moment he assumed one of his engineers had continued working overnight.
Then he saw the readings.
Pressure variance: 0.01 percent below target fluctuation.
Better than the car had recorded all season.
“What changed?”
Nobody answered.
A junior technician held up the bag.
Isaac read Mason’s note.
M.C.
His eyes narrowed.
“Who is M.C.?”
At 8:05, Cameron entered Evelyn Vance’s office carrying a tablet and a folder.
Evelyn was already working.
She had learned from her father that executives who arrived last eventually believed the company began when they entered the room.
Richard Vance came to work before most cleaners.
Evelyn had inherited the habit.
Not all of his habits were useful.
That one was.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Internal security violation.”
Cameron placed the tablet before her.
Video played.
2:16 a.m.
Mason crossing the yellow line.
Entering Workshop One.
Opening his tools.
Evelyn recognized him.
“Maintenance.”
“Level Two.”
“What was he doing?”
“Performing an unauthorized intervention on the GT7.”
She watched.
The footage had no useful close-up of his hands.
Only the confidence.
No hesitation.
No searching for instructions.
He moved around the car like the bay belonged to memory.
“How long?”
“Eight hours.”
“Eight?”
“Approximately.”
“And?”
Cameron opened the folder.
“This is a serious breach.”
Evelyn looked up.
“I asked what happened to the car.”
Cameron paused.
“It is currently operational.”
Evelyn’s eyebrows lifted.
“Operational?”
“Isaac’s team is verifying.”
“After eleven days?”
“That is not the point.”
“It seems relevant.”
Cameron sat.
“Evelyn, we are under enhanced insurance scrutiny after the Harmon test incident.”
She knew.
Six months earlier a test component failed at low speed.
Nobody was injured.
Still, regulators and insurers demanded stricter access control.
Cameron continued.
“If we allow a maintenance employee without engineering authorization to dismantle competition systems because the outcome happened to be favorable, we establish a precedent that destroys every safety protocol we implemented.”
“He fixed it.”
“We don’t yet know what he did.”
“Then find out.”
“We should terminate him first.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Why first?”