“Good.”
“They’ll remove everything except the secure terminal.”
“Why?”
“In case you accept.”
“That sounds manipulative.”
“It’s efficient.”
“Dangerous word.”
She laughed.
Then paused.
“You know what’s strange?”
“What?”
“When I was trying to decide whether to fly down there, I looked up your address on satellite imagery.”
Isaac stared at the underside of the truck.
“I looked three times.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t reconcile the man who wrote that report with the place I was looking at.”
Isaac was quiet.
Eleanor continued.
“I thought the database was wrong.”
“My father worked here.”
“I know that now.”
“He never finished high school.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“He could hear a bearing failing from across the shop.”
Eleanor said nothing.
Isaac continued.
“He used to say an engine doesn’t need anyone to believe in it to run.”
“That sounds like you.”
“I got it from him.”
A pause.
Eleanor asked:
“What are you going to do?”
Isaac looked toward the open garage door.
Late Texas sunlight turned the gravel gold.
Across the road, Dale Hutchins stood outside his shop but did not wave.
A dog trotted along the ditch.
Nothing about Harlow looked like the beginning of anything important.
That was one of the things Isaac liked about it.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Fair.”
“The planning meeting is in twelve days.”
“I know.”
“I put your name on the agenda.”
“That seems premature.”
“You can tell them no in person.”
Isaac smiled.
“Still manipulative.”
“Still efficient.”
He heard papers shifting on her end.
Then she spoke more softly.
“Isaac.”
“Yes?”
“You don’t owe aerospace anything.”
He went still.
“You know that, right?”
He did not answer immediately.
Eleanor continued.
“You don’t owe us a comeback story.”
“You don’t owe Nexora forgiveness.”
“You don’t owe the profession proof.”
“If you stay in Harlow and fix trucks, what you did still matters.”
Isaac looked at the tools.
That was the first time anyone had said it to him that way.
Most people assumed accepting the Houston role would complete the story.
Engineer betrayed.
Engineer proven right.
Engineer restored.
Clean arc.
Life was rarely that cooperative.
“What if I want both?”
he asked.
Eleanor paused.
“Both what?”
“Harlow and Houston.”
She was silent for a second.
Then:
“That sounds like an engineering problem.”
Isaac smiled.
“You have twelve days.”
The following morning, the logistics team removed most of the equipment.
Adrian came with them.
He helped coil cables.
Then stood awkwardly beside the workbench.
“What?”
Isaac asked.
Adrian shrugged.
“I don’t know how to say this without sounding ridiculous.”
“Try.”
“I learned more here in ten days than I did in some graduate classes.”
“That does sound ridiculous.”
Adrian laughed.
“I knew you’d say that.”
He looked around.
“You staying?”
“Some.”
“You going?”
“Some.”
“That’s not an answer.”