“That’s optimistic.”
“You already asked me what building.”
Isaac hung up.
For several weeks, he did nothing with the offer.
He fixed cars.
A ranch truck with a slipping transmission.
A generator from a feed store.
A church van with an electrical fault three shops had blamed on the alternator.
The fault was a damaged ground strap.
Eight-dollar part.
Isaac charged for twenty minutes.
The church treasurer tried to pay more.
He refused.
News travelled anyway.
Not official news.
Harlow news.
Somebody’s cousin knew somebody at Johnson Space Center.
Somebody saw the black SUVs.
Dale’s employee told a bartender that NASA engineers had been working from Isaac’s garage.
The bartender told Raymond.
Raymond told everyone at breakfast.
By Friday, half of Harlow believed Isaac had personally repaired a satellite with a socket wrench.
Isaac denied nothing.
Corrected almost nothing.
At the diner, a waitress asked, “So you saved NASA?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“Work.”
She rolled her eyes.
“That is the most Isaac answer possible.”
Raymond sat three stools away.
“You could at least let people be impressed.”
“They can be impressed quietly.”
Raymond laughed.
Isaac’s father would have liked that.
His father, Robert Merritt, had been a mechanic for forty-two years.
Never went to college.
Could barely explain algebra but understood load, leverage, heat, and failure intuitively.
When Isaac earned his engineering scholarship, Robert drove him to Houston in a truck with no air conditioning.
At the dormitory, he carried one suitcase upstairs.
Then stood beside the bed and said, “Remember something.”
Isaac had expected fatherly advice about hard work.
Robert pointed toward a desk fan.
“That fan doesn’t care whether you believe in electricity. It either has a complete circuit or it doesn’t.”
Isaac stared.
His father continued.
“Machines are honest. People sometimes aren’t. Learn the difference.”
Then he left.
Years later, after Isaac’s first patent, Robert framed a printed copy in the garage office.
Isaac told him it was ugly.
Robert told him nobody asked.
When Isaac returned after Nexora fired him, his father was gone, but the patent still hung crooked on the wall.
For six years, Isaac never straightened it.
One evening in October, he finally did.
He removed it.
Cleaned the glass.
Hung it level.
Then beneath it, he placed the restored engineering certification.
He stood looking at both for a long time.
Not trophies.
Coordinates.
Evidence of where he had been.
His phone buzzed.
Adrian.
Isaac answered.
“You busy?”
“Yes.”
“I have a question.”
“That usually means you’re busy too.”
“We’re looking at thermal response on a new actuator housing.”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“You want me to review something without officially agreeing to the job.”
Adrian paused.
“Yes.”
Isaac looked at the certification.
“Send it.”
Adrian laughed.
“So you’re coming?”
“I said send it.”
“That sounds like coming.”
“It sounds like email.”
Three days later, Isaac drove to Houston.
Not moved.
Drove.
He attended one planning meeting.
Eleanor had reserved a visitor badge.
The room contained twelve engineers.
Nobody introduced him as the man who saved OBSIDIAN-7.
Eleanor had understood him well enough not to.
She simply said, “Isaac Merritt is joining us for technical review.”
That was enough.