"I was wondering whether you took sugar," Emily said.
"Black," Marcus answered. "Same as a proper mechanic."
The joke drew a laugh from Cody and a brief smile from Reese. Emily left the cup and walked away with her face composed, but behind the supply-room door she rested her forehead against the cool metal shelving for a few seconds. It was not the first time someone had spoken to her that way; what hurt was how little imagination it would have required to speak to her differently.
She knew she could have told him what she suspected. She also knew that a suspicion was not a diagnosis, especially in a machine as old and modified as Cole's Harley. To be right for the right reasons, she would need measurements and inspection, not the satisfaction of making Marcus look foolish. She wrote another note on the packing paper, reminding herself of what a good instructor once said: notice the pattern, then find evidence that could prove you wrong.
That instructor had been Sergeant First Class Howard Baines, a wiry mechanic with silver hair and a face made stern by decades of squinting at broken engines. Emily met him when she was nineteen and still believed that competence meant learning the correct answer faster than everyone else. He spent a long afternoon making her listen to a malfunctioning generator without telling her what was wrong, then asked for three possible explanations and a way to distinguish among them. When she named her favorite immediately, he shook his head.
"That isn't listening, Carter," he said. "That's falling in love with your own idea. Machines don't owe you agreement."
Baines eventually showed her the fault, but he made her explain why her first two guesses had been wrong. She left the lesson annoyed, then returned the next morning and asked whether he would show her again. He taught her that patience was not slowness and certainty was not confidence. Those lessons became the foundation of the work that followed, even when the people around her seemed to value swagger more.
She had not seen Baines in years. His letters had stopped after she returned from her final deployment, and she assumed he had retired somewhere comfortable and far from machinery. Occasionally she pictured him leaning against a maintenance truck, watching an inexperienced soldier argue with an engine. She wondered what he would say if he saw her now, hiding behind a parts counter while an old Harley told the same story over and over to men who did not want to hear it.
Marcus spent six hours on Cole's machine. By late afternoon he had ruled out several possibilities but found no convincing explanation for the remaining fault. His conversation changed accordingly. He started mentioning the motorcycle's age, possible internal wear, and the risks of continued use, which were legitimate concerns but not yet conclusions supported by the inspection he had performed.
"Maybe we're dealing with something deeper," he said, rubbing a hand along his jaw. "Could be valve-train damage. Could be a cam issue. This might need a complete tear-down."
Cole folded his arms. "How much deeper?"