He picked up a feeler gauge and a thin brass shim from the bench, the closest match he could find. His hands were perfectly steady. He measured the old worn piece against his father's noted thickness, then trimmed the new shim with a small file, checking it twice. Breathing slow, he slid the worn one out and set the new one in its place with the patience of a man threading a needle in the dark.
"Nine minutes," Nathan said quietly.
Theo did not look up. "I only need a few."
He worked in near silence now, the whole garage suspended around him. He reset the timing—not to the factory notch, but to the second mark, the hand-cut one, the true one: 12 degrees advanced, exactly as the notebook said. He checked it twice with the timing light. He tightened each bolt to the feel his father had drilled into his hands before he was old enough to drive.
With every adjustment, the engine seemed to settle, like a body finding a comfortable position after a long pain. Theo could feel it through his fingertips: the machine was no longer fighting. For the first time in three days, it was being spoken to in its own language.
Boyd watched with his arms crossed, his jaw tight, the smile long gone from his face. He had bet everything on this boy failing. And somewhere deep down beneath the contempt, a cold understanding was beginning to form: the kid was not guessing. The kid knew this engine better than the men who had certified themselves to fix it.
Theo wiped his hands on the rag from his back pocket and stepped back from the engine. The bay was closed. The timing was set. The shim was replaced. Everything his father's notebook asked for had been done.
He looked at the ignition. The whole room followed his gaze to that small key sitting in a $20 million machine that had not made a sound in three days.
"That's it?" Wells asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "You're done?"
"Almost," Theo said. He rested his hand on the worn leather notebook one last time, the way a person touches a photograph of someone they miss. "Now we find out if I listened well enough."