He reached for the key. Walter leaned forward on his cane. Dela pressed her hand to her chest. Nathan's countdown ticked past eight minutes, forgotten now, because this had never really been about the clock.
Forty experts, three days, one worn shim the width of a fingernail, and a boy with his father's hands about to turn a key in front of all of them.
The garage held its breath.
Theo's fingers closed around the key. It was a small thing, cold and worn smooth by decades of richer hands. For a moment, he just held it, and the whole garage held still with him. Somewhere, a phone camera zoomed in. Walter's knuckles whitened on his cane. Dela stopped breathing.
Theo closed his eyes and turned it halfway.
The fuel pump woke first—a soft electric whir, the sound of a body taking its first breath after a long sleep. Theo's ears tracked it the way his father had taught him, listening for hesitation, for the smallest hitch. There was none; the pump primed clean and steady.
He could smell it now: old fuel and warm metal and the faint sweetness of oil, the smell of every Sunday of his childhood. For half a second, he was twelve again, lying on a cracked shop floor, watching a tall man lean into an engine and say: Listen, son. She'll tell you when she's ready.
She was almost ready.
Theo opened his eyes and turned the key the rest of the way.
The starter caught. The engine turned over once, slow and heavy. The crowd flinched at the sound, that same dead grinding they had heard for three days. Boyd's mouth opened, ready with a cruel word.