"Let me explain something to you, since you seem confused about why you're here. This company does not pay you to save people. It pays you to maintain equipment. To follow procedure. To be where you are supposed to be. That's it. That's the whole job."
Caleb didn't answer.
The fluorescent light hummed.
Mara Ellison glanced up from the folder, and for just a moment, her eyes met his. There was something there. Doubt, maybe.
She looked down at a page in his file, and her pen hovered over the termination form.
The seconds stretched.
Dorian cleared his throat.
Mara signed.
"Effective immediately," she said, and her voice was quieter than she wanted it to be. "Your final paycheck and any accrued time will be mailed to your address on file. You'll need to surrender your badge."
Caleb set his badge face down on the table and stood.
He didn't argue. He didn't ask for a second chance.
A security guard walked him to his locker with a cardboard box.
There wasn't much. A spare jacket. A thermos. A framed photo of a teenage girl in a cap and gown. And a thick spiral notebook, which Caleb slipped quickly into the inside pocket of his coat before the guard could notice it.
Then came the walk.
Dorian made sure it happened across the main hangar floor, in full view of the morning shift. He stood on the catwalk above with his arms folded, while Caleb crossed beneath him, box in hand.
"Everybody take a good look," Dorian called down. "This is what happens when you decide the rules don't apply to you."
Some of the mechanics stared at their boots.
As Caleb passed a row of toolboxes, someone muttered, "Should have just minded his own business."
He didn't react. He kept walking.
The path to the exit ran past the test bay, where the Meridian sat under bright work lights.
A sleek regional jet. The most important program Ashford Aeronautics had launched in a decade.
A diagnostic cart was plugged into its nose.
Caleb glanced over. Then he stopped.
On the diagnostic screen, the air data monitoring channel showed green. Everything normal.
But through the open cockpit window, he could see the overhead annunciator panel. And the fault light for the number two air data sensor was dark.
Not green. Not amber. Dark.
Someone had pulled its circuit, and a small red collar had been clipped over the breaker to keep it from being reset.
There was no maintenance tag. No work order. Nothing.
Caleb knew that panel. He knew what that light was supposed to do.
A warning light doesn't go dark by accident. And nobody collars a breaker without a reason.