Chapter 5: The Test Stand

Dinah Brandvold met me at the plant's back gate at ten o'clock that night, in the dark, with a flashlight in her teeth.

"You're late," she said around it.

"It's ten."

"I said nine fifty-eight."

She had a keycard on a lanyard around her neck, and she swiped it twice at a side door that was supposed to be dead.

"Grady cut my building access this morning," she said. "He forgot to cut the test stand's. It runs on a separate system."

"You're breaking in."

"I'm working late." She pushed the door open with her shoulder.

"Keep your phone dark. The cameras here don't like glare."

I followed her down a concrete corridor that smelled of cold oil and metal.

It opened onto a yard under floodlights.

In the middle stood a rust-red steel tower seven stories tall, its frame wrapped in pipes and ladders.

"That's the stand," she said.

"It's big."

"Loyd built the first version out of a grain elevator." She said it as if she were introducing me to a person.

"Every actuator on every plane we ship got slammed against that thing a thousand times first."

"We've never had a single part come back."

"Why show me?"

"Because you want to buy it, and I'd like you to see what you're buying."

She walked into the light and the wind whipped at her braid.

I watched her climb the first ladder as easily as other people go up stairs.

I followed her to the second platform, where the whole yard spread out below us, white with snow.

"Okay," I said. "What do you want to tell me?"

"I want to tell you that I don't like you."

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