Carter heard her.
“Meridian?”
Charlotte nodded.
Carter’s expression shifted again.
Meridian Components had never been glamorous, but its engineering group had been respected.
Diana looked through the glass at Elijah.
“You might have mentioned that before laughing at him,” Charlotte said quietly.
Diana gave her assistant a sharp glance.
Charlotte returned her attention to the tablet.
The comment landed because it was true.
Diana remembered the sentence she had thrown across the parking lot.
The salvage yard is about three miles back.
She had said it because the car was ugly and because everyone around her expected Diana Vance to recognize value instantly.
That morning, she had recognized price instead.
Martin raised a hand.
“Ready for initial run.”
Elijah climbed behind the wheel.
The room became still.
He turned the ignition.
The Dodge coughed once.
Then the engine settled into the same low, controlled hum it had made in the parking lot.
On the monitors, lines began moving.
Martin watched the numbers.
One technician leaned closer.
Carter did too.
The first stage was simple: idle stability, thermal behavior, system response.
Nothing dramatic happened.
That was the point.
The temperature climbed, then leveled sooner than Carter expected.
Martin changed the load.
Elijah’s controller adjusted.
The combustion trace remained unusually clean.
Another load change.
Another correction.
Diana stepped closer to the monitor.
“What fuel map is that running?” she asked.
Elijah answered through the open window.
“It isn’t a fixed map.”
Carter frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“It adapts within constrained parameters.”
“Based on what?”
“Combustion feedback, thermal state and predicted demand.”
Carter stared at the screen.
“That quickly?”
Elijah looked toward the monitor.
“You’re watching it.”
The next phase increased load more aggressively.
The old Dodge shook against its restraints, but the engine note remained remarkably composed.
Grace covered Biscuit’s ears.
Diana almost laughed at that, but she caught herself.
The numbers were becoming difficult to dismiss.
Martin asked for a second run.
Then a third.
Competitors were not normally given repeated demonstrations unless something needed verification.
By the third run, several senior Apex officials had entered the bay.
