Chapter 6 - WHY HE CHOSE ME
Thorne had not selected me randomly.
Three weeks earlier, I submitted a maintenance report showing repeated inconsistencies in Pod 7’s scenario history. I did not yet know who had altered it, but I knew the changes were deliberate.
The report went to Colonel Grant’s replacement.
Before it reached General Cross, someone downgraded it from security concern to routine software fault.
Thorne believed I was only the technician who discovered the delay.
He assumed humiliating me would accomplish two things.
First, it would discredit my report.
If I failed badly inside Archangel, he could describe me as a programmer who misunderstood operational reality and blamed software for her own inability.
Second, he wanted the maintenance hold removed before inspectors imaged Pod 7.
The simulator contained a cached copy of his latest unauthorized evaluation package.
He planned to clear it after the demonstration.
That explained the audience.
Thorne needed witnesses who would remember the hoodie girl entering the pod, panicking and proving that technical staff should not challenge pilots.
He wanted a story strong enough to replace the evidence.
“What did you expect the haptic delay to do?” General Cross asked.
Thorne’s jaw tightened.
“It was within tolerance.”
“It was not,” I said. “You knew the left-bank response could destabilize the run.”
“You completed it.”
“I designed the recovery model.”
His eyes shifted.
He finally understood that surviving the fault did not make it safe.
It made his decision worse.
He had knowingly placed an uncleared civilian-profile contractor inside a simulator operating beyond maintenance limits, in front of dozens of witnesses, after overriding a documented safety hold.
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Even without the fraud, that act alone threatened his command.
With everything else, it became the key that unlocked the entire case.
