“Yes.”
“I thought you meant several individual vehicles.”
“No.”
He returned to the table.
“It was a fleet retrofit.”
“How many?”
“Originally?”
“Four hundred twelve assemblies.”
The attorney stopped writing.
The woman stared.
“Four hundred twelve?”
“That was the first contract.”
The acting safety director turned another page.
“How many of these units remain?”
The woman answered without looking away from the father.
“More than eight hundred across multiple acquired fleets.”
He closed his eyes.
“Of course.”
The woman whispered:
“What?”
“They expanded the system.”
The safety director asked:
“Were there injuries?”
The father opened his eyes.
“When I left?”
“Not yet.”
“Near misses.”
“Platform drift.”
“Two uncontrolled drops under test ballast.”
“One chair rolled during loading because the platform angle shifted.”
“No serious injuries.”
“Yet.”
He looked toward the woman.
“I said the seal material wasn’t rated for the temperatures the northern routes actually saw.”
“Engineering agreed.”
“Procurement didn’t.”
“Operations definitely didn’t.”
“Replacement cost?”
The acting director asked.
The father remembered without hesitation.
“About eleven hundred dollars per vehicle after labor.”
The attorney calculated silently.
Nearly half a million dollars on the original batch.
More now.
The woman said:
“And instead they fired you.”
He shook his head.
“Not exactly.”
The distinction surprised her.
“What happened?”
“They put me on a performance plan.”
“For what?”
“Attitude.”
The little girl looked up.
“You have attitude.”
Her father stared.
“Thank you.”
The woman smiled despite the tension.
The daughter returned to breakfast.
The father continued.
“Officially I was terminated for insubordination, missed maintenance targets, and failure to follow supervisory procedure.”
The woman asked:
“Were those accusations true?”
“Some.”
That answer surprised everyone except his daughter.
The father continued:
“I argued.”
“A lot.”
“I bypassed my supervisor twice and emailed corporate engineering.”
“I refused to close work orders.”
“And one morning I parked six accessible vans across the depot exit until the regional manager agreed to inspect them.”
The acting safety director almost smiled.
The woman did not.
“Why?”
“Because they were trying to return them to service.”
“Were they unsafe?”
“Yes.”
“Then why say the accusations were partly true?”
“Because I did block a depot.”
The attorney finally smiled.
The father looked toward him.
“I’m assuming the lawyer loves that.”
“I appreciate accuracy.”
The woman said:
“What happened after?”
“The regional manager inspected two vans.”
“One passed while cold.”
“They heated the other indoors.”
“It passed too.”
“They declared the problem unconfirmed.”
“And your test?”
“I tested under loaded outdoor conditions after thermal soak.”
“Which is how the vehicles actually operate.”
“Yes.”
The woman’s jaw tightened.
“Did you document this?”
“Every time.”
“Where?”
“Company system.”
The acting safety director looked down at the folder.
“We couldn’t find your reports.”
The father laughed.
“I’m shocked.”
The woman asked:
“Do you have copies?”
He hesitated.