Maria.
Six hundred names.
Then Emma.
Electric bill.
Mortgage.
Health insurance.
He picked up the contract.
“I’m taking a copy.”
Claire objected.
“It’s confidential.”
“I’m supposed to sign it.”
Victoria nodded.
“Give him the review copy.”
Malcolm looked unhappy.
Ethan left.
By 10:30, half the maintenance department knew.
Management called Hayes upstairs.
Big contract.
Wouldn’t sign.
Factory gossip moved faster than coolant leaks.
Derek found Ethan in the maintenance office surrounded by production reports.
“What’d you do?”
“Nothing.”
“They’re saying you blocked the Meridian deal.”
“I asked a question.”
“What question?”
Ethan turned the contract toward him.
“What does this mean to you?”
Derek read.
“Four cents per covered cycle.”
“How many cycles in one valve assembly?”
Derek shrugged.
“Depends.”
“Exactly.”
Ethan opened a spreadsheet.
Line Seven produced three major product families.
Family A:
CNC rough bore.
CNC finish bore.
Valve-seat mill.
Wash.
Pressure test.
Calibration.
Final test.
Seven obvious monitored cycles.
But some operations repeated.
Multiple machining stations.
Two pressure verification steps.
Certain products passed through fourteen separate sensor-recorded events.
Family C passed through nineteen.
Ethan pulled Meridian pilot logs.
Each machine cycle had a unique event ID.
The system billed nothing during pilot.
But the contract language appeared to bill each event.
Derek leaned closer.
“You think they’re charging four cents every time one of these fires?”
“I think the contract says they can.”
“How many?”
Ethan entered numbers.
Annual finished assemblies: 12.4 million.
Finance model:
12,400,000 × $0.04 = $496,000.
Then he used a conservative average.
13.6 covered cycles per assembly.
168,640,000 covered cycles.
At four cents:
$6,745,600.
Derek stopped smiling.
“That can’t be right.”
“I know.”
“Per year?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the contract length?”
“Seven years.”
Derek swore.
Ethan scrolled.
Worse.
Annual escalator.
3.5%.
Minimum volume commitment.
Ninety-two percent of baseline cycles even if production declined.
Exclusive services clause preventing Briar Ridge from using competing monitoring systems without termination charges.
Derek sat down.
“You need to show Victoria.”
“I need to make sure I’m right.”
Ethan spent the next hour gathering actual cycle data.
Not estimates.
Historical machine-event logs.
Current year.
He called Maria in quality.
“How many pressure-test records per completed unit?”
“Depends.”
“Average.”
“Why?”
“Contract review.”
She gave him three report locations.
He called automation engineer Priya Shah.
“How does Meridian count a cycle?”
“Each completed machine sequence.”
“Not each finished assembly?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“That’s how the pilot dashboard works.”
Ethan felt something cold settle inside him.
“Thanks.”
At 11:48, Victoria called.
“Conference room.”
He returned.