Page 41 of Stick to the Plan
Stan straightens, his arms falling to his sides, and the drawings roll back up. His eyes fill with concern and a little pity. “No, Brianna. Your top secret project, and why the new prototype exploded this morning.”
“What?” My bagel is threatening to make a reappearance. I stumble up to Stan’s desk and hope like hell I misheard him.
“You’d better sit down. Are those cookies for me, by the way?”
He has the decency to blush, at least. Wordlessly, I hand him the bag and sit in the chair across from his desk. I lean forward, hands clasped between my knees, waiting for him to continue.
“Junior on the third shift was trying to get a jump on putting the generator together and the thing damn near took his arm off when it blew up. Kid’s lucky the battery was out of charge or the blast would have been bigger.”
“Is he ok?”
“Yea,” Stan runs his fingers through his unruly hair, “sent him to the ER to get checked out and some minor burns seen to, but the kid is fine.”
I nod absently, staring at my hands. Suddenly something Stan said clicks and I jerk my gaze up to his. “Did you say generator?”
“Yea.” I gulp before he continues. “Don’t worry, Brianna, you did a great job breaking all the pieces apart. I’m the only one who connected the dots. You know the boys all notice how you appreciate their work. They all come to me to make sure it’s perfect for you. I saw enough pieces to get the picture. I didn’t tell anyone.”
I crumble in the chair, feeling lost. “Ok…I’m still confused. You said something suspicious is going on?”
Stan sits down and leans forward, lowering his voice despite us being alone in his office. “I got a good look at the parts Junior was working with this morning. There is no way the casing would fit together with sufficient vibration dampening. That battery would shake to unsafe levels.”
He looks at me like he expects me to draw some obvious conclusion, but I’m not following. “Ok, so that would be how it exploded. Couldn’t it just be a design error? They were trying to cut down on weight for this version.”
“No way.” Stan’s tone is firm and confident. “As head of production, all engineering drawings need to be approved by me before fabrication begins.That’severyversion of every engineering drawing. I would have noticed a mistake like that and sent it back to engineering!”
I waver. “Stan, I know you’re the best, but is it possible you missed it? Just this once?”
He vigorously shakes his head and rolls the plans back out. “I remember, those plans came on one of the kids’ half days at school. My VPN doesn’t work at home and I didn’t want to hold your project up, so I printed out the plans and took them with me to review while the kids played on the swing set. They’ve been locked in my desk ever since. Look.”
He points at the top document. It shows a case with two inches of space between the inner and outer layers. Stan flips to the second nearly identical drawing, except the clearance shrinks to one inch. The top copy has a CRM scrawled at the bottom corner in red pencil, the other is blank.
“The top copy is from two weeks ago when I approved it. The bottom is a fresh copy off the server yesterday. They don’t match and there should be no way to replace the file without me and the head of quality control notified of the change.” He leans back and rakes a hand through his hair, then turns to me with wide eyes. “Something weird is going on, Brianna.”
I clench my teeth against sudden nausea. My fingers are ice as I grip my hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “Have you told anyone about this?” My voice is surprisingly calm to my ears.
“No, wasn’t sure who to trust besides you.”
I nod absently as I try to come up with a plan. “I’m going to go audit a few of the project files I have printed upstairs. You start working with engineering identifying the right designs. In case someone is messing with the server copies, save everything locally on an encrypted USB drive. Hopefully, there is a simple explanation, but better safe than sorry.”
Stan reachesout and clasps my arm. He gives it a supportive squeeze before releasing me with a tired sigh.
“Hey, Brianna,” he calls out as I reach for the doorknob. I turn back over my shoulder to meet his gaze questioningly. “Happy looks good on you, kid. I never liked how that turd dimmed your shine. We’ll fix this and you keep that happy going.”
I smile affectionately at him before heading back to start my investigation. He is quickly becoming a real friend, not just awork friend. I’m learning that when you let people in, sometimes they surprise you in a good way.
Settling back in at the desk in Colin’s office, I pull up the last board presentation off the server. These sales projections look way off. I feel my forehead pinch as I dig through my bag for the printout I used during the meeting. Comparing the two documents, I find notable changes. The copy on the server makes the project look like a risky investment rather than the golden egg it is.
Quickly flipping through files, I find five more with glaring discrepancies that could have sizable impacts on the project. Wiring diagrams, budgets, donation projections. Someone changed all of them - just enough to cause issues without raising suspicions. I stare down at the documents spread out and chew on my thumbnail.
Who has the access to do this? Who benefits from us failing?
Warm hands cup my arms, and his distinct smell pulls my focus. Colin leans over my shoulder and follows my gaze to the table. “What are you working on?”
I’m not ready to share this news yet. Not until I know more. “Just checking on something Stan mentioned. How was the call with legal?”
He hums, pausing before answering. “More delays on the provisional patent filing. Can’t quite get a straight answer out of them on why it’staking so long to hear.” Colin strokes my biceps with his thumbs, sending shivers down my spine. “Ready to get going?”
I stare down at the papers still spread in front of me. “I have one more call to make here; gotta clean up a couple of things.” Turning my head towards him, I look up at his handsome face. “Did you hear about the prototype exploding this morning?”
