Chapter 2 - THE GRAVEYARD OF EXPERTS
Logan stepped back from the Iron Beast, his jaw set so tight the muscles ached.
"Call them up," he told Ray. "Every master tech we have in the crowd. Get them up here."
For the next forty-five minutes, the main stage of the Iron Road Charity Ride turned into a graveyard of mechanical egos. The crowd of 40,000 watched in a hushed, uneasy silence as twenty-two of the most decorated mechanics in the Southwest took their turns. These were men who built custom choppers for Hollywood royalty. Men who ran racing teams.
One by one, they hooked up diagnostic scanners. They checked the custom wiring harnesses. They pulled the plugs, tested the compression, and bypassed the kill switches.
One by one, they stepped away, shaking their heads.
"It’s a ghost, Logan," whispered a master tech from Vegas, wiping grease from his forehead. "There is absolutely no mechanical reason this bike shouldn't be deafening us right now. It has air, it has spark, it has fuel. It’s like the computer just... forgot how to beat."
The digital clock on the broadcast screen ticked past 10:15 AM.
The crowd was getting restless. The heat of the Arizona sun was starting to bake the asphalt. Patricia Oaks stood at the edge of the stage, tapping her clipboard, her eyes silently pleading with Logan to call it. To make the announcement that the Beast was dead.
Logan stared at the chrome reflection of the engine casing. For the first time in eight years, he felt the crushing weight of his brother's absence pulling him under. He had built this machine to keep Daniel alive. If it died, what was left?
"I'll take a look."
The voice wasn't deep. It didn't boom over the murmurs of the crowd. It was quiet, slightly raspy, and completely out of place.
Logan turned. Standing at the bottom of the stage stairs was a kid. He couldn't have been more than eighteen. He wore a faded blue gas station uniform shirt with "LEO" stitched over the breast pocket. It was stained with old motor oil. His fingernails were packed with black grease, and he held a battered canvas tool roll under one arm.
Ray Dubois stepped forward, blocking the stairs. "Kid, we got a situation here. Go get a hotdog. This isn't a petting zoo."
"I know what the situation is," Leo said, not looking at Ray, but staring directly at the Iron Beast. "You've got a proprietary titanium-chromoly hybrid frame housing a 2,400cc block. You've got twenty-two guys who checked the fuel injection, the spark, and the battery."
Leo stepped up the first stair. Ray moved to shove him back, but Logan raised a hand.
"Let him speak, Ray."
Leo didn't look at Logan. He walked straight past the most feared biker in the state, straight past the cameras broadcasting to a quarter-million people, and stopped inches from the million-dollar motorcycle.
"They checked everything that makes a machine run," Leo said softly, dropping his canvas tool roll onto the stage with a heavy thud. "But this isn't just a machine. You built this off a 1998 blueprint, didn't you? Daniel's blueprint."
Logan’s blood ran cold. He had never published the origin of the design. Nobody knew that.
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Leo knelt beside the bike and reached into his oily shirt pocket. He pulled out a heavy, tarnished silver compass.
"They missed the one thing that matters," the boy said, flipping the compass open. The needle spun wildly as he held it near the bike's transmission. "You've got a ghost in the machine, Mr. Steel. And I need exactly four minutes to chase it out."
