“If You Permit, I Will Fix It”, No One Could Fix Billionaire’s Jet Engine Until A Homeless Girl Did…
The October hailstorm lashed against the corrugated iron roof of Hangar No. 4 at Teterboro Airport, but that sound was nothing compared to the deafening screech emanating from the right engine of the AeroStream X-900 jet.
It was a monster of titanium and carbon fiber, worth $75 million. And now, it was a useless lump of metal.
“Turn it off! Turn it off immediately before it blows this whole hangar up!”
Marcus Thorne – the defense technology billionaire, a man with enough wealth to buy a small country – roared. His handsome face, often seen on Forbes magazine covers, was now flushed with anger.
Chief Technician Miller, a portly man with 30 years of experience at Boeing, hastily signaled for fuel cutoff. The screech subsided and then died down, leaving behind the acrid smell of burning A-1 jet fuel and an eerie silence.
“Report it,” Marcus hissed through clenched teeth. “I have a meeting with the Department of Defense in Washington in two hours. If I’m not there to sign the ‘Project Falcon’ contract, the company’s stock will plummet 20% by tomorrow morning.”
Miller wiped the sweat from his forehead with an oil-soaked towel. “Mr. Thorne, we’ve replaced the fuel control unit (FCU), recalibrated the high-pressure turbine blades, even replaced the ignition system. But every time it reaches 80% N2 capacity, it shakes violently. The computer isn’t reporting any errors. I… I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You’re the best mechanic on the East Coast and you don’t know what’s going on?” Marcus threw the tablet to the concrete floor, shattering it. “Fix it! Or you and this entire useless team will be fired and I’ll sue you all for sabotage!”
The atmosphere in the hangar was tense. The engineering team hung their heads. They had been sleepless for the past 24 hours. They had tried every method in the textbook.
Just then, a voice rang out from the slightly ajar rolling door, where darkness and cold rain poured in.
“It’s not a hardware failure. It’s ‘suffocating’.”
All eyes turned to the door.
A figure emerged from the shadows. It was a young woman, perhaps not yet 25. She wore an oversized, tattered military jacket, her hair matted with rainwater hidden under her hood, and her sneakers were so worn her toes were exposed. In her hand she held a half-eaten sandwich someone had thrown in the trash.
A homeless person.
“Where’s the security?” Miller yelled. “Who let this trashy girl in here?”
Two security guards rushed forward, grabbing the girl’s thin arms.
“Let me go,” the girl said, her voice hoarse but strangely calm. She didn’t look at Miller; she stared directly into Marcus Thorne’s cold eyes. “You’re trying to force air into the combustion chamber, but the third-stage bleed air valve is opening incorrectly. The computer isn’t reporting an error because the sensor is still working, but it’s reading incorrect data due to magnetic interference.”
Marcus raised his hand, signaling the security guard to stop. He was an engineer before he was a billionaire. He understood the girl’s words. It wasn’t the language of a beggar.
“What did you just say?” Marcus stepped closer, ignoring her foul smell and disheveled appearance.
“I’ve been hearing this engine roar for the past four hours from my sleeping quarters in the sewer behind the airport,” the girl replied, pushing the security guard’s hand away. “It sounds like an opera singer trying to hit a high note while someone is strangling her.”
She walked closer to the monstrous X-900, stroking the still-hot engine casing.
“If you allow me, I’ll fix it. In return, I want $500 and a bus ticket to California.”
Miller sneered. “Mr. Thorne, don’t listen to this madwoman. The pressure relief valve is controlled by the ECU (Engine Control Unit); humans can’t manually interfere with it…”
“10 minutes,” the girl interrupted Miller, her eyes still fixed on Marcus. “Give me a 3mm flat-head screwdriver, a roll of T-44 electrical tape, and a stethoscope.”
“A stethoscope?” Marcus raised an eyebrow.
“To listen to its heartbeat,” she replied.
Marcus looked at his watch. He had nothing to lose.
“Give her the tools,” Marcus ordered. “But if you scratch even a single paint mark on my plane, I’ll have you thrown in jail.”
The girl—her name was Alex, though no one here knew that—took the tools. Her hands were blackened by street grime, but when she gripped the screwdriver, they became as steady as a neurosurgeon’s.
She didn’t open the main engine cover. She climbed a ladder, opening a tiny panel hidden deep above the air intake – a spot often overlooked by mechanics because it only contained auxiliary wiring.
“What the hell is she doing?” Miller muttered. “That’s the inlet temperature sensor area.”
Alex put on her stethoscope, pressing the probe against the cold metal casing of the pressure regulator. She closed her eyes.
Thump. Thump. Hiss…
In her mind, the X-900 engine’s structural diagram appeared vividly. Not from a book. But from memory.
She used the screwdriver to gently turn a tiny screw deep in the dark recess.
A quarter turn to the left.
“Start the auxiliary fuel pump,” she commanded. No one moved.
“DO IT!” Marcus yelled.
A technician hastily flipped the trigger.
The engine sputtered. The fuel pump hummed.
Alex listened. The sound of the fuel flow changed. She smiled faintly. She used electrical tape to tightly wrap a bundle of yellow wires, separating it from the blue bundle next to it.
“Magnetic interference,” she muttered. “Someone wired it incorrectly, causing the magnetic field of the high-voltage wire to interfere with the pressure sensor signal.”
She closed the panel, sliding down the ladder as quietly as a stray cat.
“Done,” she said, brushing the dust off her hands. “Start it. Push straight to 95% power.”
Miller looked at her as if she were an alien. “You’re crazy. Pushing straight to 95% will destroy the main shaft if it continues to vibrate.”
“Do it,” Marcus said, his voice cold. He was betting his entire business on a homeless person.
Miller reluctantly climbed into the cockpit. The engine started.
Whine…
The sound grew louder and louder.
20%… 40%… 60%…
The entire hangar held its breath, anticipating the familiar rumble. But no.
80%… 90%… 95%.
The engine roared powerfully, steadily, smoothly like silk tearing in the wind. Not a single tremor. The readings on the computer screen were bright green, perfect down to the smallest detail.
“Unbelievable,” Miller gasped as he disembarked. “Every reading… better than when it left the factory.”
Marcus Thorne breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as if a ton of weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He turned to find the girl.
She was standing in the corner, picking up a half-eaten sandwich.
“Wait,” Marcus hurried towards her. He pulled out his wallet, a thick wad of cash—no need to count, certainly more than $500. “What’s your name? Where did you learn this?”
Alex took the money, counted out exactly five 100-dollar bills, and returned the rest to Marcus.
“I only need enough for my ticket to California,” she said. “Keep the rest to tip your ‘genius’ team of mechanics.”
She turned to leave.
“Stop!” Marcus blocked her way. His gaze was fixed on her right wrist, where the tattered sleeve of her jacket had been pulled up slightly as she received the money.
There, faintly visible beneath the dirt, was a small tattoo: the designation X-77 and the symbol of a pair of broken wings.
Marcus’s face changed color. He took a step back, his voice trembling.
“That’s not a gang tattoo,” Marcus whispered. “That’s the employee code for the Skunk Works division of Lockheed Martin. The top-secret X-77 project.”
Alex hastily pulled down her sleeve, her eyes showing fear for the first time.
“You’re mistaken.”
“The X-77 project exploded during a test three years ago in the Nevada desert,” Marcus said quickly, his brilliant mind piecing together the facts. “The entire engineering team is reported to have perished. Among them was the youngest chief engineer in aviation history… Cassandra Vance.”
The silence was suffocating. Only the pattering of rain could be heard.
The homeless girl straightened up. The timid, hungry look vanished. In its place was a tall, proud, and cold posture.
“Cassandra Vance died in that fire,” she said, her voice icy. “I’m just Alex.”
“Why are you still alive?” Marcus asked, stepping closer. “And why are you repairing my plane?”
“Because I don’t want to see my work ruined by ignorance,” Alex replied, glancing at the X-900. “That engine… its core design is mine. You bought the patent from Lockheed after the accident, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should know one thing,” Alex stepped closer to Marcus, whispering in his ear. “That magnetic interference fault today… wasn’t accidental. The wires wouldn’t just get tangled like that.”
Marcus frowned. “You mean…”
“It was sabotage,” Alex said. “Someone wants you dead on your flight to Washington today. If that engine doesn’t fail on the ground but fails at 30,000 feet while you’re flying through the turbulence, the self-protection system will activate incorrectly, cut off fuel, and you’ll freefall.”
Marcus spun around to look at the mechanics. Miller was standing in the distance, on the phone, his face furtive.
“But that wasn’t the worst part,” Alex continued. “The reason I know how to fix it with electrical tape… is because I saw this kind of sabotage three years ago.”
“The X-77 explosion?” Marcus asked, his heart pounding.
“That explosion wasn’t an accident,” Alex laughed bitterly, tears welling up in his sunken eyes. “They planted a bomb in the prototype engine. I discovered it five minutes before the test. I ran in to deactivate it, but it was too late. The explosion threw me away. When I woke up in the field hospital, I heard my boss reporting that ‘the target was eliminated’ and blaming my design flaw.”
“Who?” Marcus pressed. “Who did it?”
Alex pointed toward the X-900 aircraft.
“Check your Chief Technician Miller’s work history. Before working for you, he was a safety supervisor at Lockheed Martin, in charge of the X-77 project.”
Marcus was speechless. He turned to look at Miller. The fat man, seeing Marcus’s murderous gaze, immediately fled towards the side door.
“Catch him!” Marcus roared.
The security team immediately rushed forward, tackling Miller to the rain-soaked floor.
Marcus turned back to thank him.
Alex had offered her a job, a whole new life.
But where she stood, there was only empty space.
The rolling door behind her remained open, the rain still falling. The homeless girl had vanished into the night, like a ghost.
On a nearby oil drum, she left four $100 bills, keeping only $100 – the bus fare to California. And beneath the stack of money was a hastily written note in grease:
“Don’t fly this one. Check the hydraulic flap system. He’s already tampered with it. Good luck in Washington.”
Marcus picked up the note, his hand trembling. He looked out at the pitch-black rain.
He knew he had just met a legend. A genius who had died to survive. And he knew Miller was just a pawn. The one behind Miller, the one who wanted to destroy X-77 years ago and wanted to kill Marcus today, was a far greater force. But thanks to that homeless girl, Marcus survived. And the real battle has now begun.
