Andrea stared at the disconnected call with a flat expression. The irritation arrived a second later. Not because Paradisia had hung up on her. Honestly, that part was understandable. Mostly because it meant this was now going to require [i]actual[/i] effort. Scheduling. Travel. Face-to-face interaction. All the things modern communications infrastructure was supposedly meant to eliminate.

Still, it also confirmed something important. Paradisia had enough sense not to trust a call like that. They weren't a gullible schmuck. That alone put them ahead of half of the department heads and executives currently requesting meetings in her inbox. Silver linings. Andrea exhaled quietly through her nose and dismissed the dead call window.

“VI,” she said, stepping back toward her desk. “Arrange discreet transport to Paradisia’s registered address. Unmarked vehicle. Minimum security profile. Pickup in one hour.”

A soft chime acknowledged the instruction. She sat back down and turned her attention to the fucking [i]mountain[/i] of priority notifications waiting for her. This, more than the meeting with Everest, felt like the real beginning of the job.

A corporation the size of Lhotse never stopped moving. Problems accumulated constantly at every level; labour disputes, stalled shipments, political pressure, industrial accidents, legal threats, market shifts. The role of a COO was not to solve every issue personally. It was to identify which problems could metastasize if ignored. Her inbox had already done part of that work for her. She checked the Priority One filter, hoping that she wasn't going to see something that would push her plans for Paradisia on the back burner.