"Schedule Interior Director Trajan for a face to face meeting in my office at eight thirty tomorrow morning." Andrea instructed the VI. "Inform the others in a nicely worded message about trust in their abilities, and get them to send me credit requests instead. Let's see how much they think they're worth."

Low morale. Court backlog. Criminal infiltration.

Of the three briefings, only one sounded like a problem that might already be inside the walls. And after a day spent learning how much of Lhotse's structure depended on hidden arrangements, Andrea found she was developing a strong preference for identifying those before they identified her. Besides, she already knew enough about the by-laws of environmental footprints of mega-corps as well as how to invest money in the right shareholders, didn't she?

[i]Didn't she?[/i]

She sighed and brought up the VI again. It wouldn't do to be caught out by something basic.

"On second thought, make sure they send me information packets as well as their credit requests. Call it a... touchstone analysis of their departments. I just need to make sure I know what they'd want me to know, or the short version anyway."