Andrea remained silent for several seconds after Trajan finished speaking, her eyes moving slowly across the graphs and historical projections suspended above the table. What struck her weren't the budget numbers themselves. Large organizations were always full of alarming numbers. Cost overruns, deferred maintenance buildup, budget deficits, staffing shortages and pay concerns. If somebody graphed any sufficiently complicated institution for long enough, eventually it would begin to resemble a slow-motion disaster.

No, the numbers were fine. What struck her was the pattern.

Until this moment she had been viewing each department in isolation. Security wanted resources to contain the Polygon. Research wanted resources to continue pursuing whatever grand project had consumed the attention of the previous administration. Finance was warning about aging infrastructure. Interior was warning about collapsing morale. Each department head had arrived with their own concerns, their own priorities, their own explanation for why [i]their[/i] corner of the organization deserved immediate attention. But this was the first time someone had successfully connected the dots. The schools had not deteriorated because nobody cared about education. The courts had not fallen behind because nobody cared about justice. The benefits packages had not been hollowed out because somebody had run a spreadsheet incorrectly.

The damage was intentional. Not malicious, perhaps. Not even necessarily wrong. But intentional. Somewhere over the past decade a decision had been made that all of those things could afford to become slightly worse if it meant feeding resources elsewhere. Then that decision had been made again. And again. And [i]again[/i]. Thousands of cuts, each individually defensible, accumulating into something much larger than any one budgetary adjustment. For the first time, Andrea felt as though she could see her predecessor clearly. Not as an administrator. As a man pursuing a strategic objective. The realization was strangely unsettling.

Because she didn't know [i]why[/i] he'd been hemoragghing money into the R&D furnace, although every idea she came up with gave her the shivers. What was so important that they'd been shoving it all over there to the detriment and clear annoyance of every other department in Lhotse. Andrea resisted the urge to frown, not wanting to give anything away to Trajan. It was easier to inherit a corporation from a fool than from a visionary. A fool left behind mistakes. A visionary left behind consequences. Her gaze drifted back toward Trajan.

The woman had stopped trying to persuade her. That was what made this conversation different from the others. Eager still wanted to protect his laboratories. Scipio wanted to prosecute her cold war against the Polygon. Every director she'd met so far had arrived carrying an agenda. Trajan had arrived just... carrying a cheque. And, from the look of things, she'd been waiting years for someone to finally pay it.

"You know," Andrea said quietly, "when I first sat down with Dr. Eager, I thought I was looking at an unusually expensive research division. Now I'm beginning to suspect that what I was actually looking at was the most expensive research division in human history." The corner of her mouth twitched very slightly, though there was little humour in it. "Because it wasn't just consuming its own budget. It was consuming everyone else's. So if I understand you correctly, then the success cult isn't really a solution to the problem. It's a method of preserving organizational cohesion while the problem continues." Her tone remained thoughtful rather than accusatory. "Like you said before; a triage measure. A way of ensuring that enough of the institution remains loyal and functional to survive until either circumstances improve or somebody finally decides whether all these sacrifices were worth making."

For the first time since the meeting began, she allowed herself a small sigh. "What concerns me isn't that you've arrived at unpleasant options, Director." She glanced toward the reports one final time. "What concerns me is that every conversation I've had since taking this office seems to end at the same destination."

She could have said anything, and in her head she saw all the information go by. Research needs money. Security needs money. Infrastructure needs money. Interior needs money. And somewhere in the middle of all that, her predecessor found a way to convince every department to accept being hollowed out in pursuit of something no one can fully explain. God damn, she needed Paradisia and that stupid device Everest gave her yesterday to start working...

"Money. And that's fine, I get it; it makes the world turn after all. But that means before I decide whether to approve a success cult, I need you to answer a much more fundamental question." Andrea's eyes narrowed slightly. "Can you guarantee results from the success cult? And who exactly would be spearheading this movement as its public face? Are we going to be exemplifying Lhotse itself, Mrs. Everest... you?"