Andrea found herself thinking back to Trajan's merger proposal. At the time she had treated it as a desperate contingency plan born from institutional decline. A surrender of independence in exchange for stability, but now she wasn't entirely certain. Perhaps the mistake was assuming independence possessed intrinsic value. After all, R&D wanted money. As did Security, as would Economics. Everyone wanted money. 
But partnerships changed balance sheets in ways budgets couldn't.

She thought about the options that Trajan and now the maid had pointed out, running over the two most obvious alliances that had been brought up more than once now. First, the State. They didn't just bring legitimacy. They brought courts, law enforcement, administrative infrastructure. Whereas SLAM! Click didn't just bring capital, it brought networks, entrepreneurs, informal influence, and thousands of strange little tendrils extending into corners of society that Lhotse may not have been able to.

Her cybernetics quietly highlighted dozens of possible pathways branching out from the thought, each one carrying its own opportunities and risks. Loss of autonomy. Cultural contamination. Political obligations. Shared intelligence. Shared infrastructure. Shared vulnerabilities. Trade-offs. [i]Always[/i] trade-offs. The smile slowly faded from her face. Not because she disliked the idea. Because she could already see how difficult it would be, especially whoever decided to be her point of contact on the other side of whatever 'alliance' they came to. She pictured some kind of slimy businessman who looked down on her because she was a woman in a man's world representing SLAM! Click, or the State. She pictured some high-and-mighty nepo baby who didn't deign to speak to her directly, instead using a VI as a middleman in even the simplest conversations. Both options sounded equally likely, and equally awful.

"Independence." She said quietly.

The word felt different now. Not a strength, more a resource. Something that could be spent, or invested, or traded. But once it was gone, it was gone [i]forever[/i]. The realization was deeply irritating. Which was often how Andrea recognized a useful insight. Eventually she looked back toward Orange.

"It's worth its weight in gold, you must realise. But I think I understand why Mrs. Everest keeps you around now."

It wasn't entirely a compliment. The maid had a talent for making simple questions more complicated. A skill Andrea normally appreciated in herself and disliked in everyone else. For several moments she simply sat there, thinking. Then another thought occurred to her. One that was perhaps more important than the rest.

"Anyway, if I'm hearing you correctly..." she said, her voice becoming thoughtful once again, "...then the question isn't which part of Lhotse I can afford to lose. It's which parts of Lhotse are valuable enough that somebody else would be willing to help me keep them if there was some profit in it for them."

That felt closer to the truth. Closer to how Mrs. Everest might think. Not as a manager, not even as a CEO. As somebody playing a larger game than quarterly reports and departmental budgets. Andrea exhaled slowly.

"I'll think about it."

And for the first time all day, she genuinely meant it. Because if Orange was right, then the next decision Andrea made wasn't going to be about distributing eight remaining MacroCredits. It was going to be about deciding who Lhotse invited through the front door. And to be honest, Andrea didn't want anyone else helping themselves to a piece of the pie now that she'd finally been able to get a say in how big she cut the slices.

"For now, just... give me a direct investment of, let's say, twelve MacroCredits, so that I can get on with the Hecatoncheires agenda, okay? I don't want to argue. You put me in charge, so let me take charge." She said, clearly at her wits end. If the robot just refused her again or said something snide and [i]then[/i] refused her, Andrea was just going to hang up and call it a day.

She had to talk to Economics anyway.