Andrea rested her forearms on the desk and remained silent for a moment, her eyes drifting away from Angus and towards the skyline beyond the office windows. The answer he was asking for was deceptively simple. Five years. Every director she’d spoken to so far had wanted to know where Lhotse was going, because every one of them understood that their own work only made sense in the context of a destination. Research needed to know what kind of future it was building towards. Security needed to know what kind of wars it was preparing to fight. Interior needed to know what sort of company it was trying to hold together. Now Finance wanted to know what kind of economy it was expected to create.

But the real bitch of it was that she [i]still[/i] didn’t have a complete picture.

That fact no longer frustrated her as much as it had a few days ago. Quite the opposite. The previous administration had apparently possessed complete certainty of things they shouldn't have had. They had been convinced enough in whatever lay at the end of the R&D pipeline that they had quietly starved almost every other arm of the corporation in order to pursue it. Perhaps they had been right. Perhaps they had been wrong. The point was that they had committed themselves so completely that there had been no room left to adapt if circumstances changed. Which they had, according to the silver bullet that Trajan had given her. 

Andrea wasn’t prepared to repeat that mistake.

“I... don’t know where we’ll be in five years, Director.” She admitted at last, looking back towards Angus. “Not because I haven’t thought about it, but because I don’t yet possess the information necessary to pretend certainty. And I certainly don't have supernatural foresight to peer into the future. Unfortunately."

There was no embarrassment in saying it. If anything, there was quiet confidence. She had spent enough years watching executives bluff their way through uncertainty to know how expensive false confidence became once it reached the operational level.

“Ive got a few teething problems as Chief of Operations, you see. I’ve inherited a research and development programme that [i]might[/i] reshape the future... or amount to nothing. I’ve also inherited a corporate war that appears to be progressing well, although wars have an irritating habit of spiralling into unforeseen chaos. And I’ve been placed under the scrutiny of a CEO whose priorities don’t resemble those of any chief executive I’ve ever worked under, and I’m increasingly convinced that’s because she’s playing a game the rest of us can’t fully see yet.”

She folded her hands together, choosing her next words carefully.

“So... I’m not going to ask you to bet the company on assumptions.” The statement settled between them. "To be clear, I’m not interested in maximising next year’s budget. If I were, I’d probably tell you to keep doing [i]exactly[/i] whatever it is that you’ve been doing already. Safe growth. Predictable returns. Another few MacroCredits over the next five years and everybody congratulates themselves on a job well done.”

A faint smile crossed her face. "But that isn’t why Mrs. Everest put me in this chair.” She leaned forward slightly. “What I truly want is... [i]optionality[/i].”

The word hung there for a moment before she elaborated.

“I want Lhotse to be in a position where, five years from now, we can exploit opportunities that don’t exist today. If Eager delivers something extraordinary, I want the capital available to commercialise it and bankroll a product rollout rather than watch somebody else beat us to market. If the war against the Polygon fractures an industry that we might want, I want us in a position to acquire assets rather than simply let it go to waste. If an alliance with another Mega, with the State or with an emerging player suddenly becomes strategically valuable, I don’t want us locked into investments that prevent us from acting.” She paused, watching to see whether Angus was following her reasoning. "My predecessor invested in false certainty. He believed he knew where the future was heading, and he overcommitted enormous resources accordingly. My instinct is different.”

Andrea’s expression remained composed, but there was a quiet conviction behind her words now.

“I want us liquid where it matters. I want investments that generate reliable cash flow without tying our hands. But more than all that, I want strategic reserves. So we can have acquisitions that broaden our options rather than narrow them. I want us positioned to pivot quickly when new information arrives instead of discovering we’ve spent five years marching confidently in the wrong direction.” She gave a small shrug. "I appreciate that it won’t produce spectacular returns for... a while. It probably won’t even produce the highest returns on paper. But I suspect flexibility is about to become one of [i]the most[/i] valuable commodities in the world, because every conversation I’ve had since taking this office has reinforced the same conclusion.”

Her eyes met his.

“That we don’t know enough yet.” Andrea allowed herself a faint smile. "And I refuse to build a five-year financial strategy around pretending that we do." She sat back in her chair once more, finally giving Angus the freedom he’d asked for. "So [i]that’s[/i] your direction. Don’t optimise for maximum growth. Optimise for maximum freedom of action. If, in five years’ time, the company has more choices for growth than it does today, I’ll consider the strategy a success.”