"Agility," rumbled Angus, "will be our watchword. Liquid assets! Machine parts! Modular designs! Empty palms, ready to grasp the future by the coattails - ha ha! That's exactly the sort of direction I like to hear!"

He seem genuinely happy with the assignment. Hedging indecisively was what the man was made for, and you got the sense that he'd excel at this in a way that he wouldn't in something with clearer targets. The man was, after all, a political animal who'd gotten this far by being friends with everyone, and his only enemies were people already on the way out. Nothing could make him happier than being told his base political instincts were now company strategy, and that he had what sounded like five years in office before there'd be a change. By that time he'd consider himself to have done his time and step into retirement comfortably - if you'd tried to rip him out now and you'd incite the entire old boys network that had put him here.

"No problems from our quarter, I'll make sure of that!" said Angus, standing up heavily. "Oh - and you should catch up with the executives for a LAN party! We'd be thrilled to catch up with you when our hair was down a little, so to speak."

That was actually a valuable invitation - if you could stand it, the modern equivalent to the golf networking of old. Angus' generation had grown up on competitive video games and twitch reflexes rather than the wasteful old sport of previous generations; you could expect a room smelling of vape smoke, monitors arranged in a circle, players yelling advice at each other while targeting vitual zombies on retro games. It was a built-in way to develop a powerful loyalty base and network in the company, which could be especially helpful given the reported morale issues.

The catch was that aligning yourself with the old guard would not go unnoticed. Your ability to recruit from outside their ranks would be significantly diminished, meaning you'd lose the ability to ascend talented outsiders or reformists. But it was a rock solid base of support, favours and information that required almost no effort to plug yourself into.