Caleb nodded.
They sat quietly for nearly two minutes.
Then Victoria asked:
"Why economy?"
Caleb smiled.
"We're still in the air."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"Someone with your fees could sit anywhere."
"Probably."
"Then why here?"
"Because this seat was eleven dollars cheaper."
She stared.
He laughed.
"Not entirely."
Caleb looked toward the window.
"When I bill independent work, travel comes out of my fee."
"If a supplier buys my first-class ticket, suddenly the seat has an opinion."
Victoria understood immediately.
"So you pay."
"Always."
"Even hotels?"
"Within reason."
"That's extreme."
"Maybe."
"You think a business-class seat corrupts judgment?"
"No."
"I think people are excellent at believing hospitality has no effect on them."
"I prefer not to test how excellent I am."
Victoria smiled faintly.
"That's almost paranoid."
"Professional skepticism often looks like paranoia before the invoice."
She laughed.
This time without performance.
For the next hour, their conversation changed.
No longer insult and response.
No longer revelation.
Work.
Victoria answered questions.
Some answers helped.
Some made Caleb more concerned.
She admitted the full validation set had been reduced after performance thresholds were already visible.
That did not automatically invalidate the subset.
It did mean the selection rules required stronger scrutiny.
She acknowledged that program management, not reliability engineering, had signed several reclassifications.
She admitted the retest had been delayed partly because timing threatened the Sterling sales schedule.
Not fraudulent.
Still relevant.
Caleb took notes.
Victoria noticed.
"Is everything I say going into the report?"
"No."
"What decides?"
"Whether it matters."
"Comforting."
"Shouldn't be."
Near Eastern Washington, Victoria stopped looking like a woman defending a $240 million deal and started looking like a founder trying to understand how her company had become something slightly different from what she believed she built.
She said:
"When we were nine people, engineers argued with me constantly."
"What changed?"
"We grew."
"That's not an answer."
She smiled tiredly.
"We hired layers."
"Vice presidents."
"Program managers."
"Finance."
"Legal."
"People learned what kind of answers moved upward."
Caleb nodded.
"Organizations train themselves."
"Even if nobody writes the curriculum."
Victoria looked toward him.
"Have you ever run a company?"
"No."
"Then forgive me if some of this sounds easier from row thirty-two."
Caleb smiled.
"Fair."
She seemed surprised.
"You agree?"
"Of course."
"Leadership is harder than advising."
"Advisers get to leave."
Victoria studied him.
"Then why are you so certain?"
"I'm not."
"That's why I'm asking questions."
The aircraft began descent.
Victoria's tablet was covered in new notes.
Caleb's report remained unfinished.
For the first time that morning, he wondered whether the deal might survive in some form.
He wanted it to.
Not for Victoria.
Not against her.
Because good technology deserved a path if the organization around it could become trustworthy.
As the landing gear lowered, Victoria said:
"If we pull everything immediately, full dataset, classifications, retest plan, and Naomi's documentation, does that change your recommendation?"
"It could."