"I know the difference between a boardroom and an airplane."
"Do you?"
The question landed.
Victoria's eyes narrowed.
Caleb rotated the laptop slightly.
Not enough for her to read proprietary material.
Enough to show a dataset.
"You said your final board package uses more than ten thousand validation cycles."
"It does."
"The executive summary appears based on roughly six thousand."
Victoria became completely still.
"Where did you get that number?"
Caleb looked at her.
"Your own submission."
"That isn't public."
"I know."
She lowered her voice.
"Then how do you have it?"
"I'm the reviewer."
Victoria looked at the laptop.
Then him.
For the first time, actual fear appeared.
Not panic.
Executive fear.
Controlled.
Fast.
Calculating.
She said:
"The full dataset includes development conditions that aren't representative of deployment."
"That can be legitimate."
"It is."
"What criteria defined representative?"
She answered quickly.
"Production configuration."
"Only?"
"Among other factors."
"Were those criteria defined before data collection or after the unfavorable cluster appeared?"
Victoria went silent.
Caleb continued.
"How many operator anomalies were originally classified as system alerts?"
"Who gave you this?"
"How many?"
"You are asking questions without context."
"Then provide context."
Victoria's hands flattened on her tray table.
Caleb said:
"Your reliability group requested an extended retest."
Silence.
"That request was declined."
Nothing.
"There is no written technical rationale in the material supplied to Sterling Atlantic."
Victoria whispered:
"None of that is in the executive package."
"Correct."
"Who sent it?"
Caleb closed the laptop.
"A reliability engineer."
Victoria looked away.
He saw recognition before he gave the name.
"Naomi Price."
Victoria's jaw tightened.
"Of course."
Interesting response.
Caleb waited.
Victoria said:
"Naomi is talented."
"But?"
"Young."
Caleb almost smiled.
"Twenty-nine."
"She lacks commercial context."
"What does commercial context change about a validation result?"
Victoria looked toward him.
"It changes how risk is communicated."
"Does it change the data?"
"No."
"Then we're back to the same problem."
She leaned closer.
"Do you understand what happens if a company delays a deployment every time an engineer finds an anomaly?"
"Yes."
"Nothing ships."
"Sometimes."
"Engineering teams are trained to find reasons something could fail."
"That is part of their job."
"Executives are paid to decide whether those reasons matter."
"Also true."
Victoria seemed frustrated that he was not disagreeing dramatically.
Caleb continued.
"The issue isn't that Naomi found an anomaly."
"The issue is that she raised a documented concern through the correct channel, requested a retest, and the concern disappeared into a reclassification process without engineering sign-off."
Victoria said:
"She went around leadership."
"No."
Caleb shook his head.
"She used the contractual escalation path."
"That path exists for formal technical concerns."
"Exactly."
Victoria looked away.
Caleb watched.