The next morning, Elena arrived at Northstar exactly on time for her appointment. Contrary to what she had braced herself for since the night before, the meeting went more smoothly than expected. Marcus Vale received her personally, read through her proposal with great care, then asked question after question about distribution systems, Ashbourne’s capacity to handle bloodline equipment, and the hospital network it could connect to. Elena had once been directly responsible for this entire division, so she could answer most of his questions without even looking at her notes. By the end of the meeting, Marcus closed the file and said, “Your capabilities are stronger than what the initial report suggested. I’ll include Ashbourne in the evaluation round alongside the other three companies.”
E
