Colt told him about the flowers at nine: fifteen on a Wednesday morning, which was eight minutes after Riven had sent them to the executive floor.
He delivered the information with his usual economy, setting it inside a sentence about the morning's operational updates, and then he waited.
Valdris was quiet for eight seconds.
Colt counted them, not because he needed to count them but because the counting was its own kind of information, a measurement of the space between the news arriving and the response forming. Eight seconds from a man who processed most things in two.
"The Marcen boundary update," Valdris said. "What is the timeline from the eastern team?"
"They expect movement within the month," Colt said. "The property acquisitions have reached a density that suggests active prep
