Thurston stepped to the microphone and thanked the employees who had held Bellweather together through eighteen months of debt, canceled orders, and one disastrous expansion.

Lucan let go of my wrist and straightened his jacket, arranging his face into the expression of a man about to be rewarded.

“Tonight,” Thurston said, “we welcome the investor whose capital saved eight hundred jobs and retired the most dangerous debt this company has ever carried.

The acquisition closed today.

Solstice Holdings now owns fifty-eight percent of Bellweather Systems.”

Lucan was the first to applaud.