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Julia tapped a manicured nail against her water glass. "Keller still needs to find fresh investment." Her eyes didn't leave Hannah's face. "Your restructuring can't be termed successful yet."

Hannah didn't blink. "Their biomarker validation completed last week. Creighton Bank holds the report." She paused, letting the implication hang between them - Keller held a valuable asset. "The spin-off survives. It requires investment, but that's a challenge it can meet."

Julia's expression remained impassive, but Rossi shifted almost imperceptibly beside her. Approval? Tension? Hannah couldn't decipher it. A waiter arrived to take her order and for a moment she turned her attention to him.

Julia leaned forward, her voice lowering. "I have a client. A consortium exploring distressed mining assets in Bolivia. Political volatility, regulatory opacity, infrastructure gaps, environmental liabilities. Standard diligence flags it as catastrophic." She paused, her gaze piercing. "My client sees opportunity. They need someone to validate that perspective. Someone who understands... unconventional leverage."

Hannah absorbed the details. High stakes. Tangled variables. Exactly the terrain Rossi had promised. "Validation requires more than spreadsheets," Hannah stated. "It demands boots on the ground to understand the local power structures." She met Julia's eyes squarely. "I'd need unrestricted access and discretion."

Julia's lips thinned, but it wasn't refusal. It was calculation. "Discretion is non-negotiable. Exposure would collapse the deal and damage reputations irreparably." She slid a slim dossier across the table. "Initial brief. Names, locations, known liabilities. Your fee structure?"

Hannah didn't touch the dossier yet. "After a thorough appraisal of the job, I'll give you a figure. But I'll need a twenty percent retainer upfront. Fifty upon delivery of preliminary assessment. Thirty upon final validation." She held Julia's stare. "No extra expenses. Travel, research, local facilitators, all included."

Julia's eyebrow arched fractionally. "Aggressive."

"Accurate," Hannah countered. "The risk premium reflects the exposure. Your client isn't paying for data. They're paying for insight that bypasses conventional filters." She kept her hands folded, resisting the urge to grasp the dossier. Ownership started with discipline.

Julia studied her for a long moment, then gave a single, sharp nod. "Terms accepted in principle. Preliminary assessment due in fourteen days, including any moneys payable." She rose, coat already draped over her arm. "Use the dossier's encrypted link. Communicate only through designated channels. Rossi remains your liaison." With that, she departed, leaving only the faint scent of vetiver behind.

Rossi exhaled, a low sound almost like admiration. "She eats junior analysts for breakfast. You held your ground." He pushed the untouched breadbasket toward her. "Julia's consortium moves billions. Succeed here, and doors open."

Hannah finally picked up the dossier, its weight negligible but its significance immense. Thin paper, thick implications. She scanned the first page - lithium deposits, land conflicts, operational and logistical issues. "Why me, Alessandro? Former SEC chiefs don't hire unknowns."

Rossi swirled his bourbon. "Julia's client wants deniability. My recommendation carried weight, but your Tanaka play convinced her. You turned a stalemate into opportunity after Layton Moreby had floundered." He leaned closer, voice dropping. "They also know about Steiner."

Hannah stiffened. The Tanaka board member's demands - the kneeling, the vulnerability - were private currency. "How?"

"Steiner reported your... resolve." Rossi's gaze held hers, unflinching. "Julia respects pragmatism. She knows what it takes to navigate shadows." He tapped the dossier. "This is your proving ground. Fail, and Steiner's patronage evaporates. Succeed, and sovereign wealth funds become your clients."

Hannah absorbed the cold calculus. Her submission to Steiner wasn't shameful leverage, it was collateral. She opened the dossier fully. Satellite images of arid highlands, protest camp coordinates, and a list of Bolivian officials, both local and national. The scale was dizzying. "Fourteen days isn't due diligence. It's triage."

Rossi nodded. "Julia's client has competitors circling. Speed defines advantage." He slid a burner phone across the table. "Encrypted. Your sole channel. Contact ‘El Cóndor' in La Paz - he handles ground logistics. Trust his intel, not his motives."

Hannah pocketed the phone, her mind already dissecting the dossier's sparse details. Salar de Uyuni lithium fields. Local Aymara blockade. Minister of Mining, Carlos Rivera. Each fact felt like a frayed wire crackling with hidden currents. "Rivera's the key?" she asked, tracing the minister's name with her fingertip.

"He could be." Rossi shrugged. "It's hard to know where he stands. The ministry of mining is prone to frequent policy shifts and has a history of opaque decision-making."

Hannah's mind raced. Fourteen days. Bolivia's altitude, labyrinthine bureaucracy, volatile street protests - each a variable demanding precision. She'd need local eyes, ears she could trust implicitly. "El Cóndor's reliability?"

Rossi's smile was thin. "He's survived three coups. His loyalty is to whoever pays fastest." He slid a folded note across the linen. "Contact details. Discreet. Unaffiliated."

Hannah glanced at the note and tucked it into her clutch. Her fingers brushed the burner phone's cold casing. Fourteen days. The timeline compressed around her like a vise. "And if it's not possible to get anywhere in the time allowed?"

"Improvise," Rossi said flatly. "Julia's client values resourcefulness, not excuses." He signaled for the check, his movements brisk, transactional. The meeting was over. "Report progress on a regular basis, daily if possible. Silence may be interpreted as failure."

Hannah didn't linger. Outside, Toronto's night air bit sharply as she hailed a cab. Inside the vehicle, she opened the dossier under the passing streetlights. Rivera was in a relationship with Isabella Vargas, who ran a boutique hotel in La Paz, "Casa de Luna." This information didn't appear to be anything useful, but the dossier went on to say that Vargas was known for her art acquisitions, which made Hannah wonder if she, or rather Rivera, had a hidden source of funding.

Back at her hotel, she spread the documents across the bed. Satellite images revealed campsites encircling the lithium site, probably protest camps.. She cross-referenced names - Aymara leader Mateo Quispe, flagged as "uncompromising." Yet his file noted a brother imprisoned on dubious charges in Santa Cruz and awaiting trial. An opening. She would pursue it in the morning.

The next day she opened the dossier again, a dossier which felt like a key - not to Rossi's world, but to her own. Her consultancy was now underway and she had no intention of turning back. She drafted her first encrypted message to El Cóndor: "I'd like to offer assistance to Quispe's brother. Can we do anything to help get him released?"

The burner phone vibrated an hour later. El Cóndor's reply was terse. "He was freed yesterday. The judge threw the case out."

Hannah stared at the message, her plan thwarted. She'd have to try something more straightforward. She typed back. "Can we arrange a meeting with Quispe? Neutral ground."

El Cóndor's reply came faster this time. "Impossible. He won't speak to outsiders, unless they're bona fide journalists. Especially not gringas with mining consortium ties."

Hannah paced her hotel room, the November day drab beyond the window. Quispe's resistance was predictable. She scanned the dossier again, landing on a footnote - Quispe's daughter attended university in Cochabamba. Linguistics major. Scholarship suspended last semester. Hannah's fingers flew over the burner phone. "Can you find out what happened to Quispe's daughter?"

Hannah left the hotel and made her way to the convention center. While waiting for a reply from El Cóndor and planning her next moves, she would make the most of the last day at the trade fair and business summit. She arrived there, deep in thought. It seemed clear that she would need to travel to Bolivia, so she would need to look into visa requirements.

She walked past the booths, her mind only half on the presentations around her. She was thinking about how she might approach Quispe's daughter. If the scholarship suspension was due to financial hardship, that could be leverage. She paused at a booth advertising drone surveillance for remote sites - potentially useful for assessing the protest camps without direct confrontation. She took a brochure, mentally noting the contact.

The burner phone buzzed in her clutch. El Cóndor's reply was characteristically blunt. "San Simón University. Missed deadline for tuition fees. Paid late."

Hannah slipped the phone away, turning her attention to the drone booth. The salesman launched into his pitch about thermal imaging and perimeter mapping, but Hannah cut straight to practicality. "Can your systems take pictures without being seen?"

The salesman blinked. "We specialize in high resolution cameras, ma'am."

"Fine." She took a notepad from the stand and wrote her email address. "Send specs showing the capability of your best cameras." She moved on before he could reply.

She continued to navigate the crowded convention hall, pausing near a booth showcasing conflict mineral tracking software. "Transparency from pit to port," the presenter declared. Hannah lingered, noting the software's potential relevance to the mission she was on.

"Broad Japanese equity in a single trade." The presenter's voice at a booth offering Nikkei futures cut through Hannah's focus. She moved away, the lithium dossier's demands tightening around her thoughts. Mateo Quispe's blockade was the linchpin. Without neutralizing it, Julia's client couldn't access the lithium. And if Quispe's daughter had now paid her tuition fees, there was no longer leverage to be gained there by offering to assist.

The summit's crowds were thinning now, as the event drew to a close, but talk of copper contracts, cross-industry innovation, third-party endorsements still rang out. Hannah walked past a booth advertising ethical AI solutions for supply chains. An earnest young woman gestured toward a screen displaying cobalt mines. "Real-time monitoring ensures no child labor enters your value chain."

Hannah paused and reflected. Ethical. The word felt slippery. Julia's client didn't want ethics, they wanted deniability. Yet the technology - remote verification - could be adapted. She took a brochure, her mind already stripping away the branding to its surveillance core.

It had been a useful day. As it came to an end, Hannah gathered brochures on blockchain traceability, encrypted satellite comms, and extraction technology - stripping each vendor pitch of its ethical veneer to assess raw utility. As she understood it, the lithium deposit lay beneath ancestral Aymara land. Quispe's blockade wasn't just protest, it was sovereignty. Julia's client needed access, not justice. Hannah's future path seemed complicated, intertwined with the protest camps, but her immediate path was a simple one - she was headed home.

Back in her own apartment, Hannah looked back over her trip to Toronto. It was Friday night and she'd only been away since Wednesday morning, but in that short time her life had been set in a new direction. Perhaps she was wildly optimistic to think she could work as an independent consultant, but her course was set now and she was ready to face the future.

She turned her attention to Bolivia. Before she could travel, she needed to understand the country better. She spent the weekend researching Bolivia's political landscape, the lithium mining industry, and Aymara culture. The more she learned, the more complex the challenge appeared. The Salar de Uyuni wasn't just a resource, it was sacred land. Mateo Quispe wasn't merely a protester, he was a community leader defending ancestral rights. This wasn't a simple business transaction - it was a collision of worlds.

On Monday morning, Hannah tried to formulate her way forward. She felt thwarted in her attempts to reach Quispe through his brother or his daughter, but needed to come up with something if she was going to assess what was likely to happen with the protests.

The burner phone chimed. El Cóndor. "Minister Rivera hosting gala at Palacio de Sal next Friday." Hannah stared at the message. The Palacio de Sal was a hotel carved entirely from salt blocks near the lithium fields - Rivera wasn't just hosting a party, he was flaunting proximity to the contested resource. Hannah's visa wouldn't be available in time, otherwise she would have tried to attend the event in order to observe power dynamics firsthand.

Tuesday brought more news, El Cóndor messaging again. Rivera's gala guest list included a prominent Chinese lithium processor. The blockade remained intact, but Quispe had agreed to meet Rivera at the Palacio after the event. An interesting development. Direct negotiation between Quispe and Rivera could simplify things enormously or possibly worsen them.

Wednesday brought further developments. The media were reporting that Rivera had talked about offering incentives to the local communities in order to get the blockade lifted. Assuming that the reported comments were government policy, it was surely a positive sign. Even if they were only ideas being put forward, it was still a sign of serious intent to negotiate.

Hannah continued to study the dossier she'd been given, but was aware that it could only tell her so much, since she found herself in the middle of a developing news story. Besides, she was now so familiar with the geological surveys, government press releases, satellite imagery, and so on, that she was no longer learning very much by continuing to study them.

One thing she didn't have was information on the mine's ownership. Maybe that wasn't in the dossier because it wasn't considered useful, but to Hannah it seemed like an oversight. If the information about Isabella Vargas was considered relevant, then surely there should have been something in the dossier about who currently owned and administered the mine.

On Thursday she searched online to try and find information about the mining company. Certain that this was something worth pursuing, she devoted several hours to the task, but still didn't find much of note, other than the names of the directors and the published company accounts. She messaged El Cóndor, requesting any information he could provide.

On Friday morning his reply arrived, terse as usual. "The state has majority control." Hannah hadn't expected this and tried to grasp the implications of it. She didn't understand how anyone could acquire mining assets if they were owned by the Bolivian state. It was a puzzle. She needed clarification from Rossi and sent him a message asking him the question.

His answer came quickly. "Lithium is the world's new gold. It wouldn't be a problem if the investor had to partner with the state, but look into the chances of securing outright control. Bolivia needs foreign investment. Don't forget your preliminary assessment is due next week."

Hannah leaned back, staring at the ceiling. The true enormity of the task had suddenly washed over her and she wondered if she had bitten off more than she could chew. "Who am I to be doing this?" she wondered. "Am I anywhere near ready to be handling something like this?"

She mulled over the latest news. The state held majority control? That changed everything. It meant Rivera wasn't just a minister; he was effectively the gatekeeper. Any deal would require his blessing, and Quispe's protests weren't just about land rights, they were a direct challenge to state authority. Hannah couldn't help feel her doubts increasing, fearing that she might be stepping into something bigger, faster moving, and far less stable than she could control.

The gala at the Palacio was taking place that evening and Rivera and Quispe were going to meet. Hannah paced her apartment, the city's skyline a blur beyond rain-streaked windows. The meeting wasn't just about incentives - it was a high-stakes negotiation. If Rivera conceded too much to Quispe, the lithium deal's profitability - and Hannah's validation of it - could collapse. If he offered too little, the blockade might escalate into violence.

On Saturday morning, there was one positive development for Hannah as her visa arrived. As she was looking at it, El Cóndor's next message buzzed on the burner phone. "No agreement reached last night. No details given on what was discussed." Hannah was frustrated at the news.

So Rivera and Quispe had met at the Palacio de Sal and emerged with nothing resolved. The blockade remained, the lithium stayed buried, and without knowing what terms were offered or rejected, any assessment of the current position inevitably hung on pure speculation.

One thing seemed certain though. Assuming that incentives had been offered, whatever they were hadn't been enough. Perhaps Quispe's resistance ran deeper than Rivera had bargained for. Hannah's preliminary assessment deadline was looming like a storm cloud. Without understanding the breakdown in talks, she couldn't gauge Rivera's leverage or Quispe's breaking point

Hannah spent Sunday cross-referencing new satellite imagery she found online with El Cóndor's sparse updates. The protest camps weren't dissolving, they were consolidating. Makeshift structures were becoming more permanent. This wasn't a temporary protest, it was a settlement. Quispe was digging in, literally and figuratively.

Monday dawned grey and urgent. The burner phone vibrated with a new alert. "Rivera announces public consultation meeting Thursday in Uyuni. Community representatives invited." Hannah's pulse quickened. This was her opening. A public forum meant access, observation, and whispers in crowded rooms.

She immediately booked a flight to Uyuni, departing the following morning. She called Rossi, explaining how important the meeting in Uyuni was and that her assessment would need to wait until after it had taken place. That evening, she made calls to her parents and her sister, apologizing for being away at Thanksgiving, explaining that she had to travel on business.

The consultation meeting was scheduled for Thursday afternoon at Uyuni's municipal hall - a modest building dwarfed by the vast salt flats stretching beyond the town. Hannah arrived on Wednesday evening, the thin, mineral-scented air sharp in her lungs. She spent hours walking the periphery of the protest camp, observing. Women stirred pots over open fires, children chased each other between tarpaulin shelters, and men stood in quiet clusters, their faces etched with weary determination. The camp wasn't transient chaos, it was organized, resilient.

Early on Thursday, Hannah positioned herself near the hall's entrance. Rivera arrived flanked by aides, his tailored suit stark against the dusty plaza. Quispe followed minutes later, accompanied by elders in traditional ajsus. Their expressions were unreadable, but the tension between them crackled in the dry air. Hannah slipped inside, blending into the packed hall.

The meeting unfolded in rapid-fire Spanish. Rivera's tone was polished, persuasive. He was listened to respectfully. When it was his turn, Quispe's voice was gravelly but firm. As he spoke, murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd. Rivera's smile tightened.

During the recess, Hannah noticed media interviews being conducted at the back of the hall, and made her way over to listen, hoping to understand more about what had transpired. Much of the talk was in Spanish, but with foreign news outlets being present, some of them were in English.

"What's the most valuable commodity in the world?" asked a young woman, addressing an assembled news throng. The group didn't offer any answer, merely waiting for her to continue. Seeing a chance to insert herself into the conversation, Hannah spoke up. "Diamonds?"

"Wrong," said the woman. "Water." She moved her eyes over the group. "Lithium extraction requires enormous amounts of water. Protest camps are just the beginning. We're in the process of filing injunctions against all the mines diverting water in these arid highlands."

Hannah's breath caught. Water rights. A lever she hadn't considered. She edged closer as the woman took questions from the reporters on the legal strategy she had just announced, mentioning names of mining companies that Hannah recognized from her research.

"We've heard a lot of talk about Kawsay," said one reporter. "The Aymara principle of living in balance. Doesn't that mean no mining at all?"

"I've been told that the salt flats are not veins to mine," said another, gravely. "That they are the tears of Pachamama, the earth mother."

The young woman replied that most of the indigenous people accepted the mines in principle, as they meant jobs for the locals, and hopefully better infrastructure. But the local community was united in opposition to the mines diverting water supplies in Bolivia's arid highlands.

Hannah decided to put her own question. "If you're taking legal action against the mines, which are owned by the state, aren't you effectively suing the government?"

"No," the speaker replied. "The state may hold majority ownership, but it's those who run the mines who hold the operational power. It's them we're holding to account." Hannah noted this critical distinction with great interest. It was a nuance that changed her thinking completely.

"It's true," said a voice next to her. "I run a mine and we're the ones who have to battle with these issues." Hannah turned to see a man who could easily have been one of the protesters. "That's when we're not battling the government to get some decent roads around here. Or to get better security."

The consultation was beginning again. Hannah followed the man and sat beside him, hoping he could give her some further insights. The pattern of the meeting stayed the same, with Rivera speaking smoothly, but Quispe and others gaining the murmurs of agreement.

"What are they saying?" whispered Hannah to the mine owner. "My Spanish isn't too good."

"Rivera's offering to build new wells," said the man, "but it's being pointed out to him that wells won't achieve anything unless there's water to go in them." He pulled away from her, then suddenly leaned in again. "Quispe's clever. He's not just demanding water rights. He's framing it as sacred theft."

The distinction struck Hannah. Legal battles could be fought, but spiritual betrayal? That mobilized hearts. Rivera's counteroffer of infrastructure improvements sounded hollow against Quispe's invocation of ancestral earth.

As the meeting came to an end, Hannah talked more to the mine owner and made sure she got the man's name and his company name, thinking that a local mine owner who spoke fluent English was an important contact. Her immediate task, though, was to make her preliminary assessment Today had given her a new perspective on the position of the mines and she was now ready to write that report.

Hannah typed quickly in her cramped hotel room, focused on the task in hand. She'd checked some details with El Cóndor, who'd been terse in his replies but was always quick to reply, and most importantly he was knowlegeable and helpful.

The preliminary assessment crystallized around three factors. First, the state owned fifty-one per cent of each of the larger mines, but that still left plenty of scope for foreign investment. In addition, investors could effectively hold operational power, even without majority ownership. Outright control was technically possible, but this needed further examination.

Second, local communities were protesting, not over land as generally depicted, but over water. Lithium extraction required enormous amounts of water and in Bolivia's arid highlands this was a major issue and one that had not been effectively addressed. The prospects for investment in the lithium mines would rely on how the water issue was tackled.

Third, operational and logistical challenges. Poor infrastructure had been a problem for mine owners, as many mines were struggling with unpaved access roads. Security also needed to be considered, as some mines had suffered armed robberies. The government did appear to be taking action on roads with new expenditure on roads in the area already announced.

Hannah clicked to email the report to Rossi. When she awoke the following morning, his reply had already arrived. "Your report is presentable, but largely along the lines of the due diligence already received. We need to find opportunity. Your final report needs to chart the way forward."

She knew she needed deeper insight. The mine owner she'd met at the consultation, Carlos Reyes, had given her his card. Hannah called him, explaining she was an independent consultant evaluating investment opportunities in the region. Reyes invited her to visit his small-scale operation near Uyuni.

The cab drive revealed the stark reality behind the lithium boom. Reyes' mine was a modest cluster of prefabricated buildings clinging to the edge of the salt flats. Dust coated everything. "Welcome to the future," Reyes said dryly, handing her a hard hat. "Or what passes for it out here."

He showed Hannah the extraction ponds - shallow, turquoise rectangles shimmering under the harsh sun. "Evaporation takes months," he explained, kicking at the cracked earth. "And every drop comes from deep wells, trucked in at enormous cost. The protesters? They see their ancestral springs drying up. Can't blame them." He pointed towards distant, hazy mountains. "Quispe's people live there. Their streams feed our pumps. Rivera talks pipelines and desalination plants, but those are years away. We're draining their lifeline now."

Hannah crouched, touching the brittle salt crusting the pond's edge. "What's the solution? Can extraction use less water?"

Reyes snorted. "New tech exists. Direct lithium extraction - DLE. Uses ninety percent less water, processes brine in hours, not months." He gestured bitterly toward the mountains. "But the government won't fund it. Too expensive upfront. Easier to pump until the springs run dry."

Hannah's mind raced. DLE wasn't just a solution, it was the lever she'd been hunting. Water rights protests were choking investment? Offer Rivera a technological fix that silenced Quispe's core grievance while boosting efficiency. Foreign investors would pay a premium for ESG-compliant extraction. She scanned Reyes' primitive setup. "Why haven't you implemented DLE yourself?"

Reyes wiped sweat and dust from his brow. "Cost. The units are imported, expensive. We'd also need foreign expertise to use them. Banks won't lend without government guarantees, and Rivera's ministry moves slower than our evaporation ponds." His frustration was palpable. "We're stuck between protesters and bureaucracy, bleeding cash."

Hannah studied the shimmering ponds, then the distant Aymara settlements. Quispe's sacred theft narrative gained power because it was true - this was ecological sacrilege. But DLE could change that. "What if private investors financed DLE pilots?" she asked. "Prove it works, scale it nationally. Investors get ESG bragging rights, Rivera gets a win, Quispe's water returns."

Reyes' skepticism deepened. "The investment required would be huge. And subject to regulatory control. Who's going to be interested in making such a commitment when the state would insist on a majority stake?"

"What if," Hannah pressed Reyes, "we bypass Rivera? Fund your mine as a DLE pilot. Prove it works, then take the data to Quispe's people. Show them the water savings firsthand."

Reyes stared at her, incredulous. "Bypass Rivera? All mineral resources in Bolivia are owned by the state. Foreign entities need permission to exploit them."

"Not if we frame it as a technology transfer," Hannah countered. "You're Bolivian. Your company leases this land. We provide your operation with DLE equipment and expertise under a technical partnership agreement. No direct foreign ownership. You run the pilot, retain profits, and share verifiable water-saving data with Quispe's community."

Reyes paced along the pond's edge, boots crunching salt crystals. "Rivera would still demand oversight. He controls mining permits."

"Then we give him oversight," Hannah pressed. "Invite his ministry to monitor the pilot. Frame it as a Bolivian solution - local innovation solving national problems. Rivera gets credit for enabling progress. Quispe gets proof of reduced water impact. Investors get a scalable model." She saw Reyes' hesitation. "What's the alternative? More protests? More dried-up streams?"

Reyes stopped pacing, kicking a clump of salt crust into the pond. "DLE units cost millions. Who finances it?"

"Private investors seeking ESG-compliant opportunities," Hannah said, the plan crystallizing. "They'd provide capital through a specialized fund focused on sustainable mining tech. Your mine becomes the proof-of-concept - verifiable water reduction data attracts bigger investors later." She gestured toward the mountains. "Quispe sees immediate relief for his community. Rivera gets a political win without spending state funds."

Reyes rubbed his temples, salt dust etching lines into his skin. "The logistics... DLE requires constant power. We rely on diesel generators."

"Solar," Hannah countered instantly. "The sun here is brutal. Pair DLE with solar arrays - cut costs, boost sustainability credentials." She pulled out her tablet, pulling up specs. "Look. Modular units. Scalable. We install them here, track everything - water saved, energy consumed, lithium yield. Transparent data Quispe can verify."

Reyes leaned in, studying the schematics. Hope flickered in his weary eyes. "Rivera... he won't like outsiders setting precedent."

"Then we make it irresistible," Hannah said, tapping the tablet. "Position it as Rivera's visionary initiative. We provide the funding and tech quietly through shell entities, but he announces it as a state-backed pilot. His signature, his triumph." She saw the flicker in Reyes' eyes - ambition warring with decades of bureaucratic defeat. "This is your chance to lead, Carlos. Not just survive."

Reyes stared at the shimmering ponds, lost in thought. Then he began to pace, his boots grinding salt crust into dust. "The risks... Rivera could seize the tech, nationalize the pilot."

"Then structure it as leased equipment," Hannah countered. "Ownership remains with the foreign entity. Removal clauses if permits are revoked. Rivera gets glory, not control. We make compliance his incentive - cancel the pilot, lose the solution."

She saw Reyes' skepticism waver. He stopped pacing. He stared at the cracked earth beneath his boots, then lifted his gaze toward Quispe's mountains. "Alright," he said, the word gritty with resolve. "But Rivera must endorse this publicly." Hannah nodded. A state blessing would legitimize the pilot. "I'll handle Rivera," she promised.

Back at her hotel, Hannah drafted a proposal to the Minister of Mining. She framed the DLE pilot as his visionary solution - a rapid, low-water extraction method developed through state-private collaboration. She emphasized the provision of foreign investment, immediate water savings, and Rivera's role as the architect of national harmony. She clicked send.

Much to Hannah's surprise, a reply came the same day. She hadn't expected a government department to respond so quickly, but perhaps their own lack of progress with Quispe had caused them to treat her proposal as a matter of urgency. She opened the message to find an aide to Rivera informing her that the minister would see her on Tuesday morning.

The following day, Hannah made her way to Uyuni airport to fly to La Paz. She could scarcely believe how far she had come in little more than four months as an investment consultant. She was heading to meet a government minister. It seemed unreal and at the same time starkly real. A meeting with a government minister and a meeting she needed to make the most of.

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