The Hollow Middle

James has five years of legacy work left and no idea where the next job comes from. The machines are paid for and from the outside the business still looks solid. That is the trick.

The announcements are real. The purchase orders are not.

Over the decade that follows, James is joined by Kit, a submarine officer discovering that institutional loyalty and personal identity are not the same thing, and Bill, an older adviser who sees the system clearly but is not immune to its costs. Together they map the hidden logic of Defence, government and industry, and the gap between national ambition and what is actually built.

No player is a villain. Everyone is acting rationally within the incentives they face. The result is the hollow middle.

The Hollow Middle is a business parable about what a nation announces, what it actually builds, and the cost carried by the people in between.