gertrude sacrificing michael shelley to the spiral isn’t necessarily indicative of a lack of care towards him as her archival assistant. if so, then her seeming to care about gerry keay is either based in favouritism (unlikely) or maturity (maybe slightly more compelling). I think it’s more likely that gertrude did care (to some extent) for her archival assistants, but that she was always far more willing to put aside personal feelings and use individuals in order to save millions more.