Goodbye, Mr. Regret

Sheila's fingers curled unconsciously.

She knew exactly what project they were talking about.

After Timothy's new solid-state battery technology broke into the international market, it took off fast.

Two years ago, when Timothy set his sights on bringing his batteries home, he launched a nationwide network of automated charging stations for electric cars- essentially eliminating the need for drivers to worry about battery life.

People who bought electric vehicles could now opt for models without batteries and simply rent one from the shared stations. If this caught on, domestic battery makers would face a massive disruption.

The Zimmerman Group, being the country's earliest electric vehicle manufacturer, had its own battery division.

The moment they caught wind of Timothy's plans, they acted overnight. Every service center under their name was swiftly refitted with this new charging station infrastructure. As soon as compatible batteries arrived, they'd be up and running.

For Timothy, just breaking into the domestic market, rolling out enough stations nationwide meant scouting locations, building facilities—nothing that could be accomplished in a day or two.

Meanwhile, other companies were offering batteries not quite as advanced as Timothy's, but good enough. If the Zimmerman Group partnered with one of them and captured the market first, Timothy's own project would be dead in the water.

licensing his battery tech

how

really. If Vince didn't take drastic action and let Timothy expand unchecked, Zimmerman's batteries would quickly lose market share, and that blow would ripple right through their entire electric vehicle

to cooperate, he'd fall far

been ambitious; if the returns didn't meet his expectations,

with Vince was the only way for Timothy to truly

was a direct threat to gas stations. Everyone in the room knew how enormous the future market could

alone if he wanted. Vince was just trying to carve

trying to strong-arm him into a deal— cooperation was never

was suddenly offering the project back to Timothy. God only knew what his

things might turn

since we were kids. In a city like Riverside, you can't avoid running into each other. When you wanted the project, you fought for it; now you don't, you just hand it over?

balled

had all