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.

move back then was obvious: he wanted to force Timothy into licensing his battery

just how business

Zimmerman's batteries would quickly lose market share, and that blow would ripple right through their entire electric

Timothy refused to cooperate, he'd fall far behind the Zimmerman Group in

the returns didn't meet his expectations, he simply wasn't interested

up with Vince was the only way for Timothy to truly maximize his

threat to gas stations. Everyone in the room knew

if he wanted. Vince

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

project back to Timothy. God only

help worrying things

steady. "Vince, we've known each other 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

hands balled into

people had all