Since the New Year, Terry and the rest of the research team had been stationed in Miami, grinding through the R&D of the Intelligent Unmanned Warehousing system alongside the Siming logistics team.
After nearly six months of relentless development, the breakthrough finally came. Albatross Logistics had successfully birthed the world's first truly autonomous warehouse ecosystem.
Internal stress tests were flawless. The system was surgical. Confident in their results, the R&D team decided to push the system into live trials, tasking it with handling the massive logistics surge for the upcoming "618" mid-year shopping festival.
As a multi-million-dollar crown jewel in the Ali portfolio, the project was under a microscope. Albatross Logistics announced that Mike, the CEO of Ali, would be hosting a star-studded ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 10th, inviting government officials and global media to witness the future of automation.
As one of only two major shareholders, a key partner, and the architect of the Swarm-Array Control Technology, Nick was at the top of the guest list.
In the old days, he might have skipped it, but Nick was a public figure now. If he didn't show up, the rumors would start flying. Beyond the optics, he was the brain behind the core tech, and his lead engineers were still on-site. As the boss, he had to be there to celebrate the win with his people.
"I'll only be gone for a few days," Nick told his staff during a final briefing. "Operations continue as usual. If anything blows up, you have my number."
"The 618 marketing push has to be aggressive," Nick added. "Drop the prices. Deep discounts. Right now, capturing the market is more important than the bottom line."
"I still think 20% off is a bit steep," Tyler said, looking physically pained. "Most brands don't even sniff a discount that big on new flagship tech during these festivals."
If they moved a million units, they were looking at a $300 million hit to the treasury. No wonder Tyler looked like someone had just kicked his dog.
Nick smiled, trying to calm his partner down. "Don't get bogged down in the pennies, Tyler. Think long-term. Spending $300 million to secure a million new users looks like a loss on a spreadsheet, but it's an investment in our ecosystem. If even 10% of those people subscribe to our premium cloud services, we make that money back tenfold."
"The CEO is right," Giovani chimed in. "Our goal is the 'Network Effect.' Once we control the market's discourse, everyone else has to build their products to fit our standards. A massive user base is a resource you can't put a price on. Once you have the crowd, people will fight for the chance to give you money."
Tyler sighed, nodding reluctantly. "I get the logic. It just hurts to watch that much cash walk out the door."
"Look on the bright side—think about what we'll earn later," Nick said, before shifting gears. "How are the talks going with Apple? If we don't fix the iOS compatibility issue, it's going to kneecap our marketing."
Over the past week, Tyler had been locked in a room with Apple's regional representatives, and the process had been a nightmare.
Apple, leveraged by its massive market share, was playing dirty. They were treating the negotiations like a hostile takeover, using underhanded tactics and veiled threats to try and strong-arm Nick into handing over his core patents.
But Tyler had held the line. He argued with surgical logic, eventually forcing the arrogant Apple team back to reality.
Apple knew that trying to bully a company with deep military ties was a losing game. Once their intel confirmed that Militech was already deep in bed with the Department of Defense, they realized they'd never own the tech.
Since they couldn't buy it, they tried to tax it to death. Their "opening offer" was absurd: they demanded Militech pay a $32 million "security deposit" for information integrity. Furthermore, they demanded that any transactions made through the H1's service mall on an iPhone had to use Apple Pay, with Apple taking a 30% "App Store tax" on every single product sold.
The threat was clear: comply, or your management app gets flagged as "high risk" and blacklisted from the App Store.
Enraged by the blatant extortion, Tyler had gone nuclear. He leaked Apple's "Cunning List" of demands to the press and declared that Militech would never compromise.
The internet, already obsessed with the H1, exploded. People were livid, calling out Apple's "Mafia tactics." Other developers who had been bullied by the tech giant started coming forward with their own horror stories.
The fallout even reached the regulators. Federal oversight committees issued a stern memo stating they wouldn't tolerate foreign tech giants infringing on domestic innovation, and they summoned Apple's regional head for a "chat."
Realizing they had a PR disaster on their hands, Apple scrambled into damage control, but the fire was already too big to put out.
They finally realized that the only way to stop the bleeding was to settle with Militech. A new, much more senior delegation arrived at Nick's office, their attitude having shifted 180 degrees from "bully" to "best friend."
Despite the new smiles, the two sides were still miles apart on the service fees. The negotiations had hit a total stalemate.