--Matthew
- - - - - - - - - -
"No," William declared breathlessly as he sank heavily into his
chair. He raised the tissue to his brow, blotted the sweat that
had instantly formed there.
In one fell swoop, Matthew Locke had just changed William's
entire plan-and the future of ICP. He felt his heart racing, and
he began to hyperventilate. He wondered if he was experiencing
the onset of a stroke. He held his palm over his heart and willed
it to slow while he attempted to breathe evenly, all the while
staring at the message spilled across his-no, Matthew's!-screen.
When he eventually calmed down enough to think a little more
clearly, his panic was replaced by shallow emptiness. Then,
vaguely at first, a strange feeling of grief and mourning numbed
his senses, resurfacing for the first time since he had begun his
plan to acquire Wallaby.
His mind started racing, and his immediate reaction was to
quickly counter Matthew's scheme by unveiling ICP's own
competitive product, showing him that no one pushed the
number-one computer maker around. Thinking this through, however,
William could hardly bring himself to ask the question, What can
I do? He already knew the answer. Nothing. Hadn't he himself
halted any new designs of ICP's BP series, or for that matter,
any new portable design, after reaching the "Jones" phase of the
original plan, when Matthew had moved into power?
No backup plan, he thought and shook his head sadly.
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