Tim Cook's third idea elicited a wave of nods from the rest of the board. Cooperating with a competitor was never a good idea; it was just giving others a handle by which to exert control over them. And ruining their own hard work over the past decades of building up a specific brand identity for Apple was equally distasteful, if not more. So even if the anti-GAIA coalition was distasteful, and even if it wasn't effective, it was still the only viable option of the three they had been presented with.

Besides, even if they did want to cooperate with GAIA, Sarah had been adamant about not selling the chips they would need, no matter how much they'd offered or how sincere their offers had been.

"We can also claim they're a tech monopoly. It's bullshit and would never stand up, but the more things we throw at them, the more flustered they'll be and the more likely they'll be to submit." That generated a bit of a buzz of chuckles in the meeting room.

"So which idea are we going forward with? Let's vote," Tim said. The minutes secretary took over and issued the voting order, which was soon completed. The result of the vote was shown on the screen behind Tim.

"Looks like many of you liked the coalition idea, with cooperation coming in second. So let's do it like this: while we're setting up our lobbying coalition, we can contact GAIA and muscle them into 'selling' us their chips and the tech behind them. We can promise not to support the coalition as long as they agree to our demands. If they don't, then they'll be kicked out of the richest market in the world, and all of our political allies around the globe would definitely follow suit. Then they'll only be able to cry on their bankruptcy filings," he said. He would immediately throw the rest of the coalition under the bus if Apple got hold of the tech they wanted from GAIA. He knew that the late, great Steve Jobs would hate that decision, but, well... not only was Steve dead and gone, but even before he had died, he'd been forced out of management for being too soft.

Tim's words garnered nods of approval from the board. Any one of them would have no problem abandoning their temporary allies and becoming the sole beneficiary of GAIA's inevitable downfall and demise.

...

The following day, Wang Yi and Gabriel de los Estrada continued their negotiations. They were scheduled to attend a few diplomatic ceremonies that day, but the plans were abruptly changed when Minister Wang received news of the decision Apple had made regarding the anti-GAIA coalition through the members of the Ministry of State Security in his entourage.

"This is an opportunity for us! We should ensure that Apple is successful," a high ranking member of the CCP said moments after being briefed by a member of the MSS before the meeting.

"I agree. The American government forcing GAIA to hand over their tech would benefit us, but even if GAIA refuses and ends up being banned in the US, it would still increase the importance of the Chinese market. Then we can threaten to ban them as well, if they don't hand over their tech. But we'll be even more likely to succeedafter all, the overturned cart ahead teaches the cart behind. So we can pay attention to the Americans and learn from their successes and failures, then use that against GAIA ourselves," Minister Wang said. He had been forced to cut his meeting with the Edenian delegation short to attend the meeting with the CCP and MSS and was still irritated when he was reminded of the Edenian minister's attitude after the joint chip venture was brought up.

"Good plan," said the highest-ranked person in the room. He turned to the MSS representative and said, "Make sure it happens, and help the coalition as much as possible. We need it to happen. It would greatly benefit our Made in China 2025 initiative to have one of its goals accomplished so soon after the initiative was started. So if we succeed, everyone here will be greatly rewarded." The meeting continued as the MSS agent briefed the politicians on the other topics he had on his agenda.

Just like that, movement had started in secret without the world suspecting that an upcoming turmoil would shake the giants.

...

"Now this is bad," Sarah muttered to herself as she read about the meetings that had been taking place between their competitors. She was sure that, since they were being blatant and in the open about their actions, it meant that GAIA's competitors were in their final buildup phase before they undertook a major action.

[Miss, you have a new email from Tim Cook,] Sarah's AI secretary informed her. She had intercepted the email that was supposed to go to the business department and directly reported it to her.

"Show it to me." The email appeared on a screen in front of her and she carefully read it. She knew that if it was just another offer, like the previous emails, she would have been told so by her secretary.

As she read, a frown grew on her face. It was written in very dense legalese and filled with subtle threats that couldn't be used against the sender, but were obvious enough for the reader to understand what they were.

"Looks like the discussion I had with Aron as a joke is going to become real," she sighed when she finished reading the email. She remembered joking with Aron about who was going to attend the congressional hearing if they were subpoenaed to testify about the risk their devices posed to American national security.

Still, there was no worry in her face at all. The only thing that could be seen on it was excitement, since she was finally facing a challenge for the first time in a long while. In fact, everything had been going inconceivably smoothly ever since Aron had invented the always-helpful AI secretaries.

"Forward it to Aron and add that he should be a fortune teller or something," she said to her assistant, then started brainstorming on how to deal with the nascent anti-GAIA coalition with the aid of her assistant.