Chapter 751 - 351: New Conditions

Pittsburgh. Leo’s private study.

The study was located in an old apartment building near city hall.

The room wasn’t large, but its main advantage was the quiet.

Leo Wallace sat behind his desk, leafing through a copy of Caligula.

A knock came at the door.

"Come in."

Ethan pushed the door open and entered.

"Boss, the people from Microsoft and Google have been picked up," Ethan reported. "The convoy should be here in about fifteen minutes."

Leo nodded without looking up.

"There’s one more thing." Ethan hesitated for a moment before speaking. "Word from Frank is that the old guard in the Union are pooling their money."

"For what? Are they trying to interfere in the election too?"

"No." Ethan’s voice turned a little strange. "They want to commission a statue of you."

Leo’s hand, which had been turning the pages, froze.

He looked up at Ethan.

"A statue?"

"Yes." Ethan gave a wry smile. "They said they want to erect it at the entrance to the Inland Port, just like they did for Carnegie back in the day."

"They see you as the Moses who led them out of the mire. They’ve even found a sculptor, apparently a pretty famous postmodern artist."

Leo closed his book. Instead of answering directly, he asked, "Ethan, have you ever read Camus?"

Ethan was taken aback. "I read a little of The Outsider in college. Why?"

"’Nothing is enough to reward him, not even supreme power. So we might as well kill him, and then worship him as a god.’"

A chill ran down Ethan’s spine.

"Boss, you mean..."

"That is my position on the matter."

Ethan nodded.

"Understood, Boss. I’ll take care of it."

Ethan backed out of the room.

Fifteen minutes later, the sound of car engines rose from downstairs.

Ethan knocked again. This time, two men in casual attire followed him.

Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s Global Head of Energy Strategy.

David Chen, Google’s Vice President of Infrastructure.

These two titans of Silicon Valley, men who could command the wind and rain, were now curiously sizing up the study.

"Mayor Wallace." Kevin smiled and extended his hand. "It’s a pleasure to meet you. To be honest, I thought we’d be meeting in a conference room at city hall."

"City hall is for business. How could I meet friends there?"

Leo shook Kevin’s hand with just the right amount of pressure.

"In my study, we can speak more freely."

David Chen smiled.

He scanned the study’s decor, his gaze landing on a black-and-white photograph of Pittsburgh during its industrial era.

"Mr. Mayor, it seems you’re a nostalgic man," David said, pointing to the photo.

"That was Pittsburgh’s former glory, after all."

"What a coincidence," David said. "We came today to talk to you about its future glory."

Leo invited the two men to sit.

Though the pretense was a casual chat, a face-to-face meeting in such a private space tested a negotiator’s composure even more.

Although Kevin and David wore smiles, an irrepressible anger still burned in their eyes.

They had just flown in from Houston, where they had been given the runaround for days by people from the National Energy Association.

They desperately needed to secure power for their upcoming supercomputing centers, but Sterling’s faction had slammed on the brakes at this critical juncture.

"Gentlemen."

Leo personally poured coffee for them both.

"I know you must be angry. With the nuclear project delayed, you must be in a tough position with your companies."

The moment Leo mentioned it, all the fury from being hounded by his board of directors flared up in Kevin.

"It’s absolutely preposterous!" Kevin slammed his coffee cup down on the table. "We went to them with an investment plan worth tens of billions of US dollars, and they have the gall to tell us the nuclear plant’s restart is being postponed? They’re playing us for fools over a piddling price difference on natural gas exports to Europe!"

David also loosened his tie, his voice filled with frustration and anger.

"The AI arms race is burning cash every single day. Our GPUs are already piled up in warehouses. Without electricity, they’re just scrap metal. Sterling is messing with our strategic timeline!"

Leo sat behind his desk, watching the two men in silence.

He showed no sympathy, nor was he eager to kick them while they were down.

He was waiting, waiting for them to vent all their anger.

Only when the room was filled with the sound of their heavy breathing did Leo finally speak.

"Gentlemen."

Leo’s voice was steady and confident.

"Sterling and his crowd are too old-school."

"In their business logic, you tech giants from Silicon Valley are nothing more than fat sheep to be fleeced for electricity bills. They’ll sacrifice you in a heartbeat for higher profits or for natural gas orders from Europe."

"They don’t understand AI, and they don’t care about the future. They only care about the next quarterly report."

Leo stood up, walked over to a bookshelf, and took out a bound document.

"But I’m different."

"I can solve this problem. In fact, that’s the very reason I’ve brought you here today."

He turned around and handed the document to them.

"I’m prepared to have the State Government step in, in partnership with several independent capital firms, to completely take over and restart the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant."

Leo laid out his plan.

"The industrial electricity rate that Sterling and his people promised you before."

"I’ll drop it by another five percent."

This was by no means a small number.

For a supercomputing center that could easily consume hundreds of megawatts of power, a five-percent discount on the electricity rate meant saving hundreds of millions of US dollars in costs each year.

Kevin and David glanced at each other, both seeing the shock in the other’s eyes.