The Whitfield-Ansah settlement negotiations, which had proceeded steadily through the winter following Emmanuel's decision to fully engage with the committee's process, reached their most difficult juncture in early spring, when Priya Nasser brought Sebastian and the full committee a complication neither Wren nor anyone else present had fully anticipated.
"Harold Pierce's estate has retained counsel," Priya reported, laying out a formal letter that carried none of the personal warmth the committee had grown accustomed to in its dealings with the Whitfield-Ansah family directly. "The executive who was credited with the automated manufacturing design in 1974 died eight years ago, but his estate — specifically, his surviving grandchildren, who inherited a trust built substantially on royalti
