Chapter Four: One Battery Buys a Neighborhood

Ten minutes later, the landlord called. An overseas fund had bought the entire building and ordered every tenant out within seven days. Lin folded her arms. “They don't need proof. They'll purchase everything around your life until there is nowhere left to hide.” “Then we'll buy too.” Zhou produced a black cell fabricated from the previous night's leftovers. It contained no impossible field, only known lithium-iron-manganese chemistry, a three-dimensional current collector, and an atomically uniform coating. Its energy density doubled the market standard and its cycle life reached eighteen thousand charges. Every principle could appear in a terrestrial paper. No terrestrial factory could yet achieve the required yield.