Chapter Two: Four Dollars’ Worth of Causality

For the first time, surprise crossed Su’s face. “The taxi,” Lu said through the pain. “You just supplied the next link in the chain.” He pushed his old computer toward Zhou. “Doctor, let’s make a deal. Back up your experimental data on this machine right now, and I will give you a parameter that stabilizes the honeycomb structure.” Zhou was fully awake. “Who are you? How do you know about my work?” Lu opened the list of Prism patents being sold for scrap. The seventeenth was an anisotropic flexible cooling membrane. His team had finished it just before they ran out of money for validation. “Your microbattery’s problem is not energy density. The hexagonal cells expand at different rates.