Chapter Five: Before Light Arrives

Six hours after his accounts were frozen, Shen founded the Unbounded Laboratory. Registered capital: one dollar. Its offices occupied a bankrupt printing plant. Electricity was on credit; desks were packing crates. Yet twelve chipmakers sent representatives overnight, because the reversible unit from the third problem was real. Shen refused to sell the wafer. He licensed production, reserving half of capacity for public research and requiring independent audits of every foundational design. Voss could freeze money. He could not freeze a verified energy differential. Forty-eight hours later, the first Echo chip came online. With the power draw of a phone charger, it completed tasks that had once required a server hall.