Chapter 44: A Call From An Old Acquaintance
I grinned like a kid who had just cracked the safe.
"That, Aunt, is a battery from the Apocalypse World. Stable storage, no chemical decay, doesn’t catch fire, doesn’t swell, doesn’t degrade. You could drop it off a skyscraper and it would still hold a perfect charge. They’re littered everywhere over there. The kid I bought four of these from looked at
like I was the village idiot for spending money on batteries instead of bullets. Cost
less than a sandwich."
Mira turned the sleek little cell over in her fingers, holding it up to the lamplight, then tapped the charging port with a manicured nail.
"And on Earth?" she asked.
"Every EV company on the planet would commit a quiet war cri for one working sample. Phones, grids, hospitals, military—doesn’t matter. Anything running on today’s batteries is using technology that’s inferior in every asurable way. Expensive to make, full of earths, flammable if you look at it wrong, dead in a few years. This?" I tapped the casing. "Doesn’t age. Doesn’t care."
I was exaggerating. A little. But exaggeration is the lubricant of ambition.
She studied it a mont longer, then set it on the nightstand with surprising gentleness, as if it might wake up and bite. "I don’t know batteries. Chemistry was never my field. I move information, people, and money. Not lithium."
"Right."
"But," she continued, a slow, predatory smile curving her lips, "I know people who do. An old chemical engineer who consulted for one of the big battery firms before he... retired under interesting circumstances. And a younger woman who runs a discreet private lab. Companies pay her to test materials they don’t want on any public record. Both owe
favors."
I raised an eyebrow. "You have favors with a private lab."
"Sweetheart," she said, voice low and amused, "I have favors everywhere. You’re going to need to update your ntal model of ."
"I’m trying. The damn thing keeps expanding." I sighed.
"It will keep expanding for a while. Shh." She leaned back against the pillows.
"Here’s the play. We analyze it quietly. If it’s even half what you claim, we don’t sell samples and we don’t auction it off. We start a company. You start the company. I’ll help you structure it. We patent everything patentable, license what we can’t, and control the supply chain from your side—because you *are* the supply chain. We don’t compete with the existing battery industry. We obsolete it."
"Obsolete it," I echoed.
"Ssweetheart." Her eyes glittered. "If your description is accurate, today’s battery giants are stagecoach companies in 1908. We’re the railroads."
I stared at her—perfectly composed, gloriously bare, delivering the most ruthlessly elegant corporate conquest I had ever heard.
*God help , I’m going to marry her. Possibly twice. Once on each side of the divide.*
"I love that idea," I said.
"I thought you might." She leaned in, catching my mouth in a slow, pleased kiss. Her hand slid down my chest, fingertips tracing the ridges of muscle with deliberate appreciation. "You’re cute when you get excited about money."
"I’m cute when I get excited about anything. It’s my brand." I smiled against her lips and pulled her closer, skin to skin, the heat of her body sinking into mine.
"Mmm. Your brand is insufferable."
"You like my brand."
"I really do," she murmured, the words vibrating against my mouth. Her hand drifted lower, teasing, promising— "I’d like to see a lot more of it right now, in fact—"
My phone rang.
We both froze.
Unknown number. Local area code.
"Ignore it," Mira whispered, lips brushing my throat, teeth grazing just enough to make my pulse jump.
It rang again. And again. On the fourth ring, against every instinct I possessed, I reached for it.
"Hello."
"Lukas? Lukas Veylan?"
Male voice. Vaguely familiar in that irritating way voices from the past tend to be, like an old song you can’t quite place and aren’t sure you want to.
"Speaking."
"Bro! It’s Tarek. Tarek Dahl, from college. Macroecon, junior year. Tarek!"
I closed my eyes. I rembered Tarek. Not a friend, exactly. More like a guy who orbited every party, rembered everyone’s na, and forgot your face the mont you stopped being useful.
"...Hey, Tarek."
"Bro, took
forever to track down your number. I’m back in the city, how about we grab a drink?"
Mira had paused her assault on my collarbone. She was watching my face now with open, delighted interest, chin propped on my chest.
I exhaled. "Tarek. Be honest. You don’t know anyone else in the city, do you? I’m the green dot that popped up when you searched the area code."
A beat of silence, then a sheepish laugh. "Okay, fair. But hear
out, I’ve got an actual proposition. Don’t hang up."
"I’m listening."
"There’s this girl. Been chatting with her on an app for three weeks, finally got her to agree to et. But she’ll only do it as a double date. Doesn’t want to be alone with a guy from the internet, which is honestly fair. But here’s the part where I need you: she specifically wants the other guy to have... money. Those were her exact words. And the only guy I could think of in this city was you—"
I was speechless, "You’re calling
because so woman you t online wants you to produce a rich friend on demand."
"...When you say it like that—"
"That’s exactly how you said it."
"Free dinner, hot girls, no pressure. You can’t tell
you’ve got two hours of better plans tonight—"
I muted the call and looked at Mira. She was already laughing silently, both hands over her mouth, eyes bright with mischief.
"Aunt. No, I am literally in bed with you. I have a girlfriend in another world. I am the worst possible wingman for a woman who specifically requested money."
The teasing didn’t vanish from her face, but it softened, just a little. "Sweetheart, you’ve spent years telling
you don’t have friends. You said it again twenty minutes ago, right after you told
about your mother. Now soone from your old life calls out of the blue—even if he is a self-interested little weasel—and your first instinct is to say no. That’s your one move, and it’s getting old. I’m not telling you to make him your best friend. I’m telling you two hours with soone who isn’t , isn’t Zero, and isn’t a walking corpse might be good for you. Like vegetables."
"You’re calling Tarek vegetables." I certainly found that amusing.
"Tarek *is* vegetables. Eat him."
She shifted against , warm and supple, her thigh sliding over mine. "And the other woman, on current evidence, is a gold-digger in a cute dress. That’s not a wife, sweetheart. That’s a one-night stand wearing expensive perfu. She wants a fancy al and probably a fun night. You can provide both. I don’t mind."
"You don’t mind," I repeated.
"I established the terms when we started this. I share you with whoever you choose to bring into your life. I don’t share the part that’s *mine*." Her fingers traced lazy circles on my stomach. "The rest of you can go play."
I groaned and let the phone drop onto my chest. Mira, the absolute nace, picked it up, unmuted it, and pressed it to my ear with a wicked little smile.
"...Tarek. What ti? Where?"
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