Tesla's Signal (5 page)

 Wealthy socialites of New York begged Niko to make an appearance at their parties, dinners and soirées. They paraded eligible daughters before the most fascinating man in New York: the new Zeus who had tamed the lightning.

“I cannot really spare the time for all this socializing,” he confided to Anton. “I have so much work to do...”

“What! Gorgeous society dames are throwing themselves at you! Come on, be honest...you enjoy it just a little bit! Eh?”

“Well, I confess that it is...somewhat gratifying.” Hiding a grin, Niko turned to adjust a dial.

“'Gratifying',
he says!” Anton slapped him on the back. “You're unbelievable! Could you get me an invitation too?”

***

The War of the Currents became the talk of all New York.

“Did ya hear? Tom Edison electrocuted a circus elephant! Smoke came out of the critter's legs!”

“I heard he fried a criminal too. Took about 30 seconds for the poor bastard to die. Says that's what alternatin' current will do to us all.”

“But what about that that foreigner, that Mr. Tesla? He can take thousands of volts and keep right on going. How's he do it? Is he a magician?”

“It's supernatural. Say, ain't he from one of those
Eastern
countries? Like...
Transylvania?”
 

“Maybe he ain't
natural.”
The speaker gave an uneasy laugh.
“You know, like...Dracula?”

One day as Niko and Anton were packing up after their demonstration, he noticed a figure by the doorway: a young girl who looked somewhere in her teens. She stood with her arms folded, her huge dark eyes fixed on his equipment. The others were clearing out, but she made no move to leave.

She seemed out of place among these prominent folks. He took note of her shy smile, her ragged dress, the kerchief covering her head and the dark braid hanging down beneath. She looked like one of those refugees, just off the boat: the city teemed with them. He wondered what she was doing in this part of town.

He moved closer, thinking to say a few words, but she turned and fled.

He spotted her again at the next show. This time she made her way forward until she stood only a few feet away, and watched with intense concentration as he hurled lightning bolts across the room.

“Good day, Miss,” he said when the show was done. “Did you like my demonstration?”

“Yes sir, but...” she looked as if she might run away any second. “You...doing it wrong.” She spoke with a  thick accent, from somewhere in Eastern Europe.

“Doing it
wrong?
My dear girl, whatever do you mean?”  

“Need...better conductors,” she said, and suddenly bolted from the room.

He stared after her, astonished. What could she mean,
doing it wrong?
What kind of
better conductors?
Did she know something about chemistry? It seemed unlikely...most girls didn't get much schooling in science. Especially a poor refugee girl.

He wished he had the time to find her and speak to her again. But the streets were teeming with refugees...lately it seemed like the entire country of Russia was coming to America. How could he find just one?

***

“I think we're done for tonight. Go home and get some rest,” Niko told Anton.

“What about you? You've barely slept in three days.”

“I don't need sleep.” Niko rubbed his eyes. “I'll just take a walk and do some thinking.”

He stepped out and walked up South Fifth Street. Turning on Park Place, he headed toward Greenwich. As he walked a circuit of three blocks, he let the thoughts turn around in his head: as bright and ceaseless as the currents in his generators.
Electric currents create light and heat, and they can cause motors to run. But at extremely high frequencies, a current has entirely different properties. And...what about the number...333?
 

It had now been over ten years since his extraordinary vision of a winged race called
the Aon
. They had given him a number—the frequency 333.

For Niko, the number three was special. It seemed the ultimate expression of harmony and stability. It calmed his restless brain to calculate the multiples of three and weave them into his doings: room numbers, dates, train numbers. His footsteps, round and round the city blocks, three times three.

And the number 333...that was especially significant. What did it mean? Could this frequency allow him to contact these beings, or visit their world? And what sort of vibratory medium were the Aon referring to...electrical oscillations, waves of magnetic force, something as yet unknown to humans?

While pondering these questions, Niko's feet carried him around his square of blocks. He had worn out a few pairs of shoes, walking around and about New York City.

Electricity can be a carrier for messages. So...if all the Universe is filled with an invisible force, then shouldn't it be possible to send messages anywhere? Or maybe to transmit matter? Will it someday be possible to convert one's matter into energy and send oneself across the vast gulf of space?

Completing his walk, he turned back onto South Fifth Street. As he approached his lab, a slender figure came running toward him out of the darkness—a young woman, but he couldn't see her face clearly. “Be careful, Mr. Tesla,” she called out. “Don't go in! Danger!”

“Well, of course there's danger, Miss—it's filled with high-voltage machinery—” He stopped, as his nose caught a whiff of smoke.

“What in God's name—” he ran to the lab and yanked opened the door. A blast of billowing smoke and heat knocked him backward. “
Bože moi!
The lab's on fire!” Panicked, he cried out. “Help!”

He started to run for the fire station...
no. Turn back—run inside—see if you can save anything...
 

As he turned back, flames began to shoot out of the windows. He heard glass shattering: his globes and tubes that had held wondrous light. His creations—had to save them—

He dashed toward the entrance. “Hey, Mister!” A couple of bystanders leaped on him and held him back. “Don't go in there! You outta your  mind?”  

“Let me go,” he cried, trying to shake them off. “I've got to save my work—all my devices—priceless experiments!”

Neighbors gathered to watch; tenants of the building began to pour into the street. Immigrant women cried out in Italian and Yiddish, while clutching their wailing children. Way too late, a few fire wagons came, drawn by teams of horses, their clanging bells adding to the chaos of screams and crackling flames.
Where are the rest of the firemen? Taking a vacation?
 

The firemen pumped inadequate streams of water into the building and chopped at the walls with their axes. Niko clutched his head in anguish, watching as timbers collapsed and sparks swirled. The fire company  seemed intent only on making sure the fire didn't spread to the other buildings.

Niko just sat there on the cobblestone street, watching his life's work go up in smoke.
How could this happen?
 

The sun rose on a scene of blackened desolation. All that day he knelt among the ashes, inconsolable, sifting through fused metal fragments, charred wood and shattered glass: the broken shards of his life.

A policeman nudged him. “You okay? C'mon, mister, come to the station.”

Ignoring him, Niko got up and started walking. Disheveled and soot covered, he walked about like a ghost. The questions ran around his brain like squirrels trapped in a cage.
What now? How did it happen? I never left equipment running.
It was one of his obsessions.
Never turn your back without discharging the capacitors!
 

A suspicion crept in. Had someone deliberately set the fire? Perhaps a rival who would stop at nothing—not even electrocuting a man—to prevent him from succeeding? He remembered seeing that pair lurking at his demonstrations a few times. H. P. Brown, and the fellow called Kirk.  

Did they bribe the fire company too?
The firemen had come way too late, and done almost nothing to stop the blaze.
 

They have destroyed me,
thought Niko.
My life is over.

His aimless wandering took him to the shoreline of the East River. He stared at the dark water, as dark as his ruined life, and thought about jumping in. The swirling water beckoned him.   

“Mr. Tesla,” said a soft voice at his elbow.

He jumped back and looked. There stood an elfin girl in a ragged, sooty dress. A dark braid hung from beneath a head kerchief. He felt a start of recognition: surely it was the same girl who had warned him last night!

And...his brain made a further connection: could she be the same one who had spoken to him at his demonstration?
Need better conductors.
 

“Mr. Tesla...here,” she said in a thick accent. “I save these from fire.” She held out a bundle of papers she had been carrying under her arm.

“What...” faint with astonishment, weak after a night and day with no sleep or food, he fell to his knees. “My experimental notes—dear God! You saved them!” Tears sprang to his eyes. “How did you—how can I ever thank—”

But she was gone, the streets empty.

“Miss—wait,” he called out, wondering if she might be hiding nearby. “Please come back! What can you tell me about...
better conductors?”
 

Receiving no answer, he wandered like a lost soul. His thoughts spiraled between trying to recollect all of his work...and trying to find the mysterious girl.

Eventually a kindly grandmother from the Serbian-American Aid Society came and dragged him off for a warm meal. Others of his countrymen offered him shelter, but Niko sat clutching his notes to his chest like a forlorn mother with a dead child. He could only think of one thing.
Who was that girl?
Of course she had only saved a fraction of the lab's contents. But her appearance symbolized a ray of hope, from an unknown source.
Someone is watching out for me. Is she a saint in disguise?
 

He thought about placing an ad in the New York Times personals.
To the girl who saved my papers: thank you for saving my life. Whatever reward you want—it's yours.
 

***

He never found her. Eventually, Anton and Mark Twain helped him put his life back together. His depression lifted somewhat after he treated himself with his violet-ray machine, which provided jolts of high-frequency current.

Niko dug deep into the recesses of his memory and managed to reconstruct the majority of his researches. “Edison can't finish me that easily,” he told Anton. “I'll come back stronger. My work has only begun.” 

Anton patted him on the back. “That's the spirit.”

***

“This is what the future looks like,” said the Mayor as he posed with his arms around Tesla and Westinghouse. “The forces of Nature have been harnessed for the good of Mankind.”

They stood in front of the new Niagara Falls Generating Station. Behind the building, millions of gallons of water thundered over the Falls. Today, for the first time, the tremendous force of the cascades would turn a bank of massive electrical generators.

 A year had passed since the disastrous fire. Despite the sabotage and the bruising 'War of the Currents', Niko's system had won the Niagara  bid. Today, a huge crowd had gathered for the inauguration of the
Tesla-Westinghouse Polyphase Alternating Current system.
A brass band played and politicians gave speeches, and as daylight faded, the Mayor presented Niko with a ceremonial switch panel.

“The honor goes to you, Mr. Tesla. Fire it up.”

Smiling, Niko pulled the switch. “Let there be light.”

With a deep hum, the machinery awoke. Street lamps blazed to life and laced the city like strings of jewels. Buildings glowed with columns of light, vanquishing the night. The power traveled through high tension wires, fast as caged lightning, to arrive at the city of Buffalo 22 miles away. There, the miracle was greeted with fireworks and celebration.

 It was the realization of Niko's greatest dream.
Electric power for the good of humanity.
 

***

Void Stalker

“This world definitely supports intelligent life,” said K'va Z'duun, the Science Specialist aboard the fleet ship
Void Stalker
.

“Excellent,” said K'va K'viin, the ship Captain. “Signs of high technology?”

“None as yet.”

“High-energy signatures? Fission activity, orbiting craft?”