A Dastardly Plot

by Christopher Healy

  “That’s what we’re doing,” said Molly. “We just need to borrow your generator so we can charge the battery on our Marvelous Moto-Mover.”

  “It’s an electric-powered horseless carriage,” Mary Walton explained, noting the man’s puzzled expression. “It’ll get us to Manhattan in less than two hours.”

  Edison laughed. “You women should write romance novels. You’ve got quite extraordinary imaginations.”

  “Thank you, but we’ll stick to being inventors,” said Hertha.

  “Inventors?” Edison echoed, apparently not having picked up on the group’s name. “Like, with inventions?”

  “What do you think I used to cut through your shackles just now?” Margaret asked.

  “Something one of my men left on his desk, I assumed.” Edison shrugged. “Look, if you ladies fancy yourself inventors, have at it. As repayment for aiding me, I offer you free use of this lab. And I hope you understand what a privilege that is. I’m letting you work in a place where men make history! This is, of course, where I invented the light bulb.”

  “You mean you improved upon the design of the bulb, right?” Molly said. This Edison was better than the one who repeatedly tried to kill them, but he still rubbed her the wrong way.

  Edison cleared his throat. “As I said, use anything you want. Including the generator, which is in that back room. But, really now, I must be going.”

  “Why not just call the Guild from here and warn them about the imposter?” Hertha asked. “You must have a telephone.”

  “One of Bell’s ringy-dingy talk boxes here in Menlo Park? Ha!” Edison said haughtily. “I’d never give that showy Scotsman the satisfaction. Which reminds me, you should probably free him too.” Edison pointed back toward the secret prison.

  Gasping with disbelief, Molly and Emmett ran in to find Alexander Graham Bell sound asleep in the corner.

  36

  Ghost Sightings

  BELL GROGGILY OPENED his eyes. “Emmett? Oh, no, he got you too?”

  “No, we’re here to rescue you,” Emmett said.

  “Technically, we’re here to steal a generator from Edison,” said Molly. “But we’re happy to rescue you too.”

  Emmett nodded. “Yeah, me and Molly and the Mothers of Invention.”

  As Margaret cut through Bell’s shackles, Hertha turned to Edison. “Why didn’t you tell us he was in here?”

  “I just did,” Edison replied defensively. “And you would’ve heard him eventually. The man snores like a drowning badger.”

  “I’m so glad you’re okay, Mr. Bell,” Emmett said, helping his mentor from the cell. “I can’t believe Sergio Vittorini is behind all this. He really looked like Edison.”

  “And to think I had tickets to the man’s show!” Bell said. “Although I suppose it would have been good.”

  “Mr. Bell,” said Hertha after all introductions had been made. “Do you have any idea why Vittorini might be doing all this?”

  “Not the foggiest.”

  Everyone jumped as the front door was kicked open. “Excuse me, ladies,” yelled Josephine Cochrane, “but would any of you be so kind as to help me with these two ogres?” She was dragging two unconscious Green Onion Boys by the collars.

  “Josephine,” Hertha said, helping to tie up the gangsters. “How did you manage—? No, better left to the imagination.”

  “I agree,” said Mrs. Cochrane. “And as I am a proper lady, I will withhold any sarcastic comments about those among us who did not believe I should remain outside as lookout.”

  “Vittorini probably sent those goons for Bell and Edison,” Mary said. “When they don’t return, he’ll be onto us. We have to get to Central Park fast.”

  Bell looked at a clock. “We’ll never make it before the lighting ceremony.”

  “What takes five or six hours by horse can be done in two by motor coach,” said Mary. “We just need to charge our battery.”

  “Oh, you were serious about that?” Edison said. “Well, okay then, let’s get that battery. I wouldn’t mind taking a gander at this Moto-Whatsit you say you’ve constructed.”

  Bell joined Margaret as they ran outside. Margaret returned lugging a hatbox-sized cube with wires sprouting from it, and Edison pointed her to the back room with the generator. Bell followed, rolling a wheeled cabinet with a small round lens on its front and a crank handle on its side. “Found this in the criminals’ wagon,” he said.

  “It looks like one of my kinetoscopes,” said Edison. “That thief better not be ripping off my ideas too.”

  “But Mr. Edison,” Molly asked, “didn’t you base your kinetoscope on that Frenchman’s moving picture machine?”

  “Why is this girl here again?” Edison asked.

  “The device contains a message meant for us, Tom,” Bell said. “The note here says, ‘Play for prisoners before bringing them back to NY.’”

  “Well, let’s check this doohickey out,” said Edison. He placed his eye to the lens and began turning the crank, but jumped back as a bright light blared forth from within. Unlike Edison’s kinetoscope, there was no need to look into this machine.

  Everyone gaped at the blue-tinted figure projected onto the wall. It moved like a portrait come to life—or a ghost trapped in a two-dimensional state. But what shocked Molly most was that she knew the man on the wall; she’d seen him before. As had almost everyone in the room.

  “It is I,” said the man in the film. “Sergio Vittorini!”

  Everyone gasped. Edison stopped cranking and jumped away. “It’s talking! How is it talking?” Then his shock turned to anger and he tried to pry the machine open with his fingers. “Did he put one of my phonographs in here too? How dare the villain try to improve upon my work!”

  Hertha pushed him aside and took over the cranking.

  Vittorini removed his curly hair and detached the long braids from his beard to reveal another familiar face.

  “And now it is I,” the actor said with a soft Scottish accent. “Alexander Graham Bell.”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” said the real Bell. “It’s obviously not me!”

  The villain slipped off yet another wig and ripped away his remaining facial hair, uncovering a visage that looked remarkably like Thomas Edison.

  “And now, I’m Thomas Edison,” the imposter crowed.

  “You people really thought that was me?” the true Edison said. “Pathetic.”

  In the film, the ersatz Edison peeled off his thick, bushy eyebrows and threw them down like a pair of severed squirrel tails. He then peeled away a fake chin and plucked a stretchy rubber nose from his face. When all was done, Molly was left looking at a face she didn’t recognize at all—a plain, generic face. The guy was blander than bland, utterly forgettable. Molly wondered if she’d even be able to recognize him again if she saw him at the Fair.

  “And finally, the real me,” said the boring-looking man. “Your superior, your captor, your future lord and master. Ambrose Rector! And you—”

  “Stop the film!” Emmett cried, and Hertha ceased her cranking. “How can that be Ambrose Rector?” Emmett asked. “Ambrose Rector’s dead. He went down with the Frost Cleaver. Years ago.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” muttered Bell. His eyes were glazed over. He looked terrified, as if the image on the screen really was a ghost.

  “It does look like him, though,” said Edison. “I think. He didn’t have what you’d call a memorable face.”

  “So this Rector fellow is really the fake Edison?” Sarah asked. “And he’s Sergio Vittorini?”

  Emmett furrowed his brow. “But—but Rector died with my father,” he said. Then his eyes lit up. “Is my father alive too?”

  “Who’s your father?” Edison asked.

  “Your father could be alive, Emmett!” Molly shouted, grabbing her friend’s hands.

  “Who’s his father?” Edison asked.

  “But—but—oh, wow. To see my father again,” Emmett said, shaking his head. “I’
ve spent three years believing my father was gone forever. And now, suddenly . . . What would I say to him?”

  “Will somebody please tell me who the boy’s father is!” Edison steamed.

  “Captain Wendell Lee,” Bell said. “He was at the helm of the Frost Cleaver when it went down en route to Antarctica. The same wreck in which we all thought Rector died. Now I’m beginning to wonder if Rector was responsible for that disaster.”

  “But how could Rector be the madman behind all this?” Emmett asked. “My father liked Rector. He said Rector was his only friend on that expedition. He couldn’t believe someone so young had built that ship.”

  “Rector built—?” Now Bell looked both puzzled and angry. “The Frost Cleaver was constructed from my designs. With that ship and that expedition I’d hoped to launch a National Geographic Society. But after it went down, I threw away those dreams. I thought my creation—my ship—had killed all those men. But apparently there was at least one survivor.”

  “But why would Rector tell the crew he’d built the ship?” Molly asked.

  “Because he was a loser,” Edison chimed in. “Believe me, if Rector really had built that ship, it woulda sunk before it left New York Harbor. Guy was the worst lab assistant I ever had. I fired him after he almost burned my workshop down trying to bake a doughnut on a light bulb.”

  “So, wait—Rector is a bad inventor?” Emmett asked. “Not just evil-bad, but bad-bad? How did he manage to get hired by both of you?”

  “Johann Rector, the Guild’s founder, was Ambrose’s dear old dad,” Edison said. “Papa Rector forced his son on all of us. Every man in the Guild had to deal with that milksop at one time or another.”

  Bell lowered his eyes. “I feel horrible admitting this, but the only reason I sent Ambrose Rector on that polar expedition was to get him out of my lab before he broke anything else.”

  “None of this makes sense,” said Molly. “If he was so useless, how has he built something as advanced as that metal-bending ray of his?”

  “Perhaps we should watch the rest of the film,” Hertha said. The others became silent as she resumed cranking.

  “And you are my captive audience,” continued the ghostly image. “Like the million-year-old flies who watched helplessly from their amber prisons as the dinosaurs exterminated one another, you will have to sit, paralyzed, and watch as New York meets its doom.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not how dinosaurs went extinct,” Molly said. Mrs. Cochrane shushed her.

  “Which brings me to why we’re here today,” said Rector. “Today, in case you’ve lost track of the time in there, is opening day of the World’s Fair, at which I—in the guise of the vaunted Thomas Edison—will flip the switch that powers New York City’s new electrical grid. Only your streetlamps will also be broadcasting signals from my latest invention: the Mind-Melter. Amplified by the sonic devices I’ve installed in the lamps, the invisible waves from my Mind-Melter will find their way into every ear at the Fair. Everyone will be immobilized, including the two of you. And I’ll have broken the record for the most hostages ever taken in a single kidnapping. I assume. I didn’t look it up, but seriously, who could’ve done more?

  “Anyway, I’m reasonably sure I’ve got the machine calibrated so it merely warps the brains of its victims, rather than liquefying them, but, hey, you can’t be certain until you try it, right? So, in case you die later, I recorded this moving message for you. . . . Get it? Moving message? There’s a double meaning there. Imbeciles.”

  “I got it,” Edison said defensively.

  “I also recorded this message to show you how much better I can use light and sound than you two supposed masters,” Rector said bitterly. “That’s really why I’m doing all of this—to show the world I’m better than you, better than my father even! And the irony of it all is that, originally, I didn’t even want to be an inventor. I once believed my true calling lay on the stage, that I was meant to be a thespian! But dear old Johann Rector considered acting far too vulgar a profession for his child. No, in his eyes, there was only one path for little Ambrose: follow in Father’s footsteps; become a tinkerer, a constructor, a contrapulator.”

  Rector paused and frowned before continuing, “Though I fought it at first, I came to realize he was right. Look at the two of you—honored and worshipped by all. Inventing is a far more dignified profession. No one knows more celebrity than my father’s Guildsmen. And I . . . I could have been right there among you, basking in the adoration of millions. But no! Because you and your inventor pals were too jealous of me. You were afraid I’d inherited my father’s genius and would show you all up, so you looked for one excuse after another to get rid of me.”

  “That’s not true,” Bell muttered. “The Rector boy was genuinely terrible.”

  “That’s why Edison blamed me for the flammability of his workspace,” Rector went on. “Why Levi Strauss said I didn’t have the hips for his blue jeans, why Alexander Graham Bell sent me on a suicide voyage to the end of the Earth. But Bell and his co-conspirators failed to take one thing into account: Ambrose Rector doesn’t die easily.”

  “Oh, come now,” Edison griped. “How were we supposed to take that into account when we thought you were a moron?”

  “When the engine gears iced up,” Rector continued. “And Bell’s booby-trapped ship conked out on the shores of the seventh continent, the crew blamed me! Simply because I’d been telling them I was the one who built it. They booted me from the vessel, tried to maroon me like a savage pirate. But the joke was on them.

  “Oh, what a breathtaking landscape. And I mean that literally—it’s basically too cold to breathe. But still pretty. Let me paint a quick portrait for you: Snow. Ice. Loads of adorable penguins. Seriously, you would not go hungry down there with all those penguins to eat. And the lights. Beautiful, swirling, colored lights. The aurora australis, which so many of you ‘scientists’ assume to be some sort of atmospheric phenomenon, but which I discovered to be the emanations of . . .”

  Rector reached out of camera range and retrieved a bowling-ball-sized hunk of glowing rock. “Ambrosium,” he said, his eyes transfixed on the stone. “But what is Ambrosium, you ask?” said Rector. “It is, for lack of a better term, a space rock.”

  “I can think of a better term,” said Molly. “Meteorite.”

  “My best guess is that the Ambrosium fell to Earth millennia ago,” Rector continued. “It landed on the frozen wastelands of our most forbidding continent, and has been waiting ever since for me to find it. And while I may not have discovered the South Pole on my trip, this is much, much better. Because you see, the more I held this space rock, squeezed it, caressed it, broke off little bits of it and swallowed them . . . the more I knew. The rock gave me . . . knowledge. I suddenly knew that it could do things. Miraculous things.” A spooky grin crawled across his face. “Like distort human brain waves. Render a person unable to control his own body. Cause the brain tissue to pulse so rapidly it eventually disintegrates. Also, it’s a magnet—look!” Giggling, he flipped the luminescent stone and a fork came flying from somewhere off camera. Clang! “Neat, right?” Rector cleared his throat. “So, to make a long story short, I went back to the ship and experimented on the crew members. Completely useless lot otherwise. By giving their lives to science, their existence on this planet was finally justified.”

  Emmett pulled his hands from Molly’s and clenched them into fists.

  “Then I popped my Ambrosium into the Frost Cleaver’s engine—turns out the stuff is a terrific power source as well—and piloted the ship back to America all by my lonesome. I couldn’t wait to show my father that I had finally become the man he knew I could be! But what did I learn when I arrived back in New York? Johann Rector was dead—dead from the grief he felt over his missing son!”

  “I thought old Johann choked on an olive,” said Edison.

  “He did,” said Bell.

  “My father would never know that his dream for me had been fu
lfilled,” Rector continued. “That’s when I vowed revenge. I adopted the persona of Sergio Vittorini and began spying on you from across the alley at the Madison Square Theatre. Father might not have approved of my methods, but the New York Times most certainly did. They gave me a rave review for my turn in Fancies of a Ukrainian Barber. Did you see it? The show, not the review. Actually, both were . . . Oh, fudge, I think I’m about to run out of—”

  The film abruptly ended.

  After several seconds of silence, Emmett turned to Bell and said, “Did you do it? Did you rig that ship to break down? Did you sacrifice my father and those others so you could get rid of Rector?”

  Bell looked Emmett in the eye. “Son, I swear to you, that expedition was only meant to get him out of my hair for a few months. Its failure will always haunt me.”

  “We can’t trust Rector’s account anyway,” said Mary. “The stone might have given him knowledge, but it also obviously warped his mind.”

  Emmett looked away. Molly got the distinct impression he was unconvinced.

  “Frankly,” said Edison, “I feel better knowing the man ate a bunch of magic pebbles to get his newfound smarts.”

  “The ironic thing is, Rector’s actually a gifted actor,” said Mary. “If his father had allowed him to pursue his passion, would we be in this situation?”

  “A question for another time, ladies,” Edison said. “Look at the clock; the Fair begins in two hours. Show us what your wondrous wagon can do.” He retrieved the sizable battery and everyone followed him outside. But Molly noticed Emmett lagging behind.

  “I know,” she said gently. “That had to hurt.”

  “Three minutes,” Emmett said. “I had three minutes of hope. Three minutes where I thought I might actually see my father again. And then it got yanked away. It’s like I lost him all over again. Worse, really. Because now I know he didn’t die in an accident—he was murdered. By a man who pretended to be his friend.”