Kill the Night

by Terry, Mark

  “This little egg?” Ralph asked, setting it back on the center of the magnet.

  “I wish I could convince others with engineering diagrams, Mr. Ralph, but I find I have to resort to showmanship for the masses. Egyptian maidens in front of temple for instance. Little egg displays operation of rotary in induction engine. Rotates and ultimately rotational speed lifts egg on main axis.”

  “What’s that called?” the reporter yawned.

  “The gyroscopic effect.” Tesla smiled.

  A roaring noise came over the hall.

  The reporter straightened up. “What is that?”

  Tesla listened for a moment. “I believe that is moving sidewalk machinery starting up.”

  “It’s rather loud, isn’t it?”

  “But is what people want, Mr. Ralph. They want Ferris wheels and people movers. Flash and pizzazz.”

  “How did you come up with this idea, Mr. Tesla?” “One day, as child I found myself roaming mountains. Sky became overhung with heavy clouds, but somehow rain delayed until, all of sudden, lightning flashed and a few moments after, a deluge. This observation set me thinking. What a possibility of achievement. If we could produce electric effects of required quality, planet and conditions of existence could be transformed.”

  “What do you imagine the future to be?”

  Tesla retrieved the spinning egg, and the two men began walking toward a pair of doors.

  “I’m talking about world-system of wireless transmission, Mr. Ralph.” Tesla pushed open the doors, and the two men briefly held their hands up to the morning sun as they stepped out.

  Tesla put his hand on the reporter’s shoulder briefly. “Imagine a telephone subscriber here may call up and talk to any other subscriber on the globe. An inexpensive receiver, not bigger than watch, will enable them to listen anywhere, on land or sea, to a speech delivered or music played in some other place, however distant.”

  “Wow,” the reporter exclaimed.

  “That’s what my transformer, my transmitter, my wireless system and,” Tesla held up the copper egg, “the egg are all about.”

  A crowd of excited tourists moved past them.

  “Mr. Edison is giving a demonstration!” one of the women exclaimed.

  “Oh, I can’t wait!” another swooned. “He’s so brilliant.”

  Interlude 28

  Wednesday, March 15, 1893, 8:11 a.m.

  The Grand Court,

  Chicago Columbian Exposition

  Edison paced back and forth on the small stage erected at the entrance of the Grand Court. A table sat center stage, electrical devices set out carefully upon it. A number of park patrons were gathered in front of the stage in the cool morning.

  Edison stopped and leaned close to a short bespectacled man in light trousers and a dark jacket, with his back to the crowd. “We’ve been at this all night. Are we ready?”

  The small man nodded his head with certainty.

  Edison smiled and turned to face the public. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to call your attention to a grave danger. The danger is alternating current. My assistant will demonstrate the effects of alternating current upon this poor canine.” Edison gestured to the man with a handlebar mustache and glasses perched on the edge of his nose, standing onstage behind the table. The spectacled man laid a small hound on the table and tied it down. Edison placed his hand on a small device nearby. The assistant rubbed the hound’s ears reassuringly.

  “This is an induction motor that Westinghouse and Mr. Tesla are using to distribute AC current here in the Exposition. AC current is dangerous. While my patented DC current is like a river flowing peacefully to the sea, AC is like a raging torrent rushing violently over a precipice. Just look at what happens when a thousand volts of DC current are passed through this peaceful animal.”

  The assistant turned the voltage up and the dog yelped softly and twitched. A moment later, he turned the device off. Edison went up to the table and stroked the dog softly. It raised its head to lick his hand.

  “You see? No harm. A little pain for a moment, but perfectly safe.” He undid the wires to the lever and replaced them with wires leading from the AC motor sitting on the ground next to the table.

  “Now, mothers, you will want to cover your children’s eyes. If there are any squeamish hearts in the audience, you will please move towards the back. This will not be pretty.”

  Once the new wires were secured, Edison gave a nod and a thousand volts of AC current passed through the poor animal. It yelped once, makes several guttural noises, and then the smell of burnt hair rose from it as it kicked once and lay still.

  Edison turned and waved his arms to the crowd.

  “A thousand volts of dangerous AC current fried this poor animal to death. Stopped his heart cold!”

  Somewhere in the audience, a young child wailed.

  “That’s right, honey. Cry for this poor animal. Mother, you better believe you’ll be crying for your own babies if you get near this death current!”

  “What is this?” came the cry from the back of the crowd. “What is this you say?” the crowd parted to reveal Nikola Tesla, face ashen.

  Julian Ralph stood behind him, eyes wide with expectation at this confrontation of famous inventors.

  Tesla pushed his way through the crowd and stepped onto the small stage. “This is ridiculous! This proves nothing! This only proves Mr. Edison possesses not the slightest idea how alternating current works!”

  Edison pointed while smiling deliciously at the crowd. “This is the mad inventor. The young man I took into my care and nurtured in my laboratory, only to find him ranting on and on about this dangerous idea.”

  Tesla glared at the master inventor, but turned to the audience. “Electricity is safe,” he said. Then fell silent, looking at the ground.

  Holding up a copy of the Chicago Daily News, Edison raised his voice, “If Mr. Tesla wants people to believe that his alternating current is so safe, then why this?” In big bold letters above the fold, it read “EXECUTION!” Behind Edison, his assistant tossed editions out into the crowd. Edison scrunched the paper in one hand and waved it in the air.

  “This says that the state of New York found the perfect application for Mr. Tesla’s so-called safe current as an executioner’s tool!”

  A collective gasp went up in the audience.

  Edison pointed at the newspaper triumphantly. “A Mr. Harold Brown built an electrocution chair for the Governor of New York. It is going to be used to kill a condemned man, William Kemmler, today at noon.” Edison turned toward Tesla and shouted, “Do you know what they are calling it? Being ‘Westinghoused’!”

  “Mr. Edison! Shame on you!” The female voice called out from the crowd. Edison’s head flipped around instantly at the recognizable voice.

  Ida Tarbell stood with her arms crossed on her chest, frowning at Edison. “Did you just abuse and torture a defenseless animal—to death—for a demonstration?”

  Edison raised his chin. “Do you want her being Westinghoused in her kitchen?” he shouted, pointing to a woman with two young children at her side. “Or perhaps you want to see HIM executed when he goes out to start his car with an alternating current battery?”

  Ida marched up on stage and looked Edison right in the face. “Mr. Edison,” almost shouting “have such things happened?”

  “I’m simply protecting American standards,” Edison retorted.

  “Yeah, we already have standards!” a voice from the crowd shouted.

  Ida turned to the crowd, looked it over a moment, then spoke loudly, but evenly.

  “Perhaps our national ambition to standardize ourselves brings with it the notion that democracy means standardization. But standardization is the surest way to destroy the initiative, to benumb the creative impulse above all else essential to the vitality and growth of democratic ideals.”

  Then she turned and looked directly at Nikola Tesla for the first time.

  Tesla stepped towards Ida and spoke d
irectly to her, “Nothing is inherently dangerous about alternating current. If you come to see Electrical Exhibit, I show you.”

  “How do we know it works?” a voice shouted from the crowd.

  “The motors I have built are exactly as I imagined them. I made no attempt to improve the design, but merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared to my vision and the operation is always as I expect.”

  Edison stepped forward. “You see, the man is a delusional. No grasp of research or theory. He spends no time on his creations. He merely thinks them up in his head!”

  A smattering of laughter spread through the crowd.

  Tesla folded his hands in front of him and remained silent.

  The father whom Edison had earlier warned spoke up then, “You’ve worked with this man?”

  Edison nodded and then switched to shaking his head sorrowfully. “I contracted with this man to build an electrical motor I had designed. I paid him a salary,” he pointed at Tesla. “The man defrauded me and brought me nothing.”

  Tesla shook his head. “He offered fifty thousand dollars—”

  “We never had any such contract!” Edison shouted, wagging a finger.

  “We had a handshake!” Tesla blurted. The crowd gasped.

  “Ladies and gentlemen! This is all well and good, muckraking the past. Mr. Tesla did not provide so he did not get paid. What is REAL is what is in front of you today.”

  Edison’s assistant unstrapped the canine and came around holding the dead animal.

  “This is the result of AC current encountering a live animal, madam.” Edison pointed to a woman at the front of the crowd.

  The crowd muttered and nodded to each other.

  Tesla walked away. Ida pulled on his arm, and he moved away from the growing clamor of the crowd with her. Then shook his arm loose. “No matter.”

  “There he goes!” Edison shouted, pointing after Tesla. “President Cleveland took it under advisement about the dangers of being around this AC energy and getting Westinghoused,” a smattering of laughter, “and, as a result, may not show up for the Columbus Exposition!”

  Groans emitted from the audience.

  “Telegram your Congressmen and Senators! Tell them we need safe, reliable General Electric energy for the Exposition!”

  More applause from the crowd.

  Tesla moved off through the crowd, furious. Before he knew it, Julian Ralph pulled at his coat sleeve. Tesla reacted with a flash of anger. “Get away from me, sir.” He grabbed the man’s notebook and flung it into the crowd.

  As Ida watched, the reporter shook his fist at Tesla and ran off. Tesla stood a moment, trembling with anger.

  Ida made her move. Catching up to Tesla, she raised her chin and announced herself.

  “Mr. Tesla, my name is Miss Ida Tarbell. I am a journalist.”

  “I have had enough of journalists, madam.” Tesla moved around her.

  This time, she did not block his way. “You don’t understand. I accompanied Mr. Edison on his journey here from New York. My research is whether or not Mr. Edison really invents or does he buy, steal, and cajole inventions from men of lesser means, such as yourself.”

  Tesla stopped and looked back at her, then towards the stage. “Who did you say you worked for, Miss Tarbell?” His eyes twinkled as the edge of an idea crossed his face.

  Ida raised her chin. “McClure’s, Mr. Tesla. The first syndicated newspaper in the country.”

  Interlude 29

  Wednesday, March 15, 1893, 8:57 a.m.

  The Castle, Chicago

  Carrie Pitezel walked into the Castle office at her usual scheduled time. “Mr. Holmes?” she asked, looking about. Through the opaque window of Mr. Holmes’ private office, she could see a shadow moving, so she sat down and prepared to finish the bookkeeping.

  In a few moments, the office door opened and she looked up expectantly. Her pleasant visage quickly vanished. Mr. Holmes stood in the doorway, without his trademark bowler, his hair unkempt. His shirt was dirty and stained, and his forehead was beaded with sweat, Holmes swayed. The look in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. They were bloodshot and full of absolute rage.

  He opened his mouth wide in a silent scream. For the first time, Mrs. Pitezel noticed that he carried something in one hand. As he raised it, she saw a glint of sunlight on the axe blade. She didn’t have time to scream as he ran forward and brought it swinging into her head.

  Interlude 30

  Wednesday, March 15, 1893, 9:12 a.m.

  Electrical Exhibit,

  Chicago Columbian Exposition

  Ida followed Tesla across the Exposition and into the Department of Electricity. The grandiose building of Italian Renaissance encompassed the south entrance, a magnificent open vestibule topped with a half dome.

  Everywhere Ida looked, she could see bulb lamps and electric illumination devices. “This is magnificent, Mr. Tesla.”

  The anger and severity of Nikola’s features seemed to wash away almost instantly. “Our power is being derived from a waterfall over hundred miles away. Up above, we had Nuremberg firm install searchlights of greatest magnitude. When evening’s demonstration begins, will light up sky and surrounding city. Mankind will never be same, and we will light up the sky from ocean to ocean.” He looked at Ida, “A nobleman gave a ball forty miles away, it’s said, and light for dancers came from just one of these lamps.”

  He waved towards a building inside the great electrical hall, “This is villa we have constructed with all of the modern electrical devices known.”

  Nikola led Ida up the steps of the front porch of the building and pushed a button. The front door slid open.

  “Push button and door opens. Is button in door frame of every room.”

  Amazed, Ida stepped through the threshold into the front hall.

  Tesla pushed another button on the wall, and the entire hall lit up. “Push button and all lights come on in hall. An identical button is in every room of house. No stairway, as the electric elevator will carry us to the second floor, quicker too.”

  Ida looked up and around, amazed.

  “Burglar alarms on all doors and windows.” He stopped in front of a large speaker hung in a corner of the ceiling. “This will play music from symphony in New York, playing live while exhibition goes on, transmitted by phone company.”

  “It’s amazing, Mr. Tesla,” Ida whispered.

  “Some ten million people will visit Electrical Building. My experiments will be talk of Expo.”

  “So, you aren’t worried about Mr. Edison,” she pointed back out the door “and his grandstanding?”

  “People hear what people want to believe. Will not be able to deny eyes.” With a key from his pocket, Tesla opened a small hidden hatch next to a light-switch and exposed another button. Instantly, the lights in the hall went out, and for a moment, they were in complete darkness. Then the lights in the villa came on, and Ida could see the brightness and brilliance the illumination brought to every room.

  “My electricity will bring life to the night.”

  “But will it really change people’s lives?”

  Tesla nodded. “Let me show you Chicago already.”

  Amongst the many magnificent buildings such as the Gallery of Fine Arts and the Woman’s Building, Ida and Nikola walked slowly. Tesla glanced at Ida several times, admiringly, but when she finally turned her face towards his, he looked away.

  Pointing in the distance, he said, “Electricity we provide from a hundred miles away powers mass transit trains running throughout city. Chicago is growing and someday heart of city will be enlarged.”

  “All of America is turning from agriculture to the city,” Ida said, nodding.

  “Men—and women—are studying it. When is accomplished, entire center of city will be connected by circular train route elevated above street.” Tesla stopped and looked into the sky a moment, imagining. “There are thousands of engineers and construction workers living and working on grounds of Expositio
n. They work in separate shifts, to get work done faster. They work at night because of electricity delivered by my power plants.”

  They crossed a bridge over one of the exhibition ground’s many winding waterways and Tesla stopped, looking into the water. “Gondolas imported from Venice that navigate waterways will be run on tracks and pushed with small motors run by my electricity.”

  They walked along the six-mile fence ringing the Exposition, talking little.

  “As child, first invention came as method for catching frogs. It went well until I taught other boys how to catch them, and the next summer we devastated frog population.” Tesla grimaced. “Attempt at using nature to serve man became next invention. In hometown, annual infestation of June-bugs came every spring. I attached several June bugs to spindle, which in turn attached to wheel. With a simple initial spin of cross piece, June bugs would continue spinning and spinning, for hours and hours.”

  Tesla motioned his hands spinning in the air. Ida smiled at this.

  “As spindle would spin wheel, I had continuous supply of power. Until I observed neighbor boy one afternoon. He went out to one of the bushes and started eating June bugs like they were candy.”

  A look of dismay crossed Ida’s face, and Nikola shuddered. “So ended June bug experiment.”

  Ida laughed and a sincere look of appreciation came over Nikola’s face for the first time. “So I gave up passion of perpetual motion and focused on mechanical flight.”

  “How did that go?”

  “At age of ten, I leapt from tall building with umbrella.”

  Ida gasped.

  “Not so well.” Tesla nodded and they both laughed. “While confined to bed to mend my broken bones, I started reading early works of Mark Twain. Twenty-five years later, I met Mr. Clemens and told him same story. He laughed too.”

  “You know Mr. Clemens?”

  “Quite well. We were together just two days ago. I showed him around New York City in my electric mobile.”

  Ida shook her head. A great crash came from beyond the fence, and they both turned to look. A steam truck and an electric train had collided at an intersection. There were several people lying in the street and people running to help.