Nikola smiled, “—of course they all have very good spies. But I don’t know what else I can do. And that is why I can only entrust this to you. It must remain hidden until the world understands the importance of universal free energy so clearly that humanity itself will not allow the power to fall under the control of any government or industry. Mr. Scherff, I am glad for your youthful energy and that your father sent you.”
A racking cough shook his body and left him gasping for several seconds before he could continue. “I am instructing you to keep this file from prying eyes until you can find a way to make sure that the world learns of it and it is not buried. When the time is right.”
George could only stare. This sudden turn of events left him stunned. He had been given a single day’s leave from his duties to visit his ailing father. Now when it was long after nightfall and time for his return, he was confronted with this.
Still, George Jr. knew the world well enough to understand that the forces feared by the old discoverer could be found everywhere. He looked straight at the old man and solemnly patted the thick folder. “You can trust me, Mr. Tesla,” he said with a grim smile. Then he kneeled next to the bed to take Nikola’s frail hand and whisper, “Let them try to find it.”
Old Nikola sighed with relief. “Good.” He patted the younger man’s hand. “Good indeed. I know I can count on you. My ‘Curious George,’ such a nuisance when you were young, now you are my salvation in this, entrusted to keep this safe for the world. As for the other papers in the room, they can go to whoever they will.”
The sounds of a cooing dove caused both men to turn toward the open window to see a single white bird standing on the open sill. Nikola cried out with joy. George Jr. had no idea what was happening.
“Is that you, then?” Nikola breathed toward the bird. “Are you back?”
“Is that who, sir?”
Nikola ignored him and stared at the bird. “What? I didn’t get that. What? Say it again!”
A moment later, his expression shifted to one of sheer amazement. Nikola pulled a shuddering breath deep into his chest and stared off at some faraway place. A blissful smile crossed his face.
“George, she’s still so…” And then the old man’s face flashed with amazement. He fell back flat back onto the bed and his spirit sank straight out of his exhausted body. One moment he was there in the room with young George, the next he was gone.
George glanced at the window sill; the dove was gone too. There had been no time to do anything but look on in helpless shock. He struggled to control his disbelief. Moments earlier, the great Nikola Tesla was speaking directly to him about his most powerful secret. But George Jr. had already seen enough death in the war to know Nikola was already gone.
He felt the heft of the fat folder under his arm and instinctively clutched it tighter. At last he exhaled a deep sigh. His breath came out as a cloud of steam in the freezing draft. He set aside the file long enough to gently arrange Nikola’s body in a supine position on the bed, then folded the hands over the chest and closed the unseeing eyes. George Jr. picked up the file again and tucked it under his coat before turning to give the room a long, sweeping gaze. Then he stepped out and closed the door. He went to inform the hotel staff about their deceased guest.
The night manager responded to young George’s news by dutifully calling the office of the New York City Coroner. The manager had no way of knowing his hotel line was tapped. At the mention of a deceased resident in the dual suites 3327 and 3328, the information was intercepted and relayed through a host of government offices.
In less than half an hour a large black government car pulled up outside the hotel. Four federal agents hurried inside the building and up to the inventor’s room. They left the body in place while they rushed to box up all of the inventor’s papers. They made several trips to carry them away. The team moved through the process with such a practiced level of skill that most of the confiscated materials were already loaded up before the coroner’s team arrived to claim the body.
Meanwhile in the darkness half a block away, George Jr. stood shivering inside the shadowy brick cave of a recessed doorway. He clutched the secret file beneath his coat and remained in spite of the deepening cold, standing watch until the body was eventually carried out to the coroner’s wagon.
The loaded wagon pulled away from the curb and proceeded down the street running only on its emergency lights, not bothering with a siren. The red strobes played across his features until the vehicle rounded the corner.
The feeling of isolation that fell over him then was as heavy as the file under his coat. He wondered how he could ever manage to protect such a treasure? How could anyone?
A thing of unlimited value.
George Jr. was fully aware that considering the damage free electrical power would do to existing political and financial structures, surely there were those who would kill him a hundred times over to prevent it from reaching the general population.
It occurred to him that the game for him had begun the moment he accepted the file. Now his role in the contest was sealed. He had to hide it somehow, and then he had to get back to the ship without attracting attention, then he had to keep it safe until there was a way to get it out to the world without being repressed. There would be no trial run.
As if in answer to the thought, a man’s voice called from across the street. “Hey buddy! Come over here a minute, will you?”
He whirled around too hard for an innocent man and saw one of the government agents standing next to a large black automobile. The man appeared to have been waiting around as if he had nothing else to do. George Jr. wondered if he had attracted the agent’s attention when he emerged from the shadows or whether the man had been watching him for some time.
The agent held up a badge and waved him over, “Yeah, over here. So what’s going on there, pal? I seen you watching the hotel. So why don’t we have a look at what’s under your coat there. That all right?” The guy grinned at him through a sly face.
Young George’s heart sank. The agent had already seen too much, and his attitude pegged him as a lover of petty authority, a candidate for a lifetime on Shore Patrol.
George Jr. smiled over at the agent and started in his direction like a man who fully intended to comply. Nice and relaxed, he took three or four steps toward the waiting officer, using his posture and his attitude to broadcast the message: yes officer, of course, officer, not a problem, officer.
He silently counted: one for the money… two for the show… three for whatever that one is… then wheeled and broke into a dead run, instinctively aiming for the corner alley. The first “halt!” rang out behind him before he reached it.
Young George was in good condition and felt confident enough that he could outrun most pursuers, but he clearly sensed he would to need all his speed for this; the agent’s interest was more than casual.
He plunged into a shadowed service lane behind a large factory building and risked a quick glance back. There was no one in sight at the moment, so it was vital to get as far away as possible before anyone spotted him again. He pumped his legs until he could barely keep his feet under him.
Somewhere a few blocks behind him, the first siren started up. Quickly a second, a third, a fourth… maybe six? It was hard to tell, with the echoes, the overlapping sounds. Fear and confusion mixed. Six cars? With two cops to a car, that meant at least a dozen police had been mustered into the hunt for him, all within less than a minute. What could make the authorities respond this way? Everything was happening too quickly to comprehend.
But the police response had already convinced him the old discoverer told the truth about the file. And somebody else appeared to have their own ideas about it.
The sirens sounded like a pack of circling dogs. The wailing grew incrementally louder until, as if abruptly responding to a single cue from somewhere, every one of the sirens fell silent. The telltale noises of the patrolling ca
rs disappeared back into the camouflage of background city traffic.
George guessed there was no reason for him to react by changing direction. He had to assume they remained in motion and that one of them could appear anywhere. What he most needed to do was stay aware of his surroundings and keep moving–perhaps he could still escape through a random hole in the dragnet.
He had only traveled a few blocks when he emerged from the alley at the intersection of a wide boulevard. Moving too fast, he trotted out from the cover of the shadows and was immediately caught off guard. The artificial daylight on that street was so bright it brought him to a cold stop.
New lights had been installed all along the boulevard: arc lamps perfected by Tesla were mounted in street lights powered by Tesla’s alternating current, which came from Tesla’s Niagara Falls generators.
George Jr. began to move again while panicky realizations struck him like blows to the head. On top of the extra challenge posed by the bright new street light system, his pursuers would also be using Tesla’s invention of radio to organize their patrol cars. He had been trusted with Tesla’s secret file but was now up against the fruits of Tesla’s genius while they aided the authorities’ pursuit.
He inhaled and forced himself to adopt an inconspicuous walking pace, camouflaging himself among people going about ordinary things. He remained hidden among them until he reached a small intersection with another darkened alley and turned in. Back in the shadows, he gradually increased his speed with every step. Soon he was moving as fast as the limited visibility allowed, barely keeping his balance while he dodged obstacles looming in the darkness. He could hear the screeching tires of the patrol cars closing in. The sounds flushed every drop of his adrenaline into his bloodstream. Fear cramped his stomach, but the weight and the heft of the file bolstered his determination. He clutched the secret papers to his chest and plunged deeper into the pointy darkness of the hard world.
Afterword
This book is a work of speculative fiction that imagines what it may have been like for Nikola Tesla to live his singular life, and which invites the reader to peer out through his eyes.
For all those who would now like to pursue more factual information about the life and work this of leading light among the world’s greatest inventors, there are several publications available in nonfiction form.
A number of excellent nonfiction sources can be combined to get a feel for the full breadth of his life. The seminal reference will always be John J. O’Neill’s Prodigal Genius, the only biography by an author who actually knew Tesla and interviewed him (remember the Colliers’ Magazine senior editor).
Margaret Cheney’s Nikola Tesla: Man Out Of Time is also essential reading for anyone interested in the biographical treatment of Tesla’s life. The PBS documentary, “Tesla, Master of Lighting” is available in video form, as well as the excellent companion book of the same title. All offer important facts and insights.
This story’s use of his 1888 lecture before the A.I.E.E. is a brief and fictionalized version of his highly technical remarks, but for those looking for the engineering details, many of his most cogent writings are found in The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla, compiled by Thomas Cummerford Mann for Barnes & Noble Books. Most of his lectures can be found online.
I believe the portrayal of Tesla in this book to be honest and fair, even as I acknowledge there will be those who would do it other ways. The historical characters surrounding him are also drawn with regard to their known traits. These documented personalities and their known accomplishments allow for reasonable speculation as to their behavior.
The historical record is riddled with mysteries regarding Tesla. Why was he compelled to carry out his mission with such single-minded purpose that he declared himself a monk to science? What was his relationship to the white dove who was so important to him in his later years?
For so long, it has been effortless to ridicule his eccentric behavior and his claims of solving the design for his worldwide Universal Power System. But it must be pointed out that unless such critics have read about him under natural light or battery power, then they must have done so under lights powered by energy generated and delivered on a system he alone conceived in all its detail, and this in a horse-and-buggy era of gas lamps and oil lanterns.
— A.F.
Seattle, 2013
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