The Time Change Trilogy-Complete Collection

by Alex Myers

  CHAPTER 23

  They took the high-back chair from Edison’s office and carried it into the laboratory. The room was open except for workbenches and tall stools. It was a big space, forty feet long and half as wide. There were three benches set in the middle of the room like islands in a sea of circuit boards made of linen paper, wires, brackets, and tubing.

  A twelve-inch cathode ray tube sat on a wooden-wheeled, waist-high stand. There were ripples and bumps in the hand-blown glass of the tube and the deflection coil and electron gun hooked onto the backside looked crude and oversized.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson sat bolt upright in the large chair, staring straight into the front of the tube. Lidian Emerson stood by his side and Doctor Blackwell stood on the other.

  “Where does this have to be positioned?” Edison asked, fiddling with the tube.

  “Within four feet of Mr. Emerson’s torso,” Jack said.

  Edison got the tube ready and Jack handed him a piece of paper. “This is very similar to Morse code, a long dash is two seconds on, and one off, and a dot is one second on and one second off. All eight in the sequence must be done with precise timing or the nanobots will not activate. If a mistake is made, you must complete the sequence of eight just to be sure. Don’t stop at six or go to ten; that would set off different programming.”

  Jack thought he saw Edison roll his eyes. Jack was way too excited for Emerson to be upset with a pigheaded Edison. “Mr. Edison, do you have a rocker switch or something like a telegraph key that you can turn the tube on and off with?”

  “My assistant here is hooking up the switch now. I still think this is a waste of time. There simply is no radiation emitted from the tube.”

  Jack got down on his haunches and looked at the tube, having been briefed as to what to ask for and what to expect. He had also seen modern cathode ray tubes, CRTs, and he knew how they should look and even roughly how they worked. Jack couldn’t put his finger on it, but something seemed amiss.

  “If something were to happen, how long would it be before we saw something?” Edison asked halfheartedly.

  “The healing would start happening as soon as the sequence was entered. A more thorough change in about a week, almost complete remission within a month or so.” Jack noticed where the assistant was installing the new switch. “Why is he so far away?” Jack asked.

  “We had an explosion a couple of weeks ago. Is there a problem with where it’s being set up?”

  Jack looked at the ceiling and saw residue from two blast marks. “One explosion?”

  Edison followed his eyes. “Okay, two, but this is a more stable model.”

  Jack didn’t remember anything in the briefing about explosions. “Did you ever make note or document the explosions?”

  “Of course not,” Edison said. “Why would I? I have it all here,” Edison said, tapping his forehead with his fingers.

  The assistant gave a small salute to Edison, indicating the modifications had been made.

  “Shall we begin?” Edison asked.

  Everyone was in place. Edison was twenty-five feet away from the tube and Jack was slightly behind him.

  “Why are you not over there with your patient?” Edison asked with a smile on his face.

  “He’s not my patient, and I’m not a doctor.”

  “Just what are you Mr. Riggs, a huckster, a cheat? What is your game?”

  Jack was more interested in keeping Ralph Waldo Emerson alive than fighting with Thomas Edison. “I’m here to help, so can we please start the sequence?” Jack asked.

  Either to get the project over with or out of curiosity, Edison sat the paper out in front of the telegraph key that would send electrical pulses to the cathode ray tube

  Edison looked once more to Jack. “If it were not for my extreme respect and admiration of—”

  “I know,” Jack interrupted, “everyone but me, you wouldn’t do it. I know you’ve mentioned it—can we just start the sequence?”

  Edison was going to respond, but instead he turned around and sent the first of the pulses down the line. The lights in the lab dimmed with every pulse. Emerson sat in the chair, seemingly unaffected.

  “Seven and eight.” Edison turned around, looked at Jack, and looked back to Emerson. “As I predicted, nothing happened.”

  “You rushed the sequence,” Jack said. “Do it again. Remember one second on, one second off, two seconds on, still one second off.”

  Lidian looked toward Jack, her eyes wet.

  Edison again pulsed the beam straight into Ralph Waldo Emerson. On the last pulse, he turned and looked at Jack. Again, they looked to Emerson, but he was unmoving and unaffected.

  “Do it once more! I’m telling you longer intervals, don’t rush it,” Jack said.

  Looking frustrated and angry, Edison started the sequence again. He was six pulses into it when Emerson started to spasm. Jack and Edison ran to his side.

  “What have you done?” Edison asked as they got to the struggling man. Dr. Blackwell and her male nurse were trying to hold Emerson down, but the little man thrashed despite their best effort to hold him still. Quarter size splotches of blood appeared on Emerson’s hands and face, but just as quickly as they appeared, they went away. Emerson’s heels were pounding into the ground.

  Dr. Blackwell looked over her shoulder at Jack. “Do you have any idea what is going on?”

  “No, I’m not an expert at this. They never indicated to me that anything like this was possible.”

  The sound of Emerson’s teeth snapping open and shut repeatedly filled the room with an eerie clattering.

  Edison sat on the floor seemingly paralyzed and watched as they attempted in vain to control Emerson’s reaction. Edison looked on the verge of tears and he started to rock and mumble. Dr. Blackwell reached into her bag and pulled out a small towel that she stuck into Emerson’s mouth and the loud gnashing of teeth ceased.

  “Go get the orderlies,” Dr. Blackwell said to her nurse. Turning to Jack, she motioned him forward. “Help me. Make sure he doesn’t slam his head into the ground. I have an ambulance and attendants standing by outside just in case—good thing.”

  Jack took off his suit coat and put it under Emerson’s head.

  “Can you think of anything?” Dr. Blackwell asked Jack.

  “They said that the cold cathode tube that Edison used would emit positive ions at five mila-amps.”

  “That’s thorium tungsten,” Edison said, “a hot cathode. It puts out about five hundred mila-amps,” Edison said between tears.

  “That’s not what I asked you for,” Jack said. “I was very specific and asked you more than once. That tube was a hundred times more powerful than what we should’ve used.”

  “I was worried that you just wanted to steal my invention, my hard work. I didn’t think it was going to make a difference anyway. I didn’t think anything was going to happen.” Edison turned toward Lidian who had tears streaming down her face. “I am so sorry.”

  Dr. Blackwell injected Emerson with an anti-spasmodic drug and the thrashing slowed and then stopped.

  “How could you know so much about me and my experiments?”

  “Because he’s from the future,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said. His eyes were closed and he had moved. His voice sounded terribly weak.

  “He’s delusional,” Edison said, wiping tears away.

  “He’s telling you the truth. I am from the future.” Jack said.

  “As well as from the past,” Emerson said.

  “Ralph!” Lidian said, crying and moving in close. “You can speak.” She cradled her husband’s head.

  “That is the first time you’ve called me by my first name in over thirty years,” Emerson said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. He smiled at his wife. He looked to Jack, “It appears…” Emerson’s lips continued to move, but no sound came out. His jaw went slack.

  “Is he dead?” Edison asked.

  “No, he just lost consciousness, but his vital signs are
good,” Dr. Blackwell said.

  “If he was, you could thank your pigheaded vanity.” Sam Clemens' eyes were blazing.

  “What did he mean you’re from the future and from the past?” Edison asked.

  “I’m Jack Riggs,” he saw Edison’s reaction. “Yes, that Jack Riggs.”

  Edison wiped the rest of his face with his sleeve and started laughing, first a few guffaws then it changed to maniacal laughter.

  “Why is he laughing?” Lidian asked annoyed with Edison’s callousness.

  “Perhaps he’s thinking about the enormous ass he’s made out of himself,” Sam said.

  “Maybe I’m thinking—” His laughter became higher pitched and more hysterical. “If you’re from the future, then that means all those things you invented in the 1850s, those were just things that have already been invented. Probably a bunch of them by me. The ‘Wizard of Hampton Roads’, balderdash! More like the ‘Thief of Hampton Roads’”

  “Is that all you care about? Really? Your ego? Your deceit has caused mortal injuries to probably the greatest thinker of the 1800s, and you’re concerned with being the best inventor?” Jack asked.

  Edison ignored Jack and continued to laugh to himself.

  Emerson began to spasm again, his arms splaying and heels kicking the ground. The red starburst spots surfaced again on his face and hands.

  Dr. Blackwell gave him another injection of the anti-spasmodic. His movements slowed then stopped. “I may have given him too much. That was double the normal dosage. I’m worried it might start shutting down his normal autonomic functioning. He’s tremendously sedated.”

  “Nanobots seem to be self-destructing,” Jack said. “A high-dose of radiation can destroy them, but it’s supposed to do it without causing damage. I think somehow we must’ve activated them and then started the terminate sequence at the same time. You have to understand that I’m not an expert by any means. These things are almost as new to me as they are to you.”

  “If you would’ve been closer to the tube, you might be reacting in the same way,” Dr. Blackwell said.

  Jack shook his head at Edison who was no longer laughing, just sitting on the ground and staring at Ralph Waldo Emerson.

  “I’m afraid this is not going to be good. They’re shutting down the nonessentials. His heart, lungs, and brain might be next. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Emerson. This should not have happened. I should have left you two in peace.”

  From nowhere, Emerson spoke again. “Nonsense!”

  Jack swung his head around surprised at Emerson’s still strong voice, Robbie jumped and Edison looked startled and his laughter sounded more like a whimper.

  Emerson continued, “There was no peace there. To be able to think but not express is surely a living form of hell. I knew the chance I was taking today and went forward gladly because the alternative, not to read, or speak, and to be able to control the smallest of functions was not living at all. I was dead without the peace that goes along with it.”

  Edison’s whimper turned into sniffling and then crying.

  Emerson kept his body very still but turned to speak. “Jack, Dr. Blackwell, I know that the end is nigh at hand and my mortal coil is ready to release. You both have done nothing but your best and for that, I want you both to rest easy at night and bear no blame. I would like to spend what little time left I have with my dearest.”

  “Mr. Emerson,” Dr. Blackwell said, “don’t give up just yet. There are a few things I would like to try—perhaps another transfusion.”

  Emerson said softly, “No.”

  Dr. Blackwell looked to Jack and he shook his head.

  “Lidian, are you there?” Emerson’s sightless eyes were open and staring at the ceiling.

  “I am here, Ralph.” She let go of his unfeeling hand to caress his cheek.

  “Yes, now I can feel you. I have been locked inside this shell, alone, yet able to remember the time when we were as near as two can be. That not to be honest with you is like being dishonest with myself. I promised if ever I found my voice again, through writing or speaking, that I would confess.”

  “Ralph, my dearest, you don’t have to, especially now after all these years.”

  “I know of your relationship with Thoreau.”

  “Ralph, please no.”

  “I know that’s why you called him back to you from Walden Pond when I went off to Europe. Thoreau criticized me by saying he was more of a father to my children and husband to my wife than I was. I sought distraction in the arms of Margaret Fuller.”

  “Ralph, we both know all this, you’re using your precious breath to reiterate the obvious?”

  “Because what is not obvious is my love and respect for you. What transpired could have doomed a romantic love, yet my love for you is deeper and wider than that. I want to thank you for sharing yourself with me. You’ve been the most spirited of mates and while at times maybe not what I wanted exactly, but exactly what I needed.” Emerson began coughing.

  Jack and Dr. Blackwell moved off to give the couple their moment. Emerson’s coughing became shallower.

  Dr. Blackwell moved to render aid. Jack grabbed her arm, held her back, and in a quiet voice said, “There’s nothing you can do. That’s the sound of his lungs shutting down. Let’s give them this time.”

  Edison sat on the floor in his fancy suit with his feet splayed in front of him like a child. His face was slack and he had tears running down his cheeks. Edison stared at the Emersons. Lidian was leaning over and listening to her husband speak. She looked at him, put her hand on his forehead, and then closed her eyes.

  “Mrs. Emerson?” Jack and Dr. Blackwell were standing at Lidian’s side.

  “He’s gone,” Lidian said, “but he was happy. He wanted to thank you, Mr. Riggs, for this opportunity. He told me to tell you, that if he had to do it again, even being aware of the outcome, he wouldn’t hesitate. Let’s take him back to Concord and Sleepy Hollow.

  CHAPTER 24

  One day after Ralph Waldo Emerson was laid to rest in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Jack was back in New York.

  He was staring at a live, moving, in-color, real-life rendering of something he had only seen in the black and white photographs of books. The man had a bulldozer wide kind a mouth full of big square teeth. At once he was shorter than you thought he would be and bigger in a barrel-chested, top-heavy kind of way. He didn’t have the signature little round glasses and the big thick mustache, but you could tell it was the same man. He was shirtless, wore long woolen shorts and what looked like a white bathing cap. Jack was looking at a twenty-three-year-old Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt and he was about to kick his ass.

  They were at the New York Men’s Athletic Club and Teddy and a smaller opponent were boxing in a square ring marked off by painted lines on the floor. The man Roosevelt was boxing was about five foot five and weighed about one hundred twenty-five pounds. Teddy was pounding him, but the man kept coming back for more.

  They took a break and Teddy went to a corner. “Care to try it with someone your own size? Someone you weren’t paying to lose?” Jack asked.

  Teddy, without his glasses, squinted to get a look at Jack. Still panting from his exertion, he wiped his rather large nose on his wrapped hand. He gave Jack a tremendously wide grin and asked, “Are you the cad who has been saying for the past week he could beat me without throwing a punch?”

  Actually, he hadn’t been saying it for a week, but he told three people that morning that he had been saying it for a week. He also gave them each three dollars to relay it to Roosevelt.

  At six foot two, Jack was six inches taller than Teddy and at 230 pounds, outweighed him by thirty pounds of muscle. “I’m about ready to give you a lesson, Mr. Roosevelt.”

  The man Teddy had been sparring with got up to resume and Teddy dismissively waved him off and shook his head no. “And just how do you propose to do that?” Teddy asked. His voice was so high and thin that Jack smiled at the future president.

  “With a form
of Japanese self-defense called aikido.”

  “I am not familiar with chink fighting methods. I never wanted to get that close to one of the little monkeys. Did you say Chinese?”

  “It was Japanese.” Jack couldn’t believe the way Roosevelt was speaking.

  “It doesn’t really matter does it? All the chink bastards are the same, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, whatever. Can’t tell one heathen from another anyway.”

  Jack might enjoy this fight more than he originally thought.

  “What do you say we make a little wager to make this more interesting? Say five dollars?” Roosevelt swaggered.

  Five dollars in 1881 was a lot of money, even for someone with Roosevelt’s deep pockets. Possibly, he thought he would scare Jack off with such an amount, or he was just that confident of his own ability. Either way Jack said, “Of course.”

  The room was large and unpartitioned; everyone could hear anything that was said, and people had started to gather. Dumbbells were put down, people on ropes slid to the ground, and wrestling matches ended.

  Teddy seemed surprised that Jack took him up on his bet. “You’re going to need to get your hands wrapped in cloth.”

  “I told you, I’m not gonna hit you.”

  “And yet you believe you can beat me? How would you like to score this?”

  “How about if I knock you to the ground three times I win, and if you land three hits to my face, no matter how hard, you win.”

  “And what kind of time limit for the rounds?”

  “I can’t see this taking too long,” Jack said, and the gathering crowd approved.

  “Neither can I, do we need a referee?”

  “We are both honorable men, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Jack said.

  “Just three hits to the head?”

  Jack nodded. “When would you like to start?” Jack was in the process of taking off his jacket.

  “How about right now?” And before Jack could get his arms out of the sleeves, Teddy landed upon a punch on Jack’s jaw. It was like a ten- pound sledgehammer hitting him on the chin. Jack fell to the ground entangled in his half-removed jacket.