The Tesla Legacy

by K. K. Perez

  “No news.”

  “No news is generally good news, right?”

  “Right.” She glanced away.

  “When you passed out—” Ravi started and Lucy cut him off.

  “It wasn’t a seizure.” Oh, how Lucy wished it were that simple. “But if my parents found out, my chances of ever driving a car would disappear.”

  “Your parents are very protective.”

  Lucy exhaled through her nose and rolled her eyes. “You don’t know the half of it. I had to beg them to let me attend high school—to just let me be normal for once. Although I guess I’ll always be an outsider.”

  At that moment, Ravi seemed to realize his hand was still on Lucy’s shoulder and he dropped it to his side. Smooth. Why had she said that?

  “I’m not sure normal exists,” Ravi said softly. “But I do know something about being an outsider.”

  “You mean here in the land of barbarians?” Lucy said with a half smile, trying to dig herself out of the conversational hole.

  “No.” Swift shake of the head. “No, I mean at school. It wasn’t easy being the only brown kid in my year.” He set his jaw. “I still can’t hear the words Slumdog Millionaire without cringing.” There was an unfamiliar roughness to his voice as he shifted his gaze back to the boats.

  Lucy inhaled sharply. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry, Ravi.” She didn’t know what else to say. Her experience of being an outsider was completely different from his. Without her helmet, Lucy’s difference was invisible. She didn’t want to compare.

  Ravi shrugged. “People can be wankers.” He released a strained laugh. “Especially in school.”

  “When you said you ended up in the infirmary a lot from rugby—that was why,” Lucy realized. “People really do suck.” She was grateful for Claudia all over again.

  “Yeah.” He turned his face toward her, a faint red tinge to his cheeks. “But school doesn’t last forever and, in my experience, leading the life you want to lead is the best revenge against the wankers.”

  “Revenge against the wankers. I like that.”

  The breeze picked up, whipping a curl across her eyes and Ravi brushed it away, his hand hovering right above her cheek. Lucy shouldn’t be so eager for his touch. She focused all of her mental energy on not sending any non-metaphysical sparks his way.

  “And are you doing that?” Lucy asked. “Leading the life you want?”

  “Right now?”

  She swallowed. “Here, I mean. In the States?”

  Ravi coughed and shoved his hand in the pocket of his corduroy jacket awkwardly. “I suppose I am.” He coughed again. “Which direction were you headed?”

  Lucy had no desire to move from this very spot, but … “West Side,” she finally replied.

  Ravi checked his watch. “I have some time,” he said. “I could walk you, if you want?”

  “That’d be great.” She tried not to let show just how great on her face.

  He smiled. “Which way? I’m the tourist here.” Lucy shrugged and then indicated where the sun was just beginning to make its leisurely descent. Ravi laughed. “Good guess,” he said.

  “I was never a Girl Scout. But I do my best.”

  They walked side by side, perhaps closer than strictly necessary, and a canopy of leaves cast them in dappled shadows. Central Park was forty miles, give or take, from Eaton High, but it might as well be the moon.

  And far, far away from Cole.

  “So did you come into the city to be a tourist?” Lucy asked Ravi, restarting the conversation. “It’s definitely more exciting than Eaton.”

  “Partially, although Eaton has its charms,” he said, not quite glancing at her, and Lucy felt a small hitch in her chest.

  Stupid. He doesn’t mean you.

  “I have family visiting from the UK, actually,” he said.

  “Your parents?”

  “Er, no.” Ravi paused, pursed his lips. “They’re dead.”

  Foot. Mouth. Repeat.

  “Oh, oh—I-I’m so sorry,” Lucy said, voice fading to a whisper. She touched two fingers to the back of his hand. Ravi’s shoulders stiffened but he didn’t pull away, and a swell of melancholy rushed through her from the point of contact.

  “Thanks,” he said. Shadows from the trees veiled his eyes, making them unreadable. “Didn’t mean that to come out so ominous.” A smile hovered on his lips, equal parts uncertain, flirty, and wistful. “It was a long time ago.” He kicked a twig from the trail. “I’m meeting my godfather for dinner.”

  They rounded a boulder and the path narrowed, their hips bumping together.

  “You’d like Professor T,” he told Lucy, eyes pointed forward. “He took me under his wing after my parents were killed.”

  Killed? So many questions whirled in Lucy’s mind. “You call him Professor?” was the one she settled on, trying not to put another foot wrong.

  “It’s hard to call a bloke with a Nobel anything but Professor.”

  “A Nobel Prize?” Awe shaded her voice. Winning a Nobel was the stuff of Lucy’s wildest dreams.

  Sheer pride shone on Ravi’s face. “For quantum biology. Professor Tarquin Weston-Jones.”

  “I see why you call him Professor T.”

  “It’s quite the mouthful, to be fair.” He worked his jaw and his expression grew somber. “But he saved my life.”

  Lucy held her breath, waiting for him to finish the story. It had become so still that the only sound was the wind through the trees. Who knew there could be such peace in the middle of Manhattan?

  “My parents were both biologists. They worked in Professor T’s research group at Cambridge.” Ravi tugged on his jacket collar, eyes straight ahead. “I used to do my homework in the lab after school.” The muscles in his neck tightened as he explained, “I was there when the fire broke out.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nine.”

  Lucy reached out but stopped short of touching him again. She couldn’t even imagine what that would be like. As much as she resented her parents’ constant monitoring, she’d never want to lose them. Her troubles suddenly seemed trivial compared with being orphaned.

  “I heard this blast. Then there was so much smoke. I tried to find them but I couldn’t see anything.” His eyes were unfocused now, as if he were watching the scene play out in front of him. “Somehow Professor T found me. Got me out.”

  “What happened?” she asked gently.

  “No one knows for certain. It could have been an accident. It could have been terrorism.”

  Ravi crooked his neck at her, taking in the shock she couldn’t conceal.

  “They were working on gene therapy,” he said. “It has its opponents.” His attempt at a neutral shrug was belied by the anger in his eyes. Lucy realized she’d never seen him without his glasses before. It was almost too tempting to stroke his brow.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s a beautiful day,” he said, a false lightness underpinning his words. “No sense dwelling in the past.”

  Lucy’s heart ached for him. Not being sure why your parents were killed—or by whom. Never getting answers. Being bullied and alone at boarding school.

  “Thanks for telling me,” she said. “For trusting me. And I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing. I hate when people act like epilepsy is my defining characteristic. I wouldn’t want you to think that’s how I see you.”

  Ravi lifted a wry eyebrow. “Poor orphan boy?”

  “Yeah. I mean, no.”

  He laughed. Then, more seriously, he said, “You didn’t say anything wrong. There’s no right thing to say. But you didn’t say anything wrong.” The corner of his mouth tilted upward again. “We Brits aren’t renowned for sharing our feelings. It must be your American influence.”

  “I’m glad. Because I—I like getting to know you, Ravi.”

  “Me too, Lucy. I hope we can try that experiment again.”

  She nodded as her stomach churned. Ravi was being so honest with her
that Lucy hated herself a little for not being totally honest with him. Maybe he was the one person who could help her investigate her abilities without thinking she needed to be protected from herself?

  Lucy was perilously close to unburdening herself when they followed another bend in the path and her breath buckled in her throat.

  A postcard-perfect view of New York greeted them. Skyscrapers provided the backdrop to a lake sprinkled with couples in rowboats. Cumulus clouds hung in a pastel-blue sky, their undersides glowing with a hint of apricot.

  This is where I want to be. Not Gilbert College.

  Lucy hadn’t realized it until this moment. She loved her parents, but they were so afraid for her to have dreams of her own.

  She stole a sideways glance at Ravi. Which life did she want to lead?

  A long, almost medieval-style bridge covered the expanse of water. Lucy was sure she’d seen it in the rom-coms Claudia streamed when it was her turn to pick their sleepover movie.

  “It’s not the Serpentine,” Ravi noted, “but it is impressive.”

  “The Serpentine?”

  “A lake in London. Hyde Park.”

  “Sounds unfriendly.”

  “Only if you can’t swim,” he said with a laugh. “Shall we?” He motioned toward the bridge.

  “We shall,” she agreed, and Ravi grinned at her best Mary Poppins impression.

  Fighting a furious blush, Lucy admired the interlocking discs that comprised the length of the stone bridge. Her pulse skipped as her eyes caught on the flower shape at the center of each. Carefully she counted each petal. Five, not six. Only five petals. It wasn’t a Flower of Life. It wasn’t.

  Her shoulders sagged with relief. She hadn’t noticed they’d come to a stop at the midpoint of the bridge until Ravi asked, “What is it?”

  “Oh, I was just counting the semicircles,” she said, his scrutiny palpable. “I like patterns.” Which wasn’t a lie.

  “So do I. Tessellation is the topic I proposed for my Ph.D.”

  “Tessellation?”

  “Something along the lines of M. C. Escher’s drawings. Repeated geometric shapes without gaps or overlaps. They occur in nature—like honeycombs.”

  “You’re doing a Ph.D.?”

  His lips tightened microscopically. “Maybe. I’ve been offered a place to stay at the maths department at Cambridge.”

  Her stomach shouldn’t be plummeting at the thought of Ravi going back to England. That was where he lived. Gah.

  “Why tessellation?” Lucy asked.

  “Because it can be used to understand more than the three dimensions of our universe. There’s more to everything than meets the eye,” he said, catching hers.

  “Like sacred geometry?” She gulped.

  “That’s one way to look at it. Most mathematicians call it hyperbolic geometry. It’s related to the theory of special relativity.”

  Another gulp. “As in the space-time continuum?”

  “Precisely!” The enthusiasm in his voice was infectious. It infected Lucy, anyway. He leaned closer to her and he smelled good. Musky.

  Get a grip, Luce.

  “Have you considered studying maths further at uni?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” She worried her lower lip, praying he couldn’t sense her distraction. There was scarcely an inch between their mouths.

  “I prefer experimental to theoretical physics,” she said. “I like to get my hands dirty.”

  Wow. That had come out unexpectedly sultry.

  Before she could babble anything resembling a retraction, a heavy shoulder knocked into her, sending her to her knees. But it wasn’t the force of the collision that made Lucy lose her balance. It was the choking sensation, like toxic sludge clogging her lungs. Ravi grabbed her upper arms, searching her face, and the tingly heat he provoked battled against the sludge.

  “My bag,” Lucy gasped. “He’s got my bag.”

  She jutted her chin toward a thickly muscled figure sprinting across to the other side of the park with her messenger bag.

  “Stay here,” Ravi commanded. His tone was far more imperious than Lucy would have thought the easygoing sci-fi geek capable. As was the flash of absolute rage that crossed his face.

  He set after the thief at a pace that easily would have challenged Cole. Also unexpected. Once the choking sensation abated, Lucy pushed to her feet, calling after him to stop. Ravi’s gallantry was swoon-worthy, to be sure, but her wallet and phone weren’t worth getting hurt over.

  Either Ravi didn’t hear her or he didn’t want to give up his pursuit.

  She stumbled forward a couple steps. What was going on with her? She’d have to add the toxic gagging response to her list of symptoms. Fantastic.

  A couple minutes later, Ravi trotted back to meet her at the far end of the bridge. He was muttering a number of British profanities like “tosser,” “bloody,” and “bollocks” that Lucy found highly amusing despite having been robbed.

  “I wish I could say I challenged the wastrel to a duel,” Ravi said, holding out Lucy’s bag. “Truth is he dropped it on the ground and kept running. No heroics involved.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  His brow remained creased. “See if anything is missing.”

  Lucy raked through the bag. Phone? Check. Wallet? Check. Everything was there except …

  Oh no.

  The Tesla Egg.

  She’d put it in her bag during the EEG so it wouldn’t disrupt the machine.

  Ravi watched her face fall. “What is it?”

  “It’s stupid, really. Just this … family heirloom.” That sounded believable.

  “What kind of heirloom?”

  “An egg?”

  He regarded her strangely. “An egg?”

  “Not an actual egg. A bronze one.” She blew out a breath. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not worth anything to anyone but me.” Lucy figured that was probably true.

  “I’m so sorry this happened.” There was pain—no, guilt—in his voice.

  “Don’t be. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, right?”

  “Our chief weapon is surprise,” Ravi quoted back at her. “Didn’t realize Monty Python was so popular over here.” Amusement laced his words. “Our indoctrination will soon be complete.”

  Lucy snort-laughed, jabbing him on the shoulder. Their eyes met and her laughter cut off abruptly as the intensity of his gaze became tangible. Her hand slid tentatively through the air, reaching for his cheek but changed course at the last second and landed on his shoulder.

  Soberly, she told him, “I didn’t care about my bag. I was worried about you.”

  “I thought I told you not to worry about me.”

  She crossed her arms, stepping backward. “Well, I do. I mean, I was. Worried. Not all the time. Just now.”

  “Thank you,” Ravi said, flushing slightly, and held out an arm. “Can I escort you wherever you’re going before I meet Professor T? There seem to be scoundrels about.”

  “You don’t think I can handle myself around scoundrels?” she said, half teasing.

  “I think you can do anything you set your mind to, Lucinda. But,” Ravi added, “I’m rather enjoying your company.”

  The tenderness in his statement compelled Lucy to accept his offer. Lightness spread through her as she looped her arm through his. The same weightlessness she’d experienced in her dreams. Right before she set the Flower of Life on fire.

  Only she wasn’t dreaming now.

  HURTS SO GOOD

  “Can we talk?”

  Three of the scariest words in the English language—especially when coming from the maybe-ex-boyfriend you haven’t spoken to for two weeks.

  The noise of all the other students in the hallway discussing their weekend plans petered out. Cole’s breath was warm on Lucy’s hair, but her shoulders stiffened, waiting to see what her body’s reaction would be.

  Slowly she turned to face him, hands clamped to her sides.

  “Talk,�
�� she said.

  Cole scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the linoleum.

  “You missed the last meet of the season. We won—if you care.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “We won—I even set a new personal best—and I didn’t care.” He tore at the cuticles on his thumb, one of his few nervous habits, while staring at his feet. “I didn’t care because you weren’t there, Luce. Because you didn’t want to be there.”

  Lucy felt a twinge of guilt, almost like a paper cut. It was true.

  “You’ve got enough groupies,” she said.

  Cole lifted his gaze. “You saw the photos.”

  “The up-close-and-personal with Megan? Oh yeah. So why are we even talking? I seem to have been replaced.”

  “Replaced?”

  He curled his fingers around Lucy’s upper arm in desperation. No motion sickness this time, but what Lucy did feel was almost worse, like dangling from a slippery cliff. She’d hoped that the thief had done her a favor by removing the Tesla Egg from her possession, hoped maybe all her weird abilities would evaporate.

  Nope.

  “That’s not why I posted them,” Cole said, half plea, half growl, while shaking his head.

  “Then why did you?” Lucy demanded.

  “I needed to see if you’d get jealous.”

  “You were trying to hurt me? I never thought you were a sadist, Cole.”

  “What? No. I had to know if you’d care. But then you didn’t even confront me. You didn’t even seem upset.” His eyes traveled to where he was gripping her arm. “You barely touch me anymore.”

  Channeling all of her frustration at Cole, Lucy shouted, “Of course I care!” and jabbed his shoulder, proving she could touch him when she wanted. “And you better believe I’m mad.”

  A tiny crescent formed on his lips.

  “Why are you smiling?” she said.

  “Because you’re mad. You care.” Cole leaned into her and brushed his knuckles along her jawbone. “Please, Luce. I want things to go back to the way they were.”

  She inhaled all the way from her toes. Lucy wanted things to be like they’d been before the cheating and the Tesla Suite too.

  “Let me make it up to you,” said Cole. “Saturday. My parents will be out of town. I’ll make you dinner. I’ll be better.” He took a breath. “I promise.”