Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “Mr. Tesla?”

  The quiet, intense voice on the other end was that of President Woodrow Wilson.

  “I must speak to you immediately— face to face,” Mr. Tesla said. “I insist upon permission to use the transport tube.”

  “You insist?” President Wilson asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “Are you insisting upon me convening a MJ-Seven meeting?” President Wilson asked.

  “There isn’t time for that,” Mr. Tesla said. “Do you sanction use of the transport tube to Washington?”

  “Use it,” President Wilson said. “When will you be here?”

  “Almost immediately,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “Very well,” President Wilson said. “Come along. We will talk in my bedroom.”

  President Wilson hung up.

  Mr. Tesla placed the receiver back on the telephone, rose from his desk and crossed the room. A keyboard of unnumbered buttons was mounted on the wall next to a door. Mr. Tesla pushed several of these buttons in succession and the door slid sideways, opening up the threshold and the space beyond it. Mr. Tesla went through the door and it automatically slid shut behind him.

  Here on the other side of the door was another world completely apart from the mundane order existing far above the surface in the streets of New York City. This was the most secret inner sanctum of Nikola Tesla’s New York City laboratory, a place filled with strange machinery and odd curios. Beyond the machines lay an area that looked like a miniature subway station. Instead of subway car tracks, a single rail extended into a dark, circular opening, a tunnel that ran all the way to Washington. This was the secret emergency transport for Majestic Seven. Upon the single rail sat a strange looking vehicle: an object shaped like an egg, its interior accessible by a sliding door. Mr. Tesla stepped in front of this egg shaped vehicle, and its door slid open. Mr. Tesla stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind him.

  Inside, Mr. Tesla sat down in one of several seats, pulled a lever, and the vehicle started off down the track slowly, then faster, gradually gaining speed. The walls of the tunnel were lit at long intervals by electric lamps, and as the vehicle gained in speed, the distance between the lamps seemed to shorten until finally there was no sensation of passing a series of lamps, but of only speeding down a long corridor lit on the right and left by a continuous streak of electric light.

  As Mr. Tesla hurtled toward Washington D.C., he considered the difficulty of his situation. He must convince the President to approve an immediate course of action without advice from anyone else. President Wilson relied heavily upon his advisors, particularly “Colonel” Edward Mandell House, the first man President Wilson had chosen as a member of Majestic Seven. Col. House, Mr. Tesla knew, was deeply involved with Great Britain in trying to promote a peace conference between the Allies and Germany, and this put House out of reach this morning. It would also take time to gather the other members of Majestic Seven, and Mr. Tesla knew he did not have that time. Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State, Lindley M. Garrison, Secretary of War, Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, and William G. McAdoo, Secretary of Treasury (President Wilson’s son-in-law) were all scattered about Washington. What Mr. Tesla needed was a swift “yes” from the President, not a debate between five other men.

  The egg-shaped vehicle began slowing, and Mr. Tesla could again perceive the electric lamps on the walls of the tunnel as separate objects speeding past him. The vehicle in which he was traveling was automatically slowing down. Then it came to a slow, gentle stop. Mr. Tesla pressed a button on the panel before him, and the door at his side slid open. He stepped out of the vehicle.

  Edmund Starling stood waiting for him on the platform outside. Mr. Tesla had reached a subway station identical to the one he had just left behind in New York. This one was positioned directly below the White House.

  “He’s ready to see you,” Starling said.

  Mr. Tesla only nodded, and followed Starling to the elevator. The two of them stepped inside it, and Starling sent them up to the second floor of the White House. When they reached the second floor, they stepped out, and Starling led Mr. Tesla to the door of President Wilson’s bedroom. Starling knocked.

  “Come in,” President Wilson said from behind the door.

  Starling opened the door and Mr. Tesla stepped forward to the opened threshold, and stopped.

  President Woodrow Wilson rose from a chair, wearing a robe.

  “Please come in Mr. Tesla and have a seat,” President Wilson said.

  “Mr. President,” Mr. Tesla said, bowing slightly as he stepped forward into the bedroom. From out in the hall Starling closed the door behind them, leaving Mr. Tesla and President Wilson alone in the room.

  President Wilson indicated a chair, and the President and Mr. Tesla sat down.

  “Have you seen the pictures?” Mr. Tesla asked.

  “Yes,” President Wilson said. “I have my set here.”

  President Wilson picked up a red-tabbed pasteboard file lying on a table and opened it. Inside were color photographic prints of the pictures I had just taken on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

  “Exactly what is this thing?” President Wilson asked.

  “A cylinder generating an intense rotating and counter-rotating electro-gravitational field,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “What is its purpose?” President Wilson asked.

  “Its specific purpose is unclear,” Mr. Tesla said. “It will require more study and analysis.”

  “It seems you have already given this whole matter a great deal of study and analysis,” President Wilson said.

  “We can infer some things from the device’s function,” Mr. Tesla said. “It is distorting space and time by creating a vortex-shaped compression in the ether— a field of torsion. This torsion in the ether causes a separation in the lines of force in the magnetic field.”

  “What does all this mean practically?” President Wilson asked.

  “The thing is modulating time,” Mr. Tesla said. “It is a time machine.”

  “This is possible?” President Wilson asked.

  “It is actual,” Mr. Tesla said. “Time is being modulated. In the immediate vicinity of the cylinder, time is speeding up. It is possible this process could be reversed— a rapid backward motion of time. Some of the theoretical models I have developed suggest that this is what will soon happen. The speeding up of the passage of time in the vicinity of the cylinder may only be a preliminary action to prepare the ether for a reversal in time— something analogous to winding up a clock or lighting the fuse on a bomb.”

  President Wilson thumbed through the photographs slowly, studying each picture. Finally he looked up.

  “Why haven’t you presented these facts to Majestic Seven before now?” President Wilson asked.

  “Before now,” Mr. Tesla said, “I had no facts, only speculations. It has taken time to gather the facts. For example: the multiple images of Mr. Houdini are not double exposures, but distortions in space and time, an overlapping of times in one space— perhaps an overlapping of parallel universes each with its own time. All this is manifesting in the local area.”

  “And the purpose, Mr. Tesla. What is the ultimate purpose of this thing?” President Wilson asked.

  “I believe,” Mr. Tesla said, “that the Martians are trying to send our whole planet backwards in time— or to a completely different universe— a parallel universe.”

  “Where they hold the upper hand,” President Wilson said.

  Mr. Tesla closed his eyes and inclined his head forward.

  “Do you find any connection here between the Martians and the Germans?” President Wilson asked.

  “No,” Mr. Tesla said. “Not yet.”

  President Wilson looked down at the photographs spread out in his lap. He picked up one of the photographs and scrutinized it. This photograph was one that showed the disembodied fish-head floating above the cylinder.

  “What is this thing?” President Wil
son asked. “Some kind of aquatic creature?”

  “It is an intelligent being,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “How do you know?” President Wilson asked.

  “It spoke to Houdini,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “Spoke?” President Wilson asked. “How?”

  “Through direct mental contact,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “What did it say?” President Wilson asked.

  “It warned him, threatened him,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “I thought you believed this machine was built by Martians,” President Wilson said.

  “I do,” Mr. Tesla said. “But this being is involved with it in some way.”

  “Involved?” President Wilson asked.

  “It may have been this being who gave the Martians the knowledge of how to construct this cylindrical device.”

  “What is this sea creature?” President Wilson asked. “Where is it from?”

  “I do not know,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “You do not know or you will not say?” President Wilson asked.

  The President picked up another red-tabbed pasteboard file from the table and opened it. This file contained photographs of the gigantic bell-shaped object which had been found positioned between Earth and Mars in 1903.

  The President held up one of the photographs of the 1903 object.

  “What is this?” President Wilson asked.

  “The 1903 object,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “Exactly the same as this object on the ocean floor,” President Wilson said.

  “It looks similar,” Mr. Tesla said. “It is not the same. The 1903 object was enormous. The object on the floor of the Pacific is only nine feet tall.”

  “Come, come, Mr. Tesla!” President Wilson said. “I am not a scientist, but I am not a fool. The 1903 object and the thing on the ocean floor are the obviously the same kind of device, only different in scale.”

  “The 1903 object was destroyed before it became fully operational,” Mr. Tesla said. “If it had become fully operational you and I would not be talking here now.”

  “Yet, if I recall correctly, in 1903 you claimed not to know what this thing in space was,” President Wilson said.

  “I have learned a good deal since 1903,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “But apparently you have not learned what this fish-head is floating above the cylinder on the ocean floor. Do you mean to tell me that you have no clue to its identity and origins?”

  “It may be one of the Anunnaki,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “That term— I have heard that term somewhere before,” President Wilson said.

  “It is a Sumerian word,” Mr. Tesla said. “It refers to the ancient gods who once ruled the earth. Some of them were amphibians, like the being in that photograph.”

  “The Anu— Anu—“ President Wilson stammered.

  “Anunnaki,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “This Annunaki is projecting itself across time?” President Wilson asked.

  “Possibly,” Mr. Tesla said. “It is possible that through some kind of projection across time and dimensions that the Anunnaki made contact with the Martians.”

  “And gave them knowledge of how to build this device?” President Wilson asked.

  Mr. Tesla nodded.

  “And the 1903 device,” President Wilson said.

  “It may be that the Martians have been in some kind of contact with these other beings for many years,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “For decades?” President Wilson asked.

  “It is possible some form of contact has been going on between them for decades,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “This is so far from what the average American citizen could comprehend,” President Wilson said, “that it could never be believed. It could never be believed. And if it was believed…. If only a few suspected… it would lead to unspeakable madness and anarchy.”

  “I am not concerned with what people might believe or feel,” Mr. Tesla said, “but with what is happening right now on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. What is happening down there is proceeding without concern for anyone’s thoughts or feelings.”

  “What do you think we should do?” President Wilson asked.

  “This whole matter has been bungled,” Mr. Tesla snapped.

  “Bungled? By whom?” President Wilson asked.

  “By you, sir. By you and you alone,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “How?” President Wilson asked.

  “You have allowed the influence of Col. House and your son-in-law to sway you on to an irrational course,” Mr. Tesla said. “You have placed this Pacific Ocean matter under the direction of McAdoo as if it was a Treasury operation.”

  “Treasury has always directed MJ-Seven operations,” President Wilson said. “And George Ade has handled all of the most sensitive operations and done them all superbly. You should know that better than anyone.”

  “I am well aware of Mr. Ade’s skills and accomplishments,” Mr. Tesla said. “I am also qualified to pass judgment upon his limitations. And I say emphatically that he should not have been put in charge of this Pacific operation. He was not qualified for it. And now, before the operation has been brought to a satisfactory conclusion, McAdoo has sent Mr. Ade back across country on another assignment in Chicago.”

  “It is related to what is happening out west,” President Wilson said.

  “That is irrelevant,” Mr. Tesla said. “We are now without proper management out in the Pacific.”

  “We have the captain of the Cypher,” President Wilson said.

  “Yes, Captain Wilson,” Mr. Tesla said. “Is he also one of your relatives?”

  “Certainly not!” President Wilson snapped. “It is only a coincidence of names. But I do not need to answer to you, sir.”

  “No,” Mr. Tesla said, “only to the American people, to the world, and to your own conscience.”

  “What do you say I should have done?” President Wilson asked.

  “Exactly what I had originally requested,” Mr. Tesla said. “I should have been directing this Pacific operation. I should have been in command of the Cypher. Daniels was in agreement with my plan, but House was not. You listened to him— him and your son-in-law, and you let them make this a Treasury operation, when it should have been a Navy operation with me reporting to Daniels. Now we face utter disaster. We face forces that require the application of our most advanced knowledge and my direct attention, but your son-in-law and House are afraid to delegate power to me, and their unfounded fears are about to destroy us all.”

  “You speak bluntly,” President Wilson said.

  “You have forced me to do so,” Mr. Tesla said. “I can speak no other way now, for there is no time for any other form of discourse.”

  “So,” President Wilson said, “if I were to give you the command of the U.S.S. Cypher, what exactly would you do that George Ade has not done?”

  “Mr. Ade does not understand the deeper science of this device,” Mr. Tesla said. “If some disaster had struck while Houdini was down on the ocean floor, Mr. Ade would not have been equal to the task. Perhaps even I would not have been equal to the task, but at least we would have had a fighting chance. And now the device continues to operate on the floor of the Pacific while Mr. Ade makes his way across country by train to investigate a handful of counterfeiters in Chicago. This is bungling at the height of its absurdity. Who is left in San Francisco to deal with the device? There remains only Captain Wilson who understands nothing.”

  “Captain Wilson understands more than you give him credit for,” President Wilson said. “And you are forgetting Houdini— Harry Houdini.”

  “Houdini is a courageous soul,” Mr. Tesla said, “but he is not a scientist and is no match for the forces involved with this device. Indeed, I fear that he has already been injured.”

  “Injured? How?” asked President Wilson.

  “I am not sure,” Mr. Tesla said. “But he has been exposed to the etheric forces of the device and he may have sustained an injury that has not as yet
manifested itself.”

  “That is all?” President Wilson asked.

  “That is all that can be said for certain at this point,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “He should be watched,” President Wilson said.

  “He is being watched, very carefully,” Mr. Tesla said. “But it is important that he continue his normal schedule of activities.”

  “He is still performing in Oakland?” President Wilson asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Tesla said, “but he is going up to Jack London’s ranch on Sunday.”

  “Do you think that is safe?” President Wilson asked.

  “It is safe as anywhere else at the moment,” Mr. Tesla said. “And Mr. London will be able to explain the Sonoma Artifact to him.”

  “Another section of the Artifact has been discovered,” President Wilson said. “Did you know?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Tesla said. “I’ve seen the report. It further supports my view that the device on the floor of the Pacific is interacting with the Sonoma Artifact.”

  “The two are connected in some way,” President Wilson said.

  “Yes,” Mr. Tesla said, “that is my view.”

  “If I were to give you command of the Cypher right now,” President Wilson asked, “what would you do? Go out there and destroy the thing, the cylinder?”

  “To attempt that would be extremely dangerous— and foolish,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “Well, then, what?” President Wilson asked. “Turn it off? Can we turn the damn thing off?”

  “That,” Mr. Tesla said, “is what Mr. Czito and I are trying to do right now. We’re attempting to construct a control switch to attach to one of the ports of the cylinder.”

  “And you think this switch would work?” President Wilson asked.