Tesla's Signal (20 page)

Shelia dragged herself to her knees, wrapped her arms around K'viin's  lower appendages, and planted her lips on the scaly surface. “Please, Angel Master, allow this useless one to further serve you. I know another guy who can help you set up your gizmo. He's a natural.”

“Very well. But for now, wretched creature, get out of my sight.” K'viin shook off the inconsequential human and turned to the crew. “Attention, all of you. Here are your new orders: the creature called Tes'laa is to be captured and destroyed—immediately!”

“Yes, Captain.” The crew members bent their necks, placing hands on their head crests in submission. “It will be done.”

11: The Bridge

“We lost them, Niko.” Clara gripped the steering wheel and the Roadster's tires squealed as it rounded a curve. “This flivver could outrun a prize thoroughbred!”

She loved automobiles. They were like huge roaring beasts under her control—not like horses, which scared the hell out of her. She especially loved
this
automobile, which she and Niko had converted from a smelly gasoline-burner to a sleek, silent, fast-as-lightning electrical flivver of the future.

They crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and wound their way through New York's crowded Lower East Side, skillfully avoiding crowds, wagons and pushcarts. When they reached the Clinton Street Station, she concealed the car in the coal delivery bay and gave it a farewell pat on the hood. “Bye bye,” she said to her baby.

Niko remained weak and depleted. He could barely make it up the stairs to his office. “Here, sit down. Let's see those hands.” She found some clean rags and treated his burns as best as she could. “Niko, we should go stay with my uncle for awhile. Miss Feigel, the upstairs neighbor, is good at doctoring. She can make poultices for you.”

“No. It's not safe to go anywhere,” he muttered. “They're looking for me!”

“Hmm. Yeah, I sure hope those Shoreham cops don't have any friends here in New York.”

“It is more than just Shoreham. Those Martians...” he broke off, his hands over his face.

“Come on, Niko, it will be all right.” At a loss for how to reassure him, she settled on food. She put on some water for tea, and found a container of tea leaves and a heel of rye bread in a tin box.  “Here. Come on, eat something.”  

She handed him the hunk of bread, but he made no attempt to eat it. Instead, he began intently counting the seeds. “Thirteen...14...15...”

“Nikola. Snap out of it!” She waved her hand in front of his face.

“It was I who signaled them. Twenty one, 22, 23—”

“Oh, you can't be sure of that.”

“Yes I am. I brought them to Earth.”

She looked into his eyes and what she saw there frightened her very much. She had seen that look in Kostopol...after the pogrom. “Perhaps they've left the planet...gone back into space.”

“I don't believe so, Clara.”

No, Clara didn't think so either. She decided not to tell him about how the Martian
schmucks
had come looking for her. “You need fluids. Drink your tea.” To spare his injured hands, she held the cup to his lips.

“No, thank you.” He turned away.

And for several hours he just sat there with his hands over his head, rocking back and forth. Finally he appeared to have fallen asleep. Clara covered him with a blanket and wondered what in God's name she was going to do next. If they had to hole up here awhile, she guessed she ought to buy a supply of food, and some medicine, too. Niko was sure to run a fever. She hoped she could find a druggist nearby.

***

Now's my chance.
As soon as Clara left, Niko got up. He hadn't really been asleep. He rarely slept as a normal person did. He was always aware of what was going on. His mind raced, nonstop.

He slipped out of the building and into the maze of streets.
Must get away!
 

He couldn't figure out the details, but he knew that someone had invaded his mind and soul. His brain felt like a ravaged city, pillaged and left a smoking ruin.

And whoever had done this—they were looking for him!

Oblivious to the pain of his burns, Niko walked around an area of three square blocks. The compulsion held him in an iron grip and he had to keep counting off the steps, holding onto his aching head to keep it from exploding. Flashes of lightning went off continually behind his eyes.

Perhaps I should find a gun and blow my brains out—to prevent
Them
from having it!
 

His footsteps took him down Fulton Street and he stopped at a familiar doorway.
My old lab.
 

He took the key from its hiding place inside the electrical access panel, entered and looked around. Ah...now he understood why he'd been drawn to this place. He had left valuable devices in here to be retrieved later: frequency generators, oscillators of all types. Components that would have become parts of future inventions: the flying car, pulse-detection, remote-control. Yes, he was right to come here. All these devices would have to be destroyed—to prevent his pursuers from laying hands on them.

While he stood there taking inventory, he heard footsteps and a pounding on the door. “Open up,” a voice cried. “Mr. Tesla, you're wanted for questioning.”

He froze. They had been lying in wait for him.
Should have figured
...he cursed himself for falling into the trap.

Heart pounding, he grabbed a large screwdriver and jammed it under his belt like a weapon. His fist closed around a small oscillator and he stuffed it under his shirt. Ignoring the pain in his burned hands, he climbed up on top of a large transformer and vaulted onto the crossbeam holding up the roof.
I'm still quite fit for my age
, he thought with a grim smile.
He crouched up under the roof and listened to the officers breaking down the door. His fingers played over the controls of the oscillator.

A crowd of police officers charged in. “Come on, Tesla, we know you're in here. Come on out—it'll just go worse for you if you don't cooperate.”

“Where the devil is he? I saw him go in,” said one of the officers. “You got all the exits covered?”

“Yeah. I think he's up there on the ceiling,” Niko heard another one say.

“Damn! That bastard's wily as a spider, he is.”

“Nick, this is Officer Kelly,” one of the officers called out. “You've been cited for disorderly conduct, in connection with some of your Shoreham experiments.” Officer Kelly stood with his hands on his hips. “Come on down, Nick.”

Niko gripped the column that held up the roof. “Is that all you want with me? Just a citation?” He tried to sound casual. “Leave it on the table and I'll see you in court.”

“We'll talk about it when you come down.”

Niko took a deep breath.
Of course
it was more than just a citation. These police were working with
Them!
“Officer Kelly, remember when I caused an earthquake a few years ago? I almost took a building down.”

Two officers clustered together. “What the devil—?”

“He's right,” one said to the others. “I heard about it. Goddamn maniac almost leveled a city block.”

“That's right, gentlemen. I have my little quake-maker right here.” He held up the oscillator. “Go away or I'll take this building down—right over your heads.”

“Jesus God!” The officers conferred among themselves. “He's crazy enough—he'll do it!”

“Indeed I will.” Niko clamped the device to the roof beam. “I've already set this to start creating resonant waves. Feel the gentle oscillations, the molecules of metal dancing in resonance?” And the power of suggestion would accentuate what they felt. “This is a very old building...it's probably already slated for demolition. I'm just helping it along.”

“Come on, Nick, that's insane! You make this building collapse, and you'll be killed too!”

“Exactly.” Niko smiled in triumph. “That way you'll never get hold of the secrets in my head.”

“He's mad as a hatter,” said one to the other. “Should we call the fire department?”

“Gentlemen, you'd better get out. Can you feel those beams shaking?” Niko could feel the faint oscillations in his bones. The mortar between the bricks began to disintegrate. Dust fell from the ceiling and puffed out of the walls.

“Look, fellows, this ain't worth dying for!” One of the policemen broke ranks and ran for it. “I got a wife and kids at home!”

By now, strong vibrations could be felt all through the building. A ceiling girder shook loose and fell with a deafening clatter. A window shattered. A crack appeared in one wall and quickly spread.

“She's coming down! Run for your lives!”

The policemen fled. Niko let out a breath he had been holding and flipped a control on the oscillator, dropping the frequency. The shaking quieted to a gentle sway, allowing him to crawl to the end of the ceiling beam and wriggle out a side vent. He took a 10-foot drop to the ground and ran. Behind him, the supporting beam collapsed and the roof caved in. Brick walls shivered apart and the whole building fell in on itself in a great cloud of dust.

Another of my labs: destroyed!
Sorrow and triumph danced together in his head.

He peeked around the corner and noted the police van just up the street. Another one appeared, its siren wailing, as he watched.
It's not safe anywhere around here,
he realized. So he ducked around to the alley behind the building.

Using the large screwdriver, he pried up a square access grate in the the middle of the cobblestone street. Beneath, a ladder led down the hole to a node in the city's electrical conduits. Niko knew these passages like his own hand. Hadn't he crawled through them numerous times, when he'd worked for Thomas Edison?
Nick, there's a short in Conduit #44, can you fix it? Sure, Mr. Edison, right away.
 

Then, after Edison had cheated him out of his rightful compensation and Niko had walked off the job in fury...the only job he could find was on a ditch digging crew. Digging more conduits for Edison Electric, of course!  

He lowered himself down the rungs and pulled the grate over him. On either side of him, thick electrical cables vibrated with their load of current. A picture floated into his head: what it would be like if he were to cut those cables and black out Lower Manhattan.
I could do that.
People didn't realize the things that Nikola Tesla could do. For one second the idea entertained him.
Call me crazy, will they?
 

The thought quickly vanished. It would be an empty gesture, the act of a pitiful megalomaniac.
I must be losing my mind to even think such a thing
. Well yes. he might be crazy, but he wasn't evil.

Anyway, it wouldn't get rid of those...
monsters
...that wanted him. Would it?

He decided not to come out. He liked it in here—it was safe.
They
couldn't reach him.

***

“All right, Nikola,” a voice called down from above, “you can come out now.”

“What? Clara?” He woke with a start. “How'd you find me?”

“I knew you'd go back to your old lab. I see you've been a bad boy. Having some fun with an oscillator?”

“I'm s-sorry, Clara. The police were all set to hand me over to
Them
.
”
He sat there with his arms folded, just as if he were a gentleman at the Palace Club. “I'm staying down here where they won't find me.”

She didn't take the hint, so finally he had to tell her. “You ought to go. It's not safe for you to stay around me.”

Clara swore in Yiddish. Niko caught the words
meshugah
and
drek
...words which he already knew.

“Yes...that's right. I'm
meshugah
...crazy. So you should leave for your own good. Before you get hurt.”

She didn't answer. He wondered how much time had gone by. He could tell it was getting dark outside. “Clara, you idolized me...thought I was a special person. Now you've seen the real me. Not so impressive, eh?” He addressed his comments to an electrical junction box. “I'm just a crazy bastard who's brought you only trouble. Look at me! Skulking in dusty laboratories and holes in the ground. And it will only get worse.”

“Shut up and come out already.”

“You've been so good to me,” he went on, looking up through the grate toward the place where she sat. He could see her shape, faintly silhouetted against the street lights. “It has been a privilege working with you. You're a true genius, and I owe you my life, many times over. I...I can never repay you for...everything. But...it's not fair to ask you to get any more involved with a madman. You deserve a normal life.”