Einstein Must Die! (Fate of Nations Book 1) (38 page)

“You will, my dear,” Edison told her. He found a rack of differently sized resistors. Each was a differently sized copper rod, encased in thick plastic except for the ends. He found the proper one and placed his fingers on it, looking to Sophia for confirmation it was the right one. Her nod was barely there, but was affirmative. He picked it up and placed it above the cable feed receptors.

“You will make us all very proud someday,” Edison told her. “Even your grandfather, watching from above.”

Her voice warmed. “Thank you, Mr. Edison. That’s really—”

Edison jammed the resistor in place, and Madelaine’s mind stopped, frozen in time.

ALL IS LOST

BLACK MOMENT

A TIME FOR WHISKEY

It was a busier night than usual at the Blackwood Tavern, just outside the Hanscom base. The off-duty crowd had filled the bar, and the sounds of clinking glasses and laughter served as background to attempted seductions and the occasional argument.

Tesla sat alone in a leather club chair beside a blazing fire. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, holding a half-finished whiskey. Absent-mindedly, he swirled the brown liquor in the glass, feeling the warmth of the fire against the side of his face.

Since being thrown off the base, he’d been in a shocked daze, not knowing how things had deteriorated so quickly. He’d walked alone for hours before settling in here.

That’s not true, though
, he thought.
You know exactly how it happened. Edison
. It had been a fatal mistake to underestimate the man’s greed for control. Or his ability to wrest it from others.

Savannah had told him about Edison’s plans to shut Madelaine down.
Probably been done by now. Otherwise we’d have heard explosions as she escaped
.

The thought of Maddy alone and helpless, now frozen in place, stabbed at his chest. His eyes closed, and he felt his heart beating hard. The noise and chaos around him fell away, leaving him alone at the center of a broad, deep depression.

He’d planned to change the nature of warfare. Now he was getting drunk as his plans lay shattered at his feet, making the colonel’s death and Maddy’s condition seem pointless and in vain.

He gulped the last of the whiskey and waved for another.

***

“These too?” asked the private, pointing to a stack of supply crates.

“Everything,” said Edison, nodding. “Pack it all up.”

He watched the men haul away the material they’d brought from Fort Hamilton. The hangar was emptying out quickly. While he wouldn’t be pursuing this line of work any further, it was classified material and would be secured in storage.

A much bigger problem was what to do with the tank. He couldn’t reawaken the girl and trust her to behave. Disassembly was an option, but he didn’t want to divert technicians for weeks to the job.

He stood, arms crossed, and shook his head at the sheer size of the monstrosity. He didn’t want to spend any more time on it than had already been wasted.
Let’s just leave the thing here, and let the colonel deal with it later
.

The soldiers were carting away the last of the Beowulf materials, leaving only the cables that snaked from the tank to the resistor block. They’d even taken out the tables, so the assembly sat on the floor.
Holding her in place, like a finger in a dam
.

“I’ve got the case you asked for, Mr. Edison,” said a corporal, bringing a green metal box to him. It was a standard ammo box, with a hinged panel on top. Edison had requested one, with a three-inch notch cut out of one side.

“Perfect,” he said, examining the box. “This should do just fine.”

He sat the box on the floor beside the resistor assembly, then opened the case and carefully set the assembly inside it, feeding the cables through the notch. He closed the steel case and fed a padlock through it, locking the assembly inside.
No sense having some curious private pulling that resistor out
.

Being near Beowulf had always given Edison a sense of apprehension, like standing under something heavy hanging over him. He’d never trusted the machine itself, or the girl Tesla had put into it. Locking the resistor assembly away gave him a feeling of relief, though.
The tiger has been tamed
.

He looked around the now-empty hangar. The research material was gone, and despite the safety of putting it into warm shutdown, Edison felt acutely alone, standing in the shadow of the hulking, inert tank.

He turned and walked out, turning off the lights as he left.

As Edison locked the doors behind him, Madelaine sat frozen in the darkness, unaware she had been abandoned.

***

“Another one, hon?”

Tesla blinked, confused. He dragged his eyes up from the wooden table to find a young waitress smiling at him. He blinked again. Her face was pale, framed by long, rolling, red locks.
Exceptionally pretty
. He smiled dumbly.

“Another one, and he’ll be snoring on your floor,” said another woman’s voice.

Tesla turned toward the new voice, and his eyes widened at the sight.

“Savannah!” he said, louder than necessary.

“He’s had plenty,” she said, sliding into the chair opposite him. “But I’ll have one.”

The waitress smiled and bent down to whisper to Savannah. “He’s been a gentleman,” she said, then slipped away into the crowd.

Savannah sat, watching the emotions on Nikola’s face. When he first saw her, he lit up with delight. Given the circumstances and his inebriation, that response was the first warm feeling she’d had in hours. She held onto it, enjoying the brief distraction from worrying about her daughter.

In the next few seconds, she saw sorrow in his eyes, along with regret and guilt. All understandable, but not the one thing she was hoping to see within him.

“All these feelings you’re experiencing are normal,” she said. “You’re suffering because you’re a good man.”

He smiled weakly, his lips tight.

“Maybe,” he said. “But what good is that if it’s paired with ineffectiveness?” he asked, rapping his knuckles against the table.

She pointed a long finger at him. “That’s a choice.”

“I choose to be ineffective? A dour viewpoint.”

The waitress set a whiskey down in front of Savannah, and she scooped it up, taking a sip.

“You think that’s depressing? Try this: It is God’s will that Edison control my girl’s life. That work any better for you?”

“No,” he said.

She felt her pulse jump as she thought about Madelaine.
Calm down. That won’t fix anything
. She took another long sip, seeing Tesla was adrift.

She counted out five deep breaths, then spoke again.

“Did you hear? Marconi made the first worldwide radio broadcast today,” she said.

Tesla grunted.

“By all rights that should have been you,” she said. “He built on your work, didn’t he?”

“Marconi is a good fellow, let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents.”

“Mm hmm,” she said, studying his face. “Quite a few companies have profited from your work, without compensating you. True?”

Tesla sighed heavily. “I don’t care that they stole my ideas. I care that they don’t have any of their own.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And that is your fatal flaw, my dear Nikola.”

“What? That I—”

“You don’t care! And you can afford to be cavalier, because you’re a genius. There will always be more ideas, more inventions. Right?” she said, her face warming in anger. “So you walk away when people steal your work. You don’t want to fight. Just go back to your lab and invent something new.”

“I…I don’t know. I just—”

“You just keep making more meat for the wolves, Nikola. That’s what you do. And that’s why I found you in a ditch.”

***

Since locking away everything related to Beowulf, Edison felt a growing sense of optimism. So much money had been spent on the project-money that could now be channeled into useful pursuits.

He and Sophia had packed their bags and would move down to Menlo Park in the morning. Once there he would need to ramp up quickly. The government funding now coming to him would triple the operating budget of his existing facility. They would need more space, more facilities, more staff. Entire new sections could be created overnight, and would be properly funded from day one.

For an inventor, it was a dream come true.

He had made his name with the telegraph and was excited to expand on the potential it contained. Instant, accurate communication over great distances was precisely the type of technology the country needed now, especially during a time of war.

The major cities were connected by telegraph wires, of course, but that was a small beginning. Edison imagined a vast network of telegraph stations, up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Information would flow from Maine to New York to Miami as fast as electricity. It would usher in a new era of shared knowledge.

He returned to the small room he’d been assigned as living quarters and found a sealed letter half slid under his door. He examined it, pleased to see it was the latest report from Menlo Park. Settling into a chair, he took out his penknife and slit the envelope open.

There was a request to reopen investigations into X-rays, which made him frown in painful memory of Dally. There would be no further work along those lines.

He continued reading, pleased to hear of a new invention. A storage battery, capable of holding a surplus of electrical charge and releasing it over an extended period of time. Several hours, if the report was correct.
Now that’s something
, he thought. He quickly thought of possible markets to approach with the new device.
Train lamps and miner’s helmets. They’d be most interested.

He found paper and pen and began writing his response. Foremost in his mind was the need to quickly secure a patent on the device. Since he was the director of all work done at Menlo Park, the filing would, of course, be done in his name.

***

Tesla considered Savannah’s words, letting them roll around in his mind. She made a good point. It was more pleasant to create than to fight. That could very well be his blind spot.

“Have you fully spoken your mind now?” he asked her.

Savannah’s spirit was still up from identifying Tesla’s flaw, but she was calming back down.

“I believe so. For now.”

“I don’t disagree with your assessment. Besides, our present circumstances would argue in your favor too.”

“Thank you,” she said, relaxing. “I walked back to the base gate. I don’t know, maybe I thought I could talk my way in.”

“I can guess how that went,” said Tesla.

“Three guns raised in my face?” she asked.

“Would have been my guess.”

“We’re not getting back in there.” Savannah slumped back in her chair. “We had it good at Hamilton, didn’t we?”

Tesla nodded slowly. “Not much fun being homeless.”

“I suppose Sophia was the practical one,” she said.

“Don’t judge her too harshly. George told me her father had passed. She’s been sending money to her mother. She couldn’t afford to lose her job over principles.”

“Didn’t know that. Well, that makes more sense, at least. But it doesn’t change our situation.”