Tesla's Signal (56 page)

“Jake?” Clara said. “
You've
been feeding them?”

“That's right,
Maidele
,
”
Jake said in a low voice. “We were just here in the tunnels stashin' a shipment when those Martian
goniffs
came. So we donated all our swag that we keep hidden here. Swiss chocolate, French liquor, Cuban cigars...and lots of fancy food. Tinned sardines, caviar, candied cherries. Thanks to us, these folks are livin' in the lap of luxury!”

“And we're grateful, too.” Hugo stepped up.
“Those
criminals have done more for the Station than
yours,
Mr. Councilman.”

Uneasy laughter rose from the crowd, some of whom still munched on bars of chocolate.

Townsend looked at the floor. “Uh...yes, Mr. Flint, we're thankful for your generosity. Mr. Tesla, forgive me. I guess those stories about you might have been wrong. There's been a lot of lies going around. The Mayor...the newspapers...under the Angels' thumb...”

“Apology accepted, sir.” Niko forced himself back to politeness. “Now listen while we tell you what's been happening.”

Niko and Clara told the whole story, and everyone listened in complete silence. When he was done, he took out a handful of smaller wearable Amulets. “These devices produce mirror phasing that cancels out the Martian mind-control broadcast. If you're careful, you may be able to go outside, maybe get supplies. We'll teach you to build these, hook up a transmitter, and figure out how to fight back. How does that sound?”

Councilman Townsend stared at Niko. “Wait a minute sir―did you say we'd be able to go
outside?
We've got to get out—our supplies won't last forever. If you can get us out of this death-trap, I'll pass a new Resolution giving you the keys to this city.”

“He can pass all the Resolutions he wants,” Jake said to Clara, winking. “I'm the real boss of this Station.”

32: A Banquet in Heaven

“Ah! Fresh air!” Hugo spread out his arms, rejoicing. “It's great to be outside, after weeks and weeks underground.”

“Shh!” Niko nudged his friend. “Don't do anything to attract attention.”

After packing gear into bundles and backpacks, they had slipped out of the subway station. They emerged to streets littered with trash and rotten vegetables from abandoned carts. A woman rooted through the garbage, occasionally putting a piece in her mouth. Nearby, a man lay with his head in the gutter while a dog poked its nose at him. A few others sat in the street or on the sidewalk, staring at the sky with blank silver eyes. Their lips moved in occasional prayer.

A horse wandered by, its ribs visible: the city's animals looked as neglected as the humans.

“Good Lord,” Hugo whispered, “it's like Bellevue Hospital for the Insane.”

“Shh. Pretend you're crazy too,” Niko mumbled, as if to himself. He understood all too well what had happened to these people. “Don't act as if you know me. Follow along randomly.”

Clara leaned on a lamp post about six feet away. “Yes. We can't talk to each other. Nobody else is,” she said, while rocking back and forth like a mental patient. A moment later, she strapped a camera watch to the post. It couldn't hurt for the Station dwellers to keep an eye on the street.

Niko checked to see whether Jake and Davey were still following at a distance. On nearby streets, several of the Tele-men also shadowed them. For the 10th time, he checked his scalp to be sure his Telenite chip hadn't fallen off.

His nerves were getting the better of him. He suppressed an urge to count his footsteps and make the number divisible by three. His glance slipped down to the Tele-men control watch that he wore strapped to his arm like a wrist watch. While doing so, he nearly tripped over an immigrant woman who was taking a nap in the middle of the street.

On impulse, he snatched the scarf from her head and tied it over the bottom half of his face like a cartoon bank robber.

“Put your goggles on,” he said, addressing a lamppost.

The three of them, now hiding their eyes behind goggles, wandered toward Park Row. Several tall buildings fronted the street, number Fifteen being the tallest with a full 30 stories. All these buildings surrounding City Hall had showy, ornate facades and ranks of arched windows. Lofty cupolas and towers adorned their roofs.

Niko walked along mumbling “glory hallelujah,” while eyeing the towers, one of which would soon host his new signal-boosting relay link with the Tussey Mountain array.

A crowd had gathered on the street corner. Curious, Niko edged closer. Some of the people held bowls or cups. In the middle, a woman stood in front of a huge barrel and served out a repulsive looking gray porridge.

“Feeding time at the zoo,” Clara muttered.

Nobody pushed or shouted...they just stood there passively, smiling their vacant grins, waiting to be fed, and murmuring prayers of gratitude to their beneficent Angel providers. Those who didn't have a bowl just took the portion in their cupped hands. Some accepted the spoonful directly into their mouths, like animals. Half of it slopped down on their already filthy faces and clothing.

Niko caught a whiff of the mixture and nearly lost his own breakfast. He remembered what the U'jaan had fed him, when he had been their captive.

Moving as quickly as he dared, he made it to the ornate doorway of Fifteen Park Row. He scowled at the Gothic lettering over the lintel.
The New York Times. So, this is the place that printed all the lies about me
. He sat on the steps, rocking back and forth and hugging his backpack while watching the Angel disciples carefully. He felt the outlines of his primary and secondary coils, antenna, and all the rest of the devices required to build his receiver.

Before he had met Clara, it would have taken a whole lab worth of materials to accomplish what could now be done from a few backpacks. The woman responsible for this miracle of miniaturization now came ambling up and sat nearby. She began singing in a loud, off-key voice. “Glory, glory, hallelujah.”

Niko tried to take out a crowbar without looking too purposeful. While he did so, his hand casually checked other contents of the bag: several weapons of different types.

Soon Hugo arrived and joined Clara. Both of them stood there waving their arms and singing, while shielding Niko from view as he pried the thick oaken door.  

“Now
that
is something to sing about,” Niko said, as he finally gained entrance. Clara waved a handkerchief, signaling Jake and Davey.

The newspaper office had been busy on the day the Martian ship had arrived to stop the presses. Piles of the
New York Times
still lay scattered about in the hallways. Now the building was dim and deserted. Niko had the feeling he might trip over a body at any moment. Clara rummaged for a light. Niko looked for a weapon.

“Hugo, get your induction gun ready.” Niko had given his friend one of the electrical weapons this morning. “Remember how it works?”

“Sure,” Hugo replied, “but I'd be happier with a Smith & Wesson. You got yours ready?”

“Yes, sir,” Niko said.

From there, the three of them merely had to climb stairs. A lot of stairs. It gave Niko plenty of time to think about recent events.

***

Last night he and Clara had set up a work space in the train-men's room. Immediately young Ike attached himself to them, bringing tea and staying to watch as Clara took out her hoard of stolen crystals and placed them amid the Tele-men control circuits.

“What have you got there, Miss Clara?”

She put a finger against her lips, cautioning him. “Shh...the Czar of Russia donated them to me.” A wicked grin stole over Clara's face. The Czar was not a popular person among the refugees from the Russian pogroms. “Keep this quiet. We don't want anyone stealing them. Anyone else, I mean,” she added, even more quietly.

“But what are you gonna do with 'em?”

“The Czar is going to help us save the Earth. The small crystals help direct the electrical impulses which are translated into signals for the Tele-men.”

“Tele-men? What're they?”

“Son, shouldn't you be playing with children your own age?” said Niko, trying to shoo him out.

“Wait, Niko, if he wants to learn, why not teach him? Maybe someday he'll be an engineer who can carry on our work.” She turned to Ike. “We needed some extra soldiers in our war, so we built them.”

She spent several minutes explaining how the Tele-men received orders from the panel. “You see? This board shows me where the Tele-men are. Right now they're hiding near the entrance to this station. You can control their motion by codes, or with general orders, like 'rescue' and 'defend.'”

“Can they tell the good guys from the bad guys?”

“Yes, if the good guys wear a secret telenite chip.”

Ike gave a whistle of astonishment. “So what about the biggest crystal? Is that for an even bigger machine?”

“Yes.” Clara moved closer to the boy, and whispered in his ear. “That's for the Teleforce/Thor system. Know what that is? It's our system for throwing the Martians off this planet,
boychik
.
”
 

“Gosh,” Ike whispered in awe, and remained silent for a moment. But soon he mustered the courage to speak to Niko. “Um, sir? I got a question,” he said in a shy voice. “Uh...I hear that you can shoot bolts of lightning with your bare hands. Why couldn't you destroy the Angel Orb with
that?”
 

Niko gave the boy a sharp look and tried to frame a reply. “Who told you I could do that? It's true that I...I've done some strange things. But...I don't really understand how I did them. I wasn't in my right mind.”

Yes
. A number of strange things had happened to him when he wasn't in his right mind. Things that did not happen to normal human beings, like...channeling a million volts, and...visiting another dimension.

But Niko had no idea how to make them happen again.

In the morning, Townsend called a meeting with train engineers, police officers and others who helped keep the Station running. They pushed benches and tables into a semicircle, and the officious Councilman started reading the minutes of previous meetings.

Niko cut him off and got right to the point. “Excuse me, sir. How long can you live down here in the tunnels?”

Townsend narrowed his eyes. “I thought you had a plan to save us.”

“We're trying. But if something happens to us—if we can't defeat these invaders—you'll have to live down here indefinitely.”

“What? Impossible! We're running out of food,” said Officer McCann.

“Water, too,” said an engineer. “The auxiliary generator failed a few days ago.”

“With no pumps, this station's gonna flood,” said a train man.

Niko paced, trying to absorb all this bad news.“What about the other subway stations?”

“There must be several thousand folks who were in the subway on Invasion Day,” said Officer Barrow. “A group came through the tunnel from the 10th Street Station. They're in worse shape than we are—desperate for food.”

“We tried to scout some of the tunnels in Lower Manhattan,” Jerome said. “We didn't get far—the stations are smashed. Tunnels are collapsed.”

“The Angel
goniffs
know people are hiding underground,” said Jake. “That's why they're wrecking stations. They want to smoke us all out.”

Niko tried to redraw his mental map of New York. “Which subway entrances are still open? I wonder if we could get a tunnel route back to our Saucer on Clinton Street.” Briefly, he visualized leading some sort of mass exodus. How many people could the Saucer carry?
Not many.
 

“The only open station I know about is at 30th Street,” Jerome said. “We might be able to get to the Hudson Tube tunnel under the river... that's the only escape from New York. If we can get to it.”

“Won't be easy, though,” said one of Jerome's railroad crew. “When them space bastards pulled the plug with no warning...well, there was train wrecks. Now there's dead bodies, rats all over.”

“There's bound to be plague soon,” Officer Hanson said.

Townsend pointed an accusing finger at Niko. “The papers said you had a death ray. So where the hell is it?”

“All in good time.” Niko sat down, rubbing his tired eyes. “First we want to help New York survive. In case...well, in case something happens to us. Today we'll install a power booster, so you can get electricity.” he said. “And we've got a master Amulet that should liberate at least part of the city. You might be able to escape, or at least get aboveground. After that...” his hand clenched into a fist. “Well, then we'll fire up that death ray.”

A few of the Stationers echoed his clenched fist, and responded with subdued applause.