Hawking's Hallway

  Clearly, then, Nikola Tesla was alive when he dialed the phone number assigned to the time-transmitting phone he must have just built. Most people receive a busy signal when they dial themselves. But then, most people can’t program their phone to dial itself more than a hundred years in the future.

  Nick just sat there on the mausoleum floor slack-jawed.

  “Are you there?” Tesla asked. “Hello? I am returning your phone call. If you’re there, please say something.”

  “I’m here,” Nick said.

  “Good, good!” Tesla said. “It works. I had my doubts, but knowing you were able to reach me two years ago, well, it convinced me that I must have built a temporal sound transducer.”

  “Two years ago?”

  “Yes,” Tesla said, “but I imagine it may only be a matter of days, or weeks, for you. Or perhaps I’ve reached you before you made that call, in which case I’ll hang up and try again.”

  “No, no, don’t hang up!” Nick scooted closer to the phone, trying to untangle the curly wire connected to the receiver. What do you say to the man who sent you on a fool’s errand during which you proved you were indeed a fool?

  “I must admit, I was skeptical that this telephone could be built,” Tesla said cheerfully, “but while I was in Germany defending my patent on the electric turbine, I had an interesting conversation with a young patent clerk. Arnstein or Ernstein—something like that. Odd fellow, but he had interesting ideas about the relationship between time and space.”

  He seemed content to simply chat. But Nick was in no mood. If Tesla had called to help him, he wasn’t doing a very good job. “The Accelerati have your machine,” Nick announced. “Edison took it, and I’m trapped. What should I do?”

  “Edison?” Tesla said incredulously. “Edison is alive in your time? That’s extraordinary! How is this possible?”

  Nick found himself getting increasingly frustrated at the inventor. “Your battery—but that’s not important right now—”

  “Hmm,” said Tesla. “A battery that sustains life. What an intriguing notion.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? He’s putting together your machine! The Far Range Energy Emitter.”

  “My what?”

  Nick began to stammer. “Your…your life’s work—your greatest invention—free wireless energy to the world—”

  “What a grand concept!” Tesla said.

  Was the man toying with him? If he was trying to be funny, Nick was not amused. “You have to tell me what to do,” Nick pleaded. “You and me…we’re connected. You’re the one who set this in motion, so you have to know—how do I get us out of this? How do I make things right?” He held his breath and waited for the genius to give him the answer.

  And Tesla said, “I have no idea.”

  The fact that Nikola Tesla didn’t have the answers was horrifying to Nick. After all, the inventor had designed the mechanical and human gear work churning toward this climactic moment. If he was behind it all, how could he not know what was supposed to happen next? And then Nick realized…

  Tesla hadn’t done it yet.

  The man was calling from a time before he had even conceived of the F.R.E.E. and all the individual inventions within it. His life’s work was yet to begin. That realization left Nick speechless, caught in a mental feedback loop. Was he the one who inspired the F.R.E.E., through this phone call? Was all of this ultimately Nick’s own fault?

  “I’m sure whatever trouble you’re in, you’ll work it out,” Tesla said reassuringly. “You sound like a clever boy.”

  Considering his current situation, Nick didn’t feel very clever at the moment. In fact, he was feeling so dense he was beginning to doubt the existence of his own brain.

  “Even though I’ve never met you,” said Tesla, “I feel an uncanny kinship, as you said. A connection. Perhaps even…a completion.”

  And then, finally, Nick connected two thoughts.

  “I complete the circuit,” Petula had said. And then she had jumped with the baby into the time vortex to escape. But maybe escape hadn’t been her plan….

  “I must get back to my labors now,” the inventor said. “I wish to thank you for helping me.”

  “Helping you?”

  “Yes—thanks to you, when you warned me that my lab would burn down, I moved my designs and prototypes, and saved them.”

  Nick gasped, and got to his feet. “You did? But…” This meant that Nick had changed the past…or had he? The newspapers still reported that Tesla had lost everything in the fire. Unless…

  “You hid everything!” Nick said. “You hid your inventions and no one ever knew!”

  “Yes, it seemed the most sensible thing to do. One can’t change the past, after all, only one’s perspective on it. According to history, all my work was destroyed in the fire. Only you and I know the truth of it.”

  Nick’s head was swimming, and he found himself spiraling back up from the hopeless depths he’d been drowning in just a few moments earlier. Possibilities were dividing and mutating in his mind. In spite of his current helpless situation, a plan was beginning to form that made him feel anything but helpless. It fell into place so completely it took his breath away. Perspective. That was the key to everything! Even that missing blender lid!

  Tesla sighed. “I’m beginning to think that perhaps I will eventually need to hide all of my work to keep it from getting into the wrong hands,” he mused. “I’m considering a move to Colorado Springs. Lots of space for grand experimentation! Perhaps there I shall find a suitable repository for my most sensitive inventions.”

  Nick grinned. “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “I must be going,” Tesla said. “I have lectures to give, turbines to approve, and, apparently, an electrifying future. Godspeed to you, young man. And good day!”

  Then the inventor hung up, breaking a circuit that had spanned more than a hundred years.

  Without even realizing it, Tesla had told Nick everything he needed to know. The tumblers had rolled in his head, and the impossible combination had finally clicked into place, with a mathematical precision Zak would be proud of.

  “I know what I have to do!” Nick shouted, and hearing the words come out his mouth made him laugh, because they were absolutely true. The answer was shining before him like a flare in the night sky.

  “Glad to hear it,” said Caitlin from the other side of the mausoleum gate. “But what you have to do right now is move back, so we can blow up this gate without blowing you up with it.”

  Caitlin, along with Mitch and Danny, owed her life to Zak. Or at least to the fact that his mother was the Grand Acceleratus.

  No sooner had Nick taken off after Petula than the Accelerati burst into the chamber from three other tunnels, a swarm of pastel suits with a frightening array of deadly and disfiguring weapons.

  Caitlin had always been a “never surrender” kind of girl, but the Accelerati had proven to be trigger-happy in the past. She did not want to end up flat like poor Theo, or have her vital organs pureed inside of her.

  So she put up her hands, and Mitch and Danny followed her lead.

  Only Zak refused to yield—perhaps because he saw something Caitlin didn’t. His mother was leading the charge.

  “Hold your fire!” shouted Z. She reached out and knocked the arm of a particularly determined associate, whose weapon melted a hole in the wall instead of any of their heads. “Edison needs them alive!”

  Caitlin didn’t believe that for a minute.

  Z went up to Zak and said sternly, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get on your knees with your hands behind your head.” It took Caitlin a second, then she got it. Z was pretending she didn’t know him.

  Zak stared at his mom and slowly obeyed. The other kids did the same.

  An Acceleratus tried to unscrew the light bulb, and burned his fingers in the process—proving once more the curious disconnect between genius and common sense.

  Z turned to Caitlin. “Where is Nick?
And the other items he took?”

  “Not here,” Caitlin said, as unhelpful as she could be. “Obviously.”

  “This is no time for games,” Z chided. “We have to discharge that asteroid. If you do not tell me where he went—”

  “—he’ll be caught by Jorgenson anyway,” Mitch blurted.

  Mitch covered his mouth, but it was too late. Z had already heard him, and she didn’t seem surprised. Either she had been made aware of Mitch’s strange, prophetic bursts, or she guessed the truth of it.

  “Jorgenson was sent to the mouth of tunnel four,” she said with a nod.

  “Should I take a team to assist?” asked one of her subordinates.

  “No,” Z said. “He can handle it himself.” She tried to order her retinue of Accelerati back to the surface, but they refused to leave her alone down there, so she allowed two to stay.

  “Regardless of what you think you are doing,” she told the kids, “we are running out of time.”

  And then the equation changed again.

  “Hey,” said one of the remaining Accelerati, “isn’t this one your son?”

  “I was afraid of this.” Z sighed as she pulled a small device from her purse and fired at her two associates.

  A translucent spherical force field immediately surrounded the two men. Caitlin could see them pounding the surface inside, to no avail. Even their shouts were muffled. When they moved at the same time, the ball rolled, giving the impression they were in a human hamster ball.

  Z couldn’t help but smile at Caitlin’s surprised expression. “A little something we reverse-engineered from your force-field flour sifter. But it only lasts a minute or two, so we have to be quick.”

  Unable to escape from the ball, the two Accelerati agents rolled down one of the other tunnels, where it promptly got stuck.

  Z’s phone rang and she answered. Caitlin could hear Jorgenson confirming that the globe and prism had been recovered.

  “What about the boy?” Z asked.

  “Nick Slate is no longer a factor,” Jorgenson said.

  Caitlin did not like the way that sounded.

  Z clicked off and looked down the tunnel where the two men were trying to rock the stuck sphere back and forth. “I have had quite enough of this organization,” she said. Then she reached behind her ear, removed the Accelerati earring, and dropped it to the ground. “I should have done that years ago.” Then she looked lovingly at Zak. “But I was afraid of what they would do to you.”

  “I can take care of myself, Mom,” Zak told her.

  “I see that now,” she said, and gave him a hug.

  “Hey,” said Danny, “are we going to save my brother or just stand here?”

  And the five of them hurried down tunnel four to see what had become of Nick.

  It was Caitlin who spotted the mausoleum with a fused gate.

  When she heard Nick shout about knowing what to do, she had no idea what he was talking about. She was just thrilled that Jorgenson had left him alive.

  “Nick! Stay as far back as you can,” Caitlin instructed him, seeing the weapon that Z had pulled out. In fact, this one seemed much too large to fit in the purse. It wasn’t the hamster-ball generator that Z now aimed at the gate. It was the same type of weapon that had melted a hole in the wall earlier.

  Nick moved to the farthest corner, Z fired, and the iron melted into white-hot liquid and the stone around the entrance became dripping magma.

  “Whoa,” said Danny. “Can I try?”

  Z gave him a withering look and put the weapon back in her purse.

  “You okay, Nick?” called Caitlin.

  “Yeah, I think so,” he called back, then he jumped over the pools of molten steel and magma, carrying, of all things, the Teslaphone.

  “What are you doing with that?” Caitlin asked.

  “And where’s Petula?” asked Mitch.

  “Gone,” Nick said.

  Before he could explain, the air was filled with the deafening chop of approaching helicopters—four of them, carrying a massive circular object.

  “Is that…a flying saucer?” Danny asked.

  “Great,” said Mitch. “Aliens. Just what we need.”

  “Wait, I’ve seen that before!” Caitlin said.

  Nick nodded. “So have I….”

  A quartet of Sikorsky Skycrane heavy-lift construction helicopters hauled their massive payload over the treetops of Shoreham. Citizens came out of their homes to marvel as it passed overhead, all asking the same question: What is that thing?

  It was, in fact, a ten-foot-high titanium alloy ring, one hundred feet in diameter; a band of highly conductive metal designed to safely absorb a discharge of celestial energy that would otherwise electrocute the planet.

  The “ring of power” had been downsized in a giant Accelerati shrinking machine to make its transport from Colorado Springs more manageable. Evangeline Planck and Edison had each worn it for a time. But now that the ring had been restored to its original size, it required the world’s most muscular helicopters to airlift it to Wardenclyffe Tower. Once there, it would be dropped around the tower like a Titan’s ring toss. The operation, however, could not be done in a cavalier or casual manner. It had to be precise. If a cable slipped, or the positioning was slightly off, the result would be disastrous. The ring might not land around the base, but instead tumble and wipe out the entire tower.

  It also had to be done quickly—not because of winds, or the neighbors, or even the countdown of the Doomsday Clock. The time limit was due to the fact that the Accelerati were quite literally running on fumes, as they no longer had enough money to fill the helicopters’ gas tanks.

  Unfortunately, as with so many organizations, the right hand was only faintly aware, and somewhat resentful, of whatever the left hand was doing. The ring could not be lowered into place until the rest of the machine was ready, because once it was down, it would block all entry or exit from the tower. No one had expected Nick Slate to run off with several key items. And no one told the helicopter pilots. Thus, they arrived too soon, and had to hover above the tower as their gas tanks ticked toward empty.

  As he watched the giant ring hang in the air, Edison chided himself for trusting Nick—and for placing his entire organization in the hands of Dr. Zenobia Thuku, who he had just learned had betrayed him.

  He rolled from the control building to the tower with Jorgenson, Vince right beside him.

  “Don’t you dare try to escape,” Jorgenson threatened the boy.

  “Dude, I chose to be here,” Vince reminded him. “Why would I bolt now?”

  “Fear of death’s dark embrace, perhaps?”

  “Been there, done that,” Vince said. “Bring it on.”

  In the tower, the globe, bulb, and prism had just been installed, and the team of Accelerati engineers were riding down in the cramped gantry elevator. Up above, the helicopters held their position, but Edison didn’t know how much longer that would last. Now at the base of the tower, Edison turned to Vince.

  “I’m sorry, son, but we’re out of time.”

  “Wait,” said Vince. “I have some last words.” Having apparently prepared for this, he pulled a page of the finest parchment paper from his pocket, cleared his throat, and began to read with dramatic import. “I, Vince La Rue—”

  “Good enough,” said Edison, then he nodded to Jorgenson, who ripped the wires out from behind Vince’s ears. Vince fell to the ground in a heap, his eyes open, his heart still, and his words left unsaid. The page, torn from his hand by the breeze, fluttered away.

  And in Edison’s mind, he heard once again the ghost of Tesla say, “Make things right….” Surely taking Vince LaRue’s battery was not making things right, but what choice did Edison have? Sorry, Nikola, he said silently to himself, but I have to do what I have to do.

  The elevator arrived, and the team of engineers got out of Edison’s way as he trundled inside. “Give me the battery,” he said to Jorgenson.

  “It’s too da
ngerous—you should watch from the control room,” said Jorgenson. He pointed to one of the engineers. “You! Take the battery up and connect it.”

  “No,” insisted Edison. “I will complete the circuit.”

  He realized, however, that he did need a take-charge sort of person to run things on the ground, at least until he returned. Even if it was a take-charge person he did not particularly care for.

  Jorgenson had successfully retrieved the prism and the globe, capturing the double-crossing Nick in the process. Yes, he had returned with a head swollen full of told-ya-so attitude, but he had every right; Jorgenson had been correct about the boy, and Edison had been wrong. A reward was called for.

  “Al,” Edison said, “I hereby reinstate you as Grand Acceleratus.”

  Jorgenson nodded, as if he had expected it all along. “I’ll need a new suit.”

  “Later. Right now I’m leaving the ground operation in your hands.”

  Then, with the battery in his lap, Edison closed the elevator grate and rose to the top of the tower.

  The great clocks of Europe are complex mechanisms, composed of massive wheels, pulleys and pendulums, gears, cogs, and springs, all hidden within stone towers. With a mystical regularity that must have seemed like magic to medieval minds, the bells toll a precise number of times to mark the hours, and the truly elaborate clocks send out a collection of figures to dance around a platform while mechanized music plays.

  Yet those who marvel at such feats of old-world engineering rarely think of the human part of the mechanism: the men who mined the iron for the gears, the workers who hoisted them into place, the masons who laid the stones, and the artists who painted the dancing figures.

  Only a rare few can truly see the larger picture of a complex machine. Nick Slate was one of the few.

  Once he understood how the pieces fit together, all that remained was to move them into place. Those pieces, however, didn’t always want to move. Nick knew that without the human element in place, even the greatest machine can be a lemon.

  Nick hurried from the graveyard toward Wardenclyffe Tower, gripping the clumsy phone as he ran. Caitlin, right beside him, demanded to know what he was up to.