His heart raced. The automaton had a message for him. It was leading him exactly where Nikola Tesla wanted — his old hotel. His father must have figured that out and been able to find those numbers before the days of the Internet and portable GPS. It had been a much harder task in Nikola Tesla’s time, and in his father’s. Joe almost felt like he was cheating.
But, after that work, had his father really used the device to knock down a bridge, then hidden the device away again? Why hadn’t he destroyed it himself? If it was really so deadly, why would he leave this burden for Joe?
Because he left Joe all his burdens — taking care of his mother, putting himself through school, making a name for the next generation of Teslas, and vowing to never beat on those he loved. So far, so good, but this new task frightened him. He had to push ahead, because he felt responsible for carrying out his father’s last wish, and for keeping this device out of the hands of the man who had tried to steal the suitcase and then followed him onto the train. If the man knew that he had clues to lead him there, who knew what else he might know?
He had a location, but he still needed to figure out what the two words meant.
He typed them into an online translation program, taking a minute to find the z with a hat over it, which was, he found out, called a caron.
južni podrum 3
The language was Croatian, and the words meant southern basement.
He couldn’t stop grinning. He had no idea what the final three (red) meant. But this was enough to go on.
Nikola Tesla had left the plans for the automaton with his pigeon keeper and the man’s scientifically inclined young son. He must have expected them to put together the automaton and discover his message. If the newspaper clipping was right, and not the result of his father’s paranoia, his father had discovered the message years ago and had taken something from the hotel’s basement.
But he must have put it back or else he would never have left that yellow note: Show the wisdom I did not and have the courage to destroy it.
His father might have doubted his wisdom, but it had never occurred to his father that Joe wouldn’t have the courage go outside and walk a mile to the New Yorker Hotel.
He’d have to find a way around that problem.
Somehow.
Chapter 26
Ash opened the thick glass window. A white feather blew into the room. He watched it dance across the room before settling on his desk. Up here, almost nothing came in from the outside. Pigeons must be nesting above his floor.
He picked up the feather and studied it. Life would always find a way, no matter how much man tried to insulate himself from it.
He found the thought encouraging, and today he needed encouragement. He’d had a useless lunch with the mayor. While he agreed that solar road technology would save the city energy and money — the lots wouldn’t need snow removal, the road tiles could funnel energy into the buildings they surrounded, the energy generated could recharge electric cars — it wasn’t enough. The mayor needed broader political support to even consider such a radical move. The union for road builders was strong, the contracts with asphalt providers were long running, and all the other parties vested in the current system would resist. It would cost Ash a great deal of money, more than he had budgeted, but not more than he could afford.
He would win in the long run, but it might be a very long run indeed. The past was constantly reaching into the future and dragging it down. It would be easier to build a solar-powered road on Mars than in New York City.
His administrative assistant brought him a cappuccino and a printout listing his afternoon schedule. His next meeting was in half an hour with an Arizona mall owner who promised to be a strong beta test site for the solar road technology. Good numbers there would translate into sales, but good numbers in a place as far north as New York would translate into even more.
He browsed his email. Joe Tesla had not responded to his invitation. Ash didn’t like being ignored, so he pulled up his tracking app. The dot that was Edison was moving at a good walking clip, then stopping for over a minute at a time — long enough for a train to pass. So, Mr. Tesla and his faithful hound were in a subway tunnel heading north and west. Probably the 7 Line.
They stopped for a long moment at Times Square, then started moving slowly north toward Central Park. Maybe Joe was meeting his dog walker at a station close to the park. If so, Ash would lose track of Joe’s movements.
But from what he’d heard about Joe, he didn’t go anywhere without the dog, so if he was up to something interesting, Ash would wait him out. He took a long sip of cappuccino. His assistant got it from this fantastic coffee shop on the corner. The place had insane lines, but he’d never had to wait in them. Perks of being the boss.
Edison cut left, west, which meant they were in the E subway tunnel.
Ash called his assistant in and asked her to take the meeting with the mall guy. She was ambitious and smart, and her eyes gleamed at the thought. If she landed this, he’d let her manage the project and hire someone else to fetch his coffee, and she knew it. He waved her off and went back to watching Joe. His gut told him Joe was going somewhere significant, and that was more important than handling the Arizona deal himself.
When the green dot turned south again, he looked for Quantum online. He didn’t have anyone else whom he could tap at short notice for something like this, but he still hesitated. He was fairly confident that Quantum would do his best to come through for him, now that he knew the stakes. But would he be able to manage it? He had failed to retrieve the suitcase, had tipped off Joe to his presence, and missed his chance to steal the automaton.
Joe was now in the tunnel for the A, C, and E subway lines and walking ahead at a pretty brisk pace. A man on a mission. He was a couple of stops away from 34th Street and Penn Station. Ash knew what was there — the hotel where Nikola Tesla died.
He didn’t have time for a different decision. He found Quantum and sent him to a dark chat room they liked to use.
ash: new yorker hotel asap
quantum: why?
ash: tesla heading there. device related? find him, take it, and go
quantum: on it
Ash grinned. It was good that he had Quantum on the case after all, and that the GPS was proving so useful. The device would be out of Joe’s hands and in Ash’s by the end of the day.
Then he could play with it.
Chapter 27
Joe pulled Edison to the side of the tunnel and covered the dog’s ears. A subway train rattled by. Stripes of light from its silver cars passed over their faces. Then the train was gone, its red taillights fading into the tunnel’s darkness.
“That’s the last train for a while, buddy,” Joe said.
Edison wagged his tail. He didn’t worry about the trains. He was used to them.
Joe directed his flashlight at the rough stone ceiling. He was right under the diner next to the New Yorker Hotel, a restaurant called, as whimsy would have it, the Tick Tock Diner. He’d seen pictures online, and it was housed in a silver train car. He would feel at home there, but he could never visit.
Before they left the house, he’d pulled up the original blueprints for the New Yorker Hotel. It had been built in 1930 with coal-fired steam boilers and generators. Ironically, it ran on direct current — Edison’s invention instead of Tesla’s — and it had once boasted the largest private power plant in the United States. The building hadn’t been modernized to use alternating current until the late 1960s.