He looked terrible. He was always pale, but now his skin looked as translucent as a vampire’s. Even his lips were pale. A bandage on the back of his head covered where they’d stitched up his scalp. After running him through a CT scan, they’d announced that he had no skull fracture, but he did have traumatic brain injury. He would recover, but it would take time and rest.
He’d woken up a few times, asking about Edison and talking about Nikola Tesla. Vivian had looked the name up on her phone and found out that the guy had been dead since before the end of World War II. That couldn’t be a good sign.
She wondered how he’d react to being out of his familiar surroundings when he woke up all the way. She’d seen him have a panic attack before, in the middle of the day in a familiar situation. In a place he’d never been and with a head injury, well, she didn’t like to think about what might happen.
Tesla’s eyes opened again, and his mother spoke to him. He answered, and she pressed the button behind his head to summon a nurse.
“I’m going in,” Vivian told Dirk. She handed him the piece of paper that listed the doctors and nurses who were authorized to go into Tesla’s room. “He’s awake again. Maybe this time he’ll be conscious enough to tell us who hit him.”
“It’s not so bad,” Dirk said. “You can stop kicking your own ass, Viv.”
She hadn’t said a single word to indicate how guilty she felt, but Dirk knew her well. Tesla had been injured on her watch.
“I might just kick his ass,” she said. “For getting himself into trouble.”
Dirk gave her a smile, flashing his trademark dimple, and she had to smile back before going into the hospital room.
Mrs. Tesla looked at Vivian. “He wants to know about Edison again.”
“Edison is with Andres Peterson, and he’s completely fine, Mr. Tesla. Not a mark on him.” She’d told him that three times already.
Tesla looked toward the curtained window. Vivian had drawn the curtains as soon as the doctors had left, not wanting him to see the sky outside when he woke up and panic. He had enough to worry about without that.
His gaze drifted around as he took in the room. “Where am I?”
“Hospital.” His mother patted his arm. “You’re safe.”
Tesla’s eyes met Vivian’s. “How can I get home?”
Before she could say anything, a quick rap on the door announced a visitor. She tensed.
“I cleared him,” called Dirk from the door.
That meant that his name was on the list, and he’d been patted down for weapons, but she didn’t relax.
“Dr. Nigel Winterbottom.” A pudgy white guy in a lab coat stepped into the room. “I’ve been assigned Mr. Tesla’s case.”
“What’s your specialty?” Vivian had memorized the names and specialties of all of Tesla’s doctors and nurses.
Winterbottom glared at her in the condescending way of every doctor she’d met. “Neurologist. I’m here to examine my patient.”
She stepped away from him. She knew Winterbottom was the neurologist’s name, and he was definitely behaving like a doctor.
The doctor strode across the room toward the bed, but at the last second he pivoted and pulled open the curtains.
Tesla leaped out of the bed as if the light scalded him. He listed to the side and fell to his knees behind the bed. He yanked out his IV. Blood spattered across the back of his hand.
He lunged toward the door. His blue eyes were huge and panicked — nobody home. The smartest man she’d ever met, and there was no trace of intelligence in those eyes. Just terror.
Chapter 35
Quantum studied the elevated train tracks. He was at Tenth Avenue and Thirtieth Street. The tracks above him hadn’t been used for years, and they were due to be opened as another part of the elevated High Line park next year, but for now they were empty.
Behind him trains rattled along the tracks at the West Side Yard, and in front of him the traffic on Thirtieth Street roared by. He’d picked this busy location because nobody would notice him standing around with his hand in his pocket. He’d scouted the area, and he’d seen no surveillance cameras that spied on this particular spot. He was invisible, a rare thing in the city these days.
He’d sell the device to Ash soon, but first he wanted to know what price to set. If the device worked, and he could prove it, then the $100K on offer was too low. If it didn’t, he could collect his Bitcoins and leave Ash holding a hundred-year-old hoax. He smiled. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy than Ash.
For a test subject, he wanted something that was big and dramatic enough to show to Ash later, but not something that would cause a huge loss of life. That would attract too much attention. This unopened part of the High Line park was a perfect testing ground.
Steel support columns soared up from ground level to the tracks above. They’d been built in the 1930s and abandoned in the 1980s. After their closure, people had tried to get the tracks torn down. That hadn’t worked. A grassroots movement had worked to have the elevated tracks converted into a park. A lot of money had been spent, the park was named High Line, and now people wandered around up there enjoying nature. This particular set of tracks hadn’t been opened to the public yet. Nobody was up there. They were waiting for the grass to grow or something.
He patted the riveted steel affectionately. It had stood for a long time, and the time had come to see if he could bring it down. From his backpack he took wooden clamps and attached the base of the device to the steel beam. He’d chosen wood since it would resonate at a different frequency than the steel.
Before he turned the device on, he paused. If the statements that Tesla gave when he was an old man were true, then when the Oscillator hit the right frequency for long enough the steel column would shatter like a wine glass next to an opera singer. Others had tried to build the device from the description in Tesla’s early patent, but it had never worked. Maybe he’d sabotaged the patent on purpose, and this device would work.
With a shrug, he turned the device on and started to tune it. He’d looked up the resonant frequency of steel, and he dialed it in now. A few minutes later, the steel shivered the tiniest bit, as if cold.
A quick glance around assured him that no one cared what he was up to. He loved the self-absorption of New Yorkers, and he was going to miss them when he left. Maybe he could come back in a couple of years.
He sat with his back against the beam and went online. He’d bought a new burner phone after he’d ditched the last one. He logged into the darknet and cycled through the chat rooms Spooky used. Geezer, who usually visited often, hadn’t been around since yesterday. Did he suspect that Ash or Quantum might have recovered the device? It seemed to mean a lot to him, although Quantum wasn’t sure why. Geezer wasn’t the type to knock things down — he liked to lecture people on the error of their ways like some fusty professor.
Geezer hadn’t been around, but Ash had. He’d left coded messages for Quantum. He wanted him to turn over the device as per their agreement. He didn’t seem upset by Joe’s injuries. The guy hadn’t died, yet, although he was “in serious condition” according to various online news sources. Quantum hoped he pulled through. There’d be less fuss.
A train pulled into the train yard next door, but he didn’t pay it any mind. Best way to remain invisible in New York was to mind your own business, especially by staring at the screen of a phone. Everyone was a phone zombie these days.