quantum: saw a mythbusters episode on that. device didn’t work. myth busted
geezer: I saw it too. It didn’t knock down the bridge, but it caused vibrations hundreds of feet away. It could cause a lot of panic without being destructive.
quantum: unless nikola=right and mythbusters=wrong. then it could wreak havoc
Quantum liked havoc a little too much. He’d come up from poor beginnings, and he didn’t believe in the system. The first computers he hacked were in the library. Even now, the machines he worked on were probably stolen. He was no white hat hacker, and his connection to financial hacking schemes for profit could bite Spooky in the ass. Still, Ash was attracted to the edgier members of Spooky, becoming bored by those who simply wanted to do right and do good. They weren’t as effective as someone like Quantum, who was willing to take big risks.
quantum: doesn’t matter. oscillator doesn’t exist
Geezer sat back in his chair, bushy brows drawn down in what looked like frustration. He bent down to get something out from under his desk, and his face disappeared from the screen. Behind him, bright sun fell through his window onto what looked like a scale model of the Mars rover. He returned with a sheet of yellowed paper in his hand and a thoughtful expression on his face. For a few seconds, he studied the paper, as if trying to decide whether to reveal it to the group.
Ash’s heart started to race. He had a hunch they needed to see that piece of paper, and he always followed his hunches. He entered the chat room.
ash: care to put ur $ where ur mouth is? show us proof
quantum: hi, ash!
ash: hello, fellow troublemakers
quantum: no proof. just words
geezer: Here’s your proof.
He tapped a few keys, and a file link appeared in the chat room. Ash opened the image file. A yellowed piece of paper with writing appeared on his monitor. He quickly zoomed the image to a readable size.
The writing was unmistakably Nikola Tesla’s. Ash recognized the classic Old World lettering and the forward-slanting N. Dots of darker ink showed in the corners of some letters where Tesla’s fountain pen had paused at the end of a stroke. The document was an original, or a damn fine copy. But it looked like a shopping list.
ash: that’s not for oscillator
geezer: It’s from a larger collection. Plans for Oscillator in that collection
quantum: u can get it, old guy?
geezer: It belonged to another old guy, and was written by yet another old guy — Nikola Tesla himself.
Ash had been through every known collection of Tesla memorabilia, but he never read the document currently on his screen. Geezer must have access to previously unseen material.
ash: what collection?
geezer: A friend of the family. I know them. I can get the plans
quantum: if they let u out of the home to look for it
Ash stared at Geezer’s lined face and wondered what secrets it was hiding.
Ash would have to keep an eye on him. If the Oscillator was out there, he wanted it for himself. Spooky’s job was to shake things up, maybe knock things down. The Oscillator might be a devastating tool — something that could save the world, or destroy it. The possibilities were limitless.
And the Breakers didn’t have one.
He laid his palm against the cool glass shell that separated him from the hot and polluted world outside. With the Oscillator in hand, this building would be fragile. He could wound the Breakers with an act of great physical and metaphorical power, and save countless acres of the most pristine country left in the United States. He could buy himself the time he needed to fight back against their lobbying machine.
What a glorious symbol the Empire State Building laid low would be! American hubris brought to the ground for the world to see by destroying the most iconic building in the city, perhaps the country. The repercussions would be more than financial — the entire modern world would again feel at risk.
What could he grow from the ashes of that destruction?
Chapter 4
Together Joe and Edison climbed the Employees Only stairs onto Grand Central Terminal’s Track 42. The numbers triggered Joe’s synesthesia (green for four and blue for two). He’d been five (brown) before he discovered everyone else didn’t see colors in their heads when numbers were mentioned, eight (purple) when he realized it let him understand mathematics at a completely different level than others, and sixteen (cyan, orange) when he’d used it to get into MIT and take control of his own life.
Joe glanced at the simple white-faced clock hanging from the ceiling — just after noon (cyan, blue). Lunchtime. He wasn’t hungry, but he thought it best to stick to his routine today.
He picked up the pace and strode across the empty platform and out into the terminal itself. The air felt cooler here, but still uncomfortable. Summer had come even to the vast concourse. The weather brought heat and humidity, but also a lot of women in shorts and miniskirts. An acceptable tradeoff.
He snapped a leash onto Edison and adjusted the dog’s blue psychiatric service vest. Joe didn’t expect to be hassled, but it was easier to put on the vest than have a conversation with some cop.
The dog tugged on the leash, pulling them toward the food court, but when Joe headed over to the Apple balcony, Edison obediently followed. The glowing white apple meant different things to different people, but in Grand Central, it meant free Wi-Fi.
He touched the pocket where he kept his phone in a pouch. He’d designed the pouch to block cellular signals from reaching his phone. It was his mini-Faraday cage. Somebody was marketing them now, but he’d made his years ago. He used the cage so his phone wouldn’t always be communicating with Apple, telling them his location so that they could track his movements. They didn’t need to know what he was doing.
He took out the phone, connected to the free Wi-Fi, and discovered that in less than an hour’s walk, he’d accumulated a long list of work-related emails. California and Pellucid, the company he’d founded, were waking up. He still consulted there. He was helping to catch bad guys, or at least that’s what he used to tell himself. Now he wasn’t so sure.
He scrolled through the list of emails and opened the one he’d most been dreading. It was an automated email sent by a tracker he’d installed in his company’s facial recognition software. The tracker checked to see how many facial recognition requests were made and how quickly they were matched. The volume of faces being fed into the system had skyrocketed to hundreds of times more than expected. Either something new had come online recently, or he had a bug to track down.
By force of habit, he logged into the darknet and scanned through emails sent by those who’d had the opportunity to administer the poison that had caused his agoraphobia. Still nothing interesting, but they would slip up eventually and, right now, all he had was time. He would wait them out.
With a few quick movements, he disconnected and returned to his own email. The last message in his inbox caught his eye again. It had been sitting there for days, and he couldn’t bring himself to delete it.
From: George Tesla
To: Joe Tesla
Subject: Be careful
Son,
I’ve said things I shouldn’t, to people I shouldn’t. I’ve set them on paths. I don’t know where they might lead. Watch your step.
Dad
He sighed. He’d read it many times. It was part of the one-way conversation that his father had started up with him when Joe moved to New York. His father had once been a brilliant statistician and, despite his failings as a father, he’d at least bequeathed Joe the Tesla brains. That should count for something. So, Joe read his daily emails, but he never answered them. He’d never forgiven his father for his many sins of omission and commission during Joe’s childhood.