10. North Tower - Friday, August 2nd, 1912

"I find it truly inconceivable you've never been shopping." Katharine said, turning to me as the gust from a passing truck nearly took her hat from her head. With a grimace the woman pulled it back and sighed. "Particularly…particularly a winsome young thing such as yourself." Removing the hat from her head, she looked at it in an annoyed manner and tossed it into the backseat of her vehicle, leaving her hair astray. "I know not the reason for your lack of culture, but whatever the origin it must remedied. Are you planning on remaining in New York long? By that, I do mean Shoreham."

"Why do you ask?" Mrs. Johnson bent forward to adjust red-gold tresses in the Pathfinder's side mirror. In front of the car Oscar turned, noting coolly his employer with a sidelong gaze.

She stood and straightened jacket and skirt, turning with a grin. "Because, seeing you are a friend now of Nikola's, I was hoping that we might, well…get to know one another. He has said such splendid things of you." As she smiled her eyes landed upon my neck. "And such a delightful choker you have. The pendant upon it...a diving bird? Wherever did you get it?"

"Mr. DeWitt…" I fretted, touching it self-consciously. At the front of the car I heard a sigh…saw Oscar cross his arms in boredom. "Mr. DeWitt bought it for me. In Col…"

"Coney Island." A gravelly voice said from behind. To our mutual surprise we turned, discovering Booker breaking the flow of people along Broadway like an island the stream.

"Booker?!" I said, elated at his unanticipated return before seeing his haggard face. My hand fell to my chest. "What…what happened?" Without thinking I approached, found his unbound palm and took it. Realizing both Katharine and her man were looking on. I let go and recomposed myself.

"Your meeting with Mister…" Katharine began to ask, eyes darting between me and my father.

"Laslowe." He said, taking in a deep breath as he surveilled the streets.

"Laslowe…" She repeated with a smile. "It was him?" Booker nodded, and I could tell he was in no mood for conversation. "Goodness, man, please do not make this like pulling teeth. What did he say?"

"He said we need to get back to Penn Station."

As the crowd moved around us we stood there in silence. After all she'd done for us I could feel how much his words had hurt her and wanted to wallop him. "We shall, Mr. DeWitt, but in due time. Misses Johnson has graciously invited us for a short visit to her house. Seeing as the gala at Mr. Morgan's mansion is not far away from that location, she thought it a good idea to dress there before the party tomorrow night."

His stare was withering.

Feeling as though I was about to melt, I turned away from his awkward silence to Katharine and presented a remorseful smile. "I'm sorry…this has turned out to be the most odd day. We would love to see your house. Seeing our business concluded here, should we go, then?"

"Well…" She said, looking back to Oscar and her Pathfinder then back to us unexpected elation. "Do gather in."

#

"I don't like this one damned bit." Booker mumbled as Oscar slowed before the Johnson house. He'd been a pill the whole trip, and as I'd craned my head and taken in the broad streets and tall buildings about us along the way he'd only sulked worse. We'd come further north in the city than I'd anticipated and for directions was at quite a loss, taking comfort only in Mrs. Johnson's hospitality and the fact that despite his surliness, Booker was at my side. Reaching up with my fingers, I turned him with fingertips to face me, mouthing silently 'what is the matter?'

"I don't know." He answered, meaning he knew exactly what was wrong but didn't want to talk to me about it now. With the squeal of brakes we came to a halt. On southeastern corner of Lexington and what the street signs said was '39th' rose a lovely brownstone, three stories tall…327 Lexington. Opening the vehicle's door before our chauffer could, Booker offered his hand first to me and then Katharine.

"So, this is your house, Mrs. Johnson?" He said, turning after we'd alighted upon the sidewalk to inspect the residence.

"Please call me Katharine." She said as her eyes took in Booker's profile, yet uncertain his mood. Seeing as there were so many women in New York, I shouldn't have found it unusual for one to take interest in a handsome man. Reason didn't matter, though…for she was an attractive woman and Booker had noticed. She turned to me and smiled. Despite my feelings I forced myself to do the same. "My husband Robert and I have lived here for years, raised our children…entertained so many people. But now they are out of the home and on their own. Sometimes…" She finished with a sigh, less than consciously wringing her hands, "Sometimes it can be rather quiet."

"We appreciate the hospitality. I answered. "But we do need to be getting back soon. Are you certain this won't be a trouble?"

"Have you tried getting dressed for a formal only to take a railroad an hour or two away? We shall drop the gown off then whirlwind the house…you shall be on your way soon." Up her steps Katharine hastened as Oscar struggled to keep up, lugging boxes from the car. Seeing the man beleaguered, Booker took some in hand from the boot and joined him upon the steps and onto the porch.

At the top our hostess opened twin wooden doors and we entered to a long foyer. "This way, if you wouldn't mind." She said. The reception hall was hung with portraits and photographs, many of family showing the Johnsons when they were younger. Her husband was a handsome but staid fellow, in each picture as the years progressed growing modestly older and his beard longer. Oddly but for a line here and there, she seemed little changed.

She took us back beyond a stair into a sitting room where the men set the containers. "Booker." I said as he set the last of the boxes down.

"Yeah?" He asked, wiping sweat from his troubled brow.

"Would you mind stepping out? Just for a moment." After the work he'd done he looked at me like I was an ingrate. With a grin I pushed him back gently into the foyer. Katharine closed the sitting room door and went to unpacking the few boxes the men had brought in, removing the gown from one to hang it upon a coat rack.

"I love it." She said, hands clasped before her. "You shall have to arrive early tomorrow, say no later than 4pm sharp."

"It will take that long to get ready?" I said, inspecting the sparkling pinpoints in the fabric's navy blue.

"I have some things in mind." She smiled, glancing me up and down. "Wherever did you get that outfit? Very pretty but…different."

"Columbia." I answered, holding its blue skirt.

"Columbia…" She said from hanging it, opening the box with matching shoes and silken hosiery. "As in South Carolina? Or Missouri?"

"Missouri." I answered, having no idea where the place was other than not in New York and Booker had mentioned it before.

"So, you're a western girl?" She said, brushing her hands and beginning her extraction of accessories from the boxes. "I thought I'd detected a touch of western in your…chaperone's…accent." Setting the dress aside, I began to help, looking at the black shoes…French high heels, I recognized, with a degree of involuntary pleasure. "The rest of our little treasures remain in the car…" She finished with the last container. "So now we are prepared for tomorrow. Shall we?" She gestured toward the Salon door.

She opened it and Booker was peering at the multitude of pictures and portraits along the walls. As we joined him I could see most were of family but many others unknown. Upon one wall, above a small table and lamp with tassels around its shade, hung a sepia portrait of a certain man. "How long…how long have you known Mr. Tesla?"

At my words she suddenly blanched and her hand shot to her chest. "Oh, goodness…Niki. Just a moment please!" In haste she carried down the hall. Picking up a glossy black tube from a brown lacquered wall box receiver, she placed it to her ear, leaned forward and began to speak into a small sound horn. "Hello, Operator? This is Mrs. Katharine Johnson…could I get long distance Shoreham 45750?" She listened patiently for a moment. "Yes, I'll hold."

As I cocked my head and crept toward her in amazement, Booker took my arm. "Best give the lady a little space."

"What is that?" I asked, completely mesmerized. Thinking back, the last time I'd seen something like it had been in the Montgomery home.

"A telephone. You listen with the part she has to her ear and speak into the mouthpiece."

"And you can talk over distance? Who…who is she calling?"

"Niki! Oh, hello! I'm so glad to have reached you!" From down the hallway we heard squawking. It was unpleasant and Katharine's sunny demeanor faltered. "Now Niki, we are done. Your girl shall make a splash tomorrow as you desired, and after a short tour of Castle Johnson, I shall have them over to Penn Station and on their way back home." Her eyes lolled amidst more squawking and she bit her lip. With a sigh she blew the stray hairs from her eyes. "Yes, yes…I realize she is important to you but, but it was you who emphasized her social dimensions. Yes. Yes…I shall have them on their way soon. Soon! Until tomorrow!"

She hung the thing up, drained, but nevertheless put on a smile and came our way. "That would be your employer. He relays that it would be marvelous if you were on your way back to Shoreham."

"Mrs. Johnson, is that you?" I heard a voice call from above. Down the foyer's wood-railed stair a middle aged lady in a gray maid's dress descended, alighting at the bottom of the stairs upon the wooden floor. Approaching us, she came before Katharine. "I am sorry, Ma'am, but I hadn't heard you come in." Gray haired and older, she had pale skin and like Katharine green eyes. She turned and glanced at us as Oscar loitered near the door. "Guests? For the evening?"

"No, I am afraid not, Nora." Katharine answered. "Although depending upon Mr. Morgan's service of libations..." With a gleam in her eye Katharine turned, hopeful like a schoolgirl. "Mr. DeWitt. Miss Comstock. I have yet to convince Niki to stay the night but I am certain Robert would be incensed if both you and he did not. There are no trains that run on the Wading River Branch that late, not leaving Penn past five. Would you accept our hospitality and spend the night with us?"

Before Booker could answer I interrupted. "Yes…" At him I turned to smile. "We would love to."

#

The early August afternoon was drawing to a close as we pulled into the Shoreham Depot later…as late as it had been the day we'd gotten off the train in Yaphank before. That funny sounding little town was but a memory now, but the heat of the summer remained unrelenting, both of us perspiring as Booker and I disembarked. With a blast of sideways steam the train blew its horn and began to pull out, rolling down the tracks for points further west. We found ourselves alone upon the wooden slats of the boardwalk.

Ever since Katharine and Oscar had seen us off at that big Penn Station, Booker had been upset with me. Maybe even before. He wasn't the social kind and despised entanglements…anything that might touch on our past and present relationship. With no happy homemaker nor passengers upon a train reckon with, I figured now I would get both of his barrels. Instead he remained quiet as we walked across the bridge over the tracks, down past the watchman and into Tesla's little city.

"Booker, please talk to me." I implored as we walked along, boxes stacked in hand. With several of the larger ones left behind at the Johnsons', we had less to carry though at times they seemed to take on a life of their own.

"What is there to say?" He asked, stopping to address his fellow. "Good afternoon, Lawrence. Is Mr. Parsons about?"

"Down in the yard, Mr. DeWitt, getting ready to head down to the North Resonance Tower to give it a round before the weekend. He came asking for you earlier."

"Thanks." Booker sighed before continuing down the steps into the yard. "I'll go find him."

"But this was Mr. Tesla's idea, not mine." I protested once we were away, looking at the workers all so ready to call their Friday finished. "What…what did he say?"

"He said exactly what I told you. The debt is paid." Unsatisfied with his answer, I stepped before him. As I did so one of my containers fell and tumbled open, spilling unmentionables upon the concrete. In embarrassment I knelt to gather them back, only to find him amused as I rose. "She really set you up, didn't she?"

"I'd hardly anything at all." I said, looking at the silk in hand. "Everything I ever owned was lost in the Tower."

"Do you…do you ever wish you were back there?"

"No!" I answered, incensed he could even ask such a thing. "Please, Booker, what has you so bothered?"

With the sun casting a warm orange to his perspiring face he sighed and looked out to the tower, eyes casting upon the workers in the yard. "He told me this was the arrangement. Here."

"Here?" I asked, not understanding at all what he meant. "With Tesla? But…"

"He said you were needed here. Us leaving the city to get away from him, the Morellos, following your instincts…he knew it all along. He knew you'd find this place."

"How? How could he know that?!"

"You tell me, Elizabeth, but I think we're both used to things impossible by now. But from what I saw…" He clenched his eyes. "I think he has an Oracule."

I didn't move, feeling the weight of the packages upon my chest. "An…Oracule? But this machine…this is the only…"

"I wouldn't bet on it." He looked up and across the yard to the figure of a dark haired man. "I think Tesla is waiting for you."

Still holding my boxes I digested his words, knowing what he said could not be true. Had this Laslowe fellow a tearing device in the city, particularly so close by, wouldn't I have certainly have felt it? "Could you take these?" I asked, handing Booker the rest of my wares. I felt guilty, but I could see now Tesla looking on and impatiently so. "See you tonight. You'll come around, won't you?"

Jumbling with the boxes, Booker nodded. "Yeah. I'll be here."

Feeling back but tardy I hastened across the yard, passing Tesla's draftsmen and machinists as the men headed for the gate. It was quitting time, I realized, but not for his scientists and the man himself…for them the day was just beginning. Having left an early dinner at the cafeteria, they were bound for the Bunker, adorned in lab coats for the evening's run. "Miss Comstock." Tesla said, holding a coat out to me. It was fresh and brightest white, upon its right breast the cursive name Elizabeth. As he held it out to me I took it in hand and drew it about myself. "I trust you had a productive morning?"

"I did, Sir." I said, feeling the linen and reading pleasurably my name upon it. Toward the gate and departing workers I saw Booker with the Parsons man, the latter thankfully taking some of the burden I'd foisted upon him. "I'm so sorry I'm late. The city was far away and Mrs. Johnson was so hospitable."

"Indeed she is that." He answered. "Still, you are here now. In the wake of your epiphany the other night regarding the main capacitor sequence, Joseph, Alfred, Hans and Willie have completed the rewiring. All that remains is to install the dome and begin our power tests. With any luck we shall be able repair that which is damaged and generate our first tear…possibly even tonight."

"Tonight? But I don't see how." At the Bunker he opened the steel door, and as we descended the steps down its concrete floor I spied Joseph and Albert hard at it, the machine cleaner now, the wires and cables scrubbed…its side stanchions cleared of melted rubber. At its center top the silver dome and side bulbs were missing, disassembled upon the workbench with new capacitors tubes laid out about it…the old burned ones set off to the side to be discarded. I hadn't seen into the dome's innards yet, but seeing it there I couldn't resist, taking the tracings in hand and comparing them to what I was seeing. "Windings…about layered electromagnets." I said before turning back to Tesla and his men.

"Yes." The dark haired man said at my side. "Designed in three phases so as to rotate the field."

"Like your motor."

He smiled. "The disk on the bottom is similarly wired, though beneath the plate. The field is spun in phased sequence, to prevent a unidimensional contact and collapse." The words he'd spoken were strange but rung true…and only one who implicitly understood the design's function could have spouted them so easily.

I looked at the plans and notes at their sides, then back to Tesla. My eyes slid back to the resonance dome, seeing the thin copper wire discolored. "The windings are burnt and won't conduct properly, will they?"

Willie and Hans were laboring over a large box upon the ground, one with a packing notice on it from his Hudson Street laboratory. Taking a hammer from the bench, Tesla approached their side, prying the lid off with the tools back before casting the plywood wood aside. "Some assistance, please, Gentlemen?" Seeing them kneel to lift the contents, I placed the papers back upon the workbench and went to help. Tesla glanced my way and shook his head. "Miss Comstock, your gesture to assist is appreciated but not required. Gentlemen, upon my command. Lift." In concert the men heaved the copper-wound doughnut to their waists, and with some effort moved it to the workbench and sat it down. Seeing it coming at me, I stepped aside.

"Where…where did this come from?" I asked, amazed to see a shining new component nearly identical to the one upon the bench.

Brushing his hands, Tesla looked to me and stepped back to the box, sifting through the hay to apprehend another broad disk. "An excellent question, my Dear. Gentlemen, once more." Together they heaved the second component out of the box, tan straw falling to its sides. It was a stepping disk I could see, rather the insides only. "When we first met. The anonymous donor…I am afraid that was me."

#

As Parsons finished loading the last of Elizabeth's boxes into his automobile he gestured toward the passenger seat. "Do hop in, Mr. DeWitt. We'll make short measure of your woman's bequest at your Bungalows and take in the North Tower before sundown."

I placed my three beside his in the back seat and opened the front door of his Model V. "Thanks…I was beginning to think we had a long walk ahead of us."

"You mean back through the trail?" He asked, starting the vehicle with rattle and clunk. "I still find it difficult to believe you walked the path at night to break in. You truly do not have an automobile?"

Automobiles were expensive…as were daughters. "No. I'd been hoping to get back on my feet with Miss Comstock's employ, but it has not happened yet."

At his command we backed out and turned, puttering down the drive to veer westbound on the highway outside the south gate. "From what I understand, these Bungalows are not the place to save money." Parsons shouted, casting an offhand glance my way from the driver's seat. "The wealthy come from New York seeking to escape the summer heat, hence the rates are high. Winter would be a better time to save your pennies there."

Still baking in the afternoon sun, winter I decided it was not.

Still, the air felt good through my hair and on my face as we drove along. With the afternoon's progress the sun had edged lower across western treetops, and as we turned down Woodville the shade was even more welcome. Passing the Maples and Shoreham Inn, we came to a halt before the Bungalows. Together we alighted from the vehicle, proceeding to extract Elizabeth's packages from its back seat. Several people were milling about outside the office and glanced our way as we passed through the breezeway to the back approaches. Nearing the door to our cottage, I produced the key and opened the door.

"You know…" He said, walking in and taking note of our broad but singular bed. "I've been trying to place your face ever since we met but have failed utterly to do so. Do you mind me asking," He placed his boxes down upon the sofa. "Have you held a professional job at some point in the recent past?"

"You mean aside from the Army?" I asked, placing my containers upon the door side oak table with a sigh. "I was with the Pinkertons for several years after I came home in '06'. I'd had enough of the Army by then, but you know what they say…you can take the man out of the Army, but you can't take the Army out of the man."

Again he examined the neatly made king, hand passing over one of the four cherry wood posts that rose from its corners. "You should have said so earlier, DeWitt. Having that kind of experience is a good thing for employment like this."

"It's…not the kind of experience I like talking about." Outside in the evening light the waves were washing in from the East.

Parson's hands slipped behind his back and he ended looking out across the blue alongside me. "I see, but I wouldn't be afraid of the matter. You're not the only man who's done hard work, you know."

"Hard work? That what you call it?"

"We all work for masters, DeWitt. Sometimes we admire them, sometimes not. In life a man's choices tend to be few. You know my past…and why I'm here. Tesla, for all his eccentricities…he is a good man. As much as he is able, he cares for us at Wardenclyffe, though sometimes the manner in which he shows that compassion is…unusual. Where did you work with them? The Pinkertons, I mean."

"Here in New York, mostly." Memories of steel and soot came back. "Some out in the Midwest."

"Pennsylvania, perhaps? Perhaps Pressed Steel?" His eyes had caught me from the side. "I'd thought I'd recognized your face. As I said, it's no shame to admit you have done rough work, friend. I've seen some ugly moments myself."

"So you were there? At the Rocks?"

"On horseback, trying to keep some semblance of order. What a damned shame that was. I understand why you don't wish to talk about it, but I, more than many, can understand. I didn't think the Pinks were involved in that one."

Walking the grounds and taking names, I remembered…keeping my lists for the later reckoning, all the while coming to see the abuse wrought against those poor Poles and Russians. It had been my job, though, and I'd done it…until it had been my turn later…packed in the train cars on the way in to break the strike…deprived like those workers even the necessities of life. "Like I said…it wasn't something I much wanted to talk about."

"Are you married? You and the girl." He asked against the wash of the waves below.

"No." I answered quietly. "She's my daughter."

"I wouldn't see why all the mystery then. The different names." His eyes remained set upon the slats of the boardwalk below. "She doesn't look at you like she is your daughter."

I digested his words, wondering why I seemed to trust him with such damning facts. I knew nothing at all about the man other than what he'd told me. "It's complicated."

He glanced to the west where the sun was hovering a top the eaves of the bungalows. "Well, perhaps we should go. If we wait much longer we'll lose our daylight."

Taking again to his automobile after a short walk to the lot we headed east, the glow of the sun at our backs, orange light on the horizon filling the treetops. Here and there a cottage glowed warmly along the unpaved road, a road that wound through a hilly and increasingly dark woodland. After several minutes Thomas brought the car to a halt alongside what appeared to be a freshly installed plank gate, letting our conveyance idle as dismounted and withdraw a key from his pocket. Taking the spindle of metal to a lock hanging from a chain, he released the gate and swung its wooden slats wide of the road. Hopping back in, he put the machine into gear. We proceeded gingerly down a shallow grade cut through the trees, emerging on a leveled hilltop and paved parking lot amid the oncoming night. An octagonal foundation and inset cone of steel towered before us, tall as the Statue of Liberty.

We squealed to a halt, coming at idle to overlook the Sound once more. On the sand below a large steam shovel sat idle, its bucket hanging silently in the twilight while chains tangled in the breeze. Against the distant Connecticut shoreline I could see its silhouette along with that of an idled crane. "So this is it? Tesla doesn't think small, does he?"

He popped the door and shut down, slipping out from his seat to alight upon the fresh paving. "No, he does not." From his automobile he produced a hand light, one that unlike Elizabeth's was cylindrical.

"Thank you." I said, finding it fit nicely into the palm of my hand. Against the wash of waves below Parsons trod out across the foundation, looking upward toward that great framework tower. Producing his own hand light he shown it about, inspecting the perimeter fences that guarded the artificial promontory from a fifty foot fall to the sand below.

"I take it this is part of my rounds?" I yawned, covering mouth with hand.

"We make a check evening and morning before the sun rises." He answered, shining the light about dimly visible scaffolding. "We've had some young folks coming by lately and try to dissuade them from tomfoolery." Walking to the center of the tower's expansive structure, I discovered a steel elevator shaft that led up to the top and down into the bowels of the earth. About its circumference wound a spiral stair, completed only going down, while about its periphery ran cables and conduits along the walls.

"What is this?" I asked, fingering one of the cables.

"Electrical wiring, I suppose." He answered, shining his light to join mine on the cables.

"How far down does this go?" I asked, peering with torch down the darkened spiral stair. He stepped forward and pressed the button beside the doors. They opened with a chime.

"I can only tell you what is here. Mr. DeWitt…not why, although I have heard that Mr. Tesla intends this substructure to supposedly 'gain a grip upon the earth.' Ask me not what that means." Once inside the cab he pressed a button on the control panel and tugged on a lever. The enclosure began to descend, lowered on a cable from above.

We must have gone down over one hundred feet, perhaps twice that or more, for the cab lowered slowly past incandescent bulb after bulb and it was some time before we stopped. Outside the fence doors lay a twenty foot high concrete dome illuminated by more of the same lights, while eight tunnels descending away from its platform in equal parts around its circumference. Down each ran a thick pipe, eight of them total and each over two feet in diameter, mostly sunken into the concrete. As my eyes followed one in its descent, against the light I noticed shadows moving perhaps a hundred feet away…startled shadows. I hadn't expected anything down here, at least not anything alive. Down the tunnel a scurrying commenced and the sounds of flight. "Company."

"You there!" He shouted, voice echoing from the cement walls. Without bothering to comment he tore down the tunnel and I followed. "Damned boys!" He exclaimed. "This is exactly why we needed another man! You there, I say again, STOP!"

A bullet answered his demand and we threw ourselves back against the tunnel walls, cleaving to an alcove against the threat of more. Ahead and not far an access panel lay removed from the pipe. I pulled out my Broadsider, which he looked at enviously. Looking to the open panel and obviously cut wire bundles inside, we held our position. "How often do kids shoot at you?" I asked, hanging to the alcove.

Hearing the feet speeding away, I whipped out and fired at where they'd been. The tunnel had been descending, but from our new advanced position I saw now that it began to arc upward. I hastened onward, rushing until I was at a sprint upon the incline.

Gunfire echoed afresh through the tunnel only slightly ahead of his bullet, a round that smashed into the concrete and blew chips off at my right. I turned sideways and aimed, letting loose a single round to a pained and bloody spray. "DeWitt!" Parsons cried.

Realizing they'd be slowed by the climb and now out for blood, I fired again. Where we'd come to the grade now angled upward, and against the procession of bulbs I could see one man hauling another with arm about waist, perhaps two hundred feet ahead. "Stop!" I cried out. "Or I'll shoot again!" The unwounded one threw his companion against the wall and he answered my bravado with more lead. Back against the walls Parsons went, as slugs ricocheted the pipes, spinning to the floor and rolling down the grade past us.

After a moment the bullets stopped coming and I heard a cry ahead. "They are not getting away." I growled more to myself than Parsons. Throwing myself into the passage I unloaded, round after round from my Broadsider blasting the concrete ahead only to see legs disappearing up a ladder. Dashing the last hundred feet up that shallow slope I came into an igloo of sorts, a round, hemispherical dome with a flat floor. Tucking the gun into holster, I climbed the side mounted iron rungs only to have my head nearly taken off as I peered out the hatch.

Ducking back in I heard a car start, saw lights come on and the churn of tires upon dirt. Hastening upward I opened fire a final time, my rounds snapping through the underbrush and trees after the receding automobile. Down a logging road its taillights were diminishing, headlights on the woods ahead and followed by a billow of dust. Behind me Parsons was crying out, and finally I heard him clamber up the metal of the ladder.

"DeWitt, dammit man, where did you learn to run like that?"

"The Philippines…" I answered flatly, watching the vehicle disappear at a turn to the east. "It was pretty useful when a bunch of Aguinaldo's boys were chasing after you."

With the taillights now gone, Parsons surmounted the embankment to the road, completely out of breath. "They got away." He said, hands upon knees and wheezing.

"I noticed." I said, slamming pistol back into holster.

We made our way through the woods and back to the concrete igloo, illuminating its round dome in our lights. At the side of its gray steel door a brass padlock lay sheared away upon the ground. "Bolt cutters." He said. "We shall have to report this to Mr. Tesla, posthaste…" Kneeling to examine the lock, he turned it in hand beneath the yellow focus of my light. "If not the Sheriff's office. Is there anything else at all you saw, anything at all that might potentially aid in these criminal's apprehension?"

I reached down to touch the stain upon the grass, sampling it between thumb and forefinger. "No, but I heard something that might be of use."

"And what was that?" He answered, lock and light still in hand.

Memories of Comstock House and Edmonton's crew came back to me, images of smug, pale faces…before Elizabeth turned those visages into debris-punctured corpses. To the south above the trees a brilliant flash exploded, light arcing across the sky, illuminating the foliage above in black and white like flash powder. Through the now visible leaves the horizon began to glow.

For a moment we both stood there, looking at the spectacle as shears of light began to form and shoot off overhead. "I don't know exactly what that poor fellow said when I put the bullet in him, but whatever it was, it was in German."

#

It was dark outside as Johnnison and I finished setting the windings in the dome, sliding the metallic cover gently back upon the assembly as Tesla, Alfred and Willie looked on. With the cap in place, the latter man went about its base with a screwdriver, securing the dome to the foundation before sliding a leather harness about its left and right sides. As they lifted it into place on pulleys to the head of the Tear Machine, I stood biting my lip. I was surprised to find Mr. Tesla at my side.

"Oh." I said, turning to him and brushing my hair from my eyes. "I'm truly sorry. I didn't mean to bump into you."

"You didn't bump into me." He whispered, eyes intent upon the assembly, thumb and fingertips upon dot-like chin.

"You know…" I whispered in kind, as if louder words would break the spell of concentration his three were laboring under. "I failed to apologize for being late this afternoon."

Without looking to me he shrugged. "That is Katharine. She is a lovely woman, both inside and out, but a trifle zealous when it comes to fashion." His eyes turned to me. "For herself and others, but that is not an altogether bad thing at times."

He'd turned now with those eyes and let loose an appreciative grin. I felt myself grow warm. "Mr. Tesla, I…do appreciate the inclusion, but I…I've failed to note a single thing I have done to aide you that your fellows could not have accomplished on their own."

"You realized the capacitors were in the wrong sequence. Though a simple detail, it had eluded both me and my men for last days. You did it without even looking at the wiring diagrams. The windings in the resonance dome…do you realize how few people in the world are true experts at such fabrication? It is not a science, but an art." He sighed. "You have more than helped. I must confess a truth, however, Miss Comstock, a truth I regret but must acknowledge. When first I built this device, I had…assistance, but my collaborator became unavailable shortly after our final assembly…an assembly that was followed for reasons beyond me by the near destruction of the machine. On my own I managed to rebuild it, though my understanding of its function had always been…partial at best." Though he chuckled, a sadness had come over his face. "And the theory behind it non-existent. Consequently it has never functioned as splendidly as it did in those early days. For some time I convinced myself it was due to my lack of attention to some detail. Then after the years passed, I began to believe something was neither fundamentally wrong with my design nor calculations. Rather…" He looked away, spirit distant. "Working on it woke too many ghosts."

"You're talking about Rosalind, aren't you? You...you knew her."

At my words he looked to the men working on the machine's connections and ever so slightly agreed. "After what transpired so many years ago, I had resolved never to return to this. My heart had been in the transmission of power through the earth and sky, and this was too exotic…too painful." He sighed. "And I was afraid of it. But things have not been so easy. In return for Mr. Morgan's continuing support of Wardenclyffe, I was forced in 1906 to…to extend promises…promises of what my transmission of power might accomplish. At the time I was faced with his imminent abandonment, and Mr. Westinghouse, Mr. Astor, though convinced of the inevitability of my dreams, well, for whatever reason they had only offered so much."

"Mr. Morgan had recently acquired the White Star shipping line. You might have heard of it. I convinced him that the transmissive power scheme should not only be able to send information from one side of the world, thus keeping his ships in contact with land, but also power them…power them and enable a whole new paradigm of both seagoing and even aerial transport. I offered him nothing less than the elimination of coal from his steamers…the elimination of kerosene from Zeppelin's new airships, airships, which as you know, have already so upset the world of transport amongst the elite and landed classes. I offered it to him within five years."

"But…but something is wrong, otherwise we wouldn't be here." I said, observing Johnnison cranking a wire down with a wrench.

"The losses are too great." He answered, frustration in his voice. "I had guaranteed Mr. Morgan that by now we would be powering fully his growing fleets…but while our efforts have shown promise, I have had…difficulty in acquiring the boost in power I thought I might gain from resonating with the earth's innate currents. It is something I believe I know the reason for, but I am out of time."

"That's how you thought to power things with that lonely little generator house out there?"

Tesla nodded, arms crossed. "Current flows within the earth like a mighty river. I only had hoped to pry a bit of it lose."

"But you've not been able to, and now you're desperate." In the pit of my stomach I sensed a sinking dread. "Why…why the machine then? How can it possibly help?"

Clasping hands behind his back, he turned to look at his scientists' progress. "The machine is similar in many principles to my tower, but I was only the machine's co-designer. Its true master, as you have guessed…that was Rosalind."

"You said her book…"

"Was not of this world." Again his eyes turned to mine. "And, as you might have guessed, neither was she. This is why I was so piqued by your revelations. No one could have known about that book, let alone her." He offered his arm, which hesitantly I took. Together we walked toward the back of the room, back toward the door Booker and I had trespassed nights before. Away from his scientists, he offered me a seat upon a simple stool at a workbench. Beside me the other. "Now it is your turn."

"Mr. DeWitt…he would not be happy were I to tell you our story."

"I am not going to torture you, my winsome burglar. I will, however ask nonetheless. If you tell me…help me understand…I shall be happy. If you do not, well…I shall learn to live with disappointment." Feeling pressed upon I swallowed. He could see me nervous. "Then I suppose disappointment it is."

"So, what…what are we doing here tonight?" I eventually said, eager to break the awkward silence. "Why the machine?"

Tesla crossed his arms. "I do not see why I should divulge my secrets when you fail to loose yours." He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Very well, for months I have been hoping against hope that I would crack this nut…to figure out how to tap the earth's geoelectricity. Our successes, and we have had many, have unfortunately not been enough. Wardenclyffe is in great debt, Miss Elizabeth, and I needed something…anything to show progress. Or lacking that, establish distraction. Several months ago I had a dream, a dream of this machine that had for years sat burned out in crates and boxes. Instead of using it as a window…as someone has apparently done weeks ago…I thought to orient it upon that other world…Rosalind's world…to turn its mouth not toward the wall but toward the surface. A simple mathematical adjustment that when properly positioned the machine might act as a…"

"Magnet of sorts." I answered. "Not the right word, but the right idea. To pull the ship along."

"Mr. Telsa, the leads are connected to the building's amplifiers and we're ready for power."

The inventor turned to look at Johnnison and rose, offering his arm with a smile. "Who but you could possibly have guessed that? By using the natural attraction of the planet itself, we should be draw anything towards the portal, simply by orienting the destination mouth downward to the surface. Or provide propulsion by pulling on the waves…if oriented a forefront."

I took his wing and together we approached the machine, the men now stepping back and checking power cables. A metal shield they'd drawn from the wall, one with a heavy glass window in its upper middle. "So you intend to emplace one of these upon a vessel. But that doesn't solve the problem of power. You'll need a generator plant at least the size of Wardenclyffe not to mention the coal and kerosene. And if you place a tear machine at the prow of the ship, won't that just pull on the water and air?"

He patted my hand. "Yes, but for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction…the ship will move in either water or air. The issue of transmitted power, as I have said, that I am still working on." As we spoke Alfred positioned a basketball upon a wooden crate set symmetrically before the Tear Machine's window. "Places, gentlemen." Tesla said. Behind the metal screen with the crystalline window he offered me a place, while he stood just beside it. "Joseph, Alfred, Willie…stand aside. Hans, can you confirm the destination aperture has been reoriented ninety degrees?"

"Yes, Mr. Tesla."

"Very well, Mr. Johnnison. Would you do the honors?" Stepping to its side, the dark haired man took hold of the switch I'd pulled days before and threw it closed. A flash lit the room, the air screamed and my finger shocked. The scientists gasped and when I looked up holding my twinging appendage, I saw the basketball nowhere in sight.

"Where did it go?" Tesla asked, peering around the barrier to look at the undulating hole in the air…a hole that looked to be facing a concrete wall. With a bouncing sound I saw the ball come back through the tear, closer to the ground until a third time it hit the Bunker's concrete and bounced off the stepping disk. Freed from the invisible force, it rolled away into the workbench. With the machine still running we emerged, looking at the manifestation. Raising his hand to prevent any of his men getting closer, from his front pocket Tesla took a pen and tossed it out into the air before the portal. As it fell to the ground in an unnatural motion it arced toward the machine, sucked through it to clatter on the wall…or ground, I realized. Tesla was smiling, the gleam in his eyes growing brighter.

"Mr. Tesla." I whispered then said loud enough to be heard, not quite in a whisper as my hair started to blow from behind toward the burning hole. He turned to me, his expression of absolute vindication almost frightening.

"We have done it. I will have my time to find the answer to the riddle…this cannot be dismissed. We shall demonstrate it to Mr. Morgan and the Board of White Star tomorrow night."

"It is going to be rather hard to move the machine and generator farm, don't you think?"

"There is no need, Miss Elizabeth. Though I might not yet be able to transmit the amount of power required to propel a ship, I can project the origin anywhere within the arc of my existing towers, and as we observed previously, Manhattan is more than within range of its effect. Mr. Morgan is in for a show."

"You can...can project it? How…how small can you make it?" I prodded, terrified somehow I was going to regret my words.

"I've no idea. I would not think small would be how we would wish to make a device which much supplant three or four liner's screws." I was looking up at him and eventually he realized that and returned the favor. "Why do you look so dire?"

I sighed. "Have you thought about what might happen if you affixed it to a vessel and oriented the portal to face upward?"