The lab was set up in wood when Helen and Nikola returned. Helen sighed and said wistfully. "It's a bit nostalgic isn't it?"
Nikola wrinkled his nose and smirked at her. "Antiquated." He replied.
"From the man who claims he's sentimental and romantic." Helen teased, skirting the table and setting the device under the magnifying lens at the wooden table.
"Romantic I believe I've proved conclusively." Nikola grinned. Helen laughed, coloring slightly.
"Oh, and here are your toothpicks!" She said with a smile, holding up a little paper box.
"Good." Nikola snapped into business mode, snatching the box from her and nudging her briskly out of his way. She huffed out an exasperated breath at him. He didn't seem to even notice. He shook two toothpicks from the box and used them to turn the device around, peering at it with his eyebrows drawn together. "Energy relay matrix…" He muttered. Helen watched him carefully, ready to grab him if he tried to touch the object on the table. "Left panel should…open…" He said. He suddenly looked at Helen. "Well?"
"What?" She asked.
"Open the left panel. Try not to damage the energy relay matrix." Nikola said as if speaking to a half-witted child.
Helen gave him a level look.
"Oh, did I not say please?" He said with a mocking smirk. "Please, Miss Magnus?"
Helen ground her back teeth, trying not to smile at him. "I wouldn't know an energy relay matrix if it bit my ankle." She informed him. "But I'm doing my best not to damage anything."
They traded places and Helen picked up the miniscule metals tools to pry the minute left panel off the belly of the bug. While she did this Nikola said. "The energy relay matrix is what is allowing this object to draw energy from me. If we can deactivate it without damaging it, I'll be able to handle the device."
"I'm doing my best not to damage anything." Helen repeated, her brow knit. "If we only wanted it disabled, we could just smash it. Keeping it intact is our best way to determine how it was able to brainwash you." She looked up at him. "You're hovering." She said, pointedly looking to where he stood, nearly touching her elbow.
Nikola smirked. "Quality control." He said, but took a step back. He bent over the tray where the filaments from the device lay and narrowed his eyes at them. He shot a sidelong glance at Helen, who was absorbed in the delicate task she was performing, and gently put a fingertip on one of the filaments. Nothing happened. He picked it up. "I'm going to examine these." He said.
Helen's head jerked up. He was holding one of the filaments in his bare hand. "Nikola!"
"No compatible power source." He said with a grin.
Helen blew out a breath and mustered her patience. "Right." She said, gave herself a brisk mental shake, and returned to her task.
Several minutes passed in silence, except for Nikola's barely audible mutterings to himself. He finally said in a volatile tone. "This one isn't just an anchoring wire, but you can only see it under magnification. It's a resonant circuit transformer used to send high voltage, low current, high frequency alternating current." He snapped his teeth and tossed the last filament down on the table.
"Isn't that…?" Helen asked, wincing.
"Yes." Nikola snapped. He swore fluently in two languages.
"Language." Helen admonished.
"It's a Tesla coil." Nikola said, appearing to be on the brink of a tantrum. "I don't care for the irony."
At that moment, Helen managed to detach the tiny panel. "Oh! I've got it." Nikola put his hands on his hips and took several deep breaths, then glided over to her.
"Pardon me." He said with a great deal of apparent effort. Helen moved out of his way and he picked up his pair of toothpicks again, turning the device this way and that in deep concentration. "High energy disruptions. Transmissions." He said. "How would they….?" He lapsed into silence.
"Could the device simply be a way to change the frequency of your own energy to disrupt your prefrontal cortex function?" Helen wondered aloud.
"I'll leave the anatomy and physiology to you, Doctor." Nikola said, turning to her with satisfaction. "But it is simply an energy transmitter. It was using my own power to fire the coil to send pulses."
"Likely disrupting the prefrontal cortex, as I said." Helen said, getting excited and turning to a computer terminal to make notes. "Sort of like causing static in the frontopolar and parietal cortex. Keeping all your fine skills without the free will and decision-making capabilities. How extraordinary."
"The doctor talk really works for me." Nikola told her silkily, eying her up and down.
"It would be difficult to be certain of it without seeing it in action on an MRI." Helen continued thoughtfully, giving him an amused glance.
"It's not going back in my head." Nikola warned.
Helen gave a bright laugh. "I wasn't suggesting that. We simply need to repair it and have you activate it to see what frequencies it produces. But…"
"But we can't do that here." Nikola finished her sentence.
"Not when the Cabal knows we're here. We can't keep chancing it with the EM shield." Helen nodded, a contemplative look on her face. The phone rang and Helen picked it up. "Yes? Yes. We'll be right there." She said and hung up. She turned to Nikola. "John's here."
"Oh, goody." Nikola said darkly. He rolled his shoulders and brushed at his sleeves. He held out his hand. "Shall we?"
Helen gave him a tight smile, took his hand, and rose.
John Druitt was standing in Declan's office when they walked in. John's eyes shot to their clasped hands and his face became malevolent. "Helen, Nikola, what a delightful surprise to find you here…together." He said with cold joviality. Helen started to draw her hand from Nikola's, but he tightened his grip.
"Can it, Druitt." Nikola said bluntly, his eyes gleaming and intent. "Everyone here knows it's not delightful or a surprise."
John's eyes narrowed.
Declan sat back in his desk chair, watching the two men. "Shall I run for a measuring tape?" He asked cheekily. Both men instantly shot him deadly looks.
"Stop it, both of you." Helen said sharply. "Everyone sit down." She let go of Nikola's hand and sat on the sofa.
Nikola looked at her and subsided, sitting beside her. John shifted his weight and finally lowered himself into a chair, still watching Nikola with predatory eyes.
"Are you armed?" Helen asked John.
John's glance slid to her and a cold smile curved his lips. "They took everything but my belt and shoes. So…yes. I'm armed." He said smugly.
Nikola heaved an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes.
Helen ignored both of them posturing and stuck to the point. "What are you doing here?"
"Mister Macrae invited me when I called." John replied.
"For heaven's sake." Helen said. "Out with it."
"Oh, and there's this." John said, pulling a sheet of paper from his jacket's inside pocket. Helen took it and unfolded it.
"A schematic of the device?" She said in disbelief. Nikola snatched the paper from her and immediately began examining it.
"No." He said after a moment. "This is a modification…it wouldn't work." He looked up with a frown.
"Could you make it work?" John said in a dark, silky tone. His eyes grew intent.
Nikola scoffed and bent to examine the paper again. "Yes." He said with certainty.
"Too bad." John mused and his expression lost its intensity. He began to rise.
"John, sit." Helen said. "Explain. How did you get that paper?"
"The Cabal's portable EM shield is still in its beta version. I popped in during that little scuffle in Amsterdam. You provided a useful distraction." John said, slowly returning his weight to the chair.
"You've been following us?" Helen said.
John gave her a long look. "I've been following Tesla." He corrected pointedly.
"Why?" Helen asked, ignoring his jab.
"They want him." John replied with a small cold smile. "And they've got something we all want."
Helen shook her head. "Do you really think they'd give up the Source for Nikola?"
"No." John admitted. "But I'd enjoy handing him over anyway. And once they've got him hooked up to their system, there would be gaps in their permanent EM shield for a time, would there not? I could stroll right in and retrieve the Source blood."
"So why not just take Nikola? You've had dozens of opportunities." Helen said.
"Because he wasn't sure if the device could actually work." Nikola supplied, slipping the schematic into his jacket pocket. "If he handed me over and I could build the modified device, he'd be handing the Cabal the formula for an army of zombies, which isn't worth the risk."
"You always were a bright sort of lad." John said condescendingly.
"So we're at a stalemate." Helen said. "Handing over Nikola is out of the question, so you can't get the blood. Will you help us return to the Old City?"
"It's in my best interest, isn't it?" John said with a smirk. Helen was chilled slightly at the shared personality traits of John and Nikola and firmly reminded herself that each man had chosen his path and John's choice had been one of murder, evil, destruction, and vice. Nikola was, at worst, a selfish megalomaniac with poor social skills. Nikola was not an evil man.
"And once I've sussed this little bug out, it's back to open season on me." Nikola supplied drily.
"On the nose, old boy." John said mildly. "Watch your back."
"I'll be watching his back too, John." Helen said flatly.
"I really don't need the dirty details." John said in disgust. Helen flushed.
"Enough." Declan broke in, speaking for the first time. His voice carried authority, reminding everyone in the room that he was a man of power. "Doctor Magnus, Mister Tesla, I suggest you collect your things. I'll have the device packed up. Mister Druitt?"
John raised his eyebrows in question.
"You can wait outside." Declan said, his expression brooking no argument. "I'll show you out."
Declan led John from the room and Helen looked at Nikola, letting out a tense breath. "He always puts me on edge." She said.
"How forbearing of you. He puts me right over the edge." Nikola replied mildly, giving her an amused look.
"He makes you look like a choirboy in comparison." Helen said in a teasing tone, regaining some humor.
"What an insulting creature you are." Nikola said with a dramatically hurt expression. "I can't imagine why I tolerate you."
Helen gave him a long, gleaming look.
"Oh." Nikola said with a smug grin. He took her hand. "That's right."
They exited the office and went to collect their things.