7

CHAPTER 11

New Kensington, Pennsylvania
Thursday, August 20
1925

Lefty once again proved his value by finding accommodations for them at an inexpensive hotel a short walk from the train depot. Then, saying he had to see a man about a dog, Lefty bounded out the door and clattered down the stairs, the Gladstone firmly in hand.

"What was that all about?" Chance asked, taking the easy chair opposite the bed and propping his feet on an ottoman.

"I'd say he's off to look up an old sweetheart," Christopher said, "or maybe rob a bank."

"He wouldn't - would he?"

Christopher shrugged. "With Lefty, who knows. That projector-thing Tesla let him keep worries me. If that's what was used to take out Macklin, maybe it can knock down walls or open vaults."

Abruptly Christopher launched them from the easy chair and began pacing.

After a few minutes Chance asked, "What's eating you? I'm starting to get dizzy."

"I'm gonna marry Althea, now she's free to do so. Once you and I are separated. I'm goin' back to St. Paul and ask her to be my bride."

"That's kind of sudden, isn't it?"

"Sudden it may be, but I know me mind. And me heart."

Chance wasn't so sure about Althea's, but was ready to offer congratulations when reality reared its ugly head. "You can't. You can't marry her."

"And why might that be?" Chance could taste Christopher's rage. "Once I've rid meself of you, always lookin' over me shoulder - "

"Because in 1927, you die."

There was a very, very long silence.

"Sez who?" Christopher finally managed.

"Says the obituary I found - " he stopped himself from saying 'on the Internet' and substituted, " - in a library newspaper archive. I found three altogether. You die in 1927. Your successor dies in 1954. His successor dies in 1975. His successor, the man I took over for, dies in 2004." Helping me. "Can you risk Althea being killed too? Do you want her to have to bury you?"

"How? How do I…die?"

"Fire, I think." He didn't remember. At the time he located the death notice, it never occurred to him he might one day wish he'd memorized the details.

Christopher took a few more distracted paces. "Did the obituary happen to mention where it is I come to meet me Maker?"

Chance hesitated. He'd read enough science fiction to believe messing with history was dangerous. How much would telling what little he knew, giving Christopher the opportunity to avoid the location, alter history?

"All I know is Minneapolis."

"I was wonderin' if it happened in a lunatic asylum. Because that's where we'll be residin', the both of us, if this separation doesn't happen."

New Kensington, Pennsylvania
Friday, August 21
1925

Lefty returned to the hotel the following morning in time to join Chance and Christopher for a late breakfast. It was too soon to return to Tesla's bunker, so they walked downtown. As on the train from St. Paul, Chance was fascinated by the old-time sights, the five and dime store with merchandise actually selling for a nickel, ice cream parlors serving ice cream utterly devoid of sugar substitutes and preservatives. Drug stores that sold only pharmaceuticals. Christopher bought postcards and spent some time writing to Althea, Nina Clifford, and his landlady. Postage for each card cost a penny.

Riding the street-car to the Budd plant, while Lefty dozed Chance and Christopher contemplated the chances for a successful separation.

After a time, Christopher sent, 'Ya don't remember any details about…me death?'

'No. I wasn't looking for details. Just trying to piece together a few things.'

'But I do die in a fire.'

'I'm pretty sure of it.'

'Funny thing about fire,' Christopher sent. 'It has a way of makin' positive identification of a body a wee bit difficult.'

Chance was silent as he mulled over Christopher's comment. Then he began to smile.

… … … … … … …

Tesla was all but dancing with excitement as he ushered the men into his lab. He waved several long strips of graph paper as if they were banners proclaiming repeal of the Volstead Act.

"This is astonishing. Beyond astonishing. I've been testing my EEG recorder on volunteers. Not one man's pattern duplicates another's. Of course my sample is too small to be definitive, but under the circumstances, I'm prepared to accept your assertion that each person's pattern is unique."

"So now you'll test me? Us? See if we produce two distinct patterns?" Chance asked.

"Correct. Have a seat and I'll attach the electrodes."

Chance hoisted himself onto a make-shift examination table.

On a cart beside the table he saw a black multi-geared device with a revolving drum which held a roll of graph paper. An arm with a pen-nib tip could be lowered to draw a line on the paper, producing a chart. A plate bearing the name HOSPITALIER ODONOGRAPH was affixed to one side.

Attached to the odonograph via insulated cable was another apparatus, one of Tesla's inventions. Long black cords terminating in electrodes emerged from its various orifices. True to his word, overnight Tesla had created a crude electroencephalograph.

'Looks like what you'd get if a toaster mated with an octopus,' Chance sent, causing Christopher to suffer a sudden coughing spell.

When Christopher had recovered, Tesla began to affix the electrodes to Christopher's scalp and forehead with small pieces of surgical tape.

"Try to breathe normally while we're running the test," Tesla said. "A cough or a sneeze distorts the pattern. Now, yesterday you indicated you can each…put your awareness to sleep, as it were, leaving the other without interference. I will record a pattern with first one of you asleep, then the other. Which of you wishes to go first?"

"Me," Chance said before Christopher could reply. "Nighty-night, Christopher."

"Go suck an egg."

"Lie down, try to relax, but don't drift off. Here we go."

The drum made a soft whirring sound when set in motion. The pen-nib produced a scratching noise. After a few minutes, Tesla stopped the drum and tore off a length of paper. He handed it to lefty.

"Please mark this one Christopher Chance-A. Now, then. Let's have Christopher Chance-B emerge."

"Here I am," Christopher said.

Tesla restarted the drum. After another short time, he stopped it, tore off the paper and gave it to Lefty.

"Just for curiosity, why don't you take a reading with both of us awake," Chance said.

"Very well."

Tesla started the drum. The pen began sweeping wildly over the paper. After a moment, Tesla lifted the pen and shut down the drum.

"Dear me, that hasn't happened before. I must contact Dr. Berger and ask if he's encountered any similar phenomena."

'I'm not a bettin' man,' Christopher sent, 'but five'll getcha ten he hasn't even come close."

… … … … … …

Tesla excused himself and went into his office, taking the charts with him. Christopher, unnerved by the Tesla coil's frequent discharges, led the way to foyer to wait.

"So how come everyone gets so antsy around Tesla?" Chance asked Lefty. "Why'd you quit working with him - apart from the projector you…borrowed, I mean."

Lefty sighed. "I d'know. Things just kept getting weird. Peculiar. Too much for me, so I split for greener pastures."

"Peculiar how?" Christopher asked.

"Just…peculiar. Things'd disappear. Then come back again, only…changed a little. Some of those tools in that locked case - did you see 'em? They started out as screw drivers or maybe a wrench, that sort of thing. They don't look like any tools I've ever seen anymore."

Chance had noticed, but only one item struck him as any more peculiar than the rest of the things littering Tesla's office. One device looked suspiciously like a miniature Maglight flashlight that had started to melt. He'd decided it couldn't be what he imagined.

"And that spooked you?"

"Maybe not so much as…other things. When he was in Colorado, a magician hired Tesla to make a machine for him to use in his show. You know everything they do is some kind of trick. He wanted something that would instantly send him from one side of the stage to the other."

Oh, Chance thought, a transporter beam. Beam me up, Scotty.

"A matter transmitter, Nik-o called it. Only it never worked right. What it did was make a duplicate of whatever was sent, so now you got two, one at point A, one at point B. Only the one at point A, if it was a living thing, wasn't alive any more. It wasn't so bad when it was a goldfish or something, but if you tried it with a human…."

Nope, not a transporter beam, a fax machine. One that killed the original.

"Chance," Christopher said, "what happens to you, once he separates us?"

"Don't worry about that. He hasn't said he can do it."

Tesla entered the foyer as Chance spoke. "Oh, but I believe I can."

Tesla glanced at his watch. Chance followed his gaze. If it wasn't the same watch Baptiste possessed, it was an exact duplicate. Maybe one that had passed through the killer fax machine.

"It's growing late and I have much to do to prepare," Tesla said. "Come back tomorrow and I will be ready to proceed."

… … … … …

'I'm starting to know this route by heart,' Chance sent as once again the men rode the street-car back to town. 'Next time bring a book.'

'With any luck tomorrow will be our last ride. I'll be going home and you'll be - Chance, I'm not so sure about this. There's no telling what'll happen to you.'

'What we need to do is figure out how you're going to disappear and make everyone think you die,' Chance sent. 'We'll work on it tonight. Find a way to make it look real. You have two years to set it all up. You'll need to train your successor, pick someone good. Maybe Mike Tilghman. I never saw a man drink that much beer and not have to be carried home.'

'Has a hollow leg, he does,' Christopher sent, 'and a dandy right cross.'

'Then you disappear,' Chance continued. 'That won't be too difficult in this era - no credit card receipts, no Social Security numbers, no cell-phone records…."

'No Internet.'

'I thought you thought I made that up.'

'I'm still not convinced you weren't pullin' me leg a wee bit with that.'

Christopher had simply refused to believe Chance's attempt to explain the basics of the World Wide Web. Tesla, on the other hand, had grasped the concept instantly.

After a time, Christopher sent, 'I'm thinkin' we'll go to Alaska. I always did want to try me hand at minin' gold.'

'It gets cold in Alaska.' Chance gave a mental shudder. 'Besides, you'd look ridiculous in a bushy beard and sealskin hat. Go to California. Buy real estate. There's more gold in oceanside properties than in all the mines of California and Alaska combined.'

'Or maybe make motion pictures. Word is, talkies are the comin' thing. With Althea's voice and looks, she'd be a knock-out on the screen.'

'I've got an idea. Whether it's Hollywood or the gold fields, let me know you succeeded. Put an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle. Something easy to spot in the archives…"Sorry I missed you, see you next time I pass through", like that. Don't sign it, though, in case someone's suspicious or trying to trace you.'

Christopher shook his head. 'Anyone might run a notice saying that. Here's a better idea. I owe ya for helpin' me prove Humphrey's guilt. Say fifty dollars gold. We'll pick a place - a landmark that exists in my time and yours, and bury it in a tin or a jar. When you're home, go look for it. If you find it - or if you don't - then you'll know.'

Chance considered. 'Okay, that'll work. But in my time, gold's a little conspicuous. Save it for your honeymoon. Fill that jar with quarters, dimes, silver dollars, whatever you have. The less circulated, the better. Won't cost you much, but those coins will be worth a fortune in Twenty-ten.'

'Where shall I hide it, then?'

Chance thought for a moment. 'Golden Gate Park. The Francis Scott Key monument. Southwest corner.'

'Sounds like a plan.'

'Now you're starting to sound like me.'