He would track him, and he would take the device from him. Because of his illness, Joe was easier to track in the physical world than most. Since he lived near Grand Central Terminal and never went outside, he’d be easy to find. It would be like the proverb — like taking candy from a baby.
Ash tapped his thumb against the phone’s tiny screen, the grand view from the riverbank forgotten. He could hire surveillance teams, but that was too obvious. He’d tried to track Joe online over the years, just for fun, but the man was practically a ghost. Even his cell phone popped on and off the grid sporadically, showing up at Grand Central Terminal but nowhere else. He’d taken paranoia to a whole new level.
Glancing up to make sure that the event wasn’t ready to start, Ash returned his secure phone to his left pocket and took his regular phone out of his right. He typed up an email explaining he had heard about Joe’s father’s death “through the grapevine” and suggesting they meet for drinks at The Campbell Apartment. The bar was inside Grand Central Terminal, so that shouldn’t be a problem for Joe, although he didn’t mention that.
What would Ash do once he had the Oscillator? Maybe the device could be sent into space, attached to an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, and deployed to save the world. Maybe it could destroy the Breakers’ fracking equipment, collapse their boreholes with what looked like fracking-induced earthquakes. That was a good start. Come to think of it, targeted earthquakes could also shake loose enough people to let the planet truly heal, since seven billion was not a sustainable population. He’d save his grandest ambitions for later and start small — with the Empire State Building.
His office there was overinsured anyway, but not by enough to be suspicious. He might start there, but he wouldn’t stop there. He realized he was smiling. The Oscillator was a powerful destructive force. He looked at the crumbling homeless shelter that would be leveled soon. The seeds of its destruction would grow into newer, better creations.
Who knew what the Oscillator might create in the world? It would have to be found. It would have to be tested. But the potential was there.
He must have it.
Only he would dare to use it properly, and to its full potential.
Chapter 14
Joe stood at the billiard table with pages spread out across the green baize. The blueprint with the sticky note on it was for an unnamed device. There was no picture of it fully assembled, but it didn’t look as if it would turn into anything sinister. It looked like a tiny articulated figure run by gears and racks.
Nowadays it would be called a robot, but Nikola Tesla would have called it an automaton. Whatever it was called, it didn’t look worth all the trouble. Its harmless looks must be deceiving.
He read the newspaper clipping, learning about the collapse of a bridge in Connecticut a few months before he was born. Three (red) people had died. The article speculated that metal fatigue was responsible for the disaster. His father had stuck another yellow note on the picture of the broken bridge. On that one he wrote: I was responsible for this. May God forgive me. Show the wisdom I did not and have the courage to destroy it.
Joe had no idea what his father wanted him to destroy. He was hoping that the automaton would give him a clue, because he knew that he would follow his father on one last, crazy adventure and try to do as he asked.
Maybe it would help him to make sense of the man. Maybe it would help him to make sense of himself. Or maybe it was another wild-goose chase. Whatever it was, it was the last thing he had from a father he’d ignored too long.
He studied the newspaper clipping. How like his father to give him this as his final gift — guilt and a confusing request to show wisdom without an explanation as to how or why. Could his father have knocked down the bridge? If so, what did that action have to do with the plans for a tiny automaton?
Joe pored over the plans, making a list of items he would need to build the tiny creature. By the time he finished, his list looked a lot like the lists in Nikola’s folder.
His neck cracked when he straightened up. Too long bending over the billiard table. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. Time for bed, but he still had stuff to do.
First, he gathered the original plans and put them in the old cardboard box his father had saved for him. Even though he’d photographed every scrap of paper in the box and backed up the photos, he felt as if he ought to lock the box in a safe, just in case.
But he didn’t have a safe. He didn’t need one, because his entire house was more secure than most banks. He took the box upstairs to his office and stashed it in a closet behind boxes of turn-of-the-century Christmas decorations. It seemed like the last place anyone would look.
He stuck his parts list in his pocket and went down to the kitchen to make a cup of chamomile tea. Some previous inhabitant of the house had purchased an electric kettle made out of copper. Based on the wiring, he thought the device had been created in the 1930s. So far, it had always worked, and it had never threatened to set the house on fire, but he reminded himself, again, that it might be a good idea to take it apart and replace the electronics. He had no intention of parting with the dinged kettle itself. It belonged to the house.
Tea in hand, he headed to the parlor. His upstairs office was fine during the day, but he preferred to spend his evenings working on his laptop in the parlor. He liked the warmth of the fireplace. Edison did, too. The dog was stretched out in front of the artificial flames, snoring away.
Joe set the teacup on the marble-topped coffee table like a Victorian gentleman. This was a room his non-ancestor Nikola Tesla would have understood. Except for the laptop on the ottoman, everything dated from Nikola’s era, and the inventor would have recognized the laptop as a device he had predicted over a hundred years before, one that could wirelessly send and transmit information across the globe.
Nothing here would shock Nikola. For all Joe knew, Nikola Tesla might have visited this underground house and sat in this very parlor. He might have known the designer of one of the largest electrical underground rail systems in the world — one that ran under his very feet. If so, why wouldn’t the man have invited the famous scientist here for tea?
Joe pulled the leather armchair closer to the fire and set his shopping list on the arm. It wouldn’t take him too long to order the parts. He’d have them sent to his lawyer’s office. Mr. Rossi would forward them by bike courier to the information booth. That was how Joe got all his mail.
Before he started ordering, he needed to check his email. He’d been off the grid for most of the day, other than a quick note to his administrative assistant to tell everyone he’d be unreachable.
One (cyan) email had been sorted into his Private folder, and he went there first to see an email from Alan Wright, CEO of Wright Industries. Joe paused before answering it. Alan had sent him a few emails over the months he’d been in New York, and he hadn’t answered any of them. He hadn’t wanted Alan to see him penned up in the tunnels like a hamster.
He skimmed the email. Alan had heard of his father’s death and wished to express his sympathy. How had Alan heard, and why did he care?
Joe hadn’t told anyone but Celeste and Vivian about his father’s death, but the Internet was a giant tattletale, so presumably the whole world knew. Anyway, Alan wanted to meet tomorrow for a drink at The Campbell Apartment — a trendy cocktail lounge in Grand Central Terminal. That couldn’t be an accidental choice. Alan must know he was trapped here.
In some ways, Alan was as trapped as Joe. He could move around the world, but he couldn’t escape from his role as a billionaire CEO. Joe knew the trap of being surrounded by people suddenly afraid to tell him the truth, afraid to open up to him, ready to lie to make him happy, certain his life was far too glamorous for them and their concerns. He wondered if Alan missed being ordinary as much as he did. He tapped out a quick answer, arranging to meet him the next evening at eight (purple) for drinks.