Tesla's Signal (39 page)

“Brothers and Sisters, come and receive the Angel Jewel,” the white-clad woman cried, and the attendants rushed about, choosing the most fortunate and escorting them away.
Where are they going,
Clara wondered. Would these lucky souls be taken into the Holy Presence of the Angels themselves?
Take me, please take me...
 

The watch buzzed again and Clara remembered its significance. Why, it was a link to that Evil One himself:
Nikola Tesla
. This was her chance.
Tell the Masters where they can find him! Then you'll be chosen to go with them to Heaven...
“Blessed Angels! I know where you can get that devil!” she screamed, jumping up and down.

But there was so much noise that no one even heard. Everyone was screaming and carrying on, begging the Heavenly Ones to take their souls.

 Clara tried to push through the crowd. “Come and take me,” she shouted, holding onto the sides of her head as though struggling with herself. “I consorted with the evil one—” her breath came in ragged gasps: something inside, a remnant of her former evil, still tried to paralyze her throat and hold the words back. “I'll take you to him! I'll tell you where T—Tes—”

And her lips couldn't say any more.

All she had to do was throw herself down at the feet of the Angel Servant Shelia. They'd take her to the Angel ship, fly over to the lair of the Evil One and squash him like a bug...and then she would receive the ultimate Blessing. But she could not move: powerful tremors locked her body from head
to foot. The buzzing thing in her pocket...it was still vibrating, its resonance going all through her.
Wait, no
. That was no radio, but an external force that was sending out vibrations. Like the transmitter and receiver of a radio:
tune them to the same frequencies, and they will resonate, and a message will come clear.
 

,> a voice screamed in her head.

 

An image took shape in her head: a man surrounded by a halo of blue-white lightning. She gritted her teeth, and shook in a tremendous seizure.

Tremors racked her.
What does he mean?
She fought to remember, even while her brain was bombarded with the impulse to submit to the Masters,
confess your crimes, surrender to the bliss.
 

The man's image came into focus: his fierce, gaunt face glowed from within. His eyes blazed fire; his hair stood out with static electricity. He stood amid a forest of crackling sparks, his hands wrapped around a tall column of copper wire. The current spiraled up from his body.

<
Clara! Take hold of the power!>
He held out a hand; hurled a tremendous bolt which surged across the distance between them. Somehow she found the will to raise a hand and tap into the wave. It felt like a waterfall, powerful enough to cut through the Angels' hypnotic control.

Now
at last she caught a glimpse of reality: this was not Heaven, but a madhouse full of hysterical prisoners, all screaming and abasing themselves and begging for more complete enslavement.

She coughed and choked. The former bliss became spasms of agony as she struggled against her Masters' grip.

 

<
Don't let go...hold on to me!
>

Gasping and sobbing, Clara managed to stand up.
Turn around. Walk out,
she told herself. It took every ounce of will to make her body move.

She felt his presence in her mind, lending strength. <
Run from them! While you still can!>
 

Yes.
She gritted her teeth and gave commands to her body.
Move your legs. Run.
She dashed out the door. No one seemed to notice—the Angels posted no guards, because they could not conceive of anyone overcoming their control. She ran through the streets, heedless of obstacles. She shoved people out of her way; pushed herself beyond physical exhaustion, until she spotted the subway station entrance.

Ah! Now she remembered. Someone down there had called out, trying      to rescue her. She dashed down the stairs, one flight, two...and collapsed at the bottom.

Exhaustion overwhelmed her and she blacked out.

***

“Miss Clara? You all right?” a boy's voice called to her.

“Who...”

She blinked, trying to focus, and saw the boy Ike Aronov looking down at her. “You okay, Miss Clara? I lost hold of your hand—and then you were gone!”

Dr. Davidson came over. “Sure glad to see you back. What happened?”

“
Oi, vei iz mir.
” She rubbed her eyes. “My head...hurts like hell. That...that
thing
out there...” What had it done to her? For a moment she had...

“Oh my God! What did I...” she raked her hands over her face. “I was...” She found a blank spot in her memory as if a piece of film had been snipped off. “I think I was in one of those Silver Chamber places. And then...Niko reached out to me! We...we touched minds,” she realized. “He rescued me from them!”

But what had the Angels done to her in that chamber? A terrifying suspicion took hold of her.
Did I betray Niko?
Clara thought she was going to be sick.

“Come on,” Ike said, “let's go down lower. Maybe it'll be safe.”

“Yes, the subway seems to be the only safe place from...that
thing,”
said Dr. Davidson.

He helped her up, and she staggered down the stairs to the lower level of the station. “Oh. That's a relief. I feel much better with several feet of concrete shielding me.” She shook her head quickly, trying to shake off the memory of her experience. “I guess their broadcast waves don't penetrate the ground.”

She sat down, shivering and hugging her arms.
“Oi, gevalt
. I came so close.”

Davidson's eyes held somber concern. “My daughter...if she's out there, I'll never see her again. I'm going to ask people if they've seen her. Excuse me, Ma'am,” he turned to a nearby woman, “I'm looking for my daughter, a gorgeous model named Lorraine...”

The place was packed with people—businessmen, mothers and children, rich folks and poor, who had come down here for refuge. Apparently the subways had lost power as well. Without electricity, only a few slivers of light drifted down from ventilation shafts. The air quickly became hot and stuffy. The people milled about the dim station, muttering fearfully, trying to figure out what was going on.

“You think it's safe to go up yet?” said a young woman with a parasol.

“I'm not taking a chance up there with those things flying about,” said her gentleman friend.

“I knew we shouldn't have planned a New York wedding,” wailed a woman in a bridal gown. “Anything can happen in the big city.”

Babies cried, toddlers whined. An immigrant mother sat down on top of a bundle and wept into her shawl, while her five children clustered around her. “Ay-ay-ay...I should have stayed in Italy,” she complained to anyone who would listen. “They took my husband. Said he was...that man who makes the lightning.”

“All the foreigners better leave,” someone else muttered. “They're taking any man who even looks like
that one
.
”
 

Clara tried to pull herself together. With her hands still shaking, she took out a capacitor and small glass tube filled with inert gas. She connected the two and produced a bright glow. As that was the only source of light, people gravitated to it.

“Say, Miss, I believe I know you.” A man came up to her.

She looked up. “Hugo Gernsback? Hello, it's good to see a familiar face.”

He doffed his hat. “Sorry it couldn't be a better occasion. Miss Clara, is it? And how is...our friend?” he added, in a lower voice.

“Working on a project,” she answered him in the same tone. “Something to stop these Martian
goniffs.”

“Ah. He's a brave man, your friend. If only those morons at the Engineers' Club had listened to him...”

Others, seeing someone with an electric gadget, thought she might know something. A mother came up with several kids in tow. “Ma'am, what are those flying things...is it really Tesla who's attacking us?”

“No.” Clara took a deep breath and addressed everyone. “People of New York, it is
not
Tesla who's attacking us!
We have been attacked by creatures from another world,”
she cried at the top of her lungs. She waited for some idiot to call her a liar, but no one did. “They and their Silver Chamber are the ones who have
lied
to you,” she cried, “putting the blame on Tesla!
He
is the one who tried to
warn
New York a few weeks ago. He sent a radio broadcast, put up handbills. But nobody listened...they just tried to l-lynch us!”

The crowd stood in complete silence, absorbing this pronouncement.

“Ah yes, I
did
see those handbills,” said one old gentleman.

“But what
is
that shiny globe,” asked a policeman. “What does it do to people?”

“It broadcasts a mind controlling frequency.” Clara made herself relive the experience. All she remembered was a euphoric feeling, a desire for a self-abasing kind of worship. “I...can't remember much now. I think I lost control of my brain. I don't think it was painful...I remember a sort of joy. Like I was with a lover, or with God. But...it felt slavish...like I wanted to give up my soul to those sky invaders.” She began to shiver all over.

“Yeah. Those folks who go to them Angel shows...they're like dope-fiends,” said a black woman with several small children in tow. “They don't think about nothing else.”

“I wonder what they want,” Davidson said. “Do they just enjoy being worshiped?”

“They're demons from hell,” said a clergyman. “They steal their worshipers' souls.”

“I've heard of predators that hypnotize their prey before eating them,” Davidson said. “Maybe that's what these monsters do.”

“Are they gonna eat us?” a small boy clung to his mother's legs.

“What are we gonna do?” Ike wondered. “We can't stay here forever.”

“The subway network is huge,” Hugo said. “Maybe there's a way to escape their influence.”

Clara forced herself to think rationally. “I wonder how powerful their Orb is....we need to find its range.”

“I'm getting the hell out of New York,” a businessman declared. “I don't have time for an alien invasion. I've got appointments to make.”

“There's a train line to the Hudson Tubes,” said one of the railroad workers. “Maybe we could escape under the Hudson River, straight to New Jersey.”

“Excuse me, Miss,” a man with a trim white beard interrupted. “You've brought light into the darkness. I can see that you're one of the Light Bearers. ” He wrote an address on a card and handed it to her. “This is the person you should meet. One of the Lodge Brothers, near Philadelphia.”

“Thanks.” Clara had no idea what he was talking about, but anyone who might be a friend was welcome.

The railroad men and the policeman had gone into a huddle, making plans. “Maybe we can get a generator running.”

“We'll try to get across the river to Hoboken.”

“How can we stop these invaders?” one of the railway workers called out. “Could a Winchester rifle stop them?”

“What about heavy artillery?” the policeman said.

“I doubt it,” Clara said, “but we're going to come up with something that will. Mr. Gernsback? Can I show you something?” She held up the Elgin watch. “This is my frequency meter. The readings have damped down, since we're underground. It seems like we're safe here, for right now. But...see that reading there? The place where it spikes? That's the frequency they're sending out.”

Hugo studied the watch. “Well I'll be damned. So it is!”

“I'd like to test a theory. Suppose we could mirror the waves, and cancel them out?”

“Hells bells, Ma'am, that's a great idea.”

Clara rummaged in her pack and pulled out a cylinder, the size of a soup can. Next came her belt of small tools. Last came a tiny pill case. “This is an oscillator.” She opened the cylinder. “And this is a fragment of their original Orb. I picked it up when...well, never mind when.” She shook out the fragment, the size of her fingernail, and placed it between two contact points. “I'll just insert this
here,
and run some current through it...
there
.
”