Tesla's Signal (40 page)

“Brilliant.” Hugo, Ike and Davidson were staring with admiration as she adjusted the gadget with a tiny probe. “I sure hope it works.”

“It better. I'm not staying down here till those
schmucks
leave.”

“What about the rest of us? It looks like we're trapped here.”

Clara sighed. “I wish I could help you, but I don't have enough fragments. Look, Hugo. I'm going to use this gizmo and try to make a run for it. My friend and I—we're going to fight back against these invaders. We could use some allies. Can you set up a radio link?”

Hugo grinned. “You bet. Maybe we can use a railroad channel and keep in touch somehow. Here's my radio bandwidth.” He gave her a card. “Miss Clara, don't forget us. You'll come back, won't you? And bring... your friend.”

Clara started to say that Niko had no wish to come back to a town that had tried to murder him with rocks and baseball bats. But she held it back. Now she understood the compulsion which had controlled those people. They probably wouldn't even remember lynching Nikola.

“We'll try. Now, I have to be going. Look, everyone, don't give up hope—we'll defeat these Angel
shmendriks
. Ike? Dr. Davidson? You coming?”

“I'm staying, Miss Clara,” said Ike. “My family's here in New York. I can't leave 'em.”

“Ah. Brave boy.” She felt bad leaving all these poor people stuck here in this hellhole. “Listen, we'll figure out a way to come back and rescue all of you,” she told everyone, hoping it was true.

She turned to Davidson. “Let's go. This mirror-phase jammer probably has a range of about four feet. Stick close—grab onto my elbow!”

They emerged from the subway to find that the Orb had already taken over the city. Businessmen with briefcases, who had been rushing to their appointments, now wandered around in circles. Women dressed in the height of fashion sat in the middle of the streets. Everyone looked as if they had been swallowed up in a giant cloud of opium smoke.  

No time for fear! “Let's go!” Clara gripped the phase jammer and dashed madly through the crowds while Davidson clung to her. She expected to be stopped at any moment—by thugs, Angel disciples, or worse—by something that could steal her very soul. The Angel followers were calm now, but if they knew who she was...

The sun had set; soon it would be dusk. Where were the street lights? Why were the shops dark? “They've cut power to the whole city,” she realized.

Then out of the sky came a floating platform upon which several tall aliens stood. Clara got one terrified glance at their spindly shapes—the un-human limbs, the vestigial shoulder wings, the elongated skulls. “That's them,” she muttered, “the bastards who took Niko!” 

At the sight of these creatures, cries of rapture floated from the throngs. “Hallelujah! Holy Angels!” They bowed, kneeling and prostrating themselves on the sidewalk. “Take us with you!”

A human woman, dressed in white, stood among the space creatures. “Attention New York,” the amplified voice of Sister Shelia boomed out. “We have knocked out that wicked electricity so that you may stop worshiping Science, and instead obey your true masters, the Blessed Angels. Now hear and obey your new rules: all schools and colleges are closed. There will be no machines, no streetcars or automobiles allowed, without permission of the Masters. Anyone caught disobeying will be severely punished. All glory to the Angels!”

Once again the mob cheered wildly.

Gevalt!
Clara had never been so terrified in her life. She would rather face a hundred Cossacks on charging horses than the thing she faced now.
They want to stamp out all science and technology—anything that might give us a chance to resist them
.

Clara and the Professor didn't stop running till they reached Essex Street. She found her Uncle and a few neighbors anxiously waiting in the shop.
Thank God, the Orb's range has not reached this far...not yet.
But it might, after Wardenclyffe reached its full power.

Breathing heavily, she told Uncle and the others what had happened. “You were right, Uncle—you'd better get out of town immediately. I understand it now. Before, they were just gathering servants to do their bidding. Now...” she held onto her head, walking in a circle. “Now they've got an Orb at Wardenclyffe...and a booster here in the city. If they figure out how to get the maximum output, it'll be strong enough to suck out everyone's soul like marrow from a chicken bone!”  

“Vei iz mir,”
said Miss Feigel.

“It may take a few hours or days for the signal to reach full strength. By then...all of you better be gone. The whole city will go under—maybe the whole world!”

Miss Feigel clutched her talisman against the Evil eye. “The whole world? What do you mean, dear? How could they possibly...? ”

“The Wardenclyffe Tower was meant to be the center of a worldwide communication network,” Clara said. “If they put more boosters in other areas...maybe in every major city...we won't stand a chance. Here, Uncle...” She handed him the phase-jammer. “Wear this for protection from the Orb. Now all of you, get moving!” She made shooing motions with her hands. “Get out of town immediately!”

Abraham got up. “I'll take my delivery truck—we can go to my warehouse in Nyack. I can fit about ten folks. The rest of you...take wagons, horses or whatever you can.”

Clara climbed into the Roadster and started the engine.“Professor, hang onto your hat. I'm going to floor it and get the hell out of town before they catch us.
'No automobiles allowed.'”
 

Without electricity, New York was eerie and almost pitch-black.
This is the future of humanity,
she thought, driving as fast as she dared.

23: Electric Jesus

Niko sat frozen, with his hands wrapped like claws around the glowing column of wire.

He had seen Clara in the Silver Chamber...saw through her eyes, felt what she felt: the screen that pulsed out the alien frequency...the invading Angel presence that tried to suck out her soul.

Clara! Fight back! Change your frequency!

He must have shouted it aloud. His throat was raw and the whole mountain seemed to echo his cries.

Niko had adjusted his whole being into the frequency which could reach Clara and free her. He had transmitted a bolt of mind-force,  hurling the energy out of himself like a human tornado. When he made the connection, an echo bounced back to him: a shred of the same compulsion that had almost swallowed Clara.
Surrender to the bliss!
 

And then Clara reached out to him, as a drowning person reaches out a hand from the maelstrom. She made the connection: she became the receiver. She took the power, broke free of the Alien mind-rape and managed to stagger from the Silver Chamber.

But Niko could not shut off the link.
Come to the Angels,
said the Orb.
Give yourself up!
 

He walked in a tight circle, hands pressed against his head.
Submit yourself to the Holy Angels!
 

“No!” He grabbed a wire-cutter and hit himself in the head. Once, twice, thrice...until the pain interrupted the message of the Orb and the blood ran down his face.

Got to get away!
He staggered to his feet, blundered out the door and began to run through the forest. Wait a minute: where was he going?
New York City, of course. Give myself to the Angels. All will be forgiven, and they'll spare Earth!
 

He stumbled over a large rock and fell headlong. His hands closed around a sharp piece of granite.
Sharp enough to cut...yes.
That would stop the compulsion.
Bash my brains out..
.

With a cry, he threw the rock away.
I am the master of my soul. Calculate 99 to the third power!
But even the flood of numbers could not help, so Niko called up the epic Serbian poem cycle he had memorized at his mother's knee.
The Battle of Kosovo.
 

Noble Prince Lazar, the enemy forces stretch from mountain to sea... yet we shall do battle with them... and we shall defeat them!
 

All that day he recited the epic as he ran across the ridge-top of Tussey Mountain, tripping over rocks and brush. He stumbled over a fallen tree, got up and ran again.
Have to disappear.
He built a great high wall around his mind so no one could find him. The only way to escape the Orb was to leave himself.

Night came to the mountains. Still Niko wandered across stream beds, up rocky outcrops, through deep, quiet hemlock forests that had stood for hundreds of years. His mind whirled at high speed like the alternating current generator. Broken thought fragments spun around as the lightning flashed in his head.

At sunrise, Niko broke from the forest and arrived at a farmstead. Cows grazed in the pastures; pigs rooted about in the dirt. A farmer plowed with a team of horses. A farm wife hung laundry in the yard of a ramshackle farmhouse with a deep porch. The sights and smells comforted him: he had returned in memory to his boyhood farm.

The farm wife caught sight of the bruised, torn-up vagrant who suddenly emerged from the woods and came strolling across the fields toward her house. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Who're you?”

“Frequency is off,” Niko mumbled.

“Eh? What's that?”

Niko just tilted his head, listening to the hum of an electrical device nearby. “It must be the well pump.”

Two German Shepherds came over, sniffed him curiously and wagged their tails.

The farm wife looked at him warily, said a few words which Niko didn't catch...hard to separate sensations, when all of them were so intense! He could hear the horses breathing across the field. He could hear the pump missing strokes. “Should fix that.”

The farm wife wiped her hands on her apron. “Here, mister...” she brought him a dipper of water. “Sit down. You look like hell, if you don't mind my sayin'.”

“Thank you.” When he listened closely, he could tell that her heart was skipping an occasional beat. He started thinking about an electrical device...just a tiny pulse...to correct that.

“Julius,” the farm wife called to her husband, “we got a visitor.”

The farmer Julius came over. Niko just watched them, fascinated with the biological interplay of frequency and energies, the electrical impulses that made up human beings.

“The well pump,” Niko said, and went over to the machine. “Bad connection...”

“Hey you, what do you think you're—”

Niko already had the cap off and he began to inspect the apparatus, listening intently. “Now, what's wrong with you, little currents?” he said to the electrical pulses within. “What's preventing your flow?”

“What's he doing? Is he a lunatic?” the farmer said.

“Ah, what the heck,” the wife said, “you ain't been able to fix it. Why not let 'im try.”

Niko put a hand on the machine and felt the break in current. “Now, you don't want to go that way, do you?” He slipped into his native
Serbian, speaking to the currents as he had done as a child.
Braiding them, like Mother knits her wool scarves.
“Make the connection here, and here.”

Farmer Julius took off his hat. “He talkin' to that machine? I'll be god-damned.”

Soon the currents aligned themselves properly and the machine started up again, drawing water from the ground as it should. “There, that's much better,” he told them. “Thank you and go in peace.”

He looked up to see the farmer and his wife standing over him.

“Well if that don't beat all,” said the farmer's wife. “It's a miracle! You must be an Electric Jesus,” she added, with an uneasy laugh.

But Farmer Julius had a worried look in his eye. “Blanche, I don't know...what if it's sorcery!” He clutched a silver cross around his neck. “What if he's that warlock we been hearing about, who's been living on that there mountain?” He pointed to the looming ridge beyond the field.

Niko stood up. “I only mean to do good,” he murmured. He walked away, heading toward the main street, with the dogs following him. A feed store stood at the center of the little village, flanked by a row of tall houses with gingerbread trim and spacious porches. A post office stood at the crossroads, with a sign proclaiming
Oak Hall, PA.
 

“Hey you,” a voice called out from behind. “Hold up a minute!”

Julius, Blanche, and a few other townspeople were following him. “Mister, we want to know who you are and where you're from.”

They took up positions on all sides, so that he could not go forward. He backed up against the tall gingerbread house which stood across from the chapel and cemetery.