Edison's Alley

by Neal Shusterman

“It spoke to you!” the woman said, overjoyed by the prospect. “What did it tell you? What did it say?”

  Petula just shook her head.

  “Enough!” said Ms. Planck. “Thank you for your assistance, but we’re done here.” Then she pulled something out of her pocket. It wasn’t money, but a small silver ball about the size of a cherry. She dropped the silver marble at the woman’s feet and took several steps back. Suddenly things began to change. The colors in the den started to fade. Piano strings broke with harsh twangs.

  Ms. Planck returned to the harp and lifted the heavy end. “Time to go,” she said.

  Petula couldn’t help looking back. What she saw would have made a lesser person scream. The woman’s skin was puckering. Her clothes began to tatter. Still she smiled. Still she held Petula’s gaze.

  “What was that?” Petula asked Ms. Planck. “What did you do?”

  “It’s called a temporal accelerator. You might call it a time bomb.”

  Now Petula understood. Everything within a field of about ten feet around the woman was aging at incredible speed—including the woman herself. In the blink of an eye, she looked fifty. Sixty. Eighty. Her hair grayed, her skin wrinkled, and her body withered before Petula’s eyes.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” she croaked from within the time field, in the voice of a very old woman. “I am complete…and all is as it should be…”

  Then her smile became the fleshless grin of a skeleton. Her bones crashed to the ground and disintegrated. The piano collapsed, and when the field faded, all that remained of the den was a rusty piano soundboard on a dusty, crumbling floor. The entire room had been consumed by time.

  “We do the things we must do,” Ms. Planck said. “Don’t think too long on it, Petula.”

  And so, Petula resolved she wouldn’t, not if she wanted to be a full-fledged member of the Accelerati. Even though she had just seen a woman disintegrate before her eyes, she couldn’t let emotions or regrets get in the way. They had come here for the harp; they got the harp, end of story.

  Except that the dead woman was right. The harp had spoken to her. Not in words, but in the silky vibration of feelings. Of intuition. Only now was Petula able to put that feeling into five simple words:

  “You must complete the circuit.”

  Mitch was waiting at Nick’s front door, dreading the moment he’d return from his wildlife adventure. Things hadn’t gone the way Mitch had planned. In fact, they hadn’t gone at all.

  Once Petula finally called him back an hour later, they’d walked over together to retrieve the harp, but it wasn’t there. Neither was the harpist.

  “It’s not like it’s your fault,” Petula had told him when they left empty-handed.

  “Then why does it feel like it is?”

  “Force of habit,” Petula told him, “because you usually are to blame. Come on, let’s go to my house.”

  Then she dragged him over for old movies and enforced snuggling, until she had to use the bathroom and he could escape. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy his time with Petula, but she was like a cinnamon fireball candy—one was fine, but a whole mouthful could be painful.

  Finally, a little after four, Mitch watched as Val dropped Nick at the curb and sped off to her tree house, or wherever a girl like her lived.

  Nick seemed in pretty good spirits. But those good spirits wouldn’t last for long.

  “So how was it?” Mitch asked, walking up to him, trying not to telegraph his own anxiety.

  “Pretty good, actually,” Nick told him. “I bagged a gopher that I’m pretty sure was already dead, and the tire of a parked Mercedes. That’s when Val decided to call it a day. Is the harp in the attic?”

  “Oh, hey, look what Caitlin brought.” Mitch handed Nick the abacus. “She wanted me to give it to you.”

  Nick perked up. “Caitlin?”

  “Yeah, she said…” Mitch hesitated. “Um, she said not to say anything.”

  Nick frowned. “Fine. Where’s the harp?”

  “Well, here’s the thing…” said Mitch, and he left it hanging.

  “You didn’t get it,” Nick said.

  “We went, but when the harp lady didn’t come to the door, Petula and I looked in a window. It was like a whole room had caught on fire or something—all that was left was ash. I think maybe she spontaneously combusted.”

  Nick shook his head. “No,” he said. “The Accelerati got to her first.”

  “We don’t know that,” offered Mitch.

  “I know that,” insisted Nick.

  “How would they find out about her?”

  “The same way we did. They must have seen the flyer somewhere.”

  “Well,” Mitch suggested, “maybe they spontaneously combusted, too.”

  “Just go home, Mitch,” Nick told him.

  “I’m sorry,” Mitch said. He was waiting for Nick to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, like Petula had.

  But Nick didn’t. “Go home, Mitch. I’ll see you in school on Monday, okay?”

  The disappointment in his voice was too dense for Mitch to cut through, so he left without another word.

  Nick watched his friend go, resisting the kinder part of himself that wanted to tell Mitch it was okay, because it wasn’t.

  But if it was anyone’s fault, it was Nick’s, for not doing it himself. Saying that to Mitch would have been more hurtful than not saying anything at all. And really, there was no way to know if Nick could have gotten there first anyway.

  If the Accelerati had the harp, Tesla’s machine could never be finished. Nick had to somehow get it back. This was their biggest setback yet.

  Nick went up to the attic to consult with the machine. It was odd, but he did feel that the machine could communicate with him. “Complete me,” it said. “You’re running out of time.”

  It had waited for years, in pieces, here in the attic. Why, then, was its need so urgent now? Deep down Nick knew the answer. It had something to do with the asteroid. And the carpet shocks. And the worldwide aurora.

  The moment he had turned on the stage lamp, attracting people to his garage sale, he had set something in motion, and it was speeding toward an unseen end. He only hoped he could get there before the Accelerati did.

  The secret society had the clear advantage. They had money and manpower on their side. What did Nick have?

  In moments of weakness, he thought it might be best to hand everything over to them, and get out of this deep water before he drowned in it. But then he would think of Jorgenson—that smug, self-important jackass. Whatever he would use Tesla’s inventions for, it wouldn’t be good.

  And there was more driving this rivalry. Maybe it was petty and childish, but Nick just couldn’t let Jorgenson find out about Tesla’s great machine. It was not what Tesla would have wanted. Nick knew that as certainly as he knew that it was his purpose to complete it.

  Just when he had finished installing the abacus—sensing instinctively where it went—a voice behind him made him jump.

  “Can I be scared yet?”

  Nick turned to see his brother at the top of the attic stairs. Nick hadn’t even known he was home. The expression on Danny’s face was more an accusation than a question.

  “Huh?”

  “You told me a few weeks ago not to be scared by all the weird stuff, because you’d be scared for both of us.”

  “There’s nothing to be scared of anymore, Danny,” Nick said. “The asteroid didn’t hit us. Everything’s okay.” Nick was aware that he wasn’t being very convincing.

  Danny eyed the collection of odd objects. “Sometimes I come up to the attic when you’re not here,” he said, “and just look at it.”

  Nick couldn’t read his brother’s face. “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “And you shouldn’t be getting all this stuff back. There’s something wrong with all of it, and you bringing it here just makes it worse.”

  Nick couldn’t deny that. “Maybe it has to get worse before it gets better,” he
said.

  “Or maybe it just gets worse,” said Danny, the expression on his face harder than Nick had ever seen it. And then he said, “He was nuts, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think? Tesla.”

  Hearing Danny say the name was surprising enough to make Nick gasp.

  “I might not be as smart as you,” Danny said, “but I’m not stupid. I hear he nearly blew up the whole city, like a hundred years ago or something.”

  Nick couldn’t look at his brother. Instead he considered the collection of objects in front of him. “You need to have experiments that don’t work before you get to the ones that do.”

  “I don’t trust a crazy dead scientist,” Danny said. Then he took a deep breath and let it out. “But I trust you.”

  Nick felt a huge sense of relief. If Danny trusted him, maybe he was worthy of that trust.

  “If you want me to help, I will,” Danny said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just look out for Dad,” Nick told him. “Where is he?”

  “Off with Spiderly Webb,” Danny said, using what had become their secret nickname for Beverly. “They went to see Seth in his school’s production of Scooby-Doo: The Musical. I told him I’d rather shove needles in my eyes. Dad gave me his death stare but let me stay home.”

  At the sound of a rattle from outside, they looked out the small attic window to see Vince coming up the driveway, hauling the old dryer on a handcart. One more object claimed! The day hadn’t been a total loss.

  “Come on,” Nick said, “let’s help him bring it up.”

  Danny put up his hand for a brotherly fist bump, and Nick obliged. As their fists touched, there was a loud electric snap, and something flashed—not just between their hands, but also in Nick’s mind.

  “Ouch!” said Danny, shaking out his hand. “I swear, you can’t touch anything anymore without getting a shock.”

  “It’s just static,” Nick told him. “Like the aurora. It’s from the asteroid…” Something had occurred to Nick, setting his mind on fire. His attention flew back to the center of the room.

  “I wish it would stop,” Danny said.

  “Maybe we can make it stop,” said Nick, never taking his eyes from the machine. “Maybe we’re supposed to….”

  Caitlin got a text from Nick later that afternoon. All it said was: Memorial Park. 5:00.

  It was the first communication she’d had from him since she had chosen friendship over saliva exchange and then seen him ride off with that crazy-haired girl on a dirt bike.

  Why couldn’t boys understand that sometimes “I like you as a friend” means “I like you more than a boyfriend” or “I like you too much to ever break up with you”—because that’s all the boy-crazy girls in school ever seemed to do: find the boy, break up with the boy, hate the boy, find the next boy, rinse and repeat, over and over.

  She had been through the cycle once with Theo, and she wanted off that merry-go-round before the next revolution.

  But on the other hand, maybe the way to stop the merry-go-round was to get on with someone you trusted and shut the thing down.

  She found it a major triumph that she could understand all this about herself without the insightful playback of the tape recorder. It made her realize that she didn’t need it anymore. For the short time she’d had it, it had given her exactly what she needed when she needed it.

  Maybe it needed to go wrong to bring you to this moment.

  And maybe things needed to go wrong between her and Nick to bring her to this moment.

  She held on to that thought as she left for Memorial Park, ready to say yes to anything Nick asked. She had to trust that the merry-go-round was no match for the two of them.

  Shadows were already getting long by the time she arrived. The park was not in her favorite part of town, and she had no idea why Nick wanted to meet there, but she knew it had to be important. Nick was not a frivolous texter.

  People had already started to arrive with blankets and lawn chairs. The same thing was happening in other parks, open fields, and yards. The silent fireworks of the aurora borealis were more spectacular every night. Flowing colors chased each other across the sky with such brilliance you could barely see the stars anymore.

  Finding Nick in the growing crowd was like playing a game of Twenty Text Messages.

  I’m by the big tree.

  i c lots of big trees.

  By the parking lot.

  North lot or south?

  The one by the fountain.

  The broken one?

  Yeah.

  When she found him, they gave each other a standard “hey” “hey” greeting that seemed off but not awkward. She was expecting awkward. She didn’t know how to read “off.”

  “I want to show you something,” Nick told her, and he led her across a field where no sky watchers had set up camp yet. Memorial Park was very big and very flat. Up ahead was Pikes Peak Avenue, which bordered the northern edge of the park.

  “Where are we going?”

  “See that street?” He stopped and pointed. “Foote Avenue?”

  “Yes…”

  “Tesla’s Lab was once up that way. And this field around us—this is probably the field he electrified. He shoved three lightbulbs into the ground, turned on the Tesla coil back at his lab, and the bulbs actually lit up!”

  “Is that why we’re here? To talk about Tesla?”

  Nick didn’t pick up on her disappointment and kept going. “He was using the town’s generator to power the coil—but what if he figured out that he didn’t have to? What if he discovered how to pull power right out of the air?”

  Caitlin shook her head. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t understand, it was more that she didn’t want to.

  When she didn’t say anything, Nick reached toward her. “What if you could harness this?” And he touched her shoulder, delivering a small shock.

  “Ow! Stop it.”

  “Imagine that, multiplied billions of times! Imagine the aurora pulled from the sky, and into a machine right on Earth!”

  And although today’s meeting wasn’t at all what she had expected, she had to admit that she was intrigued. “You mean the F.R.E.E.?”

  “That’s what it’s for, Caitlin! There’s all this energy being generated by the asteroid, but it’s being wasted! Tesla figured out a way to harness that free energy. He figured out how to use it!”

  Once Nick said it, she knew it was true—but instead of feeling amazed, she felt troubled. Clearly Nick had become addicted to the idea of completing the machine—if “addicted” was the right word—and she feared that knowing the machine’s purpose would only intensify his addiction.

  She could understand his need to give himself over to something larger than himself; he had just lost his mother. He didn’t speak of the tragedy much anymore, but she knew it colored everything he did. Obviously the machine provided distraction and relief. But the Accelerati were a ruthless, soulless bunch. The machine could not save him any more than it had saved Tesla from Edison.

  “It’s too big a responsibility, Nick,” she told him. “It’s too much for you to handle.”

  “That’s why I need you, Caitlin.” There was desperation in his eyes. Desperation, sincerity, and determination. “What happened last week—me asking you out and stuff—it doesn’t matter,” he said. “There’s a bigger picture, and we’ve got to work together. We can’t let stupid things come between us.”

  Caitlin shrugged, but a shrug wasn’t what she was feeling. The “stupid things,” as Nick called them, did matter to her.

  “Maybe I do want to go to the movies with you after all.”

  Nick shook his head. “We don’t have time for that.” Then he sighed. “There’s something else you need to see.” He led her to a small sign standing alone and mostly forgotten at the edge of the park. It read:

  HISTORIC MARKER

  DEDICATED TO

  NIKOLA TESLA

  1856–194
3

  The wooden posts were almost rotted through, and the small bronze plaque riveted to the weatherworn plywood sign was tarnished, evidencing years of neglect.

  It was, to say the least, underwhelming.

  “That’s it?” said Caitlin. “That’s all he got?”

  “That,” said Nick bitterly, “and the alternative school they named after him.”

  Now Caitlin was beginning to understand Nick’s feelings. It was a sad little marker for such a great man—but what she saw as a disappointment, Nick took as an insult. He was indignant. And angry. She saw that Nick was on the edge of a place she didn’t want him to go.

  “Tesla had a vision, and we’re a part of it,” he said. “You and me, we’re the only ones who know about the Far Range Energy Emitter. It’s up to us to make it a reality. To prove to the world he was right—and complete his life’s work.”

  Although part of her could see Nick’s point, another part of her was worried about his increasingly strange behavior. What had begun as a quest had turned into an obsession. A potentially dangerous one. So she reached out to him, and bearing the shock that came with it, put a hand on his shoulder, gently trying to bring him back from the edge.

  “Tesla hid it because he thought the world wasn’t ready for it,” Caitlin reminded him. “Maybe it’s still not.”

  Nick looked at Caitlin with a steely intensity that made her shiver.

  “I don’t care if the world’s not ready,” he said. “I’m ready.”

  And up above, the aurora began to shimmer.

  The following evening, emboldened by their acquisition of the harp, the Accelerati made their move.

  It was a rainy Sunday night and Nick was alone in the house. His father had taken Danny out for dinner with the Webbs, or the Hillses, or whatever the plural is for a single mom and her offspring, but Nick had to avoid being seen by Seth, so he refused to go. Considering his bristly relationship with Spiderly Webb, his father didn’t insist.

  “Remind her about the stain remover,” Nick told his dad as he left.

  Then, about half an hour later, he microwaved himself up a frozen burrito.