Wonder of the Worlds

by Sesh Heri

  What Czito saw was this: The hidden panel in the wall was slid back. The door of the vault stood open. And Tesla’s crystal was—gone. “No,” Czito whispered, shaking his head slowly and trembling from head to foot. “No.” Czito stumbled backward, not believing his eyes. For a moment he feared his knees would give out, but then he gathered his strength, stepped forward, approached the vault, and looked inside. The ceramic insulating pedestal upon which the crystal had been mounted remained in place. The vault door did not have a scratch on it; it was simply standing open. Czito turned and ran out to the airship with his revolver held high. He circled about the airship, looking in all the corners of the warehouse, peering

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  around all the machinery. He came back around, closed the door of the air- ship, and locked it. Then he checked the other door of the airship, and found that it was still locked as it should have been.

  Having secured the airship, Czito rushed to the front of the warehouse, through the front laboratory, and out through the door leading to the street. He closed the door behind him, locked it, and checked the knob, twisting it back and forth. He stepped back from the door, looked the front of the ware- house up and down, removed his spectacles, wiped his face with his handker- chief, and then slipped his spectacles back on. Now Czito looked north up toward the fairgrounds. He had to find Tesla. Czito knew where Tesla was: the wooded island at the center of the fairgrounds. Every morning since they arrived in Chicago, Tesla had gone there to feed the ducks and pigeons. Czito started off in a run up the street toward the shining domes and towers of the World’s Fair. He looked about all the while, hoping to see a cab or a carriage pass by, but the street ahead and behind was empty. Czito reached the southernmost boundary of the fairgrounds: a board fence some eight feet high. At the top of the fence ran two coils of barbed wire. He thought for a moment of trying to climb the fence, but in another moment realized that he couldn’t. So he ran along the fence the length of several blocks, stopping a couple of times to rest the burning sensation in his lungs. He kept going and finally reached the fairground’s south gate. Czito went up to the sentry and held up his ground’s pass.

  “I’ve got to find Mr. Tesla quick!” Czito said to the sentry. “Is there a mounted police nearby?” “No,” the sentry said. “But I can call one up on the telephone. It’ll probably take a few minutes for him to get here.”

  “I don’t have a few minutes!” Czito shouted. “Never mind. Just let me through!” The sentry lifted the wooden arm barring the way, and Czito ran into the fairgrounds. Czito ran across the Court of Honor and on toward the exhibit halls.

  Now everything seemed to slow down for Czito. The cement pavement over which he ran seemed to pull and stretch away from him, while his legs seemed to grow heavier with each passing second. He thought of what Tesla had once told him about Zeno’s Paradox: the faster Achilles ran, the further he had to go, because the series of points ahead of him was infinite. Czito was now Achilles running with leaden legs through an infinite, unending space. The buildings of the World’s Fair loomed over Czito. It seemed to him that they were rising up to crush him, that the pavement before him and the build- ings above him were stretching out and pulling away only to collapse again in a moment and engulf him in a smothered eternity.

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  Then Czito caught sight of Tesla at the edge of the lagoon. The world pulled in and snapped back, with Tesla at its center. Czito felt a rush of energy and ran forward in a new burst of speed. “Mr. Tesla!” Czito shouted. “Mr. Tesla!”

  Czito was running toward Tesla as fast as he could. He ran over a bridge spanning a canal and on up to Tesla who was standing on a grassy shore. As Czito approached, pigeons scattered away from Tesla in a whirlwind cloud of gray and white. “Czito!” Tesla said, “Look what you’ve done!” Czito stopped in front of Tesla, and gasped out, “They’ve taken it!” “Who? Taken what?” “The Crystal. The Master Crystal.”

  The expression on Tesla’s face shifted from irritation, to shock, to a grim determination—all in the space of three seconds. Then Tesla’s expression so- lidified—as if his face had turned to stone. Czito saw a blur; it was Tesla moving past him. Czito took a deep breath and plunged forward, following. Tesla’s long legs now worked like the pistons of a locomotive, the white cement pavement of the fairgrounds rushing beneath his feet, becoming a road bed for upright rolling stock. Tesla shot by the Transportation Building where workers on scaffolding stopped and stared at his streaking passage—a demonstration in space, color, and motion questioning the proposition that human legs had been outpaced by faster forms. Now Tesla darted to the left and cut past the building for Mines, his blurred passage taking on the aspect of molten gold and mercury rushing up from secret volcanic regions. Now Tesla darted to the right, the echo of his footfalls crackling against the walls of the Electricity Building. Now Tesla was in front of the Administration Building; now he was not—an unaccountable f lash and disappearance—impossible to trace or govern. Tesla was in front of the Machinery Hall Annex. He went through the door. In front of him steps lead up to a giant dynamo. He ran up the steps, leapt on top of the dynamo, and then down again to another set of steps on the other side. Mechanics turned their heads, believing the blur they saw out of the corner of their eyes was a machine f lying apart and exploding. Before they could turn to see what had passed, Tesla had gone out through a small ma- chine shop, and out its back door.

  Ahead of Tesla lay an open pasture, cleared for the construction of live- stock sheds. Beyond the pasture stood a board fence—the same one that Czito had thought of climbing. Tesla raced across the pasture, reached the fence, made a leap, and caught the top edge of the fence with his fingertips. He

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  pulled himself to the top, sat on its edge, and then stood upright, one foot on the top of the fence, one foot pressing on the coils of barbed wire attached at its top. Tesla slowly crouched low, and then sprang off the fence and jumped for the ground. He landed on both feet. He was outside the fairgrounds. Now Tesla ran east along 67th Street, the southern perimeter of the fairgrounds. Several blocks he ran, the board fence whizzing by him on his left, trees waving past him from across the street on his right—and below him the freshly laid macadam street receiving a precise impression of Tesla’s shoeprints in the asphaltum with every stride he took.

  Now 67th Street came to an end and Tesla turned south on to the street fronting Lake Michigan. Tesla’s warehouse loomed up ahead on the left a block and a half away. Tesla reached his warehouse, inserted a key into its front door, and went inside. The moment Tesla entered the front work room, a strange calm overcame him. He had a sudden realization that he had to move with absolute clarity and precision, and that the least amount of haste would bring with it confusion and error. Everything in the front room looked normal and untouched. Tesla saw Czito’s workbench, and Czito’s tools scattered just as he had abandoned them. He went into the hall, passing the splintered door frame. Tesla passed into the hallway and turned into the room with the vault. He went up to the vault’s open door and looked in at the empty pedestal that had once held the Master Crystal. He stared at the space where the crystal once sat. Then he turned and went to a cabinet in the corner. The cabinet had a combination-lock wheel on its door. He spun the wheel back and forth and then opened the door. Inside, several shelves were filled with small electrical devices. He removed one of these devices—a little rectan- gular tin box with a tiny incandescent light bulb mounted on its top—and also a tool box. He closed the cabinet door, and brought the device and the tool box to a table. Tesla took a small screwdriver from the tool box and unscrewed two bolts on the back of the tin box. Kolman Czito appeared in the doorway breathing heavily. He had man- aged to catch a ride back to the warehouse on a freight wagon. He put the f lat of his hands on the top of a table and bowed his head, drawing breaths in deep gasps, trying to find his voice. Tesla searched through the toolbox, then went to the cabinet, looked, and found two tiny cylinders and
brought them back to the table. Finally Czito managed to say, “The thief escaped before I realized the crystal was gone. I shot at him, but missed.” “What did he look like?” Tesla asked, taking one of the tiny cylinders and pushing it into the back of the tin box.

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  “He was dressed all in black with a beard and dark spectacles.” “Yes,” Tesla said, “of course.” “The crystal gone,” Czito said, “and three years to grow another!”

  “We don’t have three years,” Tesla said, “I’d say we don’t have three min- utes before the crystal is out of our reach and our work stopped permanently by those who have it.” Tesla had inserted the other tiny cylinder into the back of the tin box, and had closed up its back and was now tightening the two bolts back into place with the screwdriver. Tesla finished the job and then pulled out from the top of the tin box an eight inch long telescoping steel rod mounted next to the little incandescent light bulb. He held the rod pointed outward and flipped a switch on the front of the box. He pointed the steel rod about the room, swinging it east toward Lake Michigan, then south, southwest, west… . The little incandescent light bulb on the top of the tin box flashed. Two seconds passed and it flashed again. Two more seconds—and it flashed yet again. “The crystal is still in Chicago,” Tesla said. “Do you want me to go with you?” Czito asked. “No,” Tesla said. “Stay here and guard the ship.” Tesla felt in his inside coat pocket for his revolver; it was missing, and he suddenly realized that he had left it in his hotel room that morning. There was no time to go back and retrieve it, and he knew that Czito would need his own Navy revolver. Tesla dashed to the door.

  “And telephone President Cleveland,” Tesla said, stopping in the doorway. “Tell him we need guards outside. Our secret is no longer secret.” Tesla turned and rushed out the door.

  Out on the street, Tesla knew exactly which direction to go. The little tin box he held in the palm of his hand told him the exact direction in which the crystal lay, also its distance from him. The telescoping steel rod received invis- ible electrical pulses emitted by the crystal, registered the intensity of the pulses, and, from that, calculated exactly how far the waves had traveled from their source. The distance was interpreted and expressed as a sequence of f lashes in the little incandescent light bulb. The faster the bulb flashed, the closer was the source of the electrical pulses—the crystal. The little tin box was nothing less than an electric bloodhound. Tesla held the steel rod out toward the west and began walking, first at a steady pace, then faster. Then he was running. The bulb continued to f lash, now every second and a half. Tesla ran along 68th Street until he reached Stony Island Avenue. There he turned right and went north toward the fairgrounds. Another block and he

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  turned west again, but at the next corner he turned back to the north. The little incandescent light bulb was now f lashing once every second.

  Tesla was now running along a sidewalk through a suburban neighbor- hood just west of the fairgrounds. He saw a row of frame houses up ahead with people sitting out in their front yards and on their porches. He slowed down to a brisk walk and pocketed his little tin box. The people in their yards looked up from their conversations and watched Tesla go by. He continued on up the street, passing shops and small warehouses. Tesla stopped on a street corner and took out the tin box. The bulb on its top flickered rapidly. Tesla extended the steel rod and swept it in an arc. When he pointed the steel rod at a three-story boarding house across the street, the bulb shined brightly. When he pointed the steel rod in any other direction, it went dark. Tesla retracted the steel rod and put the tin box in his coat pocket. He strolled across the street and stopped in front of the boarding house, and saw that it was a theatrical hotel, one of many that had just went into business to house performers working on the fair’s Midway Plaisance. Tesla went up the steps to the boarding house, opened the door, and went in.

  There was a dim hall, two doors to the right, and a flight of stairs on the left. Tesla took out the tin box and pointed it around the hall. It shined only when its steel rod was held up to the ceiling. Tesla went up the stairs on tip-toe, got to the second f loor, and went on up to the third f loor. He reached the top floor, and moved silently along a hall. He pointed the tin box at a door. The little incandescent light bulb shined steadily. Tesla slid the tin box back into his coat pocket, approached the door, and knocked. A moment passed of complete silence. Then the door opened.

  A man appeared in the space of the half-opened door. He was a large bearded man, wearing a strange high-crowned hat and spectacles with lenses the color of a patent medicine bottle. “Excuse me,” Tesla said. “I seem to be lost. If you would be so kind as to tell me—” The bearded man started to close the door. Tesla lunged forward, blocking the door with his foot and shoulder. The bearded man pushed the door closed from inside. Tesla fell back into the hall; then rushed forward, battering the door with his shoulder and arm, driving the bearded man back into the room. “Who are you?” Tesla shouted.

  The bearded man studied Tesla a moment; then lunged and grabbed Tesla by the lapels, drew him close, and then shoved him away. Tesla stumbled back and crashed against the plasterboard wall, cracking it. Tesla sprung toward the bearded man, grabbed his arms, and threw the man to the floor. The bearded man clung to Tesla, and brought Tesla down

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  with him. The two men rolled across the room, now the bearded man on top, now Tesla, now the bearded man again. Tesla shoved the bearded man aside, and a cylindrical case fell out of the man’s heavy overcoat and rolled across the f loor. Both men reached for the case, but the bearded man grasped it in his left hand; with his right, he swung back and struck Tesla in the face. Tesla fell back to the floor.

  The bearded man dived through a window and rolled out on to a landing of a fire escape. Tesla shook his head, got up, and dashed to the window in time to see the bearded man descend the fire escape and drop to the sidewalk below. The bearded man started down the sidewalk but turned, looked back up at Tesla, and drew his revolver. Tesla stepped back inside the window just as a bullet whizzed past his head and penetrated the ceiling. The bearded man turned and ran on down the sidewalk. Tesla climbed through the window, descended the fire escape, and dropped to the sidewalk as well. He saw the bearded man run north up the street and turn right at the next corner. Tesla went after him. When he got to the corner, Tesla looked to his right expecting to get a clear sight of the bearded man running down an empty street. But this he did not see. Instead, when Tesla reached the corner and looked to his right he was confronted with the vision of a street swarming with people. Carriages lined the curbs, guarded by liveried coachmen. Tesla entered the crowd, looking over men’s shoulders and their hats, and over lady’s fans and their hats decorated with artificial flowers. There were people and more people, and beyond them some more people. There weren’t just hundreds of people filling that street and moving along it at an easy, leisurely pace; there were thousands. And not one single individual among them wore a beard, not that Tesla could see.

  Up ahead, Tesla saw two policemen, and a saw-horse set up in the middle of the street to keep any more carriages with people in them from coming down that way. Beyond them were, yes, some more people. Tesla went past the policeman, and looked up, and then he understood where he was and why this crowd was so filled up with so many people. Down the street a little further, the red and white board fence came to an end and opened up on a great, arched entranceway. The words on the arch read: “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World.” On one side of the arch was a large portrait of Columbus limned by some talented sign painter and designated by the caption “Pilot of the Ocean, the First Pioneer.” On the other side of the arch was another portrait done by that same Midwestern Michelangelo, this one of Buffalo Bill and captioned “Pilot of the Prairie, the Last Pioneer.” Tesla looked down and studied the crowd. He turned on his heel and looked all about in a three-hundred-sixty degree arc. He did not see the
bearded

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  man, only thousands of smiling people slowly moving toward the main entrance of the big show. There were rich people, poor people, and people who were neither rich nor poor. There were young people, old people, and people who were neither very young nor very old. There were fat people, thin people, and people who were neither very fat nor very thin. There were foreign people, American people, and people who looked to be neither foreign nor American. There were all kinds of people, in all kinds of shapes, and sexes, and apparel. Except there were no people with a beard, a high, black hat and spectacles made out of a patent medicine bottle.

  Tesla took out the little tin box and extended the steel rod an inch. The light f lickered faintly in the direction of the show entrance. But when he turned the steel rod to the right, pointing it at a high board fence, the little bulb lit up brightly. Tesla walked along with the tin box cupped in his hand and glanced at its light bulb every few seconds. He kept a sharp lookout on the speed of the f licker in the light. Whenever he turned the steel rod in the direction of the board fence, the little light bulb would shine brightly and steadily. Beyond the board fence, the bearded man was not much more than thirty yards away. The crowd f lowed toward the main entrance. Tesla stepped out of the f low, and approached a gate in the fence. A big cowboy stood at the gate smoking a cigarette. Tesla went up to him.

  “Excuse me. My name is Nikola Tesla. I’m the electrical consultant for the World’s Fair.”

  Tesla took out his ground’s pass and showed it to the cowboy.

  “That don’t cut no mustard ‘round here,” the cowboy said. “You fair people wouldn’t let us set up our show on your grounds, and now we don’t want nothin’ to do with you. So, git! Or I’ll fill ya full of lead.” Tesla pulled the cowboy’s revolver from its holster, twirled it on his finger, and then flipped the cylinder out and looked at the cartridges. “Blanks,” Tesla said, slipping the revolver back into the cowboy’s holster. “Let me see Buffalo Bill.”