Wardenclyffe

by F. Paul Wilson

  I started after her. “Wait! You can’t go ye—”

  Without looking back she gave a little wave with her hand and immediately I became frozen in place, unable to move or even speak. Any other day and I might have gone mad with panic—how could this be happening? But after all the madness of the past week…

  I stayed that way until she turned the nearest corner. When I was released, I didn’t bother going after her. I knew I’d never catch her.

  I found an empty bench in the park and collapsed onto it. Ignoring suspicious looks from some of the mothers who probably thought I was drunk, I stared into space and wondered what had happened to the sane and relatively safe world I’d inhabited until I’d entered Nikola Tesla’s orbit.

  The irrationality of my own situation—a man should not be born into a woman’s body—had made me come to depend on everything else being rational. This was why I loved electricity. It had rules! And it followed them! I could bend it to my will, but only within the limits of the rules.

  Up is up.

  Down is down.

  A is A.

  I wanted rules. I loved rules. And because my life broke one of the most basic rules of Creation, I wanted more rules, ever more rules for the rest of the world.

  But…if what the Lady with the dog had told me was true—and it certainly jibed with my experiences at Wardenclyffe—then the rules were a sham. A chaotic void waited on the other side of a thin membrane, ready to devour us.

  And if the Lady was correct, I stood in its way. Because of the dissonance within me.

  I didn’t understand how that could make a difference, but I knew I had to return to Wardenclyffe.

  Something came through and stayed…

  I had to find it, and either kill it or devise a way to send it back.

  OCTOBER 12, 1937

  “Those were dark years back then,” Tesla said. “The darkest of my life. I remember so little of them. I was in a fog.”

  I did not argue. After the chew wasp incident, he dropped into some sort of fugue state where he appeared to function but also seemed lost.

  “What’s your first clear memory after the chew wasps?”

  “Returning to Wardenclyffe in 1906.”

  “You were back and forth many times during that interval.”

  “Yes, but they all blur together. I do remember my patents running out and the news being made public, causing my already dire financial straits to turn catastrophic. I recall trying to raise money for Wardenclyffe and other projects, and I remember people I’d considered friends avoiding me.”

  And I remembered how he retained his rooms at the Waldorf—he never paid his bills there anyway—but could no longer afford lodgings in Port Jefferson, so he moved into his office at Wardenclyffe when he visited.

  Rudolph Drexler kept the plant open but minimally staffed. His brief visits coincided with Tesla’s, so he spent little time there. He was not aware of the miasma of malaise that had been slowly infiltrating the place.

  One by one and two by two, the locals quit, complaining of a vague malady that sapped their strength and will to work. Drexler replaced them with Septimus members, but they fared no better than the locals, sickening and dragging about until they were replaced. I overheard a few conversations mentioning a rash of suicides involving former Septimus workers.

  So Drexler was but a sporadic presence. Even George Scherff had to look for work elsewhere. Without local employees to oversee, Scherff became a vestigial presence whom Drexler stopped paying. He kept paying me, however.

  That left me as the only continuous presence at Wardenclyffe—along with the thing that “came through and stayed,” if it truly existed. I had seen nothing lurking about. Had it submerged itself in the Sound? Wherever it was, I seemed immune to its influence.

  “I shouldn’t have moved into Wardenclyffe,” Tesla said, giving his head a slow shake. “I arrived after the first of the year with the resolution of closing it down.”

  “I remember when you told me,” I said.

  “I was shocked that you agreed. If only I had followed through then instead of waiting.”

  It had broken my heart to hear he’d given up on a wireless world, but knowing what the Lady had told me, and witnessing the mental and spiritual decline of all who stayed at Wardenclyffe, I knew he’d made the right decision.

  “If only you had stayed in Port Jeff instead of Wardenclyffe.”

  He sighed. “Well, you did your best to warn me, but how could I accept the mad tales you told? I thought you’d taken to the opium pipe.”

  During the interval between my meeting with the Lady and Tesla’s return, the progression of days filled with mundane routine had caused me to begin doubting myself. But then all I needed to do was step back and watch the deterioration of the workers to confirm that something had gone terribly wrong at Wardenclyffe.

  “But we both learned the truth first hand, did we not?” I said.

  “At a cost of thousands of lives.”

  I gave his bony shoulder another squeeze. “Stop blaming yourself for that. It wasn’t our fault.”

  “Because it was mine alone. I had the power to decide—”

  “You were not the cause.”

  “The fault rests with me. I set it all in motion back in 1901 when the first footing was poured. The warnings appeared once we started powering the tower, but I ignored them. The deaths, the destruction, the suicides, the threat to the very fabric of our existence—I carry that with me everywhere. And I always will. Sometimes I wish I had died in 1905, then 1906 would have turned out different. For everyone. I started with the best intentions but turned it into the worst year of my life.”

  Of my life too. But I didn’t say so.

  1906

  The Ides of March came and went, and not only had we done nothing to shut down, Tesla had ordered a second generator without telling me. When a freight car pulled up on the siding and began unloading it, I stormed into his office without knocking.

  “Are you aware—?”

  Drexler, sitting close at Tesla’s side, held up a hand and said, “Hush, Charles. We are engaged in something important.”

  I would not be hushed by this man.

  “There’s a generator—”

  “Please, Charles,” Tesla said without looking up. “Let me translate this letter.” He turned to Drexler. “What did you say his name was?”

  “Gavrilo Princip. He is a twelve-year-old Serb living in the small Bosnian town of Obljaj. Being a Christian, he has had a hard life working as a kmet under an oppressive Muslim landlord, a life made harder still under Austrian rule.”

  Tesla shook his head in dismay. “They still have serfs in Bosnia? Disgraceful.”

  “He is a very smart young man. The Septimus Order is grooming him for better things—for greatness. We are making plans to move him to Sarajevo where he can blossom into his full potential.”

  “Why do you do this?”

  “Despite what you might hear from some quarters,” Drexler said, casting a baleful look my way, “Septimus is a charitable organization. We work on many fronts, doing good works all over the world. This is simply one of the ways we try to change the world for the better. We have hopes that maybe someday Gavrilo will change the world in his own way. Maybe he will not. Some trees bear fruit, others do not. We cannot tell the future, we can only present opportunities for others to change it.”

  “And he has written you this letter?”

  “Yes. I was one of his sponsors before I left for America, and I will be so again once I return. In the meantime he has written to me in Serbian, the only language he knows.”

  Tesla smiled. “I will be happy to translate for you.”

  Suppressing a growl of irritation, I stalked out and managed not to slam the door.

  Drexler had been worming his way into Tesla’s confidence, and this was just his latest ploy. For all anyone knew, Gavrilo Princip was a fiction, a Septimus member who spoke Serbian.

 
I watched the Septimus workers—the only kind we had now—unload the generator while I waited for an opportunity to speak to Tesla alone. What could he be thinking? He’d started the year determined to shut down the operation, and now he was doubling our generating capacity.

  Finally Drexler left the office, folding the letter into his coat pocket as he headed out to his car. I made a beeline to Tesla.

  “Another generator?” I said without preamble. “What—?”

  And then I realized his eyes were closed. They fluttered open. A bit of kip? In the morning? Tesla was three months from his fiftieth birthday, yet he seemed to have aged more since his return to Wardenclyffe.

  “Sorry to wake you,” I said.

  “It’s all right. I’m not sleeping well. I have dreams…”

  “About what?”

  “I can never remember, but I know they are unpleasant. You want to know about the new generator?”

  “Why wasn’t I told? And what happened to shutting down?”

  “Rudy has convinced me to give it one more try.”

  So Drexler was “Rudy” now.

  I said, “You remember what happened the last time, don’t you? And the price Rourke paid?”

  “I will never forget, but that was a freak happening. Rudy is going to have Septimus’s London lodge set up a test on the coast of Wales.”

  “A bulb test? Like the ones I did?”

  “Yes, but this one will be intercontinental. When that bulb lights they will telegraph us. But not only that, he’s going to have his people film it as proof. Don’t you see, Charles? With proof like that, when we show it to the world, I will be vindicated. The funding will flow like a river. Worldwide wireless will move from dream to reality.”

  “But what about the tear in the Veil? I told you what the Lady said.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Rudy calls that a fairy tale.”

  Hurt stabbed me. “You accept Drexler’s word and not mine?”

  He rose behind the desk. “No-no-no, Charles. You mustn’t take it like that. Have you seen this Veil? Have you seen a tear?”

  “Of course not. But I’ve seen chew wasps!”

  “And so have I. But we have an explanation for that.”

  “Drexler’s ridiculous reanimation theory?”

  “Rudy has pointed out that what you’ve told me is simply hearsay, and I am afraid I have to agree. This wandering, nameless woman has filled your head with wild stories.” He held up a shaky fist. “Worldwide wireless, Charles. We must never lose sight of the goal. We will power the world, Charles. The world!”

  I realized then that Drexler had him completely in his thrall. I wanted to turn and walk out, but the Lady’s words rang in my head.

  …you will stay as long as Serb stays…you must not abandon him in this time of his need. He does not understand the power he wields…everything you know will change if you are not there to guide him.

  Guide him? Someone else had usurped that role.

  …you must find a way to rewrite his music…use your dissonance, Charles. There lies your advantage. Use it!

  She’d said the answer was inside me. Ducky…just ducky. Because I hadn’t the foggiest idea what the bloody hell that meant.

  * * *

  I left Tesla and walked out back to the tower. I hadn’t been out here in a long time. It hadn’t changed, still looked skeletal. The original plan had been to sheath the eight sides to give it a more substantial appearance, but the money always seemed better spent on something else.

  I used to climb it all the time. The incessant wind off the Sound refreshed me as much as the view inspired me.

  I saw one of the Septimus workers standing by the edge of the shaft, his blond hair ruffled by the breeze as he gazed down into the opening. As usual, I didn’t know his name. When he glanced up at my approach, his eyes looked sad. I gave him a friendly wave which he ignored. Oh, well. Maybe Drexler had been telling them to avoid me, afraid my “fairy tales” would taint their resolve.

  I climbed the ladder all the way to the cupola, then sat on one of the struts. April is not a warm month here in the Northeast and the brisk wind off the Sound cut through my shirt and vest. But I loved the view from on high—up and down the coast, across the water to Connecticut, south across the piney stretches of Long Island. Usually it cleared my head, but not today.

  I wanted no part of this transoceanic experiment. Drexler had bought Tesla the extra generator for the test, but I doubted he cared whether the bulb in Wales lit or stayed dark. I was convinced his goal was to rip the Veil asunder.

  Events had spiraled out of my control. With or without me, the test would go on. Tesla seemed sapped of the will to resist—or did he even want to resist? Vindication is a powerful motivator. The workers, the Septimus recruits, seemed sapped too. Even Drexler was moving slower than usual, and his customarily erect posture had developed a hint of a slump. The Wardenclyffe miasma was affecting him as well, but compared to the rest, he appeared to be bursting with feverish intensity.

  Of course, everything was going his way, wasn’t it.

  I alone seemed immune to the pervasive pall of ennui. The Lady had predicted that, attributing it to my inner dissonance. And yet…

  Not completely immune. I sensed something worming its way inside me at night, targeting my ambient despair, chipping away at my will to go on, whispering of the hopelessness and futility of life…

  But I was able to fight it off. The Lady’s words helped.

  Do not despair…you will not always be alone…

  I clung to them and rode them to the dawn.

  Off to the west, clouds swooped in, obscuring the sun, changing the wind from chilly to downright cold. Shivering, I started down.

  When I reached the ground, I found the same Septimus fellow in the same spot by the shaft, still staring into its depths.

  “Is everything all right?” I said.

  He looked up at me. If his eyes had been sad before, they were positively tortured now. Without a word, he stepped off the edge.

  A very girlish scream escaped me—I was too shocked to control my voice. No one was near enough to hear, however. But unlike me, the worker made no sound—not a word, not a cry. He fell in silence.

  I dashed to the edge and looked down. The shaft lights were off, so I could see nothing but shadow below a few dozen feet.

  “Hello! Are you all right?”

  Idiotic question, I knew. It simply came out. After a 120-foot fall, he’d hardly be able to respond. I flipped the switch to turn on the lights but still couldn’t see the bottom. Some of the bulbs at the lower end of the vertical row must have burned out. We hadn’t been paying much attention to the shaft in recent months.

  I ran inside, calling out that someone had fallen down the shaft and I needed a torch. I received blank looks until I said, “Flashlight!” A Septimus worker found one and accompanied me back to the tower. He looked about my age with medium brown hair parted in the middle.

  “Who fell?” he said.

  “I don’t know his name. He had blond hair.”

  “Oh, no! Steven.”

  “A friend?”

  “I know him. He hasn’t been well lately.”

  “Ill?”

  “He cries a lot.”

  Together we descended the circular stairway as quickly as safety allowed. The worker called out “Steven!” every few steps, but eventually gave up.

  About halfway down I turned on the torch. Before leaving, Scherff had bought two new models. They came equipped with fresh dry-cell batteries and the new tungsten-filament bulbs, but even so, the beam didn’t penetrate to the bottom.

  “Your name’s Charles, isn’t it,” said my companion.

  “Yes. And you are…?”

  “Herbert. People call me Herb. You’re the strange one who lives upstairs.”

  The strange one…is that what they called me?

  “Yes, I guess that would be me.”

  “They say you’re a mad
genius.”

  “I don’t know about the ‘genius’ part.”

  “What about the ‘mad,’ then?”

  “Not so long ago I would have disputed that. Now I’m not so sure.”

  Holding the torch stretched out ahead of me I continued the descent into the inky lower depths. But as we progressed, the darkness seemed to swallow the torch’s glow. When we reached the lower light fixtures, I realized the bulbs hadn’t burned out. They still glowed within their sconces but gave no illumination. The darkness seemed to be drinking their light.

  “Something’s wrong here,” said my companion. His voice quavered.

  Brilliant deduction, I thought, but gave a civil reply. “Most certainly.”

  The flash beam penetrated only two feet ahead of me before being swallowed. We should have been almost to the bottom by now. I slowed my descent and Herb bumped my back.

  “Sorry, Charles,” he said. “I…I don’t want any more of this.”

  “I understand.” I didn’t blame him. Terror nibbled at my will to go on. Something very wrong here. “You can go back up.”

  “I don’t want to go back up.” His voice sounded strained.

  “What do you want then?”

  “Nothing. Don’t want any more of anything.”

  That sounded strange but I didn’t turn to look. I’d wait until we reached the floor.

  But we didn’t reach the floor. When I made to step down to the next tread, my foot found only empty air.

  “Stop!” I cried, clutching the handrail in fear that Herb might bump me again and knock me off.

  I had an indefinable but unquestionable sense of emptiness in the dark beneath me.

  I handed the torch back to Herb. “Hold this.”

  But he didn’t take it. I shone it in his face. His eyes had a blank look as he stared out into the featureless black void around us. I knew how he felt. I was glad for the solidity of the handrails and the shaft wall to my right. I clung to those—mentally as well as physically.

  Seeing that Herb was going to provide no assistance, I held tight to the handrail with my free hand and carefully dropped into a squat. I extended the torch down past my feet and found only darkness. I was perched on the last tread of the stairway, and yet...