Conspircaies

Canfield checked that one and slapped his hand against it when he found what he was looking for.

'Yes!' he cried, his voice an octave higher than usual. 'It's him! Nikola Tesla!'

Jack read over his shoulder. Now that he really looked, he could see that the scrawl was 'N. Tesla.'

'Okay. So who is Nikola Tesla?'

'One of the great geniuses and inventors of the last three or four generations. Right up there with Edison and Marconi.'

'I've heard of Edison and Marconi,' Jack said. 'Never heard of Tesla.'

'Ever had an MRI?'

Jack leaned back against the writing table. 'You mean that X-ray thing? No.'

'First off, it's not an X ray. It's magnetic resonance imaging—M-R-I, get it? And the units of magnetism it uses are called 'Teslas'—one Tesla equals ten thousand Gauss—named after Nikola Tesla.'

Jack was trying hard to be impressed. 'Oh. Okay. But why is this genius inventor sending me stuff?'

'He's not. He died in 1943.'

'I'm not happy to hear that a dead man is sending me boxes,' Jack said.

Canfield rolled his eyes. 'Somebody sent you these crates, but I don't believe for a moment it was Nikola Tesla. He was unquestionably a genius, but he didn't invent a way to come back from death. He was in his late twenties in the 1880s when he arrived here from Yugoslavia, and barely into his thirties when he perfected the polyphase alternating current power system. He sold the patents to Westinghouse for a million bucks—real money in those days, but still a bargain for Westinghouse. Today, every house, every appliance in the country uses AC power.'

Now Jack was impressed. 'So this was a real guy, then—not one of these make- believe SESOUP bogeymen?'

'Very real. But as he got older his ideas became more and more bizarre. He started talking about free energy, cosmic ray motors, earthquake generators, and death rays. Lots of fictional mad scientists were inspired by Tesla.'

Something about death rays and mad scientists clicked in Jack's brain.

'The Invisible Ray,' he said.

'Pardon?'

'An old Universal horror flick. Haven't seen it in ages, but I remember Boris Karloff playing a mad scientist with a death ray.'

'Was he made up with bushy hair and a thick mustache?'

'As a matter of fact, yes. And he had an Eastern European name—Janos, or something.'

'There you go: That was Nikola Tesla all the way. He lived in the Waldorf and had an experimental lab out on Long Island at the turn of the century where he was trying to perfect broadcast power.'

'Broadcast power?' Jack said.

'Yes. You've heard of it?'

Jack only nodded. Heard of it? He'd seen it in action.

'Anyway,' Canfield continued, 'Tesla starting building this tower way out on Long Island in a little town called Wardenclyffe…'

Canfield's voice trailed off as his face went pale.

'Wardenclyffe, Long Island?' Jack said. 'Never heard of it.'

'That's because it doesn't exist anymore,' Canfield said slowly. 'It was absorbed by another town. It's now part of Shoreham.'

Jack felt a cold tingle rush down his spine. 'Shoreham? That's where Lew and Melanie live.'

'Exactly.' Canfield slapped a palm against his forehead. 'Why didn't I see this before? All these years I've never understood why Melanie left Monroe to live in Shoreham, but now it's clear. She's been living near Tesla's old property. She must have thought some of his wilder theories and never-executed plans had to do with the Otherness.'

Jack remembered what Lew had told him that first day out in their house in Shoreham.

'Lew said she was buying and selling real estate, saying it had something to do with her 'research.''

'I knew it!'

'He said she'd buy a place, hire some guys to dig up the yard, then resell it.'

Canfield was leaning forward. 'Did he say where she'd buy these places?'

'Yeah. Always in the same development…along some road…' Damn. He couldn't remember the name.

'Randall Road?'

'You got it.'

'Yes!' Canfield pumped his fist in the air. 'Tesla's property ran along Randall Road in Wardenclyffe! That's where he built his famous tower. The old brick building that housed his electrical lab is still standing. No question about it. Melanie was definitely searching for old Tesla documents.'

'You think she found something?'

'Most definitely.' He nodded and pointed to the crates. 'And I think it's sitting right in front of us.'

'You think Melanie sent this stuff?'

'I do.'

'But why to me? Why not to you?'

Only Repairman Jack can find me. Only he will understand.

Was that why?

'I wish I knew,' Canfield said. He sounded hurt. 'I certainly wouldn't have left it sitting around for days. I can tell you that.'

'Really. What would you have done?'

'Assembled it, of course.'

'Maybe she thought you might have…' He glanced at Canfield's blanket-wrapped lower body. 'You know… trouble putting it together.'

'Maybe,' he said. He seemed cheered by the thought. 'And she was probably right. But now there's two of us, so let's get to it.'

'Whoa. We don't know what this thing is, or what it does. We don't know how it got here and we don't even know for sure it's from Melanie.'

'It's from Melanie,' he said. 'I'm sure of it.'

Jack wasn't sure of anything about these crates. Assembling the pieces might seem like the next logical step, but something inside him wasn't too keen on taking it.

'I only have one wrench and a couple of screwdrivers. We'll need—'

'Never fear,' Canfield said, reaching around the back of his wheelchair. He removed a tool kit from the pouch back there. 'I never travel without this. Let's get to work.'

Still Jack hesitated. He could buy that this contraption was linked to Melanie, but he was far from convinced she'd sent it. Figuring there was safety in numbers, he decided to get some other people involved.

He pulled Kenway's pager number from his wallet and started dialing.

'What are you doing?' Canfield said.

'Calling in some help.'

'We don't need help.'

'Look at all those pieces. Sure we do.'

'Who are you calling?'

'Miles Kenway.'

'No!' He seemed genuinely upset. 'Not him!'

'Why not? What's that old expression? Many hands lighten the load.'

'He won't understand.'

'Then we'll explain it to him.'

When Kenway's beeper service picked up, Jack left a simple message: 'Call Jack. Urgent.' He was sure Kenway knew his room number. Everyone else seemed to.

'You shouldn't have done that,' Canfield said, almost sulking. 'Kenway doesn't belong here.'

What's his problem? Jack wondered.