“Of course. It is a Matter Transmutation device.”
“It moves matter?” Emily inquired.
Tesla shook his head, looking momentarily frustrated with her. “Not in the way you think. It does not move matter from one location to another but allows matter to be moved.”
Sam glanced at Griffin. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
He was given an exasperated look by Emily. “He means that it makes it possible for matter to be displaced. Is that correct, sir?”
“Yes,” Tesla replied with a nod. “If you directed the device at a wall, it would displace the particles of that wall so that they would no longer be tangible.”
Griffin shook his head, uncertain he heard him correctly. “You mean that I could use this thing to walk through walls?”
The inventor nodded. “Precisely. As well as human flesh, if the machine is properly tuned. It was designed for warfare.”
“Good Lord,” Emily breathed as she and Griff exchanged horrified glances.
The machine would allow Dalton to walk into any vault he wanted. Locks would no longer be a problem.
Tesla obviously didn’t share their concern. “But you say the device has been dismantled?”
Griffin nodded. “Yes. Into several sections.”
“There are no instructions for the device. Unless this person knows how to put it together correctly, he will not be able to make use of it.” Tesla took the boiling kettle from the stove. “Your Grace, I should very much like my machine back.”
It was all Griffin could do not to laugh. “I will do my best to retrieve it for you, sir.” He didn’t bother to ask the man why he had invented such a contraption in the first place. There wasn’t any point. Men with brilliant minds like Tesla did things because they could, because that was the way their genius worked. They were driven by their visions and compulsions to create.
Unfortunately, Griffin didn’t share the older man’s conviction that no one would be intelligent enough to put the machine together correctly. He wasn’t about to underestimate Dalton.
Mr. Tesla offered him a cup of tea, and he took it, even though it would not be the same as the tea he was accustomed to. Tea abroad never tasted as good as what he had at home, even if it was the exact same tea.
Sam accepted a cup, as well, his big fingers circling the rim rather than attempting to hold the delicate handle. He had his gaze fixed firmly on Emily, as though gauging his own reaction on hers. Emily looked worried— more so than Griffin. Of course, she was a lot like Tesla in the way her mind worked. To her thinking, it wouldn’t be that difficult to put that machine together and quickly figure out what it did.
Tesla joined them a moment or two later, seating himself on the opposite end of the sofa from Griffin. They sat in silence as they drank. When he turned his head, Griffin noticed that Tesla was watching him with a curious expression on his narrow face.
“Is there something you wish to say, Mr. Tesla?” he asked. Like, what the hell they were supposed to do now? There was only one thing to do—go to Kirby and get Finley back. She was the only one who could tell them if Dalton knew how to use the machine.
“Yes.” The strange but brilliant man leaned forward, as though by taking a closer look he might discern what made Griffin work—as though he was the inner guts of a clockwork stripped bare. “Your abilities, they allow you to interact with the Aether, correct?”
Griffin nodded. “That is correct, yes.”
“I have seen you use Aetheric energy to power my machines and to render them inactive, as though you emit some sort of mechanical-disruption field. Tell me, when you do these things, are you actually channeling the Aether through your body?”
“If you are asking if I’m a conduit for Aetheric energy, I suppose the answer is yes. I think of myself as something of a stone placed in a hearth—I will absorb the Aether just as that stone absorbs heat.”
Tesla crossed his legs. “And like that stone, will you also explode if you absorb too much?”
Unbidden, thoughts of blowing all the water out of the pool in London and the destruction of The Machinist’s lair flashed in Griffin’s mind. “I assume so.”
“So when you release the Aether, I assume it has to go somewhere. What happens then?”
If it were anyone else asking these questions, Griffin would tell them it was personal. He was normally suspicious of curious people, often assuming that they would inevitably want something from him if they knew too much about his abilities. Once, when he was a child, an old friend of his grandfather’s had wanted to use him to contact his dead wife. Griffin had done so out of kindness, but then the old man kept coming back, slipping further and further away from his life, until communications with a ghost was all he had. When his father told the old man that Griffin would no longer work as a medium for him, the old man had gone mad and had to be escorted from the estate. He died shortly thereafter—by his own hand.
Griffin took a sip of tea and pushed the past to where it belonged. “I find water to be the best receptacle, though it has the unfortunate tendency to render everything rather damp.”
“What if you were to direct it into a structure?”
He cleared his throat, uncertain if he should reveal more. “I would most likely raze it to the ground.”
Tesla’s eyes were bright, his face lit with excitement. “Aetheric oscillation,” he said in a slightly reverent tone, moustache twitching. “You inspired me, Your Grace. I have recently begun work on a machine that I believe will absorb Aetheric energy much like you and then expel that same energy.”
“To what end?” Griffin asked. “I could see it being used to replace the treacherous practices now in place for blasting out railway lines or in building demolition, perhaps.”
“Or in war,” Tesla added. “Imagine if an army marched on New York, one could Aetherically destroy the Brooklyn Bridge to prevent penetration of Manhattan Island, but without the risk to life or other property that comes with explosives.”
War? Griffin didn’t like that idea at all.
“Entire cities might be toppled,” Tesla went on. “But that’s not the manner in which I would use such a creation, no. Imagine being able to peel back the earth’s crust like one peels an orange. Only wonder at what discoveries await there!”
For the first time since meeting the man, Griffin wondered if Tesla wasn’t a little mad. Certainly he was brilliant, and with brilliance there was often a certain detachment from the rest of the world, but wondering at building something that could destroy the earth, just because you wanted to see if you could build it, well, that was just asking for trouble.
And for that matter alone, Griffin did not tell the man that the Aether was an organic energy, and while small amounts could be harnessed by machines, even manipulated—such as with Tesla’s device that could have brought down the building and worse—the amount needed to topple an entire city or split the earth’s crust could only be absorbed, and therefore unleashed, by organic material.
Basically, that to the best of his knowledge, he was the only being or thing on the planet capable of such destruction— and even then, taking in that much Aether would undoubtedly kill him.
No, he didn’t say any of that. Instead, he raised his teacup in salute. “I wish you the best of luck with that, sir.” Meanwhile, he knew in the back of his mind that if Tesla ever did succeed in creating such a machine, he would personally hunt it down and destroy it.
“Now,” he said, after taking a drink of tea, “I assume that we need to get close to this machine of yours to stop it.”
“No, not necessarily.” Tesla smoothed the fingers of his left hand over his moustache. “The device was designed to be operated up close or at a distance. Your criminal will not need to have it on his person to use it.”
Griffin clenched his jaw. Nothing had been easy during this trip. Not a bloody thing. And why was Tesla smiling at him? Did the man not realize they were shagged?
“What’s so amusing, sir?” He ignored the sharp look Emily shot him for speaking so hotly to the inventor.
Tesla chuckled. “Because it should be obvious to you, Your Grace.
