Tesla: A Teen Steampunk/Cyberpunk Adventure (Tesla Evolution Book 1) (21 page)

Isaac had found Nikola. The two were standing next to each other, with Nikola shouting various technical orders to the men working on the zeppelins.

“Hello, Sebastian,” Nikola said. “Good to see you getting some fresh air.”

“Will you be going with them?” Sebastian asked.

“Number Two says I can’t go.”

“Will Number Two be going?”

Nikola laughed. “Only Number Two knows that.”

“And Number One?”

Nikola laughed again. “I severely doubt that. The chances of Number One going are about the same as you going.”

“Have you ever seen Number Two?”
 

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that. And the same goes for Number One. Maybe you should ask the same questions of yourself.”

Sebastian scratched his head as he puzzled over Nikola’s response, but the spectacle of the zeppelins being prepared for flight had soon erased it from his mind.

“Nikola, how do these work?” he asked.

“We fill the balloons with helium, which is lighter than air, and the zeppelins float.”

“How can anything be lighter than air?”

“Well, helium is lighter than air, and just as heavy things will fall, the lightest will rise.”

Nikola explained that helium weighs 0.1785 grams per liter, and nitrogen, which makes up eighty percent of the air we breathe, weighs 1.2506 grams per liter. If one bottle were filled with helium and another with air, the one filled with helium would weigh one gram less than the bottle with air.
 

“It doesn’t sound like a lot,” Nikola told them, “but that’s why blimps and balloons are usually very big. The one-gram difference really adds up in large volumes. Helium balloons follow the same principle as you do when you float in the water. It’s the law of buoyancy. If the water you displace weighs more than you do, you’ll float.”

Isaac looked terminally bored.
 

Sebastian absorbed the information. He thought how it applied to farting in the bath. It made sense. A fart would weigh less than the water. He wondered how potent a fart would have to be to sink. Maybe a heavy red-meat diet was required. Then you could capture it in a glass and take it with you. Could be something worth experimenting with.

“Sebastian, pay attention,” Nikola said.

“Sorry, I got distracted thinking about gases.”

“The gas lifts the balloon into the air. So tell me, how do we make it go back down?”

“Let the gas out?”

“Correct. What if we want to go back up?”

“I don’t know. You’d need more gas, wouldn’t you? So unless you carry it with you … but that would also make you lift into the air.”

“What if we compressed it so much that it became a liquid?”

“Wouldn’t that make it weigh even more?”

“But didn’t we have that on board when we originally filled the balloon?”

“Ah.”

“We decompress the gas, so we lose the weight and it goes into the balloon providing buoyancy. We can control it with the large fans at the back. They work independently so we can go full forward, full reverse. But what happens if we have one in full forward and one in full reverse?”

“It blows up?” Isaac ventured. “There needs to be more stuff blowing up.”

“No. That comes later with the cannons.”

“Would you turn?” Sebastian said.

“Yes, very good. And these are the levers.”

Both boys jumped on the levers, pulling and pushing them, fighting their own private war in their imaginations against the evil nemesis.

“All right, enough of that. It’s not a toy. If you break it you have to pay for it.”

The boys instantly stopped.

“That’ll be enough for today,” Nikola said. “You should be back inside the walls anyway while these dangerous activities are carried out. People don’t like it if you laugh when they get hurt, as they inevitably will when they ignore all the safety instructions.”
 

He turned to look at the toiling men. “Like this idiot. Simpson! What possessed you to put a ladder on top of another ladder on top of a chair? Anyone with half a brain would at least do it the other way around.”
 

Nikola strode toward Simpson, shaking his health and safety policy at the bald-headed buffoon.
 

Sebastian called out after him. “Nikola, what’s the device under the hill?”

Nikola stopped in his tracks, mid-policy wave and turned. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing, other than it was looking at me.”

“It’s still awake? That can’t be. We’ll talk about this later.”

“But—”

“Later. Now go.” He made a shooing movement with his hands.

As the two boys made their way back to the city gates, Sebastian took the opportunity to listen in on a few conversations, hoping that someone would tell an inappropriate joke or swear in an amusing way. One of the snippets he caught worried him. One man said to another that the helium wasn’t buoyant enough to meet the lift specifications. The other responded with the instruction to swap it for hydrogen. He said he was making “an executive decision.”

27

ALBERT EXAMINED THE experiment setup.
 

“You have been practicing vit the screws?”

“
Ja
. Er, yes.”

“Okay, ve have the magnet. Could you reverse its polarity?”
 

Sebastian looked at the two magnets with their opposite poles attracting. He concentrated and the magnet on the left spun around one hundred and eighty degrees.
 

Albert smiled. “Now transfer the magnetic field onto the screw.”

The screw flew across the bench top and stuck to the side of the magnet on the right. Albert picked up the left magnet and tested it against a small piece of metal. It fell away as a dead piece of metal.

“Now transfer the field from the screw back to the magnet.”

Albert was watching the magnet intently when suddenly his hand started to bleed. He shook his hand and licked off the blood. He searched for the screw, but it had vanished. He stared at the bench top, tapping his fingers. After several moments he got up and searched among the various strange devices stored in the back cupboard.
 

On his way back to the bench he closed all the curtains in the room, making it as dark as he could. He placed a long thin object on the bench and flicked a small switch. Slowly a strong purple glow emanated from the box, casting an eerie glow and making his face look possessed by the physics demon himself.
 

He held up another screw. “Transfer the magnetic field to this screw.”
 

Sebastian concentrated.
 

“Now, slowly, transfer it back. Slowly.”

Sebastian tried to slow the process in his mind. He closed his eyes and let the image crawl across the darkness in his imagination.

“Stop,” whispered Albert. “Now open your eyes.”

There, standing in mid-air, was a perfect outline of the screw, glowing purple in the strange light.
 

“You have transferred the particle field to the air.”
 

“What does that mean?”

“You have created a ghost. Some people might call it teleportation.”
 

Sebastian was rubbing his temples with his fingers. His eyes were closed.

“Does it pain you?” Albert asked.

“Yes. But it’s not too bad. Just like being stabbed with a pencil.”

Albert returned his amazed attention to the floating ghost screw. “You have matched the electromagnetic configuration of the screw to the elements in the air. So, even if you can’t see it, it exists as an electromagnetic form.” He prodded the image floating in the air. “And you can touch it.”

Albert delicately picked up the ghost screw and scratched it down his arm. He could feel the sharp point cutting into his skin. It felt hard, exactly like the real screw.

“Now stop concentrating.” A large spark flew from the ghost screw, making a loud zapping sound. “So the electrons must earth. Interesting. And the original screw is now just inert dust. Interesting.”

The last of the pain ebbed away from Sebastian’s head.
 

Albert was lost in thought. “It is very important you don’t tell anyone about this. I’m not even sure I understand the implications.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Who knocks vitout?” Albert said.
 

The door squeaked open and an old lady entered. “Nikola would like to know if Sebastian has a moment,” she said.

“Thank you,” Albert said. “He vill be up shortly. Now, if you could clean from the back, and leave the blackboard as it is.”

He turned back to Sebastian. “Think about it. I think you should tell Nikola. See if he can find something in those dusty pages.”

*

“Sebastian, take a seat. I’m sorry but I don’t have good news for you.”

Sebastian sat down in the big chair opposite Nikola’s desk, where the usual array of books and book-repair equipment lay scattered around. He was still a little dizzy from the teachings of the day.

“It’s regarding your mother. As I told you, she wasn’t at the hospital. I made some inquiries. I sent out some scouts to find the doctor. I won’t mix words with you on this. They found him drunk in a gambling house of ill repute out on the western plains. The scouts pressed the situation with him, and after some vigorous debate he related a story that has, quite frankly, shocked me. I find it hard to believe that such a man is in possession of the appropriate documentation to deliver medical assistance to the infirm.”
 

Sebastian felt sick waiting for the bad news. The delay only heightened his anxiety.

Nikola sighed. “I wish there was a more pleasant way of telling you this. The doctor took your mother from your town and then, instead of riding south to the hospital, took off to the west where there are less savory individuals. His destination was … let’s not worry about that for the moment, but he left your mother by the side of the road so he could continue his journey. He took your money and drank himself into a very sorry state, where he made little sense to anyone. Then my scouts found him and made his situation worse.”

“What happened to him? And my mother?”
 

“He led my scouts back to where he’d left her. After he’d dug to a sufficient depth looking for your mother’s body, the scouts killed him and left him lying in the ditch where he supposedly left your mother. What you need to know is that tracks were found nearby. Desert walkers. I don’t know if she’s alive or not at the moment, but for them to take her, I’m guessing they found her alive. They’re skillful people, the desert walkers, so she may be all right. But we can’t know for certain.”

Sebastian didn’t know what to make of the information. He was overwhelmed by a tsunami of emotions. “Can the scouts follow the tracks?”

“Desert walkers are like ghosts. You only find their tracks either by complete accident or if they want you to find them.”

“But there’s hope?”

“I can’t say one way or another. It’s great news that the desert walkers found her. But were they able to save her? We don’t know. Even if they did, would they allow her to come here? We can only hope that they want to find
us
. At least they’ll know where we are.”

*

“Come on, Sebastian.” Isaac nearly lifted him into the air with his excessive level of enthusiasm. “You’ll never see anything like this again.”

Isaac dragged the half-awake Sebastian by his sleeve through the streets until they came to the western exit. Isaac watched with a huge grin as the procession floated past. At the front of the guard were several of the teslas, standing atop a small SUV with a special flat roof surrounded by a handrail. The teslas hung on and waved, looking slightly terrified, except for Gavin, who was doing his best to look regal.
 

Sebastian saw Melanie on the other side of the roadway waving frantically at the departing SUV. Gavin finally noticed her and blew her a kiss. To Sebastian it looked like she was about to explode. She caught the kiss and held it to her chest. Then she jumped up and down, lost in insane joy.
 

He sighed and drooped his head. Even her, he thought. Even her.

Then came the huge ground artillery. Several large boxes on wheels rolled past. They were so heavy the ground shook as they passed. The small front wheels bounced over the cobbles, leaving the large rear wheels to grind slowly, crushing the stones and cobbles underfoot. The steam boiler chuffed away noisily, powering the oversized wheels and driving the horrible machines with their deadly array of cannons and weaponry.
 

At the rear came the zeppelins, floating magnificently, taunting the laws of physics. They were wonders of modern technology. Now that Nikola had explained what was in them, Sebastian hoped nothing would go wrong. And he knew that helium had not been powerful enough so they had switched to hydrogen. They needed the lift. It was risky, yes, but without the zeppelins the war would be futile.

Everyone was cheering and waving flags as the procession passed. Sebastian felt only dread and sadness. He knew what the cyborgs could do. And this collection of cutting-edge fighting technology, in its homegrown enthusiasm, would have serious problems when the two sides came face to face.
 

How would the cannons survive the terrible heat of the dragons? Surely the mobile cannons could easily get stuck in the sand. He hoped for the sake of everyone—for those who went and for those who stayed behind—that they would return, victorious or otherwise. Loss was difficult, no matter the reason.
 

He looked over at Melanie again. She was crying, her face a mix of dread, pride and longing. Even if he didn’t like Gavin, he hoped he would be okay, if only for Melanie.

The procession left the city and headed off into the desert. The zeppelins lifted into the air and performed a synchronized movement that had the crowd howling with enthusiasm. Certainty was assured with such deft control of a formidable force. That’s what the people were crying, anyway. Except for Melanie, who just seemed to be crying.