The God Machine (50 page)

It was another hour or so before the carriage reached the estate in Passy. By the time he arrived at Basse Coeur, the storm was raging with such fierceness that Franklin worried it would pass him by before he could even get ready. He scrambled out of the coach and scurried to the house through the rain.

It was late. All of his staff and the members of the American mission had long since gone to bed. The Basse Coeur was still as the grave. Franklin removed his wet coat and his hat, shook the rain off and draped them across a chair in the foyer. Then he lit a candle. He lifted it high above his head and walked down the corridor to his workshop at the rear of the house. The room had once served as a granary; it was large and secluded, made of great blocks of stone. Franklin closed the door, then locked it behind him. He descended the stairs into the heart of his workshop. There was a lamp on a table at the foot of the stairs. He used the candle to light it, and the room was suddenly filled with a bright cheery glow.

There it was. Franklin set the lamp on the table. He stared at the machine on the far side of the room. It beckoned. It waited. It seemed to call out his name.

Franklin made his way to a chain which hung by the wall. He pulled it, and a panel in the ceiling descended, revealing an opening to the elements above. Rain coursed
through the skylight, onto a massive gray sheet that carried it off to a downspout at the rear of the workshop.

Lightning flashed, followed by thunder. Franklin dashed to a primitive console. He flipped a few switches. He checked the connections to the Leyden jars lined up by the walls. All was ready. He looked up at the sky. Lightning flashed and he counted:
one, two, three
. Then thunder enveloped the night. Franklin lifted a cloth that covered a section of the machine. It looked like the arch of a bower, made of metal and wood, surrounded by wires as tenacious as vines. Lightning flashed once again.
One, two…
then the thunder.
Get ready
, he told himself.
This is it
. He stepped up to the portal. A blue glow had already begun to form in the opening. Franklin licked his lips. His heart was racing.
What if I'm wrong?
he considered. He might be joining Voltaire sooner than expected. One way or the other.

Lightning flashed.
One…
then the thunder again. The whole house seemed to quiver. He reached over and flicked the last switch on the console. He took a tremulous breath. The blue glow in the doorway now stretched from one side to the other. The charge was almost complete. He waited, looked up. The black sky billowed with clouds. He waited. And then, out of nowhere, one of Poor Richard's aphorisms swam up through his consciousness:
God helps them who first help themselves
. Franklin laughed. Lightning burst far above him, the blue glow turned white and, without thinking, he stepped through the portal.

T
HE
G
OD MACHINE PURRED AT THE REAR OF THE CLEAN
room. Robinson stood at the console. He adjusted the instruments and a sapphire light appeared in the portal. Koster watched as it slowly extended, like the licking of flames, around the rim of the doorway.

“Are you ready?” asked Robinson.

Koster didn't respond. He was watching the portal. The blue light kept swelling, kept inching along. Soon it would cover the frame, collapsing the walls of the atomic cathedral, transmuting fermion to boson, turning solid matter into light.

“Are you ready?”

Koster woke from his reverie. He stepped up to the electrical bower. He stared at the bell jars and the tangle of wires and cables jutting out from the top of the doorway. The light shivered; it shimmered, from turquoise to a bright peacock blue. The machine began thumping, like the pounding of pistons. The rhythm grew faster. Then the frequency shifted. It climbed up the scale. The sound became shriller.

Koster took another step toward the opening. Then another. As he drew ever closer, he thought about Franklin. He pictured the old man standing before his own God machine, alone, as that lightning storm raged in the skies overhead. Franklin had been desperate to enter this doorway. Despite all his achievements, his Promethean contributions, he had pined for this moment. To see his Franky again. Would he, Koster wondered, see his son, Zane, once again? And Mariane, too? Would he truly see God, whatever that meant? Would he be given some insight, some plan to make sure that Savita was rescued?

The blue light cascaded. The humming grew fainter as it slipped out of range.

Or, would he end up like Archbishop Lacey? A technician had passed on a rumor, allegedly based on the account of some frightened defector. Lacey, he claimed, had ended up a puddle of goo after trying to step through the portal. Since then, they had added the Tesla schematic and Savita's own fragment.

But what if Savita wasn't a genuine messenger? What if Koster had misremembered the pattern? Or what if there were other schematics still out there, some not even imagined yet, let alone rendered?

“Almost there,” added Robinson. He twisted the dial on the console. The blue light enveloped the width of the portal.

Koster could feel the hair on the nape of his neck start to rise from the static charge in the air. He closed his eyes, and he thought of Savita. Savita Sajan. The color of her almond-shaped eyes. The shape of her hands. The warmth of her lips. The scent of her hair. Savita.

“Get ready.”

This was the only way to ensure he would ever see her again. He had to step through that doorway. Nothing else mattered. None of his questions or qualifications
or fears. He loved her. That was it. Either he would succeed in rescuing her or he would die trying. There was no alternative.

“Go! Now!”

Koster stepped through the portal.

F
OR AN INSTANT
F
RANKLIN THOUGHT HE SAW SOMETHING, A
terrible light. Then he was standing on the far side of the doorway. He looked back at the portal. The blue glow had vanished. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened.

Franklin stood there in silence for a few moments more, terrified. Then, without warning, he burst into laughter. He laughed and he laughed, bending over, until he started to sputter and cough.
Captive thunder, indeed
, he thought.
The damned machine still doesn't work
. Lightning flashed in the heavens above him. He straightened, looked up.
But what if it's just a faulty connection?
he wondered. He might still have a chance.

Franklin examined with care the machinery, the wiring of the portal and the lines leading back to the Leyden jars. He spent minutes pulling out and inspecting the soul of the God machine. All seemed as it should be. And yet the device didn't work. Perhaps it was the source of the power, he thought, snatching at each rationale, each possible scenario, like a drowning man at a
spar in rough seas. Was it the source? he wondered. Or not enough power?

Franklin dashed up the stairs through the door of his workshop. He ran down the corridor and then out the front door, where he stopped. Rain slashed the night sky. The heart of the storm was above him. He dashed toward the main house up the long gravel drive. It took him several long minutes to get there, and he was drenched by the time he rushed through the side entrance, lit a candle and hauled himself up the stairs to the roof. Le Ray de Chaumont and his family were already asleep in their beds on the far side of the mansion. Franklin burst through the door leading out to the parapets and the candle was blown out immediately. But it didn't matter. Every few seconds, he could see the rooftop distinctly as lightning bolts crackled above him. He raced through the rain. It was freezing. It seemed to congeal on his face. His bifocals instantly fogged and by the time he had reached the lightning rod, he could scarcely see anything.

Franklin dropped to his knees. He ran his hands around the rod's base, feeling for the connections. Perhaps the wind had torn the lines loose. Perhaps the electrical fluid had failed to pass through. He reached down and felt for them, mindful of the peril he faced should lightning strike as he laid his bare hands on the wire. But it was all for naught, anyway. Nothing was wrong here. The connections were fine. It was the soul of the God machine that had failed him.

With great weariness, Franklin climbed to his feet. He stepped back from the lightning rod. He looked up at the sky, at the rain pelting down all around him, like lances of water, straight through his brain. He opened his mouth. He felt it fill up with rain. He gurgled and spat, casting his eyes desperately about the wet rooftop. Then he noticed a small iron bar left behind by some
workman. He bent down, snatched it up. The bar felt heavy and solid, and blessedly real. He walked back to the base of the lightning rod and struck it with all of his might. A great chunk of stone hurtled off into the darkness. He banged at the base several times, then, with a terrible groan he threw the rod off the roof. Franklin fell to his knees. It was over. The machine didn't work. It would never work. It had all been a lie.

He remained on his knees, trying to slow down his breathing, trying to settle his heart. Chill rain washed his neck. It ran down his back. Franklin was soaked to the skin. He started to shiver. A lightning bolt flashed in the distance. The storm was moving away. It was over. He climbed to his feet. His knees almost buckled beneath him, and, for the first time in years, Franklin felt his real age. Heartsick, he watched as the storm slowly receded toward the west, consuming the pastures and forests of Passy. Only then did he turn and look back at the city. Paris glowed like a great cobweb of light in the east. There were a few bright spots, some patches of human activity, but much darkness. Like his own life, he thought bitterly.

He had had his brief moments in the sun, to be sure. Of that, Franklin held few delusions. He had traveled the world, seen more than most saw in five lifetimes. His contributions to the birth of his nation would go down in history. His work on the Declaration of Independence. His influence on the French, from that first fateful meeting with Bonvouloir at Carpenters' Hall to the Treaty of Alliance with France, signed earlier that year when the king's ministers had learned of the American victory at Saratoga. The war had turned into a stalemate, but it was only a matter of time, Franklin knew, before the fledgling United States would prevail. He was certain of it, despite the skeptics who abounded around him. He could
feel it in his bones. It was like the scent of a good newspaper story.

Franklin considered his publishing empire. Out of nothing—indeed, as a floundering runaway—he had become the most powerful printer in the state. Some said, in the colonies. And as Postmaster General, he had linked his development of editorial content, his
Gazette
and his almanacs, with the most efficient distribution system of the day. He'd founded the nation's first library and fire brigade. He'd discovered the Gulf Stream, intuited daylight saving time. He'd conceived of countless inventions, from his stove to his glass armonica to his lightning rod. And yet, he considered, at the close of his life, it was not these accomplishments, not these bright spots that obsessed him. It was all of that darkness in between.

Franklin had tried to lead a moral life. Even in youth, he had devised complex moral perfection plans intended to drive self-improvement. He had laid out thirteen key virtues—from temperance to industry and humility. How typical, he thought, that he should have documented his goals like the hypothesis of a scientific experiment, as if goodness and virtue could be encompassed by words. He had always been partial to lists, like the maxims in his
Poor Richard's Almanac
. Such thoroughness was a mark of the logical mind. Of course, almanacs were a significant source of revenue for a printer as well, outselling even the Bible, since they had to be purchased anew every year. It was the almanacs, plus his other media endeavors, that had enabled him to retire at the age of forty-two, giving him ample time to concentrate on his reading and experiments. But he hadn't always succeeded in his moral endeavors. He had done things that still filled him with unfathomable guilt. And yet, over the years, he had learned that sometimes the virtues extolled with such reckless abandon in America
failed to resonate on the Continent. In America, it was sinful to look idle, while in France it was vulgar to look busy. John Adams, who had just arrived in Paris as ambassador to the French Court, had yet to appreciate this curious paradox. Adams believed Franklin's life in Passy was a scene of unchecked dissipation.