Glimpse (The Tesla Effect Book 1) (15 page)

CHAPTER
15

After a very awkward shower the next morning, for which she had to wrap her cast in a plastic garbage bag Max pilfered from the kitchen, Tesla felt decidedly better. Rested, and seemingly past the worst of the physical and emotional exhaustion that apparently resulted when you were viciously attacked, had your arm broken by said attacker, had your dad kidnapped by an evil, probably mad scientist—oh, and realized that you had travelled back in time. She looked at the bottle of pain pills beside the sink and opted not to take any more of them. The pain was manageable and she had already grown tired of the buzz.

She dressed in her rather beat-up, but most comfortable khaki shorts, despite the frayed pockets and hem, and a tight little tie-dyed T-shirt of greens and purples, a major operation that had taken, unbelievably, fifteen solid minutes to accomplish.
Disgusted by how slow and awkward she was, Tesla slipped on her Teva sandals, grabbed her scarf-turned-sling, and headed downstairs to do something—anything—to help find her dad.

In the kitchen she found Bizzy, Joley, and Max.
They leaned or sat on the countertops while they ate cereal. “Don’t you people have a dining room? You know, with a table and chairs?” She poured Cornflakes into the bowl that Joley pointed to with his spoon while he chewed.

“Yeah,” Bizzy said, “but it’s too much trouble.”

Tesla shrugged. It seemed rude to comment on the contradiction between that British tea thing they did every afternoon and this makeshift, stand-up breakfast in the kitchen. Whatever. “You sleep okay?” she asked Max as he rinsed his bowl at the sink.

“Yeah, great,” he said.
“When do we go to dad’s lab? Or should I say when
did
we go to dad’s lab?” He pondered this for a moment. “So. Weird. And having watched
Loopers
a dozen times, turns out, is no help at all.”

“Not until tonight,” said Finn as he walked into the room, answering Max’s original question and ignoring the rest.

“Why wait?” Tesla asked, anxious to get started.

“Because if it’s ten o’clock in the morning here then it’s probably ten o’clock in the morning there.
When you did it before, Tesla, it was the middle of the night in the hospital, and when you found yourself in that box, and met that janitor, it was still the middle of the night. He said he was the night-shift, didn’t he?”

“Oh,” Tesla said.
“Right. I didn’t think about that.”

“We don’t really know what to expect,” he explained, “but we should try not to arrive there in the middle of a busy workday.”

“Okay,” Tesla said. “I guess we should sit down and think this through before I go. Should I bring some stuff with me?
Can
I bring stuff with me?”

“Let’s all slow down a little,” Finn said.
“Lydia’s in the library, she wants to talk to us as soon as you’re all finished in here.” His condescension started a tight little ball of resentment forming right behind Tesla’s eyes.
He’s not so much older
, she thought.
Barely two years. But he acts like he’s in charge of everyone and everything. Ass.

“What about you?” Bizzy asked, just before she tipped her cereal bowl up to her lips and drank what was left of her milk.

“I’ve been up for a while. I already ate,” he said over his shoulder as he walked out of the room.

Ten minutes later, after Bizzy had helped Tesla retie her sling, Tesla and Max followed the others out of the kitchen and down a long, wide hallway, at the end of which were two closed, massive oak doors.
Joley knocked, once.

“Come in,” Lydia called from inside.

Joley grabbed the slightly tarnished brass knobs of each door and slid them silently apart and into the hidden pockets on either side of the doorway, which was eight-feet wide once the doors were pushed back into the wall. Tesla and Max gaped at the massive library. Floor to ceiling built-in bookcases comprised three of the room’s walls, with a circular, wooden staircase leading up to a railed balcony that ran along all three walls and provided access to the open second floor of books.

“Whoa,” said Max, just behind Tesla, who couldn’t help but turn and grin at her little brother.

“Dream come true for you, right?” she said quietly.

“I can’t believe you guys get to live here,” Max said to Bizzy, who stood right next to him.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “this is pretty awesome. And Lydia shares—we have access to all the books, whenever we want.”

The fourth wall of the library, to the left of the doorway where they stood, was an exterior wall, painted a deep, hunter green.
There was an enormous oak fireplace in the center of the wall and a portrait of some old guy hung over the mantle. The red of his jacket and his white, curly wig contrasted nicely with the dark wood and green wall. Two deep, worn brown-leather chairs sat in front of the fireplace with lamps and small tables beside them. The room was filled with natural light from the huge windows on either side of the fireplace, each of which was exactly ten feet tall.

“Come in and sit,” said Lydia at the head of the conference table made out of a massive slab of deeply polished wood.
The table sat in the center of the room and was so long that ten upholstered chairs were pulled up to it, with plenty of room to spare. Finn was already seated at Lydia’s left, and as the others moved to take seats at the table, Beckett came in behind them, her hair still wet from the shower.

“How was your workout?” Bizzy asked as she took the chair next to Finn.

“The usual,” Beckett said, and then grinned at the goth girl. “I’m getting a little better.”

Bizzy rolled her eyes.

“Beckett trains with a UFC fighter,” Joley explained as he sat next to Tesla on the other side of the table. “Mixed martial arts. A couple times a week they just have a really scary, no-holds-barred death match.”

“I hope you never get mad at me!” Max said as Beckett walked past him toward the other end of the table to sit opposite Lydia.

“No worries, little man,” Beckett said with a sweet, genuine smile as she ruffled his hair. “I’d never hurt you.”

“Even though you could,” Joley pointed out.

“Even though I could,” Beckett agreed.

“We’re all here now,” Lydia began, “and we need to tackle a few issues.
Finn?”

Everyone turned to look at Finn, and they all seemed surprised, which surprised Tesla.
Usually, she was the only one in this group who needed someone to explain or translate.
Finn hesitated—another surprise—then cleared his throat. “As you all know, we’ve agreed to attempt to use Dr. Abbott’s time machine today, on the assumption that Tesla used it successfully a few months ago, though she’s only just realized that. Our hope is to figure out both how the technology works—and Tesla’s role in that—and where Dr. Abbott is so we can rescue him from Nilsen. We’re really in the dark here, but as Nilsen is untraceable in our current time, our hope is that in the past, where he is known and locatable, we can learn something that will help us find him now, in our time. And thus, of course, find Dr. Abbott.”

They all sat quietly as they waited to see where this was headed.

“There’s little doubt that Nilsen wants the Abbott technology, so that’s where we have to start. The machine is set to the time in Tasya Petrova's journals, about eight years ago, where we see detailed diagrams and specs of the prototype time machine, when that first version of it was up and running—that's our destination place-time.” Finn paused and drummed his fingers nervously on the table. “I imagine everyone assumes that Tesla will be the one to attempt to go back in time. But I’ve persuaded Lydia that I should go instead.” He had deliberately not looked at Tesla while he spoke, until now, and she correctly read the challenge in his eyes.

“I’m going, Finn, this is not your call,” Tesla said, her voice low and dangerous.

“No, it’s not,” Lydia agreed, cutting Tesla off before she could really get started. “But it is mine, and I have agreed—somewhat reluctantly—that Finn should be the one to attempt this.”

“But I’ve already done it, and it’s my dad who’s been kidnapped.
My parents designed and built the time machine in the first place!” Tesla argued, but Lydia’s face remained serene and unmoved.

Lydia let her speak for only a moment, then she held up her hand and Tesla stopped, despite herself.
“I’m sorry, Tesla,” Lydia said quietly. “You certainly have the stronger claim, but that is not the issue here. Finn has made some excellent points, and once you hear them, I think you’ll agree that this is the best decision.”

“I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” Tesla said quietly to Finn, directly across the table from her.

He looked at her calmly, which made her even angrier. “I know,” he conceded, “and I’m sorry. But you need to think here, Tesla. Your mom is gone, your dad has been kidnapped, and you are all Max has left.”

Tesla stopped dead with a sharp intake of breath, as if she’d been struck.
She hadn’t thought of Max, but Finn had,
damn him
. How could she argue with him now?

“There was no catastrophe when I did it before,” she said half-heartedly.

“That’s true, but we don’t really know how this works,” he countered, maddeningly sure of himself. “Bizzy may be brilliant, but she’s sixteen, an undergraduate. She certainly doesn’t know all that your dad knows and she’s the one who will have to run this little experiment. It might not be the same this time, or you might not be able to get back—have you thought of that?”

“No, but—”

“Tesla,” Lydia interjected. “Given your responsibility to Max, and the fact that we need you here to figure out what your mother meant in her journal when she connected you to the time machine, not to mention your heart condition….”

Tesla sat silently as the others tensed for her furious response.
It was over, and she knew it. She had already lost. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Fine,” she said, after a moment. “What can I do to help?”

Everyone at the table looked at her, the shock registered clearly on their faces, but Beckett’s face actually made Tesla want to laugh.
Note to self
, she thought.
Beckett hates it when I am reasonable and mature, so do that as often as possible
.

“Thank you, Tesla, I appreciate your cooperative attitude,” Lydia said, ever gracious.

“I just want my dad back,” Tesla said quietly, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Max nod in agreement, which confirmed that this was, indeed, the right decision.

“Alright then,” Lydia said.
“We’ll meet at the East entry door to the Physics building on campus at nine o’clock tonight. Bizzy will let us in, and we’ll head down to the underground lab—yes, Bizzy, I know, ‘the Bat Cave’—together. Between now and then, we have much to do.”

Joley had a yellow legal pad in front of him on which he had written continuously throughout the meeting.
His pen was poised as he waited for Lydia to speak again. Tesla wondered idly if he was the official secretary for the group, if he took minutes for some sort of record, or if he was just an unbelievably nerdy, albeit stylish and totally hot guy. The quirky contradictions she always saw in him brought a smile to her face.

“What’s funny?” asked Finn, who watched her.

Her smile was instantly eclipsed as Tesla turned icy blue-green eyes on him. “Nothing,” she said with great dignity. She hoped her disdain would crush him, but he laughed out loud, amused by her instead. God, she
hated
him sometimes!

Meanwhile, Lydia marshaled the troops.
“Bizzy, you’ll be at the lab all day to check the equipment and make your preparations. Please be sure that none of Dr. Abbott’s other students or colleagues will be around tonight.”

“Yeah, I’ve got that covered,” Bizzy said.
“The lab’s been locked up tight since the explosion, and most people are gone for the summer anyway—nobody in the department even knows that Dr. A is missing, at least not that I can tell. And of the relatively few people who know about the Bat Cave, I’m one of only two that have the access codes. No one will be there.”

“Good.”
Lydia nodded, but they could all see that she was worried. “Finn and I will go over every possible contingency for tonight. I want him to be prepared for whatever he might find when he—when he makes the jump to the past? I’m not really sure what we call this, either.” She paused a moment to smile conspiratorially at Max. “Anyway. As for the rest of you. Beckett, the lawn needs to be mown and Joley, please take Max with you to the grocery store. There’s a list on the kitchen board, and Max can help you choose items he and his sister might like while they’re with us.”

Tesla couldn’t believe it.
“Seriously?” she asked. “Housework? Shouldn’t you guys be, I don’t know, headed to your weapons room to gear up, Matrix-style?”