Bloodless

62

Pendergast had taken the notebook off the worktable and was consulting it. Now he held it in his left hand, open for reference, while with his right he gently grasped a lever that rested on two metal supports. Beside it was a large meter with a black dial.

“That doesn’t look like an on switch to me,” said Coldmoon.

“It’s called a knife switch. Primitive, and it will easily electrocute the careless user.” He consulted the notebook again. “It would be advisable if you both stepped back. I believe that whatever is going to manifest itself will do so in the space you’re currently occupying — where those two giant electrodes are pointing.” And he indicated the polished steel wands, each topped with a small copper globe.

Coldmoon hastily stepped back, followed by Constance.

“This” — Pendergast indicated a dial on the face of the machine, with two hand-drawn tick marks labeled I and II — “would seem to indicate a choice of power levels. We shall start with the lower of the two.”

“Are you sure about this?” Coldmoon asked.

“Not entirely.” Pendergast gingerly swung the knife switch over to the opposite bracket. There was a loud spark when it made contact, and then a low vibration began. Pendergast stepped back and joined them at the far wall, and together they watched the machine warm up. A computer monitor winked into life, and various data began scrolling up several windows.

Coldmoon felt his heart pounding. He didn’t think it was a good idea to just turn the damn machine on like that. But he had no alternate suggestion to make. And besides, there was no point — there never was — in arguing with Pendergast.

The vibration gradually intensified, until Coldmoon could almost feel it in his gut. The needle on the dial beside the switch began to quiver. A curious warmth seeped into the room, like the glow from an infrared lamp. And then, a flicker of light raced from one copper globe to the other. Another flicker danced from globe to globe. And then, a third arc of light appeared — but this time, it stopped midtransit, hovering at the intersection where the two steel rods pointed. He stared. The flicker began to slowly expand, and it looked to Coldmoon almost as if the very air between the copper globes had become visible: shiny, silvery, gossamer veils, rippling in a strengthening wind. And then the shimmering effect began to fade, and as it subsided, the air cleared and — in its place — a scene came into focus: a nocturnal image of a crowded city square, lit up and bustling with people and cars, and hemmed in on all sides by skyscrapers.

With a start Coldmoon recognized it. “Hey, isn’t that New York?”

“So it would appear,” Pendergast murmured.

It was as if a window to a distant place had opened before them. But its edges were vague and indistinct, composed of ever-shifting, rainbow-hued light. Coldmoon swallowed. The window — the portal — danced and flickered in the center of the room. It was impossible... and yet, there it was before him.

“That’s Times Square,” Constance said, “looking south toward the New York Times Building, and from a significant height.” She paused. “I would guess the vantage point is somewhere on West Forty-Sixth Street — probably the Marriott Marquis hotel.”

“I believe you’re right,” Pendergast said.

It was a dazzling view of the brightly illuminated square, festooned with huge screens mounted on the surrounding buildings, all glowing with advertising and logos and news images. Near the bottom of the Times Tower ran the traditional news “zipper” and, below that, a stock ticker, with stock prices running continuously along a chyron. It was a lively evening, the square swarming with tourists and theatergoers. And sound — Coldmoon could faintly make out the sounds of Times Square filtering through the portal: horns honking, the murmur and shouts of the crowds, a police whistle, the calls of buskers and hawkers. And an equally faint scent wafted out, as well: the smell of the city, of auto exhaust and pavement and burnt pretzels and shish kebab on a warm May night.

Coldmoon stared. It was too realistic to be a television screen, no matter how high the resolution; it was — again, there was no better comparison — like looking through an open window. His eye drifted over the view in wonder, then focused once more on the Times building and its iconic stack of giant screens, including temperature, date, and time.

Date and time. “That’s Times Square right now,” he said, astonished.

After a short silence, Constance said, “No, it isn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“That isn’t Times Square — at least our Times Square. And it’s not now, either.”

“The hell it’s not. The date and time are posted right up on those screens. See? Nine eleven PM.”

Constance slipped out a cell phone and showed its screen to Coldmoon. “It’s nine ten. The Times Square we’re looking at is one minute in the future.”

Coldmoon stared back and forth from her phone to the image. The time on the large screen within the portal changed to 9:12. As it did, Constance’s cell phone changed to 9:11.

“This is the secret to Ellerby’s trading,” Pendergast said. “And Frost’s before that. As you can see, the stock ticker is streaming the price of various stocks — one minute in the future. And only the stocks of major companies are displayed, which explains why Ellerby restricted his trading to Dow Jones Industrials.”

Coldmoon stared at the ticker. Stock symbols and numbers were indeed scrolling past on an endless ribbon, the symbols and numbers just so much gibberish to him. “Um, one minute? That doesn’t seem like much of an advantage.”

“It’s enough to make a modest profit, especially during a volatile market,” said Pendergast. “Which is what Miss Frost had been doing these many years: eking out small but steady gains. But when Ellerby took over the operation, he wasn’t satisfied with small profits. Once he figured out how the machine worked, he was able to build an improved version using updated technology.” He waved a hand at the device. “As you can see, this is not Frost’s modest briefcase machine, but a far more powerful one, capable of seeing deeper into the future.”

Coldmoon could only shake his head again.

Pendergast held up the journal. “If I understand Ellerby’s notes, the Roman numeral II on that dial is the second power setting. That increases the power beyond what Frost, and her friend at Boeing, intended, allowing the device to penetrate into a parallel universe running about an hour in the future. But recall, what we’re seeing isn’t our future. It’s a window into parallel universes exactly like ours, whether one minute or one hour ahead. Knowing what stock prices would be in an hour, and trading on that information, would allow one to make millions. Hundreds of millions.”

“So why are we looking at this view and not something else?” he asked.

“Frost explained that to me,” said Constance. “Shortly after she got the original machine fully functional, she went to Times Square, entered a building on the north end of the intersection, ascended to a height that allowed a good vantage point, and aimed the machine out a window and down Broadway. She focused it, or rather tuned it, to this very scene. After that, wherever she took the machine, she could always use it to observe the parallel Times Square from that same vantage point. As long as the stock ticker ran the current stock prices, and as long as she didn’t focus the machine elsewhere, she could trade on that information.”

“This is too crazy,” Coldmoon muttered. “I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.”

“Please do wrap your mind around it,” said Pendergast, “because I intend to increase the power to the higher level.”

“Why?” Coldmoon asked.

“Because that’s what Ellerby did.”

Coldmoon glanced at Constance; she had turned toward Pendergast, an odd expression on her face.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Coldmoon continued. “We should call in the FBI Evidence Response Team, have them pack this baby up and take it back to Quantico, where it can be examined in a state-of-the-art lab.”

Pendergast raised an eyebrow. “You’d prefer to let our beloved government get their hands on it? Do you really have that much confidence in our political leaders to use this in a wise and beneficent way?”

“Oh.” Coldmoon paused. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“We must do this ourselves,” Pendergast said as he placed his hand on the dial. “I’m convinced this device is key to whoever — or whatever — is plaguing Savannah. If we’re going to understand it — and confront it — we need more information first.”

And he began slowly turning the dial farther.