The Tesla Experiment

Chapter 16

Sam’s eyes flashed between all the passengers stepping off the train, trying to find Nina among them. It had been two days since she agreed to come to Lyon to help him and Lydia look for Purdue, yet she had no idea of the true absurdity that awaited her. All he wanted was to get her here first, otherwise she would never have agreed to indulge the insane actions Purdue and Sam had perpetrated.

“Are you sure she would be able to help, Mr. Cleave?” Healy asked. He was tasked to accompany the lone journalist whose footage and gear was confiscated by order of Professor Jenner. Lydia was worried that Sam would use the obscure proof of her experimental success to make himself rich and famous, among other threats she assumed would come from the award-winning journalist’s recording of her quantum mechanical voyage.

Healy had to come with Sam to prevent him from leaving the country, yet Lydia insisted that Sam Cleave was not a hostage by any means.

“If anyone can help us pinpoint where Purdue is in history, Healy, it is Dr. Nina Gould. She is an expert on German modern history, especially the Second World War,” Sam promised. They both waited at International Arrivals, scanning the crowd that had just come in from Heathrow via Quantas.

“What does she look like, sir?” Healy asked.

Sam smiled. “She is small, but passionate. Nina towers at about 5’3” with a seven foot attitude, dark shoulder length hair with big black eyes like hellfire.”

“Sounds like a handful,” Healy remarked, provoking Sam to have a laugh at the accuracy of the butler’s guess.

“You have no idea. If you think Professor Jenner is rambunctious you have not seen Nina at the height of an idea she is pursuing. Good God, there is no stopping that woman. She is stubborn, smart and articulate.”

Healy smiled in the only wry way he knew how. With a nod he added, “How long have you been in love with her, sir?” Sam glared at Healy. He kept silent, studying any sign of the butler’s jest, but the tall man was quite sincere.

“Since the moment I met her, Healy. And you will too.”

“I will not stand for this, Mr. Lamont! I don’t care if you cough up a ball of fur, you will stay here until your staff have located and brought my missing laptop. It is in a black EVA brand laptop case with strap and the zipper is fitted with a tiny, teensy combination lock about the size of your brain!”

“I hear Nina,” Sam frowned, rotating to see where her voice came from.

“Could that be the doctor over there, threatening that man?” Healy asked innocently, pointing to an information desk where three agitated employees of the airline bustled to locate a missing bag. By the desk stood the stunning, small historian. Her hair was tied back in a high ponytail and she was dressed smart casually, her shades roughly fixed on her head. Her leather jacket hugged her shapely form and her black jeans fitted her snugly right down to the slightly heeled brown boots she wore, the same color as her luggage bag.

“That’s her,” Sam grinned. “Are you in love yet?”

He headed to Nina and Healy followed in his trail, answering him, “Yes, sir, but with some form of caution.”

Sam laughed. When Nina saw him she blessed him with a lovely smile and opened her arms to receive him in a warm reunion.

“What’s this? Old age?” she joked, grabbing Sam by his newly grown groomed beard and moustache which only gave him a more rugged handsomeness.

“Aye, the years are piling on, but I’m going down swingin’, lassie,” he winked as he gently tugged at the salt and pepper facial hair of the eternally youthful journalist. They embraced tightly, remaining so for almost a minute. Healy could see that Cleave and Dr. Gould had a history, and by the looks of it, a very close one.

“Mr. Cleave, we must make haste before the storm floods the roads home,” Healy reminded Sam.

“Oh yes, you’re right,” Sam agreed, just as the ground operator brought Nina her laptop bag with the small steel lock on the zipper.

“So sorry for the inconvenience, Dr. Gould,” she apologized. “We found in two seats down from you, among someone else’s luggage.”

The weather only grew worse out in the parking area. From all directions the rain pelted the cars and buildings, changing with the switch of the wind direction every few minutes. As Sam directed a cowering Nina by means of a soft hand on her lower back with Healy in their wake, bearing her luggage bags, they raced to get to the car. He could see that the normally stout butler was terrified of the thunder and literally dipped every time there was lightning above. As the wild eyed Healy and Nina scuttled into the vehicle Sam looked up at the terrifying blue veins that developed across the sky in a split second every time the clouds pulsed with light.

His dark eyes reflected the awesome blue-white cracks as he braved the danger to behold the super electrical charge of the majestic lightning. Deep inside Sam he knew this god-like expulsion into the atmosphere was the secret to bringing back Dave Purdue, but he was not prepared to stand there too long and run the risk of its wrath. There would be plenty of time for that, once he persuaded Lydia that the very lightning of the next two days were the key to returning Purdue to her chamber, hopefully unscathed.

They drove to Jenner Manor in the terrible chaos of traffic under the escalating storm while Sam filled Nina in on what had happened during the experiment and why they need a historian to guide Purdue onto the necessary points in history so that they could eventually pin-point him to bring him back to 2015.

“I don’t know what to say, Sam. Look, I have a very open mind. You know that. But time travel? Really?” she scowled, believing that Sam believed every word he told her. “I have seen a lot of weird shit that defied explanation before…”

“So why is this so hard to believe, Nina?” Sam asked.

“It’s Science Fiction!” she defended.

“And yet here we were, watching Purdue vanish into a flash of fire without a grain of ash to show for his presence!” he retorted. “If he just combusted, or God forbid burned to death, we would have found his remains in the chamber, would we not?”

“It is just…” she hesitated, “…it’s just so unreal. It is unlikely. Look, I am not an authority on quantum physics…”

“But Prof. Jenner is, Madam,” Healy chipped in from the driver’s seat. “I promise you, Dr. Gould, this far-fetched mania is every bit as real as you or I sitting in this car right now. It is only Science Fiction while it remains to be proven. And that is precisely what we have just achieved with the help of Mr. Purdue.”

Nina had nothing to throw at the well groomed butler. She had to concede to having seen stranger things than simple quantum dynamics at play. As long as she did not have to run for her life this time, Nina Gould was willing to accept anything Sam and his new consorts dealt her.

When they arrived at the manor an hour and a half later, she saw why Sam was so convinced that the environment could actually facilitate tine travel. Her eyes marveled at the strange sheeting on the fences and the lonely mansion being laid out for protection instead of esthetics.

“Listen, is the lady of the house still going to be awake?” Nina asked as they pulled into the yard. “The windows are dark and there is no indication of life. Won’t we wake her?”

“The windows always look like this, Dr. Gould,” Healy explained. “It looks like this as a result of the windows being boarded up. Besides, Professor Jenner is somewhat…” he hesitated and smiled at Nina, “…eccentric. Not fond of sleep. She says she’ll get plenty of that when she is dead.”

“I like her already,” Nina smiled, staring out the slowing car’s window at the wild garden, lit with bright lights situated around the shutters of the manor. It crossed her mind that it was curious how a woman of such financial means would not bother to beautify what is clearly a stately property with so much potential to be resurrected to its former glory. To Nina Lydia Jenner sounded like someone who took pride only in her work and left the rest to the devil.

When they entered the enormous house, properly wet from the downpour Nina instantly detected the smell of burnt wiring and cannabis, but she did not make mention of it.

“Welcome to the Jenner Manor, madam,” Healy smiled as he brought Nina a thick towel to dry her hair. He had one each for Sam and himself as well. “I shall start a fire in the drawing room.”

“Shouldn’t you let the professor know we are here?” Nina asked.

Sam chuckled alongside Healy who answered, “I assure you, Dr. Gould, she can hear us.”

After Sam took over the hearthing duties from the butler, Healy took to task getting Dr. Gould settled in first. “Dr. Gould, please, let me show you to your room,” he invited, taking her bags from her and leading the way up the stairs to the right on the first floor. It was probably the only part of the house that resembled a house and not some underground gathering place for mad artists and obscene electricians.

“I hope this is adequate. I did not expect another visitor, so today was a bit of a rush to get some fresh linen. But I gave the room a good grooming,” he explained politely.

“And even got fresh roses!” Nina pointed, pleasantly surprised. “I feel special, Healy. There are no other fresh bouquets that I could see in the house.”

“That is quite correct, doctor,” he agreed. “Normally I would not go to such reaches, but the scent of the flowers and their beauty was a prerequisite for your room. Any lady guest should have roses. For some reason, you complete the bouquet.”

‘Was he just flirting with me?’ she wondered, but felt by no means uncomfortable for it. Healy was not a bad looking bloke at all.

“Well, well,” Lydia cried from her wheelchair in the doorway, “it looks like this house has suddenly come alive!”

“Professor Jenner, this is Mr. Cleave’s friend, Dr. Nina Gould,” Healy announced as he hung Nina’s coat on the stand next to her bed.

“I’m sorry to impose like this, but I heard that our mutual friend was in a bind?” Nina told Lydia.

“I’m afraid so. So many years I have devised this plan, created the schematics, built the contraptions all to prove that Nikola Tesla had some very good theories. And with one half-assed attempt at collecting scientific information the goddamn thing decides to work!” Lydia rambled in her hoarse low voice that completely contrasted her attractive, dainty face.

“So you did not mean to send Purdue back in time, then?” Nina marveled.

“I don’t know what I expected, Nina. But whatever I tried to prove, inadvertently proved itself. I had never been this collectively disappointed and elated with an experiment’s outcome,” Lydia sighed. “I mean, the bloody thing worked! Who would have guessed the ludicrous was a matter of mathematics?”

“Not me, for sure,” Nina remarked. “I always thought the absurd was the burden of the bard, not the wizard.”

Lydia stopped he wheelchair and stared at Nina. Mute, she just looked the historian straight in the eye. Nina felt awkward for her uttering, thinking she may have offended the professor. Lydia suddenly became animate again, lolling her head to one side and extending her fingers like a cat, stretching, “You are a remarkable little thing, Dr. Gould. Such eloquence! I always wished I could wield poetry and philosophy like that, but alas I am not so inclined. I envy you. All I know is locked in numbers and equations with not a hope of ever stringing words as I do compounds.”

“For what it is worth, I am dreadfully inept at mathematical problems and anything related to physics. I suppose that is the reason for the differing abilities in people. One has to complete the other, each being an extension of the previous to cover the entire spectrum of all things,” Nina said as they neared the warm glow in the drawing room.

“There is that philosophy again,” Lydia noted, smiling. “So tell me, Nina, how much do you know about World War II?”

Sam laughed heartily, “She knows enough to have been there, Lydia.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps we should send Nina back the same way to go and get Dave. Nobody would know better how to track down a spoiled adventurer from the present like someone who knows the ways of that era like the back of her hand.”