Tesla's Attic (9781423155126) (15 page)

“You shouldn't be so rude to a man in my condition,” said Svedberg. “Now, if you'll excuse me…” Then he reached out, pulled away both of the electrodes touching his chest, and got back to the business of being permanently out of business.

R
egardless of its other properties, Petula's box camera had a simple one-to-one magnification ratio. With its temporal focus ring set to zero, a picture of the sky would yield nothing but the moon, some birds, and the occasional passing aircraft. To see what was in store for the planet Earth, she would need to spin the focus ring a week forward, and it might give her a completely different story. Unfortunately, the focus ring had a maximum zoom of twenty-four hours into the future.

Thus, only a telescope of extreme proportions could detect the sly approach of what was known as Celestial Object Felicity Bonk. It bore that name for the simple reason that it was sold to a fifteen-year-old girl on a field trip to New Mexico's National Radio Astronomy Observatory, home of the very large array of radio telescopes known, quite uncreatively, as the Very Large Array.

Felicity had purchased the asteroid one year earlier, because naming an asteroid only cost ten bucks, whereas a star was a whopping seventy-five.

As any Realtor can tell you, when purchasing real estate, there are only three things that matter: location, location, and location. Celestial Object Felicity Bonk could be found in the low-rent district of the solar system. That is, until just a few days ago, when it began a dramatic relocation.

As most of the world's telescopes were trying to catch such cosmic celebrities as glitzy Magellanic Clouds, camera-shy black holes, and the haunting habits of cannibalistic galaxies, it was a while before the astronomical paparazzi turned its lenses toward quiet, unassuming Celestial Object Felicity Bonk.

It was the Hubble Telescope, free from the nuisance of atmosphere, that first caught the asteroid's movement in its peripheral vision. And a quick calculation by NASA, twice corrected because of metric conversion errors, confirmed its collision course with the Boardwalk of solar real estate, namely planet Earth.

At a speed of sixty-eight thousand miles per hour, its impact in seven days' time, while thankfully putting an end to reality TV forever, would also put an end to reality.

Taking into account its speed and the earth's rotation, the impact point was projected to be a neighborhood sports complex in Colorado Springs. The astonished astronomer who made the discovery was left with one all-important question: is it more appropriate to e-mail, call, or text your boss that the world is about to end?

T
he mathematician Gödel said no equation is complete, because a perfectly complete equation must contain the seeds of its own destruction. In other words, every equation must have its own troublesome variable. Every ointment must have its fly.

Petula Grabowski-Jones was that fly. Although she was more like a mosquito hawk, due to her ability to suck the blood of lesser flies. She had spent most of her free time on Monday and Tuesday taking pictures that were far less pointless than they appeared. Petula found that the most annoying thing about knowing the future between one and twenty-four hours in advance was that the future was mostly uninteresting.

She could take a picture of the school cafeteria, and after developing it, she could tell you what any given kid would be eating for lunch and who they might be sitting next to tomorrow. But who really cared? Everyone knew what was for lunch tomorrow, and everyone knew who they would be sitting next to anyway.

Taking interesting pictures of the future meant trying to guess not only
when
something would happen, but
where
it would happen, too. In addition, as Petula developed her many photos in Ms. Planck's darkroom, she discovered that it wasn't the grand vision of the future she should be focusing on, but the unobserved minutiae. The little details are what make all the difference between
now
and
then
.

Before school started on Wednesday, Petula pulled aside Heather North, who was substantially more popular than she was.

“Don't ask me how I know,” she whispered, “but Tommy Woodruff is going to ask you out today. In fact, by the end of the day, I wouldn't be surprised if you're wearing his jersey. If it's true, you owe me one.”

Between second and third period, Petula cornered Principal Watt. “I know you've been trying to find a way to fire Mr. Brown. Don't try to deny it. Some things are public knowledge.”

The principal said nothing, just stared at her with a slightly bemused and slightly terrified expression.

“Well,” Petula whispered, “during his prep period, if you happen to find him alone in his room, he'll be guzzling a bottle of Jack Daniel's. I hope you'll remember who gave you the info.”

Then she winked at him and went on her merry way.

And when woefully thin-skinned Cindy Hawthorne came down with one of her epic nosebleeds during lunch, who was there to perform triage with a huge stack of napkins that she just “coincidentally” happened to be holding?

“Thank you, Petula,” said Cindy. “I really owe you.”

Petula found that she enjoyed doing good deeds when she knew there would be a return on her investment.

It wasn't until the end of the day that she began to worry about the fabric of the universe, because Heather North was not wearing Tommy Woodruff's jersey seven minutes before the time her picture showed she would be. In fact, Tommy Woodruff was already in the boys' locker room, getting ready for football practice. If it didn't happen, it meant the camera didn't really take pictures of the actual future, just a possible future. And if there was any concept Petula could not stand, it was the great “maybe.”

“Maybe there'll be something worth watching on TV.” “Maybe
people will actually come to your equinox party.” “Maybe your par
ents will remember your birthday this year.”

No, the hard cubic reality of her box camera had no room for uncertainty.

So she stormed into the boys' locker room, selectively ignoring things she did not wish to see, ferreted out Tommy Woodruff, and told him point-blank, “I hope you know that Heather is waiting for you to ask her out. Now get out there, give her your jersey, and seal the deal.”

Somewhat bewildered by the news, Tommy Woodruff put on his pants, left the locker room, and with far more charm than Petula expected, told Heather North he liked her “a real, real lot” and handed her his jersey as a token of his sincere affection. Heather put on the jersey and a moment later was strolling down the hall, looking lighter than air, as she passed the exact spot where Petula had snapped the picture precisely twenty-four hours earlier.

It was at that moment that Petula realized the
true
power of the camera, and this grand revelation could, and eventually would, change everything. Because although it was clear she had no power to
change
the future, if she knew what that future was, she had every power in the world to
create
it.

Her first premeditated attempt to exploit this knowledge involved her current object of obsession: Nick Slate. Her plan was simple: find a way to lure Nick into her living room while her parents were still at work, and call forth his raging hormones through provocative conversation and her feminine ways. One thing would lead to another, and the afternoon would result in a make-out session worthy of the record books—or at least YouTube.

All that remained was to take a photo of the sofa precisely twenty-four hours before so she would know whether or not her plan had succeeded.

If Nick wasn't with her on the couch, it would save Petula the trouble of having to set the whole thing up. In this way, she could save valuable time by only going through with schemes that she knew in advance would succeed. For what greater power is there than being able to abandon your failures before you even attempt them?

And so, with the camera's time ring set precisely to twenty-four hours, she snapped the picture of her sofa, then hurried over to Ms. Planck's, whose darkroom she had become pleasantly addicted to.

“My parents are awful snoops,” she told Ms. Planck. “And my photography is my business.”

“As well it should be,” Ms. Planck said, and she proceeded to do her own snooping, looking at the various prints that hung from strings around the darkroom, like laundry in neighborhoods of old. Somehow it didn't bother Petula the way it did when her parents stuck their noses into her darkroom back home.

“Slices of life,” Ms. Planck said. “You certainly have an eye for catching people candidly. And I even like the still lifes,” she said, pointing to photos of empty hallways and vacant tables, where Petula failed to capture anybody doing anything. “You have a curious sensibility.”

Then Ms. Planck left her alone to get to the business of developing her future.

Processing the negative took the longest. Spooling the film into a little drum, filling it with chemicals, and shaking it like one of her father's cocktails. Developing solution first, then the stop bath and fixer. She was supposed to let the negative dry, but Petula didn't have the patience—not this time.

Instead, she put it right into the enlarger. And, to her joy, the negative image did show two people on the sofa, one leaning toward the other. With her heart racing, she brought the image into focus. The redness of the safelight only added to the intensity of her emotions, which bloomed from joyful anticipation into something very different.…Then she let out a scream when she saw exactly who was on the sofa with her.

It wasn't Nick sitting beside her—it was Mitch. And they were, indeed, making out.

Caitlin's experience that afternoon, while not quite as horrifying as Petula's, was nonetheless profoundly abnormal. It seemed odd to her that, after having spent her evening talking to the dead, she should have to go about the busywork of school, but the simple fact of knowing about the Accelerati didn't give her a way to do anything about it. In fact, if anything, it made things worse. Now she knew that the Accelerati were many generations old, and like a tree whose roots had wormed their way into the sewer system, they had grown strong by unpleasant means. She knew they could not be battled by normal methods.

At lunchtime, Caitlin sat with Theo rather than with Nick, trying to lose herself in simpler times, and all times with Theo were simple. He was the white bread to her PB&J, and the fact that he would still sit with her in spite of having suffered public humiliation was somehow admirable. Either he was sure enough about himself not to care, or he simply didn't know what else to do.

Or maybe he sat with her because he knew that as long as she was with him, she wasn't with Nick. Although today, Nick was the last person she wanted to sit with, because rehashing the night before would not exactly be conducive to digestion.

So Ms. Planck served up her usual slop, and then Theo served up his usual fluff. And for a while Caitlin could pretend that the extent of her problems lived and died within the hallowed halls of Rocky Point Middle School.

“Meteor showers suck,” Theo proclaimed.

“Not all of them,” Caitlin pointed out.

“Well, the ones that shut down the baseball fields do. All our home games are canceled until further notice, and all because of a bunch of rocks.” Theo carved a river of gravy through his mashed potatoes and directed it into a series of rapids using chunks of beef stew. Theo, Caitlin had learned, was the absolute master of playing with his food.

“So are we still, like, going out?” he asked.

“Ask me again next week,” Caitlin told him.

“Fine,” said Theo, “enjoy your lunch.”

And he up and left, taking his gravy river with him. If nothing else, this had made it clear to Caitlin that there was no going back. Whatever trajectory her life was on, she knew her white-bread days were over.

When she got home, Caitlin found none other than Mr. Accelerati himself—Jorgenson—sitting in her kitchen as if he belonged there, sipping a cup of tea.

This was odd enough, but what made it even more disturbing was that her mother, in one of her food-show frenzies, had decided to attempt a fancy meal. Moving at the pace of a contestant in a culinary competition, she was opening and closing drawers, setting pots and bowls everywhere, and leaving ingredients precariously balanced on counter ledges.

All of this was going on around Jorgenson as if he weren't even there.

“Mom, what are you doing?” Caitlin asked.

“It's called Brandy Peppercorn Duck, or at least it will be when it's finished,” her mom said, plopping a silver bowl down right in front of Mr. Jorgenson, who only looked at Caitlin and smiled.

“What's he doing here, Mom?”

“He who?”

“Don't you see there's a man sitting in the middle of our kitchen?”

“Well, yes, obviously there is,” her mother said, focusing her eyes on Jorgenson for a moment before returning to the multitasks at hand and opening the refrigerator. “Now, let's see, do we have enough butter?”

Jorgenson simply grinned at Caitlin.

“Mom, did you invite him into the house?”

“No, he was here when I got home,” her mother answered absently. “Now, Caitlin, you're either going to help me with this dinner, or go do your homework. But please don't distract me, it's a complicated recipe.”

“But, Mom—”

“I wouldn't bother,” said Jorgensen softly. “Anything you say will just confuse her and complicate the matter.”

He held up a small fob on the end of his key chain.

“It's quite simple, really,” Jorgenson said jovially. “The chip inside this device projects a signal that affects the logic center of the brain of the person it's been keyed to, telling her there's absolutely nothing unusual about her current circumstance. Observe.”

Jorgenson turned to Caitlin's mother. “Mrs. Westfield, I'm going to place your cat in the microwave.”

“Be my guest. Make sure you turn him halfway through.”

Jorgenson turned to Caitlin with a pleasant smile. “You see?”

Caitlin found herself fuming. “If you so much as
touch
Caliban…”

Jorgenson put up his hands. “Banish the thought. I merely proposed it as an example.”

“Why are you here?”

“I want to save your friend Nick a world of pain, and I was hoping you might help me.” He glanced at her mom, then back at Caitlin. “It's a lovely day. Shall we sit out on your patio?”

And although it was the last thing Caitlin wanted to do, she agreed.

As Jorgenson stood up, he picked up the small teapot in front of him and poured a cup of tea for her. Caitlin looked at the brew warily.

“How do I know you're not poisoning me?”

“Actually, Miss Westfield, it's quite the opposite. The leaves of this coenzyme ‘Oolongevity tea' are from select plants, genetically engineered for the highest medicinal value. An instant herbal cure for whatever ails you, from the common cold to various and sundry malignancies.”

“What if
you're
what ails me?” Caitlin asked.

“Well, we're here to discuss the cure for that, aren't we?”

He handed her the cup, and they headed outside to the patio.

She was admittedly curious, so she tasted the tea. It was sweet and flavorful, and she instantly felt more relaxed. Healthier, even. Caitlin suspected it was the first of many bribes Jorgenson would offer. She put the cup down and crossed her arms.