The Tesla Gambit

Never could have known, Lys’Strada thought to herself as she ducked into yet another dark alley, narrowly escaping the instinctive leer of a pack of boisterous, profoundly drunken stags who had just spilled out of the pub on the far side of the muddy street. Well, I mean they could have known, but really, who in their upright mind would have guessed this one thing…

“See?” One of the stags slurred at a second companion, while pointing at the first. “This is why ‘is mum’s in the nuthouse.”

“Enough, Phillips,” A peacemaking third companion attempted.

“Says we have to, wha’, ‘stop killing trees’?” the one called Phillips persisted, cackling as he went. “Went to the police abou’ it even. To press charges. Wha’ a nutter.”

The target friend rose to the bait, fists flailing at the impugnment of his dear mother’s honor. Phillips gleefully began throwing haymakers while the other three companions were relegated to putting equal amounts of energy to protecting their friends and themselves from the whisky-soaked barrage.

Who would have guessed? ‘Nutters.’ ‘Crazy’ people. The people who everyone at the time... er, well, everyone at this time... would have thought were not in their upright mind. That’s who would have guessed this one thing could save us all.

She waited, crouched in the alley, for the stags to stumble another half-block, then exited a hard left, heading west along 36th. Turning her coat collar up, she appeared to any passers-by who weren’t distracted by the skirmish to be protecting herself from the icy wind whipping off the East. In actuality, she was protecting as much of herself as possible from being seen. Though she was considered short and pale by Earthly standards back home, a six-foot-seven female with powder bluish skin was not yet normal for Earth at this time.

Walking briskly, but taking care to shorten her pace enough so as not to draw unnecessary attention, Lys’Strada’s long charcoal overcoat billowed around her. She had dressed in men’s clothing in the hope that her size would be more easily overlooked. Underneath the overcoat she wore gray pants with long underwear beneath, a black knee-length woolen waistcoat over a white collared shirt, a gray necktie which was scarcely visible, a black low top hat with a charcoal band, and – anticipating the walking she was in the midst of doing in a late-nineteenth-century New York winter – tall leather boots.

As she counted the blocks en route to her destination, she heard the stag Phillips’s whiny, liquor-soaked voice in her head. “…nutter.” He had said the word as though it was spelled with an -ah at the end instead of an -er. Lys’Strada shook her head in dismay. ‘Nuts’ and ‘crazy’ were terms Earth had, mercifully, graduated from now-a-days, but at this point in Earth’s history, she knew there was a broad gap, both of mental capacity and acceptance, between the self-knighted ‘normal’ thinkers and those who thought in what were now understood as ‘non-traditional modalities’.

The gas streetlamps cast a dim light along 36th and before long, Lys’Strada realized she had lost count of the blocks somewhere along the way. She continued west on 36th until she was saved by the obvious size and relative, given the hour, bustle of Park Avenue. One block to go.

As she navigated the final block, a certain primal respect flowed through Lys’Strada for how much more-defined the human sense of direction must have been in the days before technology such as GPS and all its varied descendants arrived on the scene. Even if she could have left her implant activated for the Sojourn, even if it would have survived the time-fold: What non-existent broadcast system would have enabled it to gather un-digitized cartographical data from the not-yet-invented Internet?

As she rounded the corner at Madison and 36th, a sudden whinny grabbed her attention.

“Steady. Steady, girl,” a nearby coachman coaxed from the driver’s seat of a parked carriage, sitting in the pool of light pouring from the front of the house that was her destination.

Lys’Strada looked about the otherwise-deserted corner. She had come upon the carriage from behind and had not been noticed by the solitary driver. She stepped back around the bend into shadow and waited. I may be early, she reasoned, though judging by the state of the stags from before, she could not see it being earlier than midnight. Late meeting.

Peering around the corner, Lys’Strada saw the carriage was parked outside a stately brownstone. Three stories of boxy industrialist pomp and banality. The lone exceptional thing about it: Electricity. The warm steady glow of electric light emanated from the lamps and windows of 219 Madison Avenue; a beacon in contrast to the dark homes and flickering gas lamps which comprised the entirety of the surrounding neighborhood.

The driver appeared prepared to depart, his hands on the reins and his posture tall. The front door opened abruptly, and the driver’s posture was immediately elucidated.

“Please, think on all we’ve spoken tonight,” said a man’s voice as he stepped out of the brownstone. Soft, yet self-assured, the voice belonged to a somewhat curious-looking slight man with dark curly hair and bright eyes. He turned back to look at the other party, who remained inside the house.

“I say again, Nikola,” came the booming reply, this voice was thick with a blue-blood tenor so robust it was nearly a drawl. “You find a way I can meter it, and you fix the issue with the safety—”

“Mr. Morgan, I say again, there is no issue with the safety. Tom is looking for ways to make Alternating Current appear to be unsafe. He is trying to create danger to—” The man inside the house must have held up his hands or made some other indicator that Nikola should stop talking.

“Prove it,” Mr. Morgan offered. “Prove that Alternating Current is safe.” He spoke with a form of rhythm, as a man accustomed to expressing without interruption. Measured and deliberate.

Nikola exhaled, lowering his gaze slightly.

Mr. Morgan continued, “And get me a way to meter it. Then we’ll talk. Until then, well…” he made some gesture Lys’Strada could not see.

Nikola turned, and before he had even reached the carriage, Mr. Morgan had closed the door solidly home.

The driver chickered to his mare as Nikola closed the carriage door. With a deft flick of the reins, the carriage pulled away from the futuristic light pool in front of the house, into the dim maw of the New York night.

Lys’Strada waited until the carriage clacking had faded to a faraway murmur, then rounded the corner and stepped into the light. An odd feeling washed over her as she observed the house properly for the first time: Awe. Electricity has woven itself into human existence for so many generations now, we treat it more like an inalienable right, rather than a privilege. Yet standing before the glowing residence at 219 Madison Avenue, in the context of the otherwise-un-electric city, Lys’Strada felt first-hand the power of power. I’ll never look at a light switch the same again, she thought as she ascended the seven stairs to the front door.

Raising her hand to knock, the door suddenly swung open revealing a pugnacious-looking robber baron, still dressed in a three-piece suit, so similar in look and appearance to the stereotypes of the ancient American Industrial Revolution, that it took Lys’Strada a full moment to remember that this man was the man upon which those stereotypes were founded. She almost laughed at the accuracy: tall, broad-shouldered, well-fed, Caucasian, male, whiting hair, pale semi-translucent blotchy skin, slight disfigurement in the nose, and the most bullying element of all: those eyes. Lys’Strada did not even need a full moment to know that the being behind those eyes was deeply accustomed to getting what it wanted. The arrogance that accompanies that sort of self-delusive conviction is impossible to counterfeit.

“Well!?” the robber baron demanded in a blustery American aristocrat tone that both accused and ordered at once, “Is it finished?”

Pulling the brim of her hat low over her brow, Lys’Strada looked back over her shoulder, then motioned wordlessly inside.

A cane whipped up, blocking Lys’Strada’s path indoors. Suddenly suspicious, the resident’s eyes beaded. “Were you followed?”

Lys’Strada shook her head, no.

“Juliet’s middle name,” the homeowner challenged.

“Pierpont, same as yours, sir,” Lys’Strada responded coolly, deepening her voice slightly. “Now may we—”

“Drexel’s junior partner?” he required.

A beat. That’s an odd one. “You, sir,” came the measured response.

“Who hired you?” came the next demand.

Now Lys’Strada’s eyes narrowed, “You know I can’t answer that, sir.”

Satisfied, the man raised the cane and motioned inside.

Ducking slightly, more out of reflex than necessity in the towering doorway, Lys’Strada followed J.P. Morgan into his home.

The pragmatic exterior design gave way instantly to sweeping mid-nineteenth-century American architecture. Like so many things American, the architecture was not actually a style in-and-of-itself, but a collection of favored qualities of other cultures’ style. The Greatest Hits of Greek, Gothic, and Neo-Renaissance, Lys’Strada thought as she followed her host through the palatial innards of the New York brownstone. Odd that the Americans often thought of themselves as peerless creatives.

They passed through seven or eight rooms before reaching a grand dining room then finally passing into a small, but just as grand, lounge, where an attendant had just finished stoking a roaring fire and stood to greet them.

“Good evening, sir,” the butler welcomed, then nodded mutely at Lys’Strada, who returned it with equal mum. The room was equipped with electric lamps on the walls, but all were dark at the moment, the fireplace providing the sole light in the room.

“Thank you, Stanley, that will be all,” Morgan replied tersely but not unkindly. The butler made an expeditious exit.

Morgan wordlessly extended a bear paw towards a padded chair near the crackling fire. Lys’Strada stood before the indicated seat, unwilling to sit before her host had also reclined.

“Scotch?” Morgan asked from the bar, already pouring a second glass.

“Rye, if you have it,” Lys’Strada replied flatly.

A slight pause at the bar as Morgan, unaccustomed to anything less than absolute acquiescence, begrudgingly rerouted, poured a rye double into a third glass, then, after a half-breath’s consideration, emptied the second Scotch into his own.

Once both parties were properly supplied and seated across from one another, and Morgan had fired up his trademark cigar, the tycoon leaned back in his chair, emitted a politely distant plume of smoke, and spread his meaty cigar-and-whisky-wielding hands as if to say: Get on with it.

Lys’Strada sipped her rye. She had simulated the potential outcomes of this encounter more than 1,300 times using an AI replica of J.P. Morgan’s genetic personality. Every time it went badly – every single time – was when she attempted deception or manipulation with this man. The only times it went well – all three of them – were when she had used absolute honesty in combination with a successful appeal to his heart.

The problem, with a man like J.P. Morgan, was that a very large persona stood between Lys’Strada and that heart like a knight guarding a castle’s innermost sanctum. Furthermore, Lys’Strada knew that the things she was here to say with such absolute honesty were far more likely to trigger that persona’s defense mechanisms, rather than lower them.

Here we go. She set her drink down on the table and stood up. “Mr. Morgan, sir, I’ll cut right to it. The man you’re supposed to be meeting tonight... I’m not him.” Taking off her low top hat, she stepped closer to the fire so he could see her face properly.

Lys’Strada’s short hair was cut femininely enough for her own time, but the mind is an expert at seeing what it wants to see until otherwise directed. Morgan stared, then had to squint to see past the boyish-to-his-eyes-looking haircut, to notice the slender neck, the high delicate cheekbones, the soft feminine lips.

Morgan drew a long, deep ember from his cigar, then looked up at Lys’Strada from behind the smoke fuming from his mouth. “You have sixty seconds.” There was no need for further threat. It hung in the room like the smoke of a hundred cigars.

“Do you consider yourself a man of reason, Mr. Morgan?” she asked.

“Woman, don’t you dare try to sell me something at two in the fucking morning.”

“Sixty seconds, right, sir?”

“Forty-five, now.”

“Humor me then, for forty-five seconds.”

“Forty.”

“Answer the question, please.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I consider myself a man of reason.”

“Good,” she walked over to the light switch on the nearby wall, “May I?”

An ember wave indicated that she may proceed.

She flicked on the lights, the small lounge now filled with miraculous electric light. She stepped toward him, the light illuminating her pale blue face. She took off her overcoat and waistcoat, then rolled up her sleeves and loosened her necktie to reveal more powder blue skin, holding up her hands for him to observe.

“Are you still a man of reason, Mr. Morgan?” she asked politely and calmly.

The tycoon sat, puffing on his cigar, his keen eyes flitting back and forth over her. He nodded intently.

“Then, if you were to apply that reason to what you see right now, what would you conclude?”

A brief pause. “You are not… from this planet, are you?”

Lys’Strada clasped her hands together. “You’re talking about the concept of space. Referring to where I might be from. Believe it or not, I am from Earth. But what is the other descriptor we often use when determining a person’s origin? Place of birth and…?”

“Date.”

“Yes!” she clapped once, softly. “Now we’re talking about the concept of time. Referring to when I might be from.” She looked at him, waiting. All three times it had gone well, he had to get this next part on his own, avouch it in his own words.

“Time’s up.”

“Sir, please, complete this line of reasoning with me and if you still want to throw me out, I will gladly leave.”

He chuckled gruffly, most likely at the understatement of what she apparently assumed was going to be a quick and painless removal of herself from the premises.

“Please,” she repeated, calmly.

He exhaled, loudly. “I refuse to believe you are from another time. That’s utterly ridiculous.”

She knew this was the persona speaking. Only the persona could be so brazenly dense to speak as-truth that which was being actively falsified in that very same moment. She side-stepped, “I understand. Belief, fortunately, is not required in this case.”

“Oh? How is that?” he challenged.

“You are not the one folding time to move through it. I am. There is no requirement for you to believe. What I ask of you, as a man of reason, is can you accept? Can you accept that you are seeing that which stands before you?” she said, holding her arms out from her sides for him to observe.

Morgan shifted uncomfortably.

“Look at the qualities of my person,” she continued. “You said it yourself moments ago, I do not appear to be ‘from around here’, do I?”

He took a sip of his Scotch, “No, you do not, Miss…?”

“Lys’Strada, sir. Lys’ is fine if you prefer.” She let the words hang. They had reached the fulcrum. He would either engage or….

He tapped a middle finger tautly against the side of his glass, considering. His piercing gaze never left her for a moment, penetrating, checking her for falseness… for inveracity.

She watched as the shrewdness for which the business magnate was so famously lauded worked against him. The deeper he scanned her, the more truthful her story became.

The fight within moved... a slight twitch of his eye... then, a shake of his head, and he lowered his gaze to the floor. Without looking up, he extended a hand, and beckoned her closer.

She approached him slowly; his arm remained outstretched. When she neared him, he looked up, his extended arm suddenly transmuting into an offered handshake.

“Pierpont,” he said.

She took his massive hand and gave a firm yet graceful handshake, “Pleased to meet you, Pierpont.”

“Likewise, Lys’,” he then nodded to the nearby wall, “Would you mind turning those off? Bit late for the electric.”

“Sure,” she agreed, turning the lights off then returning to her seat. The warm amber glow of the fire now the only source of light in the room. Ironic, Lys’ thought, considering why I’m here to speak with him.

By this point, Pierpont’s cigar had extinguished itself from neglect. He scraped the ash off the end of it as though he might re-light it, then seemed to change his mind and stubbed it out completely in the ash tray. He turned to face Lys’ directly, took a sip of his Scotch and put it on the side table, then sat up straight and said, “You have my undivided attention.”

“Thank you,” Lys’ said, giving a slight bow of her head. Though this gesture was somewhat strange to Pierpont, he seemed to understand the intended warmth of it, nodding politely in acknowledgement.

“I would like to ask you a question first,” Lys’ continued. “There is no agenda to this question, no right or wrong answer. I am simply interested in your preference.”

Pierpont nodded, “Shoot.”

“Would you prefer to know your legacy and standing in American and World History, Pierpont?”

At any given point in time, Lys’ knew, John Pierpont Morgan was equipped and ready to field and answer somewhere in the vicinity of a million different questions. This was not one of them. Had he considered his legacy? Certainly. Deeply. Obsessively, by some measures. However, considering one’s legacy and being confronted with the prospect of learning definitively what that legacy turns out to be are two entirely different quanta.

He opted to stall. Reaching for his glass and taking a sip, he said, “I notice you specify two segments of history. May I assume the American view and the World view transpire to be different?”

She gave him a knowing look, then asked, “Do you genuinely want me to answer that question?"

He tapped the side of his glass again… and rolled the dice. “Yes.”

“The American Experiment turned out to be a small but vitally important chapter in Earth’s history,” Lys’ stated flatly. “This is why the segmentation is mentioned.”

No blow lands quite so profoundly as an unexpected one. This answer appeared to hit Pierpont in a strange place in the chest. Or was it the stomach? He managed a mute nod, placing his glass back on the side table.

After a moment’s silence, Lys’ asked, “Would you like me to repeat the original question?”

Pierpont chuckled lightly, then shook his head. “No, you don’t need to repeat the question. The answer to your question is, ‘Yes’. Lay it on me,” he said, shifting his weight and interlacing his fingers across his belly.

Lys’ nodded. “In America, you are a divisive character. You are admired and emulated by smaller-minded types. People who believe the extent of life involves material gain for themselves and their family. You are vilified and reviled by people of even moderate broadness-of-mind. Banking and Industry become the very poison that ultimately leads to America’s downfall, making you one of the founders of the ‘beginning of the end’ of the dream that was America.”

Pierpont shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “And the World view?”

Lys’ nodded. “In the World view, you are universally vilified and reviled. Your business achievements are seen as trite. A drop of water in the Pacific Ocean compared to the mass devastation your Banks and Industries inflicted upon the planet itself and every creature living on it. Indeed, few individuals in Earth’s history have been a greater singular origin of suffering than you.”

Morgan scoffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “So, what then? Did you come all this way to, what? Kill me? To… to… rid the world of the pestilence that is J.P. Morgan? Is that it?”

Lys’ opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off.

“Oh, I see,” he said, nodding his head. “I’m onto you. You have a way, this manner of yours,” he said, eyeing her beadily. “You want me to end myself. You’re here to get me to do it myself. Convince me how terrible I am so I just… leave. Is that it? That’s it, isn’t it.”

Lys’ waited.

He waved his hands in disgust.

“This is not what I am asking. Neither of these things you suggest,” she offered.

“Then what are you asking? Pray, tell.”

“There was a man here tonight, he left just before I arrived.”

Morgan’s eyes searched through his memory momentarily, “Tesla? What of him?”

“In your words, what does he want?”

“Money. Funding.”

“For what?”

Morgan pointed toward the wall. “Electricity. Alternating Current. Different from Edison. Edison uses Direct. Also, other projects.”

“Why have you chosen to partner with Edison?” she asked.

Morgan hesitated for a blink, still unaccustomed to being in a room with an outsider who knows so much about him and his affairs. “Metering.”

“You can charge money for it more easily.”

“That’s correct. And safety.”

“The safety angle is contrived, and you know it. Alternating Current is no more dangerous than Direct.”

“So, what if it is?”

“Admit it.”

“Admit what?” he asked.

“Admit that it’s solely about metering. Money. Admit that the only reason you aren’t funding Tesla and his scientifically superior Alternating Current is because you want to make more money. Admit it.”

“Why? Why should I admit that to you?”

“You’re not admitting it to me.”

“Oh, I’m not, am I?”

“No.”

“Then who am I admitting it to?”

“To yourself.”

He chuckled, “What nonsense. You want me to admit, to myself, that I am a businessman who wants to make money.”

“I believe you already know that about yourself. Don’t twist my words, you’re smarter than that.”

“Careful.”

“What is difficult about this request?”

He sighed, exasperated, thrumming his fingers on his kneecap. “Fine.” He paused, spreading his hands out on his thighs, and running them up and down the length of them. “I am funding Edison over Tesla because Edison’s Direct Current is easier to meter and bill than Tesla’s Alternating Current.” He held his hands up toward Lys’. “How was that?”

“You tell me.”

“Pardon?”

“Now that you’ve admitted this to yourself, what do you think?”

“What do I think?”

“You’re a businessman. One of the most prolific in the world. Now that you have said what you just said, what does J.P. Morgan the businessman think about that statement?”

Morgan sat up straight in his chair, one hand cradling his chin while the other propped his arm. It started slowly at first, almost imperceptibly. He started rocking, as though entrancing himself.

Lys’ watched in rapt silence. This was farther than she had gotten in any simulation. Uncharted territory. Rather than fear or trepidation, however, she felt exhilarated and clear. She knew he was in his process, and whatever came from this, she had to trust that it would be exactly what the world needed, no matter how it appeared.

“Lazy.”

The word came up as though from the Void. Arriving in Lys’s ears it sounded foreign. She looked at Pierpont with what must have been a puzzled expression on her face.

“It’s lazy,” Pierpont repeated, “You’re right. Tesla’s is the superior product. Edison’s is just easier, simpler, more straightforward. Less risk. Also, Tesla irritates me.”

Lys’ eyed him, but the look on Pierpont’s face made it clear that she did not need to jump in and help with the several discrepancies and flaws in his previous statement’s thought process. He saw them. Sometimes saying what you feel, exactly how you feel it, is the best way to rid yourself of stuck energy. Then you move on.

Pierpont stared ahead, his gaze light years away. After a few moments, he realized Lys’ was still in the room with him, sitting silently. “What happens next?”

“You’re the business tycoon,” she said with a slight grin, “I think you know.”

He nodded. “What else?”

Lys’ cocked her head, quizzical.

“What else do you need from me?” he clarified.

“Nothing,” she stated plainly.

“Nothing else?” he probed.

“Would you like to change anything else?”

Pierpont looked at Lys’ in just such a way that… for a moment… “Suppose not.”

Lys’ stood up to leave.

“One question,” he stated.

“Sure,” she replied.

“What happens? One way… and the other?”

“You lose $34.89 million dollars,” she replied honestly.

“Beg pardon?” he asked, his bushy eyebrows raised.

“If you continue to build out the electrical grid using Edison’s Direct Current, the entire grid will be obsolete within two decades, costing you a loss of approximately $34.89 million dollars. I am effectively saving you this capital so that you can do two things with it.” She paused after this. It was important that Pierpont advance the conversation on his terms whenever possible.

“I thought it was just the one,” Morgan re-butted, conveniently omitting any acknowledgement that Lys’ was saving him a personal fortune the size of many countries’ total wealth.

“For the most part, yes. The primary key is that you back Tesla’s Alternating Current. The reason I am here is to ensure that you back Alternating Current before you waste all of that capital on Edison.”

“Why?” he asked with a deep aristocratic drawl.

“So you can continue to fund Tesla and his work. Alternating Current is to energy what the stone hammer is to tools.”

Pierpont considered this for a moment, but said nothing, opting to retrieve his Scotch from the side table and swirl it in his glass hypnotically. “How do I meter it?” he asked suddenly.

Lys’ paused for a moment, considering a thousand variables at once. None of her simulations had ever reached this point where she was able to speak with him about Alternating Current and metering itself. This deep in uncharted waters, she knew she could not possibly answer this question with complete Protocol Certainty. She had to either stonewall him… or roll the dice and risk catastrophic damage to Earth’s timeline.

‘Nutter’. She heard the voice in her head as clearly as if Phillips was standing in the room. Somewhere deep inside of her non-traditional mind – the same mind that allowed her to Sojourn without sustaining a cataclysmic break from reality – she felt the nudge. Roll.

She looked Pierpont dead in the eye, “Metering leads to a societal structure where every product and service imaginable is set up so that it must be paid for ad infinitum. This system is good for very few and bad for the entirety of the rest. In statistical terms, the number of beings this system is beneficial for is so small that one could mathematically say, with confidence and accuracy: This system is detrimental for everyone. And in no case is it more catastrophic than for the Earth itself. Ultimately, however, this comes back on us.”

“How do you mean?” Pierpont asked, slightly astonished at the sudden scope of her reply.

“Where do we live?” Lys’ queried.

“Where… our planet? We live on Earth,” he answered.

She nodded, “What’s bad for Earth is bad for humans. It takes us a long time to truly understand this. Most of human attention will be devoted to money for the next several centuries.”

Pierpont nodded, apparently permitting this to sink in.

“The tipping point occurs a long time from now, but we traced the origins back to you. To this one decision.”

“You’re saying I am to blame?”

Lys’ laughed, lightly and heartily. The first time Pierpont had seen her fully smile, and her laugh was delightful. “I forget, it’s still a few hundred years until we cure ourselves of the sickness of blame.”

Pierpont’s brow furrowed in confusion.

Lys’ shook her head, “You’re not in trouble. And blame is irrelevant. Think of it more in terms of a leverage point. This one moment in history is the singular point of greatest leverage to re-route the human story. To shift our unfolding.”

He nodded, “What about the other way... what happens next?”

“With Tesla’s way?” she asked.

He nodded.

She cocked her head, one eye narrowing almost imperceptibly.

He exhaled, “Right. I suppose I must discover that for myself, won’t I?”

“We all will.”

He extended a hand, “Thank you, Lys’.”

She grasped it warmly, “Thank you, Pierpont.”

Pierpont escorted Lys’ back through his home, following the route by which they had entered. As Lys’ stepped out into the pre-dawn air, she breathed deeply and a sudden inspiration came to her. Roll. She turned back, a sparkle in her eye. “May I offer one thing?” she asked, “As a way of thanks?”

“By all means,” Pierpont said, opening his arms graciously.

“In a few years, your interest in shipping is going to begin to bear fruit.”

Pierpont shook his head good-naturedly, an indescribably strange experience to have someone tell him things about himself which he has scarcely explored in his own mind to-date.

“A ship will be built, by one of your subsidiary companies. ‘Unsinkable’, they will call it. An invitation will be sent to you and your family to sail on the maiden voyage. You will be on vacation in France at the scheduled time of the voyage,” she said, then locked onto him with a penetrating gaze.

“Yes?” he asked, now curious.

“Stay in France.” With that, she gave a nod, turned, and descended the steps. “And keep funding Tesla.”

Pierpont watched her leave, watched her step into the light pooling at the front of his residence, and though he could not be sure exactly where it happened, watched her disappear into the dark.