Chronica Read online

  "I don't know with certainty what they had back then," Sierra answered. "But that's not relevant – Heron likely wrote it in the past after he traveled back there from the future, or he wrote it in the future and brought it back with him to ancient Alexandria. In any case, none of that matters – we don't have the technology to build the Chairs in this time, and not a hundred years from now, either."

  Tesla's eyes twinkled. "What we have might surprise you."

  ***

  Sierra and Max sat with Tesla day after day, for hours and hours, in their hotel room. Sometimes Astor was present, sometimes not. They told Tesla anything and everything they could remember about the Chronica – half-forgotten equations, big concepts, tiny details, conjectures and refutations about what couldn't work for time travel, proofs where possible about what could -- and, according to Heron, did.

  Tesla listened intently, took a few notes, and asked many questions. At one point he said, "I can tell you one thing: I agree that the ancient world could not have created this. If anyone back then had this knowledge – did not import it from the future – then we would be living in a far different world than we are today."

  The interview resumed. Sierra and Max spoke of solid states, quantum states, fluctuating worlds within worlds, multiple worlds and universes in grains of sand in an hourglass.

  Tesla reluctantly admitted he did not understand it all. Sierra and Max said again that neither did they.

  "I can apply some of this to tailoring the performance of a Chair already in operation," Sierra at one point said, "but building one from nothing is vastly more difficult."

  Tesla nodded. "I understand movement of energy and objects through space. What you have been telling me gives me many ideas about possible devices in that realm. But I cannot say they will move through time."

  Sierra and Max needed sleep from time to time, as did Astor. Tesla claimed he did not.

  The interviews went on for weeks, well into April, until Sierra and Max began repeating themselves and Tesla realized there was not much more or new they could say about the Chronica.

  "I'm drained," Sierra said. "Do you think you have enough to build a Chair?"

  "I don't know," Telsa replied. "I can say that such a construction would be far more difficult than I had thought."

  "Do you think you would be in a better position to make a Chair if you had the Chronica in your hands?" Astor asked.

  "I'm not sure," Tesla replied. "Perhaps, possibly, is the best I can tell you."

  Sierra sighed and took his hand. "And perhaps that's for the better."

  [New York City, April, 1899 AD]

  Three days after the interviews had concluded, Astor and Dickson arrived in the hotel lobby as Sierra and Max were leaving to go on a long overdue walk in Central Park to breathe some fresh air and relax. "Dickson thinks that Appleton may have given a copy of the Chronica to Thomas Edison," Astor said.

  "What?" Sierra shouted. Several people in the lobby turned around. "How do you know that?" she asked Dickson, a bit less loudly.

  "Edwin Porter told me," Dickson replied.

  "Have you told Nikola?" Max asked.

  "Yes," Astor replied. "He was livid and vowed to redouble his efforts. It's far too soon to know if he will succeed."

  "Is there any chance you can get it from Edison?" Max asked Dickson.

  Dickson shook his head no. "I don't work for him any more. He's unlikely to leave me alone with anything of such value – he has a paranoid streak anyway, as long as your arm."

  "What about Porter?" Sierra asked.

  "As far as I can tell, he's loyal to Edison to a fault," Dickson replied. "And what's more, he is also doing Heron's bidding."

  "We've got to do something!" Sierra said.

  "Must we?" Max asked.

  Sierra turned on him. "What do you mean?"

  "Are we sure it's a bad thing that Edison has the Chronica?" Max answered with a question.

  "Tesla certainly thinks so," Astor replied.

  "Edison and Tesla are competitors," Max said. "Tesla understandably hates him, especially after the AC-DC current wars. Isn't getting the Chronica and its instructions out to the world exactly what we have been working for?"

  "To the right people in the world, yes," Sierra said, with some heat. "Edison's working for Heron. He's probably already given the Chronica to Heron."

  "Porter didn't think so," Dickson said. "He spoke as if the Chronica was now in Edison's possession alone."

  "Edison's obviously a great inventor himself," Max said. "Hard to believe he would just turn the Chronica over to Heron and forget he ever had it."

  Sierra shook her head in frustration. "Why would William give the Chronica to Edison?" She looked at Dickson. "Can you find out more from Porter?"

  "I wish I could," Dickson responded, "but I'm afraid I am long overdue in England." He pulled out a pocket watch from his vest. "I have a boat to board in the harbor, in three hours."

  "We'll have to approach Porter ourselves," Sierra said.

  "Your best entrée to Porter is Mary Anderson," Dickson said.

  "So just to be clear," Max said. "Porter thinks that you and he are both working for Heron, and he and you both know that Edison has some connection to Heron, though Edison himself may not know exactly what the two of you know about all of this."

  "Yes," Porter said, "that's the long and the short of it. From what I've seen of Heron, he likes to direct each of us separately, not as a group."

  "But as far as you know, Porter trusts you," Max said.

  "That is correct," Dickson replied, and bowed to Sierra and the men. "And I really do have an appointment with an ocean liner," he added, and left.

  "It's my favorite mode of travel," Astor said to Sierra and Max. "And the boats are getting grander and grander."

  ***

  Astor sat with Sierra and Max and considered their options. "She's better with men than with women," Astor said about Mary Anderson, "lights right up when a suitable man comes into the room. No offense," he said to Sierra.

  "None taken," Sierra said.

  Astor beckoned a bellhop. "Would coffee appeal?" he asked Sierra and Max.

  Both nodded.

  "You know, they are known as porters in England," Astor noted when the bellhop left with the order. "Interesting coincidence that we were just talking about Porter, isn't it?"

  Max and Sierra both nodded.

  "But to return to Miss Anderson," Astor said, "her preference for men as social companions suggests that either you or I should approach her," he said to Max. "Which would you prefer?"

  "Oh, I'd be happy to see her," Max said, a little surprised that Astor didn't want to do this himself.

  "I'm glad you think that," Astor said to Max, as the bellhop returned with a pot of coffee and three cups. "Thank you," he said to bellhop, who bowed and left after he put the tray with the coffee on a table close to Astor. "We have it always simmering and ready to serve here," he said to Sierra and Max, poured a cup for each of them, then one for himself. "If I recall, we all drink it black," he said.

  Sierra smelled her coffee and took a sip. "Delicious," she said to Astor. "Thank you."

  Max said the same.

  Astor resumed talking about Mary Anderson. "As I was saying, it's fortunate that you can see her, if she needs to be seen today, because I have an important meeting with a group of financiers this afternoon, including J. P. Morgan."

  "Good," Max said. "Will you call her and make the appointment?"

  "I will," Astor said.

  ***

  Max got off the motorbus across the street from Mary Anderson's hotel late in the afternoon. He walked into the hotel and looked around for Mary – her photograph had been delivered to him by Astor – but there were only two elderly, well-dressed men in the lobby. He waited about 15 minutes, then approached the front desk.

  "Excuse me," he said to the man behind the desk, whose head was buried in a big ledger.

  "Yes?"

>   "I have a 3:00 pm appointment with Mary Anderson, one of your guests," Max said.

  The receptionist scowled and looked at a grandfather clock in the middle of the lobby. "Well, that was 15 minutes ago," he said.

  "My point, exactly," Max said.

  "What would you like me to do?" the receptionist asked.

  "Can you check and see if she's in her room?" Max said.

  "I know she is in her room," the receptionist replied. "I saw her return to the hotel, about two hours ago and I have not seen her leave. "

  "Could you call up to her room and let her know I am here?"

  The receptionist scowled even more deeply. "That would be an intrusion."

  "Ok, I'll go up there myself," Max said.

  "You don't know her room number," the receptionist responded.

  "I'll knock on each and every door until I find her," Max said.

  "I should call the police, but what is your name? If Miss Anderson left any note that you were coming by to see her, I'll consider walking upstairs with you to her room ."

  "Maxwell Marcus," Max replied, and hoped that Astor had spoken his name correctly when he set up this appointment – if this appointment had really been set.

  The receptionist pulled another ledger out of a drawer and pored over it. "All right, here it is. Miss Anderson did tell us you would be paying her a visit."

  "Can we go upstairs now?" Max asked, relieved but still annoyed. "And you are certain she didn't leave the hotel?" With service as irritating as this guy, he wouldn't be surprised if the woman had checked out of the hotel altogether and gone elsewhere.

  "Yes, I am sure," the receptionist replied. "I have been here at my post without interruption since she returned, and, as I told you, I did not see her leave." He rang a bell. Another man, dressed in the same deep brown uniform, approached. "Kindly take my post as I escort this gentleman upstairs," the reception said.

  "Of course," the other man said.

  Max and the receptionist walked up a single flight of stairs. "Miss Anderson is right here," the receptionist said, and knocked on the door of Room 202.

  There was no answer. The receptionist knocked several times with the same lack of result. "Miss Anderson, Miss Anderson?" he called her name several times.

  Then, "this is Wilfred Jameson from the front desk. I am entering your room." He applied a key he carried on a chain with lots of other keys, and very slowly opened the door.

  "Miss Anderson? Miss Anderson! Oh my God!"

  Mary Anderson was sprawled on the bed, half naked and disheveled, unconscious or dead.

  ***

  Jameson summoned the hotel's doctor, who fortunately had offices just down the street.

  "She's alive," he said, applying a flexible tube that he called a stethoscope to her heart, and finding it beating. He lifted her eyelid. "She has been given drugs or some unsuitable medication, her iris is dilated. We need to get her to a hospital, right away." He gently pulled up her undergarments and dress so her breasts were no longer exposed. "There are no bruises or other signs of foul play, thank goodness, at least on this part of the body."

  "Can you tell when the drug was administered?" Max asked the doctor – though Jameson, who had regained his composure, was ushering Max out of the room.

  "We'll know more when we can examine her in the hospital," the doctor replied. "She is not in any immediate danger. I'm going to arrange for a horse-drawn ambulance – they provide a more comfortable ride than the motorized vehicles – to Bellevue Hospital on First Avenue and 30th Street. It's not the closest, but it has the best services, and I have privileges there." He said this through the open door to Jameson and Max, who were now in the hallway outside of the room. "Are you a relative?" the doctor now asked Max.

  Jameson closed the door before Max could respond. "You will need to wait in the lobby, until the police arrive."

  Max thought for a moment. It would do him and Sierra no good for him to be put on some fugitive list. "Of course," he said.

  Jameson allowed him to use the phone on the front desk to call Sierra and then Astor, whom he quickly briefed, before a police detective arrived.

  "Detective Woodruff," a well-dressed man with a moustache and sideburns said, and extended his hand in sequence to Jameson and Max.

  "Wilfred Jameson, for the hotel," Jameson said, and shook the hand. "Thank you for coming by."

  "Maxwell Marcus," Max said and shook the detective's hand. "I had an appointment with Miss Anderson."

  Woodruff nodded.

  The ambulance had already arrived and two orderlies, with the doctor supervising, were carefully carrying Mary Anderson down the one flight of stairs on a stretcher. "I gave her something and she's come partially around," the doctor said to Woodruff. "I do not think she's in any danger, and I can confirm that there were no signs of foul play anyplace on her body."

  "That's very good to know, thank you, doctor," Woodruff replied.

  Max looked at Mary. Her eyes were half open now, and she seemed semi-conscious.

  "We're off to Bellevue, then," the doctor said. "We'll know more when we can thoroughly examine her there."

  Woodruff nodded and turned to Jameson and Max. "I'll need each of you to briefly tell me what happened today, and of course I may need to talk to you further as this case develops – if it is a case," he said. "Sometimes these high-strung actresses do unsafe things."

  Both men nodded.

  Woodruff started with Jameson, who told him what he had earlier told Max about Mary, and gave an accurate account of what happened after.

  "Thank you – you can go back to your post now," Woodruff said and turned to Max.

  "I had an appointment with Miss Anderson, as I said," Max offered.

  "And may I ask what the appointment was about?" Woodruff asked. "I should tell you that my Lieutenant happens to be friends with the lady, so we have a special interest in this, beyond the usual."

  That's interesting and maybe we should look into this, Max thought. To Woodruff, he said, "It is for a theatrical endeavor headed by John Jacob Astor, IV."

  "Jack Astor?" Woodruff asked.

  "That's right," Max replied.

  "And he will confirm this?" Woodruff asked.

  "Indeed I will." Astor, just arrived, had walked briskly up to Max and Woodruff.

  Max sighed, internally. It had taken Astor long enough to get here. Better that Astor lied, if necessary, than Max, who knew less about what would set off a late-19th century police detective than would Astor.

  "And may I ask what the theatrical endeavor is about?" Woodruff asked Astor.

  "Oh, we don't like to divulge too much about future performances to the public," Astor replied.

  "I'm not the public," Woodruff said. "I'm the police. And for all we know, we may yet have a murder on our hands, here."

  "Of course," Astor bowed slightly, in deference to police business. "We're hoping Miss Anderson will be performing the part of Hypatia in a new staging of the play after the novel of the same name by Charles Kingsley."