The laboratory was a wide-open space stretching two hundred feet in either direction. It took up the entire floor, and it was of brand-new construction. It smelled of fresh masonry. Metal cabinets lined the walls, holding what appeared to be all manner of electrical components. Spools of fresh wire—zinc, steel, silver—lay in untouched bundles. Masses of rubber had been piled in uncut sheets. One cabinet appeared to be full of glass plates. The one next to it was fully stocked with tubs of what Paul imagined was silver nitrate. The photographic tools had been stocked along with the electrical.
“This, Mr. Tesla, is the most finely appointed lab in the country,” proclaimed Westinghouse proudly. He handed the keys to Tesla, who regarded them as if they were something to be dissected.
“You are giving to me a laboratory?” asked Tesla, his face expressionless. “I do not understand.”
“We’re not giving you a thing,” replied Paul. “You paid for this yourself.”
Tesla looked up at him.
“When you disappeared,” Paul continued, “your attorney, Mr. Serrell, didn’t know what was to be done with the $2.50 per unit you continued to earn in royalties from our sales. I told him that the Westinghouse Electric Company was more than happy to keep writing checks, but we were not sure who would deposit them. To whom could we even make them out?”
“And it has amounted to quite a bit of money,” added Westinghouse.
“So we agreed, with your attorney, that your royalties should go into a trust until your return. If you reappeared, you could claim it all. And if you did not…” Paul trailed off. Left unsaid was that for over a year he had known that Tesla was very much alive.
Tesla appeared immune to any implication of unpleasantness.
Tesla began to stroll through the lab. He inspected the cabinets one by one, taking stock of their contents. He turned back to face Paul.
“I would have chosen copper, not your zinc,” he said. “But yes, this is well.”
“We assumed you’d want a laboratory as soon as you’d returned,” said Paul.
“I have done much work in Tennessee,” replied Tesla as he continued his survey. “I will continue it here.”
“We hope so,” said Westinghouse.
Tesla took two glass plates from a cabinet and laid them on a table. He looked up.
“Screws?” he asked.
Westinghouse pointed to a cabinet in the back.
They watched as Tesla went instantly to work. He found a screwdriver near the screws and a circular saw for recutting the glass plates. He began, without a moment of emotional reflection or even consideration for the other human beings around him, to build.
“Well,” said Agnes. “Looks as if he’s of a mind to get right down to it.”
“Do you think he likes it?” said Paul.
“I think for him any moment he is not creating is a moment spent thinking about things to create.”
Westinghouse stared silently at Tesla. They were both most at home in their laboratories, and yet they could not be more different in their attitudes. Tesla was happiest when he was working. Westinghouse was happiest when he’d finished. Edison would be happiest only when he’d won.
Paul was on the cusp of making sure that he would not.
“Mr. Tesla,” called out Paul over the clatter. “There’s another matter we’d like to discuss with you.”
Tesla obligingly set down his tools.
“I have so much to do,” he said. “What is it that would be helping?”
Agnes looked at Paul. He had kept her in the dark as to this final part of the plan. He hated doing so, but there was no alternative. She wasn’t going to like it.
“The Westinghouse Electric Company is a few days away from declaring bankruptcy,” said Paul plainly.
“I am apologetic to listen to that,” said Tesla, as if he was struggling to discern the proper response.
“But we are in the process of securing a licensing arrangement with Edison’s company. Which, if we are successful, will no longer have Edison at the helm.”
Tesla’s brow perked up. This alone among human affairs seemed to possess some interest for him.
“And yet if we go bankrupt,” continued Paul, “it will all be for nothing. And the cause of our bankruptcy, the reason that Mr. Westinghouse’s corporation stands on such unsound financial footing, is me.”
Paul stepped toward Tesla, his hands at his sides to suggest a subtle supplication.
“The $2.50-per-unit royalty that I negotiated on behalf of the Westinghouse Electric Company, that we have been paying into your trust and that has purchased this laboratory, is not sustainable.”
“Paul, what are you talking about?” asked Agnes.
He ignored her. “What I am asking you to do, Nikola, is to sign away this royalty. To give it up, for the common good.”
“The common good?” exclaimed Agnes. “What on earth is happening right now? Paul, come with me.” She motioned to the hallway outside so that they might have a private conversation.
“Let me finish,” he asked of Agnes.
“Nikola,” said Paul, “these royalty payments are soon to cease one way or another. Either we go bankrupt and you stop receiving them, or you give us this technology as a gift. And then we beat Edison.”
“You ask that I choose this second path,” said Tesla.
“If you give us your alternating-current patents, we can beat Edison. And we can make A/C the national standard. If you do not, then, well…”
“Edison will win,” said Westinghouse.
“It cannot be so simple as that,” said Agnes.
Paul motioned for Agnes to wait. “If Edison wins, the entire national electrical network will be built on direct current. If you allow Westinghouse to go under, you will doom America to D/C. To Edison. To a century of technological backwardness.”
Tesla’s face darkened. This was a serious and terrible consequence that he had not previously imagined.
“Paul,” said Agnes, “I will not allow you to cheat Nikola out of his royalty payments.”
“I am not cheating anyone out of anything. I am laying the case out plainly and in full view. He may make his own decision.”
“Where is Mr. Tesla’s attorney? I will get him down here this second.”
“Mr. Serrell is unfortunately not available right now. He’s in Washington. Working on another matter.”
“You got rid of Tesla’s lawyer so you could cheat him alone?”
“I am not ‘cheating’ anyone.”
“None of my new devices shall function on the direct current….” Tesla was contemplating the dire future this posed for his work.
“If you do not do as I’m asking,” said Paul, “the national grid of the United States will be based on D/C. There will be accidents. People will die. This nation will be doomed to a medieval century. And the future you’ve seen in your visions will never take shape in America.”
Tesla stared into a hazy distance, as if he could literally see all his planned machines evaporating into the air. These marvelous creations were there before him, hallucinations of chrome and wire. But they were vanishing.
“I care not at all about your money. But you must not let the direct current devour my world. I want only to build. You know this about myself.”
“Nikola,” said Agnes, “listen to me. Giving Westinghouse all of your money is not the way to protect your work.”
“Miss Agnes Huntington, I cannot invent that which I must invent within the world that Mr. Paul Cravath describes.”
“We can stop that world from becoming reality,” said Paul. “If you renounce the royalty, we can survive. We can continue making alternating-current systems. We can depose Edison from the head of his company, make a deal with the new leader, and live on. Both D/C and A/C can percolate through the country. The range of possible devices will be even greater.”
“Then you must do this, Mr. Paul Cravath. And I will help you. Not for your benefit, and not for Mr. George Westinghouse’s benefit, and neither for to see Mr. Thomas Edison’s fall. But rather for the future of these sciences. I have seen wonders in my mind. The invisible rays that can see through skin. A machine that can take the photograph of your thoughts. I shall build that too. These wonders must come true.”
George Westinghouse had the good sense not to have said a word during this exchange. He let his lawyer do his talking for him. But now he removed a thin collection of papers from his pocket. He laid them gently on one of the laboratory tables, and then took out a pen. He placed it gingerly beside the papers.