novelraw Chapter 251: Tesla's Legacy
Chapter 251: Tesla's Legacy
The I.A.R.C. North American Branch's underground safe house was less of a secret hideout and more of a highly modernized information fortress situated in the heart of the city.
It lacked the reassuring, thick sense of history found in London's Underground City, but possessed another kind of cold, efficient "sense of security" belonging to the New World.
That young investigator who spoke as fast as a machine gun, Phineas, after settling Lin Jie and Ethan in, transformed into a dutiful tour guide, explaining the operational rules of this new home in detail.
"...The entire safe house's power supply is independent of the municipal grid. We have multiple backup diesel generators, hidden in the basement of the bakery next door, capable of sustaining us here for a month."
"All external communications must go through this Kohl-brand encrypted telegraph machine, which is connected to a submarine cable buried deep beneath the Hudson River."
"Food and water will be delivered daily from outside, disguised as evidence for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Remember, absolutely do not go out and buy anything yourselves."
"In a word, gentlemen," Phineas concluded, a gravity that didn't match his young age showing on his face, "from the moment you stepped into New York Harbor, you've been living under the gaze of a behemoth."
"Here, the only ones you can trust are ourselves."
This cautionary preamble gave Lin Jie and Ethan a more direct, and more unsettling, understanding of the enemy they were about to face.
The Brotherhood of Light had already turned this city into their "ironclad territory."After briefly adapting to the environment and confirming its safety, Lin Jie immediately convened the first operational meeting of their "unofficial" exploration team.
He spread the massive map of the North American East Coast, brought from Cairo, onto the steel and glass conference table.
Then, using a red charcoal pencil, Lin Jie heavily drew a dangerous-looking circle around a remote area on the eastern tip of Long Island, New York, called "Wardenclyffe."
"Here," Lin Jie's voice echoed in the meeting room, "is our battlefield."
"Based on the final intelligence provided by Julian and the latest supplementary information from you, Finn, we can confirm the Brotherhood of Light's Aether Tower is planned to be built right here."
Phineas nodded. He deftly pulled a freshly printed report, still smelling of ink, from the buzzing electrical analyzer beside him.
"Correct." His speech was still rapid, but each word was backed by precise data. "Our people have attempted to infiltrate the Wardenclyffe area from three different directions over the past month, but all failed."
"The first time, we posed as reporters from the *New York Sun*, trying to gain entry under the pretext of 'interviewing Mr. Edison about his latest invention.' We were politely turned back by an armed private security team five miles away from the experimental base."
"The second time, we sent the branch's best stealth expert, 'Shadow' John. He attempted to land via the northern coastline by swimming at night. He never returned."
"The third time," a trace of lingering fear entered Phineas's tone, "we deployed a state-of-the-art glider designed by 'Flying Man' Otto Lilienthal, attempting aerial reconnaissance and photography of the base. But the moment the glider flew within a hundred meters of the base's airspace, we instantly lost all contact with the pilot and the glider."
"It was like a stone dropped into the sea. No sound, no signal, not even a single piece of wreckage was found."
"It just vanished into thin air."
This description of eerie failure cast a particularly oppressive atmosphere over the meeting room.
Ethan's brow furrowed.
The Brotherhood of Light was efficiently cleaning up all insects trying to pry into their secrets in an industrialized, assembly-line fashion.
"So," Lin Jie delivered his final verdict on this hopeless infiltration campaign, "a frontal assault is a dead end."
"We must change our approach."
His gaze shifted from the map marked with danger symbols and landed on another personnel file brought by Phineas.
"Since we cannot breach the defenses of this scientific fortress on a physical level."
"Then we will open it from the inside."
That personnel file recorded a list of all engineers and scientists who had held core positions at the "Edison General Electric Company" in the past few years but had ultimately left for various reasons.
Lin Jie's finger slowly traced over the long list.
He skipped over the mediocrities dismissed for "incompetence."
He also ignored the opportunists who left in a huff due to "business disputes."
He had only one target.
To find the perfect breach point: someone who possessed the ability to access the Aether Tower's core secrets and harbored a deep-seated hatred for Thomas Edison himself!
Finally, Lin Jie's finger stopped on a name that didn't seem particularly remarkable.
Francis Upton.
"...It's him." Lin Jie said with certainty.
Phineas raised an eyebrow in surprise.
He hadn't expected Lin Jie to pick this man, who seemed utterly worthless in his eyes, so precisely from the dozens of candidates.
"...Upton?" he asked in an uncertain tone. "Are you sure, Mr. Lin? Although this guy was once Edison's most trusted mathematician and golden right hand, that's all... history from a year ago."
"Ever since he completely broke with Edison during the famous 'War of the Currents' for publicly supporting alternating current, he's been thoroughly expelled from the Brotherhood of Light's inner circle."
"According to our informants, he's now just a pathetic wretch hiding in his apartment all day, numbing himself by selling off his possessions and alcohol."
"What valuable intelligence can a failure provide us?"
"No, Finn, you're wrong." Lin Jie shook his head. "Sometimes, an angry failure is far more useful than a hundred loyal successes."
"And," he paused, pushing the personal file on Upton to the center of the table, "haven't you noticed that the intelligence about him is a bit too detailed, too dramatic?"
Hearing this, Julian and Ethan immediately leaned in to carefully read the file.
The file showed that Francis Upton, a top mathematical genius who graduated from Princeton University and the University of Berlin in Germany, was once Thomas Edison's closest comrade and partner.
More than half of the complex mathematical calculations and theoretical foundations for Edison's great inventions came from Upton's genius brain.
It could be said that without Upton, there would be no "Edison General Electric Company's" current glory.
Yet, such a "founder of the empire" completely broke with his idol of nearly ten years, Edison, a year ago over a purely technical dispute.
He publicly published an article in *Scientific American* magazine, arguing that Tesla's alternating current system was far more efficient and had more future potential than Edison's direct current system.
This statement was undoubtedly a public betrayal of the "Mentor of Light."
The consequences were disastrous.
Upton was not only immediately stripped of all his positions at General Electric but also collectively blacklisted by the entire American scientific community and high society.
He went from a genius in the spotlight to a traitor everyone denounced overnight.
The final straw that broke him came a month ago.
Attached at the end of the file was a social news clipping from the *New York Post*.
The headline carried the era's characteristic sensationalism.
"...Former Genius, Destitute and Downcast, Drunk Driving at Midnight, Nearly Dies on the Street..."
The report stated that on a rainy night a month ago, Upton, heavily intoxicated, was driving his carriage home alone when he collided head-on with a freight wagon loaded with steel.
The accident was extremely gruesome.
Upton's carriage was smashed to pieces, and he himself was thrown from the vehicle, suffering a severe head impact.
Although he miraculously survived the crash, he was left with permanent damage to one eye.
And from then on, this already despondent genius engineer completely locked himself away in his luxurious apartment on Fifth Avenue, refusing to come out, and his mental state became extremely unstable.
"A perfect tragedy, isn't it?"
Lin Jie's voice murmured softly.
"A genius betrayed by his former friend for upholding the truth, ultimately ending up friendless, destitute, and nearly losing his life."
"This story is too 'clean.'"
Lin Jie's finger lightly tapped on the news clipping.
"So clean it's like a script written deliberately by someone."
A flash of understanding crossed Ethan's eyes;
he immediately grasped the subtext of Lin Jie's words.
"You mean... that accident was man-made?"
"I don't know." Lin Jie shook his head. "But why would a failure who poses no threat to Edison anymore just happen to encounter a potentially fatal accident?"
"There are only two possibilities behind this."
Lin Jie slowly extended two fingers.
"One, Edison is a tyrant so narrow-minded he can't even tolerate a failure who no longer poses any threat to him."
"Two," his gaze deepened, "this Mr. Francis Upton is far more dangerous than we imagine."
"He must still be hiding some big secret that forces Edison to issue a silencing order!"
And this secret is undoubtedly one of the "keys" to the Aether Tower!