The Human Bullet. Joaquin De Torres

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СКАЧАТЬ paper and ribbon. She carefully lifted each stack and placed them on the table. It was now late afternoon and the Sun was setting behind the Velebit mountain range. Irena went to her large ice cooler and retrieved a bottle of Velebitsko Black and popped open the cap. She sat in the chair, sipping the beer and surveying the stacks.

      She drank half the bottle before she stood up and cut the ribbon of the first stack. Removing the protective outer paper, she set the contents on her lap and quickly sifted through each page.

      There were writings, official stamped documents, drawings, schematics and hand-written notes. All of it was scientific and mathematic in nature. Numbers, lines, measurements, angles, symbols and long strings of algorithms – all these things, were printed or scribbled on each page.

      Some pages were of drawings of whole machines, apparatuses, devices, mechanisms, along with their infrastructures, individual parts with size and strength measurements. Some of the notes were in Croatian, while others were in English. But she couldn’t focus on the writing because it had been a long day and there were just too many papers to look at.

      Feeling tired and hungry, her eyes and muscles sore from her physical attack on the wall, she downed the rest of the beer and decided to leave her detailed inspection for tomorrow. But something hit her that she didn’t notice when she was first rifling through the pages.

      Her eyes never bothered to look down at some scribble on the bottom right of each sheet. But when she did, her heart began to beat like a jackhammer. At the bottom of every page was the signature of Nikola Tesla!

      * * * * *

      MIRA-CAL

      “It can’t be done,” said Marko regrettably as he looked at the person on the other side of his large monitor. “My people are the best engineers and we’ve been over this for the months you’ve given us. There’s no way this can be done even with my technology.”

      Ericka Hedlin stared back at him with her large, but tired green eyes. She wanted to hear everything he had to say before she responded. Marko just shook his head like a beaten man.

      “No, Madam President, it can’t be done. So, with all due respect and the honor for having been entrusted with this project, I will immediately refund your entire investment, every penny of it, and turn over all my progress and prototype to your people.

      “MIRA-CAL has simply too many projects for saving and rebuilding lives. We’re not in the business of taking them. Please accept my apologies and I will send the money electronically back to your financial institution in the morning.”

      Hedlin remained expressionless. Marko could see she was not disappointed but aggravated by his answers. Her continued silence said it all as he began to sear under the heat of her glare. It seemed like minutes as her heated stare and cold silence dried his throat, yet he dared not reach for his cup of coffee just inches from his hand.

      “I’ll wire you an additional 150 million,” she said finally.

      “It’s not the money, Madam Pres-”

      “And another three months.”

      “It may take longer than that, but I don’t-”

      “MARKO!” Hedlin yelled. Marko froze at the sudden boom of her voice. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her exhausted eyes. When she spoke, her tone had softened, but he couldn’t find anything but frost and desperation in her words.

      “Don’t you understand? If you don’t do this. . .I’m dead.”

      * * * * *

      Raduč

      NIKOLA TESLA! her mind screamed within. Irena Pezelj was no longer tired, no longer hungry, no longer a regular person. She poured over the work like a woman possessed. She was so nervous, so excited, so full of adrenaline, she couldn’t believe what she was looking at, reading, holding in her very own hands! She marveled at each page, savoring this unbelievable moment as if entrusted with her nation’s greatest treasure and secrets.

      She put down the papers and left to wash her hands thoroughly. She took a deep breath and tried to clear her head. She needed to be objective, not an excited little girl. Page after page, notebook after notebook, she sifted through these precious articles of knowledge and antiquity.

      She gently rubbed her fingertips on the parchment, smelled the scent of aged wood and mildew, viscerally trying to understand how unbelievable this all was. She soon realized by the handwritten notes and remarks, that these files, these documents and drawings, were not prints, but original works from the legendary inventor himself!

      She swallowed deeply and sweat began to glisten on her forehead in nervous tension and excitement. I should call someone! she considered. I should call the Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb! No, the museum in Smiljan! No, the Tesla Science Center in New York! No, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC! No, the Tesla museum in Belgrade!

      “Wait. Fuck Serbia!” she spat. She finally concluded that these works would remain with her until she found a suitable institution to either sell or donate them to. Until then, she was going to just keep them with her, her own little secret, and study.

      “My god, look at all this!”

      For three days, she traveled back and forth from Gospić to Raduč to read over the stacks of documents, plans, calculations and mathematical equations. What was most interesting to her were Tesla’s side notes and comments that were so cryptic that only she, a mathematician, could immediately understand what he was thinking. The drawings were so intricate and detailed that, because they were originals, could fetch millions of dollars if she were to auction them off.

      She began categorizing the documents by subject matter: electric power, hydraulic power, wireless communications, gravitational power, etc. and searched areas of both the dining room and the sitting room. She had no furniture in the house yet, so she walked barefoot on the cool wooden floors she had polished by hand, laying the documents in neat rows and columns according to their subject matter.

      Almost all of the documents from the first crate were simply copies of his work which could be found in technical museums and universal engineering literature around the world. They were already patented and just original copies, but with the priceless editions of his own memos and even crossed-out mistakes that no one but her had ever seen. Just these personal notes could be worth millions to a history collector.

      With the first crate emptied, she stood at the top of the center staircase and surveyed the documents laying across the floors on either side. Neat little stacks of papers. Precious stacks of history.

      The larger drawings and sketches were laid by themselves as they were unique in their own designs. She smiled like a satisfied landscaper after completing a specially designed garden. She sat on the step, now calm but starting to sweat again as the afternoon sun on the fourth day began to bake the house. She had her fans, but they were nowhere near the stacks, so essentially, she was sitting in a sauna.

      She was also getting hungry. She had eaten her last sandwich, and had one beer left in the cooler. No one delivers pizza in Raduč, she thought, I must go back to Gospić for supplies. She would need food, drinks, and a trip to the office supply store to buy plastic document protectors for each individual page and some security containers to keep them in.

      She went downstairs to drink the last beer and prepare for her trip back home. СКАЧАТЬ