Edison and Tesla (2)

It's time for me to bring out my own Perk, too.

And not just to give the woman a simple explanation.

As I'd been mulling over earlier, my own knowledge was still hazy, so I intended to organize the data in my memory and study it all over again.

"Docent, activate. The War of the Currents between Edison and Tesla. ...Keep it brief — summarize it for me."

Shhhff—

The quest Leaflet vanished, and this time a Leaflet related to my Docent Perk unfolded instead.

"This isn't a summary. Make it simpler — just the essentials."

"Haa. One moment, please."

It seemed the time had come to dust off those old skills of wrangling spreadsheets and graphs.

I rapidly dragged the long lists of information this way and that with my fingers, sorting them into order.

"Wow, your eyes are fast. What was your major — no, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what do you do for a living?"

"I work at a research firm. Just a regular office worker, so organizing things is second nature to me now."

Since I couldn't lay out the whole vast history at once, I decided to start with their early relationship.

"A joke? What a sleazy corporate boss."

Visitor C gawked at Edison's conduct as she read over the organized Leaflet.

To think she'd end up calling one of the great men etched into our minds since childhood a sleazy corporate boss.

Well, if he were my boss, I'd have reported him to the labor board on the spot too.

"Seriously, though — it's not right, is it? If someone works hard, they deserve to be compensated for it."

The woman murmured it as though discussing the daily life of someone who lived right next to us, not words printed in a newspaper.

Maybe that was why I could feel all the more keenly that we had truly stepped inside their history.

"Well, even the great geniuses of history are human. They all have two faces, I suppose."

It wasn't possible to simply divide the world into good and evil and curse Edison for it.

Edison's methods had certainly involved missteps — but they were that desperate for technology to take hold and advance.

"So would fixing a historical mistake mean making Edison pay Tesla that big reward after all?"

"...No. That could change Tesla's fate entirely."

Suppose Tesla had received fair ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠compensation from Edison.

Having been properly recognized, he might have stayed at the company even with their differences of opinion.

And if that had happened, Tesla never would have sold his AC patents to George Westinghouse.

Which meant, ultimately, that all of history would change.

"Tesla spent his later years in poverty. It's tragic, but we can't change his fate by putting money in his hands."

"He seemed every bit as much a genius as Edison, and he lived poor?"

Visitor C's mouth hung open in disbelief.

Naturally — she had every right to react that way.

AC was what humanity had ultimately embraced.

Tesla, meanwhile, went bankrupt and never achieved the public renown Edison did.

"I find it fascinating, honestly. The War of the Currents ended in Tesla's victory, yet the outcome when it came to wealth and poverty didn't follow."

"...That's kind of sad."

"Tesla was the sort of genius who pursued his own research rather than money, so perhaps that's just where his fate flowed."

History is the accumulated sediment of time made by imperfect humans, so it can never align perfectly.

This world does not guarantee a happy ending where the one who was right is always rewarded.

Even when they deserve it.

I spread the Docent open again.

Shhhff—

"Hmm, I remember Edison pulled some unexpected moves during this war. Organize those for me."

The campaign Edison had waged to win the contest.

The fact that this much was surfacing meant the detailed information was surely lodged somewhere in my memory.

Shhhff—

The woman shook her head as if she couldn't believe Edison had gone so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠far.

"Wow — he meddled this much and DC still lost? AC must have been enormously more efficient."

"It was. But Edison didn't personally invent the AC electric chair. He merely steered things in that direction."

Even so, this marketing campaign never actually turned the tide of the war.

It was, however, an act for which Edison would justly be criticized, and Tesla must have suffered emotional wounds from it as well.

"Whichever side we take, the future changes."

"Really? I'd love to pick a side, but there's no helping it, is there."

Visitor C wore a distinctly dissatisfied look — perhaps she had thrown herself completely into Tesla's corner.

But we were only here to correct a mistake. We had no business changing this world.

"It's not that Edison hated Tesla. He simply staked a contest on his Direct Current."

By the standards of people judging him today, though, his methods left a stain.

Since Tesla was the one who sold the patents, strictly speaking, the War of the Currents was really a fight between Westinghouse and Edison.

Westinghouse surely suffered from Edison's marketing too — but Tesla, as the true technical mastermind of AC, must have taken ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the deeper wound.

Reasoning from that assumption, the tower seemed to have chosen Edison and Tesla as the quest's central figures.

"AC wins, and Edison builds his reputation regardless. That's an outcome we must not change."

Which means—

"The best approach would be to offer this era's Tesla some small measure of comfort. And to keep Edison from doing something he'd regret."

"And how exactly would you do that?"

"A world where neither of them is destroyed."

Even in a fictional history, there was meaning in soothing the destruction of a heart. Wasn't that the point?

"Edison's mistake. We have to neutralize the actions he takes to brand AC as dangerous electricity."

The mistake I'd glimpsed earlier through the Docent Perk.

His insistence on his Direct Current — at the cost of wounding Tesla and sacrificing animals.

That was the mistake we had to correct.

"Of the historical mistakes, we will neutralize Edison's fear marketing against AC."

"Fear marketing. You mean the animal electrocution demonstration and the electric chair from before?"

Before I could even answer her question, a Leaflet appeared at once.

Shhhff—

At last, the final version of the concrete quest we had to accomplish was complete.

The woman and I met each other's eyes and nodded.

To smooth over Edison's mistake, naturally, we need to meet Edison. But how do we make contact with him?

Unless we got jobs at his electric company, meeting the man who ran it would hardly be easy.

Even with my Docent ability, showing off my skills inside an electric company would be a stretch.

"Blast it! The sound of this train is about to split my ears open!"

Clatter—!

Just then, someone flung open the train door and stepped into our car.

Raw irritation dripped from every grumbled word.

"Filthy. Germs fester in every crevice of this train. This ground-in filth! Damnation!!"

The gentleman scoured the interior of the car, brow furrowed.

His hands were bound up tight in handkerchief and gloves, ensuring not a sliver of skin touched the train's walls.

The fidgety, high-strung man glanced at Visitor C — and abruptly his expression changed, and he bowed with meticulous courtesy.

"Beg your pardon, lovely lady. Might I take a seat among you as well?"

"...Of course."

When so striking a gentleman showed such manners, Visitor C nodded with a shy smile.

A man who could swing from obsessive-compulsive behavior to courtly politeness in a heartbeat. There was nothing ordinary about him.

"Really, this is absurd."

"I'm sorry?"

At that moment, the man cast a sidelong glance at the newspaper we were holding — and in an instant, his expression hardened again.

Genuine displeasure laced his voice.

"You there — do you work for the Edison Company?"

"...Hardly. I do not."

"Then why, may I ask, are you reading a newspaper stuffed with stories about Mr. Edison and myself?"

Is this man... Tesla?

Even if he were a fake, to be riding in a train alongside Nikola Tesla—

I felt the same dazed unreality I had when I first laid eyes on Van Gogh.

"Would you happen to be Mr. Nikola Tesla?"

"I am. And yet—"

A man and a woman, reading a paper crammed with tales of Edison and Tesla.

Tesla was glaring at us with undisguised suspicion.

"Are you interested in electricity, or are you in this line of work yourselves? I find myself curious about you both."

"We're—"

Explaining the 'tower' or 'quests' to a person of this era was next to impossible.

If we revealed that this world was a fiction constructed inside the tower, history could shift and the quest might end in failure.

The woman and I exchanged glances, then introduced our professions in shrunken voices.

"I'm an investigator."

"And I'm... a tarot master."

Not that a person of this era would likely understand either answer.

"A gypsy? I hold no interest in fortune-telling."

"No, it's not exactly—. Yes."

The moment the word tarot left her lips, even Tesla — who had been courteous to the woman — turned abruptly cold.

Visitor C gave up on any further halting explanations and simply closed her mouth.

She seemed to sense instinctively that the more she tried to persuade him, the farther he would drift away.

But I have to catch his interest somehow and get close to him.

We couldn't just let Tesla slip through our fingers.

Edison was the one whose mistake needed correcting — but Tesla's fate had to be pinned firmly in place, too, so that it never wavered.

"This lady is no ordinary gypsy. She's a gypsy who divines the future of humankind and extraterrestrial civilizations."

"...?!"

As I elaborated on Visitor C, I deliberately dropped the word 'extraterrestrial' into the conversation.

Because I knew Tesla held a fascination for aliens and the cosmos.

Granted, this was still an era when he should be buried in electricity — but there was no way he'd simply pass over someone dangling such an unknown world before him.

For the first time, Tesla's brow furrowed with genuine focus.

"Divining aliens through fortune-telling.... Hah. A diverting endeavor, lady."

Just as I'd thought.

Tesla wore a smile blended of interest and skepticism.

On the surface it seemed urbane enough, but hidden within was the arrogant barb of a man who worshipped science.

"You've left Mr. Edison's company and are searching for someone to purchase your AC patents, haven't you?"

"?!"

"No — I don't mean to presume it's settled. But you do intend to sell the patents, don't you?"

In an instant, the composure drained from Tesla's face.

A moment ago his wariness had been mingled with curiosity; now it had sharpened, visibly, into full-blown hostility.

"So you are an employee of the Edison Company. I beg your pardon for intruding."

Tesla immediately moved to open the train door and step back out of the car.

He would sooner choose that crawling, squalid car than remain alongside an employee of Edison's company.

For a man gripped by a phobic obsession with germs, that was an enormous resolution.

"We are merely people with a deep interest in both of your experiments."

"Experiments."

At my deliberate choice of the word, Tesla's tone softened, just a shade.

To him, 'experiment' was the most trustworthy language there was.

"An investigator and a gypsy with a keen interest in the current experiments. How intriguing."

Tesla turned his head back toward us and let slip a faint smile.

His heart wasn't fully open — but it seemed, at least, he had withdrawn his hostility.

"Would you care to observe my experiment?"

Wait — this wasn't just hostility withdrawn. It sounded like his heart was open quite a lot?