Meeting the Grandson of a Doctor (1)
"Newspaper!! Newspaper!"
A cheerful boy's voice rang out, unlike the somber adults of the street. I turned my head toward it.
It's him. The kid who handed me a newspaper back on the train.
"Hey there, handsome gentleman? Care for a newspaper?"
The boy tossed a paper at me as if throwing it. It seemed the Tower had noticed how we wanted to pass the time, and sent him over.
The moment I took the newspaper, the boy turned away as if he had no more business with me.
"Well then, see you—"
He looked ready to sprint off at any moment, bubbling with high spirits.
Before the boy could run off into the distance, I hastily stretched out my arm and blocked his path.
"Hold on."
"Yes?"
The boy looked up at me with wide, round eyes.
"Don't go. I'm going to read it right now."
I waved the newspaper at him, then unfolded its pages.
Rustle—
One page.
Two pages.
As I flipped through them without pause, the temperature around us slowly began to change.
"Mister J?"
Visitor C called out to me in alarm, but I didn't stop flipping.
No—flipping one page at a time was a waste of time.
Whish—
"Mister J?!"
I turned every page of the newspaper fast enough to make the paper hiss and whisper.
Until the seasons spun a full circle and came back around to where they started.
"We need to hurry the time along. Ideally, um, to somewhere between 1888 and 1889."
"Oh!"
Visitor C finally grasped my intent and let out an exclamation of wonder.
The electric chair execution was carried out in 1890. Which means the consultation must have happened before that.
I moved my fingers without hesitation. Though I didn't falter, my motions were careful—it was a weighty matter, handling time itself.
Rustle—
"Fresh newspapers! Free of charge!"
"Hand me another."
"Uh, uh. Yes!! A fresh one, coming right up~"
The boy kept digging through the bag slung over his shoulder, pulling out new newspapers one after another.
The papers in my hands piled up layer upon layer, growing thicker and thicker.
Time was being pressed, folded, and stacked just like these pages.
There it is!
At last, I received a newspaper with "1888" printed at the top.
Now was the time to slow down and examine each page carefully, to stop at the right moment.
Even as my fingers slowed their pace, the boy was still frantically rummaging through his bag.
"Are you bullying the child?"
Perhaps the sight of the boy scrambling to ready a fresh paper, panting and desperate, had struck someone as pitiful.
A man approached from far down the street and glowered at Visitor C and me.
Then the gentleman immediately wedged himself between the boy and me, breaking up the "fight."
"Ah!"
The man's body collided with the boy's, and the newspaper the boy had been holding spilled to the ground.
It was probably the 1889 edition he'd been about to hand me next.
Oh no. Something's happened.
As the newspaper fell, all of its pages flipped over at once.
Did that mean time had just lurched forward to 1889 in a single bound?
I needed to figure out which year's America we had landed in—but for now—
"You there…."
I couldn't examine the time just yet. I could only stare at the man blocking my way.
Hair swept to the side. Fine creases pinching the space between his long, prominent nose and brows. It was the very face I'd seen in biographies of great men.
Thomas Edison.
"Taking newspaper after newspaper without paying a cent—I'd say you're nothing but a street thief."
"Not at all. I've been giving this gentleman the papers for free."
"For free?"
Edison's gaze shifted between the boy and me, his suspicion refusing to die down.
His expression plainly said he couldn't wrap his mind around receiving a newspaper for free.
Clank—!
Edison fished coins out of his pocket and pressed them into the boy's hand.
There were so many coins that the boy's hand grew heavy with them.
"Th-thank you, sir!!"
"Seeing a newsboy always takes me back to my own boyhood, you see."
The boy bowed at the waist in a startled hurry. Then, perhaps worried that Edison might change his mind and ask for the money back, he bolted in a flash.
"……."
Edison's gaze slid naturally over to me.
It wasn't the look of a man studying a person—it was the look of someone analyzing data.
Had he finished gauging our usefulness, making his judgment, and sorting us into categories all in that moment?
Suddenly, Edison drew a smile across his lips and extended his hand to me.
"Might you happen to be Korean?"
"?! How did you know?"
"I've never been to Joseon myself, but I've done my research. I could take a fair guess."
"……."
I shook Edison's hand, turning his words over in my mind.
He'd never been to Joseon, but he had investigated it.
Ah, now that I think of it—
"The mere fact that Joseon was the first in the East to adopt my electricity has made me very well disposed toward your country."
That's right.
Thanks to the boy dropping that newspaper, the exact year was murky, but we were somewhere between 1889 and 1890.
The first attempt to light Joseon's lamps with Edison's bulbs had already concluded.
During the reign of King Gojong, Joseon had lit its lamps with bulbs from the Edison company.
The first attempt had ended in a mishap, leaving the bulbs unusable for a while.
It was only after an Edison company employee overhauled the system that Joseon could light its lamps again.
"I hear they call me the grandson of a doctor in Joseon?"
The root of the historical wrong we needed to right was standing before me, breathing the same air.
"We are—"
Claiming to be researchers or gypsies won't work this time.
Tesla had a fascination with the otherworldly, so I'd managed to link him to gypsies and their mysticism.
But my gut told me that trick would never fly in front of Edison.
A vague, unverifiable identity would instantly become an object of suspicion.
Then this time, I'll have to press on something that actually interests Edison.
Edison had wished for his electricity to be commercialized in distant Joseon.
He was so well disposed toward the country that he'd retracted his suspicious gaze at the mere mention of my being Korean.
"We are a delegation from Joseon. Naturally, we know of you, Mr. Edison."
"…Two delegates from Joseon, standing in a shabby roadside spot like this."
He's suspicious.
As expected, he wasn't an easy man to fool.
I had considered simply claiming to be Koreans and leaving it at that, but—
Then this busy businessman would offer a courteous greeting and immediately pass us by.
"We are royal painters. We've come out today to record the people of America in paintings."
Two painters of a Joseon delegation.
Just like my encounter with Tesla, the scale of my lie was steadily inflating.
Visitor C composed her expression and smiled with practiced calm.
But in that very instant, having blurted the words out in haste, I belatedly realized there was a hole in the story.
We don't have a single supply on us.
We claimed to be out painting street scenes, yet we didn't have even a scrap of paper.
Neither of us carried a bag, making any excuse nearly impossible.
But words already spoken could not be taken back.
"The painters who draw illustrations for American newspapers are remarkably skilled as well, aren't they?"
"……."
I deliberately changed the subject, playing up the role of a Joseon delegate.
Then Edison stared at us intently for a long moment before letting out a deep sigh.
"As a delegation, you're no doubt aware—but what happened in Joseon recently was truly regrettable."
He's alluding, roundabout, to the failed introduction of electric technology to Joseon.
The incident where the heated cooling water flowed backward and boiled the fish in Gyeongbokgung's pond to death.
Electricity had only just been introduced back then, so it was still strange and unfamiliar to people.
And on top of that, the fish died….
No wonder Joseon people described electricity as goblin fire.
In any case, Edison was expressing regret, not apology.
Such a slippery word could never amount to a true apology.
When a businessman offers regret before anything else, calculation usually lies beneath it—not responsibility.
"It's only the beginning. I hope to see electric light brighten Seoul before long."
His voice was steeped in ambition bordering on certainty.
That unbowed attitude, even after tasting failure—that was Edison through and through.
"Of course. We painters wish to capture the light of your company as well, Mr. Edison."
"Haha."
When I flattered him, Edison burst into a hearty laugh.
With that laugh, the wariness between us loosened, just a little.
"Would it be alright if I extended a private invitation to a delegation working under the Joseon government?"
"…!!"
Why would Edison—a man buried in his work like Tesla—suddenly invite us?
Either way, it seemed we had succeeded in getting close to him.
"A private invitation, you say…?"
"I'm planning to conduct experiments on the terrors of electricity."
"!"
In an instant, a foreboding premonition shifted the very air between us.
"I've notified the press a few times already, but… I believe more people need to know, and quickly, before this murdering weapon spreads any further."
Edison stroked his chin, wearing the expression of a man deep in deliberation.
Then, before long, he shook his head, seemed to reach a decision, and spoke.
"The dangers of alternating current, you see."
Oh no—
Watching him perform this so casually, it seemed he'd genuinely made up his mind.
I clicked my tongue and picked up the newspaper the boy had dropped on the ground.
An article about the animal experiments….
The paper described how Edison had been lecturing the public on just how deadly alternating current was, through demonstrations electrocuting animals.
That kid dropped the newspaper, and time rushed forward too fast.
"If your schedule allows, come to my laboratory tomorrow, honorable delegates of Joseon."
"……."
Edison tipped the hat from his head and gave Visitor C a final greeting.
Judging by how the world hasn't been shaken yet, we're still before the invention of the electric chair.
But if Edison had already finished his consultations, the impact would be enormous.
Still, thankfully, there was no sign of this world collapsing or of the Curator appearing.
Which meant I still had room to make my move.
"So that your memory doesn't blur—do be sure to bring tools for taking notes."
Edison's parting words carried a natural blend of self-assurance and showmanship.
Some might condemn him as arrogant….
And yet I couldn't bring myself to fault him.
So that's what influence is.
The power to draw people in—and to change them at the same time.
I swallowed hard and did my best to imitate an American farewell.
"Well then."
Edison, together with his secretary, once more strolled leisurely down the road.
The moment he was gone, Visitor C glared at me, eyes blazing.
"Edison is doing the animal experiments tomorrow, isn't he? The ones he's already performed countless times!"
"No need to wait long. All we have to do is turn back one page of the newspaper—no, wait. If one page equals one month, wouldn't we have to adjust the angle of the paper a little?"
"That's not the point!"
Her seething emotions were boiling over, and the edge of her voice grew rougher by the word.
"He's already gleefully running his fear marketing campaign! How do we possibly roll that back?"
"The electric chair hasn't been used yet. The first execution by electric chair was carried out in 1890."
"Then the consultations are already finished and it's in the final stages, isn't it."
"……."
There was a faint edge of blame in Visitor C's voice.
Did she regret leaving the quest entirely in my hands?
I couldn't let her fail alongside me because of my mistakes. Anxious, I gnawed at my fingernails.
Ah.
If I failed, Visitor C would fail with me.
There could be no independent ending for either of us.
"I've been thinking about what you said earlier, Miss C."
"Yes?"
"Tesla's tarot reading. You said his fate couldn't be resolved by him alone."
"That's right."
"The electric chair wasn't an invention that Edison created and deployed on his own decree."
Even if the chair had been invented through Edison's consultations, without investors and stakeholders in the technology, the road to carrying out an execution would have been a hard one.
"Edison is no different. He's the inventor and the businessman both, but you can't carve him out alone and pass judgment on history."
"……."
"I thought stopping the fear marketing campaign would be a small change—but if we did that, the futures of everyone connected to Edison could shift."
"Then what are we supposed to do? We can't touch even a single thing?"
Visitor C kicked at a stone on the street in her frustration.
Then she let out a long, deep sigh and looked at me.
"If we disturbed even the tiniest fragment of someone's attitude or thinking, it could spell disaster, you know."
"……."
Visitor C was right.
Unless fate was pinned down through a card Perk the way it had been with Tesla, Edison was a genuine risk for a butterfly effect.
"Then…."
There was no choice but to let history run its full course and amend it afterward.
"Then wouldn't it be better to touch his attitude after something goes wrong?"
"I'm sorry?"
Visitor C tilted her head, not following.