weeeellllllll now...seems I 'writ' a tale--first thing Ive penned in a few years; first thing worth mentioning, anyway. I had a blast writing it, hope you enjoy reading it...comments welcome but not mandatory








Tesla’s Legacy
By Perry McGee




Nikola Tesla devised a machine capable of transmitting electricity without wires. Vast amounts of quasi-unpredictable electrical energy coursing through the air with the pull of a trigger. In essence, he had invented a death ray. Several failed tests (the Tunguska episode was the first large-scale mistake) prompted the soon-to-be-bankrupt man to scrap the project; he wasn’t interested in letting an evil empire gain world domination with the aid of his machine. The timing was wrong, he surmised, for the world to have free reign of a device that could eradicate thousands of acres of land (and the people, animals, and houses therein) with only the depression of a single trigger, no matter what the monetary gain might be.

The invention was very simple and relatively inexpensive in design. Using an odd combination of AC and DC currents passing through ceramic conductors, tin circuits, and three rough ground lenses, powered by a tiny rechargeable capacitor, shaped somewhat like a modern day Uzi, the device reminded one of a Tommy Gun of 1940’s gangster heritage. At first Tesla marveled at the unique toy (as he so often referred to it) as a weapon of peace, but knew in his heart the world would no doubt end in a global massacre if it fell into the wrong hands. On a moderately warm winter night in 1934 after accidentally causing an earthquake in Bihar, India, (the death toll reached well over ten thousand, plummeting Tesla into chronic depression and pushing him to a life-long Opium binge) he destroyed the only two existing prototypes and burned all of the paperwork: schematics and any evidence he had saved so far were incinerated in a pot-bellied stove. Nine years later he died broke, stoned, and still depressed.

No scientist since could re-develop the gun (dubbed the Doomsday Machine during the mid-fifties), and not from any lack of diligence, either. Many tried, all failed. Some came close, applying immense and intense mathematical formulas and using state-of-the-art computer programming, but, the doomsday machine could not be duplicated. One fellow from a pretty shire in England managed to blow-up nineteen city blocks with errant electricity, but whether or not he did it wirelessly is still unknown; he died in the explosion and took his experiments and knowledge with him.

What every person attempting this feat failed to understand was this: Tesla had used mostly common items and low-tech formulas to accomplish the magic of wireless electrical transportation. He had no wealthy country’s government backing his every financial whim, he wasn’t as smart as most of his colleagues, and he was very prone to accidents. Tesla’s legacy was borne of odd luck and seemingly bad decisions.

He was a lot like me. My name is Chris Donaldson Smith and through a succession of stupid mistakes, upended failures, and insanely lackadaisical motivation, I, while trying to improve my stereo system, found a way to send electric current through the air much like Flash Gordon zapping Ming the Merciless in an old black and white movie.

My college background helped in the crucial final stages, but in retrospect I believe my strange luck and love of loud music was the deciding factor in why I became the man to duplicate Tesla’s doomsday machine.

I didn’t share my discovery with anyone. I couldn’t, I mean, if Tesla was worried about a governmental superpower having this device and destroying the world a hundred years ago, then I was scared shitless thinking about the same scenario now. What if, say Iraq, had this machine, or worse yet, what if sixty years ago Hitler had wielded it? What would have happened to the structure of humanity?

I swore to myself Id use this to better the world around me subtly; to keep it secret and not make a gazillion dollars by selling it to the black market (to some bearded guy in a trench coat handing me money-laden suitcases in a tunnel) or N.A.S.A. (different guy, same tunnel) or anyone. Sure, I could be rich beyond my wildest dreams, but what use would hundred dollar bills be with nowhere to spend them?

I refined the machine into how the history books (special history books that not many people’ve seen, by the way) described Tesla’s: a machine-gun looking thing that could sink Canada into the subterranean aqua filter in less time than it takes to cook a pound of their own bacon.

I used it wisely. I didn’t need the electric company’s power because the machine’s output was a million-fold of its consumption; I could recharge enough capacitors with one internally circulated blast to last longer that I’ll ever live, so all my stereo equipment played on my power. I could lift heavy objects and place them wherever I wanted (lifting was done on the lowest possible setting, anything higher than point oh-oh-one-six on the dial instantly vaporized the intended target), and I could feel the gun’s power drawing away my will like Frodo’s ring at Mount Doom, but I wouldn’t admit it to myself.

Yes, the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.

Well, it was until that bitch Ronda fucked me over, left me because she said I was too damned busy playing in my basement. Playing? She thinks I’m playing? Fucking bitch’ll see what playing is.

There’s only several hundred thousand people left on earth now, and she isn’t one of them. I had to blast them all trying to end her bullshit. I never cared for money, but jealousy? ...now that’s a motivational driver if ever there was one. I’m sorry Mexico (and Serbia and France and the Antarctic and etc, etc, etc), but just because Tesla knew of the Doomsday Machine’s bad aim on such a potent setting, how was I?

I guess now, looking through shattered glass panes, standing in the only structure on earth with lights and a working microwave, watching the nuclear winter cover the broken landscape in a carpet of killing white, thinking back on all of my great intentions, all I can say is: aint love a bitch.

Think I’ll go downstairs and cook a few hotdogs and watch DVDs.