A slender young man wearing a faded linen shirt walked in. In his hand, he held a strange device constructed from wood and wire. He was the fourteen-year-old Nikola Tesla.
The boy had a pair of extremely deep and bright eyes.
He looked at the gold bars on the table, then at the two strangers dressed in suits.
"What is this?"
Timmy pointed at the wooden device in the boy's hand and asked.
Tesla did not show any stage fright; he walked to the table and set the device down.
"It is a model of a bladeless turbine, sir." Tesla's voice was still changing, sounding slightly raspy.
"I use the fluid boundary layer effect and viscosity to let the water flow drive these smooth metal discs to rotate. It is more efficient than traditional water wheels with blades."
Timmy didn't understand anything about fluid boundary layers, but he remembered Felix Argyle' instructions.
"Nikola."
Timmy stood up, looking at the boy who was not much shorter than himself.
"How big a turbine do you want to build?"
Light flickered in Tesla's eyes.
"I want to build a turbine on Niagara Falls to convert all the power of the falls into electrical energy."
Timmy smiled.
He took the business card personally signed by Felix Argyle from his pocket and handed it to Tesla.
"None of that will be a problem, pal."
Timmy patted the boy's shoulder.
"My boss is waiting for you in New York. He has Niagara Falls, and he has the money to help you build any machine you want."
The air in the wooden cabin grew still.
Tesla held the gold-embossed business card, his fingers lightly rubbing the edge of the cardstock.
His deep eyes stared at Timmy, as if trying to pierce through the disguise of this young intelligence chief to see the outline of that vast empire on the other side of the ocean.
"Niagara Falls."
Tesla repeated the name of the place.
For a boy who had always lived in a remote village on the Balkan Peninsula, that geographical term only existed in his worn-out picture books and endless fantasies.
"Nikola! Put that down!"
Father Milutin finally recovered from the shock of the gold. He stood up, snatched the business card from his son's hand, and threw it on the table.
The priest looked at Timmy, his tone becoming even more rigid.
"You are bewitching him, Americans. Niagara Falls does not belong to you; it is God's creation. Nikola cannot go to those cities filled with the stench of money and the noise of machines. He will lose his soul."
"Milutin!"
Duka suddenly spoke.
The mother, who had remained silent until now, walked to the table and pressed her hands onto the cold gold bars.
She looked at her husband.
"Look at what he does in the backyard every day. He splits the family's firewood into pieces and steals scrap copper wire from the church just to make these wheels that you don't understand."
Duka's voice carried a hint of a sob and an unquestionable determination.
"His soul flew out of this village long ago. If you try to force him onto the altar, it will only turn him into a madman."
Duka turned to look at Timmy.
"Sir. We accept this money." Duka's fingers tightened.
"But how can I trust you? If he goes to Graz, what if you don't pay his tuition? What if he gets sick on the way?"
Timmy sat back down on the long wooden bench, his posture relaxed.
"Madam, that is exactly why Mr. Klaus is standing here."
Timmy pointed to the Vienna head beside him.
"Klaus has a legal business identity in Vienna. He will serve as Nikola's legal academic guardian. He has already purchased a property near the Graz University of Technology that includes an independent laboratory. Nikola will not live in a student dormitory; he will live in his own house."
Timmy took out a thick stack of documents.
"This is a trust fund agreement. These five thousand Kroner and the gold are for your family. In addition, we have established a special education account of one hundred thousand Kroner at the Bank of Vienna. As long as Nikola is still in school, he can withdraw money from this account at any time to purchase experimental materials. Klaus is only responsible for signing off on payments and will not interfere with his research."
Milutin slumped back into his chair, defeated.
One hundred thousand Kroner.
"Your boss..." Milutin looked at Timmy.
"What kind of person is he exactly? Why would he spend so much money on a child he has never even met?"
"The boss is a businessman, Father."
Timmy did not hide Felix Argyle' true nature.
"A businessman only makes investments with a return. He believes your son can earn back a hundred times those one hundred thousand Kroner for him in the future. That is why he is willing to pay now."
Tesla had been listening silently. He walked to the table and picked up the business card again.
"Sir." Tesla looked at Timmy.
"If I go to Graz, can I study Alternating Current? I have read about the limitations of Direct Current motors in physics textbooks. I believe Alternating Current is the ultimate solution for energy transmission."
Timmy's heart skipped a beat.
Felix Argyle' original words echoed in his ears: Morgan wants Alternating Current. Buy the future in advance.
"Of course you can."
Timmy did his best to suppress his inner excitement, his tone calm.
"You can study whatever you want. Alternating Current, high-frequency electromagnetic waves, even wireless transmission. As long as you can draw the blueprints and build the models, there is no upper limit to the budget."
Tesla nodded vigorously.
"Fine, I will go with you."
The boy turned to look at his father and mother.
"Father, Mother, forgive me. I cannot be a priest. My church is in the laboratory."
Milutin sighed and closed his eyes, drawing a cross over his chest.
"May God bless you, Nikola. Do not let the machines consume your humanity."
...
Three days later.
Graz, Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Klaus settled Tesla into a two-story brick house near the university.
The first floor had been completely cleared and converted into a spacious mechanical and electrical laboratory.
Bundles of copper wire, various specifications of Voltaic piles, and precision measuring instruments just delivered from Berlin filled the corners.
Tesla changed into a brand-new student uniform.
He stood in the center of the laboratory, looking at the cold and expensive equipment; there was no fear of a boy leaving home in his eyes, only pure thirst for knowledge.
Timmy stood at the door, carrying a briefcase. He prepared to continue executing the orders his boss gave before he left.
"Klaus."
Timmy spoke in a low voice to the man in charge beside him.
"Assign four of the most reliable men to watch this house in twenty-four-hour shifts. Do not interfere with his life, but you must record the name of every person who contacts him. Especially strangers who speak English."
"What if Old Morgan's people come looking?" Klaus asked.
"Break their legs and throw them into the Mur River." Timmy adjusted his tie.
"This young man's brain is the Argyle Family's highest-level secret property. No second company is allowed to touch it."
Timmy walked toward the carriage parked by the roadside.
He looked back at the thin figure standing in the laboratory drawing blueprints.
Although he didn't know what this fourteen-year-old child could build in the future,
He knew that he had perfectly executed Felix Argyle' instructions. He had locked Old Morgan's last hole card for a comeback firmly in Austria.
The carriage drove toward the train station.
Timmy needed to rush to France as soon as possible to execute his boss's secret mission.
The Franco-German border, Lorraine region.
A drizzling acid rain fell from the sky.
The hillsides, once covered in grapevines, had now turned into scorched earth plowed by artillery shells. Muddy water mixed with blood, pooling into dark red puddles in the craters.
General Charles Frossard, commander of the French Second Corps, stood behind a makeshift sandbag bunker.
He held brass binoculars, his hands trembling violently from extreme fear and anger.
On the open ground five hundred yards ahead, a full French infantry regiment was launching a charge.
The soldiers wore striking red trousers and blue uniforms, lined up in dense ranks, holding chassepot rifles with fixed bayonets.
"Speed up and charge across that open ground! Drive those Prussians off the hilltop with your bayonets!"
A frontline major brandished his saber and roared.
However, what greeted them was not the familiar volley of Prussian needle guns.
On the opposite hilltop, the Prussian positions were terrifyingly quiet.
There wasn't a single wisp of thick smoke from burning Black Powder.
Suddenly.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—"
A sharp, continuous metallic roar, like the sound of tearing coarse cloth, erupted from the flank of the Prussian position.
Frossard saw a scene through his binoculars that made his eyes nearly burst from their sockets.
Tongues of fire spat from the gaps in the Prussian bunkers. There was no smoke to obscure the view.
The trajectory of the bullets was completely invisible to the naked eye.
The French soldiers charging at the front were swept down as if by a giant invisible scythe.
Hundreds of soldiers in the first rank fell instantly, their bodies twitching and shattering in the mud. Then the second rank, then the third.
Blood splattered in the air.
Severed limbs and broken arms were tossed high along with the soil.
"What weapon is that?!"
Frossard lowered his binoculars and turned to roar at his adjutant.
"Why is there no smoke? Why is the rate of fire so fast?!"
The adjutant's face was deathly pale, his lips trembling.
"General... it's a machine gun. But not our mitrailleuse. It's not jamming... it's been firing continuously for two minutes!"
The Prussian infantry began their counterattack.
They were hidden in trenches, using the new repeating rifles delivered by Vanguard Armaments.
Similarly, there was no smoke to reveal their positions.
The high chamber pressure brought by Smokeless Powder allowed the bullets to maintain lethal killing power even at extreme distances.
The accuracy of the French chassepot rifles became completely meaningless because they couldn't find any targets to shoot at. They could only fire back blindly at the empty hilltops, only to be picked off by bullets coming from every blind spot.
The charge collapsed.
The surviving French soldiers threw down their weapons and turned to flee in terror.
Frossard slammed his fist against a sandbag, his knuckles splitting open.
He remembered the intelligence brought by that American businessman named Dubois in a black briefcase a few months ago at the Tuileries Palace.
At that time, he and Marshal Le Boeuf had mocked it as an alchemist's hoax.
Now, this "hoax" was slaughtering France's younger generation before his very eyes.
"Retreat! Sound the retreat!"
Frossard issued the humiliating order.
"Have the artillery provide cover. Push the mitrailleuse volley guns forward to hold them back!"
An hour later, behind the French lines.
Several heavy multi-barreled mitrailleuse volley guns were pushed onto the position. The gunners frantically cranked the handles.
But the disadvantages of Black Powder were fully exposed on this rainy day.
After firing fewer than fifty rounds, thick black smoke enveloped the entire artillery position. Moreover, the residue inside the barrels mixed with the rain, quickly forming hard clumps.
"Click."
The crank jammed.
A French gunner pushed with all his might, snapping the brass handle right off.
In that moment of hesitation, a Krupp steel shell from Prussia came screaming in.
"Boom!"
The volley gun position was blown into a massive fireball.
News of the front line's collapse reached Paris via telegraph lines within hours.
Tuileries Palace.
Napoleon III lay on his sickbed, his face twisted in agony from pain and despair.
Marshal Le Boeuf, the Minister of War, knelt by the bed, cold sweat soaking his uniform.
"Your Majesty... General Frossard's Second Corps suffered heavy losses at Spicheren. Marshal MacMahon's army was also crushed at Wissembourg." Le Boeuf's voice trembled.
"The Prussians really did use Smokeless Powder, and those repeating machine guns that don't jam. Our infantry simply cannot charge."
Napoleon III grabbed a crystal glass from the table and hurled it at Le Boeuf's forehead.
The glass shattered.
Le Boeuf's forehead was bleeding, but he didn't dare flinch.
"You told me before that the chassepot rifle was invincible! You said it was a hoax!"
The Emperor roared, the violent movement aggravating the stones in his abdomen, causing him to curl up in pain.
"Your Majesty, please calm down. Our arsenals are working day and night..."
"Shut up!" Napoleon III interrupted him.
"Can the arsenals produce that kind of Smokeless Powder?"
Le Boeuf lowered his head and did not answer.
The chemists at the Saint-Étienne Arsenal had completely failed to decode the composition of that pale yellow powder after obtaining spent casings captured from the front.
Napoleon III panted heavily.
He knew the Empire was on the brink of life and death.
"Go call the Minister of Finance and the Minister of the Navy." The Emperor issued the order through gritted teeth.
"Send a telegram immediately to our envoy in New York, François Laurent!"
"Tell him, at all costs, find that arms dealer."
"Doesn't he have those weapons? Doesn't he want to sell that ironclad? Buy it! Buy it all!"
Le Boeuf looked up, somewhat horrified.
"Your Majesty, but Argyle demands full payment in gold. He refuses our bonds. The gold in the treasury isn't enough to support such a massive military purchase."
"Then sell the oil paintings and sculptures in the Tuileries Palace to the British! Mortgage the antiques in the Louvre to Swiss banks!"
Napoleon III's voice echoed through the empty bedroom.
"As long as we can stop the Prussians, empty half of France's remaining treasury and give it to him!"
New York, Empire State Building.
The sound of the telegraph machine was crisp and urgent.
An urgent telegram, stamped with the French Empire's highest emergency seal, was delivered to Tom Hayes's desk.
Hayes glanced at the decoded content, a smug smile curling his lips. He then picked up the telegram and walked toward Felix's office.
He knew.
The moment to haul in the net, which the boss had been waiting for months, had finally arrived.
After knocking and receiving permission, Tom Hayes strode into Felix's office.
He clutched a strip of paper tape just torn from a cipher machine, his chest heaving from running hard.
"Tom, what's the hurry?"
Felix leaned back in his leather chair, calmly looking at the president of the investment company who had burst in.
"Sorry, boss, it's a telegram from Paris."
Hayes walked to the desk and placed the paper tape on the mahogany surface.
"The French lines are collapsing across the board. General Frossard's Second Army has been decimated; the French can't withstand Prussia's Smokeless Powder and Gatling guns right now."
Felix lowered his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the letters on the paper tape.
"Where is Laurent?" Felix raised an eyebrow.
"In the lobby downstairs." Hayes swallowed hard.
"He didn't seem to have an appointment; he forced his way into the Empire State Building. The security team pinned him against the wall. He was shouting like a madman, saying he had the highest authorization from the Tuileries Palace."
Felix picked up his wine glass and took a sip.
"Let him up. Use the freight elevator."
"That should give him a chance to cool down that noble French head of his in the elevator."
Ten minutes later.
Two burly security guards escorted Francois Laurent into the office.
This French naval envoy, who a month ago had been full of arrogance and dressed in a sophisticated double-breasted suit, was now in a wretched state.
His tie was torn, one lens of his gold-rimmed glasses was shattered, and his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and rain.
The security guards let go and exited the room.
Laurent stumbled forward a couple of steps, propping his hands on the edge of the desk. He gasped for air, staring intently at Felix sitting in the chair.
"Mr. Argyle."
Laurent's voice was hoarse, with a noticeable tremor.
"The French Empire... accepts all the conditions you proposed last month."
Felix did not move.
He casually picked up the cigar cutter on the table and slowly clipped the end of a Havana Cigar.
"I think... Mr. Laurent, your memory seems to be failing you."
Felix struck a match and lit the cigar.
"I recall that when I quoted a price of five million dollars last month, you accused me of extortion. Then you turned around and walked out that door."
Felix blew out a cloud of blue smoke.
"So, in my ledger, from the moment you left this table, the quote became void."
Laurent's face instantly turned bloodless, and he jerked upright.
"You can't do that! The soldiers on the front line are being slaughtered. We need that ironclad and those weapons. Name a figure, as long as France can provide it!"
Felix turned his head to look at Hayes standing nearby.
"Tom. In the current spot market, how much is a capital ironclad worth—one capable of crossing the ocean, equipped with eight-inch Case-hardened steel armor and Smokeless Powder machine guns, plus a full hold of ammunition?"
Hayes took the hint.
He then pretended to flip through a blank ledger in his hand.
"Boss, Prussia's Adjutant Albeken sent a telegram yesterday. They are willing to pay six million dollars for the 'neptune'. And they will bear all transport risks."
Hayes lied without batting an eye.
Laurent's legs gave way, and his knees hit the carpet.
He grabbed the edge of the desk with both hands, his nails nearly leaving scratches in the wood.
This was blatant extortion!
"I see... then add another ten million." Felix looked at Laurent.
"Ten million dollars worth of physical gold. The ship and weapons, along with the ammunition quota for these weapons for the next six months, will all belong to France."
"Ten million?!"
Laurent let out a shrill scream, like a rooster whose neck had been stepped on.
"The gold in the French treasury is draining; we cannot raise ten million in physical gold in such a short time. You are driving the French Empire to its death!"
"How could that be? You know, there are plenty of wealthy people within the French Empire. If those people are unwilling, there are other ways."
Felix rested his cigar on the crystal ashtray and then pressed the intercom on the desk.
"Have Templeton come up."
In less than three minutes, George Templeton, president of the Imperial Bank, walked into the office clutching a briefcase.
"George, Mr. Laurent says they can't produce the gold."
Felix pointed at the kneeling French envoy.
"Teach him how to do business when there's no money."
Templeton adjusted his glasses, walked over to Laurent, opened his briefcase, and took out a stack of mortgage document lists.
"Mr. Laurent." Templeton's voice was cold and professional.
"If your country's treasury is short on gold, the Imperial Bank accepts physical collateral. We have evaluated the French Empire's current high-quality assets."
Templeton pulled out a sheet of paper.
"First, the remaining foreign exchange reserves held by the Central Bank of France in London vaults. These can be transferred directly to the Imperial Bank's account.
Second, artworks, antiques, and medieval royal jewelry within the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles. The Imperial Bank will dispatch independent appraisers for valuation. The mortgage limit will be calculated at twenty percent of the appraised value.
Third, railway construction rights, mineral extraction rights, and port tax-exemption rights in French Indochina and North Africa. The lease term is ninety-nine years."
Templeton handed the list to Laurent.
"As long as you sign this full-authority mortgage agreement, the Imperial Bank will immediately release funds to the French government. This money won't even need to leave this building; it will be transferred directly to the accounts of the Atlantic Power Company and Vanguard Armaments. The neptune can weigh anchor tonight."
Laurent looked at the list, his hands trembling violently.
Art as collateral, colonial sovereignty as collateral.
This was a national humiliation.
If he signed this, even if he returned to Paris, he would be sent to the Guillotine by the angry French public.
"You are devils..."
Laurent murmured to himself, tears mixing with sweat as they flowed into his mouth.
"You are taking advantage of our crisis... France will not submit to such a treaty..."
"Then suit yourself, Mr. Laurent."
Felix leaned back in his chair, his eyes devoid of any pity.
"You can stand up and walk out that door. Then go back to Paris and watch the Prussian army march into the Champs-Élysées. Watch Napoleon III's crown be trampled underfoot by Bismarck. By that time, your Louvre will be emptied by the Prussians just the same, and your colonies will be taken over by them just the same. And they won't pay you a single cent."
Felix's words were like a heavy hammer, completely shattering Laurent's final psychological defenses.
The fear of defeat overwhelmed everything.
Laurent tremblingly reached out his hand.
"A pen..."
His voice was so faint it was almost inaudible.
"Give me a pen..."
Hayes immediately shoved a gold pen filled with ink into Laurent's hand.
At the end of the agreement, Laurent crookedly signed his name and stamped it with the envoy seal of the Tuileries Palace.
The moment he finished signing, Laurent collapsed onto the carpet.
Felix picked up the mortgage agreement, glanced at the signature, and handed it to Templeton.
"Lock it in the underground vault, George. Notify the appraiser team to take the next cruise ship to Paris. Bring wooden crates and shock-absorbing straw. Ship all that money hanging on the walls back to New York for me."
Felix stood up and walked over to Laurent, looking down at the broken French aristocrat.
"Hayes. Arrange for two people to take Mr. Laurent back to his hotel. Remember to find a doctor to check on him; we need him alive to report back to Paris."
Hayes stepped forward, pulled Laurent up, and led him out of the office.
The door closed once more.
Felix walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked toward the Hudson River.
"Ten million," Felix whispered to himself.