Christopher Priest - The Prestige

"I have all the electricity I want!" he said at one juncture. "As you will probably find during the evenings."

I asked him what he meant.

"You will notice that from time to time the town lights momentarily dim. Sometimes they even go off altogether for a few seconds. It means we are at work up here! Let me show you."

He led me out of the ramshackle building and across the uneven ground outside. After a short distance we came to a place where the side of the mountain dropped steeply away, and there, a long way below, was the whole extent of Colorado Springs, shimmering in the summer heat.

"If you come up here one night I'll demonstrate," he promised. "With a pull on one lever I can plunge that whole city into the dark."

As we headed back, he said, "You must indeed visit me one night. Night-time is the finest time in the mountains. As you have no doubt observed for yourself, the scenery here is on a grand scale but intrinsically lacking in interest. To one side, nothing but rocky peaks; to the other, land as flat as the top of a table. It is a mistake to look down or around. The real interest is above us!" He gestured towards the sky. "I have never known such clarity of air, such moonlight. Nor have I ever seen such storms as occur here! I chose this site because of the frequency of storms. There is one coming at this moment, as it happens."

I glanced around me, looking for the familiar sight of the piling anvil-topped cloud in the distance, or, if closer, the black mass of rain-bearing cloud that darkens the sky in the minutes before a storm actually breaks, but the sky was an untrammelled blue in every direction. The air, too, remained crisp and lively, with no hint of the ominous sultriness that always presages a downpour.

"The storm will arrive after seven this evening, in fact, let us examine my coherer, from which we can ascertain the exact time."

We walked back to the laboratory. As we did so I noticed that Randy Gilpin and his carriage had arrived, and were parked well away from where we were. Randy waved to me, and I waved back.

Tesla indicated one of the instruments I had noted earlier.

"This shows that a storm is currently in the region of Central City, about eighty miles to the north of us. Watch!"

He indicated a part of the device that could be seen through a magnifying lens, and jabbed a finger at it at odd moments. After peering at it for a while I saw what he was trying to indicate — a tiny electrical spark was bridging the visible gap between two metal studs.

"Each time it sparks it is registering a flash of lightning," Tesla explained. "Sometimes I will note the discharge here, and more than an hour later I will hear the thunder rumbling in from far away."

I was about to express my disbelief when I remembered the intense seriousness of the man. He had moved to another instrument, next to the coherer, and noted down two or three readings from it. I followed him to it.

"Yes," he said. "Mr Angier, would you be good enough to look at your timepiece this evening, and note the moment it happens to be when you see the first flash of lightning. By my calculation it should be between 7.15 p.m. and 7.20 p.m."

"You can predict the exact moment?" I said.

"Within about five minutes."

"Then you could make your fortune with this alone!" I exclaimed.

He looked uninterested.

"It is peripheral," he said. "My work is purely experimental, and my main concern is to know when a storm is going to break so that I might make the best use of it." He glanced over to where Gilpin was waiting. "I see your carriage has returned, Mr Angier. You plan to make another visit to see me?"

"I came to Colorado Springs for one reason only," I said. "That is so that I might put a business proposition to you."

"The best kind of proposition, in my experience," Tesla said gravely. "I shall expect you the day after tomorrow."

He explained that today was going to be taken up by a trip to the railhead to collect some more equipment.

With this I departed, and in due course returned with Gilpin to the town.

I must record that at exactly 7.19 p.m. there was a flash of lightning visible in the town, followed soon after by a crack of thunder. There then began one of the more spectacular storms it has been my lot to experience. During the course of it I ventured on to the balcony of my hotel room, and looked up at the heights of Pike's Peak for some glimpse of Tesla's laboratory. All was darkness.

13th July 1900

Today Tesla gave me a demonstration of his Coil in operation.

At the start he asked me if I was of a nervous disposition, and I said I was not. Tesla then gave me an iron bar to hold, one that was connected to the floor by a long chain. He brought to me a large glass dome, apparently filled with smoke or gas, and put it on the table before me. While I continued to hold the iron rod in my left hand, I placed, at his direction, the palm of my right hand against the glass chamber. Instantly, a brilliant light burst out inside the dome, and I felt every hair on my arm rise proud from my skin. I pulled back in alarm, and the light immediately vanished. Noticing Tesla's amused smile, I returned my hand to the glass and held it there steadily as the uncanny radiance burst forth once more.

There followed several more such experiments, some of which I had seen Tesla himself demonstrating in London. Determined not to reveal my nervous feelings, I endured the electrical discharging of each piece of apparatus stoically. Finally, Tesla asked me if I should care to sit within the main field of his Experimental Coil while he raised its power to twenty million volts!

"Is it entirely safe?" I enquired, but jutting my jaw a little, as if I were accustomed to taking risks.

"You have my word, sir. Is this not why you have come to see me?"

"Indeed it is," I confirmed.

Tesla indicated I should sit on one of the wooden chairs, and I did so. Mr Alley also came forward. He was dragging one of the other chairs, and he placed it beside me and sat down. He handed me a sheet of newspaper.

"See if you can read by unearthly light!" he said, and both he and Tesla chuckled.

I was smiling with them as Tesla brought down a metal handle and with an ear-shattering crashing noise there was a sudden discharge of electrical power. It burst out from the coils of wire above my head, folding out like the petals of some vast and deadly chrysanthemum. I watched in stupefaction as these jerking, spitting electrical bolts curved first up and around the head of the coil, then began moving down towards Alley and myself, as if seeking us as prey. Alley remained still beside me, so I forced myself not to move. Suddenly, one of the bolts touched me, and ran up and down the length of my body as if tracing my outline. Again, my skin horripilated, and my eyes were scorched by the light, but otherwise there was no pain, no burning sensation, no feeling of electrical shock.

Alley indicated the newspaper I was still clutching, so I held it before me and discovered, sure enough, that the radiance from the electricity was more than bright enough to read by. As I held the page before me, two sparks ran across its surface, almost as if an attempt was being made to ignite the paper. Marvellously, miraculously, the page did not burn.

Afterwards, Tesla suggested I might like to take another short walk with him, and as soon as we were outside in the open air he said, "Sir, let me congratulate you. You are brave."

"I was determined not to show my true feelings," I demurred.

Tesla told me many visitors to his laboratory were offered the same demonstrations I had just seen, but that few of them seemed ready to submit themselves to the imagined ravages of electrical discharge.

"Maybe they have not seen your demonstrations," I suggested. "I know you would not risk your own life, nor indeed that of someone who has travelled all the way from Great Britain to make you a business offer."