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  WONDER OF THE WORLDS Book II:

  METAMORPHOSIS

  SESH HERI

  The LOST CONTINENT LIBRARY Publishing Company

  California

  Copyright 2008 By SESH HERI

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Inquiries should be addressed to

  The Lost Continent Library Publishing Co.

  7231 Boulder Avenue #505

  Highland, CA 92346-33133

  www.wonderoftheworlds.com

  [email protected]

  FIRST PRINTING MAY 2010

  ISBN: 0-9727472-3-3

  Cover Art: WALTER BOSLEY

  Printed in the United States of America

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  PROLOGUE:

  Right Side Up

  “Everyone learns to balance on his feet— but a performer such as an acrobat learns to balance in time- just as if he did it to music he carries in his head.”

  Houdini

  January 17th, 1943

  MJ-7 Laboratories, Somewhere in the U.S.A.

  One Mile Underground

  “Incredible! Nikola Tesla is dead!”

  Majestic Seven’s top technical analyst had gasped these words as he peered through the eyepiece of a microscope at a crystal that was set into the end of a watch fob that had once belonged to Mark Twain.

  “I saw him only a few weeks ago,” the analyst said. “He was getting on in years, yes, but— he was so full of life!”

  Two men in dark suits stood next to the white-coated analyst. One of the men had a face that bore no expression whatsoever; the other man, the blank-faced man’s partner, had an expression that was frozen in a faint scowl of suspicion, his forehead creased in the ridges of a washboard. The two men said nothing in reply to the analyst’s observations. The analyst continued to peer through the eyepiece, his motionless figure betraying intense excitement.

  The analyst finally said, “It’s one of Tesla’s crystals.”

  “Are you sure?” the blank-faced man asked. “How can you tell?”

  The analyst said, “I’ve only seen two other crystals like this before. Both of them were made by Tesla several decades ago. This one is very similar to those others.”

  “How is this one like the others?” the blank-faced man asked.

  “They’re all a special kind of quartz,” the analyst

  said, “infused with fast-spin atoms— that is, atoms spinning at a high rate of speed. This polarizes the lattice structure of the crystal. Such quartz does not grow naturally. It has to be fabricated by growing the crystal in a special environment.”

  “What kind of environment?” the blank-faced man asked.

  “We don’t have all the specifics. We’re still trying to duplicate Tesla’s work. Maybe some of those documents you brought back from Tesla’s safe might fill in the missing pieces for us. But basically, the quartz has to be grown while it rapidly rotates within an intense electromagnetic field pulsed at frequencies resonant to the structure of the quartz and the earth itself. But it’s more complicated than that. While the quartz grows it has to be heated and cooled in an exact sequence of time intervals. It’s a complicated interplay of forces— a grand ballet performed to a grand symphony!”

  “Uh-huh,” the blank-faced man grunted. “And what’s that do?”

  The analyst slowly raised his head up from the microscope and turned to look the blank-faced man in the eye.

  “A whole lot,” the analyst said. “But I think the thing you need to know here is that these Tesla crystals are imbedded with small particles of gold and platinum group metals. All of these metals are also atomically polarized in fast-spin configurations. And all of this, the quartz and the metals together, form one integrated lattice structure allowing extreme electrical conductivity.”

  “And?” the blank faced man asked.

  “And that,” the analyst said, “turns the whole crystal into an etheric pump.”

  The blank-faced man looked down at the crystal like a hunting dog pointing his nose at a duck.

  “Free energy,” the blank-faced man said.

  The analyst suddenly realized the blank-faced man’s indifference and boredom had been a pose. The blank-faced man had been listening to every word the analyst had said.

  “Free energy,” the analyst said. “Only one thing. This crystal here is missing its fast-spin gold atoms.”

  “Missing? Are you sure?” the blank-faced man asked. “Maybe the crystal never had any gold in it.”

  “Highly unlikely,” the analyst said. “To make a crystal like this is complicated and expensive. To leave out the gold would be like manufacturing an expensive automobile and leaving out the engine.”

  “So what happened to the gold?” the blank-faced man asked.

  The analyst looked back through the eyepiece of the microscope.

  “I believe it has transmuted,” the analyst finally said. “The gold has projected to a higher space— a parallel dimension of reality— or perhaps it has shifted in time.”

  “In time?” the blank-faced man asked.

  “Perhaps it has projected to the future— or the past. This crystal may be something like an ignition switch for a time machine.”

  “I’ve heard rumors about Tesla’s time travel experiments,” the blank-faced man said.

  “We all have,” the analyst said. “If anyone around here knows anything about that, they’re cleared for a level of security far above mine. And my level is pretty high.”

  “So’s mine,” the blank-faced man said.

  “There are higher levels,” the analyst said.

  “Oh, yes,” the blank-faced man said. “Much higher. Think Einstein knows?”

  “Are you kidding?” the analyst said.

  “Yes, I am,” the blank-faced man said. “Don’t you see me laughing?”

  “From ear to ear,” the analyst said.

  “So when we get beyond the front-men, who really knows about this stuff?” the blank-faced man asked.

  “Other than Tesla?” the analyst pondered. “Only a handful. Most of them are not part of our official government. They’re private individuals that Majestic Seven keeps an eye on. Just like you kept an eye on Tesla.”

  “Alchemists,” the blank-faced man said.

  “Yeah,” the analyst said. “Like that guy down in Florida— what’s his name?”

  “Leedskalnin,” the blank-faced man said.

  “Yeah,” the analyst said, “Leedskalnin. He might know something. Then again, he might not. I’ve heard he’s a nut, some kind of idiot-savant. He’s producing results, but he doesn’t really know the science behind it all. Then— yet again— he might be playing nuts.”

  “Oh, yeah,” the blank-faced man said.

  “If that’s the case,” the analyst said, “you’ll never get any useful information out of him, not even with torture.”

  “We don’t torture,” the blank-faced man said.

  “Of course not,” the analyst said. He took the watch fob with its crystal out of the microscope and held it in

  his hand.

  “What has George Ade said about this?” the analyst asked.

  “Haven’t talked to him yet,” the blank-faced man said. “I wa
nted your report first.”

  “I suggest you talk to Ade,” the analyst said. “He’s one of the MJ-Seven old timers and an original member of the Mars Club.”

  “Him and Kolman Czito,” the blank-faced man said. “The only two still living.”

  The analyst gave the watch fob back to the blank-faced man, who weighed it in his hand.

  “What about this crystal?” the blank-faced man asked.

  “Is it dangerous or anything?”

  The analyst replied, “Without its metallic elements, it’s just a crystal.”

  January 18th, 1943

  Hazelden, George Ade’s estate, Brook, Indiana

  The blank-faced man steered the black Ford sedan down along the curving drive, the headlight beams of the car probing the grayish night air. Up ahead on the left, George Ade’s Tudor mansion glowed dimly in the low lying fog. In the passenger seat, the blank-faced man’s partner glanced about at the dark expanse.

  The blank-faced man stopped the car and killed the engine and lights. The two men opened the car doors, and got out, the blank-faced man gripping in his left hand the handle of a steel suitcase. They stood in the freezing air a moment, and then slammed their doors in unison. A hound dog immediately began howling in the distance. A porch light came on and the two men began walking toward it. Before they reached the front door, it swung open and George Ade appeared in the threshold, wearing dark slacks, a gray wool sweater with elbow patches, and an open-collared shirt. George Ade was a tall, long-faced, lean old man with a full head of steel-gray hair. Ade adjusted his spectacles with his left hand and grinned.

  “You fellows look like you could use some coffee,” Ade said. “Come on in and get warm.”

  The blank-faced man nodded, and he and his partner went through the door and into the foyer. Ade closed the front door and took their hats and hung them on a mahogany hall tree, and then gestured for their overcoats as well, which he carefully hung in a closet.

  “What about that?” Ade asked, nodding to the steel suitcase which the blank-faced man gripped in his hand.

  “Want to stow it in here?”

  “No,” the blank-faced man said. “We’ll need it.”

  Ade nodded, shut the closet door, and waved his hand out in the air.

  “Just follow the rise in temperature, fellows,” Ade said.

  The blank-faced man and his partner went into a large room off to their left with Ade coming in behind them. Overhead, exposed beams in perfect Tudor style crossed the ceiling. Mounted upon the beams were ornate crystal globe electric light fixtures, exactly like what a Tudor-era Englishman would have installed in his house, if he could have had electric light. To the right of the entrance a glass-fronted bookcase was surmounted by a sculpture of William Tell pulling back his bowstring. Beyond that, against the wall to the right, was another glass-fronted cabinet, not a book case, but a display for pieces of rare Chinese porcelain. Removed from this by several feet, sat a table laden with several books, a Tiffany lamp, and a silver coffee pot with large porcelain mugs on a silver tray. At the other end of this table were arranged some small oriental bronze sculptures and ivory carvings. In front of the table was a low couch with a blanket folded over one of its arms. Set into the wall to the left was a row of square windows. Below the windows and extending along their length was a long padded nook-bench with pillows thrown down in a studied casualness. At the far end of the room the fireplace roared forth yellow and orange tongues of flame. In front of it Ade had arranged two arm chairs and a little wooden stool. The armchairs had been set into place for the two visitors; the stool was for Ade himself, who liked to put his back to the fire.

  “Come on down here,” Ade said, gesturing toward the armchairs, “and get the chill off. I’ll bring the coffee.”

  The blank-faced man extended a playing card to Ade. Ade took the card and looked at it. It was a king of diamonds from a poker deck.

  “That’s all right,” Ade said, handing the card back to the blank-faced man who took it. “I know who you are. And your partner, too. And why you’re here. You’re not F.B.I.— not really. You’re both MJ-Seven agents and you’re here to discuss Tesla.”

  The blank-faced man looked over at his partner.

  Ade said, “You know that we MJ-Sevens never retire. And I’m a deep cover agent at the highest level. I keep up on the latest goings-on, and so I know all of you fellows on sight. Most of the rest of you, however, don’t know me. And I like that. Now go ahead and have a seat and get comfortable.”

  The blank-faced man nodded to his partner and they each sat down in an armchair.

  “You go way back,” the blank-faced man said, setting the steel suitcase down on the floor next to his chair. “You’re an original member of the Mars Club.”

  “Oh, yes,” Ade said, going over to the table with the silver coffee pot. He began pouring coffee into the large porcelain mugs. “That’s what got me into all this in the first place. Do I have enough logs on the fire there?”

  “Sure,” the blank-faced man said.

  “I’m burning a lot of wood now,” Ade said. “Can’t get enough heating oil to keep this big old house livable. I didn’t think about not being able to get heating oil when I had this place built nearly forty years ago. But now with the government rations….”

  Ade brought two of the filled mugs over to the blank-faced man and his partner. The two men took the mugs in their hands and watched the steam rise in the air.

  Ade said, “You fellows couldn’t put in a word for me with the rationing board, could you?”

  The blank-faced man shrugged.

  “Didn’t think so,” Ade said. “But I’ve found that it never hurts to ask. Now go on. Try that coffee. Go on. You’re looking at it like it’s poisoned.”

  The two men sipped their coffee.

  “You like it,” Ade said. “I can tell. You know your coffee, all right. Tell you my secret: I get my beans from a particular plantation down in Columbia.”

  “Servant’s night off?” the blank-faced man asked.

  “I don’t call them servants,” Ade said, going back to pour himself a cup of coffee. “They’re just folks that help out around here. We all work together. But, yes, everyone has gone off to the movies in town. Thought it would be better that way so we could talk.”

  The blank-faced man set his coffee mug down on a small end table next to his chair, and then picked up the steel suitcase and placed it in his lap.

  “Well, I’m dying to see what you’ve got there,” Ade said coming over to the fireplace with a coffee mug in his hand. He sat down on the stool and the blank-faced man opened the steel suitcase and took out a manuscript bound in twine.

  “I had an expert take a look at this,” the blank-faced man said. “To see if Mark Twain wrote it.” He held the manuscript out to Ade who sat his mug aside and then grasped the manuscript.

  Ade smiled, looking over the top page.

  “Oh?” Ade asked. “And what did your expert conclude?”

  “He gave me a very definite maybe,” the blank-faced man said.

  “You should’ve come to me first,” Ade said.

  “No time,” the blank-faced man said. “The President called me from overseas by coded radio-telephone…”

  “One of Mr. Tesla’s inventions,” Ade interjected.

  “…and ordered me to get a rough-and-ready answer on this manuscript immediately.”

  “Sounds like it was ready enough but very rough,” Ade said.

  “What do you think about it?” the blank-faced man asked.

  “Did this come from Tesla’s effects?” Ade asked.

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  Ade nodded in return.

  “I knew Mark Twain wrote a secret manuscript which he gave to Tesla,” Ade said. “It was about our trip to Mars in 1893, the very thing that began the Mars Club and eventually led to the formation of Majestic Seven. Is that what’s in this manuscript?”

  The blank-faced man nodded.
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  “Why do you doubt its authenticity?” Ade asked.

  “You’re an MJ-Seven,” the blank-faced man said. “You know we’re trained to doubt everything. Maybe that manuscript is a plant— a dummy to throw us off track with false information.”

  “And who do you think would be able to plant a dummy in Tesla’s safe? Not the Germans?” Ade asked.

  “No,” the blank-faced man said, “not by themselves. We’re thinking maybe they had a little help from the Martians.”

  “I see,” Ade said. “What’s in this manuscript that makes you suspect that it’s a fake?”

  “There’s a discrepancy involving time,” the blank-faced man said. “The account says a week passed on earth while all of you went and returned to Mars in about a day. And when you were on Mars the whole daylight period passed in something like three or four hours. The whole time-line is screwy. We smelled a fake.”

  “We?” Ade asked.

  “My partner here and I,” the blank-faced man said. “We got to thinking about the rumors involving Tesla’s time travel experiments. And we thought maybe this manuscript might be a very clever way to divert research into that by making us think that Tesla was traveling through time back in the 1890s.”

  Ade studied the two men sitting before him. Finally he said, “Did you go back to the MJ-Seven archives to read the official account of our 1893 Mars journey?”

  “I’ve reviewed the secret history of Majestic Seven and Tesla’s 1893 trip to Mars,” the blank-faced man said. “There was nothing there in those accounts that might suggest that Tesla traveled in time, only in space. The only things I found that might relate to time travel experiments were a few incidents, a couple with the Wardenclyffe Tower in the early 1900s, another in 1915 where Tesla picked up strange signals from the Pacific Ocean, and another incident concerning a radio message he received from Amelia Earhart.”