Lightbringers and Rainmakers - Felix Gilman [4]
“I charge for wasting my time, Mr. Ransom. It’s back to eight dollars now.”
“Light,” I said. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ll get to the point. I am a maker of Light.”
You know how I get when I am on this topic, Jess.
“I won’t bore you with the science. It’s Electricity, which is a kind of lightning, and there’s more to it but that’s the essence. Light in the glass, the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, like God himself in a bottle. One spark, one little spark, and then there’s Light forever—it pays for itself in candles and lamp oil in less than a month. My assistant Carver’s got the Apparatus, I’m afraid, out with my bags, the lightning jars and the capacitors and the coils and everything. I’d love to show it to you but instead, here.”
I gave him one of my last business cards, and pointed to where it said, Inventor of the Ransom Process.
“Never heard of it.”
“You will. You know, Adams, as it happens I am looking for investors….”
“Oh yeah? I know how this goes. I bet there’s a reason why you can’t get it working right now, but if I give you some money, well then…”
“You got me. The fact is I’m lacking some parts, due to an accident on the road.”
That was the truth but not the whole truth, Jess. I was lacking some parts, though also other parts, and in fact everything.
I said, “Valuable stuff, I’m sorry to say, was lost.”
Adams perked up. “Valuable?”
“Very! Materials alone worth a prince’s ransom.”
“Well, what’re we talking about? You mean gold or… ?”
“Brass. Copper. Zinc. Certain very valuable chemicals and minerals you don’t even have names for. And yes, gold, too.”
That’s true, Jess—there are certain parts of the Process that require an inert metal, if you know what that means. There was some gold in the Apparatus, though only a very little.
“But that’s not important—mere earthly dross. We’re talking about Light.” I gestured at the shadows of the room, at the dark heaps of dusty furniture. “We’re talking about the abolition of night. This whole town, gleaming, why, people would come from miles around to—”
Adams looked interested despite himself. “And it runs on—”
“Once it gets started it runs on itself, spinning and spinning like the sun. The word is perpetual. But I’m not going to tell you how that works, because that’s not the deal. I’m not going to ask for money, either. Here’s the deal. I need some time to fix my apparatus, and gather parts. I’d like to work right here. It’s private, and quiet, by which I mean I’ve noticed you don’t have a whole hell of a lot of business here. That’s all right. I’m a businessman too, as well as a scientist, and I know what it’s like to have a bad patch. I’ll work here, and when I get the apparatus up and running again the first place in town I’ll install it is right here. And because I’ll be working for you, it’s only fair I get room and board free. Right?”
Adams looked at the fat woman for support, but she didn’t give it.
“How long?”
I wondered how far I could push it, and settled on two weeks.
“Two weeks, and if you don’t do what you said you’d do by the end of it, which you won’t, I keep your whatever you called it, your apparatus.”
I honestly was not steering him in this direction, and was caught by surprise. I know you think I am something of a con artist, but I had pretended to send Carver for my nonexistent bags only so that I wouldn’t look like a bum, which I am not. My conscience reproached me, but I ganged up on it with my hunger and exhaustion and wrestled it down.
I said, “In two weeks, Adams, if I don’t come through, you can have everything but the clothes on my