xp_logs | V=IR: Part Eight - Joule's Law (Reply)

At the site of the Tunguska Event, Forge and Doug marvel at the destruction before coming to an epiphany that begins to link the entire mystery together.

Forge glanced back to the small prop plane floating on the Podkamennaya River, the pilot idly moving across the pontoons and checking the fuselage for ice buildup. From the midpoint of their ascent across the Tunguska foothills, he and Doug could see most of the area along the shallow valley stretching south to Lake Baikal.

Once they crossed the ridgeline, however, the sight took both men's breath away. For almost sixty miles, the terrain was nothing but blasted, bare earth. Here and there, small copses of twisted trees stood like antennae from the black dirt, nearly a century after the event that had shattered the skies.

"Ninety-nine years ago, almost a full century," Forge said as he faced the desolate plain. "June 30th, 1908. An explosion in the sky that most people now attribute to a comet or meteorite airbursting and laying waste to this entire area. For decades afterwards, the natives considered this place cursed or haunted. I don't think there's any supernatural or extraterrestrial explanation, though. Come on, look!"

Scrambling down the hills to the plain, Forge pushed his hood back and shoved his goggles up, raising a double handful of the black dirt in his hands and squeezing it. Small crunching sounds could be heard as his metal fingers sifted through the dirt. "Something fused minerals in the ground into crystal. Specifically, crystals with a unique and very specific piezoelectric capacity. Like watch crystals - you put them under vibration, they emit electrical energy and vice versa." He squeezed a handful of dirt tighter, looking around with an ecstatic expression. "And guess what this specific signature matches."

"My girlfriend's the precognitive, and I'm not a mind-reader, but somehow I bet I can guess." Doug struck a suitably dramatic pose with the back of his hand touching his forehead before snickering and opening his eyes. "The theremin, right?"

"Precisely. A year later, Tesla made it as a key to lead here. He expected someone to follow up on this. Not surprising, given that J. Pierpont Morgan pulled the funding for Wardenclyffe right after." Forge kept walking deeper into the plain, brushing his hand against the stripped trees that were still standing, silent monuments to the catastrophe of a century prior. "But there's something that doesn't make sense. If he was transmitting power, why here? There's no receiver, no sign that anything was even built here. Look, these trees are still standing, this is centuries-old growth. There's no crater, there was no impact. Any structure built as a receiver would still be here!" His voice grew animated as he whirled around, head back and arms wide. "What are we supposed to find?" he shouted to the sky.

Doug didn't bother to answer the question, as he knew it was rhetorical. Besides, he wasn't sure he could answer it himself. The blasted plain seemed to be something of a dead end, no technological marvel pointing the way forward to them.

In frustration, Forge bent to pick up a broken chunk of wood from the ground, throwing it sidearm at a tree and missing by a good six feet. He stomped across the plain for a few more steps, then paused and picked up a clod of dirt, throwing it experimentally. "Holy shit. Holy shit, I'm a genius!" he exclaimed, picking up a stick and beginning to scratch in the dirt. "Doug, everything we followed was provided after this experiment, right? So we've been working under the assumption that Tesla's original destination point for the transmission was here, yeah? Only what if it wasn't? Nikola Tesla was a mathematical genius, almost a savant. There's no way he would have calculated incorrectly. Unless. Unless there was some other factor he couldn't have known about."

He snapped his fingers repeatedly, walking in a circle. "Of course. Over-the-horizon transmission! What's the one major atmospheric factor you have to factor in for long-range high-power radio transmission?"

Being with Forge challenged Doug's brain like few other people did. It was actually kind of fun, especially when they were on the same intellectual wavelength, as it were. He thought, then snapped his fingers. "The Van Allen belts. They weren't discovered till...the fifties, right?"

"Right! And I'll bet if we factor in the distortion from the Van Allen belts, that upper atmosphere radiation, it must have deflected the transmission here and..." Forge glanced around, almost as if recreating the event in his own mind. "Oh my god..." he drawled quietly. "I mean, look at this. I've seen some serious power, no doubt, but this is just... I can't even calculate the energy it took to cause this kind of massive blast. But you know what? Get me some place with a power outlet, some real food, and a goddamn roaring fireplace, and between the two of us, we'll figure out where in the hell that receiver station is."

Six hours later

The hunting lodge Forge and Doug found for their evening stay was surprisingly modern in its amenities, including wireless Internet. It was something of a surprise, given how far in the middle of nowhere in Siberia they were, but Doug supposed that a decent number of people came to Tunguska every year for whatever reason. They'd had a heavy dinner, and were now sitting in front of Forge's 'goddamn roaring fireplace' with a laptop open between them.

Forge leaned towards the laptop, typed in a few commands, then leaned back into one of the overstuffed leather chairs, feet resting on an ottoman and a small bandage peeking out from under a few locks of dark hair across his forehead. "Something else occurred to me," he said as the computer began to run through the calculations the two of them had devised. "Back on the train, when Cortez was talking about what they were looking for. They're assuming it's the rumored 'teleforce' weapon that Tesla reputedly designed. Some big death ray he claimed could protect a nation from invasion. But did you catch how he worded it? Think of what a mutant who can manipulate electromagnetism with just a thought could do with such a device," Forge quoted. "If Cortez is in league with Magneto..."

Doug grimaced. "He isn't. I think he wants to be, though. When I made that whole 'death rays are so last month' crack about the space laser, he got this blank confused look for a second. Which means I totally gave him information he didn't already have. Way to go, team me."

"Eh, it gives us something we can use," Forge said, glancing at the screen as the world map began turning and redrawing itself. "If those two whackjobs think this'll get them in good with Magneto, they're liable to try and use his methods. Which rarely involve outright confrontation unless it's a last resort. Which means subtlety."

"Yeah, the mafiya thugs in the train was subtle," Doug noted. "But I get what you mean. I mean, they've had us tracked somehow since before the train, and we haven't had any luck figuring out how they did that." The laptop made a noise, and he leaned forward. "What've we got?"

"Factoring in the Van Allen radiation belts, and the distortion and deflection of a transmission of that magnitude from Wardenclyffe..." Forge tapped in more details, letting the map resolve. His eyes widened at the result. "Well holy shit. There's no place like home. Welcome to the Military Frontier, or as we call it today, Croatia. I'll wager this is within ten miles of Tesla's birthplace in Lika."

Doug chuckled. "No bet. Off to Croatia it is."