The backyard was rain-washed, silvery in the dull morning light. There was something lonely about the sight, which matched Lucy’s mood.
Cole had never responded to her Good Luck! X text.
Her sneakers made a squelching noise as she crossed the lawn toward the garage. In the end, Lucy had been too tired after frying the iPod to run any further experiments. Maybe she should have done more than text Cole.
Could he really be so upset she’d missed his practice that he was giving her the cold shoulder? That wasn’t like him. But then, Lucy hadn’t been herself lately either.
Her eyes traveled over the frosted blades of grass, sucking her back into the dream she’d had last night, and it wasn’t about electric sheep. Nor was it about a certain Replicant lover, although he may have flitted through her consciousness as she nodded off.
In the dream, Lucy had been around the same age as in the photo from her father’s desk—the photo she still hadn’t fixed. Her three-year-old self had scampered through a garden, lush and tropical, not like anything on the East Coast. As far as Lucy was aware, she’d never left the Northeast but the flowers in her dream were so vivid she’d been able to scour the Internet upon waking for their phylum and class. Star-shaped jasmine, climbing lilies brighter than flame with bladelike petals, and rambutan fruits that resembled hairy hacky sacks.
The breeze had been sticky on her face as Dream Lucy ran, hands outstretched, to the roll of thunder in the distance. Lightning lanced the sky and she giggled. This was what she’d been waiting for. Her skipping turned into a gallop.
No one could catch her.
Lucy didn’t know what it was like to feel so unfettered. She couldn’t remember not constantly being afraid of her own body.
Dream Lucy stuck out her tongue with delight to catch the raindrops pelting the blossoms all around her. She watched the water collect and drip from their petals. Another boom of thunder, another giggle. Jagged streaks lit the clouds as if they were showing off just for her.
Her name carried on the wind. Someone was searching for her, urgently. Someone was worried. Not Dream Lucy.
She raised her hands toward the golden bolts, not caring that her sundress was soaked. At that moment, her mom rounded a coconut tree and discovered her hiding spot. Lucy’s dream mother looked the same only younger, her long blond hair loose around her shoulders, wet and windblown.
“Lucy, come in from the storm!” she called, and Dream Lucy was confused by her distress.
Proudly, she told her mother, “I can make lightning too!”
There was a blinding-white flash as a stream of light jumped from her tiny hands to a magenta orchid plant.
The petals started to burn, and Dream Lucy smiled.
With a sigh, flesh-and-blood Lucy unlocked the door to her garage lab. She didn’t put much stock in dreams. Or, she hadn’t before she could pop kernels of corn with her fingertips. Her scientific instincts told her that dreams were simply wish fulfillment, a way to process the fears and desires of the conscious mind. This was nothing more than a manifestation of her fear of being found out as … whatever she was.
But why did it feel so real?
Switching on the overhead lights, Lucy smothered the memory of wanting more—more of the lightning, more of the power. The only other time she’d felt that humming beneath her skin was when she made a stapler fly at Megan’s head. She wished she understood the difference between when her post–Tesla Suite symptoms made her feel invincible and when they caused her to pass out.
Doubt everything.
One of her dad’s maxims clanged around her brain as she rummaged in a drawer for the voltage meter and plugged it into the mains. If you wanted to seek out the truth, he insisted, you needed to doubt everything. He’d been paraphrasing René Descartes, the French mathematician, which seemed like an odd choice for someone who always seemed so certain about everything.
Lucy pulled the Tesla Egg from the pocket of her hoodie and set it beside the voltage meter. Next, she retrieved her phone and walked it to the opposite side of the garage for safekeeping. Before she stowed it next to her model of the solar system, she took a quick peek at Cole’s Instagram feed. Ill-advised. Megan was sitting thigh-close to him on the bus to the track meet, making a pouty duck face, while his head was thrown back in a genuine rack-your-body chortle.
Lucy huffed. Get to work. She twirled her black locks on top of her head, tying the bun sloppily with a rubber band she found lying around.
First order of business was to test the electrical energy of the Tesla Egg. Pinching it between her thumb and forefinger, she gave the copper egg a little spin. Lucy had theorized that it didn’t generate electricity independently, but she needed to be sure.
The meter resembled an antiquated scale with a red needle. Lucy clicked the On switch and twisted the knob so the meter would give its readings in volts rather than amps or ohms. Since her dad was as big a geek as she was, he’d splurged on a swanky meter that was rated for a kilovolt. Lucy figured there was no way her experiments were in danger of exceeding 1,000 volts.
She connected the red and black test leads to the jacks, leaving the metal tips exposed, and checked that the needle remained at the leftmost position, indicating an open circuit. The power created by any electric circuit was a result of the voltage multiplied by the current. Voltage was potential, like a difference in height between the top of a hill and the bottom. Her dad once explained it to Lucy in terms of a waterfall.
The farther the top from the bottom, the greater the drop, or voltage. The greater the drop, the faster the water would rush and the water’s speed became the current.
Licking her lips, she touched the metal wire tips to either side of the Tesla Egg. As predicted, the needle didn’t move across the scale. So far, so good. The copper was uniform, at least on the visible surface, so there was no possibility of a voltage. In the Voltaic pile, it was the difference between the two types of metals that allowed for a voltage to be created.
Lucy released another sigh and removed the wires. If the Voltaic pile she’d designed delivered exactly 5 volts to the iPod—and she knew she hadn’t made a mistake in her measurements—then the question was how many additional volts had she caused to course through it?
Electric eels could produce 600 volts, but Lucy was further up the evolutionary ladder from the slithering sea creatures. Wasn’t she?
Lucy rolled the exposed end of the red lead between her fingertips. Normally, she shouldn’t make the needle on the voltage meter move either. The human body could produce up to one-tenth of a volt, which wasn’t enough for the meter to register on its current setting.
Okay, lay it on me, Descartes.
She gripped the black wire with her other hand and took a deep breath.
2 volts.
More than normal, but not as much as she’d anticipated. Two extra volts seemed a little small to short-circuit the iPod. It also didn’t explain what had happened to the iPad at the Gallery. Lucy had zapped that without the help of a Voltaic battery. Like with the popcorn experiment, she needed to elevate her heart rate.
Did she dare check on Cole’s track meet?
Lucy retrieved her phone and, as her damp fingers slipped across the home screen, she realized she’d forgotten a crucial factor.
Sweat acted like the electrolyte in a battery. When Lucy had touched Ravi, the thrill—yes, thrill—had caused her pulse to race and her palms to grow moist. Skin naturally resisted the flow of electrical current, but getting it wet decreased that resistance. If she plunged her hands in water and then touched the leads, the current through the meter would increase.
Dream Lucy flashed through her mind: she’d been soaking wet when she set the flower on fire.
Stop. “It was just a dream,” Lucy mumbled out loud, and choked on a breath as she opened up Cole’s feed again.
In the past fifteen minutes, he’d posted a photo of Megan painting a green E on his cheek, another of her kissing it, and yet another of her green lips pulled back in a very eel-like smile.
Was this it? Were she and Cole done? Anger ripped through Lucy. If he wanted to end things, he should at least tell her to her face.
She dropped the phone before she could incinerate it. Returning to the voltage meter, Lucy wrapped her hands around the wires. Sure, she wouldn’t deny how much she liked getting to know Ravi, but Lucy would never humiliate Cole. She squeezed the leads until her knuckles turned white.
10 volts.
Her lips parted in a smile. That was more like it. A blink-and-you-miss-it emerald glow outlined her hands.
She released one of the wires and reached for the Tesla Egg.
When Lucy had first seen the photograph of Tesla at the ball, she’d thought he exerted enough magnetic pressure to keep the egg airborne. Now it occurred to her that the egg might be an amplifier of some kind.
She closed her right hand around the egg and continued holding the lead with her left. She waited. Brow growing damp, she urged her heart to beat more furiously.
50 volts.
“Come on,” she groused. Lucy wanted to feel the same elation as in her dream. She didn’t want to be scared anymore. Of herself. Of anything.
55 volts. She tightened her grip on the Tesla Egg.
Show me what you can do.
The faint evergreen glow became a blazing fire, consuming her forearms, traveling to her shoulders, and then her head. The world became tinted in shades of green.
Lucy’s limbs quaked but she didn’t let go. Exhilaration suffused every nerve ending.
300 volts.
More. Her teeth ached but she wanted more. Outside, the sky darkened, another storm rolling in.
The needle swung toward the edge of the scale but Lucy could no longer focus her eyes sufficiently to get an accurate reading.
Don’t hold back.
An acrid smell filled her nostrils. Plastic. Scorched plastic.
Thunder shook the garage at the same instant and sparks rained down from above. The lightbulb had burst. Lucy crouched down instinctively, dropping the wires to cover her face. She panted against her knees, back aching. She hadn’t wanted to stop.
Holy frak. Had she just blown the fuse box?
After a minute or two, Lucy recovered enough to push to the balls of her feet. Her gaze targeted the voltage meter.
Melted.
But that would mean … Lucy and the Tesla Egg had produced a lot more than a thousand volts. She struggled to catch her breath.
Lucy truly was dangerous.
And the most dangerous thing was that part of her didn’t care.