“IL PRIMO E L'ULTIMO” (THE FIRST AND THE LAST)

Novel by SICRAM
Translated from Italian with google.translate, sorry if inaccurate.

Chapter 49

New York
United States of America
January 30, 1943

The war was at its peak of expansion. All the parties involved were making considerable progress in
cutting-edge technologies for the time. Only one of those discoveries, if concretized in advance on
the adversaries, could have decided the fate of the conflict that until the previous year had been
managed by conventional weapons. The destiny of humanity was hung on a sort of sword of Damo-
cles, who still did not know which way to go down.
Despite the absence of windows, room 17 in the basement of the FBI's offices was brightly lit. Each
room number in the basement corresponded to a letter of the English alphabet. The letter "Q" was
assigned to his room.
John was an intelligent and analytical man. His skills, his intellectual honesty and his spirit of sacri-
fice were much appreciated in the academic environment.
A degree in electrical engineering from the Tandon School of Engineering in New York, one in
physics from Columbia University and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
where he later exercised as a professor: at the age of 35, his credentials opened the incredible oppor-
tunity of those days. But now he was not more so much convinced he made a good deal.
He was crouched on his desk with his elbows and his hands on his temples, reflecting on the options
available, and the repercussions that would inevitably arise from each of them. On the floor in ma-
hogany, ordered in piles and bunches, hundreds of sheets, mostly manuscripts, filled with formulas
and calculations, sketches and observations. He was studying them with interest for a few days. He
had been hired to decipher them.
A few weeks earlier, federal agents had searched a hotel room in which a person had just died, and
had seized all the documents that were there. The deceased was called Nikola Tesla.
For the US government, it was a priority to prevent any discovery of new war technology from fall-
ing into the hands of the Nazis or the Soviets. At the same time, the Americans hoped to benefit
from their adversaries, thanks to the information contained in the seized material. But Tesla's formu-
las and observations were too complex even for the best federal experts. It was decided to set up a
group of luminaries and delegate the task to them. Among these, John was chosen.
The file over the piles of papers was John's study object for that afternoon. The document was open
to the last page, the most important.
"He did it ... Damn, he had succeeded ..."
John's thoughts referred to the latest utterances and publications of Nikola Tesla, a few weeks be-
fore his death, in which the scientist claimed to be on the verge of developing a deadly weapon, su-
perior in concept and power to every other existing weapon in the world.
"This stuff can not end in their hands, it must not! ..."
He made his decision. With a dry movement, he tore the page from the file and crumpled it. At that
moment the door opened ajar. A young lady holding a tray crossed it with a carefree step and turned
to him:
"Coffee?..."
The man barely had time to put his hand under his desk and place the stolen sheet between his
knees. Then he composed himself and looked back.
"Gladly, thank you!"
The waitress put the cup down on a free space on the desk, flanked milk and sugar and took her
leave.
John took a breath, retrieved the crumpled sheet and opened it again. He stared at the name Tesla
gave to his invention: Death Ray.
In the following days he worked to diminish the importance of some of Tesla's intuitions and to
praise many others.
His full name was John George Trump.
He was the uncle of the one who was named Forty-fifth President of the United States of America
74 years later.