The Orb is the Key

Excerpts from the personal diary of Nikola Tesla, March 18th, 1901, regarding SCP-627, obtained from his apartment on January 7th, 1943 by SCP Agent [EXPUNGED]

Warden bought me the land. The deal is in its final stages and construction will begin sometime in the winter. The proposed laboratory has ample room, and a direct access to the rail line.

The man thinks I'm going to boom the local economy and that a city will spring up because of my work. He doesn't know why I'm really here and what I'm set to accomplish.

Free energy. Producing enough electricity that we will no longer need wires. Isolated nations could be brought to the modern age through the work of one simple machine.

The orb is the key. I don't know where Jack got it. I just know that there's a perpetual motion to it, and that I've been unable to destroy it and find out what is inside. Striking it with a hammer was useless.

Using a cutting torch only made it warm to the touch. Having someone drive a railroad spike into it bent the spike. Throughout all the tests I've done and ran on this creation, it still continues to roll by itself, in the rough span of a meter.

Nothing is seeming to animate this. To the ear, there's nothing. It's normally cool as any stone or glass is to the touch, save the rough edges of the flecks of blue material on the surface.

I've done everything I can short of smashing it with an industrial pr

-

Smashing it with an industrial press caused severe damage to the press. I am now short fifty dollars to pay for the damages.

June 18th, 1901

"Wardenclyffe."

The man thinks that my ambition is going to put his name on the map. He has no idea what I have in store for the world. The ball still rolls on the smooth stone floor of the laboratory space, and the sound can get agitating in the dead of the night. I've begun to design a machine that will use the perpetual motion of this orb in order to produce energy, refining it, and focusing it into a coil of iron and copper, using one of my coil designs from earlier modified appropriately. I'm going to need workers if I'm going to power the seaboard. Work shall begin post-haste.

Edison arrived at the lab the other day. The man, while brilliant, is backwards and not as much of a dreamer as I. He may have won over the masses, but I do not need popularity in order to fulfill my goal.

Popularity is the need of lesser men. DC current and AC current will be meaningless when my project succeeds. We shared a glass of tea and my assistant rushed him away to leave when workers arrived with a spool of copper wire.

Insufferable. Why would you electrocute an elephant just to prove a man wrong? Elephants don't deserve to be electrocuted. The man is an ass, and this emotion is most certainly resentment.

I'm allowed emotions! I can resent the man all I please, because our rivalry is chicken seed in comparison to what is to come!

That poor elephant.

Ball rolls up obstacles. Placed hand in way, rolled up and over hand. Placed brick in way, rolled over brick.

Placed in front of assistant. Rolled up assistant's leg, up torso and across face, dropped to the opposite side. Not doing that again.

Attempts to slow it down and render its direction askew with wooden blocks also futile. Weighing it down with my hand stops it, but

August 19th, 1901

Rudimentary test with coil success. Static discharge safe if grounded and when outside 20 feet.

More tests on orb this morning after breakfast. Idea hit me when I woke if I could constrict the size of the meter circumference of the orb's path.

Constructed circle of iron using scrap metal, and ..ironically, a path painted by the orb when covered in grease paint. Iron circle to constrict path of orb to that of a foot, as opposed to the usual 1m.

Test was a resounding success. Marked speed increase and increase in acceleration. Difficult getting grease paint off.

Orb continued at speed until iron ring was removed, then resumed at one meter.

To call myself puzzled is an understatement. I'd give anything to be able to see what's inside of this small orb of stone. Going to test this via the extremes come Sunday.

I need to get okay from local police, assistant can do that. Continuing to design coil apparatus and "tower" for orb project. Workers are beginning to construct the base and all things are looking well.

I find myself not eating, too busy working. I need to remedy this and slow down for my health, but I'm so close, I can feel it in my very soul. I can help the world, perhaps bring in a new day for civilization.

And the orb is the key.

Sunday, August 24th, 1901

FRUSTRATED

HITTING ORB WITH STEAM LOCOMOTIVE DERAILED LOCOMOTIVE

GOING TO SLEEP, TOO FRUSTRATED TO KEEP TRAIN OF THOUGHT

WHY - GOD DAMNED TRAIN WAS SUPPOSED TO SPLIT IT

NEVER AGAIN

IF A BLOODY TRAIN CAN'T CRACK THIS THING OPEN THEN NOTHING ON EARTH CAN

DOES NOT MATTER, PLAN CONTINUES

September 11th, 1901

Found myself sleeping at workbench. Assistant roused me from my sleep, I asked him what time it was.

I'd been working into the early dawn hours and still I'm not making appropriate progress. I need to keep the edge in the race for free energy.

I have the orb, but Edison may resort to espionage and sabotage. It's not beneath the man if he'll willingly slander my works like he has in the past.

He has the fluke of creating the lightbulb? What if someone else made the light bulb and he took it?

Paranoia must be due to lack of sleep.

I hate the damn sound that orb makes when it rolls on sheet metal. Copper containment must be in tube form in final design.

Copper and iron.

December 31st, 1901

A new year is dawning. A new year, and soon my preliminary designs will be finalized, and construction will begin.

The tower will be tall, over a hundred feet, using wood stabilizers. The idea is the project has to be large, in order to reach the effect necessary for global empowerment.

George and I spoke about the money issues. I told him I needed to leave the lab to get to the city and entrusted him with the orb.

Before I left, I meditated in the laboratory, looking over one of my electrical coils arc electricity through the room.

How can I be wrong when I can -see- the fruits of my designs? I can -see- my designs working?

I know I'm right. I have to be right, or all of this work is for nothing.

January 7th, 1902

My enemies have been very successful in painting me as a poet and visionary.

I've at Wardenclyffe for the past few days, thinking of moving laboratory from Houston Street here.

Tower is still under construction but construction is going very well.

I need to be able to think. I need the air around here to clear my head and I'm frustrated and scared out of my mind of the possible outcomes of the device.

I could power the entire world with this, or I could ignite the atmosphere in flames and kill all life on earth, or absolutely nothing could happen. I need to try.

Mankind has lived in the darkness for too long.

A tubing system has been tested with the orb, and the orb's conductivity, or rather the motion it has, has given the system a strong electrical charge. I need to constrict and focus.

I am not a madman. I am a man with vision and the will to see that vision come to fruition.

Why must I remind myself as such?

I worry the project has taken a toll on my mental faculties.

I can't worry now. I have to see this through.

May 4th, 1902

Tower needs about a year before the first test of the design.

One year. Worried about money issues. A lot is riding on my success.

George had his workers carry in the last of the laboratory equipment to the facility today.

The man's a good friend, but I worry that he may seek employment elsewhere if the money dries out.

This is why I must succeed. If I don't, I'm going to be in destitution, in debt to men with more pull than I.

Word came from the Colorado Springs of the sale of the grounds. It doesn't matter. That laboratory has nothing to give me anymore.

All work is now to be done in Wardenclyffe. Nothing ties me to Houston Street anymore. I can work here in solitude and without interruption.

The orb is the key.

An iron tube, seven inches in diameter, will wrap around a wooden beam in the center of the tower, wrapped in copper wire. Once the electrical charge is built up, it will shoot up the wire and be amplified by the sphere at the top of the tower. The electricity and static charge will then be capable of powering anywhere in the world by 'wobbling' the planet's magnetosphere. I've spent over fifteen years working on this design. It has to work.

July 10th, 1902

Today is my birthday.

The test firing begins one year from now.

The plan is finalized. All I need to do is complete the tower.

Money is running dangerously low.

JP Morgan and my backers have voiced their doubt.

They will be shown the way. Everyone will.

I've read of a scientist in Germany, an up-and-comer in the world of physics, who might be able to assist me.

The project won't survive without something commercial. I have to leave this project financially sound.

Nearly a million has been spent. The great undertaking is nearly complete.

The orb is the key.

August 30th, 1902

I haven't slept for over eighty hours. I have to finish the project. Everything is in place.

The [incomprehensible scribbles and a coffee stain] mustn't malfunction.

November 5th, 1902

Saw a film today, Le Voyage dans la lune. The movie is about a group of travelers who shoot to the moon in a giant bullet-shaped craft. They encounter space aliens, and manage to get their way back home. I'm not sure where I found the copy, but I allowed myself time to view it in the means of my work. I'd heard rumors that Edison's technicians have been spreading the film about and not giving the director his due cuts. This strikes me JUST as what Thomas would do.

My hatred and rivalry for this man knows no bounds. I will out shadow him with my design. The Tower shall bring in a new age of humanity and Thomas Alva Edison will be left in the dust!

Marconi and I have discussed obtaining the last bit of funds I need for my tower. He seems hesitant and I can see it in his eyes when I talk to him the doubt others share.

I have no room for doubt. No room.

His assistance is vital, however. The tower is constructed. We will begin preparations for test firing over the spring. For now, I need to take a moment to rest.

Pigeon flew into arc of one of the coils earlier today and reminded me of dangers of electricity. Going to miss her. She was one of my favorites of the flock I keep.

Buried pigeon in shoebox beside oak tree near laboratory.

January 1st, 1903

došli peniaze na financovanie projektu

treba mimoriadnych finančných prostriedkov z podporovateľov

oni mi dal ešte poslednú šancu

Potrebujem šesť mesiacov

pitnej problémy preč

Orb je kľúčom

Febuary 10th, 1903

Testing the conductivity today.

—

Test went well. An odd resonance and sound from the tower. Hum?

Need to investigate. Resonance is either a good thing or a bad thing.

Workers and pigeons find sound incredibly unnerving.

Workers are frightened by the scale of the project. Some of them have voiced their conerns.

I tell them they're safe, and that the majority of the current is going into the earth, as per the project's ultimate design.

The majority of them are calmed by this, but some still show hesitance when I flip the switch for conductivity tests.

The government agents arrived again this morning. They're asking me what's powering the tower, and why I need the carbon tube ring.

I ask them what agency they belong to. They tell me they're part of a new unusual incident investigation organization of the Secret Service.

They don't seem very bright. I tell them the 'truth' and back my claims up with old diagrams that they couldn't understand and that were of no use to me.

They thanked me for the tea I served them and left. That was a close one. I need to prepare for more scrutiny from outside forces.

March 18th, 1903

Rolled the orb in chalk and drew a circle on the ground. Washed it off and threw it at a wall as hard as I could. The wall dented, the orb is fine.

I doubt this small stone is from our planet. It's so very, very durable, and I'll never be able to find out why it works the way it does. The 'why' no longer matters.

The 'what' does. What does it do. It runs in a circle on its own. It speeds up the tighter its path is constricted. The ring will be small and the energy it will produce will be enough.

I washed the orb of the chalky dust and drew a map of the globe in the circle I'd drawn earlier.

The great marble we live on has some parallels with this little orb. Flecked with blue, spinning forever and ever without a care, in a perpetual circle.

It's almost ready.

Two months.

July 9th

Running out of money. First test could be my last. I've asked the workers today to prepare for the undertaking of their lives, and that all the work we've done will pay off within twenty four hours.

The faint of heart left after that speech. Only a dozen, two dozen perhaps remain.

God see me through this.

I'm scared out of my mind, and I'm worried I may not survive the next twenty four hours. The orb's capabilities are largely untouched. George has warned the local police, and they're blocking off a five mile radius around the already isolated laboratory. Tomorrow, I make history.

July 10th

The forest has been destroyed. The lab is on fire. The tower was too focused. The electricity shot up the tower and was focused in such a way that it punched through the atmosphere in an arc-like beam of light. It vaporized seventeen men that were too close. I miscalculated everything. The shock wave knocked everything not bolted down off of its feet and set fire to the forest that wasn't knocked down. Some of the men are deafened and blinded. Word is from my associates overseas that they've detected the precise distance the beam traveled.

It burned a crack into the face of the planet Mars.

God forgive me for what I've done.

I never meant for this. I wanted to help humanity.

Men have arrived to douse the flames. They've taken the orb.

God forgive me.

I never wanted this.

[The remainder of the page has been smeared with tears.]