Chapter 592 - 592: 564. North Carolina

If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead and more, be sure to check out my P-Tang12!!!

...

(A/N: Also everyone I have a new novel named "From Couch To The Inquisitor", be sure to check it out and give some power stone)

...

Mary-Beth's smile slowly faded as she realized he was not joking. The man sitting beside her had built firearms that fired continuously without long reloading time, forged invisible sound waves that carried voices across the continent, and funded carriages that moved without horses. If he believed men could fly, he was going to make it happen.

"You are going to North Carolina," she stated softly, reading the inevitable conclusion in his eyes.

"I have to, Mary-Beth," Caleb said, his grip on her hand tightening slightly. "If I control the radio, I control the airwaves. But if I acquire the patents to the airplane... I control the sky itself. It changes global logistics. It changes the military. It changes the way humanity moves across the earth. It is a venture deal I simply cannot afford to miss."

Mary-Beth let out a long, shaky sigh, looking down at their joined hands. The pregnancy hormones, which had been playing absolute havoc with her emotions for the last two weeks, suddenly surged to the surface. A wave of sharp, irrational loneliness hit her.

"You just got back from Washington, Caleb," she murmured, her voice thickening, a sudden sheen of tears welling in her dark eyes. "You've been spending every waking hour in the swamps with Mr. Tesla, or walking the factory floors. And now you're leaving again. To chase men playing with canvas kites on a beach."

Caleb's heart twisted. He hated seeing her upset, especially now. He moved from the chair, sitting on the edge of the mattress and pulling her gently into his arms. She rested her head against his chest, a small, frustrated tear escaping her eye.

"I know, sweetheart. I know it is sudden," Caleb whispered, kissing the top of her head, holding her securely. "And I hate leaving you. Especially right now. I would give half my empire to just stay in this room with you for the next nine months."

"Then stay," she whispered back, her arms wrapping tightly around his waist.

"I am building this for him," Caleb said softly, resting his hand gently over her stomach. "Or for her. The world is going to change violently in the next twenty years, Mary-Beth. I want our child to own the foundation of that new world. I promise you, I will go to North Carolina, I will secure the patents, and I will come straight back. I will be as fast as an lightning."

Mary-Beth took a deep, shuddering breath, burying her face in his shirt for a long moment before slowly pulling back. She wiped her cheek, the fierce, practical woman beneath the hormonal surge regaining her composure.

"You better hurry, Caleb Thorne," she warned him, offering a weak, teary smile. "Because if you miss the pregnant moments of this child because you are busy trying to grow wings, I will shoot you myself. And I am a very good shot."

"I know you are," Caleb laughed softly, wiping away a stray tear with his thumb. "I won't miss a thing."

"Who are you taking with you?" she asked, immediately shifting into logistical concern.

"Hosea, Silvio, Mr. Tesla, and a heavily armed contingent of the best capos Vincenzo can assemble," Caleb answered.

Mary-Beth frowned, her protective instincts flaring. "What about Arthur? And John? You took them to Washington."

"Arthur, John, Javier, Bill, and Sadie are staying right here in Saint Denis," Caleb ordered, his tone brokering absolutely no argument. "They are not leaving this property. Vincenzo is doubling the perimeter guards, but I want the heavy hitters inside the house. My empire is valuable, Mary-Beth, but you are irreplaceable. I can protect myself in the Carolinas. Their only job is to protect you."

Mary-Beth looked at him, recognizing the cold, unyielding iron in his eyes. He was terrified of losing her, and leaving his most lethal enforcers behind was the only way he could stomach stepping onto a train.

"Alright," she conceded softly, leaning in to kiss him. "Go buy your flying machine. Just come back to me."

For the next two days, the holding company mobilized with blinding speed. Strauss wired a massive, highly liquid line of credit down from New York to a regional bank in the Carolinas, ensuring Caleb had enough raw capital to buy an entire county if necessary. Silvio hand picked twenty of the most ruthless, disciplined capos in the Thorne syndicate, outfitting them for a long journey.

On a gray, overcast Thursday morning, the private armored train sat idling at the Saint Denis station, hissing plumes of white steam.

Caleb stood on the platform, giving final, explicit instructions to Arthur and John.

"Nobody gets through the gates without an appointment," Caleb told them, his voice low and serious. "The doctors I put on the payroll are the only ones allowed in her room. If you see anything out of the ordinary, anything at all, you lock the house down."

"You don't need to worry, Caleb," Arthur promised, his hand resting casually near the grip of his pistol. "Nothing is getting past us. Just go handle your business with the bird men."

Caleb nodded, clapping both men on the shoulder before turning and boarding the luxurious parlor car.

As the heavy locomotive surged forward, beginning its long, rhythmic pull toward the eastern seaboard, Caleb found Hosea and Nikola Tesla already seated in the velvet armchairs, a silver pot of coffee resting on the table between them.

Tesla was practically bouncing in his seat, a notebook spread open on his lap. The moment Caleb had explained the rumor of the Wright brothers, the eccentric genius had become utterly fascinated. He wasn't interested in the romantic, poetic notion of soaring through the clouds; Tesla was entirely captivated by the brutal, mechanical triumph over the laws of physics.

"The power to weight ratio is the absolute barrier, Caleb!" Tesla practically shouted over the noise of the tracks, rapidly sketching the cross-section of an aerofoil. "A steam engine is vastly too heavy to achieve the necessary thrust! But if these bicycle mechanics have managed to cast a lightweight aluminum internal combustion block... they could theoretically generate enough horizontal velocity to create sustained high-pressure lift beneath a canvas wing!"

Hosea sat across from them, slowly stirring a lump of sugar into his coffee, his face a mask of profound, skeptical exhaustion.

"I have humored you for a very long time, Caleb," Hosea said dryly, setting his spoon down. "I humored you when you told me you were going to mass produce repeating rifles. I humored you when you said you could sell thousands of identical hamburgers in the past. I even humored you and Mr. Tesla when you claimed you could make a wooden box talk without a wire. But this?"

Hosea gestured toward the window, pointing at the sky. "A machine? A heavy, steel and wood carriage flying through the air? Caleb, birds have hollow bones for a reason. Gravity is not a bank manager you can bribe, and it is not a Pinkerton you can shoot. It is a fundamental law of the earth. How in the hell could a massive, heavy object simply float in the sky?"

Caleb leaned back in his leather chair, a slow, patient smile touching his lips. He understood Hosea's skepticism perfectly. To a man born in the mid-nineteenth century, powered flight sounded like absolute, unhinged witchcraft.

"Do you know much about naval history, Hosea?" Caleb asked casually, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Hosea frowned. "Enough to know they stay in the water."

"Fifty years ago," Caleb continued, "if you told the finest shipwrights in the world that you wanted to build a battleship entirely out of solid iron, they would have laughed you out of the drydock. They would have told you that wood floats and iron sinks. It was common sense. It was the fundamental law of buoyancy."

Caleb took a sip of his coffee, his eyes locking onto Hosea's. "But it wasn't a fundamental law. It was just a lack of understanding regarding water displacement. The moment engineers figured out how to displace enough water, the iron floated. And the wooden ships were obsolete overnight. Today, we have steel dreadnoughts weighing ten thousand tons sailing across the Atlantic, and nobody questions it."

Hosea listened silently, his sharp mind processing the analogy.

"People thought a carriage moving without a horse was impossible, yet Henry Ford is building them by the thousands in Detroit," Caleb added softly, the visionary zeal burning in his chest. "Anything is possible, Hosea. Anything. The human mind can make the impossible possible, if it is given enough capital and focused on achieving a single objective. It doesn't matter if it takes weeks, months, or years. If these brothers have figured out the displacement of air... then gravity is just another obstacle we are going to conquer."

Tesla nodded vigorously, his eyes shining with scientific fervor. "The air is a fluid, Mr. Matthews! It behaves exactly like water, only less dense! If you manipulate the pressure differentials across a curved surface, the fluid itself will push the object upward! It is not magic, it is Bernoulli's principle!"

Hosea looked between the manic electrical pioneer and the terrifyingly calm industrialist. He let out a long, weary sigh, rubbing his temples.

"I am entirely surrounded by madmen," Hosea muttered, though a faint, grudging smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Alright. Fine. If you two want to buy a flying bicycle, I will review the patents. But if they ask me to jump off a sand dune, I am resigning."

"Deal," Caleb laughed, raising his coffee cup in a mock toast.

The train journey took several grueling days, carving its way north and east, leaving the humid swamps of Lemoyne behind for the rolling, pine-covered hills of the Carolinas. They bypassed the major inland hubs, redirecting the locomotive toward the ragged, wind-swept coastline of the Outer Banks.

They finally arrived in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the closest major rail stop with a functioning telegraph line to the isolated barrier islands.

It was a sleepy, rugged coastal town, smelling sharply of salt, fish, and wet timber. The sheer, overwhelming contrast between the opulent Thorne armored train and the quiet, sandy streets was jarring. When Caleb, Hosea, and Silvio stepped onto the wooden platform flanked by a dozen heavily armed men in sharp suits, the local dockworkers stopped dead in their tracks, staring in absolute bewilderment.

Caleb ignored the stares. "Silvio. Book the finest hotel in this town for the next four days. I don't care if you have to buy out the entire building. Set up a secure perimeter."

"On it, Boss," Silvio nodded, signaling the capos to begin moving the heavy luggage.

The 'finest hotel' in Elizabeth City was a quaint, sturdy wooden boarding house near the harbor, vastly different from the marble pillars of the Willard in Washington. But it was clean, and Vincenzo's endless funds easily secured the entire top floor, displacing a few grumbling traveling salesmen.

Once they were settled in the rustic lobby, Caleb gathered his men.

"These brothers are from Ohio, but they are conducting their research out here on the coast," Caleb instructed the capos, his voice low and commanding. "They are secretive, and the locals likely think they are completely insane. Hit the saloons, the general stores, the liveries, and the boat captains. Ask about two eccentric bicycle mechanics shipping heavy crates of canvas and wood out to the barrier islands. Find out exactly where they are camped."

The capos scattered into the coastal town like a pack of hunting hounds, flashing silver dollars and buying rounds of cheap whiskey to loosen the tongues of the locals.

For three hours, Caleb, Hosea, and Tesla sat in the quiet hotel lobby. Hosea reviewed the legal framework for purchasing unproven intellectual property, while Tesla sketched frantic diagrams of wooden propellers. Caleb simply sat in a leather armchair, staring out the window at the gray, churning waters of the Atlantic, listening to the wind howling off the coast.

It was the perfect environment for flight. Relentless, punishing, steady wind.

Finally, the heavy wooden doors of the hotel lobby swung open. A young capo stepped inside, smelling faintly of cheap rum, looking highly satisfied. He walked directly to Caleb.

"We found them, Boss," the capo reported quietly. "Talked to a local boat captain who runs supplies across the sound. Said there's two fellas from Dayton, Ohio. They've been shipping massive crates of spruce wood and muslin canvas out to the barrier islands for the last two months. The locals think they're touched in the head, trying to build giant kites."

Caleb sat forward, his heart pounding. "Where are they?"

"They're camped out on a stretch of sand dunes facing the ocean," the capo answered, pointing a thumb back toward the harbor. "A little fishing settlement a few miles south of here. Place called Kitty Hawk. Specifically, a set of dunes the locals call the Kill Devil Hills."

Caleb stood up, a slow, predatory smile breaking across his face. The timeline was perfect. The location was flawless. History was sitting on a sand dune, completely unaware that the Thorne Holding Company had just arrived to purchase the twentieth century.

"Silvio," Caleb ordered, buttoning his heavy overcoat against the coastal wind. "Charter a ferry. Get the horses and the carriages loaded. We are leaving immediately."

Hosea closed his ledger with a sharp snap, standing up alongside him. "Let's go see if your madmen can actually touch the sky, Caleb."

"They will," Caleb promised, walking toward the door. "And when they do, I am going to own half of the patent."

The charter ferry cut a slow, churning path across the gray, choppy waters of the Albemarle Sound, carrying the Thorne Holding Company's heavily armed delegation toward the isolated barrier islands of the Outer Banks.

Caleb stood at the bow of the flat bottomed vessel, the collar of his heavy wool coat turned up against the biting, salt laced wind. Behind him, the horses shifted nervously in their traces, while Silvio and the capos kept a quiet, vigilant watch over the perimeter of the deck. Hosea and Tesla were huddled in the small, enclosed wheelhouse with the captain, taking refuge from the freezing sea spray.

Caleb preferred the cold. It kept his mind sharp, and right now, his mind was operating at a staggering, accelerated pace.

He took a deep breath, tasting the salt on his lips, staring at the thin, sandy line of land growing larger on the horizon. He was about to negotiate for one of the most valuable piece of intellectual property in the history of human transportation. But Orville and Wilbur Wright were not Wall Street bankers driven by raw greed, nor were they desperate factory owners facing bankruptcy. They were brilliant, obsessive mechanics driven by a pure, unyielding passion to conquer the sky.

If Caleb simply walked up to their camp and threw a bag of money at their feet, they would likely tell him to go to hell. He needed to build a bridge of absolute trust. He mentally constructed the scenario, organizing his approach into a rigid, tactical checklist.

1. The Shared Foundation, he would leverage their mutual background. The Wright brothers owned a bicycle shop in Dayton, Caleb owned the massive Thorne Bicycle manufacturing empire. They spoke the same mechanical language of sprockets, chains, and lightweight tubular steel frames.

2. The Scientific Validation, he had brought Nikola Tesla. Having the world's most famous electrical pioneer validate their aerodynamic theories would instantly shatter their natural skepticism and elevate the conversation from a local novelty to a historic summit.

3. The Visionary Insight, Caleb would utilize his Past Life Memory to casually introduce the exact aerodynamic concepts he knew they were struggling with. He would mention the necessity of three axis control, pitch, roll, and yaw, and the brilliant necessity of 'wing warping' rather than relying on the pilot's shifting body weight. He would let them realize that he wasn't just an investor, he was a fellow visionary who actually understood the physics of what they were trying to achieve.

4. The Financial Shield, only after the intellectual bond was forged would he introduce the capital. He would offer to build an impenetrable corporate fortress around them, protecting them from the inevitable vultures, patent thieves, and government bureaucrats who would try to steal their life's work the moment it took off.

The ferry finally ground against the wooden pilings of a small, weather beaten dock on the inner coast of the barrier island. The capos moved efficiently, leading the horses and the rented carriages down the wooden ramp and onto the sandy, rutted trail.

"Find someone who knows the dunes," Caleb instructed Silvio, pulling himself up into the lead carriage.

They didn't have to look far. A local fisherman, mending a net near a small wooden shack, stared in open mouthed shock at the procession of expensive suits and heavy revolvers. Silvio tossed the man a silver dollar, asking for the Ohio mechanics.

"Them bird fellas?" The fisherman pointed a calloused finger south, down the desolate, sandy coastline. "They're camped out near the Kill Devil Hills. Bout four miles that way. Can't miss 'em. They're the only fools out there trying to catch the wind in a bedsheet."

"Much obliged," Silvio nodded, signaling the driver. The carriage ride down the coast was a slow, grueling slog through deep, shifting sand and sparse sea oats. The landscape was breathtakingly desolate. There were no trees, no buildings, no signs of civilization, just a relentless, howling wind blowing off the Atlantic Ocean, carving the massive sand dunes into sharp, sweeping ridges.

...

Name: Caleb Thorne

Age: 23

Body Attributes:

- Strength: 8/10

- Agility: 8/10

- Perception: 9/10

- Stamina: 8/10

- Charm: 8/10

- Luck: 9/10

Skills:

- Handgun (Lvl MAX)

- Rifle (Lvl MAX)

- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl MAX)

- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)

- Knife (Lvl MAX)

- Blunt Weapon (Lvl MAX)

- Sneaking (Lvl MAX)

- Horse Mastery (Lvl MAX)

- Poker (Lvl MAX)

- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl MAX)

- Eagle Eye (Lvl MAX)

- Dead Eye (Lvl MAX)

- Bow (Lvl MAX)

- Pain Nullifier (Lvl MAX)

- Physical Regeneration (Lvl MAX)

- Crafting (Lvl MAX)

- Persuasion (Lvl MAX)

- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)

- Cooking (Lvl MAX)

- Teaching (Lvl MAX)

- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)

- Inventory System (Permanent - 100x100x100)

- Acting (Lvl MAX)

- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)

- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)

- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)

- Business (Lvl MAX)

- Leadership (Lvl MAX)

Money: 2,772 dollars and 60 cents

Inventory: 283,392 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 74 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, 1 land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Broken Pirate Sword, 1 Milton's Safety Deposit Key, Proof Of Marlin-Thorne Firearms Co., 10 Dynamites, 1 LeMat, 1 M1899, 1 Carcano, 1 Ownership deed of Doyle's Tavern, 3 Diamonds, & Important Documents & Deeds Of Cornwall

Bank: -