The man’s name was Nikola Tesla. Ensconced in an open floor lab facility on the massive 350-acre campus of Austin University, the science hero referred to as Nikola—not Dr. Tesla—had a magnificent view from the third story of what Rucker called the “Bat Bridge.” It was so named, he told Deitel, because more than a million Mexican long-tailed bats roosted beneath it. The bats helped keep the summer mosquito population down. Nikola said he found their flying formations mesmerizing and meditative, and credited them with inspiring one of his theories of fluid dynamics. Nikola’s lab looked like it contained every machine ever built by man, and many never seen outside of some Republic matinee serial about Martian invaders. Deitel took Nikola’s accent to be Austrian, with a trace of Serbian dialect. The scientist was an elderly but spry man with a gaunt face, a full head of white hair, and a bushy white mustache. He wore goggles on his forehead and a bow tie.
