Alexander learned almost immediately that New York didn't pause for anyone—least of all a man wrestling with the impossibility of time travel.
The city roared around him: voices clashing in the street, hooves thudding against cobblestones, the metallic grind of drays, and the distant, rhythmic hiss of steam. All demanded movement.
Lingering beside a lamppost, lost in disbelief, would only turn him into another lifeless stain in the mud.
Steeling himself, he headed toward the pawnbroker district the newsboy had mentioned.
The Aristotle Template was no longer a curious inscription—it had become a calm, mechanical whisper in his mind. His panic had been stripped away, replaced with crisp logic.
Objective: obtain usable cash. Method: liquidate non-local assets, the high-end clothes on his back and the supply of generic cigarettes he carried.
Mrs. O'Leary's shop sat squeezed between a clamorous cooper's yard and a butcher's that reeked of blood and rot. The air was thick with sawdust, iron dust, and the faint tang of decay.
The shop window displayed a funerary arrangement of forgotten things: dented silverware, porcelain dolls with sightless eyes, tools smoothed to anonymity by decades of labor.
A heavy door groaned as he pushed it open. The small bell overhead rang sharply, commanding attention against the muffled stillness inside.
The interior felt like a cave—dim light filtering over precarious piles of goods. Behind a bulky counter stood Mrs. O'Leary herself, stocky as a dockworker. She looked as if she could break him in two without realizing it.
"Well, look what the gutter spat out," she rasped. Her eyes skimmed his soaked designer suit with clinical disapproval. "If you're hoping to pawn that fancy coat, you're three years late. It stinks like something died in the lining."
Alexander kept his composure. Negotiations here would hinge solely on utility and cash value.
He removed the ruined jacket, wringing a stream of brown water onto the floor, and set it on the counter.
"I'm selling, not borrowing," he said, his polished Manhattan cadence sounding almost absurd in the gloom. "Two items—this coat, which even damaged is fine fabric, and this."
From an inner pocket, he produced five hundred cigarettes sealed in tough, future-made plastic. Tearing the package open released a warm, earthy scent of tobacco.
Mrs. O'Leary's eyes narrowed—not greed, but recognition.
"The coat, maybe five shillings if a rag picker can scrub it decent. Trousers, another two. Seven total. Take it or leave it."
'Shillings? Well, she IS Irish...'
The number hit him like a gut punch. In his own era, the suit had been worth tens of thousands. He quickly converted the figure: seven shillings would barely stretch to a few meals in a cheap boarding house.
"That won't cover what I need," he said evenly.
"Then you're not respectable," she shot back. But her focus had shifted to the cigarettes. "No duty, no tax. Good quality. Better than street rubbish."
She ran a hand over them. "Two dollars for the lot. And the suit's seven shillings on top. Two dollars, seven shillings total. Buy yourself some used clothes from my bin so you don't get robbed within the hour."
The Template overrode his instinct to protest—it was decent seed capital in this economy.
"Done," he agreed.
Moments later, he was changing into coarse wool trousers, a thick cotton shirt, and a battered cap. The clothes reeked faintly of old sweat but gave him anonymity.
In his palm, two golden dollars and two copper cents felt at once pitiful—and empowering. He was poor, but not defenseless.
---
As he made for the door, the a thought escaped him.
Power required resources; resources required intelligence. Mrs. O'Leary had exactly that, she probably knew the ebb and flow of desperation in the city.
He returned to the counter.
"That two dollars came with an unspoken fee," he said. The quiet force in his posture made her glance up from the jacket she was sorting.
"The tobacco was priced fair."
"The fee is for knowledge," Alexander murmured. "Two questions: I need an abandoned space for a private workshop—large, isolated, and long ignored. And I need discreet access to steel, copper, and specialty wire, ideally through a failing manufacturer or dockyard."
She studied him, eyes narrowing. "That's not pawnbroker work—that's flirting with trouble."
"It's opportunity," he replied. "Help me establish myself and your cut isn't in coins—it'll be a stake in something that makes this shop obsolete."
"Look kid, I don't know you, but with that expression you're either crazy or about to change the whole city." She considered that. He could see the shift.
"I know the district," she admitted. "I know widows clinging to deeds of burned-out shacks, factories circling the drain, and dockhands happy to look the other way. But I don't take promises."
In response, Alexander produced the Bottle of Infinite Lotion—a small, absurd-looking object. He squeezed out a slick dollop onto the counter.
"Look at this, it's a product I've invented" he explained, lying through his teeth. "Think binding agents, lubricants, industrial applications… I can produce this material at almost no cost. It proves I'm real. You find me the warehouse, I'll find you a fortune."
Mrs. O'Leary turned the bottle slowly in her hands. His intensity reminded her of every inventor or entrepreneur she'd met—only sharper.
"There's an old sugar warehouse near the Navy Yard. Burned out years ago. Too big, too empty for anyone respectable. Widow owns it, desperate for cash. One of those dollars will seal the deal."
She pointed east. "But eat first. Sleep. You look like a starved wolf, it won't do you any good if you collapse and n the street."
---
The warehouse matched her description: a hulking brick shell beside a stagnant canal. Sections of the roof were gone, and broken windows stared out like empty sockets.
Perfect.
Close enough to the Navy Yard to quietly source metals, far enough to avoid attention.
With a cent, Alexander bought a lead-lined notebook and charcoal stub. Inside the cold space, he sketched.
'I really underestimated Aristotle..'
His hand sketched every line—the magnetic field rotations, copper windings, iron core laminations. He couldn't build microchips here eight now, but he could design a superior AC dynamo for the age.
By afternoon, the widow had taken the dollar with trembling hands. He did not linger on the morality; survival demanded efficiency.
Now standing in the warehouse's center, the air smelling faintly of burnt sugar, Alexander picked up a rusted length of pipe.
"I'll need better tools," he said to himself.
Electric-blue sparks flared from his fingers—Lightning Channel shaping the pipe into a hardened, reinforced weapon. The rusted iron thrummed with new strength.
He smiled—a predator's smile.
He had a hideout. He had capital. He had a weapon.
The age of Edison's direct current was destined to fall. The age of Alexander Hamilton's alternating current was about to rise.