Drowning Utopia

Chapter 17: The Electric Cathedral

The breeze changed direction, and with it came a familiar smell.

"Augh! What is that ghastly odor?" the woman asked.

Tessa smiled slightly. "That would be the Blackwater Swamp."

The smell of decay and old moist growth filled her nostrils. It was a constant in this part of the estuary. Thanks to the levees, dam, and the displaced water from Utopia, the mire had been flooded over and pushed back into the surrounding lowlands, making the swamp significantly broader and deeper. This was great for the steamers and other ships but not so good for the locals that subsisted off the marshes, as the small rocks and islands that they built their shanties on were all but submerged beneath the black water.

As they drew closer to the dam, Tessa could not miss the shanty town that was built up around the perimeter of the structure and along the river's edge. As they passed by, the myriad of houseboats and fishing skiffs sprang to life. Lamps and torches illuminating the patchwork porches and tin roofs slapped onto the poor excuses for homes were suddenly crawling with people. As the Aitolia steamed into position behind another ship, waiting its turn to enter the channel leading to Higgins Town, numerous long boats and smaller skiffs rode up from the shanties.

"Oh! Local traders, how quaint. Can't we go and see what they are selling?" the woman asked her date.

The southern man complained, "But they look like nothing but Squints and Goliath savages. It's probably nothing but a bunch of junk they made."

"Oh please, it could be fun."

"All right, all right." The two, along with a small collection of others, went down to see what the locals were offering.

Curious, Tessa followed.

"Fish! Fresh fish!" one tan-skinned Omale woman cried as another beside her tried to hock a hand-crafted scarf.

A man with black hair on a longboat nearest Tessa waved at her. "Jue, pr'tty lady," the dark-skinned man said with a heavy Freeland accent, "Like jewelry? Look, handmade Kigez. It brings jue good luck! Only five silvers!" he then stopped, eyes wide, as he said, "Miss Copperfield? is dat jue?"

Tessa looked at the gaunt man, not readily recognizing him.

"Iz me, Morti. Remember? I worked as youz assistant on Saka."

As he said his name, Tessa's memory brought up several flashes of the once strong and healthy boatman. Like so many others of the natives of southern New Albion, he had been a slave of the nobles and plantation owners, subservient to the colonists from the empire and the other kingdoms from the other side of the world. However, after the Liberation Wars, and the discontinuation of the practice of slavery, Morti took his newfound freedom, earned enough money to buy himself a boat, and offered his services to Mr. Higgins and the other locals as a ferryman.

Tessa had gotten to know the energetic Morti well, for he was the one who ferried them back and forth every day from Higgins Manor to the island they were testing her prototype on. Morti had always been cheery, with a broad smile on his face, full of laughter and jokes that he would tell enthusiastically.

She remembered the first time that she met Morti; It was the day after they had first arrived at Higgins Manor, and the plantation owner wanted to take them out to where they would be working on the prototype. He had sauntered up to her and Gray and stuck a broad hand out to them with a proud and dominating demeanor, nothing but a pair of overalls and a big straw hat, a big broad smile on his cheery face.

In contrast, this gaunt scarecrow of a man before Tessa was now anything but strong or cheery. Morti looked as if he hadn't eaten in weeks, though his smile was broad as always, his eyes had a hollow, sunken quality to them that scared Tessa.

"Morti! It's wonderful to see you. I didn't recognize- how have you been?" Tessa tried to put on a welcoming and pleased expression.

"Been better, Miss Copperfield. Things not been da same since you left." Though the ex-slave smiled and appeared in good spirits. Tessa could sense the man's underlining desperation.

"I'm so sorry to hear that," Tessa said, feeling a pain of guilt welling up in the pit of her stomach. Tessa looked up and down the ship at the other passengers and the merchants on the small boats. Most of the people trying to sell their wares looked underfed.

"Why have you com' back?" he asked this with his ever-present smile plastered to his face as if frozen like an epitaph to the man that was.

"I, I'm not sure," Tessa said morbidly. Shaking her head, she dug around in her purse, "Here, six silver for the necklace." Tessa knelt and traded over the money in exchange for the trinket.

The man beamed genuinely this time as he handed up the necklace, "Thank you, Miss Copperfield. I'm so glad that you are a pr'tty lady still, both on da inside and da out."

Tessa examined the trinket she just purchased. It was made of the bone and teeth of some animal with a small, polished opal inlaid into a metal facet shaped like a human skull. It was crude and somewhat ghastly, yet pretty. She slipped it on, tucking it into her blouse.

After a little longer of catching up with Morti, a big beefy sailor called out, "All right, clear out. The lot of you! Shove off!"

"So long, Miss Copperfield. If you're heading out to Higgins town, please keep safe!" Morti called out as he cast off. Tesla could not help but feel there was more to his statement, but she couldn't ask why, for the steamer sounded its whistle drowning out the noise.

As quickly as they came, the merchants and their crafts slid back away toward the shanties, steering clear of the dam. Tessa could not help but notice the animosity that the sailors and the locals had for each other. That and the contention surrounding the dam. It was, after all, the cause of so many people being displaced by the rising water.