After dinner and having a lovely time listening to the provided music, the captain announced that they were approaching the final leg of the journey and that any who wished to see the city as they approached would best be served by heading to the top observation deck. Tessa, along with a sizeable throng, moved to the top deck as the steamer rounded the last bend in the river, bringing the Higgins Dam into view.
At a distance, it resembled a low castle wall peppered with several outcroppings, housing the generators for the massive amount of power that the nearby city required. Even from a considerable distance, Tessa noted several additions that were not in the original design, including a number of smaller ledges and bulwarks strategically placed around the dam, with fortified buildings and towers on them. Tessa wondered at the number of fortifications along the structure. Men with sizeable guns and even a few rapid-fire turrets mounted along the length of the stonework. But she was far more intrigued by what appeared to be an additional two powerhouses.
The five original powerhouses were called the Electric Cathedrals, nicknamed by the workers who first started construction of the slate-roofed buildings. But if the first five were cathedrals, the two newer housing units were palaces in comparison. Tessa could not figure out why they needed to be so much more extensive unless they were perhaps using a new design of hydro turbines or converters.
To the side of the dam was the gatehouse. Three massive locks allowed ships to pass through. It also cleverly doubled as a way for Higgins to make extra money from the commerce moving up and down the river. If the rumors were to be believed, Mr. Higgins convinced the governor of the state to pass legislation to allow him to build the dam and lock system in the first place in exchange for taxing the dam and its outlets for a cut of the profit.
"Would you look at that?"
Tessa turned to see a couple of passengers observing the dam from beside her, arm-in-arm. The man was rather flamboyant looking with his large southern-style hat and an award of some sort pinned on his lapel. Tessa thought that he was perhaps a soldier with his date, most likely an ex-Loyalist, from how he was dressed. She noted that the gentleman escorting the woman had a particularly valuable-looking jewel-encrusted knife hanging from his belt. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she wondered how valuable it might be. Unobtrusively, Tessa positioned herself nearer to the two of them.
The woman commented, "An impressive feat of engineering. I wonder how long the endeavor took?"
"Who knows?" the man responded, patting her hand. "But I would wager it must have been terribly expensive."
Tessa was about to make her move for the dagger when the woman pointed. "Darling, what is that strange tower?"
Tessa was just barely able to break off her attempt at lifting the knife without looking suspicious. Instead, she made it as if turning to see what the other woman pointed at. Her heart sank when she saw it.
The dandy exclaimed with a scratch of his head, "You mean that tower? I don't know, darling. Perhaps something to do with the dam?"
Tessa said with a sour scowl, "It's a Copperfield Projector. Designed to transmit electricity wirelessly."
"So, that's the contraption then?" the woman asked. "The one mentioned on the pamphlets?" She looked at it thoughtfully. "But I thought it was called something else?"
"It is." Tessa sighed. To the right of the dam next to a rail line was the essence of the inventor's greatest achievements and her most grievous blunders. The "Copperfield" electrical generator and projector were the heart and soul of the wireless power grid that she had developed, stolen by the very people who helped her to create and fund it in the first place. A mixture of emotions filled the inventor as she glared up at her creation with her sea-green eyes; the towering structure seemed to mock her with the logo H-M branded on the side, Higgins and Meriwether Power Company. Tessa was both filled with pride and anger, the pride that her idea and invention worked so well and the anger that she was not recognized for its success and creation.
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.