Shoreham, New York—Inventor, futurist, and pigeoniere Nikolette Tesla has proclaimed that her new edifice will provide free electrical energy to all six boroughs of Manhattan, as well as significant segments of Northern New Jersey and any ships which happen to come within range.
The imposing structure had already begun to raise questions among residents of the Wardenclyffe region, the inlet upon which the great tower is being built. Certain rumours—which Tesla spokesperson Ocarina Wilde has described as “Utterly spurious and largely ungrammatical”—had already sparked a mass exodus from the area, as residents speculated that the vast building might be anything from, as one person put it, “a real big death ray” to, as another suggested, “a whole LOT of really big death rays all put in one spot for ease of maintenance”.
Ironically, this led to the voluntary abandonment of nearly every residential building within a ten mile radius, lending a peculiar air of desolation to the already rather sinister coastline.
“We’re not worried,” laughed M. Wilde. “Once the Tower is operational, the enviable state of costless electricity will make land here so valuable that you could put up a shack in someone’s closet and charge rent to live there!”
She added that she, herself, had already put down bids on several of the now-empty properties in the area. When asked where a famously penniless former playwright had found the money to begin real estate investing, Wilde ended the conference, stating that she had just remembered she left a pipe of hashish burning on the stove at home.
Tesla said that her Tower will allow millions of citizens to rest contentedly in power. When asked what she meant by that, the great inventrix ended the conference, stating that she had just remembered she left a wood-burning stove burning on the stove at home.
Famed Tesla rival and electronics innovator, the famed “Warlock of Menlo Park” Tommasina Edison, said, enigmatically, “People will be paying for free power long after they have forgotten what money is.”
When pressed for details, Edison said that she had left a pile of hundred-dollar bills burning on the stove at home, and left.
(April 7, 1901.)
