CHAPTER 77: MORE COMPLETED PROJECTS

The sun had barely crested the rooftops of Madrid, yet the capital was already abuzz with anticipation. The grand plaza outside the Royal Municipal Hall teemed with workers in blue coveralls, schoolchildren waving miniature flags, and foreign dignitaries dressed in subdued silks and polished boots. At the center of the square, a gleaming brass podium had been erected, its polished surface reflecting the dawn light like fire.

Beneath their feet, the ground was no longer what it had once been.

"Two hundred kilometers of sewage tunnels," declared Chief Architect Lorenzo Vidal to the assembled officials. "Five separate intercepting lines. Two treatment reservoirs north and east. And for the first time in this city’s history—no human waste in the drinking water."

Prince Lancelot stood beside him, his gloved hands resting on the ceremonial blueprint case strapped to the table. Unlike his usual navy coat, today he wore an ivory overcoat with silver trim, the symbol of civic dedication worn by past monarchs during major infrastructural reforms. His face, however, bore none of the pomp. He looked tired, older than his twenty-six years, though his voice carried clear when he finally addressed the crowd.

"Madrid once drowned in its own waste," he said bluntly. "Streets flooded during rains. Cholera, dysentery, and rot carved through families like blades. You all remember it. I remember it."

He paused, letting the memory settle in the air.

"This is the end of that Chapter."

He pulled a lever embedded in the podium. A deep metallic groan resonated beneath the plaza. Then, a rumble. Fountains of clear, treated water erupted from four industrial spouts stationed in each corner of the square—each one purified from the new system’s final filters. The crowd gasped, then broke into roaring applause.

It was more than a symbolic act. For the thousands of city workers, engineers, and families present, it was a victory over something invisible but deadly. A victory that would never be celebrated in parades or etched into medals—but one that saved lives.

Lancelot stepped down and shook hands with the senior engineers. Beside him, a foreign observer from Prussia—a thin man with wire-framed spectacles and an ever-present notebook—murmured to his assistant.

"They’ve done it," he said. "Sewage management without British pumps. By gravity and filtration alone."

Another diplomat from Denmark muttered, "And those rail lines... they’re laying copper beneath the curbs. This isn’t just sanitation. It’s electrification."

They were right to worry.

As the crowd dispersed and city criers shouted the news across districts, carriages moved to clear a path toward the second great unveiling of the day—just two kilometers away, along Gran Via Street.

There, nestled between brick factories and post offices, sat the Central Tram Depot. Its iron gates gleamed with a fresh coat of enamel paint, and atop its entrance was a proud engraving:

Aragonian Tram Authority – Line One, Calvaria Circuit

Inside the depot, an enormous brass-trimmed electric tram waited on the track. It looked like a miniature palace on rails—polished hardwood benches, a control console of levers and switches, and a proud Aragonian flag stitched onto its roofline. The copper lines that powered it hummed faintly above, feeding through ceramic insulators and anchored to tall wrought-iron poles running along the street.

Lancelot arrived on horseback, dismounting with Arturo Liano at his side. The depot smelled of machine oil and dry ozone. Sparks occasionally jumped from the central transformer box, causing one or two nervous glances from foreign guests.

"The first of twelve trams," Arturo explained as they walked along the track. "This one is ceremonial, but the next units will run on strict schedules. We’ve installed twenty stops across the city—strategically placed near markets, hospitals, and government offices."

"And capacity?" Lancelot asked.

"Thirty seated, forty standing," Arturo said. "Rechargeable at the depot every four hours. Range of fifteen kilometers before needing a refill."

The Prince nodded approvingly. "Efficient. Not elegant. That’s exactly what we need."

One of the depot workers handed him a conductor’s cap. "Your Highness, would you like to inaugurate the first route?"

Lancelot accepted the cap with a brief smile. "Let’s see if it rides as well as it shines."

He stepped into the control cabin. Foreign diplomats scrambled to follow into their reserved car. Citizens watched from the sidewalks, their eyes wide with curiosity as engineers flipped switches and a low hum began to rise from the undercarriage.

With a hiss and a clank, the tram lurched forward.

It glided down Gran Via with mechanical grace, its iron wheels guided by freshly laid rails embedded in the cobbled streets. Electricity sparked quietly from the overhead lines. Crowds cheered, waving handkerchiefs and hats. Shopkeepers leaned out their windows. Church bells rang in the distance, not out of obligation—but out of excitement.

Inside the car, Lancelot watched the city blur past. "This is just the beginning," he murmured to Arturo. "If we can master urban transport, then inter-city rail isn’t far behind."

Arturo raised a brow. "A railway from Madrid to Calvaria?"

"One day, yes," Lancelot replied. "But first—Tarragona. And the coastal loop. People must move faster than fear."

They passed the Grand Cathedral. Then the central square. Then past the newly illuminated slums of San Isidro, where gaslight and electric arc lamps now flickered in tandem.

In the foreign car, one diplomat whispered urgently to another, "Get this in the dispatch. Their trams are electric. Repeat—electric. Powered by municipal generators. No horses, no coal."

From the back of the tram, a young girl pressed her nose to the window. "Mama, look! We’re flying!"

Her mother smiled and smoothed her daughter’s hair. "No, querida. We’re just moving with the times."

By the time the inaugural tram completed its circuit and pulled back into the depot, dusk had already cloaked the rooftops in hues of amber and smoke. The arc lamps flickered to life across Gran Via, powered by the underground conduit lines running parallel to the new sewer mains. For many, it was the first night they could walk home under the glow of electric light.

The streets no longer smelled of rot.

Outside a bakery near San Juan Station, a group of teenage boys loitered on the curb, passing around a newspaper freshly inked with bold headlines:

MADRID ELECTRIFIED! TRAM LINE OPENS! SEWERS COMPLETE!

Inside, the baker kept the ovens running late, humming to himself as he adjusted the brightness of his new ceiling lamp—one of the first powered directly by the grid. Across the street, a midwife delivered her third child that week without the aid of a flickering oil lamp.

It was progress not in declarations, but in daily life.

Back at the Royal Municipal Hall, Prince Lancelot had retreated to a temporary office where blueprints littered the walls and the table was stacked high with correspondence—some congratulatory, others demanding replication in their own provinces.

Arturo was pacing, holding a detailed city map with tram extensions marked in red ink.

"We’ve had a request from Toledo," he said. "They want an initial survey by spring."

"Tell them yes," Lancelot said, barely glancing up from the report in his hand. "But no promises until we finish the connector to the southern industrial quarter. Madrid must be stable before we stretch our reach."

Arturo stopped pacing. "You think it’s stable now?"

Lancelot set the report down. "Not yet. But we’re close."

He rose and walked over to the window. From the second floor, the flickering grid of lights across Madrid looked like stars captured in a net. Even the hills to the west, once cloaked in darkness after dusk, now shimmered with the faintest amber glow.

But not all was radiant.

"Reports of power outages in the northeast," Lancelot said. "Transformer No. 4 is overloaded. And the workers at Station Seven are threatening a strike."

Arturo frowned. "Because of the sewage system?"

"No. Because of their housing." Lancelot turned back. "They say the city has become clean—but they still live in filth."

Arturo sighed. "We can’t clean everything at once."

"We don’t have to," Lancelot replied. "But we must try."

He returned to his desk and pulled out a smaller map—this one hand-drawn, depicting slums, displaced worker camps, and cholera infection routes from two years prior. Much of it had changed. But not all.

"We’ll issue a directive to build sanitary housing along the eastern ridge," he said. "Stone walls, shared latrines, proper drainage. I want every new tram conductor to carry pamphlets on hygiene and proper waste disposal. If we’ve buried the old world beneath our feet, we cannot let it fester."

Arturo nodded solemnly.

There was a knock at the door.

A young clerk entered, red-faced and breathless. "Your Highness," he panted, "urgent dispatch from Valencia. They’ve begun work on their own sewage expansion, using your Calvaria blueprints."

Lancelot’s expression tightened. "Did we authorize that?"

"They claim it was gifted by a traveling engineer," the clerk replied.

Arturo muttered a curse. "If they’re using our plans without proper terrain adjustment, the whole thing could collapse."

Lancelot waved a hand. "No, let them use it. But send a delegation. Offer official cooperation and oversight. Frame it as a gesture of goodwill. We’ll unify the kingdom by helping them stand, not by denying them the foundation."

The clerk bowed and withdrew.

For a moment, silence returned to the office. Lancelot walked to the corner where a blueprint of the hydroelectric dam hung beside a framed drawing of a child’s crayon sketch—a crude tram, a glowing sun, and the words "Gracias, Principe."

He smiled faintly.

"We’ve started an age," he murmured. "Now we have to teach them how to live in it."

Later That Night — Barrio de Santa Leticia

In the poorest quarter of Madrid, where the sewer lines had only recently reached and the last of the cesspools were being filled with gravel and lime, an old man lit a stubby electric lamp for the first time in his life.

His shack, patched together with discarded stone and rusted iron sheets, had been retrofitted by a city crew two weeks prior. A low-voltage wire ran down the alley behind his home, connected to a wall converter beside the door.

He watched the light bulb glow faintly orange, then steady into a clear white.

His grandson—no older than seven—clapped his hands.

"Abuelo! I can read now!"

The boy fetched his wooden primer and opened it by the corner of the lamp. The old man chuckled, coughing once before easing into his creaky chair.

"Only a prince could bring light to the slums," he muttered.

Down the street, more lights began to flicker on—one by one, like fireflies. A neighborhood once drowned in darkness now sparkled gently in the night.

The revolution, it seemed, had come not through war—but through wire.

Three Days Later — Royal Assembly Chambers

The national ministers gathered beneath the grand dome of polished cedar and green marble. On the floor stood Lancelot, gesturing to a long canvas scroll held aloft by two aides. It depicted a vast network of tram lines, sewage grids, water reservoirs, and future electric substations—many still theoretical.

"We have proven that Madrid can be lifted," he declared. "Now, we turn outward."

He moved a gloved hand along the scroll. "Barcelona. Zaragoza. Seville. Let this be the age of unification by infrastructure. No more provincial backwaters. No more plague-stricken towns ignored by court decrees."

Some ministers grumbled. Others nodded.

"But what of cost?" one baron demanded. "And foreign reaction?"

"Let them watch," Lancelot said. "Let them envy. Our strength will not come from ships or swords—but from sewers and circuits. Let the children of Aragon grow up with clean hands and bright minds. And let no peasant die from waterborne pestilence ever again."

The vote was unanimous.

The Aragonian National Integration Act passed that afternoon, allocating 10% of state revenue to regional replication of Madrid’s systems. Teams of surveyors, engineers, and apprentices were dispatched within the week.

Trains were drawn. Trams were copied. Sewers were dug.

And as winter approached, the ground beneath Spain was no longer mud and waste.

It was foundation.

Closing Scene — The Rooftops of Madrid

Prince Lancelot stood once more atop the Royal Observatory, the wind tousling his hair. Below him, the capital glowed not with fire, but with light. Clean, soft, even.

The streets whispered with the clatter of trams. The alleys no longer stank of decay. And somewhere in the distance, a child read beneath an electric lamp, unaware that he was part of a story larger than ink or candlelight could ever hold.

Arturo joined him, holding two tin cups of warm cider.

"To the next city?" he asked.

Lancelot took the cup, raised it slightly, and nodded.

"To the next."

And the city, humming beneath their feet, answered with a thousand flickers of progress.