___〆(．．)

[akje]

A utopian country that just wants to live in peace. A dystopian nation that wants everything the utopians have. An envoy's son caught in the middle.

A steampunk bromance about racism, overpopulation, and the power of air.

In 1910 industrialization is at its height, and the world is a polluted wasteland of industrial plants. Wealthy industrialist J.P. Gorman launches the world's biggest airship, the Titan, to circle the globe, far above the pollution of the factories. Anyone who's anyone wants to be aboard for her maiden voyage. The world's wealthiest celebrities purchase staterooms so they can live in the clouds and breathe fresh air again.

Jarvis Corbin has to get aboard that airship. After clansmen murder his father, he promises his mother on her deathbed he'll leave Imperium and return to the safety of their homeland. There's only one way to get there─the Titan.

But unknown on the day of the launch, an epidemic is sweeping the land and someone has brought it aboard─a plague spread by the very air. Jarvy's homeland has a cure for this plague, and the government of Imperium is determined to get their hands on it, especially with an upcoming presidential election in the works.

There's just one little catch...

Read an excerpt:

Many had expected the airship to be a dirigible, but the savvy knew no gondola could carry the power plant of a ship this size, nor the projected numbers of personnel and cargo. The Titan was more like a flying steamship, longer than four city blocks and over fifteen stories tall, with an aerodynamically curved superstructure.

But unlike a steamship, there were no dining saloons on board. The Titan expected its passengers to eat in restaurants, pubs and snack rooms at their own expense, and the Grey Star Line included no meals in the ticket price. Everything was paid for separately, but there were plenty of amenities. Every deck had something to offer─billiard parlors, shops and boutiques, flower gardens, steam rooms, a swimming pool, gymnasium and a theater alternately showing plays, films and vaudeville shows.

In one of the shops, Jarvis swept and mopped the floor.

"Ya'll missed a spot," the shopkeeper yammered. "Better do a good job, boy, or you'll be replaced with one of them mechanical people I keep hearing about. Heh heh."

Should've killed yourself last night, junior.

Jarvis swept where the shopkeep pointed, but he hadn't missed any debris.

Mechanical people probably don't mind being micromanaged by an anal retentive white overseer, you blasted knob. Why don't you mind your own business? I can sweep a deuced floor, for pity's sake. A child could do this job─a child who doesn't mind abuse.

For a moment Jarvis wondered what would happen if he were fired. Would the ship's officers throw him overboard if he couldn't find another job to pay his passage?

"Now get out of the way, boy. We got customers, and they don't need to see a bumbling Negro shlep around the shop."

Jarvis then wondered whether anyone would notice if he pushed the shopkeep overboard.

"Jarvis, listen. You walk in the light, son. You hear me, Jarvis? Always walk in the light."

Yes, Mom. But they sure don't make it easy. From valedictorian to this. Argh.

Jarvis retreated to the storage room, and found a kid stocking the shelves with gramophones.

"Hi, I'm Rufus."

"Jarvis. Nice to meet you."

It didn't escape Jarvy's notice that the white overseer only employed blacks. Did the bastard think whites were too good for blue collar work? Or did he just hate oppressing them?

He'd probably have to pay them more. Hell knows he's not paying me a living wage.

Love to torture yourself, don'tcha, Jarvy?

Huh?

You know what it is, junior. Black lives don't matter, so we get paid less for the same work.

You mean white people think black lives don't matter, but they're wrong.

"Huh?" Rufus asked. "You say something, Jarvis?"

Jarvis set the broom aside and shook his head. "Just thinking about something. Black lives matter. We just need to remind whites of that."

"Hm. My teacher says that's not enough. She says racism won't end until you address the underlying cause."

"Oh. You mean the persistent entrenching of white privilege? The glorification of white lineage in the media? The old boy network in big business that hands executive positions to white men and keeps a glass ceiling firmly anchored over people of color?"

Rufus paused his shelf stacking. "No, I meant overpopulation and the resultant competition for limited jobs and resources. My teacher says if you're talking about racism but you're not talking about overpopulation, then you aren't woke yet."

"Oh, I see. And I suppose black people are responsible for overpopulation."

Rufus shrugged. "She says everyone should reproduce sustainably, but it's worse when wealthy people don't since they have a higher consumption rate."

"Heh. Is that the way you normally talk, kid? You sound like a 40-year-old hippie who swallowed an environmental advocacy brief."

Rufus looked away and resumed stocking the shelves.

Good work, junior. Now the kid hates you. Your mother would be so proud.

Okay, he was being a bully and he knew it, but he'd heard this argument before. The problems in society were caused by the proliferation of blacks; if the black race would simply die off, the world would become as idyllic as a Constable painting. Yeah, right. "So what color's your teacher, kid?"

Rufus glared as he raised his chin. "I'm not a kid. I'm fourteen."

"All right, Rufus, fourteen. What color's your teacher, and doesn't that make you suspicious of her intentions?"

"Black, and why would I be suspicious? She's paid to teach us, so I expect she knows what she's talking about. She went to one of the best universities anywhere. Just where do you think she got her teaching degree? Miss Maggie's School and Hat Shoppe?" Rufus resumed stacking the shelves, setting down each gramophone with a small clonk.

"What?" Jarvy's eyes widened. "She's black?"

Of course. She's an apologist for the whites.

I can see right through your plan

you tell them it's just a tan

but they won't let you join the clan

you're just a house slave, Miss Black Ann.

And whites are the enemy. Right, junior?

Shut up.

Jarvis moved the box of gramophones closer to Rufus. "When you're older, you'll learn the truth, Rufe. The ofays hate us for no damn reason. Why would they have taken us as slaves centuries ago? There was no population pressure back then."

Rufus counted the remaining gramophones before placing the next one on the shelf. "In those days there were indentured servants of all colors, and it was hard to know by sight who was free and who was bonded. Enslaving one race based on color made it easy. So wealthy landowners sent agents abroad to kidnap millions of blacks to work on their farms. The hate started then, and got worse as the country's white population grew and grew, then found there were no jobs for them. The 30% who owned slaves grew rich, while all around them millions of whites grew poor because they were in competition with slaves for work. Instead of blaming the wealthy landowners, they blamed the slaves."

"And yet those impoverished whites went to war to keep those slaves working for the landowners? No, your theory makes no sense."

"They went to war because it was a paying job. War creates jobs for everyone, if not as soldiers, then in manufacturing weapons and ammunition. That's why the president keeps us in a constant state of war today. The government can't create jobs in the private sector without war."

Jarvis frowned. Smartass kid.

"My teacher says one day the whole planet will be overpopulated─not just Imperium─and then we'll have wars that involve the whole world."

"Your teacher's an idiot." Jarvis folded his arms.

"No, she's really smart! She says wealthy people are whelping more these days in order to secure limited resources for themselves. As the world gets more and more overpopulated, there ain't enough water, coal, petroleum, crops, jobs or even clean air for everyone. So whichever race multiplies the most wins, and gets control of everything."

"And what does she think is the solution?"

"She says women need the right to vote, and the right to get jobs and use birth control. When women are allowed to make decisions for themselves instead of having to stay home and make babies, then the population will decrease and there will be civil rights for all."

"Bahahaha! What the deuce, kid. You don't really believe that, do you? That's simply a woman brainwashing you for her own ends."

Rufus looked away. "I don't know. Makes sense to me. I think it's about time we try it and see if it makes things better."

Jarvis grabbed the broom and resumed sweeping, shaking his head. Even black school teachers will do anything to avoid discussing the ubiquity of white privilege.

The staticky outburst of a radio broadcast in the next room interrupted his thoughts.

"Mister ofay must be trying to sell a radio out there."

After a gushing introduction, the President of Imperium made a radio speech. Jarvis couldn't hear all of it, but he'd heard this droning bluster many times before.

"My friends, we stand at a pivotal moment in history. Our nation is besieged by violence, poverty, child labor, women's suffrage, homelessness, crime, undocumented aliens, abortion, unemployment, and other threats to our republic. And you know what's behind it all? Those who've turned our great nation away from God and country. We need to return to family values, my friends. Family values, Biblical gender roles, God and country. If you re-elect me as your president, we'll have Bibles back in the schoolroom alongside the Pledge of Allegiance. We need to raise our children with the values of the past, back when this great land was great!"

Jarvis rolled his eyes as he swept. "So Rufus, what does your teacher say will happen if we don't stop having babies?"

"She didn't say stop having babies. She said reproduce sustainably. If we don't, she says Nature will wipe out the surplus using the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse─war, famine, plague and death."

"I see." Jarvis smirked. "Funny how every side uses the Bible to bolster its position. I'm afraid I'm not up on scripture. Which horseman is supposed to rear its ugly head first?"

Rufus put the last gramophone up on the shelf. "Plague."

☙ ❧