They say that all good stories start poetically. That the poetic opening line should go here. This is not one of those stories.

But, that does not mean it's not a good story.

See, the biggest mistake one can make is to judge a book by its cover. The second biggest mistake is to judge the contents by its opening line. If people are the sum of their parts and we argue not to judge the person on one action then could we not say the same for a novel. Is it not more than one misspelled word, one grammatically incorrect statement, or poorly phrases paragraph? Is it not worth our time to look past the tiny flaws to see the larger whole?

In a world like this one, however, a moment is all one gets. The ships fly in and out, the balloons land and load only to take themselves back to the skies. There is no more than a moment for life to change forever with the disembarkation of a single passenger from a passing freighter… or the departure of a dear friend to the ether of the universe.

With the rise of steam power the world was the oyster of the civilized societies. When the less developed populations- what the ignorant of the "developed" world called savages or barbarians- realized they held the power of development with their natural resources they withheld and strengthened themselves on the power of their products. The developed world fought back with industry. Steam and fog covered the world.

But that was years ago. Too many for people to really count or care. Some of the stories of that age are now more legend than truth with James Watt not so much the man who captured the power of steam to run the world as a superhero with six arms and an army of demons bringing his freight lines to the stars. No one really remembers what happened because as much as books tell us more when read, they tell us nothing when destroyed.

Like all conquerors, the world dissolved in the loss of knowledge when the libraries were destroyed, the contents of hard drives wiped, or even the tiniest of scraps set ablaze. The power of information lies in the hands of those who steal it from others. That's how the human race spread to the stars in ignorant astonishment.

Now, in the tiny outpost of Plutonium (named for an element whose purpose was to destroy and empower) there live the vestiges of society seeking solace in the fact that they live the best they can. The worlds may change and others may fall but they will remain. There is nothing more eternal than a stiff upper lip. And no town has more of them in one place than Plutonium.