Wheaton was a small town of not much consequence. Right in the middle of the Nusselt confederation, the town supplied grain and food for the growing appetite of the continent.

"I hate this town!" exclaimed Kelly Mitchell. 15 years old, the young man was a recent immigrant from a sunny country in the south.

"You'll get used to it, besides the world is hungrier everyday so the pay is good. Have you ever thought about how we could afford to send you to school if we stayed back home?" his mother replied.

Truth be told, the young man was never one to think too deeply about the future. The sunny beaches of home were all that he thought about. The world, however was obsessed with the future, every year a new invention was revealed in the papers. News from across the ocean said that man could not survive going over 80 kph but just a week later the "Zephyr", a new train by the Watt corporation, transported passengers on a test route and surpassed 100 kph. It seemed that there was no limit to what could be achieved. Rumours and speculation even hinted that man would finally take to the sky like a bird. What a fantasy!

Wheaton was also reaping the benefits, the town, though quiet was making a fortune from barley and wheat. Nearby Cobbleton kept growing with industry and Wheaton supplied it with the two most important goods known to humanity, bread and beer.

Though Wheaton may not have been interesting for the Kelly, the Wheaton ladies most definitely were. His favorite one was Cindy, the carpenter's daughter. Her father, Frederick had moved there long ago from the empire to the east. For 20 years he worked as a carpenter and supplied the furnishing to just about everyone in town. Once in a while Kelly got bored of listening to his father's gramophone and would visit his friend near the port.

"Hey Frederick, is Cindy around?" said Kelly as he walked through the carpenter's shop. The shop had all kinds of old tools and a few repair jobs scattered around.

"Cindy! Your friend is here!" yelled Frederick. "Take a seat, she'll be down in a bit"

As he sat down, Kelly noticed something strange. "There doesn't seem to be as much stuff in here as usual. Slow month?"

"It's that damn catalog kid. Now that they can order furniture from the big city by mail, there seem to be fewer customers. That mailed junk is shoddy and lacks the flair to decorate a proper home, but it is cheap." Frederick grumbled.

"Maybe it's time to retire Fred, I read in my magazine that the Imperial dockyard just built a ship that can get here in 20 days with half the coal of the old ones. Even shipping is getting cheaper."

The waves of progress were only beginning...