After the worst plague in history, the world is not rebuilding itself. Everyone knows that meddling with God's ways is what killed everyone, so around the world, the shell shocked and terrified survivors have driven the world back into the dark ages. With help of an unlikely ally, a six-shooter, and plain old sneakiness, Emperor Burton Adams is trying to get the Empire of Texas back into the modern world -- without getting lynched by his own citizens for trying. Evidence that someone else, a mean and vicious someone else, is already well on the road to recovery makes everything urgent.