Rogue Ragtime Read online

  Significant Events

  Your Friendly Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Content Warning

  How the United Country Destroyed the Patriarchy

  One: The Bandit

  Two: The Wanderers

  Three: The Sack

  Four: The Unknown

  Magic and its Properties

  Five: The Pillagers

  Six: The Artist

  Seven: The Criminal

  Eight: The Decision

  Nine: The Sellers

  Ten: The Bribe

  Eleven: The Healer

  Twelve: The Fall

  Thirteen: The Lovers

  Fourteen: The Spy

  Fifteen: The Queen

  Sixteen: The Price

  Seventeen: The Method

  Eighteen: The Fury

  Nineteen: The Suspects

  Twenty: The Pebble

  Twenty-one: The Navigator

  Twenty-two: The Distraction

  Twenty-three: The Lecture

  Twenty-four: The Turiean

  Twenty-five: The Interrogation

  Twenty-six: The After

  Twenty-seven: The Friend

  Twenty-eight: The Ex

  Twenty-nine: The Colonizers

  Thirty: The Request

  Thirty-one: The Name

  Thirty-two: The Melancholy

  Thirty-three: The Princess

  Thirty-four: The Librarian

  Thirty-five: The Well

  Thirty-six: The Odds

  Thirty-seven: The Lost

  Epilogue: Freedom

  Special Thanks

  About the Author

  Notes

  Your Friendly Copyright Notice

  First Digital Edition

  -- 2020 --

  Rogue Ragtime. Copyright 2020 K. Alexis. All rights reserved.

  Note: Any part of this book (except the cover) may be copied and distributed by teachers or educators for their own in-class activities. For all other purposes, permission from the author is required.

  -- -- -- --

  Original images used:

  the man standing in a building industry construction, illustration painting © grandfailure

  futuristic girl and a bird look each other in the eyes on night city background, illustration painting © grandfailure

  Paradigm of Surreal Paint © agsandrew

  Licensed under Adobe Stock Standard License

  Additional modifications and graphic design by K. Alexis

  -- -- -- --

  The stories, characters and incidents featured are entirely fictional. Any resemblance they have to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Dedication

  Even though I wrote Rogue Ragtime for a friend,

  We had a fall out;

  And the novel lay in silence and unadorned

  For five years.

  Five years of a promise pressing down,

  Five years of characters sleeping in the void,

  And five years of a tale untold.

  The night may've been long for Tath, Agra, Steh and Mea,

  But the dawn came.

  It came for a humbled man who is broken and flawed,

  Yet one who has belatedly fulfilled his promise,

  From all those years ago.

  This one's for you Vision.

  Content Warning

  Rogue Ragtime contains explicit sex scenes, violence, offensive language and is self-published.

  It is intended for mature readers.

  How the United Country Destroyed the Patriarchy

  An essay by Telia Morehouse (soon to be 10)

  A long time ago, there was an explosion. It killed lots of people and changed the world. We call it "the Cataclysm." I lost my great-great-great-grandparents in it.

  However, it was not all bad. We got MAGIC! Witches, wizards, sorceresses and magical creatures started appearing all over the world. People could shoot fire from their fingers! My great-grandfather could read people's minds. So, everyone got excited again. They wanted to use this power to build a better world. (I can't do any of these things, but my mom can. She's cool.)

  A large group of white people got together and decided they'd make a new country with everyone who'd lived through the Cataclysm. They called it "the United Country" and themselves "Neomers," but no-one I know calls them that. We call them "Grinners" because they're always telling people to be happy even if they've had a bad day. They love to tell my kinfolk to smile more. However, if you call them a "Grinner," they'll you alone, thankfully.

  My father hates them a whole lot, but even he says they helped us out one time. After the Cataclysm, my great-grandfather demanded the Grinners give the black community (that's us!) Texas as reparations. They agreed and so we got to rename it: "Moreand," after my family. I'm told there was a massive party with food and presents for everyone. My family was so happy!

  BUT … not all white people liked giving us Texas. Some of them even hated it! They hated seeing black people happy. So, they moved to the ocean and stole from our cities. My mom says they "raided" everybody's cities, even back then, but my dad says they mostly attacked black people's. It's such a huuuge topic in our community that my boxing teacher has an opinion too. She says everyone is wrong, and Corsairs are a "multi-racial movement fighting against wage-slavery" who rarely attack towns. They left us to escape "tyranny" and don't want to live with us "sheep" anymore. I don't know who's right. It sounds like they are bad people. I know they killed a whole bunch of people near Florida. Some man on the streams is always yelling about how bad Florida was. Every year they talk about "the Florida Massacre," and how we had to throw our books out. Yes, even in Moreand!

  You see, after the massacre, the Grinners said that if we read bad books, then we would do bad things again (like the Corsairs). We would be doomed! Doomed to be evil! So, they sent a long, long, long list of these terrible books and told everyone to burn them, in a fire. However, to make this hurt less, they introduced a new thing: imaginations. Imaginations are the coolest! They are magical recordings of your life and thoughts. You can literally be someone else! I was my favorite actress for hours, and it was awesome! You can even use them to watch old, old movies, but those are really flat. You can't turn around when you watch them. It's super weird.

  My dad looooves them though. All the "imaginations" he watches have lots of women in them wearing strange clothes. I like looking at the clothes because they're nothing like the boring dresses my dad my makes me wear, but all the women look the same. They have big chests and large butts. Mom says the women look like that because of the "patriarchy". It's why we burned our old stories, but not our cookbooks.

  I don't know how I'd live without our cookbooks.

  So, imaginations are super cool, BUT a group of people called Aras don't like them. They live far away from us and love studying. They're always competing with the League of Learners about who knows more about magic. They're both groups of super nerds. They think the past is really important, and we shouldn't hide from it. So, the Aras got angry at the Grinners for demanding they destroy their books. They got so angry that they joined with the Leaguers and Corsairs to fight us. (Yes, fight us over books!) We fought hard (really hard!), but we lost.

  The Grinners weren't happy about losing to a bunch of old men with beards, but agreed to stop because more people would die if they didn't. The Head Grinner was really mad about this. She said "the patriarchy" would live forever unless Moreand (that's us again!) helped her. She asked my great-aunt to help. And my great-aunt did! She travelled the world to different places and asked them to sign "treaties" with the Grinners. (My mom does this too! Sometimes I go with her.) Together, the Grinners and Moreand could stop the evi
l Aras, Corsairs and Leaguers. My family worked really hard to help our brothers and sisters in Africa. And when they helped us, they got cool things. (And that's fair! I don't care what anybody says. Obeying the rules is super important if we don't want to break our nice things.)

  BUT … a few years ago, the Corsairs and Grinners both wanted Cuba. They both really, really liked it and would not share. So, the Grinners asked this super smart person, Stehlan Ehrans, to create "the Doom Blade." I know, what a cool name, right? They said the Doom Blade was like a big stick, maybe even the biggest stick. So, once the Grinners said they would use it, the Corsairs had leave, right? Wrong! The Corsairs are evil so they attacked and attacked and attacked. Lots of people died, but the Corsairs kept attacking. They attacked until they had almost won. And then, the Head Grinner used the Doom Blade.

  I don't know what happened to Cuba after that. No-one in my family likes talking about it, not even my dad. And he loves to yell at my mum about the Grinners. When I asked my history tutor, she said that Cuba had led to "the great revelation" and how most people had finally realized they'd wanted to be a Grinner all along. That's why there'd been so many celebrations and parties on the streams after Cuba.

  Anyway, a little while later, a few of these new places didn't like all the Grinner rules they had to follow. And last year, some of them ran off to become Corsairs. Wow, did that make the Head Grinner mad. She got up and made this HUGE announcement. She said we had to "root out the guiding hand of the patriarchy before it could grow again." Yeah, I don't know what that means either, but I know she yelled a lot and we had to burn EVERY book, even the good ones. And if you didn't do it in a hurry then the Grinners sent you a helper, like a harmony encourager or administrator, to get it done.

  There were fires everywhere in our city as people threw out their books. Some people were crying, some were singing and others dancing. I didn't know how I was supposed to feel. I had to burn my favorite picture book about a rabbit, but I was doing it so people wouldn't hurt each other anymore. So, it was good, right?

  Anyway, after that, we were told "the patriarchy" had been "destroyed" and we could relax and watch lots of cool imaginations. The Aras, Corsairs and Leaguers didn't matter anymore because they were angry, and angry people eventually fight and disappear (like my dad does sometimes).

  I guess the Grinners were right about books teaching us how to be bad because I hear about those groups fighting all the time, but I know my mother didn't burn all the books we had. She kept our cookbooks, and it makes me think: did other people keep some books too? Did we really get them all?

  Rogue Ragtime

  K. Alexis

  Wed, 8 Oct 65 P.C.T., 6:04am: Junko [Channel 37A4R]

  Hey, you out of jail yet? I need some help looking for a Navigator in Ras Al Khaimah.

  One: The Bandit

  THE BANDIT HOPPED twice and fell. She was not quick enough to break her tumble and ended up rolling awkwardly into a damp bush. Her jet-black hair, normally light and airy, clung to her scalp as sweat streamed down her pale face. About ten paces behind her was a slim, white man wearing an ill-fitting, three-quarter coat. His name was Steh.

  "No, that's not it," Steh uttered, his tone matter-of-fact. "The 'kh' is less guttural, more alto and has a nasal ring to it." He practiced the word twice, each time raising his arm as if to force his pitch higher. The sounds he made hardly changed, his voice remaining a dispassionate monotone. "This isn't going as planned," he said to the bandit. "But I think I have it now." He opened his palm and revealed a small metal card. "Khalak naroom," he said.

  The card shot out of Steh's hand, hit the bandit's right arm and exploded. She screamed in agony. Several bats and birds took off from their positions in the lush canopy above causing a number of twigs and sticks to break free and smack her in the head.

  Using her left leg, the only one she had remaining, the bandit pushed away from Steh and farther into the damp bush. Her expression bounced from anger to fear to rage to pain and then back again.

  Steh did not seem to notice. He pulled out a small book and flicked through it to a page with meticulous handwriting. Under each syllable was a line showing how it was pronounced, along with notes on how to emulate the more difficult inflections.

  "What I would give to be a nature mage," he said as he adjusted his glasses and squinted at the page. He held the notebook up to the few slivers of moonlight sneaking through the treetops and tapped a section. "Ah, 'khalak' means appendage. 'Ghalak' is what I'm looking for, of course. 'Gh' is for ghoul killing." He dug through his pockets and fished out another metal card.

  The bandit drew her sword and pointed it unsteadily at Steh. "Why are you doing this?" she asked.

  "You were going to kill my friend."

  "I was trying to steal your food," she snapped. "That doesn't deserve death … or torture." She grunted as she moved the tattered remains of her leg.

  Steh motioned to the pack lying in front of her. It was bursting at its seams. "You must carry a lot of weapons if you've run out of food," he said.

  The bandit laughed nervously, stabbing her sword toward Steh. "Maybe I'm a lost blacksmith or fashion designer. Or maybe I'm a book-whore who got kicked out of my parent's house too. You don't know what's in there."

  "Certainly," Steh replied. "But I can make an educated guess. The bounty on us 'book-whores' is eight thousand credits per head." Steh wiggled his empty-hand's fingers as if to indicate he was counting something. "So, for me and the three other members of my group, how much is that? A year's wages for you?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know. I'm not a bounty hunter. I'm lost, hungry and the mutant was cooking."

  Steh walked over to the woman's bag and kicked it. An apple rolled out. "A shocking surprise," he commented.

  "You think you're so smart," the bandit snarled. "But you bookers are all the same. If you were going to kill me, you would've done it by now. All that pre-Cataclysm trash you read gets in your head. Every booker I've killed has believed in pacificism and the kindness of man. I'll have my revenge after you lecture me on a 'better' path and then let me go."

  "'A booker,'" Steh repeated, seeming to ignore most of the bandit's rant. "The last time I heard that slur, I was in prison and being tortured." He looked at the stars and smiled wistfully. "My torturer was significantly better at this than you. She never made the mistake of taunting me outside of my cell. Nor would she have made your error: confusing operational mistakes with lack of intent."

  Steh stared at the bandit, his smile fading. "No more lapses then," he said. "Let's discover if my Common-speaking tongue can finally handle Ara." He whispered the incantation once more. This time the device flew straight from his hand and into the bandit's ribcage. It exploded, leaving a circular hole in the middle of her chest.

  Steh put the notebook away and pulled at his brown and greying hair. "All these years and magic still eludes me," he commented joylessly. He walked over to the corpse and picked up the bandit's sword, treating the weapon as if it was a rare treasure.

  Speaking to the body, he said, "Your ploy might've worked if Mea's cooking was better. Unfortunately, we can't even gift it to the forest elves."

  Wed, 8 Oct 65 P.C.T., 6:04am: Junko [Channel 37A4R]

  Hey, you out of jail yet? I need some help looking for a Navigator in Ras Al Khaimah.

  Wed, 15 Oct 65 P.C.T., 7:53pm: Azra [P. Watcher 18034568X]

  Yes, I am. No thanks to you.

  And did you run out of real missions so we have to hunt indestructible space demons?

  Two: The Wanderers

  TATH ADMIRED HER reflection in the calm, narrow river. First, she looked down, then pivoted and glanced sideways. She liked her skin's blackness and the way it made her think the night sky and her had been cut from the same cloth. She felt her tawny eyes were reasonably beguiling and her hair was, well, her hair. It was curly, black and chin-length—not black and green nor orange and pink—just black. It got split ends when she needed it to be l
ush and in her eyes when she desired it to be out of her way.

  She had been lectured from a young age that archers were supposed to keep their hair braided or tied back. Other Grinners, her family and even the king of Moreand had chided her about the best way to style her locks if she wished to win inter-kin archery competitions. Tath was willing to concede they might have been right; her curls had distracted her on numerous occasions and caused her to miss some critical shots. Still, she wanted to owe society nothing—not even a single strand on her head, and if that meant her hair had to sometimes get in the way, so be it. That was why she wished, once in a while, her birth-hair had been slightly different. It had been something a little more magic-infused and brimming with color than the black curls she owned. She would have accepted most styles … except the dirty-blonde flax so many white women possessed.

  An apple drifted along the river, followed by some soaked bread and then an empty backpack. A naked corpse floated past. In a flash she stuck out her left index and little fingers. A luminescent bow appeared in front of her and she notched an arrow onto its string.

  As she searched the surroundings for other bandits, she could hear Agra's footsteps rustling louder and louder as he closed in on her location. "Are you worrying about your hair again?" he asked. His deep voice easily overrode the forest's ambient sounds.

  "Fuck no," Tath snapped, her response gruffer than her usual scat-infused tone. She made her bow disappear and slid the arrow back into her quiver. "I was waiting for you to finish patrolling."

  Agra stepped out of the shadowy tree line and into the clearing by the river's bank. He was juggling five knives in the air. "That's kind of sweet," he responded. "I know you're lying, but the thought of you delaying Mea's dinner so we can suffer together makes me feel gooey on the inside." Even though Tath was five foot ten, he towered over her. His blue eyes sparkled under the starlight and accentuated his dual ancestries. "If I had to guess what you were actually doing," he continued, "I'd say you were dreaming of a prince who would slay Ristie the Vile and free us from our endless quests. It's what I hope for on nights like these."