Horizon Line

Ch. 1: In Medias Res

Puck, Commander of the Northern Legions, rode into battle against the encroaching war-mob. The storm of Orcish arrows battered against his armor as he rode across the battlefield to meet the enemy. Sharp lines of flame arced from the Orcish archers, charring the grass, the more luckless of the Northern Legions, and more often than not, other Orcs. (Orcish marksmanship was as renowned as the buoyancy of bricks.) The two armies ran across the battlefield at each other- the shields and swords and armor of the Northern Legions glinting in the light, with Puck and his war-horse at the forefront- until the two armies met in a crash, like a breaking wave or rather more like three thousand combined orcish berserkers and cavalry meeting a slightly smaller army of humans and elves, both wearing clanking armor, running into each other and trying to kill the opposing side.

Puck was the most respected and powerful warrior in the world of Horizon. He had battle abilities far beyond mortal man or elf- and nobody knew where he came from. Puck knew, obviously, but he wasn’t telling.

The flaming whoosh of the arrows changed to a whistle of falling steel, the ragged-edged cold iron arrows that tore through magic raining down like a storm. Puck raised his mithril shield and pressed on, the meteoric clattering off the Elven shield with a sound like hail made of bowling balls and knives. The majority of the Legion, finding the spells and buffs of their spellweavers and their armor useless against the barrage of very heavy magic-ignoring chunks of very pointy iron going very fast, retreated.

“Cowards.” Puck spat, left with only a few dozen of his most faithful men against an entire war-mob of very angry Orcs. The hail of arrows let up, partially because most of the targets were gone and partially because about half of the Orcish troops now had at least one arrow stuck in their mounts, armor, or flesh. Puck narrowed his eyes, let out a rather ridiculous-sounding but suitably intimidating war cry, unsheathed his broadsword- magical runes, thunderbolt-iron alloy, master-level worksmanship from any three legendary blacksmiths you’d care to name, and all- and began stabbing things.

Puck tore through the undisciplined ranks and files of the Orcish war-mob like a very sharp knife through extremely rancid and unusually bloody butter (Or, alternatively, like prunes through a short grandmother.). Eventually, only a small group was left, almost equal to the few brave and battle-hardened few that had stayed with Puck for the whole of the skirmish. In accordance with the laws of drama, or simply those of natural selection, these few surviving Orcs were the tough, battle-hardened cream of the crop (Although given the “cream” in question, a much better analogy would be the oil on top of a polluted puddle.)

Puck put on his Even More Determined face, although this actually made him look slightly constipated rather than fearsome, and flew at the Orcs in a melee of flashing steel and piglike grunts of pain. He faced the commander, the leader of the war-mob wearing his amulet of command. Somewhere, dramatic music began to play.

They flew at each other, the Orc commander dismounting from his war-pig because it’s kind of hard to ride a freaking pig in a two-foot-deep carpet of smelly drunken Orc giblets. Puck and the Orc commander were locked in extremely cinematic swordplay, involving gratuitous slow-motion parries, until the Orc scored a cut on Puck’s cheek. In retaliation, Puck doubled his efforts, his Elven blade forming a whirlwind of mithril-steel that the commander ultimately lost out to. Puck lifted his blade to finish his opponent, paused to deliver a witty one liner, and finally drove his sword into the commander’s head. He removed the amulet, hoisted it into the air in a gesture of victory, and announced his triumph to all:

“I just defeated an entire Orc war-mob. I think this officially makes me awesome.”

The world dimmed and dissolved, the Orcish commander and the ludicrous corpse-piles and the smoldering grass cracking and peeling and finally dispersing like old wallpaper in time-lapse. The lights and colors swam like some kind of moldy butter sculpture in the rain, fading to black- the warm black of a closed eyelid. The clash and cacophony of battle resolved itself into a hard, sharp, regular tone, beeping plaintively. Puck yawned once, then pried open his eyes. Time to wake up.

Chapter Two: The Repetitiousness of Tedium

As he woke, a stinging pain revealed itself on Puck’s left cheek. He bit down and growled in pain. He put his hand to his cheek, only to find a fresh, still-bleeding cut. As the pain subsided, he remembered the arrow that had skimmed his face. But…, he thought, wasn’t that just a dream? He waved over the medical drone that came with every room on Titan Colony, and let it seal up his wound. As it patched up his cheek, he sat back to the sound of his alarm and thought of his life and how it had never lived up to his dreams.

He’d long since grown weary of the chrome-covered and sterile world of science, the polluted hydrocarbon haze that was the only atmosphere of Titan Colony.  He was never a scientist, never one for the cold math and complex equations that described and ran the world, and never particularly cared for the abstract truths of science. The year was 2110, and Puck only wished that life was more simple. Every day comes with some banal, material breakthrough- some extra bit of automation, some new personal transport that ekes out another ten-thousandth of a kilometer per liter of fuel or erg of power. He’s stuck in a world antithetical to the imaginative and the artistic, and Puck hasn’t even gotten out of bed yet. Today will be exactly like yesterday, and tomorrow, and every other day of Puck’s childhood: Lectures, assignments, and excruciating boredom.

“Ahh…” he sighs to himself, “the repetitiousness of tedium.”

He clambers out of bed and his feet hit the polymer floor of his model 2, generation 1, USG approved living station, subapartment 25 out of a block of 200 cramped capsules. Barely awake, he walks over to the bathroom and, right on schedule, the robots and drones of the Day Preparation system burst into activity. A toothbrush on a jointed manipulator begins scraping plague from his teeth, the rough and poorly-aligned hair washing and drying devices yanking and prodding his scalp. If he’d bought showering privileges from the tightly-regulated water supply instead of cheaping out, washing would come next- instead, he makes do with a spray of deodorizer.

Still groggy, he clambers into the teleportation device and arrives at the Isaac Asimov Memorization and Didactic Facility- or “school,” for people who don’t have time for that many syllables. Still sleepy, and quite queasy as his not-quite-perfectly-transmitted molecules shift back into place, he walks through the steel halls and hears the other kids mocking him behind his back, whispering under their breath:

“That’s Puck, the kid who falls asleep every class.”
“Yeah, but he still gets A’s. I think he cheats.”

 An unexpectedly cheery remark catches him from behind.
“Hey dreamer! What’s wrong, sleepyhead, you still look drowsy.”
He turns around to stare into the face of his only real friend, Phantasos. Nowhere near awake enough to bother with full sentences, Puck simply replies: “Yeah, well…”

The intercom beeps once, signifying that anybody still in the halls- namely, Phantasos and Puck – are tardy. Startled by the bell, they head off down the cold halls (Power’s too precious to waste on heating to comfortable levels, because the mining and research operations need all the power they can get) to his first class.

Concepts of String Theory 101, his first class, bores Puck even more than the others. He can’t help but just stare at his pad and nibble on the end of his stylus as the ‘Teacher’ – really a General Atomics Learning Aide robot, Class Five- drones on in an endless monotone about vectors and tensors. He sighs to himself, his eyelids lower, his mouth hangs open, and his mind slips away from its half-hearted attempt to memorize the facts washing over him and turns it’s attention to dreaming.

Chapter 3: Rapid Eye Movement

The world of Horizon- the green valleys and hills that look suspiciously like New Zealand, the mass grave of burning Orc corpses marking the spot of his last battle- reformed and knit itself around Puck. Puck stretched, massaged the scar on his cheek, and remembered the sword that gave him the cut.

Time to return to the Elves, he thought. The Elves were some of the strongest allies of the Northern Legions, and their villages served as command posts and strongholds for the war effort to bring peace and freedom to Horizon. He called his horse, saddled up, and rode off toward the village.
As Puck approached the village, he sensed immediately that some major battle had taken place. Perhaps it was his battle senses, honed by years of war. Perhaps the silence had given him a clue. More likely, however, was that the smoldering remains of Elvish homes, the Elvish arrows lodged in bloodied trees, and the ragged cuts in the trees and the ground left by some massive talons had alerted him to the recent violence. He searched the village, finding neither corpses nor survivors. The air felt greasy, and smelled of tin- a sure sign of a recent magical battle. The house of Lamarius, his closest friend, appeared still intact- Puck ran over and quickly searched the Elvish leader’s home. Lamarius appeared to have left in a hurry- meals were uneaten, chairs were overturned- and on the wall, scratched in code, was a note addressed to Puck.

The elves, apparently, had been attacked and had fled the village to their Haven. Puck had known of the place before- it had been shown to him by the Elvish commander, and he knew that if they had fled there circumstances must have been dire indeed. Puck saddled up and rode to the Elvish Haven.

Puck soon reached the Haven- hidden deep in the heart of the forests, protected by the strongest of magical barriers and thick walls of white stone – and was invited inside by the Elvish guard.  He searched out Lamarius, and asked about the situation.

Lamarius’s expression was grave. He explained the situation thusly:

“For some time, we have been at war with the dragon riders and their dark leader. They seek to destroy the freedom of our people and the humans, oppressing their captured lands and stripping them of their magic. The sorcerors and magic-users opposed them at first, and we soon joined them to strengthen the forces of Good. The dwarves, meanwhile, corrupted by their greed for gems and wealth, chose the side of the Dragonriders.”

This was, of course, known to Puck already, but he allowed the exposition to continue.

“The Dragonriders and their Orcish legions had heard of our alliance with the sorcerous factions. They have been seeking to find some way to cripple our collective strength for months, and they only now chose to take the initiative. The leaders of both the Sorcerors and the Elves were present in our well-hidden village, and they struck. They drew you away from us during the critical moment of attack by sacrificing a whole war-mob, hoping to cripple our resistance.”

“For better or worse, Horizon is at war. The dark blood-lord and his dragon-riders against the remaining forces of freedom. We, however, are planning an attack that will hopefully end the war- one way or another.”

He pulled out a map of known Horizon, the edges of the world clearly outlined in red. “We seek,” he explained, “to launch a direct assault on the Citadel Roost, the stronghold of the blood-lord and the home of the Dragonriders.” He pulled a quill from a pocket and sketched the troop movements. “You will lead the direct assault, while our other forces will cut off the supply lines for the Citadel. All our hopes rest on you. Do you accept?”

Puck smiled. “Of course.”

The Elves and their allies prepared for war, over the next set of weeks. Decoys and distractions, armor and alloys, swords and arrows and sorceries were readied. The armies took still longer to fight their way across the conquered lands of Horizon, always shifting and waiting to keep the enemy unprepared and unsuspecting of their true purpose, distracted while their supplies were cut off and Puck’s troops advanced on the Citadel. Nonetheless, though the approach certainly took time, Puck was quickly stationed and ready to attack the blood-lord – for the freedom of all of Horizon.

“Well.” Puck flatly stated in astonishment. “That’s…that’s some castle.”

Warped by the necromantic magic and fearsome science of the blood-lord, the castle was twisted in ways that defied normal geometry. Blood-stained spikes and spires of iron jutted out at every angle, Orcish patrols tramping on walkways for whom “down” was at the whim of the builder. Stairs arched and twisted like Escher on drugs, and all threw that rusty, squatting, bloody horror of a fantasy castle were the great cavernous hangars that served as homes for the Dragonriders. A tower, spiraling and stretching to mountainous heights, rose out of that monstrosity, a great necromantic antenna sucking the magic from the bones of the world- the home of the blood-lord.

The allied factions- the Elves, the sorcerors, the humans- remained camped near the Citadel Roost, hidden amongst crags of rock. The commanding sorcerors, Lamarius, and the other generals sat in the war tent, and discussed the details of their approach. The meeting was reaching full tactical swing as the ground shook and a whiff of sulfur and charcoal filled the air- they were being shelled with boomstones, a Dwarven weapon.

“Puck!” shouted Lamarius, “Get your armor! We need to stop the Dwarven bombing before the dragonriders arrive to worsen the odds!”

Puck suited up and rushed out of the tent, calling the troops to order and leading them against the Dwarven forces. Thousands of short, tough, and hairy dwarves poured from their encampment, brandishing axes. Puck led the battle against them, pounding at the Dwarven defenses until he could reach and destroy the catapults. Flaming arrows caught the boomstone, destroying the whole encampment and ammunitions supply in one flaming, magically-enhanced mushroom cloud- thus alerting the blood-lord and his Dragonriders to their full attention.

From the Citadel Roost flew a sight that made Puck glad of his brown pants. Two enormous dragons, laden down with spiked iron armor but flying just the same, dried-blood scales glinting in the twilight. His fear, although hidden by the color of his pants, showed through in Puck’s face, and the troops he commanded quivered.

“SORCERORS AND ELVES! I give you one last chance to surrender unconditionally.” Shenron, blood-lord of the Dragonriders, bellowed from atop his mounts. “I’ve come riding my two strongest. Do you like them? Nova, whose flame can melt steel and stone and flesh alike, and Eis, who’s cold blasts can freeze the sun itself. You have one last chance to surrender, or feel your doom.”

Puck snatched his horn, and bellowed back. “Bring it!” The battle for the freedom of all Horizon, for the right of all creatures to live in peace and not have their way of life forced upon them, had begun- and through all of it, time passed on Titan. Although dream-time is fluid, and passes variably, real time goes by as well- and so, as the elves prepared for war, and as Puck fought to reach the Citadel, and as the final battle of that whole bloody war raged- time passed.

Ch.4: Comatose

Doctor James Colfer, age 46, and employee of the Titan Colony Medical Facility, stretched and woke up next to his loving wife. He watched some of the new broadcasts from Earth with his young daughter, ate breakfast, and attended work. He was, specifically, an oneironeurologist- a researcher of dreams and sleep and their effect on the brain. Titan, more than anywhere else in system, had peculiar cases in this area- but, around 2:27 PM, he was given a case that differed massively from what had gone before.

  	-Doctor’s Log, 2:45 PM, May 17, 2110 [CLASSIFIED]
“When I first saw the kid I thought he was dead. He was starved, dehydrated, and didn’t appear to be breathing. Vital signs, however, showed that the kid was alive. We got the kid to the hospital fine, and set up IV’s of some nutrients and saline to keep the kid alive. Stimulants, too, not that they woke the kid up.”

-Doctor’s Log, 3:51 PM. May 17, 2110 [CLASSIFIED]

“Around 3:49 I got the results to all the tests. Brainwave activity roughly consistent with REM sleep, although a few anomalies in some of the lower waves. PET and MRI scans show activity consistent with dreaming as well, although several brain circuits not previously observed on other subjects are firing on all cylinders. Blood chemistry roughly normal, although he’s massively dehydrated and low on blood sugar. He seems just like a starving boy who just won’t wake up, although those anomalies are a little puzzling…

Anyway, when I asked the cops how they found this kid, they just said that he fell asleep in class and wouldn’t wake up. They assumed it was just tiredness and transporter sickness, took him home, and only checked back when a later followup showed that he hadn’t been seen for three days after they’d put him back. Not sure why they weren’t alerted earlier, surveillance should have been working…Frack, this would never have happened if kids still lived with their parents at 15. Fracking legislators…”

-Doctor’s Log, 12:07 AM. May 18, 2110 [CLASSIFIED]

“I asked why the surveillance didn’t pick the kid up, and I got back some report about ‘Technical difficulties.’ Oh, and that report I filed about those anomalies? I just got back a response, and it seems to show they’re nothing…I don’t think the math adds up quite right, though. Something here’s fishy.

Also, I finally filed the paperwork to use some of the more sophisticated neural scanning equipment. We’ve demodulated the activity in the visual cortex, pulled out an image- looks like he’s having a lot of fun in his dreams, at least. Fantasy world. Oddly coherent and logical for a dream, but the activation of the prefrontal cortex might explain that.”

-Doctor’s Log, 10:45 AM, May 19, 2110 [CLASSIFIED]

“I was looking at the dream logs recently, and something really weird happened. Puck was getting into some kind of fight in his dream- I was running a betting pool on how many goblins he’d kill, actually, but don’t tell anyone- and when he got cut, an identical wound appeared on his arm! Fresh cut, pretty deep. This is…I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m going to have to run some tests.”

-Doctor’s Log, 4:57 PM, May 24, 2110 [CLASSIFIED]

“Watching Puck dream is becoming a bit of a sport in the office these days. Nothing new on the health front, although there was a bit of panic when it seemed like his fighting and real-life wounds would cut his health insurance. A TV guy came over, started pitching a show about how he’d broadcast Puck’s dreams and use them to raise money for the poor kid- I was a little skeptical, but I eventually agreed.”

-Doctor’s Log, 11:09 PM, May 29, 2110 [CLASSIFIED]

“I ran some scans on Puck’s wounds. The cut, according to the dream, was from a broadsword- the cells and tissues showed break patterns that could only have been produced by actual tearing force, and when I analyzed it I actually found steel residue! I tried to send a report on it in, and my Net cut off. This is starting to feel really fishy…come to think of it, I never heard from that TV guy again, either…

…What the frack was that noise?”

-Surveillance Footage, 11:18 PM, May 29, 2110 [CLASSIFIED, AUDIO-ONLY]

“Sir, what do you know about Puck Ohashi’s condition?”

“Why do you need to know? Who are you, anyway?”

“A…friend.”
“Sir, what do you know about Puck Ohashi’s condition?”

“I’m sorry, but confidentiality. I cannot in good faith release personal information about a patient. He has rights.”

“Hm…Defiant. He knows too much, too. Take care of him.”

“Wha-”


Chapter 5: The Crooked Man

	Samuel Burke was just leaving the hospital room, having “dealt” with the doctor and everyone else who knew about Puck and his dreams. Mister Burke was head of the interrogation and research divisions at Shard Industries. To the average person, Shard Industries seemed like a perfectly respectable banking and manufacturing company, the most powerful economic power on Titan, when in fact Shard was a shell corporation whose true purpose involved government-run shadow operations.

Burke wore a tan suit and matching fedora (custom tailored, of course), sunglasses, and a concealed 10mm silenced pistol. For whatever reason, he never used the mass accelerator weapons, like those in the military- those railguns and coilguns were silent, yes, but the EM they put off could be traced to easily. Those people who pointed out that the EM could be shielded wound up on the wrong end of the pistol’s barrel.

	He could best be described as a crooked man. Everything about him- his teeth, his smile, his eyes, and his personality were all crooked and twisted from normal. His morals were even twisted, and he was completely ruthless. Then again, that’s why he was hired- he would get whatever he was paid to do done, no matter how questionable.

Once Burke reached the 5th research lab, where Puck- codename Horizon, a project fifteen years of waiting and far more in R&D running. The purpose of the Horizon project was to utilize Puck’s psychic induction of injuries to kill rebel forces tracelessly, neutralizing the rebellions at the lawless frontiers of the Earth Empire. They’d lost track of the latest product of the Horizon retrovirus for years, but now he’d shown up again when that foolish doctor had told them.

Burke walked over to the head researcher, extremely agitated by the lack of progress. He turned to the researcher, and said coldy –not aggressive, but with a tone that said that a poor explanation would cost the hapless explainer his life- “Would you mind explaining why exactly we haven’t made any progress in the last few weeks?”

“I’m sorry Sir!” The researcher turned pale as his voice grew meeker and meeker “I know we have to weaponize the Horizon system by our deadline, the rebels are a serious problem- not one that the might of the Earth Empire cannot overcome, of course, but…” Burke glared. “But what?” The researcher’s voice was reaching ‘I want my mommy’ levels as he said the next sentence, “Look, I’ll be honest, we’ve tried everything and nothing works. I personally don’t think the Horizon system will ever be weaponized! It’s just not practical, and the effect has to be engineered in from the birth of the target!” Burke stood silent and thought for a few seconds. “So. In your honest, professional opinion, are you really saying that all this work was a waste of money? That we should just cut our losses right now?”

The researcher stood silent for a moment, considering all he had to live for- his wife, his kids, and desperately weighing Burke’s current mood and the impacts this project could make if weaponised, before finally nodding agreement.

Burke considered for a moment. “Very well.” He replied “I’ll tell the director that the project is a dead end. Pull the subject’s plug.” Burke turned to leave, but not before a researcher made the foolish decision to protest killing the innocent child. He would up with a 10mm bullet through the head, and bled on the ground as Burke left.

Somewhere- in a dream, or perhaps in somewhere a bit more solid but equally distant- Puck surveyed the world of Horizon and the slain body of the blood-lord. His dragons- Nova shattered into slowly-defrosting shards of ice, Eis spattered across the battlefield in steaming chunks, killed by each other’s breath- were defeated beyond healing. The world of Horizon, now and forever, was free. Free from tyranny, and free to pursue ends beyond the merciless industrialism of the Iron King, of Shenron the Blood-Lord. Suddenly, the world shifted and jittered, flashes of the waking world bleeding through the edges.

Lamarius turned to Puck, fading and jerking in and out of the land of Horizon, and told him: “You are not of this world, but something in your home is threatening you. This Citadel, built on a crack in reality, allows us to save you- but you must make a choice.”

The sorceror who had advised Lamarius of this spoke up. “We can probably trace your lifeline and bring your body here. Thing is, there isn’t enough time to make it possible for you to go back. Alternatively, we can use the same technique to bring you out of here forever, with everything you gained in our world. Which do you pick?”

Puck thought, and knew that if he stayed in Horizon he would live in happiness for the rest of his mortal lifespan- longer, if he played his favors right with the gods. But if he went home, to the banal and tyrannical world he hailed from, he could make the world a better place. He’d worked his entire life to bring freedom to Horizon- now, he could give up that goal and live in happiness while people suffered, or he could dedicate his life to saving his own world. The choice, he thought, was obvious.

“I’m going home.” He stated, determinedly.

“Very well.” The sorcerer motioned to some of the others. They quickly muttered a chant, swiftly but carefully drew some precisely-measured lines in the sand, and made a few sharp, short, hurried gestures- and Puck heard a sound very similar to the sound made by putting a wooden ruler on the edge of a desk and twanging it, and shot into the darkness.

Puck arrived on the restraining bench with a crack of displaced air molecules and a fizz of crackling magic. The titanium-alloy, electrode-studded cuffs pinned his arms, but his heroic strength that he’d earned through years of training and gifts from the gods easily allowed him to tear them. He rushed through the building of the place he was held- noting with surprise the Shards logo on the walls- and quickly uncovered Mister Burke. Although he’d been asleep and dreaming the whole time he’d been seeing him, something about his voice and his face rang familiar, and he recognized him.

Burke, although surprised, showed no sign of it. “Well, it appears I was hasty in calling you a failure. There may yet be a use for you, after all. Work with us, and we might not kill you.” He coldly and sarcastically said.
Puck smirked. “Yeah, I could do that. Or I could, you know, make the world a better place and put some humanity back in this mathematically-designed dump.”

Burke drew his pistol. “Ah, I see. You still believe you have a choice. Let me educate you.” Puck smiled. “Indeed,” and lunged at him, exerting the magic he’d brought home from Horizon to good effect.

Burke suddenly woke up in a field, confused and disoriented. He surveyed the area around him, noting with fear the storm of flaming arrows coming toward him until they struck, and Burke stopped noticing things.

 Puck walked out of the Shards building, holding a briefcase stuffed with extremely secret documents that would have given the twenty people who even knew they existed aneurysms if they knew they’d been leaked. He surveyed the yellow-brown skies hanging over the megametropolis of Titan Colony, and thought: “All these people have never known true freedom. I’ll bring it to them- one person at a time.”