Horizon

ONE

We did it.

Everything we ever hoped or imagined we would accomplish.

Everything you dreamed of as a child reading science fiction novels.

Humanity has come further than we ever imagined it would.

We've colonized entire galaxies, evolving along the way, creating entirely new species of humans capable of surviving in different atmospheres.

We've cracked biological flight, long-distance teleportation, and we can choose not to age.

Global warming is no longer a problem. We left our Earth and found a way to live forever in the stars. We expanded. We grew. We advanced.

"Eddie."

We broke right through the limits of human capabilities.

We never imagined we'd get this far.

"Eddie!"

I snapped out of my thought. I had let it consume me again.

"Eddie, you've been sitting here for forty-five minutes. Are you even paying attention anymore?" Amanda ran her fingers through my brown hair with mock disapproval as she set her cookbook down on the headrest of the couch and darkened its screen.

I had been watching the news for the past forty-five minutes. Broadcast by the central government on EC-1. They usually covered things like groundbreaking scientific advancements, which were rare nowadays, interplanetary war, or someone picking up stakes and heading off to live on a different class planet, usually for multiple months at a time.

"Yeah, of course," I absentmindedly answered. "Is dinner ready?"

People had been using instant food servings for hundreds of years now, but Amanda still liked to cook the old-fashioned way. Especially on holidays.

"Five more minutes, Ed," she assured me with a grin I couldn't see but I could hear. She grabbed her cookbook and spun around on her socks, pausing a moment before turning back around to plant a kiss on my head. "Give that brain of yours a break," she whispered. "Come help me finish up dinner."

I let out a sigh, followed by a silent chuckle as she slid on her socks back to the kitchen. I turned around just in time to see her red hair settle back over her shoulders. She looked back at the couch and grinned. I grinned back, and hoisted myself over the headrest and onto the floor. The tiles rippled a bit, and the animation that spread across the floor of the kitchen changed to a field of grass.

I reached around Amanda's back and wrapped my hands around her hands, guiding them as she poured the gravy over her signature Christmas Eve turkey roast. I inhaled slowly, taking in the smell of the bird as it cooled on the platter.

"You've done it again." I smiled and planted a kiss on her ear. "Did you get the kids' gifts?"

"Of course I did. Why do you think I had you take them to see Martin on EC-463 today?" she replied.

"I thought you just wanted to get rid of us," I laughed.

Amanda turned around and playfully shoved my chest. "You're right. I've had enough of you," she joked with a grin. "Where are the kids?"

"Upstairs in their room."

"Mind going and grabbing them?"

"Jesus, you really do want to get rid of me," I grinned.

"Just get your ass up there, Mr. Hilarious."

Christmas was special, among the Standard Humans, since it was one of the only holidays humanity had taken with them when they expanded. Some of the holidays that I had heard were widely celebrated back in the original United States had become obsolete. Colombus Day, President's Day, Labor Day, other holidays like that.

I stepped into the chamber and I materialized on the second floor. The kids' laughter echoed down the long, carpeted hallway. I pressed my ear against their door before I knocked. I heard giggling and feet scrambling on carpet as I opened the door.

Jane and Felix stared back up at me with smiles on their faces and a gleam in their eyes. Virtual reality gloves and goggles lay, recently tossed aside, on the floor. Jane was seven, and Felix was six.

I loved them beyond words. They were my greatest creations.

I would do anything for them.

Every time I looked at them, I was filled up with a chemical mixture of pride, happiness, love, and a million other feelings that you wouldn't understand unless you were a parent.

They stared up at me with their mother's large, blue eyes, as I stood in the doorway, savoring the moment for a second.

"Is everything okay, Daddy?" Jane asked.

"Of course, sweetie," I assured with a warm smile. "I was just coming up to let you know that dinner's ready."

As the twelve tiles that made up our table rose from the floor, along with four extra tiles that acted as our seats, Jane and I helped Amanda set the table. Felix, with a Cheshire grin on his face, sat down on the floor, waiting for the tile he was sitting on to hoist him up to the proper height. That was his evening ritual. And he always had the same contagious grin.

And that's when it dawned on me:

This was the life I'd always dreamed of.

This was the life the human race had always dreamed of.

Sometimes just thinking about how fortunate I was, how fortunate my family was, was surreal. I was living the human dream.

Family.

Enough to eat.

Children.

Happiness.

Steady jobs.

"Daddy?"

Just hearing my children's voices was enough to—

"Daddy!"

I looked down and saw Jane tugging at my sleeve.

"Are you okay? You weren't answering me."

Damn. It happened again.

"I'm okay."

The image on the ceiling turned to a pink cosmic sunset, like the ones I'd seen pictures of, taken from some of the Government planets. I'd never seen one in person though.

Someday.

It was Christmas morning when the first wave hit.

We were in the middle of lunch.

Edwyn and Jessica, some of our family's oldest friends, were sitting at our table entertaining the kids. Edwyn was tall and muscular, with a perfectly groomed beard and a classic slicked-back undercut. Jessica was significantly shorter, with long, brown hair and a large smile.

Felix was the first to hear the klaxons.

The fleet had torn through EC-1498's outer defense systems, leaving the planet completely vulnerable. No one knew what the hell they were. People were snapping photos with retinal cameras and searching through every known web database, trying to find a match. After ten minutes, the ships covered the entire planet, in a spherical formation that permitted no one to leave.

They gave us five more minutes.

Then they opened fire.