Horatio Week 47: Horatio-Con

Sorry for the late update, everyone! I spent a long and glorious morning hiking and had to work hard to cram the allotted amount of awesome into this week's adventure.

This is the first of the four final installments of The New Adventures of Horatio. I want to thank you all for reading along this far, and hope you'll keep enjoying the series through the end.

If you have any thoughts on a favorite installment from the past year, write me at SeamusSan355@gmail.com and maybe I'll post them.

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 47: Horatio-Con

A stage in a crowded convention hall. A large screen remains at back throughout. A projection plays a sequence of film clips:

Chip Flint, a handsome actor wearing a tie and spectacles, stands in the midst of a flaming throne room, surrounded by bodies, holding a figure in black.

CHIP
Hamlet! Nooooooo!

Cut to:

Chip Flint and the Green Knight racing motorcycles on a collision course down an icy mountain road, firing pistols at each other.

Cut to:

Chip and an attractive actress standing in an elegant parlor, looking at a dead man in a Frankenstein's monster costume. Chip strokes his chin.

CHIP
Kent switched cups. Frankenstein here wasn't the victim; he was the assassin.

ACTRESS
Then the only mystery left is why you aren't making triumphant Danish love to me right now.

CHIP
Whoa.

Cut to:

Chip walking away from an exploding gas station in slow motion.

Cut to:

Chip and a fat actor standing in a field, opposite a crowd of robed cultists with rocket launchers. Chip points at them and brandishes a pistol.

CHIP
I ain't your messiah! But I'd be happy to introduce you!

FAT ACTOR
Yeah!

Cut to:

A dark alley. Chip and the fat actor standing opposite a creepy red dwarf.

CHIP
Only difference between you and me is-

FAT ACTOR
Three feet?

CHIP
I was going to say, "How dead you're gonna be."

FAT ACTOR
I was gonna say that too.

Cut to:

A city street. Chip runs towards the camera in slow motion, brandishing a sword.

VOICE OVER
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy.

Chip leaps for us, in slow motion, raising the sword with both hands.

VOICE OVER
And he's going to kick their asses.

Cut to:

CAPTION
Chip Flint is

The caption explodes to reveal another caption:

CAPTION
The New Adventures of Horatio

Freeze frame. Lights up. Enter William Shakespeare to thunderous applause. The video projector changes to a live shot of Shakespeare. The camera stays on a live feed and focuses on different actors as the play continues.

SHAKESPEARE
I'm William Shakespeare, and this is my greatest creation. You're welcome.

Six weeks, five hundred large, and ten million downloads ago, The New Adventures of Horatio was a loose outline for a series of webisodes based on the controversial career of Denmark's most famous anti-hero since Hamlet. And the phenomenon that it's become is here in front of me.

But, you know, you all deserve the real credit for this. You snuck past Fortinbras's firewalls. There's a war going on and they've talked about martial law, but you traveled and stood in line for Copenhagen Comic-Con in order to be here today. For every person crammed into this convention center in their collectible horn-rims, there are a thousand more joining us as we stream today's creators' panel online. You're here because Horatio speaks to you. And I think if he were here with us today he'd say-

HORATIO
Willy. We need to talk.

Horatio enters from the audience with a microphone of his own. A voice shouts after him from the audience:

VOICE
Your cosplay sucks.

HORATIO
Shut up, Marcellus.

SHAKESPEARE
Holy-! Everybody, we have the real Horatio joining us in the hall today! Get up here, buddy!

Horatio climbs onstage to thunderous applause. Shakespeare gives him a back-patting hug and whispers to him:

SHAKESPEARE
You nuts? You're wanted. This is the excuse they need to shut us down.

HORATIO
If they do your hits will double. Deal with it.

SHAKESPEARE
Let's hear it for Horatio!

HORATIO
I used to love coming to these.

Much applause.

HORATIO
I saw Sullivan again.

SHAKESPEARE
AHAHAHAHAHAHA! What? The acoustics in here are-

HORATIO
He was trying to tell me something. Look, I'm past caring who's pulling the strings, but if I'm fictional or crazy I need you to help me keep it together long enough to take Elsinore.

MARCELLUS
Tell him he's crazy! He doesn't listen to me!

SHAKESPEARE
The series! Everyone's here to hear you talk about the series!

HORATIO
Looks like a travesty.

MARCELLUS
I am neither that fat nor that retarded in real life.

SHAKESPEARE
Questions! Let's throw the floor open for questions!

HORATIO
People are dying, asshole!

SHAKESPEARE
He's dramatic. That's why we love him. Pass those mics out!

HORATIO
This isn't about your little escapist circle-jerk!

An usher hands a microphone to a little girl in the audience.

LITTLE GIRL
This is a question for Horatio.

HORATIO
WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT.

MARCELLUS
Dude. Little girl.

LITTLE GIRL
Horatio, can you say the part that you say at the end of Hamlet?

HORATIO
Yeah, that's not...I mean, that was a play. I hope you know that's not what I actually said.

LITTLE GIRL
It's my favorite part. When we saw the movie it made my Daddy cry and talk about when he was in the war with Norway and he never does that, he's just quiet and he eats too many- He's trying to make me sit down, can you please say it?

Horatio sighs.

HORATIO
I think. It goes a little like this.

But since, so jump upon this bloody question
You from the Polack wars, and you from England
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th'inventors' heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.

LITTLE GIRL (Her voice an awed whisper)
Thank you.

HORATIO
Don't mention it. (To himself.) And that's it, isn't it? That's how you win. You become more than a man.

MARCELLUS
H-man! Bernardo says SWAT teams are dispersing the crowds outside.

HORATIO
Okay. Can I have some inspirational music, please?

David Bowie's "Heroes" starts playing.

Thanks. I saw these war protesters outside. Dressed like me. With signs that read "Horatio Lives". Which I appreciate, even though the need to state that implies that my immediate existence is in question, and it's not like I don't worry about that enough already-

MARCELLUS
They're surrounding the building!

HORATIO
Okay. I appreciate the sentiment. You don't want to get killed invading Sweden. You want Norway out of Denmark. I want Norway out of Denmark. Great.

"Horatio Lives." Prove it. Hit the streets. Bring your friends. Let them arrest you. Clog the prisons and the black sites. March on the palace. This man will lead you.

He points to Shakespeare.

SHAKESPEARE
What?

HORATIO
Fortinbras doesn't want the world to see her shooting the voice of a generation on the evening news.

SHAKESPEARE
Dick!

HORATIO
Everybody watching online: you know she's going to tear through Europe like a stoner through pudding cups. She's using chemical weapons and contracting political assassinations. You could be next in line. Demand sanctions. Organize divestment campaigns.

No one riot or hurt anybody or loot anything. They'll try to hurt us, but our way is better. It'll be bad but, God willing, it'll be over soon.

"Horatio Lives". Let's hope.

SHAKESPEARE
They're breaking in!

HORATIO
Boy Wonder, make yourself useful and kill the power.

MARCELLUS
Fuck you!

HORATIO
Fuck you, Marcellus, there are kids present!

All lights but the video projector die. Horatio's silhouette is projected against the far wall. He is gigantic.

HORATIO
I'm coming, Fortinbras. Stay tuned.

Then the projector dies too.

The End