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Mouse is a young lady from Boundary, a section of the land called the Park. It borders the Jungle on one side and Newer Orleans on the other. While Earth hangs in the sky up above. Keeping their community running takes long days of work. It’s not enough, not enough food, not enough goods. Mouse asks, “Why is everyone working so hard? There’s got to be a better way.” But innovation is against the laws of the Castle the capital of the Park.

So Mouse works on her technology projects in secret. Like figuring out how the robotic Elephanthead that hangs over the town’s bar works. It’s been there as long as anyone can remember, singing songs and reciting poetry at random. Alone one night, Mouse cracks a code in Elephantheads’ ramblings. It tells here where she can find the Park’s most contraband items, books. There’s a room full of them in the Cursed Manor.

She returns from that haunted place with an armload of precious books. Unfortunately, a representative from the Castle arrives in Boundary. It’s the Duck, as unreasonable as he is unintelligible. He knows someone from Boundary has stolen from the Cursed Manor. He’s here to findthe transgressor. While the Duck tears up Boundary searching, Mouse finds a slot in the back of Elephanthead. It’s big enough for a damaged copy of Don Quixote. When she slides it into the slot, Elephanthead becomes fully functional. Or at least as much as head can be, a head who’s a bit insane.

Mouse covers for the awakened Elephanthead. But all Hell breaks loose when the Duck discovers what she’s done, pirates from another community raid Boundary, and a giant headless robot body with four arms stumbles into town. Mouse dodges pirates and the Duck. Elephanthead’s body pulls his head from the wall of the bar and places it on his shoulders. For the first time, Elephanthead is complete.

Whole, Elephanthead makes short work of the raiding pirates while the Duck escapes. It seems that Duck arranged the pirate raid, but why? Elephanthead declares Duck a villain and sets off on a quest to bring him to justice. Mouse sees an opportunity to find out why the Park is the way it is. With Elephanthead she’ll be safe anywhere.

The Duck fled across the desert and Elephanthead and Mouse followed. Over Lighting Mountain. Through the aging city of Newer Orleans, rotting and decadent. Across the river, its single island home to an orphan boy of terrible disposition. Down Main Street, pristine and empty, at least by humans. And into the high tech Land of Tomorrow, with rockets built that have never launched.

That’s where Mouse meets a real engineer. Someone who maintains the robots of the Park. Robots like the Duck. For centuries, these robots have maintained the status quo at all costs. Mouse finally has the answers to her question, “Why is everyone working so hard when there’s a better way?” The robots have been keeping people too busy to improve their lives or change anything in any way.

Outraged, Mouse vows to bring the whole system down. So people can control of their own destinies. With loyal and strong Elephanthead by her side, she follows the Duck’s trail into the Land of the Fantastic. A journey to the Castle itself, to take down whoever sits on the throne. Instead of a who, they find a what. The personality of the Park’s inventor, projected as a hologram. It explains that the Park is a space station that used to be an amusement park. When the Earth’s environment collapsed, people fled to the Park for safety. To keep them safe is to keep them from leaving, which means keeping them too busy surviving to do anything else.

Mouse isn’t having it. With the knowledge she’s learned in the Land of Tomorrow, she wipes the computer version of the Park’s founder. The orbital amusement park’s systems begin to fail. Leaving people in chaos, but free. And Mouse heads back to the Land of Tomorrow to get those rockets working.

All his life, Mark did everything right, everything he was supposed to. He studied hard and got good grades. When he graduated he worked hard and was loyal to his company. It didn’t matter. Nobody cared. After all that effort, he was just another disposable cog in the machine of business. Thrown away every time an accountant somewhere figured they could save a few bucks without him. And every time he got laid off, he’d have to start his career over again. He ended up at an Internet sweatshop cranking out websites for little pay and no respect.

It was the same with women. He was polite, patient. Picked up every check without batting an eye. He’d sometimes get a second date, but never a third. He tried to keep his hopes down, but they’d rise every time, only to get crushed and crushed again.

Still he soldiered on. Looking for the one thing missing that’ll help him get his life on track, turn it around. Maybe he needed a pet. So he adopted a dog from the shelter, a tiny little mutt, named Butch. A sympathetic act toward a helpless animal, sure to ingratiate him with his coworkers. And a cute little dog could to get him attention from the ladies. A month later, the dog tore up his apartment, defecated everywhere, and was driving Mark insane. Enraged, the threatened to kill the animal. Unimpressed, Butch told Mark, “You haven’t got the balls.”

Like Marley & Me meets The Exorcist, the little dog drives Mark further from reality and deeper into depravity. Mark thought his life was worthless before, but when Butch is done with him there’s nothing left, just a man sleeping in his car. That’s when Butch makes Mark a deal. He’ll give Mark everything he ever wanted, in exchange for his soul.

Desperate, Mark agrees to this Faustian bargain.

Butch sends Mark on a series of infernal missions, each more depraved than the last. And each time, Mark’s life gets better; a new job with coworkers that respect him, a new home with neighbors that like him, and a loving girlfriend. But some of them are starting to suspect that there’s something not quite right about his little dog.