How to Beat Tomorrow Read online

  How to Beat Tomorrow

  A post-apocalyptic harem story

  J Foster Ward

  Published by Evil Genius Society

  Edited by Craig Martel

  Warning: please read all the way through if you need to be warned about adult content

  Sometime in the tomorrows after the 23rd century the world ended. Nobody knows how or when, but a small group of people saw it coming, and prepared for the end. Inside secret bunkers they stashed science, guns, robots and a supply of cloned bodies and trusted it all to a computer to wake them up when it was time to rebuild civilization.

  In the future, every science fantasy had been realized: clones, androids, laser guns, genetically modified supermen and even animals gifted with the ability to walk upright and almost-human intelligence.

  It all existed, and that was before cataclysmic disasters released biogenetic forces that created mutants, radiation made atomic superbugs, and worldwide computer viruses drove the robots insane.

  Now, inside one secret bunker for the Tomorrow Program, cloned bodies are warmed up, filled with the consciousnesses of the volunteers and shoved naked into a mad world to save the bunker before intruders destroy it. Among them is Jacob Mortimer, only he doesn’t remember how or why he’s even there.

  Jake Mortimer died in the early 21st century, but now somehow he’s back, and is the last, real man in the future.

  Surrounded by 23rd century idiots who never had to work a day in their life, are too politically correct to save their own species, and in severe addiction withdrawal from the 23rd century version of the internet, Jake finds himself the only one who can save the bunker, the mission, and maybe the whole world.

  CONTENT WARNING: this story contains adult themes and imagines a world where today’s cultural norms and civilization wouldn’t cut it. The protagonist happily uses physical violence, foul language, and has the sexual duty to repopulate the world.

  This story contains a harem and is an Adult Science Fantasy novel.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 : The End of the World

  Chapter 2 : Respawn

  Chapter 3 : Saboteur

  Chapter 4 : Bug in the System

  Chapter 5 : Because That’s How You Get Atomic Superbugs

  Chapter 6 : Mission Jitters

  Chapter 7 : Death by Gloop

  Chapter 8 : Robo Nurse

  Chapter 9 : A Small Leak

  Chapter 10 : Hell and High Water

  Chapter 11 : Going Towards a Bright White Light

  Chapter 12 : A New Deal

  Chapter 13 Reaching the Surface

  Chapter 1

  : The End of the World

  He saw it all, like he was watching his entire life on a screen played in fast-forward. So fast he could only catch glimpses of it all: he was born, raised, grew up, got sick and then the slow, miserable downward journey towards perdition.

  His name was Jacob Mortimer. Born in 1993. Died in 2027.

  Not in some ‘I moved to Cleveland’ sense. Dead, dead. He remembered it. Remembered every breath a fight against his failing muscles. Getting weaker by the day. His entire body deteriorating in hospital. The last, desperate, attempt to reverse the effects as he signed up for an experimental treatment in the Viral Huntington’s Advanced Center for Research.

  And now, somehow, he was that man who succumbed to the disease and here he was again.

  As the rush of memories scrolled to a halt and slowly faded, Jacob found himself laying back, looking up at the sky. For the briefest of moments he was in a hospital bed, but with a dream-like quality it became a cabana chair, and the sky was an impossible blue over a tropical water. With a crescent moon of perfect empty beach stretching in either direction. The sand a white powder so fine it was like powdered sugar. Impossibly soft between his bare toes.

  “Where in the hell….?” He asked himself.

  A perfect, green jungle bordered the beach, and in the slowly shifting low-tide of the bay there was a single splash. Jacob sat up and for a moment luxuriated in the simple movement. Something he hadn’t been able to do in years. He stood up, legs strong. Full of energy. He felt better than he had his entire life…

  Life? But how could he have died? Somehow, some way, they must have cured him. Was this that last experimental medical treatment his doctor had put him in?

  The splash in the water was back, and all other thoughts were cut off as a figure emerged from the ocean. She was… like some sort of mermaid. Something too perfect to be real. A gorgeous woman, long hair slicked back, tanned body like a supermodel, in a bikini that clung to her body. He watched her walk out of the water towards him, revealing more of her perfect self as she emerged. She smiled as she approached and waved.

  Jacob looked behind himself to see who she was waving too, but the beach was empty.

  “I’m glad to see you’re back with us,” she said pleasantly. Where was that accent from? Irish? German?

  “Back?”

  “Yeah, back. Your numbers are good. Faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. Memory assimilation and patterning completed in record time. I was worried about the old file format but with a staging buffer it was a piece of cake. Those original mapping engineers sure knew their stuff.”

  “I’m sorry. Engineers? I don’t know… where is this place?”

  “This? This isn’t anyplace. It’s the loading screen during the mapping of your data into external organic storage. I’m Circe, by the way.”

  He felt strange just standing there and instinct made him extend his hand. She gave him a funny smile and took it with a chuckle. Her fingers were warm, soft. The ocean still dripping from her body left his fingers salty wet.

  “I’m Jacob. Jacob Mortimer.”

  “Uh yeah. I know, Jake. I’ve had your file since, well, since forever. You’re the very very first one, actually.”

  She stared at him, leaning close like she was inspecting him for blemishes or cracks. Her perfect lips parted and her big blue eyes flickered across him, like she was fascinated.

  “You’re… different from the rest. Aren’t you?”

  “The rest of what?”

  She laughed. It sounded so comfortable and familiar he wanted to hear it every day for the rest of his life. “Honestly, I could study your code for forever. You’re rare. Like uncovering the tomb of a lost pharaoh.”

  He didn’t know if he should be flattered or if she’d just called him a fossil.

  “Can I… this may sound weird, but can I kiss you?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Kiss me?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard about it, but never met anyone who kisses.”

  What kind of injustice was it that a woman this beautiful had never been kissed? “I, uh, I mean, sure.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled and leaning in closely she pressed her lips against his like she was trying to press the button of an elevator using only her mouth. Hard, and unmoving. Before he knew it she was done, leaving the taste of salt on his lips. Could this day get any stranger? Since when did beautiful girls on private beaches ask to kiss him?

  “Hmmm.”

  “Hmmm what?” he asked.

  “I just… I thought there would be more.”

  “There is if you do it right,” he said, mildly offended.

  “How do you do it right?”

  “Well not like that!”

  She didn’t seem upset. Just genuinely curious. “Can you show me?”

  It was a little intimidating, but he nodded yes. He’d bet anything he could kiss better than any guy she’d ever met. Stepping closer he could almost feel the cool of her skin against his. When she just waited he cupped one hand against her neck and gently guided her forward, leaning in to
plant a real kiss on her. Gently massaging her lips and making her give out a soft, startled sound of appreciation. She didn’t pull away and in a moment her body leaned against his, the thin fabric of her bikini the only thing between them as her body seemed to fit perfectly molded to his. Ohh god, she felt… she felt better than good. He kissed her harder, more eagerly, and she responded. Opening her lips, letting out little gasps as he stroked her neck and worked his mouth gently but firmly on hers.

  When he slid the tip of his tongue against hers, she shivered and almost collapsed against him, letting out a low moan.

  Only then he broke away, and left her, eyes closed, lips parted, still in shock.

  “That’s how you kiss.”

  A moment later she blinked her eyes and came to her senses. “Wow,” she beamed up at him. “They sure don’t make em like you any more.”

  “Well if you think that’s good,” he smiled. “I could show you a few other things.”

  “Mmmmm, I think I might like that,” Circe grinned. Then stepped back, suddenly professional as a bank clerk. “However it will have to wait for another time.”

  She cocked her head curiously and a glowing screen of charts and graphs appeared hanging in the air between them. She waved her hands through it, changing some of the numbers.

  “Uh, Circe. What’s happening” he asked, feeling flushed, and a little dizzy.

  “Compiler has finished, Jake. Looking good. Fidelity nominal. Decimal zero, zero, zero one percent loss of pattern. Truly remarkable after all this time. Time for you to head out.”

  “Out? Where?”

  “Oh, not my department I’m afraid. That’s all up to Cool Breeze. I’m just the on-site Resurrection Inc administrator. Good luck, Jake. I’d say I look forward to seeing you soon, but we both know what that would mean.”

  They did? Jake sure didn’t know. What did she mean?

  And before he could say another word she was gone. There one moment and vanished the next. Then the sound and smell of the ocean breeze vanished. And the green of the jungle. Followed by the sky, the water and even the sand, like a series of light switches had been turned off, until he was in a formless black void. And before he could scream, he was suddenly someplace else.

  ***

  The yell came out of his mouth, echoing inside a tiny confined space. He wasn’t on the beach, and he was definitely alone. More importantly he was inside what felt like a narrow metal coffin in the pitch black. He craned his head to look above him hoping to find a door. Wriggled his hand above his head and banged on it once. Felt as solid as a cast steel hatch on an armoured personnel carrier; like the one the local legion had as a monument out front when he visited his grandparents as a kid. Jake wriggled further towards his feet and kicked down. Felt the same.

  He lay in the dark and thought through the puzzle.

  “What’s the last thing you remember, Jake?” he asked himself.

  “That would be waking up inside this tube naked, Jake,” he replied.

  “No seriously. What do you really remember?”

  “Uh. The Viral Huntington’s Research hospital.”

  “And?”

  “And the symptoms had progressed. Way worse.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” he almost shouted.

  “And it wasn’t just worse, it was the terminal stages. You died, bud.”

  “Oh. Right. That. Sure, I remember that.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  He probed around the thought for a while. “Yeaahhh,” he said suspiciously. “Not really; how about that? Of course there’s more important things to worry about. Like I’m in a metal coffin of some kind.”

  “Yeah and how about that?” he chided himself. “That doesn’t bother you either.”

  “Nope. Sure doesn’t.”

  “Neither does having a conversation with yourself.”

  He shut up then. Really, all things considered, he should be going into screaming shock. But somehow it all seemed, well, not exactly normal… but just plain doable. Not long after he’d been confined to a wheelchair when the Huntington’s hit stage 3 his doctor had started prescribing heavy doses of tranquilizers. It had been like being imbedded inside a glass brick. The world was there but it didn’t seem real. Didn’t seem to involve him, somehow. This was a lot like that. Except instead of feeling dead inside he felt a kindof eager optimism. Like he knew a solution to getting out of this tube had to happen, he just wished it would hurry up.

  A series of warning beeps from somewhere let him know he was done waiting. The metal coffin seemed to jostle. Shake. Vibrate like …

  Like he was moving.

  Then the seemingly solid floor of the coffin by his feet fell out and he slid bodily out of the metal canister and hit the cold, sterile white light. He felt the pain of impact but it seemed dull. Like whatever was insulating him from mental pain was holding hands with some kickass analgesics. He climbed to his hands and knees, looking around. He’d become a kindof connoisseur of those kinds of pain management in the hospital too.

  The room was an oblong, rectangular chamber with white walls, floors and ceiling. Where any of the surfaces met there was a diagonally placed strip of illumination so if you could look at the room in cross section it would be octagonal. Everything was featureless and didn’t reveal any joints or even what kind of material it was made of. It reminded him of sci-fi spaceships in the 70s looked like. Like the spaceship in 2001. No, Like Starcrash.

  “At least HAL opened the pod bay door, right?”

  A soft hiss and clunk behind him. The hatch he’d fallen out of swung closed. There was a line of eight hatches on that wall. Each was high enough up the wall to park a wheeled gurney beneath. The opposite wall, when he swung his head around, had a wide mirror. And beside that the only door.

  The door was, again, Starcrash standard issue; no handle, just a glass plate and a pair of buttons where a doorknob should be. Near the door was a square lozenge molded to the wall about the size of a briefcase. It was emblazoned with a black and yellow symbol like a vertical line and a triangle. Like a ‘scan back’ button on his car stereo.

  “Thank you for choosing Resurrection Incorporated for all your post-mortal needs” Circe’s voice came from above. He almost spun around to find where she had snuck up on him.

  “Your account has been debited accordingly. Should you find yourself with a life-deficit in the future please consider joining our Frequent Dyer program.” Her voice was subtly amplified, so it seemed to come from all directions. Calmly reassuring. Like an old TV advertisement for a tropical vacation.

  “Circe? Circe where am I?”

  But instead of answering his question she simply said: “Please proceed to the next station, Jake.”

  A chime sounded and she was gone.

  What station? Jacob ignored the words and moved towards the wide mirror. He needed a good look at himself.

  The face that looked back at him was familiar, but not him. Blinking at the reflection he was swamped by a rogue wave of jamais vu. Unable to identify his face as belonging to him. He cocked his head like a dog, hoping that if he turned to just the right angle and saw himself in just the right light he would recognize himself. But it didn’t happen. It was like he was staring at a stranger in a window who mocked him by mimicking his every move.

  He was pale skinned, and dark-haired. Or at least would have been dark-haired if his hair wasn’t shaved to a black stubble. The eyes were bright green, curious, the nose a strong, straight blade that hinted a reminder of an eagle’s beak. The body…

  Well, he certainly wasn’t the emaciated sick skeleton he had been… The body reminded him of an Olympic swimmer. Lanky, wide shouldered, every muscle defined and hard without ridiculous weightlifter bulk. Virtually hairless, he was an after-ad for depilation. He checked himself out down south and nodded in appreciation. His genitals which were, without a doubt, well hung.

  Well, at least I have that going for me.

/>   He looked at his hands. Rose on the balls of his feet and bounced. On impulse he fell forward and caught himself on his fingertips. Stopped counting the number of pushups he could do at fifty not because he was tired but because he was bored. And because his dick kept thumping into the cold floor. He sprang up and shook his hands. He massaged his shoulders and neck and that’s when his fingers brushed against the flat discs at the base of his skull.

  ‘What the fuck?” he whispered to himself.

  He probed at the hairline and found two symmetrical rows of three metal discs set flush with his skin. He craned his neck in the mirror to try and see them. Gingerly prodded one and dug a fingernail into the edge, trying to pry it loose. He felt a tug inside his neck muscles that said it was surgically implanted deep in his body.

  The illumination panels switched color and grew to a soft yellow hue. A new voice. Male and familiar, spoke next.

  “Hey, buddy, move on to the exit, ya?”

  Hanging in midair at head height by the door was the slowly rotating, glowing image of a bird with its wings outspread. Jake slowly approached it and passed his hand through the free-floating hologram. The door slid open. He put his hand in the bird again and it closed.

  “Guy,” the voice said. “Stop poking the bird.”

  Where did he know that voice from? He fingered the bird hologram one more time and the door opened. Stepping out cautiously he saw a pair of padded swivel chairs, one draped in white fabric, set behind a featureless black slab of a desktop. The desk was set just below what he now saw was a one-way window looking into the room he’d just left. Aside from that it had a tall, narrow panel like a locker door and another briefcase-sized lozenge molded to the wall. The same ‘fast-forward’ symbol adorned this one except it was orange and black.

  And there was another door.

  Jacob picked up the white fabric. It was a lab coat that shed a small shower of dust. Had obviously been there a long time. He slipped it on over his naked body and when the bird hologram appeared by the other door he high-fived it and exited that one as well.