He stepped into a wide hallway; the floors were cold enough he wished someone had left a pair of slippers behind. Low ceiling, illuminated strips just like before pulsing yellow. Now what? He had no idea where to go.
He looked right and left. The door he’d just exited was at the elbow of the hallway where it made a right-angle turn. It continued left and right maybe a hundred feet before turning again, presumably forming a big square. He could see one other door down each arm.
He chose left and started walking.
“Wrong way, guy,” the male voice sounded, suddenly whisper quiet.
Jacob didn’t stop. One of the benefits of the Godzilla-powered prozac was that disembodied voices didn’t carry much water on the authority scale. I mean, who cared?
“Bro, don’t do it! Duh, nah do it!” the voice warned.
“Why are you whispering?” Jake asked. Kept walking.
“Shut it!”
“Or –“
He was about to say ‘what?’ when something impacted between his shoulder blades with sledgehammer force and a serrated green spike erupted from his breastbone in a spray of blood.
Jacob screamed and it mostly came out as a gurgling sound and a fountain of blood. It hurt. Fucking shit did it hurt. And it hurt even more as he was reeled up towards the ceiling. He saw his feet twitching as they were painted with his own insides and then a massive crunch sounded that was probably his skull being separated from his spinal column and he died.
Again.
***
Chapter 2
: Respawn
He was dead, but… he was standing on the porch of a log-cabin-style resort, looking up at the side of a mountain. Ski-slope bordered by snow-heavy pine trees. Clear blue sky, brilliant, crisp sunshine.
And cutting perfect curves down the pristine slope, came a single figure on a snowboard. Moving with a fluid ease that looked almost magical. It was Circe, and for some reason she was shredding it wearing nothing but a ski-cap, goggles, and a bikini. He stared in fascination as the gorgeous, half-naked girl made a long, perfect curve to slide to a halt in front of him. Face beaming, she sat the goggles on her forehead and kicked her ski boots out of the snowboard stirrups.
“Do you like it?” she asked. “I hope you don’t mind but I peeked a bit into your memories and found this place. You have very strong associations with it.”
Jake looked around. It wasn’t exactly as he remembered it, but it was so close his eyes slid over the little imperfections. He’d been here – the real place – only once. In senior year of college. Had been dragged along by a friend who suddenly had a spare ticket for the five-star resort up in the mountains one spring break. He’d met a girl there. Sherri-something. The kind of corn-fed Midwest girl with blonde hair, daddy’s credit card and a real boyfriend back home who she just wanted to teach a lesson to on the value of fidelity. Jake had crossed her sights and hadn’t stood a chance. Not that he’d have objected to the week-long sex marathon with a hot ski-bunny.
“It’s not exactly like a remember it,” he said, stepping down off the deck into the crunchy snow.
“Nothing ever is. The human mind doesn’t remember things its familiar with. It glosses over those parts and fills in the gaps with an approximation. Your brain is only good at remembering new things. Unique things. Things that you’re experiencing for the first time. That’s why I picked here; it stood out.”
“Well, there’s one big thing missing,” he said. “And that’s that I never made it onto the slopes. We spent the entire week in her room, ordering room service to stay hydrated. Boy, her room-mate was pissed. Should’ve seen the dirty looks she gave me every night she had to camp out on the hotel room floor of one of their friends.”
Circe seemed affected by the cold, nipples hard and covered in goose flesh wearing nothing but a bikini. But she didn’t seem to mind.
“I didn’t know a computer could feel cold,” he gestured with a smile.
Circe looked down and seemed surprised at what she found. “Oh! I guess I can. I created this human body to experience your world, just like you do. It’s… so strange. But so wonderful.” She looked up shyly. “I feel everything the same way you do.”
Come to think of it, Jake barely felt the cold. Only enough of a chill for the intense sunlight to drive away; somehow inside the virtual world Circe had simulated that cozy feeling of perpetually stepping into a sunbeam on a cold day.
“Well, um, those were the memories I was talking about,” Circe seemed shy again. “I hope you don’t mind me peeking.”
Jake felt a moment’s ire at having someone poke around in his private memories. But then Circe was pressing herself against him, rubbing her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, looking up at him with a glint of desire in her eyes. And in that moment his anger faded, imagining Circe growing more and more turned on as she watched him through his memories. In a weird way, it was almost like the computer intelligence was a third participant.
“Would you like to take this discussion inside?” he asked, running his hands up the smooth bare skin of her back.
That sure made her shiver, but not from the cold.
And just like that they had vanished from the snowy slope and were inside the lodge. Not inside the hotel room he remembered, but standing beside the huge crackling fireplace in the middle of the ski lodge’s lobby. It was empty except for them and laid out in front of the fireplace was a huge bearskin rug, a wine bottle, and glasses. Outside the window big fluffy snowflakes were drifting down, and the wind made occasional noises, but it only accented the warm coziness of the fire.
“We have the whole place to ourselves,” Circe whispered.
They kissed, standing in the middle of the huge space. And Jake peeled off his jacket and shirt. Lowered the two of them into the warm bath of the heat from the fire, and the softness of the bearskin. When her top came off Circe gave a gasp as he kissed his way over her body and they shed the last of their clothes.
He knew he wasn’t really here, and that he wasn’t really holding this gorgeous, naked girl. That is was all somehow fooling his senses with some magic inside a computer program. But as Circe moaned and squirmed her perfect body against his, Jake had a hard time caring.
What was harder to shake was the feeling of being exposed. That he was fully naked and hard as a board in the middle of the hotel, and anyone could walk in at any moment.
“It’s all for you,” Circe whispered as he kissed her neck. “Everything here is yours,” she told him, with a husky-voiced hint.
Sliding on top of her, Jake felt her silky thighs part and he was poised on the edge of sliding into her. Felt the heat and wetness that would meet him when he did. When a question occurred to him.
“You said you made this body to experience things like a human girl.”
“Yes,” she breathed, tense and gripping his shoulders with her hands.
“So, you’ve never been human before?”
Circe just shook her head shyly.
Jake forced himself to turn down the throttle on his need to drive inside her. It wasn’t every day a computer lost her virginity. Instead of entering her, he took her breasts in his hands and kissed them. Lavished attention to her entire body as he moved downward. When he went down on her, Circe gave an almost startled shriek that transformed into a moan of pleasure. He would not have guessed that an AI would be a screamer, but Circe made it clear when she climaxed.
Only then, when she was shaking and ready did Jake gently ease himself inside her. Circe’s eyes flew open as he filled her. Her hands making fists in the fur of the rug. She moaned to a climax again as he thrust into her virgin cunt, taking satisfaction in every new experience of ecstasy he taught the computer. It was only when he couldn’t take it any longer that he sped up his pounding. Delivered a body-shaking pounding to her tender body that made her eyes roll up in her head and they both cried out their satisfaction when he filled her with his hot juice.
After, as the
y lay in blissful exhaustion, listening to the crackle of the fire, Jake had time to wonder about what had happened in the real world. How had he died? Where was he? He had to shake off the feeling that he could just stay here forever with Circe.
“Circe, what happens to me now?”
She seemed uncomfortable at the question.
“Just come lie down with me again,” she said and patted the spot beside her. The way her naked body looked in the firelight it was an extremely tempting offer.
“I need to know, what happens now that I died.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask…”
“Circe,” he said, mildly warning her.
“Oh alright. You’re not dead, exactly. You can’t exactly die anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean very soon I have to send you back.”
“Back? And I’ll remember?”
“Yes. I’m warming up another of your clones. Each one of them is implanted with a cortical storage and transmission device. Quantum core in the storage backs up all your memories here across any distance, with me, so when you go back you remember what happened in your previous bodies.”
“Back to what? Where am I?’
“I’m sorry, Jake, I can’t say. I’m programmed not to. I like you, I really do, but all I can do is make your stay here as pleasant as possible. In fact,” and here she seemed sad. “It’s about time.”
“No, wait I want to-“
He woke up in blackness. The metal tube again. Dark and naked. Cold and cramped and on a hard surface. Only the real world could be this ugly.
“What the fuck?”
“You have been debited 7 points from your insurance, Jake,” the Circe’s voice informed him. “Please be reminded that continued treatment for post-mortality will affect your premiums. And be careful with the others.”
And just like before, he was unceremoniously shunted out of the tube. Same white room. Same mirror. The yellow light was very slowly cycling. White-yellow. White-yellow. Bathing the room in banana tones. He just got to his knees when the other seven hatches opened. Another seven versions of himself were ejected onto the floor into a spaghetti of limbs.
Jacob crawled backwards as the naked pile of humanity sorted itself out. Three women, four men. All naked, shave-headed and looking almost as bewildered as he was. There was a tattooed number on each cheek or he wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. The men’s and women’s bodies were similar, with wide shoulders, and narrow hips. The women all had small, hard breasts. Not exactly his ideal of feminine. For a moment Jake had trouble sorting out their babbling speech.
“Totally nerve, catstick!”
“Ugh. I should’ve known.”
“This? Is it? Where’s my low-fat kave? The brochure said refreshments and my own personal motoslave. Where’s the slave? And where are my clothes? I paid good money to bring thirty kilos of personal possessions.”
“Ugh, your boobs touched me,” one of the male octuplets said. “Get offa me, breeder!”
“Oh you wish!”
“You’re-“ Jacob tried to find words. “You’re clones!” he exclaimed.
That got the attention of at least half of them. “Scan the looper,” one said. “I think somebody dipped below the san threshold, amiright?”
“Murklumps!” one male clone with number ‘N26 101.1’ on his cheek exclaimed, standing bolt upright. “Murklumps ate the fiduciaries in heaven!”
Number 1 grabbed his mouth with both hands and began trying to shove his fist down his own throat. Everyone stared at him, appalled by the gagging, thrusting battle as he lurched around the room. Finally realizing he wouldn’t be able to reach down his own neck, the man withdrew his hand and turned wild eyes on the rest of them.
“I’ll swallow your soul!” N26 101.1 screamed and charged them.
His first punch caught one of the women in the cheek; it was a wild haymaker that barely connected, but the woman screamed bloody murder and catapulted backwards, slamming her head on one of the still-open decanting hatches. Finished with her, N26 101.1 heel-stomped the next clone – a male with the number N26 105.1 – in the stomach and sent him into dry-heaving convulsions. Jacob sat frozen, unable to decide what to do.
Wait… no he wasn’t.
He was standing. Legs spread in some sort of martial arts stance, arms held in loose fists at chest height. He hadn’t remembered doing it.
With the element of surprise gone, the remaining four unharmed octuplets set on the madman in a blur of holds, limb blocks and strikes. In moments the attacker had annihilated all of them. Like he wasn’t even trying. Jake watched dumbfounded as the slightest hit from N26 101.1’s swinging fist caused an intense over-reaction. Every blow seemed to land like an anvil, the injured party collapsing and clutching themselves in a weird parody of agony. It was like the staged theatrics of soccer players who threw themselves on the ground and had to be carried off the field.
Meanwhile, N26 101.1 seemed immune to any pain. He pitched and foamed at the mouth. When there was nobody else left standing he turned on Jacob.
“Easy there big fella. Let’s talk this over,” Jake said reasonably.
In reply the man barked like a dog and charged with teeth bared. Like he was about to chew a chunk right out of Jake’s face.
Ahh fuck!
His parents had always told him to avoid violence because it never solved anything. Even so Jacob had found it settled playground disputes pretty well. Until nobody wanted to fight him anymore. But that had been it. His entire adult life he’d never thrown a single punch. Had trusted the cops to take care of it for him. But there sure as hell were no cops here now.
Taking a deep breath Jake drove the heel of his hand into the maniac’s nose. Hard.
N26 101.1’s head snapped back and he staggered, eyes fluttering. For a moment Jake thought that might be enough to end the whole thing, but after rocking on his heels a moment the man snarled and sent clawed fingers for Jake’s eyes. Fists pummelled Jake everywhere, too fast to block.
“Mother-fucker!” Jake swore, defending his face.
He gripped the man by the arms and drove his knee up hard. He’d never felt a man’s naked dick and balls before, but as his knee crushed them N26 101.1 collapsed forward with a gagging, gurgling noise and went stiff.
Just for good measure Jake kneed him in the face and N26 101.1 was down on the ground.
Jake looked around as his attacker moaned on the floor. Well… so was the rest of the room.
Girl number N26 107.1 stumbled with a bleeding lip to the lozenge box molded to the wall and swung the lid open.
“Synthetic endorphins!” she moaned.
Her shaking hands scattered half the contents clinking to the floor and finally produced a molded handgrip with a tiny nozzle at one end. For a moment Jake thought she planned to sedate the crazed homicidal maniac but instead she pressed the nozzle to her forearm, while it made a hiss-click sound and she let out a sigh of relief, sliding slowly to the ground.
“Why does everything hurt? H-how are you still standing?” N26 107.1 asked foggily.
He was about to answer when the other naked humans crowded around her, fighting to get the bottle of what was obviously painkillers next. Only when they were done did Number N26 102.1 turn to the moaning maniac on the ground. While the others pinned the crazed man to the floor he pressed the device to his bare skin and a hiss of compressed air followed. In moments the frothing maniac went limp.
Fight abruptly over the other naked clones stared at each other. Except for cuts and bruises they all seemed to have recovered.
“What the goss was that?” N26 107.1 asked with a rapidly swelling black eye.
“Stasis psychosis,” the male with the drug injector, N26 102.1, said.
“Nah nah nah, that ganz was straight looper. That’s a replication error. Something very wrong going on here. Aught not to happen. I say something went wrong with the cryo-caps.”
“Gos
s the cryo-caps, why does everything hurt? So much!” female Number N26 103.1 was almost in hysterics.
“Not important.” N26 102.1 dismissed it.
“Goss it isn’t!”
“Whatevs, he’s down. He’s out. Problem solved. I’m Sub-officer Whiteman, which one of you is squad-leader Cockfiend?”
There was a long silence. “Uh, I think it was him,” one of the women held up the unconscious man’s left wrist. It was circled by an opaque red plastic band.
N26 102.1 – sub-officer Whiteman – snarled in exasperation. “Of course he was. Typical government screwup. Probably some charity case never achieved anything but pushing files back and forth. Then promoted up the chain because the system says everyone deserves a bump every year.”
“Oh yeah? How’d you get promoted?” the man with the bleeding lip asked.
“Shut your yawp, tacobender.”
Jake tried to understand how Whiteman could make that kind of insult if they were all identical clones.
“Tacobender? I’m from Nuke York.”
“And that makes one bit of difference because…?” Whiteman dismissed him. He knelt by the twitching body and removed the armband. It seemed to uncoil by itself and transform into a rigid card. “That puts me in command. I have operational knowledge of what we’re up against – “
“Which is?” N26 107.1 asked dreamily, one hand cupped over her swelling eye and obviously high.
“Possible containment breach. We’ve got to assess the situation, perform a threat analysis and take action. We are active as of this moment.”
“Containment breach?”
“Someone got past the security into the facility,” one of the others explained.
“Yeah, goss!” one of the men exclaimed, making a weird hand gesture. “Can’t believe it finally happened. Waited my whole life for this.”
“Uh,” Jacob spoke up. “For what? Who are you? What exactly is this?”
“The apocalypse, ganz, whatyu think?”
“Apocalypse?” Jacob said slowly. They were all staring at him. Was this a practical joke? “Exactly what kind of apocalypse? Zombies? Robots? Space meteor?” He laughed but it died in his throat at the serious looks from the others.
How to Beat Tomorrow Page 2
