How to Beat Tomorrow

by J Foster Ward

  “Show me.”

  “What?” he was startled.

  “I want to see how good it is; show me.”

  “Uh, no!”

  “Yes!”

  “Fuck that!”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not jerking off in front of you just so you can watch! Do it yourself!”

  “I don’t know how!” she yelled at him. “I wouldn’t know anything about such primitive practices.”

  Jacob massaged his temples with both hands. Why me? “I can’t help you there. Just experiment.”

  “I, uh, I did. And um, it didn’t work.” Then realizing what she had admitted she began to blush

  Jake was so startled he just stood there. Not because she’d failed, but because a clone had just admitted to trying physical pleasure. They’d done nothing but treat him like a pervert for even knowing how sex worked. Maybe, just maybe, Milan was a closeted heterosexual.

  “Well, um. Even back in the 20th, it wasn’t uncommon for women to fail. Some people could be as repressed about their bodies as you people are.”

  “I am not repressed!” she snapped. “It’s all just so… confusing down there!”

  Jake chuckled.

  “You’re laughing at me!”

  “No! No, sorry! I’m just remembering myself as a teenager. It took me forever to find my girlfriend’s clit.”

  “But you discovered it?’ she demanded eagerly.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Good. Then you must show me.” With that Milan climbed up on the control console, naked body disrupting the displays, and opened her knees.

  Was this… actually happening? Jacob couldn’t remember the last time a woman had asked for sex. After he got sick it had pretty much meant a life of loneliness. Well, why the hell not? Chivalry wasn’t dead, not yet anyway.

  Looking both ways up the corridor he made sure the coast was clear and pushed the chair out of the way. He stood uncomfortably between her legs, so they were more or less face-to face. Milan’s expression was of impatient expectation; like some rich girl who was waiting for a barista to finish making her double-espresso soy latte.

  Her cunt was… perfect was a good term for it. Hairless except for a little tuft at the top, and pretty as a picture. Probably they had designer pussy sculptors in the future, just like everything else on the clones had been genetically crafted to perfection.

  “So,” he cleared his throat, “The parts of the female genitalia are-“

  “Don’t patronize me!” she snapped. “I know anatomy! What’s the bliss part?”

  “Can I…” he held up a finger.

  “Don’t be boring.”

  With his index finger he gently prodded her clit. “Here.”

  “And? Go on. Show me.”

  Sighing, he took her by the hand and placed her fingers on top of it.

  “Are you trying to make a fool out of me? I tried that! It got sore and chafed.”

  “Was it wet?”

  “Pardon me?” she said frostily.

  Before she could say something else bitchy he licked his thumb and slowly circled the nub of her clit.

  “What are you… Oh!” she began to shout and suddenly let out a surprised sound of pleasure. Then, “Why are you stopping?”

  Jacob had stood back. This was too much. To be taunted by this nubile thing after years of chastity and then have her treat him like she was doing him a favor?

  “What am I? You’re slave or something? You and the others treat me like a worm, then you’re suddenly giving me orders to pleasure you? No thanks. Find someone else.”

  “B-but there is no one else!”

  “Not my problem,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Please!” she shouted, a tremble in her voice.

  That stopped him. Dammit!

  “Please, I need you.”

  He turned back. “Say it again.”

  “I… I need you,” she whispered, arms crossed protectively and shoulders hunched in shame. The sight was melting his resolve.

  “Need me to what?”

  “Need you to… to make me feel bliss.”

  He stepped closer and slid his hand up her thigh, finding the damp slit of her cunt and she shivered.

  “Yes!” she let out a long hiss and her body relaxed.

  “Are you going to do what I tell you?” he asked, slowly circling her clit with a touch so light she squirmed.

  “Y-yes. Yes anything!”

  “Open your mouth.”

  She hesitated but obliged. When he moved his fingers to her lips she squirmed and tried to avoid it until he reminded her.

  “You said you’d do anything.”

  Slowly she opened her mouth and he slid his fingers over her tongue until they were slippery wet. Then returning them to her cunt he began to slide over her sensitive button. Milan gave a gasp and fell back, eyes wide as he expertly stroked her to pleasure. He couldn’t help but tease her a little, slowing down to a snail’s pace, touching so lightly she pleaded for him to go harder. Then stroking her so hard and fast she began she shake and tremble while her breathing came in ragged gasps. When he felt her getting close he finally slid a finger inside her, feeling her so tight that only the flood of wetness inside her let him squeeze a single digit within.

  That seemed to send her over the edge.

  With a cry that echoed down the hallways, Milan arched her back like a bow, so only the top of her shaved skull touched the console, and her eyes rolled up in her head. She came so hard as he stroked her inside and out that she lost control of her body, shaking and almost falling off the desk until he caught her. She came with a flood and lay trembling beneath him for so long his back hurt from being bent over. Despite himself, he had a raging erection. So painfully hard it throbbed with his heartbeat.

  “Wh-wha…” she began, and had to try again. “What was that?”

  “That’s an orgasm. Your first one, I guess. Congratulations.”

  “That’s impossible! Nothing has ever felt so… so wrong and so good at the same time.”

  “Yeah, that’s what makes it hot,” he agreed.

  “What did you do? At the end?”

  “That was inside you.”

  “You were?” she sounded ready to be outraged but in a moment gave up and just lay back, purring. She finally noticed his hard cock and jumped. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “That’s supposed to happen. When I’m sexually aroused it gets hard. How else do you think it gets inside a woman? You know it’s supposed to get inside, right?”

  Suddenly her entire demeanor changed on a dime. Despite what they’d just shared, her eyes went big with fear and scrambled away from him to the other side of the console.

  “Get out!” she yelled. “You disgusting monkey pervert! I asked you to show me euphoria, not violate me with your… your horrible violent meathorn!”

  Aaannnd there it was! The same old clone future-prejudice. Jake glared at her and backed away slowly. Like he would ever just take advantage like that!

  “Okay, princess. Have it your way. I wasn’t asking to put it in you anyway. And trust me, I won’t touch you again, not even if you begged me. You’re welcome by the way!”

  Perhaps sensing she’d misjudged something, but entirely clueless what it was, Milan’s expression turned from anger to confusion. Whatever. He didn’t have the desire to help her figure it out.

  And with that, mustering as much dignity as he could, Jake stormed out of the room, still flying a flagpole stiff erection. Maybe the equipment locker still had a sledgehammer laying around. He had a little bit of frustration he was ready to take out.

  ***

  Chapter 7

  : Death by Gloop

  Now that the gigantic atomic bug had been incinerated, Cool Breeze shut off the flashing red lights, and turned up the ventilation to clear out the smell of melted plastec walls and roasted insect. The computer did not, however, do anything else to clean up the mess and issued orders
to the team.

  “You want us to what?” Milan had said incredulously.

  “Clean up the bodies.” Cool Breeze repeated.

  “But… that’s disgusting! There’s one of me out there. I don’t want to see me after a bug has been eating me!”

  “Talk about cleaning up after yourself,” Jake muttered.

  “Make the droids do it,” Sabotage Jones said, arms crossed.

  “I only had one in this module and you ripped its arm off and killed it,” Cool Breeze said pointedly.

  “Why only one?”

  “That’s classified.”

  “Like squidicles it is!”

  “You heard what operations said!” Whiteman said. “We have a job to do!”

  “Where do we put them?” Jake asked, and everyone turned to him.

  “Nobody asked you caveman,” Whiteman growled with barely hidden rage.

  The sub-officer hadn’t overtly accused him of being a traitor since Jake had destroyed the giant monster bug and Cool Breeze confirmed that Jake wasn’t the biohazard. But Jake wasn’t entirely sure the man had given up on his threat to erase Jake’s stored memories from the main data banks so he couldn’t be resurrected.

  Jake ignored Whitman and addressed the invisible Nevermore computer: “Like where do we clean them up? Stuff them down the toilet? That’ll clog the drain for sure.”

  “Clog the what?”

  “In his day they used bowls full of water,” Jones snickered, and the whole room made disgusted noises and laughed.

  “Oh come on!” Jake complained. “Are you saying there are no toilets in the future?”

  “He doesn’t know about the three squidicles!” Bitchmurder exclaimed, and they all laughed even harder.

  “Enough grabbassing!” Whiteman shouted, trying to quiet them.

  “I’m opening the blast door to Delta Module,” Cool Breeze interrupted. “There’s an organic reclamation chute there. All organic material is sent to the protein recycler vats.”

  “Wait, there’s a way out of here? Another module?” Jake shouted. “And you left us trapped in here with the insect equivalent to a wood chipper?”

  “Of course. I couldn’t open it until the threat had been neutralized or the entire module might have been infected.

  “Dick move!” Jake exclaimed.

  Before anyone else could think of another way to insult him, Jake returned to the equipment locker to 3D print a cart, a shovel and some buckets. While the other naked clones were stepping around pools of blood and squeamishly picking up dismembered limbs, Jake shoveled pan-fried bug into the cart and got out of there before someone remembered at least one cloned body was stuffed up an air shaft and somebody would have to climb up to get it.

  “Cool Breeze? Where’s Delta module?” he asked the ceiling.

  A holographic bird icon appeared at the far end of the hall and when Jake got there an entire section of the wall slid back, revealing a huge metal blast door, like the side of a battleship. With a low grind of unused mechanisms the door cracked open and a breeze rushed past Jake as the air pressure equalized. Lights in the other module illuminated more similar hallways, perfect and pristine, like Echo Module had been before the bugfight. But unlike Echo Module, the lights in Delta were few and far between, like emergency lights that came on during a blackout.

  “Where to?” Jake asked, but the voice of the computer was silent.

  Sighing, Jake pulled the cart down the empty corridors, feeling hair on his neck stand up as he explored the creepy, empty corridors. Silent and spooky.

  None of the doors he tried would open but eventually he found a kind of alcove set in the side of one hall with a hatch in the floor labelled with big orange block letters:

  ORGANIK REKLEMASHUN

  A funky, yeasty smell greeted him as he opened the hatch, a bit like the decaying muck smell of a swamp. Without thinking about it too much Jake shovelled bug inside and slammed it shut. Splattered in gore, he winced as he sat down against the wall, careful of his spray-bandages.

  “I wonder if there’s any beer in the future?” he mused.

  ***

  Body parts cleaned up, the team of clones gathered at the garbage chute while Whiteman paced back and forth, obviously practicing ways to sound authoritative. The clone hadn’t lifted a finger to help them clean up and, searching for some paper towels or anything to clean his hands, Jake had found the sub-officer arguing in a harsh whisper to the glowing hologram bird icon. He’d been so absorbed talking to Cool Breeze he hadn’t noticed him, so Jake backed out before he could.

  “It’s now been almost twenty-four hours since we were activated” Whiteman said. “And I’m tired of eating these emergency ration protein crackers. Locate me a cafeteria. Critical mission success factor. Gimme two search teams, pattern delta.”

  “Can’t we take a break?” Milan whined.

  “Not you, just the dirtworm. Move it.”

  Despite the happy juice he was enjoying so much Jacob felt a geyser of madness welling up inside him and he couldn’t help but antagonize the officer.

  “Do you want me to deprioritize my current reports until you advise me of a status upgrade? Make this my primary action items?”

  “What is there, a fuckin echo in here?” Whiteman snapped. “Go!”

  Jacob began the general unhappy search up and down empty, white hallways. At least he didn’t have to hang around the insane idiots from the future. He got lost in the maze of hallways almost immediately.

  He was really starting to miss that beer. If he’d had one he would’ve sat down by himself and had a drink. The straps of the equipment packs were digging into his bare skin and the pistol shotgun felt like he was carrying a barbell around on his hip. When he adjusted the holster the barrel kept whacking him in the stones as he walked. Bored, he tried probing door panels as he went but each one gave a ‘uh-uh’ two tone buzzer sound because he didn’t have the ID Key it wanted.

  He was shocked when one door finally slid aside for him. Curious, he stood in the hall and craned his neck at the door frame, examining it for some sentient-door practical joke. Was it going to slam shut in his face? But he finally spotted a small metal nut trapped in the door groove that prevented it from closing completely. It was comforting to know that something as simple as nuts and bolts existed in this weird, high-tech future.

  The inside of the room was rack of shelves with boxed items in storage. Jugs of chemicals, raw material in the form of lightweight metal wall studs and plastic panels to repair the glowing pristine hallways. Like a massive janitor’s closet. He dug up a box of green-striped heavy objects that reminded him of batteries. Most of them were marked 4 GJ but two had a vibrant green line and said 8GJ. He discovered a package of foot-long chemical glow sticks. A belt with metal boxes like cigarette packs fixed to it and a recessed dial. He switched the dial on and the belt immediately flew out of his hands and clung to the ceiling, flattening itself like it was being held there.

  “Well that’s… new,” he muttered.

  But the real find was a sealed garment rack with a dozen pale blue janitorial coveralls and a boot locker.

  “Thank you fucking lord,” he whispered and stripped off all the armor and gear to get dressed. Finally.

  The coveralls didn’t have a zipper, just a seam where the contact point of the two cloth halves seemed to naturally cling together. The simple act of drawing the seam up from crotch level to neck made him so profoundly homesick he started to cry. Dressed again he slid on a pair of boots. Like combat boots without the laces, only quick-release catches.

  When he finally found the others again he had a pocketful of small metal nuts. They were gathered in a circular room with a big domed ceiling. Scenes of nature were projected on it; somehow it had a kind of image sharpness that made him feel, for a moment, that he’d stepped into a room with the ceiling knocked off. It cycled between different biozomes: desert, mountains, forest, ocean shore, wetlands. Set into the wall of the room were may
be twenty padded chairs inside little photo-booth size alcoves. They squad was laying down or sitting on the floor in the middle of the room.

  “Fuck you, ganz, you found sleeves?” Americano exclaimed, seeing him.

  “If you can call that clothes,” Milan muttered.

  Whiteman looked him up and down with a frown. “Get some chow, neothall. And check in next time. We were about to have to send out rescue parties.”

  “Rescue from what?”

  “Face-wearing cyborgs? Revenant zombie-virus victims? Intentional sabotage by early hominid sleeper agents placed here to undermine my mission success?”

  Jacob wasn’t sure if the sub-officer was serious or fucking with him. He turned to one of the alcoves to avoid any more conversation and sat in one of the chairs. A mechanical hood with the Nevermore holographic bird interface lowered from the ceiling around his head. He was still trying to figure out how to make the dinner menu show up when the hood clamped onto his face and a mechanical hose forced its way between his teeth and down his throat before disgorging some sort of hot goo that burned his esophagus on the way down.

  Or at least it did until he struggled halfway free, inhaled hot protein carb supplement into his lungs while the rest of the squad tried to unsuccessfully save him before he choked out entirely.

  Geezus, I’m being killed by a malfunctioning feeding tube! He had time to think before he died.

  ***

  “Oh dear, w hat have they done to you this time?”

  Jake was dead, that was certain, because he was in the virtual reality loading screen while Circe prepped his new body. The sexy virtual AI was leaning over him, stroking his forehead. They were in a moving vehicle of some kind, and it was dark, with only light from the windows sliding past once in a while.

  Jake sat up and realized he was in a futuristic rail car of some kind. Like a subway car. It was deserted except for the two of them. Outside the window a dark tunnel was rushing by, occasionally flashing a light out in the tunnel, and then as he looked they emerged onto some sort of elevated rail line hundreds of feet in the air, travelling between huge skyscrapers of some technological wonder of a city.