How to Beat Tomorrow

by J Foster Ward

  The pink-clad form of Milan stood there, trembling with fear, gun still in its holster. She froze as Jake levelled the revolver at her face. He could drop her and he’d be clear. Or better yet, shoot her in the kneecaps for any more razor tentapods to find.

  Dammit.

  “Run!” he shouted. “There’s too many of them!”

  The clone girl was gone in a flash of magenta miniskirt, racing back for the module exit judging by the direction she took. Jake tried hard to convince himself he’d let her go because she’d be a diversion if anyone was alive to follow him. Definitely not because she was the closest thing to a real human woman he’d had a relationship with in, well…

  …in several centuries.

  His clone body didn’t get tired, but even so, running over unseen obstacles in knee-deep water began to exhaust the muscles in his new legs. He didn’t stop until he couldn’t run another step. Slowing to lean against the wall he shone the flashlight on the shoulder of his combat harness around, looking for helpful markings on the wall.

  Nothing.

  He realized he was lost, and the wrist-buddy computer with the map was attached to the severed arm in the white ray clinic.

  In good news the ripples of his steps had stopped making noise and the corridor was silent. He took the moment to tuck the barrel of the revolver between his knees, eject the spent casing and reload more.

  “Good work, Jacob,” he told himself. “Lost in the dark, in a flooding graveyard filled with monsters. And, oh yeah, you only have one fucking arm. Well done.”

  There was nothing for it. At the nearest intersection he turned right. He’d read somewhere that if you got lost in a maze, always choose right and eventually you’d find a way out. At every intersection that followed he’d turn off his light and allow his eyes to adjust, looking for the light of the genetics lab. Mostly he saw bioluminescent fish the size of his fingernail, zipping through the water.

  He was surprised when he stumbled and tripped onto dry land.

  Not land exactly. Some sort of fungus. A bright orange carpet of fungus so thick it rose above the water line. Stepping gingerly on it, Jake found it was hard as wood and continued forward. The doors ahead were bent outward and warped, imbedded in the orange fungus. Like a glacier that had slowly forced them apart. The sign on the door said SPESHUL PROJEKT LABB.

  It was one of the domed chambers, and whatever had been in it before was buried under the carpet of mold. In fact, the only features remaining in the room were the three trees.

  Trees wasn’t exactly the word. Weird scarlet tubes three meters high that looked like a cross between a stalagmite and petrified coral. The trees seemed creepily aware; whenever Jake walked within range the knobby protrusions resembling branches extruded a spiky limb covered in lesions that looked ready to burst.

  “Fuck that,” Jake said.

  Faster than he could see, one of the protrusions fired a red branch at him. Fast as an arrow. It narrowly missed, ricocheting off the metal wall with enough force to shatter. The thing had fired at the sound of his voice.

  It was blind.

  That’s when he saw the body.

  It was one of the clones, for sure. Impossible to tell who by the way they’d been melted down to the bone, reducing whatever exposed parts of the body into a soup of nutrients. And impaled in the ribcage was a spindly scarlet twig.

  “Dirtworm!” the yell came from far way, in the maze of corridors.

  It was faint, but the three trees all aimed quivering branches in the general direction of the corridor directly behind Jake.

  Ever since detonating the corridor with a plasma gun, Cool Breeze had restricted the use of energy weapons, but the clones had been allowed to requisition non-lethal grenades. Jake slowly unhitched the flashbang grenade from his harness, took the pin in his teeth, yanked it, and threw.

  Flashbangs were designed to stun anyone unprotected exactly as advertised with a bright white flash and a loud bang. Even tossing it at the far side of the room the concussion left Jake partly deaf and blinking afterimages from his eyes.

  But the effects on the trees was immediate and obvious. They writhed. The dart branches all exploded against the tree boles, leaving red trails of sap too much like blood. Jake took the opportunity to run through the room and out the far door.

  In a few more meters he was back in the knee-deep water. And better yet, the lights of the genetics lab were visible.

  ***

  The circular corridor was a welcome sight.

  He retraced his steps through the dense foliage and found the door. He stepped through the sludge to the airlock and guessed randomly at the controls until the airlock cycled and he stepped in. The water that washed in was drained when the airlock decontaminated and after blinking at the UV cleanse and sonic scrubbing, Jake entered the lab.

  It was a relief to be out of the swampy water and yet he felt like he was leaving muddy footprints on his grandmother’s living room carpet. Most of the equipment was meaninglessly advanced for him to even guess at functions, but the central feature to the room was a clear-sided chamber like a glass coffin that contained a humanoid figure. Jake carefully leaned against the chamber and peered through the glass at the occupant.

  It was female. Obviously so, since she was naked and on her back. He felt vaguely creepy staring at her while she slept. She was dark as a panther but shone blue in the light; her entire body covered in a coat of very short hair; sleek, like a doberman. The animal quality was heightened even more by the canine teeth, tall pointed ears and almost wolf-like features on what was otherwise a very pretty, human face. Fingers and toes ended in long claws that had more in common with a cat than a dog, and her body was all lean, whipcord muscle.

  “Who the heck are you?” Jake asked out loud to himself.

  “More like ‘what the heck is she’,” a voice said from nowhere and everywhere. Cool Breeze.

  “I was hoping your sensors were still active in here.”

  “They are. Can you tell me why you’re in here?”

  “Yes! Sub-officer Whiteman has gone berserk and is trying to kill me.”

  “Is he?”

  “He cut my fucking arm off!”

  “Yes, I see.”

  “He’s trying to make sure I don’t resurrect. He wants to use something called the white ray clinic to resuscitate anybody who dies and turn off Circe, just so he can get rid of me.”

  “That’s a serious accusation…”

  “You have to believe me!”

  “...which I already knew, thanks. Circe told me. But I do like that you’ve managed to handle things on your own so well.”

  “What? You knew?”

  “You’re boring me more every time you ask stupid questions.”

  Jake rallied himself. Maybe the computer was right; he was sounding like an idiot.

  “Okay. New topic. What exactly is she then?” he gestured at the wolf girl in the box.

  “Genetically modified warbeast. Made by one of Nevermore’s bioweapons subsidiaries. Started with human base stock then added wolf genes. A little bit from the big cat family: cheetah, leopard. And a few other things. Of course, we did a bit of after-market modification with bio-implants and cybernetics. Pre-loaded with hardwired combat skills. I started growing her a few months back when I thought maybe she would be enough to take care of my… little problem. Don’t need her anymore.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Jake mused. “Wait, don’t tell me I’m boring but, do you mean to say she’s human?”

  “Not entirely. Weren’t you listening? She’s a cloned warbeast. A living weapon. She doesn’t meet the legal definition of human.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Legal? What laws still exist? Does she have human intelligence? Does she think?”

  “Not in the same way you do, but yes, that’s the whole point of making a warbeast; they’re smart enough to understand complex instructions.”

  “And you’re going to what? Incinerate her?”
>
  “Technically I’d render her organic parts for the food replicators and recycle the cybernetics, but yes.”

  “You can’t just… murder her in her sleep.”

  “Technically it’s a medically induced coma, but she was never awake. She’d never even know.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? For fucksakes, you machine, you can’t create a life then just decide to wipe it away.”

  “Why not?”

  Jake was at a loss. How did you explain the value of a life to a computer? He decided to take a different approach.

  “So, let’s say we encounter more than normal resistance while we finish reclaiming this facility. What then? What if we need her? Wouldn’t is be a waste of resources to destroy her?”

  “Yeah… but.”

  “Come on, Cool Breeze. Why play fair? Stack the deck. Who makes a warbeast and doesn’t use it?”

  “Someone who doesn’t want an unbonded living weapon wandering around.”

  “Unbonded?”

  “Her kind become… unstable when they go all lone wolf. In an emergency it’s acceptable, but without a pack, these things start to see everything as a potential enemy.”

  “So, bond her.”

  “Fair enough. Thanks for volunteering.”

  “Wait… what?”

  But the computer was silent. Instead the glass coffin came alive with holographic readouts. Jake had no idea what they meant but they were clearly showing progress. An opaque green gas filled the chamber, hiding the warbeast, and Jake instinctively took a step back. When the lid of the chamber split and retracted, he covered his mouth, prepared to be poisoned, but the gas was heavier than air and pooled inside the chamber like a tub full of water.

  The blue blur of movement caught him by surprise. Even with his newly improved reflexes the wolf-girl from the tank launched up out of the gas and slammed into him, her weight driving him back se he went over on his back and the weight of her slammed the air from his lungs. For the longest few seconds of his life the creature kept him pinned to the ground. Her body was warm, the downy fur soft, and her eyes slit-pupiled, yellow orbs that almost seemed to glow. He was acutely aware of her female nakedness, the tiny pert breasts that fit her lithe frame.

  But as he was studying her, she was studying him. She seemed fascinated, tilting her head this way and that to examine his face. Even leaning in close enough he could feel her warm breath to sniff him thoroughly.

  Her long, pink tongue slid out between canine teeth and licked the side of his face.

  The voice came distantly through the safety windows of the lab, “Agent Mortimer, you dirtworm piece of human excrement! What the bloody stool sample are you doing?”

  It was Whiteman, outside the airlock, and he was furious.

  The reaction from the wolfgirl was instantaneous, and painful. From a crouching start on top of him, she snarled at the sub-commander, backflipped and came to a perfect landing at the window. Jake noticed the revolver in her hand and that the holster for the acid-slug firing weapon was gone. The wolfgirl fired four times, precisely, at the four corners of one of the window panes and as the corrosive slugs ate through the substance she took a step back and threw herself at the glass. The entire sheet smashed outwards, still retaining its shape and with a splashing of limbs in the shallow water she was gone on all fours, vanishing into the darkness of the flooded module.

  “You simple piece of genetic factory rejects! You are in so much trouble,” Whiteman said slowly.

  “Easy there,” Jake said, holding up his empty hand.

  The sub-officer had seen better days. He was a ragged mess of cuts and chemical burns. Whiteman calmly stripped one of the Hurt Me! pens from his harness and jabbed it into his own leg. Hands steady. Like he was buttering toast, not treating combat trauma. Within moments the face that looked like it had been run over by a lawnmower was knitting back together, then Whiteman gave a muffled yell as it performed deeper repairs. As Whiteman shuddered he kept trying to blink before his eyelids, or eyeballs, had fully healed and made them split and rupture all over again.

  Jake took the moment of distraction to run.

  He followed the wolf girl, much less gracefully, and vaulted the broken window into the swamp.

  The last thing Jake saw was bright light, and the last thing he felt was a laser cutting his lungs in half.

  So close, he thought as he died. I almost made it.

  ***

  Chapter 11

  : Going Towards a Bright White Light

  He came back to life like his entire body was on fire. Like molten steel was being poured into his chest and pumped through his entire body. It was like swimming in a torrential river of pure white energy. Every synapse in his brain lighting up like a million volts being pumped into a string of Christmas tree lights. He had the feeling of being in orbit around an immense, white planet, a sphere of glowing white. And, just like some car accident victim who finds themselves floating above their own body on the operating table, there was an overwhelming desire to fall into the white light.

  It was, perhaps, the most painful thing he had ever experienced.

  He emerged from the gargantuan sized bath of agony unable to process where – or even who – he was. Fragmented images of places and faces emerged. His childhood bed, his mother, the first time he’d been admitted to hospital tests for the viral Huntington’s, the face of his ex-wife before she’d left him, and finally the rapid-fire flood of images in his new life; the strange new underground world, the multiple duplicate faces of clones, the giant bug monster tearing him apart.

  Nothing seemed real. Nothing seemed connected. Was it one person’s life? Or many? Who was this man, Jacob Mortimer? Was he a collection of torn remains, or was he something more singular? Was he only the string of binary code that were his recorded memories, or was there something more that bound him together? For a moment he felt like a soul, lost and trapped, floating between worlds, never able to die. He was a ghost.

  And floating up from the foam of his thoughts were the last, few things that felt like anchors to reality. The nubile shape of Circe on the beach, a virtual goddess bringing him back to life. The pink-clad Milan duPont sharing the vulnerable need for touch. Even the strange wolf-girl, body perched so closely on top of him he could feel the tickle of her breath on his neck. He had never considered himself much of a lady’s man, more of a loner than anything else. And somehow as his mind pieced together the fragments of reality and he remembered who and where he was, Jake was able to see the common thread of things that made his life have any meaning. He’d been abandoned or ignored by every woman in his life, yet somehow here in this strange future there were multiple women – however strange – who seemed drawn to him. He had never had anything like this sort of connection before.

  “Agent Mortimer?”

  The words were no ghost-memory, there were real.

  “Jacob, can you hear me?” He knew that voice. It was the android girl, Synthetica.

  And opening his eyes Jake saw he was in the dank, almost black interior of the white ray clinic. And standing over him was the muck-splattered perfect female form.

  “I can hear you.”

  “Good. You’ve got to hurry. There isn’t much time.”

  He felt weak as a kitten at first, but as he sat up and propped himself on his arms he felt strength returning. That’s when he noticed that he had both arms. The missing limb had been re-attached with barely a mark to show where the laser had cut through him. Only the missing shirt-sleeve let him know he was still in the same body, wearing the same clothes.

  Well hell, the white ray machine really did work.

  Judging by his outfit, it hadn’t been long since he’d been killed – he felt the diagonal slash in the back of his coveralls and hanging bits of his harness where that bastard Whiteman had shot him in the back.

  “What happened?”

  “I found your body, and brought you back,” Synthetica said.

&n
bsp; “Why would you do that?”

  “Because… because of all the humans I have ever met you are the only one I have ever liked. And the thought of the others snuffing you out is too much to bear.”

  “Nobody ordered you to?” he asked, surprised.

  The synthetic girl looked frightened. Shook her head.

  “You know if Whiteman finds out he’ll erase you too?”

  She nodded solemnly. “At some point you have to ask yourself why you exist, and if it’s worth it. With you around… it would be worth it.”

  Jake stared at her a long moment in wonder. Even though Jake had considered the android to be a real person, it wasn’t until that exact moment that he knew it for sure she was as real as any human woman.

  “Where’s Whiteman?”

  “He and the others are out there, trying to fix the water pumps.”

  “Others?”

  “You weren’t the only one that got brought back.”

  “Great.”

  Climbing down off the clamshell bed, he felt a moment of dizziness but it passed quickly. The room wasn’t exactly as he’d left it. The floor was drained. There was a kind of hard foam barricade to knee height across the door threshold and blocking the various ventilation grills around the room to keep the water out. Except for a few inches of mud, water plants and a lot of snails and mussels accreted to the floor, the room was dry. Piled on a plastic tarp were a number of items that had obviously been recovered from the flooded level and dumped there for later use.

  Jake made his way to the tarp and examined the various bits of equipment. An intact hazmat suit, a briefcase sized medical K-kit with a computerized autodoc inside, a beer-can sized pod with controls of some kind on it, and a long, black molded plastic case.

  Praying it was what he hoped it was, Jake banged at the latches until the box opened, revealing the pristine, sealed interior. Laying in a bed of molded shock foam was a rifle that looked like a kid’s toy but had the heft of the real thing.

  “I found something like this before. What is it?” he asked.