How to Beat Tomorrow

by J Foster Ward

  For a long moment she stared straight ahead at the far wall, her hands by her sides. Then she slowly looked down at him.

  “My entire short existence began when I was activated hundreds of years ago and placed in this station. There were no technicians, no humans for which I had been designed to serve. Maintenance bots controlled by Cool Breeze initiated my operation, gave me a briefing on the mission and the installation. My fellow synthetics were placed into stasis, most of whom did not survive the centuries. I was put in standby mode in the Nevermore facility and went to sleep. I was built to serve humanity. Programmed to care for them. In what you may call dreams, I imagined all the ways I could serve my human masters when the finally awoke to their grand mission. Imagine my shock to be awoken by actual humans and find them to be the cruelest of masters. Petty, greedy, malicious things, not worthy of my respect.”

  Jake winced. She wasn’t painting a pretty picture of his race.

  “And then I met you,” she said, meeting his eyes. “How noble and strong you were. And how terribly the others treated you for it. You gave me my freedom, Jacob Mortimer. Emancipated me from cruelty. And if that is true then I am free to be my own person. Only….”

  “Only what?”

  “Only I am filled with feelings I do not understand. Yearnings that no programming has prepared me for. I tell you this truly: I am not simply giving myself as a vessel for your pleasure. I… I wish you to teach me what these strange things inside me are.”

  And with that Synthetica ran a finger down an invisible seam of her bodysuit and it parted from neck to crotch, exposing bare skin beneath. With a shrug the lab coat and bodysuit fell to the floor and the perfect body of the android stood revealed. This time when her hand found his cock and stroked it, he was rock hard, and he was out of objections.

  “Tell me if I am doing this wrong,” she whispered, and bent to take him in her mouth.

  Jake felt the warm, wet lips cover him and her tongue somehow wrapped around his cock as she lowered herself down until it entirely vanished in her mouth. The shockwave of pleasure hit him so hard he practically saw stars.

  “Oh god yes, that’s, ummmm, the opposite of wrong,” he gasped.

  Unable to do anything but moan, Jake watched as the synthetic girl took his entire cock in her throat without effort, corkscrewing her lips and tongue around him as she bobbed harder and faster. Just when he thought he couldn’t take it any more she released him and he gave a strangled sound of frustration.

  “Your physiological responses indicated you were about to climax,” she said clinically. “And I’m not finished with you yet.”

  Jake pulled her closer to him and her warm, soft body pressed to his as she lay on top of him. He kissed her, their tongues meeting and she let out a little surprised sound. Her flesh was… somehow different from a real person. But not at all unpleasant. As his hands roamed her body, he encountered seams in her skin and they only added to the sensual encounter.

  “How did you do that?” he asked between kisses.

  “I told you, I did some research.”

  “No… I mean… physically how was that possible?”

  “Oh. I’m a synthetic, Jacob; I can control certain automatic body functions. Like a gag reflex.”

  She sat up, straddling him, and as his hands cupped her breasts she made soft excited noises, like she was discovering the feeling for the first time. She was, in fact.

  “Can I… can I feel you inside me now?” she asked shyly.

  In response Jake pulled her down to him again and he positioned his cock where a human girl would have her…. Ah. She was perfectly anatomically correct. His cock found her opening and she put a finger on his lips.

  “One moment,” she whispered.

  Jake felt a warm, slippery wetness where before there had been none.

  “That’s better. You’ll find it more enjoyable now.”

  Jake plunged upwards and slid inside the tight, soft cunt. Burying himself deep inside her in a rush that sparked a wave of pleasure down to the root of his cock. Synthetica gave a shocked moan of pleasure, her eyes wide, mouth open and she stayed frozen that way so long Jake was afraid he might have crashed her system. He was just getting ready to gently thump the side of her head like a malfunctioning computer monitor when she began to slowly, and throatily moan. Her hips rotated independently to the rest of her body, grinding up and down, back and forth, and from deep within her warm body Jake felt a vibration.

  Oh god, it sent shivers of pleasure into his bones.

  Whatever it did for him it also began to push the android girl over the edge. Face a shocked mix of pleasure and discovery, her gasps of pleasure grew to moans with each thrust, then yells. And when Jake gripped her hips and pounded into her, the artificial girl began to shudder and then she let out a scream as her entire body vibrated, locked in place. Jake couldn’t hold back a moment longer as her climax triggered his own and the two of them went stiff as iron girders, shattering their orgasms against each other.

  It seemed to take five minutes for Synthetica to register the outside world again. Even when Jake pulled out and rolled her onto her back beside him on the narrow exam table, she shivered and trembled, eyes rolled up, still orgasming.

  When rational thought finally returned and she blinked back to the real world, the android slid her arms around him and held him close with the force of a literal vicegrip.

  “Will you… will you hold me?” she asked.

  “I already am.”

  “Oh.”

  “But we can stay this way as long as you’d like.”

  “Yes please. Until we go again?”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, why do you think I was checking your systems earlier? Nevermore must ensure your reproductive capability is of the highest performance, if you’re going to repopulate society.”

  Now that she mentioned it, he was already starting to feel like he could go again in a few moments.

  “Wait,” something occurred to him. “You’re not, you can’t get… you know.”

  “Make a baby? No. Not without the right modifications. The surrogacy module is not standard issue.”

  Jacob tried not to let the strangeness of that statement freak him out. In a few moments he was distracted by the way her fingers gentle circled his cock anyway.

  But only a few minutes into what was proving to be his best day in several centuries, the glowing hologram raven lit up the entire room.

  “Mortimer! Drop what you’re doing! This is urgent!” the voice of the computer said.

  Jake tried not to throw anything at the hologram. “Dammit Cool Breeze! Come back in fifteen minutes!” he demanded.

  “Are you kidding me? This is no time for organ insertions! Something is trying to kill me!”

  ***

  Chapter 13

  Reaching the Surface

  “Something new you mean?” Jake said, sitting up and trying to disguise his rock-hard erection.

  “You think this is a joke? This is an emergency!”

  Things in the future tended to speak in hyperbole so Jake refused to get too excited. When one of the slowly rotating blackbird icons got emotional he’d come to assume it was some sort of act. Or maybe just an alter ego the computer used.

  “What can I do for you, Cool Breeze?” he said without getting up.

  “There’s a priority assignment. Effective immediately. Biohazard contamination!”

  “What? There’s more?”

  “So much more!” the voice said sincerely.

  “Why are you telling me? Wake up the others. Or get Whiteman and his goons out of the tank.”

  “Because of all the humans at my command I’ve reluctantly come to admit you are perhaps the most resourceful.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “You should be.”

  “Okay, so when you say something is trying to kill you, what does that mean? What exactly are you, Cool Breeze?”

  “I’m an eleve
nth generation liquid-memory DNA-matrix thinking platform,” the voice said. “Why?”

  “Because whoever made you didn’t make you able to lie for shit. So what, your brain is made of water?”

  “Liquid DNA-matrix, yes.”

  “You’re the Kool-aid man!”

  “I don’t know who that is,” Cool Breeze said, surly.

  “Ohhh, yeah!” Jacob laughed.

  “Fine. I’m telling you because you get results and because you’re a non-standard member of the team. With Squad leader Cockfiend, sub-commander Whiteman and the others are still undergoing reconstructive psycho surgery. You’re all I’ve got.”

  Jacob sat up on the bed and faced the hologram. Synthetica rose from the bed and began to slip her clothes on. Even now, Jake had a hard time concentrating on anything besides what he and the synthetic girl had just been doing.

  “Okay, how about this. The squad thinks I’m a test pattern. What am I?”

  “Bro… now? I don’t have time. I can’t answer that.” Jake was about to complain when the hologram spoke again. “Fine, I’ll tell you as we go. Deal?”

  “Good enough. Deal.”

  ***

  Cool Breeze had refused to issue any more weapons since the massacre in gamma module but after Jake collected his new battle harness and armor, the computer unlocked a cabinet with a dozen guns, including the plasma rifle he’d used to kill his own squad.

  “Answer time; how did I get here?” Jake asked, buckling equipment to his belts.

  “I can’t actually answer that.”

  Jake felt a rush of rage. Was this machine jerking him around? He paused what he was doing to glare in the general direction of the ceiling where he suspected Cool Breeze had a camera watching him. “Pardon me?” he said frostily.

  “Calm down. I can’t answer because I don’t know. Your personality program was already part of my library when I was installed in this facility. All I can tell you is that you are, in fact, surplus. Not part of the directive.”

  “So… I’m expendable.”

  “You said it, brother, not me. But you’ve proven very resourceful. Now, can I tell you what I need you to do?”

  Jacob considered. “I admit. I’m curious. I knew you’d want me for something, what is it?”

  A wireframe of the facility sprang into the air between them.

  “Currently you’ve gone through Echo, Delta and Charlie modules but –“

  “Yeah I wondered about Alpha and Bravo. What’s there? Shopping mall?”

  “No,” Cool Breeze said icily. “Bravo is mission prep and barracks facilities. It’s also the main entry point from the surface. Beyond that is Alpha, the administrative block. Command central is there. As well as a secure vault,” it added as an afterthought.

  “So… what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know,” Cool Breeze admitted. “There was a breach some years ago and I have since lost all contact with Bravo module. No sensor connection.”

  “So what? Why do you suddenly care?”

  “I need you to go in and fix it.”

  “Why me? Send those other clones.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Why.”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Then I’d rather you go fuck yourself.”

  “Alright, bro, I give. There’s a small problem with being renewed too many times. It’s called pre-death trauma. The more horrible a death you endure the more psychological damage you take. Eventually you’re mush. Bitchmurder is, as we speak undergoing level two psychosurgery. In a virtual environment we can up the processing time and squeeze several months of therapy into a week or so. Hopefully it will be enough.”

  “So, what? You don’t want your clones to go crazy but its fine if I do? Pass.”

  “You don’t understand. For some reason your psych profile remains flatline steady. You got your head bitten off bro. Didn’t phase you.”

  Jacob considered this a while. He’d assumed it was the happy-juice. Apparently not. “So what’s the mission?”

  “Can we get to the elevator please?”

  Crossing the module at Cool Breeze’s directions, Jake came to a section of corridor that had been hidden behind a wall panel. It was an industrial sized elevator, doors open and waiting, maybe twenty feet across.

  “We’ve been climbing stairs like suckers all this time.”

  “It was more secure not to unlock a direct route to upper levels while there was a problem up there. Now I have no choice. Hurry, Jake.”

  Settling the guns and equipment on his person more securely Jacob stepped into the elevator. Without touching the holographic interface the doors slowly ground shut and the entire elevator car began to rise. As it climbed, longer and longer, Jake had to wonder just how far below ground the clone resurrection facility was located. And with every passing moment he felt a strange excitement to reach the surface. To see the world again. Not knowing what he would find in the strange, new life.

  “Alpha module was recently breached,” the computer told him. “I believe that from there some of the biological contamination managed to make its way down to Echo and threaten the cloning facility.”

  “You mean the mantoid.”

  “Yes. Interesting name. You should’ve been a xeno-biologist.”

  “Shoulda been a lot of things, Kool-aid man. Still waiting to hear your real reason. What’s in Alpha module that needs saving.”

  No answer.

  “I got nothing but time down here,” Jacob said, leaning against the wall.

  “Me,” Cool Breeze finally said.

  “How’s that?’

  “Me. My matrix. The main stacks for my memory and processing are located past the command and control center.”

  “Ah, now we get to the center of the shrubbery maze. So what’s it worth to you to have me save your ass?”

  “What’s it worth? It shouldn’t be worth anything. What about your continued appreciation of the benefits you enjoy as a shareholder of the incorporated state of Nevermore.”

  “I’m not a shareholder, am I?”

  There was a pause. “I have just issued you a quarter share of stock in NuYu, a subsidiary of Nevermore,” Cool Breeze said smugly.

  “Sell.”

  “What?”

  “I said I want to sell it. Cash out.”

  “Dammit,” Cool Breeze muttered.

  “Hey, howcum nobody uses religion when they swear but you just did? I mean, aside from Owem Gee and all he talks about is the Martian Buddha. I was starting to think maybe we evolved past religion in the future.”

  “Humanity did, mostly, except for the Martian Buddhists. I do it because blaspheming is part of my personality template. “

  “Can’t you not use it?”

  “I wouldn’t know how. My intelligence is by nature vastly different from human norm. Without the template I can’t dumb myself down to cross the communication barrier.”

  “Hardwired programming huh? Sucks to be you.”

  “You don’t even know,” it replied.

  There was a companionable silence for a while.

  “What happens after?” Jacob asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean after I make sure no giant bugs are drinking your brains. What then? You put me back into storage?”

  “Primary directive is to rebuild society after the Calamity. Once the facility is secured we can begin the long task of restoring civilization.”

  “Us?” Jacob asked, incredulous. “Them?” he made a gesture in the vague direction of where the rest of the clone squad might be. “The world ends and the burden of the future falls to them? Are you fucking with me?”

  “No. I am not fucking you. They volunteered for the Tomorrow program. The brightest and best minds of their generation.”

  Jacob didn’t point out what he thought about what the world had become if that was the best futurity had to offer. “And me? I get to spend my life with those lunatics?” />
  “Well Jake, the world is a big place. I’d still need a scout. To collect data on what the world has become. You have a long life in that body. 250 years at least. And potentially infinite replacements so long as the project succeeds. You died in the 21st century, Jacob. Wouldn’t you like to see what the 25th century is like? You could be responsible for entire nations. Maybe the future of humanity.”

  Jacob sighed. Fuck the burden of saving humanity, he’d do anything just to get away from the cream of the 23rd century. “I’ll see what I can do. What’s the worst that could happen? Right?”

  The elevator shuddered to a halt and the elevator lights dimmed. Jake waited for the doors to open but when they did he stood speechless. He thought he’d seen ruin in the gamma module. Flooded, covered in mold and disrepair. But this… this was so much worse.

  The smell hit him first. Stagnant air filled with rot, smoke and a kind of abandoned-refrigerator-full-of food-in-a-power-outage reek. The corridor was pitch black except for the light from the elevator car and it looked like a prison riot had destroyed every light, wall panel and doorway, leaving gaping holes with bare wires. And then the prison riot had been interrupted by a tornado, and then a hundred years of drunk high school kids had used the place for bush parties, carving pictures in the walls and painting obscene pictures over everything. Distantly he heard some sort of animal hooting and what might have been a human scream.

  “Geezus, how long did you wait before you decided to do anything?”

  “This is Bravo module. Things here have… been bad for a while. You just have to get across it to Alpha module, that’s where the problem is.”

  “That’s where you are, you mean.”

  “Yes. Good luck. Hurry Jake.”

  “Yeah yeah, everybody wants to go to the party, nobody wants to stick around after and help clean up.”

  “One more thing, Jake,” Cool Breeze said from the disembodied speaker inside the elevator. “Don’t let me die or you’re trapped here.”

  With that Jake stepped forward, into the apocalypse.

  ***