What a Way to Go.

By Brad Harbinger

2020: the Great Genetic Upheaval; all life, humans too,starts rapidly evolving. Bon viveur fiction writer Howard Hubris and his increasingly voluptuous wife Helga escape with vast undeclared wealth to a new palace on the rim of an extinct volcano in the unspoilt jungles of Faunama to write 12 articles on luxury for Lust for Life mag, but wildly evolving fate is out to humiliate and destroy him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Martin
• Release date: Feb 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301746217

Brad Harbinger

Brad Harbinger is a world expert on Genetic Upheaval. And his message is: watch out, the world is out to get us.

Book preview

WHAT A WAY TO GO

Brad Harbinger

Copyright © Brad Harbinger 2009

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover copyright ©Robin Matto

www.robinmatto.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

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Table of contents

Introduction

Chapter 01

Chapter 02

Chapter 03

Chapter 04

Chapter 05

Chapter 06

Chapter 07

Chapter 08

Chapter 09

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Introduction:

Remember how everything suddenly changed, when was it? 2020 AD onwards? Why? Too late to bother why now but you can all name the reasons: radically raised background radiation after that little global problem with the best selling cheap Chinese reactor franchise. Then of course global super heating caused all those interesting soups of complex chemical pollutants, not to mention the escape of newly synthesised experimental air and water borne hormones. Mustn’t forget the scintillating blasts of cosmic rays through the accidental ozone holes thanks to the disaster caused by the cheap Chinese space station and, best of all, remember when they let the genii out of the bottle - or should I say the gene - genetic modification of everything they could get their hands on. Add all to that ever-escalating population growth so that one city expanded to clump with the next and the next and the rest was inevitable.

So, here we are today and rampant evolution is on the prowl again just like at the dawn of creation. Some life thrives, evolving as you watch, some quickly fizzles out. Sleepy old evolution has suddenly woken up again just when it’s too late, sweeping up life and sending it hurling headlong towards the Apocalypse in a great organic wave: surf it or drown.

We’re surfing it rather well, Helga and I: the few lucky ones, some atavistic gene from our Empire-building ancestors has kicked in. We’ve successfully mutated out of that soft, guilty larval state once called Humanity, and sloughed off that unnecessarily sensitive skin. I think you can say we are as well and truly as English as you can get, with all that entails, but whatever England used to be is now swamped under the densest conurbation on Earth, renamed: Conurba.

Of course all these painful processes induced by the Great Genetic Upheaval have not been kind to everyone, but as far as we are concerned this unexpected kick start to evolution, whether or not it’s too late, has been a fantastic onward rush: life long adolescence complete with inbuilt privilege. We’ve had to triple the contraceptive dose, and it still isn’t guaranteed anymore.

Every day we become more physically resplendent and robust; more and more intellectually unchallengeable, oh, and of course consequently rich: disgustingly, fabulously rich - that has helped - that and the fact that we had good blood in the first place; both from excellent Old English bloodstock. The poor may suffer adverse reactions, but as we get richer the more perfect we become, blessed: survivors.

Our dazzling future stretches ahead into a haze of ecstasy: Paradise, no less, here in our brand new, purpose built Palace perched on the jungle clad rim of an extinct volcano. The view is not just any old view, but a view so beautiful it actually brings tears to the eyes, tears by reflex even to hardened hedonists like us, great globules of tears; it must surely be pure unrefined aesthetics. What else could do that?

Envious? Of course you are, and we just love to be envied which is why I am telling you this. Nothing lasts forever, the end is nigh, one day soon the atmosphere will finally simmer away, the ice caps will slump into slushy slurry, the sea levels will rise, then will come earthquakes, tidal waves: the lot. It’s going to be one of the most photogenic cataclysms for sixty million years. The film crews will swoop in: you know how a decent planetary disaster brings the very worst out of any sentient being with a pituitary light meter. But I am so selfless I wish to share my pleasures with you while they last. My gift to you will be this: the recorded life of one of the most exquisite individuals ever to evolve from sad old humanity to grace the face of the Earth and, by great good luck, at the peak of his literary powers. Far be it from me to be smug but I can think of no better person than myself, best-seller extraordinaire, to catalogue the last glorious years of civilisation on our dying earth, with the aid of my great big Blue Tooth. All I ask is your undying envy: that won’t be for too long, we’ll all die soon anyway. Very soon.

Behold the auto-edited Blue Tooth highlights straight from my own good mouth, including accompanying thoughts from the specially inserted Cerebral Electrodes:

Here I am, way up on my great gravity and depravity defying hectare of projecting balcony. Below is the vast, green jungle, oozing with multi-coloured, noisy, tasty life and the view is so beautiful it makes any discerning lifeform with tear ducts pump out tears by reflex in overdrive. Then the eyelashes go flap, flap, flap, but try as they might soon all you can see are curtains of tears. You’ve got to be tough to handle beauty as raw and unrefined and tear jerking as this: nothing like it left anywhere else, last outpost of natural beauty in the plague-ridden world.

But there’s more to this than mere views from the volcano rim of the wild, steaming jungles on the crater floor below, or the stark vertebral ridges of the other long extinct volcanoes vanishing into the misty distance; we are attuned now to the continuous bombardment of mysterious subliminal pleasure sensations that were once just beyond our perception. This is the High season after all, we can always recuperate in the Low season.

The days are hot, the skies deep blue, or sometimes vermilion turning majestically to storm lashed fearful daytime darkness. And the sunsets shimmer down through darkening garish shades into the warm blackness of the starry nights. The land may be dying just as surely as the air and the seas but it throbs all the more with climactic life force, and so do we: Paradise at last for Helga and I.

We left Conurba the great, decaying island city of our birth at just the right time. One night, staggering home through the clammy mass of unbridled populace from a fortified wine tasting we paused to regain balance and stared up at the sky and all we could see were the usual luminous swirling pollutants, then some raddled creature foolish enough to try flying in the poisonous stuff dropped dead out of the sky right on top of my head and burst.

‘That’s it Helga’, I said, power hosing down my quiff, ‘If that isn’t an omen I don’t know what is. Must finally be time to go’.

Go we did, from toxically shocked Conurba: the most expensive, filthy, over industrialised, over populated city in history. Mind you it was fun there while it lasted but each extra day the risk of permanent genetic damage increased exponentially.

Friends who stayed on are starting their secondary mutations now. You never realise it yourself; the brain can’t accept it. You just can’t understand the look of horror on friends’ faces when they see your new offspring with a huge sticky bud where its head should have been.

Secondary mutation characteristics can sometimes be visually pleasing but that’s not the point. The point is that once your city has passed all hope of recovery, once people are too politically correct to mention birth control, once all resources are consumed leaving nothing but the poisonous residue of half a dozen centuries of profit grabbing industry and punitive taxation it is time to go. Good job we grabbed our profit, evaded the tax and got out while we could. One day soon all the expanding infected cities of the Earth will meet and the whole planet will finally die and stop spinning then everything will fall off.

This is the country of Faunama: the last resort. I’ve never seen a night sky quite like the ones we get here. The atmosphere magnifies the stars and wild things swoop and whirl and wheel all around you through the dark. Shut your eyes and open your mouth and something tasty is bound to fly in.

Chapter 1

Any moment now the first guests will be arriving on our private pad for the palace warming party. It’s not been properly furnished yet - still very dusty inside - but we couldn’t wait to have the party, we hate waiting for anything. Could drop dead any moment. I am standing here proudly beside our sparkling new palace waiting to greet the guests and see the awful envy on their faces.

Tension, anticipatory pleasure: I can hear the first run-down State chopper full of guests rattling in slowly over the jungle, its feeble lights flickering against the night sky. A chance to see old friends again who still know how to enjoy themselves. To be frank the locals bore us and when we get bored we get hungry and when we get hungry - well - we just eat the nearest thing. It is not surprising really that we’ve had fewer and fewer visits from locals since we first came here.

Now the first chopper is landing. Nose first; the worst landing yet by the inexperienced, underpaid State pilots; our brand new landing pad is already pocked like the face of a Panamanian Potentate. Time to switch into Host mode as they spill out dazed and confused; clip on my huge grin and copious bonhomie:

‘Hey, devilishly good to see you all.’

‘Hi Howard.’

‘Come on inside; Helga’s still organising the staff. Not too shaken after that rapid descent? Typical State run Faunamanian technology; pre-primordial. Grab some drinks before the rush.’

They are well and truly gobsmacked, it isn’t just the shock of the landing, it is the sheer scale and audacity of our palace. Some of them may actually die of envy; that really would make it all worthwhile.

Dickie, predictably, has regained the power of speech first.

‘Howard, this, this place is . . . ’

‘You haven’t seen the half of it yet, Dickie, wait and decide on your choice of hyperbole, wouldn’t want you to feel embarrassed later by a gross understatement.’

‘Must have cost you a fortune.’

‘Astronomical.’

‘Lucky you got out from Conurba when you did.’

‘No luck about it Dickie.’

‘Brilliant timing then.’

‘Quite so: sheer financial genius on my part, I can’t stop feeling pleased with myself. Every time I think about it I just grin from ear to ear.’

‘So you do Howard.’

‘Excuse me a moment, somebody is going to get lost - you there, oh it’s you Dorian; only the slaughter vaults and banqueting kitchens that way. Not easy to get back out of there alive without a guide.’

‘Just probing around.’

‘Feel free but don’t slip when you’re down there: spiked pits, tenderising troughs, auto grallochers, we’re still missing two plumbers and a plasterer. But look by all means. Just a hundred or so steps down.’

‘My goodness Howard. Is that a cloud up near the ceiling?’

‘Problem with size: microclimate adjustments. Shocking downpour in the living room this morning, soaked to the skin as we sat there; dehumidifiers couldn’t cope but at least it laid some of the dust.’

‘Isn’t it rather labour intensive though, Howard?’

‘Promised to use plenty of local labour, Brenda, or they wouldn’t have licensed us to live here, but we don’t need more than a few hundred workers. At least they’re cheap.’

The locals think the best things in life are free, which makes them cheap but they don’t have any drive, they don’t care if they work or not; they’re quick to take offence and down tools at the drop of a cruel criticism, the wallop of a well chosen epithet or the lash of a devastating one-liner.

Sometimes we send the staff off early in the evening, a sharp word is sufficient, and we slip down to our private kitchenette to nibble and chomp the hours away with no distractions; sometimes we nibble and chomp at the staff.

‘Lucky you Howard.’

‘I think we’ve got it right this time, Brenda. A storm forced us down here in Faunama on an adventure holiday package, but once we landed and had a bite to eat we didn’t want to leave; one bite has become a feeding frenzy. And all thanks to hard work and an astute business brain.’

‘I wish my Dorian had one of those.’

‘We can’t all be brilliant like Howard, now can we Brenda?’

‘That’s right Dorian, not many of us about.’

‘And so modest too.’

‘I am aren’t I Dorian? In spite of it all. Help yourselves. Catch up with you later.’

Our palace is light years ahead of anything else in Faunama: Smart Glass and Multi Core Arc bars to harness the energy from all the fierce electric storms that suddenly scorch in and vaporise entire villages in a puff, but our palace won’t suffer that fate and neither will we; we’ll get a free charge for our power cells instead; the trick of survival is always to profit from others’ adversity.

The Smart Glass glows any shade we want, outside or in. The roof is on party mode now; pulsing triple bright and spelling out our names so our guests can see us in the night from fifty kilometres away. We’ve set the interior to something subtle for the party; it will slowly get bluer and darker as the evening progresses and then who knows what might happen in the naturally aphrodisiac atmosphere?

Not easy to find Faunamanians prepared to build a jungle resistant palace in this sort of location. They are not noted for their bravery. They quivered like jellies as they clambered for months on end over the intricate structure constantly dropping tools and bits of fabric down into the crater or on top of each other. The waiting jungle below gobbled up what was left of any Faunamanians that fell, but they have a philosophical attitude to death here. They need it with so many predators, rapidly acting fatal diseases, poisonous insects and parasitic fungi, not to mention natural disasters waiting to snuff them out, or potentially lethal construction contracts.

It all adds to the excitement of the place; if we ever settled down somewhere safe our brains would turn to soup in no time at all. What a brain needs is constant stimulus: that’s why we’re here.

‘Hughie, Glenda, you’re looking marvellous: mmmwah. Has Helga seen to you yet? I’d better sort you out with a drink or you’ll dry up in this heat and add to our dust problem. Where can the staff be? Idle bunch. What would you like to drink?’

‘Much as possible please Howard. So this is it then? You’ve made it.’

‘Certainly have. But don’t we deserve it? Done my share of hard work. It’s alright for you and Glenda in Malibu 12 Precinct; not a trace of toxicity and an artificial stress inhibitor in the water supply, the local Government practically wipes your bottom for you.’

‘But aren’t you too young to just stop working Howard?’

‘You’re never too young for perpetual pleasure Hughie, believe me, only trouble: this is a Conservation Zone.’

‘I thought it was.’

‘Don’t want you to build anything. Of course, we didn’t want to spoil the locale any more than the next predatory Developer, no matter what anybody may tell you to the contrary.’

‘Course not Howard. So what did the planners make of this vast structure that glows in the night brightly enough to blind any nocturnal creatures on the entire continent?’

‘They weren’t sure at first.’

‘Right in the middle of one of the last tracts of unspoilt natural jungle too isn’t it Howard?’

‘So they say.’

‘And isn’t the crater one of the last hundred sites of unbridled natural beauty and ecological wonder left on the planet as well, Howard?’

‘Don’t tell me about all that Glenda. I had to sign all manner of agreements to abide by before they’d even look at the plans, forbidden to mine any resources, etc., etc. but I think what clinched it with the planners was how much wealth we were prepared to inject into this impoverished backwater and all the jobs we would be creating, building the thing and running it afterwards. They made us sign long term labour agreements and they had some pretty strange ideas about minimum numbers of labour for even the simplest jobs, but never mind.’

‘The place is crawling with labour, outnumbering the guests two to one I should think.’

‘It’s early yet Glenda.’

‘Getting in each others’ way but getting into the spirit of the party aren’t they?’

‘So they are; we may need to turn on the cold spray earlier than expected, which reminds me: we had all the business of the Polite Precinct too.’

‘What? Here Howard?’

‘The whole tin pot country abides by the Codes of Politeness.’

‘Hahaha hah.’

‘What’s so funny Hughie?’

‘Hahahah hah.’

‘Well Glenda?’

‘Just thinking of you and Helga trying to be polite.’

‘We do try.’

‘Aaah hahaha.’

Excellent, another chopper full of guests to dilute the staff / guest ratio a little but you do need plenty of guests and staff in a place this size or it would feel empty. Plenty of locals have gate-crashed, but we don’t mind, the more the merrier; might be useful if we run out of food. Lucky we gave all the staff little aprons or you wouldn’t know who was supposed to be helping and who wasn’t among all the crowds of Faunamanians who appear to be resolutely determined only to help themselves. This crowd for instance; all the local dignitaries and planners I’ve had to smarm up to. I’d better be on my politest behaviour with them. You can recognise them by the pursed lips and clenched buttocks. Had to ask them along to see the finished marvel.

‘Welcome to you all. Let me show you around then the salad is over there, fresh green stuff anyway, over on that side.’

They don’t look happy. Vegetarians the lot of them: probably tee-total too. What these veggies don’t seem to realise are the fatal dynamics of every meal. By the natural order of things something must be the victim in every meal so you’d better make damn sure it’s your food and not you. That’s why these Faunamanians are so accident prone; eating nothing but vegetables makes you the potential victim every meal.

That’s the work over, I’ve done my duty by the dignitaries; exuded charm in industrial quantities and politeness to no avail. Miserable bunch. They wandered around with looks of perpetual horror on their faces as if they’d had no idea what we’d been building here.

I only changed the plans a bit after they’d passed them, just the scale, nothing else. How was I to know they were expecting something a tenth the size? They should have come and checked up on me. Fancy doing things on trust? At least they’ve calmed down now, thanks to Helga and twelve jugs of my patent Fruit Punch, which I assured them was alcohol free. But it isn’t a matter of alcohol: it’s a matter of octane.

If Helga hadn’t suddenly appeared to placate them I think they’d have set upon me in spite of the Politeness Code. One of them was still looking threatening with a salad pitchfork when I finally pointed them at the wagon load of fruit puddings.

Now for the party proper: friends, food, drink. Now for real fun: within the bounds of politeness of course.

‘Ready everybody, all form a ring, we’ve got a Polite Firework display for you.’

That’s all they allow you to let off here.

Never again. If a firework can’t shock and stunt, drive the nervy to a breakdown, or the challenged cardiac to a seizure, then it isn’t a firework as far as I’m concerned.

In Conurba we had real fireworks. They could sense out fear in the crowd and head straight for the most scared and decide what would scare them most; a huge bang then a cloud of burning gasses to envelop them; or a cloud of burning gasses, then a huge bang or both simultaneously.

The fireworks could pretend to go out and then explode unexpectedly just as you peered down at them and rip off your nose or they could deliberately find the box with all the other fireworks in, no matter where it was hidden, and ignite the lot. These Faunamanian things just excuse themselves with a ten minute warning alarm and fizzle fartily for a second or two with a feeble coral glow.

I lost patience after the first one and threw the rest of the box over the balcony, time to galvanise the guests into real party action: Politeness go hang:

‘Why isn’t anyone dancing? You; Trixie, Carl, Eleanor, Pedro get in the middle there and dance. Go on. I’ll lower the lights a notch or two, make things a bit bluer. Get closer, go on; that’s more like it; do the Beluga: rub, thrust, rub, rub, thrust. Yeah. Daphne, all on your own? Come on, let’s strip down to leotards and show ‘em.’

Real party spirit in the air now, no thanks to Helga. I don’t know why Helga just acted that way? She’s not usually prone to jealousy. I was only showing Daphne the patterns on the floor tiles under the buffet platform after we’d worn ourselves out on the dance floor - when I accidentally fell on top of her and we were just inadvertently squirming together to regain our balance. Who cares; party, party, politeness went out the door long ago with half the shocked dignitaries.

I need another drink and another dance and a - who’s that over there, a demonic presence glowering on and off in the strobe gloom while everybody else Sham Shammy Whammys to the Synchronised Cell Pulsars like there’s no tomorrow? It couldn’t be . . . ? Oh dear: it is.

‘Caswell Pike? Marvellous to see you, er, what a surprise?’

‘It would be wouldn’t it Howard? As you didn’t invite me.’

‘Of course we would have invited you Caswell, we just thought you’d be too busy; we know all about your hectic private life . . . and, um, it’s such a long way from Conurba.’

We didn’t invite him because he’d cast a bitter, jealous damper on the whole thing and he might wonder by what suspect means I’d managed to finance the palace; as well he might. Once, long ago now, Caswell used to be the life and soul of the party, now he drags all the life out of everything like a black hole. Too many years of accountancy have crippled his pleasureparts, withered them for sure.

‘Yes, well somebody told me there was a grotesque bash to gate-crash so I followed the crowds. Then I saw your names illuminated in the jungle. I considered taking the chopper straight back out but then I thought: what the hell? Might as well offer my old friend Howard a unique opportunity. These local choppers are excellent for literally crashing parties though aren’t they? Knocked some fancy little gazebo of yours for six.’

‘Not our new Sun Dial house?’

‘Looked to be some rather expensive components in the wreckage.’

It’s odd how Caswell always manages to smash something expensive whenever he calls: something very, very expensive in this instance.

‘Only a trifle,