The World After

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Book excerpt

One

 

October 2025

Hong Kong

“An insatiable thirst. This is the main driving force of men. Thirst for money, thirst for power, thirst for love, thirst for happiness, thirst for vengeance. Everything in this world is created just to satisfy someone’s thirst.”

These were the thoughts that engaged Taylor’s mind as he stared from the top of the hill above Happy Valley in Hong Kong at the colorful crowd hurrying up and down between the buildings and the impossible traffic that continued to choke the artificial islands that had composed the backbone of Hong Kong for decades. And what was his thirst? After he willingly left the real world in 2015 and chose the life of a hermit or even a rebel, after all he was officially classed as an outlaw, he was left with just one thirst – a thirst for the past. A past which only he remembered now, or at least he felt that way from time to time.

The year was 2025. Eight years had passed since 2017 – a year in which robots became the norm, not only in factories and industry, but also in people’s everyday lives. This was also the year in which the first supermen were born, genetically modified and created exactly here – in Hong Kong, in the Lab for Genetic Engineering of the Beijing Institute for Genomic. But an even bigger change occurred in 2020, a year in which humans en masse and “willingly” were forced to exchange their passports for brain implants. Well, not all humans agreed to that.

Only Taylor knew what it cost him to escape having this extra in his brain, with which the population of the modern world communicated with the robots around them, used their computers, switched on and off their TVs, cars, etc. A PC with a mouse and keyboard could only be seen in museums these days.

Light rain started to fall over Hong Kong. Some things never changed. Despite all the extra pollution and abuse against nature, the climate in this area of the world remained constantly humid and stickily hot. Taylor lifted his head, enjoying the fresh raindrops touching his face. The light rain soon turned into a downpour that steadily washed away into the ocean most of the rubbish gathered on the streets of the metropolis. Taylor looked back down towards the busy city and started walking along Shanghai Road. Taylor Swansea was forty-seven years old with good posture and a strong body. An ex-financial advisor – he lost his job, house and wife during the financial crisis of 2010-2011. He never recovered from these losses; also, the world didn’t give him any time in its constant hurry to change. 

North America was stuck in a swamp of meanness; Europe was still undecided whether to keep or terminate its European Union; the British Isles became wasteland after the volcanic eruptions in Iceland in 2018. Also, a hopeless struggle had started to force the Arabic and African emigrants back to their deserted and unlivable homelands. Russia was still in alcohol amok. Japan was continually trying to recover from a sequence of devastating earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. And the Pacific? Well, it became the new tacit ruler of the world. China, India and Brazil became familiarly known as the Trinity. And a race of super intelligent children which China started to produce in 2017 was about to end the speculation about who had the leading role in this Trinity.

Taylor continued to make his way down the steep streets of Hong Kong. Hundreds of people with emotionless expressions and from all sorts of nationalities were rushing around him to finish their ‘important’ daily jobs so they could have ‘quality’ evening time to spend with friends or family. His red, roughly cropped hair, already all wet from the persistent drizzle, fell over his shoulders resembling a bloody waterfall. His chestnut colored eyes stared at everyone passing by. He was waiting with growing anxiety to meet Jinhun Sun – one true Chinese Han and, most importantly, another person without a brain implant.

***

At the same time, many miles away in Sao Paulo’s outskirts, agent MacGeady moaned with pleasure. His sweaty body bent into an arc and, purring under him, a chocolate tigress felt how his hot sperm spilled inside her. She opened her lips which revealed her white teeth. MacGeady stood up in the middle of a thrust from the sultry beauty under him without giving any explanation or warning. He grasped for his towel and, without saying anything, went into the bathroom.

On hearing the water, Fabiana said gritting her teeth, “Stupid Americans. They spent ten years in a queue for relief and yet they still think they have God’s dick in their hand.” After a minute, she got up from the bed, put her clothes on and scribbled a note, leaving it on the night-table: “I have to go to work. See you soon.”

The hotel occupied by the two lovers was a shit-hole in one of the poorest suburbs of the rapidly growing megapolis of Sao Paolo. Crumbling pieces of fascia the size of a car flapped in the wind outside, while the interior once upon a time painted in lemon-yellow could only be described as a thick layer of brown-reddish dirt that was conveniently replaced on the ceiling by broad patches of mold. MacGeady’s bosses would have approved bills from the most expensive and ridiculously comfortable places in the city during his visits, but he always preferred to keep low key. He didn’t mind the fact that the rooms were small, decorated with a single glass coffee table, small sofa and a bed; he was there only for the animalistic sex and nothing else. MacGeady wasn’t a gentle lover. Once his own hunger was satisfied, he didn’t care about his partners. He didn’t have feelings for Fabiana; he wanted to shower, sleep and then, when the time came, fly back home for his next assignment. For an ex-solider, who by the time of the dissolution of the old American Army as such was shooting people for fun, this was the perfect job. Constantly occupied, traveling a lot, with bosses not bothered if he tortured or even killed someone in order to complete his mission.

When agent MacGeady came out of the bathroom, he wasn’t surprised that Fabiana had left for the musical studio where she worked. Their purely sexual relationship had started almost a year ago. When he was assigned missions in Sao Paulo, they fucked almost every night; and when he was away, they didn’t even speak on the phone. This kind of relationship suited him perfectly.  

MacGeady’s muscular body could hardly have looked in better condition, but he knew that the countless wounds and injuries he had during his time in the agency left no mark on him only because of the nearly god-like medical procedures which were provided for all field agents. Despite the incredible healing techniques used, MacGeady still felt pain inside. He let his towel wrapped around his groin drop as he rubbed his left shoulder, where the last bullet fired at him had entered. He flinched feeling a stabbing pain even though the surface of his skin was smooth and soft to touch. To shake off the pain and stress of the last few days, he groped in the pockets of his trousers and swallowed the last two of his pain-killers. MacGeady made a mental note that he had to go and visit the agency doctor once back in the States.

He had just finished putting on his linen pants and hemp shirt, the only possible clothes that stopped you sweating like a pig in the awful climate of Brazil, when he felt something. His instinct triggered straight away and he immediately jumped from the bed and reached for the gun on the glass table in the middle of the room. He was too late.

Suddenly, glass from the balcony’s window spattered all over the room and wooden splinters from the front door exploded around him. MacGeady hid behind the bed in a fraction of a second, but he was still able to feel a piece of glass or wood stabbing his left leg just under the knee. Two youngsters, obviously Asians, burst into the room. Their thin bodies were dressed in black elastic overalls; their faces were not covered by masks and hardly bore any unique features. MacGeady had no choice. He stood up and confronted the one coming in the door. His skills in hand-to-hand fighting were some of the best in the Agency for Tracking the Untraceables, but after the first two kicks he had to deal with, he realized he was too slow for the lightning movements of this Asian.

His twist and roll over to the cover of the bed saved him from a steel rope passing just a few inches from his face. So, it was clear they were not there to catch; they were there to kill. This thought gave MacGeady new strength. His breathing slowed and became steady. The time stopped; he controlled it. MacGeady stood up from the cover of the bed and widened his position, ready to confront the two men. The simultaneous attack from the two that followed didn’t surprise him, and he managed to escape it with a roll to the right. With another lightning move forward, he grasped his pistol. Immediately, he aimed it towards the corner of the room where the Asians were supposed to be, and with this action he quickly realized his mistake – the attacker that came from the window had followed his movements and now the steel rope with hundreds of fish hooks on it tightened around his wrists.

One harsh pull and, together with blood drops and flesh, from his mouth came a scream worthy enough of a very talented opera singer. The pistol dropped between his legs. The Asian wound the rest of the rope round his neck while the other took out of his pocket a long and very sharp tool, looking more like an icicle than a medical instrument, which, in fact, it was. He neared the helpless MacGeady, pointing the sharp end towards his right eye. His face broadened into a grin as he pierced the soft tissue of the eye with ease. The loud noise of Sao Paolo’s busy street traffic that filled the room through the broken window deafened MacGeady’s scream. His brain switched off as a defense to the enormous pain as he lost consciousness. Broad smiles appeared on the faces of the two Asians.