Humanity 2.0, Year 041, Day 112

"Don't tell me you want to take normal people into the Vault with us, Ben." Nina shook her head. "It wouldn't work. Even if the first generation were happy and grateful, if that algae blackout really happens, it could be two hundred years we'd be stuck in there. Would every generation be as grateful as their ancestors? Would they be able to control their population growth that long? Would we have the resources to feed ourselves and all the kids they decide to have for that long? How many generations before they turned on us?" She frowned. "It's not easy, but it's the bald truth of this thing. The Vault has to be for us alone."

"I know that." I nodded. "I know all of that, and I completely agree. I might not have thought so twenty, thirty years ago, but I see that now. Thing is... we're thinking only in terms of what 15226 left us. We have an enormous amount of money, and power, and, well, except for me, we're all pretty smart people."

Emily rolled her eyes, tired of my self-effacing style. I brushed past it. "We have Wren's incredible technology and genius. We have our capabilities and long lives. We have the company. Most of all, we know what's coming. We have decades and centuries to ourselves to think the problem through. All that isn't enough to save the world – I know that – but what if we don't try to save the whole world? What if we scale it down?"

Wren raised an eyebrow, perplexed. "You mean... build a second Vault?"

"Sort of." I rocked my head from side to side. I folded my hands in front of me, leaning forward and composing my thoughts. "What's the Vault? It's just a very nice cave. It's got a sealed environment, air recyclers, and an enormous amount of space, supplies, and food... but there's nothing inside the Vault that we couldn't do on our own."

"At ridiculous expense..." Nadine cautiously added. "Ben, it would take a significant chunk of this country's GDP to put together something like the Vault. It just won't happen that easily."

"Sure, if we did it the way she did it. But keep in mind 15226 also wanted to stay off the radar, and needed a ton of huge isolated spaces to conduct all the weird genetic experiments she had going on. We're not up against the same limits 15226 was. We've got the money and resources to make use of a massive base of industrial power over years and years. I'm thinking, we keep the Vault for ourselves... but we give all our brothers and sisters out there a fighting chance. We equip one city to weather the absolute worst that the Earth could throw at it. We could even dome it over with Wren's new carbon membrane stuff-"

Wren sounded doubtful. "Which is in no way ready and we can't make anywhere near enough..."

I held out both hands. "... neither of which have to be fixed today or tomorrow. We don't need this thing to be up and running right now... Wren, Nina, Nadine. We take our time, develop and test everything we need, and only begin laying the groundwork now. We fortify one city's power grid with long-term sustainable energy.

"We give it large-scale water purification onsite, we include enough farmland or food plants or something that everyone can eat, we even find a way to let them make air for themselves to breathe. We look into ways we can seal it against the outside environment. We set it up with some kind of quarantine system to prevent some disease from killing them all.

"We can roll all this into some city somewhere, among all the other factories and whatever else is around, so that nobody notices – until things go south. Then we flick the switch and hand it all over to our brothers and sisters, and then – only then – do we jump into the Vault and wait out the end of the world."

There was a long silence, as each of them digested the idea. It was all I could do to not grate my teeth in anticipation. I felt like some low-level functionary pitching an idea to the board of directors. The bottom line was that the girls really did have a far better head for money and power than I did – especially these three. They would know much better than I how feasible my little dream was. Slowly, all eyes turned toward the one person with the most power over the idea at that moment – Wren.

Wren thought for a while, pouting as her incredible mind burned through a dozen enormous problems in moments; it was only a best guess, but it was light-years beyond what the rest of us could come up with tonight. She let out a sigh, looking away. "It's some science fiction horseshit, but it's not impossible... just ludicrously expensive. It's not something they'd ever put together on their own, either, not before it was too late. The economics are all against putting all that stuff in one place. Who wants to live in a condo with ten thousand neighbors, stare at a nuke reactor across the street, and smell the sewage treatment plant out back? It makes no sense... unless it's all you've got."

"Well, that's where we come in." I shrugged. "We can get it all ready for them. And when – I mean if – the time comes, we turn the whole thing on, and hand the reins over to our brothers and sisters, and we say, hey, here's your second chance; don't worry about paying us back. Then we hop into the Vault, and we'll know when we do it that at least we tried."

I waved a hand around. "Right now, the plan says that all the kids we have centuries down the line, when the normal human species would be dead and gone, that all we'd have to show them for history would be so many big-ass Wikipedia articles... some artifacts, some ruins, and lots of books and movies. None of that is going to compare to having the real thing, still alive and well, for them to learn from." I gave a half-hearted shrug, letting the real reason behind all of it show for a moment. "Maybe we don't have to just listen to them all die from inside our cave."

"Which city do we use..." Nina folded her arms in front of her, furrowing her brow in thought. "There's a shitton of variables to consider with this thing. Can't be too close to sea level if the poles melt..." She thought to herself. "Or do we use an existing one at all?"

Nadine looked surprisingly permissive with the idea, and looked up as she thought to herself. "Gotta look into buying up all that heavy industry they're abandoning in the Midwest and Korea..." She folded her arms. "Even if this works, though..."

"We can save a lot more animal and plant species this way, too. Biodiversity will be real important if we have to go back out into the world right after a mass extinction." Rain nodded to herself. She had already found her part in this.

"I'm gonna need a bigger lab. Several." Wren already looked excited. She lived for these kinds of challenges. "And I guess I'm going to have to finally knuckle under and recruit staff. I'll need a few teams of PhDs, young ones who aren't going to piss and moan every time I ask them to think outside the box. Oh, and they should be cute too..." She paused, rethinking. "Well, I shouldn't get too picky."

"I'll help, Ben." Claudia smiled, stroking one hand across my broad back. "I'm not Miss Moneybags or science-girl like any of these four, but I'll help."

"I'm not either, as well, so I guess we're both equally qualified." I shrugged. Claudia let out a quick laugh. In fact, I felt an incredible weight lifting off my chest – greater than I'd realized. Some kind of inner guilt had been festering over the years, ever since I settled down with Nadine and the rest; I began to realize just how incredible the gift 15226 had given me was. The thought of turning the flow of history away from disaster, even from the shadows where I'd never get the credit, was incredibly tempting.

The scale of the loss if she was right – if human civilization was in its final chapters – was only becoming clear to me in the past few years, and it was utterly staggering. Some nights, I couldn't even sleep when I started thinking about it. Returning constantly to this idea of trying to save at least some nugget of humankind was what had rescued me from those dark thoughts. With it now on the table, and the girls supporting it, I felt an energy gathering inside me, ready to rise to the task. I had a new mission now, one that I could even table 15226's mission for. This was paramount. This was destiny. This was the ultimate Right Thing To Do.

Or so I believed at the time.

Rain asked me once, centuries later, after the atmosphere was breathable again and we were lying on a secluded shore of western South America after making love, not far from where we built our first settlement – she asked, if I could do it all again, starting from this point in time centuries ago, back in 2053, knowing how it ended, knowing it would split our people in two... would I still have begun Project Elysium? Was I naïve to think we could do what 15226 couldn't?

Nobody can ever really answer these things; all I can say is, 'probably'. I don't think it was the wrong decision. I'm a lot less afraid of leadership now than I was then, and the project was the first time I really begin to find that in myself, so it did give me that. The question is really more about the value of our lives versus human lives, and about the price of the future. It's something I'll leave for the historians and philosophers to muddle through when I'm dead.

Emily sat up, and made her way over to me as the other girls got lost in thought. She knelt down in front of me and Claudia, staring me in the eyes. "How long has this thing been cooking up there?" She pointed a finger at my forehead.

"Four or five years... only with much seriousness in the past couple months, though." I reached out and stroked her cheek. "I got the idea from this old comic book, actually. I found it in the basement."

She snorted, and we all had a laugh. I slid one arm under Claudia's midsection, pulling her to me, and feeling the swell of her pregnancy against my waist; I bent down to give her a kiss, then did the same for my sister, holding one girl in each arm. They seemed to be in a mood for more than kissing – soon, it was a three-way make-out, both girls pressing together near my face and kissing me as if they'd fallen in love all over again. I'd had no idea the thing would affect them this way.

I laid back and let those two go at it for a time, and soon felt probing fingers reaching beneath my pants and fishing something out. The sounds of languid female foreplay were filling the room, and a glance over to my side showed me Nadine and her daughter making out, Nadine having pulled Rain's top off and cupping one breast, with Rain's hand finding its way under her mother's panties. Wren was stripping Nina quickly, in her normal, incongruous and rushed style of lovemaking. Nina, supple and lithe as she was, had little trouble tugging Wren's articles of clothing off tit-for-tat, half of them likely without Wren noticing.

A few minutes later, Claudia – the only one left in the room wearing anything – was kneeling between my legs and sucking me, with occasional assistance from Emily – who was atop me in a sixty-nine position, her dark folds suspended above my head. They were taking their time, and fortunately I wasn't rushed myself. Claudia's lips slid up and down, along the sides and underside of my length, licking my balls and sucking me again, in a practiced and gentle motion that she knew would eventually elicit a mouth full of semen for her.

She rose up, and I was distracted from my idle licking of my sister's clit long enough to realize she wasn't going to be coming back. Emily shifted, and suddenly neither girl was teasing my cock. Looking around, I saw Wren and Nadine on either side of Rain, my daughter's legs spread wide and her womanhood facing directly toward me. She was leaning back on the couch, nude, with her mother and our tattooed genius both kissing and licking at her face and breasts. Nadine turned toward me.

"Ben... I'll give you as much help as you want... but there's a condition."

I smiled. "What would that be?"

Rain answered for her. "Time to put a baby in me, Daddy."

I paused. I hadn't expected this. I had no objection to it, of course, but after all this time, I'd assumed Rain didn't want to bear a child. My cock stiffened further, in a way it only rarely did – twice in one day now, before being when I'd fucked my sister. Make my sister and my daughter pregnant in the same day?

I got up and walked over toward them, my hard dick pointing out in front of me, and came down on one knee before her; lying back as she was, she was still lower down than me. I slid two hands underneath her ass, pulling her a little closer to the couch's edge, and met her eyes. "Rain, you want this?"

"Yeah... I thought I'd be okay with just playing around all this time... but I want more." She smiled. "Emily giving in pushed me over, too. I want a daughter, okay?"

I shrugged. "Well, that part is out of my hands. What would I call a daughter by my daughter... we're going to need a new dictionary."

A prophetic comment. That particular term ended up being decided by vote.

Before she could respond, I'd begun to push my length inside her, eliciting a gasp from her and coos of fascination and delight from the girls around her. Emily and Nadine paired off on one side, and Wren with Claudia on the other, neither couple forgetting to tease and assist my daughter as she accepted my cock.

Occasional licks to her breasts, kisses, and teasing touches kept her constantly stimulated; my own joining in was almost an afterthought. I sank my cock in as deep as it would go, and gripped her waist with both hands, intending to fuck her raw. I knew the other girls would help on her clit as she came close. I slid my hips out, then back, and before I knew it, I was pounding her.

Our eyes met, and I could see something new in them, a kind of love that was more than just playful as Rain had always been. There was a side of her she kept private from all but her mother, and only now was I being allowed in. My hips moved now of their own volition, leaving my mind to wander briefly through a world of emotion and bonding with her; Rain was more than just a daughter to me, had always been, but this was special. I was watching her change before my eyes, to admit a new part of herself into her own thoughts.

Her smallish breasts jiggled despite their size, from the hard fucking she was being subjected to. Both nipples glistened with the saliva of the other girls from the kisses she'd received on them. A wandering hand – her mother's, of course – found her clit, and took on a rapid side-to-side motion as she knew Rain loved. There was no teasing, no denial, just a solid push directly toward pleasure. She knew I wasn't going to hold back or slow down, and she wanted Rain to come – hard.

I felt the small, tugging pulsations around my cock as my daughter came quietly, squinting her eyes shut and trembling. She went through a series of minor twitches and convulsions, arching her back as her pussy spasmed around my pole. It was enough to trigger my eruption – I felt my balls churn, and life-making seed poured from inside me into her womb. I groaned aloud, burying myself to the hilt one last time and letting my cock pump away, fertilizing her.

The sight sent the other girls into some kind of spiral of pleasure, and not long after I'd withdrawn my wilting cock from Rain, who was herself only just then recovering from her long orgasm, the other girls began to moan aloud – mostly into one another's pussies, as both pairs had reverted to sixty-nines. A dribble of my white semen emerged from Rain's folds, where she laid back with her legs spread wide, without a thought of modesty. Our eyes met again where I sat back, leaning against the coffee table, catching my breath; it was done, I had made my daughter pregnant. Somehow, I knew it probably wasn't the only time I'd do it too. The fact that both of us seemed to find it so natural and not at all strange was another testament to how much 15226 had altered the human instincts once found in all of us.

An hour later, Rain had dozed off to sleep right there on the spot. The other girls had gone off to their own places. I reached beneath the table and found a large, heavy blanket, and threw it atop her; I snuggled it up around her whole body, the way she liked, and heard someone coming back in.

Nadine, dressed again, came over to my side, and kissed her daughter, once on the forehead, then once quickly on the lips – being careful not to wake her. She rose up with me, and took my hand. We went over to the armchair opposite the couch Rain was on, and she sat down in my lap, wrapping one arm behind my neck, and leaned her head on my shoulder. We both stared at Rain for a time, admiring her beauty. She kissed my cheek again.

I glanced over at Nadine. "What was it you were going to say before?"

"Hmm?"

"Before. About my idea. You said 'even if this works, though...'?"

"Oh." She paused, frowning, then glanced up at me. "It's a good idea, and I'll help you."

"Just tell me." I took a lock of her red hair and stroked it. "I don't want this to be Ben's Dumb Idea. You, Em, and Nina are the big three players here, but you especially. You know big projects like this much better than I do. Of course I want to know what you think."

"It's not that we can't build it..." She shook her head. "We can't build a shelter to protect people from being themselves, though."

"People can learn. I learned, and if I can, then anyone can. We can show them how to live a better way."

She smiled at me. "Sounds like fun." Nestled up near me, we dozed off together.

I'd do it all over again.

Probably.