Excerpts Science Fiction Read an Excerpt From The Felicity Complex by august clarke Six women, lab-designed to serve billionaires in a luxury fallout shelter, rebel against their programming after the end times arrive. By august clarke | Published on June 30, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Felicity Complex, a dystopian SF satire by august clarke, out from Erewhon Books on July 28th. Welcome to the Felicity Complex! Constructed during the height of the Cold War, our unique hotel is prepared to protect you, the billionaire class, from nuclear annihilation! Shielded from radiation and supplemented with closed air systems and hydroponic gardens, this resort bunker offers a prime existence underground: full gymnasium and spa, gourmet meals, top-tier medical care, and the best in entertainment.Meet Hallelujah! Grown in a lab and educated in the ways of concierge hospitality, she believes in her duty to comfort the Lord-anointed refugees of the apocalypse. (Even if her lover Anastasia disagrees. Even if her creator Dr. Younghusband is disappointed in her.) Don’t worry—everyone is safe from communists in the Felicity Complex!Look, Hallelujah, guests have finally arrived! Hallelujah and her sister specimens have waited ages for you. Never mind the secrets other rich survivalists may be hiding. Just make sure they don’t notice the violent intentions behind our staff’s wide, wide smiles…A sendup of traditional womanhood and lampooning the paranoias of the elite, The Felicity Complex questions the ambitions behind the entitled few who plan for the end times—and who truly survives them. Buy the Book The Felicity Complex august clarke Buy Book The Felicity Complex august clarke Buy this book from: 1Before The specimen resembles a girl. It has tits. It has no concept of identity beyond its murky understanding of itself as Specimen 679-b, which isn’t exactly a name or title. The tubes down its throat and wrists are hooked up to some unseen display. It drifts otherwise untethered in the narrow confines of a glass vat, submerged in milky fluid, and stares directly at the fluorescent lamps overhead. The lamps buzz. A fly buzzes too, and bounces suicidally off the long, skinny bulbs. This is the only movement in the room. The specimen is playing a game. The game is a race. Staring directly at the light hurts, which is the point. It fries its eyes with the lamplight, then counts through the duration of the itchy, fizzy, healing feeling that follows. How fast can the specimen repair its retinas? So fast! The specimen’s personal best is twenty Mississippis. It’s trying to get its time down to fifteen. This is a bad run. Its eyes are still fizzing at thirty. Around the specimen, complex white boxes blink and hum, but it has become completely desensitized to the various box sounds. Its world is made of beige control panels with brown knobs, racks of blue wires, towering steel implements, and other glass vats. This specimen doesn’t know if there are other specimens in those vats. Other specimens probably existed at some point, for instance Specimen 1 through Specimen 679-a. Sometimes things fail in this laboratory and that pisses the scientists off. They curse and smoke cigarettes inside when that happens. The inciting incident could be the death and dissolution of other specimens. Who’s to say? The specimen has limited vision beyond the lamp above it. It can’t investigate. The lamp game is getting boring. The specimen considers bashing its head against the glass. It seems like something to do. A busted face would be more complicated to heal, so could make for a higher-stakes game. The idea gains momentum for the specimen. It thinks about what would happen to the milky fluid and the tubes in its face. It thinks about the possible skull-glass sounds. Glass is breakable! If it breaks the glass, perhaps somebody will show up and give the specimen attention. The specimen likes attention. It’s so exciting when somebody comes by to talk to it. Maybe Doctor Younghusband would visit. Now that’s a thought. Maybe he’d make a note on his clipboard. Maybe he’d examine the wound and personally chart its progress. Maybe he’d say, That’s interesting. Thirty-one Mississippi, thirty-two Mississippi, thirty-three Mississippi. The purple splotches fade from their vision. Embarrassing stuff. The specimen experiments with a headbutt. Thunk. The glass doesn’t break. Dull thud of pain, then something new: worry. The tube tugs at the back of its throat, which is irritating, then frightening. It gags, tries to swallow, and suddenly the glass vat shrinks. The specimen is trapped. It can’t extend its arms. It kicks and twists its hips, the milky fluid sloshes against the walls of the vat, and the tubes in its wrists scrape against the inside of its skin. Drugs and acclimation only last so long. It properly notices the tubes for the first time in a while. It hates the tubes. The tubes feel separate from the specimen, invasive. It looks at its wrists, and its body growing around the tubes implanted there. Hot-pink meat twines up the plastic like ribbons on a ballerina’s shoe. The specimen was shown a picture of a ballerina recently. It was on a slideshow. The specimen bites down hard on the tube in its mouth and screams. A machine above the specimen beeps like crazy. The laboratory door groans open and is quickly followed by the comforting squeak of loafers on vinyl. The scientists are here! The specimen prays that they will save it. “Jiminy Christmas,” says Doctor Slagle. He’s a scrawny man with shiny hair and a thick mustache. He wears a necktie with blue and brown stripes and his lab coat is too big for him. He has other qualities the specimen cannot parse in the middle of its panic attack. He looks like a weasel. He has tiny pointy weasel teeth. He fumbles his rubber-gloved hands over the vat’s latch and opens it. Cold air on the specimen’s face. Its nose and brow float just above the fluid’s surface. Milky liquid clings to its eyelashes in big, shiny dewdrops. Doctor Slagle lifts the specimen’s wrist out of the fluid. He feels for its pulse, measures it against the information on the monitor. He mutters something. Next, he measures the new growth of the specimen’s errant flesh around the tubes, then pinches the flesh ribbons and unwinds them. It hurts when he pinches. His eyebrows scrunch up. He produces a scalpel from somewhere and slices off the flesh ribbons. Ouch. He nabs the severed flesh with tweezers and stashes it in a little vial. The flesh ribbons writhe around in the vial, then go slack. He grimaces. He blinks at the cut he made. Not enough Mississippis have passed yet. It’s bleeding a lot. The milky fluid in the vat is turning pink. He peers at the specimen’s face. Contorted in terror. It is trembling all over. The specimen can’t speak while intubated, and the screams come out mangled and slurred. He says, “Okay. Tranquilizers, Pye.” The specimen doesn’t know how many scientists are in the room with it. It tries to count. It needs to know what’s going on. Doctor Pye grunts. He’s been looking at the monitor, the specimen can see him now from its vantage in the vat. He twists some knobs, then turns his back on the specimen. He fills a needle, flicks it. He loads up the specimen with a potent translucent liquid. The tranquilizer hits. Smoothness rolls through the specimen. Everything feels good. It no longer cares about the tubes or how many doctors are watching it. It chews on the plastic, dazed. The cuts on its wrists seal shut around the tubes. Itchy, funny. The water is still pink. “Now that we’re done freaking out,” says Doctor Slagle, addressing the specimen. It’s clear when he’s talking to the specimen because he overenunciates his consonants. “It’s a big day for Project Materia Prima. We got a new funding lead. Smile!” It smiles around the tube. “Just like that. Now, Doctor Younghusband is giving Mister Pink a tour of the laboratory today. Mister Pink is a very rich man. His money is Project Materia Prima’s only shot. If he likes you, we can afford to keep you alive. This is make or break, vat baby.” Doctor Slagle’s eyes flash. His pupils are huge, and the specimen can see itself reflected in them. He leans closer. He smells like sweat and bubble gum. His stripy tie dangles over the specimen’s face. The fabric brushes the tip of its nose. He says, “You’ve gotta do your very best impression of a normal human woman. You’ve got to sell it, Specimen 679-b. It’s life or death. Continuation or destruction. If we can’t sell you, that’s curtains. I’m going to take the tube out. Don’t bite me. Do not bite me. Understand?” The specimen looks at the curls in his hair. It tries to count the curls, but the curls are a maze, and the specimen is lost inside it. Wandering spirals forever. The curls have no beginning and no end and are therefore innumerable. They churn like waves in the ocean. Cresting, breaking, flowing. The specimen was recently shown footage of several natural landscapes, and the ocean was easily the best one. Very vat-like. Doctor Pye presses down on the specimen’s forehead, pushes it under the milky surface. As he tilts the specimen’s head back, its mouth opens, and Doctor Slagle reaches inside. There is something pleasurable and revolting about how it feels when he drags the tube out of its throat. The specimen likes how discomfort gives way to satisfaction. Liking things is easy right now. Doctor Pye puts the throat tubes away. No luck for the wrist ones, those stay hooked up. The specimen forgets the annoyance as soon as it thinks to be annoyed. Wavy and smooth. Its throat is obviously empty now. Breathing feels hilarious. The specimen coughs. The milky fluid gets in its mouth. It takes a swallow of blood-pink creamy brine. Mistake. Nausea rakes its insides, and the specimen retches and yucks. “Stop that. Be cool,” says Doctor Slagle. “It’s showtime.” “Doctor Younghusband. Mister Pink,” says Doctor Pye. “Boys!” booms a stranger. A molten, embarrassing specialness creeps up the specimen’s belly. It cranes its neck to see its maker. Doctor Younghusband stands perfectly still in the doorway. He is shorter, thinner, and older than anyone else in the lab. He is almost colorless. His tie is gray, and so are his slacks. He wears his necktie with a fancy knot. The specimen wonders who knots his ties for him. It wants to kill whoever that person is. Elegantly, Doctor Younghusband doesn’t say anything. That’s normal. Maintaining a professional mystery is part of his charm. The specimen has heard him speak three times, ever. He doesn’t greet his subordinates, doesn’t inspect the hugely expensive inscrutable equipment in the room, and doesn’t come greet the specimen. He stares unblinking at the fly on the fluorescent lamps. The specimen loves him so. The enormity of the specimen’s love for Doctor Younghusband momentarily obscures the stranger. Then it blinks, and all at once, Mister Pink fills the room. Mister Pink is an immense person in a white linen suit. His yellow hair wafts off his head like his skull is on fire. Apple-red cheeks, bright blue eyes, adorable little snub nose, and a wide, curving mouth. The specimen has never seen anybody so tall before. On tiptoe, this man could bite the ceiling lamp in half. Mister Pink takes huge, cartoonish strides into the laboratory. He runs his bejeweled hands over all the knobs and levers. Whenever he brushes up against something that makes Doctor Slagle or Doctor Pye cringe, he lingers there and tweaks the fiddly bits. He grins from temple to temple and whistles a jolly song. He flips a few switches. Doctor Slagle tries, “That’s—” But Doctor Younghusband silences him with a glance. Mister Pink takes his time wandering around. He looks at everything, touches everything. He traces a stubby finger along a bright blue cable and says in a chesty voice: “Mighty fine place you boys have here. What’s this one do?” Doctor Slagle says, “That one—” Mister Pink pulls the cord. A droning sound cuts out. Doctor Pye says, “Specimen 679-b, sir.” “Do you mind if I smoke?” Mister Pink stands over the specimen. He plucks a cigarillo from thin air and pops it between his huge, square, gleaming white teeth. He lights it before the scientists can say anything. He takes a drag. The smoke cloud swirls around the specimen. Then, he drags up a chair. He sits down beside the vat. “You poor, sweet creature, moldering in plastic Eden. Don’t worry, sugar. I’m here.” He rolls up his sleeve, plunges his thick forearm into the milky vat fluid. He takes the specimen’s wrist just above the tube and props it on the vat’s edge. Its hand dangles over the side. Mister Pink pulls a lacy handkerchief from his pocket. He gently dries the specimen’s hand. Then he shakes out the handkerchief, tucks it underneath the specimen’s wrist, and fishes around in yet another pocket. This time he produces a bottle that the specimen recognizes from magazines. It’s nail polish. Summery red. A smell fills the air. Acrid, sharp. Mister Pink swishes a wet, red brush down the length of the specimen’s index fingernail. Middle next, and so on. As he paints the specimen’s nails, Mister Pink says, “This one’s uglier than the last one, Stephen. How many more options do you have for me?” “This is the sixth and last specimen that’s internally coherent, reasonably sexually dimorphic, non-contagious, and verbal. The rest fall short. You won’t want them,” says Doctor Younghusband. It’s so exciting to hear Doctor Younghusband speak that the specimen doesn’t glean anything from what he says. His voice is crisp and precise. It feels clean. “You’ll make more eventually. For now, I’ll take the lot,” says Mister Pink. He paints the specimen’s thumbnail, then leans back, examines it again. He twists up his mouth. “That’s better. Darling, I am taking you away from this dreadful place. The world outside is dangerous and does evil things to beautiful people, but I’m in hospitality. I’m building a fortress. You’re invited. You’ll work for room and board in the Felicity Complex, my luxury bunker, and you’ll tend the modern kings and geniuses of the free world. If the Communists drop bombs on us to destroy the world, you’ll be the last champion of happiness. Picture the world smashed flat, and you done up in a frilly maid costume making sure civilization persists until tomorrow. Like the sound of that?” The specimen, her now, looks at her red painted nails. She wiggles her fingertips. She pictures it. In her mind, she sees some indistinct metropolis crushed to powder. The orange sky is empty, and the land is gouged and silvery, like the face of the moon. Loud, hot breezes sprinkle poisonous confetti on the rubble. The air itself is evil. There is no life at all. Then, an open gulch. There’s a bedroom at the bottom, like the ones in the movies. Glamorous, stately. Big wooden headboards, feather pillows, velvet throws, marble statues in the corners, candles flickering. Self-billowing curtains that open to nowhere. In the middle of the gulch bedroom stands the specimen as a frilly maid. She imagines her red nails curled around a feather duster. A flick of the wrist and the gloom is gone along with the cobwebs. Champion of happiness! No tubes. Doctor Younghusband jots something down on his clipboard. “Oh, yes,” says the specimen. “I’d like that very much.” Excerpted from The Felicity Complex, copyright © 2026 by august clarke. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>The Felicity Complex</i> by august clarke appeared first on Reactor.