Quaranteam - 808 State Ch. 02-04

Gwen froze. "Shit, I was so in shock that I didn't even think about the virus at all when I came home -- Mal, I put you and Katherine in danger!"

"If you'd told me what happened over Zoom, I would have torn the door off its hinges in my rush to come comfort you. I trust you and know how diligent you've been with sanitizing and PPE. I'm not worrying about it. There will always be lots of opportunities to be worried and live in fear, Gwen, but after the past five months, I'm sick of it." Mal lifted his wife's hand and sniffed. "Yup. Hand sanitizer. Just like I thought. You may not have been thinking about the virus, but your hands still smell like recent sanitizer. And I'm sure that's a mask sitting on your purse by the door there.

"Now, come on, my love. As much as I want to just keep holding you and feeling you -- Gwen, I've missed you so much!" Mal's voice cracked, the strain of the long separation, and the relief at its ending overwhelming him momentarily. "Our daughter is asleep after a long, boring day of driving cattle. Let me make you some dinner, and then after you eat, let's shower and go to bed. Kat will be so excited to see you tomorrow morning -- she wanted to tell you all about the cows and the fields we drove through today, but she missed her nap." Mal lowered his chin, smelling Gwen's hair, inhaling the faded scent of her shampoo.

Gwen pursed her lips. "That's right. You were going to help the Kopua girl, Evelyn, was it, today? Just you and Katherine and her?" She rubbed her face.

"And two of Evelyn's friends. Gods above, what a long day, riding in a tractor. I don't think I'm cut out to be a cattleman. I don't even know how many videos Kat went through."

"I'm famished. And I'm looking forward to getting a hug from my baby girl again. But you let her watch too many videos -- will she even remember anything to tell me about the cows, or am I going to hear only about Cinderella, Elsa, and Rapunzel?" Gwen lightly thwacked the side of her fist against Mal's chest to make him let her go, and stepped back.

The moment over, Mal paused, unsure of how to proceed. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting their eventual reunion to be like -- his Hawaiʻi-born, ethnically Japanese wife had never been the most affectionate of people, preferring to show how she felt about someone by what she did for them. Mal's love languages were totally different, physically and verbally more expressive. It had always resulted in a somewhat uneasy dance between them, and despite how much Mal loved Gwen, he often wished things were a bit different in their interactions.

"What do you want to eat, honey? I can make some fresh rice if you want to wait, or there's a little leftover that I can heat up, or there's also some of the instant tray rice? There's some stir-fry from last night left over -- Kat and I had teri-spam musubi for dinner, so we haven't eaten the leftovers yet, if you'd like that again, or if you want, I can make you something fresh?"

Doing things may not have been one of Mal's primary love languages, but he did like cooking for his loved ones -- last night he'd made tofu stir-fry for the family -- passing a bowl to Gwen through the little "airlock" he'd rigged up at the start of the lockdown from a plywood box, plastic sheeting, and some UV lights. He'd put cabinet doors (temporarily repurposed from the kitchen) and a lock on his and Kat's side, because the little girl had been VERY excited, thinking that she could crawl through and see her mommy.

"Do you still have tofu? I'll just have some tofu and furikake rice. But I'll heat my own rice up." Gwen was very particular about her rice -- she preferred it freshly cooked, and didn't like rice that had been left warming in a rice cooker for too long. She was okay with one- or two-day old rice, but it had to be reheated just so; pre-pandemic, Mal had about a 50% success rate at reheating rice for Gwen. Mal and Kat were much less particular about their rice -- as long as it wasn't hard, or dry, or mushy, or chalky, or burnt, they were generally fine with however the rice was. Like most local Hawaiʻi families, rice was a staple -- typically eaten at almost every meal, sometimes as the main dish!

Mal pulled the leftover rice from the fridge and handed it to Gwen who looked inside and pursed her lips at the amount. "Only about one bowl -- ugh, I really didn't want to make more this late, but I don't know if this will be enough."

"I'll make you one cup fresh, dear. Then you can eat that now, and if you still want some more, you'll only have to wait a little, if at all. And if you don't want it, it won't be like we're saving a whole pot full untouched -- it'll be just a bit more than what you have there."

"Really, Malcolm? Have you ever known me to NOT eat fresh rice? Okay, but just make three cups -- ridiculous to have to wash the pot for one cup." Gwen completed preparing the leftover rice, and popped it in the microwave. While Mal measured fresh rice into the pot, Gwen took a tray of firm tofu from the fridge, slit the ends open, then rinsed it under the tap.

Despite their several months apart, the reunited couple worked smoothly around each other in the kitchen; as Gwen finished at the sink, Mal was ready to begin rinsing the rice, and she placed the tray and a small cutting board on the counter where he had been just moments before. Gwen quickly diced the tofu, noticing that Mal had also placed a skillet and some cooking oil on the stove top. "You're going to want some of my tofu to fry up, I take it? Are you planning on eating some of my rice as well? Thought you and Kat had dinner already?"

"Tofu, yes, if you don't mind, dear. I'll be okay without rice, I'll just make some quick kimchee noodles. I'm not too hungry -- but the musubi were long enough ago that I'm a little peckish and could definitely eat something..." Mal raised his eyebrows suggestively, but unfortunately, Gwen had chosen that moment to turn back to the stove to start heating the oil. "...with you," Mal concluded awkwardly.

"Mmm. I'll be having some of your noodles then, if you'll trade for some tofu, I think."

"As you wish."

Gwen snorted at Mal's cheesy half bow as he said the classic line. "You're no farm-boy."

"But you are still the love of my life, and the queen of my heart, Gwen."

"Mmm-hmm. Careful, I'm about to put the tofu in the pan."

Abandoning his romantic overtures, Mal busied himself with preparing the kimchee noodles. He really wasn't too hungry, but after so many months apart, he wanted to be close to Gwen again, and knew that if he made them, she'd want some.

Their dinner, which truly was a post-dinner snack for Mal, after giving Gwen the majority of the kimchee noodles and getting some fried tofu in return, was eaten leisurely, though without much conversation after Mal's initial attempt at asking about the pharmacy closure, to which Gwen curtly said she didn't want to talk about it yet.

"It's done, Mal. I'm supposed to get two weeks of severance per year of service, so that should be 18 weeks, but the regional manager, Debra, said that the company decided to be -- generous," Gwen's voice twisted scornfully, "and is giving us an additional three days per year. So it'll be something more, but when it comes down to it, I'll be surprised to see the additional. Nothing's in writing other than the two weeks in my employment contract."

"Did they say why they were closing? I mean, they went to the trouble of renovating the facility to separate work pods and all!"

"Nothing specific, just that they were consolidating services back to Oʻahu -- the script count has fallen dramatically across the state, so it's no longer cost effective for them to run a pharmacy for those of us not living on 'the main island,' as Debra put it. So the pharmacy over in Kona is being shut down as well, the store up in Waimea shut down in May -- I told you about that mess with having all those prescriptions dumped on us, and most of the customers ending up going to Kona. How hard was it for the company to make sure they didn't swap the pharmacy phone numbers in the mailer they sent to customers?! And the stupid automated system notifying or calling customers once the prescription is done and not verifying they understand which pharmacy it's at? I hate them."

"The company, you mean?"

"Yes, Mal, of course the company. I may complain about the customers from time to time, but they're mostly just frustrated, and having to deal with a system that is deliberately made complex to screw them. There's only a few nasty ones that I really dislike, but even then, all they see is 'curt, efficient, female pharmacist.'" Gwen scowled. "Except for the ones who get abusive to my techs. But even then, I save the bitching about them for when there aren't any customers or non-pharmacy staff around."

She huffed impatiently, "Now, let me enjoy my dinner. The one thing I've looked forward to all day was coming home and eating IN PEACE and then going to sleep. Since I figured that you'd have worn Katherine out and I wouldn't even get to video chat with my little girl tonight."

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Glossary of non-English words:

musubi: Pidgin word (derived from Japanese) for a local variant of omusubi (aka onigiri - rice balls). The basic triangle musubi is, like the traditional onigiri/omusubi, a large handful of rice shaped as a triangle, wrapped in a strip of nori (seasoned seaweed). Possibly with some ume (pickled plum) or some other small quantity of filling. Spam musubi -- a favorite local food -- is a rectangular block of rice, a slice of fried Spam (flavor by preference), wrapped in a strip of nori. So 'ono.

Spam: Yeah, yeah, I know, not a non-English word, but something folks gotta know about Hawai'i. We eat a lot of Spam here -- the most in the nation. Spam musubi, fried rice with Portuguese sausage and spam, julienned spam in saimin, spam and eggs breakfast platters (and yeah, the Monty Python diner sketch IS running in parallel through the back of my head as I write this). Hawai'i even has an annual two-week long food festival for Spam in Waikīkī. Spam musubi is a FAVORITE beach, or working lunch, or comfort food for most of us that grew up here. 7-Eleven spam musubi has frequently been ranked #1 in local polls. (The Hawai'i 7-11 stores are owned by a Japanese corporation -- so they're VERY different from Mainland ones.)

nori: Processed, pressed, and dried seaweed wrapper for sushi and musubi (or onigiri). Sometimes flavored -- makes a tasty snack!

'ono: Delicious.

pau: Done, finished.

kaukau: Pidgin (maybe from Chinese?) word for food.

kānaka: The collective term for native Hawaiians. (Technically, the full term is kānaka maoli, but the single word is accepted in practice.) Note the subtle difference in spelling versus the individual kanaka -- the collective term has a kahakō (the bar over a vowel, giving it a long sound) over the first a.

paniolo: Hawaiian cowboy.

kanaka: Individual term for native Hawaiian person.

kuleana: Responsibility, obligation.

mālama 'āina: To care for and protect the land.

'āina: Land

konohiki: A Hawaiian chief in charge of managing a region of land in the days of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Evelyn's ancestral kuleana runs DEEP.

Mahele: Short for "The Great Mahele", which was where private ownership of land in Hawai'i began in 1848. Unfortunately, because of the design and the way it was carried out, a lot of the private land ultimately ended up being owned by haole businessmen. Still a source of anguish for kānaka maoli.

furikake: Japanese word for a rice seasoning. There are many, many, many different types of furikake. The person asking someone else for furikake should be kind and give some description as to which furikake (i.e., shiso (a flavoring), wakame (with little puffed rice balls), the blue one...) they specifically want. Or get it them damn selves.

kimchee: Korean spicy, fermented vegetables, often cabbage. But you probably already knew that, yeah?

tofu, teri, sushi: So, some words I'm gonna figure have been around long enough that they're largely integrated into the English lexicon. Tofu is one. Teri (from teriyaki) is another. Same for sushi. If you aren't familiar with them, I apologize, but I'm trying to make some calculated guesses about what to glossarize and not. If you see a word that you don't recognize, and it ain't in the Glossary, your favorite search engine is your friend. If that doesn't help, shoot me a message -- I might have forgotten something.

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Chapter 4

July 11th, 2020

Evelyn was just rinsing out her cereal bowl when the chime from her apartment doorbell sounded. The young woman went to the door and peered out through the adjacent window. The two bubble-suited figures outside saw the movement, and a female voice spoke -- through the faint waviness of the glass, and the protective suits, Evelyn wasn't entirely sure just which one it was. "Evelyn Kopua?"

"Yes, I'm Evelyn Kopua."

The two figures held US Department of Defence ID cards up to the window for Evelyn to see, then the female -- Evelyn now knew who had spoken, as the other bubble-suit's ID was for a male -- spoke again. "Ms. Kopua, could we please come in -- we need to test you for the virus and we have some urgent business to discuss with you about you and your family's ranch."

Evelyn snarled through the closed window, "What urgent business about my family's ranch? If the US Government wants my 'āina, you fuckin' haoles will have to kill me to get it! Kopua Ranch is NOT for sale!"

"Ms. Kopua, we're not here to try and buy your ranch. We want to help you save it. Maybe even increase it until the country's cattle herds stabilize. I'm Lieutenant Knox and my partner is Staff Sergeant Hitchens. Again, may we please come in?"

Evelyn scowled suspiciously, but not feeling that she had much choice, grabbed an N95 mask, pulled a face shield over it and then opened the door. "The US Government has never done a damn thing to help kānaka maoli -- you haoles overthrew our queen, stole our islands, tricked us with the Mahele, hell, we don't even have the limited self-governance the Native American tribes do. Why should I believe that the feds suddenly want to help a kanaka rancher? And how the hell can I increase the size of my family's ranch? I'm the only one still able to work -- and I can't even take care of the current herd without asking friends for help and putting them and myself at risk!"

Lieutenant Knox opened the black case she was carrying and handed Evelyn a sterile swab package. "Ms. Kopua, I'll do my best to answer some of your questions -- I don't know the history of the islands as well as you do, so I'm unqualified to speak on what happened back then. But here and now, I'm telling you that my priorities are to verify that you're not infected with DuoHalo and to get you some help to safely and effectively manage your ranch -- while keeping it YOUR ranch. Is there anyone else here with you?" Seeing Evelyn shake her head, Lieutenant Knox continued, "Okay, then, please swab that inside your mouth -- both cheeks, please. May I set this up somewhere -- it will process your sample, but it takes a couple of minutes and needs a stable surface."

Evelyn pointed to the coffee table with her foot, while opening the swab wrapper. "My mouth? I thought the test kits say to stick this way up the nose?"

At Knox's confirmation of "Mouth," Evelyn pulled down her mask and awkwardly stuck her hand up between the face shield and her face to run the swab along the inside of her cheeks, then handed the sample back. The female Army officer inserted the swab into the machine inside her case and pressed a button.

"Ms. Kopua, as some of what I need to discuss with you is privileged information, I will need you to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement."

"Why?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't go into further detail until you sign. But, Ms. Kopua, I promise you that I am here to help you save your ranch, and you signing this NDA allows me to do exactly that."

Evelyn bit her lip as she considered her options. Well, she really only had one, the way she saw it. *There's no way I can continue on my own. I need Dad back. I need Kamalei back. I need my Mom. But I can't hold out until they're better. Either I fail, or... Dear God, I can't believe it. Fail, or accept help from this... this Army wahine ho'okamakama from the same government that overthrew Lili'uo.*

"Give me your fucking NDA. I'll sign it."

After she'd signed, glancing quickly through it to make sure it didn't let a new "Committee of Safety" steal her 'āina as well, Evelyn looked at Sergeant Hitchens, who had come inside with Lieutenant Knox, but had stopped just inside the room while the Lieutenant had done all the speaking. "How long is this going to take? Is your soldier-boy going to get tired of standing there?"

The two military personnel exchanged glances. Evelyn wasn't sure but she thought she saw the male sergeant shrug his shoulders. "Jim is Air Force, so he's technically an airman, although if you're trying to be mildly insulting, you could call him 'flyboy' -- that's what the squids, jarheads, and us grunts call them, after all. The test will be done in a few minutes, so he's fine standing -- and he'll feel more comfortable that way. We have some time to talk. What do you know about the pandemic?"

Evelyn sat in one of the chairs at the end of the coffee table and motioned to the sofa. "Just that it seems to be really bad. The president and vice-president both caught it and collapsed; I can't reach my boyfriend or any of my family, and I don't even know where my Mom and Dad were taken. I thought it was called Covid, but you said you're testing me for DuoHalo infection?" Evelyn paused for a moment and gripped the arm of her chair. "I'm freaking out every day, but I have to make sure that I take care of the ranch until Dad gets better."

Lieutenant Knox seemed to deflate a little, her bubble-suit's shoulders dropping slightly. "Well, you're not wrong about it being bad. Look, there are actually two pandemics going on -- Covid is one of them, and yeah, it's not good, but it's spring hayfever compared to DuoHalo. Imagine if someone took a cold virus, crossed it with something that liquefies internal organs, then made it so that you're contagious but don't have any symptoms for two weeks. And, having it once doesn't make you immune. For women 18 and older, it's about 30% lethal, although we're seeing higher mortality rates here in Hawai'i."

Evelyn idly noticed that the Army woman pronounced "Hawai'i" correctly. "That's... Terrifying... And an oddly specific grouping. What about women under 18? Men? Do you know anything about my parents? About Kamalei?" Evelyn's knuckles were white from gripping the arms of the chair. A detached part of her noticed Sergeant Hitchens shift his stance, like a hula kahiko dancer about to respond "'Ae", and she idly wondered if he could hear her heart pounding in her chest.

Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep.

The noise from the machine in the black case broke the moment and Evelyn sagged back in her chair. Lieutenant Knox scanned her eyes over the results and then looked up at Sergeant Hitchens and nodded. Then she unclipped the seal and took off her helmet, revealing a fresh-faced young blonde woman about Evelyn's age.