Quaranteam - Book Two (Ch. 08)

Andy hadn't even thought about things like temporary jet parking when he'd bought the plane, but it wasn't like he could just fold it up and put it in his back pocket when he wasn't using it, so they would rent storage places wherever they were staying over.

The drive into New York City wasn't anywhere near as quiet as Andy had expected it to be, as his particular driver, Imani, had loads of questions. Andy, Niko, Sarah and Fiona had taken one car, and Imani had recognized both Sarah from her movies and Andy from his 60 Minutes interview.

"You mind me asking you a question Mister Rook?" she said to him a few minutes in.

"Andy, please. And go ahead."

"What're your thoughts about this whole MPA that Congress is talking about?"

Andy cocked his head to one side. "We've been in the air most of the day, Imani, so I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about."

"The Male Protection Act that Congress is starting to kick around," she said. "They started talking about it this afternoon, and y'know, I agree we need to keep all y'all men safe, but some of it sounds, I dunno, like maybe dudes would take offense being told how to live their lives."

"Tell me what you know."

"Like, what they're saying is that stuff that's hazardous to men's health would be forbidden from them. Like, y'all would have to stay in a certain degree of shape, couldn't engage in dangerous activities, couldn't do things designated unhealthy or perilous. Like, smoking would be right out and drinking alcohol would be regulated."

"I don't smoke, but I don't know if I like the idea of the government telling me that I no longer have the right to," Andy scowled. "And telling us we can only drink as much as they say sounds pretty suspicious to me."

"You should look into it," Imani said. "I mean, on one hand, I feel like it's about time that all y'all dudes get your bodies legislated like y'all been trying to do to us women for centuries, what with all the abortion laws and shit, but on the other hand, if us women is dictating what men can do with their bodies, how's that make us any better than the dudes we been complaining about all this time?"

"Yeah, I'll definitely have to do some reading about all of this."

As the cars made their way through the quiet late-night streets of New York City, Andy was looking up the news on his iPad, scrolling through to pick up as many of the highlights as he could. As Imani had suggested, Congress was starting to debate something called the Male Protection Act, which sounded like it would trample over a whole hell of a lot of men's personal freedoms in order to keep them "safe" or protected. Exactly what was going to be in the MPA when it was presented was still being debated, but it ranged from limited caloric intake to essentially lo-jacking every male in America like they were prisoners under house arrest. Some of the earliest suggestions had already been struck down as "too prohibitive," one of which would've forbidden men from leaving the country for any reason for the next ten years, but others, like men having to obtain specific permission to travel internationally were certainly being talked about like they were already a done deal. The whole thing made his stomach uneasy, even if he could see the root cause the women were trying to deal with.

With the survival of men and women so tangled up with one another, and so many men having died in the epidemic, the government was going through typical overreach paranoia and wanting to regulate as much "safety" as they could, in many cases going too far.

It was a little like speed limits, Andy felt. In principle, he understood them well enough, respected them and was in support of them generally. But like any other law forbidding people from doing things, they'd often been turned into a funding tool for the police in how they were enforced. Some basic measures to ensure men weren't needlessly risking their lives, that was something he could certainly get behind, but if they were going to tell him he had to cut meat entirely out of his diet, well, they could pry his bacon cheeseburger from his cold dead hands.

*Click!* went the camera shutter as Fiona took a picture of him from the front seat, looking at his tablet in the back seat of the SUV with a slightly worried expression on his face. He looked up and offered the best smile he could as she snapped another one. Making a good impression on the nation was important, and if he was moping or scowling in all the photos, it wasn't going to be good for anyone, much less selling the impression that America was open for business again.

"Jesus Christ, this is fucking ridiculous," Andy muttered. "Mandatory therapy for all men? No high stress jobs? Requisite eight hours of sleep each and every day? Government run doctors check ups every six months? Intrusive much?"

"Remember, though, babe," Niko told him. "You've got close to two dozen women whose lives depend on you staying safe. I think asking for a bit of common-sense protections isn't too much, wouldn't you agree?"

"I think we gotta be very careful how far down this line of conversation we go, before it starts becoming government mandated safety blankets," Andy grumbled. "How'd you like it if the government started telling you what you could and couldn't eat?"

"I'm sure you'll get a chance to speak your mind about all of it at some point, Andy," Fiona said. "What was that thing you said back in college? 'Nobody's an activist until it's their butt on the line?' I remember thinking how cynical it sounded back then."

"A cynic's just a realist who hasn't had enough time to be proven right yet, Fi," Andy snorted.

They reached the hotel not too much longer afterwards, and the plan was for the SUVs to come back and ferry them from the hotel to the bookstore, from the bookstore to the Ed Sullivan theater, and then back to the airport. Everyone was keeping their larger luggage on the plane, and just taking smaller bags so there wasn't an avalanche of luggage everywhere they went, but it still felt like moving an army platoon.

At the hotel, Andy asked the front desk for an 11 am wake up call, explaining they were all going to be pretty jetlagged, and that they were going to do their best to adjust to the timezone shift, but also if they could have the wake-up call be room service bringing them all breakfast, it would be very much appreciated. All of them quickly placed an order for the morning, with Andy even thinking to order some pineapple juice so none of the girls would yell at him too much for having soda in the morning, even though many of them were putting in coffee orders.

When they got up to the suites, all the women took turns giving Andy goodnight hugs and kisses before they split for their separate rooms, with Ash, Niko, Em and Sarah taking the room with Andy, and Lexi, Melody, Fiona, Moira and Piper taking the other. Nobody was happy about sleeping apart from each other, but until the hotel rooms were equipped with larger beds, it was all they would be able to do.

Andy took care of brushing his teeth and washing his face first, and as soon as he was out, he was about to climb into bed when Emily sat down next to him, already in her pajamas, taking his hand nervously in her own.

"You're still cross with me, aren't you, Andrew? About the specifics regarding Mali? I want you to know that I had only the best of intentions."

He sighed, nodding. "I am still cross, yes Em, simply because you waited until the last possible minute to tell me. And you did that intentionally. Meaning you knew it was going to cause friction, but you waited until I was right there at the site so I couldn't even stop to think about the ramifications of what you were asking of me. I don't like being ambushed, Em, especially by someone who's supposed to be on my side."

She sighed, starting to cry a little bit. "I know, Andrew. It was very wrong of me, but I was so desperately afraid you might tell me that we would need to pair her with someone else, and her story made me so sad, and she has been so kind to me in the face of adversity that we needed to help her."

Andy gritted his teeth for a moment, then resolved to try and let the anger go. "And I would've come to that conclusion on my own as well, Emily, but it should've been something we decided as a family, not something that you just decided for us. The only way this is all going to work is if we all trust each other with our lives, and you didn't even trust me to come to the same conclusion on this as you did."

She threw her arms around him, the tears flowing a little stronger now as she clung to him tightly. "I cannot go back and fix the mistake this time, Andrew, but I can promise you that I shan't do it again, that I will remember we're all a family now, and that I need to act in a way that shows I'm putting the family's needs ahead of my own petty fears." She pulled back so that her puffy eyes could look into his own. "Can you forgive me, Andy?"

The fact that she was using the shortened version of his name meant she understood the weight of her mistake, and the fragility on her face made it impossible for him to hold onto his anger, not that he'd intended to. "Of course I can, Em, but let's stop making a habit of deciding things for the whole house without talking it out, okay?"

She smiled a little bit and leaned up to kiss him as he wiped away the tears from her cherubic cheeks. "Thank you... I'm so used to having to think of just myself, or more recently, just myself and Sarah. But you are most assuredly correct - this should've been a House decision and I put myself above the House in making it for you all. I can't promise I won't ever do it again, but I'll work very hard not to."

"That's all anyone can ask of you, Em," he said just as the others were making their way over to the bed, everyone giving both him and Em a big bear hug, happy to see them having put their differences aside. "Now let's get to sleep. Big day tomorrow."

They all climbed into bed, Andy with his arms around Emily so she'd know he meant it when he said he forgave her, Sarah in Em's arms, Niko holding onto his back and Ash holding onto Niko's. Just as he was about to fall asleep, he felt Niko's lips right over his ear, whispering into them, "You try and leave this hotel room without me, mister, and I'll break both your legs."

He knew she meant it affectionately.