Quaranteam - Book Two (Ch. 14)

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that, Jenny? Are you saying the Oracle system isn't being used at all over there?" Shannon asked.

"That's right, Shannon," Jenny confirmed. "The decision was made en route here that New Zealand was in a complete triage situation, and that the maximum amount of the serum would have to be distributed and that the New Zealand citizenry would simply need to be trusted to fend for themselves once they were given their dose. The General told me the situation is far from optimal, but the choices were this or essentially treating all New Zealand as hospice care, so the decision was made to save as many living people as possible."

"What kind of preparations were made in advance of your arrival there, Jenny?"

"All of the syringes are preloaded, so staffers can simply remove the cap, stick it in the shoulder of a woman, press the plunger, pull it out, toss it into a bin, hand the person a pamphlet and send them on their way. The entire process should take no more than twenty seconds, meaning they're hoping to get thirty-six hundred women done every hour at this location alone, or close to ninety thousand women within the next twenty-four hours," Jenny told them. "Each city has two Air Force teams in it, one stationed and one mobile. Each stationary unit will remain at its location for three days, or until their supply of the serum is exhausted. The mobile units will be changing location every two hours within the major city they're stationed in, offering those who are too ill to travel larger distances the chance to possibly get an injection of the serum. The chyron below will list those locations for our viewers in New Zealand, although we will not be broadcasting their locations outside of New Zealand, for fear of someone attempting to hijack Quaranteam serum."

"Jenny, have you had a chance to read the pamphlet they'll be handing out?"

"I have, Shannon, and it's a straightforward and almost brutal explanation of how the serum works, as well as the side effects associated with it. The pamphlet gives instructions to find a partner, what the imprinting process is like and what to expect moving forward. The Prime Minister of New Zealand is also going to be recording a message that's showing on taped loop on most of the local television and radio stations, repeating the instructions from the pamphlet, as well as listing both static and mobile locations the teams will be coming to."

"Did you get a chance to see if there were people gathered up outside of the Arena, Jenny?"

"We did drive past the crowd that had gathered in the Eden Park Outer Oval," Jenny said as the screen cut away to show footage of tens of thousands of people all gathered up, trying to remain calm, although as with any crowd that big, it looked like there were some disputes going on, with some people struggling to try and push their way forward. "A few members of the Air Force have gone towards the gates with megaphones, telling any men who are gathered there to go the other side of the stadium, and to try and find someone to partner up with, although they are reminding those men that they should not leave with just one partner, but only once they have found several. They..." The reporter choked up for a moment before continuing on reading off of some of her notes. "They are also telling anyone between the ages of eleven and seventeen to get out of line, to go home immediately, as there is nothing that they can do for them, which is a horrible thing for these women have to tell the children of New Zealand."

"I'm sorry, Jenny, didn't you mean to say women and men? I would have assumed the Air Force would have sent mostly female staff members, but also some of those staff members' imprinting partners, in case they were needed to stay longer."

"That's an understandable assumption to make, Shannon, albeit a wrong one," Jenny said, as generators were being turned on and heavy flood lights were filling the entire area with illumination, as the camera operator struggled to adjust to the new lighting conditions. "The general told me on the flight over that there was a concern that if there had been any men as part of this relief effort, they might have been tempted to offer themselves up to partner with some of the women here, not out of any personal gain, but simply out a sense of empathy for what these people have already endured and are continuing to endure. We were not permitted to bring our male partners with us for those same reasons, as the number of women here in need is almost beyond the mind's ability to comprehend. This rule also ensures there is a time limit to the amount of effort the Air Force can put in here in New Zealand, and helps serve as a reminder that if any of the women here, be it Air Force or press, is starting to feel the need to be reinforced, then it is likely too late for anyone in New Zealand who has not already been injected with the serum, and that we should return home to our partners."

"So, the Air Force deployment will be there for how long, Jenny?"

"Best guess at this point is five to six days, although if the casualty count continues to escalate as quickly as it has over the past day, the general tells me staying past three or four days is likely a waste of time and resources." There was something terrifying and stark about how she said that Andy thought to himself, like after four days the only people on the island nation would either have the Quaranteam serum flowing through their veins, or they would be dead.

"How does the Air Force feel—"

"Sorry to cut you off, Shannon, but I've just gotten word that they're about to start letting people into the arena, so we want to turn the camera over to that and let you know that it's happening."

The shot cut away from the reporter to point across stadium, with waist high steel railings erected before the plastic dividers, an effort to funnel people into orderly lines to get the serum injected, but within moments, it was clear that wasn't going to happen. Women started rushing towards the railings as fast as they could, shoving other people out of the way, clearly panicked that those few moments were the difference between life and death.

"It looks like the people are charging towards the line, Jenny," Shannon said, concern in her voice. "Are you going to be safe?"

Suddenly, there was a spray of machine gun fire into the air, which made people suddenly stop in their tracks. An Air Force officer with a microphone hooked up to a large set of speakers shouted out like the Voice of God. "Citizens of New Zealand! Walk, do not run, towards the lines! If we see people pushing, shoving or forcing their way forwards, they will be detained and maybe even shot with rubber bullets or bean bag rounds. They still hurt like a motherfucker, ladies, so you do not want to make us do it, believe me!"

The stampede shorted itself out, although whether it was the officer's voice or the half a dozen Air Force officers with their rifles pointed into the crowd, no one could be sure. Many of the women in the crowd weren't yet showing signs of infection, but there were others who were clearly battling with early or mid-stage DuoHalo onset. As some of the zombie-like horde began to approach the rows, members of the Air Force security team had to direct a few men out of the line, as well as some women who had brought their teenage children with them.

"If you are between the ages of 11 and 17, this serum is a guaranteed death sentence," the officer said over the speakers. "If you are male, taking the serum directly will only result in your immediate and incredibly painful death. Please proceed to the other side of the stadium and attempt to find yourself several women to partner up with, as that is your only chance for survival."

"It's..." the on-location reporter started before stopping then starting again. "It's incredibly difficult to watch this, Shannon, knowing that the people we are seeing here represent some of the few survivors this once great island nation will have in just a few short days."

"Jenny, we're going to leave you for a few minutes and go over to Kayley Post, who is set up at Hagley Oval in Christchurch. Kayley, how are things going where you are?"

The screen cut to an open park area, which looked like it was filled to the brim with people being funneled through lines similar to the ones they'd seen at the sporting arena. It panned over to a bottle blonde in her late twenties, standing next to an airwoman in Air Force garb, a Latina who looked like she wanted to just go and lay down.

"Shannon, the Air Force has been up and running here for a little over an hour now, and medics are being rotated in an hour-on, hour-off shift rotation so that nobody feels too overwhelmed or hopeless regarding the situation. I've grabbed one of the medics just to talk with us for a few minutes about how the process has been going so far. Staff Sergeant Alice Mayer joins us briefly. Sergeant, how has it been?"

"Uh, it's been brutal, ma'am. We're doing our best to get as many shots into as many arms as possible, but because of the overwhelming number of infected, we can't do any of the post-care that's important in making sure this solution works long term that we're accustomed to doing. We've been giving pamphlets and brief explanations of how it all works, but we don't have time to answer questions. We don't even know if they're reading the damn things, but we've told them they have to take the information in the pamphlet to heart, or they could die. Most of them seem so happy just to be getting the serum, even though we've explained to them that's just the first step, and that it won't mean much if they don't follow the rest of the steps."

"Have there been any problems?"

The staff sergeant sighed, nodding slightly. "We've had a couple of people try and grab handfuls of syringes and run off with them, but we've been told not to waste precious time chasing them down. We've also had some people ask for additional syringes that they say they're going to bring to those too invalid to make their way here."

"Is that what you think they're being used for?"

"Some of them, sure," the medic said. "We suspect that some those people, however, are either attempting to give them to those in the 0% survival zone, i.e. kids and teenagers, or are disregarding our instructions and attempting to give them directly to men, which will be completely fatal. We've done as much as we can to warn people about those consequences, with both the pamphlets and the announcements being given every ten minutes over the loudspeakers, but there's only so much we can do at this point. We're attempting to triage as best we can, but the situation's a full-blown disaster."

The Rook family had been watching the horror show for more than a couple of hours before any of them could bear to look away, many of his partners crying or shivering, clinging onto him, his hands, his arms, any part of him they could get in contact with, as if the sights of it all were terrifying them, and that staying in contact with him was helping them get through it.

For Andy, it was like watching 9/11 all over again, only in slow motion, with the cameras able to capture the faces of the dying, except the scale was magnified to proportions that were almost unfathomable. On that fateful September morning, the death count had been only 3000 or so people. The suspected total dead, at that moment in that location, was approaching 1 million people within the last day or so, just in New Zealand alone.

The pandemic's isolation strategy of quarantining had detached them from the reality of it all a bit, all the information having been leaked out in bits and pieces, but this was like being smacked in the face with it all at once, up close and personal, unable to turn away or hide from what was happening.

It was a microcosm of the entire mass culling of the male population of planet Earth.

Live and on television.

By the middle of the day, they were all so numb from it that they made it to the airport without anyone saying much of anything, pulling away from the television long enough to leave Denver and head up towards Seattle. Nobody joined the Mile High Club that evening. Everyone was still too in shock, praying for the people halfway across the world to hold on just a little longer, to find their way to an Air Force team, to get the serum, to live.

Just...

...live.