Quaranteam Ch. 27

Once the sheet was printed out, he opened the sheet of paper that Aisling had given him with her predictions, not having looked at it before then. It read: "In: Maya, Tabitha, Lexi, Jade, Whitney, Natalie. Alternate: Tala."

When he came out of his office with the paper in hand, he couldn't see anyone around, but was fairly certain he heard someone shuffling around a corner behind him as he started to walk down the hall towards the stairs.

He strode down the stairs and then down another hall before entering the downstairs living room area, where Aisling was sitting watching TV. She'd clearly been waiting in the room for him, to his amusement. That meant he still had the ability to surprise her, and he found himself delighted by that. However confident she'd pretended to be in her predictions, obviously she hadn't been that confident if she'd rushed to look at what the list said.

"That the list?" she asked him, as he strolled over towards a highly exposed section of the wall.

"It is."

"How'd I do on my predictions?"

"75%, so very well," he said, as he taped the list up to the wall, hearing the sound of some footsteps near the entrances of the room.

Aisling scooted over quickly to read it, as other girls were standing in the doorways, not yet ready to rush into the room. She nodded, then started walking with Andy out of the room, as the room was suddenly flooded behind him, various members of the house swarming in to read the list.

"Passed on the stripper, huh?" the redhead teased, as they headed back up to his office. "I suppose I'm not surprised, just a little disappointed. I wanted her to teach me some of those pole tricks."

Andy smirked. "I needed to make sure some of these women I can have a conversation with, Ash, and I just don't know that me and girls barely out of college are going to connect on that much. I'm going to recommend Natalie over to Eric, or, let's be honest, I'm going to recommend her over to Lily, and Lily will decide whether or not to bring her over for Eric."

The Irish girl snickered, nodding fiercely. "I'm sure Lily will bring her in, if for no other reason that to see Eric get all bashful about it. I wasn't sure if Tala's kink might have been a bit much for you, so I put her in as an alternate."

He waved a hand in the air. "I don't care about that one way or another, but she's a musician, she makes puzzle boxes and she's got a wicked sense of humor. How did you not think that would be a shoo-in for me?"

She grinned, shrugging. "I guess I gave a bit more weight to the virgin sacrifice, although I did see she was an alternate."

"Yeah. I'm betting either Tabitha or Larissa, or maybe both, will pass on joining the family, for whatever reason, and that Jade will get an invite in the end, but I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about the idea of being someone's first and only male partner."

"You'll do fine, love," she said, as they stepped into his office and closed the door behind them. "So now you have to tell me: Who's Fiona?"

Andy moved over to his arm chair, picking up the cat that had settled there, sliding in to sit down. He was about to put the cat into his lap, when Ash slid to sit on his lap, then took Huginn from his hands and set the black cat atop her own lap. "Fiona's my choice. She lives in Washington D.C."

"But who *is* she, Andy?"

"She's my ex. My college ex. So you know that Xander and I were roommates all five years of college, but for the last half of it or so, both he and I had girlfriends living with us. Annie was living with Xander--"

"Wait, psycho bitch 'I found her cheating on me with two guys on my birthday' Xander's ex-wife Annie? *THAT* Annie?"

Andy laughed and nodded. "Yep. Annie never much liked me or, hell, anyone Xander was friends with. But she's gone from his life now, so thankfully you'll never meet her, because she's insane. Did I tell you that she tried to argue, in court, that Xander's lack of attention to her *forced* her to cheat on him with those two dudes?"

"What a *cunt*," Aisling groaned. "Awright, so forget her. Tell me about Fiona! Why haven't you ever mentioned her before?"

"I haven't talked to her in at least a dozen years!" he chuckled. "She going to say no anyway, but if I had any major regrets in my life, it's that Fi and I split up, even though I don't see any way my life could've gone in which we didn't. We met as sophomores in a political science class together, and she was dating my boss at the newspaper at the time. She dumped him like two weeks after that, and just after I got back for Christmas, she asked me out and we started dating."

"Awww!"

"About a year and a half or so later, her two roommates bailed on her like two weeks after the spring semester started, and she couldn't find someone to take their places. With no roommates she couldn't afford the rent on the three bedroom house she was renting, and breaking the lease was going to put her hard into debt, so she invited me and Xander, who were renting out a shitty apartment month-to-month, to leave our place and move into hers."

"Why is this the first I'm hearing of any of this?"

"I didn't think it was important! It was a long, long time ago!" he sighed. "Anyway, when we graduated, Fiona had gotten a job offer to work in the DC Bureau of the Associated Press as a reporter, and I had gotten the offer to come out here for Netflix. I visited DC with her, and she visited SF with me, while we tried to figure out what we were going to do about it. Neither of us really liked DC all that much, but she very much wanted the job. I loved the Bay. I asked her to move out with me, but she insisted she wanted to give the DC job a chance, and so we parted ways."

"What? Just like that?"

"Well, we tried having a long distance relationship for a few months, but this was like fifteen years ago, and after about six months, we agreed it wasn't working, and sort of fell out of touch. About three months later, I started dating Erin, and you know how that worked out, and she started dating some cop named Sam. After that, we basically just stopped talking to one another, although about two years ago, both Xander and I got Facebook friend requests from her, which we both accepted, although neither of us has had a conversation with her yet."

"Why not?"

"Shit, Ash, I dunno. How do you even start that conversation? 'Hi, remember me? I know we were talking about getting married at one point, but we didn't and then we moved across the country from one another. I'm getting married to at least four women now and wondered if you might want to join us. Oh... how've you been?'"

"You have to start it somewhere, Andy."

"Well, she's not married, at least she doesn't have herself marked as married on Facebook, and Xander's done a little internet stalking of her, I'm sure on my unwilling behalf, and says she doesn't even seem to have a regular boyfriend, and that she's spent most of the last several years bitching and moaning about how she *hates* living in DC, although considering she's more liberal than I am, I'm not all that surprised."

"Do you think she's going to accept your invitation?"

"Ye-- n--... I really don't have a fucking *clue*, Ash," he said with a laugh, which made her laugh as well. "I guess we'll just wait and see."

Over the rest of the day and into the evening, the girls all came to thank him, even if he hadn't chosen the girl they'd put forth, and to see how he was doing, making sure he hadn't been too stressed out by the whole process. The rest of the time, everyone was recording their invitation videos. Each of the girls made a video for their friends, although a few of them recorded multiple videos, one for the person they'd put forth and one for someone they also knew. Andy himself recorded a unique video for each and every invitation, and also made sure to record one for Jade, in case it was needed.

The next day, Phil showed up for lunch, and had a bit of a grim look on his face.

"Why the dark cloud, friend?" Andy asked him, as the two walked out onto the back patio, where Jenny had set up a nice lunch for them.

"So we had our first death in New Eden yesterday," he sighed. "And it was absolutely unnecessary."

"I thought only vaccinated people were allowed into New Eden?"

"They are. A woman decided she didn't believe all the warnings we give them at the base about not partaking of a man's cum that she isn't paired with."

"Wait, what?"

"So some woman decided she wanted a bit of strange, so she was fooling around with some guy other than the one she was paired with."

"What the fuck happened? I thought there were early warnings that would've discouraged her."

"Apparently they were using a condom, and they were convinced because that seemed fine that everything we told them must be utter bullshit."

"Goddamn it."

Niko had filled him in on some of the details of how the vaccine paired people just after they'd arrived in New Eden, at least as how she understood it. If a woman came in contact with semen from a man other than the one she was paired with, it would cause her to break out in a violent rash. The rash happened almost immediately on skin contact, so even a tiny bit of precum would be enough to discourage anyone from going further.

"So she took off the condom right before the dude popped, and then swallowed his load, and it ate her open from the inside."

"Fuck, Phil!" Andy said, wincing a little. "I hate to say it, but you may need to show pictures of that to people so they understand what kind of danger they're in if they're unfaithful."

"I so don't want to, but it's up to the mayor now, and he's considering it."

"Who were the people?"

"Don't think it's anyone you know. The guy's name is Brian Morrison, a banker. He's in custody right now, because he might be guilty of manslaughter or murder, nobody's really sure."

"And who was the woman?"

"Veronica De La Cruz. She was part of that bastard Arthur Covington's house."

"Oh shit," Andy muttered. "I met her, briefly. She was supposed to be the dealer at the poker game. I thought it was particularly in poor taste that Covington made her be topless in front of a bunch of strangers, but I didn't realize she was quite that unhappy there."

"This new world is so utterly fucked up some days. Oh, also Audrey's pregnant, so I've apparently picked the best time to bring a new life into the world."

"You and me both, friend. Ash and Niko are both pregnant as well."

Phil grinned a little at that. "Well, at least our kids will grow up with good friends nearby. Anyway, you get your list and videos done?"

Andy slid across a thumb drive to him. "All on there, including contact information for everyone we have, or at least general location for the ones we don't. I'm not going crazy and asking for a bunch of celebrities like Covington did."

"Seemed like his requests worked out pretty well for you, though."

"Can't blame me if the dude's a shit card player."

"Well, I *can* but I won't, because fuck that guy. Anyone I might recognize on the list?"

"A couple of people. And, uh," he said before lowering his voice to almost a whisper. "Fi's on there."

"What was that? I believe your pride was stuck in your throat, or maybe that's just your foot," the Filipino engineer laughed.

"I'm sending Fiona an invite, okay?"

"Good for you," Phil said, as he finished his sandwich. "I've been telling you to reach out to that woman ever since she added you on Facebook, but you just kept avoiding it. Nothing like an apocalypse to get you to get off your ass, huh?"

"Yeah yeah, Phil, go fuck yourself."

"Anyway, tell all your girls about the death, and prepare them that they may be shown some rather graphic autopsy photos in the near future if the mayor decides to go ahead with his discouragement campaign. I don't think any of your girls would fool around with other guys, but I think they're just gonna show everyone."

"Oh, you know Xander, right?"

"Your friend from Ohio? Sure."

"Apparently he's paired up with Captain Betsy Ross," he said, raising a finger. "No jokes." Phil was struggling not to laugh, but managed. "He was wondering if maybe you could relocate them to New Eden."

"I'm not a goddamn genie, Rook."

"You know you'd like having him around here. Besides, I've got a few recommendations for you and Eric on that thumb drive as well, so don't say I never gave you anything. There's also one in there who might be a great match for Xander. Plus, look at it this way -- you get him out here, and he'll probably build you a classic car as a way of saying thank you."

Phil smirked for a bit, picked up the thumb drive and walked away humming the "I Dream of Genie" theme song.