Quaranteam Ch. 39

"Adam and Eve?" Andy asked. "Are you putting me on?"

"Wish I was," Phil sighed, leaning his back against the door of his car. "She reached out to me personally with an offer. I get her paired to some rich fella who's going to take care of her, and she's going to help us crack the unpairing/repairing problem."

"Phil..."

"I'm not asking you to take her, Andy, relax. I was hoping maybe you could reach out to Watkins and see if he'd be willing to take her in."

"Nate said he did feel like he owed me a couple still, even with all the money he gave me."

"That's not the whole of it, though."

"What else..."

"So Evie McCallister has with her a pair of men who are imprinted on each other."

"Wait, what?" Andy said. "I thought being homosexual was like a giant taboo in Russia."

"They certainly frown on it, which is why two of the scientists who were working with Adam McCallister didn't reveal they were gay until they'd devised a work around, a sort of Rosetta Stone for this whole thing. That's what let them flee."

"Just give him the short and quick, hon," Linda said to Phil.

"Okay, long story short--"

"Too late!" both he and Phil said in unison before chuckling.

"Right," Phil continued. "So one of the two men has what he describes as 'reassignment sperm,' in that his sperm isn't toxic, even to women who are imprinted already. A small amount of it will essentially reset a woman, but she'll immediately go into the state we've seen with using the necrotized sperm, which is part of the reason I believe Evie when she told me all of this."

"You haven't tested it yet?"

"I'm getting to that. This guy, Sergei, has a variation of our serum running through his veins, and it might eventually lead to some kind version of the serum where people don't have to be paired to one another, but we are a long way from that right now. He also claims it can pair two men together, which was a large part of the reason he and his boyfriend fled here with Evie McCallister. In Russia, they'd both have been killed, but if he's right, we could, albeit very slowly, at least start getting gay men paired up and resistant to DuoHalo. But I've been keeping this on the down low because I'm worried that if some people on the base found out, they'd try and quash it."

"You can't believe that," Andy said."

"Wish I didn't, but I do. They're mostly focused on making sure I can get women to survive their partner's death. There hasn't been any push on us trying to get a solution for gay men and women, so now that I may have a partial one here, I'm doing everything I can to validate it quickly and pushed out in front of as many people as possible. It's really not scalable, but at this point, I'll take what I can get, you know?"

"So what do you need from me?"

"We've got Evie, Sergei and Sergei's boyfriend Andrei stashed in a house over in Dos Eden. Now I can't go over there, because if I do, they're going to know I was there, and I don't want to bring her in until I've validated her claims. Do you have anyone in your family who wouldn't mind fooling around with some other guy for a bit?"

"My family's all here by choice, Phil," Andy said.

"What about your cook, Jenny?" Linda asked. "Didn't you say she's married to your gardener, and they're both just with you to stay healthy? Think she'd be okay to help you test this all out?"

"She doesn't want to leave the family, Linda, even if she's not emotionally invested in me like my partners are."

"She wouldn't leave your family, Andy. She'd just be on a very short, temporary loan, and she's not going to have to sleep with anyone she doesn't want to," Phil said.

"I can talk to her about it, but lay it out for me how it's all going to work."

"You take her over to the house, along with one of your male friends, Eric or Xander, whichever one Jenny wouldn't mind having one evening of fun with. You put a little bit of Sergei's cum on her skin, just to prove it doesn't have any sort of adverse reaction. If it's all good, you have her taste a little bit, and then she should go back to the imprinting state, and you let your friend imprint her. A couple of days later, you do it again, but reimprint her back to you. If Evie's telling the truth, it'll only be a few days and then everything will be back to the way it was. And if she's not, the minute Jenny touches Sergei's semen, she'll have an adverse reaction and she doesn't have to go any further." Phil sighed, shrugging a little. "I need someone I can trust on this, Andy, and I don't know who else to turn to. If you don't think she'll go for it, you don't have to bring it up, and I'll... I'll see if there's anybody else I can ask. I could ask Xander, I guess."

"No," Andy sighed, shaking his head. "You ask Xander and he'll feel obligated to try and help you. I'll talk to Jenny and Katie, and I'll let them decide. Fair?"

"Fair enough," Phil agreed. "Get blood samples at every stage in between. Take Niko with you, and she'll know how to do it."

"What have you got that girl up to behind my back, Phil?"

"Oh hell no," his friend laughed. "If you can't get her to tell you, what the hell makes you think I'm gonna tell you? She'd kick my ass if I said anything. You can ask her again."

"She'll probably tell me what she told me last time -- I shouldn't worry about it."

"It took a long while for Phil to trust me as well, Andy, so I wouldn't worry about it," Linda said with a smile. "You guys are so used to thinking you have to be self-reliant, how you need to be tough, that it takes you a while to get used to the idea of having a woman take care of your helpless asses. But you'll learn. You all do eventually."

"Well, I feel like I just got scolding by the nuns at Saint Agnes Academy again. How about you, Andy?" Phil chuckled.

"I didn't go to Catholic school, Phil, but I know the sentiment. I guess we just have to trust they're doing everything they can to keep us safe."

"Even when you're both being a pain in the ass about it," Linda said, just the tiniest undercurrent of genuine annoyance to her voice.

"Sorry Linda," they both said in unison.

"You're both forgiven, but we really gotta get back to the base, Phil, otherwise Fielder's going to get suspicious, and that's the last thing you want."

"She's right," Phil said, giving Andy a hug. "Thanks for even considering it. I know it's nuts, but if you follow the instructions I gave you, worst case scenario is that Jenny gets a rash on her skin for a couple of days."

"Like I said, it's their decision, not mine."

"Right. Right right right. Anyway, if you decide to do it, I can give you all the instructions when we're over in a couple of days for the party."

"God, that is just two days away, isn't it? Crazy how time flies."

Phil let go of Andy and headed back to his car. "Stay safe, man. Niko or Lexi with you at all times if you leave this house. And don't tell anyone about this little Evie thing that you don't have to."

"I'm gonna tell my family, Phil."

Phil shrugged a little bit, opening the door of his car. "If it was me, I would keep it to only the very few who need to know. Anyway, your house, your call. See you in a couple of days, man." He and Linda hopped into their car and drove down the driveway and headed off into the evening air.

"That's the difference between you and me, Phil," Andy said to himself. "I'm no good at keeping secrets."

He walked inside to find Aisling waiting for him, a warm smile on her face as she slid her arm around his waist and saddled up next to him as they walked to the dining room. "Why the long face, Andy?"

"Phil dropped a bit of a heavy thing on me, and it's a lot to think about. I'm not built for this cloak and dagger shit like he is."

On the stroll to dinner, Andy explained to her everything that Phil and Linda had told him, as she peppered him with questions along the way. At the end, she suggested he wait until later in the evening to talk to Jenny and Katie about it.

When they got to the dining room, Andy was pleased to find nearly everyone there, Lauren and Taylor having texted earlier that they were just going to grab dinner at the training grounds tonight and would be back late.

Emily, Sarah and Maya were a couple cocktails in already, but all of them were in that pleasant space between buzzed and tipsy, talking up a storm, and as soon as Andy and Ash walked into the room, Emily immediately ushered them over to make sure that Andy was sitting next to Maya, Ash on the other side of him.

Early on, the girls had tried convincing Andy to always sit at the head of the table, and he'd told them exactly what they could do with that idea, so the table seating constantly shuffled, and nobody sat at either end of the table two nights in a row, so that it was clearly established that nobody was more or less important than anyone else. It was a symbolic thing, but Andy was the first to point out that symbols have power, and their subliminal influence should never be underestimated.

Dinner gave everyone a chance to take turns grilling Maya, which let Andy just sort of sit and listen. After he'd made the decision of who he would offer spots in his house, he'd talked to each of the girls over Zoom for about an hour, letting them ask him whatever questions they wanted while he'd asked them a few as well. It wasn't enough time to get to truly know each other, but it gave both him and the woman in question a chance to check for any real dealbreakers that they might have overlooked, so many of the questions the girl were asking Maya were things Andy already knew the answers to, although she did have one surprise up her sleeve for him.

"So what's your favorite of Andy's books," Sarah asked her. "I know you have to have read some of them right now, since I gave you all of them the last time I saw you, a few years ago."

Maya tilted her head to one side, a wry grin spreading wide on her face. "You're not going to believe me."

"Is it 'The Trouble With Werebears,' because if you say it is, I'm gonna have to shield you from Andy throwing a dinner roll at you," the tall redhead giggled.

Maya reached into her satchel and pulled out a book, setting it down on the table. It had dozens of post-it notes sticking out from it, and the cover was starting to bend back a little. Andy glanced over and then his eyes widened in surprise.

"No! Really?"

The book in question was easily the least popular thing he'd ever written, partially because it was so far out of his normal wheelhouse. "I think it's easily your best work, and frankly, I'm surprised nobody's ever tried to make a movie out of it, which was something I wanted to talk to you about."

Emily reached over and picked up the book. "'Fatal Alliances?' This isn't a Druid Gunslinger book. I don't know that I've ever seen Sarah reading this."

"Oh I read it," Sarah said. "But it's super fucking sad. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's fucking hot, and I get why maybe it was too fucking steamy for the mainstream, but it's such a fucking downer ending that it isn't something I wanted to come back to that fucking often, even as great as it is."

"What's it about, love?" Emily asked him.

Maya decided to answer instead. "It's a Cold War story about two spies, one American and one Soviet, and they're each sort of fatal honey traps. Anyone who either of them has sex with dies within a couple of days, from what looks like natural causes, except that their bodies are generating some kind of sexually transmitted poison. They're considered important assets, the assassins you send when you want no traces left behind. They both witness something they shouldn't one night in East Berlin, and so they flee together. After killing their respective bosses, the two decide they're done with this world, so they have sex with each other, and die in each other's arms a few days later. If you expounded upon the action sequences, fleshed them out a bit more, this could be an excellent fucking movie." She paused for a second. "It could be my excellent fucking movie. Who owns the rights to this, Andy?" Maya asked him, taking the book back from Emily.

"Nobody?" he chuckled. "Well, I guess that means I still do. Nobody had that much interest in it, so I didn't worry about it. Hell, I know it's out of print, so I'm a little amazed you got that copy."

"I got her everything, Andy," Sarah told him. "And you know me. What I want, I fucking get."

"So I have learned," he nodded. "Yeah, I can have my agent draw up a contract to let you get the rights to it."

"Soon," Maya said, "before the Druid Gunslinger film makes everyone claw at all your old work."

"I barely sold fifty thousand copies of 'Fatal Alliances,' Maya, so I think you're overestimating people's interest in the property."

"Believe me, Andy, I know what I'm talking about."

Dinner carried on with several conversations going on and Andy drifting in between them. One of the things he'd learned early on as his family grew was that as soon as they had moved into the mansion, the family size had grown too large for there to only be one conversation at the dinner table. He'd also stressed a number of times that the girls shouldn't always stick to their usual cliques and should intermingle, making sure to spend a little time with all the other girls over the course of any given week, and it was starting to settle into cycles.

When Jenny was bringing out dessert, Andy grabbed her and asked her and Katie to meet him in his office in a few hours, so he could talk to them about something. Jenny seemed a little nervous and Andy said it wasn't anything bad, and they shouldn't worry.

After dinner had wrapped up, the whole family began carrying dishes into the kitchen, refusing to let Jenny and Nicolette clear the table entirely by themselves, as Andy, Maya, Emily and Sarah started walking down the hall towards Maya's room.

"So whaddaya think, Maya?" Sarah asked eagerly. It was clear that the relationships between Sarah and Maya and the relationships between Emily and Maya were very different, with Sarah acting almost like Maya's eager little sister, and Emily more like Maya's old friend. "You okay with staying?"

"Yeah, I think I can make all this work for me," she said. "Good people, good environment, the dogs seem happy enough, and with the shooting studios in Oakland, Marin and Pleasanton, I can definitely carve out a career here. So sure, why not? I'll pitch in with you lot and call this home."

"Marvelous," Emily said, leaning in to kiss Maya on the cheek. "Sarah and I will leave you and Andrew to make your final arrangements, and we will see you tomorrow. Good night!"

"Night Maya!" Sarah said, taking a turn to kiss Maya on the cheek, before she and Emily headed back up the hallway towards the stairs, Maya's bedroom on the ground floor so the dogs could easily walk right out into the back yard. Katie had even set up the fenced area so that Maya could simply slide open the deck door in her bedroom and let the dogs run straight out into it unsupervised.

"This new world's pretty fuckin' crazy," Maya said, looking up at him as they reached the door to her bedroom. "You must feel like the luckiest man in the world."

Andy sighed a little. "I mean, on one hand, sure. On the other, my brother and most of my oldest friends died to DuoHalo over the last few months, so a lot of times, I'm dealing with survivor's guilt, y'know? Why'd I make it and not them?"

Maya took his hand in hers, shaking her head at him. "Don't get caught up in your head about it. It's too big for anyone to think about, so you just have to learn to roll with it."

"Yeah, thanks. That's what everyone keeps telling me, so I'm doing what I can to not dwell on it too much. Anyway, I'm glad you've decided to join the family, and when you feel like the time is right, just let me know and we can make it official."

Maya squeezed his hand a little bit, as if she thought he might be planning to pull away. "Look, I talked to Em and Sares about it while you were talking with your friend, and I decided I want our first time to be like normal people, without all the complications of imprinting tied to it, so I was thinking maybe you could come in, and I could give you a hummer to get over that whole hump, so that when we do bump uglies for the first time, we feel a little more like regular people. That cool?"

Andy smiled at her. "Hey, whatever you want, Maya. We don't even have to do the imprinting now if you don't want to."

She looked down, unable to look him in the eyes for the moment. "That's just it, Andy. I do want to. And we do kinda have to, because sometime in the middle of dinner, I realized it was getting harder to think clearly, and the one thing I don't ever want is to feel out of control of my own body. So is it cool if we just do this now? I'm sure you've banged, like, five or six people already today..."

"Actually, it was a pretty light day today," he chuckled. "I provided for Jenny and Katie this morning, and Ash snuck in while I was writing to have a quickie as a break, to make sure I wasn't sitting all day."

"Good," Maya growled at him, as she grabbed his shirt, "then you'll have a nice fat fucking load for me to swallow." She pushed him into her bedroom, and closed the door behind her. The sliding door was open just enough so that the dogs could come and go, and that made it cool inside, the evening November air chilling the room a bit. "How should I do this?"

"The minute you get it,you're going to black out, so maybe I should lay down on the bed and you should just--"

Maya peeled her tanktop up and over her head, revealing small tan breasts with tiny brown nipples atop of them, tossing it aside. "I think I'm the most flat chested girl in this house, so I hope you're okay with that," she said, unbuckling the belt holding up her cargo pants as he crossed the room to her. She must have had some large tattoo on her back, because Andy could see what looked like a portion of a serpent's tail curving around her waist.

He turned her head up suddenly and leaned down to press his lips against hers in an intense kiss, feeling her tense up for just a brief second before settling into it, relaxing. "You are absolutely fucking beautiful, Maya, and I don't ever want you to think I'm just okay with you. Got it?"

Maya grinned up at him, a softening in her eyes. "Em's right. You are a magnificent and sappy bastard, but that makes you lovable. Can I finish getting naked now, or you wanna make out a bit more first?"

"I wanna make out a bit more first," he said, grinning back at her.

"Yeah, okay."

They locked lips again, but even while they did, Andy could feel Maya's hands unbuttoning his jeans, unzipping them. He was about to shift to help her take them off, but when he did, she pulled back from the kiss, shaking her head. "Leave'em on. I like the idea of feeling like a couple of teenagers trying to get each other off quick before the parents come home."

She turned them both and pushed him back onto the bed with enough sudden force that he didn't even see it coming and just fell backwards before she dropped her cargo pants down and stepped out of them, leaving her in just a large pair of cotton panties. She started climbing onto the bed next to him. "It's also that time of the month, and while Em said you aren't squeamish about playing on the field during red tide, not for our first time."

Andy moved just a little bit, shifting to brace his shoulders against the pillows at the head of the bed, so he'd be able to watch her. "Whatever makes you comfortable."

Maya frowned a little, her eyes narrowing at him. "Take a more active hand in this, would you? I don't even know if you're ready for this."