Quaranteam Ch. 50

"God bless you, and God bless America."

The room was dead silent for what felt like an eternity before Sarah spoke first. "Okay Phil, you're deep in the know about all of this. Which is more likely to become a US state, Canada or Mexico?" she asked, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"Let's just say I don't feel comfortable calling either of those as 'likely' or 'unlikely,' Sarah," Phil said, shaking his head, while Andy put the television on mute, the talking head pundits already started to try and dissect the President's speech. They had about five minutes before the 60 Minutes special was set to come on, and Andy didn't even care what the people over at CNN were saying about what they'd just heard. "The next few months are make-or-break for us as a species. I think America's going to come through it in one fashion or another. Same for most of the former G8, although Russia and Canada are both in a lot more trouble than the rest of us. China was a goddamn mess at the start, but I think they've gotten deadly serious with their quarantines now, so maybe they'll do alright in the long run. We don't really know - they've gone into some kind of communications blackout, last I'd heard. We'd sent them messages about the Quaranteam serum, but nobody had called us back about it."

"That sounds rather disturbing," Aisling said.

"Agreed," Linda responded. "But there's only so much we can do about it right now. We're already strained to the breaking point worrying about the state of our own country. We'll reach out to them again soon."

"You were joking about your reply regarding Mexico and Canada, yes, Phil?" Emily asked. "Or is it truly so dire?"

"We might end up taking some of their land," Phil said. "But completely absorbing another country? I don't think that's likely, buuuuut... at this point, I don't think we can rule anything out. When the President said all options are on the table, she meant it."

"Thank god Conner's as young as he is," Andy said. "That means he's under age for exposure to DuoHalo, and he'll have built up antibodies by the time he's in the danger zone. After Matty's death, Conner and his mom are being paired up with someone local, but she's going to do her best to keep me in the kid's life. It's gonna be rough for him, though, always going to school for the rest of his life without a class above him."

"God, I hadn't even thought about that," Fiona said to him. "Can you imagine how strange college would've been with no classes above us?"

"Colleges are going to be empty for a while," Hannah said. "Our class is going to be the last class for a while. That's gonna be hella weird, Stanford's not going to have a class coming in after ours for several years. Wonder what they're all gonna do."

"They've got several years to think about it, what with all the people your age," Phil replied. "I think they're even talking about college being paid for by the government for everyone who's eighteen to twenty-four. Maybe even pay for secondary education for older people who want to go back to school, just to keep the colleges from collapsing during the gap. Turns out college professors are, by nature, extremely paranoid and almost all of them quarantined like their lives depended on it, which they didn't know it really did."

On the screen, the large ticking stopwatch appeared with the 60 Minutes logo framing it as Andy turned it off mute. Phil tapped Andy on the shoulder and gestured to the back of the room, as Andy stood up, making his way back as Katie Couric started talking to the room.

"Don't worry about her," Phil whispered to him. "We've got like ten minutes before it's going to get to anything we give a shit about. The first ten minutes are just her talking to experts about what sorts of changes the serum causes, shit we all know way better than they do. I need to talk to you for a minute, but I need everyone to basically think we're around so nobody notices this going on and thinks anything weird's happening."

Andy tilted his head a little. "Phil, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"You were right before, about Gregor," he said. "Don't look upset, no reason to panic. There's something strange going on at his house, and we've got a team heading onto the grounds right now. And it's not alone in happening there. We're going to try and figure out what's going on while everyone's basically at home watching the presidential address and the 60 Minutes special. That's being handled by some people from the base. An actual infil unit. I just got a text saying they're starting to move onto the Vikovic estate, so try and keep an eye on me for the next hour, in case I give you a signal to come back here, okay?"

"Any idea what's-"

"I have literally told you everything I know right now, Andy, and that's probably more than I should've but, in for a penny, in for a pound."

"Are you two fucking done gossiping?" Sarah said, having come over to them, grabbing Andy by the wrist. "I think they're just about to start showing the base."

"Yeah yeah," Phil said. "Just boys and boy shit. Nothing all that interesting."

"You know when you say that, Phil, it makes me totally not fucking believe you and shit," Sarah giggled, pulling Andy back to his spot in the middle of the couch, surrounded by women pressing closely to him. "C'mon, before Niko appears!"

On the screen, Katie Couric was talking over a shot of the van driving up onto the base, which Andy had never seen before. The base had been this hypothetical thing that everyone talked about, which Niko regularly went to work at, but that Andy had never actually seen. On first impression, it looked... much smaller than he'd expected.

"The majority of the base we're about to approach in Northern California is actually underground," Katie's voice said in narration over the image the van pulling up to a small building. "And we're about to meet a woman who's going to play an integral part of our story."

As soon as Niko, dressed in her actual uniform, walked out of the building on the screen before them, the entire room cheered, as Niko nestled in hard against him, blushing deeply. "Oh fuck," Niko grumbled. "I'm their goddamn hero figure. Fuck fuck fuck fuck!"

Emily reached over and grabbed one of Niko's hands, squeezing it softly within her own. "It'll be fine, dear, I'm certain of it. Just relax."

"This is 2^nd Lieutenant Niko Kimiko Redwolf, although she's told us she's planning on adding her new partner's last name to her own after their wedding next year," the voice over continued. "For our stay in New Eden, she basically became our tour guide, answering lots of questions that randomly sprung to mind along the way, both as we toured the facility where the Quaranteam serum is being made, and some of the earliest recipients of that serum, seeing how their new life was treating them several months in. We found her honesty refreshing, her personality charming and her optimism infectious."

"So you're partnered up with someone here in New Eden?" Katie asked her on camera.

"That's correct, ma'am," Niko said. "I was in one of the earliest waves of people to get paired up with a man. I wasn't my partner's first, but his third, as he just happened to get lucky and fall towards the front of the queue. I was given my injections on July 4^th and then introduced to my fiancé, Andy, a day or two later."

"We'll meet the rest of her family later," the voiceover said. "But they all seemed a happy cohesive unit, despite their relative newness to each other, and their wildly different walks of life."

"How was your experience, going through all of this?" Katie said, as they strolled along the side of the building. "Were you scared, knowing what was coming?"

"Knowing all the things that were going to happen, well, it helped," Niko said to her. "Since I'd been around the base for a while at that point, I had a good idea of what I was in for once I finally got my injections. We were pretty light in the amount of information we gave to people up front, just because we didn't have that much information ourselves, but we've gotten a lot better at relaying everything women need to know when they're going through the treatment."

"Were you at all apprehensive about having a government developed computer program pick a sexual partner for you that you knew you were going to be with for likely the rest of your life?"

"Not at all, I trust the government in all things," Niko said, matter of factly. A moment later she burst out into a fit of giggles. "Oh my god, you really will believe anything I'll tell you. I'm going to have to be more careful with such awesome powers at my disposal. Of course I was apprehensive about it, Katie! C'mon! This is a government that less than a decade ago had problems building a damn website. My confidence level wasn't exactly high, although the questionnaire certainly made me feel a little bit better, considering how exhaustively comprehensive it was. They knew more about what I liked in the sack than I did."

The video cut to a shot a computer screen with some of the questions from the questionnaire on it, the list of questions scrolling every now and again. "The questionnaire she's talking about," Katie's narration continued, "is the one that all men and women are being asked to take, in order to find their ideal matches. According to the creator of the system, which has been dubbed The Oracle, their success rate is in excess of 99%."

A man Andy had never seen before popped up on screen, sitting in an interview chair. He was a Puerto Rican man in his early fifties, portly but also remarkable sharply dressed, as if he knew the importance of this moment, and wasn't going to give anyone a chance to dismiss him. "This is Miguel Cunningham, the designer of The Oracle," the narrator said. "And he said he understood the monumental importance of the task that was being laid out in front of him."

"What they were asking of me," Cunningham said in a calm, measured, soft-spoken voice, "it was more than I could even comprehend. I understood how to do it, but I also knew that there were going to be ramifications of any slight mistakes I made along the way, so I made sure I wasn't developing the program alone, but also in tandem with five women and four other men, so that we could be sure our questionnaire would cover every aspect of human psychosexual behavior, and in non-judgmental fashion."

"It's quite the sizable test," Katie said to the man. "It took me almost two hours when I had to take it myself."

"Yes, I know many people have referred to it as overly redundant and unbearably long," he said with a slight chuckle, "but that's a by-product of how important it was for us to reduce human error in the process. Everything is basically asked at least twice, with more extreme and unusual things actually presented three or four times with different wording before being considered confirmed. The test isn't the same for anyone, because the system is learning as it keeps intaking data. And some people in the early stages tried lying to the test, because of concerns how they might be perceived or judged, but it's important that your audience understand, humans rarely review this data, and in lying on the test, the only people you are hurting are yourself and your partners. No one will judge you for anything you place on this test. In fact, you may find it rather liberating to know that whatever particular kinks you have placed on your test will be matched by at least some of your partners."

The video cut back to Niko and Katie walking alongside the building. "Were you upset about having to share your male partner-"

"Andy," Niko interrupted, clearly wanting to establish his name.

"Yes, were you upset about having to share Andy with other women?"

"I don't know that 'upset' is the right word, but I certainly wasn't over the moon about the idea, even if I understood the reasoning behind it," Niko admitted. "But, I'm also bisexual, and I knew that Andy was likely to be paired up with mostly bisexual women. The idea of having both men and women as both sexual and emotional partners, that definitely held a strong appeal."

"When you say emotional partners-"

"My best friend in the whole world is Andy's first partner, Aisling," Niko said on the screen, as the Niko next to him tried to crawl entirely underneath the blanket.

Aisling giggled and leaned over to whisper, "Thanks babes."

"Fuck off," Niko giggled. "I didn't mean it! I hate all of you, forever and ever!"

"She's the person I look forward to talking to the most, and I feel like I can trust her with anything and everything in my life," Niko continued from their television. "But the best part about our Team is that all of the women who have come into our lives have integrated remarkably well, considering not all of them were brought in through the Oracle program."

"If they weren't all brought in through the Oracle program-"

"Well, they all get vetted by the Oracle before they arrive," Niko corrected.

"If they aren't all chosen that way, then how were they chosen?"

"Some were recommendations or referrals by people already in the family. Some were older connections that were revived in the face of this new disaster and people paired up that way. Some times, people just asked if they could be put with someone, and as long as Oracle didn't see any major conflicts and both parties agreed to it, the pairings just happen."

"What's your mom think about all of this?" Katie asked her. "Is she upset that you have to share your partner with so many other women?"

"Mom's just glad I'm happy and that I've found a place I feel comfortable calling home," Niko said to her. "She's more getting used to her own changes, having been single since my dad died sixteen years ago, but I'm glad she's got a Team of her own again."

"You may be asking, where did this Quaranteam serum come from," Katie's narration continued as they showed b-roll footage of the inside of the lab, where women whose faces were hidden, were getting their injections. "There are two key players in the development of this serum. The first is Doctor Phillip Marcos, who developed what's called the Root Serum with a number of other Air Force researchers here in this lab."

There was a loud cheer in the room as the image of Phil appeared before them, in what Andy could only assume had to be Phil's office, because of the giant Ryu statue just behind him in the distance. Andy also recognized the heavy metal box next to it, not as some top secret piece of Air Force equipment, but as the case that Phil carried his fighting stick in for when he played fighting games.

"Oh shut the fuck up," Phil said from within the room to the cheers, holding out his middle fingers to all the people, even though he was smiling when he did it. "Listen up, maybe you'll learn something, ya bunch of filthy savages."

"How did you come across the Root Serum, Dr. Marcos?" Katie asked the version of him on screen.

"We were actually working on ways to accelerate the power of stun gas, and to inoculate our soldiers so they would be completely unaffected by the gas, when we stumbled across what we call the Root Serum, which is a formula that seems to accelerate and enhance nearly anything it's paired with," TV Phil said. "There are obviously millions of possible applications for the Root Serum, but just around the time we were starting to test the boundaries of what the Root Serum was capable of, DuoHalo appeared in the world."

Andy felt Phil's hand on his shoulder again, and he slipped out of his seat, sliding Emily over to give Niko someone to cuddle against during his absence, as the two of them stepped towards the back of the room.

"Don't worry," Phil told him, "the next five minutes is literally them talking with me and a couple of others about how nobody knows where DuoHalo comes from. So much wasted airtime just theorizing when nobody knows shit." He shook his head.

Andy frowned a little bit. "What now, Phil?"

"I just got a text message from the team that was invading Vikovic's house to find out what's going on, and I gotta tell you, Andy, I don't like it one bit."

"Why's that?"

"Nobody's there," Phil whispered intensely. "The whole fucking place is emptied out. No sign of Gregor, his wife, his partners, his staff, nobody."

"They didn't just vanish, Phil," Andy said to him quietly. "They had to go somewhere."

"I know, I know," Phil sighed. "Jesus, this is fucked. This is so super fucked. Maybe the team'll find something that'll give them some idea of what the fuck happened."

"Was the word CROATOAN written on a wall anywhere?" Andy said with a grin.

"At least you've got your fucking sense of humor about you," Phil grumbled. "I think I'm getting ready to shit bricks. C'mon, let's get back. I don't want to draw too much attention to us."

The two men slipped back to their seats, Niko and Emily making room for Andy to slide back onto the couch. "What's going on, Andy?" Niko whispered to him.

"As soon as I know, I'll tell you," he whispered back.

"You and Phillip and your secrets," Emily whispered to him with a giggle. "Boys and their need for mystery."

"I wish that's what this was, Em."

"Should I be concerned?" she asked.

"Ask again later."

On the screen before them, a new familiar face popped up sitting in interview with Katie Couric, Asha's mom, Dr. Charlotte Varma, who was currently holding Phil's hand just across the room. "So Dr. Varma, tell us, is the Quaranteam serum really as strong a protection against the DuoHalo virus as the President would like us to believe?"

"Oh my, yes," Charlotte answered, her voice still tinged with that French accent. "Even moreso, if you are able to believe that. In addition to providing complete protection from the more devastating and fatal effects of DuoHalo, the Quaranteam serum can also offer a number of other health improvements some of the time. It's reliant upon the number of partners a man has, but given a sufficient pool of partners, the benefits can be quite remarkable. I only wish my first husband had stayed safe long enough to take it."

The video moved back to b-roll footage of the base itself, being careful only to show the long process of making the Quaranteam serum from a distance, and only showing specific parts of it. "Dr. Varma's husband Dev was among the earliest casualties to the DuoHalo epidemic in the United States. Since his death, she has been paired up with Dr. Marcos, and her daughter, Asha, shares her partner with a face you might recognize."

An image of the majority of the Rook Team popped up for just a moment, as Katie's voice said. "We'll be back in just a few moments with the story of how this obscure fiction writer ended up with such an impressive household. 60 Minutes continues, after this."

"I cannot believe we still have fucking advertising in the middle of a fucking newsreport about the end of the fucking world!" Sarah shouted, making the whole room bust up laughing.

"You ready for your time in the spotlight, Mr. Rook?" Fiona asked him with a wide grin. She'd always taken great amusement in watching him squirm, so he didn't suspect this would be any different. "It's fun seeing you trying to downplay your own importance to the press."

"Does Andrew have a history of this, Fi?" Emily asked her.

She nodded in return. "He wrote a play in college-"

"CO-wrote," he corrected.

"He wrote most of a play in college and let his classmate write a scene or two, and when the school paper came to interview him about it, I swear he tried to give all the credit away as much as he could, trying to make it sound like he'd done exactly half the work."