Quaranteam - North West Ch. 01-04

"What about me?" Erica asked.

"Vaccination side effects and implementation are different between men and women," Greerson said. "Just like the virus is overly affecting men, the vaccine has different effects. If you want your vaccine immediately, Miss Lacosta, you're going to need to fly with us back up to Portland and attend the information session this afternoon that some of our volunteer human guinea pigs are doing. Then, if you agree to the risks and side effects, we can have you immunized as soon as tomorrow morning."

Things moved quickly after that. Erica went to pack an overnight bag and put on her 'going out into the world' gear that she usually wore for grocery trips into town - she'd be put up in a quarantine hotel while in Portland for the night before she returned the next day. Within ten minutes she was ready to go and Walters was escorting her out, and the helicopter was warming up its rotors with a whining humm in the front yard.

"I'm glad you agreed to the deal," Greerson said, offering his hand to me again, which I shook. "You may not fully understand what you've agreed to yet, but when you do I expect a more enthusiastic thank you. I get that the cash wasn't the important factor with you, son. I grew up on a ranch in North Dakota, I know what family land means. This place is going to do a lot of good for people."

"Are you managing the development?" I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the rising thrum of the helicopter.

"Not a chance," he said. "It'll be managed by the Air Force, they've been spearheading with the CDC on all these efforts. I'm just the pre-show, but I'll be around to check in on the progress every once in a while, and do the problem solving other people can't handle."

"What does that look like?" I asked.

"Any way it needs to," he grinned, and I saw the look that all veteran soldiers had. An acceptance that violence could come easily into the life of a person, and that they knew how to handle it when it came. "And don't be alarmed, but we've already had a crew starting to widen your driveway down at the highway. They'll work through the night and probably make it up here by tomorrow morning."

"What's the rush?" I asked.

Greerson barked a laugh as he started backing away from me towards the open helicopter door. Sour-puss lady was leaning out, holding onto the door and looking like she was about to try and scold Greerson for keeping them waiting. "Kid, in two weeks' time there's going to be well over a thousand lumberjacks, construction workers, surveyors and architects up here. Government moves slow, but OGA's were designed to do the opposite. Your life is about to get a little crazy, I'd strap in."

I had too many questions to even start one as Greerson hopped into the dark interior of the helicopter. The door slammed, the motor whined at a higher pitch, and it leapt into the sky and started heading north.

---Chapter 3: The Start of Something New---

"Hey, does this questionnaire strike you asway too fucking personal?"

"Hmm?" I asked. I was sitting on the front porch with my laptop open, but I hadn't even keyed in the website URL. Instead, I'd been sitting there for over an hour just looking out at the trees, wondering if I'd just betrayed six generations of my family in under thirty minutes.

"These questions," Leo said, holding up his own laptop. He'd stepped out the front door and had a look of confusion plastered on his face. "It's like... sex stuff. Shit I wouldn't talk toyou about, let alone the government."

"What?" I asked. "Are you sure you're on the right site? It's supposed to be about the tier thing."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Dot-Gov link and everything."

"Fucking OGA's," I grimaced.

"You and that Agent dude kept saying that. What does it mean?"

I sighed. "Other Government Agency. It's kind of a military meme for when someone from the CIA doesn't want to say they are from the CIA. Or, if you're into conspiracies, it's completely separate from the CIA but they're so secretive they don't even have a name."

Leo just shook his head and sighed before sitting down in the other deck chair. He joined me in looking out at the forested hills that had surrounded us for the last five years.

"Did I fuck everything up?" I asked him.

"What? No," he said. "Well, I mean, it's hard to know. But no, I don't think so."

"This is all going to go away," I said, gesturing out to the wilds that had been my childhood, and our shared backyard. "My family has been on this land for over a hundred and fifty years, and I just agreed to let the government wipe it out."

"It's not like you had much of a choice, Harrison. Carrot and stick, like you said. And whether those guys were CIA or something else, they definitely seemed to have a really big fucking stick. They flew in on a damn helicopter."

"Still," I said. "I feel like I'm selling out my childhood."

We talked for a while, reminiscing. Leo let me tell some old family stories he'd already heard a half dozen times before. We joked about the shit we'd gotten up to, living out in our backwoods paradise.

"Maybe it's time for a change," I sighed. "This was never going to last forever."

"Felt like it though, didn't it?" Leo asked.

"Yeah, it did."

POING! Leo's laptop, sitting forgotten, made a horrible noise. He glanced at it, "Ah, shit. I timed out. Now I gotta start all over again."

He started typing away, and I finally opened my own laptop. The first thing I did was open my emails, and sitting right at the top, already marked with an 'important' star, was the email with the contract.

Everything is as discussed. Print and sign, someone will be by tomorrow to collect. Make sure you fill out the questionnaire! - Walters.

"Jesus," I muttered. "They really are putting a lot of emphasis on this thing."

I opened up the website, starting by filling out all the basic information. Then, just like Leo said, it started to get weird. It was like filling out the most invasive and specific dating app ever.

"I feel like they're going to try and 3D Print me a girlfriend," Leo laughed at one point.

"Maybe it's cloning," I snickered.

"That's fair. I wonder if they can clone me an Angelina Jolie?"

"Gone in 60 Seconds Jolie, or Wanted Jolie?" I asked.

He snorted. "Mr and Mrs Smith Jolie will always be my peak. Or Tomb Raider."

"Ugh," I scoffed.

We went back and forth like that, laughing at the ridiculousness of the questions and suggestions. The list of kinks we were attracted to, or turned off by was immense. We had to help each other even figure out what some of them were. I found myself ticking off some that surprised me because I'd never considered them before but they sounded hot. Other stuff I downvoted hard, and I couldn't believe someone would ever admitto the government that they were into them.

Hell, one of the suggested kinks was the government. Who the fuck got hot under the collar about bureaucracy and paperwork?

I mean, I guess someone would, somewhere, or it wouldn't have been on the list.

"What did you put for that last one?" Leo asked me as I was closing my laptop.

"The relationship style scale?" I asked.

"Yeah. I put a full 10, polyamory all the way. How hot would it be to be some sheikh with a harem of ladies?"

"I went for a 6," I said. "I'm not going to turn down a threesome or anything if that's what my girl wants, but I'm also not into the idea of sharing with another boner."

Leo shrugged, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair. "I don't know, my dude. The Agents did say the world is changing. Maybe the norm will be great big orgies next year, and we'll all be smashing like it's our jobs."

I snorted and smirked. "Yeah, sure. Society threatens to collapse and we all devolve into Eyes Wide Shut perverts."

"One can dream," Leo laughed.

***---***---***

We spent the evening starting to pack. It was tough, since we weren't really sure what the actual plan was. The contract fully outlined that we'd be getting new residences in the development, which was being called 'Valhalla,' but it wasn't exactly clear what the timeline was.

I pushed for Leo to get packing sooner than later. My days in the military had me trained to expect 'hurry up and wait' to never mean waiting on the little guy, and right now we were definitely the little guy.

We were woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of machinery, and we got dressed and rode the ATVs down the driveway. The gravel trail stretched about a half mile from the highway up to the house, but we only made it around a couple of bends before we came to the lights and action.

"Stop right there," someone with a megaphone called to us, and we pulled our rides to a halt and cut the engines. "Who the fuck are you?" the voice asked.

"Harrison Black. You're on my-" I had to stop myself. As of that evening, I'd signed the contract. It wasn't mine anymore. "We live here," I corrected.

"Oh, it's you," said the voice. One of the workers stepped forward. He had on a big, bright orange reflective vest, and had a clipboard in one hand and the megaphone in the other. "Keep working, boys!" he shouted, and the machinery ground into action again.

He approached us and stopped about ten feet away, despite needing to shout to be heard over the machinery. "Sorry about the noise. We've got orders to get this road done up to your house by tomorrow."

"We heard," Leo said.

"How does this all work?" I asked. "Shouldn't you guys be in quarantine gear or something?"

"We got tested twice over the last two days in preparation for the job," the guy said. "Everyone on the crew is clean, and we all damn well needed the work. Fastest turnaround and the highest pay I've ever seen. Still, we're supposed to keep our distance from anyone other than the team. You guys get tested?"

"No," I shouted back. "But the Government guys who set this up didn't seem to care."

"Yeah, they did that with us, too. Acted like they were immune. Hell, maybe they are," the worker said. "You hear about what that idiot in the White House said yesterday?"

We traded some stories we'd heard. It was strange, usually Leo and I were pretty private with strangers, but after so long in isolation with just each other and Erica, and the fucking weird encounter with the Agents, it was nice to just shoot the shit with someone new and normal. Even if it was shouting over the sound of machinery.

Williams was the foreman of the operation that was clearing the trees to either side of the road. Another crew was working behind them, and trucks were already dumping off heavy set gravel at the entrance to widen it into a three-lane road. By morning they expected to have all of the trees, stumps and all, ripped out and stacked up for processing, and the driveway would be graded and levelled by lunch.

The speed at which the crew worked was almost frightening. They were all experienced hands and did everything safely, but it was clear that they were motivated. While we were talking, Leo and I had to back up our ATVs twice to clear space for the crew to move ahead.

Eventually, we said good night to Williams and headed back up to the house. I went back to bed, wondering if I'd made a terrible mistake.

***---***---***

True to their words, by the time Leo and I woke up in the early morning, the clanging and crashing was just fifty yards from the front door. We made a couple big pots of coffee and brought it out to the guys, and one at a time they all walked over to the stump we used as a table and poured it into their thermoses while we stayed back. I had to make two more trips with more fresh coffee to cover everyone; in the dark it had been hard to tell how many people were working stretched out along the driveway. The clearing crew itself had to be thirty people, and a tired but thankful Williams said the gravel grading and levelling crew was probably just as big.

"I'm sure we'll see you around," Williams called as the workers started packing up their equipment and prepping their heavier machinery for transport. "Supposed to be lots more work to do up here, yeah?"

"Guess so," I called back. "Where are you guys headed now?"

"They set us up in a motel about 20 minutes south. We've got guys on the crew from all over - they recruited all of us to fly out for this work, all expenses paid. Gotta tell you, it felt like hitting the lottery after sitting around in quarantine with my savings siphoning away."

They left behind stacks of logs and stumps along the side of the now widened driveway area, and soon Leo and I were prepping a whole new serving of coffee as the morning wore on and the grading crew made its way up my old driveway. The guys on that crew were a little more hesitant to chat since they felt like they were running behind schedule, but they were happy enough to take the hot coffee after a whole night of work.

It was around noon when one of the grading crew came up and knocked on the front door of the house. I'd been busy cleaning out the attic - one of those jobs I'd always had on my list of things to do around the property but never got around to. If there was anything up there worth saving, I hadn't found it yet, but it was worth the look. I came down to the front door covered in dust.

The guy took one look at me from where he'd backed to 'social distance' and started laughing. I took one look at him, covered in gravel dust with rings of sweat from where he'd taken off his hard hat, and laughed right back.

"Sir," he finally said after a minute, "We just thought you should know that the crew down at the far end of the road said someone in a green pickup truck drove by real slow a few times. The third time they pulled over and asked what was going on, but the boys down there followed orders and didn't tell him anything, so he peeled out. Just figured we'd let you know."

"I appreciate that," I said, and sighed in the way that only old family history could make me sigh. Deep, long and aggravated. "And I think I know who it probably was. Thanks for letting me know."

He nodded and went back to work. I didn't even think to ask what all was going on down at the end of the new road they had installed until he was already at the other end of the yard.

"What's up?" Leo asked when I went to join him in the barn.

"One of the crew guys said they saw a green pickup doing drive-bys."

"Hah! Well, I guess that's not going to be your problem anymore, is it?" Leo laughed.

I smirked. "Not legally. I'm sure I'm still going to be on Kara's shitlist and get a fucking earful though."

I ended up spending the early afternoon helping Leo pack up a bunch of his woodworking equipment. The smaller stuff was fairly easy, but he needed the extra body for some of the larger presses and table-mounted saws. It felt like we'd barely made a dent when the double-honk of a car broke our concentration.

We both headed around the side of the barn to find Erica getting out of the passenger seat of a black town car that had eaten a whole lot of the fresh gravel dust and now looked like someone had dusted it with flour. Sour-puss Agent Maggie was getting out of the driver's seat.

"Hey, sis, how was it?" Leo asked.

"Mm-mmm," Erica said, shaking her head and holding up a finger to keep him from hugging her. "I need to talk to both of you inside." She had nervous energy going on, bouncing her weight on one leg and chewing on the corner of her lower lip. "Give me twenty- no, give me thirty minutes."

"Is everything alright?" I asked. Erica was already moving quickly into the house. She'd had a look on her face like she was sick, and flushed with a fever or something. I turned to Agent Maggie. "Did something happen? She didn't catch the virus, did she?"

"No," sour-puss said, that permanent sneer never breaking. "She knows everything she needs to, and needs to talk. Just do what she says."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. Leo had followed Erica inside to make sure she was OK.

"Look, prick. Your little 'send her to the car' thing yesterday made me look bad, and now I'm stuck as a glorified cab driver while my boss and my partner are off to another shitty corner of the country like this one to bribe someone else into handing over their property to the government. Just fuck off inside and enjoy your new fucking world, you Mamoa-wannabe jerk." She got back in her car and slammed the door closed, then started to peel away and spin the car around before slamming the breaks and rolling down the window. "I'll be back again in a few hours with Lacosta's partner. He needs to be here waiting."

"What?" I asked.

She just flashed me her middle finger as she drove away.

God damn woman, I sighed, watching her kick up dust and loose stones as she drove way too fast down the brand new gravel road. I shook my head and went inside.

Erica was already upstairs and I could hear the shower running. Leo just shook his head and shrugged, "She wouldn't say anything. Just muttered about needing to get ready for something."

"This is weird," I said. "I'm really fucking hoping this whole thing isn't going to blow up in our faces."

"If it is, we might as well take it head on. Too late to do anything else," Leo said.

"That's too fucking true, my friend," I said.

Thirty-five minutes later Erica, dressed in a pair of her tight jeans with all the holes 'stylishly' cut into them down the legs and a black Metallica hoodie, strutted down the stairs and immediately began pacing and fidgeting with the strings of her sweater hood. She had done her full makeup, and seeing her like that was almost as shocking as the first time she'd gone without it - it had been a month since she had bothered with makeup at all, since even when she went out on grocery runs she was entirely covered up.

"Sit," she demanded when we joined her in the living room, pointing me to my usual chair and Leo to the couch. He furrowed his brow as he watched his sister's nervous energy, but I wasn't sure it was because he was worried or didn't like her ordering him around. Their whole twin thing had always been more bouncing off each other than working in parallel.

"Alright, alright," I said, hands up as I went to sit. "What's going on, E?"

She stopped pacing and looked at both of us, transferring her energy into tapping her foot. I'd only ever seen her like this once before, right before we'd had our big group conversation about her staying indefinitely through the quarantine. Later, she'd elaborated to me a little bit more as to why she'd been so nervous - beyond the pandemic dangers, and feeling alone if she left, Erica had been chipping in for groceries with us, but that was it - the woman couldn't work during the pandemic, and tattooing hadn't exactly fueled her savings accounts. Everything all piling on at once had turned her into a nervous wreck, the opposite of her usual self. So what was doing this to her now?

"Erica," Leo said, snapping her out of the train of thought she'd lost herself in staring at me. Her gaze was intense, only added to by her sexy post-punk look. It was like she'd erected a wall of armour around herself, or was taking on a persona that she'd let drop.

"Right, sorry, I'm just really fucking distracted," she said. "Look, there's no way to say this easily without sounding sort of crazy at first, OK? So I'm just going to say it, and you both need to listen cause I'm only explaining it once, alright?"

Leo and I both nodded.

"Alright, so the vaccine isn't just like, a shot. Well, it is for women. I got it this morning, and I'm something like 97% immune to the virus. But for men itisn't a shot. I did that information session and they showed us a bunch of research I only half-understood thanks to my AP bio classes back in high school, but I definitely got the video. The vaccine is pretty much lethal for men, and it has some weird side effects for women. They couldn't remove those aspects, so they modified it in other ways to try and adjust."