Quaranteam - North West Ch. 22

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QT:NW continues the official Spin-Off for the Quaranteam universe originally created by CorruptingPower. You do not need to have read the original series to enjoy this one, but you really do need to start with Chapters 1-4 (I really suggest you read the original though, it's great!). Fans of the original should be pleased to know CP has approved the story and the continuity.

In this chapter you can expect hard conversations, confrontations and announcements.

Returning Dramatis Personae

House Black

- Harrison 'Harri' Black - Sheriff of Black County, 'Jason Momoa-looking motherfucker' mountain man (mixed heritage), former Army MP

- Erica LaCosta - Fiancee of Harri, Leo's sister, Italian Tattoo Artist, Dark Brunette

- Ivy Gauthier - Quebecoise stripper, half-tattooed, Dirty Blonde anal queen

- Kyla Bautista - Trained dancer, Phillipino Spy, Harri's Deputy Sheriff, Raven hair

- Vanessa Peters - Construction Forewoman, Daughter of Brent Peters the head of the construction project, Brunette

- Macho - Rescued daschund puppy, named for his big balls, mascot and beloved pet of House Black

House LaCoasta

- Leo LaCosta - Harri's best friend and former roommate, Italian carpenter, Erica's brother

Natives

- Kara Swiftwater - Harrison's high school sweetheart that ended poorly, community leader of the local Native band, Raven hair

- Gertrude 'Gerty' Swiftwater - Kara's second cousin, Tribal police on the Rez, Voluptuous Native, Raven hair

- Tanaya - Kara's neighbour on the Rez

- Feather - Fervent native protest organizer and activist. Former colleague of Kara's.

Valkyrie Falls

- Josie 'Joss the Boss' Draper - Professional Wrestler, Athletically Trim Blonde

- Spencer - Professional Fitness Model, Apprentice Personal Trainer, Athletic Curvy Blonde

- Abigail 'Abi' Jónsson - Harri's Personal Trainer, Co-owner of Valkyrie Falls women's athletic retreat, Icelandic Personal Trainer and Crossfit Competitor, Tall Athletically Muscular Blonde

Other

- Agent Greerson - Senior 'OGA' that negotiated Harri's land deal and dropped Kyla into Harri's life

Referenced Characters

- Danielle 'Dani' - Australian stripper, Brunette

- Mary Duncan - Attended high school with Harri, former cheerleader, Husband has disappeared while looking for work, left to join a 'commune' with her kids

- Lt Col Miriam Abarbanel - Military friend of Harri's, Air Force Lt Col, Jewish heritage, Commanding Officer for Valhalla Hills construction and the Oregon Quaranteam research project

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The drive up to the Rez was probably the worst one I had ever made. I'd done the drive a bunch of times in high school; being sixteen and having a little beater car so I could go to early morning football practices had given me the sort of freedom that made me the envy (and designated driver) for my friends at the time. I'd filled that car with football players more than a few times, but just as many times I'd driven up to the Rez to pick up Kara and her friends, driving them to bush parties, lakes to go swimming or even out to Portland a couple of times so we could go shopping without our parents.

Then that had all stopped, and it had been years until I'd driven up to the Rez again for the fire and the funerals. That had only been a few weeks ago now. Checking in after the fire I'd been a little panicked, not knowing if Kara was alive. Making the drive with Kyla and Erica for the funerals had been less anxiety-filled but kind of weird, and I'd had a lot of different emotions going on. Looking back, those funerals had likely been where the first transfers of the virus had happened and started to spread. So many people in one place, it wouldn't have taken much for one carrier to spread it to a few people, and now three weeks later it was rampant. It was kind of amazing that it hadn't happened sooner, between the protest at my place and the recovery efforts after the community centre fire.

Still, even after the funerals, this was the worst. Kara was probably infected, as were her cousin and her neighbour. The chances that they weren't, when it was running hot through the whole community, were negligible.

At best, according to Miriam, they had two weeks before they would show harsh symptoms, and then something like two days before they were dead. And that was thebest case.

I passed by all the landmarks I remembered and then pulled up towards the old ticket booth that marked the boundary of the Rez. Just a few weeks ago it had been converted into the hub of their little palisade of junk, manned by big Native men on the lookout for trouble. Now, as I pulled up, the 'In' side of the road was blocked and someone had spray painted 'SICK INSIDE' and 'STAY OUT' on the old car they'd parked there. The 'Out' side had probably been blocked as well, but that car looked like someone had rammed it with another vehicle. It was at an angle and had a bunch of damage to the rear end.

Someone had done the right thing and tried to keep the outbreak quarantined. Someone else had probably thought they were doing the right thing for themselves or their family and tried to escape the death that was already haunting them. Wherever they ended up, I could only hope that they weren't spreading it to loved ones.

Not that they would be there to know. Two weeks was a long time compared to two days.

I slowly eased my truck around the shifted barricade car and rolled to a stop.

'I'm just coming in,' I sent Kara.

'Don't come up front. People down the street. Use the back dirt drive from Leaning Oak.'

I sent a'kk' and started driving. The roads on the Rez weren't in GPS maps, so she'd needed to give me directions. I could remember some of the streets by sight - not a whole lot had changed on the Rez in 15 years or so - but I didn't know them all, or their names.

Part of me wanted to just speed through as fast as possible, but that would have drawn more attention than taking a slow crawl. Once I got off the main road that ran around the outskirts of the primary residential area and eventually led to the old celebration grounds, I also found that things were more... apocalyptic. More than a few cars were abandoned, half out of driveways or in the middle of the street or parked up on people's lawns in a panic. I saw one that was smashed right into the corner of a doublewide, the trailer collapsing down onto the roof. Trash and other garbage was piled in places, and I saw more than a few residences, both trailer and small houses, that had clearly been broken into. Doors smashed open, windows busted.

The worst were the bodies.

They weren't everywhere, but every once in a while someone had collapsed in a front yard, or in the driver's seat of their car. Probably looking for help. The blood, trailing from the orifices of their faces, told the story. I'd seen warzones, and bodies, before. This was something else. Portland after the protests and riots had reminded me of a warzone. What I was witnessing now reminded me of scenes from a zombie movie.

There were people as well, living. I spotted a few seemingly going about their lives. One guy was mowing his rocky front lawn with a little push mower that was sputtering. A woman was packing her car, keeping tight hold of two little kids as she did it.

A man was digging in his side yard, a cloth-wrapped body lying next to the hole.

They weren't the only people though. Down a couple of roads I saw larger gatherings. Groups, not big enough to be called a crowd, gathered. I avoided them where I needed to, finding detours.

Once I got to Leaning Oak Lane, on which I didn't see a single leaning oak tree, I wound around a couple of bends before finding the dirt track Kara had told me about. The roads of the Rez weren't laid out in a discernable pattern; not that most of the roads and streets around Jewell were much better. Between the hills and rocky terrain, whether it was the highways or the little subdivision stretches like where Mary had lived, builders were forced to adapt to the terrain. Up here on the Rez, where the land was particularly rocky - because of course the Feds way back then chose shitty terrain for it - it made for a maze that only the locals really knew by heart.

The dirt trail, because that was all it was, was rough but my truck was able to handle that easily. If the lots and roads were a little wild, the one thing going for them was that they were larger than what someone could find in the little subdivisions scattered around town. They weren't exactlydeveloped lots, most of them occupied by scrub and overgrowth with just a doublewide and whatever sheds or old coverings the owners had erected through the years. The few houses were single-story, or maybe a story and an attic, and there was no way they had basements. I had to pull out my phone and text Kara again that I was on the trail because I had no way of knowing which one of the residences was hers.

I spotted her waiting nervously on the back deck of one of the small houses. She was wearing a blue jean jacket and was looking around with obvious anxiety. Her dark hair was looking a little windblown, but I'd always liked that look on her. Usually, it came along with her beautiful smile, and I'd always loved driving her around with the windows down - she would glare at me, knowing exactly what I was doing, but then break out that smile.

There weren't any smiles now.

I pulled my truck up off of the path right into her backyard, turning it to face the back towards her deck. At any other time, ploughing through the rough overgrowth at the back of her lot might have been rude, but under the circumstances and considering it hadn't looked cultivated, I just did it.

"Harri, what the fuck?" she asked as I got out. She wasn't wearing a mask. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you need it," I said, coming around to the back of my truck and opening the gate, pulling out the first couple of paper bags filled with food. "Step back a bit so I can set this down for you."

She did, but hesitated when she saw me clearly. "What the hell happened to you?"

I grunted as I set down the bags. "Well, the leg is a gunshot wound that I'm still recovering from. The rest is from a fistfight with a couple of bikers. But I'm OK."

"You don't look it," she said, obviously concerned. "You got shot?"

"Through and through," I said, gingerly patting my leg. "No permanent damage. Don't worry, it just hurts like hell right now. I've got more bags if you want to call some help."

Kara went to the back door and called inside. She was joined by two more women. The first one I recognized even though she wasn't in uniform. Officer Gertrude was wearing a pair of rough overalls and a black top underneath that was stretching around her considerable bust. She was curvier than Kara, but seeing them side-by-side I realized the familial resemblance even if it was small. They were the same height, and while her face was a little softer they had the same nose and lips. She wore a silver hoop nose ring in one nostril now, and her clothing revealed she had some sort of thin script writing tattooed on the inside of her arm, and a cross on her other forearm.

"Hello, Officer," I said.

She grimaced slightly as she nodded. "It's just Gerty now," she said. "With everything going on, I got fired."

"How does that make any sense?" I asked as I went back to the truck for the next pair of bags.

"There were a lot of... arguments on the tribal council," Kara said with a heavy sigh. "I resigned in protest when they decided to fire Gerty for 'causing problems.' It was probably too late already, though."

"I'm sorry," I said with a grimace of my own, setting down the next bags.

The third woman, who must have been Kara's neighbour, was a little shorter and her awkward stance and the set to her expression told me she was much less social than either of the others. Sensing the hesitation, Kara spoke up. "This is my neighbour Tanaya."

She was dressed in a denim button-down that washed out whatever slim curves she had, along with black jeans held up by a chunky belt that sported the sort of buckle I would have expected to see on a rodeo champion. She pressed her lips together in a half-smile and nodded to me. Her hair was dark and as long as Kara and Gerty's, well past her shoulders, but wavy with soft curls instead of straight.

"Good to meet you," I said. "Hopefully Kara's said at least a couple of nice things about me."

"Harri-" Kara said, and I could hear the apology in her voice.

"Just kidding, Kara," I said, holding up a hand. "If I can't find a joke somewhere, I'll lose my mind."

All three women nodded softly.

I went and got the last bag of stuff that I'd set aside for them. "That should hold you ladies for at least five days or so," I said as I set it down and backed away. "Just- I could see it's bad, but how bad are we talking?"

"You ever watch Shaun of the Dead?" Tanaya asked. Her voice was a little deeper with a cute husk to it. "Like that."

"Fuck me," I sighed, wiping my hand across my mouth and beard as I took a deep breath. "OK. I'm still trying to get an answer for you, something that will help. The people I'm talking to are coming up blank, but I trust them when they say theyare trying."

"Unless there's a cure, I don't know what could be done," Gerty said. "Last info that came in, the stuff that got me fired up at the station for talking about it, said it's killing almost all men that catch it, and most women. Teens worst of all."

"I-" How did I say this? "That's true from what I've seen," I said. "The government's been testing a vaccine, though. The people I know are trying to see if they can find a stockpile to bring here, but it's not panning out yet."

"Harri," Kara said. "You know what 'experimental vaccines' and the government do..."

"I know," I said. "There's a long history. But it's real, and so far it seems to work."

"How do you know that?" Tanaya asked. She had a bit of a drawl to her accent that I couldn't immediately place.

I swallowed, glancing at Kara. "Because I was offered a chance to be part of the testing group a couple of months ago, back when the military bought my land," I said. "It's a complicated story that I'll tell you three eventually."

Kara was frowning in concern, and Gerty was looking at me with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Tanaya was stoic and hard to read. "Can you guys bring that stuff in?" Kara asked the other two softly. They both nodded and came forward to pick up a couple of the paper bags. Gerty looked inside one and saw I'd included a couple bottles of wine, and she looked up at me with a smile and a wink. Tanaya murmured her thanks and they both slipped back inside the house.

I stood leaning against the back of my truck while Kara hugged herself up on the deck.

"I'm sorry I can't do more for you right now," I said.

"Fuck off," she sighed. "This is more than you should be doing."

"Are you safe?" I asked.

She nodded, but the hesitation was clear. It only took a glance from me and she knew I knew. "People are acting out," she said. "Bunching up, trying to blame... everyone. Anyone. They're saying this is the land cleansing itself, and if we simply listen to the earth it will give us a way to survive. It's- fucked."

"Is there anything else I can do?"

"Explain the vaccine to me," she said. "You're hiding something. I can tell, Harri. Just because of..." she stopped, hanging her head a little for a moment before looking back up at me. "Just because I made some really misguided choices, doesn't mean I don't know you. Please just don't lie to me."

I had to take a breath. I'd avoided this so far. "The vaccine works," I said. "Or, it works but in a weird way. It isn't 100% effective, especially for men. And I don't know the science, but it's deadly for men to take directly. The way it was explained to me, women can take it and then it's like an STD in their system, so they can partially pass it on to a man. Erica, my fiancee that you met, was staying with me and her brother at my parents' old place when the government made me the offer. Part of the deal was us getting admitted to the testing program. She came back, we... had sex, and I got partially covered. That's why I'm safer to be around town and go get supplies and stuff."

"And that's why you're with that construction woman, and your partner from the funeral," she said. "Because 'partial' isn't safe, so a man needs multiple partners. That's why this whole polyamory thing came out of nowhere."

"It is," I said. "I never would have considered it otherwise."

"Is the government just assigning people to each other then? Forcing women to sleep with men?"

I swallowed and shook my head. "It's more complicated than that. The vaccine doesn't just pass like an STD. There's a whole... bonding thing. Or imprinting. It's like once the exchange happens, the woman is a lock and the man becomes the only key for her. They said they are trying to find a way to change that, for obvious reasons. So Erica and I chose each other, and the others were different circumstances. Ivy, who you haven't met, is the most 'standard.' Anyone entering the program does a massive questionnaire and they have an algorithm or something that spits out a bunch of best options, and the woman gets to choose. She chose me."

"There's another one?" she asked. "Four, then?"

I nodded.

"Fuck me," she sighed, covering her mouth with her hand. "So if whoever you are talking to can get vaccine doses, everyone here will need to have partners. The tribe could get scattered across the state."

"Or further, I guess," I said. "But they would be alive."

She leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees as she breathed, then looked back up at me. "I'd ask if this was all a big prank, trying to inject some humour into this, but I can tell it's not," she said.

"It's not," I affirmed. "And I'll try my best to keep my friend searching, OK? I'll- Kara, I'll do anything I can to keep you safe. You and the people you care about, and I know that encompasses everyone here on the Rez. But if things get worse, for you or Gerty or Tanaya, I need you to tell me. I need you to promise me, because I might be able to do something for one person that I can't for everyone."

She nodded, and I gave her a look. "I promise, Harri," she said. "I promise."

"You should get the rest of these in, there's some Chunky Monkey in one of those bags for you."

She smiled sadly, mentioning her favourite ice cream not picking her mood up. "Harri... if you're safe, could I... Could I hug you?"

I groaned because every ounce of me wanted to do that for her. Wanted to feel her wrapped up in my arms so I could tell her it would all be OK. "God, I want to do that, baby," I said. "But even with four partners I'm not fully covered."

"Four isn't enough?" she asked me, eyes widening a little incredulously. "What is?"

"Last I heard, something like seven," I said. "My friend told me I have around 85% efficacy right now, but all the science is complicated. And, Kara baby, I would risk it if I wasn't taking care of other people as well. You and the ladies were the most important people who needed this stuff, but I've got another delivery to make and theyaren't vaccinated."

She raised her chin, pointing her face to the sky as she hugged herself around her stomach again. I wasn't sure what she was looking for up there. "God, you're too good, Harrison," she whispered, shaking her head. She looked back down at me. "Don't die, OK? And don't get shot again. I haven't shown you it in a long time, but this world needs more men like you. I always knew you were a good guy, a good man, and I let other people get in my head and spoil that. I've been an absolute bitch to you, and I'm so sorry. You never deserved any of it."