Quaranteam: Off the Grid Ch. 01-02

Staff Sergeant Grace Cressman was having another shitty day.

The entire month of July was pretty much shot at this point, honestly. After starting with the outbreak in Deer Park, the President and Vice President had keeled over within hours of each other. She hadn't voted for him, but she really would have thought twice about voting for Pelosi as well. The chain of command was strained but unbroken, however, so the whole operation continued. The second wave of deaths in the town had burned through. They were only a few days past the echoing wails of families that had found out the very hard way that the lockdown wasn't a joke.

More news about the vaccine was also trickling into the camp. Most of the women in the camp had more than a few second thoughts about getting stuck with one man. And no matter how many times the word came down that the computer matchmakers were the next thing to infallible most of the women didn't trust that either. It had almost certainly been coded by men. And with the looming gender imbalance making it obvious that women would be the dominant race going forward there was a fair amount of talk about locking the men up in a glass case with a hammer marked "break glass in case of coughing." Grace had been on the phone to her parents as close to daily as her duties would allow. Her brothers and younger sister were safe on the farm and they had plenty of crops and livestock to weather the next few months. Much like the others in the camp she told them as much as she could... and a bit more to make them take it seriously.

The real turd in the punch bowl of July for Grace was Colonel Flannery. He spread his attentions among a handful of other NCOs and junior officers. Never breaking a rule overtly, just always pushing them to agree to whatever his pet project was. It was clear at this point that it had something to do with the experimental vax that the Air Force was working on in human trials down in California. And with the news that it involved multiple women being connected to a single guy?

Grace and the others all had a good idea of what the Colonel was waiting for whenever the wonder drug was issued out.

So when she was called to Officer Country (the trailers housing the few dozen officers riding herd on the gaggle of enlisted ringing the town) Grace was wary to start. A number of new faces were around and the excited buzz of conversation certainly suggested that something out of the ordinary was happening. Flannery was in the room and caught sight of her. He flashed a shit eating grin and waved her over. "Ah! CressMAN! I have a special assignment for you. Just one last task before getting in on the Team that I'm putting together!"

Grace saluted and he returned it with an annoyed noise. "Yes yes, soon you and I won't need to be quite so FORMAL. Come on, I have a couple of tasks for you."

He led her out of the trailer and over to the nursing tent. Leading her inside he spoke quietly with one of the newly arrived nurses. He spoke damn near in a whisper so all she could catch was "priority" and "I'll handle the admin side."

The nurse gave the two of them a sharp look and sat Grace down on a chair next to her station. She looked like she had something she wanted to say but kept her peace. "Jacket off, Sergeant. I need your arm for just a moment."

Complying with the nurse, Grace shed her ACU jacket and rolled up the sleeve of her undershirt. "What is this one for? I should be up to date on all my boosters."

Before the nurse could reply Flannery waved the question away like it was some of his cigar smoke. "The next step that we all have to take, Cressman. Don't you worry about what it is."

The nurse gave a look at the officer that should have put a hole through his forehead. It might not be obvious to a newcomer but Grace could tell that Flannery was looking like a cat that had opened the bird cage. And he was just enjoying watching her flutter. The shot was quick and Flannery had her back on her feet as soon as she had her jacket back on. The nurse tried to hand her a pamphlet but The Colonel's hand on her back propelled her out the door without a chance at more questions.

"Now then, Grace, I hope that you don't mind me calling you Grace, haaaa. Now then. There is a survey that I need you to take before handing you over for your next task. It will be a quick trip out of the camp! Get you some fresh AIR, ha."

Flannery was practically rambling at this point, much to Grace's concern. The tent she was led to was next to the IT area and was set up for only one person at a time. He handed her a piece of paper with a set of log in info. "Be sure to fill out the information completely, Grace. I mean Sergeant. Heh. This needs to be as accurate as possible. Do you understand?"

Grace nodded uncertainly. "Yes sir, I understand but..."

"GOOD. Excellent. SU-perb. It should take about 45 minutes to complete everything in there, but just be honest and all. Will. Be. Well." He had put one hand on each shoulder and patted to emphasize each word at the end. His hands slapped down twice more and he nodded before spinning on his heel and marching off. Grace felt like she had just been picked up by a twister and the anxiety in her stomach was making her feel warm.

She entered the tent and sat down, entering the code and going through a mind numbing array of personality questions that did nothing to clear her confusion about why Flannery was having her take a dating quiz. It was when she hit the list of wildly explicit sexual questions that she realized what was happening. Oh shit. Oooooooh SHIT.

Her brain locked up briefly as she locked onto the fact some of the wilder rumors were true and that Flannery was trying to get this sex vaccine to bind with her. Was... was that what the shot had been? She hadn't agreed to a damn thing but the military had a bad habit of not caring about consent of the troops when Uncle Sam decided that it was for Your Own Good. Thinking about the questions being asked Grace gambled. She knew that this system was supposed to take a woman's answers into account. And that it was supposed to make sure that no one would be stuck with someone that they really couldn't stand. So she started to stack the deck.

Upper age she set at 35. She didn't mind going a bit older but Flannery was pushing 50 at the youngest. Facial hair ok, but only full beards. That would in theory tilt the odds against anyone in the service since mustaches were the only regulation facial hair. Other than that... she hoped that her actual vanilla interests mostly angled away from whatever the old goat was into. She didn't actually have experience beyond the porn that she and the other women would watch with popcorn every Friday night. Coulrophilia? What?

There was a laminated list taped to the side of the monitor with all of the obscure latin terms for where people got their rocks off. After a moment of thought she added clowns to her list of kinks in the hope that it would disqualify the Colonel. The fact was that she had no idea. Dating had never been a priority for her. She had one prior boyfriend from senior year in high school but after he had declared her handjob "not enough to keep him around" she had just kept on moving with her life instead of putting out like most of the girls in her class. This Oracle program might be amazing but she was panicking slightly while she realized that she might get an actual clown if she didn't put anything else in there. She was torn. Honesty and let her basic-bitch tastes potentially doom her to a life with "Slim" Flannery and his god-awful mustache, or lie and get stuck with someone who might think she was into the full clown sex dungeon experience?

She took a deep breath. She was supposed to be able to choose from multiple matches at the end of this according to the beginning screen. Even if she somehow got matched with him she took solace in the fact that she could just turn him down. It might sink her career, but hell. It wasn't like people with medical training were going to be less in demand during a brutal global pandemic. She went through and added a lot of "maybe" and middle of the road interest in things that she had seen in porn or heard about from other women. And she forced herself not to hesitate on clicking "confirm" for the final time.

The system took 3 full minutes to load the answers. Her heart sank.

One match at 98.7%.

Staring out at her from the screen was none other than Colonel Slim "Clownfucker" Flannery.

No one had said what to do if there was no other option available. What the FUCK was she supposed to do?!

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