Quaranteam: Off the Grid Ch. 09-10

[Many thanks to CorruptingPower, Ronan, OtterlyMindblowing, BreakTheBar, The Licentious Laureate, Julius Drake, Agathon, 32Inch, and Masakari for not only permission to write in this shared world but also for the help and support to write all of this. Check out their work!

This story will deal with some depressing topics including death and emotional trauma. The current chapters deal with trying to learn, trying to work, continued sex in the RV, and a one sided fight. I have been reading the comments and appreciate everyone who takes the time to read and reply. There was one that noticed an inconsistency with the number of cases being carted around. That was Grace not being sure how many were in the cars. Not an author screwing up. Don't look at me like that, I am infallible. I truly hope that you enjoy.

-Bronan The Librarian]

Chapter Nine

-o0o-

July 30th, 2020

Dr. Sharron Jones was working on the notes from the latest round of vaccinations when a knock sounded on her trailer door. Locking her screen since the data was technically still classified (stupid in her humble opinion since everyone who had any chance of access to her trailer was already aware of all the details) she called out, "Come in!"

She was mildly surprised to see Colin Sullivan open the door and poke his head inside. They had been briefly introduced but other than that he had been either under arrest or shacked up with Sergeant Cressman. The pair had certainly been seen each morning as Grace dragged him out for morning runs around the camp that she was pointedly enjoying more than he was. They were usually heard afterwards, leaving absolutely no question of what Colin's reward for the jogging was. She waved him inside and he took a seat in an armchair that she had her partner Commander Jones drag in from the officer's club at the base down south. She wasn't going to let the man out unattended but that wasn't going to stop her from having a couple of civilian comforts when she could.

Colin gave a nod in thanks and settled into the chair with a sigh. She closed her laptop and opened her hands in welcome. "What can I do for you, Mr. Sullivan? I gotta say I'm betting you have some questions."

He gave a lopsided smile and rubbed his hand on his face suggesting fatigue. "Got it in one. Seriously, though, call me Colin. Grace said that you were looking into some of the psychological effects of this stuff?"

Sharron nodded and leaned in. "A lot of this serum was made for completely different purposes and they happened to realize it would boost the effectiveness of whatever they could combine it with at the cost of.... Well all the rest of it. We are lost in the woods for figuring out how it does it's thing, let alone why people react the way they do to it. But I'm guessing that you have a specific effect you want to ask about, because every single person that I have talked with has their own."

She had a satisfied smirk on her face as his eyebrows raised and she saw that she was on point again as he replied. "Correct again, Doc. To start off, are you familiar with what happened to me and my first family?"

Ah. His question killed the amusement that she had when she thought it would be a sex question like all the others. "Yes. And I am truly sorry for you, Colin. I know everyone is going to face some of the pain that you did before this is over but damn if you didn't get that with an extra helping."

He was obviously doing his best to keep his expression neutral but some of that pain and confusion leaked through regardless. "Thanks. That grief... that is what I wanted to talk about, actually. Is there something about the vaccine that... that mutes emotions? Or at least negative emotions? Ever since the first time that Grace and I were together I feel like- not numb, but as if the intensity of everything outside of Grace and me has been dialed back. Not just losing Raina and Beth, but I killed someone that night in the storm. And after the first day of freaking out about that? I don't feel all that guilty!"

Sharron pondered this against the rest of the data that was flowing in from Teams around the country that were willing to share data. It wasn't all of them. Some of the Teams that had formed around the more famous or wealthy high Level men had been granted "enhanced privacy due to their standing" and were allowed to opt out of ongoing tests beyond making sure that the immune response was kicking in. She had called shenanigans on that when she had first been told about it and nothing at all that had happened in the last few months made her approve an iota more. If you were going to change the world the way they were playing at it then the early data was vital.

"There are some reports of old scars or injuries healing on both men and women after imprinting," Sharron started carefully, "And of potential memory issues regarding traumatic experiences. So far, you and Grace are the only two that I know of who have bonded so soon after such an intense experience."

His face showed real concern while he scratched his beard. "Not that I wish what we went through on anyone else but... does that mean I'll lose more connection with my memories? I know I'm supposed to end up with more partners at some point but Doc, I don't want to stop hurting over this. They deserve to be remembered no matter how much it rips me up. As mental as I know it sounds? I don't feel right not waking up sobbing about it anymore."

She held up her hands in a 'slow down' gesture. "No no, you've got it wrong here. We can't even be sure that your emotional change is due to the serum! Any physical changes are only being confirmed in around 10% of imprints. PTSD and combat stress can cause all sorts of problems including with this kind of emotional regulation. And the only way I can think of to actually test if this is a result of the imprinting is to imprint you again." She put as much sympathy as she could muster into her voice, "Your baseline has been reset. Maybe it was the vaccine messing with your head, maybe its like swelling after an injury. Things could go back to the way they were. But we really lack good ways to test and measure what is by definition a subjective experience."

Colin sighed and nodded. He gave a rueful grin, "It was a long shot that we would have answers, I guess. But hey, now I can focus on finding a job, right?"

Sharron's heart went out to him. "Colin, this shit that we are making is like speed dating on steroids. We really are documenting partners reporting being closer after a week or three of being together than some of us felt in years long relationships. Sure it's being pushed by the chemicals that Quaranteam boosts in us but all of our emotions were created by the exact same dopamine and serotonin in the first place."

She gave a careful smile. "As for a job? Well if you could help us start to track down where the living are still holed up that would be a good thing to throw on your resume."

He turned from resigned to thoughtful and, to her everlasting surprise, provided a legitimate answer. "It would take some data crunching but working through the utilities should work. Just pull usage for each address, compare it to a year ago. If there are still similar patterns then you can bet someone is still there. If the meters are just showing a flat usage regardless of time of day or the conditions outside? Then the lights are on but no one is home."

Colin finally smiled genuinely at the look on Sharron's face. "It won't be perfect since not every utility company uses a meter that tracks more than the basic usage but even then if we pull everything from the last year we should see the trends. Especially if the natural gas usage is constant. No one is going to leave their gas heaters running all summer so you could start with anywhere that has cut that usage over the last couple of months."

His smile waned a bit as she scrambled to pull out her phone and called Commander Jones while motioning Colin to wait. "Hey Bunny! No, for once this isn't a social call. No. No! Oooo you nasty, boy. Hey... listen I have Mr Sullivan here. Yes right now. Ha! He came in to talk shop about the serum but we got around to his skills.... NOT those skills, Commander Mister Jones! I think he has some workable ideas for how to start tracking down survivors in metro areas. Yeah? I'll ask him."

She moved the mic on her phone away from her mouth as he looked on in bemusement. "How fast can you put together a list of the skills you need to sift that data?"

Answering with a shrug he tried to collect the offhand thoughts that he had given her, ordering them instead of just tossing out an opinion. "Uh.... All I would really need is the footwork to call power companies for the meter reads and maybe some tech help to make scripts to filter the data down?"

Sharron relayed that information and giggled at something on the other end of the line before ending the call. "Give him a day or two and he'll get y'all moving. That is one of the major issues we have been trying to find solutions for. We have to start consolidating survivors at least long enough to get them dosed up but just finding them is turning out to be a pain in the ass."

He gave a lopsided smile and nodded at the phone. "I guess being married to your bonded partner makes things easier?"

She snorted and shook her head. "No, John and I aren't married. The last names are a happy accident. We had a 95% plus match in Oracle and he and I.... well wedding bells would be nice and all but they are still working on the legal issues that we're gonna be facing. The actual Mrs Jones and I had to hash that out early on, but we get each other at damn near the same level as John and me. She's a good woman and it helps that Commander Jones was awkward as hell but adorable while we worked the whole thing out."

Colin was a bit surprised but it made sense. The way the world was shaking out was likely to be enough to make his ancestors clutch their ghostly pearls or cheer him from the afterlife. "I need to talk with Grace, I guess. She still has that 'honeymoon' look in her eyes and I don't want her to get pissed if someone else gets added to my life."

Sharron winced. "Oh honey... that isn't an if that is a when. Beyond the fact that you are going to be an official Quaranteam employee once we get you sworn in for this utility project? This whole planet is going to be looking at repopulation. And we can't do that with you at one partner and 50% protection from DuoHalo. Each vaxxed woman with a man bumps the protection, with the first three giving the most protection and then incremental bumps from there up."

"So what... how... how many women am I supposed to end up with then?" Colin looked like he'd just been goosed in a church.

"Not gonna be any less than seven, hon. And that number is also going to depend on just how many more men die between here and actually getting the serum to the survivors."

His head made a surprisingly loud thunk as he put it on her desk.

-o0o-

Chapter Ten

-o0o-

August 13th, 2020

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Colin waved the room to silence. "We knew that this was going to have some challenges. Let's focus on moving past the fact that half of our data is totally useless."

The last few weeks had been busy. They were still set up in the camp around Deer Park, just waiting for the last of the Duo outbreak there to burn itself out. Most of the town was gone and the survivors were going to be fully vaxxed and relocated soon. Commander Jones had been as good as Sharron's word and the team of analysts had been hard at work. They had sorted through the records of the 10 largest utility companies in the country and they were making some progress on finding pockets of survivors. The problem had quickly been found to be that the power companies were just as hard hit as everything else on the planet. Facing a lack of workers healthy or willing to go out and take meter reads meant that only a portion of the homes in the major metro areas had any useful data registered about them.

Several ideas were being trialed, from capturing data off of the transformer substations to narrow their search to having unmanned drones circle cities looking for lights and heat coming from whatever places people were holed up. Some of the areas in Texas and the south were easy enough since the AC units lit up on thermal cameras. The suburbs were being rounded up and presented a mixed bag of where they found citizens waiting for lockdowns to end.

The city centers and dense apartments of the north east and midwest had turned out to be a horrifying series of tombs.

The demographics were being shifted worldwide. Only isolated communities or islands like New Zealand which had closed off everything immediately still had even numbers of men and women. And Colin Sullivan was at the forefront of realizing just how much they had all lost. He and Grace were still waiting for their next partner to appear. After the first few days even Commander Jones was at a loss to explain what the hold up was. By the time that he was replaced at the camp he and Sharron had promised to look into it.

Grace certainly wasn't all that upset. He was going a bit stir crazy since he was banned from leaving the secured area due to low immunity but Grace was very effective at distracting him when they met at their love nest of an RV each evening. The mornings were by now a set routine of exercise and she was managing his meal plans (much to his annoyance even though he understood). He was down several pant sizes and was getting toned surprisingly well considering his age. He still had a dad bod but it was moving toward bear territory faster than they expected.

The meeting was wrapping up and Colin made sure to post the notes into the new camp commander's email. Captain Francis Halloway was a pinched faced, leather skinned, foul mouthed woman with slightly graying blonde hair in a classic Karen-cut. The two of them had almost instantly started butting heads as he was one of only a handful of civilians working in the camp. Her micromanagement and his instant instinct to banter had not blended well. She had threatened to move him to the base repeatedly but never bothered to follow through because of the logistics of moving Grace from her job to get to him if she needed his attention.

The late summer heat was enough to make most of the women in the camp wilt. Since Halloway was a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan she made it her mission to make everyone in the camp never forget how lucky they were to not be behind enemy lines for the first week of August.

All of the NCOs and enlisted were convinced that she cursed them with that line.

It had started with holes being cut in the fences. The initial assumption was that someone from the town was trying to break out but the count of them remained consistent. Halloway was suspicious of her own troops until they found several sets of footprints around the guard towers and the armory. The whole camp was caught in the exhaustion of their work, the weather, and the paranoia as more and more sightings of people around the camp were reported each night. Cars and trucks that fled into the backroads when anyone tried to approach. Nothing violent was happening but every event had people twitching about just what the locals were up to.

They may not have been in the Middle East but they still felt uneasily like they were under siege. Halloway adding patrols and locking down the camp didn't help the exhaustion but they did make sure that no one would be getting into the camp uninvited. Only approved vehicles could pass a set of road blocks around the town, and several checkpoints had been set up to make sure that the camp didn't have anyone sneaking in for a look past the chain link and razor wire that had sprung up at the start of the outbreak.

The locals hated it but they were too worn by grief and shock to do more than write to tell Halloway that she was a bitch.

Colin trudged to the mess tent and grabbed two servings of dinner. He made a face as he collected the styrofoam containers full of mushy peas, baby corn salad (baby corn with italian dressing and some tragically wilted lettuce), and something they called "creamed chipped beef on toast." It wasn't as bad as it looked... but sweet Jesus it looked pretty nasty.

Entering the RV he smiled as he spied Grace lounging in the late afternoon sun reading a dog eared paperback. He didn't know who the author was but he was apparently wildly prolific and still alive to crank out more of the schlocky Dresden Files knock offs that she enjoyed. He didn't mind that kind of book but flipping through the second entry in the series hadn't impressed him enough to give the rest of the guy's work a real chance. Colin's heart skipped a beat as she looked up and lit the room with a smile brighter than the light coming in the window. She practically purred as he put the food on the table and leaned in to kiss her.

Sharron had kept her promise to stay in touch about the lingering emotional effects of the serum. They were now calling it the Daniels Effect when people sharing a Team "started finishing each other's sentences" as she put it. He and Grace were well past the stage of worrying about their compatibility. They accepted that they had different interests in media and they had the same interests in bed. Namely each one could barely get enough of the other.

Grace put the book and wrinkled her nose at the food on offer. "Ugh. You'd think they could find a way to make this slop more appealing than what happens after we're done digesting it."

Colin snorted a laugh and tried not to choke on the bite he had taken after sitting down. "Damn it, woman. You paint a truly amazing picture with your words." He chewed through beef that was basically jerky with a salty gravy on it and swallowed heavily. "You aren't wrong but can you paint with less brown?"

Her cheesy grin in reply just made him shake his head. They turned out to have similar senses of humor and she had the good taste to laugh at his jokes. The two of them had a small circle of unattached enlisted women who would come by and play cards or watch movies with and all of them were envious of how well Grace had come out of the whole ordeal with Flannery. One of the older women from the IT section had a habit of staring at both Grace and Colin every time they were around each other which was awkward bordering on creepy. Especially when the poor woman would ask questions about the process that were well into personal territory. Grace had gotten quite good at holding in her remembered fear in public when anyone brought up her time between being vaccinated and the imprinting. It didn't really help that Flannery was still being held down at the Air Force base awaiting trial.

Colin held her when her dreams turned to what almost happened to her. She held him when he woke up gasping from dreams about his family. And together.... They were pretty close to happy.

After dinner they cuddled up on the bed and debated which shows to watch. Music was a sticking point with her love of country and western versus his fandom of classic rock and pop, but they both turned out to love action movies and spy thrillers. Their shared interest in baseball and football was on hold for god only knew how long considering that the teams might all be dead. He leaned more to sci fi while she was a fan of romantic comedies. "I may be a basic bitch," she had said with a smirk, "but I will set that standard of basic."

They settled on an older cartoon that Colin swore was more than just a kids' show. Grace smiled a bit when he wasn't looking. She was careful not to mention things like this to his face but he had a weakness for things his daughter had enjoyed. It was honestly adorable. And while they still had avoided the conversation about having a family in the future she was secretly convinced that there was no way he wouldn't be an amazing father with the way he was doting on her. She was slowly teasing out information about his family who had died and it was clear that he had busted his ass doing whatever it took to support that little girl.