Quaranteam: Off the Grid Ch. 11-13

[Many thanks to CorruptingPower, Ronan, OtterlyMindblowing, BreakTheBar, The Licentious Laureate, Julius Drake, Agathon, 32Inch, Masakari, and Discert 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!

CONTENT WARNING

The next several submissions will deal with scenes of questionable or non consent for Colin (NOT the ladies), which means I am temporarily switching genres. There will be violence. And a new character will be introduced.

This is an experiment in writing for me. I expect that the rating will reflect that one way or another. Enjoy!

-Bronan The Librarian]

Chapter Eleven

August 14th, 2020

-o0o-

It didn't take long for Colin to wake back up. The motion of the car flying down the highway was easy enough to identify and as his eyes opened he realized that the feeling of pain on his wrists was because his captors had ziptied his wrists, one to each of the handles above the back doors of the SUV. He was effectively dangling and swaying between those points, his wrists and shoulders sending out jolts of pain every time his body shifted. Glancing around he saw that the women had peeled off their gas masks and were glaring at him. It was hard to tell in the darkness but he would bet that the one he kicked was going to have a hell of a bruise on her jaw.

No matter how pissed his mom would be, Colin didn't really feel bad for breaking the rule about hitting a woman.

As they drove he looked out the windows and recognized that they were driving across the back roads past the farms to the north east of Spokane. He knew the area well. There had been plenty of summer nights not too different from this one where he had driven across these exact same roads and just let the wind carry the sounds of his radio out over the fields. Not quite the same mood this time.

There was no chatter as the car drove. He realized that not only were the lights out but another sedan had joined in behind them. Everyone in the car except the driver and him were periodically looking behind them, leaning out the windows to look above them, and even using a camera with a night vision lens to scan around them. Even so it wasn't like there was that much ground to cover before they reached their destination.

Colin had grown up seeing the old seminary of Mount St Michael on the ridge to the east of town. An imposing old set of buildings made of red and white brick had been overlooking the old rail lines at the eastern edge of the city for over 110 years. In the last few months since he had been out of town someone had obviously been busy. The old building had a steep bluff to the east and south, partly shielded from view by massive old oak and maple trees that had been planted by the Jesuits when they built the place. In the decades since there was a extra-conservative take over of the place complete with nuns in their old style habits and services still in Latin. Once the pandemic hit it was clear that someone other than the nuns was now running the place.

They were driving in under a three-quarters moon which provided enough light to see as they drove in from the north-east. The flat field that extended out almost a mile from the buildings was now broken by a series of trenches and earthworks. Logs had been brought in and the dim shapes of several wooden bunkers studded the piles of dirt and sandbags. The interior of the final set of earthworks contained the original courtyard and parking lot. It was hard to make out details but it was clear that there were a number of personal and farm vehicles converted into makeshift military gear. Several late model pickups had shapes of belt fed machine guns bolted to the beds and there were at least 2 tractors that looked like they had added sheet metal as armor.

Figures in camo wielding guns watched from all over the compound curiously. Two of them came out from a serious looking gun emplacement with what Colin swore was a World War 2 German gun poking out and covering the two vehicles as they approached. They checked each of the cars, shining in flashlights and not even blinking as they saw Colin strung up like a Roman criminal. It took only moments for them to wave them in to park.

Colin was left with the woman who choked him out as the others who had kidnapped him met with a group that had been waiting for them to arrive. There was a brief conversation before two people were pulled from the sedan which had pulled up next to the SUV. From the near side stepped out a shaken looking woman in a set of very short shorts and a tank top. Colin thought that he caught a look of recognition as she looked at him, but that might have just been surprise at how he was restrained. The far door opened and a middle aged man with a huge mustache stumbled out. He was secured as well. Colin gaped as he saw that the man was wrapped with duct tape over at least the upper body that could be seen from his point of view. His lip fur was all that the women in the other car had failed to mummify below his nose.

As the others were escorted away the remaining women cut him out of the zip ties but wasted no time in putting duct tape around his wrists. They were roughly secured behind him and then a band of tape was wrapped around his waist, pinning his hands to the small of his back. All of the women were in camo or black leather biker jackets except for one.

Colin was able to look her in the eyes as a flashlight illuminated the scene making her taller than average. Dark hair with streaks of gray at her temples was wrapped up in a messy bun. At the moment she was wearing a long night gown and wrapped in a robe. Apparently he and the pair entering the main building were worth waking up for. Her eyes were a dark enough brown that they appeared black, pupil and iris barely distinguishable from each other. Pale skin was stretched over high cheekbones and her prominent nose gave her a hawkish look. If Colin had to guess he would say that she was in her late 40s or early 50s.

The look that he was receiving now was pinched and judging. Never before had he felt more like an object being appraised. He did his best to stand straight and meet her gaze. Nodding to herself she turned to one of the other women. "Put him with our other new arrival once Slim has finished... answering questions. We will sort them out once the sun is up and the I can decide what to do with them."

Colin's ears practically came to points as he listened. This woman was obviously in charge. Glancing around, he saw that the black leather jackets were mostly adorned with motorcycle gang patches... though he had no idea which ones were gangs and which ones were just "Bikers for Jesus" level clubs. There were at least three with religious themed names. But all of them were openly carrying. And there wasn't a single man among them.

The bruised woman who had come in with him prodded him with the muzzle of a rifle. He walked with his escorts toward the main building that had once been a convent. The rough pavement caught his toes several times and he cursed under his breath every time he got stabbed in the arch of his foot by sharp gravel. The dim shapes of dozens of tents inside the earthworks filled a good portion of the space. A building off to his left was obviously the steam plant for the whole place. That was all he really had time to see before he went inside.

A smell of body odor and old school lunches filled the halls of the main building. He was dragged up three flights of stairs and shoved into a room that looked like it had been the tiny chamber of a monk or nun at some point. Two tiny beds and a desk with a hot plate took up most of the space with a narrow, barred window overlooking the courtyard. A door to what he had first assumed to be a closet turned out to be a miniscule bathroom. The beds were still made and both had some clothes folded on top of the dark blue covers. His guard handed her rifle to her compatriot and cut him out of the tape. Using her free hand, she jabbed him in the kidney again. "Put those on."

He hissed in pain as he ripped off the remainder of the tape. He may not have been overly hairy but there were still plenty of almost invisible strands around his midsection. Colin paused for a moment but it was clear that the two guards weren't going anywhere. Rolling his eyes he dropped his pj pants and let them stare at his ass. The outfit was tight enough that he would have trouble concealing a dirty thought let alone anything useful and made of coarse white linen. The arms and chest were covered by stripes of red.

Prison garb. That settled his status in this place at least.

Once they had confiscated his pants the first woman gave a smirk that reminded Colin of middle school and the girls that would leave gum in his hair. "Time to make sure you aren't going to leave us, handsome."

Colin didn't know where she produced the collar from but his heart sank. He recognized it as an electric shock collar for a wireless fence, designed to keep rottweilers from chasing small children down. The other guard pulled a taser and kept him covered while he sat on the bed and the collar was tightened to just past any comfort. Just swallowing made him abundantly aware of the pressure against the base of his neck.The small padlock she produced and secured it with a click that had a finality that made him anxious again. Leaning down into his face, the guard ran a thumb along the already developing bruise that he had left. "I hope that you won't decide to test just how far this little thing can go before it goes off. But... just in case you're feeling brave?"

There wasn't any surprise when she pulled out the remote for the collar. Colin's in-laws had one when they were trying to train their yellow lab not to bark at squirrels. He tensed up as she pressed the button with a malicious smirk on her broad face. It wasn't as bad as the time that he had been punched in the throat while getting robbed at a pizza place. But even as he tried to keep that thought in his head he gagged from the pain and flopped backwards. The pain of hitting the wall behind him didn't even register as the back of his head bounced hard. He realized that he was on the floor without having the memory of that moment of transition.

Gasping for air he gripped the collar so hard that his hands cramped. Sitting up he saw the other guard taking the remote away from the woman. Her eyes never left his face even as her lip twitched up into a snarl. "You'll kill him if you do that for so long! God, we just got him in here. Can you at least wait-"

The woman cut off her compatriot. Colin wasn't sure if she even heard the admonishment about electrocuting him. "You caused this. All of it. Maybe not you specifically... but you men. You filthy creatures. You brought this plague on us. You killed yourselves and us with you. Mrs. Weaver told us how it happened. With- without you my Sammie w-- would still...."

Tears flowed down the woman's face as she began to hyperventilate. The second guard took her gently by the shoulders and guided her out of the tiny room. He could hear her sobs outside even as she left his sight. The guard pressed her lips together into a thin line and shook her head. "That won't happen again. As long as you behave yourself you won't be mistreated here anymore."

He still hadn't found his voice but she didn't hang around to see if he had anything to say. The door closed with a heavy click and he heard the sound of a solid deadbolt being thrown. He absently noted that the key hole was on his side. The door wasn't thick enough to cut off all of the sound of the breakdown in the hallway. Enough worrying. Time to figure out what the hell I need to do to get out of here.

Searching the room took significantly less time than getting his neck zapped. Aside from the hot plate there were a handful of books on the history of the Jesuit order and a couple of pamphlets discussing what the Pope did wrong when he stopped doing the Catholic mass in Latin. The bathroom had a toilet, a plunger, and the same awful single ply TP that he had been afraid to find.

There was the cheap Walmart brand of soap. A pair of towels and some shampoo. That was it. "Spartan" barely covered the state of the place. He stamped out his disappointment as he remembered that the place really had been built for people who used the simplicity of their lifestyle as proof of faith. Whatever the women here were doing wasn't likely to have that lofty of a goal attached.

He laid down on the bed and stared at the cracked plaster of the ceiling. The collar was doing it's best to remain at the front of his mind but he was trying to hold a grip on his panic about Grace. He was pretty sure that she had been tased and not shot... but that "pretty sure" was holding up a lot of his emotional strength at the moment. There was not a damn thing he could do at the moment. He wasn't sure what game the people here were playing, though the number of them that appeared to be stuffed together were definitely making him glad that he had some level of protection against DuoHalo. He could find his way back to the blonde who had taken so much of his life over if he could get the collar off, if he could get out of the building, if he could get out of the perimeter, if he could find a car to make it to Fairchild or the Deer Park camp.

There was a concerning amount of "if" coming off of all this.

For now? For now the best that he could do was try to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open. Anything at all might help him. Or not. He shut his eyes and sighed. He could at least try to rest.

Daylight came before sleep did.

-o0o-

Chapter Twelve

August 15th, 2020

-o0o-

The sun had been up for an hour or two and Colin certainly hadn't managed to find sleep yet. He had found a pair of plastic cups and managed to get some water from the bathroom sink. It had a very metallic taste and he was extremely hopeful that someone over the past however-many-years had bothered to replace the pipes from the probably lead originals that he could imagine still in the walls.

He spent a good thirty minutes looking out the window once there was enough light to see more than dim shapes. He could look to the west and see the main branch of the building. It was shaped like a capital letter "F" where he was on the bottom of the top line. Below him was a parking lot with a half dozen of the trucks that he had seen the night before. In addition there were two sandbagged squares that he could see that were home to teams of 4 women each. They all sat around chatting next to several olive-drab painted crates with a long tube in the middle.

Colin had seen enough war movies to know that he was looking at mortar pits.

The earthworks that he had seen in the dark were revealed to be at least 10 feet high all the way around the interior of the compound, the dirt scooped from a deep moat on the exterior side. The tents were obviously home to hundreds of armed women. Spokane had always lacked diversity but this was like a convention of the All Time Karen Hall of Fame. Most of the women he could see were caucasian, in their 30s or older, with younger women dotted around like raisins in a muffin. A small group of kids with a red rubber ball went screaming past a square of women at military attention, the doonk of the ball and the screaming laughter making a counter point to the shouted orders of a uniformed figure at the front of the group of adults. Something about that voice....

He stared out at the group after cleaning the smudges off his glasses. The woman in front leading them through drills and early morning calisthenics was a stocky brunette, her voice holding a Texas or Oklahoma twang. Colin was positive that he had seen her before. As he was trying to pinpoint exactly where that had been the lock to his door made a heavy click. He turned, instinctively tugging on his prison shirt. It was a new pair of guards. Both of them were women in their late 30s or early 40s wearing old style BDU camo uniforms. One of them directed him to sit on the bed with his hands above his head while the other dropped off a bowl of oatmeal. They didn't speak any unnecessary words to him, only telling him to sit and stand in the same peremptory tone that you would use on a dog that wasn't learning his new trick quickly enough.

He was about to sit down to eat when he realized that the guards were still in the doorway and he could hear more footsteps coming down the hall. Turning in the room's single chair he saw the man from the night before being dragged in. His torso was heavily bruised and patches of his thick body hair had been torn out. Colin suspected that this was from the tape-wrap the night before. As he was unceremoniously dumped on the other bed he let out a grunt. The poor bastard was barely aware as the women strapped another collar on him and locked it shut. Bringing up the rear of the group was the hawk nosed one who had seemed to be in charge.

In the daylight and with time to dress she was his height, her dark hair tied back in a severe bun that seemed to pull on the skin of her face making the pinched expression even more disapproving. He would have guessed that she was in her 50s though she wasn't out of shape. The white blouse and dark skirt were professional and without any extra adornment at all. She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes to stare at him. He would have put money on this woman being able to announce his measurements just from how intently she was watching him. Moving the chair back with a scrape against the battered wood floor, Colin stood and faced her.

Even though he made no move closer to her he heard one of the guards gasp. A quick glance showed that a lever action rifle had been halfway raised. Colin slowly put his hands out to his sides with his palms out. "Good morning to you too. I already know you don't trust me, there is no need to paint the walls to show it again."

There was a snort from the group and the one who had raised her gun lowered it and blushed furiously. The leader glanced back with a raised eyebrow before turning her attention to Colin again. "Mr Colin Sullivan. You certainly meet my expectations from the reports about you. I am Georgette Weaver, the head of this community."

Colin put his hands together in front of him and did his best to deliver a polite nod. No need to antagonize anyone just yet. "I can't say it's a pleasure Ms Weaver. I'm sure you have your reasons for bringing me here but I've already been mistreated."

Weaver grimaced for a moment before restoring her neutral expression as one of the guards called on a handheld radio for someone else to come up and meet at the room. "I can't apologize for my girls being upset, Mr Sullivan. All of us have gone through hell and back. Some are just taking longer than others to finish that journey."

She paused and seemed to be considering her next words carefully. "We brought you here to protect you. Men are dying far faster than women and far faster than the media or the government are letting on. I know that you have some information about this due to your participation in the Oracle program."

Colin's poker face failed him as she gave a knife edge of a grin at the look on his face. "Yes, we are aware of the Quaranteam project and all the dirty little social problems that it brings along with it. Our woman on the inside made sure to pass along all of the details from that death camp up in Deer Park."

"Pelosi and the liberal elite may want to hide the toll that their incompetence has taken on red blooded American men... but they are not as smart as they think they are."

Something clicked in the back of his mind. The woman leading exercises outside. The accent... the woman outside was the one who Grace had worked with, some kind of an IT specialist. He forced himself to focus on what Weaver was talking about. The sound of jogging footfalls preceded the woman he remembered, who was now hovering off of Weaver's shoulder and had her watery blue eyes were fixed on Colin. Weaver was still going on. "What I have helped build here? This is a stronghold of real Christian values, Mr Sullivan. Where women who have lost everything to the plagues can rebuild in safety and without the meddling of a federal government that lost touch with us long ago."