Quaranteam: Phil's Tale Ch. 07

"Fuck," Phil thought to himself. All of Andy's options were legitimate ways that it could've slipped through the system, and they wouldn't have known. The system was good, but it relied on the information people provided. If there hadn't been a report about the guy, nobody would've known. Maybe he didn't need to yell at anyone. He was certainly going to check when he got back to the base, but he'd been on a real emotional rollercoaster over the last sixty seconds. "She okay?"

"She's got some self-defense training, so she got away from the guy unscathed and went into hiding."

"You get the guy's name?"

"I can have Eric send it to you. But that's not the big concern," Andy said, not realizing that right now, it was Phil's only concern. Wait, he thought, if that's not what he's worried about, then what was he actually worried about? Thankfully, Andy continued. "The big concern is that once we rescued her, she imprinted onto Eric. And she's a talking head."

"Shit," Phil said, taking another drag. Andy was right. Higher profile people were always going to be a problem, but he suspected it was something they would be able to sweep under the rug without too much hassle, especially since they'd been given a head start. "News?"

"Weather."

Jesus Andy, Phil thought to himself, you're getting this fucking panicked about a goddamn weather girl? He swiped a hand back in the air again, as if to brush off Andy's concerns like they were nothing, because they truly were. "Send me her name. I'll get it taken care of. Don't even trip about it. That's the least of our problems right now."

Phil was more worried that it had been reported and that the system had known the asshole was abusive and that it simply hadn't cared, because that was entirely possible. With the girl's name, he'd be able to look up who she was assigned to and do a dive into the man's history and what they had in the system about him. While he was there, reassigning her to be with Andy's roommate Eric would be an easy step. Executive overrides were uncommon, but they could be done without too much muss and fuss. Generally they required two members of the executive committee to sign off on them, but nobody had given him any grief so far in the rare instances he'd needed to use it when he'd done it entirely by himself, as he had when he'd reassigned Niko on the fly.

"Shit getting bad, sir, I mean Phil?" Niko asked, more for Andy's benefit than her own, he knew.

"You have no idea."

"How bad?" Andy asked.

"We're looking at ten to twenty before it's all done."

"Ten to twenty million people dead? Jesus!"

"No, percent. We're talking ten to twenty percent of America dead, mostly men. We're guessing it'll end up around sixty million dead before the vaccine's in full effect in the middle of next year." Phil took a heavy drag, and the news hung in the air like a guillotine's blade. It had to sound insanely grim to his friend, and the worst part was that Phil was still underselling it to Andy. He was easing his friend into the disaster like one boiled frogs - raise the temperature slow and steady and they got used to it before they even noticed what was happening. "The news is going to break any day now how fatal the new mutation of the virus is getting, and then everything'll be crazy. The army's going to be deployed here on US soil and martial law's going to go into effect. President Pelosi's at least been quick about it, and she's bunkered down. News hasn't broken yet, but the orange goomba died on the operating table a couple of hours ago. Looks like milquetoast will be next in a couple of days."

"Forty or fifty million men dead? That's nearly half of the male population!" Niko said, belying how she knew the actual math of what was going on. "How the hell are we going to recover from that?"

"We're going to have to pair up a lot more women with the remaining men, and encourage them to have a whole shitload of kids," Phil sighed, hoping Andy would take some comfort from at least knowing the flood was coming in advance of its arrival, especially since it was just around the corner. "But even with that, it's going to be a fucking mess for a generation. Which reminds me, when you go home, I want you to start packing up your things."

"Packing?" Andy asked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, start figuring out the absolute minimum you would need to take with you if you had to leave in a hurry, and then get anything that might take a few minutes packed up. Anything else, just have it at the ready."

"Should I be worried?"

This was the problem with having to be so vague with Andy, that he often jumped to the worst possible option rather than what made the most sense. "Nah, but it wouldn't hurt to be a little prepared."

"What's happening, Phil?"

"I can't tell you that yet, but the world's gonna keep on changing, and it doesn't hurt to be ready for it."

"Yeah, okay."

Andy was always preparing for the worst, so Phil decided one last suggestion of positivity couldn't hurt. "You'll actually be very happy after it happens, man. Trust me."

"If you say so."

"Trust Big Daddy Phil."

Andy rolled his eyes. "I trust you about as far as I can throw you, and that ain't very far."

"You'll see." His watch beeped and Phil turned it up to look at it. "I gotta get back into the office. Send me Eric's new girl's name and the guy she was supposed to be hooked up with, and I'll make a few edits into the system."

"You know Phil, there are days it feels like you're seriously into some black bag shit."

"Only some days?" Phil said, taking one final drag off his vape pen before blowing a huge cloud up and into the air. "Then I gotta up my game again. I'll see you soon, brother." He pulled his mask back up and headed back to his car.

Violet hadn't moved from her concealed cover point in the back seat, and in his ear, he could hear Linda giving them the all clear, driving off first this time, leaving Niko and Andy at the park.

By the time they got back to the base, Phil had the information on Lily's friend, Jenny Carnero, who was indeed the meteorologist for the local Fox News channel, although based on the information that the system had on her, she'd taken the job because it was a job, not because of her alignment of politics, because Jenny couldn't have been any further from Sean Hannity if she'd tried.

The information they did have on her, however, put some serious concerns into Phil, and he immediately began typing up a pretty pissed off memo to all the department heads. The guy Jenny had supposed to be paired up with, Brent Baker, did indeed have a police file on him, with a restraining order having been filed by an ex-girlfriend, with a couple of misdemeanor assaults having been levied against him, and a felony assault charge that somehow Baker had gotten dropped, although the paper trail was still there.

The paper trail was always still there.

This was exactly the sort of thing the system was supposed to be preventing, and the fact that it had decided misdemeanors weren't enough to at least warrant human review was absolutely appalling. Brent Baker might have just been an attorney up in Hillsborough yesterday, but today his face and case history was on blast to everyone Phil thought might give a damn.

'What if your sister went to this guy?' he wrote. 'Or your daughter? This isn't just unacceptable, this is criminal, and I will be the first one throwing people under the bus if it keeps happening.'

While Phil went about reassigning Jenny Carnero in the system to Eric Yang, a firestorm erupted in his email, with everyone pointing the finger at someone else, but to their credit, they were at least scurrying to get working on a solution.

It turned out, Brent Baker was a Level 4, and the higher up you went, the more the system tended to overlook mismatches and sticking points. Or at least, that was the way it had been before now, because even old battleaxe Fielder was chiming in on the thread, insisting they find a way to ensure that those with violent pasts, especially those towards women, did not get paired up, or got paired up with women who knew what they were going into, at the very least.

While the argument about that raged, a second one sprung up, pointing out that the system had basically declared drug convictions to be as bad, if not worse, than violent ones, and since marijuana laws were insanely tricky right now, anything shy of distribution or intent to distribute was, it was decided, not going to be a factor in the system any more. Some guy who spent time in jail for a joint ten years ago shouldn't be prevented from having a partner because of it, especially since marijuana had been legalized in California for the last several years.

By the time evening rolled around, it sounded like the issue had mostly been fixed, and they were reviewing by hand a number of in process assignments now before they left the base. There was a chance a handful of them would need to be redirected in a hurry, but better now than after they'd been paired up with someone.

The last email in the thread, however, left a sense of unease and dread hanging over Phil's head. To close off the thread, Major General Fielder thanked Phil for bringing the issue to everyone's attention, appreciated everyone's hard work in getting the problem fixed, but also made a note that moving forward, the two-person rule for reassignment would be inviolable, and that he was going to try and cut down on "playing favorites."

What the hell was the General talking about?

Just as Phil was about to pack up and head out for the night, Violet came to him with a giant grin on her face. He tilted his head at her and smiled back. "What's so funny?" he asked her.-

"I went and checked in on the people who are going to be your friend Andy's staff, like you asked me to," she said. "The gardener and the cook are getting dosed now, and the maid's about to be sent over to the house a few days early, with the other two to follow tomorrow. They're a couple, but seems like it'll work out okay."

"Okaaaaaaay," Phil said, dragging out the syllable. "It still doesn't explain the shit-eating grin on your face."

"C'mon, I want you to meet the maid before she leaves," Violet said, as Linda laughed, rising to her feet, flicking the power off on Phil's monitor for him.

"There's no arguing with her when she's like this, so c'mon, let's see what BigTits has gotten up her nose," Linda said, grabbing Phil by the hand, pulling him to his feet.

"Do you have to call me that, Linda?" Violet said to her with a sigh.

"You're lucky I only do it in private," Linda scoffed. "A lot of the men around base would probably say it to your face if they didn't know you could beat the shit out of them with one hand tied behind your back."

Violet smirked, a wicked little grin. "Sheeeeeeeit," she said. "I could do it with both hands tied, using just my legs. I'd be one mean curbstomping bitch up in this joint."

"Yes yes," Phil said, turning off the lights to his office, leaving it dark except for the one light above the Ryu statue on his desk that never went out. "You're both very scary. Let's go."

They headed up the elevator and instead of heading over to the parking lot, they headed over to the redistribution hub, where all the women who were being sent out for the day were being checked over again one final time, making sure there weren't any unanticipated side effects from the Quarateam serum, and that the person they were being sent to had been confirmed as alive within the past 24 hours, even if it was just by phone. The close cut with Niko had resulted in some of the processes getting updated.

There was a small troop transport over in the New Eden section, something Phil thought was odd, because really the town was next door to the research lab, so running someone over one at a time when they were ready would be easy enough to do. Maybe nobody had thought of it, he decided. He'd send a note.

There were seven women sitting around, waiting for final approval, each of them having planted their butts on top of their suitcases, and as Phil headed over, he turned to Violet. "Which one's our girl?"

"The tall black girl and the Mexican girl are going to some ex football player named Bryant Walters, the Korean girl is apparently going to be the bodyguard of some dude named Covington, the short black girl and the tiny blonde are going to that tech bro, Nathaniel Watkins, the super skinny brunette's going to some Russian businessman I've never heard of called Vikovic and the tall busty blonde's going to be your friend's maid," Violet told him, outside of earshot range. "She's a feisty one. Name of Nicolette Seydeaux."

"Why does she look familiar?" Linda asked him.

Phil started laughing. "She's going to be his maid? You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"I'm clearly missing something," Linda sighed.

"Look at her again, babe," Phil told Linda, "and imagine her talking with a French accent."

Linda looked for a second and then Phil saw it dawn on her. "Oh my god, I see it..."

"Right?" Violet laughed. "Anyway, I figured you might want to tell her that the guy she's going to is a good guy, since she's right here."

"I'll do you one better than that..." Phil said, strolling over. "Miss Seydeaux? Can I have a minute of your time?"

Nicolette looked up at him, clearly surprised to see a male face, and then walked to meet him half way. "Hello? Are you the man I'm going to be paired up with? I'm-"

"Yeah, I caught your name from one of my security detail," he said, taking her hand and shaking it. "I'm Phil Marcos. The person you're going to be paired with is an old friend of mine. Has anyone ever told you that you look almost exactly like the actress who played the maid in the movie 'Clue'?"

The woman nodded with a smile. "I get that a lot, especially if I'm wearing the outfit," she said with a wink. "I like wearing the outfit. Who's your friend?"

"His name's Andy Rook, and I wonder if you wouldn't mind helping me play a joke on him. I'll owe you a favor, and I'm a pretty good guy to have owe you one."

"Sure, what did you have in mind?"

"How good is your French accent?"

Nicolette blew a stray blonde curl from her face. "Not great, if I'm honest."

Phil's grin spread even further. "Even better. Here's what I want you to do..."