Quaranteam: Remote Work Ch. 03

The Quaranteam Universe is the creation of CorruptingPower, used with permission.

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Chapter 3: Biology

26 July 2020

Beans and rice, followed by a bout of what passed for vigorous sex for them, concluded their evening. Adam remained amazed at the intensity of the orgasms his new partner (whatever title she ended up wearing) experienced with every time they were together, not to mention at her eagerness to go at him just as often as he felt up to the task. He fell asleep in an afterglow haze, and awoke to the not-yet familiar sensation of warmth and weight as she filled his arms. In what was becoming a much more familiar sensation, she felt him awaken, pushed him onto his back, and rode him to yet ANOTHER orgasm before they ever got out of bed. An orgasm that was noticeably stronger than the night before, as he continued to recover from his own near-death experience.

It was while he was applying more of the gel to Shannon's body that he noticed something else was up. "There seems to be a lot more of the flaking today than yesterday. Thought you said it was rare, I'm going to have to move up my laundry schedule to make sure we have something to sleep on." Given that he was pressing into the softness of her chest, he was in position to see the brief look of concern cross her face before she could smooth it out. "Okay, spit it out. Your poker face needs a lot of work even if I wasn't used to reading my students."

She made a much less concealed face of frustration. "It is rare, but when it happens too much a bunch of other stuff in my body goes into cleanup mode. Don't ask me the technical term for it. The new skin under that takes maintenance and releases a bunch of gunk into the system when it gets made. Last time, I almost blew through the little bit I had saved up between eating and sleeping more." Shannon seemed to debate a moment with herself before adding the next bit. "Also got a truly nasty period afterwards. What? Don't look at me like that, you're the one who asked."

He shook his head. "I teach high schoolers, trust me when I say there is no period story you can tell me that is worse than things I've seen occur back when we were in classrooms. No, you just reminded me both that we have nearly no food in the apartment for the next day or two and that my own funds are slim. If you think that's how it's going to go, I need you to tell me what kinds of foods help so that I can get them pre-ordered as efficiently as possible."

"... you realize I do have an income, right? Maybe not the greatest income ever, but since I'm not paying rent for my own place anymore it's gonna go just a bit further."

Adam breathed a sigh of relief as he worked his way down the scars on her legs. "Okay, you win on that point. Add financial planning to the list of things we need to sit down and do at some point soon, I also have a hospital bill I'm expecting to see any day now."

"Ouch. Okay, forgot about that. Thankfully, yesterday was productive, so I'll get my com queue rolling. Any ideas for theme weeks? YCH poses?"

"It will take you longer to explain exactly what you just asked me than it will for you to come up with your own answer."

Further conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. This time, somewhat polite-sounding. Given that Adam was the only one with clothes on, he went to answer it. Looking through the peephole, nobody was visible. This in itself was not anything new, he'd been getting deliveries that way for a while. The problem was that he wasn't expecting the delivery until the afternoon at least, more likely tomorrow or the day after. Still, the more dangerous folks nearby seemed constitutionally unable to be quiet, so he figured it was safe enough.

Sitting on the ground on the other side of the door were two boxes of high-fuel protein bars, obviously designed for someone burning six thousand calories a day underneath objects designed to help gravity try to kill you. The person who put them there was nowhere to be seen.

Chad. Adam resolved to figure out something nice to do for him, this might literally make the difference between life and death if things went wrong. But what could he possibly get or do? It wasn't like he could afford some exotic piece of workout gear for him, even assuming he could conceive of one Chad didn't already have easy access to.

As he carried the boxes inside, to the tiny pantry, he saw Shannon (now dressed in light pajamas again) searching around. "Need help finding anything?"

Shannon, for her part, nearly jumped out of her skin. "You move quiet when you want to, you know that? Where are all your gadgets? Mixers? Crock Pot? I've seen frat house dorms with more pans than you have."

"That's probably because I learned how to cook in a frat house and never saw the need for anything fancier."

Her jaw hung open. "Oh, we've got some work to do. How do you even live without being able to make chili on demand? The Army boys said they'd try to get my stuff moved here from Olympia as soon as they could, so that's a start."

"Any idea when that might be? Nobody ever got me a pamphlet." Adam was pulling down some cereal. Dry wasn't ideal, but it would fuel them. Best to save the bars for later if possible.

"I wish. Good news is that I looked in your linen closet, so there's enough room there for me to unpack all my stuff today."

"No students today, so I'll be here to help."

Thus the morning passed. Unpacking two mid-sized suitcases didn't seem like it should have been much of a task. The issue of course was that nothing in those suitcases had places to go specifically. Adam didn't want her to have to leave the bedroom to get her clothes, but this meant that there was a lot more reorganization to do in order for the new stuff to be where it was needed. Doubly so with an eye towards the future.

They would eventually break for lunch, each grabbing one of those bars to try out. Adam didn't want to admit that they tasted surprisingly good. Shannon was not so quiet about it, grabbing a second one in addition to the leftovers from dinner the previous night. "Seriously, I've had desserts that weren't this chocolaty. Bit chewy, but I mean, still something I'd take for its own sake... uh. I seem to be asking this a lot, but what's that sound?"

Adam had been asking himself the same thing. The rumble and roar sounded like trucks, but not the kind of ones he was used to hearing along his street. They both went over to his window, and found a sight neither was expecting. The Army was out, quite a few of them. Humvees and larger cargo vehicles were on both sides of the road, the soldiers they carried going in and out of the buildings one by one. Details were hard to make out from this far, but Adam thought they looked like they were wearing the same hazmat suits he saw when two of them had dropped Shannon off.

"Shannon, how's your distance vision? I can't quite make out what those people are carrying out of the buildings."

"Probably about the same as yours, but I cheat." She was fumbling a bit to pull out a smartphone, opening an app and using it to zoom in as far as she could at the people in the middle distance. She then propped it against the railing for stability after her hands wouldn't let her stay in one spot precisely enough. "Kind of glad my latest phone plan came with an upgrade. Looks like... a lot of boxes and bags. Most of those bags look like green duffels..." her voice trailed off as she swallowed a couple of times. "At least a couple that I see are black. Adam, those are body bags. Just how bad is this getting? What haven't we been told?"

Adam had to take a deep breath, rasping a bit near the end. He coughed, his body not yet able to do that. "I was hoping my guess was wrong, but this is the kind of place where that might happen."

"Where what might happen?"

"Calm down. It's not good, but we aren't in any more danger than before. It looks like a lot of folks weren't taking this seriously. We're probably looking at cleanup. This town doesn't have enough medical staff to deal with it if this is as bad as I think it's going to get, not even counting death rates among them."

Shannon swallowed again. "So if they died at home... that's all they get? Some Army boy in a protective suit dragging them out and dumping them in a grave somewhere?"

"More likely to be an Army girl these days, but yes. Would you rather they rot in their rooms?"

A shake of her head. "No, it just seems..."

"Awful. Tragic. Stupid. There are a lot of words for it, Shannon. Most are even true."

"I... do you know if there's anything we can do, Adam?"

"I wish. If I could wave a magic wand and undo this, I would. What we can do is stay safe and spread information to those who will hear it."

There wasn't really anything that could be said to follow that. Neither could turn away from the sight before them for a few moments more. Perhaps their way of mourning, certainly in contemplation. Without a word, both turned to go back to their preparations for the coming week. Adam had plans to update, after all, and papers to make sure he had straight after far too long. His lesson plans, such as they were during the summer tutoring season, thankfully still held up after his checks.

It was then that he heard something unexpected. Electronic dance music. Much less ominous than the rumbling of Army trucks, but given that he had never exactly sought out the genre it was out of place. That it was quiet EDM was even more strange, since that adjective was one rarely applied to this type of tune.

In the living room was something he almost certainly hadn't expected to see. Shannon was there, sure, but she had on a white headset covering her eyes. It seemed to be the source of the music as well. In each hand was an odd stick of a controller, and she was waving them around as she moved her body to the beat. Adam had to admit, if only to himself, that watching her dance around made the music significantly more enjoyable.

She was still wearing what amounted to very little more than PJs. As she moved, her light shirt fluttered around, showing glimpses of some surprisingly fit muscle in motion at her core and her arms. Really, looking at her like this was completely different from before. Her scars didn't matter, and if they were hindering her he could not tell. He also did not see any cameras on her, so it was just for herself.

The music stopped, so Adam figured it was some kind of break. "If this was worth the space in your suitcases it must be good."

Shannon nearly jumped out of her skin. The sound that escaped her lips was halfway between a scream and a yip, and she frantically looked around before her head caught up to the obvious. With a little laugh, she kneeled down to the ground and set down her controls, then removed her headset. "I've mentioned you're good at sneaking when you want to be, right? Well, I guess having a screen an inch from my face wasn't helping things."

"Nope, definitely wasn't. What is that thing?"

"VR set. Got it on a recommendation from one of my Aussie followers to help beat the cabin fever, they locked down before we did. He was right, too, when I'm wearing this one it's easy to forget how close the walls get sometimes."

"VR? Virtual Reality? Didn't even know that was a thing for personal stuff."

Shannon's face reflected the kind of shock normally reserved for witnessing the Browns win the Super Bowl. "Oh, you have a LOT to learn. Come on, let me wipe this off and we'll see how coordinated you are."

The answer, as it turned out, was "kind of." Adam wasn't going to be winning any tournaments, but between slashing colored blocks out of the air and a world tour the time flew by. Eventually (probably about an hour, his stamina not being precisely good just yet), Adam took the visor off with more of a smile on his face than before. "Mind if I turn on the TV? Need to sit down after that."

"Oh, sure. The barriers on that last level really kicked your butt, huh?"

"Yeah I... wait. You could see it?"

"First off, I have ears. They make a pretty distinct sound, and I use it on my channel for my viewers to tell me I did something wrong. Second off, yep." She held up her phone, where a still image of his last level was displayed.

"Should have figured." Adam sank gratefully into his chair and fumbled for the remote. Shannon, for her part, flopped onto the bean bag, rubbing at her chest. It was apparently still sore from her own efforts. He flipped over to a listing to see what was on.

"Since when are you old enough to go to the TV Guide channel first?"

"You picked me, and I'll have you know that 36 isn't old." He picked one, going to a couple of newscasters talking about politics.

"It is if you're watching THAT channel. Seriously, they had to argue in court that nothing they say should be taken as fact."

"Oh, this? Nah, I don't watch it for me. Just drop in every week or two to see what the neighbors are going to yell about for a bit."

"Ah, seems wise, then." The screen went to some footage of a violent robbery, the image grainy and in black and white. A closed circuit TV recording of the crime. Something in it seemed to strike a nerve in Adam, and he looked to the side uncomfortably. Shannon, when she didn't have a VR headset on her face, was not blind. It would have taken a blind woman to miss the reaction. "Adam? What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "Sorry, this one hits a bit close to home. You remember my door frame as you came in, right? When those Army boys brought you to me?"

"Yeah, I was wondering what did that damage."

"I got burglarized. About a month ago. The only person to step foot inside this apartment besides me and you since well before the lockdowns kicked in. He kicked in the door and robbed me at knife point."

"That's awful! Do you know if he was ever apprehended?"

"All he got from me was $20 in cash and a couple of credit cards that I canceled before he got out of the building, but after that is a blur until I woke up in the hospital. DuoHalo will mess you up, you know? Too much of a small fry for police to worry about with the plagues going on."

She looked back at the screen, the CCTV image frozen as the talking heads blathered on. "Hold on, that puts it about two weeks before you woke up in the hospital, right? This dude probably exposed you. The timeline works out. If it's possible, he needs to be backtracked."

Adam took a deep breath, then coughed again as his lungs protested the action. "Bit late for anyone else before me, I think, even if we can figure out where he came from without... wait. CCTV footage!" His eyes were wide, staring at the screen that was only just now moving on to a different talking point, accusing New Zealand of conspiracy since they locked down so early and reported so few deaths. "The building superintendent maintains those for a while by law, we can ask her to see them. Tomorrow, not today. Definitely not feeling like going down there today."

Shannon shuddered a bit. "Me either. Um. You done with the news?" At his nod, she asked him for the headset back and got back to dancing. The flow of her body and bounce of her chest as she moved was just as hypnotic as before, and Adam was more than happy to just watch. Definitely a long way better than wallowing in bad memories, now that he had a plan for how to move forward. He found himself growing rather fond of the woman who had disrupted his life so much recently. It was definitely on the up and up overall.

Another knock at the door interrupted his train of thought. Shannon didn't hear it thanks to the music, so he stood to check it out. This was a bit more of a challenge due to having to dodge her arms, but he managed without getting smacked, bopped, or otherwise accidentally acquiring additional injury. There was again nobody at the door, but this time the load of bags was visible in the peep hole's periphery. Groceries, delivered contactless as requested. This place had people who were good at that, it was one of the reasons he preferred them. And tipped, at least when he had money to do so. The homey commotion was plainly audible even to Shannon, who in turn paused what she was doing to help.

What she didn't expect was that he took a full inventory. "Looks like I got lucky on this order. It's all here."

She tilted her head, an oddly endearing gesture. "What, people took stuff before?"

"No, nothing that sinister. Lot of places around here have been running out of stock and not getting enough in to cover everyone. Chains being chains, they tend to forget to not charge you for stuff they don't send. I know last time I put in an order I was missing... what, thirty bucks of stuff? Something like that. Right now that's not something we can afford, and I have time to do this part right."

Chicken and fish, rice and pasta, peanut butter, bread, eggs, milk, cold cuts. The list went on. This was not a small order, it had to both replace a lot that attempted to grow legs and run away on their own, but also support a second person. She was somewhat put out by the lack of sweets, not even a chocolate bar, but had to admit that those were second priority. As long as he promised to put them on the next order. One which he immediately began to assemble.

It was a concept that, if not quite foreign to her, was not quite something Shannon lived by. The future would take care of itself as long as she kept going. That's what her survey said, anyway.

Still, it meant that dinner got to be a step up from beans and rice. Fish tended to be really good this close to the coast, especially with a basic pan-fry and some veggies that steamed in the microwave. She was charmed. Seduced, even, if the determination she dragged him back to bed with was any indication. As she rode him into the bed, Adam thoroughly enjoyed every reaction his hands could get out of her. A rub of her nipple was enough to get a hiss of pleasure, a brush on her clit had her clamping down on him hard to regain her focus.

He didn't last long under her, but thankfully she was already in the early stages of her own orgasm when his seed threw it into instant overdrive. It was another shockingly powerful one, like those that came before it, and his view let him see and admire as her entire abdomen visibly contracted inward to squeeze as much of his cum out of him as it could. Her body succeeded, too, the rippling hints of a four-pack making him keep going well past what he thought he was actually capable of.

Once more, neither felt like getting up to put pajamas on after that, and passed out spooned together nude on the bed. Neither stirred the entire night, and though neither saw it the afterglow lasted well past midnight.

The morning was starting to become almost routine. Wake up together, chat a bit about relatively inconsequential things, stretches, steamy and flirty shower, followed by Shannon jumping back onto the bed for Adam to massage the gel into her.

"There's almost as much peeling today as there was yesterday, Shannon. I don't know how much you had in the past, but if this keeps up there won't be any of the nasty stuff left back here before too long."

"That's... it's not supposed to be possible. Like, ever. Docs said that all of this? The gel, the stretching, the care? It was just delaying things. There's a lot of deep scarring in there, they said I should enjoy the time I had and extend it with the regimen."

"Looks like they were wrong." He lightly tapped her butt, getting a giggle. "Now, flip on over. Still need to get the stuff on your chest." She eagerly complied, which is when he noticed three things. First were the scars on her upper chest and below her breasts. They, too, were peeling heavily. Second was an undeniable softness and almost-imperceptible jiggle in the same location as he massaged her chest. Third? Well, third was the presence of a shadow, cast by her left breast onto her right in the light of the morning sun.