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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 1

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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 1
Pandemic Survivors, Harems and the Pacific
Northwest.

Based

on a post by Break The Bar. Listen to the
► Podcast
at Explicit Novels.



To combat the deadly Duo Halo virus, the government will change the

lives of Harrison Black and his friends out in the hills of Oregon. In return,
Harrison finds a new purpose to his life in the midst of losing his family
history.

The House Guest.

I glanced away again,

relatively certain that Erica hadn't noticed my involuntary glance down at her
cleavage but not overly worried. The grocery store parking lot was only half
full, but we were waiting out front and I felt like we were in a bread line in
Soviet Russia. The only good news was that it was a warm spring for Oregon
State, and a clear day, so Erica and I weren't bundled up in jackets or
anything.

Of course, we were still

getting used to the masks.

"This feels

ridiculous," Erica said, adjusting the bandana covering her lower face.
She'd done her makeup as usual, with soft but smoky eyeshadow, and her thick
dark hair was pulled back in a messy bun. Erica was a well-put-together lady,
with the hips and bust of a woman who had aged perfectly into her thirties. I'd
known her through our late twenties, and I wasn't ashamed to say I thought
she'd only gotten hotter with time. Her black jeans clung to her hips and ass,
and the black sweater she was wearing unzipped over a ripped band t-shirt
accented the v of her cleavage that I'd been trying not to glance at.

"At least it's not the

middle of winter," I said. "Imagine this going on in January, in a
snowstorm?"

"We'll never need to see

that," said the old man in front of us in line. He was wearing a hunting
gaiter, but it was riding low on his upper lip. "This ain't the first
virus, it won't be the last. Couple of weeks and the panic will die down. We'll
have practically forgotten it by the fall, I bet."

"Hopefully," Erica

nodded.

They'd announced the

quarantine two weeks ago, and it had gone into effect last week. My roommate
Leo and I had invited Erica, his sister, up from Portland; she was going to be
cooped up in her apartment alone for the two-week shutdown and we had plenty of
space on my old family property. Erica had made the drive the day before the
statewide quarantine kicked in, having locked up the Tattoo Parlor she managed,
and it had been a week of sun, hiking and ATV tours through the property, along
with teaching her how to throw an axe and shoot some archery. Next week we were
planning to show her the ropes on gun safety, and let her try out some of my
grandfather's old hunting rifles.

Erica was game for it all,

and it felt like a mini vacation for all three of us.

What Leo and I hadn't planned

for was making meals for three instead of two, and so now a week in Erica and I
were braving a trip into town trying to figure out exactly what we were and
weren't supposed, or allowed, to do.

Erica turned to say something

to me, but her sentence was cut off by the heavy thrum and backfiring of a pair
of ugly pickups rumbling into the parking lot of the grocery store on jacked-up
wheels, halfway to 'monster truck.' They parked near the back, near my own
truck, both vehicles with the stupid 'truck nuts' swinging from the hitches on
the back and one of them with a big confederate flag sticker in the back
window.

"Jesus, I thought

rednecks were supposed to come from the South," Erica muttered.

"There are rednecks in

every part of every country," I sighed. "Ask me about German rednecks
sometime. Those people are weird."

Five men unloaded from the

two pickups, and I could see someone still sitting inside one of the cabs. I
immediately took in everything I needed to know about the men; my brain
couldn't shut off the instinct. Five military-aged males, three who looked like
they could handle a bit of a fight. None of them were carrying firearms, no
obvious sign of concealed weapons, but several had utility knives sheathed on
their belts. Not that uncommon out here in the foothills of western Oregon.
Three of them were wearing army surplus combat boots, one was wearing what
looked like steel-toe construction boots, and one was wearing hiking boots.
Their clothes were blue-collar casual. Rough, in other words.

None of them were wearing any

form of a mask. The debate was still out in the news; first, we were supposed
to wear masks, then they said it wasn't going to be helpful, and now they were
saying wearing masks might be the most important thing. Everyone seemed
confused about the issue, but everyone in line outside the grocery store was
wearing one of some sort or other.

"Are they seriously

going to just?" Erica muttered.

The rednecks were heading

straight for the entrance to the store, looking to bypass the ten or so folks
in line ahead of us and another six behind us. I could see the panic in the
eyes of the pimple-faced teen manning the door. He had no fucking clue what to
do about it.

"Ah, shit," I

muttered, already stepping out of line.

"Harrison," Erica

cautioned me. "It's not worth it. What's the point?"

"If not me, then

who?" I asked her, then raised my fingers to my lips and blasted a whistle
that echoed across the parking lot.

Everyone turned and looked at

me. All the folks in line, the rednecks as they were about to bull their way
past the boy, and the beleaguered kid who I'd already watched bumble through
explaining the line to annoyed people, let these alone belligerent assholes.

"Hey," I yelled,

but tried to keep my voice more friendly than commanding. "How about you
guys show some respect to the folks out here and just grab a spot in
line?"

"How about you suck my

nuts? We aren't sheeple, we know our rights," one of them yelled.

"Yeah, this place can't

deny us service, we've got rights," another shouted.

"There's a difference

between rights and being polite," I said. "Old folks are waiting to
get their groceries, you boys can wait fifteen minutes."

"You got a problem with

us?" Another one shouted. "You know who the fuck we are?"

"Harrison," Erica

sighed.

"I ain't got a goddamn

clue who you are," I said. "And I don't care beyond the fact that
you're acting like assholes."

Two of them immediately

started coming towards me down the line, the other three hesitating a moment
before following.

Fuck. I'd been hoping they were just some bully idiots,

but the two in the lead were way angrier than they should have been.

"Take a few steps back

and don't get involved, E," I said quietly. "I'll be fine, but you
can't get involved, Okay?"

"Harry, what the actual

fuck? There are five of them. This is a fucking parking lot. We should just
call the cops!" she whispered back.

"I'd listen to your

fella," the old guy in the gaiter said. "We got one State Trooper
somewhere in thirty square miles of here; would likely take too long to do any
good."

"You wanna say that to

my face, you fucking fuck?" one of the men said. I'd taken a few more
steps out of line, and he got up within a foot of me with his teeth bared and a
fist raised threateningly. "I'm a god damned sovereign citizen, and I got
every right to protect my dignity, honor and good name against fucks like
you."

"Yeah," I said,

looking down at him as I breathed in deep and let my full size loom over him.
The guy was probably 6'1 or so, but I was 6'6 in my stockings and had an extra
couple inches over that from my own hiking boots. "I said you guys are
acting like assholes, and otherwise I could give one single shit about who you
think you are."

"You motherfucker, I'm

gonna,"

"Harrison?" One of

the three guys in the back asked. He was one of the ones I'd identified as not
being much of a fighter. "Harrison Black, right? You played Defensive End
at Eisenhower."

"Uh, yeah," I said.

"That was a while ago though..."

"Oh man, dude. It's me,

Barry O'Callahan. I was a year behind you," the guy said. "Guys, this
dude almost single-handedly ran our high school defense. Didn't you end up
joining the military or something?"

"Yeah, yeah," I

said, squinting and looking at Barry. "Really? Barry O?"

"Heh, yeah I filled out

a bit since I was a junior," the man laughed, his gut jiggling with the
effort. "And then I filled out a bit more. How are you doing, man? When
did you get out of the service?"

"Well, I'm doing fine,

Barry. Been out going on seven years. But this is a bit awkward," I
said.

The interruption had been as

confusing a moment for the two hotheads in their group as it had been for me.
They were looking back and forth between us, trying to decide if they were
still mad at me, or mad at Barry, or were just giving it up.

"Oh, yeah. Uh, don't

worry guys, Harrison is cool, Okay?" Barry said. "Dude, are you just
in the area visiting or what?"

"I've been up at the

family place for the last few years since Pop died," I said.

"Oh man, I'm

sorry," Barry said. "But hey, can't believe we didn't run into each
other until now. Who'd a thunk, huh? Here dude, you should come out to the
clubhouse sometime. We'll grab some brews, catch a game or something."
Barry pulled a crumpled matchbook out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me.
The front had a WWII-style blonde pinup girl on a navy background with a white
star behind her, invoking the flag. The Golden Beaver and an address was
printed in tiny letters on the backside. It would have been a funnier innuendo
if they weren't referencing the Oregon state flag.

"Yeah, maybe," I

said.

"Come on, guys,"

Barry said, slapping his two hot head friends on the shoulders. "Let's get
in line. Nice seeing you, Harrison."

"Yeah, you too

Barry," I said. And then shook my head as the five men headed back towards
the end of the line.

"What the fuck

was that?" Erica asked me as I joined her back in line, and we moved up a
couple spaces as the teen at the door let more people into the store.

"Honestly, I thought I

was about to spend the night in county lockup," I said. "Fuckin'
Barry O."

"He seemed like a fan of

yours," Erica smirked. "Big high school football star, huh?"

"I was a little above

average at best," I said. "And I wasn't an idiot. Easy to look good
when the rest of the team sucks." I looked down at the matchbook again and
shook my head, showing it to Erica.

She snorted and took it.

"Is this real? Please tell me you aren't going to go join their little
redneck club."

"Not likely," I

said. "It's a wannabe militia group. Bunch of swinging cocks with no
sway."

"What?"

"Cause they're so small.

It's a tiny penis joke."

Erica smirked again and

rolled her eyes. "You child. Can you do me a favor?"

"What's that?" I

asked.

"Maybe, for the

foreseeable future, you keep the whole Walking Tall routine to a minimum?"

"I'm sorry, did you just

make a Dwayne Johnson, early 2000s movie reference?"

"Yeah, I did,"

Erica grinned. "What are you going to do about it?"

"We need to get you to

watch some better movies," I laughed.

"Hey, son," the old

man ahead of us said quietly. "Seriously, could you have taken those
guys?"

I glanced back at them at the

end of the line, muttering to each other. "Probably, if I was right. If I
got three of them, the other two wouldn't have done anything."

"Heh. Would have liked

to have seen that," the old man grinned.

"Don't encourage

him," Erica said. "He hasn't gotten into a fight on my watch yet, I
don't want him to start now."

"Yeah," I said.

"But that's mostly because you're the one who usually starts throwing
punches at the bar."

"Hey, a guy gets handsy,

I put him in his place," Erica shrugged.

"No 'Walking Tall' shit,

my ass," I snorted.

"You two make a fine,

rowdy couple," the old man said.

"Oh, we're not a

couple," Erica said.

"Just friends," I

said.

"He's my brother's

roommate," Erica clarified. "I'm just visiting."

The old man raised an eyebrow

and shook his head. "Alright. Well, maybe you two should consider toning
down the flirting then. You're likely to attract bears with all the hormones
you're putting out."

"Erica, Erica! No, you

cannot punch him," I said, holding her back.

"Hey, Erica? Can we talk

to you for a minute?"

Erica looked up from her

phone with a cocked eyebrow and a pensive smile. I immediately realized how
weird and out of character our approach was. She was lounging on the couch in
the living room, her sketchbook tossed to the side with a half-finished
something scribbled out in frustration like she'd been trying to work but just
couldn't get it right. I knew how she felt, having had the same frustrations
ever since the quarantine had been announced.

"Sure guys, what's

up?" she asked.

I let Leo sit down next to

his sister on the couch as she sat up, and I took my usual chair. It had been
my Father's up until he passed; I'd avoided it the first month after he died
and I took over the family homestead. Then when my older sister Valerie and her
family came to stay for that summer, she practically pushed me into it. 'It's
just a chair,' became our catchphrase for the summer as we sorted through the
belongings of our parents and grandparents.

"I'm sorry," I said

as I settled into the chair. "This is already coming off weird. Erica,
it's nothing."

"You're making it seem

like it's something," Erica said. She turned to her twin. "What's
going on?"

Leo and Erica were both a

couple of years older than me, but once you were into your early thirties that
kind of stuff meant a lot less. Leo had the looks of a classic Italian paisan
with thick dark hair, a hawk beak of a nose and bushy eyebrows. He was built
thin and a little lanky, and was usually ready with an eager smile and word of
encouragement for anyone he met. That's probably why we'd gotten along so well
when we started rooming together; his positive attitude had been just what I
needed coming out of the Army.

Erica had a lot of the same

features as her brother; the thick dark hair, the ready smile, the energetic
sparkle in her eyes; but she also had a sensuality to her that I can't say I'd
ever noticed in Leo. She was a little more patient, a little more sure of
herself and willing to take charge of things. And that control went all the way
to her fitness, as she hadn't let herself slide even through quarantine.

Leo sighed. "No, it's

nothing. Well, I mean I guess it's something, but it's not,"

"How about we just say

it, instead of talking about talking about it?" I said.

"Yeah," Erica

nodded. "How about that?"

"Well, uh,

Harrison?" Leo looked at me, which I guess was fair considering this was
my house at the end of the day.

"Erica, we're almost a

month into the quarantine now," I said. "I know that when we invited
you down out of the city to stay with us, it was supposed to only be for a
couple of weeks. 'Two weeks to flatten the curve' and all that shit. But things
don't seem to be getting any better."

"No, it's fine,"

Erica said, sitting up straighter in her seat and pulling away from her
brother. "I know I've been imposing on you guys. It's fine, I can head
back down to Portland and I'll just,"

"Jesus Christ,

Erica," Leo said. "We're not kicking you out."

"You're not?" she

asked. I realized that she was clenching her fists in her lap so hard she was
trembling slightly.

"Not a shot, E," I

said. "We just wanted to make sure that you knew we want you to stay as
long as you want or need. We love having you here."

For the first time in my

life, I saw Erica's lower lip tremble. "Really?" she asked. Back in
the city she was the manager of one of the most successful tattoo and piercing
parlors in the state, herding artsy workers that acted like cats with constant
access to catnip. Erica was firm but fair with her artists, managed a clientele
that ran the gamut from rich and entitled assholes to meth'd out deadbeats, and
kept her own skills sharp with constant discipline and practice. Every time we
had hung out in the years before the quarantine, I'd always been struck by how
forceful a personality she was; she could smack talk with the best of them,
manhandle a drunk in a bar like an experienced bouncer, and laughed loud and
full-bellied.

Seeing her on the verge of

tears was a shock, and I realized we probably should have had this talk two
weeks ago. "Yes, of course we do," I said. "God, you're
practically family, Erica. I don't think I could let you go back and
stay in the city right now. We love you."

The damn burst and as thick tears

began to pour over her cheeks and streak her dark eyeliner she reached out and
pulled Leo into a hug with one arm. She beckoned for me with the other and I
crossed the space to wrap her up in a hug as well.

"Thank you," she

whispered quietly between us. "I know you guys wouldn't; but still.
Everything going on out there, and the way the city is right now... I just
didn't"

"It's going to be

fine," Leo said to his sister, squeezing her harder. "You'll
see."

She kissed him on the cheek,

then turned and kissed me on the cheek as well. "Thank you."

I gave her a bit of a squeeze

in return. "We'll need to go get some more of your stuff, I guess. You
only came down here with a duffle bag."

She laughed. "God,

yes," she said and tried to wipe her tears. "I can go up there. I
could use some more underwear, ha-ha."

"Too much

information!" Leo said, releasing his sister.

She sniffed hard to clear her

nose and wiped her cheeks some more to clear her spilt makeup and tears. Erica
had a sort of post-punk or light goth style, with thick eyeliner and soft but
smoky eyeshadow. For someone in the tattoo business, she had relatively few
piercings, just two in each earlobe and a single small, silver nose ring on one
nostril. She made up for it with a pair of full sleeve tattoos on her arms and
a collection of assorted smaller tattoos on her legs. "What, you don't
want to hear about me sweating through my bras?" She laughed at her
brother. "Come on, Leo, we're all adults here."

I laughed at her teasing and

she squeezed me to her with the one arm she still had around my shoulder. She
turned and kissed me on the cheek again. "I can go down to the city by
myself, you guys don't need to risk yourselves for me. All the news reports are
saying this thing is extra dangerous for men."

"No, we'll help," I

said. "We don't know how long this thing will last, so we'll bring the
pickup and you can bring your car. And if you get exposed, you'd bring it back
here with you anyways, so we might as well try and do it as fast as possible.
Three sets of hands will make things go easier."

"Okay," she nodded,

then with a last squeeze of my shoulders she eased away and stood up.
"Okay. Well, damn, guys. This feels like a fucking weight lifted off my
shoulders. I've felt like I've been overstaying my welcome, not that you guys
did anything to make me think that. I just,”

"It's fine," I

said. "We understand."

"I don't," Leo

said. "You've been all up in my personal space since the dam womb.
You never had a problem with it before now."

"Come here, you

twerp," Erica laughed, slapping her brother on the arm.

"Alright, alright,"

I said. "Come on, children. Let's make a plan here. No time like the
present, if we get everything ready we can head out tomorrow."

 

Leo and I had first become

roommates when he sublet me a room as I came out of the military seven years
ago and wanted to move back to the Portland area. Then, when my father passed
and I needed to move back to the family property, Leo had been more than happy
to come on up with me instead of trying to find someone new to take over my
half of the house lease. The old ranch-style house I'd grown up in had plenty
of room, and my mother had died a few years before Dad, so it worked out for
both of us. Even before the quarantine was announced we'd both been working
from the homestead; my freelance illustration and concept art gigs kept the
bills and property tax under control and food on the table, and Leo had swapped
to making artisanal furniture in his little shed workshop instead of the house
framing and cabinetry he'd been trained in. The old barn made a decent new
workshop for him after a couple of upgrades, and once I'd gotten a satellite
installed for point-to-point internet service we were... Well, we hadn't
exactly been living the technological dream, but we had what we needed.

The drive down to Portland

from the homestead outside Jewell took a bit over an hour and a half on a good
day with moderate traffic. It only took us an hour, in the middle of the day. I
drove my truck, the cover on over the bed, and Leo rode with Erica in her car.
The highways were practically empty, and for a while the drive almost felt like
just a beautiful day out; other than the thick sweater I was wearing, and the
work gloves I'd duct taped to the cuffs. I also had a pair of bandanas hung
around my neck, ski goggles sitting on the passenger seat, and the hood of my
sweater pulled up.

It was the middle of a hot

spring and I was sweating my ass off in my own truck just in case of death by
viral infection. Even in the last couple of weeks, all the messaging online
from the Government about what to do for safety felt like it had been
conflicting with itself constantly, and when Leo and Erica tried to do more
research they couldn't even figure out which politician or government body to
listen to, let alone find something useful and convincing. So we went
all out.

Driving through the suburbs

was a bit of an experience. One neighborhood would be completely desolate, not
a single person outside and everything locked up tight. The next would be full
of people outside on the street, walking dogs and kids running around playing.
Most of them had those medical masks on, but it looked like people were out on
summer vacation or something. The neighborhood after that was mostly shut down
like the first, but one of the houses easily had thirty vehicles parked around
it and was hosting some sort of party going on in the front and back yard.

Somehow, despite the world

feeling so alien, I still found driving through the city even weirder. Getting
into the urban center where Erica had a small apartment near the Tattoo Parlor
was like we'd hit the end of the world. Even more than in the suburbs, the near
complete lack of people was shocking. We could go entire city blocks without
seeing another car, and then suddenly we'd come across a food delivery driver
peddling down the middle of the city street on a bike. The only other motorized
vehicles I saw were one dude on an electric scooter having the time of his
life, and ambulances speeding down the streets with their lights running. They
didn't even bother with the sirens.

Crackle, crackle. "Hey, Harrison? You read me? Over."

I picked up my handheld radio

and pressed the button. "Yeah, I read you, Leo. Over."

"So we need to take a

detour. There's a bunch of stuff online about this Autonomous Zone thing.
Protestors in the middle of the city. We're going to avoid it. Over."

"Yeah, sounds good. I'll

follow. Over and out."

I shook my head. The protests

had started about a week ago. Halfway across the country, a man had been shot
by police; investigations were ongoing, but no one looked good in the
situation. Not the cops, not the man, not even the bystanders who had filmed
the whole thing instead of intervening. It was a shit show all around, and it
had sparked protests that I could only assume were fueled by people feeling so
trapped in their own lives. Portland, ever a liberal center of activism, had
been a hotbed every night. Vigils and marches every afternoon and evening. Then
the riots started at night.

We drove down a couple of

streets that looked like we'd left the United States behind and entered a
foreign warzone. I'd seen streets in Kabul during my deployment that had looked
similar; the only thing missing from the burned-out cars, graffiti and general
detritus were bullet scars on the walls. Windows that weren't boarded over were
smashed. Storefronts were burnt out, looted, or both.

It took us an extra twenty

minutes to drive all the way around the 'autonomous zone.' By the time we
pulled up into the alley behind Erica's apartment building, I was feeling sick
to my stomach. A pandemic. Riots. What was next, a natural disaster? I'd seen
some of the world; not a lot, but enough. Some of the best and worst places. We
were supposed to be better than this.

Taking the back stairwell was

part of the plan. We didn't want to draw any attention from people; for all
that Portland was that liberal bed of activism I'd just been thinking about, it
was also still an urban center plagued by theft, crime and people trying to
take advantage of each other. With no one on the streets, I'd suggested that
pulling up out front made us more of a target to people looking to cause
trouble, or attracting the attention of overzealous police.

I pulled my truck in next to

Erica's car and hopped out. "Alright, make sure you lock up," I said.

"Harri, please,"

Erica said, sliding down her own ski goggles over her eyes. We were all bundled
up now, with multiple face coverings each. "I've lived in the city about
eight times longer than you ever did. I know how to handle myself."

"Yeah, I know," I

said. "I'm just a little anxious."

"It's fine, dude,"

Leo said. "Let's just get this done."

Erica let us into the

building, keying in through a back door, and up through the stairwell. We
didn't see anyone on the way up, and she led us through the halls to her
apartment. As she let us in, one of her neighbors opened their door and stuck
their head out.

"Erica? Dear, is that

you?" It was a woman, maybe in her fifties.

"Hey, Dianne,"

Erica said. "It's me. I'm just here to pick up some things, and I brought
my brother and his roommate to help out."

Dianne stepped fully out of

her apartment. She was dressed comfortably and had her silvering blonde hair pulled
back into a bun. Most notably, she wasn't wearing a mask or any other sort of
personal protection. "It's so nice to see you, Erica!" she said.
"It's been quiet up here the last few weeks. I have to say, I never
thought I'd actually miss your early morning banging around, but I do."

"Ah, Dianne," Erica

said, holding up her hands. She was wearing rubber gloves, duct taped at the
wrists to her sweater just like my work gloves were. "We really shouldn't
get any closer than this."

"Oh, dear, it's fine,"

Dianna said. "I've been cooped up in the apartment for a week now, the
only person who comes over is Mr. Jones from 5C for coffee every few days. I'm
sure you've been just as safe, living out of the city."

"No, really

Dianne," Erica said. "I don't mean to be rude, but we're only here to
get some of my things and go. And I know Mr. Jones is probably lonely up there,
but it's not safe for you two to get together for coffee. You should really
just skype each other or something."

"Oh, I already have to

do that Zoomy thing to see my grandkids," Dianna scoffed. "But fine,
fine. It's good to see you, dear. Try not to take things too seriously, it
won't be good for your health."

From inside Erica's

apartment, I couldn't help but shake my head.

"Dianne, maybe you need

to take things more seriously," Erica said. "I'd hate if
anything happened to you, but more importantly I'd hate for your grandkids to
never get to see you again if you got sick."

"Well, I guess..."

Dianne trailed off.

"Goodbye, Dianne. It was

nice seeing you," Erica said in that tone of voice that was just shy of
'politely fuck off,' then followed Leo and me into her apartment and shut the
door.

"God, that woman,"

Erica said. She peeled down the pair of gaiters she was wearing over her face.
The top layer was a winter covering Leo and I usually used in the middle of
winter when we were snowmobiling, and the second was a much thinner one we used
in the summer when A T Veeing. "We should be good in here, no one's come
in since I left."

I peeled down my bandanas and

sighed. "I'm sure she's nice, but that lady needs a reality check."

"I just hope she isn't

someone else's reality check," Erica said. "Alright. I'm going to
start in the bedroom. Leo, can you go through the living room and grab anything
you think we might want in terms of DVDs and stuff? And Harrison, do you mind
doing a check-over of the kitchen? I'm pretty sure I got rid of all the
immediate perishables before I came down, but I might have missed some things
that could've gone for a couple weeks."

We split up and went to work.

I cleaned out a few old condiments that Erica had missed and collected some
canned and boxed food that would travel easily, along with some of the more
specialty cooking equipment Erica had made of point of mentioning. I wasn't
sure what an 'air fryer' did, but she made it sound like it was a gift from
God, so I was willing to pack it up.

"All done in the

kitchen," I said, standing in the doorway to Erica's bedroom.

She was rummaging in her

closet. Her bed was covered in clothes and a couple of pieces of luggage, and
everything looked like a mess. "Okay, hold on," she said, then she
reappeared and dumped what looked like an entire department store's worth of
bras out onto the bed. "Can you start packing this stuff up? Don't worry
about folding or sorting it, I'll fix it all once we're back at your place.
Then I can grab everything I need from the washroom and we'll be done."

"Sure," I said, and

we squeezed past each other so she could duck into the washroom. Once she was
gone, I just chuckled and shook my head at the mess she'd already made. "I
don't think this is all going to fit in these bags."

I got to work, and soon three

of the four pieces of luggage were stuffed full. That's when I made it to the
pile of bras. I glanced out the door, and quickly picked up a fancy looking one
and checked the tag. "Damn, Erica," I chuckled. It was obvious she
was a busty girl, but 36E? I wouldn't have guessed.

Then again, I wasn't exactly

a bra aficionado. I wouldn't even know if I'd seen D's or E's or what, the
sizing just sort of confused me enough that I couldn't care to look into it any
further.

I carefully began packing her

daintier things into a bag, and below the bras was a pile of panties; and only
a few of them seemed like they were designed for comfort and not show. There
were strings, there was lace. I held a particular red number and shook my head
again, trying to do my best not to imagine Erica wearing it and failing. I
shoved it into the bag with the rest.

"Incoming," Erica

said, bustling back into the room with her arms full of canisters and bottles
and all sorts of things from the bathroom. She dumped it all on top of the
panties in the bag. "Usually I'd be a lot more organized with this," she
sighed. "But I just feel... being in the city feels kinda gross right
now."

"Hmm, I feel it

too," I said. I picked up the last handful of her underwear and put them
on top of the cosmetics stuff.

"Oh my God," Erica

said, grabbing the bag from me. "I can't believe; God, this is
embarrassing." She was grinning and her cheeks had heated up as she
quickly zipped up the luggage and turned to me. "I didn't realize you'd
work that fast."

"Hey, I've seen ladies'

underwear before," I laughed. "It's not a big deal."

"Yeah, but you haven't

seen my underwear," she chuckled along with me. "At least you
saw the nice stuff. I left most of it here when I came down; wasn't exactly
thinking about showing off the goods, ya know?"

"Hey, anytime you want

to show off, you just let me know," I laughed. "I tried not to pry,
but some of them looked pretty hot."

"Oh, my God," she

said, face palming her embarrassment. Then her smile turned teasing. "Then
again, we could always play you show me yours, I'll show you mine. I'm sure the
girls would be happy for some more freedom around the house." She squished
her upper arms together to pop out her chest a bit under her sweater.

Now it was my turn to smirk

and blush a little. I was just starting to try and figure out what to say when
Leo came in from the front area of the apartment. "Think I'm about done up
here," he said. "Anything else, sis?"

Erica snickered and punched

me in the arm. "That's probably it. I was just teasing Harrison about
feeling' up my panties though."

"Dude!" Leo said.

"Oh, come on," I

said. "You know I wouldn't."

"Still..." Leo

trailed off. "Whatever. Just leave my sister's granny panties alone."

"You think I wear granny

panties?" Erica said, then turned back to the bag and started unzipping
it. "Well, let me just show you some of these..."

"Nope, no, nada,

nyet!" Leo said, covering his eyes with both hands and turning out of the
room. "I do not need to know. Too much information for me!"

Erica snorted and shook her

head, re-zipping the bag. She winked at me and gave me another friendly punch
on the arm. "Thanks again for helping with all of this, Harrison."

"No problem at all,

E," I assured her.

"No, no," she said.

"Seriously. Thank you. You guys didn't need to come out here; it feels
sort of silly to say, but you're technically risking your lives for me right
now."

"Well, chivalry ain't

dead yet, I guess," I said.

"I guess not," she

laughed. She leaned in and kissed my cheek. "It's nice. Just don't go
making a habit of it, I don't need some White Knight savior act out of you or
my brother."

"Deal," I said.

We got everything out into

the front hallway of the apartment, and it ended up being more than we could
hope to carry down in one trip. The end result was that we made the first trip
down, started loading everything into the bed of the pickup, and while Leo and
Erica went back up for another load I stayed down with the vehicles.

The thing about inner cities,

we'd all learned quickly when we originally moved in, was that you took a risk
when you left things in your car. Well, if you had a car to begin with,
but if you did and people could see in then it was likely your shit was going
to get stolen.

So there I was, sitting on

the open back gate of my pickup with double bandanas over the bottom half of my
face and ski goggles over the top, when two men rounded a corner further down
the wide back alley and stopped.

They looked at me and the

cars.

I looked at them.

One of them was wearing a

medical mask, while the other had a knit wool balaclava on with nothing but his
eyes showing. I'd never really considered it before, what with us living out in
the woods away from most people, but at that moment I realized how simple it
must be to do crime when everyone was expected to wear masks.

I watched them.

They eyed up the vehicles.

I stood up. They watched me

do it. I slammed the gate of my truck shut. They watched me do it. I walked
around to the passenger door of the truck cab, pulled out the hard case I had
stowed under the seat, grabbed my Dad's old Colt 1911 and slid a magazine home.

The men kept their eyes on

me, not batting an eye even though I was now holding a loaded firearm.

I leaned against the back of

my truck and watched them right back.

Eventually, Leo and Erica

came back down and I didn't mention the men or the pistol, which I tucked onto
the passenger seat of my truck while we were moving things around. I left the
door open so that I could keep easy access.

Erica and Leo went up for one

last load, and I entered another long staring match with the two men. They
hadn't moved and were about fifty yards away so I couldn't tell if they were
talking to each other. I swear I must have been sweating bullets under my
sweater and gloves and various masks. I don't know if my adrenaline had spiked
like this since seeing combat while deployed. Not even the grocery store
parking lot showdown a few weeks ago had been like this.

Finally, Erica and Leo came

down with the last load, we got everything stowed away, and got back into our
vehicles. I took a moment to unload and re-stow my firearm, and as Erica and
Leo pulled away in her car I watched as the two men came up the alley and
entered Erica's apartment building through the door we had been using.

Maybe they had just been

waiting to use the door, playing it safe with us. Or maybe it was something else.
I wouldn't ever know.

It took three days for us to

start feeling... safe wasn't the right word. 'Less apprehensive' is where I
ended up landing. Coming back from the city had been as smooth as driving out,
but once we were home we all had this feeling of being dirty. It felt silly
even at the time, but we ended up hosing each other off outside with the garden
hose before heading in to take some long, hot showers. Was that ineffective?
Probably. Did it make us feel better? Maybe, a little.

When none of us were showing

any symptoms of getting sick by the third night back, we all decided to crash
and start a new show together on Netflix that night after dinner. I ended up in
the living room first and was starting to scroll through the menus to find something
we might like when Erica came down the stairs in her own comfy clothes. She was
wearing baggy, low-riding sweatpants and a black tank top that I very quickly
realized was bouncing way more than usual with each of her steps down the
stairs.

Erica walked over to the TV

sitting area and flopped down onto the couch across from me, absentmindedly
reaching up and tying her hair back into a loose and messy bun.
"What?" she asked me when she realized I was staring at her.

"Nothing," I said.

"You just... you look good. Like that."

She rolled her eyes.

"It's just makeup, Harrison."

What she meant was she wasn't

wearing any. For the first time ever, even including the month that she'd
already been staying with us, I was seeing Erica without makeup on. It was sort
of shocking, honestly; whatever magic she did in the mirror, with her kit, it
was like she could change the very structure of her face. Usually, she had an
almost angular predatory look, with sultry and smoky eyes and sharp cheekbones
leading down to a perfect set of clean and bright red lips. Now she looked
brighter, more girl-next-door. Sure there were imperfections; soft lines under
her eyes, little freckles and blemishes that got hidden by foundation, but her
eyes were brighter, and her smile was wholesome.

"Just don't feel like

you need to be anything but comfortable, E," I assured her. "I like
this look on you."

She sighed and gave me a

smirk. "Alright, charmer. What are we watching?"

I tossed her the remote and

let her start scanning through the list of new shows. Besides her lack of
makeup and apparent lack of a bra, she was still her usual self. Both of her
arm sleeves were bared by the tank top; her left arm was a colorful splash of a
dozen of her favorite Pokémon from the original 150, all water-themed. Her
right was Star Wars themed and focused on a pinup Femme Boba Fett on her outer
upper arm, along with a couple sexy lady Stormtroopers, a Princess Leia in the
requisite golden slave bikini, and Padme in the ripped-up white arena fight
outfit. Not to mention the Yoda on her inner forearm and chili Chewbacca just
below her armpit on her bicep. Her tank top also showed off the two heart
tattoos on either side of her clavicle, and the half-mandala tattoo that sat on
the back of her neck at the hairline. Erica's legs, while currently covered by
her sweats, were a more eclectic collection of random and unplanned tattoos
dating back from her start in the industry; some were done by her own hand,
others by fellow apprentices, and a few even by the apprentices she'd
eventually trained over the years.

"Heads up!" Leo

said, bounding down the stairs in his own sweats and a hoodie, vaulting over
the back of the sofa and landing heavily next to his twin sister.

"Jesus Christ,"

Erica said, ducking away to narrowly avoid getting kicked in the back of the
head. She turned and hit Leo in the shoulder. "Watch it, you monkey!"

"Takes one to know

one," Leo laughed, swiping away her hands as she tried to hit him again.

Soon the two were involved in

a swearing match as Erica was leaning over Leo, trying to tweak his ears and
drop a wad of spit down on his face, while he tried to both ward off her hands
and push her away at the same time. Their easy sibling rivalry and goofing off
usually wasn't this physical, but it still had me laughing and wondering all
the same. I'd never had that with my sister; she was about seven years older
than me, so we hadn't ever had that sort of a relationship.

To be honest, I was also a

little interested in the sibling scrap because Erica's tits looked fucking
great jostling and bouncing around in her tank top, and a part of me hoped a
boob would pop out in the chaos. Unfortunately, I couldn't be so lucky and the
duel ended with both of them panting, sitting next to each other, with no boob
appearance.

"What are we

watching?" Leo asked.

"I dunno, we hadn't

picked yet," I said.

"Let's watch this,"

Erica said, seemingly at random, and selected some sort of a baking show.

"Aw man," Leo said.

"These competition shows are always so scripted."

"They make me

hungry," I said. "Maybe I should start baking more."

"Yes," Erica said.

"Now we're watching every season just so you can get more good ideas like
that, Harri."

The show was easy to follow

and clearly designed like every other Food Porn-style "reality"
competition. Other than the deliciously described food, the only thing actually
keeping my attention was the host.

"She's hot," Erica

said during one of the transition scenes, right after the host had finished
showing the TV audience the differences between a mousse and whipped cream. It
had involved a lot of whisking very fast.

"Not my type, but I can

see it," Leo said. "She's got too much of a Fifties Housewife vibe
going on."

"That's just because

she's so proper British," Erica said. "Look at her, she's gorgeous.
And fucking stacked under those pretty dresses. What do you think,
Harri?"

"I'm with you, I think

she's definitely hot," I agreed. "And I really dig the accent."

"I bet she's a fucking

freak in bed, too," Erica said.

"No way!" Leo

argued with his sister. "Look at her. She's all syrup and sweetness. I bet
she's dry as a desert down there, and you couldn't fit anything in due to the
stick up her ass."

"Nuh-uh," Erica

shook her head. "I'd put money on her having a filthy mouth off-screen.
Just swears like a fucking sailor. And,  Hmm, I bet she probably says
she's straight, but has plenty of experience with girls from her Prep School
days."

"Sure," I laughed

along. "Makes perfect sense. Anything else?"

"I bet she's got a cum

fetish," Erica said. "Look at her eyes when she's talking about glazing.
She's practically creaming her conservative little dress. And she definitely
likes a cheeky finger up the bum to really set her off."

All of us were laughing now,

and the conversation faded as we struggled to get control of our giggles. By
the time the first episode was over, we were hooked despite the silly concept,
and let it play. We got four episodes in before Erica called it quits.

"That's enough for me

tonight, boys," she said, yawning and stretching her arms wide. Her right
arm rubbed roughly against Leo's face on purpose, just to bug him as he pulled
away. "I'm off to bed. Good night!"

She bounced up off the couch

and made for the stairs, her hips swiveling in her low-waisted sweats. They'd
ridden lower, and she was showing a bit of a whale tail with her lace thong
panties peeking over the waistline.

"Dude," Leo said,

snapping my vision from his sister as she walked up the stairs.

"Uh," I hummed, and

slowly raised both arms in an awkward shrug. "What do you want me to
do?"

"Just... don't make it a

thing," he sighed, then flopped over onto his side. "She's my sister.
You wanna watch Deadpool?"

Visitors

The rumble, sputter and hum

of the approaching ATV broke my concentration as it cut through the quiet
warbling of my shitty Bluetooth speaker long before Leo pulled around the trail
bend. The thick foliage up here in the foothills, far at the back end of my
family property, created a weird dampening effect so I hadn't heard him until
he was almost on top of me. The rumble cut through the thick greenery now and
was followed by the crunching of the tires biting into the dry dirt and gravel
of the hill trail.

Leo pulled his ATV to a halt

a couple yards from where I had set myself up for my morning painting session,
kicked it into park and shut off the engine. He was dressed in a t-shirt and
jeans, only a little more than I was wearing myself since I'd gone for just an
undershirt. It was hot even for late spring, and the mugginess of the Oregon
coastal region had us both sweating before noon.

"Hey," I nodded.

"What's up?"

Leo rolled his eyes and

dismounted from his ride, stretching his arms high and full-bodied before
making a jerk-off gesture and mimicking the sound of a small mechanical device,
"Biz."

I snorted and shook my head

with a smirk. "Again?" I asked.

Our solitude and variable

work hours on my family land had meant that for the past five years Leo and I
had enjoyed our little patch of the Oregon wilds almost at will. Dirt biking
and ATV in the summers, snowmobiling and snowshoeing in the winter. Some
archery and occasionally hunting out in the back woods when deer season came
around; it really was a little forested wonderland and we made sure to put it
to use. We weren't too isolated from amenities, but the closest neighbor was a
seven-minute drive down the highway.

We'd lived in idyllic,

bachelor bliss. The only thing we'd been missing were girlfriends. Well, Leo had
maintained an online relationship with a girl from Austria for a while, but
that fizzled when she turned out to be trying to milk plane tickets out of him
to come to the States. I'd told him exactly what sort of a red flag that
sounded like, and things had ended poorly.

So everything but our dating

lives had seemed perfect, but then the virus cropped up. My sister and her
family had moved down south into California to be closer to her husband's folks
way back while I was still in the Service, and they hadn't wanted to come up
north, so Erica had been the only person we'd considered offering shelter to
even after things started to begin feeling more permanently stuck in Pandemic
mode. Now we were going on month two of full lockdown quarantines in the state,
and we had no idea if 'the worst of it' had happened yet, or was still to come.

The first weeks before our

trip into the city had almost been like a vacation. We got to tour Erica around
the property properly, and she got to play with all our toys. We did end up
teaching her gun safety, and how just after sunrise you could spot the local
deer up in the hills from the back porch (mostly unrelated activities unless it
was deer season). Then, after the trip to get her stuff a month ago, things
slowed down. We still had fun, but as the world continued to grind more and
more to a halt, work started taking up less time and we all fell into a casual
state of constant 'will I accomplish anything today?'

"Yeah, again," Leo

answered my question. He came and stood at my shoulder to look over my
watercolor sketchbook. I'd started doing scenery work a few years ago to
practice for my freelance concept art contracts; video games and movie
productions all usually had a tiny in-house team these days, but they were so
overloaded they tended to frequently contract out anyways. A really good
background often goes unnoticed in the grand scheme of things but can make all
the difference to impressing an art coordinator. Basing my practice on the
wilderness around us made the most sense.

"Am I wrong," I

asked Leo, "Or wasn't she at it last night, too?"

"She was," he

groaned. "And twice during the day. I don't know what's gotten into
her." He walked over to where my own ATV was and pulled out my water
bottle, lifting it to me with a raised eyebrow to ask if he could have some.

"Go for it," I

said, and picked up the lid to my palette and sealed it over the paint pucks.
"And it's not that big a deal. It's just..."

"Awkward, I know,"

Leo said after finishing his swig of water. "She isn't exactly quiet about
it."

"Honestly," I said.

"I think she thinks she is. She's just... not."

The silence between us

stretched, awkward in its own right. After all, we were talking about Erica
getting herself off.

I had met Leo's twin almost

as soon as I'd moved into Leo's condo as a roommate, and we'd been friendly
ever since. Her ability to handle the casual crassness I'd developed in the
military, and calling her brother on his shit, had made her an instant friend
that I could respect for her take-no-shit attitude when it came to her
business. I also found her attractive as hell, but she was my
roommate-turned-best-friend's sister. She'd been a little more slight when we
met, but our late twenties and early thirties had only given her a fuller
figure that she knew exactly how to show off without being skanky about it. The
main thing, other than the whole sister-of-friend situation, that kept me from
ever trying to pursue something was that I was pretty sure she was a lesbian.
She'd never said it outright, but over drinks in the city in the 'before times'
she was always describing the bodies of her hot tattoo clients to tease me and
Leo, talking about big tits and perky asses and shaved pubic mounds. It was
also surprising the number of buttholes she claimed to see on a weekly basis.

After our trip back into the

city, Erica finally started to feel more at home. Our friendliness since I
moved to Portland had always been occasional and at a bit of a distance since
we had different social circles, but now she was becoming an actual roommate
and not a guest.

Then Leo and I heard the biz

for the first time.

I'll be honest, we were

idiots for about five minutes that first time. We ran into each other as we
were wandering the first floor of the house, both wondering what the hell had
broken and was making a noise I'd never heard in the house before. It was
sometime around when I had been scouring the kitchen for a broken appliance
that I realized the sound was coming from above me, and a few more seconds
before I realized whose room I was under.

Then the soft, muffled

moaning started.

That first time, Leo and my

eyes met and it was like we'd locked in and couldn't break contact. It was a
case of the ol' Dog-Taking-A-Shit stare, inevitably awkward and magnetically
locked in. For a solid minute and a half, we both got redder and redder as we
listened to Erica tease and please herself above our heads, up in her room.
Eventually, we both silently stepped out of the house and onto the porch. We
never said a word about it to each other, and definitely not to Erica.

Apparently, our lack of

questions or notice encouraged Erica that she was getting away with her alone
time, because now two months on into quarantine, we fully understood what 'biz'
meant when we warned each other that we might not want to go into the house.

"We should say

something," Leo finally said. We'd let the silence between us develop so
long it had come back around to something more companionable and less awkward.
He was leaning against a tree, looking out at the hills I'd been painting while
I packed up my brushes and paint, and then fanned my sketchbook through the air
to try and speed up the watercolors drying.

"Hey, you go ahead with

that," I said, holding up my hands. "I am definitely not the one who
wants to tell a woman that we can hear her every time she wants to relieve some
tension. And I am absolutely not telling Erica, of all people."

"I can handle my sister

just fine," Leo scoffed.

"Sure," I said.

"but we shouldn't be handling each other at all as roommates, my
man."

"Look, Harrison,"

Leo said. "Are you trying to tell me that my sister jilling off above your
head on the daily isn't a little... rude? Or something? At least I can get out
of the house to the workshop. That's your home and your place of work at the
same time."

"Leo, I,” I started, but

got interrupted by a squawk coming from the handheld radios strapped to both
Leo's ATV and my own.

"Hey, are you guys in

range, over?" Erica asked. She sounded clipped. Almost startled.

"Yeah, sis. What's up?

Over." Leo responded.

"Any chance you were

expecting a delivery today? Over." Erica asked.

"No," I said into

my own walkie talkie. "Why, is someone driving up the lane? Over."

"You guys should really

get down here," Erica said. "There's a helicopter landing in the
front yard, and I don't think it's some new Amazon delivery system."

I looked at Leo with a

furrowed brow. "Uh, say again? Did you say a helicopter?"

"Yes, Harrison. I said a

motherfucking helicopter is currently touching down on the front lawn. Can you
get down here, please? Now?"

"Five minutes," I

said back, already hopping onto the seat of my ride. I dropped my sketchbook
and palette into the bin attached to the back of the ATV and latched it closed.
"If it's cops or something, just don't let them in the house. Give us five
minutes. Out."

There wasn't really a 'fast'

way back. The trails that crisscrossed the rocky forest of the property were
often little more than deer runs, but Leo and I had spent the last five years
exploring and enjoying them. Not to mention my entire childhood when I had the
run of the place in between school and chores.

We burned it through a couple

of larger clearings, avoided the more dense forest areas, and pushed the ATVs
to their limits when we cut around the edge of one of the swampy ponds. In
under five minutes, we'd travelled what could sometimes take an entire
afternoon hike on the easier and more roundabout paths. We were coming up on
the house from behind, and instead of pulling up into the garage lean-to next
to the old barn, I rode straight around to the front of the house.

A helicopter really was

sitting in the front yard, about thirty yards from the house and centered on
the old gravel driveway. Two men and a woman in suits were being flanked by
four, armed men in black fatigues. The scene almost felt like a TV show, like
some CIA officer had come to pick one of us up to go on a secret mission in the
Andes to stop an international terror ring or something. Maybe I'm getting
my plots mixed up. It had been a long lockdown, and we'd streamed a lot of
shows.

Instead of one of us coming

out in a suit ready to go do Bond-like action shit, Erica was standing on the
front porch of the ranch house in nothing but a fluffy pink housecoat and thick
hiking boots, the old double barrel shotgun we usually kept near the back door
for wolf or bear emergencies casually pointed at the helicopter people. The
robe barely came down to her mid-thigh showing off her pale legs and the bright
tattoos scattered across them, along with both of the full sleeve tattoos on
her arms. Her dark brown hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, revealing
the stern look on her face. It was her 'don't fuck with me' face, which often
also meant, 'Bitch, I am the manager and you can talk to me.'

I kicked the ATV into park

after skidding to a halt, and I was already dismounting as Leo pulled up behind
me. "Jesus Christ, Erica," I said.

"Mister Black,"

called one of the suited men. He was perfectly calm about it, despite the
shotgun levelled at him. To be fair, he probably didn't know we kept it loaded
with slugs since birdshot could just make a bear angry. From the current
distance, birdshot wouldn't be too dangerous. Slugs could still tear him
apart.

"Hold on," I said

sternly. The man who had called out was the older of the two, grey-haired with
the look of a veteran Suit and the voice of casual command that only came from
years of experience giving orders. I didn't really give a shit.

"What?" Erica asked

as I stomped up the porch steps. "You said don't let them in the
house."

"For fuck's sake,"

I said. Erica gave me a look, like a disapproving kindergarten teacher with a
cocked eyebrow asking me to dare explain myself, and I managed not to flick my
eyes down to the considerable cleavage that was bundled into her robe. I'd
known that she had the robe with her, but I'd never actually seen her in it
before except for brief flashes of her walking down the upstairs hallway to the
washroom and back to her room. It was definitely as revealing as I had
imagined.

After a brief stare down

between us, Erica broke and rolled her eyes, pursed her lips, and handed me the
shotgun. "You should know better than to point a fucking firearm at people
if you don't mean to use it," I said.

"Harri," she

scoffed. "They pointed their rifles at me first. I was showing them I
meant business, too."

I think she regretted telling

me that. It's hard for me to know exactly what my face does, but in the past
people had described my 'angry face' as a rolling storm cloud. I spun on my
heels and stomped right back down the porch steps and towards the Suits. I had
the shotgun gripped by the wooden stock, my hands away from the trigger and the
barrels pointed down but I could still see a couple of the Uniforms were
gripping their own firearms with the nervous energy of someone on alert. I also
clearly noticed that while their fatigues had US Flag patches, they were
lacking any other identification for a branch of service or personal ID, which
was in a real grey area of legality if they were active service.

"You're trespassing, and

you're breaking our quarantine," I said as I stopped about six feet in
front of the Suit who had spoken. He was older, probably in his late fifties,
and had the craggy features of a man who had been there and done that. His hair
was still thick on his head despite having gone white, and he wore a chunky
moustache that Tom Selleck would have been proud of. "Don't dance around.
Who are you, what do you want, and why the fuck do you think I should listen to
you at all after your goons pointed their weapons at my guest?"

The old Suit flicked his eyes

up and down me for a moment, clearly taking a judgment, while the woman Suit
scoffed under her breath. She was the kind of person who looked like they were
constantly catching a whiff of dog shit, sour-faced and permanently disgusted.

"And I want her, and

whichever of you fuckers couldn't keep muzzle discipline, back on your fucking
helicopter," I added.

"Done," said the

old Suit.

"What? Grierson, you

can't" the woman Suit started.

"Get your shit together,

Maggie," said the younger Suit next to them. If the older suit was a
veteran, then this one was the slick up-and-comer. "And learn to read a
fucking room." He snapped at two of the Uniforms and pointed towards the
helicopter, and both of them went without a word. Maggie looked like she wanted
to say something else but looked back to Grierson, the old Suit, and found that
he hadn't even bothered to turn and look at her. She spun and gave her best
storming-off exit, which wasn't very effective considering she was navigating a
grass lawn in heels.

"Any other demands

before we get started?" Grierson asked. He had a voice like Tommy Lee
Jones, that cracking southern drawl that immediately made you think of a tough
and sarcastic grandfather.

"Go ahead," I said.

"Good, cause I don't

like taking demands, kid. I'm Agent Grierson, this is Agent Walters. We
represent an ongoing federal task force tackling some of the issues of the
pandemic and quarantine." Both men flashed open silver and gold badges
from leather wallets they pulled out of their inner jacket pockets.
"That's who we are, and why you should listen to us. And we're here to
make you filthy rich in exchange for your land."

I gritted my teeth and could

feel my initial hot anger turn cold to match the lifelong, generational grudge
that had been ingrained in me since I was a kid. "Let me guess," I
said. "OGA. Other Government Agency."

Grierson smirked.

"Something like that, kid."

"And what, quarantine

doesn't mean anything to you guys? You couldn't fucking call ahead and warn us
you were coming?"

"That's not how we work.

Look, Black, why don't we step inside and discuss this? Ain't no reason for a
showdown out here in the yard," Grierson said. "Show of good faith.
Hit the chopper, boys." Immediately the other two Uniforms headed back to
the helicopter.

It was my turn to eye the old

Suit up and down. I sighed and shook my head ruefully. "Fine. Come on
up."

I turned and handed the

shotgun to Leo, who took it carefully with both hands. "Put that back
where it belongs," I said, and as I walked back towards the house I looked
at Erica. "You should probably go get dressed, E. Sounds like we've got
company."

Erica stopped me with a hand

on my shoulder as I mounted the porch steps. She still looked concerned, and
she squeezed my shoulder lightly. "Are you sure about this?" she
asked in a whisper. "You've mentioned things, but never like this."

"Never been quite this

out there," I said. "but I'm not about to shoot some CIA spook in my
front yard before I even hear what he has to say."

"Fuck. Is he really a

spook?" she asked.

"Guess we'll find

out."

The five of us were sitting

down in the living room. Walters, along with Erica who had thrown on a sundress
underneath a long knit sweater, and Leo were all drinking freshly brewed coffee
while Agent Grierson and I sat across the main coffee table from each other. I
was letting my emotions get the best of me, sitting forward in my seat and
occasionally fidgeting with a couple of paint stains on my pant leg. Grierson
sat back like he was as comfortable as he'd ever been. I knew I was giving
myself away, my investigation and interrogation training had given me better
instincts than this, but it had been seven years since I put them to actual
use. I was getting soft.

"Well," I said.

"How about we start at the top, Agent? What exactly does the government
want with my land in the middle of a pandemic, and why show up completely
unannounced?"

Grierson gave a soft smile

and nodded to himself as if he'd confirmed a thought. "Son, I know a lot
about you, because for the past week there has been a team of backroom analysts
digging up everything they could about you, your family and this property. The
one thing we can't know for certain is how much you know about what's
been going on in our country. So the first thing I want you to know, upfront
before we talk about anything else, is that we are abso-fucking-lutely caught
between a stampeding bull and the rodeo arena wall."

"I'd have gone with

clogged sewer drain and an industrial fan, myself," Walters put in.

"Same impending shit

show, but it misses the feeling of uncontrollable careening danger,"
Grierson said.

Walters shrugged.

"That's fair."

"Yeah, alright, we know

the world is fucked right now," Leo said, annoyed with the banter.
"We've been stuck in quarantine for months already."

"No, kid. You don't

know," Grierson said to Leo. "Not really. You check news sites and
social media more than your two friends here, but even you don't fucking
know." He turned back to me and met my eye. "It's bad, and it's
getting worse. Projections are not pretty on this, and people like me are
picking up the backup plans to the emergency backup plans. We're talking the kind
of shit the conspiracy theory nuts couldn't have dreamed up ahead of time if
they had a month-long conference to put their heads together."

"Apocalyptic,"

Walters said.

"Not... quite,"

Grierson disagreed. "But definitely world-changing"

"This isn't real,"

Erica whispered from her seat. "This is fucked."

"Fucked is the right

word for it," Grierson nodded. "But I'm being very real with you.
Quarantine isn't going to work. Our society isn't built to handle it, people
screw up constantly. Politicians think they can use it to their advantage, or
ignore it. That's why organizations like those that Walters and I work for have
measures in place to operate without oversight, and very quickly, in these
sorts of emergencies."

"So, if this is all

true, what exactly do you want?" I asked.

"We want your

land," Grierson said. "All of it. A big part of the success strategy
on some of our backup plans includes building brand new quarantine settlement
facilities for the vaccinated, and your property was flagged as prime real
estate for the purpose in this region. You're remote, but not too remote;
twenty minutes from the nearest town and an hour and a half from the nearest
city. It borders onto a significant enough water source with the river to the
west, and basic services can be expanded on without too much difficulty."

Walters leaned forward, his

mug of coffee cupped in both hands. "Mr. Black, in effect, the government
wants to purchase all 560 acres of your land from you and put a whole bunch of
healthy people on it to make sure we don't all fucking die."

"No," I said.

Grierson didn't blink.

"You haven't even heard

our offer yet," Walters said.

"He doesn't need

to," Grierson told his partner, then turned back to me as he talked,
staring me down. "This is generational property. Mr. Black's
great-great-great-grandfather purchased this land with cash he raised as a
bounty hunter back in the days of Cowboys and the California Gold Rush. And
ever since, the Black family has had to fight all comers to keep it. He could
be absolutely destitute, dying of hunger, with famine and a draught in full
swing and a forest fire on his doorstep, and I bet Mr. Black here would tell
you to fuck right off with an offer."

"Something like

that," I said. I was a little surprised by even the sparse details
Grierson was saying about my family history, but not as spooked as Leo and
Erica seemed to be. They'd heard the stories from me, sitting around the
campfire pit out back with beers in our hands, but I wasn't the only source for
the family history. Local court records were probably full of sordid details
going back decades, if not over a century. He might have dug up details of
events that didn't get passed down verbally through the family tree; based on
the dark shit I did know about, I couldn't imagine what might have gotten left
out.

To be continued, Based on

a post by Break The Bar for Literotica

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