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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 5

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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 5
Lab work.

Based

on a post by Break The Bar. Listen to the
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Time went quickly, but also

seemed to go nowhere at all; only three days after the final demise of the
house we'd moved the RVs four times and I decided we needed to figure out
something at least semi-permanent. Even a week in the same spot would be
preferable to constant movement. The space where my house had stood was now
full of stacks and pallets of supplies, and Vanessa had a crew of almost two
dozen of her 'gorillas' working to erect what would become the first of a dozen
temporary bunkhouses for the incoming construction workers. She still seemed to
be the only foreman on site, so I went looking for Vanessa.

I found her at the water

truck, splashing some water onto the back of her neck as she took a quick
break. It had turned even hotter over the week, spring slipping fully into
summer, and we were all starting to boil when we were outside. I'd quickly
abandoned the feeling of needing to 'dress up' for everyone and I was down to
athletic shorts and one of my sleeveless workout shirts; one of the few that
were still 'mine' considering both Erica and Ivy had taken to wearing them as
well. Vanessa was the boss however and had to set the example for the rest of
the crew, so she was still wearing the jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt and her
reflective vest of a dutiful construction foreman.

"Hey, got a

second?" I asked.

"Oh, hey Harrison,"

she said, looking up as she continued splashing water onto the back of her
neck. "Sorry I haven't come to check with you and the girls today, we had
three more loads this morning of barracks pilings I had to get sorted, and the
fucking surveyors are still bitching about not knowing where the sewage lines
are going to come onto the property, as if I can fucking answer that question
for them or something."

"When's your Dad

supposed to finally get on site?" I asked. Her father was supposed to be
the General Manager of the entire construction project, but so far I had yet to
have seen him.

"Fuck, a few days still

at least," Vanessa sighed. "I'm getting tired as shit of the phone
tag."

"Well, sorry if this is

a big ask and causes you more headaches; any chance we could project ahead a
bit and figure out where we can stash the RVs and everything where we're not
going to need to move them for a while? Moving everything around is annoying by
itself, but I've also noticed some of your guys are spending a lot of time
wandering by the RVs whenever the girls are outside."

"Fucking gorillas,"

Vanessa grunted and grimaced. "I mean, on the one hand, I get it; they are
either cooped up in the motel or here working. I'm not exactly thrilled with
the situation either. But they could keep it in their fucking pants too, ya
know?"

"Look, if we can find a

spot, the way I see it we can use the RVs and Containers to set up a yard for
us that's blocked from view. Then we can have some privacy and not feel cooped
up in the RVs, and your guys aren't tempted to let their eyes wander," I
said. "I figure it's a win-win."

Vanessa smiled and patted my

arm. "Harri, as long as you keep the fucking indoors, I'll see what I can
do about getting you guys some more privacy."

"What do you mean?"

I asked, suddenly a little worried that Erica and I might have gotten caught at
the Willow tree after all, or that maybe a surveyor had wandered up near the
Spring without us hearing.

"Nothing, nothing,"

Vanessa said. "I just; you know we can see the RVs rocking a bit, right?
And I don't know who it is, but someone over in your camp is a screamer. We can
hear her when she really gets going. Once the guys even gave you a standing
ovation."

"Fuck," I coughed,

shaking my head. "I'm sorry. I think it's something to do with the
vaccine. I've had more sex in the last four days than I have in the last four
years. Honestly, I don't even know how I'm doing it; I ain't old, but I'm not a
teenager either."

"Well, god bless the

vaccine I guess," Vanessa smirked. "And good for you. Just do me a
favor and keep it inside the RVs 'till we can get you that privacy. We don't
need the entire site shutting down to listen to you fucking your girlfriends."

I shook my head again with a

self-deprecating smirk. "Um, deal. I hope."

That made Vanessa chuckle,

and we parted ways for the afternoon.

The next day, she came back

in the morning and explained the plan she had worked out with the Surveyors and
one of the tree-clearing crews. By mid-afternoon, a new swathe of the back end
of the hill was bare of trees, and a bulldozer scooped dirt into the holes left
by ripped-up stumps. By the time Vanessa left that evening, two of the storage
containers had been shifted around by the 'gorillas' and positioned in an
L-shape for us in the new location, and Leo and I moved the RVs to form the
other two sides of a square.

When Vanessa came by the next

morning we'd hung up some old, heavy blankets at the corners to maximize our
privacy, busted out the lawn chairs and barbecue, and were on our way to
turning the space into an outdoor living room. Leo and I even went so far as to
rig up an old bell we'd salvaged from the barn on a wooden post with a metal
knocker on a string to serve as a doorbell.

Erica was the one to answer

Vanessa's ring of the bell, and she swept aside the blanket curtain.
"Welcome to Casa de Black," she declared.

"Jesus," Vanessa

said, walking into our new home base. "You guys didn't want to wait, did
you?"

"Why would we?" Leo

asked. "We don't know how long we're going to be living like this, so
might as well make the most of it." Leo had decided to make one last
addition to our current set-up, and had pulled a loose slab of wood from the
container holding all his tools and was carving 'Speak Friend and Enter' into
it the makeshift sign with his handheld angle grinder. He'd already been
talking about using his torch to burn the wood before giving it a clear lacquer
coat.

"What can we do for you,

Vanessa?" I asked. "Need some breakfast?"

"Actually?" Vanessa

chewed on the inside of her cheek for a second and peeked back outside the
yard. "Breakfast would be fucking great. They're feeding us at the motel,
but it's been the same instant oatmeal every fucking morning."

"Well, we've yet to have

our egg hookup dry out on us," I said. Old Mrs. Branston lived about
fifteen minutes down the highway and had been selling eggs to three generations
of my family; through the pandemic and quarantine we'd set up a system where I
called ahead and she dropped off two dozen eggs at the end of her driveway, and
I left a ten dollar bill in her mailbox. "How do you like them? I think
I'm getting pretty good at using the grill with a frying pan."

We hosted Vanessa for about

fifteen minutes as I fried her up some over-easy eggs and some toast to go with
it, and she started devouring the first two so quickly that I put another two
in the pan for her immediately. While I cooked, she shared the most recent
gossip running through the construction crews.

"So the latest group to

come in said they got tested four times before even leaving the
airport," she said around a mouthful. "They were basically flown into
Portland, put in little hygienic pods inside the terminals until they'd tested
negative all four times, then escorted to military transports. I guess the army
is our taxi service or something, and there are members of the national guard
currently standing watch at all of the motels. It's kind of fucked up and feels
like a prison, honestly. We're not even supposed to mingle outside with each
other, despite the fact that we all work together here all day."

"Who's feeding you

all?" Danielle asked. "Just the people already working out there
seems like a lot."

"Some catering service

is making these prepackaged meals," Vanessa said. "The breakfasts are
shit, and the lunches are whatever. The dinners are Okay though; microwavable,
and waiting for us when we get off shift."

"Have you heard anything

else out there about the vaccine?" I asked.

"Hmm-Hmm," Vanessa

shook her head. "But I mean, I spend my time working."

"I'm still not seeing

much online," Leo said. "Little whispers on social media, but then it
disappears before it gets going."

"That's kinda fucked

up," Erica said. "We know it's real. The government must be censoring
the information or something.

"Well, whenever it

happens, I don't know what I'll do," Vanessa sighed. "I like working
too much, being my own woman. I bring in more cash in a year than almost every
other person I graduated high school with, I've been doing it for years, and I
don't have any debts. I can't just get tied down to some guy."

"You would be surprised,

Vanessa," Ivy spoke up. "I am this way too, no? I left home to make
my way, and I am happy doing it. But now I am happy here, and am also safe from
the sickness. It is not how I saw my life going, but c'est la vie, non?"

Vanessa shrugged, and we

moved on to some other topics until her radio squawked and she had to run off
back to her work.

By lunchtime I'd already done

another two quick guides into the hills for the surveyors and Leo had gotten
his nerd-sign carved out and torched, and he was spray lacquering it outside
the yard with a facemask and safety goggles on to cut the strong fumes. He
stopped the sprayer when he saw me approaching and stepped away from the sign.
"Hey, you able to help me out with hanging this tonight?" he asked
me.

"Of course," I

said. "I gotta help you fly your nerd flag somehow."

"Yeah, says the guy with

the Lord of the Rings concept art cycling as his desktop screen," Leo
rolled his eyes.

"It's for my work,"

I said. "Top-notch inspiration." And then I realized I hadn't opened
my laptop in days; not since I'd finished the questionnaire that had led to
Erica choosing me. And Ivy for that matter. I hadn't checked emails, I hadn't
reached out to contacts. Fuck, I hadn't even sent in my last work-for-hire
backgrounds.

"Whatever," Leo

laughed and punched me in the arm. "Look, when you go in there, just know
it wasn't my idea, Okay? I only helped them move the stuff."

"What does that

mean?" I asked.

"You'll see," Leo

said cryptically.

I ducked through the blanket

door and immediately saw what Leo was talking about. Space had been cleared in
the center of our sheltered yard for three of the heavy Adirondack deck chairs,
and laying in those chairs were Danielle, Erica and Ivy. Each of them was
wearing a bikini and were glistening with sunscreen and sweat from the sun as
they tanned. They had a Bluetooth speaker playing songs from their phones; I suspected
Erica was trying to convince the younger two women of the virtues of mid-2000s
pop punk.

"Oh, good," Erica

said, grinning as she saw me coming into the yard. She lifted her glass.
"Um, excuse me, waiter? We could use a top-up, please."

I snorted and shook my head,

walking over. All three of the women were in two-piece swimsuits, though I
suspected Danielle and Ivy's were possibly part of their stripping gear rather
than actual bikinis. Both of their suits were more string than fabric and left
little to the imagination. Erica's was a bit more conservative, though really
not by that much because of her swathe of cleavage. "What are we drinking
today, ladies?" I asked.

"I made up a pitcher of

sangria," Erica said. "It's in the fridge in our place. You would be
the absolute love of my life if you were to go get it for us, please?"

"I thought I already was

the love of your life?" I asked with a smile.

"You are," Erica

smiled back. "But this will get you to the front of the line for my next
life, too. How about that?"

"Does that go for all of

you?" I asked.

"Absolutely," Ivy

grinned.

"I think I could

definitely do worse," Danielle grinned. "But I think Leo might have
something to say about that."

"Harri can take my

brother," Erica chuckled. "Don't worry, Danni. Just sell your future
soul to Harri, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Fine. My future love

life for a refill of sangria," Danielle giggled.

I fetched the pitcher and

poured for the three women, unable to wipe the grin from my lips as I watched
and listened to them bantering back and forth happily. By mid-afternoon, the
tanning was over and after a quick fuck in the RV Erica and I were lounging in
the Adirondacks, each of us with a sketchbook in hand.

"What are you working

on?" I asked. "I know you've been as frustrated as I have over the
last month."

"A tattoo design for

Ivy," Erica said, her brow creased as she tapped her pencil against her
lips thoughtfully. "Now that I have a future canvas, I feel like I can
concentrate again. Plus the sex helps a lot."

You laughed and nodded.

"Got your creative juices flowing, huh?"

"Got all my juices

flowing, baby," she grinned at me. "What about you? I've got Ivy, and
Danielle wants me to design something for her now, too. What's got you drawing
again?"

I smiled a little and

shrugged. "Just figured out my muse," I said.

"And what's that?"

she asked. "Come on, don't be shy."

I turned my sketchbook around

so that Erica could see the portrait I had been sketching of her. She looked at
it and blushed, biting her lower lip.

"Just the most beautiful

thing in the world," I told her.

"You know," Erica

said. "It kinda looks like you're drawing me naked."

"That's cause I'm

drawing you from the shoulders up," I said.

"Yeah, but would

you?" she asked.

"Would I what? Draw you naked?"

"Or Ivy?"

"Are you asking me to

draw you like one of my French girls?" I asked.

Erica barked out a laugh at

the reference and threw her pencil at me. "Yes, maybe I am," she
said. "Now give me back my pencil."

"You threw it at

me," I said, fetching it off the ground. "Come and get it."

We ended up in each other's

arms and making out, me halfway to taking her back into the RV for round two,
when someone rang the doorbell.

"Who is it?" I

shouted over the wall.

"It's me," Vanessa

called and ducked through the blanket door without waiting for a response.
"Sorry, but we've got a problem," she said. "I think I'm going
to need you down at the road again."

"Fuck," I said.

"Is it Kara?"

"It's a lot more than

that bitch," Vanessa said.

I changed and this time

Vanessa drove us both down in her company-branded pickup truck. Erica, having
already staked her claim on me in front of Kara in her eyes, decided to hang
back and let Ivy finish what I'd started. I was sure sending me away with that
picture in my mind was done on purpose.

As we were nearing the bottom

of the driveway, I could hear the noise of the protest through the closed
windows and over the engine of the truck. "Fuck me," I said.

"Yeah," Vanessa

nodded.

The end of the driveway was

packed with people, shoulder to shoulder, blocking traffic. They were three
rows deep and singing a protest chant. Every single one of them was dressed in
bright colors, showing their allegiance to the Band and proudly shouting for
all they were worth.

Opposing them, about ten feet

up the drive, was a slim, single row of burly construction workers just
watching the protest happen.

"Those guys really can't

let themselves get baited," I said. "If something happens, it doesn't
matter who said what or what can hold up in court. There'll be big, scary
motherfuckers showing up wanting to do some damage and I don't think your boys
are ready for that."

"I know, I already told

them," Vanessa said. "But I'll tell them again. You'd be surprised
how much threatening someone's big, fat bonus checks can keep them calm and
focused."

We got out of the truck and I

walked down to the line of workers, rubbing at the stubble on my chin as I
considered the protestors. There were easily fifty of them blocking the
driveway, and there was already a backup of two flatbed trucks on the highway,
plus a half dozen cars that looked more like they just wanted to get by rather
than come in. Another thirty or so protestors were strung out on either side of
the highway in both directions, holding up signs and doing the organizational
things to keep the protestors going.

"Pretty good

turnout," I said offhandedly. "A lot bigger than last time."

"When was the last

time?" Vanessa asked.

"Five years ago," I

said. "Kara tried to sue for an injunction on my father's Will, and about
a dozen protestors showed up to the courthouse the day she got shot down."

"Any chance they'll get

tired and go home?" Vanessa asked.

I scanned the crowd and the

vehicles parked up and down the highway. I already knew there were about thirty
military-age males in the protest, and I could see people opening the backs of
vans where I spotted supply caches of water and food. I could also see the
determination on the faces of the crowd, and hear the declarations of a couple
of different women holding loudspeakers. The rhetoric, and emotions, were
ramped up more than usual. The anti-government hate was high, and now that they
knew they weren't fighting Me but rather the Government it seemed to steel
their resolve.

"Not a shot," I

said. I stepped forward and the shouting got louder. Likely every single person
in that crowd knew who I was, while I had no idea who most of them were. But
with every step I took, they shouted louder. Finally, halfway between the
lines, they seemed to be at a fever pitch and I just stopped and waited. They
kept going for a good five minutes before Kara pushed her way through and
walked up to me, masked behind those bandanas again.

"I told you this would

happen," Kara said over the shouting and chanting. "You didn't think
I could do it, but look at us. Look at us, Harrison! We will not let this
happen to our land."

"Kara," I said

loudly. "How do you think this ends?"

"Only one way,"

Kara shouted. "The Feds surrender to our rightful claim, and stop their
colonization efforts, and we take back what's ours."

"This is dangerous,

Kara," I said, gesturing at the crowd.

"What?" she shouted

back.

"I said this is

dangerous, Kara," I shouted. "Every person here is in danger."

"Are you threatening

us?" Kara shouted, playing it up for the crowd behind her. "Going to
kill us, like your family has done for generations?"

"Jesus fuck," I

said, shaking my head. "Kara, this doesn't end the way you think it does.
I'm going to pray for you, honest to God."

Kara just held up her middle

finger at me, pointed her other at Vanessa behind me, and turned and walked
away to the cheers of her people. I shrugged and went back to Vanessa.

"Yeah, they aren't

leaving," I said.

"I already called my

Dad," Vanessa said. "He's coming down and will want to meet with
you."

"Sure," I nodded.

"If they let him through."

About thirty minutes later

the protesters were still going strong, and another three flatbeds with either
supplies or heavy machinery were backed up on the highway, along with dozens of
cars. Vanessa was doing as much as she could to keep her workers at least a
dozen yards away from the crowd of protestors; the last thing she wanted was
for them to need to get quarantined waiting on a half dozen new tests. Or
worse, actually catch something.

I did my best to help her

juggle phones, calling various General Foremen to get incoming trucks rerouted
to staging areas and to keep those that were stuck in the traffic in their cabs
or else they couldn't enter the site. Eventually she got a call, spoke quickly
and then hung up.

"Harri, this might be a

big ask, but could you do me a favor?" she asked.

"The government paid me

a lot of money for my land and doing favors," I said. "But you've
gone out of your way plenty for me and Leo and the girls. Favors come free to
you, Vee."

She rolled her eyes.

"Who told you my brothers call me that?"

"No one, just felt

natural," I chuckled. "I call Erica 'E' sometimes, and I'm sure I'll
end up calling Ivy 'I’ve' at some point."

"Alright, well,

'H,'" she said. "My dad is parked down at the edge of the property on
the highway and doesn't want to get too close to the traffic. Could you hike
out to him and bring him back?"

"Sure," I said. I

looked up at the sun and then out at the woods. "Um, from here... it's
probably faster if I grab an ATV. Would he be squeamish about riding double
with me?"

Vanessa snorted. "He

probably wouldn't be, but he's also got a gut the size of your ATVs so it would
be a tight fit."

"Alright, guess we're

hiking. I can rough it and reach him in about twenty minutes," I said.
"I'll take a smoother way back for him, so we'll get here in under an
hour."

"Got it, I'll let him

know you're on your way. Thanks," she said, patting my arm. "Try to
take it easy on him, he growls like a bear but he's still my Dad."

"Hey, he's the big man

in charge. Gotta keep him happy or else I'll find myself with the worst workers
for my house, right?"

"Very true," she

laughed.

I started hiking back up the

driveway a little ways, and then diverted into the woods, hoping that the
protestors would miss that I was skirting away from them. I was very glad I had
changed from my lounging around clothes; rough jeans and my hiking boots were a
lot sturdier in the rocky bush than athletic shorts and sandals. The raucousness
of the protestors was quickly muffled by the forest to a dull roar, and it felt
good to get away from them.

It was weird. After spending

months in isolation with Leo and Erica, we'd been getting used to so many
people around again with the workers and adding Ivy and Danielle to our weird
little family dynamic. But a crowd like that, all packed together?

That was exactly what the

quarantine orders were warning against.

"Harrison!"

My name cut through the

muffle of the trees and shrubs, and I turned and saw Kara quickly jogging
through the woods to catch up with me.

"Kara, what the fuck are

you doing? You're trespassing," I said.

"So throw me off your

land," Kara said, coming to a stop about ten feet from me and putting her
hands on her hips. "Oh wait, that's right, it's not your land
anymore."

I rolled my eyes. "You

can take off the bandanas if you want. We're fine this far apart."

She did so, pulling them down

to hang around her neck. Kara was still as beautiful as the day we'd broken up,
though she'd grown up a lot. Where I was such a mix that it was hard to tell I
had any Native American in my bloodstream, she had that classic warm skin tone
and thick black hair. She'd been taking care of herself well, fit and a little
thinner than Erica was, but with a similar strong jawline to my girlfriend. Her
lips were as full as I remembered though, and I could almost feel her kissing
me again like all those years ago behind the corner of the biology classroom in
high school, or laying out in the back of my old beater pickup under the stars.

"What's going on,

Harri?" she asked me. "I thought we'd at least hit a status quo or
something."

"Oh, the one where you

file a lawsuit against me every couple of years, and the judge shuts you down,
but I keep having to rack up legal fees?"

"No," she said.

"Well, sort of. I thought we were keeping things above board. No games, no
gimmicks. Not getting historical."

I grimaced. "Well, we

did," I said.

"So what the fuck?"

she said, throwing her arms wide. "What the fuck is all of this?"

"Kara, think about it

for one fucking second without your prejudice. Imagine I'm not just doing this
as a 'Fuck You' from my family tree to the Band," I said. "A week ago
I wouldn't have thought any of this would be happening. A week ago I was
happily living my life and would have stayed that way straight through the end
of the world if I had to. Do you seriously think I've done this on some
whim?"

"Why, then? What are

they doing? What are they offering you?" she demanded.

"You wouldn't believe me

if I told you," I said. "And even if you did, I think you're too far
into this already to walk it back with your people."

"Try me," she said.

"If you ever cared about me,”

"Stop," I

interrupted her. "You've used that line twice on me before, Kara. You used
it when you broke up with me, and you used it again right after my father died.
That line didn't work when I was at some of the lowest points in my life; do
you seriously think I'll respond well to that here?"

She grimaced, and I saw the

realization in her eyes that I was right. That she had used that line
before, and it had been pretty fucked up for her to do that. "I'm
sorry," she said, and only partially through gritted teeth. "I
shouldn't have done that."

"Thank you," I

said. My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt like I was in combat, just
having this verbal sparring contest with her. I fucking hated her, but I also
still knew she was the first girl I'd ever loved. The one that had broken my
heart. The one that 'got away.'

"Just explain it to

me," Kara said, trying to be more even about it. "Please."

I took a moment to breathe

deeply. I wasn't barred from telling her anything. I'd tried to warn her when
she'd shown up at the driveway before, but the thought of all those protestors
at risk for the virus pushed me over the edge of trying to warn her again.
"Kara, the government gave me the choice of accepting a huge payout for
the land, or them kicking me out and taking it by eminent domain. Either way,
they were going to take it and take it fast. I could either ride it, or die
fighting it."

"So what are they doing

with it?" she asked.

"Building homes," I

said. "A whole gated community, it sounds like. Part of my payout was
housing for myself, Leo and Valerie."

"What the fuck? Why do

they want a gated community way out here?" she asked.

"Worst-case scenario

shit," I said.

"You mean the

pandemic?" she asked. "Are you for fucking serious?"

"Serious enough that my

house got bulldozed a couple days ago," I said. "Gone. Like it was
never even there."

"This can't be

real," Kara said. "This is absurd."

"I told you that you

wouldn't believe me," I said.

"Well, if you were too

much of a cunt to stop them, we will," Kara said, steeling herself again.
"We'll have the local news down here by tomorrow, and if the Feds show up
we'll have national news coverage by the end of the week."

I had to try one more time.

"Kara, this doesn't end the way you want it to. You're a dreamer, and I
loved that about you when we were teens, but you know the real world doesn't
just work like that."

Kara narrowed her eyes.

"Where are you going right now?"

"What does that

matter?" I asked.

"Because I just followed

you out into the woods after your little construction girlfriend was talking to
you," she said.

"She's not my

girlfriend," I rolled my eyes.

"Tell her that. She's

flirting with you hard enough," Kara said. "I can see her doing
it."

"Even if she was, what

does that have to do with you?" I asked.

I knew I'd landed a blow

because she got angry again. "Nothing," she said. "But I still
want to know what you're doing."

"I don't have to tell

you that, Kara," I said. "I don't answer to you, I don't owe you
anything, and I don't worship the ground you walk on. All I've got to say now
is that you should go send all those people home, and hope that you haven't
organized some super-spreader event here. For all the shit you've given me and
my family, I don't want to see them all dead. I don't want to see you
dead."

Kara raised her bandanas

again. "We're fighting the good fight. We're on the right side of this,
Harrison. You're not." She turned and started walking back towards the
road.

"Fuck me," I

sighed, shaking my head. That woman could still push my buttons almost fifteen
years later.

I pressed through the forest,

making for the edge of the property and then diverting towards the road. When I
reached it, I found a white and brown heavy pickup identical to Vanessa's
idling on the gravel shoulder. The big guy in the driver's seat rolled down his
window a crack. "What's up?"

"I'm Harrison

Black," I said.

Another guy got out of the

passenger seat and came around, slapping the hood. "Head on back to the
motel," he said to the man in the truck. "I'll catch a ride back with
my daughter."

The guy in the truck nodded

and waited for us both to back away before pulling a U-Turn and taking off down
the highway.

"So, you're the land

guy, eh?" the man said, turning and offering me his hand. He was exactly
as Vanessa had described; portly to the point of obese, with a gruff exterior
that spoke of years handling his business in a rough industry and getting shit
done.

"I am," I said,

taking his hand and shaking it firmly. "Your daughter has been fantastic
to work with. Helpful and on task, and she keeps her guys in line."

"I have no doubt,"

he said. "She grew up bossing her older brothers around and got the best
of her mother and me. I'm Brent Peters, by the way. I'm sure we'll be speaking
every once in a while through this project."

"Good to meet you,

sir," I said. "And I'm sure we will."

I led Brent into the brush

and got us through the roughest part until I could get us to one of the more
used trails. It got a lot easier for him there, and once he had a chance to
catch his breath he seemed to actually enjoy the chance to stretch his legs. He
didn't know, or at least wasn't forthcoming, with any more information than
Vanessa had been able to give about what was going on, but he did enjoy hearing
about the sordid history of the land, my family and the Band.

It took a little longer than

I'd thought it would to get back to the driveway, Brent needing a couple of
breaks, but we made it eventually. Vanessa grinned when she saw her father in a
way that made me think she was going to run to him and hug him, but she never
made the move. I had to assume that was a hard-trained response from her years
working with the man; hugging your pops on a job site would probably lead to
taking a lot of shit from your coworkers.

Brent quickly got updated on

the last hour of developments from Vanessa, and I saw his managerial side take
over. Soon the line of construction workers were twenty yards back from the
protestors, and he was stride-waddling forward with a medical mask stretched
over his face. Kara met him halfway, and whatever they said seemed to go about
as well as the talks I'd had with her myself. Again, she ended it by showing
off for the protestors by giving him the double-birds.

"Well, that went well,"

Brent sighed as he came back. "You were right, Harrison. They're stuck in.
Wouldn't even help us get those trucks room to move or get out of the way of
traffic."

"She feels like she's

got leverage," I guessed. "And they haven't had that on us for years
now."

"Well, I've officially

done what I can," Brent said. "Time to do what every good GM does
when shit like this happens." He took out his phone and started walking up
the driveway away from Vanessa and me.

"What's that?" I

asked.

"Call the client and

tell them to un-fuck the situation," Vanessa smirked.

The rest of the afternoon and

evening was a long fucking day. There was no good way to get the workers on
site off of it, and no good way to get new ones on, so Leo and I ended up
walking several groups through the trails to get to the road in places out of
sight of the protestors. And since the big crew vans were parked on site, Brent
ended up getting access to school buses to come and pick up his guys. The
second to last bus dropped off a dozen men who would take over watching the
driveway and the protestors overnight; we'd already seen them breaking out
tents and lanterns to hold their vigil; and the last bus out had Brent and
Vanessa on board.

"Client will be by in

the morning," Brent said, and winked at me. "Don't you worry, bucko.
You hold down the home front tonight, and the cavalry will be here in no
time."

"You got it," I

said. "But whoever is coming, I suggest you make sure they know to take
this seriously. The Band is riled up, and now they smell blood in the water.
This isn't going away easily."

"I'll pass that on to

the Lieutenant Colonel," Brent nodded. He shook my hand again and stepped
onto the bus.

"See you tomorrow,

H," Vanessa grinned at me.

"Not if I see you first,

Vee," I chuckled. She stepped up into the bus and I heard her voice raise
immediately. "Alright, you Gorillas. Grab your fuckin' seats and stay
there. I swear to Christ if one of you pisses me off, I'll confiscate your
fuckin' dinner, got it?"

I laughed, and could see the

construction workers grinning in their seats as the bus did a three-point turn
and pulled away.

The sun was getting low when

I finally hiked out of the bush and back into view of our little compound.
Erica was waiting for me with a smile and a plate of stir fry. "What's the
word, Harri?"

"They're still down

there," I said. "There are some workers keeping an eye on the
driveway. Could you throw on a big pot of coffee for me and dig one of the
thermoses out of storage?"

"Harri, if they've got

some of their workers down there, it's not your job to supervise. I'm sure
Vanessa and her Dad left someone in charge."

"They did," I said.

"And I'm not going down there. I'm staying up here."

I shoveled the stir fry down,

relishing in the spicy kick Erica liked to cook with. Inside our little
compound I gave Ivy a kiss, apologizing that I wouldn't be seeing her in bed
for the night. Then I went to the storage container closest to my RV. The one
with my gun safe.

"What's the word?"

Leo asked me when he found me. I had a lantern flashlight on and was loading
rounds into my father's Model 700. "Jesus, Harri. What the fuck?"

I doubted he was commenting

on me loading the Remington hunting rifle. We'd used it plenty when we were
hunting during deer season; it was a solid, reliable tool. No, I knew he was
reacting to the other firearms I had out. My M9 was already holstered on my
hip, a copy of my service sidearm that had served me so well through my tour
and as an MP, and my DDM4V1 was laid out, waiting for me to do a quick check it
was still in good order.

"Just taking

precautions," I said. I was already trying to get into the right mindset.

"What does that even

mean? What are you doing?"

"There's about a hundred

protesters down there, last I counted. More keep arriving," I told Leo,
loading the last round into the 700 and checking the safety before setting it
down. I fished a handful more.308's out of the ammo box in the safe and fed
them into the bandolier shoulder strap for the hunting rifle. "Problem is,
they're pissed off. Not just about the construction, but at all the other shit
going on right now. And pissed-off people do dumb shit."

"So what, you're going

to go all Alamo on us?" Leo asked. "For real, Harri. Nothing's going
to happen. They're down there, we're up here."

"Leo," I said.

"I'm not asking you to do anything you don't want to. The Bear shotgun is
in my RV. Do me a favor and keep it handy tonight. If I miss something, I'd
rather you have it than not."

"Harri,”

"Dude, just stop,"

I said. I'd finished with the.308s and started taking apart the DDM4V1 and
giving it a quick clean. It was a budget purchase that I'd made prioritizing
reliability over flashy shit, and the 'scary one' in my collection when it came
to civilians. Erica hadn't even liked the idea of me owning it when we gave her
the tour of my firearms and taught her the safety protocols for them. Leo had
only ever fired it once. Both of the siblings had said the same thing; 'If you
have the rifles and shotguns and the handgun, why do you need a machine gun?'

This sort of thing was why I

needed it. And it wasn't a 'machine gun.'

"I'm not planning, or

hoping, to kill someone tonight. If I have to use the DDM4 or my sidearm,
something has gotten really fucked," I said. "But I'm also not taking
any chances. Sometime tonight, there's going to be people sneaking up into the
construction yard to cause mischief, and they aren't going to know the
difference between the construction yard and where we're living. Maybe they
hear us and they stay clear, or maybe they don't. I'm not taking that
chance."

Leo watched me cleaning my

rifle, and glanced out at the darkening sky, and then back to me. "What
should I do?" he asked.

A wave of relief washed over

me; it had been years since I'd served, and every instinct I had was telling me
to do what I was doing, but that civilian part of my brain was second-guessing
everything. Leo agreeing told me I was being logical, even if he didn't like it
or I turned out to be wrong.

"Just be with the girls

tonight," I said. "I can handle the yard, you stay with them. Think
of it like a shitty tower defense game. If I do my job, you'll never have to do
anything."

He nodded and left me to my

work.

Surprisingly, it was Danielle

who came to see me next. "What can I do to help?" she asked. Her
Australian accent was sounding stronger, the California valley girl part of it
dropping with her serious demeanor.

"Nothing, I've got

it," I said. She'd caught me as I was strapping on my ghillie suit;
another item that Leo and Erica had found silly to own considering we didn't
need it for hunting deer. It had honestly been more of a gag item in my
collection than anything until tonight.

"Harrison, I'll remind

you that my Dad was military, yeah?" she said. "I grew up outside the
city. I know how to work a firearm."

I took a breath and looked at

her. Even at night, by the light of a lantern, she looked like an elven beauty
despite the cutoff denim shorts and zippered knit sweater. "Can you handle
a handgun?" I asked.

"I've shot the head of

an Eastern Brown from ten paces away when it was threatening to bite my
dog," she said.

"I assume that's a

snake?"

"A fucking poisonous

one," Danielle said.

"Alright," I

nodded. "Under the passenger seat of my truck is a gun case with my pop's
old 1911 and a couple of magazines. Hang on to it for tonight. Try not to freak
out Erica or Ivy, and if you hear shots tonight don't let Leo come looking for
me, let alone Erica and Ivy. If they leave the RVs it'll just make things
worse."

"Okay," she said

with a serious nod, then stepped towards me, hugged me and gave me a kiss on
the cheek. "Thanks."

"For what?" I asked

as she stepped back.

"For being the man I

figured you were," she said. "Leo's all mine and I'm happy with that,
but like I told you; you remind me of all the good parts of my Dad. I'm glad I
have Leo and you around."

She left to fetch the pistol,

and I finished strapping on the ghillie suit and slung my two rifles over my
shoulders and closed the gun safe. When I was finished slamming the storage
container closed, I turned around to find Ivy and Erica both looking at me with
their arms crossed.

"Both of you, huh?"

I asked.

"Yes, both of us,"

Erica said.

"United front," Ivy

said.

"Look,”

"Shut up,

Harrison," Erica said, and then they were both hugging me while being
careful around the firearms. "Just be careful."

"Extra careful,"

Ivy said, burying her face into the strings of the ghillie suit in my chest and
then immediately pulling back with a wince. "Ugh, this smells
terrible."

"Yeah, well it's not

exactly the sort of thing you clean very often," I shrugged.

"Whatever," Erica

said and kissed me. Ivy kissed me as well, looking at me with those big eyes of
hers with concern.

"So you're not going to

try and convince me this isn't necessary?" I asked.

"Wouldn't do anything

except lead to a fight we couldn't win," Erica said. "You're too
stubborn not to do it."

"And too brave,"

Ivy added.

"That too," Erica

smiled sadly. Then she handed me the big thermos of coffee. "Come back to
us in one piece."

"I will," I said.

"Don't worry. But if you two hear anything tonight, if there's any
gunfire, don't come looking for me. Just stay in the RVs and hunker down from
the windows. If you come looking for me, you'll add more danger and not take it
away, alright?"

They both agreed, though I

could tell Erica didn't like it. I could only imagine her sprinting across the
construction yard, bullets flying everywhere, screaming my name as she worried
I'd been shot. Hell, she'd probably pick me up and carry me to safety if it
were true, but she'd also likely never get to me in the first place if things
were that bad.

I kissed them both again,

then stalked off into the night.

I ended up settling into a

nook on the side of the hill to the south of the construction yard, with a
clear view of about two-thirds of the yard and most importantly the RV
compound. I unslung my rifles and carefully positioned myself in a comfortable
prone position I was going to be able to manage for a long time. I'd never gone
through Sniper training, but I'd picked up enough from my Bootcamp, talking
with other soldiers and from movies to know a thing or two; not to mention
years of hunting. So I cracked the thermos and took a sip of the hot, strong
coffee, and started my watch.

I saw them moving through the

trees at around 02:30 in the morning down on the east side of the yard near the
driveway. They must have skirted around the construction worker picket line and
followed the driveway up, but they were still in the shadows so I couldn't tell
how many there were, or what they were carrying. The only reason I spotted them
early at all was because someone was flicking a flashlight up occasionally.

I had the 700 cradled in my

arms, and I slowly rolled into position but didn't sight down the scope yet. I
didn't have any night vision gear, and while the simple Leopold scope easily
gave me the range to tag anything moving down there, I wouldn't know what I was
hitting.

They stopped at the edge of

the tree line, and I could only imagine the nerves they were feeling looking
out over the open area. There were seven portables set up holding various
offices now, and half a dozen big crew vans that had been left behind for the night
along with some of the company pickup trucks. The pilings and supplies to erect
the bigger barracks were also looming in the big, open space.

"Just take a look and

leave," I muttered quietly to myself, willing whoever was down there to
not make this worse than it could be.

Five minutes went by before a

figure began to creep out of the tree line, crossing the rise of the hill and
slipping towards the yard. From the distance I was at, I couldn't see them
clearly enough other than to tell they were probably wearing a backpack; not a
big deal in and of itself, but my training was screaming at me. 'Anything'
meant anything. That backpack could hold weapons, or communications equipment,
or even an I E D.

I sighted in on the figure.

It was a man, military age but young. I couldn't see much of his face between
the black bandana over his nose and mouth and a ball cap backwards on his head.

My finger tightened just a

fraction on the trigger when I saw the flash of metal in his hand, but my
hesitation saved his life; he was carrying a can of spray paint.

He reached what he thought

was the shelter of the first building; and it was shelter if he thought
a guard was patrolling inside the yard. But I wasn't inside the yard, and
instead I was looking at him dead on along the length of the building as he
took off his backpack and then turned, motioning back towards the tree line. A
half dozen more figures began quickly creeping across the hillside.

I had a choice; if that

backpack was full of spray-paint and that was all they were there to do, it
would be annoying vandalism at worst as long as they didn't approach the
compound. If any of them were carrying other tools of vandalism or had darker
thoughts about them, it was going to be a lot harder to deal with them a minute
from now.

And then there was the

history of the thing.

My family had defended this

land for six generations, including from small raiding parties of the Band
during the worst and darkest parts of our history. Men had died on both sides,
but so had women. Badly.

History is a powerful

motivator, especially with so many If's rolling around in my head.

I sighted in and pulled the

trigger. The boom of the rifle was especially loud in the still of the night
air, and I heard it echo back to me three times off of the surrounding hills.

The bullet hit the canister

the man had set down on the ground, and the spray can immediately erupted in a
spray of bright blue paint as it spun from the impact and the release of
aerosol, coating the ground, the man and some of the wall of the building. The
man recoiled with a scream, and later on I would see that there was a
beautiful, cartoon-like outline of him with his arms up in a panic on the wall.
The others split their decision-making; three immediately turned and began
sprinting back to the tree line, while the other three dove into the dirt
trying to take cover.

I could have killed them.

Just pop, pop, pop. It would have been easy.

But as the blue-painted man

stumbled around trying to clear his eyes, calling for help, I watched as his
friends tried to beckon him back over to them without standing up. Finally, one
of them; the one I probably respected the most, though I would never know who
he or she was, got up and ran to him, grabbing him and hauling him back towards
the trees. The other two followed, and then they were gone. I waited five
minutes, watching the tree lines for lights or movement, before I thumbed open
my phone with the brightness turned all the way down and texted the group chat.
'All good. Warning shot only.'

I immediately got two hearts

from Erica and Ivy, and Danielle started typing, but my phone started buzzing
in my hand with a phone call from Vanessa.

"Hey," I answered

with a whisper.

"Harrison, why the fuck

is my Dad waking me up asking me to call you about a gunshot?"

"Because I shot at some

people sneaking onto the site," I said.

"You shot someone on the

site!?!"

"No, I; listen to me. I

fired a warning shot and they ran off. No one is injured... I think."

"What does 'I think'

mean?"

"Well, one guy might

have damaged vision from getting spray paint in his eyes," I said.

"..... Harrison, what

the fuck?"

"Just tell your Dad I've

got it handled. I'll see you in the morning."

"Alright. You better not

fuck me here," she grumbled.

I smirked. "Not unless

you ask very nicely," I said.

"Oh my god, this is why

I don't wake up at three in the fucking morning 'cause I say dumb phrasing like
that. Good night. Again."

She hung up as I chuckled

softly.

I abandoned my post at 06:30

when the sun was peeking well over the horizon. Usually, the first groups of
workers would already be arriving on site, but obviously today was going to be
different. When I trudged into the compound I found Erica awake, sitting in one
of the Adirondack chairs and she gave me a tired smile. Ivy was sitting beside
her in another chair, curled up with a blanket over her.

"Welcome home,"

Erica said, sitting up and yawning.

"Good morning," I

said. "How late did she stay up?"

"About five am," Erica

said. "Kids these days don't know how to party all night."

I snorted. "Let me get

this shit put away, and I'll move her to the bed."

And I would have done just

that, but as I was unloading my firearms I heard the telltale staccato thwump
thwump thwump of an incoming helicopter. As I stepped back outside, rings
of cold and clammy sweat on the shirt I'd worn under the ghillie suit, Erica,
Leo, Ivy and Danielle all came out of the compound to join me as we watched an
HH60 Pave Hawk coming in for a landing. As the helicopter engine began to whine
loudly while it powered down, I led the others as we approached.

Several soldiers immediately

hopped out of the Air Force-branded helicopter, each one in proper fatigues
with all the correct identification patches; it almost made me proud to see an
actual military uniform after the shady fatigues the OGA had been wearing. Then
the officers climbed out of the helicopter.

They were both in service

dress uniform rather than fatigues, and both women looked around shrewdly with
narrowed eyes as they took in the rough construction site, our compound tucked
away in the back corner, and our ragtag group of strippers, artists and one
carpenter.

I sucked in a breath,

assuming my most military stance despite my likely disheveled appearance, and
marched up to the two officers as they approached us. One was carrying a
briefcase in one hand and a leather-bound clipboard in the other; she had
Captain bars on her shoulder, and if I had to guess at a glance she was an established
attaché for the other woman. My march brought me right up to within five feet
of the two, and I snapped to attention in front of the Lieutenant Colonel. She
was a woman with broad shoulders and a powerful, confident stance that almost
hid her hourglass figure. She had thick brunette hair pulled back into a tight
bun, and she had a somewhat dusky complexion as if she'd gotten too much sun.
But I knew that was just her natural coloring.

Lieutenant Colonel

 Miriam Abarbanel slowly, cleanly, returned my salute and we lowered our
arms. Then she took off the medical mask that was hiding her face and broke
into a smile that reached up into her hazel eyes. She stepped forward and
wrapped me up in a hug, kissing me on the cheek. "It's good to see you,
Harri," she said as I squeezed her back.

"You too, Miriam,"

I said. "Congratulations on your promotion."

She leaned back from the hug,

still smiling. "More rank, more problems. You know how it is."

"I don't,

thankfully," I grinned. "What are you doing here?"

She took in a long breath and

looked around us again. "I'm here to threaten a bunch of US civilians to
back the fuck off, or they'll all be arrested and held on charges of
treason," she said, her smile slipping. "How's your morning going?"

"I shot at someone last

night," I said. "So I think you're up on me, but not by much."

"I'm going to need you

to explain that in more detail," the other woman said, stepping forward.

"Harrison Black,"

Miriam said, stepping back and releasing my arms. "This is Captain Laura Bloomberg,
a Judges' advocate with the Air Force. Captain, I've already debriefed you on
Mr. Black's record, but I should let you know; Harrison saved my life and
dignity once upon a time. So go easy on him, if you don't mind."

"I don't go easy on

anyone, ma'am," Captain Bloomberg said. "That's why I'm here."

"Too true," Miriam

nodded. "Alright, let's say hello to everyone, then you can get me a
briefing on the ground here. And please, dear God, tell me you have some coffee
brewing. It's about to be one hell of a long morning."

"There is no official

precedent for this yet, Mr. Black, so we're just going to go ahead and keep you
in the loop," Doctor Charlotte Varma said. "In short, you and Miss
Peters show all the signs of having gone through the vaccination bonding
process."

I nodded slowly, letting out

a long breath as I tried not to think about the ache of my black eye.

The office I'd been left in

was little more than a whitewashed box of walls with a few chairs and a little
round table. The plain walls were only broken up by the single door, which I
hadn't bothered to check was locked or not, and the big flat screen over which
the doctor was talking with me.

"I don't understand how

though, Doc," I said. "Vanessa didn't get the vaccine shot, and
everything my current partners were told about the vaccine was that our...
activities should have been safe."

"And that's the concern

we have," Doctor Varma said. "Another member of my team is currently
running further numbers on the blood samples that were sent down to us. But
even the early tests done up there are showing the markers for the imprinting
process occurring in Miss Peters body. It shouldn't have happened.
That's why I requested this chat with you. The report on the matter that we
received was somewhat... vague in certain areas."

I flushed but nodded. I'd

hoped this wasn't where we were going, but had figured we'd end up here
eventually no matter what.

When I made the call, Miriam

jumped into action. She'd remained calm on the phone, but the speed with which
she organized the helicopter to come and pick up Vanessa had told me this
wasn't just her concern for me or concern for a woman she had met in passing
for a couple of minutes. While Erica and I had waited for the helicopter to
arrive we'd done our best to get Vanessa cleaned up. She'd been soaked in the
squirt that Ivy and Erica had sprayed her with, so we used a wet cloth to wipe
her down carefully and then got her dressed again in everything except those
steel toe boots she always wore. Then we'd had to just wait.

I'd been expecting a doctor

or two on the helicopter wanting to come to check her over, but we got a couple
of air corpsmen instead who immediately began to strap her to a gurney for
transport. Getting Vanessa from the compound to the helicopter was a bit of
chaos; there were construction workers gawking, and the other foreman who had
taken over the site for Vanessa's day off had demanded some answers. I'd just
told him she'd come to hang out for the day, and I needed Brent Peter's number
to let him know what was going on. He'd given it to me and said he needed to
call the site General Manager himself.

Erica and Ivy had both wanted

to come with us on the helicopter, but the airmen had only allowed me to
travel. I kissed Erica and Ivy, trying to reassure them in a rush, and hopped
onto the helicopter.

I didn't get any answers from

the crew other than that we were heading to Portland, and I couldn't make a
call with the noise of the helicopter engine and blades, so it was pointless to
answer when Brent Peters called me. I texted him instead, telling him where we
were headed and that Vanessa seemed Okay, but was unconscious and needed
medical attention.

We'd landed on the roof of a

building in downtown Portland that looked like it had been retrofitted for the
helicopter pad. We were met by a quartet of lab coats in full hazmat gear,
which seemed to put the airmen who had only been wearing medical masks on edge
a bit, and Vanessa was wheeled in one direction after we stepped off the
elevator while I was escorted in the other.

Looking back over my shoulder

at her getting taken away on that gurney was heartbreaking in a way I wouldn't
have expected.

The lab coats interviewed me

and took blood samples a few times. The only reassurance I got was when Miriam stepped
into the observation room I'd been placed in, her Command facade dropping for a
moment as she pulled me into a quick, tight hug and she told me Vanessa was
fine, and we weren't in trouble. She couldn't stay though, and had to leave
back to work.

They'd taken my phone when we

entered the building for security reasons, and I spent what I had to guess were
several hours in that observation room, mostly alone and with nothing to do but
think.

When I was finally escorted

out of the room and down the hall to a nicer waiting room, I assumed because
they decided I wasn't infected or contagious or something, I saw Brent Peters
through the waiting room door. I steeled myself for the conversation I was
about to have, but when Brent saw me he jumped to his feet and rushed me. It
was chaos for a long moment. Brent landed a solid punch to my face, leading to
the black eye that was now throbbing, and I didn't fight back. Several airmen
kept us separated, and I was brought back to the observation pod without even being
able to apologize to the man.

"How detailed do you

want me to be?" I asked Doctor Varma. She was an attractive woman, even
looking haggard from work and lack of sleep. I could only assume if she was a
specialist with the vaccine that she was working some pretty heavy overtime
hours. Her French accent, different enough from Ivy's that I could tell she was
French and not Quebecois, didn't help with downplaying her attractiveness.

"As detailed as you

can," Doctor Varma said. "Let's start at the beginning. You woke up
this morning and initiated a sexual encounter with your partner Miss Lacosta,
correct?"

"That's correct," I

said.

"What was the nature of

the encounter? Oral? Vaginal?"

"Vaginal," I said.

"And did she

orgasm?"

I blew out a breath, trying

to control my embarrassment. "When I finished, she did."

Doctor Varma nodded and took

some notes, seemingly unfazed by the nature of the conversation. "And
where did you finish?" she asked.

"Uh, vaginally," I

said. "Inside her."

She just nodded along and

kept prompting me. I explained about Ivy initiating a second round, beginning
oral sex on my penis. She asked if I had been cleaned between encounters, which
I hadn't. It hadn't seemed important at the time, since Ivy and Erica liked to
play with each other almost as much as they did me.

Then it got worse, as I was

prompted to explain in detail the nature of the sexual encounter between the
four of us. How Ivy and I only did anal by her request. How Erica was
particularly wet when aroused. How Vanessa had eaten her out and been squirted
on. Then I was answering questions like 'Approximately how much of the female
ejaculation did Miss Peters ingest compared to being exposed dermatologically?'

And that, of course, led to

explaining the 'female bukkake' scenario. And fucking Ivy's ass while the
squirting was going on. And finally, finally, we got to me engaging
directly with Vanessa.

"To the best of your

ability, Mr. Black, please consider the events as carefully as you can. When
you entered Miss Peters vagina with your penis, did you clean yourself off at
all?"

"I... did," I said.

"I had just been having anal sex with Ivy, so I wiped my penis with a wet
washcloth."

"Hmm," Doctor Varma

nodded, still scribbling her notes. "And when you penetrated her, did you
notice any particular emotions or events occur with Miss Peters?"

"I think; yeah," I

said. "Before penetration, I had encouraged an orgasm with my fingers and
some, um, light choking and dirty talk,”

"You digitally

manipulated her vagina, or something else?"

"Her vagina," I

clarified. "So she had only just orgasmed when I penetrated her, and I
believe she had another one almost immediately."

"Hmm," Doctor Varma

nodded and held up a finger to ask me to wait as she scribbled an extra-long
note to herself. "Alright, continue. Once the initial orgasm from
penetration had occurred, does anything she did or said stand out?"

"All of us had been

pretty vocal with dirty talk," I said. "She, um, you know. The usual?
Directing me to have sex with her in a specific way. Complimenting me on how it
felt."

"Anything else?

Particulars may be important," Doctor Varma prompted me again.

"Um, she offered me anal

sex as well, but I told her I wanted to take my time if we were going to do
that and I was close to finishing. That excited her, and she encouraged me to
ejaculate inside of her and got kinky in that demand."

"Kinky in what

way?" she asked.

"Well, she'd told us

before about having a hysterectomy as a young teen, and she was talking about
how she wished she had a womb I could, ah, fill. It got a little primal at the
end, encouraging me to take her and make her mine. Caveman kind of stuff."

"I see," Doctor

Varma nodded again, taking more notes. "And I assume you did? Ejaculate
inside her, that is."

"Yes," I nodded.

"She orgasmed again at that point, pretty hard, and when she didn't
respond to a compliment I paid her I realized she wasn't awake and was
mumbling."

"She was repeating

'imprinting,' correct?" Doctor Varma asked.

"Well, yes and no,"

I said. "I'd heard the 'imprinting' thing when I bonded with Erica and
Ivy. Vanessa wasn't as clear, it was like she was saying it over a choppy
connection if you know what I mean."

"Hmm, interesting,"

Doctor Varma frowned. "You didn't happen to record this, did you?"

"No," I shook my

head. "That wasn't really the important thing on my mind at that
point."

"Understandable, Mr.

Black," the doctor said. "Alright, hold tight. I need to consult with
some of my staff here." And she cut the video call.

I was alone for a bit, left

to my own thoughts. I should have known, or seen it, as it was happening.
Vanessa had been horny, but was she 'I'd let you get me pregnant if I could'
horny? Erica hadn't dropped that, our first time together, but she'd said other
things that were similar. 'Take me' and 'make me yours' and that kind of stuff.
And so had Ivy, though she'd been babbling in French half the time so it was
hard to say for sure.

Erica had gotten a mental

flag on the play, though. She'd heard it more than I had. Heard the tone of
Vanessa's voice, or the words. Maybe one or the other had echoed in her, and
she'd remembered how she'd felt. She hadn't tried to stop me, stop us, but
maybe it had been too late at that point.

The TV flashed, losing a

digital telephone ring, and I grabbed the remote from the table and accepted
the call.

"Hey, Harrison,"

said the man on the other end. He was another lab coat, and as best I could
tell from the blurry background he was likely in the same facility or even the
same room as Doctor Varma had been. This guy looked like he'd stepped right out
of a corny television show though; he was blubbery in the way that a guy could
be after a couple of decades of slow physical decline, with a burst of thinning
silver hair that just needed the black streaks and some smudges on his face to
look like he'd been catoonishly blown up. The bit of scraggly, messy scruff on
his chin that looked unplanned made me a little self-conscious of my own
currently messy beard. Erica had wanted me to grow mine out a bit so she could
decide if she liked it longer or shorter, and Ivy didn't care, so I was looking
even more like a mountain man than usual. "I'm Doctor McKenna, but you can
call me Bill," he continued.

"You're on Doc Varma's

team?" I asked, putting two and two together.

"Yep," he nodded.

"I was supposed to do the follow-up interview with you but got caught up
with some of the numbers in your case. Charlotte and I have both reviewed the
content. Sounds like you had a bit of a wild time, huh? And don't worry, we're
all getting pretty used to the graphic nature of our work these days so you
didn't offend or embarrass anyone."

"Well, that's something

at least," I said. "I never thought I'd be having a conversation like
that with a doctor. Or anyone."

He got a wry grin at this and

held up a hand to ease me. "Believe me, Harrison. I've been with the team
from the start and we have had more than a few of these sorts of conversations
based on the nature of the vaccine. Yours is definitely up there as a novel
case of details, but it's only personal for you, not us."

I just nodded, not knowing

what to say. I hadn't considered how often sex must come up in their day-to-day
work if they were specialists.

"Now, I have; well, I

can't say it's good nor bad news," Doctor Bill said. "Interesting for
us, for sure. As I'm sure you're aware, as you have two partners already, the
vaccine is supposed to only be transmissible from women to men for the purposes
of diluting the effects on men. To be frank, no one here on the team had
considered the possibility of transferring and initiating a bonding process
from one woman to another through female ejaculate. It doesn't help that most
of the science community, those that would even think of it, haven't exactly
spent time studying female ejaculate to begin with. So your situation wasn't
tested for, but as far as we can tell it still shouldn't have been able to
happen."

"So what does that mean,

doc?" I asked.

"It means that you, or

one of your current partners, or some combination, integrated with the vaccine
and imprinting process in an exceptional way. A variant response is how we're
categorizing it at the moment, and to be frank it's not even one of the most
surprising ones we've encountered as the testing continues to broaden. As best
we can tell from your interview, it's likely that Miss Peters was vaccinated
through the oral ingestion of the female ejaculate; all the markers of a normal
imprinting process occur when you began actual sex together.

"Now, the really

interesting part of this on my end is obviously the fact that this happened at
all, but following the results of the blood tests from the Testing facility up
where you are, and the preliminary tests we've completed on the samples that got
flown down to us here, we've found that it isn't likely to be a phenomenon that
is worth pursuing. Unfortunately, while Miss Peters is certainly going to be
imprinted on you to some degree, it also seems that the efficacy of the vaccine
in her system will be well under our current rates. Right now our projection is
that she will only have an efficacy rate of about thirty-five to forty per
cent, while a woman who has undergone our current best practices has an
efficacy of somewhere around the eightieth percentile."

I had to rub my forehead and

close my eyes for a long moment as I tried to parse everything he was saying.
"So what does that mean, Doctor Bill?" I asked.

"It means that Miss

Peters is now part of your 'Team,' he said. "That's what I've been calling
the groups of imprinted people colloquially around here, anyways. But where
your other two partners have a high likelihood of staving off the Duo Halo
virus, if Miss Peters is exposed she is about half as likely to resist initial
infection or gain serious aid in fighting off an infection she catches."

"So we've put her at

risk by having casual sex with her," I said. "Fuck me, this is
exactly the kind of shit that I was worried about when she asked to join in
with us."

"Yes and no," he

said. "To be frank, it's entirely possible that her integration with the
vaccine will grow and normalize over time with repeated exposure to you. The
staff up there will book some follow-up blood draws to check in on that. One of
the many things were are trying to understand about the vaccine is how sex
bolsters imprinted partners. Generally, we haven't seen that happen for women,
since they can't have more than one imprinted male partner, but the more
partners men are in contact with the more efficacy we're seeing."

"So you're saying she's

stuck with me," I said. "She asked for no-strings-attached, and she
got trapped into a sexual relationship."

"You could look at it

that way," he said. "But,”

"But," Doc Varma

said, coming into view on his end of the call and hovering over his shoulder.
"I would remind you, Mr. Black, that she did choose to initiate a
group sexual encounter with you and your partners. And once she is awake from
the imprinting process, I would not be surprised if she feels content with the
overall situation following any initial panic or shock."

I leaned back in my chair and

stared at the ceiling for a moment. "You know, when I first heard about
this from Erica, I told her it sounded like some sort of brainwashing mind
control shit? I couldn't believe she'd gotten the vaccine. But then everything
was going so well that I stopped thinking about it. And Ivy was happy, and
Erica's brother was partnered and they were both extremely happy. But this,” I
sighed heavily and looked at the two scientists on the screen. "This is
some fucked up, B-movie supervillain kind of shit. You guys realize that,
right? Like, where is James Bond in all of this?"

Bill frowned, but Doc Varma

smirked just a little. "Yes," she said. "We are aware of how
inappropriate many of the factors of the vaccine are, Mr. Black. It is a marvel
of modern medicine, but we are still grappling with the necessities that come
along with it."

Together they ran me through

what I needed to expect moving forward. Vanessa was going to be monitored until
she woke up, so I would be spending the night where I was at. She'd get a
complete physical, and they'd take more blood for testing before she'd be
released into my care and we were brought back home. Then, depending on what
she wanted, she would either be able to live with Erica, Ivy and I, or she
could maintain some distance for the time being and only come to see me for the
sexual encounters she would require. We would both receive follow-up check-ins
from someone on the Vaccine testing team to draw more blood periodically to
check if Vanessa's efficacy was changing, or if mine was.

To be continued, Based on

a post by Break The Bar for Literotica

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