Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 5

Lab work.

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

 

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