Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 17

Fists Go Flying

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

Sliding out of my truck, I took a moment to try and just absorb the sounds and smells of the forest. Out here, without the cut crew for the utility road working, I was as far from any workers as I was likely to get on my old family land. I could almost pretend to feel normal. Shaking my head, I opened my eyes and went to the raider truck.

It was an old piece of shit, but it was a Toyota so it was the kind of old piece of shit that could run for ages and go through a ton of abuse. I'd seen plenty of worse-off-looking Toyota trucks being put to use overseas by civilians, terrorist cells and everyone in between. Hell, I'd seen plenty of them with heavy machine guns mounted to the bed to make 'technical' that could somehow still drive over rocky desert terrain. The license plate hadn't gotten anything for Miriam, so I needed to look for anything else that might be of use.

I started in the back bed of the truck; the raiders had grabbed a bunch of the cutting crew's tools, which I was able to quickly sort out and put over near the excavator for them to reclaim. The back of the truck was otherwise empty other than some old filth and dead leaves that tended to pile up in corners if someone wasn't diligent about being clean; one of the many little things about living in a heavily forested region, and entirely unremarkable.

Leaves and filth weren't going to tell me anything, so I went to check the cab. The back seat had a layer of garbage on the floor, stomped down by boots, and I quickly pulled it out hoping to find something interesting. Generic coffee cups, fast food wrappers from the most popular chains and the packaging from a brick of plastic water bottles didn't give me any smoking guns. And not a single receipt that might have told me where these guys frequented. Even a McDonald's receipt could have told me where they had been on a specific day at a specific time.

The front diver's side didn't give me much more of anything. The door had a couple of badly scratched-up CDs in the pocket. One was a bootleg mix of popular country rock songs, and another was the first Taylor Swift album. The center console revealed some more CDs in better condition, some pocket change, several empty packs of cigarettes and a couple of cheap BIC lighters. The passenger side had more trash on the floor, similar to the back, but this was where I found the receipts I'd been looking for. Not every receipt was the same, but I was able to quickly start putting together a mental image of their haunts; not that it actually told me much right away. A few of the oldest receipts were from before the previous owner was supposed to have died, but the more recent ones were scattered all over the region and crossing county lines. Mishawaka, Banks, Vemonia, even all the way up north to Clatskanie closer to the Washington state line. Whoever was using this truck had been travelling in the last couple of months and tracking those movements was going to take a whole fucking murder board of work and significant time. I bundled all the receipts that I could find and set them aside.

I struck pay dirt with the glovebox, pulling out a revolver in a leather holster. It was a basic Ruger of some sort, worn and old but it had all the serial numbers still on it. A quick check showed me it was loaded. It really wasn't that strange a thing to find for a backwoods truck; it wasn't about to stop a bear in its tracks, but it could be used in most wildlife-related situations to at least hurt and scare something off, and was a decent little self-defense piece. Sure, folks in Portland and some of the other cities would have scoffed or been shocked at the need for such a casual carry in the truck, or they would have before the pandemic, but in the backwoods you never knew when you might need to even just make a loud bang to spook an angry deer, a bobcat or a wolf.

With luck, and some work calling around, it might be possible to track who owned the firearm. It was old but not that old, and firearm sales still needed to be tracked at individual gun stores. I could start with the nearby vendors and circle out from there.

Well, if the owners of the stores were still alive and willing to go to the effort.

Under the revolver was the old, tattered owner's manual for the truck. No insurance documents that I could find, though I doubted the raiders were insurance kind of people on a regular day. A couple of empty and crumpled water bottles in the passenger side door rounded out my search.

I took a picture of the revolver with the serial numbers clearly visible and sent it to Miriam, then got back in my truck, rolled down the windows and turned it off again. I pulled out the little notebook I'd brought with me and made notes about my search, then flipped to a new page, opened up the maps app on my phone and started searching for firearms shops and dealers, scribbling down their locations and phone numbers.

I had some phone calls to make once the rest of the world was more likely to be awake, but I could get as much other work done as I could.

 

I got a few bites on the call-out to the work crews and spent a couple of hours jumping from crew to crew gathering descriptions of tattoos, facial hair, scars and particularly identifying items of clothing. Nothing stood out as someone I could recognize from around town, but I bundled it all up into a report and shot it off to the State Troopers and Miriam just in case they could run the descriptions through the criminal databases.

Not that I was going to hold my breath on that; the Staties were still stretched way thin, and Miriam couldn't detail too many people to help with this. She had an entire operation to run.

Where I could get some help was right there on the site though. When I checked in with Vanessa; who had punched me in the arm for sending her the photo of me and Sexy Susan the sex doll while she was just about to start work; she'd immediately been able to grab a few of her new, untrained laborers women to start making calls for me. I left them with the serial number, make and model for the revolver and the list of shops I'd started putting together. The first dozen or so shops they managed to reach had been dead ends, but about half the calls weren't even being picked up. I left them to it with a script that should at least get the owners to check their records unofficially.

Unless, of course, the owners were part of the same militia group the raiders were from. That possibility had darkened my mind, too.

Not having any good updates for Kara, I had texted her that I was still working on things to try and keep her spirits up, and got a brief update that they were locked up tight.

That drilled out the leads I had immediately from the raid. Other than running down the receipt locations and dates, at least, but that wasn't going to get me anywhere fast. There was one more outside thread that I could pull on first.

"You're going to be careful," Erica ordered me.

I was driving and had her on speaker, though it was only from my phone. "Of course I am," I said. "I've got my bulletproof vest on under my shirt, and I borrowed an unmarked truck from the pool on the site."

"Oh, great," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "The redneck assholes won't immediately know that you're a cop."

"That's Sheriff to you, missy," I said.

"And that's Wifey to you, Sheriff," she retorted.

"I'm going to be careful," I said.

"Good," Erica agreed. "And when you're done there, you're coming here. You need to make sure your immunity is up."

"I'll head home first to change and shower," I said. "If I do pick anything up there I don't want to bring it with me."

"Okay, babe," Erica sighed. "Call me when you're done though, yeah? I need to know you're safe."

"I will," I promised.

She made a kiss sound into the phone and then hung up.

I checked the map on my phone and sighed. Here was as good as anywhere. I pulled off the side of the highway and put the truck in park. If I was going to be careful, I needed to scout the location before I just drove up, and if I parked too close to the driveway someone might take notice.

I was in for a hike.

Soon the truck was locked and I was climbing up through the brush at the side of the road, my hunting rifle slung over my shoulder and a camo hunting jacket giving me a bit of cover as I started my trek. The early part of my hike was actually pretty peaceful as I didn't have much to worry about, but after a mile I started checking my GPS a bit more often and another mile in I slowed my pace as I started to really focus.

The soft crunch of my boots on the forest floor, and the sounds of nearby birds, were my only company until I hit the first tripwire.

It wasn't exactly a professional job, but the bent branch with the sharpened stakes would still have fucked me up.

"Someone's been reading some really stupid websites," I grunted to myself. I grabbed a stick and, standing away from the danger zone, I triggered the tripwire. The branch swung around and actually broke under its own weight.

From then on I slowed down even more. I spotted three more tripwires made with the same trick, plus some basic snares sized for small game and a couple of bigger ones that must have been intended for larger game like deer, or people. I bypassed the most obvious ones and tripped a few more of the basic ones while noting the surroundings so I could remember a safe way out before pressing on.

I almost fucked up when I spotted the trail cam. It was a basic one, camo patterned and tied to a tree. In the dark, I would have probably walked right by it without noticing. As it was, the cam had definitely got me on video. The good news was that, after I took it down and pried it open, I found it was only recording and not broadcasting. I took out the memory card and batteries, erased the internal memory, and put it right back where it had been.

The next camera wasn't so easy to deal with, but I spotted it early because I reached the tree line. It, and several more like it, was mounted to a pole and had wires running back towards the main building of the little compound ahead of me.

The Golden Beaver bar looked like it had been a decent-sized hunting cabin at some point back in the 1980s. It had one main building, two stories, and was made of thick logs. The windows were shuttered and someone had reinforced them with sheet metal on the first floor. There were also a couple of outbuildings around the back, one of them an old doublewide trailer and another a small barn. Tarps had been erected and tied down between the buildings now, and someone had started farming chickens in the space as the birds pecked away at the ground, protected by a couple layers of a chicken wire fence. The front of the building was packed with almost a dozen cars and trucks, and someone had erected what looked like an attempt at a log palisade gate at the throat of the driveway but had given up halfway through.

I quietly skulked around the edges of the property, staying back from the tree line to keep out of the view of the security cameras. I scoped out the buildings and parking lot with my rifle. The place wasn't exactly a hopping busy bar, but there were definitely people inside and at one point a guy with a beard reaching halfway down his gut stumbled out the front, strutted to the side of the porch and unzipped, taking a piss off the end.

I circled back around the property, scanning the other side. They didn't have any guards posted, including in the upper windows of the building, but I did spot a cache of big red fuel containers and propane tanks set back from the main house, so they weren't complete idiots.

Part of me regretted the time wasted even bothering with scouting; there wasn't any sign of the raw materials stolen from the site, and none of the trucks in the parking lot had been shot up so whoever Kyla and I had hit wasn't here. That being said, the truck could have been dumped and the perpetrators were here after all.

Hell, the guys from the shootout at Mary's could be here, even if the raiders weren't.

It wasn't a complete waste. I knew that even if they were halfhearted, the men who were congregating here were doing shady shit. The traps in the woods were an important clue as to which way they were leaning.

I backtracked back out the way I had come. Whoever came out to eventually check their traps would be suspicious about several of them being triggered, but that wasn't likely to happen until at least tomorrow and gave me time to follow through with the second half of my plan. The hike out, once I was away from the Golden Beaver 'danger zone,' was pleasant again and I popped out of the woods about a third of a mile from my truck and trudged my way back up to it. A year ago I would have been passed by cars and trucks on that little stretch of highway; now I didn't see a solitary car.

After a quick text to Erica to let her know I was checking in and safe, I stowed my jacket and rifle and got back in the truck. The drive up to the Golden Beaver was a lot faster than the hike.

At the mouth of the driveway up to the bar, I found that their little club had erected a second sign next to the one that was stenciled with the same symbol as from the matchbook Barry had given me before. The new sign was a laminated printout nailed onto a wooden backing, and I pulled over to read it before heading up.

"Jesus Christ," I grunted under my breath. It was a declaration of independence from the 'sham governance of thieves, conmen and cheaters.' There was a bunch of mumbo jumbo bullshit under it that I didn't bother reading because it was all the same drivel that the Sovereign Citizens always spouted off.

The driveway was a winding mess of gravel and dirt filled with potholes, and I could just guess at the reasoning the lazy assholes had for not fixing it. Up at the top, I got a fresh look at the unfinished palisade gate and drove right through and into the parking lot, pulling up at the end of the rough 'row' of vehicles and making sure to back in so that I could manage a quick getaway if needed. I parked, got out, and walked up to the main doors of the bar without a single person stopping me.

That's where I stopped, taking in a breath and swallowing. I could smell the cheap beer and sour sweat smell from outside. Or maybe that was the piss from the guy earlier along with whatever else was staining the old wooden porch. It wasn't what stopped me though. What stopped me, for a moment, was the risk I was taking.

I walked into the bar without a mask.

The interior of the main floor was mostly one large room, or had been converted into that at some point. There was a bar splitting off a third of the room with a small kitchen area behind it. The rest of the space was mostly seating, though there was a small stage along the back wall with a stripper pole mounted in the middle; unless the good ol' boys had been hiring proper strippers to come out here back before the pandemic I had a feeling I didn't want to know the women who made use of it.

The walls of the building were crowded with taxidermy trophies, old posters that would make a mechanic's break room blush, and various maps and printouts that seemed to be all about the sovereign citizen movement. A 'Don't Tread On Me' flag was slung over the bar right beside a Confederate flag. How either of those belonged in Oregon, I couldn't say. There were also boxes and palettes stacked with supplies jammed into the corners of the room, and under the rickety set of stairs that led up to the second floor. Most of it seemed to be food or beer, though I also noted a crate of what might have been looted valuables.

The bar also happened to be populated by about thirty men, women and several children, all of whom turned and looked at me as I walked in and the door swung shut behind me.

"Who are you?" one lady, a redhead who looked like she'd probably lost a fight with an oxy addiction, asked me.

"Is Barry here?" I asked the room.

A couple of guys stood up from a table near the middle of the room, the clatter of their chairs was only covered by the scratchy audio from the boom box behind the bar that was playing Born in the USA, which I found highly ironic.

The pair stalked towards me, both glowering heavily with a hand on the pistols holstered at their hips. The taller one was bald and had a longer, coppery-colored beard while the shorter one had a slicked-back head of hair and an old scar that split his lips. The scar and the beard didn't stand out from my notes from earlier.

"Barry ain't here," the bigger one said, his voice rumbling a bit in his chest. "What do you want him for?"

Fuck, I thought. "Oh," I said. "Well, he invited me to come out here. We went to high school together."

The short guy sneered a little but I couldn't tell what the big one was thinking; he had the sort of face that barely moved and showed very little beyond gradations of disgruntlement.

"Barry ain't been here for a week or so," the shorter guy said. It wasn't really fair to think of him as 'short' per se, considering he was about average height, but the big guy made him seem smaller than he really was. "You know anything about that?"

"Not a clue," I said. "He gave me the invite a month ago or so; he'd invited me before too, but I've been busy."

"He might be a Federal," the red-headed junkie spat.

I snorted derisively, but that didn't seem to impress anyone.

"We ain't used to folks just walking' on up here," the shorter man said. "And Barry knows he can't just hand out invites when the Government is making' people disappear and the social fabric of our community is falling' apart. You some kind of a pinko Commie? Or are you a fascist, tax-paying pig?"

There was so much to unlock from that, but I couldn't correct him.

"He's got a gun!" shouted a man down the room, pointing at me.

Immediately both men had their pistols out and pointed at me, and I raised my hands. "I thought this was the kind of crowd who believed in the right to bear arms," I said slowly, trying my best not to show my nerves. I could feel a drip of sweat slowly crawling down my spine.

"It is, for true sovereign citizens, fighting the oppressive, illegal DC dictatoriate," the shorter man grunted. "Now don't fuckin' move, ya' Commie Fascist."

I didn't move, and the big guy closed the distance with me and pulled my pistol from the holster I had strapped to my belt in the center of my back. "Sit," he ordered, gesturing for me to take a seat at the nearest table. It looked like the chairs had been liberated from someone's kitchen table.

Things were quickly sliding out of control; I'd been hoping Barry would be here to vouch for me like he had at the grocery store months ago, but now I needed to try and prove myself somehow to these assholes if I was going to get out of here.

"Look, fellas," I said, letting my wording slip a bit into the slightly slurred, lazy way the rednecks spoke. "I'll admit, I ain't exactly an old hand at the Sovereign movement, but I'm here 'cause I want to learn my real, God-given rights. I used to own some land over on the other end of Jewell, did what I thought was right and supported the government with my taxes and shit. But now, after all those years of shellin' out my hard-earned cash, they go and fuckin' steal my land right out from under me. My family has been livin' there for generations, and now they've gone and hoovered it up with their legalese crap."

There were some murmurs and mutters in the crowd as different people commiserated with my story. The shorter guy, who still had his pistol trained on my kneecap, eyed me carefully. "They hit you with that imminent domicile shit?"

"Yeah, that," I agreed readily even as I cringed internally at the butchering of 'eminent domain.' "They didn't even give me a choice. Just up and took it from me."

The taller man grunted and spit on the floor in disgust, and the shorter one sighed and then holstered his weapon. "Alright," he said. "That all might be true, and there's always space to learn the truth here at the Golden Beaver. But we ain't in the business of just inviting any old Joe up into our community. What's your name?"

There was a big part of me that wanted to lie my ass off and tell them something like 'Gary Blake,' but if I was going to use these assholes as a source or for clues I couldn't burn myself with them. Barry would eventually need to vouch for me all over again once he came back around here; unless he was dead, of course.

"Harrison Black," I admitted. There weren't any immediate flashes of recognition among the people I could see, but I did notice the shorter guy glance and nod over to someone else, who started typing on his phone.

"Well, Harrison Black, if that's your real name," the shorter guy said. "You're going to need to prove to us you aren't a commie, a fascist or a cop."

"Just tell me what to do," I said agreeably. "I need to figure this shit out."

The two men put their heads together and muttered back and forth before both nodding. The big one stood straight and looked down at me as I sat in the chair. Then he pulled a combat knife from the sheathe on his belt and stabbed it into the table. "Put your hand flat." I followed his direction, but tensed, ready to pull away. "Now take the knife."

I took the knife in my hand, and then he leaned in close and wrapped his bigger hand around mine, prying the knife from the table and lifting it up. He started moving it, digging the tip into the wood in between each of my fingers, one gap after the other, and then back again. It was the 'knife game' or whatever people called it. I could feel his breath on my face and had to stop myself from gagging; not because of the smell, which was bad because the guy clearly used dip, but just from knowing the asshole went around all day without a mask. He could have been breathing Duo Halo all over me.

"Keep going," he grunted, and let go of my hand. After a small falter, I kept going with the knife game at the same speed he had set.

The shorter guy pulled out the chair opposite from me and sat. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Harrison Black," I said, and quickly realized what they were doing. I had to concentrate on the knife or risk stabbing or nicking myself, which would make it harder for me to lie. Any hesitation would be suspect.

"How do you know Barry?"

"We went to high school together," I said.

Thunk-thunk-thunk, went the knife.

"When was the last time you saw Barry?"

"Last month, at the grocery store," I said.

There was a grumble from someone behind me.

Thunk-thunk-thunk.

"How long ago did the Government take your land?"

"They first showed up a few months ago, offering me money. I tried to say no," I said, watching the knife as I dug the tip into the tabletop over and over. "Now the house my grandfather and father built is gone."

More grumbles behind me. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk.

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm an artist," I said, and it was my immediate response. I wasn't technically being paid to be a Sheriff. "Before that, I was in the military."

That got more reactions.

"What branch?" the big guy asked from over my shoulder. I had a feeling he was holding his pistol pointed at my back.

"Army," I said. "Two tours as an infantryman."

"Where did you deploy?"

"Iraq," I said. "Spent some time in Afghanistan, too. Plus some stops in Europe."

"Did you kill anyone over there?"

"I did."

"Saw a lot of your friends get killed?"

I nodded, trying not to lose focus on the knife by thinking of the friends I'd lost.

"To stupid orders made by political assholes?"

"Obviously," I grunted.

"You ever take some revenge on one of them?"

That made me smirk a little, thinking of the standoff with the Air Force Colonel after I caught him assaulting Miriam.

"I'll take that as a yes," the shorter guy said. "You looking for some more revenge on the Pols?"

I grit my teeth and looked away from the knife and up into his eyes, my hand keeping the knife moving in its path. Thunk-thunk-thunk. "What do you think I'm doing here?"

"You can stop," the shorter redneck said.

I dug the tip of the knife into the wood beside my hand and pulled back from it.

"My name is Rodrik Nell," the shorter man said. "My friend with the beard is Big Paulson." Then he turned to the rest of the bar. "Someone get Harrison a drink!"

The music got turned up, and the chatter started as people stopped watching the spectacle, though there were a lot of glances my way. Big Paulson sat down heavily in another chair at the table, while Rodrik got up to go get us all a beer. I noticed that the guy who had been checking on his phone went and whispered with him at the bar briefly; I had to assume he'd been Googling me and he probably had some info. I was trusting that Miriam's communication teams had been keeping the site quiet on the internet so there was nothing easily accessible to tie me to it at the moment.

Rodrik came back over and handed me and Paulson our beers, and then sat down and started in on a diatribe that lasted a full half hour. He only stopped talking to take a swig of his beer or to suck in a breath. The man was all over the map; he hated liberals and what they'd done to the cities, but he also hated conservatives because the bad ones were fascist religious freaks and the 'better' ones were too weak-kneed to stand up for what they wanted. He hated immigrants for stealing jobs, natives for being lazy, and capitalism for turning people into wage laborers. He despised every level of government from federal down to local, and he respected the military but wanted to see it dismantled because it was unconstitutional and could be turned against the people.

He was a man caught in a web of his own distrust, with a ready finger to accuse anyone other than himself for the problems around him.

Paulson spoke little, and once Rodrik ran himself out of his monologue I endeavored to keep him speaking. I asked questions, leaning into the idea that my land had been taken by eminent domain. What could I do? What recourses did I have? Who should I blame?

Rodrik was happy to give his thoughts on the matter; completely unfounded as they were. I stayed away from asking about their group and looking like I was digging into their 'operation,' if it could be called that. I focused on his thoughts on my situation; I empowered him and made him feel important.

It wasn't my usual interrogation technique or one that I had used outside of theoretical classes from my MP days. I wasn't a spy, and I hadn't been an MP investigator long enough to have gone undercover. But I had the basics, and Rodrik and Big Paulson weren't sophisticated enough to really identify that I was easing them along the conversation.

"But what can I do?" I asked again.

"Well, short of tracking down and laying a beating on whichever politicians signed off on the land grab, you're stuck while the Federals have the whole country on lockdown," Rodrik said. "Not that the false courts would listen to you anyway. But unless you're willing to really stand up for what you believe, it's better to go off-grid as much as you can."

I leaned in, frowning. "What if I am willing to stand up?" I asked quietly. "I heard there was a thing that happened a couple of days ago over on that big construction site. That's why I came looking for Barry; I wanted to know if he knew anything about it 'cause that's the kind of thing on my mind."

Rodrik and Big Paulson glanced at each other briefly and then turned back to me. "It was yesterday," Rodrik said. "And we heard about it, too. Someone... organized, I guess you could say, took a shot at raiding that big construction site. Sounds like it worked, too."

"Do you think that's something... interesting?" I asked, trying to clearly hint that I wanted it to be while trying not to make it obvious. It was a weird verbal dance.

Another glance between the two. "Not for this group," Rodrik said. "We've got plenty of folks who would defend this place, but they aren't hungry enough for something like that yet."

"Not every Sovereign Citizen is the same though," Big Paulson said. "We've had visits. A couple of guys looking for help on certain things."

"Really?" I asked, leaning back and trying to smile in a way that said I wanted to talk to those people.

"We don't have any contact info for them," Rodrik said. "And they don't tell us when they're coming. But your background is definitely something they would be interested in. If you hang around more, come by every once in a while, I can hand off your information to them. You got a burner phone?"

I shook my head.

"We'll get you one and give them the number," Rodrik said. "Whether they call you, or take you in, is up to them though. If you're serious, wait to do anything. They hate it when someone does something that might disrupt their own plans."

"Who are these guys?" I asked. "They aren't neo-Nazis, are they?"

"No," Big Paulson shook his head firmly. "Just Americans. Real ones. A lot of them are ex-military, we guess, and pissed off. You'd fit in."

I grunted and nodded, then stood. "More beers?" I offered. They nodded, and I headed to the bar. When I got back my pistol was on the table, and I re-holstered it without a word. I wasn't one of them, I didn't have their full trust, but I had enough.

 

"I'll let the FBI know," Miriam said over the phone. I was driving back to the site, having left the Golden Beaver and the very talkative sovereign citizens in the late afternoon. After a quick text to Erica to assure her I was Okay, I had pulled over a couple of miles away from the bar and checked over the truck for GPS tags or recording devices. I'd been in the bar for a few hours, which would have given them plenty of time to plant something. Thankfully I hadn't found anything though, even crawling under the truck to check the undercarriage, so I felt safe heading home.

"Hopefully they'll have some sort of a lead," I said. "The best I could figure it, this group is like a feeder cell for the more militant one. Recruitment and basic necessities. They don't know much of anything about the militant cell, which makes me think it's gotta be some militia group."

"If I can get someone on the phone, they'll get me what they have," Miriam said. "The main problem is going to be getting them on the phone at all."

"Please tell me I don't need to go ransack their offices or something," I sighed.

She snorted. "No, it's not that bad. It just might be some phone tag before I can get someone who can actually release the information to me."

"The real problem is they might not even have anything useful," I said. "From the receipts I found, they are moving all over the region. The raid might have even been more than one cell in a network. Narrowing these guys down to a specific location is going to be a problem."

"Time for some out-of-the-box thinking," Miriam said. "Where are you headed now?"

"I need to decontaminate. I was just in a room with over thirty people who opposed the most basic of government safety guidelines. They probably ignore 'Careful, Hot' warnings just to be contrarian. Then I'll head over to Erica and the girls."

There was a beat of silence from the other end of the call. "Alright," Miriam said. "Just stay safe, and get healthy. I'm going to need you for more than your sneaking and stealthing, soldier."

"Got it," I said. "Everything Okay on your end, Miriam?"

"Just a lot of pressure coming down from the top," she said. "And not enough time or resources to handle everything at once. And, Harri, I haven't forgotten about your ask earlier. I haven't been able to shake loose any more vaccine yet, but I'm looking."

"Thank you," I sighed. "Keep me updated if anything does come out of it. I'll take 'fell off the back of a truck' if I need to."

"I will," she promised. "Stay safe."

"You too," I said, and we hung up.

Back on the construction site I stayed masked as I signed back in with the airmen at the gates, then drove the truck around the main office site and down to our RV compound. I sent Vanessa a message that I was done with the truck and it would need a thorough decontamination scrub down, then headed in and stripped off my clothes. I hesitated, considering throwing my clothes directly into the fire pit, but ended up bringing them into the RV and shoving them into the little washing machine that was built into the expensive vehicle. It was a good thing Grierson had sprung for some of the highest-end units on the market because if we'd needed to do our laundry at a laundromat one of us would have been down there every day.

After a quick but thorough and rough scrubbing in the shower, I got dressed, hopped into my own truck and headed out.

Pulling into the Valkyrie Falls driveway, I felt a sort of tension release from between my shoulders as the trees on either side of the driveway loomed over me. There really wasn't all that much of a difference between the driveway to the Golden Beaver and the one to the Falls, other than the lack of potholes here, but as I smelled the air through my open windows I found myself calming down and feeling more centered.

I pulled through the gate, hitting the remote to close it behind me, and as I reached the parking lot I had to grin. As soon as I could I hopped out of the truck and Ivy was leaping into my arms, kissing me as she wrapped her arms behind my neck and hugged herself to me.

"Mon amour," she laughed breathlessly, still planting little kisses across my cheeks.

"Ma Chére," I grinned back, holding her tightly.

"Fuck me," she demanded, pulling back a little so she could look into my eyes. "I spent a whole night without you, and now most of a day. I miss you. I miss your taste, and your smell, and your laugh. I need you."

"I need you too," I groaned. "Am I carrying you all the way to your room?"

She laughed and brought one of her hands back to show what she was holding. A small bottle of lube. "Outside," she said. "Up at the waterfall. Then Erica will meet you in our room later."

I kissed her again then pressed my lips to her neck, smelling her soft, clean skin. Soon she, and the others, would make me feel clean again, too.

The feeling of Ivy's naked skin under my hands, especially after the day I'd had, was like stepping into a calm pool. Every soft squeeze and caress made me wonder again at how perfect she was.

"Oh, mon amour," Ivy moaned as she leaned her back against my chest, sitting a little further down onto my cock. Her ass, with just a little lube, always astounded me at how quickly it could take me.

We were naked, up the trail from the Valkyrie Falls parking lot, and Ivy had practically scattered her outfit across the small clearing as she pulled her clothes off to get naked.

"I love you, ma chérie," I groaned, sliding my hands from her hips. The first I brought up her smooth stomach to her tits, palming one firmly and feeling the rubbery little nub of her nipple against my palms. The other I slid down across her shaven mound, pressing my fingers against it as I slowly inched them towards her cunt lips.

"I love you too, Harrison," she mumbled, throwing her head back with her eyes closed, resting it against my shoulder as she sat that last little way down to press her ass cheeks to my hips and lap. Her thick, dirty blonde hair smelled of the shampoo she shared with Erica, filling my senses with thoughts of them both.

We fucked slowly like that, me holding her and teasing her as I sat on my knees and heels and she bounced forward and back. When she'd met me in the parking lot I'd thought Ivy would want to fuck, but this was making love. Anal, but still making love. I didn't mind one bit that she was still holding onto her fear of getting pregnant; it had been drilled into her psyche for years due to her family situation; not by any forceful or abusive means, but just by what she'd experienced. A father who loved her and her half-sister, but had to rely on their grandmother for childcare.

I thought she would make an excellent mother herself, with how loving and emotionally attuned she was. Sure, she had a playful side that was a little immature at times, but she was still in her early twenties.

For the time being, however, I was more than happy for her to be my little anal queen.

As we sped up our fucking just a touch, her asshole slick from the lube and squeezing my cock tightly every time she pulled away, she grunted and paused, a small orgasm already rolling through her.

"Can you fuck me harder, mon amour?" she asked me, looking over her shoulder hopefully. "Your leg will be Okay?"

I slid my other hand up so I could grab both her tits, massaging them. "I can," I told her. "How do you want me to fuck this perfect little ass, baby?"

"Doggy," she grinned. She pulled off of me, her asshole winking for a moment as she went forward onto her knees, but she spun around and sucked my cock into her mouth in a slurping ass-to-mouth spectacle. It didn't surprise me anymore after the dozens of times she'd done it, but it still struck me as such a nasty but intimate act. She kept herself clean down there religiously since we generally did anal almost every day, but it was still... It was like her telling me she would do anything for me. And I knew she would.

"Fuck," I grunted, gathering her dark blonde curls up in both hands as I got up onto one knee and started thrusting into her mouth. She hummed a laugh around my cock, dropping her jaw a bit so I could start face-fucking her. "God damn, Ivy," I said. "You're so fucking pretty."

Her eyes were trained on me, and I could tell she liked the dirty-talk compliment. She pushed herself forward a little and on my next thrust between her lips she easily swallowed my cock into her throat.

"God, fuck;!" I moaned and pulled away, grabbing my slimy cock hard. "Baby, you almost got me there."

"Hmm hmm hmm," she laughed through her broad-lipped smile as she came up on her knees as well and shuffled closer. She kissed me lightly. "I missed you last night," she said.

"I know," I said. "I missed you too. But getting time with Vanessa alone was good, too. We need to do that soon for you."

"I would like that," she smiled, softly kissing her way around my cheeks. "I love Erica, and I like our bed, but once in a while being alone with you would be good too."

"Soon," I promised her.

"Bon," she said. "Now, fuck me like ta petite salope, mon amour."

I wasn't exactly sure of the translation, but I figured I got the gist of it as she turned on her knees and went to her hands, pointing her booty back at me. It took me only a moment to get back into position and start wedging my cockhead into her ass as we both groaned happily. This, I knew, was her favorite position. She liked being on top, but getting bent over and slammed from behind was peak pleasure for her.

"I fucking love you, I’ve," I groaned as I started to rock forward and back, getting her ass ready for a pounding. Looking down at her back I realized that within months of meeting her, I couldn't see myself without her. She was unique. She was my heart. Her pale skin, her body split in half by the thin navy line that separated her 'clean' half from her tattooed half. Her hair, sometimes shimmering blonde, sometimes golden brunette, and sometimes almost ginger, always with her thick, wavy curls.

I even loved her moans, and out here in the woods we both let loose as I sped up my thrusts and she tilted her hips and bounced them back to meet me. Our skin was smacking together, the clap a dull rhythm in the trees. We were surrounded by nature; greens and browns on most sides, warm and close. To our right was the grey-brown of the ravine wall glistening with the broken thunderstones embedded in it who knew how long ago, and the cool reflection of the waterfall.

Ivy moaned and growled loudly, letting herself go as she came again. I could feel my own coming soon, but I tried to hold it off by focusing on the tight pinch of pain in my leg from my gunshot wound. After the hike I'd made to scout the Golden Beaver bar and the sovereign citizens who called it home, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to put on this sort of a performance for all three of my girls at the Falls.

But I didn't have time to think of Erica or Kyla, because Ivy was moaning and mewling as she went from her hands to her elbows while I drilled her ass.

"Fuck, Ivy," I gasped. "God, you feel so fucking good. You're so fucking; uh, amazing!"

"I'm yours, Harrison. All yours. Take my ass. It's yours forever," she groaned. "Yes! Use my ass. I love you. Use my ass, mon amour."

"I'm close," I gasped.

"I want it," she begged. "I want it, I want it."

"Where?" I asked.

"On my face. In my mouth. I want to taste you."

I pulled out of her roughly, giving her ass a hard smack on the tattooed cheek with enough force to leave a red handprint, and she turned and sat on her knees, putting her beautiful face right under my cock and opening her mouth as she stroked it with both hands. Her wordless sounds of pleading, and the eagerness in her eyes, pushed me over the edge as I exhaled with a heavy grunt and came, one ropey glob after another spurting onto her face. Her aim was a little rough, only two of the five strands of cum landing on her tongue and the rest dripping across her cheeks and nose.

"Huh uh uh," she laughed as the taste of my cum made her body lurch and rock, rolling into a fresh, chemically-induced orgasm. As soon as it finished, she pulled my half-wilted cock to her mouth and sucked, getting trace spikes of pleasure with every new taste. Then, keeping one hand on me, she used the other to fish the cum on her face between her lips.

It was a vulgar, disgusting display of love, and I was 90% sure it was Ivy being her filthy, perverted self rather than it all being the vaccine.

When she was done, cleaned up as well as she could without a mirror, I scooped her up from the ground and carried her over towards the edge of the overlook. I swept some loose stones and pine needles out of the way with my booted foot; we were both still wearing our shoes; and then laid her down and spooned up behind her as we looked out at the little waterfall.

"Now, mon amour," Ivy said quietly. "Tell me what's wrong."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

She laid her head low and turned it so she could look back and up at me. "I could tell something was bothering you when you got out of your truck, Harrison. You were... how do you say it; Melancholic. Your smile when you saw me, I love, but before that something was wrong."

I sighed and leaned in to kiss her cheek softly. "You know me so well, mon cœur."

"That one is new," she said with a smile and snuggled back at me a bit firmer. "I like that one on your lips. My heart."

"Mon cœur," I said again with a soft smile.

"Now, tell me," she urged.

I told her. About the idiots at the bar, and the kids I'd seen there. I didn't care so much if the adults suffered from their own delusions and stupidity, but when it finally hit them the kids would be in danger. And I told her about how my investigation was stalled; the easy leads had already run out. If I was going to find any of the people who attacked the construction site, my land, our home, it was going to take a hell of a lot of luck, risking myself by going back to the Golden Beaver and sitting 'undercover,' or piecing together the fast food receipts and hoping to track down security cam footage to put together faces and start tracking names.

And then I told her about the Rez, and Kara, and the outbreak.

"You need to help her," Ivy said.

"I know," I said.

"No, Harrison," Ivy said pointedly. "You know, but you are hesitating."

"She won't let me save her if it means leaving her people behind," I said. "I can't make her take the vaccine and pick someone."

"She doesn't need to pick someone," Ivy said. "She would have you."

"She would pick a man from the tribe," I said. "Someone who needs to be saved."

Ivy just sighed and shook her head. "Then what are you going to do?"

"I don't know," I said. "I've been trying to think of something, but nothing... nothing I can do, no favor I can call in successfully, would stop their outbreak."

"Mon amour," she said softly, turning on our rocky bed so that she was facing me. She put her fingertips on my chin and jaw, wiggling them in my beard, making sure I was looking at her. "You are trying to save the day, when you can only save the hour. What can you do for her?"

I took a breath, thinking of what Kara had told me. She was holed up in her place with her second cousin and her neighbor. Half the places on the Rez were double-wide trailers, and the other half were small homes; I wasn't sure where she was living now, but either way, she was in tight quarters with three women. That meant three people living off of whatever supplies she had, and knowing Kara she would have been donating anything extra she had to the Rez relief funds. Especially after the fire took out their community center.

"Food," I said. "Water. Other supplies."

"You can bring those to her at least," Ivy nodded. "Then come back to me. To us. Just to be sure."

"Just to be sure, or because you want another round?" I asked with a little smile.

"Maybe both," she grinned impishly. I kissed her and she moaned softly and then patted my chest. "Kyla next," she said.

"What if I want you again?" I asked. "My little minx. My sexy Quebecoise queen. Mon cœur."

"I could never say no," Ivy sighed, smiling sadly. "But it wouldn't be fair. Go to Kyla."

"Okay," I whispered and kissed her again.

We almost didn't get up. Almost.

 

"It's dinner time," Kyla said, groaning as she stretched. Her bed was a little small for the two of us, just a twin since Valkyrie Falls wasn't exactly built with the expectation that people would be sharing rooms. I had no idea how Leo, Dani, Aria and India were making it work. Still, after our time in the RV, two people in a twin bed was comfortable and cuddling with my naked girlfriend was always welcome.

"Guess that means we should get dressed," I sighed.

She smiled and shifted so she was on her hands and knees overtop of me, looking down to kiss my lips lightly. "Well, I think I need to get dressed. I'm not sure how many people would complain if you came down naked."

I snorted and shook my head. "Well, Leo would for one."

Kyla smiled and gave me another peck on the lips. "That's fair."

We got dressed, me in the loose clothes that I'd arrived in and Kyla in a cute, comfortable outfit of loose sweatpants that hung low on her hips and a simple tank top with an unlined bralette that supported her tits but left them basically loose under the thin, stretchy fabric. Just hugging her from behind before we left the room made me smile as I squeezed her tits and could feel her nipples through the two layers.

"Pervert," she snorted and laughed.

I kissed her neck and she groaned, pushing her ass back at me. I felt like a horny teenager again, first with Ivy and now with Kyla, dreading the need to stop the intimacy.

We made it downstairs without too much more groping and kissing and found that the open cafeteria area with the big exposed kitchen and the bench seating was almost full. With the addition of Leo's family and my own, Valkyrie Falls was almost at its regular capacity even if we weren't taking up all the rooms.

Dinner was an interesting affair; many of the women were on specific diets and Sara, acting as the nutritionist, had weighed and plated their portions. Some meals were vegetarian, one was even vegan, and some had no qualms about what they ate. Our families were also spread out around the room, not congregating together, which was nice to see. Kyla grabbed a seat talking with Spencer and another woman, and when I passed by Ivy at a table with Aria and two of the athletes I felt myself flush and didn't look over because I could hear her discussing anal sex, which probably meant she'd either been teased or asked about our time up in the forest. Other than Ivy's conversation, however, I got the feeling that the general emotional climate was a little depressed compared to most of the times I had seen the ladies in a big group. Many of them were at least trying to put on a good face for the others, but reality was hitting everyone hard again; the last time that had happened it was after we'd had to tell them about how deadly things really were out there. Now, after the bad news from my trip down south for Melina, and the looter attack on the construction site, and probably me getting wounded again... I couldn't blame them for getting some emotional whiplash. They lived here at the Falls in relative safety, but their homes and families and communities (not to mention country and world) were in chaos. Anyone they couldn't get a hold of for a call or who didn't reply to a text was another person who was more likely dead than alive. We'd brought that reality to them again, and morale was suffering.

I ended up sitting down at the end of a table with Erica, Leo and Abi. Erica welcomed me with a sweet little peck on the lips, which brought a faux-disgusted gag from Leo, which just encouraged Erica to kiss me more fully as Abi smirked at their sibling antics.

"Ivy told me about the Rez," Erica said quietly once the kiss and teasing was over. "I'm sorry."

I sighed and nodded. "I'm going to try and at least do a supply run for her. I don't know what else I can do for them."

"That's more than you should do," Leo said but held up his hands when I looked at him with a furiously confused expression. "Not like that," he clarified. "I mean you shouldn't be driving into an outbreak area at all. Wasn't the outbreak on the site enough to see how dangerous that is? And just because you have the vaccine doesn't mean you're immune."

That... was something I hadn't considered. In my head, I'd been thinking of being vaccinated as being safe, but that wasn't what that meant. Probably. I needed to call Miriam for more info on that.

"Abi, that face right there is my man realizing he's going to do something heroic even if it's more dangerous than he thinks it is," Erica sighed, gesturing to my expression.

Abi smiled a little and shook her head. "Harrison, if you were not a Sheriff, I would say you should leave such things to the police."

I hadn't had a chance to talk with Abi really about what she thought about everything we'd revealed to the Valkyrie Falls women last night about the vaccine and our relationships. My girls liked to tease me that she was interested in me, based solely on the fact that she showered with us after our workouts, but I still thought it was just her being more European, or Nordic, in her temperament about nudity.

"I would have been helping even if I wasn't a Sheriff," I said.

"Hell, he was helping people before becoming a Sheriff," Erica pointed out, then turned to look at me full-on. "Just be careful. And, actually, if you're doing a supply run, we're going to need more frequent runs for here, too. We just added seven more mouths to feed that we didn't account for on the last run, plus you when you eat here."

"Okay," I nodded. "I'll do that first thing tomorrow once the grocery store is open. Just get me a list together."

"I'll go with,”

"No," I interrupted my fiancée. "I'll do it alone. We don't know who might be around, or if I might run into the sovereign citizens. For now, I should be the one to do it."

There was a bit of argument back and forth, with Erica pointing out that if I was taking time to do supply runs I wasn't working on the investigation and getting them home faster, but in the end Erica reluctantly agreed when Leo pointed out that her being with me if something did happen would put me in more danger. After that she let it drop and we were able to move on to small talk. Slowly, as dinner finished up and the ladies filtered into the kitchen to help with cleanup or out to other parts of the compound, our little group became the last one sitting down.

"Ready?" Erica asked me, her hand having slipped under the table a while ago and rubbing my leg.

"One more thing," I said, knowing what she wanted to get to. "I'm worried about morale here, honestly. Things feel different."

Abi frowned and nodded. "It's been a lot, lately. Many of the ladies are worried and starting to become stressed about..." She paused for a moment to take a breath, then gestured generally. "Everything."

"The last thing I wanted was to make this place feel unsafe," I sighed.

"It's not that," Erica said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

"Erica is right," Abi said. "We are happy to host you, after how you've been helping us. And your family is doing more to raise spirits than hurt them. Your little wiener dog could do that all by himself."

I smirked a little and shook my head. Macho was living up to his name. From what little Ivy and Kyla had told me, practically every woman in the compound was stealing him away to play or snuggle for a bit. If we weren't careful he'd go from being a little hotdog to a bulging bratwurst, he'd get so fat from the snacks he was getting.

"Well, I was thinking maybe we could do a little more," I said. "To make you all feel more safe, and to raise spirits in general. If you're open to it, Kyla has most of our firearms stashed safely in Erica's car and in her room. She could run some basic firearms safety courses for anyone interested, and some people find shooting a little therapeutic or stress-relieving. And I bet between Dani, Ivy and Kyla you could have a pretty good beginner dance class for some more active fun. And I could grab supplies for an art class if you're willing to do some teaching, babe."

"That's a great idea," Erica said, turning to Abi. "What do you think?"

Abi nodded. "We can use the cafeteria here for the art class, and we have all the space for a dance class. I will need to talk with Sara about firearms... We weren't sure about you bringing them here to begin with."

"Whatever you're comfortable with," I said. Then I turned to Leo. "Sorry I can't bring out a full woodshop for you, buddy."

He snorted and chuckled. "I wouldn't mind teaching, but I think we only need so many birdhouses."

That made me laugh, as it had been a long-running joke that he'd started his custom woodworking career making intricate birdhouses but had moved on to furniture because the market for birdhouses wasn't actually very large. The market, he'd said, belonged to middle school shop classes and summer camps.

More ideas got thrown around; India could do a passable Yoga class, Leo could organize a Euchre tournament (after teaching the game to anyone who didn't know it.) I could have done an art class as well, but I wasn't going to be around enough.

"You could always teach sex ed," Erica said with a laugh. "I'm sure your signup list would be full almost immediately."

"And on that note, I think we're done for now," I said, standing up from the table. "Abi, I'm sorry for her. Leo, she's your sister, so it's partially your fault for her having the mind of a 14-year-old boy. Come on, babe."

Erica whooped as I hefted her up bodily from the bench we'd been sitting on and tossed her over my shoulder. Erica was a full-bodied woman and nowhere near as dainty as Ivy or even Kyla, but even with my leg twinging, once I had her up on my shoulder I could carry her pretty well. She was wearing a tight pair of jeans and had been walking around barefoot inside so, as she laughed and shouted to 'put me down, you barbarian!' she kicked her feet playfully even while hanging on to me. We passed several of the ladies, including Melina, on our way to the stairs and got some looks and smiles. I thought, for a moment, I saw a sadness in Melina's eyes as we passed even though she was laughing lightly.

At the stairs I set Erica down, not wanting to risk my leg carrying her up just for both of us to fall all the way back down and break our necks or backs. Once I got her on her feet, though, I gave her a solid crack of my hand on her ass through her tight jeans. "Go on," I said. "Get."

In any other context, Erica would have probably bit someone's head off for slapping her ass that way. But between her being horny, our playfulness, and the fact that we were so fucking down the rabbit hole of being in love, she just darted up the stairs giggling as I chased after her. Up on the second floor in the dormitory corridor she let me chase her all the way to the room she shared with Ivy before I caught her and pinned her to the wall, kissing her firmly as we kept laughing into each other's lips. Thankfully no one was in the hall or I would have felt too embarrassed to do that in front of them. Instead, it took us a couple of minutes to even twist the door handle and work our way halfway into the room.

"Wait," Erica said, a teasing smile on her lips as she pulled away from me. I was holding her ass with both hands and she'd been pressing her chest against me; she was wearing one of my T-shirts and I'd realized quickly that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath.

"What is it?" I asked.

She smirked. "Let me go get Josie. I bet she'd,”

"No," I said, pulling Erica into the room and kicking the door shut.

"Why not?" Erica asked.

"Because," I said, scooping her up in my arms again but this time in a princess carry that only travelled the few steps to the bed, which I tossed her onto heavily. "Josie is sexy as hell and fun, but I want time with my wife. Not a threesome."

"I'm not your wife yet," Erica smirked even as she started to undo her jeans and wiggle out of them.

"I'd have married you the day after you asked me if my sister could get up here," I growled, peeling off my shirt and shucking my shorts.

"I know, babe," Erica said, and I grabbed the jeans and helped pull them off her lower legs and feet. She switched to taking off her shirt, revealing her glorious tits to me. I got the jeans off and growled as I fell on her, getting my mouth on those tits as I ran my hands from her bare waist and up to her tattooed arms, which I pushed above her head. "I would have, too."

I loved on her tits for a bit, then kissed up to her lips as we made out like teenagers, rolling around on the bed. She ended up on top, both of us just wearing our underwear, and she took a turn and pinned my arms above my head as she looked down at me with a smile and her tits hung brushing against my chest.

"Why shouldn't I get Josie to warm you up?" she asked. "She wants you, and she's been asking all three of us little questions about the vaccine and how it works. She could blow you for a bit, then watch us fuck."

"Why are you wearing your full makeup?" I countered. "And walking around in one of my shirts?" Her brow furrowed as she opened her mouth, but wasn't sure what to say. "You're staking your claim, babe," I said. "You're letting them know that, even if they've been allowed to look, even if they're ripped and athletic, you're the queen of my castle. You wear my clothes, and you do yourself up for me in a way they don't, or can't. God, I love you, Erica. And for all that I love the others, you were first. You'll always be that. And sometimes, even if we have fifty women, or a hundred, in this thing that's going on I'm still going to want just you sometimes."

She kissed me, soft and deep. Her lips, painted that deep red, were soft like rose petals and she smelled a little like vanilla as her hair fell around us. Her tongue teased against my lips, asking to be let in, and I let it. We weren't making out like teenagers now, we were kissing like lovers.

"I love you," she said as our lips parted and she sighed, lying flat against me.

"I love you too," I said, hugging her to me.

"Alone time," she agreed softly. "Make love to me. Then fuck me. Fuck me like I'm your whore-queen. You know what I mean."

"I do," I said with a grin, kissing her cheek as my hands travelled down from her bare back to her panties-clad ass, sliding underneath to grab her bum and then lower to tease her cunt. "Jesus, you're wet."

"I get that way every time I see you, Harrison," she said. "Always have, for years. It's not the vaccine, it's you."

We kissed again, and I started easing a couple of fingers inside of her as she wiggled and moaned. It was going to be a good one.

 

The alarm going off reminded me, once again, that I loved Vanessa but I really hated her work hours. I got up with her, made her a quick breakfast, kissed her goodbye and collapsed back into bed. The evening before, after I returned back to the Compound with a ready-to-heat meal sent on from the women of Valkyrie Falls for her, I'd had barely an hour to myself before she came home at 9 PM on the dot just like she'd promised. I heated her food, massaged her feet as she ate, and she'd let me know that her Phone Bank ladies hadn't turned up any immediate leads from their calls to the gun shops hunting that revolver serial number. It was just as likely that the old piece had belonged to the dead man who owned the car rather than the dead men who had been driving it, so I wasn't hanging on the hope that something turned up there, but it was still another frustration.

Then Vanessa asked me to tell her about my day, and I did. By the time I was finished, talking in graphic detail about my sex with Ivy out in the forest and Erica in her room at Vanessa's request (but not talking about Kyla, since she was more private), Vanessa got on her hands and knees and sucked my cock, then she fulfilled the other part of her promise of 'at least twice every night.'

I woke up a second time, alone now, with sunlight blazing through the cracks in the shades of the RV back window, and got myself moving. It took me a minute, when I checked my phone, to realize that the girls were teasing me again. This time, instead of naked photos of them in bed, they were sending me thirst trap videos. But it wasn't videos of them, it was videos of the women at the Falls. Some of them were obviously planned and staged; Josie skipping rope as the video circled her, then suddenly doing the same thing topless as the camera rotated around her back; and Melina doing squats with perfect form, her amazing ass and tits both tightly encased in workout gear that would probably be illegal in several states for indecent exposure. Or causing heart attacks. Then there was one of Abi in the middle of what looked like a yoga class, smiling and a little goofy, but it was cut with clips of her lifting impressive amounts of weight and doing other super-active CrossFit exercises with grim determination on her face with a hard, pumping music beat overtop. I doubted she knew they'd done that, and I would also bet that they'd been a little scared to ask her permission.

Those I could handle, along with a couple more of women I'd been friendly with at the gym. The one of Spencer, though, made me feel weird. On the one hand, she was extremely attractive in a wholesome, lovable way. On the other, she was barely in her twenties and had shared such an intimate story with me that it felt wrong to even think of her like the way their thirst trap video made me think. She, like Abi, didn't seem to realize she was being filmed during her workout and she did the move that made me think 'classic Spencer,' finishing a set and pulling off her bulky sweater to reveal her fit torso and big tits encased in an athletic bra. But then she seemed to notice whoever was filming her and she blushed and smiled, and then winked, at the camera.

I called Miriam.

"Later start this morning," she noted by way of a greeting.

"Yeah, well, I'm running out of the fast leads quickly and soon I'll be into the weeds for real," I said. "Any luck on the FBI front?"

"Nothing so far. And, Harri, I haven't been able to squeeze anything out yet on the vaccine front either. I'm sorry."

I sighed and nodded, even if she couldn't see me. "Okay, thanks for keeping me updated. I'm going to take some time today to do a supply run; the ladies up at the Athletic compound need more stuff since I added seven more people to their numbers, and I'm going to grab stuff for my friends on the Rez at the same time before I dig into the receipts. But those plans brought up some questions that I think only you can answer."

"I'll tell you what I can," she said. "But; and this is awkward to ask; did you re-up your vaccination with the ladies since yesterday like you planned? If you go out and you're infected from the dumbass sovereigns, you could be spreading it."

"That's one of my questions," I said. "When we're talking about me being vaccinated, or safe, what does that actually mean? Like, how safe are we talking? If I have four partners, am I good to go?"

Now it was Miriam's turn to sigh. "Technically you only have three and a half partners," she said. "Vanessa's numbers haven't changed. I've been keeping a tag on her studies; it looks like she's still only getting mid-thirties coverage. It's enough that they don't want to try re-vaccinating her unless there's an emergency, but she's not in a great spot and isn't providing you with the coverage the others are. And, to answer your question, the most recent math I'm seeing is that one partner still only nets a man 70% efficacy, the same as a month ago. Each additional partner only adds a fraction of that though. The current model says the best coverage will come from seven partners, so until you hit that point you're taking real risks. With three and a half you're still in the 85th percentile of efficacy, I think the number was, but..."

"Seven?" I asked, a little dumbfounded. "I thought we were done adding..."

"Getting tired of all that cunt, Black?" Miriam asked. I could hear the smirk on her lips.

"It's just a lot," I said. "What about all the construction workers?"

"They'll get there eventually too," she said. "Our rollout still isn't starting though, or else I could do something about the Rez. Harri, the death tolls...fuck, never mind, I can't tell you that. Especially not over the phone, and probably not in general."

"Okay, don't," I said, though I had a pit of dread in my stomach from that small hint. Grierson and his OGA team had hinted at apocalyptic being the level they were responding to, and I couldn't spend time brewing on that.

"What was your other question?"

"I've been having these... God, this sounds a little fucked up. Every once in a while, I've been having these weird possessive urges," I said.

"Over Erica and the girls?"

"No," I said. "More like... I feel like I'm a horny nineteen-year-old with the world as my oyster sexually, and I get these flashes of wanting to fuck people around me. Not like, violent urges or anything, but weird feelings. Like I'm jacked up on testosterone or something."

Miriam was quiet for a long moment, and then I could hear the telltale sound of keyboard keys from her end of the call. "Alright," She said. "I'm not seeing any reports about that in the studies I have access to. I'll put in a call, see if I can get one of the head brainiacs on the phone and run it by them. Are you Okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "And it's not an urge that I start to act on or anything. It's just a sort of animal feeling that I've been equating to my lizard brain."

"Well, we've seen a general uptick in libido for men as well as women from the vaccine," Miriam said. "You might just be having a bigger reaction to that than normal. Are you, um, getting enough? Sex?"

"I would have thought so," I said. "I mean, to be frank, Miriam, it's more than I could have accomplished in a day when I was a horny nineteen-year-old fucker."

She snorted softly. "Well, keep it in your pants unless it's one of your partners. We still don't know what set of circumstances specifically caused Vanessa's situation and whether something about you was the catalyst or not."

I gulped a little, thinking of the blowjob from Josie. I hadn't come in her mouth, and my cum had hit her ass and back and washed off in the showers. I'd need to be extra careful with Erica's machinations.

To be continued, Based on a post by Break The Bar for Literotica