Quaranteam: Remote Work Ch. 20

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

In addition, I want to issue a huge congratulations to robbygelwood, a regular reader of mine. He set off to quit smoking, and I made a bet with him that if he could go 90 days he could call one shot for my story. A death that happens this chapter was his choice. I’m not nearly invested enough in the particular sport to have made the choice myself.

The RPG appearing onscreen is Final Fantasy 4.

Finally, the last segment of the chapter comes in reaction to things shown in CorruptingPower’s Quaranteam, book 1, chapter 50. If you want the original that I didn’t want to just copy-paste, that is where to find it.

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Chapter 20: Rhetoric

9 November 2020

“Welcome, everyone! I am Mr. Jeffries, and this is the first class of this Social Studies course. Thank you all for turning on your cameras during direct instruction time, being able to see you helps me teach better. As you will soon learn, I like to call it Civics. The lessons I teach will focus on the history of the world and our nation in particular, and what this means for our systems of government and participation in society. Especially our duties to them, since they can’t function without our participation.”

Adam Jeffries, known as AJ to his friends and Mr. Jeffries to the eight students in front of him, was back in his element. There weren’t that many in the class compared to before the epidemics, and this particular group was mostly late teens looking to get refreshers, prepare for college, or finish out high school credits. And one woman his age who looked like she was here for fun. His other class, earlier that morning, consisted of kids around ten years old actually learning these things for the first time. He found that he was ready and eager to tackle both challenges. Even the frustrating difficulty of ensuring he had not one but TWO full and wildly different curricula prepared in two weeks was only encouragement to him.

Honestly, the hardest part had been trying to hold back tears when he saw the children’s faces in the first class.

“Alright, since administrative details have been finished, please go to the assessments folder and take the Pre-Assessment. This will be 30 questions and cover a lot of what we’re going to cover during this course. It will not count towards any grades or scores, but it’ll let me know what topics need extra time spent and with whom, so please take it seriously. I will be back in thirty minutes, when you’re done with your pre-assessment, the rest of that time is for your first break.”

He caught it when the older woman cracked a split-second smile before he replaced his own camera with a timer and muted his mic. The Serum program might still officially be a secret, but something told him she knew that he wasn’t going to be grading papers in the interval. Most likely, she was on a Team somewhere in the time zone and had direct experience with the kind of urgency that those kinds of statements could mask.

In this case, “urgency” would be a bit of an underestimation. Kaipo had been mostly sticking to sexual relations with Allison for the last two weeks, only coming to him (all puns intended) a couple of times. It had been a few days, and she was finding out the hard way that this was a necessity of their new life. No matter how talented Allison’s tongue was (very) or how deeply satisfying those orgasms were (also very), Adam would always have to do his part or she would become uncontrollably horny eventually. Now that she had crossed six feet tall and with more than a pound and a half of muscle building every day, that was not safe for anyone involved. Thus, “urgency.”

As in, she said if he didn’t do her during a break today, she’d drag him off in the middle of class.

She was waiting for him in the room she shared with Allison. Her roommate was absent, whether helping one of the others or out getting groceries was irrelevant, because Kaipo was wearing nothing but a feral smile and acres of hard muscle under her deeply tanned skin. Ever since she had gotten this much mass on her, besides being loud she also enjoyed it when her lovemaking was a bit of a fight. Screwing her was half enjoying the feel, half wrestling match with the goal of making sure she was muffled by the time she came. She never put up TOO much of a fight, but she always made him work hard for it.

And for reference, it was a good thing his mic was muted. He lost this time. Well, “lost.”

Thankfully, 30 minutes meant there was enough time for this, then catching his breath, then getting himself straightened back out before getting back on camera. This may have been a factor in his planning. When he greeted the class after pulling up the results, he spotted that the same woman who had grinned earlier was looking slightly flushed. It seemed that there was a good reason she’d had a knowing look on her face. None of this interfered with anything, thankfully. “Welcome back, everyone. There are definitely a few weaknesses that I will need to cover in a bit more depth, but don’t worry too much. Most of my classes, for example, have trouble with constitutional amendments other than the first, second, and fifth. That result was not a shock. We will begin with the materials contained in Chapter 1….”

The class lasted for another hour, during the course of which two more students showed up. It was a thing that his program manager had warned him about. She’d emphasized that though he was giving grades and tracking progress, they were not yet an accredited institution and had no way to know when or if they ever would be. People came to learn, and would pop in and out as they either found a broadcast was on or as time allowed. He was less of a traditional professor and much more of a cyclical tutor.

He, for his part, did not mind in the slightest. It meant that the people who would be there were the ones who wanted to be, which made his job WAY easier.

He stood and stretched, back popping as he re-straightened his spine. It had been a while since he did tutoring of this length, and he’d lost some of his reflexive posture self-correction while hunching over the keyboard. It only took him a few moments, though. He’d seen enough of Shannon’s routines and practiced enough of his own that it was smooth. Meditative, almost, but it was time to check on the others. Simple enough, as it turned out, three were on the couch in the living room. Shannon and Allison were sitting to either side of Kaipo, and on the screen was a video game of some kind. The sixteen-bit graphics showed a couple of warriors in dark armor on the right, facing what looked like a dragon made of fog on the left.

Shannon nodded at the screen. “Wouldn’t have taken you for a JRPG player, but you’re going quick on this one.”

“You can actually blame this game specifically.” Kaipo had a controller in her hand but wasn’t even looking at it as she issued commands to the characters onscreen. “We’ll be coming to a town in less than ten minutes, and it is named the same as me. Knowing my parents, I’m not sure if that was intentional or not, but as soon as I found out it existed, I was a fan for life. Good bang for the buck, too, when you can only get one or two games in a year it’s good to grab ones that’ll occupy you for a while.”

One of the dark-armored characters descended on the dragon after jumping off the screen, and with some fanfare the fight was over. Allison nodded. “Looks fun, too, though I might just watch you. Better show than watching wrestling reruns, since they haven’t been able to run events since the lockdowns started.”

Adam chuckled. “Big day for surprises, then. I didn’t take you for a wrestling fan.”

All three girls jumped a bit and turned to face him. Allison began laughing. “You and that ghost step of yours. But yes, wrestling. It’s like a soap opera, but with a bunch of sweaty, muscly guys I can watch with it.” She got a crooked look. “Speaking of ghosts. Pity that John Cena passed away not long after his last match in March. Got really sick, put out one last statement begging the fans to be good people, and that was that.”

Adam thought for a moment or two. “Oh, yeah, I think I remember that. It was right when everything went remote, wasn’t it? It was all over the news. If I remember correctly, he held on to life by sheer willpower for a day or two longer than the doctors said he was going to after that turn for the worse. Spent the entire time telling everyone who would listen that the real path to strength is in the community, real men hold each other up, all of that. Darned near died on camera. Last moments really show you who someone is.”

Shannon got a thoughtful look of her own. “That makes sense. His fans have been using ghost emoji to spam negative posts to tell them to knock it off ever since. I couldn’t tell a self-deprecating joke on stream for two months without chat looking like a graveyard on Halloween. Not like that other wrestling guy who died a couple months ago.”

Allison snorted in an undignified manner  “‘Other wrestling guy’? I guess you could call Vince McMahon that. He died, what, end of June? Right after a White House visit.”

Kaipo finally made it to the town that gave her the obsession so long ago, some kind of event happening onscreen let her look away and at the rest of them. “Isn’t that about when President Trump died? You think that has something to do with it?” She turned back to the game and got to slaying a set of four guards who apparently didn’t like her characters.

Allison shrugged. “Assuming it was DuoHalo? Definitely correlated, as the professor over there would say. Either one gave it to the other, or else someone else brought it to the party and shared the gift.” She yawned. “I heard you had some fun earlier. With Kaipo.”

Kaipo chuckled. “I wasn’t exactly trying to hide it.”

“Yeah, but it happened while I was trying to talk to Callie about stuff for her case.”

Adam suddenly got interested. “Oh? How’s that going?”

Allison giggled. "Oh, you know. She is graciously agreeing to a reduced rate for her legal consultations, given that the subject has either died or attached herself to another team by this time. A full review of documentation combined with a lack of sudden competitor moves indicates that no privileged information was compromised by their would-be employee before she refused employment.”

Adam chuckled as well. “That’s her, alright. Anyway, good to know that has gone well. Darned shame about their employee, though, maybe Superior Economics can try Expanding into better incentives, work environment, and retention programs.”

Allison chuckled, then looked over at the others on the couch. “I know Kaipo’s good, but do you need him to save up, Shannon?”

The dark-skinned woman shook her head. “I’m good.”

“Good.” Allison stood and turned to face him. She definitely preferred to wear lighter clothes around the house, confident in her own skin and with good reason. The last few weeks since her arrival had been very, very good to her. She’d gained about an inch. To what? Quite a few things. Her height for one, as her posture straightened and her spine got lengthened a bit. Her bust, increasing in weight and perk. Her hips widened. Her abs and arms and legs firmed up with just a hint of extra muscle. Her skin had cleared up and so had her lungs. She had been sexy before, while she had been finding success as an escort. She was scorching hot now, fit for the pages of a magazine you had to hide from your parents. “Adam, I know this isn’t how we normally do things, but I want you to take me back to your room and make me scream just as loud. Sound good?”

“I think I can manage that.”

***

17 November 2020

There was noise outside the window. That was unusual. The road hadn’t exactly been silent, but it hadn’t exactly been busy either. Not since the day, so long before, that the National Guard had come rolling through to gather up the dead. Adam looked out of the living room window and found something surprising. A moving truck. Not just a moving truck, but one that was in the small parking lot of their building. The diesel rumble that was still audible suggested that they had only just arrived. It was nine in the morning on that fine Monday, so that made some sense, but still. It was people.

He felt a warm and loving presence. One accompanied by a significant amount of boob squish as Shannon pressed up against him, also looking out the same window. “It feels hard to believe, AJ. Feels like yesterday we were standing right here, talking about the Humvees and wondering what life was going to have in store.”

“I can safely say that none of this was what we expected, Shannon, but I’m glad we’re in it together. Who do you think is moving in?”

She shrugged. “I mean, there’s no real way to tell, is there? Just that they’re from around here.”

Callie looked over at them from the couch, still wearing a hoodie from her U of W days now that she was able to feel cold again. “We can tell a few things. Given where we’re sitting, they have to be in Oracle, which means vaccinated, which means someone there is important enough to get in on it.”

“Thanks for saying I’m important!” Adam had a bit of a chuckle as he watched people scurry around the truck. About half of them were obviously the moving crew, but the rest? A man, four women, and several children trying their best to help while staying out of the way of those they couldn’t actually assist.

Shannon put her arms around him. “You are important, love. You survived, and because of that the five of us can survive right along with you. If the scientists and doctors are right, the data you’re giving them could end up helping thousands more people. Then there’s also the classes you’re teaching, the students who you’re helping get back to something as close to normal as you can, the lessons in how to rebuild our literal society. If that’s not important, I don’t know what is.”

Esther, walking to the kitchen to grab a quick snack, looked appreciatively over her shoulder. “Nice speech, Shannon. Did you practice it, or was that on the spot?”

“A bit of both, thanks.” Shannon stuck her tongue out at the doctor. Both laughed at that, as did Callie on the couch.

Adam found that he couldn’t hold back a smile. Rehearsed or not, the speech worked. “Okay, okay, you got me. Can’t argue with that.”

Callie looked at her watch. “And speaking of, doesn’t your morning class start in ten minutes? The kids?”

“Shoot! You’re right!” Adam took off to grab a bag of beef jerky and a bottle of water for breaks and got into the bedroom to log in.

Back out in the living room, the three ladies all sat down at the breakfast table. Shannon addressed Callie directly. “Okay, I know we’re all trying to gas up AJ, but seriously. Do we know anything real about what’s going on around here?”

Callie shrugged. “Traffic is picking back up, and the Washington State government is trying to launch initiatives to get safe businesses off the ground. There’s been a lot of pushback on the restrictions on church services, so loosening those slowly makes some sense. Yelm… didn’t exactly listen all that well when the restrictions were issued the first time, so a lot of the folks moving around are the ones who just inherited homes or businesses. They have programs to capitalize on, so they’re going for it.”

It was Esther’s turn to stand up and go look out the window, at the cloudy day and the street that wasn’t as lifeless as the month before. “Do you think this place is going to develop that quickly?”

Callie shook her head. “I’d normally tell you it’s hard to say, but I really doubt it. Seattle, Olympia, and Lacey all seem to be pulling through, and those three attracting most businesses has always been what slowed this area down. Still, no way to know. There’s a lot of land here, especially compared to the richer areas, and if Teams like ours become more widespread? That land is going to be really important for housing. For all I know, there’s a gentrification wave coming.”

Shannon barked out a laugh. “From what I know of the locals? They won’t accept that. You didn’t get to meet Gus, but he was literally pounding on the door to get at Adam as he was coughing himself to death from DuoHalo. And that was only a few days after AJ had to pretend he had a shotgun to make him leave.”

Esther looked back from the window. “Adam? Did that? It does not sound like him at all.”

“Oh, he did. That was right after I got here, he was just out of the hospital. That was about when the town was this busy, too.”

Esther looked back outside, at the trucks on the road and the people in the distance. “I am not precisely an epidemiologist. However, it also makes sense. Population centers got hit hard early, but they reacted strongly. Over time, the death tolls in places like this caught up. I suspect we will see people spreading out whether the locals like it or not.” She nodded at another moving truck rolling by. “I suspect it is already happening.”

The entirety of this conversation was lost to Adam, absorbed as he was in his class. His students were chugging along the Amendments to the US Constitution at a solid pace, and this bunch was too young to get into the hairier side of the Bill of Rights. It was more of a challenge translating the language the Founding Fathers saw fit to use for them into a form that the students would be able to discuss more easily… and rapidly looking up slang on his other screen. He certainly wouldn’t have accepted a description of the seventh amendment as “protection from being yeeted, no cap, no reason” from his high schoolers, but it worked. Ish. Once he looked up the words, anyway. It gave him an idea for a funny little intermission, though.

“Next up, since the language barrier seems to be a thing: Go ahead and take about thirty minutes to rewrite the Bill of Rights as you understand it, in your own words. My camera’s going to be off and my mic muted, but feel free to shoot me a direct message if you need help. Timer starts…” he pulled the timer onto the screen. “... now!”

All of the students suddenly started scrambling, and he had to suppress a chuckle. This would get them invested, spark debate, and probably give him a list of terms to look up for later. Or to ask Shannon about, she would know. He stood and stretched. None of the women in his life needed his more direct attention at the moment, so he could in fact just stretch. He took a few minutes to do a couple of the physical therapy exercises that were becoming slowly easier as the days and weeks passed. It was in the middle of one of these that his phone rang. Without even thinking or looking at the screen, he answered. “Hello?”

“Mr. Jeffries? It’s Athena.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded worn out, but on the other hand she was definitely alive to speak.

“Oh, Athena! Good to hear from you! Happy birthday, by the way, I sent you an email card last week but I’m not sure if you got it.” Adam sat down on his bed, a giant smile on his face.

“I haven’t gotten to look at my emails, but thank you. That’s also… kind of why I’m calling. I turned eighteen. It also came with my first in-person human contact I’ve had in way too long. Bunch of people came in wearing hazmat suits to take a blood draw and swabs from like three different places. They called me yesterday to tell me that I’m officially cleared to get the vaccine.”

Adam stood back up immediately at that bit. “Athena, that’s wonderful news! You’ll finally be safe. Have you… ah… gotten the first steps?” He obviously stumbled over his words, not sure if he could actually talk about the next part.

“If you mean that REALLY invasive survey and picking a team? Yeah. I have. I’ve been matched to a Team in Spokane, mostly athletes close to my age. People I might have ended up knowing if I’d gotten to do the college thing normally.”

He smiled. “I haven’t had any complaints about Oracle’s ability to match people to my Team, so I have no doubts that you will have a good bunch where you’re going.”

She was silent for a moment. “I looked for you, you know? I scanned through every match they’d let me see, hoping to find your name. You just weren’t there, so I had to pick someone else.”

Adam had to pause and think. “I’m not going to pretend to know why that is, but I have to tell you that if I had seen your name, I would have had to decline.”

“But why? You’re one of the main reasons I’m still alive! Just being able to talk to you, keep on learning, stay on schedule… especially after Dad died…” her voice caught.

“Athena, you are a wonderful young woman. You are talented, driven, and beautiful. Whatever Team you’re going to, they will be lucky to have you. But I’m old enough to be your father. More than that, I am still your professor. It would not be right for us to be in a romantic or sexual relationship when I still hold that kind of power over you.”

Athena couldn’t see the tears running down his face, but he could certainly hear the ones in her voice. “But what about Ms. Grant? She’s your student, too.”

“Allison hasn’t been my student for most of a decade. She graduated, went to college, and lived her own life before coming back to me. With your help, and thank you for it. I might have helped shape who she became, but that’s not the same.”

“There’s no difference, Mr. Jeffries! I wanted to be on your Team!”

“And that just shows how different it is. I hope you will understand at some point, or at least forgive me.” He breathed in, trying to center himself. “What I am to you won’t change. I’m still your teacher, and you even put me into the classroom again. Virtually, but still a classroom. I can still be your tutor, and unofficial counselor if you want.”

“I… I need to think, and I can’t right now.”

“Then you can call me whenever you feel like you’re ready, Athena. I’m in Oracle, I can talk to you about these things.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t sound all that thankful, but hopefully that would change. “I have to go. Goodbye.”

Adam started to reply, but a click from the phone interrupted him. She had hung up. He took a breath to refocus instead. A bit of focus that was interrupted when his phone rang again. “Allison?”

“Not this time. Just felt it would be good to convey some… call it news.”

“I was wondering when you were going to check in again. We got comfortable. Anything else that’s going to shake up the world?”

“You could say that. There’s going to be a 60 Minutes episode along with a speech from President Pelosi this Friday. The 20th of November, I believe. They promise to be important.”

“Do you have any idea how little that narrows things down?”

“I see you’re taking cues from Shannon, that’s a good meme. As a Civics teacher, though, I think you’ll be heavily invested.”

His phone clicked again, and he scowled at it. There was no time to indulge, though. His students would be expecting him in a matter of minutes, and he had to be on his game if he was going to keep up. He took his seat, pulled up a search engine on one screen, his class on the other, then composed himself. One click to clear the timer, and it was class time once more. “Welcome back, and I hope the activity was fun. No messages asking for help, so I’m going to assume you all had an easy enough time. Let’s see what you came up with…”

***

“Adam, is there a reason why you’re so bound and determined to watch this? I’ve never seen you so anxious, including when we were reviewing those contracts.” Callie was sitting in her favorite bean bag chair, off to the side of the living room. Adam had the TV on and set to the right channel, but he wasn’t on the couch. Instead, he was pacing back and forth. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes… or even a particularly sharp redheaded lawyer… to see that he was completely unable to settle.

He made a motion that looked like it was trying to be a shrug, but was also obviously borne of frustration. “I was told it was probably going to be important, and it’s also going to have a speech from the President along with it. Call me suspicious, but that makes me smell big announcements and government initiatives coming.”

Shannon was seated on the couch with Esther and Allison. “Considering our particular living circumstances, that means we’re affected more than most.” She gestured at the screen. Though it showed a feed of the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, nobody was sitting at it just yet. Commentators were talking about what this speech could be about, but it was nothing but speculation.

Kaipo stood towering behind the couch. She occupied a lot more room now, so she preferred to stand if space could at all be an issue. Such as when the couch was already occupied by three other ladies. She had crossed six feet in height without slowing down, and had gone from “increased appetite” to “the family was glad four people were actively working because she consistently ate for three.” Now past two hundred pounds of nearly-solid muscle, when she flexed her body resembled a topographic map of a mountain range. One that Adam had no problems exploring, even if she had become MUCH harder to restrain. She shook her head at the goings-on though, and the voice that escaped her mouth was still nearly identical to when she was five feet and skinny. “We’ve kind of lived the aftermath of government decisions. Do you think they’re actually going to talk about what’s really been killing people? Maybe make the Serum programs public?”

Allison retorted, “It would be about time they did! Seriously, nobody’s buying it anymore. Everyone knows someone who died, or someone who is on a team. The only people out there who don’t know something awful is happening are the ones who are willfully ignorant or the ones who just blindly trust the government. I mean, both exist, but neither is really a good thing.”

The commentators suddenly got excited, then fell silent. President Nancy Pelosi, looking unbelievably tired and worn out, stepped onscreen and took her seat behind the desk. “Good evening, America.” She composed herself before continuing, describing in the most general terms the horrifying toll of death that had ravaged the nation.

Even Callie blanched at the sheer scope of the opening paragraphs. “She’s talking about half of AMERICA being dead! Over a hundred and sixty MILLION people!”

Adam was still listening, standing stock still in the living room, only far enough to the side to be out of the way of those on the couch. “And everyone between twelve and seventeen is gone. Athena survived, but if there is another in the state, I haven’t heard of them. Everyone… it’s no wonder all of my students vanished.” He wobbled, but by the time Shannon got to his side to hold him up he had steadied. “Every middle and high school in the country is empty… possibly on EARTH if this is to be believed.”

Esther swallowed hard. “And the prisons. Prisoner and guard alike, torn apart by DuoHalo. I wasn’t told about this, but I should have figured it out. Most prisoners are men. More than nine out of ten, and you’re all much more vulnerable. Add the close conditions and stress, and it’s over.”

From the screen, the President’s next words hit them like a dropped bomb. “Starting immediately, marriage for men of age is becoming compulsory.”

While she went on to describe the challenges and the necessity of this, Adam shook his head. “That’s… going to face pushback. From basically everyone. Mandatory four or more wives.” He looked around. “I know there are five of you but, no offense, the only one here I was feeling those particular feelings for was Shannon.”

Shannon, for her part, was clearly melting into a puddle, emotionally speaking, at those words, but didn’t say anything.

Adam continued. “I’m happy to have you all as my Team, and we are making this work, but the way she just said that will likely anger many communities. Religious, atheist, dedicated monogamists,” he quirked a smile, “some historians who don’t like the Sultanate era.”

Allison nodded. “The sex is great, but since that’s the mandatory piece then what are nuns going to do? And how are they going to recognize and enforce it when yesterday, polygamy was illegal in most of the country?”

The President hadn’t stopped talking, and Callie shot up out of her seat. “Adam! She just announced the Great American Redistribution Act! On television! That’s the authority we were contracted under, and how they renovated this place. They’re doing that across the country now. All the contractors she’s talking about… it’s like the support networks we’ve had to deal with.” She listened a moment more. “And eminent domain calls right with it. You weren’t joking about this turning into a fight. Can you imagine what people are going to say in rural Texas or Oregon? Surveyors are going to need armed guards.”

Shannon shook her head. “And they don’t have solutions for my queer friends yet. I can talk about it on stream again, sure, but what do I even tell my followers? ‘Hey, you guys all go sign up for stuff and have the best sex of your life forever as long as you’re straight or EXACTLY Bi. The other half, stay locked up and pray harder?’”

Kaipo’s own eyes were glued to the screen. “But the ones who can? They can move again. No more staying cooped up as long as we’re keeping up with our immunity. I know I don’t mind that little caveat.”

And still the speech went on. “We as Americans are certainly not suffering alone in this regard.”

Adam gestured for the others to get quiet for a moment. “I guess we all knew it had to be a thing everywhere else, but still, this kind of scale is hard to imagine. And… trading population? New states? Territory? I am not sure I like what my country is becoming. It’s… just not what I ever imagined. We are returning to the roots of empire building, and that tree isn’t one that bears healthy fruit.” He listened again briefly. “At least she recognizes just exactly how precarious her own seat is. History lessons, the people able to study it are less likely to repeat it.”

“But who are those allies she is talking about?” Esther was thinking a mile a minute. “Korea? Britain? Israel? Germany? That was awfully vague, and if I was in another country I’d be getting extremely nervous about this.”

“Extending tenures of all the survivors in government is also not going to be particularly popular.” Adam was trying to think fast as well. Everything about this speech was setting everything he knew about his life’s passion into a tailspin. “The fact that she isn’t going to try to come back for another round will probably help pacify some people about it, but we haven’t had this kind of reset since the Constitution was written. Will the Senators have split-year cycles? If so, which ones are going to get the short end of the stick on running again? What about the Supreme Court, and all of the empty appointed seats? Talking about rebuilding from scratch is all well and good, but what we have has taken over 250 years to make. It won’t be recreated in a day, not in any recognizable form.”

Everyone fell silent, and into the silence, the President’s speech continued. She spoke about emergency actions, land grants, funding education and health care. Allison gulped. “That’s… one way to kickstart that kind of policy. Hard to argue with the survival of the country and the species.” She looked down at her belly. “Am I about to be required by law to become a baby factory? I’ve never wanted kids of my own.”

“Not while I’m around to argue the point.” Adam’s face looked grim. “I personally wanted children eventually. They just hadn’t happened. However, I will NEVER demand that of any of you if you are not on board. If anyone in the government has a problem with that, I happen to know a rather talented Civics teacher who has an extremely determined lawyer on his Team who will have some sharp arguments about it.”

“All in favor of becoming the Cool Aunt pack, then?” Allison raised her hand, looked around, and found out she was alone.

Esther shrugged. “I probably do not have any say in that particular matter either way.” She looked back at the screen, then stood. “It looks like she is done speaking. Five minutes until the 60 Minutes special, and if it is following that then it will be memorable. I am getting some snacks.”

“I’m joining you.” Kaipo’s words surprised nobody. It had been almost thirty minutes since she last ate, and given her present appetite that meant her stomach was probably about to roar at the rest of them to assist in acquiring anything they wouldn’t mind losing as fuel for the now-mighty Hawaiian. Given that, the others decided it would be their best chance as well. They didn’t take long. The five-minute countdown had them scurrying, and by now they all knew where the good snacks were. And to stay out of Kaipo’s way as she went for hers.

By the time 60 Minutes actually started up, they were all sitting quietly and watching closely. The show talked about the Serum and its effects, a bit about the Oracle survey. Nothing they didn’t all already have extensive personal experience with. Much more than the host seemed willing to go into onscreen, but then again, it was the intro. The show went from there to a compound in northern California. The crew was being led around by an Air Force lieutenant who had been one of the first to be paired up. Niko Redwolf.

She seemed extremely happy with whoever this “Andy” person was.

From there, they got to see the lead person who created the Oracle program, someone each person in the room was silently grateful for. No matter the rightful fears that the man expressed onscreen, he’d knocked it so far out of the park it landed on the moon. This was followed by the film team going to talk to more women on the compound, also apparently from Andy’s group of partners. They went into more detail about how people were assigned. Not just by Oracle, but by referrals and requests and connections.

Allison made a face. “That seems risky. All kinds of lives could go sideways if one person gets one thing wrong.”

Shannon looked over her shoulder at the attractive blonde. “You kind of didn’t come through standard channels.”

“I was evaluated by Oracle!” Allison retorted.

“Just not for us.”

“Alright, enough about that.” Adam was breathing hard, but Shannon’s hand on his leg was helping him keep composed. “However we came together, I’m glad we did.”

The show was talking now about what was known about the virus, the creator of the Serum on screen talking about how they didn’t know where it came from. Along with some pointed snark about conspiracy theorists who might think that they did. From there it went over the base a bit, then a commercial, followed by a TRULY remarkable household. Andy Rook, pen name Blake Conrad, had lived through a wildly improbable series of events to get where he was now. Not that he seemed to be complaining, the reporter said he had TWENTY-ONE women in his household. And given the kinds of women in that group, everyone there was at a severe loss for words.

Shannon, used to replying off the cuff from comments dredged up by some of the weirder minds the Internet had to offer, managed it first. “That… doesn’t seem very fair, is it?”

Adam chuckled. “I have problems keeping up with the five of you sometimes. There is no way a group like Andy’s would leave me as anything besides ‘die trying’ if I were in his shoes.”

Callie snorted a laugh. “Oh, and he seems oh-so-VERY disappointed to have to keep up with actresses, athletes, and models every day. How shall he ever do it?” This last was delivered in sarcastically overdramatic tones.

“I’m happy with who and what I have, Callie. Even if it looks like he was trying not to leave any for the rest of us.”

The show cut to commercials again, ones that seemed to be pointedly leaning on maternity and baby products. The choice wasn’t exactly subtle, but everyone watching knew what it meant. There was a planned baby boom coming, one that the government wanted to encourage as much as they could. One that the President was almost literally begging them to participate in. After the commercials were more personal pieces, actresses talking about how they met and how they came to request to be a part of Team Rook. Along with footage from a convention that left Shannon laughing so hard she actually fell off the couch. “ADAM! That was at OmegaCon! I have some of his books, remember? I was in that crowd! I’d have never in a million years guessed it was Sarah Washington under the Chewbacca costume!”

The show proceeded much like that for the rest of the first half, going through the (many) women’s bios, though surprisingly the special actually included imagery of the unbelievably intense imprinting orgasm. Followed by more of the cautionary tales the women had received, but which Adam had only been told about. The imagery was much more effective, if he had been the type to stray. Then the show left Team Rook behind to go to a more-normal apartment building in San Jose.

When the name came across the screen, Callie grumbled a bit. “They called it the Heights, too? Come on, at least be original…”

Adam shook his head. “Glad to know they figured the bugs out with us. That building looks MUCH more finished than what we got dropped into.”

Kaipo leaned in. “Wait, I thought they talked about Team sizes of five to seven people. He just said he has TWELVE women. That Rook guy was over twenty.” She looked around the apartment. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but the layout of this home doesn’t seem to support a dozen. Are they going to move us if they push that many people onto the Team?”

Adam shrugged. “I honestly hope not, to both sides of the statement. Like I said, that’s way beyond me. Come on, let’s turn this off and get to bed. The show is over, and I don’t think we’re going to get anything more surprising than that overnight.”