Quaranteam - North West Ch. 20

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QT:NW continues the official Spin-Off for the Quaranteam universe originally created by CorruptingPower. You do not need to have read the original series to enjoy this one, but you really do need to start with Chapters 1-4 (I really suggest you read the original though, it's great!). Fans of the original should be pleased to know CP has approved the story and the continuity.

In this chapter you can expect a new emergency and an investigation.

Returning Dramatis Personae

House Black

- Harrison 'Harri' Black - Sheriff of Black County, 'Jason Momoa-looking motherfucker' mountain man (mixed heritage), former Army MP

- Vanessa Peters - Construction Forewoman, Daughter of Brent Peters the head of the construction project, Brunette

- Erica LaCosta - Fiancee of Harri, Leo's sister, Italian Tattoo Artist, Dark Brunette

- Ivy Gauthier - Quebecoise stripper, half-tattooed, Dirty Blonde anal queen

- Kyla Bautista - Trained dancer, Phillipino Spy, Harri's Deputy Sheriff, Raven hair

Other

- Kara Swiftwater - Harrison's high school sweetheart that ended poorly, community leader of the local Native band, Raven hair

- Lt Col Miriam Abarbanel - Military friend of Harri's, Air Force Lt Col, Jewish heritage, Commanding Officer for Valhalla Hills construction and the Oregon Quaranteam research project

Referenced Characters

- Barry O'Callahan - Went to high school behind Harri, is a Soverign Citizen from the Golden Beaver group

- Brent Peters - Vanessa's father, the Project Manager for the Valhalla Hills construction project, very overweight

- Gertrude 'Gerty' Swiftwater - Kara's second cousin, Tribal police on the Rez, Voluptuous Native, Raven haired

- Agent Greerson - Senior 'OGA' that negotiated Harri's land deal and dropped Kyla into Harri's life

- Mary Duncan - Attended high school with Harri, former cheerleader, Husband has disappeared while looking for work, left to join a 'commune' with her kids

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I loved Vanessa, but Goddamn I hated her 5:30 AM alarm. Most mornings we usually rotated who would get up with her to see her off for the day - that meant that even though the rest of our sleep got disrupted, we still got at least a little bit longer snuggled up in bed.

Being the only person in the RV with her had been a novel experience; I'd never spent the night with just one of my partners in that bed. I'd missed Erica, Kyla and Ivy for sure, but it was nice to have a break from being so completely smothered in warm, sleeping women and just have Vanessa's naked body cuddled with mine. Now, however, as I blearily blinked to myself while she got dressed and I worked the little kitchenette to get her a decent breakfast... well, I kept my grumbling to myself. My military experience had drilled an expectation of comfort out of me, but yearsout of the service had gotten me used to it again.

"How's your leg, baby?" Vanessa asked as she came out of the bedroom, dressed in her jeans and long-sleeved shirt. She already had her high-vis vest on and was just missing her boots and hard hat since they were both sitting by the door.

"Aches," I said. "Not horrible, but I'm definitely feeling it."

Vanessa frowned and came to me, wrapping her arms around my waist lightly and kissing my cheek. "Are you going up to the Falls this morning?"

"I wasn't planning on it," I said. "Why? We just dropped everyone off yesterday afternoon."

Vanessa smirked a little. "Because you're used to popping off at least twice in the morning after I'm out of here," she said. "And you know the girls and I would give you shit if you jerked off instead of giving one of us that cum of yours."

I sighed and shook my head, snorting softly. "Vee, I think you drained every last ounce out of me last night," I said.

"I doubt that," she chuckled, then closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of the bacon and eggs as I shifted and slid them off of the griddle pan I'd been using. She took the plate and sat at the Murphey table. "Thank you, baby."

"Gotta keep my gal energised for the day," I said, dropping into the seat across from her.

"M'seriously though," she said through her first mouthful. "Be careful today. And don'tnot go to the Falls. If you have any risk of getting exposed to the viruses, you better fucking find one of us to fuck, baby."

"Ifucking promise," I said, smiling as I watched her shovel down her breakfast.

"Good," she said. "Do you have a plan?"

"A bit of one," I said. "That pickup truck out on the access road is my first big clue, or might be holding one. Miriam was running the plates for me."

"Anything else?"

"No one on-site would have recognized the raiders," I said. "I could try and interview everyone who saw one, but I think your father might have a fit if I pulled that many guys from work. Do you think I could just put an all-call on the radio, see if anyone remembers distinctive markings like tattoos, scars or that sort of thing? I could go meet them where they are at to get the notes."

"That I can definitely make happen," Vanessa nodded. "Do you think maybe you would recognize some descriptions of people from around town?"

"It's possible," I sighed. "But honestly? I doubt it. They'll help me identify people while I'm on the hunt though."

"What happens if you don't find anything with the truck?"

"Then I really have to knuckle down and start working my old MP skills," I said. "It feels bigger because it happened to us, but everything that happened was a crime. Someone did it with motive, means and opportunity. If I can start narrowing those down, I have a path to follow."

Vanessa polished off her food quickly and chugged down the half-glass of milk she always finished with, then went and rinsed her dishes in the sink. "If I make you promise to be careful, what are the chances you do that?" she asked.

"I'm always careful," I said. "It's the world that does risky shit."

She snorted and set her dishes on the drying rack before coming and sitting on my lap, looping her arms around my shoulders as she looked at me. For just a moment, I got a flash of what life might have been like if I had met Vanessa some other way. Living in the old Black house, her running some construction company as I kept working in concept art for games and film. She'd likely be the one bringing home the serious bacon, while I'd keep the home, but I wouldn't have minded so much. No kids of our own, but we could have adopted. A quiet life, loving each other.

But we never would have met. That life could never have been, except for the pandemic. She'd been working states away and never would have had a reason to come to the back woods of Oregon, and I would never have had a reason to go to one of the industrial construction sites she worked on.

Duo Halo brought her to me.

"I love you, you know," I told her.

"I know," she said with a sad little smile. "And I love you too. Promise me anyways?"

"I promise I'll be careful," I said sincerely. "Now you."

"Now I what?" she asked.

"Promise you'll be careful," I said. "That you won't get squashed by a bulldozer, or have a building collapse on you, or get abducted by aliens."

"I promise I won't get caught in any big machinery or have a building fall on me," Vanessa said, then gave me a peck on the lips. "No promises on the aliens though. Depends on how hot they are."

"Wow!" I laughed, and she giggled and leaned in to kiss my neck.

"I need to go," she said.

"I know," I sighed.

We separated and I watched her put on her boots and pick up her hard hat and hook it to the carabiner on her belt. Then I kissed her properly at the door and she was gone, trudging into the pre-dawn gloom.

I had a lot to do. An entire investigation to get underway. My own breakfast to make. I needed to phone in and check with Miriam, and over to the Falls to check to make sure everything was OK there.

But no one was going to be awake at 5:45 AM.

I stumbled back to bed, collapsing down onto it heavily and wincing at the pain in my leg and the sting on my scalp. I'd almost forgotten about the scalp injuries. As my eyes were starting to drift closed I noticed that my phone was blinking - I had a message waiting.

Rolling onto my back, I picked up the phone and checked it.

'Good morning, babe,' Erica had sent. Along with a picture of her and Ivy kissing. Neither of them were wearing makeup, and Ivy looked mostly asleep. The next picture was the two of them snuggling naked in bed.

I groaned and sent them a heart emoji in return and dismissed the message, just to find I had another one waiting.

'Good morning, dear,' Kyla had sent along with a picture of her naked butt as she lay in bed. Her warm, golden brown skin was illuminated by the flash of her phone camera and there was just a glimpse of her pussy between her legs.

I groaned again and sent her a heart emoji as well and dropped the phone.

Part of me felt like I should respond with something more. They must have set alarms specifically to take and send those pictures to me, which took effort that they didn't need to spend.I should really send something back. I wasn't exactly a 'dick pic' person though.

Then I grinned and laughed to myself, and rolled back up out of bed. I could spend a few minutes to tease them a little.

* * * * *

My phone rang, and I wasn't sure if I'd even gotten fifteen minutes of sleep since I'd snapped the photo and sent it off to Erica, Ivy and Kyla. I was pretty sure I'd sent it to Vanessa as well, just to try and make her smile and roll her eyes. Then I'd pushed the sex doll off the side of the bed because I didn't actually want to cuddle with it as I snagged a couple more hours of sleep.

There was a part of me, no matter how much I loved the girls, that wanted to just hang up the phone and wait until later to laugh about it with them. But, as I listened to the generic ringtone and realized I should probably put some custom ones in so I could discern who was calling me without looking, I realized that it could have been Miriam calling about something important. Or Vanessa calling because the raiders were back. Hell, it could have been Mary calling me. We hadn't heard from her in almost three weeks now other than a text to Erica that had said she'd gotten to 'the commune' safe and sound with the kids.

When I rolled over and picked up my phone, blearily opening one eye to check who it was as I fumbled to answer it, one name Iwasn't expecting was on the call display.

"Kara?" I asked groggily as I answered.

"Harrison?" she said.

I was immediately thrown back into my own memories. Back before the pandemic, and the military. Back to high school. Talking on the house phone with Kara for hours on end, clogging up the one line we had until my sister or my mother came to claim the wireless phone from me. It had been the time just before cell phones - I could only imagine what trouble we would have gotten in back then if we'd had those. It had been years since I'd heard her voice over the phone and it just did something to me that I couldn't explain. Her voice put this warm but uneasy, nostalgic and sad tingle through me because nothing else that had happened between us was in the forefront of my sleepy mind.

"Harrison, I'm sorry I'm calling so early," Kara said. "But you said to call if..."

"What's wrong?" I asked, sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

"It's here, Harri," she said. "The sickness. It's on the Rez. It's bad."

"Are you OK? Are you isolating and quarantining?"

"Not at first, but we are now," she said. "I wore a mask the whole time though, and started wearing gloves. We spent some time trying to help people. The ambulances won't come up here, and the clinic is closed, and..." Her voice broke. "You have connections. Can you help? Please?"

My mind immediately went to what might be possible. The Rez wasn't huge, in size of population or land, at least compared to some other reserves. It housed maybe fifteen hundred people at any given time, plus the Tribe's community members who didn't live on the Rez but used its services probably tripled that number. They were spread an hour's drive in every direction though. In an emergency would they have tried to congregate, or would they have stayed home?

It was a bigger population than the Site had been when we had the outbreak, but it was way smaller than a place like Eugene. Captain Bloomberg had said they didn't have the vaccine supplies to do anything useful down there, but they might have enough to save lives on the Rez.

"Harri? I know I've been an absolute bitch," Kara said quietly. Pleading. "In general, and personally. You never deserved... I shouldn't have let..." she sobbed. "I'm sorry." I realized that my moment of quiet, as I'd processed things, had sounded a lot like hesitation over the phone.

"Kara, baby, I'll do everything I can," I promised her. "The rest doesn't matter. Are you alone?"

"I'm quarantining with Gerty, my second cousin, and my neighbour Tanaya," she said. "We're all at my place."

"OK. None of you leave that building," I said. "Lock the doors and windows, pull the shades. Hell, barricade the doors if you can. It's going to hurt a lot, Kara, but if you keep trying to help people you're going to die for sure and we're not going to be able to actually hug it out and maybe figure out how to be friends or something."

"I-" she started, but couldn't put into words what I knew she was feeling.

"I know," I said. "I know, baby. You've always been the person who helps. But it will literally kill you. Youhave to follow the help-yourself-first rule. Block the doors. Make it look like no one is home as much as you can. People will be desperate, and that's when they're the most dangerous. Do you have any weapons, anything to protect yourselves with?"

"Gerty has a handgun. I have my hunting bow." There were voices in the background for a moment. "Tanaya says she can run back across to her place. She has a couple of hunting shotguns her ex left behind last year."

"She should do that as soon as possible," I said. "Just make sure no one is outside and nearby when she goes. This virus is insidious, Kara. I-" I felt my own breath hitch for a moment. "It's entirely possible all three of you are already infected. I just need to try and get you help as soon as possible to reverse it. OK?"

"I'm so sorry, Harri," she whispered again, and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she had her eyes closed and was hating on herself. Even after all this time, I could read the variations in her voice. "I should have listened to you more."

"You couldn't change anything," I tried to assure her. "It was going to happen no matter what. It's... It's kind of amazing it hadn't happened already. Just stay safe, Kara, and when I can give you a concrete answer of some sort I'll call you, OK?"

She gulped softly on the other end of the line. "Thank you, Harri. I'm- Fuck, I'm so sorry."

The guilt was eating her, and I knew it wasn't just the guilt around the virus. It was everything between us. Layers of guilt. She was facing her own mortality and all the other stuff was falling away.

It was funny how a virus, or a gunshot wound, could really put someone in a clear frame of mind.

"I forgive you," I said, meaning it for everything just like she was apologizing for everything. "You hear me, Kara? I do. Now I'm going to hang up so I can start making calls, and you're going to do what I said, OK?"

"OK," she said. "OK."

I hung up and had to suck in a long, calming breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth. That didn't help, so I did it a few more times. Once I was sure I wasn't going to crack, I made a call.

"Harrison," Miriam said as she picked up. "Getting started early, or is something wrong?"

"Both," I said. "Miriam, I need a favour."

Her sigh was heavy and long. "This isn't about the investigation, is it?"

"It's not," I admitted. "It's vaccine-related. When I was down in Eugene, Captain Bloomberg mentioned that you guys were low on stock for the vaccine because of the California rollout. Is that still true?"

"She probably shouldn't have said that," Miriam said, and I got the distinct impression she was glaring across their shared office at the blonde lawyer. "But it's the truth."

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"That's a complicated question," she said. "Look, if your sister needs it, I can squeeze out a dose or get one to her from California."

"It's not- well, actually, yes that would be amazing, but that's not what I'm calling for," I said. "A local community is having an outbreak here."

There was an uncomfortable pause in the conversation.

"It's on the reservation, isn't it?" Miriam asked. I could hear the frustration in her voice. Frustration at people not taking the government messaging seriously. Frustration thather messaging in the state was getting muddied by messaging at the Federal level, and messaging from different political factions in the state, and opposed by grassroots groups. But it was also frustration at me.

"It is," I said. "They need help. They don't have any emergency services."

Another frustrated sigh came across from Miriam, this one shorter and more sad than mad. "Harri, the rollout down south has already eaten up most of our stockpile," she said. "The rest is going to different missions. Operation Homestead, Operation Breadbasket, Operation Bugzapper- Fuck, you might as well just call the whole thing 'Operation Keep The Lights On.' Our rounds of backup testing are done here, we're onto deployment for operations until we get new shipments in a week or so. I've got a handful of doses earmarked for discretionary use, but it's nowhere near enough for what you're asking."

A handful of doses would cover Kara and the two women with her. I almost,almost, asked for that but I knew Kara would hate me if I did. For all that she was finally thinking in survival mode, she would never agree to a plan that would effectively be her putting herself above everyone else in her tribe. She'd end up demanding it went to someone else worse off.

"Is thereany chance that you could make a case to get enough doses?" I asked. "Call it a cultural emergency or something. Make it a racial thing if you have to and show you can't doom a bunch of natives to death."

"I can try," she said. "But... Harri, I'll try. I can't promise anything though. You need to expect nothing, not something. This virus is a genocide machine and I don't have the details, but this rez wouldn't be the first to go dark."

That made me suck in another breath and let it out slowly.

"Is this a 'no' without wanting to say no?" I asked.

Another long, awkward silence.

"I'm so sorry, Harri," Miriam said sadly.

"It's OK," I said quietly. "I don't blame you, or the Captain, or anyone. The world is just a real hellhole right now."

"If there's anything else thatisn't the vaccine that they need, I can try to get something organized," she said.

"I don't know if it would be much good, or accepted," I said. "I'll find out though. Um... did you get anything back on that truck license plate?"

Miriam was quiet for a short moment as she switched gears. "Yes and no," she said after I heard some paper rustling in the background. "We got the registration, but the truck is likely looted or stolen. The owner is logged as deceased as of two months ago."

"OK," I said. "Not unsurprising. I'll do a sweep through it for any useful clues. Any IDs on the three dead raiders?"

"One was an Army washout," Miriam said. "Charles 'Chuck' Poole. No known current residence, and dishonourable discharge during boot camp. The one with his head smashed in was Chuck's brother and had a criminal record, went by Larry Poole. Looks like he was off the grid for the last couple of years though. The third one we don't have anything on."