The Quaranteam Universe is the creation of CorruptingPower, used with permission. Also a big shout out to the Writers Room, both for putting up with my unbelievably odd sense of humor and for proofing both my ideas and writing.

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  Chapter 9: Literature

  17 August 2020

  The heavy footsteps passed by the door again in the early morning quiet, and again they did not stop at their tiny apartment. The three occupants gnced briefly at the entryway, but after a couple of seconds gave it no more heed.

  Shannon shrugged, yawning a bit. “I’ll get the coffee started. Sound good?”

  “Sounds good!” Normally, Adam would have started it by now, but he was just off his usual rhythm. The call from his mysterious observer, not to mention other medical news, had him figuratively filing

  Callie gave a thumbs-up as well.

  “Alrighty. You two want your usual?”

  Adam nodded, smiling deeply. “That would be wonderful, Shannon. How about you, Callie?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Callie agreed. Despite her complete ck of appetite for breakfast the morning coffee was still something she enjoyed with them. It got her day started right, in the traditional Washington way, and brought warmth to her soul. Much like it would bring warmth to her body in the long, wet winters the state was infamous for.

  A day had passed since he got the succession of bad news. He had finally gotten one or two response emails since then. Ones that more or less confirmed what he’d been told about casualty rates in the school district… and expressed utter shock at the fact that he hadn’t been among that number. They had some very rough pns going for how they were going to afford to live, a lot of referring each other out for remote tutoring and the like, but no idea how that would work out if they couldn’t find high school students to provide the services for. They didn’t even know how they’d get into their old offices and cssrooms to retrieve their things. Not safely. Heck, none of them even knew if anyone with the keys were still alive. It was a bad time in the Yelm Public School District.

  Adam and Callie both paused to breathe in the smells of coffee coming from the kitchen. Callie took it as a sign that she needed to finish up what she was doing. With a deep breath, she dove in on the task before her. The task? Adam’s dick. She went from making sure he felt good for as long as possible directly to swallowing his entire length. With absolute dedication, Callie applied every trick she knew to sending him over the edge. Considering the prep work and how many tricks she knew? That took fifteen seconds.

  Like every time before, as he shot his essence down her throat she joined him in orgasm. Her delighted hums served to enhance his own sensations even further, and after an endless moment he flopped bonelessly back into the chair, spent but in much better cheer than thirty minutes prior. She stood as he began to put his pants back on. “Feeling better, AJ?”

  “You know it. Trying to find a way to describe that without being crude…”

  Her eyebrow rose to deadly effect “Adam. I just swallowed my fourth load of your cum in the st three days. Crudity is assumed at this point.”

  “Okay. You could suck the halo off of an angel and they’d thank you for the experience.”

  “... you know what? Points for originality, I’ve not heard that one before. Now, coffee.”

  Breakfasts had settled into a predictable affair in the Jeffries apartment, especially since Callie’s office chair had arrived and gotten set up at the table. Perhaps not the best fit for the simple wooden ones already there, but it worked. Halfway through his eggs, though, Adam remembered something. “Callie, while we were talking to Chad the other day you said you’d expin why you started ughing so hard.”

  Shannon swallowed her mouthful of eggs. “Yeah, I’ve been wondering, but we got a bit distracted.”

  Callie started giggling again. Given her mouthful of coffee, this was a somewhat more awkward process than it otherwise might have been. One that involved a napkin and significantly more embarrassment than she had shown at any point in the st week. “Okay, okay. So, that pce your friend ended up working. Superior Economics and Expansion. They’re kind of infamous on my side of the house.”

  “Infamous how?” Adam paused as he reached for another pancake, his own appetite increasing as he healed from the after effects of his DuoHalo fight.

  “Their CEO, Monica Vega? Zero sense of humor and one of the most litigious individuals I’ve ever heard of. Would have been number one if it wasn’t for politics. Heck, they’re the people fighting the State of Washington on the NDA thing I used against those agents.”

  Shannon’s head tilted to the side, an oddly feline gesture. “Oh…. kaaaaay. Not too sure why this is so funny it almost broke you. Especially not twice.”

  “I was getting there. I worked on the government side of the w, and criminal defense talked to corporate a lot to trade notes. Thing is, corporate used a lot of acronyms, which meant that the company was referred to as SEX on every piece of paper that wasn’t going directly to the company for some kind of signature or report.” Both Adam and Shannon giggled a bit at this, but Callie wasn’t done. “Was it professional? Probably not, but they did it anyway and it was a legitimate acronym. The part that really chapped her hide, when she somehow found out, was the running joke that she REALLY needed to get id. Looks like it finally happened!”

  Turnabout is fair py. Both of the others had cleaning up to do after that.

  After that was done, though? After the meal was done and the leftovers put away? The quiet industry of the day took over. Nothing outside the door intruded as Shannon set up shop for her stream and got to drawing. Callie’s position by the window let in air as the streets stayed quiet. Adam went to his computer and booted it up, but found himself at loose ends. He had one student confirmed to still be alive, and a lot more confirmed to not be. Unless the mysterious deal with the mysterious caller from the mysterious team using mysterious resources and mysterious methods panned out, he was staring down impossibility. Since he couldn’t depend on that, and he couldn’t depend on the school district, he had work to do.

  National remote job listings were a start. He’d been tutoring from this room for months, it would make no difference to him if his students were in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Florida, Kansas, New York, or anywhere in between. Just a matter of time zones, really. Heck, if someone in Australia, New Zeand, Germany, Russia, Irend, or Britain wanted to learn about US Social Studies for some arcane reason, he’d be happy to help. Even if it was only occasional gig work, it was a lot better than zero.

  Next up, he had to find a way to access his holdings. Bank account was slender, but he had a retirement account he could crack open if things got desperate, along with enough knowledge of how things SHOULD work that he knew there was probably an emergency program to help in situations like this. After all, if this wasn’t an emergency, it was kind of hard to imagine what might be one. Obviously he wasn’t going to get all that much help from school administration channels, but if there was one thing he had gotten good at over his years of teaching it was research. The internet still existed, and even if nine out of ten calls and emails went unanswered and nine out of ten answers were “no,” that st one might be what swung things from starvation to sustainability for his family.

  A polite knock at his door some time ter dragged him out of the rabbit hole he had been diving into. “Come in!”

  “You’re getting ahead of the conversation, there.” Callie stepped into the bedroom. She was dressed… more scantily than usual. She didn’t exactly own lingerie, but her camisole and pajama shorts were showing a figure that had changed significantly in the st week. Nearly twenty pounds down would be distinct on anyone, but this view let Adam see more of her body than she normally let show. “We need to talk. About sex.”

  Adam stood and faced her. “That’s unusually blunt, even for you.”

  “It’s a blunt topic, now isn’t it?” Despite her attire, her posture was aggressive. Hands on her hips, leaning in. “Bottom line up front, we haven’t had it, and I’m sick of waiting.”

  “Wait, what? Sex is kind of central to how we are surviving.” Adam’s confusion was written all over his face.

  “I’ve sucked down your cum one to three times a day since I got here. Because you get to cheat at it, I’ve even orgasmed. That wasn’t sex.”

  “That’s…” the struggle in the poor guy’s brain was obvious. “Okay. I think you’re right. We need to talk. Because honestly, this is coming a bit out of left field.”

  “Left field? Seriously, that’s what you’re going with?” The fury in her face was beyond any attempt to conceal. “Why is it such a shock that a girl’s gonna want to get drilled into the bed now and then? Not like it’s such a problem when Shannon’s asking. Is that it? You don’t want the fat, aggressive wyer?”

  “Whoah! Callie, that is not it and you know it!” Adam could feel the conversation slipping very far away from where he wanted it to be, fast enough to be considered for Olympic medals. Or doping scandals. “If that was the case I wouldn’t have signed for you when you arrived.”

  “It’s not like the soldier girls gave you much choice, now did they? I’m stuck here, you can walk away.” Callie’s Irish burr was coming back hard.

  Adam knew this could only mean that she was either tired or angry. She didn’t look particurly tired. “No, Callie, I can’t.” Adam’s blunt statement caught her off guard as much as hers had to him. “This is home. I accepted you. If I walk away, you suffer and die. That is not how we do things in the Jeffries household. If we need to talk, we will talk. If we need to do more, we get to it.”

  “Talk. Alright. Let’s.” Her brows were still angrily furrowed, but she at least wasn’t shouting. Progress had to be taken where it could be acquired. “I don’t want to be stuck on my knees for the rest of my life.”

  Adam had done the impossible. Applied his education degree outside of the high school he taught at. Go Adam. “Okay. I’ll start by apologizing. Given everything, I thought that’s what you enjoyed. I was enjoying it myself, so I wasn’t about to stop you.”

  “Oh, I noticed you enjoying it. Heck, you weren’t even wrong about me liking to be the giver there. But that’s getting old fast.”

  “Okay! Well, that is easy enough.” Adam hastened to the next sentence at her thunderous look. “Maybe I phrased that badly, but it is! I know what you want, now, and I have no problems. It’s not even a negotiation, it all works.”

  “So that’s it? I come in here thundering up to you to demand a change, and that’s it?” Callie seemed nonplussed.

  “... yes?” Adam seemed nonplussed right with her.

  “You would take a fat freak like me, just like that?”

  “Callie, you’ve missed a few things. First, that only mattered to the people who put looks first. Let me go ahead and apologize for the fact you got so many of those, I have it on good word that most of them have more than learned their lesson by now. Second off, you need to look in a mirror at some point. I’m not going to lie or ftter, Callie, but you aren’t exactly hideous.”

  It was true enough, as far as it went. Her body had tightened up, her skin smoothed out, and a lot of the scars of youthful acne were no longer in evidence. He didn’t have a full mirror in the room for her to look into, though, so she had to go for the next best thing.

  “Then prove it.”

  “What?”

  “I said prove it!” As abrupt as ever, Callie practically tore off her top, revealing a body that was plump but very pleasantly so. “If you really believe that, then it’s about time you freaking do me and we stop just talking about it!”

  Adam could on occasion be slow on the uptake. He could miss hints. This one was about as subtle as an anvil with the word “ACME” carved on it, though, so even he got it. He was struggling his own way out of his clothing a few seconds ter, and soon the two were fully naked in front of each other for the first time.

  Her weight on his bed was still more than it was used to taking at one time, especially once he joined her. The creaks and groans it made as he seized her by the hips would have been arming if either of them had been paying attention to them. He came to her, and she was more than ready for him, but Adam figured out something very quickly. Callie had another reason for her request, when he found himself at her entrance he found her extremely tight. Almost virginally so, though he knew it wasn’t the case. From her attitude he thought she might prefer some force to things. She sounded like she wanted to be taken, but from the feel of things that would not work out well.

  The strangeness of the fact that he had enough experience now to be able to make comparisons like that was not lost on him, but he quite firmly put it aside to analyze ter.

  Her legs spread wide and welcomed him in to her Rubenesque body, and he worked his way deeper into her until he felt himself bottom out. Callie, for her part, was rather vocally appreciative of this.

  “YESSS! There! Come on now, I haven’t had a man in me for so long I’ve got cobwebs! Get in there, get deeEEEP!”

  Adam, never one to disappoint, had taken her demanding encouragement to heart, resulting in him thrusting himself as deep in as he could go as hard as he could. That turned out to be at least marginally more than Callie was really able to take. He backed off a bit, leaving her panting. This was a state she was willing to tolerate for perhaps two and a half seconds before wrapping her meaty legs around him and pulling him right back in. The next few minutes were awkward, as they got used to each other for the first time. What worked before didn’t necessarily do so again, angles he was used to taking almost led to slipping out instead. He got there eventually, though, and true to form as soon as he exploded within her she joined him in orgasm.

  Sweaty and tired, he y on top of her, supporting as much of his own weight as he could while pondering just how comfortable she was. She, for her own part, was breathing very deeply after her recent efforts. Separating was just as awkward as anything else they had been doing for the past bit. “Well, you certainly didn’t disappoint there, Adam.”

  He stood slowly. “Thank you for telling me you needed it. This could have gotten really ugly if you hadn’t.”

  “You aren’t calling that ugly?”

  “You could say it ended well. You doing better?” Adam was already reaching for wet wipes he now kept in the bedroom, given the variety of activities which had been happening there recently.

  “The heck of it is, I think so. Hard to stay pissed when your core’s twichin’ like that.” Callie was beginning to get up, herself. Slowly.

  There was a polite knock at the door, distinctly Shannon’s. Good thing, too, if it had been anyone else it would have been much more concerning. “Hey, the screaming stopped. If the main event is over, get some clothes on and come out here. We got some official mail addressed to AJ, you two probably want to review whatever’s in it.”

  “You expecting anything, Adam? Official mail coming from the clear blue sky usually isn’t delivering good news, and you seem a bit too old to be getting an invitation to a school for wizards.”

  “Possibly? Been calling and emailing people for a while now, so one of those might have come through. If it’s an old guy asking me on an adventure, I’ll make sure I have my pocket-handkerchief before I go.”

  Good man. Technically true, and he still didn’t say what he wasn’t supposed to. Maybe he just needed time to think about it.

  They pulled on clothing in short order, and came to the living room to find Shannon sitting on the chair there. In her hand was a stiff-sided official mailer, rge enough to hold full sheets of paper ft and thick enough that it might be holding a fair few of them. The way she was holding it indicated that she felt it might be radioactive. “That was quick, you two. Okay, so. We have a mailer with no return address, stamped official and with a tracking number. When I looked up the number the source was a town in California called New Eden. You know anyone there?”

  “Not specifically.”

  Ah, right. He didn’t know where I called from, did he?

  Callie shook herself once. “Okay, then. Adam, will you do the honors since it’s addressed to you?”

  He nodded and stepped forward, Shannon handed over the package. Adam found a pull strip and opened it up. Inside was a significant packet of papers, perhaps 30 sheets in all. On those sheets of paper was writing. A lot of writing, mostly in painfully small print. One thing was clear enough, though. The titles. “Callie, I’m going to need you to go over these with the finest of combs. Three Nondisclosure Agreements, a packet that says it’s about a housing relocation program, and another that is a government support program. Looks like at least one of the calls and emails paid off at some point.”

  He knew exactly which one, too, but that didn’t need to be said.

  Callie was staring at the packets with eyes wide open. “I recognize those seals. Department of Health and Human Services. What the heck kind of program did you apply to?”

  Adam shook his head. “I think this came from post-Serum support efforts. This Team is going to keep on growing, so the government wants to make sure we have the ability to do it.” He pulled the papers fully out of the package to get a closer look, but as he did so a small card fell out.

  It fluttered down and nded at Shannon’s feet, so she leaned over and picked it up. “A courier and notary will come to your residence at 1:00 PM two days following receipt of this packet. They will take your response, positive or negative.” Her eyes narrowed. “Who the heck does that?”

  Callie was standing with her eyes closed, thinking carefully. “Let’s see. Official government agency, delivered in an overly dramatic fashion, including NDAs? How much do you want to bet that the Agents Johnson are the cause of this one?”

  She couldn’t know that was a losing bet, but it was a nice thought.

  “Not sure what we’d bet. Ladies, we all need to look over all of these. Shannon, you and I bring anything odd we see up to Callie. Callie, You need to hit these with a fine-toothed comb. If we are going to sign anything remotely like this, we need to know what it is to the st detail. Carrot, stick, and every bit of the string tying the two together. Make sense?”

  Callie nodded. “Shannon, start with the NDAs. Adam, look at the support thing. I’ll get on the housing contract. Take it sentence by sentence. If there is any word in there you think is out of pce or you aren’t a hundred percent of the usage for, ask me immediately.”

  The others gave their assent, and the trio got to work. Silence fell over the apartment, broken only by the sounds of rustling paper. It was about thirty minutes ter that Adam frowned. He looked towards the door, then at his watch. Shook his head. “Ladies, we missed lunch. Let’s eat, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”

  Shannon stretched her back where she sat, making up for the unconscious slouch she’d been in. “About these contracts? Can’t bme you. This is all really complicated.”

  “No. Worse, I think. Listen.” The dies both paused what they were doing to listen. “You hear that?”

  Callie shook her head. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “And that’s the problem. There are four apartments within easy hearing distance of this one, and our walls aren’t exactly thick. It is lunch time, and that means noise around here. Yet I hear… absolutely nothing.” His frown was back. “It’s creepy. Like being in the woods and the birds suddenly stopped singing.”

  Shannon looked aside at Callie. “Have you ever gone camping?”

  “Nope, but I think I get what he’s saying. Adam, do you want me to take a walk around the building after lunch and see if I can find anyone?”

  “I’m not sure. Let’s just say I don’t think I want to know the answer to that question. We still have work to do here, anyway. First up, sandwiches.”

  Having full bellies helped significantly. When the trio got back to the contracts, they dug in with a will. For four HOURS. Page by page, line by line. Eventually, Callie was the one to call a halt. “Alright. I don’t think we’re getting any further on these right now. Sum up what we got? Shannon, you’re first.”

  She rubbed her temples. “If I’m reading these NDAs right, they’re a lot like what we were already under. I’ve got a nice and shiny one of my own, now, and they say that everyone on the Team has to be in on it. The Serum, Oracle, Teams, and something they’re calling the Great American Redistribution Program. Term is ten years, or until revoked by the Department of Health and Human Services.” She paused for a moment. “Looks like I’m going to need to announce that I’m not talking about those topics anymore before I sign it.”

  Callie grimaced. “Looks like they got me this time. If we want in on what they’re offering, you aren’t dodging it. Speaking of, Adam? You got anything on what you were looking at?”

  He nodded. “It’s the most quid pro quo thing I’ve ever read. We, and especially I, submit to regur medical screenings, surveys, observations, and the like. Sounds like the same time period as Shannon said, I guess they figure ten years will be enough to either do what they need to or else give up on it. The return is basically a government employee sary for me. Not an amazing one or anything, but it would actually be a raise from what I was getting as a teacher.”

  “Any limits on Shannon and I having paying jobs?”

  He shook his head. “No, just the medical requirement thing. Heck, it even says I am specifically permitted to have other employment and income so long as the checks continue.”

  Callie scowled. “I don’t like that one bit. Any indication how often or what kinds of checks?” Her scowl only deepened when he shook his head again. “The new location is only stated to be an apartment sized for a rge family. Washington Heights apartment 31. My search turned up nothing relevant, almost all of it was hits for Broadway, and the rest were for the NYC borough. Far as I can tell, that pce doesn’t exist, but they’re sure as heck promising it with some steep penalty cuses if they don’t provide.”

  They sat in silence for a moment before Adam couldn’t take the weight of the outside quiet bearing in. “What does it all mean?”

  Shannon was surprisingly the one to respond. “It means that we have a day and a half to figure this out. If it’s all aboveboard, and I can’t imagine people sending out couriers in the middle of a pgue otherwise, then we’d have to be dumb to not take it. That usually means they had to be dumb to offer it.”

  “Cynicism is my job, Shannon. Lawyer and all.”

  “You’ve never dealt with a client deciding to not pay you, have you?”

  “It takes a remarkably dumb person to deliberately try to defraud their attorney. Not saying they don’t exist, mind, but they aren’t common.”

  Adam stood. “Alright. We aren’t gaining anything by talking in circles here. Shannon’s right, we have a day and a half to figure this out, but if nothing presents itself? I think I want to take the deal. I’ve signed worse for worse reasons than providing for you two. Let’s just hope It isn’t a mistake.”