Quaranteam Project Red Ch 01

Thanks to CorruptingPower for permission to make my little contribution to the ever-growing world of Quaranteam, and thanks to the whole collective for their feedback on the writing, and keeping me on the straight and narrow when it comes to canon.

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Chapter 1: The Curtains Twitch

Project update 3, 2020-08-05

In vitro

and animal model testing of the latest variation is extremely promising—full details in the attached report. Small batch production has been requested, and in vivo testing on project internal volunteers will be undertaken as soon as we have viable doses available.

I've authorised selection of potential study participants, and tests of an adjusted Oracle system are progressing well. Once we're happy with both, some of my juniors will start making contact. Then we can start working out what medical staff we'll need. Team dynamic modelling suggests that early additional members with a well-defined role may be beneficial to Team stability. We may be able to achieve a double benefit by including someone with a rehabilitation support role.

Professor Ramkissoon remains sceptical, but is definitely taking an interest in the science. We might even get him on board whether this works or not.

I remain optimistic on both counts.

Harold is keen for an update on progress for vaccinations for people who aren't suitable for the current process. Has there been any movement on that?

Keep me in the loop!

Dr Sarah Zedner

Lead Scientist, Project R.E.D.

PS: Drs Price and Collins CCed at their request. Jordan, let me know if anything here jumps out as useful for what you're working on.

* * * * *

7th August 2020, around 12:30 p.m.

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Each with sandwiches in hand, Rob and Kat were back in their living room, Kat reading on her Kindle, weighted blanket pulled over her legs, and Rob at his computer. He was determined to see what else he could discern from the unusual pattern of emails intended for magistrates working in the adult courts.

Yes, definitely multiple emails about the Single Justice Procedure. There! A message from the Senior District Judge… changes to prosecution policy and the SJP…

Just then, his phone gave a distinctive ping. Outlook. A new email to his magistrate's account. He quickly closed the document preview—he would get back to it later—to see what the new email was. It appeared to be from the Judicial Office, the central administration for the judiciary as a whole, but the substance of the message clearly didn't originate there.

— Dear Robert Brook JP

— We have been asked to pass on a message to selected Judicial Office Holders. You are one of those that we have been asked to contact.

— As part of a project to improve our pandemic response, a small number of carefully-selected people are invited to take part in a study. For the purposes of this study, both you and your wife will have to take part. It is of no value to the study if only one of you engages with the process.

Rob stopped reading at that point.

"Kat, something strange here," he said, glancing over to his wife.

"Yes, love?" she responded. "Something in those adult court emails you were going to look into?"

"No. Well, yes, probably, but I just got a new email and it's… different." He opened it on his phone and passed it across for her to read.

"A study… that they want us both to take part in?"

"That's as far as I got before I told you about it, I'm reading the rest now."

— At the end of this email is a personalised link for each of you. This will take you to a non-disclosure agreement required for participants in the study, followed by the survey itself.

— I

strongly

urge you, if you choose to participate, to complete the survey in an entirely frank and honest manner. I am assured that, while it is rather irregular, this study will be of great value to the UK's response to the pandemic.

— I have also been asked to encourage you to take part, but I leave it to your judgement, given your commitment to public service and the principles of your oath of allegiance, to decide that for yourself.

Rob looked over to his wife, who was ready to pass his phone back to him. Of course, she'd finished reading it first. Even though she'd probably read the first part as well.

"So, should I forward the link to you?" he asked. Kat looked thoughtful for several moments.

"No. I think you should open your link and see what this is about." She paused for a moment, thinking further. "Could someone have spoofed the Judicial Office email address?"

"No, it's a closed system," Rob affirmed, clicking on the link designated as his.

A straightforward, business-like website opened up. In each top corner was a logo, both simple, text-based designs; on the left, 'OracleH', and on the right, 'Project R.E.D.'. In the middle of the screen, there was an invitation to identify himself by confirming his date of birth and postcode.

Not the most useful information for a phishing attack. And the email was definitely legit.

The next screen brought up a click-through legal agreement. The button to accept wasn't immediately available, obviously waiting for him to scroll through the text as evidence that he had read it. It proved to be a relatively straightforward non-disclosure agreement. No tricky definitions, just an agreement not to tell anyone about the survey or what it contains. The only exceptions were people from the mysterious Project R.E.D., and anyone that he knew to also have access.

He blinked a bit at the provision that his information would be included in results provided to the UK government. Especially the fact that he apparently had to agree that he recognised that this sharing was something he wanted, not just accepted.

Given the email that led me here, I suppose I agree with that. Down the rabbit-hole, I guess…

Clicking accept, he was not taken to the promised survey.

— You will be able to access the survey once your associated person has accepted the project agreement.

"Well, there's an NDA, and then it tells me I can't go any further until you agree to it as well," he reported, turning his screen so Kat could see the message. "Sending you the link now."

Kat's brow wrinkled a little in consternation, but she opened her laptop and followed his lead, passing her own verification, reading the agreement and clicking through.

"It's giving me the survey", she told Rob. "A lot of stuff on health. Telling me to be as complete as possible." She ran her hand over the screen, scrolling through the first page of questions. "Hang on a moment. There's loads of stuff already here!"

Rob glanced at her screen, unable to see it in any detail, and refreshed his own browser window. It filled with a lot of boxes for medical information, and every one of them had at least something already filled in.

Narcolepsy, ADHD, vestibular neuritis… all the key points of my medical history.

"Yeah. Whoever's running this 'project', they clearly have access to our medical records." He quickly added some minor things they'd missed.

Maybe the GP didn't code the varicocele properly, and it's ended up not being caught by their filter. Probably only looking at 'current' and 'significant past', but the way the practice codes things, I'm surprised that they haven't got something random like 'gastroscopy' in there.

"I think they pulled major conditions from our GP record," he told Kat, "but it's clearly been filtered by a human to get rid of left-over nonsense that isn't actually relevant. Make sure you add anything they've missed."

"They've got everything I can think of off the top of my head," she replied. "Oh, no, wait, I suppose there's the nasal polyps. Not that they cause much of a problem."

"You saw the instructions. As 'frank and honest' as we can."

"Yeah. Okay. Well, that's done. On to the next page?"

They both clicked to move on to the next page.

* * * * *

They felt no need to comment on the surveys as they worked through the next sections. Education, work, interests. Some fairly unsubtle personality profile questions. Details of their housing. It was the final sections that drew them up short.

At first, it wasn't too bad. After all, sexual orientation is the kind of thing that a lot of surveys ask, and level of interest in sex kind of fit the health theme.

"Rob, why is it asking about polyamory?" Kat queried, her discomfort colouring her voice.

He made a puzzled, noncommittal noise in response. Kat did not find this reassuring. Nor, when she scrolled ahead and checked later pages, were the rest of the questions.

"What

is

axilism?" she asked.

"Something to do with armpits," Rob explained. "Given the other questions, probably something

very strange

to do with armpits."

"Oh."

The promise of confidentiality on the form wasn't very encouraging, either. It promised that the information would only be used 'for the operation of Project R.E.D.', before going on to explain that it may also be used for any subsequent connected work, and that it would be shared with project personnel and any others 'as strictly necessary for the purposes of' the project, and 'aforementioned connected work'.

"Is this… safe?" she asked, voice getting smaller. Rob blew out his breath before replying.

"I don't think the Judicial Office would have agreed to send it out if there were much question of that. They did seem to make a big deal about this being related to the pandemic and public service."

"Yeah." Kat was deeply uncertain, and knew it showed in her voice.

"And they said to be 'frank and honest'. Would you like to talk about the questions?"

She briefly scanned down some of the questions, and shook her head vigorously.

"Would you prefer we not be sat together when we do this?" Rob asked, seeing her discomfort. She nodded, finding herself unable to speak.

"Well, I suppose Google will be able to answer any other questions you have. I'm definitely going to have to look some of this up myself. I'll see if I can reopen this on my study computer."

Rob got up, carefully walked up to her sideways to avoid seeing her screen, and kissed the top of her head.

"If you don't think you can go through with it, that's fine. But at least this is a chance to do something. It said a small number had been selected, so if we don't, that could really limit their data. Though I still can't imagine what all of this has to do with the pandemic."

Kat shrugged, non-verbal for the moment.

"Well, I'll leave you to it." With that, Rob left the room, leaving Kat to the survey and her own churning thoughts.

* * *

Kat had no problem labelling herself as bisexual for the survey. Okay, so she'd never done much with another woman, but then she hadn't exactly done much with any men but Rob, either. She'd always felt it was just chance that her first serious relationship had been with a man, and her good fortune that it had turned out so well. This then opened up questions about what sort of women she was attracted to—age, physical features, background, attitudes, all sorts. Those weren't too hard either; there wasn't much that was a physical turn-off for her, and her preferences weren't that strong. Social attitudes and education were definitely a bigger deal.

The question about polyamory was a little more difficult for her to answer. It specifically asked how she felt about sharing a man with other women. Sharing Rob. It wasn't really a question that had ever come up, but the survey didn't allow her to say she had no idea. She hadn't thought about Rob being with anyone else; she'd not given a great deal of thought to being with anyone else herself, either. Rob and her

fit

. She found herself wondering how he was answering the question—assuming he had the same question—and tried very hard not to think about it.

Why do they want to know about this? There's got to be a reason. What isn't obvious here?

Interests. The previous pages were on interests, and personality. Details of their home—including beds and bedrooms. Now sexual preferences. Very, very detailed sexual preferences.

Like a dating site. Or a hookup site. Both at once. So they're matching people. Why are they matching people? And why is it only asking me what I find attractive in women?

There were plenty of possible explanations, but they all came down to one thing. Whatever was being planned in terms of pandemic response, it involved one man having sexual relations with multiple women; it seemed like they thought the woman having sex with each other would be preferable, too. And they were being quite careful about compatibility—they wanted to make sure that people were going to be able to get on, as well as having enough common sexual interests to have some fun together. They were considering

stable

groups of women with one man. That put the question on orientation in a whole new light, but it didn't change her answer.

Having realised the intention of this survey—even if she had trouble figuring out the full implications—she pulled her blanket further up her body and went back to the previous pages, reviewing all her answers on interests and for personality profiling. If this was actually going to be used, if someone was looking at adding other women to their marriage, Kat wanted to do everything she could to make sure that they picked people she could get on with. She added interests that she had skipped because she couldn't do them any more; at least they would give something to talk about. If there was another woman in their lives, she thought she'd enjoy watching her ride horses, even if she couldn't join in.

Her email pinged. Apparently, Rob had already finished the survey, and was going to play games on his phone until she was done. She replied to let him know she was still working through it.

Returning to the more overtly sexual questions, Kat reviewed the answers she had already given.

Maybe it's worth being a bit more picky on appearance. So long as there's enough overlap between my tastes and Rob's, that shouldn't cause much of a problem.

She tweaked a few things, aiming not to rule anything out, just hoping to nudge things a little. She did kind of have a thing for redheads.

Now for the really tough part.

It was hard to decide what answers to give, even for things she already knew about. Sure, some things the survey asked about excited her to think about, but did she actually want to do them? Still, she supposed that meant she was interested in them, and it was only honest to say so.

And, of course, there were some that were an easy yes. Not that her enjoyment of fellatio was likely to matter, given they clearly weren't looking at including any other men. As Rob's enjoyment of it was a big part of

why

she liked sucking cock, she supposed that going down on other women would be similarly exciting. She certainly liked the

idea

of it.

While she had to look some of them up, there were also some that were an easy no. Including the armpit one. She firmly believed in 'each to their own', but that was just

weird

.

Then there were the ones that worried her. Rob didn't know everything that turned her on. They hadn't come up, and she hadn't thought it was worth mentioning them—she was very happy with their sex life. Some she might have explored with him, but her arthritis made them impossible.

What if they match us with someone based on a kink she shares with

me

, not with Rob? How much will any of us know about why we matched? What will Rob think about… that?

She wouldn't even name it to herself, however much it thrilled her.

But if it turns out Rob's into it too, just we never told each other… will they let us know? Or will we get to discover it together with another woman?

The possibility was exciting. She glanced to make sure the door to the study was closed, slipped her hand into her underwear, and indulged her imagination for a while.

* * *

A little orgasm having cleared her head, she checked the time. She was relieved to see that her self-indulgence hadn't slowed her down too much. She returned to the survey, and decided to be completely honest. All the instructions said to do so, and she decided that she trusted Rob not to be too weirded out by anything, if he ever found out.

The system finally showed her a summary of her responses so far, with stark warnings about making sure it was accurate. The project accepts no responsibility, etc etc. She skimmed over it all, hesitated for a moment, then clicked 'submit'.

* * * * *

That night at dinner, seemingly from nowhere, Kat announced that they should catch up on laundry. This was not an entirely unusual suggestion; it did tend to build up a bit.

So it was that, after they'd eaten, they were in the bedroom. Kat shuffled around the room, scooping up clothes that hadn't made it to a laundry basket yet, passing armfuls to Rob as he sat on the bed. He then sorted them into piles, ready to go into separate baskets for different washes.

This was getting more unusual.

"Kat, sweetheart, are you okay?" Rob asked. "You seem a bit, well, energetic. Determined."

She looked at him intently. He was pretty good at reading people, his wife most of all, but he couldn't decipher that look. She wasn't upset with him, he could tell that much, but all he could really tell was that she was thinking—and thinking more intently than usual.

And that's saying something.

"I just feel like it's time to sweep the board clean around here," she told him. "You know, clear the decks a little." After a few minutes finishing sorting laundry, with three loads ready for the machine, she continued. "Do you have any projects going on in the study at the moment?"

He knew she meant his woodwork. He'd recently bought some more tools—and the wood for a few different projects—but hadn't started work on them yet, so he shook his head.

"Good," Kat concluded. "We can pack up your tools and materials. I mean, organise them. So they don't take up as much space."

And so Rob spent the rest of that evening in the study, sorting and putting away tools, materials, books that had been waiting to be reshelved, and anything else that Kat noticed out of place.

I don't know why she prefers it all sorted nicely—it's never long before it's in a mess again. I suppose it makes things a bit more comfortable for her as long as it lasts, and goodness knows we all need to feel in control of something right now.

His own tools were mostly organised already, otherwise he'd never have been able to find them. He was still missing an electrical screwdriver, probably put down wherever he'd last been using it and now buried under who knew what. The ones he'd last used were scattered about a bit, of course, but he knew where he was putting each of them. Kat's own craft tools and materials—threads, fabrics, sketchbooks, pencils, and so on—had been boxed up long since. On the rare occasions she got anything out, it went straight back in a box afterwards.

The next day, Rob found himself pushed, once the clothes were clean, to make sure all the spare bedding was clean, and change their bed. Kat pushed herself to clear all the detritus from the floor of their flat, and then insisted that he give the whole place a thorough vacuum while she mopped the kitchen floor.