Quarantine 1

Quarantine

by Pan

1:

"What do you mean, a virus? That doesn't make any sense."

"I'm sorry ma'am, but that's what the reports are saying. We have some of our best scientists out there, and the results are conclusive - it's a virus."

"So let me get this straight," the commissioner said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You're telling me that the colony has been hit by a mysterious virus, never before seen on any planet, but

only

men. We don't know what it does yet, but it affects everyone differently..."

"Well, no..."

"Oh

really

? Pray, tell me what I said wrong."

"Well, ma'am, it doesn't only hit men. It just seems to have no effect on women - or men under 18, in fact."

"Uh huh."

"Also, it doesn't affect

everyone

differently - so far all the effects have fallen into three broad categories..."

"Sure."

"And, uh..."

"What?"

"We do know what it does."

"Oh?"

As the commissioner read over the files, she got more and more agitated.

"Damn it woman," she eventually stormed. "Don't you see how ridiculous this sounds? It's...it's like something out of science fiction!"

"I suppose," her underling responded nervously. "But I mean, uh..."

"

What?

"

"Well, they

are

on an alien planet. Ma'am."

There was a long pause, eventually broken by the commissioner's sigh.

"Go ahead then."

"What, ma'am?"

"What you've been suggesting since day one, Jenkins:

"Begin the quarantine."

2:

"Honey, I don't understand why you have to go."

Mike sighed. Sasha had been a good wife, a good mother to his children...but, truth be told, he hadn't married for love.

In a colony of 8 000 people, marrying for love wasn't really an option.

He'd wanted a good wife, and so he'd married for a good wife. What he hadn't married for was brains.

"I told you - it's not just me. It's everyone affected."

"But that doesn't make any sense. You're not affected - you haven't so much as sneezed."

"It's not that kind of virus, sweetie."

It wasn't that she was stupid, not exactly. She was just very...practical. Give her a patch of land and a decontaminator, she could farm as well as the rest of them. Ask her to describe her dreams, and she'd just look at you blankly, "Why?" written all over her face.

"But I thought everyone in the colony had it. What's the point of separating husbands and their wives?"

This had all been covered in the pamphlet, of course. But Sasha hadn't read the pamphlet - she'd just waited for her husband to get home and explain it to her.

And so the first she'd heard of his leaving was now, as he was packing his bags to leave.

"It's simple, sweetie - I'm a carrier. You might have it, but it doesn't affect you and you can't spread it. They're just moving all the carriers into a separate little town, just for the next few months. Once they've established that it's safe, or they work out a cure, they'll bring us back."

"Oh."

There was a short silence as Sasha processed Mike's words. Or hell, she could have been planning meals for the week - in over twenty years of marriage, he'd never managed to work out just what she was thinking when she went silent like that.

"And carriers are..."

"Any male over 18."

Mike winced at Sasha's response - when she was surprised or angry, her voice came out in a shrill tone that never failed to injure his ears.

"But that means...Nick!!"

"That's right, hon," he said soothingly, but it didn't matter. Sasha was already out of the room, running to her eldest child's room, presumably to wrap her arms around him and then try to devise some way to hide him from the government.

Not that it mattered. Even in a colony the size of Deltasol, there wasn't anywhere to hide. Not really.

Deciding to let his wife's insanity run its course, Mike tracked down his daughter and hugged her goodbye.

"I'm going to miss you, Daddy," she whimpered into his shoulder.

"I'm gonna miss you too, Pepper. But it's only going to be for a couple of months, okay?"

I hope,

he mentally added.

The truth was, two months was a conservative estimate. The virus had come from an unmanned delivery ship, all the way from Sector 9 - that was a long way to travel with no radiation shielding. It could have started as a common cold and mutated into anything by the time it reached the colony.

Just one packaging manager failing to do a thorough scan; that was all it took. Maybe quarantine would end in two months, maybe the virus would be cured.

Maybe it would be years...or maybe they'd go the way of Quadrant Red, and the entire planet would be written off.

Only time would tell.

3:

"Jeff."

"Fitt."

The two men shook hands, then went back to staring blankly as the shuttle began rolling out. Two-person pods had become the norm well before Deltasol had been founded; the only real downside was that when transport was in demand, one would sometimes get stuck with a complete stranger as a traveling companion.

"Miner."

"Oh?"

"Coal, mostly."

"Oh!"

Fitt laughed nervously.

"Sorry, I thought you said minor. Like minor...child."

Jeff chuckled as well.

"Do I look like a child?"

"I guess not."

"Lawyer."

"Lawyer?"

"Well, in-training."

"Huh."

It was a reaction Fitt got a lot. A man of his age was expected to have been in the same career for at least a decade - he was, after all, only fifteen years away from a mandatory retirement.

"Used to be a farmer, but I just hated it, you know?"

"I hear you."

"You like mining?"

"You know what? I do."

Jeff wasn't lying. He was a third-generation miner, and he didn't spring out of bed each morning singing "Hi Ho", but there was a certain visceral satisfaction to what he did. It was solo work, which he preferred, but there was still a sense of camaraderie, and after work he could always find a coworker (or six) to grab a drink with.

"Any symptoms so far?"

"Not for me. You?"

"Well..."

Fitt hesitated. He knew he should have answered with a flat 'no' - whenever anyone learned that he'd had symptoms, he was always met with the same series of questions.

Not that he blamed them, of course. Everyone was dying to know what was happening, what the virus did.

The trouble was, he wasn't even sure if his symptoms were really symptoms. It could just have been part of turning forty.

Jeff was staring at him curiously. Fitt sighed; it was his own fault for bringing it up. He just wanted - no,

needed

- to know if anyone else was experiencing what he was experiencing.

"A few things," he said. "But I don't know if they're connected."

"Go on," Jeff pushed, and Fitt began listing them, his mouth repeating the words he was sick of hearing.

"Huh," Jeff said when he finished. He didn't need to say any more.

The two men sat in an awkward silence for the rest of the trip.

4:

"How the hell did they decide?" Cindy asked.

At first glance, it was quite shocking to see a woman among the quarantined men. A second glance was all it took to work out why Cindy was there - he was Deltasol's one-and-only drag queen. Cindy Cox: drag queen by night, accountant by day.

"Come on Cindy," Kunduz replied wearily. He owned the bar that Cindy performed at, and they'd come along in a shuttle together. On the trip, he'd asked Cindy if he was worried that he'd attract "undue attention" by bringing all his drag gear to the quarantine, but Cindy had shrugged the concern off.

It made sense - even in the dress, Cindy stood almost seven-foot tall, with the shoulders of a linebacker. Literally; during Cindy's high-school years, Deltasol had allowed football, and Cecil (as he'd been known then) had been a linebacker.

"I'm serious, damn it. How the hell did they decide? We've been besties for ten years now..."

Fifteen,

Kunduz mentally corrected.

"...and they've separated us! Why the hell are we even in dorms? Don't this planet have medical?"

"You know how a quarantine works," Kunduz said, but it was no good. Cindy was on a rant.

"Fuck that shit! Gimme a couch, a warm, pillowy bed. I don't want none of this "dorm" shit. Fuck."

"You done?"

"No," Cindy grumbled, but he shut his mouth and started pulling his suitcases from the shuttle. "Dumb-ass planet."

Kunduz remembered when Cindy had landed in the colony. It had been a pretty big deal - somewhere as remote as Deltasol typically had a handful of seed colonists, and newcomers only if there was a wave of platinum found, or someone fell in love over the datacatch.

Not Cindy - he'd arrived (as Cecil, of course) when he was ten. His family had been part of the genetic diversity program - there were a few black colonists, but five generations in, most everyone in the colony was a bit of everything. Purebloods were frowned upon, unless they came from off-world.

Kunduz had always thought it was a strange idea, sending in a married couple and their kid as essentially breeding stock, but the government was good at finding the right candidates for the diversity program, and within the decade both of Cecil's parents had new children on the way.

"Okay," Cindy said, lifting the last - and largest - of his suitcases, the one that Kunduz happened to know contained the majority of his party frocks. "I'll see you at the meeting?"

"See you at the meeting," Kunduz responded, and tapped the shuttle twice to continue it on its journey.

5:

"Please," the interim mayor said in exasperation. "Would everyone please calm down?"

To his surprise, his words actually had a slight effect - the noise-level in the ad hoc meeting hall actually lowered slightly, and he took advantage of the opportunity while he had it.

"Now look, we're all in the same boat here."

"No we're not!" one of the miners called out, and the murmuring returned to its earlier volume.

"We're

all

in the

same boat

here," he repeated, trying fruitlessly to beat the volume level of the room. "We all have the virus, and none of us know how it's going to affect us."

"Is this why you took the women away?" a voice cried out, somehow making itself heard above the throng.

"We did

not

take the women away," the mayor cried, but by this point, no one was listening.

From the back of the room came the loud crack of a gunshot, and the crowd fell silent.

"Ah," the mayor said, flustered. "Sheriff Tomkins, thank you. Although I should mention, guns are not really..."

"Everyone listen to the mayor," the Sheriff boomed, and from the tone of his voice, you'd have thought he actually respected the sweating bobble-head at the front of the "hall".

"Ah yes, thanks. Now listen, as I said, we're all in the same boat, and surely -

surely

you saw why we had to separate the genders. Now, some of you have already started showing symptoms..."

A whispering began among the crowd, but the Sheriff's loud clearing of his throat quickly ended it.

"...and so we really do recommend learning which category you belong in, as soon as you can. I, for example, have been showing signs of Domination..."

A ripple of laughter traveled around the crowd, and the mayor frowned.

"I

have

, and it's only going to get more severe as time goes on. So I've been doing all I can to learn what's coming, so I can plan ahead. I've bought a new wardrobe and started practicing meditation, so that I have something to wear even as I grow, and I'll be able to control my more aggressive behaviors."

"How bad is it going to get?" someone cried out, and the mayor smiled.

"Well, that's actually an excellent question, so thank you. We don't know yet, that's why they've split us off. It might be nothing that bringing back football can't fix" - there was a cheer at that - "or we might end up ripping each other apart."

The crowd went silent - really silent, for the first time since the interim mayor started speaking.

"Now look, there's no point in panicking. The boffins - pardon,

scientists

- have gotten as much information together as they can, and it's all on your personal consoles. You can often tell if you've got Domination, but Docility is a little bit harder - thinking too hard about the symptoms can cause them, and of course Switch is the hardest of all.

"If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to put them in writing, and we'll address them at the next meeting. And, uh, as this is also our mess hall, please do help us in putting the tables and-..."

At that, the roar of the crowd began again - questions and outrage blurred together as the mayor slipped away from the stage.

6:

"Jesus, Li, it's only been three weeks."

"Guess it just hit me hard," the Asian man growled.

For the most part, he was able to control his temper. No fewer than nineteen people had remarked on his arms that day alone, and so far he'd managed to avoid snapping at any of them.

It was his libido - that was the real struggle.

Back in Deltasol, Li had been happily married with three children - girls, all of them. Regulations typically limited families to two children, but Li had been given special dispensation after his brother's death. They'd been trying for a boy, but Li had never been disappointed for a moment by his youngest, Tulip.

Looking after three children had all but killed the sex drive of Li's wife, and Li had grown accustomed to taking care of his own needs.

In quarantine, however, Li was quickly becoming aware that masturbation just wasn't going to cut it.

To begin with, the rows of beds meant that one never got a moment of privacy. Li hadn't thought of himself as a particularly private person, but after accidentally letting out a groan during a late night solo session, all the blood had rushed to his cheeks, and he'd vowed that he wouldn't embarrass himself like that again.

The showers were communal, and so that just left the toilet. At first, Li had tried visiting the bathroom an extra time a day...but then Domination had hit, and suddenly once a day wasn't enough.

He suspected that if he didn't have duties, he would literally spend all day in the bathroom. Cumming would relieve his balls for a moment, but it wasn't more than a few minutes before the urge returned, the churning in his stomach that told him he wanted to get off...no, he

needed

to get off.

Li needed to fuck someone.

And to his horror, he'd realized that morning that he was becoming decreasingly fussy about who.

7:

"What do you mean, 'suck it'?" Todd said nervously.

"You heard," the stranger in the cowboy hat growled. "Suck it."

Todd looked around nervously. They were under the stars - with no families to go home to, most everyone came to one of the barfields after work.

"You mean..."

The cowboy rolled his eyes.

"My cock, yes. C'mon boy - I've seen you checking me out since I walked in here."

"Whaaaat? I'm not..."

"Gay? Well I am."

Todd tried to keep his reaction neutral, but the burst of laughter from the strange man told him that he'd failed.

"You like that, huh? Yeah, even before the bug hit - I'm gay as they come. I know the signals, kid - you've been checking me out since the moment I stepped onto the grass."

"But...but you must be..."

"I'm sixty."

"Oh." Todd paused. "I was going to say fifty."

"Look, son, we're not playing guess-the-age here. I know a spot - follow me and suck. My. Cock."

After checking that his hat was on firmly, the stranger grabbed Todd's wrist, and started dragging him out of the field. Todd wanted to resist - at least, he knew he

should

resist, but something was stopping him.

He wasn't gay. Of course he wasn't gay. Back home, he'd even had a girlfriend, Ashli. Sure, they hadn't done anything but French yet, but he'd known that they both

wanted

to do more.

When he'd left, she'd promised that she'd wait for him. True, he hadn't promised the same back, but it had been assumed.

After all, he wasn't gay.

Recently, though, he was starting to be less sure of this. Perhaps it was just the three weeks without so much as a sniff of a woman, or maybe the rumors about the virus were true, but more and more, Todd had found himself checking out the men in quarantine.

The men he was surrounded by.

The cowboy was right. Despite his age, despite his ridiculous dress, Todd had been unable to stop his eyes from flicking down and checking out the stranger's...pants.

And the moment he'd seen it, the cowboy had grinned, and come straight for him.

"On your knees," the stranger said, and to his horror, Todd found himself obeying. Not just obeying, but...wanting to.

He wanted to obey.

"Please, sir," Todd said, a shiver running up his spine at the term. What the hell was wrong with him? Three weeks away from his girlfriend, and suddenly he turned...

...unless.

No. No, Todd was

sure

he didn't have Docility. One of his friends from school had it, and it was obvious. His chest-hair had started falling out, his muscles had started to wither away, and - he'd told Todd in confidence - it had been almost four days since he'd gotten an erection.

Todd knew he didn't have Docility. He was hard most of the day, and if he didn't get off two or three times, he felt like he would burst. That meant he had Domination. He had to.

Because the alternative...was that he was a Switch.

"Suck it," the cowboy grunted, and Todd didn't hesitate. Placing his lips over the older man's cock, his head began bobbing up and down, even as his own hardness grew.

No,

he told himself, his eyes shut, trying to pretend that he wasn't loving the feeling of the experienced man's cock entering his mouth, pressing against his tongue.

Please...

I don't want to be a Switch...