Qt: Aisling's Antics (ch. 05)

Part Five - "Giggling Deranged Lunatics"

December 11

th

, 2020

"How long is this painting of yours going to take?" Fiona asked Ash as they began to get settled for the next section of painting. "I swear, we've been at this for hours and hours."

"It takes as long as it takes," Aisling shot back. "You want me to accidentally paint your ass too big because you moved funny while I was working on painting it?"

"I'll have you know; I have an

amazing

ass for a woman my age," Fiona sniffed, sounding perhaps a little hurt.

"You have any amazing ass for a woman of

any

age, Fi, so don't get your panties in twist over it."

"I'm not

wearing

—"

"Yeah yeah yeah, you know what I meant," Ash laughed. "I have to ask. Was this about what you expected when Andy invited you to come out and join him? A giant harem of beautiful and witty women, all of whom love Andy but all of whom are totally doing their own thing a lot of the time?"

"I wasn't entirely sure

what

to expect, y'know?" Fi sighed. "I don't think I ever

stopped

being in love with Andy, no matter what I tried to tell myself when he and I weren't speaking to one another. He was being dumb, I was being dumber, and neither one of us wanted to be the one who flinched and admitted it. I tried dating a cop for a while."

"How'd that work out?"

"Didn't," Fi said. "He wasn't a bad man, but he was... he was sort of the inverse Andy, I guess. He was used to looking for the bad in everyone and everything, convinced that everything everywhere was just one bad minute away from turning sour and going wrong. He was the most pessimistic man I ever met. Good heart, but just always prepping for the worst in everyone, and... that just gets... it gets fucking

boring

. So, one night while we're out at dinner, and Tim, that was the cop's name, he's telling me how he thinks our waiter's probably high on coke or something because of how he was acting, and I just up and decide I'm done with him, so I put the key to his apartment on the table between us, I get up and I walk out, not even saying a word as I go."

"Damn, Fi, that sounds pretty cold."

"It was," she chuckled. "But I think he actually appreciated me finally living up to his expectations. Anyway, we're not talking about me..."

"We are, actually," Aisling said. "I want to get at least a little bit of information about you in exchange for me telling you all this stuff about me. And you didn't really answer my question - what did you expect when you got the invite from Andy?"

"I knew a bit about DuoHalo and I'd heard about the Quaranteam serum from a confidential informant inside the Chiefs of Staff, so I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with what was going on, even if it seemed a little bit science-fiction-y," Fiona said. "But Andy explained himself pretty well in the message. I mean, did he show you the invite video he sent me?"

"No! I'd love to see that if you've still got it."

"Hang on a second, lemme see if it's still in my email," Fiona said, moving over to pick up her phone. "I bet it is. I'm kind of a pack rat about these kinds of things. Ah! Here it is. Turn on the TV in here and I'll throw it to that screen so you're not watching on my tiny ass phone."

A few seconds later, the television in Aisling's studio had sprung to life, connected to Fiona's phone and had an image of Andy sitting in his writer's room upstairs, long before they'd discovered the hidden extra floor. It was only recorded a month and change ago, but it felt like it had been an eternity instead. He looked a little disheveled, and it made Fi grin a little, knowing now that he'd been more nervous about recording this video than any of the other ones.

"Hey Fi. Long time no talk." He sighed, looking down at his hands before looking back up at the camera on his laptop. "How do I even start this? Where can I possibly begin? I'm sorry, okay? I can't even remember what it was we were fighting about, but I miss you, and I've been too fucking stupid and too fucking proud to get over myself and just call you, even after you sent me that Facebook friend invite. You know me, I hate confrontation. Heh. And yet, here I am, reaching out, out of the blue. I don't know how much you know about this whole DuoHalo virus, but the government

has

a solution for it. It doesn't work the way you would expect it to, though. It's... it's like a sexually transmitted disease that links women to one man, and I know how ridiculous and crazy that sounds, but here we are. I know it's real, because I'm already paired up with a handful of women.

"Now, I don't know what your situation is, so maybe you're married, or maybe you've got a boyfriend, or maybe you just don't want to leave D.C. still, but maybe, I guess, maybe there's a chance we could try and rekindle what we used to have. I can't promise you exclusivity, but I guess nobody can really do that anymore, because it sounds like the new status quo is going to be one man to a dozen or so women, and, yes, I know exactly how ridiculous all that sounds. I've been trying to be smart and adept about the women I let into my life, although this Oracle system they have is apparently very helpful too. I think you'd like all the women I'm in relationships with now.

"Fuck, what am I trying to say here? This is, like, my fourth attempt to record this, and I'm still just fucking it up like I have every other version. Look. I still have feelings for you, shit, I'm probably still in love with you, if I'm being candid, and the idea that I could help keep you safe but that my own personal pride stopped me from doing it? That's ridiculous and I'd be ashamed of myself if I let it stay that way. But I need you to know there's other women here that I love too, and while I get that it's super weird, it's where we are. That's where society is. But I want to make sure you're safe. That's important to me, okay? Regardless of all the other shit, you're

important

to me. Your safety.

That's

important.

"So, if you want to, the Air Force will relocate you from D.C. here to northern California, where you and I could be partnered. Maybe you're tired of Washington. I know your reporting for the last few years has certainly felt that way, at least a little bit. It's a lot to take in. I'm sure the whole thing actually feels a little bit insane, and I get that, but please, please,

please

take it seriously, okay? If you think there's a chance we could work on a long-term scale, and you're not with some other man, consider what I'm offering. I know it means having to put up with me for the rest of your life, or at least the foreseeable future, but...

"... I think a lot about our time together back in college, Fi. And you really were my first true love. I've got some other women I'm in love with now too, and I get that that's going to seem weird. Shit, think of how weird it is for me. I went like a decade with nobody wanting to fuck me, and now a bunch of women fuck me not only for their survival, but also saying that I'm the best fuck of their lives."

Andy laughed on the screen looking down at his hands.

"You remember that one song that was stupidly popular when we were younger? The one about sunscreen? There's a line in that, and I don't remember exactly how it goes, but it's about how as you get older, the more important it becomes to hang onto people who remember you when you were young."

He looked back up at the camera again.

"I remember when we were young and invincible, a couple of kids convinced we were going to take on the world and win. I remember us sitting on the roof of that house you'd rented, watching the stars until they set and the sun began to rise up on us, just because we'd never done it before. I remember how much you laughed when I tried to play 'Jack & Diane' for the first time on guitar, and how you told me I shouldn't give up my day job. And I remember the time we sat and read each other's work, my short story and your in-depth article, and how impressed I was by your writing, and all the kind things you had to say about my silly little story.

"Come. Don't come. Just let me know you're safe and sound from this horrible virus, Fi, and know that if the only thing stopping you from coming is me not asking you to come, well, I'm asking, okay? I'm not so proud that I can't admit I was wrong, I

was

wrong, and I should've reached out, and it shouldn't have taken a once-in-a-lifetime epidemic to get me to swallow my pride, but here we are. So, uh, be safe, and maybe I'll see you soon. Still love you. Bye."

The image of Andy tapping the stop button on his laptop hung on the screen for a minute before Fiona wiped it away, letting the screen turn black, hoping it would distract a little from the single tear she was trying to wipe away and hide. But when she glanced over, the smile on Aisling's face told her that she'd seen it, so Fi offered a little smile. "Sorry. I haven't watched that since I was on the plane flying to California with Moira in tow. I'd forgotten how eloquent he can be when he's trying, and especially when he's scared."

"I keep telling you, Fi," Ash said, wiping her own eyes, finding them a little damp. "You're basically the only member of the entire family whom

he

chose, no strings or conditions attached, no outside forces influencing him, or even other girls in the family. That puts you in a league entirely on your own."

"I don't think I'm any better than you, Ash," Fiona laughed. "Just a little bit older."

"You think he loves one of us more than the other? I don't. I don't think he's capable of that, differentiating levels of love, not consciously at least," Ash said. "He's just following his feelings. I don't feel any lesser than you. Never have. Don't expect I ever will."

"Good, because if he ever thought one of us thought we were better than any of the rest of us, you know we'd never hear the end of it from him."

"So, if I'm First Among Equals, you're Most Senior Among Equals."

Fiona laughed, moving to get back into place. "Something like that. You ready to keep going?"

* * * * * * * *

When we heard we were being relocated, none of us were quite sure what to make of it. The word had come from Phil that they knew we were going to need more space, so they were relocating us to someplace bigger. I think around that time, at least I'd figured out things were way worse than Phil was letting on. I'm pretty sure Andy knew too, but we were putting on brave faces, clinging to the notion that if we stuck together, we'd get through it together. I tried not to ask Niko about it, because Niko had promised to tell me everything and I... I didn't think I was ready to know just how badly fucked we were just yet.

But Phil had come by and told us to be prepared to move, and so in typical Andy fashion, we went home and figured out everything we would possibly need if we were to move and got to packing. It was late August, and with the news that we were being moved, Phil had upped how bad he was describing things, making it sound like we were looking at nearly half the male US population being dead.

He was still underselling it.

When Niko and Andy came back from their meeting with Phil, Niko told me that Andy had figured out she and Phil knew each other. I asked her what the giveaway was, and she said it was the fact that Phil had let her call him

Mister

Marcos without correcting her, even though she worked at the research lab. That was all it took for her charade to come tumbling down. She was surprised Andy wasn't mad at her; I wasn't. I'd even told her that he wouldn't be.

Phil had made it sound like they were just going to come get us immediately that day in August, but it turned out it was a few weeks later, in September, when they finally showed up to relocate us. Us girls had basically just packed our suitcases back up and some of the other stuff we'd brought with us, and Andy had thrown most of his stuff into his large suitcase, as well as breaking down his desktop computer, and packing up food, water and litter for the cats. We had some excess stuff that we had to load into Eric's car, but it was just him, Lily and Jenny at that point, so there was room for a bit of Andy's things in Eric's car that Andy just couldn't bear to leave. Like, you'd better

believe

he brought that box of advance reader copies with him, ha ha. If just

one

of them got him all

this

? Can you imagine what an entire box must be worth?

We got into Andy's car and drove up 680 past Pleasanton, Dublin and San Ramon, and I remember laughing that there was a Dublin in California, which I'd never really noticed, since I'd been more of a peninsula girl rather than living out on the eastern side of the Bay. A little bit north of San Ramon, we turned west and started headed up Bollinger Canyon Road, working our way up into the hills until we turned onto Bear Tree Road, which eventually brought us to the entrance point of New Eden.

Even at the time, I realized that the pavement on Bear Tree Road was very new, and almost all the buildings behind the military checkpoint gate screamed recent development. Nothing in the area felt like it could be more than a decade or so old, and even then, that was being generous. I haven't really been able to dig into it that much, but the satellite data on Google Maps for the area when I last looked was marked 2017, and it only had about three mansions in the area, with the little single building off to the side that I know

now

is the Quaranteam lab. It was all still technically San Ramon land, I guess, up until it was finally zoned as New Eden in September or October.

You've seen the drive it takes to get up here now. We're nestled in obscurity, completely off the beaten path, and yet, not

really

that far from anything. It's only an hour and change to San Francisco if the traffic is cooperating. I'm not surprised nobody knew it was going up, even before people were locked in their homes. Once it needed to expand, construction happened at warp speed, because the workers were given immunity from DuoHalo themselves just to make sure everything zipped along nonstop.

It's amazing how much incentive it is to cut to the front of the line when your life's on the line. And with New Eden, they built Little Eden, the sort of adjunct area for support staff and local services, not quite mansions but great houses nonetheless. I've asked Phil about it, and almost all the manors of New Eden were like 70-80% of the way done, but all work had stopped because of Covid and DuoHalo. But the idea of making the staff commute further meant the people working on Quaranteam would be at risk, and so the Air Force bundled them up nice and tight.

I remember driving up to the mansion thinking it was insane, that even split between the two households - Andy's and Eric's - the place had more than enough space, and I remember suspecting that they were going to add two or three more households to the mansion, because it was way too much space for just us. That was around the point when Eric made a joke about how the place clearly wasn't big enough for our

two

households. And then we found out Eric wasn't staying with us, but, in fact, had the mansion next door, which sort of blew everyone's minds.

Now, keep in mind, I think we were all sort of expecting someone to jump out and yell "Ha ha! Fooled you!" at any minute while we were being given the tour, but that never happened. In fact, Andy and I split our attention during the tour a little bit, because while I was busy reveling in the fact that the house came with its own pool and hot tub, Andy was doing

math

and not liking the numbers he was coming up with. Major Peters, our tour guide, had told him that there were twelve bedrooms in the house, so not enough that every woman he would eventually have could have her own bedroom, which I had

totally

glossed over, but Andy was already starting to panic a little bit, thinking about how many women he was going to be sallied up with.

A little bit later into the tour, Major Peters told Andy that men were being paired up with between twelve and fifteen women, but that more was definitely an option. We were also told that once we'd passed our 'induction quarantine,' we would be free to move about New Eden as much as we wanted, and without any sort of protective or safety gear. There were restaurants, a movie theater, a bookstore... we were eager as hell to get out of the house but were told it was going to be three weeks of isolating inside the mansion. In fact, food would be delivered to us, so even the staff - Jenny, Katie and Nicolette - weren't allowed to leave the grounds either. I've never been entirely sure of the reasoning for it, but I think I heard Phil say at one point it was to ensure we weren't spreading Covid instead of DuoHalo.

I remember being introduced to the staff and immediately knowing there was going to be some initial weirdness we were going to have to overcome. So, first thing's first - Phil had told Nicolette to call herself Yvette and to put on an atrocious French accent, because he wanted to see how long it would take Andy to figure it out. Nicolette was

terrified

we were going to be pissed at her when we found out, but we laughed about it like any reasonable people would. (You get the Clue movie reference, right? Just checking.)

And while it's just the two of us, let me just say that if I had to pick a member our household to swap bodies with, holy shit would it be Nicolette in a fucking

heartbeat

. I am so fucking jealous of her tits that I don't even want to admit it, but I can't fucking hide it either, they're so fucking ridiculously perfect. I'm very glad she's cool about playing with other members of the household, because I will confess, I've had some fun with her more than a few times, sometimes with Andy around and a couple of times without. They're not the

biggest

tits in the family - that honor, I think, is

always

going to go to Hannah, because, well,

dayum

, but I'd say that Nicolette's are the

ideal

. Large but not overwhelmingly so, perfectly shaped, perfect ratio of nipple to breastflesh... they even jiggle great! I mean, fuck

her,

right? Heh. Anyway, getting settled in with Nicolette was easy. Even before the serum, she was the perfect definition of volunteering sexual submissive.

Andy was more than a little nervous about getting settled with Katie and Jenny, though, because he was suddenly stepping into someone else's

marriage

. Katie and Jenny had been married for a couple of years at that point, I think, although I'm not entirely sure. And they'd told the government they were both bisexual, which, theoretically might not be a lie

now?

But it probably was at the time. Katie was a strict lesbian, and didn't have any attraction to any man, but Jenny swung both ways, although Andy sort of figured that out immediately. That's one of his secret superpowers - he's so damn nice that people just

tell

him things. He told me he was talking to Jenny and Jenny just blurted it out at him.

Anyway, Katie got mad at Jenny, because they'd agree to hide it from Andy, and she was just going to sort of fake it or consider it a job task, but Jenny said she didn't feel right deceiving Andy, since he was being so nice to them. Andy wasn't mad at them about considering lying to him, and told them if they wanted to leave, he'd okay that. Of course, he also knew that they'd been injected with the Quaranteam serum about two or three days earlier, and that it was probably starting to get to them, so he just laid all his cards down on the table, gave them their options, and told them whatever they wanted, he'd endorse.